Aches, Pains and Aging Take the Rap : Entertainment: Sixty-five-year-old comedian Howard Mann adopts a contemporary style without missing a beat.

Cholesterol, cholesterol

Puts me in a hellish hole.

Can’t eat cake; can’t eat cream;

Can’t eat steak; makes me scream! Senior citizens temporarily forget their aches and pains when Howard Mann raps about the woes of growing old.

Mann, 65, performs regularly in the San Fernando Valley--his next appearance is Sunday at Gallagher’s in Chatsworth.

His audiences often are made up of other senior citizens; he recently rapped at a luncheon meeting of the Jewish War Veterans at the Sportsmen’s Lodge in Studio City.

“Howard had us in the palm of his hand,” said World War II veteran Martin Falk, 65, of Sherman Oaks after the luncheon. “I laughed so hard I almost fell off my chair.”

For the past two years, the Van Nuys comedian has rapped about the quirks of antique digestive tracts, the bittersweet togetherness of retired couples, and the contradictory perceptions that divide the old from the young at such places as senior citizen centers, meetings of the B’nai B’rith and City of Hope.

Mann, who became an entertainer in the 1950s after being laid off from his job as an ad copywriter in New York, said he added rap to his repertoire when he realized the beat was perfect for comedy. Although many older people have never heard rap music, he figured he could use that incongruity to his advantage.

“Most rap,” he said, “is done by young kids. Being an old guy, I thought, would work for me.”

Unlike many rappers, Mann depends on humor, not obscenity, to make his points. And although he doesn’t use musical accompaniment, his delivery sounds off to the jazz beat of his youth.

He said he gets his inspiration for his raps from everyday life--his high cholesterol count and his frustrations with maintaining a healthy diet spawned recent lyrics. In all of his performances Mann said he attempts to humorously address universal issues: the pain of blind dating, the joys and sorrows of sex or the frustrations of being fired.

“Life is definitely easier when you can laugh through the tears,” he said.

But he doesn’t limit his appearances or his material to audiences or concerns of senior citizens. At clubs such as Gallagher’s and The Improv in West Hollywood he has commented on such topics as acne and authority figures.

His audiences, young and old, seem to relate to his act. “He’s absolutely hilarious,” said Kristin Hill, 25, of Van Nuys, who caught a recent show at Gallagher’s. She liked him, she said, because “after all, someday I’ll be older, too.”

“He talks about things that come from the gut, things that most people find hard to say to each other,” said Anne Krupin, of North Hollywood, a senior citizen and member of the Pearls of Hope chapter of the City of Hope.

Humor has been a constant in his life. “I remember kidding around with my 80-year-old grandmother when I was young,” he said. “She used to give me a kiss and say I was the only one who could make her laugh.”

When he decided to venture into comedy entertaining after the demise of his ad career, the Borscht Belt welcomed him and eventually he got bookings as a stand-up comedian on the Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin TV shows.

During the U.S. Bicentennial, he toured the country in a one-man show as George Washington. Later, he performed as Oscar Madison in an off-Broadway production of “The Odd Couple” and became familiar to the TV public with appearances on “Hooperman,” “Barney Miller” and “Murder, She Wrote.”

These days, he has three or four rapping appearances a month. “I enjoy performing because I feel young and productive,” he said. “It gives me energy I didn’t know I had. Sometimes when I get rolling, I feel like I’m 18 again.”

Howard Mann will rap at 9:30 p.m. Sunday at Gallagher’s, 21750 Devonshire St. , Chatsworth . (818) 709-9831.

Mann will also perform for B’nai B’rith, Encino Lodge 2278, at a dinner Wednesday at Sportsmen’s Lodge, 12833 Ventura Blvd., Studio City. The event begins at 7 p.m. Admission: $25. Reservations required, call (818) 363-3444.

Jacovitz is a Tarzana writer; Mayer is a Woodland Hills writer.