Budd Friedman, who has presided over the stand-up comedy world for decades with his Improv clubs, contributed to Richard Zoglin's new book, "Comedy at the Edge: How Stand-Up in the 1970s Changed America." It was a time of huge cultural shifts back then, and comedy took on a new edge. But, how about today? Is another comedy shift underway now?

"I hope not," says Friedman. "Not to sound like an old fogey, but some of the comics today are just in it for the dollar and not for the art. You see some of the material gets a little cheap, and it's not as much fun."

Cheap, of course, is in the eye of the beholder. What's Friedman's definition of Cheap?

"I'll give it to you in one word," he replies, then drops that four letter F-bomb. "They're using it as an all-out word, as an adjective and as a noun. They're using it like we used to in the Army, for no reason whatsoever. When Richard Pryor used it, he had a reason. He used it with great judiciousness and it had great effect, great value. That's very different from just larding every sentence with it."

Friedman cites New Orleans-born comedian Jodi Borrello as an example of an up-and-coming talent he does like. Sample: "You'd think people in Las Vegas would be different than us here in New Orleans. But, they're not. They're all walking around saying, 'I lost everything. I lost the car. I lost the house ...'" And, there's not an f-word in it.