Saturday Night Live’s Goat Boy brings his blue-collar standup act to Olympia

He was Goat Boy on “Saturday Night Live” in the late 1990s. He starred in the 1998 stoner flick “Half-Baked.” He fronted a heavy-metal album, 2016’s “Songs From the Garage.”

But when he performs Sunday in Olympia, Jim Breuer just wants to make you laugh.

“The show is straight-up stand-up,” he said in a recent phone interview.

In fact, he said he’s just a regular Joe — er, Jim.

“I’m very real, very blue-collar relatable,” he said. “That’s where I’m at in life. That’s what I’ve been doing the last decade or so.”

If touring comedians wear blue collars, there’s no questioning that.

Sunday’s show is his only stop in Washington, coming after dates in New Mexico and Nevada. As of Monday, 70 percent of tickets had been sold, said promoter Baurice Nelson of Olympia.

Though he’s focused on “clean but not soft” stand-up, Breuer continues to work in multiple media. He’s part of the cast of Kevin James’ CBS sitcom “Kevin Can Wait,” he works in films and can be seen and heard regularly on late-night TV and on “The Howard Stern Show” (where he still pulls out his famed Joe Pesci impersonation every now and again).

But even during his heady “Saturday Night Live” days — when other regulars included Will Ferrell, Molly Shannon and David Spade — he never got caught up in the celebrity lifestyle.

“People know me as the guy who was on SNL 20 years ago or the guy that did a movie years ago,” he said. “They think I live in the hills of Hollywood. I never moved to California. I hate Hollywood.”

He grew up the son of a sanitation worker in Valley Stream on Long Island, New York, and now lives in “the middle of nowhere, New Jersey” — also known as Chester (population 7,838), about 40 miles west of New York City.

“I’ve always kept my feet grounded with morality and realistic views, rather than the hoopla of what Hollywood sells,” he said.

In fact, he’s currently starting his shows with a look at the sex scandals flooding Hollywood. “I have some deep moral against-the-grain views on all that stuff, and I attack it pretty darn hard,” he said. “Although I make it hilarious.”

He incorporates material that’s topical but not political, dismissing politics as “professional wrestling on a whole new level of brainwashing.”

But his stand-up, like his life, is focused largely on his family — his wife, Dee, and daughters, ages 19, 15 and 12.

“They don’t like me getting too personal,” he said of the kids, “but I continue to tell them, ‘This is the world I’m in. I won’t get too personal, but it’s all about relatability.’”

These days, he’s relating to those with rapidly emptying nests.

“When my oldest went to college, I was heartbroken, but I have to say, the day she left, I felt like I’d kicked a ball through a field goal,” he said. “I went, ‘Oh, my god, this is liberating.’

“I looked at my wife and said, ‘How much left of this? Six more years to the last one! Let’s rush these kids out of here and start our second stage of life.’ ”

This story was originally published January 26, 2018 at 7:36 AM with the headline "Saturday Night Live’s Goat Boy brings his blue-collar standup act to Olympia."