The slight, generously eyebrowed fella gives off a quiet, owns-more-than-two-cats vibe. In the film version of Sesame Street, he'd play Bert, only with more Jewish undertones. He clings to the microphone as if it were a crack pipe, his eyes alternately squinting and bugging out uncomfortably. The host said something about Comedians of Comedy, the San Francisco Comedy Competition and winning a fake-sounding prize called the Andy Kaufman Award. Guess that makes him a standup. Only — where are the jokes about dating mishaps? Why isn't he exaggeratedly ranting about the flaws in the social-political spectrum? Why is he instead cursing in a bad Russian accent through the entire 26-letter alphabet? Why is he rigidly hunched over, jerkily snapping his hands like crab claws as bygone video-game themes bleep and bloop overhead? Why is it the most absurd and flat-out hilarious thing you've witnessed in your sheltered life? And why, when you visit Brent Weinbach's Web site, is his only CD out of print? Fortunately this week sees the release of new album The Night Shift, as well as an album-release celebration/Comedy Death Ray show featuring Patton Oswalt and Todd Barry. Since spastic crab dances don't translate particularly well to audio formats, the disk features fresh strains of Weinbach's otherworldly weirdness, deadpan and demented as never before. The cats'll be so proud.

Tue., Sept. 15, 8:30 p.m., 2009

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