Wayne Federman has excelled at stand-up comedy for so long, he can divide his material into chunks, as he calls them. For his upcoming headline appearance at the annual Chopshticks comedy event in Palo Alto, he’ll be drawing on his chunk of Jewish jokes.
And he’s got a million of ’em. Federman has played synagogues and Jewish weddings and toured Israel twice. Throw in his upbringing in heavily Jewish South Florida (a place he calls “a nice fountain of comedy”), and Federman will be ready to wow them at Chopshticks.
The Chinese food-and-comedy event takes place Dec. 24 at the Oshman Family JCC in Palo Alto.
Federman, 56, is a familiar face on the stand-up circuit, as well as the screen, big and small. He’s appeared in shows such as “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “New Girl” and films like “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” and he was a staff writer for “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.”
He is also an accomplished musician (he often plays piano in his stage act) and author, having written a decidedly serious biography of the late-basketball great “Pistol” Pete Maravich.
One stand-up comedy requirement that had eluded him until recently was his own comedy album. This year, he released “The Chronicles of Federman,” a 3-CD set of material that spans his entire career, from the early 1980s through 2015.
“There was a taping system at the Comic Strip in New York,” he says. “That’s where a good chunk of the early stuff came from. Then there are recordings from different venues.”
His bits cover everything from bad haircuts to working out, from mocking Chuck E. Cheese restaurants to ribbing celebrities. His line “I’ve come to really admire Woody Allen; it’s been 14 years and he’s still married to the same daughter” was voted the No. 4 best joke of 2010 by the New York Post.
Though he’s every bit the baby boomer, Federman wasn’t completely removed from the shtetl origins of his grandparents. He remembers his parents conversing in Yiddish when they didn’t want the kids to know what they were saying. Notes Federman wistfully, “At no point did they realize this is where the language dies.”
Though he’s been in the comedy game for more than 30 years, Federman admits he still occasionally feels paralyzed with fear before a show. That may be because he works without a net. He doesn’t precisely write out his material, preferring to have topics to cover while leaving room to improvise.
“It’s so individual,” Federman says of the many approaches to the art of stand-up. “It’s not like playing piano, where you have to be able to play this with your left hand, that with your right, and still keep time.”
So Federman does keep that notepad in his pocket, carrying it at all times to jot down his observations about life. Perhaps that’s how the L.A. resident came up with this insight about the Jewish people:
“I love Judaism because it’s the ultimate pro-choice religion,” he jokes. “There are so many levels you can worship on: Reform, Conservative and Orthodox, and even within those there are many levels. But I find that whatever level of that ladder you land on, the Jews above you are always ‘crazy people’ and the Jews below you are ‘not really Jewish.’ ”
Wayne Federman headlines Chopshticks, 7:45 p.m. Dec. 24 at the Oshman Family JCC, 3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto. $55-$60. www.paloaltojcc.org/events/chopshticks