COMEDY REVIEW : Shandling Upstages His TV Persona : Stand-Up: In person, he leaves his trademark mellow television style behind and becomes an aggressive, funny storyteller.

If he weren’t such a perfectionist, you never would have known that Garry Shandling’s stand-up show Monday night at the Improv was a practice run.

“We have a lot of things to discuss, but, before I do, is there any old business?” he asked the audience. Shandling used this kind of rhetorical question as a regrouping tactic throughout his otherwise well-orchestrated show.

Shandling likes to tell stories as a vehicle for his jokes. He likes to let his fans in on his personal life. Just a regular guy with regular problems.

But then he throws in his Porsche, his date with a Miss Georgia and the time when President Bush plucked him from a group of tourists on a White House tour and asked him to join him in a comedy sketch at a later function.

“I thought he was joking because I never took him seriously before,” Shandling told a capacity crowd of about 250 people in Pacific Beach.

At this point, you start wondering whether some of these short stories might instead be tall tales. But Shandling swears they’re all true.

Performing in what could be called “It’s Garry Shandling’s Stand-Up Show,” the comedian spliced together snippets of his life into an 80-minute set, which started slow with friendly, easy bantering and ended slow because, Shandling said, he likes his shows to be symmetrical.

In between he produced some splendid moments, including an opening apology for using bad language.

“Excuse me for swearing. I don’t swear on TV because I know my mother is watching. . . . I know she’s not here because there is a cover charge.”

Shandling, 41, gave his audience a look into his personal life, his career, and he even confessed to falling asleep while watching himself on the Letterman show.

“It was like a nightmare. I heard some guy whining about dating and his hair.”

It should be explained that Shandling’s live persona is nothing like his TV persona.

On the now-defunct “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show,” the comic came across as a soft-spoken but whiny bachelor who had trouble dating and was constantly worried about how his hair looked. Just a regular guy inviting you into his living room.

On stage, it’s a whole new show. No whining. No poor me. His voice is energetic and alive. And the crowd loved him; some were even moved to tears at points. He paced constantly and gestured often as he performed “It’s Garry Shandling’s Life.” He has even gone beyond dating to a relationship and taken his girlfriend to Hawaii.

“Hawaii, for those of you who haven’t been there, is the most romantic place to have a fight. . . . “We rented a Pontiac Sunbird, which is not a great car, but it’s a rental, so you can use it like a four-wheel drive.”

Shandling, wearing beige slacks, baggy white shirt and white tennis shoes, has also given up obsessing about his hair, though he still runs his fingers through it occasionally. “I don’t talk about my hair anymore because I’ve matured,” he responded to someone in the crowd after he opened the show to questions from the audience. “I matured and realized it doesn’t matter what you look like. . . . It’s what kind of hair you have inside that counts.”

Since the contract for the TV show expired in April, Shandling has been plotting his future and mining the stand-up circuit for new material for an HBO special he’ll be doing in two months.

Monday night’s show was his first in a month. And, though his timing was crisp and he had control of the audience during most of his stories, some of his segues were ragged and uncertain. At one point he even stopped, rested against the wall and said: “I’m a little more mechanical than I like to be. We’ll try to change the rhythm.”

At other times, he broke into laughter himself as he worked through new material.

“Hey, I’m hearing a lot of this stuff for the first time, too,” he explained to the crowd as he took out his notes, which he had plastered on his dashboard for the ride down from Los Angeles. He also wrote things down or crossed things out as the show picked up speed.

But, because his TV show was so off-beat and audience-friendly, some of his casual pauses and delays almost seemed to be scripted and part of the act.

Shandling grew up in Tucson and studied electrical engineering at the University of Arizona before moving to Hollywood to write comedy. He sold scripts to “Welcome Back Kotter” and “Sanford and Son” before working up the nerve to try stand-up. He liked the freedom and, at 28, he quit writing for television and went on the road, eventually making it to “The Tonight Show” and his own show.

One of Shandling’s favorite stories involves going to a state dinner. It happened, he told the crowd, after his comedy show with Bush.

“Two weeks later I was invited to a state dinner--not a steak dinner. I’m shocked because, between you and me, I never get invited back anywhere.

“I don’t know why he likes me. I’m not Republican, frankly. I’m kind of middle-of-the-road politically. . . . I’ve never burned a flag, but I’ve never put one out, either.

“Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I see the President and Mrs. Bush dancing toward me. And, as they dance by, so help me, the President points at me and starts laughing . . . like his date is so hot.”

Some comedians could do two hours of their material and not give any of themselves away. After two minutes with Shandling, you sense that he is, indeed, being himself. And, despite the Porsches, Miss Georgia and the President, Shandling does come across as a regular guy. A guy who can’t keep himself out of funny situations.

Garry Shandling concludes a three-day run at 8 and 10 o’clock tonight at the Improv, 832 Garnet Ave., Pacific Beach. Opening act is Howard Leff.