Comedian Brent Weinbach

Brent Weinbach stands rigidly on the stage of Jack Adams Hall at the Cesar Chavez Student Center during Saturday night’s Asian-American Comedy Show presented by the Asian Student Union. He clenches the microphone with two hands, as though he were holding a sword or a baseball bat, ready to attack the audience.

“Whenever I tell people I’m half Filipino, people don’t believe me,” Weinbach tells the audience in a loud, edgy, monotone voice.

Weinbach squints his eyes.

“Now do you believe me?” Weinbach asks to the delight of the mostly Asian audience of about 125 people.

Weinbach, who’s also half Jewish, is a cult favorite on the San Francisco comedy scene, complete with an album, “Tales from the Brown Side,” and T-shirt featuring his bug-eyed face. His act really must be seen to be believed. It’s surreal and outrageous. It’s also really hilarious.

Weinbach goes from talking about his stint as a substitute teacher in Oakland to a series of creepy phone calls about rooms for rent on Craig’s List. He drifts into an R. Kelly rendition of “Happy Birthday,” and delivers a right-wing version of “Def Poetry Jam.”

The evening belonged to Brent Weinbach, whose delightfully quirky set killed the audience from beginning to end.

Some of Weinbach’s best material comes from an almost scientific look at comedy as a whole.

“Sometimes people think I don’t act natural on stage,” Weinbach says. He then drops his awkward façade to become a hackneyed standup comic (“What if Pee Wee Herman and Mr. Bean had a baby?”).

When a particular bit in which he speaks gibberish at a Chinese restaurant elicits a few groans, Weinbach calls “time out” to remind the audience that the Chinese characters in the story speak perfect English. Only he, the one non-Chinese character, speaks gibberish.

There’s an Andy Kaufman-like quality in Weinbach’s act. He goes from looking paralyzed and uncomfortable onstage to throwing his body in all manner of directions and interacting with the audience. Manipulating the audience is one of Weinbach’s greatest strengths. Several times during the show, Weinbach went straight to the same young woman in the front row to practice pick-up lines and perform his R. Kelly routine. Was she a plant, or is this for real?

“It was a surprise,” the audience member, Aimee Mac, 25, said laughingly of her unexpected turn in the show.

Weinbach doesn’t play to the lowest common denominator. He maintains a comfortable level of intellectualism at all times, without acting too dim or too pompous. - Golden Gate Xpress (SF State University's campus paper)

"Name To Watch" -New York Magazine

"Weinbach's comedy is about poaching characters from real life and inhabiting them that you forget who you're watching onstage." -East Bay Express

"weird, scary, hilarious" -Time Out NY

"...laughing to the point of hyperventilation." -L.A. Alternative Press

"intense, way too smart...such a good stage presence and command" -SFist

"...one of the Bay Area's most intriguing and idiosyncratic comedic voices." -San Jose Mercury News

"...jaw-droppingly good" -The Stranger

"bracing knuckleball material" -Montreal Gazette

"...weird in the best way" -Time Out NY

"...purely absurd, maniacally funny..." -East Bay Express

"Traditional punchlines were rarely relied upon nor necessary in Weinbach's stunning act." -Portland Mercury

"With furrowed brow, hollow eyes and stilted gait, Weinbach delivered a refreshingly cerebral, fiercely funny performance with awkward abandon." -Time Out Chicago

"strange and wonderful" -Time Out Chicago - various