Rob Riggle, with Nico Santos and Joe Klocek
Cobb's Comedy Club
July 6, 2008
Notes by Janine Kahn

Better than: Waiting for Monday night's edition of the Daily Show to roll around.

Stream: This Rob Riggle acting reel, which finishes up with a FOX interview with Riggle from his Marine days.

It's 8:42 p.m. on Sunday night and Rob Riggle is a sweaty mess, rolling up the orange sleeves of his button-down shirt and telling the crowd about his obsession with killing Kevin Federline.

"I think about killing Kevin Federline a lot," said Riggle, recounting his latest fantasy in which he encounters Brit's mangy ex ("half demon, half troll, half trash") in a bar -clad in only his daisy dukes- and takes his head clean off with a sucker punch. Said head lands in a piranha tank and "we all dance in his blood. . . and have sex on the pool table. That was today's fantasy. Can't wait till tomorrow."

Graphic much? If you've only seen Riggle on the Daily Show, you've only been drinking Riggle Lite. In person, the goofy-yet-reserved war correspondent explodes with expletives from the moment he takes the stage - in last night's case, calling American Airlines "fucking cocksuckers" and a "bag of dicks" the second he took the mic.

Riggle's act ran through the many ills of air travel, his hatred for annoying old people and Long Island rednecks, misadventures in Japanese dining and the ordeal that is the men's room in any given stadium.

"I've been in five combat zones on earth and the ugliest place on earth is the men's bathroom in any stadium in America," said Riggle, adding that a poo fetishist must be behind the design - what with two sit down toilets (both backed up with shit and out of commission) and a line of smelly "piss troughs."

Halfway through his spiel, the comedian appeared to run out of steam and admitted he was still slightly hungover from the 20 beers he had after Saturday's show. But Riggle, a mighty physical comic, gave it a good go, twisting his burly body in odd angles to stress his points and using his hands to punctuate his sentences. A few minutes to 9 p.m. he was off the stage and the crowd was all applause.

The two local comics who led up to Riggle's act were pretty impressive in themselves, and seemed to connect better with the crowd with their San Francisco anecdotes.

Nico Santos thrilled with his "inspector faggot" trench coat and notes from his day job as a shoe salesman who deals with Russian ladies with no taste (read: leopard print + chinchilla collar + rhinestone lettering). Of course, there was one Russian lass in the crowd who was not impressed. Joe Klocek got big laughs for his crazy MUNI adventures and for wondering aloud why we bothered to steal the bits of America between SF and NY from the Indians, seeing how it's composed of "corn and retards." He too managed to piss some of the audience off by picking on a Mormon in the front row. "Open your purse, let's see his balls," he said to the guy's date, who answered Klocek's questions for her man.

Critic's Notebook:

Personal Bias: As a Manila-born girl, it warmed my tropical heart to see the crowd truly dig Santos' Philippine-bred sense of humor.

Random Detail: Cobb's menu features a "Jim Carrey Sundae" which is a deadly mix of vanilla bean ice cream, chocolate syrup, caramel, whipped cream and candied walnuts. (Can't have a Carrey sundae without nuts, ne?) I behaved and turned the page.

By the Way: They actually carded my half-century-old partner. Which made his night.