Linnabary: Cringe-worthy K-von performs on campus

Comedian K-von opened his set Friday with a YouTube video of himself.

Talk about a bad first impression – especially when he had to restart the video 30 seconds later.

“Can you guys start it right from the beginning, right there?” K-von said, pointing at the screen.

The clip was of K-von on MTV reality show “Disaster Date,” acting as the guy on a date who makes everything go wrong.

The video was a highlight reel of K-von’s lack of comedic talent.

The guy is about as charismatic in his delivery as a sheepish middle-schooler who musters up the courage to mouth off and be “funny” in class.

I’m sure in a classroom setting, his classmates would have groaned; surprisingly, in the CAC Theater to a crowd of about 50, K-von was given a warm response.

This warm response gave K-von the nerve he needed, and while the first forty minutes of his set were awful, the last twenty managed to inch their way to sub-par.

K-von can hardly be called a jack-of-all trades. His joke wheelhouse seems to be limited to race and sex.

Yeah, these are topics that nearly every comedian covers to some extent, yet K-von seems limited to them.

I’d be forgiving if he approached them with any originality or pizazz. Unfortunately, he does not.

Early on in his set, K-von again used YouTube, this time to pull up the beat and video to a song he performed about being an Indian convenience store worker. It was about as racist and cringe-worthy as you’d expect, with an obligatory cameo by Apu from The Simpsons.

With his prepackaged lazy routine, he reminded me of those bad teachers who rely upon PowerPoint presentations to trudge through the semester.

There’s not much else in terms of “highlights.” Aside from not-so-subtle racist jokes (He has an Indian friend, so it’s okay!), K-von repeatedly made painfully unfunny jokes about college girls.

K-von joked that while he has to sign a release that he won’t visit any sororities while on any college campuses, his U-Haul is outside and ready to go.

Initially it was funny in an uncomfortable way. Then he brought it up five more times.

At the end of his set, K-von begged that attendees meet him in the lobby so they could snap a photo.

It drove home the point that K-von seems to be a struggling comedian who desperately wants recognition. It made me feel sympathetic and a little gloomy.

You know a comedian has failed when he makes you feel sad, not happy.