A Jeni for his thoughts

Shane Gammon

Friday, Jan. 30, 1998 | 10:01 a.m.

"I called up New York-New York the other day, and they really do take that New York theme seriously. They said 'Hello, New York-New York,' and I said, 'Do you have any rooms?' and they said, 'No, we've got chickens -- what are you, stupid?' and they hung up."

There will be more where that came from when comedian Richard Jeni performs at the Sahara hotel-casino at 8:30 p.m. today through Feb. 8.

Jeni has an impressive resume. He has performed in several HBO specials, done Certs commercials and been in several movies -- one of the more memorable being with Jim Carrey in "The Mask."

"I played Jim's best friend, and if I had known that he was going to be as big of a star as he turned out to be, I would have made much better friends with him," Jeni jokes. "A fine fella! I like Jim a lot, he has a very sensitive side to him. Between takes, a lot of times we would write letters to lonely G.I.s in my dressing room."

Jeni has also appeared frequently on Jay Leno's "Tonight Show" and "Late Night with David Letterman." When asked whose comedy he appreciates more, Jeni says: "I kind of like both of them, but I'm a little partial to Leno because he puts me on more."

During the last year, Jeni performed in the movie "Burn Hollywood, Burn," which will be released this year, and he is the voice for the Office Max commercials. He has also released a CD titled "Richard Jeni's Greatest Bits."

Jeni's stand-up show, he notes, is "a pretty clean show compared to most comedians' shows. There was a time when I wouldn't do anything dirty at all, nothing. I wouldn't even say the most mild curse word, not a thing. Then I thought, 'What am I doing this for?' because I am actually holding the audience up to a higher standard than I have for my own personal taste. Because when I go to see comedians I tend to like people who are a little bit saucy.

"If you go to see a whole Richard Jeni show, it will be pretty much PG most of the way and then maybe the last 10 minutes it starts to veer off into sex and what not. The key thing is, there is a joke that has a curse word in it and then there is a joke where the curse word is the joke.

"If that's all you do is get laughs by shocking people or grossing them out or 'I can't believe he said that,' that's not my cup of tea, but if you're out there and you have already established that this isn't something you need to do, you're just throwing it in for fun, then that's different."

Tickets for Jeni's performances are $25 from Sunday through Friday and $29.50 on Saturday. For reservations and more information, call the Sahara box office at 737-2515.