By April MacIntyre Sep 13, 2007, 17:58 GMT
“When I was kid,” Wright declares at the beginning of his new Comedy Central CD, I Still Have a Pony, “I wish my first word had been ‘Quote,’ so right before I die I could say, 'Unquote.' "
04/23/2007 - Steven Wright - - New York City, NY © Janet Mayer / Photorazzi
Author of the non-published book, The Rats and The Scum: History of Politicians, Steven Wright is still cleverly deadpanning audiences with observational bon mots for the sucker punch resulting in the unexpected “ha!”
“I bought an iPod,” he tells his audience. “It can either hold 5,000 songs or one phone message from my mother.”
Steven Wright was awarded an Oscar in 1989 for Best Short Live-Action Film for The Appointments of Dennis Jennings, which he co-wrote (with Michael Armstrong) and starred in.
Now Wright's new comedy album is finally hitting the streets, a follow up to I Have A Pony, dubbed, I Still Have A Pony.
Capturing the astute observer of life in an intimate Toronto theater with new material, the CD will be released on Comedy Central Records in stores and nationwide on Tuesday, September 25 and will also be available at www.shop.comedycentral.com.
In it, he spins yarns of his Grandfather. “His Will was an I.O.U..” He talks of School and learning as a boy that the President was married to the "first lady," musing if she'd seen any dinosaurs.
Wright mentions HD-ADD, a phenomenon where it’s hard to concentrate, but once you could focus it was crystal clear.
For Halloween, a naked Steven donned his own skeleton, telling people, "Don't think of the skin."
Wright ponders how his life would have been different had he been born a day earlier. Only maybe it wouldn't have been different at all, "except that I would have asked that question yesterday."
Steeped on classic The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Wright was drawn to the Kingpins, George Carlin, David Brenner and Robert Klein.
It sparked the kid in Burlington, Massachusetts to consider comedy as his vocation.
In a twist of fate, a newspaper article featuring Wright performing in a half comedy, half Chinese restaurant club in Cambridge, Massachusetts appeared in the faraway Los Angeles Times, and Peter Lassally, the co-producer of The Tonight Show, happened to see the article.
Fast forward to the summer of '82, Lassally was looking back east for possible colleges for his children, and he went to the club and saw Wright in action.
It was Steven's big break. Three weeks later, Steven was on The Tonight Show.
Wright has been seen in numerous films including Natural Born Killers, Desperately Seeking Susan, So I Married an Axe Murderer, Half Baked, Coffee and Cigarettes and The Aristocrats.
He was the voice of the DJ, K- Billy in Reservoir Dogs and has voiced characters on TV shows The Simpsons and Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist.
Not many comics can say they are Oscar winners too.
I asked Wright if he wanted to reteam with “Dennis Jennings” director Dean Parisot for a future film. “I would love to work again with Dean, I have some ideas but we both got involved with different things over the years. We have the same sensibilities, working with him is fun too, but we just got sidetracked doing different things."
Were there any actors on a short list for Wright to collaborate or work with on screen?
“Definitely Tom Waits,” said Wright. “He’s the main guy, I saw him in Santa Rosa, he’s a nice guy, I like his music too.”
Wright has been a bit of a gypsy the last 20 years, living in Los Angeles, then New York City for seven years, then to Boston for nine months before heading back west to Santa Monica for 11 years. He calls Massachusetts his home now, and prefers the East Coast overall.
I wondered what Steven, who seemed unimpressed with material trappings and the affected Hollywood cult of celebrity, did with his Oscar statue.
“In Santa Monica, I had it on a bookshelf, now it’s on my coffee table, it’s surrealistic this thing, just having it my house is bizarre,” said Wright.
Wright is a known collector of pieces of information overheard or observed every day, I asked him if he were a more a people watcher or a people listener.
“I observe everything, I just notice stuff all the time. My comedy comes from me witnessing everything,” Wright explained.
“We wake up and start process billions of pieces of information every day. Reading and books are amazing because they can take you places you would normally never go or see, like the Himalayas…I just react to all kinds of stuff.”
“You can take two entirely unrelated things and connect them, and it can be very funny.”
Being from the North Shore of Boston and noticing pictures of Wright donning a Boston Red Sox cap for photos, I had to know who Wright’s favorite Red Sox player of all time was.
“Tony Conigliaro,” Wright didn’t hesitate. “He was great, my favorite if I have to pick.”
Wright balances his active imagination by delving into the disciplines of painting, writing, and music. His abstract artwork has a haunting, lovely and lonely feel to them, they are compelling. I asked if he had plans to show them.
“My paintings are out of storage and up on my walls now in my house. I’ve been drawing since elementary school, there’s a part of me that likes to do that very much, then there’s the judgment aspect, so much of what I do (comedy) is already being judged, that part of me would like to show it, then I wonder if I want the reaction to another part of my work.”
“I’m more of a casual person, but there is a connection between the drawing and my comedy. My drawings in high school became more abstract afterwards, and that affected me, just noticing things in general. Art and drawing really exercised my mind.”
Which contemporary comics would Steven would plunk down cash for to see live?
“I would pay to see Gilbert Gottfried, Robert Schimmel and Kevin Meaney,” said Wright.
Wright deliberately avoids commenting on pop culture, using bad language on stage and analyzing politics in his stand up, but I was curious to know if he would ever comment on any presidential candidate in the running, either negatively or positively.
“I wouldn’t comment on any of them across the board, it’s demeaning for people to go around kissing babies to get a job,” said Wright. “The whole thing disgusts me, like what style of deceit are you into? I don’t trust any of them; they’re all like used-car salesmen, just in better suits.”
“I remember when Kennedy was like Jesus, then you find out he isn’t, his family fortune was all built on illegal stuff, bootlegging, the alcohol thing."
Wright continued. “I’m glad you asked me that question, I look at these guys, and I wonder how do people just go with it? How do they get caught up in ‘yeah let’s vote for him.’ People get so taken with them.
They’re all on a big island of untrustworthy bullshit. Here’s the new version the factory of bullshit is putting out.”
In Wright’s latest collected comedy stories on his new CD, he mentions the joys and perils of modern technology in several bits. I wanted to know what was the most loathsome gadget or technology, in his estimation.
“All of these inventions, like email, the answering machine, cellphone voice mail and other things, they’re made for positive reasons, but they backfire on you too, it irritates me.” said Wright.
“Time is the most important thing, but now, who has time to return nine phone calls? Used to be if you missed a call, it was on them to find you.”
I Still Have A Pony is the first CD since Wright's Grammy-nominated 1985 debut, I Have A Pony which sold near a million copies.
Steven Wright Live & Upcoming Appearances 10.09 CAPITOL CENTER FOR THE ARTS • CONCORD, NH
10.11 CORPHEUM THEATRE • BOSTON, MA
10.12 FOXWOODS CASINO • MASHANTUCKET, CT
10.13 THE EGG • ALBANY, NY
10.14 PROVIDENCE PERFORMING ARTS CENTER • PROVIDENCE, RI
10.16 TURNING STONE CASINO • VERONA, NY
10.17 BYHAM THEATRE • PITTSBURGH, PA
10.18 MICHIGAN THEATRE • ANN ARBOR, MI
10.20 STAFFORD CENTRE • HOUSTON, TX
10.21 MAJESTIC THEATRE • DALLAS, TX
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