Diary of a Mad Diva

by Joan Rivers

  I’ve had thirty-six different noses in my lifetime and not one of them would survive more than a few minutes being locked alone in a windowless room with these stars.

  NOVEMBER 3

  Dear Diary:

  Tonight I’m going to a hockey game with my Melissa. She wants me to “network.” I’m not sure how a hockey game will help. If I want to spend time with men who have no teeth and fight a lot, I’ll do a three-way with Bill Cosby and John McCain.

  NOVEMBER 4

  Dear Diary:

  Very disappointed. Kathie Lee Gifford had called me all excited that they were having a giant sale on illegal cheap kitchen help. I spent all night on the computer browsing Craigslist and found nothing. Then I clicked on a section called “personals.” I assumed it was a category designed specifically for me. I figured it would say, “Hi, Joan. We’ve found twelve kitchen workers in your area. All of them tunneled in from Chico and Guadalajara and will work for a buck an hour plus a tuna fish sandwich.”

  It turns out I was wrong. The only way “personals” involve illegal kitchen workers is if you’re looking to finger fuck them between their shifts at the diner. Craigs-list personals are for dating and hookups; kind of like a Christian Mingle but for people with genitals.

  I couldn’t believe how many categories there are:

  m4w (men for women)

  w4m (women for men)

  m4m (men for men)

  w4w (women for women)

  wtf (men and women for Chaz Bono)

  I think Craigslist should have a category just for me:

  w4omwlomasea (Woman for Old Man with Lots of Money and Stage Eleven Anything)

  NOVEMBER 5

  Dear Diary:

  I am exhausted. I just got off the phone with my friend Jeffrey, who told me a long boring story about how his little teacup Yorkie, Ox, saved his life. Jeff had collapsed during autoerotic asphyxiation and had a stroke three strokes away from completion. He was dangling from his shower rod when little Oxie came to the rescue. He barked and barked until some Good Samaritan broke in and cut Jeff down. And not only did the man cut him down, he also finished the job. Now that’s really a Good Samaritan.

  People are always talking about how smart their dogs are. “My collie, Ralph, kept a burglar at bay until I could call 911.” “Our rescue greyhound, Tubby, pulled our drowning toddler out of a swimming pool.” “Our Havanese, Sheila, knows when I’m blue, and runs and gets my slippers and licks my face.” I never had this and I’ve had dogs all my life. I’ve loved them all, miss them all desperately, but in retrospect, they were all idiots. Here’s a partial list of dogs I’ve loved and the dumb things they did:

  BUNTY: A gorgeous big-eyed cocker spaniel; so dumb he once dragged a child into a burning building.

  ANGUS: A feisty Welsh terrier; so dumb he used to drink right out of the toilet—when I was on it.

  KING: A golden-coated boxer; he was both dumb and lazy. He chased parked cars.

  WHIST: A very tall Airedale who was much bigger than all the other dogs in her litter. She never knew her name; she only answered to Khloé.

  SPARKY: A cutie-pie Lhasa Apso who not only breathed very heavily like Rebel Wilson at a Dunkin’ Donuts but was so dumb she spent hours trying to flush the fire hydrant.

  TIGER & SHASTA: Two regal, strong German shepherds that were totally anti-Semitic. They were so dumb they didn’t care that I was Jewish, and during Passover they’d constantly try to push the brisket back into the oven, along with my aunt Ida, who was holding the pan.

  CALLIE: A gorgeous chocolate Lab. So lazy that she was really just a coffee table with paws and so dumb she spent her entire life sniffing butts and never got even one good movie role out of it, just like Courteney Cox.

  SPIKE: My darling Yorkie. So dumb he spent hours humping Heather Mills’s leg while it was still in the closet.

  VERONICA: Another wonderful Yorkie. She was a lesbian but so dumb she mated with male dogs, and afterwards would growl at them, “Fooled ya!”

  LULU: A sensitive Boston terrier. She only had three legs. Twice a day I had to take her out for a drag. She was so dumb that when I said “heel” she’d bite the back of my foot.

  NOVEMBER 6

  Dear Diary:

  Holiday season is in full swing and there’s no better time to be in New York City. Today the picture windows went up at Bergdorf and Saks, and as I walked down Fifth Avenue in the crisp autumn air, it did my heart good to watch the homeless looking at those windows, knowing they’re thinking, “Someday maybe I can live in a box in front of these fine stores.” Hope is a beautiful thing.

  NOVEMBER 7

  Dear Diary:

  THIS was in front of me on line at Starbucks today.

  People are pigs. This is disgusting. How can any self-respecting human wear white pedal pushers in November?

  NOVEMBER 8

  Dear Diary:

  I saw Debby Boone on TV tonight hawking a procedure called “Lifestyle Lift,” which is some kind of budget plastic surgery thing. I loved Debby and her greatest hit, “You Light Up My Life.”

  Truth be told, even though I loved “You Light Up My Life,” I didn’t love it nearly as much as Ted Bundy did. Ted and the electric chair operator at the Florida State Penitentiary thought of it as “their song.”

  NOVEMBER 9

  Dear Diary:

  It’s Sunday morning and I have the entire day off! I worked Friday and Saturday nights doing concerts and now I’m sitting in bed with my morning coffee and the New York Times, trying to figure out how to hide my weekend earnings from both the IRS and Pingpong. The IRS isn’t too hard to fool,* but Pingpong is one crafty motherfucker, or as her ancient mother who she totally supports calls her, “clafty mothelfuckel.” Case in point: the morning after last Thanksgiving, when I was going through the kitchen drawers counting all of the silverware, teacups and gravy boats, I noticed that a turkey baster was missing. I knew none of my guests would steal it, as I would never be friends with people who have to cook for themselves, so it had to be Pingpong, who was in charge of the holiday cleanup. I can’t prove she took the baster, but when I barged into her little windowless attic room to confront her, through the gloom I saw Pingpong lying in bed, spent, smoking a cigarette and singing a blowsy rendition of “Build Me Up, Buttercup.”

  NOVEMBER 10

  Dear Diary:

  Flying back to L.A. today and got buzzed when I went through security. The TSA agents were going to wave me through but I demanded a pat down. I love pat downs. I just close my eyes and fantasize it’s Ellen DeGeneres giving me a good feel. Anyhow, the reason I’m rushing back is because I got Cooper an audition to be the new love interest on Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Obviously he won’t be with the regulars, Khloé and Kourtney and Kim and Kylie and Kendall, but just like that house in Cleveland he’ll be with the new crop of Kardashians that are being kept in the basement. I know of Klunky, Kunty, Kryptonite, and my favorite, the baby of the group, Kreplach. There may be more I don’t know; I hear Kris Jenner kept eggs in the freezer, so unless there’s a major blackout and she turns them into an omelet, she’ll Keep Kardashians Koming. I’m sure Cooper’ll do fine; he’s cute, charming, smart, athletic—he’s a natural. The only negative thing is he might have to change his name to Leroy.

  NOVEMBER 11

  Dear Diary:

  Just got back from doing a benefit for underprivileged children and you know what? Underprivileged children are damn exhausting. There are so goddamned many of them, and it’s always the same story: a poor urchin, abandoned by junkie mother, living in a shelter, eating the crust off his bunkmate’s underwear because McLoser House doesn’t have funds for fresh bread and pâté, blah, blah, blah . . .

  I was happy to help out and raise a couple of bucks for Skinny Minnie and Boney Bobby, but I think these little pleading suck-ups would be able to make a lot more mone
y if they learned to sing and dance and deliver catty asides, like the sore-covered orphans in Oliver! No matter how hungry or filthy or lice-ridden those kids were, they were never too down that they couldn’t pull themselves up from the brink of despair and burst into a rousing chorus of “Consider Yourself.” And you know what? Oliver! made $88 million at the box office worldwide, that’s what. Which is a lot more than you can make being an old hag like me who comes in and tells cunt jokes for thirty-five minutes.

  NOVEMBER 12

  Dear Diary:

  Woke up at four in the morning thinking about those underprivileged kids. Something was bothering me. There are hundreds of charities and government programs for underprivileged children, but none for semiprivileged children. And frankly, I feel they’re the ones who need our help and support.

  Poor kids never feel out of place; they fit right in with all the other poor kids. Poor kids don’t ostracize and bully each other. Hobo-boy #1 doesn’t make fun of Hobo-boy #2 because #2’s rags aren’t as smelly as everyone else’s. Poor children are like communists: they’re all the same and they seem to have found a happy comfort in the youthful common bonds of crippling poverty and bad hygiene.

  The way I see it, it’s the upper-middle-class kids that have a tough road to hoe. They’re not poor so they can’t talk about eating gruel or bringing cockroach sandwiches to school, but they’re not rich so they can’t join conversations about how sad it was when Uncle Bernie Madoff went to jail or that Aunt Imelda lost her entire shoe collection “when the commies took over.”

  Semiprivileged kids are the ones who face a shitstorm of derision when they show up at the country club that their parents can’t really afford in a Honda CRV, or are carrying a Gucci bag that even a minor trust-fund kid with glaucoma can tell they bought on Overstock.com, or, worst of all, have the faint scent of a domestic boxed wine on their breath. Welfare kids don’t have to deal with the agonizing problem of finding the correct wine to go with their government cheese. Such esteem-crushing moments do however affect Debbie Debutante. Debbie, who’s a cutter to begin with, would surely be driven to slashing if she knew that the other members of her parents’ restricted country club found out that her kitchen staff was not only not live-in, but only part-time. I’m going to talk to my lawyer, Gary Gonif, about setting up a foundation to help these children break the glass ceiling and move into the privileged class, where they can look down on others without having the paralyzing fear of being looked down on themselves.

  NOVEMBER 13

  Dear Diary:

  Really tired. Filmed three segments of my Internet talk show, In Bed with Joan. Doing three separate interviews is exhausting. Next week I hope they book Sybil. I can do sixteen different interviews with the same person and never have to change wardrobe or leave the bed.

  NOVEMBER 14

  Dear Diary:

  Created a scene at the Ivy today. I was having lunch with Smarty Steve Levine (he’s trying to get me an endorsement deal to be the Face of Colitis*), and who should sit down next to us but Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi. Everything was going fine until Ellen and Portia both ordered fish. I started laughing uncontrollably. Ellen said, “Why are you laughing? Is it something I said?” I replied, “What are the odds on that one?” Ellen acted like she’s never heard this before and got all huffy and upset, and moved to another table, where she and Portia were soon joined by Dane Cook. They started talking and I stopped laughing immediately. Steve said to me, “Joan, as my thirty-seventh most important client, let me offer you a bit of advice. Do something nice to smooth this over. Ellen has a big talk show and you never know when you’ll need her.” So I said, “Okay,” and I went into the kitchen and bought six jars of tartar sauce from the “French” sous chef, Jose. On my way out I stopped at Ellen’s table and gave the jars to her and Portia. She said, “Oh, Joan, that’s so sweet of you. Is this for our kitchen?” I said, “No, your bedroom.” Steve said, “You’ll never get booked; better call Latifah.”

  NOVEMBER 15

  Dear Diary:

  Watched TV with Cooper last night. Coop and I argued a little over what to watch. We eventually compromised and watched reruns of The View. (I miss the good old days of The View, when Barbara hated Star, Star hated Joy, Joy hated Elisabeth, and Elisabeth would hold up pictures of Hitler and discuss his good points: “He was a great dancer and never had to diet.” Now that was good television.)

  NOVEMBER 16

  Dear Diary:

  Trying to diet, but it’s so hard. I’ll eat anything. I floss with fettuccine. My friends in California say I should increase the fiber in my diet. So when I finish writing this diary, I plan to eat it.

  Here’s how I know it’s time to diet:

  I stepped on a scale and it said, “Come back when you’re alone.”

  Last night I ate what I thought was a potato chip and two minutes later Cooper came in screaming, “Where’s my turtle?”

  If I want to shed ten pounds fast, I drop my cat.

  I’ve tried different diets, like the Rihanna diet. You date Chris Brown and he slaps the pounds off of you.

  I love the Jewish American Princess diet. You never swallow. Then there’s the Hollywood Starlet diet: Nothing goes in your mouth unless there’s money involved.

  I know, I know, diets just don’t work. I have to change the way I eat. The only woman who ever lost twenty pounds and kept it off was Marie Antoinette.

  NOVEMBER 17

  Dear Diary:

  As I am having lunch today with Matt Lauer, I tried to catch up on the important news of the day by reading People, Us Weekly, TV Guide and Tiger Beat. I accidentally picked up the New York Times—and I mean accidentally; the headlines were all about Cyria. Frankly, I don’t give a shit about Ciria. It bores me so much I’m not even sure how to spell Syrya. It’s not like Fashion Police is big in Damascus (there are only so many ways to accessorize a burka), and amidst the dull, useless stories about government budgets, Wall Street offerings and world famine, was a full-page ad that said, “Meeting Temple Grandin Is an Experience!” A woman who’s studying “library science” at Texas Christian University wrote the ad.

  First of all, anyone who majors in library science is in major trouble. Libraries are over. Whispering is not a science. Show me where there’s a ground-breaking for a library that doesn’t have a president’s name on it and a gift shop in the lobby. No one goes to the library anymore except to buy Christmas gifts for people they hate: nothing like giving people you hate decks of cards with drawings of famous literary giants on the back—Words-worth, Sandburg, Whitman . . . Nothing says “Merry Christmas” like a two of clubs with Sylvia Plath’s head in the oven on the back.

  Face it, we don’t need libraries; we have the Internet. Libraries are as over as Tony Orlando, with or without Dawn, and this kills me, as I’ll miss the guys masturbating in the stacks, and the sound of people ripping out pages that they planned to copy for their term papers.

  Back to the Temple Grandin ad. What kind of an “experience” could it be meeting Temple Grandin? She looks like a deranged, middle-aged cowgirl with few social skills and mild flapping issues. Never mind “experience,” I think the ad should be more specific, like “Meet Temple Grandin. Watch her ignore you as she rocks back and forth and beats her head on a wall while she eats her cereal.”

  FYI, some people say Temple Grandin should fix her teeth. I say, why? It’s not like she’s husband hunting. I say, “As long as they can chop, leave them alone.”

  NOVEMBER 18

  Dear Diary:

  Landmark New York buildings are like beautiful old ladies—and like most old ladies they have an ugly asshole. I live in a landmark building and boy, does it have a huge asshole. She lives two flights above me and she’s a deadbeat and a troublemaker and these are just her good points. She’s the world’s worst neighbor. Living next to the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, would have been better
; other than the urine smell and occasional ticking from inside his shack, I hear that Teddy was a relatively pleasant fella.

  Anyhow, she owes the building $200,000 in condo fees and the board is trying to get her out, but New York City’s housing laws are so tight it was easier getting those thirty-three Chilean miners out of the ground than it will be to get this bitch out of her apartment.

  NOVEMBER 19

  Dear Diary:

  Got a new dog! Just like Britney Spears, he’s a rescue dog. He was found wandering around Lake Tahoe, looking for food, shelter and street-grade crystal meth. He’s a Japanese Chin. He came home last night and he fit in immediately; I’m sure he’s gay. Instead of humping my leg, he measured it and suggested I lengthen my hem and not be locked into black for a leash as my go-to color.

  NOVEMBER 20

  Dear Diary:

  I’m starting to prepare for my big Thanksgiving dinner. It’s my favorite holiday. Thanksgiving is a time to be grateful. Every year I throw a big catered dinner for family, friends and people who can either advance my career or destroy those of my competitors.

  The hard part is the seating chart. Some people are fascinating, some people are engaging and some are so boring that even if they accidentally brushed up against a candle and set themselves on fire they couldn’t hold your attention. When I first started having these holiday dinners I combined the groups and mixed the fascinatos in with the dullos, thinking that each part of the table would have at least one interesting person sitting in it. I no longer do this. I sit all the bores together because it turns out bores don’t know they’re boring, which explains how Dr. Phil and Ann Curry seem to have so much fun interviewing each other while all of their viewers are slipping into a coma.