No ordinary comic can walk onstage without a shirt and bring insightful comedy to a progressive audience. It took a machine to do so at the Orpheum Theater Thursday night.
Bert Kreischer has become one of the best storytelling comedians in recent history. Known best for his claim to fame tale of getting involved with the Russian mafia (you have to hear it to believe it), Kreischer is a wizard at providing anecdotes about his personal life. How he makes his stories involving his own daughters and wife so entertaining is what has made the “Body Shots” tour so successful.
One bit Kreischer landed involved being alone with his teen daughters when they each had their periods for the first time. Madison learned that Kreischer’s daughters have the same wicked sense of humor their dad makes a living off of.
The comic couldn’t help but giggle as he explained how his oldest daughter named her period “Jason” and invited two boys from her class to come over to their house and eat red velvet cake. The boys were left frustrated and flustered as the Kreischer girls and their friends never told the boys what the cake was and why saying the name Jason was so funny.
Much of Kreischer’s material comes from raising his family and his experiences through fatherhood. These topics are easily delivered, and the surprisingly intellectual comedic style Kreischer brings meshes with his wild personality. Simple one-liners—such as Kreischer announcing, “I’m so fat, when I get naked it looks like I’m wearing a belt”—had the packed theater cackling.
The shirtless wonder eventually retold his famous Russian mob story, but not before boasting about how he entertained a black Starbucks cashier with jokes capitalizing on racial stereotypes. When the young employee asked Kreischer if he wanted room for cream in his order, the comic answered with punchlines describing his desire for his coffee to come black.
“I want my coffee to get pulled over for no reason,” along with his next day’s coffee order of “I don’t want to know who its father is.” When a white woman standing in line said she was offended, Kreischer whispered to the cashier, “this is why we can’t have cream,” leaving the cashier and the coworkers he gathered at the register to keel over laughing, Kreischer said.
Most religions, ethnicities and nationalities were offended at some point during the performance. In fact, every human on the planet would have been the butt of Kreischer’s jokes if he had another 10 minutes on stage.
Kreischer delivers his material this way because he claims that unlike most humans, he can’t be offended, suggesting that he may not even be human at all. Instead, Kreischer reminded Madison that he is—and always has been—the machine.
