HANGING OUT : Ritch Shydner Isn’t Shy About Letting His Feelings--Personal or Political--Show

Comedian Ritch Shydner hasn’t performed in Southern California since the recent riots erupted in Los Angeles so, he said by phone from Birmingham last week, “I’m addressing it here in Alabama.”

He doesn’t have a gun and he’s not in favor of guns, he said, “but when the riots broke out I was calling the NRA, asking them if they made home deliveries.”

That line, Shydner said, has been going over big in Birmingham.

Shydner, who’s headlining at the Brea Improv through Sunday, is best known for his trenchant observations on male-female relationships and the differences between men and women. But he also includes current events in his act and sees nothing wrong with generating laughs out of serious subjects.

“If it’s funny--if you have a good take on it--you can do humor on anything,” said Shydner, noting that President Bush “came out after the riots and immediately put the blame on the Democrats. I thought for sure he was going to snap and blame it on President Lincoln for freeing the slaves to begin with.”

Shydner calls Bush our “whiniest” President: “He’s the anti-Harry Truman. His motto is ‘The buck stops here--long enough for me to find a place to shuffle it to.’ ”

The rough-voiced, New Jersey-born comic, who describes his style as “just a guy hanging out, talking to ya,” has been hanging out on comedy club stages for 13 years.

And he is, critics agree, one of the best stand-ups working today. His credits include appearances on “The Tonight Show,” “Late Night With David Letterman,” the “Arsenio Hall Show” and his own HBO special.

That’s in addition to a burgeoning acting career that includes small roles in the movies “Roxanne” and “Beverly Hills Cop II” and guest spots on TV’s “Roseanne” and “Designing Women” and “Married With Children.”

Shydner has a deal with fellow comedian Rick Ducommun to develop a TV series whose premise, he said, “would be along the lines of ‘The Honeymooners’ or ‘The Odd Couple’--two guys who have been buddies for life.”

Shydner already has a track record of development deals with ABC, CBS and Fox for shows that never made it onto the air, prompting the comic to muse: “I don’t know who’s going to pick this up. Maybe the Shopping Network will do for this one.”

Here’s a primer of vintage Shydner on:

* A man’s search for the perfect woman: “A woman knows there is no perfect man. So she looks for a fixer-upper, knowing she can repair him.”

* Women’s ability to nurture men: “Men are not good at nurturing. Oh, we’ll take care of you if we see something like bullet wounds.”

* Women usually are concerned over how the house looks, whereas men are not: “I have one towel. When that gets stiff, I buy another.”

* What excites men and women: “Guys tend to be turned on by the visual, women more by the imagination. That’s why erotic material is so different for men and women. Women’s erotic material would be a romance novel where there’s one picture of a hunk stud on the cover and 300 pages of erotic literature to turn on her imagination.

“And for guys it would be 300 pages of naked women and one article--on how to find naked women.”

Dealing with male-female relationships “has really been a thing for me the last eight or nine years because it’s what most effects my life,” said Shydner, who has been married nearly three years and has a 2-year-old daughter.

Nevertheless, Shydner believes that “in an election year you’ve got to talk about politics, the economy and what’s going on.”

The comic, who writes new material every day, said that a sense of anger only helps the creative process. “Absolutely,” he said. “And I do jokes on the Republicans and the Democrats. I’m not a fan of either party right now.”

As he sees it, “if you go on stage and don’t try new material, you’ve wasted your time on stage. If you’re in a nightclub, you’ve got to try new stuff every night--and I will. I mean, I won’t turn the audience into lab rats--don’t get me wrong--but I should be trying out new stuff.”

Who: Ritch Shydner.

When: Thursday, May 14, and Sunday, May 17, at 8:30 p.m.; Friday, May 15, at 8:30 and 10:30 p.m.; Saturday, May 16, at 8 and 10:30 p.m.

Where: The Improv, 945 E. Birch St., Brea.

Whereabouts: Take the Lambert Road exit off the Orange (57) Freeway and go west. Turn left on State College Boulevard and right on Birch Street. The Improv is in the Brea Marketplace, across from the Brea Mall.

Wherewithal: $8 Thursday and Sunday; $10 Friday and $12 Saturday.

Where to call: (714) 529-7878.