MORE COMEDY : Check Out Rick Najera Under ‘Latino’ at Library

Humorist Rick Najera has done his one-man show, “The Pain of the Macho,” in theaters across the country. But on Saturday, he’ll be performing at a different kind of venue: the San Juan Capistrano Regional Library.

“This is my first library ever,” Najera said. “In fact, I don’t even have a library card.”

“The Pain of the Macho,” Najera explained in a phone interview from Los Angeles, “is basically a comic exploration of Latino issues in the ‘90s seen through the eyes of various characters.”

Najera, who has been dubbed “the most innovative Latino humorist in the country today” by Latin Style magazine, said the show’s title comes from a line in which a character named Alejandro “talks about being a macho. He says machos are in every culture. The only difference between the Anglo macho and the Latino macho is this: Anglo machos normally attack in large groups after U.N. approval. Latino machos normally attack after a soccer game, for some reason.”

Alejandro is one of eight Latino characters Najera plays in the show.

There’s also a college professor who teaches Macho 101 out of his home because he lost his job. Says Najera: “He said he was framed by feministas. “

Another character is Slow Guy: “He’s a gang tagger, but all he really wants to be is an extra in the movies. He says, ‘I’ve been an extra all my life. I know how to be an extra.”’

Then there’s Bufford Gomez, “a Mexican American INS officer working at the San Clemente border checkpoint. His thing is, he has a border conversion when he finds an illegal immigrant is struck crossing the highway. In the end, his most telling line is this: ‘If the original Mexican border patrol guys had pulled over more Anglos, this would still be Mexico.”’

Najera even plays a woman, Miss East L.A., who refuses to give up her crown at the end of her reign.

The Sacramento Bee called Najera’s show “stinging ethnic satire at its best,” adding that Anglos and Latinos alike are “exposed without rancor or malice.”

“What’s great about it,” said Najera, is that in the end, “Anglos and Latinos are brought a little closer to each other because of humor.”

Najera, 34, is a San Diego native who studied acting at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. He was a writer on the Fox network’s “In Living Color” and wrote and performed on Fox’s “The Robert Townsend Show” and “Culture Clash,” a Mexican American version of “In Living Color.”

He also co-wrote and starred in “Latinos Anonymous,” a series of sketches and monologues that ran in theaters and colleges around the country from 1989 to ’93.

* Who: Rick Najera.

* When: Saturday, March 11, at 8 p.m.

* Where: San Juan Capistrano Regional Library, 31495 El Camino Real.

* Whereabouts: Take the Ortega Highway exit off the San Diego (405) Freeway and go west. Turn right on El Camino Real. Drive one block; the library is on the left-hand corner.

* Wherewithal: $5 adults; $3 for children 12 and under.

* Where to call: (714) 493-1752.