Joker as a rocker god

Clad head to toe in skin-tight Johnny Cash black, Russell Brand mounted the stage at Hollywood's venerable rock venue the Roxy Theatre on a recent Sunday looking every inch the louche, preening British rock star of archetype. His haystack of "Edward Scissorhands"-esque hair: impressively vertical. His winkle-picker boots: pointy and sharp. Brand's shirt was unbuttoned nearly to his waist, revealing a cluster of silver Gypsy medallions as he looked up to face the capacity crowd.

Then he started talking. Because Brand -- who ends a six-week "residence" of sold-out Roxy dates Sunday night (several were added "due to overwhelming demand," according to the venue website) -- had come to rock the house with jokes, not music.

The UK native is a superstar in Britain, with household-name status and a kind of sudden cultural ubiquity, not unlike Paris Hilton's a few years back. The difference? There's no sex tape and he's actually talented. Among his bona fides across the pond: a bestselling memoir called "My Booky Wook" (which earlier this week netted Brand a multimillion-dollar two-book deal with HarperCollins), reported "canoodling" with supermodel Kate Moss, and writing a column about soccer for the liberal newspaper the Guardian.

Entreating British people in the crowd to vouch for him, Brand asked, "I'm famous in England, right?" Then he paused, somewhat dissatisfied with the amount of qualifying applause.

"Without fame, my whole persona doesn't work," Brand said gripping the mike stand. "My haircut just looks like mental illness."

It would be an evening of ribald sex tips and athletic pelvic thrusts with plenty of simulated masturbation and frequent references to his "selection process" for the groupie love session he promised would get underway posthaste post-show.

While staying within his dandyish sexual persona, though, Brand would also treat the crowd to surprising bursts of erudition and candor. The comedian interspersed laughs with illuminating glimpses at his troubled relationship with his father and casually referenced philosophers Wittgenstein and Nietzsche. He also used the words "churlish," "recalcitrant" and "apotheosis" in context and without any apparent condescension to the beer-chugging crowd.