What: Reese Waters

Where: Acme Comedy Co., 708 N. First St. #G31, Minneapolis

When:  Tonight, 12/8 âÄì Sat., 12/10. Times vary

The first time Reese Waters ever tried stand-up, he found himself publicly apologizing for it just a week later on the very same stage. Waters, 18 years old at the time, was so nervous before his comedic debut that he drank three forties before stumbling on stage âÄî and after heckling all the performers before him. Needless to say, the audience wasnâÄôt thrilled to watch the intoxicated teenager slur through his jokes.

âÄúI coulda been Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld and Richard Pryor all rolled into one. They werenâÄôt gonna laugh because they hated me already,âÄù Waters said. âÄúNot only did they hate me, I also sucked.âÄù

Waters has long since improved his comedic game, and tonight heâÄôll bring his set to Minneapolis in a series of performances that will stretch into the weekend.

Waters will perform at Acme, which he calls âÄúthe Yankees Stadium of comedy clubs.âÄù

âÄúIâÄôm assuming itâÄôs gonna be really big, really spacious and really pretentious,âÄù Waters said.

Waters, who grew up in Washington, D.C., sharpened his comedic tongue when he attended a predominantly white prep school and lived in a dormitory mostly populated by black students who, like Waters, had homes too far outside of the schoolâÄôs surrounding affluent neighborhood to commute every day. The comedian went on to attend Columbia University, which âÄî due to its paltry minority population at the time he applied âÄî became a set-up to one of his earliest bits that he still occasionally uses to this day.

âÄúI had to fill out my race on my college application,âÄù Waters says. âÄúUnder âÄòblackâÄô it said âÄòif so, please explain.âÄôâÄù

âÄúIâÄôve kind of always been very racially conscious,âÄù Waters said. His mother was involved in civil rights movements as a young woman and encouraged her son to be similarly aware. âÄúWhen I was in high school. I kind of got to understand what shade of black I was, so to speak.âÄù

The comedian explores these shades in a bit about what his parentâÄôs lamented was his âÄúlight-skinnedâÄù girlfriend.

âÄúTo be fair, she was pretty light-skinned, because her father was white, and her mother,âÄù Waters skips a beat, âÄúwas white.âÄù

While he may have gotten his start as an obnoxious teen looking to impress a girl who told him he was funny and should try stand-up, Waters has grown into a sophisticated and straight-talking comic who delivers his back-handed witticisms in a matter-of-fact style.

âÄúWe say itâÄôs never too late to ever get your education, but I think we all know at some point itâÄôs too late,âÄù Waters says in one of his bits. âÄúYou just gotta go with what ya got.âÄù

Sometimes, even Waters just goes with what heâÄôs got. Sometimes that may mean still rehearsing one of his first jokes he ever wrote, which was about living in the oldest dorm on campus. âÄúThereâÄôs an etching on my bedpost that says âÄòFrederick Douglass tapped that ass,âÄôâÄù Waters says.

Fortunately for Waters, what heâÄôs got is pretty good.