Sacramento’s Keith Lowell Jensen releases comedy CD and DVD

The Sacramento comedian behind the 2009 comedy CD To the Moon and the 2008 film Why Lie? I Need a Drink—which is half comedy and half documentary about life on the streets—had to be “dragged kicking and screaming” into making a comedy DVD. That’s surprising, considering how much Keith Lowell Jensen likes attention. His problem wasn’t a fear of attention—or of a camera—but rather a perfectionist’s desire to get it right. And he was calmed by the idea of being on an exploitation label.

“My feeling is that, when you’ve got no budget, you can produce a CD and the production quality is as good as anything out there, but with a DVD, it’s going to show,” Jensen told SN&R.

“I’m a filmmaker at heart, but the reason I’ve made so few films is that I like to work within the resources that I have, and I just felt you needed more resources for a good comedy DVD.”

So how did he end up with Cats Made of Rabbits, his latest comedy collection which debuts this week, in both CD and DVD formats? (Full disclosure: This critic once lectured Jensen about homophobia, and so earned a credit for the homophobia joke on the DVD.)

Jensen was convinced by Jonathan Morken of Apprehensive Films, a Citrus Heights-based company that specializes in grindhouse-style films.

“He’s got a good sense of comedic timing and a good sense of my timing,” said Jensen. “So he did a few shorts that convinced me to do it.”

Jensen is quite pleased to have Cats Made of Rabbits, sharing space with titles like Naked Massacre and Night of Bloody Horror.

“So my label mates are Crippled Masters—the kung fu team where one guy has no arms and one guy has no legs? And Rat Man,” said Jensen. He’s particularly proud of being shelved with the rodent hero.

“He’s a little person who is a national hero in—God, is it Peru? They love him. He’s like a national star for these Rat Man movies he did,” said Jensen. “We all find our little niches.”

Jensen’s niche? Well, if you listen closely, there’s a body part that keeps recurring in his comedy. But when it’s pointed out that he seems to have an obsession with dicks, Jensen is quick to rebut.

“No, that’s just being honest,” he said. “Half of the population is obsessed with dicks, and that is the half that has them. We are 100 percent obsessed with dicks.”

“Especially when we put mustaches on them,” he continued, describing parties that the distaff half of humanity isn’t supposed to know about.

“It’s a straight-guy thing. We get together, we put mustaches on our dicks and we walk around and talk to each other, but we let our dicks do the talking. ‘Oh, hello, Keith’s dick!’ ‘Yes, hello, Jim’s dick!’”

That might explain why Jensen’s become a favorite of porn stars like Maggie Mayhem and Camille Crimson, both of whom he “met” through Twitter. Jensen, who’s an advocate of a subset of porn he calls NFD (“not fucking disgusting”) appreciates their work.

“So talk about finding a niche! The pornography industry is bigger than music and television combined,” he said. “It’s, you know, it. So if someone’s going to promote me to that audience, then wow, you bet! I’ll take them.”

Of course, one might get the idea that Jensen is really weird, but that’s not entirely true.

“I have a little note above my desk that says ‘Don’t ad lib during interviews,’” he said.

“I don’t stick to it.”