by Joan Rivers
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DIARY OF A MAD DIVA
Copyright © 2014 by CCF Productions, Inc.
Interior photographs: pages 2, 48, 66, 166, and 268 by Aldo Coppelli; pages 30, 112, 138, 184, 212, and 240 by Jocelyn Pickett; page 88 by We tv; pages 172 and 247 by Larry Amoros.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Disclaimer
Epigraph
Dedication
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Author’s Note
This diary was written to the best of Joan Rivers’s memory. As such, some of the events may not be 100 percent . . . or even 5 percent factually correct. Miss Rivers is, after all, 235 years old, and frequently mistakes her daughter, Melissa, for the actor Laurence Fishburne.
Miss Rivers wrote this diary as a comedic tome, not unlike Saving Private Ryan or The Bell Jar. While Miss Rivers doesn’t really like skinny models and actresses, she doesn’t actually believe that they’re all bulimics and they all carry buckets instead of purses. Similarly, she doesn’t really think that all Germans are anti-Semitic Nazi sympathizers, that all Mexican Americans tunneled in across the border, that all celebrities are drug addicts, shoplifters or closet cases, or that Noah built his ark with non-union labor.
Miss Rivers does, however, believe that anyone who takes anything in this book seriously is an idiot. And she says if anyone has a problem with that they can feel free to call her lawyer, Clarence Darrow.
Sometimes people write novels and they just be so wordy and so self-absorbed. . . . I am a proud non-reader of books.
—KANYE WEST (Reuters, May 2009)
This book be dedicated to Kanye West, because he’ll never fuckin’ read it.
Fuck Lamaze. You try downing a bottle of Barbies with a dry throat.
JANUARY 1
Dear Diary:
This diary is my Christmas gift from Melissa and Cooper and I’m more disappointed than I was on my wedding night when I found out that Edgar was half Chinese—and not the good half. And this diary’s not even from a good store. I was hoping for at least a Car-tier watch. I wouldn’t even have minded if it was spelled with a K. I know, it’s Christmas season and we’re Jewish and we shouldn’t care about gifts, but if indeed we did kill Christ—and I’m not saying we did; for all we know he could have slipped and fallen onto that cross (maybe he was clumsy; maybe he drank)—then something’s got to ease the guilt. And the more expensive that something is, the less guilty I feel.
Anyhow, this is a new book for a new year and I’m feeling great. To celebrate, I got matching vagina piercings with my two best girlfriends, Margie Stern and Brucey Jenner.
I’m writing this in Mexico. On the spur of the moment, Melissa, Cooper and I decided to fly down here, and we were right: It’s a perfect way to ring in the New Year—great resort, private beach and plenty of servants who’ll do anything for a thirty-cent tip. This place is kind of like Downton Abbey with sombreros. Last night I got an eight-hour pedicure from Maria while resting my feet on her “brother,” Jose, who was crouched over like a footstool. I let him switch positions every two hours so he wouldn’t cramp and, more importantly, so Maria wouldn’t slip and accidentally paint my ankles dusty coral. Unfortunately I can’t take credit for the position-switching thing; I got the idea by watching Amistad on cable last week. I think if the ship’s captain had let the slaves switch sides every couple of days not only would they have rowed faster but they would have had the strength to make faces at Anthony Hopkins.
This morning when I woke up and looked out my window, there was Conchita, out in the field threshing wheat so that her “brother,” Juan, would be able to make me toast for my morning breakfast. I appreciate all of my south-of-the-border neighbors’ semi-hard work and hope they’ve stolen enough loose change and shiny trinkets from my bureau so that when they get caught trying to tunnel into America next month, they’ll have money to pay a mediocre deportation lawyer.
JANUARY 2
Dear Diary:
I haven’t kept a diary in years. The last time I kept one I had just come back from a girls-only weekend with Eleanor Roosevelt and her best friend, Gayle. We all giggled that girls are better than guys, and then we douched with Gatorade and wrist-wrestled till we fell asleep.
I wasn’t planning on keeping a journal this time, but when I told my friend Bambi I was going to Mexico for the new year, she said, “Oh, you ought to keep a diary, like whatshername did . . . oh, like Anne Frank did.” Like Anne Frank did???? Did you read Anne Frank’s diary??? What a bitch Bambi has turned out to be, to compare me to Anne Frank! I’ve written six books, and Anne? She didn’t even complete her one. She’s no writer. Did you ever read her book? She has no ending! “Uh-oh! The Nazis are coming up the . . .”
I’m trying to forgive Bambi; it’s been such a long friendship. I knew her way back when she was still Bernice, before the electrolysis, the implants, the Restylane and the glass eye that almost works. I forgave her bitterness. She turned the day her husband, Ernie, a prominent Long Island orthodontist, left her for a fifty-three-year-old Little League coach/Boy Scout leader with a severe overbite. Until this we were friends, but to compare me to Anne Frank? Who the fuck does she think she is? I’m nothing like Anne Frank. She lived in a walk-up; I live in a penthouse. And unlike Anne Frank, I do things: I go out. I shop. I go to the theater. I get professional haircuts. I’m way up there and I’m a gal on the go; Anne Frank was fifteen and that lazy bitch played the shut-in card for almost three years. No, Bambi, if I keep a diary it won’t be like Anne Frank’s; just for openers, it’ll be in English.
JANUARY 3
Dear Diary:
Trouble started today with AT&T. I hate AT&T. It obviously stands for Always Terrible Transmission. I tried to call the States and couldn’t, so I called AT&T about my international phone service, which sucks more than Monica Lewinsky under a White House desk, and I got a reco
rding that told me “a disabled war veteran will answer your call.” Great. I have to complain about my long-distance bill to Private Jimmy, who lost his face, ass and limbs in Tora Bora. “I’m sorry you’re a torso on a dolly, Private First Class Jimmy, but does that mean for the rest of my life I have to pay an extra $6 for data roaming?”
What do you say when they hit you with “a disabled vet will try to give you a hand”? Do you chance it and answer, “Does he have one?” I hate being put in awkward positions, like the utter disappointment I felt after I did a benefit performance for thalidomide adults and no one applauded. To this day I’m not sure whether the silence was because they couldn’t clap or because they didn’t like me.
Anyhow, I did what any American would do: sent a check to Wounded Warriors, hung up on the motherfucker, and switched to Verizon.
JANUARY 4
Dear Diary:
Something about Anne Frank’s story kept bothering me and I finally figured out what. It’s not that she wasn’t pretty; a lot of girls aren’t pretty and they still do okay, right, Avril Lavigne? But Anne just didn’t try. How would it have hurt the woman who slipped her food when the Nazis weren’t looking to have included a lipstick, an eye shadow and, God knows, a concealer? The girl had nothing but time on her hands. Would it have killed Anne to take a couple of minutes out of her “busy” day and throw on a little blush? And there’s something else I just can’t make sense out of. With all of that “me time” available, why didn’t Anne’s mother redecorate? You can do a lot with blackout curtains if you’re willing to strain your brain a little and think outside the box. Hopefully the answer will come to me before Passover. I’d hate to interrupt the Seder by adding a fifth question: “Were there no throw pillows in all of Amsterdam?”
JANUARY 5
Dear Diary:
We’ve been down here almost a week and I’m beginning to realize the Mexicans are not a swell-looking people. Not all Mexicans, just the Mayan-influenced staff working here at the resort. They have no necks. Perhaps it’s because they spent all those years carrying heavy stones on their heads to build their gloomy and useless temples. Their heads look like pumpkins sitting on washing machines. I don’t say this in a judgmental, pejorative way; I say it in a capitalistic way, because frankly, I have a jewelry line, and if they have no necks that means they can’t buy necklaces and that means that my beloved Cooper might have to go to some cheap community college, or worse, join the Peace Corps and work for free—for free!—helping other people who have no necks.
JANUARY 6
Dear Diary:
Watching the news. Today was the anniversary of two of the biggest events in American history: Nancy Kerrigan getting clubbed in the knee in 1994, and Congress giving the 2000 election to George W. Bush. My world was changed on that fateful day, and since then I’ve never been able to watch figure skating the same way. Up until then I always thought of figure skating as something gay men who were tone-deaf and couldn’t sing in piano bars did to pass their time, but it turns out I was wrong. Figure skating is something needy women with thin lips and big thighs do to pass their time. Innocence lost.
JANUARY 7
Dear Diary:
Today was our travel day back to New York. The airport was packed and I felt a little guilty as we jumped the line. And Melissa didn’t help; she’s actually getting quite verbal and testy every time I hop into a wheelchair and make her push me past the pregnant women and sick children. She also says that my little act of rolling my eyes back and shivering and plucking at people’s chests and whispering, “Say a prayer for me, amigo. The prognosis doesn’t look bueno,” is a little over the top. I know it upsets her, but boy does it work like a charm.
I then try to make sure I’m not stuck sitting next to some chatty asshole. But I’m prepared. I have six Ambien and an intentionally open purse filled with Massengill, Vagisil, Preparation H, a copy of my will, and books on Amelia Earhart and Pan Am Flight 103’s surprise landing in Lockerbie.
JANUARY 8
Dear Diary:
One last thing about Anne Frank’s diary that was bothering me: the Nazis—and their sloppy work ethic. Anne and her entire posse were hidden behind a bookcase for two years and no one found them? Do you know what that means? Nobody ever cleaned or dusted the bookcase, that’s what it means! I know there was a war going on and maybe nobody had time to do a white-glove test, but seriously, how much work would it have been to casually walk by with a feather duster or a Swiffer? I find the whole thing shocking; and the thing that shocks me the most is my housekeeper obviously used to be a Nazi.
JANUARY 9
Dear Diary:
Our Mexican vacation is over and I’m back in rainy New York. I met my friend Margie for lunch, and in the six blocks from my house to the restaurant, I got splashed on, shoved, banged into and told to “go fuck myself” in three different languages. And just as I was entering the restaurant, I got shit on by a pigeon. It feels so good to be home.
JANUARY 10
Dear Diary:
I am shaking. This morning I did the “Howard Stern Show” and it was the most amazing experience I’ve ever had on the show. I must’ve been a guest on his show a hundred times, but today was the first time ever, ever, ever, in all these years, that Howard never once used the words “penis,” “vagina,” “midget” or “retard.” It wasn’t until later that I found out it was because he had a sore throat. In retaliation, this was the first time I never, never, never once used the words “cuntface,” “turd burglar” or “Palin.”
JANUARY 11
Dear Diary:
Flew to L.A. today to get back to work on Fashion Police. I didn’t realize how much I adore taping it. It’s been almost a month since I insulted celebrities, shamed lesbos and made fat jokes about Aretha Franklin. I need my fix!
JANUARY 12
Dear Diary:
I spent half the day in the car schlepping all over L.A. going from meeting to meeting, ass-kissing to ass-kissing. My driver listens to the top-rated oldies radio station in L.A., KRTH. It was fun listening for a while, but the station played the same Eddie Money songs over and over and over and over and over again, all day long. No matter where I was in L.A. or what time of day it was, when I got in the car they were playing Eddie.
I figure since 1960 there must be 100,000 songs to choose from, yet KRTH plays Eddie Money over and over, like an autistic man-child who has to wear a helmet just to eat cereal. I have nothing against Eddie Money; he seems like a lovely man. I met him once a few years ago; he was my waiter at Denny’s. But why is KRTH playing him all day, all the time? Is Eddie related to the station owner? Does Eddie have blackmail photos of the program manager fucking a goat? I don’t understand it. There are 3.8 million people living in Los Angeles; do any of them call up KRTH every morning and say, “If you don’t play an Eddie Money song at least fifty-eight times today I’m going to kill myself”? What I could understand is if they called up and said, “If you do play Justin Bieber even once, I’m going to kill you.”
I wouldn’t mind listening to Eddie Money all the time—or even Justin Bieber—if KRTH would just mix it up a little. Throw in an Anne Murray song every now and then. Even if you don’t like her, her songs are good for the listener. They work as a natural Valium. Or something nostalgic, like Jennifer Holliday’s first hit, “I Am Not Dieting.”
JANUARY 13
Dear Diary:
Cooper is totally into lacrosse, so Melissa and I went to his game today. He was very good. At least I think he was. I don’t know what lacrosse is about. All I saw was a bunch of thirteen-year-old boys with sticks and helmets furiously whipping a rock-hard ball at a kid with no shin pads (and no teeth) standing in front of a net.
Later: Googled “lacrosse.” It’s a French-Canadian word. It means “beat the shit out of the goalie.”
JANUARY 14
Dear Diary:
Re
d-eyed in from L.A. Found myself sitting next to someone who was the spitting image of my cousin Leon. And I say spitting image because he was spitting. (And shaking. And twitching.) Every time this guy spit he washed down the seats of not only the people in front of us, but also the people in first class. I haven’t been that wet since I went through menopause. I couldn’t sleep, and sleep is important—just ask Sunny von Bülow. Which is why I always request to sit next to Stephen Hawking. He doesn’t toss and turn, and his keeper, God bless her, wipes off not only his spit, but dries off the entire cabin. There’s even another bonus: the rhythmic hum of his ventilator can be so soothing it helps me go into REM sleep!
But back to the idiot next to me. I was about to say something like, “Calm down, Blinky, a lot of people are nervous about flying,” but the stewardess mouthed to me, “He has Parkinson’s.” I signaled back, “What? He has what? Parking problems? He likes Parks and Recreation? He’s a Parker Posey fan?” Then she did a little hopping, trembling motion, until I got it. I didn’t bother to say hello to him because (a) I could tell he was an upgrade, and (b) his wardrobe told me he had absolutely no juice in show business.
To top it all off, this guy was really aloof. You’d think anybody who took ten minutes to buckle a seat belt because of the Parkinson’s would be friendly. I mean, how many friends could he have? Other than the FEMA earthquake management experts, who could put up with all the shaking without getting nauseous? The stewardess had to take Dramamine before she came over to serve him. All night long his head bobbed up and down more than a ten-year-old sitting in Michael Jackson’s lap. It’s now three o’clock in the morning, I’m trying to sleep, and I swear to God he is kicking and thrashing like a Filipino day laborer trying to get out of Kathie Lee’s sweatshop. At one point I asked to buy him a drink and he said, “Martini.” I said, “Shaken or stirred?” The dumb fuck didn’t even get the joke.
