Dane Cook didn’t even have to come on stage before he received a standing ovation from a packed Goldstein Auditorium Tuesday for his first show of the night.

Jay Davis, the host of the night’s show, only had to ask the crowd if they were ready to see the creator of the ‘Tourgasm’ comedy tour to get them riled up.

And all Cook had to do was start his routine to hush the crowd again.

‘There are things I have learned in my travels, such as the certain sounds in this world,’ Cook said. ‘There are certain sounds in this world that are so annoying that you want to punch a baby. And not even an awake baby, a sleeping baby.’

Cook made his second stop to Syracuse University in two years, playing to two separate sold-out crowds in Goldstein Auditorium. Cook offered to come to SU for free, and ticket prices were only used to cover the operating cost of Goldstein.

Cook is obviously an infamous character at SU – at least 50 people had already formed a snaking line in front of Goldstein two hours prior to the 7 p.m. show. Mark Schrenko, a third year industrial design major, made his claim to fame as the very first person in line, and began his marathon campout at 2 p.m. At last year’s show, Schrenko was the third person in line, a fact he’s still lamenting. But this time, no one could stand in his way.

Schrenko met Cook after last year’s performance, when the comedian recorded Schrenko’s outgoing voicemail message.

‘People will call me just to hear it,’ he said. ‘They’ll be like ‘don’t pick up, I wanted to hear it.”

Caroline Pierce, a freshman Spanish and secondary education major from the State University of New York, Potsdam, made the three hour trek with four friends to see Cook, and paid a full $28 per ticket. Pierce said her hopes for the show were to laugh a lot, and to make all her friends who didn’t come jealous.

‘I own his DVD and his CD, and I listen to it religiously,’ Pierce said.

Cook’s act touched on such issues as the dirty kid in class who ‘smells like piss’ and talking to the creepy co-worker in the office.

‘I always talk to the creepy guy at work…you know, give him a Snickers or something… so when he snaps and comes to work with an AK-47 he’ll stop at my office and be like ‘Thanks for the candy,” Cook said.

Cook also advised the audience to be happy with their lives and find something they can do to be remembered.

‘You can do something unique every day,’ Cook said. ‘One day I saw a young boy eating an ice cream cone and I ran up to him and smashed it in his face. See, he will never forget that.’

But if that doesn’t work, Cook offered a more subtle way to be remembered.

‘If you’re at a party somewhere, go to the room where they put all the coats and take a shit on them. You will affect lives,’ Cook said. ‘You just know somebody is going to come out of that room and say, ‘Someone shat on the coats.”

Cook also had a lot to say about one of the greatest enigmas to students – love.

‘When you’re not in love it seems like everyone you know falls in love,’ Cook said. ‘Even the retarded people in your neighborhood fall in love and get married while you’re driving alone listening to Journey’s Greatest Hits.’

But then again, there’s always that one-night stand.

‘The worst thing about a one-night stand is after you’re done, you feel awkward, and you have to make an excuse to get out of there, like ‘I need to give my mom her allergy medicine…at 4:30 in the morning,” Cook said.

Cook’s routine was almost completely original, with most of the material coming off his new CD, ‘Retaliation,’ which is due in stores this summer. However, Cook did recycle one of his jokes from his previous CD.

‘I have this great pick-up line,’ Cook said. ‘I walk up to a girl at a bar and say ‘are you going to be walking alone to your car later tonight?’ That usually works.’

Cook had three other comedians, Jay Davis, Robert Kelly and Gary Gulman, open the show for him. Each of these upstart comics did a great job at prepping the audience for Cook’s performance, and showed that they have lasting potential in the comedy world.

–Feature Editor Dana Moran contributed to this report.

Published on April 19, 2005 at 12:00 pm