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.

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.

Joshua has a cool life. A proud member of the ubiquitous Friar’s Club, he’s an author, a writer, a lover. And, of course, he’s hilarious. Otherwise…why bother? Here, just see for yourself.

JOSHUA’S PICKS

1) Breast Exam – Whitney Cummings
In my opinion, she’s got a name more fit for porn than Hollywood, but her manager did somehow squeeze her onto the Joan Rivers Roast earlier this year, so I guess he must be looking after her. True story: She interviewed me at Sundance a couple of years ago and in less than a minute asked me if I did anal. In this clip she talks about her “two A’s in highschool.”

2) Horror Movie Reception – Kumail Nanjiani
Nanjiani is a rising star who we’ve featured a few times at our Heeb Storytelling series. He’s a master of affixing his gaze on obscure moments and making them feel anything but impertinent. Here he talks about the way that cell phones have impacted horror film scripts.

3) McDonald’s Birth - Natasha Leggero
Imagine Dorothy Parker holding court at a trailer park instead of the Algonquin Hotel. Here, she compares a woman in Montana’s aborted fetus to a bad “McRib” sandwich. The grimier the club, the funnier it is to watch this prissy dame dish it out.

4) What It’s Like to be Gay – Moshe Kasher
When I first saw Moshe Kasher walk onto a stage, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Had Le Tigre broken up? We included Kasher as one of ten comics to watch this year in our Fourth Annual Heeb Hundred list. Here, he is at the Aspen Rooftop Comedy Festival espousing homosexual conspiracy theories.

5) Garage Comedy Night - Alessandra Rizzotti

In this clip, Alessandra Rizzotti is in a similar condition that she was when I first met her—neck brace, missing front teeth, etc…. No joke: She literally fell off a cliff in Malibu Canyon Creek and still she’s up there, on stage, going about her business, talking about her Mexican lovers, as if nothing happened. Rizzotti is not just a quirky, comic surrealist, she’s also got balls.

6) The Hitler Strip – Chris Hardwick
After a Luna Lounge show back in the late 90s, I ended up sitting next to him and striking up a conversation about Kierkegaard for about 45 minutes—he had apparently studied philosophy at Princeton. When he took off somebody told me he was the host of Shipmates, I couldn’t believe it. The guy is brilliant. I highly recommend this clip—but maybe don’t trust me because I’m a sucker for Hitler jokes.

As they usually do in the autumn, most of the heads of the world’s countries came to the United States last week to address the United Nations. There was the usual mix of terrifying white guys and terrifying people of color. Sadly, Gabonese dictator Omar Bongo — long the head of state with (to immature Westerners) the planet’s most ridiculously amusing name — was not among them, as a result of his having passed away three months earlier.

Still, there was a lot of high drama and bizarre spectacle. This time around, Bongo’s continent-mate — Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi — ran away with the prize for most Cuckoo’s Nest-crazy speech, riffing on everything from swine flu to the Kennedy assassination. While he wasn’t wearing a tin-foil hat, he was wearing a fringed sheriff’s-deputy shirt with an Africa broach under a spaghetti-strap evening gown. (A spaghetti western?)

Qaddafi — who although he has been Libya’s head of state for 40 years is still only a colonel (my sources say the advancement exam to General is quite difficult) — also had some embarrassing erection problems while in this country. That is to say that he was not allowed to erect the bedouin open-air party tent with which he traditionally travels. New York City officials put the kibosh on his attempt to pitch his tent (who knew there were so many “tent”-oriented euphemisms for “boner”?) in Central Park, and the State Department rejected his efforts to put up the tent in New Jersey, where the Libyan government owns some property. His final attempt was in Bedford, New York, in ritzy Westchester County — curiously, on property owned by Donald Trump. (Apparently, Qaddafi has some Middle Eastern partners who do business with the buffoonish billionaire.)

Muammar, here’s some free advice for your next visit to America: If you want to put up a structure where you can sleep, get a field, some yoked oxen, scores of buckets of lemonade, and invite over about 20 Amish dudes. They’ll probably never have heard of you (bonus!) and they love putting up houses.

But for all its Libyan lunacy, this latest round of diplomatic shenanigans doesn’t quite beat my favorite all-time UN moments, which revolve around the Pronunciation War waged by the first president Bush — you remember, the father of the draft-dodging reformed-cokehead bible-thumper who put us in the shit we’re all in now? — against Saddam Hussein.

Right, George Bush the elder used to deliberately, and I mean deliberately, mispronounce the name of the head of state of Iraq. The man’s name was “Saddam [pronounced sid-DAM] Hussein,” and “sid-DAM,” in Iraqi Arabic street slang, means “one who confronts.” But Bush used to pronounce the man’s name as “Saddam” {prounounced SOD-dumb], which in Iraqi Arabic street slang means “bare-footed beggar.” I mean, for the first three years he was in office, I just thought Bush was, well, an idiot who couldn’t pronounce the guy’s name. But it turns out he actually had a strategy there. Of course, at the end of the day, Mr. Hussein had the last laugh, because he would pronounce our president’s name as “Bush,” which in English street slang means “vagina.” And, on virtually every playground in the world, “vagina” trumps “bare-footed beggar.”

Lance jumped at the chance to guest edit for Rooftop [and i jumped at the chance to edit my former editor, and exact my revenge! - SFA] and we’re pleased as a donkey punch that, besides giving us his kick-ass stand-up picks, Lance will be doing some guest blogging this week, too. He writes good.

But first, the picks!

1) Pranking Pro-lifers – Laurie Kilmartin

Laurie used to always impress me when she was a writer and performer on Colin Quinn’s underrated TV-late-night melee-fest “Tough Crowd.” She was a funny lady who could disarm the feral louts who populated the program. Here, she demonstrates why she’s so deadly, giving a little ju-jitsu guilt to anti-abortion maniacs.

2) A Threatening State Motto – Jamie Kilstein

The Texas tourism board may want to take this clip to heart. Jamie rightly points out that no other U.S. state’s official motto is even remotely menacing. And in this economy, I’m not so sure that’s a wise move. I wouldn’t be surprised, though, to see certain rogue foreign states follow Texas’s lead. Look for Somalia to unveil its new “Yeah, We’re Run by Fucking Pirates” campaign soon.

3) Facebook Sucks – Erik Allen

When technology evolves as quickly as it does, tackling a subject such as Facebook – which is at this point already three social-networking-group phenomena ago – can be dangerous. But Erik handles this one cleverly, revealing a surprise personal relationship on Facebook that shows how glib and tenuous all of our “friendships” are.

4) Street Credibility – Lamar Williams

Lamar is a cerebral dude. If you enjoy this bit, in which he, an African-American man, confides in an uncharacteristic affinity for puzzles, also check out what just might be the most amusingly titled clip on this site, “I Hate Moths.”

5) Finnegan’s the Name - Christian Finnegan

I remember seeing Christian a few years ago in New York and greatly enjoying his riff on a man who, perhaps unwisely, made the decision to wear a “Certified Muff Diver” T-shirt out in public. (That clip is also on this site.) Here, though, Christian confides that he feels unable to live up to the supreme virility that the name “Finnegan” implies. Tell me about it, Finnegan: you’re talking to a “Lance” who obsessively carries tubes of Neosporin, just in case he breaks a cuticle.

The timing of Rob Delaney’s guest editor stint was pure serendipity. The Boston-born comedian is all the fahck over the Internet, kid, starring alongside Joe McIntyre in the now-viral Funny or Die video, ‘MA Men,’ a fahckin’ sweet parody of Mad Men (which took home Best Drama at last night’s Emmys).

But we saw him before he got famous. Specifically, we spent hours e-mailing cat videos (kitteos! Mreow!) back and forth with him instead of doing our work. Hmm. Maybe that was just me. No matter. We’re just thrilled that Rob took a break from his incessant Twittering (@robdelaney), playing the tasty Commander Cake on the Sci-Fi channel’s Outer Space Astronauts, and from stroking his chub for the Red Sox,  to pick his favorite Rooftop clips.

Do it, guy.

ROB’S PICKS:

1) Speaking Out Loud – Tig Nogaro

The Mighty Tig.  Shakespeare (a fag) said “Brevity is the soul of wit”.  Tig embodies this.  Not a wasted syllable.  When new comics ask me for advice (this doesn’t happen) I say “Watch Tig.”  She’s a zen master.  I want to be like her.  Also, this clip is a pretty sublime example of turning the “lead” of a painful experience into the “gold” of a joke that can help heal the world, one audience member at a time.

2) Hear About Hackman -Brendon Walsh

I’ve only recently started watching Brendon.  He’s one of those people who has funny like a disease.  But a good disease, the kind that you want to get from him by letting him fuck you.  He’s probably a miserable person, based on all the horrible stuff he talks about, but I don’t care, because he’s so funny.  I hope he lives to see 40.

3) Robocosby – Marvin Howard

I was doing shows at the Joke Joint in Minneapolis and a comic said “Look at this shit” and showed me this clip.  But I loved it.  Not ironically, either.  Watching it makes me happy.  Never in 42,000 years would I do a joke like this, but I’m glad this guy did.  I have watched this clip far more than any other on Housetop Comedy, or whatever this “website” is called.

4) Athletes and Their Stupid Ads – Hannibal Buress 

This guy, holy shit.  What a tidal wave of brilliance.  Comedy is art, absolutely, but you might not always think of it that way.  Even a fucking stupid idiot from Planet Shitbrain would watch this guy and say “Oh, an artist!” then piss on themselves and run over a cop on their Segway specially designed for very fat people.

5) It was Funny When I was High – Mike Bridenstine 

I love this guy a lot.  A hard-working, very funny guy who tells great jokes well.  I first saw him at the UCB in LA and said to myself “Hey Rob, this guy you’re watching/listening to now is very good and wonderful”.  He only gets funnier and it is a pleasure to see him write new stuff and grow, like glaucoma, slowly making an old watchmaker go blind.

6) What People Want – Maria Bamford

A genius at the height of her powers.  A fearless warrior.  Maria demonstrates that you can go anywhere and make anything funny. Watching her is like going to school, if school were fun and felt like having waves gently crash on you on a beach in Tahiti.  Maria is hilarious, to be sure, but her comedy is so good it’s literally Important.

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