an old-timey bad-guy hipness, keyed to such idols as Lee Marvin and the Duke, playactors of a cartoon manhood that, in these days of rehab, a smarmy men's movement and general panic, seems fresh yet familiar. And despite his gutter mouth, he ultimately champions such traditional values as self-reliance, work and realism. "I'm just not happy, because my life didn't turn out the way I wanted," he says, mimicking some "whining maggot" – to which, as working-stiff survivor, he replies, "Hey, join the fucking club."

Barry Manilow, bell-bottoms and animal-rights wimps are among his targets – it doesn't take a big gun to slay them. And his theatrical cigarette addiction only underscores today's desperate Puritanism; the thought of anyone winning rebel status merely by smoking would've drawn guffaws from Lenny Bruce. But Leary catches real fire when he swings off a riff that's frighteningly dear to his Irish Catholic background: death obsession.

Claiming he covets a tracheotomy in order to inhale two cigs at once, Leary slams into creep-show fantasy; he's grooving on throat cancer and the hope of getting one of those funky voice boxes so that he can pull up to McDonald's and spin robot repartee with the microphoned dork inside. His death one-liners are among his best: "Poor Lou Gehrig, he died of Lou Gehrig's disease. How the hell did he not see that coming?" And his gleeful self-destructiveness ("The filter's the best part. That's where they put the heroin!" or his saluting of death as "the ultimate high") adds chills to our giggles, making Leary more than just another punk shtick meister.

Leary is fine as a pop-culture cynic, and his attacks on crybabies are sharp ("I've got a new book, Shut the Fuck Up, by Dr. Denis Leary"). But it's in scaring and thrilling us with the Grim Reaper that he slices truly deep. (RS 651)

PAUL EVANS