The Polite and Hilarious Comic

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By Mary Ann Bourbeau

RED BANK – “I was born. When I was 23 I started telling jokes. Then I started going on television and doing films. That’s still what I am doing. The end.”
This is how Steven Wright sums up his life, in as few words as possible. But there is actually a lot more to the comedian who tells one quick, unrelated joke after another in his signature droll, monotone voice that has just a hint of a Boston accent. And the jokes are often built on concepts that make you think.
“Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.”
“If you shoot a mime, should you use a silencer?”
“They come from noticing little things around me,” Wright said during a telephone interview. “The world is like a mosaic painting to me, with tiny pieces of information. I go through my day and notice things, and then they become jokes.”
The Massachusetts native will return to the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank on Oct. 2, with a mix of new and old material. “My show is like a painting that is never finished,” he said. “That’s how I look at it.”
Painting is one thing that Wright dabbles in when he has spare time. Living in Carlisle, Massachusetts, not far from Walden Pond, he has a great affinity for nature.
“I grew up a few towns from here,” he said. “I was away for 25 years, living in Los Angeles, Boston and New York. When I decided to leave L.A., I wanted to go home to New England and live around nature again.”
After high school, Wright majored in mass communication at Emerson University in Boston. Although he always wanted to be a stand-up comedian, he didn’t think he could make a living at it, so he studied radio.
“I thought maybe I could be funny on the radio,” he said. “But before I graduated, I knew I didn’t want to do that. Radio was much more structured than I thought. You had to play certain songs and do commercials at an exact time.”
He tried stand-up right after graduation and became a regular performer at Ding Ho’s Comedy Club and Chinese Restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was there that he was discovered by Peter Lassally, the former executive producer for “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.” In 1982, Lassally was on a trip to Massachusetts to tour colleges with his child. He had heard about Ding Ho’s, so he stopped in.
“He heard about this weird place that was a Chinese restaurant comedy club,” Wright said. “He liked my surrealist type jokes and my delivery, which is the way I speak anyway. Three weeks later, I was on “The Tonight Show.” It was like a fairy tale.”
In a rare move, Carson invited Wright back the following week, and his career took off. Since then, Wright has appeared numerous times on late night talk shows, “Saturday Night Live” and in HBO specials. His 1985 debut album, “I Have a Pony,” earned him a Grammy nomination, and a 2007 follow-up, “I Still Have a Pony,” earned him a second nomination. He won an Academy Award for Best Short Film for writing and starring in “The Appointments of Dennis Jennings,” which he wrote and starred in alongside Laurie Metcalf and Rowan Atkinson. He has also had roles in many other films, including “Desperately Seeking Susan,” “Natural Born Killers,” “Coffee and Cigarettes” and “So I Married an Axe Murderer,” and was a featured voice in several animated films.
“I like writing the best because I get to think of material,” he said. “I like to create. I feel so lucky to have a career in comedy just from thinking.”
Wright gives the credit for much of his comedy to… coffee. “My main enjoyment in life is drinking coffee,” he said. “I love it so much. It makes my mind go crazy.”
No matter how crazy he gets, Wright takes care not to offend anyone in these days of political correctness, which is often a difficult task in the world of comedy. “I was raised to be very polite, so it’s not hard for me,” he said.
Wright appeared on the second season of the award-winning FX series, “Louie,” starring comedian Louis C.K., and was nominated for a 2015 Emmy Award for his work as one of the show’s producers.
“Louie is an absolute genius,” he said. “I really know how fortunate I am. I don’t take it for granted.”
But does he mean it? Wright is always spouting one-liners, so it’s sometimes hard to tell when he is serious. Take his favorite joke: “I took a lie detector test. No I didn’t.”
Steven Wright will appear at the Count Basie Theatre at 8 p.m. Oct. 2. Tickets are $25 to $49.50. For more information, visit www.countbasietheatre.org.
Arts and entertainment writer Mary Ann Bourbeau can be reached at mbourbeau@tworivertimes.com.