Catholicism, cats and comedian Al Del Bene

after viewing a few clips of his standup act, is like a dirty Jerry Seinfeld.

Del Bene laughed.

"A dirty Seinfeld. Sounds like a nasty sexual act," he said during a phone interview from his home in Los Angeles.

That was the first thing that popped in his mind. One might suspect that's how his mind works, after seeing him talk about being raised Catholic with the guilt about having a "onesome," or how he was fascinated by the cat when he was 12 and hitting puberty.

But there is more to Del Bene, he protested.

"I think that I'm also smart and witty and clever," he said in a mock-conceited tone. "If it's just dirty, it's a turnoff. I think I've kind of made it work for me."

Del Bene had just gotten back from a USO tour of Iraq, where he and comedy partners Dane Cook and Robert Kelly went on a stand-up blitz in May, base-hopping in a Blackhawk.

How was it?
 

"Hot. It was about 115 degrees during the day. But the overall experience was really incredible, really amazing. We didn't stop the whole week. We did nine shows in four days, and the last two days we were doing three shows a day at different bases."
They performed for appreciative soldiers in groups as large as 3,000.

"It was just crazy."

Del Bene is from the school of Cook's energetic comedy -- in fact, he went to high school with Cook in Cambridge, Mass. They were friends who shared a love of comedy. Just after graduating in 1990, they hit the clubs separately. Soon they found Kelly and formed a sketch comedy team Al and the Monkeys, which performed around Boston for four years.

They disbanded, and Del Bene spent time in comedy and theater, "off-off-off-off Broadway," he said. Eventually he went to L.A. to focus on comedy, ultimately hooking back up with Cook and Kelly, and appearing in Cook's "Tourgasm" series on HBO. He also was in Kalamazoo last year, opening for Kelly at The Laughing Post, where he'll pe