By David Macaray

BEFORE THERE WAS Lenny Bruce, Stan Freberg or the Smothers Brothers, there was Mort Sahl—the undisputed inventor and gold standard of what has come to be known as political comedy.

While Milton Berle was still getting laughs dressing up in women's clothes, and Henny Youngman was telling mother-in-law jokes on the Ed Sullivan show, Mort Sahl was dazzling audiences with stream-of-consciousness riffs on Eisenhower, Freud, the Cold War and relationships.

No audience had ever seen or heard anything remotely like him; there were no antecedents, no obvious comparisons, nothing to prepare anyone for an act so daring, so subversively hip.

Indeed, when Mort Sahl burst on the scene that December night in 1953, at San Francisco's legendary jazz club, the Hungry i, he was a bona fide, one-of-a-kind original.

And the rest, as they like to say in show business, is history. Sahl went on to become the first comedian to win a Grammy, the first to make the cover of Time magazine and the first to address the National Press Club.

Happily, Mort Sahl is not only alive and well, but still performing to sold-out clubs across the country. After his recent appearances in Chicago, New York City and Boston, we caught up with him for this interview.

You've been doing this for more than 50 years. How do you put together your act? Do you improvise or use a standard format? It's improvised. It's as if you're having a conversation with the audience, and you expand upon it from night to night. You address what you think is on the unconscious mind of the audience.

Do club audiences today have shorter attention spans than they did, say, in the 1950s and 60s? Club audiences are nothing but comedians watching other comedians. You make any audience—in or out of a club—your own, by telling the truth and keeping it funny.

Would you say that younger audiences tend to be less idealistic, more cynical, today than, say, a generation ago, or is that a cliché? There has definitely been an attempt to "corporatize" young people, make them more materialistic. But if they didn't have a dream, it wouldn't have been necessary to execute Howard Dean in public, because their dreams were in his briefcase.

How do political leaders of today stack up against those of the past? There aren't any revolutionaries anymore because political leaders are chosen by corporations. How much money did Mahatma Gandhi or Che Guevara raise? How much did Kerry and Bush raise?

What is your opinion of political humorists such as Al Franken and Bill Maher? Franken is a flack for the Democratic Leadership Conference. He is a right-wing social democrat and celebrity hunter. He doesn't deal in ideas. He is somebody who stands outside the carnival tent, trying to get people to come inside. Bill Maher is a moral dyspeptic; he's morally sick to his stomach. But he has no cause. His best friends are Kid Rock, Ann Coulter and Arianna Huffington. Their humor is profane, but not funny; ruthless, but rarely humane. They are mean, but not tough.

Off the top of your head, who are some comedians you like? Chris Rock, Jimmy Tingle, Mark Russell.

You've written speeches for presidential candidates going all the way back to the 1950s. Can you offer a brief glimpse of what each man was like? Adlai Stevenson was probably the most complete human being. He was a truth-teller, one of the greatest men I ever knew. His slogan was, "It's time to talk sense to the American people." Eugene McCarthy saved the conscience of the Democratic party by opposing the Vietnam war, and John Kennedy restored the party's honor. None of these men needed a writer; they needed someone to talk to.

You've worked for Republicans as well…Reagan and Bush? President Reagan never let circumstances depress him. He was also smarter than people gave him credit for. Reagan once told me that being regarded as dumb or simplistic was something he'd actually been able to use as a weapon. And George Bush Sr. was a real intellectual, a very knowledgeable man. Gen. Alexander Haig had a rich sense of humor—as funny on the right as Gene McCarthy was on the left.

You and John Kennedy were friends. How does it make you feel knowing that the views you had about the assassination—which were considered "crazy" at the time, and which damaged your career—are, according to polls, now held by 75 percent of America? It makes me believe that some people were listening. I was reading the paper in my kitchen when the news came on the radio. He was the president of all of us, and you didn't have to be a friend or member of his family to be offended by the foulest deed in our lifetime.

Why hasn't the government officially acknowledged what the overwhelming majority now believes? Because if they were to acknowledge that there was a conspiracy, it would be incumbent upon them to find the murderers.

Why do you refer to John Kerry as "Bush Lite"? Kerry voted for the war; he voted for the Patriot Act; he wants to put 40,000 more troops in Iraq, and he wants to double the size of the Green Berets. As he said at the convention, "I'm John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty."

Have the Democrats disappointed you? The Democratic party has lost its humanity. It's relying on a con job. There is no anti-war platform; they used fenced-in "protest zones" at the convention. The Kerry people took only one phrase out of Howard Dean's speech—Kerry saying that Bush would rather burn books than read them. When Michael Moore asked, in Fahrenheit 9/11, "Where is George Bush's humanity?" You want to say, "As long as you're down there, see if you can find Kerry's, too."

What do you think of Ralph Nader? Ralph Nader is what Victor Hugo called Emile Zola: "A moment in the conscience of man."

In the 1960s you once walked off a tv panel show because of sponsor censorship. Is tv less or more "free" than it used to be? The use of profanity on commercial channels in order to make a dollar makes me yearn nostalgically for the time when tyrants tried to control the content on their networks.

How much tv do you watch these days? Any favorite shows? I mainly try to watch foreign news, PBS and the Discovery channel. Isn't television an admission that you're lonely?

In your opinion, are mainstream media too non-adversarial, too unwilling to take on our political leaders? The media are now complicit with the government because they've allowed materialism to eat away at their soul, their craft and their hope. I doubt if any of these media people could look their journalism professors in the eye.

Over the years, what have been your most controversial positions? All the ones that make me an American: pro-labor, pro-individuality, a strong belief that the majority is always wrong. Ralph Nader is a living reminder that being an American citizen is considerably harder than singing "God Bless America" at a convention.

Are you shocked that Fidel Castro is still in power? Freud is now almost obsolete, but Castro and his regime are basically unchanged. Freud is now more applicable than ever. When Freud died, some people wanted to place on his headstone the epitaph, "He introduced man to himself." Has anyone said, lately, "Glad to have met you"? [laughs] As for Castro, the reason he's on his 10th U.S. president is because he was faithful to his dream; and if you're true to your dreams, your dreams will never desert you.

You and Hugh Hefner have been friends since the 1950s. In your opinion, how will Playboy magazine go down in history? Playboy recognized the oppression of a puritan ethic in America, and, in its time, did more to promote interest in jazz than any other publication. Hef and I have been friends since 1956, and one of his greatest qualities is that he never lets a friend go.

Are you a movie buff? What are your favorite films, directors? I've been inspired by a cavalcade of movies which led us to believe we could realize our hopes for romance and justice; movies such as, Twelve O'clock High, The Quiet Man, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and One Eyed Jacks. Some of my favorite directors: William Wyler, George Cukor, Richard Brooks and Marlon Brando. Marlon was a great director, by the way.

Did you see Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ? His movie is historically inaccurate. Jesus had no constituency except his mother. Pontius Pilate is portrayed as L. Paul Bremer. With this film, Mel Gibson proved that you can embrace everything about your father's neurosis.

Tom Clancy once said that the average military general is as well-educated as the average Ph.D in history. You've known military people. Do you agree with him?

Only if the CIA talks them into going to the National War College to get their "ticket punched." They want to produce political technocrats to enforce the mistakes of our foreign policy. You're going to be a cop occupying Baghdad, not a warrior, and your job will be to resist self determination—whether it's being sought through democratic elections or armed struggle.

As a California resident, what did you think of the Gray Davis recall? The recall was an intelligence operation designed to seize a government the Republicans couldn't win. When Enron upped the energy costs, Gray Davis went to Washington; but no one would see him. Then the corporate guys started the recall.

Would you care to predict who will win in November? The two candidates are in a row boat. It springs a leak, but there's only one life jacket. Who does God save? Answer: He lets them both drown, choosing to save the country instead. [laughs] Who do I think is going to win? I really don't know. Although I admit being drawn to President Bush's religious fervor, I'm attracted more to the faith of John Kerry, who once noted, "Blessed are the ambitious."

Have you ever seriously considered running for elective office or been approached to do so? There was some talk of it during the Kennedy administration, but I've always prized my role as the loyal opposition. o