30 Sahl Fans Can't Be Wrong. But, Could be All

Look, when you're an iconoclast, you piss people off.

When you reach 90, most of your audience has most likely already died.

Or they have other priorities.

That's three reasons why fewer than 30 liked or loved or acknowledged Mort Sahl's birthday/book promo on Twitter.

Considering that political comedy is overloaded with Maher, Colbert, Bee, and another dozen (and that's just late night), and that Mort has made a habit of canceling shows and insulting even his most ardent supporters, it was not much of a surprise to squint to see those very few Tweets about him today.

Only two of Mort's pals posted pix of themselves with Mort, one of them using the past tense. You don't expect Woody Allen to be on Twitter, but it's embarrassing, the lack of interest from the comedy community. Even though Mort once wrote that he wanted to punch Allen in the face "but it looked like somebody beat me to it," Woody's regard for Mort as a comedy icon, led him to still agree to introduce him at what turned out to be Mort's last major venue appearance, at B.B. King's about a decade ago. Likewise, Dick Cavett, routinely back-handed by Sahl for being "America's idea of an intellectual," never took it personally. They are among the few apologists who would say that, to use a Poe phrase, "the ordinary temperament of genius" means that one can accept "moody misanthropy," and even insults or threats of violence.

Less than 500 people watch "The Last Man Standing" when his weekly hour is broadcast on the Net via something called "Periscope." The guy did perform on his birthday Thursday night.

The show is held at a tiny venue in Mill Valley run by a friend who sort of helps get him on stage. He has trouble walking even with a cane, and quickly sits down to talk to an audience of what seems like a few dozen people. Having the camcorder pan around to show the sparse audience was perhaps an unintentional stab at the truth of the man's dilemma.

Seeing the final total of viewers is pretty sobering. Here's a screen cap that shows Mort promoting the book. And yes, that number of viewers you see in the corner didn't get above 300 views. There are silly girls doing off-key cover versions of Taylor Swift songs on YouTube who get bigger numbers. There are guys unwrapping packages they got from Amazon who do better, along with opinionated guys in various basements discussing the PPV sports event they saw the previous night.

Technically, is Mort "The Last Man Standing?" Marty Allen at 95 still performs. Shelley Berman is with us even if he doesn't totter out to a tiny venue to prove it. And contemporaries (younger by only a few years) Bob Newhart, Dick Gregory and Jackie Mason are very much with us, too. Rickles, who reached 90 before Mort, passed on very recently, and was still doing Kimmel's show. Mort's last national late night shot was with Letterman 16 years ago.

Well, it's sad to note that some faint Tweets in cyberspace hardly meant anything considering the iconic birth date and the book combination, and one of them was from the man himself, holding up the authorized bio.