HOUSTON – Trying to fine tune what he called "funny ideas" during a two-week out-of-town tryout for Much Ado About Everything at the LaffStop, Houston's premiere comedy club, Jackie Mason divided the edgy humor of his work-in-progress into two broad categories: Jews and politics. The intent was to have the two topics overlap, feed into, and comment upon each other. Mason's apparent purpose was to establish an overarching tone of amused exasperation of the state of the world as he knows it. Much Ado About Everything, tentatively set to open in New York in the fall, will be Mason's fifth one-man routine, the first occurring 12 years ago with The World According to Me. What follows are samples of some of the material he was polishing in Houston April 22 - May 3.

Mason uses fashion as a segue to President Bill Clinton and his alleged relationship with Monica Lewinsky. "Do you know any Jewish girl who would do this for a dress?" Mason pretended to fume about the gift the Commander- in-Chief gave the intern possibly in exchange for oral sex. "Until I see a mink coat, forget about it!" Mason remarked how hard it was to believe that a doctor's daughter in Beverly Hills "needed" a dress in the first place. "I ask you this: how come he never bought a dress for Janet Reno?"

And although Mason himself claims not to be upset about the President's adultery, maybe Hillary, although she doesn't show it, is. After all, even though her husband has placed more women in the Cabinet then all past administrations combined, "They don't look like women," Mason concluded. "You can tell by looking at them that Hillary picked out every one of them."