Remembering Septembers

from the classic and hilarious NY Observer article --Why Have a Night Like This In times Like These?' by Frank DiGiacomo

Just weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Friars Club warily proceeded with its planned roast of Hugh Hefner, which included a classic telling of ‘The Aristocrats’ joke. The result? As Frank DiGiacomo reported, the laughter humanized an inhuman time.

On Saturday, Sept. 29, Freddie Roman, the dean of New York’s Friars Club, stood before audience members in the Grand Ballroom of the New York Hilton and asked them to familiarize themselves with the fire exits.

Then, because he’d said that “these are very different times for us all,” he attempted to answer a question that people had been asking him. Mr. Roman’s Vulcanesque eyes and brows scanned the audience before him. The question sounded a little like something that would be asked at Passover. “Why have a night like this in times like these?”

Mr. Roman was referring to the Friars Roast, the club’s yearly ritual of profane humor and insult that was about to get underway with Playboy founder Hugh Hefner in the hot seat.

In the aftermath of the terrorist attack on New York, the Friars organization and Comedy Central, the cable network that, for the last three years, has taped and televised an expurgated version of the roast (this one will debut on Nov. 4), had, after some debate, decided to go ahead with the event. “It’s time we get back to normal, like Mayor Giuliani and President Bush have asked,” Mr. Roman said. “And for the Friars, this is normal. Telling dirty jokes, making fun of people. That’s what we do, and we’re proud to do it for you,” he said. “So you can get some laughter back in your life and into your hearts.”

While the crowd waited for the cameras to start rolling, Mr. Roman eased into the task at hand.

“A couple married 48 years. Wife takes sick and passes away. Funeral at the Riverside, 78th and Broadway,” Mr. Roman said. “After the service, the pallbearers pick up the coffin. As they’re leaving the building, the coffin hits the wall.” From inside the coffin, he said, the woman’s voice could be heard.

“They open the coffin—it’s a miracle,” he said. “She stays married for another two years. Gets sick, passes away again. After the service, the pallbearers lift the coffin. As they start to leave, the husband yells, ‘Watch out for the wall!’”

The laughter sounded grateful. Mr. Roman got the high sign to introduce Mr. Hefner. A small group of Playmates led the flesh magnate—who looked frighteningly robust and wrinkle-free for a man in his 70’s—to the big red swivel chair on the stage....

At the conclusion of the evening, Gilbert Gottfried took the stage -
The man in the gray tuxedo jacket looked out over the crowd. “I have a flight to California. I can’t get a direct flight,” Mr. Gottfried said. “They said they have to stop at the Empire State Building first.”

There was a silence. Then hissing and hooting flooded forward.

“Too soon,” a man could be heard saying in the back of the ballroom.

When the booing started, Mr. Gottfried responded: “Awwwwwww, what the f...k do you care?” Silence fell once more.

Mr. Gottfried had his answer. Up on the podium, he began making strange movements with his arms, as if he was working some sort of invisible machine that could take him back in time to the moment right before he had pushed too far. Seconds passed.

“O.K.,” he continued. His voice was not so loud.

“A talent agent is sitting in his office. A family walks in. A man, woman, two kids, their little dog, and the talent agent goes, ‘What kind of an act do you do?’”

..and there began his classic, insane, recitation of "The Aristocrats."

The full New York Observer link here