Published 2008-02-12T00:00:00Z”/>

Emily Whitehead

Although it was only the second week of the semester, some students would agree that a good night of laughter was in order to keep spirits high.

The crowd proved that to be true Friday night in the Bell Memorial Union Auditorium where standup comics Reggie Steele and headliner Don Friesen performed.

Steele got laughs about his name being mistaken for an athlete or porn star and warmed up the crowd with jokes about his hometown of Oakland.

“The thing that’s messed up with Oakland, is the name Oakland,” Steele joked. “Granted there are about seven Oak trees in Oakland. Based on the trees that I see, it should be called Weedland, and for you older cats, Reeferland.”

Steele did a 15-minute set before introducing Friesen to the audience.

Friesen drove on Interstate 5 from Southern California on Friday and joked about Chico being so out of the way. He didn’t recommend driving unless one wants to “lose the will to live.”

“Wow I could really go for a town about now, I’d drive off a cliff if I could find one,” Friesen joked. “There’s exits that have no buildings to go with them.”

Originally from Fresno, Friesen used to perform Bill Cosby comedy skits for his sister and friends, but was always shy in front of groups, he said.

During business school at University of Southern California, Friesen ended up staying in Los Angeles and got into sales while still in college, he said.

“I had no skills,” Friesen said. “My dad didn’t own an oil factory so I couldn’t become president, and I had to figure out what to do to make money, and my friend got me into sales.”

Promoting products such as Rainbow vacuums helped Friesen overcome his fear of performing in public, he said. But career-wise, he was at rock bottom.

“If I had been better at sales I would have never become a comedian,” he said. “Thankfully I sucked at sales.”

While at USC, Friesen and friends formed an improv comedy troupe that broke up after graduation, which is when he decided to go solo and do standup comedy around L.A., he said.

That gig worked out for Friesen and he won the San Francisco Stand-Up Comedy Competition in both 1999 and 2005.

With inspirations such as Bill Cosby, Steve Martin and Woody Allen, Friesen has a manic energy while performing on stage. His physicality in his standup humor give his live show that extra “oomph.”

“My biggest influence was Monty Python,” Friesen said. “I like their approach to comedy – kinda smart, but silly and physical.”

Friesen’s comedy was all of the above. With political, relationship and college jokes, his set was well-rounded.

When asked for any advice on college, Friesen stumbled over his words.

“Asking me advice on college is like asking me advice on how to run the country,” Friesen said. “I don’t give advice on things I’m not very good at.”

Friesen is good at comedy and his material comes from a million things every day, he said. He explained how the evolution of a performance happens over time and how much he loves the moment when he comes up with a new joke.

“Just the seed of a new joke that makes you laugh,” Friesen said. “And when you go onstage and do it in front of people and they laugh, too, it’s like ‘ah it wasn’t just me.'”

When not in front of an audience Friesen keeps busy in Burbank, where he’s a suburban husband and dad. He joked about the housing market by saying when he was young he never thought his million-dollar home would be a two-bedroom apartment.

His humor can be experienced on the Internet or his DVD titled, “Inexplicable.”

With such wide-ranging material, Friesen’s comedy is just that.

Emily Whitehead can be reached at<a href= “[email protected]”>[email protected]</a>