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.

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 When Carlin died at age seventy-one in June 2008 with the book still unpublished, Hendra set out to assemble it as his friend would have wanted.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)

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.

Report from the Road: The 2009 Andy Kaufman Awards, NYC

I made it to the semifinal showcase of the 2009 Andy Kaufman Award Contest on Monday, November 2nd, so I planned to give it my best, watch all 24 of my peers on the bill, and soak up the weird. I had my curly blond wig, my billowing poet blouse, my black tights, and my death-lemon ready to roll:

Chicago was heavily represented (I live in LA now, but did comedy in the Chi from 2002 till earlier this year), so it was a bit of a reunion for the seven of us in the show, plus another four Chicago stand-ups had made a roadtrip of the occasion to watch and support erstwhile Chicago comedy legend Shawn Cole, our own Andy Kaufman. 

Executive Producer and Andy’s best college pal Al Parinello and Andy’s brother Michael Kaufman went out of their way to welcome us 25 acts and thank us profusely. It was clear they were fiercely proud of Andy’s legacy and excited to have us on board.

The opening video montage of Andy’s most famous TV moments had me clapping at the screen. When Andy’s foreign-man stage-fright whimper morphs into a bongo chant, it’s so good I could cry. It’s unrepeatable and beyond brilliant. And it was wonderful to watch Andy killing it in full Vegas-era Elvis regalia (Andy apparently worshipped the King and did that impression before almost anyone), singing and strumming an unironically gorgeous “Blue Suede Shoes.”

The show began. I performed 6th, and I gave it my all, feeling a gratifying pick of brow-sweat as I took my bow, and I knew I’d left some art on the stage. The 24 acts that preceded and followed me were the cream of the crop among an overwhelming number of video submissions, and each gave an inventive set in honor of Andy’s memory. So I felt in good company.

Alas, Monday was to be my first and final performance, at least this year. But I’d had a blast and seen my idiot poet character come back to life (and then back to death), so I felt good. Parinello complimented my act the next day and hugged me once I arrived to blog the finale show, and Michael Kaufman went so far as to say we were all now part of the Kaufman family. And I honestly am a big Andy fan, so it was all quite touching.

Oh, and icing on the cake: scene-stealer nonpareil Kristen Schaal, the 2005 Andy-Kaufman-Award Winner, was in the house both nights, and went out of her way to compliment several of us and give us big hugs, and every one of us had artistic crushes (at the very least) on the apple-cheeked bad-ass cutie-pie superstar.

With legendary manager George Shapiro in the Caroline’s audience as well as a producer from the Andy Kaufman bio-pic Man on the Moon in attendance, the stage was set for magic as the finale show commenced.

The big celebrity host: Tony Clifton (was it Bob Zmuda? Was it ANDY? No one knows …) came out to host and stank up the joint like rotten, wet socks. You really got mad at the bastard. He told about eight truly vile, unrepeatable jokes up top and riled the hell out of people as only Clifton can–racist, misogynistic, homophobic, and massively obnoxious. He threatened the crowd and was crude, odious, and unctuous to the core. He called people names, heckled the contestants, and yelled back and forth with Michael Kaufman and Parinello.

I was in heaven. Clifton pulled no punches, and props to Mike Amato and Red Bastard (Eric Davis) for fending the cretin off while they did their acts. The man brought the rude, and clearly no one had told him if this was to be a only a harmless victory lap. He raised hell. I did a bit of whooping both for and against him. Big, big fun.

Without further ado, the six finalists were:

1) Edinburgh Fringe Fest one-man-show vet Mike Amato. He said he’d been experimenting with oxygen deprivation, and he duct-taped a 13-gallon white kitchen bag over his head and said he’d timed his act to finish before the oxygen ran out. I got that old tingle of alarm–it was genuinely scary to see someone tape a bag to their head. Naturally he kept mistelling jokes, wasting time on crowd-work and digressions, meandering, and putting the fear on me that he’d not get through in time. He reported a “film of moisture” inside and began to lurch through the audience, then rave and grow incoherent, calling out to some dead aunt as he wandered out of the showroom to die alone like an animal, clearly in trouble.

2) Then Red Bastard (Eric Davis) came out as a MASSIVELY bloated, evil-faced fiend straight out of the Yellow Submarine and Monty Python cartoons. Red Bastard realized that nightmarish quality exquisitely and did absolutely gorgeous physical work. He taunted the crowd, raved and bounced maniacally, and moved and hopped like a scary troll. He threw a drink at Tony Clifton, and I was on my feet shouting for blood. The Red Bastard had stuffed those huge bouncing balls with the handles that children sit on under a huge red one-piece unitard thing, so he could bounce onto his stomach and bounce right back up. His face was maniacal and he moved like a speed-weasel. It destroyed me.

3) Next came Stinky Marceau. Dressed like a mime, Stinky fell asleep on the stage floor, so Clifton saw it as his cue to kick into overdrive. You genuinely couldn’t tell what was real, because Clifton was heckling BAD. It got way uncomfortable. I was confused. I was mad at Clifton, so points to the old Vegas troll and to Andy Kaufman for getting a rise out of me. Parinello paid Clifton to leave, called security, and replaced him with another host. Stinky was suspiciously missing from both the first evening’s contest and the second-evening contest program.

4) Sasha and The Noob (Steve Gadlin and Paul Luikart) are Chicago comedy staples, the demented children’s-show style hosts of Chicago’s long-running stage mega-hit “Don’t Spit the Water,” where comedy-characters try to get audience members to laugh and spit bottled water from their mouths. (Full disclosure: My character “Earl LaRue” has been one of those comedians like 50 times.) They’re very Kaufman-esque, with Sasha playing an indeterminately Eastern European show-biz star and Noob playing his sidekick, who’s mute because, as Sasha explains while making a knifing movement, “When the Noob was leetle boy he watched his father keel hees mother. Right, the Noob? Remember?” The Noob gives a frightened, helpless wince.

5) Blaine Kneece, sporting a mustache and silver sparkle suit, asked for a suggestion so he could improvise a song. He claimed to have heard “wiffleball” and proceeded to play an improvised INSTRUMENTAL song “about wiffleball.” Good times. Then he started having fun with a video camera, playing back his opening a few times, then showing himself on film leaving Caroline’s via subway, soft-shoeing on the street for money, then taking the subway back to the club. He falls asleep on the train and gets robbed and gets a dick drawn on his face. It was definitely high-concept–he “improvised” his way back and forth through time and ended up back in the club.

6) Robby Roadsteamer, looking like a homeless street performer and ranting incoherently and seemingly improvisationally, taunted Clifton and showed off the loot he’d stolen from the green room: a stapler, a pint glass, a coffee cup, and Clifton’s flowers. Then Roadsteamer sang a song called “Creepy Dickhead Eyes” directed at a guy in the audience with, well, those kind of eyes. In my favorite bit, Robby got a volunteer from the audience and placed her behind the curtain for a future entrance, then whispered to us that he’d done that just to get rid of her and didn’t plan to bring her back out at all. He did indeed leave her back there.

7) Harrison Greenbaum was as close as the evening got to stand-up, as he rattled off some great bits, but also went out of his way to taunt Clifton and smash a few glasses. He told me later off-stage that he was hoping Clifton would take his bait more, since he had some baby doll with the name “Tony Clifton” drawn onto it that he planned to murder on stage or something. I didn’t get all the details. The point is, Greenbaum was there to make his mark, and he did.

Kneece won the trophy and a check for $2,500 at the end of the night, clearly impressing the judges–Michael Kaufman, Kristen Schaal, and George Shapiro–with what amounted to fully realized, sophisticated, film-auteur hijinks. He is this year’s king.

I said my goodbyes and ascended the stairs out into the night.

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.

SPECIAL ED’s PICKS:

1. The Karate Kid: Revisited - Gary Gulman
While Gulman’s stature might make you think he is a tough guy, he is really a giant pussy. A giant funny pussy, but a pussy nonetheless.

2. Mature Porn - Dave Thomason
Dave is on to something; there needs to be a universal system of categorizing porn.  Water sports doesn’t mean what is implied.

3. Awkward Body Hair - Robert Hawkins
I have shared this experience.  I wish I had saved the 4-inch, gray nose hair I pulled a few weeks ago for posterity.

4. A Black Man at a Prince Concert - Finesse Mitchell
I love Prince and I need more black friends.  Hi Finesse!  Facebook me!

5. Retarded Gun Owners - Jamie Kilstein
I thought “guns” and “retarded” were synonymous.

Behold! The ghosts (and vampires. And soccer trophies?!) of Rooftop’s Halloweens past:

Well, he may have looked back. But he never stopped spelling his name that way.

However you spell it, you should commit his name to memory; pretty soon, it’ll be all over the place. Featured as a “New Face” in the 2009 Montreal Just For Laughs festival, Myq is about to tape his first half-hour Comedy Central special, and can be seen stumping for Pizza Hut and Subway on a series of Comedy Central promos. (Even more impressive when you consider that he’s been a vegan since college.)

Myq put down the mic long enough to pick his favorite Rooftop clips, presented below, with his usual pun-tastic panache.

MYQ’s PICKS:

1. Five Minutes of Napkins - MC Mr. Napkins
Zach Sherwin (aka MC Mr. Napkins) is a brilliant hilarious rapper. Watch this clip where he raps brilliantly and hilariously. Because of his amazing usage of language, I once suggested to him that he release an album called “Word, Playa.” I hope he does, because if he doesn’t, I’ll have to become an awesome rapper in order to get usage out of the title instead. And not that I don’t want to, but I might be too busy enjoying Zach’s brilliant hilarious rapping. Check it out yourself. Before you wreck it out yourself.

2. White Castle Adventures - Jared Logan
Jared Logan is a super-nice person. Which is something you might say about someone when you’re trying to set them up with a friend on a blind date and they’re an ugly girl. But Jared isn’t an ugly girl.  He’s DOUBLE not an ugly girl, actually. And also I’m not trying to set you up with him on a date. I mean, he might be available. But that’s not what this is about. It’s about how Jared is nice, not ugly, and hilarious. Mostly hilarious. Did I not say hilarious yet? Maybe I should have started with hilarious. Hilarious clip of a good-looking man here!

3. Driving a Hyundai in Detroit - Shane Mauss
Shane Mauss is a natural. He’s like an Academy Award-nominated Robert Redford movie about baseball. But he’s even better, because he’s about more than just baseball. He’s about society and religion and time travel. He’s about justice and the economy and butts. He’s about some third combination of three things where the third one humorously doesn’t fit with the other two. Shane Mauss is better than these jokes as well. He’s greater than the sum of my writing’s parts. He is a natural. (And to be fair, “The Natural” is an awesome movie. I don’t even care about baseball that much, but even still. Awesome. But I like Shane more. And I care about him.)

4. Free Entertainment on the Subway - Sean Patton
Sean Patton is a truth-teller, which I believe is the best kind of teller (sorry, bank workers). And he’s a doer, not just a talker. He started a band and called it “his dick,” so that he could make a Facebook fan page, inviting people to join by saying “Sean Patton suggests that you become a fan of his dick.” And I did. I’m a fan of all parts of Sean Patton, because even when he’s talking about his dick, it always springs from a union of his brain and his heart. Check out his truth-brain here.

5. Twinkle Twinkle – Josh Gondelman
Josh probably has the highest ratio of dark, hilarious comedy to non-dark hilarious personality of anyone I know. He will attack your ears with abortions while offering you his seat on a bus, or pulling out a chair for you, or other chivalrous activities that don’t involve sitting at all. His comedy will have you on the edge of your seat, and I guess I can’t get away from seating at all here, so if you can’t beat’em, seat’em, I suppose… Josh is as enjoyable as a comfy armchair, not to sit on, but metaphorically in your brain. Someone should give this guy a SITcom.

6. Retarded Gun Owners - Jamie Kilstein
Jamie is a force. He has a light side and a dark side, and he gets used a lot by guys named Luke. Just kidding. But that’s not what Jamie does–he does more than just kid… he adults. (If adulting is kidding all grown up, see?) He talks about useful things, and he does it funny. People should listen to him, laugh, and then do something about what he’s talking about. Enjoy.

As the creator of Mortified, a hysterical smorgasbord of teenage angst wherein real people share their real childhood artifacts (such as diaries, letters, poems, songs, etc), Nadelberg has hit the nail on the painfully nostalgic head. Audiences go nuts for the stage show, and the press has, too; the show has received countless accolades, including Day-Glo raves from Entertainment Weekly, Newsweek, and “This American Life” on NPR.

Can you imagine hopping up on a stage and reading, aloud, to a group of strangers, your most intimate and, yes, embarrassing, teenage thoughts?

We told you it was brave.

To boot, Nadelberg was just named in Heeb magazine’s “Heeb 100” as one of the country’s scorching-hot up-and-comers on the comedy scene. Can you blame them? Check out this “Shoebox Show” episode, snagged from the Mortified website – a “dramatic reenactment” of a Mortified reader’s diary:

Nadelberg clearly knows his funny, which is why we’re so tickled to have him as this week’s Guest Editor. He’s collected, for you, his favorite clips that celebrating our most mortifying adolescent memories.

DAVE’S PICKS:

1) Homemade Haircuts - Lindsay Webb
I luckily survived my childhood without having to experience a home made haircut. But I did have to sit through a lot of commercials for the Flobee home haircutting appliance. And that was terrifying enough.

2) Running Cross-Country in High School - Brad Binkley
There are lots of clubs you can join in high school that will ensure other students will make fun of you. Marching band is one. The other is cross country. Perhaps it would be more efficient if today’s schools just combined the two groups. Imagine watching tons of scrawny teenage boys in track shorts running miles through the woods while wearing giant fuzzy hats and twirling batons. Maybe then, ESPN would finally give cross country runners some love. Or at least National Geographic Channel.

3) School Headshots Suck – Jeff Kachelmeyer
I always wished my parents would have sprung for me to have my yearbook photo taken with a laser beam or outer space backdrop. Instead, I always got stuck with baby blue. I simply thought laser backdrops looked classier. One day, I hope we elect a president who will demand to have his official portrait taken in front of a backdrop reminiscent of Tron. Then we’ll see real change.

4) Oregon Trail - Greg Brainos
Oregon Trail was the most depressing video game ever made. It’s storyline revolved around such time-honored childhood loves as illness and famine. And yet, for any kid growing up in the 1980s, it was also the greatest game. The reason? It was the ONLY game teachers let us play in school. Beggars can’t be choosers. Especially when said begging occurs in a pixelated frontier wagon.

5) I Used to Skateboard - David Angelo
I owned a Nash skateboard in the late 80s. Nash was the most reviled board company out there. As I quickly learned, only poseurs rode Nash boards. Mine came from Kmart and featured Bill the Cat on the top. Maybe this is why I never did quite pull off that olly I pined for.

6) Hazardous to Kids - Butch Bradley
I miss the days of metal playgrounds. Today’s jungle gyms are made of plastic and foam. Where’s the thrill in that? If you can’t potentially get injured on a playground, how fun can it be? Ask anyone who has ever died on the monkey bars– at least they had fun while doing it.

Giulia’s wink/nudge adorable antics are also the star of the show in two short films directed by Anya Garrett; “Pizza Day,” and “We.”

Wanna get inside Giulia’s…head? We do too, which is why we asked her to pick her fave Rooftop clips.

GIULIA’s PICKS

1. Silly Security Questions – Dom Irrera

I first began doing comedy in LA back in 2001 and  Dom was one of the first comedians I met and one of the only comedians to give me useful and genuine career advice. He is a master at his craft and owns the stage with such ease. I loved it when I got booked on line-ups with Dom because I got to watch and learn from a true, experienced comedian.

2. The Pants Come Off When the Ring Goes On - God’s Pottery

I absolutely love God’s Pottery. A “Christian” song-singing comedy duo? Brilliant! I’ve seen them perform countless times in NYC and everytime they make me laugh just as hard as the first time I heard them. Their songs are ridiculous, adorable, smart and warning-very very catchy. I guarantee this ditty will be in your brain all day long.

3. Brainwashed by Barbie – Auggie Smith

I met Auggie Smith at this years Boston Comedy Festival and he was awesome. I love how smart his comedy is, everything that comes out of his mouth makes me say “Yes! So true!”

4.Travel Size Shampoos - Jon Fisch

Jon Fisch is one of those people that can make anything funny. He’s genuine, intelligent and all-around good guy. We became friends when I first moved to NYC and whether he’s telling jokes on stage or making fun of me for drunkenly eating disgusting pie at a diner, this guy makes me crack up. He performed on Stripped Stories NYC back in February and kicked ass.

by guest editor Joshua Neuman

I’ve been a huge fan of Jenny Slate for about 5 years so I was overjoyed when she was recently cast on SNL. That she dropped the F-bomb on her SNL debut has probably brought a great deal of chaos to her life, but more than anything, it’s an indication of someone who has been honing her craft in spaces with limitless creative boundaries. And please mark my words: Slate will be to Nancy Grace what Tina Fey was to Sarah Palin. Long story short, four years ago a bunch of comics and I were on a van driving through the countryside in Georgia to perform at a national conference of Jewish student leaders (sort of like performing on SNL except with intense suicidal thoughts after), and she virtually channeled Grace for the 2-hour ride. Fucking brilliant.

Each year, we announce our list of 100 Jews you need to know about, 10 of which from the field of comedy. This year’s list, which we announced this week, featured writers, stand-ups, performers and a couple who I can only categorize as performance artists. Of particular note is Dave Nadelberg, founder of the Mortified stage show, in which performers revisit embarrassing childhood moments in front of sloshed audiences. If you haven’t seen the show, it is a must-see. The accompanying photograph of Nadelberg will appear in the forthcoming edition of our magazine and is part of a traveling portrait exhibit, which opens in NY at the 92Y Tribeca.