THE COMIC OBSERVED : Jeff Cesario Uses His Keen Powers to String Together Hit-and-Run Perceptions

Life, comedian Jeff Cesario observes on stage, is just too fast.

“Technology is just flying by me. Computers now are like working at the speed of light! I can’t learn computers at all. It’s so frustrating to me because little kids learn computers like that. We’ve got like 10-year-old kids breaking into the Defense Department com

puter. Ten! When I was 10, I was stopped cold by a Slinky. . . . I would just watch it come down the stairs mystified.” Here he takes on a goofy kid voice: “Must be remote controlled or something.”

Cesario, who is headlining at the Irvine Improv Friday through Sunday, is one of the best observational comics on the circuit. A product of the Minneapolis comedy scene that also spawned Louie Anderson in the early ‘80s, Cesario earned his first national exposure on “Late Night With David Letterman” in 1983 and has since garnered a string of “Tonight Show” appearances and two ACE Awards for Cable Excellence for his Showtime comedy specials.

Speaking by phone from Los Angeles last week, Cesario said “contemporary observational” best sums up his stand-up comedy style.

“I like to kind of dive into the mud of a topic area and play around for a while,” he said. “I’m not a storyteller. I just like to hit the observations and move, but I think it has more power when they’re collected in a group.”

In talking about how fast life is, for example, he does an extended riff on America’s love of fast food where not even the drive-through windows at fast-food restaurants are fast enough any more.

“Ideally,” he says in his act, “what we want as Americans is to be able to drive through the drive-through window at top speed: We don’t even stop, we just roll down our car window and that kid just throws food right in your mouth! We want food that will finish cooking in our esophagus!”

Karaoke bars are another pet peeve. “Bar owners,” Cesario says, “don’t even bother hiring crappy bands. You pay them: You’re your own crappy band.”

What he tries to do on stage, Cesario explained, “is to take a pause and allow people to see some of this insanity of life from a step back. If someone walks out of my show and actually thinks, ‘You know, karaoke is kind of stupid’--Bang! I’ve done it; I’ve succeeded.”

As a comedian, Cesario added, “I try to get into issues of what’s bugging the common man--health care, politics, taxes--and try and find some common ground.”

Here’s Cesario on:

* Politics: “Democrats look at half a glass of water and think, --’It’s half empty.’ Republicans look at it and think, ‘Who drank half of my water?’ ”

* Society: “Alice Cooper is drug-free and a golf nut, but half the Partridge Family’s in detox.”

* Health: “I think we’re all working out and trying to be in the best shape we possibly can because you never know when you have to run for your life nowadays.”

The bottom line to his stand-up persona, Cesario said, is “benevolent cynicism.” Which is, he acknowledged, not far from the way he is off-stage.

“Yeah,” he said, “the more I can be myself on stage the better, the more I turn it into just a conversation the better. It’s kind of a common-man survival guide.”

Cesario, who grew up in Wisconsin, started writing humor for print while attending the University of Wisconsin, where he earned a degree in communications.

“I worked on the student paper ostensibly as a sports writer,” he said, “but I never let the facts get in the way of a good joke.”

Cesario said he gets the “same kick” out of his daily two-minute sports reports on KROQ, where he is the voice of sportscaster Chet Waterhouse.

“The great thing is, Chet is really just out in left field--the classic, loud sports-coated blowhard sportscaster,” Cesario said, adding that KROQ is an alternative rock station (106.7-FM in Burbank).

“They’re not concerned about the minutia of sports. They like to hear the scores and the joke, and that’s perfect for me.”