STAND-UP STANDOUT : Monologuist Jordan Brady’s Slick Routine Puts His Career on Comedy’s Fast Track

Poise and talent.

Comedian Jordan Brady possesses large amounts of both, though sometimes the poise--considering he just turned 24--is the more striking, on stage and off.

That combination of traits may help explain why Brady--who performs Friday and Saturday at Coconuts in Anaheim--has experienced a blast of career acceleration and some high-profile media exposure just in the last few months:

* He signed with a management firm in August.

* In early September, NBC-TV profiled him on its Sunday edition of “The Today Show.”

* His name was mentioned a few times in a recent Rolling Stone story on the First American Comedy Convention.

* From an initially huge field, he was a finalist vying for the host post on “2 Hip 4 TV,” a new Saturday morning music-comedy television show. (Comedian-MTV personality Colin Quinn got the job). But even that may have been fortunate: The show has already been canceled.

* Humorist-author-comic Paul Krassner asked Brady for the use of one of his jokes to open a story Krassner is writing for the New York Times about the 25th anniversary of John Kennedy’s assassination. (Noting how everyone remembers precisely where they were at the time, the youthful Brady recalls, “I was still developing eyelids.”)

Heady stuff. But it doesn’t appear to have gone to the head of this clever, clean monologuist, whose act ranges from a running gag about the generic music of porno film sound tracks to middle-class humor about mothers who keep the paper dinner plates in plastic bags, presumably to ensure their freshness.

In fact--this is where some of that poise comes in--Brady seems to accept both the career boosts and disappointments with great equanimity.

For instance, not wanting to be late for an interview last week, he sprinted toward his Hollywood apartment from yet another audition (for a role on the syndicated sitcom “It’s a Living”), and cheerfully reported that it didn’t go well. “She thought I was funny but said I lacked the (acting) fundamentals,” he explained, still catching his breath.

Later, over chocolate milkshakes, he discussed the various stand-up comedy TV specials--cable and broadcast--that have cropped up in response to the so-called comedy boom. “There are so many comedians that to do one of those (shows), it doesn’t mean as much anymore,” he said. “So it’s almost like junior varsity fame.”

Is that where Brady figures he fits in?

“No. I don’t think I’m even there yet,” Brady said, noting that he has appeared on just two of those shows: “The Good Time Cafe” and “Comic Strip Live.”

He will double that list in the next several weeks by taping “Evening at the Improv” and “Improv Tonight,” but he is also casting a hopeful eye toward “The Tonight Show” and “Late Night With David Letterman.”

He said Johnny Carson, host of “The Tonight Show,” and Letterman “are still the mark of success. After the (comedy) convention, I wondered if I should decide to gear myself toward either show. And I thought, ‘Nah, I’m just going to do what I do, and when (talent bookers from those shows) hear about me, they’ll hear about me.’ ”

If Brady seems old for his age (not the way that some of his stand-up peers have been “25-ish” for several years now), he also has clearly forged an enormously promising career for someone just 24. Getting an early start helped.

A Virginia native, Brady says his career officially began a little more than 4 years ago, when he came home to Richmond on summer break from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He signed up for an audition night at a comedy club in Richmond and was smart enough to ensure that the crowd would be peopled with friendly faces.

“I went to high school in that town, so I had a whole bunch of friends come down there,” he recalled. “The (manager) put me up for like 3 minutes, and I did real well--I killed.”

He returned to that room a couple of weeks ago and learned that even his new-found, sub-junior varsity fame can be a mixed blessing. On one hand, the Richmond Times-Dispatch did a nice local-boy-makes-good story, and friends and acquaintances were fawning all over him.

On the other hand, among those he had invited to the show were his aunt and uncle, who live nearby but had never been to a comedy club. He got them in free and set them up at a good table. Next thing Brady knew, his aunt was on her feet, heckling him.

“Oh--the worst!” he said of the episode. Turns out his aunt did one more thing that wasn’t quite as disruptive but was equally embarrassing for him.

Moving into the final portion of his set, he looked toward his aunt and uncle’s table, “and there she was,” he said, “rolling her hair in curlers!”

Jordan Brady will perform Friday and Saturday at 8:30 and 10 p.m. at Coconuts, in the Ramada Inn, 1331 E. Katella Ave., Anaheim. Tickets: $5. Information: (714) 978-8088.