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**1/2 Paul Krassner

BRAIN DAMAGE CONTROL

(Mercury)

As editor of the leftist satirical mag the Realist, Paul Krassner was both on the inside of the yippies looking out and on the outside looking in. He may have joined Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin at the '68 Democratic Convention, but afterward he was alone at his typewriter analyzing and cracking wise about their exploits. On Brain Damage Control, Krassner's second stand-up CD in the last year, he remembers what he can of tripping on LSD before testifying in court, hanging out with the same cops who were tailing him, and editing Hustler during Larry Flynt's born-again days.

Although these tales are amusing, Krassner's sharpest and most relevant material is rooted in the present. Finding humor in an exhausted topic, he opens the CD: "There was an African-American panhandler holding up a sign: `Will teach ebonics for food.' " He then lunges into his liberal, yet not quite PC takes on race and spin doctors in a tone that is conversational and uncondescending. But his clever wordplay -- "Reagan's the Great Communicator/The Pope's the Great Ex-Communicator" -- is often better suited for the page than the stage.

-- Mark Bazer