Richard Lewis' program is driving him a little wacky

Richard Lewis is a British writer and musician living in Paris, France

He works in video, broadcast, print
and online media.

His articles have appeared in the Times, the Guardian, the Observer, New Statesman and the Author, along with numerous business journals.

The 92nd Street Y is one thing - but the Oxonian Society?

That invitation, from the group "dedicated to provocative discussion and debate with the world's best and most interesting minds," as its literature puts it, has made Richard Lewis a little crazy.

Like Lewis needs any help in that department.

"What's the spread on my doing well?" he asks by telephone from his home in the Hollywood Hills. "I am a little intimidated. I scrolled through their Web site, and the list of speakers is, like, Madeleine Albright, Carl Bernstein, Gandhi's nephew - and me. I mean, I'm very proud - but I hope it's not like being picked on in history class."

Lewis will be doing standup comedy this Friday and Saturday at Comix (353 W. 14th St.). He also has appearances lined up in New York in April: He'll be interviewed onstage by MSNBC's Keith Olbermann at the 92nd Street Y April 27 and will speak at the Oxonian Society April 28.

He hopes all this activity will help draw attention to the paperback reissue of his 2000 memoir, "The Other Great Depression," which Public Affairs is bringing out with a new afterword. The book chronicles his career, his life and his struggle with alcoholism.

If anything, he says, he hopes that the cadre of young fans who've discovered him through his buddy Larry David's show, "Curb Your Enthusiasm" (on which Lewis plays himself), will bring a new set of readers to his message about how he values his 14 years of sobriety.

"My goal with the book was never financial," Lewis says. "The book was trying to save lives and talk about my alcoholism. I want to get the book out for a new audience."

The notoriously prickly David (a friend of Lewis' since boyhood, when they met at a summer camp) even gave him a blurb for the book cover. Which leads Lewis to a memory of New York days scuffling with David before the two standups had found success.

"Larry is the only guy I've ever seen who fled group therapy. He ran out of there like we were the pogrom," Lewis says. "He had very little tolerance for the structure of group therapy. We chased him down First Avenue, and he was hiding in a phone booth, saying: 'You guys are crazy! I don't need to hear this!'"

Lewis has been doing standup for most of his adult life, starting years before anyone had considered the concept of a comedy club or a cable comedy channel. His free association inevitably draws upon his own neuroses, beginning with his family and working through his problems with women (though he's been happily married since 2005).

"I had a scary moment when I was starting out, because I'd watch these guys with props, or people like Robin Williams with impressions and topical comedy, and I'd think, 'I can't do any of that,' " Lewis says. "I realized I have no ability expect to be as fearless as I can about my own problems and hope it's funny."

Lewis turned 60 last summer and, needless to say, it was not a happy day.

"Oh, it was horrible!" he says. "I started getting that AARP magazine, and I'm reading it when my wife's not home. Like I'm hiding a Playboy in my closet from my parents. I find myself skimming the table of contents and thinking, 'Oh, there are other people who have a rash that looks like Saturn [down there].' Now I find that every article is about me. It's disgusting!"