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:
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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
