R.I.P. Richard Jeni

Now this one threw me for a loop.

Comedian, Richard Jeni, is dead from an apparent suicide. Police say his girlfriend called them and said he had shot himself in the face. They found him alive but he died later.

Jeni was never exactly "stable," but it was never certain just how much of that was his onstage personality and how much of that was the man, himself. While reports indicate that suicide has not been verified as the cause of death, his girlfriend is apparently not in custody at this time.

If you are unfamiliar with his work, it was acerbic, hard-bitten, street-level stuff. Jeni excelled at cutting remarks in that Don Rickles style: he could be clever, insulting, or downright mean, but rarely did he seem like a very pleasant guy to be around. You could tell there were some demons lurking about, but I really never expected anything like this.

Jeni was around for years and years and pretty much everyone knew him, so you can expect more to come of this story... or not. That is to say, you'll definitely hear other performers wish him goodbye, but the exact details may never surface.

Either way it goes, the world is a little bit poorer for his loss.