MARK RUSSELL: On the Satirical Trail

Mark Russell has been doing his own blend of music and political satire on public television for 15 years. His series, which runs every other month, kicks off the 1992 presidential election campaign Wednesday with lampoons of would-be Democratic and Republican candidates, including President Bush. The 59-year-old Russell--who will appear in Southern California at a benefit for the Santa Barbara Symphony in November--told Sharon Bernstein that there is so much room for comedy about politics that his act is booked up until after the 1993 inauguration.

Why did you become a political satirist?

Because I was living in Washington and it was just the expedient thing to do. If I lived in Detroit, I would talk about the auto business. The politicians were given such great respect everywhere, such reverence, and I came at them from a different perspective.

Who were your inspirations?

My influences were people like Mort Sahl and Art Buchwald and, when I was a kid, the radio comedians. I really liked Fred Allen. He was just as popular as Jack Benny, but he was more acerbic, and so that was a very early influence.

How do you develop your material?

I go day to day, depending on what’s in the newspapers. Today as we speak, it’s the confirmation hearings for Robert Gates to be head of the CIA. Yesterday he reminded me of Captain Quigg in “The Cain Mutiny.”

I get a lot of material from California. Particularly now that Sonny Bono is a candidate for Senate, all of a sudden Jerry Brown looks like a statesman. Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton announced that he’s a candidate. I predict that Clinton will get the nomination because he has spent more time in Beverly Hills than any other candidate.

What will people see if they watch your show?

I sing songs at the piano and also talk. If they were just tuning in for the first time and they had no idea who I was, there’s a good chance that they would only like half the show, because I’m an equal opportunity offender.

Do you have any new songs?

I have a new one about the House of Representatives’ private bank (a recent scandal in which it was revealed that bad checks by Congress members were routinely covered without fees). That’s the ultimate chutzpah: My Congressman tried to buy my vote and the check bounced. It’s to the tune of “I Am Woman”:

I can write bad checks whenever I please

The checks are all honored without penalties

I pay no heed to insufficient amounts

When your are like me you get more bounce to the ounce.

‘Cause I’m a Congressman . . .

How did you get started?

I just backed into it living in Washington. I was playing to the people in this little bar. I was hired as a piano player telling jokes and things. And as it happened, they all worked on Capitol Hill. The first couple of nights nobody was paying any attention to me. Then somebody said, “You should talk about us.” So I would go to congressional hearings, the participants of which were in this little bar.

How is what you do different from regular stand-up comedy?

The stand-up comic wants you to love him 100% of the time. He’s talking about subjects that are painfully familiar, overtly familiar. Comedians use the world relationship very often in a given monologue. But if we talk about the Senate Judiciary Committee, we narrow the crowd down a little. The normal stand-up talks about your relationship, your car, your dog, your sex.

Whom do you lampoon more, Republicans or Democrats?

It’s a little bit tilted toward whoever’s in power. It will even out on Judgment Day, I suppose.

Do you have any other projects?

I’m working on a book. It’s going to have 51 chapters. The first chapter is the story of my life and the rest are funny stories about the 50 states. I’ve played in all 50 states, so these are a collection of observations and experiences in each of the states.

This is the beginning of your 16th year at PBS. Do you remember what kind of material you were doing in the beginning?

We did the pilot the day that Jerry Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, so there was a lot of Watergate stuff. We were still reeling from that story. When the show started in the fall of 1975, we were still leading into the election year of 1976. Jimmy Carter was still pretty obscure.

Do you personally lean more toward the liberal or the conservative in politics?

Sentimentally and generationally (more toward the liberal). There was a great nobility to the traditional Democratic Party that always aligned itself with Roosevelt, and the Republicans who in those days would carry one state in the presidential election. They were the quaint ones then. Now it’s just the opposite.

And yet you are hired to play at both Republican and Democratic events.

It’s strange. It shows I have no scruples. It’s what’s known as the spineless middle ground.

“Mark Russell’s Comedy Special” airs Wednesday at 7:30 on KCET and at 8 p.m. on KPBS.