Kirk Baird

Tue, Mar 7, 2000 (8:57 a.m.)

Who: Steven Wright.

When: 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Where: Las Vegas Hilton Showroom.

Cost: $35.

Information: Call 732-5111.

Word association with Steven Wright ... it doesn't get much stranger.

Apple ... "snow."

Baseball ... "seals."

Dog ... "Jules Verne."

"Sesame Street" ... "palm trees."

Cup 'o joe ... "the Spanish."

Wayne Newton ... "entertainment."

Fire hose ... "women."

He laughs.

"I've said all these other things, but that's what people will focus on," Wright said in a recent phone interview from Maine. "They'll say, 'Oh, he's perverted.' "

Then, what do you think your answers say about you?

"I think it says I answered your questions."

He laughs.

Welcome to the weird, warped and ultimately hysterical world of comedian Steven Wright. It's a place so painfully obvious at times you can't help but think, "Now, why didn't I think of that." Then there are those choice moments when Wright's jokes are so bizarre, you can't help but shake your head in amazement and wonder if he was repeatedly dropped on his head as a child.

How else to explain such lines as: "When I was a little kid, we had a quicksand box. I was an only child ... eventually"; or "I went into a restaurant. The menu said 'breakfast any time.' So I ordered French toast during the Renaissance." Both of these jokes, by the way, made GQ magazine's list of the 75 funniest jokes of all time; Wright landed five in all.

But no matter how strangely skewed the comedian's style might be to Joe and Jane America, it's perfectly normal in his eyes. What's the old saying about everyone being sane in an asylum?

"It's just looking at the world, it's noticing things, that's the bottom line," said Wright, who performs Friday and Saturday at the Las Vegas Hilton Showroom. "I think there's a lot of information that is off, or it could be off if you looked at it in a slightly different way."

His "different way," besides making him popular, has garnered him acclaim, late-night talk-show appearances galore, comedy specials and albums, and even a 1989 Oscar for Best Short Film, "The Appointments of Dennis Jennings," in which he starred and co-wrote.

It's also made him an original. Wright's monotone, almost arthritically slow style of delivery is a trademark no one comes close to reproducing. And in today's cookie-cutter world of comics, where everyone looks to be the next Jerry Seinfeld or "Def Comedy Jam" headliner, having your own niche might be the biggest compliment paid a comedian.

"It's just how I think and it's just how I talk -- it's a combination," he said. "I appreciate it because it's kind of by accident. If people didn't like what I do, I wouldn't go to plan B."

Raised in Burlington, Maine, his Northeastern accent still attached, the 44-year-old comedian was one of four children. Growing up he watched a lot of TV and idolized such comics as George Carlin and Woody Allen. Upon graduating Emerson College with a degree in mass communication, Wright thought he'd go into radio, having worked at the campus radio station. Instead, he bounced from job to job around the United States, until an open mic audition in a comedy club in Cambridge, Maine, changed his life.

After becoming a regular performer at the club, Wright was noticed by a "Tonight Show" talent scout and was booked for the late-night institution in August of 1982. His performance was so well-received by Johnny Carson that Wright was booked a week later. Soon offers flooded in from David Letterman, "Saturday Night Live" and others. Wright had made it.

His life continued in this way until three years ago, when the comedian faced a new problem: mid-life crisis, which suddenly appeared while Wright was performing in Australia and found himself questioning his career path.

"It's like, 'My God. What am I doing?' I'm telling jokes in Australia, I've been telling jokes for 18 years," he said. "This is bizarre. It got crazy for a while. ... I've calmed down now."

Although he concedes that there is always the chance that feeling could return, for now he's once again at ease with his life behind the mic.

"I love creating (comedy). If the audience didn't come anymore, and they wouldn't let me on television, I wouldn't stop now. It's part of my being."

One thing the comedian is not comfortable with, however, is technology. In fact, when asked what he would do if he ruled the world, Wright said he would demand that people slow down -- not in terms of speed, but in limiting the daily use of technology, such as the fax, cell phone, pagers, etc., that keeps people in contact no matter where they are and what they are doing. These devices, he maintains, speed life up for everyone, making the world a more complicated piece of machinery in the process.

"(Technology) is supposed to be making things better, but it's making things worse. It's putting everything in a frenzy. The real moment -- where you are, what you're doing -- is being destroyed."

It should come as no surprise then that Wright makes do without most of that stuff. His only concession to the high-tech world is an answering machine.

"I can be reached enough already," Wright said. "Why don't you just install a chip in my head."

And from a man who associates dogs with Jules Verne and "Sesame Street" with palm trees, who knows what you'd find up there?