At 80, Mort Sahl could be kicking back and playing golf. When he celebrates his birthday Thursday night, however, the comedian has other plans. From his early days as a hungry stand-up comic hanging around Bay Area clubs to his work both lampooning and advising presidential candidates, Sahl has always been restless.
So as he commemorates the beginning of his ninth decade, the Tarzana resident will take the stage alongside his comedic progeny and go to work. "The search for justice must go on," he said. From another comic, that would seem ironic, the idea that jokes can somehow lead to a better world.
For Sahl, there's nothing funny about it. At the "Sahl-ute," the sweater-wearing soliloquizer will stand with Jonathan Winters, Bill Maher and Albert Brooks to serve up the politically laced humor that he virtually invented. Proceeds will go to the Heartland Comedy Foundation, a volunteer group inspired by Sahl's work that aids struggling comics.
It's been 47 years since Time magazine put him on its cover, heralding his current events-driven routine as the start of an edgy new era. At a time when most jokesters opted for one-liners about annoying mothers-in-law, Sahl was waving around the newspaper and lambasting Nixon, Kennedy, McCarthy and anyone else in power. "I decided the comedians were dumb and the audience was smart," he said.
Paris Hilton's on top, and Sahl said the gravity of an Edward R. Murrow newscast has been replaced by fluffy, light news. "The power structure loves that," he said.
"(Instead,) you should be looking for fascism in the name of national security." Parked outside his favorite Starbucks on Beverly Glen Circle, just on the other side of Mulholland Drive, Sahl wove the conversation deftly from Sigmund Freud to the Democrats, the shallowness of Los Angeles, Ralph Nader, corporate America, Police Chief William Bratton and the company that produced the cup of coffee he sipped. All within the first five minutes.
At times, he seemed like a product of a different era, with his narrow-eyed focus on news, politics and intellectualism. He talked jazz and classic cars and the romance of the times he grew up in, when a poor kid like him from South L.A.
could dream of a better life - the life he ended up with. But Sahl didn't stay rooted in that different time for long, shifting to talk about the Stan Kenton and Dave Brubeck videos he'd watched on YouTube the night before, then moving on to critique the lineup at both the Republican and Democratic debates. Neither side impressed him much.
Every so often, he paused to field a cell-phone call or chat with a passing well-wisher. Actors Bob Einstein, out of his Super Dave Osborne persona, and Chuck McCann paid their respects. bowed in reverence.
Keeps focus on politics "What he brought to stand-up comedy was fearlessness," said comic Ross Shafer, who helped produce Thursday's show. "He wasn't shooting for laughs. He said what he wanted to say, and if he got a laugh, great.
"He didn't want to sell out for the sake of entertainment - he wanted to say something with his humor, and he was willing to sacrifice mainstream popularity." Sahl had his shot at that widespread appeal - he hosted "The Tonight Show" for a week between Jack Paar's departure and Johnny Carson's start - but was content to remain the troublemaker. He stayed fixated on politics and saw his career suffer as he spoke up about his belief in a conspiracy to assassinate President John F.
As comedy got cruder and more outrageous, he stubbornly stuck with his highbrow material. While he never gained stardom the way Carson or Bob Hope did, Sahl became a legend instead. "He was doing what very few people were doing in the political arena," said former "Saturday Night Live" star Kevin Nealon, who's also in Thursday night's lineup.
"Mort was a little more sophisticated than I was, but when I was doing `Weekend Update' and holding up newspapers, I thought, `He's been doing this for years.' As long as he kept his newspaper subscription current, he could still do it." And he still does.
He's looking to develop a daily podcast of his thoughts on the headlines in the nation's top papers. He keeps active in political circles. After five decades on stage, he's still trying out new material and trying to stay fresh.
"If you don't go out and work, you don't hear the audience," he said. "And you don't learn anything. Probably now, more than ever, I'm in business.
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