On the Thursday before Thanksgiving, comedian Fortune Feimster visited Tulane University’s Dixon Hall as a special addition to her “2 Sweet 2 Salty” stand-up tour. 

Although Feimster draws sold-out crowds around the country, students in Dixon Hall were treated to a more intimate experience. Before Feimster moseyed out to the spotty but excited crowd, opener Dusty Slay made sure everyone was having a good time. 

In fact, he explicitly told us that we were having a good time. “We’re having a good time,” Slay said before and after jokes, and the crowd seemed to agree. Slay’s impulses to wave, adjust his glasses and touch his hat “like a third base coach,” in his words, also bracketed all of his punchlines in a mesmerizing sort of way. 

In between those brackets were jokes about the South, trailer park life, drugs and fish. “I went to an aquarium and asked the lady working if fish slept. She looked back at me and said ‘I do not know because I don’t work here at night,’” Slay said. By the end of his time, Slay’s glasses and hat were in the exact right position and the crowd was plenty warm for the headliner. We were having a good time. 

Feimster’s act featured more stories than her opener, and the crowd listened intently as she shared anecdotes from her childhood, tales of the road and her recent marriage. The biggest laughs of the night seemed to come from her memory of her time on the swim team as a 12-year-old. 

One of those laughs belonged to senior Limor Goldsmith. “I really love the swimming joke! She talks about all these mishaps, and I found it relatable because I was on the swim team too,” Goldsmith said. 

With the scene set around an image she painted of herself in a bathing suit failing to cover her “full bush,” Feimster launched into a vivid retrospective that culminated with her winning a race by running through a shallow pool instead of swimming. 

After the show ended, Feimster stuck around to answer questions about her personal life which amplified the existing feeling of closeness in the theatre. People wanted to know, “Who is the most famous person you have ever met?” and “What are your thoughts on John Mulaney?” among others. 

Feimster cited Jennifer Aniston and said she liked Mulaney; she also mentioned she had Olivia Munn’s phone number which garnered sighs of interest from the crowd. I asked for her water bottle, and she gave it to me too. 

Junior Eli Luchak, didn’t want to leave. “I really appreciated her storytelling and her ability to weave comedy into even the more improvised sections of the show, such as the Q&A section afterward. I didn’t want to leave even when the routine was over, because the show sure as hell wasn’t,” Luchak said. 

Feimster’s appearance on campus was made possible by Tulane University Campus Programming, which brings all sorts of performances to Tulane.