The Late Joan Rivers: 'Does this urn make my ash look fat?'- Page 11

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 8/31/14 at 11:11pm

Melissa dials a phone with a pencil between her teeth!!

Phyllis, I'm worried for your safety now that there's a guilt by association with me in this thread.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 8/31/14 at 11:22pm

I never liked her, either. You are just kindred. She did those commercials for MCI when I was a kid one time my mom said "Your grandmother did not like her." It was like "Me neither!"

[Auggie27]

Posted: 8/31/14 at 11:24pm

Yeah, Rose Marie. Bow-less and joke-less. "Funny, the things you remember, the things you forget..." I'll never get that night back spent at the National Theatre in Washington, DC, or a passing grade in biology. Hard choices. Trade-offs. We're all defined by 'em. Even Miss Rivers herself.

Updated On: 8/31/14 at 11:24 PM

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 8/31/14 at 11:30pm

I just saw a headline that said the family is planning a lawsuit. Now I think this is just like that CNN time and she's playing us again. She will do anything for publicity. We all fell for it again!

Updated On: 8/31/14 at 11:30 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 8/31/14 at 11:31pm

I saw Rabbit Test in 1978. It was one of those things a high school gaggle of friends would go see because the ads were all over the UHF stations. At first we just thought it was unusual and exciting that it opened in the second-run 99 cents at all times theater...

[sabrelady]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 12:07am

I think it almost killed Billy Crystal's career.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 12:12am

A 1966 holiday message from Joan, to everyone posting un this thread, but especially to FindingNamo and Phyllis Rogers Stone.

[ljay889]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 12:34am

Wow, she looks so much like Melissa there.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 12:39am

I hope Melissa grows to look more more like Joan as the years go by.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 1:22am

I'm not sure I get the message.

However, I will say this. I signed up for a free month of Netflix and streamed A Piece of Work. I had a few reactions.

It took about eight minutes before I groaned while she bitched about doing a gig in May in Vegas that wasn't befitting a comedy icon.

I felt sad when she misspelled "Vigina" on her big poster board.

I didn't get the focus on Billy and and the slow mo shots while she talks about firing the guy. I would imagine THAT is a story that is easy to understand after working with Joan for decades. For her to turn it into a tearful moment was odd.

I LOVE that she hated people being mean to her on the roast. I like that she said "it comes back at ya, doesn't it?" YES JOAN IT DOES.

I got the sneaking suspicion that the bit where she makes a crack about Kathy Griffin there's a sudden exterior shot where Joan says, "Just kidding! I love Kathy!" was added in post-production.

My jaw dropped when she said her acting was her "one sacred space". Jesus, lord.

And finally: there was one moment where I absolutely HOWLED OUT LOUD, and that was her bit about "AIDS is chronic." THAT is seriously artful comedy writing. The kind I wish she had gotten around to more often.

I'll be canceling Netflix on Sept 30. Anything else I should watch? I'm not a fan of series. And I swear to god I did not pick three favorite movies when I signed up but after watching the Joan Rivers thing 90% of the titles they picked for me have pictures of two men on them.

Updated On: 9/1/14 at 01:22 AM

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 1:34am

Orange is the New Black is good. And I just watched the first episode of Bojack Horseman last night, which I'm willing to watch another of.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 1:52am

I was always borderline on Will Arnett. But after he cheated on Amy with Christina, well, harrrumph.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 1:58am

I didn't get the holiday greeting, either.

You could watch the Joan Rivers movie again. This time you could treat it like a Rocky Horror kind of thing.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 2:02am

I have this memory that I *thought* I saw on TV as a promo for the piece of work documentary where Joan is going in for yet another round of surgery and Melissa's all concerned and Joan is saying, "This business is just awful," as if the business made the surgery appointment for her. But it wasn't in the movie at all. Did I imagine it? Maybe it was from The Apprentice?

[SNAFU]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 3:03am

Namo, thanks for the heads up that Piece of Work was on Netflix. Just now finished watchinbg it. I will say from the outset that from the get go, I really didn't feel one way or the other about her. After watching this, where she constantly portrays herself as a victim. "OH poor me" whie living this incredible life style. Done wrong by Johnny Carson? Joan darling he made your career, was even grooming you to be his replacement and you freaking took a job with FOX to be his competetor..... AND YOU are the freaking victim?!?
I found all of her stand up portrayed in this film unfunny and, to me offensive.
This was a Pity Pot Film. I connot tolerate self grandizing victims!

[~~tiny3~~]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 5:13am

Aw Joanie, you're missing "the fappening".

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 7:26am

Namo's OP is... satire, right? Am I dumb? Does labeling it thusly not change anyone's feelings about anything at all ever> And how has the thread come this far, including dissections of said jokes made herein, with the word "satirical" not being mentioned? That's certainly the lens through which I've been seeing it (and have a hard time seeing how anyone could see it as anything otherwise), and that's what makes it so wonderful. What's going on?

[dreaming]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 8:30am

I hope so, growl. I have only tried to be positive-because my interaction with Ms. Rivers has been nothing but and I am hoping that the tough lady pulls through. As I said, my grandmother had brain surgery and had all kinds of complications and they told us she was dying-she is still here. She lives on her own and is just fine. And she didn't take nearly as good care of herself as Ms. Rivers appears to.

NOTE: In the encounter I described above, what made it special was that all the people at the table called her "Ms. Rivers" and she said, "Here, I'm Joan". True story!

[Jane2]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 8:34am

Growl, what's going on is Namo and Phyllis are scouring through their Joan Rivers loose leafs to come up with enough material to try to turn the screws on those of us who don't like their attitude. Keep it going, guys, I never heard of some of the stuff you're mentioning, thanks!

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 10:56am

The message of the holiday greeting was this: love. So is the message of this beautiful post from David Drake, of The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me:

===

David Drake

JOAN RIVERS. September 1, 2014.

This Labor Day Friday I went to my regular 12 Step recovery group, which is a meditation meeting. I’ve been participating with this group off and on for the past decade+years. For 15 minutes, as the sun sets, sitting in a circle in a darkening classroom of the Episcopal Seminary in Chelsea with nearly 30 other gay men (and a few women of various sexual orientations), we are quiet. Over the years, my goal in these meditations has come to be about allowing whatever is in my mind to rise up and be claimed and cleared, so as not to block me from a purer connection with my Higher Power -- and his purpose for my life. Last Friday, amongst the gnarly obstacles of financial and career concerns crowding my brain, Joan Rivers emerged. And stayed. Suddenly, I found myself praying for her health, her safety, and her voice to return to the world. I thought back to the first time I ever saw her -- on The Tonight Show (while I was still in college), and began to realize the longevity of something she had brought me: THE GREATEST GIFT OF JOY ONE CAN GIVE: Laughter. Little did I know as a Baltimore college student that not only would I continue to receive Joan’s brand of joy for the next 30 years, but along the way I would also be able to give her joy as well -- with my work. Through the remainder of my meditation, Joan continued to flow thru my mind in the unexpected, moving, and empowering ways she has graced my life.

Christmas Week 1987. As Joan was still mourning the death of her husband Edgar, she totally needed some joy in her life. So, with Dominic Dunne as her date, and some other companions, Joan came to NY's Provincetown Playhouse to see VAMPIRE LESBIANS OF SODOM. (I had replaced Charles Busch earlier that year.) I was 24. And completely dazzled. Joan was the first Big Star I had ever performed for. Our hunk in the show, AJ Vincent, baked her a cake with the inscription “JOAN... Honorary Vampire Lesbian”. Joan asked if we could cut out the piece of cake with the word “Lesbian” on it for her. No problem! She took it with her to a holiday party that night.

Jump-cut a few years later, Joan cheered me on as I won “Miss Glamouresse” the night she saw PAGEANT in previews. Our picture made The National Inquirer. The following year, I watched her cry her eyes out during The Vigil sequence in THE NIGHT LARRY KRAMER KISSED ME at the Perry Street Theater. She immediately booked me on her FOX daytime TV show, which made tickets sales soar. On the show, when Joan asked me “What would be the most important thing your generation could do?”, I said, “Find the cure for AIDS.” In a heartbeat, she teared up.

Later, during the late 90s, when I wrote the Cabaret Beat column for Playbill, I interviewed Joan several times. Always ready with a crackerjack quip, I recall one of those phoners was the shortest of my journalistic career: 8 minutes. (I had every quote I needed.) And devout theater consumer that she is, in 2009 Joan ventured all the way downtown to HERE to see my work as a director in the 5-hour epic that was Taylor Mac’s THE LILY’S REVENGE. She loved it. Afterwards, Joan cornered our costume designer MachineDazzle Flower to make her something for her new act. (I think the deal fell through.)

Then just last year, after I witnessed Joan KILL the crowd at the Laurie Beechman Theatre (honestly, I was laughing so hard: Tears... many tears rolled down my cheeks), I invited her to my Tawny Heatherton show, which was coming up at the Beechman the next month. When I told Joan that Tawny was the forgotten niece of Joey Heatherton, she howled, “OH! I LOVED Joey Heatherton. WHAT A MESS!” Then in a conspiratorial-whisper, “... whatever happened to her?” “We don’t know,” I said. “It’s one of Tawny’s quests: To find her.” She said, “I’M THERE!” But alas, due to her demanding touring schedule, Joan wasn’t able to make it to one of Tawny’s 3 performances. However she did sent word through our shared musical director Lance Cruce that the next time we did Tawny, she “wants the dates!” That was the quote. From Joan. Yeah... Rivers. “I want the dates!”

And when the meditation ended, I was crying. Not for the missed opportunity of Joan seeing my Tawny show (though there will ALWAYS be a seat set aside for her whenEVER Tawny next appears), but for this long, crazy, surprising, random journey of joy that Joan Rivers has given me. In that meditation I realized that with the countless hours of laughter she has given me, along with those blessed moments when I’ve been able to share my own work with her, we had exchanged the most important thing people can share with one another: Joy. Joan knows that. Respects that. Lives for that. We all should. I have prayed for her every night since.

Updated On: 9/1/14 at 10:56 AM

[Jane2]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 11:13am

Beautiful, PJ. Thanks for posting that!

[ghostlight2]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 11:31am

I read David Drakes' FB post earlier. Two things:

" Our hunk in the show, AJ Vincent, baked her a cake with the inscription “JOAN... Honorary Vampire Lesbian”. Joan asked if we could cut out the piece of cake with the word “Lesbian” on it for her. No problem! "

Why was that "No problem!"? Someone bakes her a cake, but it's acceptable only if they take the word "lesbian" off? She says that to Drakes' face and he says "No problem"? I find that offensive as hell. And this:

" I invited her to my Tawny Heatherton show, which was coming up at the Beechman the next month. When I told Joan that Tawny was the forgotten niece of Joey Heatherton, she howled, “OH! I LOVED Joey Heatherton. WHAT A MESS!” Then in a conspiratorial-whisper, “... whatever happened to her?” “We don’t know,” I said. “It’s one of Tawny’s quests: To find her.” She said, “I’M THERE!” But alas, due to her demanding touring schedule, Joan wasn’t able to make it to one of Tawny’s 3 performances. However she did sent word through our shared musical director Lance Cruce that the next time we did Tawny, she “wants the dates!” That was the quote. From Joan. Yeah... Rivers. “I want the dates!” "

She said “I’M THERE!” the first time, but is a no show - but wants the dates so she can not show up again?

The point of Drakes' post eludes me. He comes across as a starstruck fangirl who will accept any behavior from his idol as long as he gets a few crumbs, and she comes across as an entitled bitch.

Seriously, she asked them to remove "lesbian" from the cake?

Really?

[ljay889]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 11:35am

. Updated On: 9/1/14 at 11:35 AM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 11:40am

I don't have a Joan Rivers loose leaf, Jane. I just have my memory.

[Jane2]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 11:42am

you get props for that memory.