Diary of a Mad Diva

by Joan Rivers

  The word “charismatic” really annoys me. Journalists and pundits are quick to call every cult leader “charismatic” because they convinced thousands of demented losers to drink Kool-Aid or walk into gunfire. “Charismatic” is not a synonym for “fucking nuts.” Charlie M. didn’t really have “charisma”; he had LSD and boundary issues. He was also nice in his own way. Few people know this, but Chuck was a Buddhist—and a Buddhist with a sense of humor. Whenever I met him he had a real twinkle in his third eye. If he would’ve invited me for a long weekend at Spahn Ranch, all expenses paid, there’s a fair chance I might have gone night crawling with Linda and Leslie and Susan and Tex.

  JUNE 11

  Dear Diary:

  It’s 2 a.m. and I just figured out why Scientology is so successful. I was having my usual dream, the one where I’m on a speedboat off of St. Barts, with my new lover, Bill Gates, when the boat hits a school of sharks and flips over. Bill is immediately devoured into bits of chum by the frenzied makos, while I land safely on the back of a passing dolphin and am brought back to my private resort without so much as a hair or bangle out of place. And even more important, the tape recorder with the waterproof tape I safeguarded in my bra with Bill’s last words—“I leave every dime I have to Joan Rivers”—clearly audible, is in perfect condition.

  Anyway, I think Scientology caught on because L. Ron Hubbard created it. Like me, many people are drawn to individuals with initials in their names. My favorite actor is F. Murray Abraham. (It used to be Lee J. Cobb, but he’s pushing daisies.) I remember the first time I met F, I said, “F, you . . . are fabulous.” And he agreed.

  My favorite president? Harry S. Truman. The S stood for sexy; Harry was one hot haberdasher. It would have been Richard M. Nixon but the M stood for Milhous. Milhous, by the way, is Quaker for “Momma’s Boy.” Nixon took his mother everywhere. I’ll never forget the inauguration. There was the leader of the free world dancing with her urn.

  My favorite singer? k.d. lang. Not only does she make great music, but she’s really handy with a hammer and nails, and can get me free tickets to the Ellen show. Best of all, if k.d. likes you she will come over and clean your shag carpets with her tongue. And, FYI, if you haven’t seen her lately, she’s starting to look an awful lot like Wayne Newton.

  My favorite poets? T. S. Eliot and e.e. cummings. Although I must admit, e.e.’s resistance to capital letters speaks to a serious lack of healthy self-esteem. Or a broken typewriter. (This is often how genius is born. If Monet could have afforded a palette, he would not have been forced to mix his paint colors on the canvas; if Al Jolson didn’t stutter, all of America would not have sung “T-T-Tootsie good-bye”; and if Teddy Roosevelt’s wife was not such a shopper and didn’t constantly beg him for money, he would not have yelled, “Charge! All right, all right, charge.”)

  In fact, if Mel Gibson were P. U. Gibson, not only would I go back to seeing his movies, I might even revisit his anti-Semitic remarks.

  JUNE 12

  Dear Diary:

  Flying to Omaha, Nebraska, for a concert tonight. I’m feeling really fat so before I disembarked the plane I pulled the seat belt into its narrowest length. This way, no matter how thin the next bitch is who sits there, when she sits down and tries to buckle up she’ll have to loosen it and she’ll feel fat, just like I did.

  Playing the Midwest is fun but tricky. The audiences are really, really nice but really, really Waspy. They’re so Christian, even the women have foreskin.

  JUNE 13

  Dear Diary:

  Show went great last night in spite of the fact that it was like playing a Bund meeting. Heading off to Topeka for the second concert on the “Watch the Jew Entertain the Gentiles” tour. Unlike Jews, gentiles keep their emotions totally within. When a Jewish mother dies, the daughter screams and beats her chest and pulls out her hair for a week. When a WASP mother dies, the daughter does a small sniffle and then says, “Pity. Who got her shoes?”

  JUNE 14

  Dear Diary:

  In Kansas and I adore the people here. They have great pioneer hardiness. One gets to see the big sky and get a true sense of the American work ethic. Media pundits think Kansas is completely ass-backwards because the people in Kansas don’t believe in things like science and math and reading and electricity and weather, but those same pundits forget that Dorothy was from Kansas. Yes, that Dorothy: Toto-loving, witch-killing, ruby-slipper-wearing, gay icon Dorothy. Right-wing Kansas is the birthplace of all things gay, so how un-hip could the place possibly be? If there was no Judy there would be no Liza, and if there was no Liza there would be no Betty Ford Clinic, and if there was no Betty Ford Clinic there would be no TMZ to report gossip, and if there was no gossip I’d be working as a waitress in a diner in Yonkers, New York. I love Kansas.

  JUNE 15

  Dear Diary:

  I flew back to New York for a minor procedure; I’m having my lips done. Not those lips; the ones on my face. I need a little filler. But truly only a little. I don’t want to turn into one of those Beverly Hills housewives who have so much filler in their lips that they look like ducks and the only place they fit in is Disneyland. I’ve never understood why those women do that. They don’t look sexy. Their lips are so swollen they look like they’ve spent a weekend with Josh Brolin.

  JUNE 16

  Dear Diary:

  Procedure went well. Healing quickly. I should be able to purge soft foods by 8 p.m. tonight.

  JUNE 17

  Dear Diary:

  I think I had too much wine last night and apparently did something I should regret because I got a phone call from Meg Ryan’s publicist and lawyer this morning, threatening me with a lawsuit. It seems I was so happy with my big new lips, and being under the influence of Novocain and Merlot, I called Meg and left the following message on her answering machine: “Hey, Meg, quack quack, how are your duck lips, quack quack? I think my agent can get you an audition for an Aflac commercial. Quack-fucking-quack.” I’ll send her an apology gift—and some pâté.

  JUNE 18

  Dear Diary:

  About those other lips. I would never get a vaginal rejuvenation. At my age, the only person interested in getting inside my vagina is my probate lawyer because it’s where I hide my really good jewelry.

  I can’t figure out how a woman knows if her vaginal walls need to be redone. My gynecologist hates to examine me because my vagina is dropping so fast that he is in danger of getting a concussion unless he wears a hard hat. I know my vagina is stretched, as a year ago I had seventy-seven Chilean miners trapped in there. Next time I go to my gynecologist, Dr. Lickapussy, I’ll ask him if I need a vaginal tightening. If his answer echoes three times, I’ll assume it’s a yes.

  JUNE 19

  Dear Diary:

  Good news! James Gandolfini is dead. Wait, that looks wrong. It’s not good news that he’s dead—he was a lovely man. But good in that a few weeks before he passed I mentioned to Melissa that I had seen him on a talk show and he didn’t look well. So, should the comedy thing fall apart, I think I’ve got a future running a psychic hotline.

  The media called James Gandolfini an American icon because he was a “murderer with a heart.” Nonsense. He was an actor playing a murderer with a heart. You know who was a murderer with a heart? John Gotti, that’s who. And his heart used to beat at ninety beats per second because he had just ripped it out of the chest of a perfectly healthy young man who had the effrontery to look at him the wrong way in an IHOP.

  Everyone was all shocked and stunned that Gandolfini died. Why? He was morbidly obese and smoked and drank like crazy. I’m surprised he lived as long as he did. Same thing with Michael Jackson. When MJ died people were acting all shocked that he kacked out. Again, why? For years he lived on a diet of Propofol and small boys. How he made it to fifty is anyone’s guess. How he made it to a fifth-grade homeroom at the age of forty-seven is not anyone’s guess
but an ongoing felony investigation.

  JUNE 20

  Dear Diary:

  I went to my friend Beyoncé’s penthouse last night and her two-year-old baby, Blue Ivy or Blue Room or Blue Balls—I’m not sure, I know it’s Blue something—was watching Romper Room. I decided I hate Miss Sally. For as far back as I can remember, at the end of every show Miss Sally holds up a “magic looking glass” and says hello to various boys and girls out there in TV land. It was always, “And I see Billy and Johnny and Patty and Kim” (of course, these days it’s “Joquamda and Latisha and Mohammad and Fareed”), but never once, in all these years, have I ever heard her say, “And I see Joan, from Larchmont,” or, “I see Joan, who is debuting on Sullivan,” or, “I see Joan, who is having filler injections in Dr. Diamond’s office.”

  JUNE 21

  Dear Diary:

  Today is the official first day of summer—which means it’s also the first official day of my having to stop people on the street to say things like, “Please put on a shirt, your boobs are dragging on the sidewalk. It may not bother your wife, but you’re making me nauseous, Mr. Feldman.” Man boobs annoy me, big time. Why can’t they leave us something? It’s enough that men are becoming sensitive and waxing, but now they have breasts? It’s not right! Poor Angelina Jolie; she never thought she would say, “I’d give my eyeteeth to look like Kevin James.”

  Speaking of Angelina, she’s started a trend in preventative medicine. Yesterday while visiting my podiatrist, he said, “Joan, you might get a plantar wart; hey, let’s take that foot off now. You can use the extra shoe as a vase.” I said, “Dr. Schwartz, isn’t that a bit extreme?” He stood up and said, “Not at all. Look at my body! Do I look great or what? I’m a man in my fifties and I’m wearing girls’ jeans—and you know why? Because I was scared I might get a bump on my hooha so I just lopped it off! I’ve never been happier. Finally, I’m a junior petite. It’s a small price to pay for not standing in front of a urinal.”

  JUNE 22

  Dear Diary:

  Just got back from the drugstore. I don’t usually run those kinds of errands myself, but my housekeeper took time off to sell her six-year-old daughter’s kidney—at least I think that’s what her note said; I don’t read Esperanto. So I had to go to CVS myself. Whenever I go there I fill my cart with tampons, maxi pads and lube. Let them wonder.

  JUNE 23

  Dear Diary:

  Went to a party last night with my agent Steve Levine’s secretary’s second cousin, Alan. He’s an unmarried, fifty-two-year-old nebbish with a lisp who made a small fortune in women’s foundations. “Joan, would you like to thee thome new Thpanx?” “No sanks, Alan.”

  The party was a big snore. There wasn’t one person there who could either advance my career, or even better, destroy the careers of anyone who could even marginally be considered my peer. (By the way, I hate the word “peer,” as in, “O.J. Simpson was found guilty by a jury of his peers.” Unless the jury was made up of twelve rich, African American, Heisman Trophy winners who appeared in the film Towering Inferno, O.J. wasn’t tried by a jury of his peers; he was tried by the twelve stupidest people in the United States.)

  I guess this means I really don’t have any “peers,” either. A handful of drag queens who do me in lounges in Vegas doesn’t count. Do the math: How many other octogenarian female Jewish comedians with acid reflux and two cable shows do you know?

  JUNE 24

  Dear Diary:

  Today the Supreme Court approved gay marriage! Well, they didn’t actually “approve it”; it’s just that five of the Supremes love going to well-catered events and don’t really give a shit what the occasion is. (You haven’t lived until you’ve witnessed Ruth Bader Ginsburg shoving baby lamb chops into her purse.) Now that I’m an ordained minister, this means more work for me, which means I won’t have to go to the women’s shelter when I lose all my money in a game of strip poker with Larry King.

  JUNE 25

  Dear Diary:

  Big tribute for Don Rickles tonight at the Waldorf-Astoria. It was run by the Friars Club, which is basically a gay bar without the good-looking men. It was a tribute, not a roast, which means either (a) the Friars couldn’t get a television deal to film the event, or (b) they were afraid the rich corporate pricks wouldn’t buy tickets because they didn’t want comedians to make fun of them in front of their underage, Argentinean girlfriends.

  I had a great time and got lots of laughs. Don is a lovely man and it was nice to help honor him. He laughed so hard he nearly dried his pants. A lot of big stars were there, including Bobby De Niro. And I call him Bobby, in the same way I called John Wayne “Duke,” or in the same way I call Anderson Cooper “Liza.” Bobby’s a good sport, especially on the jokes about his penchant for women of color, but then again, he should be. He’s had more black asses on his face than the backseat of Rosa Parks’s bus.

  JUNE 26

  Dear Diary:

  I was asked to do a benefit for some group—I’m not sure which, but I’m very into charity. It turns out this charity fights teenage pregnancy. Of course I said yes. I work in Hollywood; I see how unwanted pregnancies can mess up young women’s lives. They’re missing out on all the fun. Teenage girls shouldn’t be mothers; they should be drug addicts.

  Jane Fonda is a leader in the battle against teenage pregnancy. I remember once Jane and I were having lunch (Vietnamese food of course), and she asked me what I thought was the best way for innocent teenage girls to not get pregnant. I said, “Lesbianism.” Jane got very upset and said, “Teenage girls shouldn’t even know about things like that yet.” I said, “Then what’s the best way for innocent teenage girls not to get pregnant?” She gave me that big, two-time Oscar-winner Fonda smile, and said, “Blow jobs.”

  JUNE 27

  Dear Diary:

  I’ve been asked to appear in a taped segment on Israel’s number-one-rated television show. They want me to do a “top ten list” about why I love Israel. At first they wanted me to go to Israel in August and I said, “Perfect. There’s nothing like going to the desert in the middle of the summer.” But then they figured out it would be cheaper—leave it to my people—just to film it in New York in front of some slums and we could pretend I was on the border near Palestine. So I’m working on the list.

  JUNE 28

  Dear Diary:

  In less time than it takes to say “Shalom,” Steve Levine has arranged pitch meetings for me in New York this summer with the top three TV networks in Israel: FEH, OYI and Vav Gimmel Vav.

  JUNE 29

  Dear Diary:

  Here’s my top ten list:

  Top Ten Things I Love About Israel

  I love its blue and white flag. It matches my legs.

  I love that they have (Prime Minister) Bibi and we have (Honey) Boo Boo.

  I love that Israel is so much closer to the South African diamond mines than New York.

  I love Israeli men—they’re tall, dark and hairy. Just like Persian women.

  I love that Israelis, unlike New Yorkers, don’t eat corned beef and pastrami with butter.

  I love that in Israel, “Dudu” is a nickname, not an excretion.

  I love that Israel reminds me of Boca Raton—palm trees, white sand and old Jews.

  I love that it’s not Egypt.

  I love the Gaza Strip—it is my favorite drag name.

  I love that the Dead Sea was named for my sex life.

  I love that Israel has kosher McDonald’s. Instead of a Big Mac they have a Big Macher.

  I love that Israel’s cows produce more milk than anyone in the world except Dolly Parton.

  And most of all, I love that voice mail was invented in Israel. It said, “Leave a message. Or don’t. I’m only your mother, I’ll be dead by Tuesday, anyway.”

  I know, I know, there are thirteen items on the list instead of ten, but si
nce the Israeli network execs are Jews they’ll probably insist on taking something off.

  JUNE 30

  Dear Diary:

  God, I’m on a plane, again! Melissa, Cooper and I are off to Mexico for a wedding and I almost didn’t make it as I needed to update my passport. My current passport photo is a cave drawing. I’m not sure why Americans even need passports to go to Mexico. Not only do 80 percent of the people from Mexico live in America now (most of them within six blocks of Melissa’s house), but I have yet to meet a customs agent who won’t accept a little kindne$$ from a stranger to get into their country. I could have a bazooka on my shoulder and my tits could be ticking, but if I have a couple of pe$o$ hanging out of my purse it’s “Buenos días, Señora Rivers!”

  I hope by now you realize that this is a humor book and it’s not meant to be taken seriously. If not, you can’t return it because we’ve got your money and you’re halfway through. Plus I’m sure there are stains on it you’d probably rather not explain to the credit manager.

  Can you pick which one has my original nose?

  JULY 1

  Dear Diary:

  I have just arrived at a destination wedding in Mexico. Excuse me, I mean Meheeco.

  One of the most annoying things about Americans is that, the minute they leave the mainland, they immediately try to speak the local language, as though they were indigenous to the region, like plants and bugs and fungi. For example, in Hawaii, Mrs. Ginsburg, the Jewish fan who I met in the hotel restaurant, greeted me with, “Alloooohhhhaaaaa, Hunkaluna—want a pastrami sandwich?” In Germany, a bespectacled accountant met me with, “Wilkommen to Deutschland, Fraulein Rosenberg. Oy, did I have a schmeck for lunch.” And in Australia a friend of mine left me in tears, speaking the click language. I don’t know what the fuck she said, except, “Click click click, Joanalah . . . Boomerang . . . Irving’s dead. Click click.” I didn’t know if she was talking to me or chewing gum.