IF YOU HAVE any doubts that Steven Wright is the master of deadpan, take note of the title of his new CD, “I Still Have a Pony,” out Tuesday. It’s actually the follow-up to his first CD, released in 1985, called, “I Have a Pony.”
A 22-year pause before the punchline? That’s pretty deadpan.
When asked why he waited so long, Wright quips, “I didn’t want to be overexposed. I decided I would make one album each century I was alive.”
But Wright has actually been pretty busy. After earning an Oscar in 1989 for his short film “The Appointments of Dennis Jennings” and appearing in numerous films, he spent much of the past two decades touring, just recently realizing it had been fifteen years since his last HBO special.
“I thought, if people are in college now, they were only 5 when that came out. They’re not familiar with me,” says Wright, who therefore released a Comedy Central special and DVD called “When the Leaves Blow Away” earlier this year.
“I wanted to try to reach a new audience, and to show people who already know me something else.”
While Wright’s humor is often regarded as absurdist, he describes it as strictly observational – albeit from a somewhat warped observer.
“From when you wake up to when you go to sleep, there’s billions of pieces of information that go past you. Some of that just jumps out as a joke,” he says. “Part of my mind is looking for it, subconsciously, and I don’t really know it. But I’m not thinking [about] that. I’m just walking down the street, and then I see something and say, ‘oh yeah.’ ”
With “I Still Have a Pony,” which is based on the Comedy Central special, Wright is excited to continue bringing his humor to a new generation, just as he is about getting the same charge from performing as he did when he started out.
“When you walk out onstage, there’s an aliveness that’s the same even after all these years,” he says. “It’s like walking on a tightrope, because it can go wrong so easily. Even when it’s good, there’s a tension. It’s still a heightened and excellent experience.”
The Funny
Don’t know Wright from wrong? Here’s three-joke introduction to the Tao of Steve.
“When I was a kid, we had a quicksand box in the back yard. I was an only child …eventually.”
“I had a dream that midgets were trying to assassinate me, so I bought a bullet-proof car. But since they were midgets, I bought a convertible.”
“You think when they asked George Washington for his ID, he just took out a quarter?”