The Late Joan Rivers: 'Does this urn make my ash look fat?'- Page 12

[sabrelady]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 11:46am

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.

She took it with her to a holiday party that night.

[dreaming]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 11:50am

Funny, I've always noted what a friend to the LGBT community she is. I don't know about that story, but I've never seen or heard her act in a homophobic manner.

[ghostlight2]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 12:02pm

" I don't know about that story, but I've never seen or heard her act in a homophobic manner."

It's a copy and paste from David Drakes' FB page, so I have no reason to doubt it. If Rivers wanted the word "lesbian" removed, why ask the givers to do it? That's incredibly ungrateful and tacky. Why not do it herself later, if it had to be done at all?

"Joan cornered our costume designer MachineDazzle Flower to make her something for her new act. (I think the deal fell through.)"

Another promise unkept. Drakes damns her with faint praise. I'm really baffled by his post.

[DAME]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 12:09pm

Thank you PJ. That was really beautiful to read. Ghostlight you are not baffled. You are just choosing to see things in a nasty way. Joan did over a dozen benefits for us at APLA just over the last few years. She was always a friend to my community. I know David Drake and believe me.. that was not faint praise. That was truthful and came from the heart. If your stretching so much to be mean then it is time to stand in front of the mirror and take a good look.

Updated On: 9/1/14 at 12:09 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 12:16pm

Still, all these days later, I can not wrap my brain around how being mean about Joan Rivers is so upsetting her fans.

I got the message in the documentary that Joan would literally do ANYTHING for money. She said she would do commercials for ANYTHING. Her assistant says Joan would never say no to anything. What matters to her was the constant cash flow.

So on the one hand, I get why she said mean things about living, breathing human beings (celebrities or not) in her act more than she crafted something careful and hilarious about AIDS being chronic and the reaction she had while delivering Thanksgiving dinners for God's Love We Deliver. I loved the joke because it was about her and her own reactionary response. But the cruel kinds of jokes are cheap and easy and not very deep and her fans loved them.

The problem is that this is also the woman who trashed Adele for being fat and when called on it talked about how she was trying to "help" Adele.

So there are mean jokes in this thread. So what? Who cares? It's the coin of the realm.

Updated On: 9/1/14 at 12:16 PM

[DAME]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 12:26pm

Well.. they are her fans and she IS fighting for her life. It was not my intention to upset you. I actually think that you are commenting with a unique and interesting point of view. But some of the other comments have been rude and sort of just jumping on a bandwagon with no other motivation than to jump on the train with you. I mean when we get to the point that another poster is criticizing someone else's remembrances and heartfelt feelings then we know things have stepped on the trashy and mean side. This is when I wish that original posters of threads could have the power to edit so that they could keep things on track to their original intentions.

Or maybe I am just to much of a sensitive queen. I am a fan. I do adore her. And I am hoping for the best.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 12:30pm

Honest to Christ, you're not upsetting me!

Speaking of trashy and mean, I have never watched Celebrity Apprentice because life is too short, but I wanted to know what the BEEP was being bleeped out of Melissa's meltdown, as shown in the documentary. And the things Joan says to the other contestants are just sooooooo low and mean.
I mean!

[ghostlight2]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 12:32pm

DAME, you'll just have to take my word that I truly am baffled over Drakes' post. The cake thing just seems incredibly ungracious, and promising people that you'll show up (or use them for work) and not following through is flaky. No one's perfect, I get that - but why did Drake include those anecdotes?

Of all the people on this thread who really are being mean and mocking Rivers on this thread, why would you choose me to take to task? I haven't been mean to her. I just don't get Drakes' post. I don't understand why my confusion makes me deserving of a personal attack.

As I said before, I worked with Rivers rather intensively although a long time ago. She was a real pro and quite pleasant. I don't doubt Drakes' sincerity (I've worked with him too). He just chose (imo) an odd way of going about it.

[DAME]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 12:33pm

Joan was playing the game and she did it well. She won. I actually have only watched that show twice. The year Joan was on and the year Nene Leaks called Latoya Jackson Casper the ghost. It was fun and trashy low down television. There must be clips on the Y. Tube.

EDIT- I just saw you included that clip. Fun Sunday night trash.

Updated On: 9/1/14 at 12:33 PM

[DAME]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 12:38pm

I'll take your word Ghostlight. Oh and another edit- My grievance ( for lack of a better word) is cumulative . A personal attack was not intended. More like a kvetch.

Updated On: 9/1/14 at 12:38 PM

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 12:38pm

I think the point of the cake story is not that she wanted the word "lesbian" edited out of her cake; it was that she wanted to take that part of the cake with her to another party.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 12:40pm

"Joan was playing the game and she did it well."

And this is not about you in particular, Dame, but honest. to. god. there is always some reason why Joan being mean actually shows how great she is.

Another thing I learned from the documentary was related to the famous bit in which she gets heckled after her Helen Keller joke. This was played on NPR, maybe Fresh Air and it was discussed as this wonderful moment where Joan "handled a heckler." At the time I heard it I had a strong reaction to it because I can't stand the way she immediately goes to "You SONUVABITCH don't tell ME!" Obviously, the slightest bit of negative feedback sends her to mad dog attack mode, just like in that Apprentice clip.

[I thought her segue after she told the guy off, "9/11…." was horrifyingly pandering at first. But it lead to a totally artful segue to get back on track that a real pro comedian should be able to do. And she did it.]

I just thought it was telling that in the footage as she leaves the theater where she told the heckler off she said something so magnanimous about how maybe it helped the guy out too and maybe he had some sort of catharsis. It was nice to see that when she thought about her reactionary response that maybe, just maybe, she realized it was completely inordinate and she did something to temper that image of her. Whether or not it was her idea or somebody else's, I wish she had done more of that in her career. Instead of doubling down about, for example, Adele being fat.

[DAME]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 12:45pm

But I cheered when she shot the heckler down. I laughed when she joked about Adele.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 12:46pm

Yes and so why is it upsetting when people are mean about Joan?

And didn't she backpedal in the exit sequence where maybe she had thought that shooting the heckler down shouldn't be the last word on the subject and that maybe he might have had a point?

Updated On: 9/1/14 at 12:46 PM

[DAME]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 12:47pm

Because she is fighting for her life. Because I am a fan. Because I am not able to embrace your point of view even if I do respect it.

[ghostlight2]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 12:47pm

"I think the point of the cake story is not that she wanted the word "lesbian" edited out of her cake; it was that she wanted to take that part of the cake with her to another party."

Holy reading comprehension fail, Reggie! That certainly makes a lot more sense, thank you.

And thanks, DAME. Even though the cake situation has been explained, I still find Drakes' post odd, but I truly harbor no ill will towards Rivers, and wish her well.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 2:03pm

As someone who often (and unintentionally) goes against the grain when it comes to popular opinion, I ain't upset about anything. The sanctimony and condescension of the mob doesn't phase me, whether it's me getting screeched at because I think I can understand why some trannies don't like to be called trannies or because I see the irony in chastising people for making heartless jokes about a women whose lifeblood is (was?) fortified by making heartless jokes.

Maybe the people who need Joan to say the things they could never say you should just learn to say what they think they shouldn't say. Personally, I never needed Joan Rivers to make jokes for me about Brokeback Mountain or death or whenever I think his fodder for mockery. Maybe it's time to make your own fat jokes and rape jokes and whatever other gross jokes are in your brain that you apparently think are too terrible for you to say yourself, but become some kind of collective sigh of relief when someone like Joan Rivers says them for you. It may well BE time, because I don't think you're going to have Joan to make them for you much longer. You can always try to let someone else do it for you. I guess Kathy Griffin sort of falls in that vein, though she's not as awful as Joan Rivers is (yet). Bettyboy won't be able to turn to her, because he thinks she has no class.

But no matter what I say (or Namo says or anyone else who has expressed that Joan Rivers isn't their everything), there will be someone to pop in and wordily, if confusingly, explain why it's just different when it comes to Joan Rivers and how I'm just wrong, because something about this miserable, angry hosebeast strikes a nerve in some people that can not and will not be quarreled with.

Updated On: 9/1/14 at 02:03 PM

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 2:06pm

I <3 <3 <3 U

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 2:10pm

Joan has always been the staunchest of defenders of the gay community, and as my long Debbie/Shirley/Liza/Joan post showed, Joan stood up for the HIV/AIDS community while most celebrities in Los Angeles--and many of the posters on this very thread--were still in denial.

She took the lesbian slice to the other party to show off how proud she was to be an honorary Vampire Lesbian. Charles Busch's Vampire Lesbians of Sodom was a big thing then. And Joan and Charles became great friends after that. I remember one Rosh Hashanah when Charles showed up to the gay-and-lesbian synagogue with Joan in tow.

She was always one of us. And she always will be.

Joan always said that although she wasn't a lesbian herself, "If Lily Tomlin had shown up with a ring, who knows what might’ve happened? But it would’ve had to be a big ring."

She was also in a play off Broadway with Barbra Streisand before either of them were famous, in which Joan played a woman in love with Barbra.

I am proud to be a Joan Ranger.

[Jane2]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 2:31pm

Me too, PJ.

Wow, some people take Joan's shtick much too seriously. There are so many comedians out there. Some of them make us laugh, some don't. If we don't like a particular comedian's jokes, we don't like them. But do we then have to dissect their lives and everything they ever did or said off stage? No, they do shows for living.

I can't believe how heavy this thread is unnecessarily.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 3:24pm

It's just that the offstage stuff is used as mitigating examples of the onstage stuff, is all.

I'm curious, and maybe somebody here knows, why if acting is her "sacred space" and in the documentary she's still obsessing about the way "Fun City" was received 40 years ago, Joan never mentions the Simon play?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 4:34pm

New York State marriage-equality advocate just posted this:

Brian Ellner shared a link.
22 minutes ago
Joan Rivers immediately said yes when we asked her to film a video for the marriage equality campaign in NY. Her response was expected. She is a long time champion for LGBT equality and an early activist and fundraiser for HIV and AIDS research and education. She also serves on the Board of one of my favorite organizations, God's Love We Deliver. Below is her great video from our campaign. We are all pulling for you Joan

[dreaming]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 4:37pm

PJ-I remember that. She's genuinely a tolerant, sweet person who's used her fame for good. I hope that she can pull through.

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 4:43pm

Correct, Joan wanted to take the part of the cake that said lesbian to the party. This just shows that peopel read what they want to and see what they choose to see.

Drake is not damning her with faint praise, he is reminiscing about a woman who was showing up to the indie theatre scene even after she made it. These were her people. Entertainers can rarely show up to each others gig-because they are all gigging themselves. Also, I think creatives talk about projects that they know will never come to be as a way of connecting and dreaming even if things never come to fruition.

Drakes piece speaks to Joan's true nature-a very kind and community focused one.

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 9/1/14 at 4:55pm

Remember that episode of "Joan and Melissa: Joan Knows Best" where Lily Tomlin introduced Joan to one of her lesbian friends and they went on a date and kissed?

That was weird.