So the whole reason for going to Bard in the first place was to see Ben's sketch comedy group Olde English perform. I loved them for many reasons, most of them being partially narcissistic.

1) Ben runs the group exactly as we ran our underground newspaper in highschool. This means that the underlying goal is to push things further by fucking around with them (onstage sketch involving pregnacy melds into later onscreen video from planned parenthood). It works because the core people involved essentially forget about leading normal lives and work on it every day.

2) I've been to alot of shitty sketch comedy, and there's nothing worse than people who think they are funny and aren't. ("What's that on you pizza?" "Why it looks like a retarded baby!") OE is hilarious, and when they aren't, they have enough of an analytical talent to find out why they weren't at maximum laughter.

3) Someone pulled the fire alarm twice during the show. It may have been an accident, but it is still a pants-shitting caliber stressor on the performance. The first time they worked it into a short skit ("Jesus, will somebody get the phone?") and then brought everyone outside for a round of "Bohemian Rhapsody". The second time, they used the buzzer as a beat (taking it up a notch with clapping) while one member did the "robot" on stage. Minutes later, they brought up loud music and turned it into a dance party. The first alarm came during a sketch involving a newscaster, when they returned they set up on stage again, "..And, we're back."

4) They're quick. The typical saturday night live problem is knowing when to end a sketch and on the very last sketch they pulled it to the limits of credibility and then gave it a perfect ending (It won't translate through if I tell you, but it went something like this: two people on stage at a time, other members come in and tap people off the stage and change up the scene. Wife says to husband: "I want you to kill our son." "You want me to kill our son?" (wife tapped out, another enters) "You want me to kill your son?" (tapped out, son enters) "You want me to kill myself?")

5) One of their best sketches got cut because Ben couldn't finish it they way he would like it by showtime. It reminded me of the time when Ben actually asked our printer to stop the presses and cost us $200 to reprint four pages.

6) They had maybe five short sketches on video, which sounds like a shortcut so that they don't have to remember a whole show of lines, but it's better than that. The videos always relate. (again, hard to make you understand:Two lip-sync to a prerecorded rap on stage and run off, sketch continues on screen where they are in the cafeteria, minutes later they return without finding food and rap to mom in third row about not having any food to eat. Mother stands up and raps in sync back that she brought him a sandwich.)