> Alex LoCascio wrote:
>
>> apropos my last post, and Chuck0's point that the American left
>> should get down and dirty with the sort of nasty populism of Michael
>> Moore, Al Franken, etc (a position I agree with)...
>>
>> I should add that Michael Moore is huge here, and hasn't left the top
>> of the bestseller lists since I arrived almost two years ago.
>>
> Did anybody here listen to Fresh Air on NPR this afternoon? The guest
> was humorist Mort Sahl. I think he made some good observations about
> the dearth of good political humor. He was critical of the shallow
> humor of Michael Moore and Al Franken. I think Sahl made some
> extremely funny points, but I'll take any left humorist we can find
> these days. Humor and ridicule are our best weapons against the
> extremist right these days.
I'd take Sahl with a big grain of salt on that issue. He hasn't been especially funny since, well, 1964 or so, so when he bitches about Franken and Moore raking in people's attentions, I can't help but suspect more than a little resentment over a career stalled since the Johnson administration. (And he's friends with a lot of right-wing assholes.)
Mort Sahl? Christ, he's deader'n Lenny Bruce.