Whenever Mark Russell is down in the dumps, he opens the newspaper and immediately cheers up.  Practically everything he sees strikes him funny.  “Some days,” he says, ‘the jokes jump off the pages and write themselves.” 

Mark Russell has spent most of the past 30 years on Public Television.  The Mark Russell Comedy Specials consistently were among the top-rated shows on that network.  He works live, fresh and topical, performing stand-up comedy while accompanying himself on the piano.   

Mark Russell readily admits that when he was a kid he dodged the draft.  He did it by joining the Marine Corps. 

After serving his full hitch he found himself in the smoke-filled bars of Washington, DC, singing his funny songs.  When he got a job in a Capitol Hill bar he first thing he thought was “I’ve started at the bottom but I’ve managed to work my way down.” 

Around the time the New Frontier was invading Washington, Mark Russell invaded the Shoreham Hotel for a risky two-week gig.  It lasted for twenty years.  The Marquee Lounge became the place where politicians would come to hear Mark’s jokes about the things they had done that day.