Kosser Thrives in Off-Center World : Comedy: He seems more comfortable veering to the left than giving straight answers.

Asked about his credits, comedian Bobby Kosser doesn’t mention his guest shots on “The Tonight Show” and “Late Night With David Letterman.” Instead, he says, “tell them I just climbed Mt. Everest.”

“Definitely tell them that. That’s why they’re bringing me to Orange County: for the notoriety I achieved as the first person to climb Mt. Everest without mountain climbing equipment. I climbed Mt. Everest just using corn holders.”

A reviewer for the Hollywood Reporter once wrote that Kosser, who will be at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano tonight, has “the inflections, delivery and comedy of a Woody Allen.” Bespectacled though he is, Kosser is not so sure about the Woody Allen comparison. “I don’t know,” he said during a recent phone interview. “I don’t really think so.”

Well, how would he describe his comedy style?

“I’m probably not the one to ask,” he said. “I’m not comfortable talking about me. I’m realizing that now.”

As his Mt. Everest comment indicated, he seems more comfortable veering to the left than providing straight answers. Asked about his childhood, for instance, he said:

“My parents separated when I was a child and met again years later by accident when they were both backup singers for Bob Marley.”

OK.

Does he wear his wire-rim glasses merely as a stage prop or are they for real?

“My eyes are getting worse,” he answered. “I can still see the sunrise and the sunset. Except now I have to stand closer.”

What does he talk about in his act?

“I’d say some of the subject matter I do might overlap (other) subject matter that you hear, but I think I do it with a wit that makes it all my own,” he said. “It’s like if I would talk about being on airplane, what I’d say is that I can’t sleep in those seats. I don’t think anyone can. I bet if they took Sunny von Bulow, the heiress from Rhode Island who’s been in a coma for eight years, and put her in an airplane seat and set it back, she’d wake up and say, ‘I can’t sleep in that position.’

“I think I create my own world, an offbeat world but laced with reality.” He provided another example:

“My parents never said they loved me. They said they liked me and hoped that someday it would grow into something really special. But in the end they said they just didn’t want to get involved in another relationship.

“My parents wanted to adopt children, which is the truth. But they weren’t able to adopt children. Instead, they had to have their own children. As a result, they always resented me for not being adopted.”

What’s his on-stage delivery like?

“I think it’s seductive,” he said. “And I ask the women in the audience to use a shoe box and put a hole through it and look at me the way they’d look at an eclipse and that way I won’t feel responsible.

“I just got a divorce,” he added. “Well, I knew. I could tell when the anniversary cake had a red circle with a line through it that things just weren’t working out.

“Do you want to know the truth? I asked her to tell me what she knew about the birds and the bees and she told me they were neurotic and they manipulated each other.”

Asked if he has anything special planned for the Coach House, he said, “See what you think of this: I was thinking of having Kim Basinger hold onto my ankles and read a book the entire show. I’d even drag her as I move across the stage. And the women in the audience would say, ‘That’s really chauvinistic. That’s awful.’ Kim would say, ‘I didn’t realize it. I was reading a book.’ And the men in the audience would say, ‘She must really love him.’ ”

Sharing the bill with Kosser will be Bobby Gaylor, who is known for discussing male-female relationships in a “sexually truthful” manner; Erin O’Connor, who talks about everything from family life and being single to sports and life on the road, and Gerry Bednob, the self-proclaimed “Turban Cowboy,” a Bangladesh native known for his rapid-fire ethnic remarks (“Are there any lepers here?”).

Bobby Kosser, Bobby Gaylor, Erin O’Connor and Gerry Bednob perform tonight at 9 at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. Tickets: $10. Information: (714) 496-8930.