Shang Is Not Afraid of the Dark Stuff : The Comic, Due at the Coach House Sunday, Describes His Act as ‘Twisted and Bizarre’

Shang--his full name--is the kind of comedian who wears rectangular sunglasses and a grinning skull and crossbones on his hat, and who informs his audience that he just bought a gun--to kill the New Kids on the Block.

“I played the New Kids backward the other day and heard the Osmonds. I hate them,” he says. “If it was up to me, it would be Dead Kids on a Rock.”

Shang, who will be one of four comedians to perform at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano on Sunday, describes his act as “twisted and bizarre stuff mixed with political and social statements.” Twisted and bizarre? Beating meter maids on the legs with a baseball bat, for example. Or his father’s glass eye. Or cannibalism.

Cannibals, he says, love Domino’s Pizza--”not for the pizza, but for the delivery guy.”

Shang--whose moniker “the Powercat of Comedy” refers to his aggressive, animated stage presence--advises those who plan to see him at the Coach House “not to come with a closed mind. “because if you do,” he said with a laugh, “you’ll think I’m Satan.

“Some of my jokes are kind of out there,” he conceded by phone from his home in Los Angeles this week. “But if you come and take me literally, you probably have a scary problem. I want to be funny. That’s the bottom line.”

Still, Shang thinks comedians should use humor to say something, to “make people think about things.” In his act, he talks about abortion, AIDS, the environment and racism. (“Racism is going to end because the way we’re messing with the ozone layer, pretty soon everybody’s going to be black.”)

About nine years ago, back when his name was still Shang Forbes, he was working as an illustrator in Pittsburgh and a friend bet him $50 that he wouldn’t get onstage during open-mike night at a comedy club. Shang won the bet and did well enough that the club owner asked him back the next week.

He said he did a fairly standard stand-up act until about 3 1/2 years ago, when he noticed that many of the comics he saw on TV were “meshing together.” He wanted to stand out from the crowd.

“I was doing a lot of stuff just to get ahead instead of doing what I want to do,” he said, comparing his predicament to that of bands that do cover songs instead of their own music.

Shang’s newer, more bizarre material and his confrontational style have prompted some to call his comedy controversial. Does he agree? “I want to talk about stuff that’s happening,” he said. “If that’s controversial, I guess I am. You can’t ignore that we just had a riot or that Roe vs. Wade is getting undercut. You’ve got to say something about that.”

Speaking of the Los Angeles riots, he observes that “when things are free, they get very light. Grandmothers carrying sofas is kind of scary. . . . I think most of the looters were idiots. What were they thinking? ‘Rodney King! Rodney King didn’t get a fair shake, man. I need a TV set!’ ”

* Shang, Bill Torres, Arthur Montmortency and Jeff Capri perform Sunday at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. Show time: 7 p.m. Tickets: $10. (714) 496-8930.