If you happened to see it mentioned in a local Mill Valley throw-away newspaper or on the Net somewhere, it SOUNDS good:
MORT SAHL performing Live at the Crescendo Room of the Throckmorton Theatre.
Great. In this time when we easily get political news supplied every night by Kimmel and Colbert and there's also a weekly Bill Maher show, plus some stuff on Comedy Central, and "Samantha Bee" and whatnot, somewhere, there's a place for MORT SAHL, even past 90.
Twitter and Facebook will even offer links so you can see the show live (it's a hot ticket right, or you're just a little too far from Mill Valley to get there on the bus.)
The most blatant sign things are not quite what they seem is how Periscope or Facebook runs a tally at the bottom of the screen, listing how many people are watching. These days, it might be 300 people in this nation of 300 million.
In past years, Mort would be helped to his seat in front of the immobile camcorder on a tripod and the show would begin...maybe 10 minutes of new monologue material and then Q&A. Now, some fey fellow announces "Mort Sahl," and the camera is on the already seated living legend.
The camcorder picks up the ambient sound. No lighting, no microphone on Mort.
The mediocre lighting and the soft focus give this an "after dinner memories with Grandpa" feel. It's not quite what one expects from an event billed as "Live at the Crescendo Room," as if its a big place with waiters serving drinks and just off from the main floor's casino.
The Crescendo WAS a nightclub. "The Crescendo Room" is just a room named after it, and not much of a room.
Why show it? Why pan from Mort to the very sparse (eight people?) crowd and the empty chairs?
Honesty...is the best policy?
Before the "reveal," the camcorder stayed in one position as Mort gave a brief take on the latest news (the upcoming Oscar telecast) before answering questions posed by an unseen woman who culled them from the live Facebook feed. Mort was lobbed such mild queries as: "Did you ever meet Lee Radziwill" (Jackie O's recently deceased sister) and "Did you ever meet Castro" (no to both questions). Another was "How did you start performing at the hungry i."
In his replies, Mort digressed to surefire material from the past, including joke-anecdotes on favorite topics like Alexander Haig, Kennedy, Adlai Stevenson and Woody Allen. Basically, any Sahl is better than none at all, even if the ambient camcorder made things sonically difficult.
Still, for a while, one had the illusion that "the room" may have had 2 dozen or maybe even 50 patrons. Why did we have to see it was just 8, and the capacity of the place might be 18?? Just to prove the laughter wasn't canned?
At this point, and certainly following his no-show when booked by Seth Meyers last year, nobody is thinking Mort Sahl is the hottest act in town. But why show the proof that he can't fill a room that holds about 18 people on a Thursday night?
At this point, there's no pretense that Mort might generate a full house anywhere, or that travel is even an option. The website that his "manager" put up for him simply disappeared into oblivion some time last year. The idea was to differ from the existing Mort Sahl dotcom (which I've run ever since the Internet began) by stressing his availability for gigs beyond the "manager's" Throckmorton venue. Poof. That website is gone.
Mort might be better served by a podcast with less painful sound, in which a sidekick takes emailed questions and perhaps a small audience hands around to add a peppering of light laughter. I remember this as the format when Steve Allen was here in New York, doing a show for WNEW. He had a co-host (Mark Simone) and Steve gave a standard invitation for people to drop by. I was there a few times, as was Herb Sargent, wife "Jaynie-Bird," and anyone who happened to be in town, such as Bill Dana. I brought Brother Theodore to the show one memorable afternoon.
There may not have been room for more than 8 of us, along with Steve, Mark and the piano, but nobody was taking videos and nobody was pretending this was the "Crescendo Room" of some kind of larger (by how much?) dinner theater.
Steve of course was a pal and admirer of Mort's and we talked about him now and then (and yeah, I think I had a few conversations with Mort that included a mention of Steve.)
"8 Mort Sahl Fans Can't be Wrong," and it's nice to know that 300, maybe on a very GOOD night, 500, were tuned in via the Internet. But maybe a podcast makes more sense. All one needs is a microphone. Set it up in a living room. Call it "the hungry i room" if you want. And like the great days of radio, let us imagine the visuals.
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