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 pall bearers 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.

Behind Mr. Hefner, stretching out like the wings of a B-52 bomber,

was the event's dais, a roster that only the Friars could put together: actors

Danny Aiello, Keith David, Vincent Pastore and The Sopranos ' Joe Pantoliano in a newsboy's cap;  MTV personality Carson Daly, looking lost;

mentalist the Amazing Kreskin, artist LeRoy Neiman, developer Donald Trump;

actress Diane Farr and Dr. Joyce Brothers; comedian Dick Capri, former kidnap

victim Patricia Hearst, onetime Playboy

pictorial subject Kylie Bax and makeup-less Kiss member Ace Frehley. 

Friar Club's Abbot Alan

King's eyes shone in the spotlight.

"The Friars have an age-old motto," Mr. King said. "'We only

roast the ones we love.' Tonight, we give lie to that bullshit."

His gaze shifted to Mr. Hefner, in mid-chuckle. "Not only don't I

love him, I never met this putz before in my life: Hugh Hefner, who likes to be

called Hef-but in Hebrew, spelled backwards, it's Feh!"

Our "leaders kept telling

us," Mr. King said, "we must get on with our lives, and laughter is a very

important part of our lives. And who better to laugh at than our guest of

honor," a man "who made jacking off a national pastime." A guy who "has smelt more

beaver than a furrier. A man who makes Donald Trump look like Elie Wiesel. A

man who thinks the early-bird special is eating pussy before 6 o'clock."

Mr. King stared down the crowd. "Who better?" he said.

Yes, who better to ease this

crowd back to its favorite bloodsport than Mr. Hefner, a man whose soul had

escaped his body decades ago via his vas deferens? The Friars weren't roasting

a man, they were roasting an abstraction: a square-jawed, silk-robed symbol of

American priapism, who, at 75, wanted us to believe that he was bedding down

nightly with more than a half-dozen human equivalents of Jessica Rabbit.

For a city that had crossed its pain threshold weeks ago, Mr.

Hefner was a fortunate choice. It's hard to eviscerate a man whose only innards

are a hyperdeveloped reproductive system, and who, up there onstage, looked as

burnished and ageless as a publicity still, emitting his affectless, Teflon

chuckle.

The table of Mr.

Hefner's alleged paramours and Playboy

Playmates seemed to have been placed strategically in front of the podium as a

symbol of what was at stake should any joker go too far. At the Comedy Central

after-party at Beacon restaurant, comedian Jeffrey Ross agreed that some

comedians had pulled their punch lines when it came to Mr. Hefner. "I'll tell

you why," said Mr. Ross, who was wearing a bow tie that Buddy Hackett had given

to him. "Because they're afraid they won't get invited to the mansion. They

were all backstage going, 'I know it's funny, but do you think this will piss

him off?'"

The roastmaster of the evening was Jimmy Kimmel, co-star of

Comedy Central's The Man Show . "I

could go on and on," said Mr. Kimmel, "but what could you say about Hef that

hasn't already been mumbled incoherently by a thousand young women with his

cock in their mouths? I've read just about every issue of Playboy since I was 15 years old," Mr. Kimmel continued. "Not once

did I ever see a Playmate say one of her turn-ons was fucking a 75-year-old

man."

Rob Schneider, whom Mr. Kimmel said "is so short he doesn't even

have to bend over to kiss Adam Sandler's ass," was the first roaster on the

podium. Mr. Schneider told the crowd, "We're here tonight to honor a man who

personifies why these terrorists hate us. If it were up to them, women couldn't

read, couldn't work, get fake tits, go to school, pose nude to help their

career. Hugh Hefner believes that women should be able to do all those

things-except read."

Mr. Schneider was the first comic of the night to approach the

topic that was foremost in everyone's thoughts. The laughter seemed hesitant

and restrained.

Jeffrey Ross went up to the podium. "Hasn't there been enough

bombing in this city?" he said into the microphone.

" Ooooooooooooh !" the

crowd erupted.

Mr. Ross was up next. The Buddy Hackett bow tie seemed to be

working. "My good friend Abe Vigoda's here," Mr. Ross said. "Last week, Abe

tried to enlist in Old Navy." Mr. Ross looked over at Mr. Vigoda. "Abe, enough

getting old. Just fuckin' die already, all right?"

Eventually, Mr. Ross got around to Mr. Hefner.

"Hef has fondled more playmates than Michael Jackson," Mr. Ross

said, which got him a big laugh. "Personally, I think it's awesome, awesome

that you sleep with seven women," he told Mr. Hefner, "because eight would be

ostentatious." And then the comic explained the real reason that so many women

were required: "You know, one to put it in, and the other six to move you

around."

Alan King's Last Fan

Sarah Silverman, in a stylish black number, replaced Mr. Ross at

the podium. "Jimmy Kimmel, everyone," she said to the crowd after Mr. Kimmel

introduced her. "He's fat and has no charisma. Watch your back, Danny Aiello!"

The crowd loved that one, and Ms. Silverman, who was the only

woman to roast Mr. Hefner, proceeded to lay waste to a few more of the men on

the dais. She told Mr. King that a nursing home in Florida had just called.

"The last person who thinks you're funny just died." And gazing at the

gray-bearded face of Dick Gregory, she said: "Is he the guy from the rice or

the cookies?

"Well, let's talk about the whores-the Bunnies," she continued.

"I think they should be role models in society-if only for the fact that they

wax their assholes." Later, The Transom asked Playmate Michelle Winchester what

her fellow Playmates had thought of that particular joke. She replied with a

smile: "Actually, that's true!"

Ice-T made his second speaking appearance at a Friars Roast. "I

just wanna rob all you white motherfuckers. And for some reason I don't, and it

fascinates you," he told the crowd, which gave him a healthy laugh just in case

he was serious. But there seemed to be some confusion in the crowd over whether

his line that Mr. Hefner's "dick is busier than an orthodontist in fucking

Japan right now" was actually funny.

The civil-rights activist and nutritionist Dick Gregory told a

couple of jokes. "Black folks," he said, "know this is a great nation" because

of the success of Michael Jackson. "Where else can a poor black boy be born in

utter poverty in Gary, Ind., and end up being a rich white man?" Mr. Gregory

said.

But Mr. Gregory had come to praise Mr. Hefner, not roast him. He

cited Mr. Hefner's courage for hiring black entertainers to work the Playboy

Club when no one else would. And then he delivered an inspirational speech

about New York and the United States.

"Fear and God do not occupy the same space," Mr. Gregory told the

crowd. "If you stop and think about what makes America great, it's not soldiers

… it's the firemen that left home this morning and intended to come back

tonight and ran into a building when everybody else was running out."

The crowd gave Mr. Gregory a

standing ovation, but the quick-thinking Mr. Kimmel steered the event back to

its profane moorings. "So anyway," he said, "I was reading your magazine the

other day," and he described what he was doing while he was reading. The crowd

exploded with laughter. "Someone forgot to tell Dick this was a roast," Mr.

Kimmel said, adding: "Boy, does that make me feel like a piece of shit."

Ice-T Did My Act

Gilbert Gottfried was the last man up to the podium. In his $11

gray shawl-collar tuxedo jacket with tails, black bow tie and Caesar haircut,

Mr. Gottfried looked like he had just come from band practice.

Mr. Gottfried grasped the podium with both hands and, squinting

out at the audience, he began the screeching parrot-like delivery that is his

trademark.

"Ice-T did my whole act," he said. "So I'll do it anyway: I'm

going to follow you white motherfuckers home and rape you fucking white

bitches." Mr. Gottfried paused while the crowd convulsed. "You see, it's such a

strong bit it still works," he said.   

"Dick Gregory did the rest of my act," he continued. "I want to

say-a lot of you young people don't know, but years ago, Jews were not allowed

in comedy!" 

Then Mr. Gottfried started in on Mr. Hefner. "Hugh Hefner doesn't

need Viagra. He needs cement! He needs to take ice-cream sticks and tape it

around his dick and use it as a splint!" Mr. Gottfried screamed. "But in all

fairness to Hefner, he really had to fight for free speech, so we could say

things we couldn't say before. Like: 'Die, you senile old bastard! Die! '"

Mr. Gottfried was killing. It

was time to push the envelope.

"Tonight I'll be using my Muslim name, Hasn't Been Laid," he

said. This got a big laugh. Then Mr. Gottfried began a routine that had worked

extremely well for him at the Richard Belzer roast.

"A woman is on her deathbed," Mr. Gottfried said. "The husband is

sitting at the corner of the bed …. [H]er hair's all dried out. Her skin's all

white. All of a sudden, she goes, 'Please, honey …. '" Mr. Gottfried described

the woman's verboten sexual

request. 

The comedian paused. Some of the audience members were looking

around.

"This is a clean one," he said. The husband complies and, Mr.

Gott-fried said, "the color returns to her skin; her hair looks healthy. She

jumps up in bed. She's sexier and healthier than she ever was before. She looks

down. Her husband's sitting at the corner of the bed, crying. She goes, 'What's

the matter?'"

Mr. Gottfried waited a millisecond. "He goes, 'I could have saved

my father!'"

The laughter came in gasps. There were gurgling sounds in the air

and people hung doubled over, sucking air through hoarse throats.

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 fuck 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 man-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?'

"At the father's signal, Mr. Gottfried said, the family disrobes

en masse. "The father starts fucking his wife," he said. "The wife starts

jerking off the son. The son starts going down on the sister. The sister starts

fingering the dog's asshole." Mr. Gottfried's voice was growing stronger. "Then

the son starts blowing his father."

The Hilton's ballroom filled with the sounds of sudden

exhalations. The comedians on the dais were bug-eyed with laughter and

recognition. Some of the men had dropped to all fours.

Mr. Gottfried was beaming.

"Want me to start at the beginning?" he asked.

He kept going, turning the joke into an extended bacchanal of

bodily fluids, excrement, bestiality and sexual deviance. Mr. Gottfried plumbed

the darkest crevices he could find. He riffed and riffed until people in the

audience were coughing and sputtering and sucking in great big gulps of air.

Tears ran throughout the Hilton ballroom, as if Mr. Gottfried had performed a

collective tracheotomy on the audience, delivering oxygen and laughter past the

grief and ash that had blocked their passageways. 

Then he brought it home.

"The talent agent says, 'Well, that's an interesting act. What do

you call yourselves?'"

Mr. Gottfried threw up his hands. "And they go, 'The

Aristocrats!'"

There was a sound in the room that went beyond laughter.

Mr. Gottfried had gone to "The Aristocrats," the comedy

equivalent of the B-flat below high C that Leontyne Price had sung at Carnegie

Hall on Sunday. "The Aristocrats" is one of the definitive inside jokes among

comedians. It is so definitive that comicPaul Provenza and performance artist

Penn Jillette are making a digital documentary about the joke. "Every comic

makes it their own," Mr. Provenza said. "The set-up is the same and the punch

line is the same," but the comic puts his or her "own stamp" on the material in

between.

Mr. Gottfried had used it to save himself, but also to lift the

crowd to another place.

A few minutes later, Alan King paid him a high compliment.

"Forgive me," he said. "I'm just still a little touched by that

asshole Gottfried."