Girl Behaving Badly

November 12, 2006

    I knew my interview with comedian Chelsea Handler was going to be a unique experience just by the reaction of the clerk at the Harvard Coop when I asked for a copy of her book, ''My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands.''  ''We don't carry that,'' he sniffed. ''I'm not sure we would even order it.''  Luckily, the folks at Borders not only carried the book, but had it on display in the humor section, where it belongs.

    ''I'm not surprised,'' Handler said when I finally got her on the phone and told her the story. ''It's like nobody else ever woke up naked next to a midget. I guess I'm the only one who finds it funny enough to want to tell other people about it.''

    Handler, who will be performing locally Thursday through next Saturday, is a welcome addition to the world of comedy, a sassy woman who has no trouble making a fool of herself - or of you, for that matter - if it means getting a laugh. She's not mean-spirited in her observations, just a lot more direct and honest than the majority of comics these days.

    “I guess I'm an acquired taste. Some people love me and some people hate me, and that's fine because comedy is so subjective,'' she said. ''My comedy is observational, if you have to label it. Some of the things I talk about happened to me and some of them happened to friends, but I say it happened to me because they would be mortified if they thought I was telling people it happened to them. And some of it is born out of just how ridiculous life can be, whether you're single and dating or someone who gets married and overnight it turns into a nightmare.''

    Although she may be an acquired taste, Handler, 31, hasn't had much trouble finding people with an appetite for her work, whether on television (''Girls Behaving Badly,'' ''The Chelsea Handler Show''), in books (''My Horizontal Life'' and the upcoming ''Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea'') or from the stage.

    Asked which part of her career she is proudest of, Handler paused a minute.  ''I think writing the books,'' she said. ''I mean, I didn't even graduate college, so the idea that I actually wrote a book that got published just blows me away. It made my family the proudest, too. I mean, they see me on television or doing stand-up and they think, 'Oh, it's just Chelsea being Chelsea.' But actually sitting down and writing a book was a different kind of achievement. When it came out, my dad would go into bookstores and make sure they had it, which is just so cute.''

    Being on television is something Handler never thought she'd be good at, particularly if she was forced to fit into somebody else's idea of what she should do to get laughs.

    ''I'm not a sitcom kind of comedian. I don't think I'll be playing somebody's housewife anytime soon,'' she said. ''I've been lucky that people give me a chance anyway to prove myself, first as part of the ensemble cast on 'Girls Behaving Badly' and now on my own show. The producers of 'The Chelsea Handler Show' (on E!) have enough faith in me to put myself in situations and let me be myself and do a lot of improv. So far we've done eight episodes, and we're waiting to hear if they want more.''

And if the network decides it doesn't want more shows, Handler will always be able to find a stage, a microphone and an audience willing to listen to her unique take on life as she knows it.