Richard Jeni, R.I.P.

Boy, I don't get this one at all. They're saying stand-up comic Richard Jeni committed suicide yesterday morning. There was no apparent reason, no apparent warning sign…nothing.

He was a very funny boy. Back here, I highly recommended his latest (and I guess now, last) HBO Special. I'd still recommend just about anything he did, though it may be a little harder to laugh at it after this. He was a very simple, straightforward comedian whose act seemed derivative of no one else. It came from nothing but his own sense of humor. On stage, he projected the image of a guy who really had a sane, common sense attitude towards the world. Which I guess is one of the things that makes it hard to accept that he did what they say he did.

Last week was the 25th anniversary of the death of John Belushi, who committed his own kind of suicide with drugs and the way he lived. I thought about posting something here but didn't get around to it. If I had, it would have been about how (to me) the most tragic part of Belushi's passing was that everyone knew in advance how it would end. In fact, it wasn't necessary to even announce the cause. When it first hit the news wires, they just said that John Belushi had been found dead and everyone just kind of shrugged and assumed, "Drug overdose." Some people thought they heard the TV and radio news reports give the cause of death hours before they actually did. It was that expected.

People talking about Jeni's death are probably going to mention Belushi and also Freddie Prinze. I knew Freddie a little bit, though not well. At the time he shot himself, I was working for the outfit that produced his show, Chico and the Man, and while I don't think anyone there expected the guy to take his own life, no one seemed all that stunned that something dark and tragic occurred. The warning signs were there.

And then you have something like this. I never met Richard Jeni. I'm not sure I ever even saw him perform live, though I know that recently, when I saw he was playing the Improv in Hollywood or the Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach, I thought, "Hey, maybe I'll get a group together and we'll go see him." (Let that be a lesson to me about putting things off 'til the next time.) Maybe there was a dark side that never showed itself on stage. Maybe those who knew him well aren't stunned at the news, I dunno. It's just a kick in the gut for some of us.

Elayne Boozler remembers the guy. I know I will.