Dougherty - The Friars Club private joke file: more than 2,000 very naughty jokes from the grand masters of comedy

The Friars Club Private Joke File

Also from the Friars Club

The Friars Club Encyclopedia of Jokes

The Friars Club Bible of Jokes, Pokes, Roasts, and Toasts

How to Do It Standing Up

More Than 2,000 Very Naughty Jokes from the Grand Masters of Comedy

Edited by Barry Dougherty

Introduction by Lewis Black

Copyright 2006 by the Friars Club

All photos courtesy of the Friars Club

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher.

ISBN-13: 9-781579-125509

eISBN-13: 978-1-60376-274-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file at the office of the publisher.

Cover design by Jon Valk

Interior design by Martin Lubin

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

Published by

Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Inc.

151 West 19th Street

New York, New York 10011

Distributed by

Workman Publishing Company

225 Varick Street

New York, New York 10014

It has taken a hundred years for the Friars to bite the bullet and admit they know more four-letter words than anybodywell, okay, Richard Pryor probably knew more. In any case, they figured it might be fun to pool their resources and come up with a few favorites. Then they got really daring and allowed me to rummage around in their archives and pull out a few Roast moments that are usually reserved for events held behind their huge oak doors. Must be the age thing creeping up on themor maybe they just got tired of laughing their asses off in front of the same faces and wanted to share the wealth. Whatever the reason, the bottom line is theyre at it againcorny, dirty, edgy, unorthodox, and always funnythats what you get with the Friars.

Im thrilled that these comedians took the time to talk to me about the art of telling this special genre of jokesit adds a little credibility to such a silly topic: Joy Behar, Richard Belzer, Dick Capri, Susie Essman, Judy Gold, Gilbert Gottfried, Penn Jillette, Lisa Lampanelli, Samm Levine, Jackie Martling, Paul Provenza, Freddie Roman, Jeffrey Ross, and Stewie Stone.

A huge thanks to Lewis Black for providing the Foreword. It cant be easy to carry all that dirty/edgy/funny baggage around without a release every so often, and Im so glad we reaped the benefit.

To Freddie Roman, the Dean of the Friars Club, and Jean Pierre Trebot, the Executive Director: thanks for giving me the keys to the joke closet. Entrusting me with that is akin to Frank Purdue handing over the rubber chicken to his sona true honor.

I need to thank Michael Matuza for helping me get my dirty-joke fix. The poor guy sat through hours of Friars Club Roasts on tape, transcribing these filthy gems. When hes done washing his VCR out with soap maybe hell have time to read the book and see the fruits of his labor. Dont tell his mother though.

Eve Burhenne outdid herself in helping me with research for this book. Shes a walking Google page and my appreciation for her assistance is enormous.

Im not really good at reliving the moment, as it were, so after sitting through a wonderful interview with a hilarious comedian I just dont want to hear it again. This is why I thank Luisa Buchell and Shannon Skelly for transcribing every word, from the four-letter ones to the multisyllabic ones. And speaking of four-letter wordsthank you, David Smith and Roberto Estrada, for supplying me with one or two of them. Alison Grambs also deserves a thank-you for helping me sell the message that the world needs a dirty joke book!

Laura Ross, who edited The Friars Club Private Joke File, has once again proved that funny sells, especially outside of the Christian Science Reading Room.

Finally, I give a shout-out to all comics who have the cojones to liven things by thinking the unthinkable and saying the unmentionable. If it werent for them, the only words youd see on the next page would be The Endso thanks for giving me a book!

BARRY DOUGHERTY

My parents are going to be beaming with pride when they find out that I have written an introduction to a book filled with dirty jokes. This is the moment they have been waiting for since I was born. We were hoping hed become a doctor, but since that didnt work out, this is a dream come true. But seriously, why in hell would I agree to add my name to this project? Well, its a dirty job but someone had to do it. I guess everyone else turned them down. And you know what I think? Theres nothing better than a good dirty joke. It takes you out of yourself for just a few moments and transports you into another space-time continuum, where silliness is the coin of the realm.

I cant remember the first dirty joke I ever heard. I do remember a moment of shock, a minor sense of panic that I was doing something wrong and that my parents would find out. I remember howling with laughter, laughing in a way that I never had at all of those idiotic knock-knock jokes of my childhood. I do know it was a life-changing experience, not a major one, but I knew that things would never be the same. A door had been opened and I would never want to close it. I had discovered the dark side and it was funny. And thats precisely what attracts us to such jokes: the fact that they are forbiddenthat they are not jokes for everybody. This form of humor is called profanity for a reason. It is the opposite of the sacred. The sacred serves to remind us about what is important in our lives, while the profane reminds us not to take it too seriously. Pretty important, then, that profanity.

I have always wondered why these jokes upset some people. Its a joke, for crying out loud! It doesnt matter in the greater scheme. Its designed to help us blow off a little steam and then move on. These people who object to blue humorhow do they maintain such a state of innocence, where do they find the energy, and what is it that they do for fun?

Ultimately humor is a question of taste, of what makes you laugh. And as a comic who uses profanity, dirty makes me laugh. As you grow older, your brain gets cluttered with more and more shit, and you need a more screwed-up shovel to get the shit out. Sometimes, you just need to be shocked out of the nonsense that inundates you on a daily basis. Its good for the soul.

Can someone explain to me why certain words are considered dirty? These are the words we use to express our anger and outrage. What other words do we have at our disposal that do the job so well? (The word fuck, uttered gutturally or shouted to the winds, releases all the pain, anguish, horror, and disgust one might feel in one great expulsion of air.) What words do people spontaneously use when they watch a horrifying event of epic proportions, such as a tsunami? When youre watching a body of water rise up and crush everything in its path, dont words like Son of a bitch or Holy shit cross your mind? Does anyone really think, Aw, pshaw or pussyfeathers?

There are a number of critics who believe that comedians can get easy laughs just by swearing. That isnt true. I am a comic who is considered edgy, which means that I use profanity and tell jokes on topics that tend to make people uncomfortableall the more reason that I have to know what Im doing every secondbecause the audience isnt stupid. They know when you are not delivering the goods. And in that case, all of the fucks in the world wont save your ass. This book includes commentary from a number of comics whose work I admire. These geniuses help to illuminate what its like to work profane and tell jokes that make people uncomfortable. Youll also find a discussion of The Aristocrats, the all-time classic Big Daddy of dirty jokes. One that comics have crafted to their own sense of humor. Reading about it offers real insight into the twisted recesses of the comic mind.