popular thinking

UP LATE WITH DAVE ATTELL, NOW IN BOSTON

There are morning people, there are night people, and then there’s Dave Attell - best known for his late-night escapades on Comedy Central’s Insomniac yet doomed to a vicious cycle of morning radio interviews to promote his weekend club gigs.
How can he pull it off?
"I guess there’s a lot of ways to adapt,” Attell said. "If you’re in jail, they get you up early.”
Though still a free man, the comic no longer does new episodes of Insomniac, ending his run earlier this year with a Comedy Central special filmed in Las Vegas. That hasn’t stopped Attell from working the circuit and hitting lots of bars.
"I’m doing a new show called 'Why Aren’t You Doing That Show Anymore?’ ” he said.
At that moment, the front desk at his hotel in Orlando, Fla., called to tell him he would have to switch rooms.
"Somebody has the jones for this room,” he said. "I’ll just take whatever room you give me, but I just wonder what kind of people say, 'I have a loveless marriage. Can you give me a room with double beds?’ ”
Later this month, Attell reunites with Lewis Black (they did a nationwide theater tour two years ago) for a performance at the new HBO Comedy Festival in Las Vegas.
He enjoys watching HBO’s Rome - "So is Christ going to show up at the end? Is he going to do a walk-on?” - and is pulling for the success of comic Louis CK’s new show.
"At the end of the day, it comes down to the American people, and they want to see Amy Grant granting wishes,” Attell said.
That’s not a bad thing, but he said the wishes usually are pretty tame. ”It’s never, you know, I’d like a three-way,” he said.
Which is why Attell remains a late-night kind of guy.

Dave Attell performs tonight and Sunday at the Comedy Connection Boston in Faneuil Hall Marketplace. Tonight at 8, 10:15 and 11:59, Sunday at 7 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. Tickets: $32. Call 617-248-9700.