LADY SLINGS THE BLUES : Bawdy Sheila Kay Says That Colorful Language and Subject Matter Are Just Her in the Flesh

In describing stand-up comic Sheila Kay, a reviewer once summed her up best by saying what she isn’t: demure, coquettish and dainty. Put another way, she’s overbearing, blunt and bawdy, with a sense of humor that tends to run the color of a Smurf.

“I’m not a G-rated comic by any stretch of the imagination,” concedes Kay, who’s headlining at the Laff Stop in Newport Beach through Sunday.

“I do a lot on real-life stuff that people deal with, like being fat, losing weight, dating--and the lack thereof--relationships and older women/younger boys, which I think is very important.”

Kay, a twice-married Detroit native who started in stand-up a dozen years ago, comes on strong on stage, liberally sprinkling her routines with references to sex, body parts and bodily functions.

“I’m definitely aggressive,” she said in an interview, likening herself to a combination of Bette Midler and Joan Rivers, although “I don’t really like to be compare myself to Joan Rivers. I think when you’re a female comic and you are strong and aggressive and a little overbearing and obnoxious, we all are going to get lumped into the same category.”

She paused. “I’m not really obnoxious, God! . . . Oh, maybe I am. I don’t know.”

Her stage persona is, Kay said, “just me. This really is my personality. I don’t have a stage character or props. It’s just me talking about my real stuff--about my mammogram, my last boyfriend, whatever it is. That’s my act.”

The only part of her act that is not really true, she said, “is that I don’t really go out with young boys anymore. Actually, now I want old men that are ready to kick and leave me their money.”

One of the greatest appeals of Kay’s act is her self-deprecating humor.

At one point, she compares herself to the lithe young girls with the gold belly chains at the beach who walk out of the water with “sticky little wet suits” and “glossy water droplets” clinging to their perfect bodies.

Not her: “I walk out of the water . . . . I got that sand ball hanging in my suit. It looks like a baby diaper swaying when I’m walking.”

Her appearance is a recurring theme in Kay’s act. In fact, the first joke she ever told on a comedy club stage was a fat joke: “I went on that new 14-day diet and all I lost was two weeks.”

Twelve years later and 25 pounds lighter, Kay may be on her way to winning the battle of the bulge, but the war isn’t over.

“Do you remember those women on ‘Showtime Aerobicize’?” she says in her act. “Nobody looks like that. I mean, these women are perfect on TV. Hair doesn’t move. Makeup doesn’t move. They don’t sweat. And they’ve got teensie little headbands on. Very feminine. I go to exercise class at the gym. I sweat like a pig! I’m wearing a bedsheet wrapped around my head. Zits are popping out. I’m having asthma attacks. Not too attractive. And I’m thinking, ‘All right, all right, I’m kind of a saggy little fat pig, but who is this poor fat ugly (broad) next to me?

“Then I realized I was at the end of the room with a mirror on the wall.”

Who: Sheila Kay.

When: Thursday, April 9, at 8:30 and 10:30 p.m.; Friday, April 10, at 8, 10 and 11:45 p.m.; Saturday, April 11, at 8, 10 and 11:45 p.m.; and Sunday, April 12, at 8:30 p.m. With Craig Higgins.

Where: The Laff Stop, 2122 S.E. Bristol St., Newport Beach.

Whereabouts: From the Corona del Mar (73) Freeway, take the Irvine Avenue/Campus Drive exit onto Bristol Street and go south one block.

Wherewithal: $7 to $10.

Where to call: (714) 852-8762.