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The pie diaries: Episode One

pieheartEmily H. and I have discovered that we have something in common. Besides curly hair. And our respective lady bits.

We’re obsessed with pie.

Sweet pie, savory pie, vegetarian pie, breakfast pies, dessert pies. Pies filled with scrambled eggs and pies brimming with plump cherries. Pies with one crust, pies with top crust, flaky crust, dense crust, crumbly crust.

I could go on, using every delicious adjective in the dictionary.

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INTERVIEW: Andy Richter

Andy Barker, P.I.Rooftop joyously celebrates the DVD release of our favorite bumbling-private-investigator show since, well, ever. We have a chub for Andy Barker, P.I. because we have a MAJOR chub for the show’s star, Andy Richter, who plays an accountant who is mistaken for a detective for hire and decides to just go with it.

Richter himself often just goes with it; maybe a product of his training as an improviser. He’s an actor, a writer, a Jeopardy champion, (cue Trebek!) and, perhaps most recognizably, the yin to Conan O’Brien’s Tonight Show yang (a reprisal, of course, of that same O’Brien/Richter dynamic that audiences first went coconuts for when Richter played sidekick on Late Night with Conan O’Brien).

We were lucky enough to snag an interview with Richter during some Tonight Show downtime, and got him to dish on the show, the biz, and the Trebek. Plus, he used the word “fuddy-duddy” with no irony whatsoever, and gave us a recipe for the Rooftop Comedy Holiday Fatluck, which further cemented him in his position of Rooftop-decreed awesomeness. Read more »

THE FIRST ANNUAL ROOFTOP FATLUCK

fatluck09_V2Can you hear that?

That’s the sound of 22 hearts, straining against arterial plaque and fatty tissue to beat and squeeze and pump sugar-polluted blood through 22 bloated bodies.

The first annual Rooftop Comedy Fatluck is upon us.

Inspired by the ensuing Thanksgiving gorge-fest and by our hefty heroes at ThisIsWhyYou’reFat.com, our “fatluck” should knock the entirety of the Rooftop staff on our bulbous asses by mid-afternoon on Tuesday.

And the organizers are prepared for that, since we all had to sign a waiver:

So far, the menu includes Chris G’s Bacon-Wrapped Chili Cheese Hot Dog Frito Boat, Annie’s Apple Fritter Pork Buns of Not Steel, SFA’s Buffalo chicken macaroni and cheese with blue cheese crumbles, ranch dip in a fried bread bowl side, and Alex’s Tots Au Gratin.

We’d, of course, love your menu suggestions. Our favorite reader recipe will be made by one of the Rooftop staff, for us all to try. And JUDGE! The winning recipe gets a super-sweet Rooftop prize pack, including a T-shirt. If you can fit your fat turkey gut into it, post tryptophan-atisicm.

INTERVIEW: Stephen Lynch

Lynch_2009_07Musician/Comedian/Tony nominee/whiskey drinker Stephen Lynch takes a break from his international “3 Balloons” tour (in support of his album of the same name) to answer our probing-yet-well-lubricated questions. When it was all over, we held each other and wept.

[Want to see Stephen live? Who can blame you? Click here for upcoming tour dates in the U.S. and the U.K.]

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A video tribute to George Carlin

Some of the finest and funniest in the biz share their memories of the one and only:

Carlin’s posthumously-released memoir, Last Words, is out this week. Click here to purchase.

Want to win a copy of Last Words? Enter to win the Ultimate George Carlin Prize Pack Sweepstakes. You do NOT have to say it five times fast as part of the entry process.

The “Last Words” of George Carlin

LastWords

You know his dirtiest words, but what about his last?

Legendary comedian George Carlin’s (posthumous) memoir, Last Words comes out this week, and Rooftop has partnered with publisher Simon & Schuster to bring you some exclusive, in-depth content. Today? A juicy excerpt from the raw and wrenching manuscript. All week? Audio and video clips featuring Carlin’s closest friends and family, reading from the book and extolling the foul-mouthed virtues of the First Amendment’s best friend.

From the publisher:

As one of America’s preeminent comedic voices, George Carlin saw it all throughout his extraordinary fifty-year career and made fun of most of it. Last Words is the story of the man behind some of the most seminal comedy of the last half century, blending his signature acer-bic humor with never-before-told stories from his own life.

In 1993 George Carlin asked his friend and bestselling author Tony Hendra to help him write his autobiography. For almost fifteen years, in scores of conversations, many of them recorded, the two discussed Carlin’s life, times, and evolution as a major artist. When Carlin died at age seventy-one in June 2008 with the book still unpublished, Hendra set out to assemble it as his friend would have wanted. Last Words is the result, the rollicking, wrenching story of Carlin’s life from birth — literally — to his final years, as well as a parting gift of laughter to the world of comedy he helped create.

In celebration of the man who dared to utter those seven unutterables (and, perhaps more significantly, dared to so brashly assert his right to free speech that the Supreme Court was compelled to step in and quash all the fun), we urge you to spend the day wielding the word “motherfucker” like a hand-crafted sword of justice, striking down any enemies or censors who dare to cross your path.

George and Patrick Carlin (Courtesy of Kelly Carlin-McCall)

George and Patrick Carlin (Courtesy of Kelly Carlin-McCall)

Need a little motivation? Download an excerpt from the book: Excerpt – Last Words

Not enough for you, greedy goblin? Click here and enter to win a super primo prize pack that includes Print edition and audio edition of Last Words; Classic Gold, the deluxe 2-CD set including Carlin’s first 3 albums (Am & Fm, Class Clown, and Occupation: Foole); and a collection of Carlin’s top selling DVDs.

BUSCEMI BLOGS

Rooftop comedian (and super bestie for life) Robert Buscemi blogs for us from the Andy Kaufman Awards!

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INTERVIEW: Nick Prueher of the Found Footage Festival

Imagine what kind of gems you could unearth if you spent an afternoon digging through the video collection at a thrift store. Instructional aerobics from the 1980s? Battered VHS copies of local cable access television shows? Home videos, starring the most spectacularly mustached men you could imagine?

Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett, co-creators, co-curators, and hosts of the Found Footage Festival, have spent many an afternoon elbows-deep in such thrift-store video bins, and the fruits of their labor are screened, for a live audience, at shows around the country. Sometimes awkward, always hilarious, this “found footage” serves as an authentic historical marker of consumer, health, educational, and fashion trends from the past several decades. And damn. People were funny.

[The Found Footage Festival is currently on tour! Click here to see when it hits your city!]

Rooftop spoke to Nick about his favorite types of clips, those dadgum Internets, and the magic of the movies.

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INTERVIEW: Lisa Cohen of WitStream.com

If you’re simultaneously obsessed with social media but irritated by the sheer banality of most content, (It’s raining. We get it.) WitStream.com is the place for you. Founded by television producer Lisa Cohen and co-operated by comedian Michael Ian Black, WitStream is a hand-picked collection of Twittering comedians, writers, and humorists, whose updates are savory little nuggets of freshly-fried funny.

Perhaps the best part about WitStream is that the users (including Matt Braunger, Rob Delaney, Myq Kaplan, and Laurie Kilmartin) engage in conversation with each other in a way that’s easy for an audience to follow. No “@” symbols and re-tweets here; comedians ruffle each others’ feathers in real time, and you get to watch.

The site officially launches today, November 2, and is celebrating with an A-list show TONIGHT at Comix, featuring Michael Showalter, Baron Vaughn, Pete Holmes, Doug Benson, Josh Fadem, Morgan Murphy, and, of course, MIB himself.

Rooftop managed to tear our eyes away from WitStream activity long enough to catch up with Queen Bee Lisa Cohen.

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Guest Editor: Special Ed

What’s so “special” about Special Ed? For one thing, the man can eat an entire burrito in less than a minute. Sorry, ladies. He’s taken.

One-quarter of Boston’s beloved morning show sausage fest The Sandbox on 101.7 WFNX radio (92.1 in New Hampshire, for the yokels), Ed — also the show’s producer — is super picky about the funny. (He does like a good fart joke, but it has to be well-crafted. Finessed. Seamless. Did you know there’s a fart art?)  Ed has bantered on the mic with some of the country’s best comedians, so we trust his judgment.

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