Brace yourself: by popular request (or at least the interviewer’s), and to mark his upcoming appearance at Wolf Trap on Nov. 10 & 11—a mere 20 minutes from the District, a city known for its sense of humor—standup comedian Richard Jeni is going to tell a political joke:

“I’ve been trying to expand my horizons lately. A couple of weeks ago I decided to turn gay—it’s easy, you can do it right online. A couple of hours later, I got an email from Mark Foley.”

If you found that in any way offensive, you probably didn’t watch the 48-yearold Jeni’s recent HBO Comedy Hour “A Big Steaming Pile of Me”, his third for the channel (he’s done two for Showtime). Chances are, you’d know his face if you saw
him, at least if you’re a fan of Jim Carrey comedies: he played the manic comedian’s womanizing and ultimately heroic buddy in “The Mask.” Or if you’re a fan of Jay Leno: he’s been on The Tonight Show roughly a billion times.

While your aspiring comedian—the kind bussing tables while practicing his routines on the wait staff—might salivate at the chance to flash their stuff in front of Leno’s chipmunk choppers, Jeni sees The Tonight Show in a different light. “I’m a long-form type of comic,” he says. “Something like that’s a good commercial for your work. But preparing for those shows, there’s a time crunch, since your part’s four-and-a-half minutes long—there’s time for setup, joke, setup, joke—and no time for quirky moments. Just jokes people from five to eighty-five will get.”

He’s done a bunch of ads and comedy specials, and a couple of TV spots. He started out on the comedy club circuit, and still tours. A lot. “I’m sort of permanently on tour. With a musician, it’s a big deal to be on tour, with all your equipment and everything else. In my case, I am the equipment.”

But just because he’s making an appearance in town—and his second at Wolf Trap in a year—doesn’t mean a night
of exclusively political humor. “People want to hear some of the stuff you get on TV,” he says. “And you have to give them some new things, so they know it’s not the same; so it doesn’t turn into some sort of Rocky Picture Horror bonding experience.”

Coming up with the material is the difficult part of anyone’s act. Some comedians mine their unpleasant childhoods or nuclear-disaster love lives, but Jeni comes from a different angle. “Everybody has a peak creative time of day,” he jokes. “Mine’s
between four and four-oh-six in the morning, which is why all my jokes start with, ‘I need to go to the bathroom.’” Seriously, though: “You need to connect on an emotional level; find something that the audience has a feeling about, or that I have a feeling about. Other than that, it’s not all rules.”

Richard Jeni will be appearing on Fri., Nov. 10 at 8 p.m.; and Sat., Nov. 11 at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Tickets are $25. For more details and to purchase tickets, visit http://wolftrap.org/performances/show111006.html.