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Things that make you go ho-hum


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The other night, while deciding who I was going to watch between Jimmy Kimmel, Dave Letterman or Jay Leno, upon seeing that Carol Burnett was Jay‘s guest, my decision was made.

 

I’ve always been a fan of Carol because she was born the same year I was and we have grown old together as we look forward to our 80th birthdays, which for her, just happens to be today. She’s a comic genius and that was another reason I related to her because I was in sync with her tongue-in-cheek brand of humor; comedy skits that spoofed the entertainment industry, or just simply made fun of what others took seriously. Anyhow, there she was being interviewed by Jay, looking great for her age, chic and charming, wearing a short, pixie hair-cut dyed red, sitting there plugging a memoir, reminiscing about the past, surprised that she had made it this far.
 

Catching up with Carol, I was reminded that she was just one of the 3 celebrities I’ve always identified with, the other 2 also being born in the year 1933, like her and me. The second of these is Joan Collins, the ultimate diva, a leading lady movie star who in her later years switched to the small screen, appearing in the 1980s nightime soap opera, “Dynasty”, always garbed in fabulous designer clothes, dripping with glittering jewelry, perfectly made-up, and stunningly glamorous, a preserved persona she maintains to this day, in all of her artificial glory.
 

My third contemporary is Joan Rivers, who defies description. As coincidence would have it, a couple of hours after watching Carol’s guest shot on The Tonight Show, while engaged in my late night channel surfing, by-passing all the re-runs and old movies and the boring, choreographed sex on the soft porn channels, I happened upon a comedy special starring the outrageous Joan Rivers in a one- woman show shot last year. I knew Joan was raunchy, which is why I love her, but I had no idea what I’d be in for when I settled in to watch her stand-up rountine.


Much to my delight, the performance of this soon-to-be-80-year-old commedienne turned out to be one of the most obscene and profane exhibitions I’d ever watched - and thoroughy enjoyed. It really made me feel good to see an old broad like myself contemptuously defying convention and debunking all of society’s sacred cows.

 

Elegantly attired in a long black dress and matching sequined jacket trimmed with feathers, there this marvel of plastic surgery was, traipsing up and down the stage, husky-voiced and tart-tongued, ridiculing everything from ugly babies to the holocaust, skewering her fellow celebs, calling 91 year old Betty White a vamp who slept her way to the top, labeling brother-kissing Angelina Jolie an incestuous pervert who stole Brad Pitt way from Jennifer Anniston who never took douches, calling Princess Diana a promiscuous whining pain in the ass, Goldie Hawn an over the hill wanna-be, Kirsti Ally a fat Jenny Craig drop-out, criticizing the dress Whitney Houston was buried in, dropping f-bombs, crossing her eyes, making lewd gestures, falling to the floor simulating sex in various positions, demonstrating lesbian-style oral sex, faking blow jobs, all the while giving a running narrative, going through a laundry list of pet peeves like charity fund raisers, skinny models, airhead starlets, handicapped people, - imitating the unintelligible speech of stroke victim Kirk Douglas, mocking the palsy of Michael J. Fox, on and on it went, blasting “The Help” because she couldn’t understand anything the black characters were mumbling, dissing slanty-eyed Asian women, giving a shout-out and a Nazi salute to Hitler.

 

It was all remarkably offensive. And hilarious. I was nearly in tears. I know, I know. Sane people would find Joan’s over the top performance scandalous and inappropriate. A wretched granny making a fool of herself. Not me. I found it refreshing in the shock value of its honesty. Doing what I wouldn’t have the nerve or energy to do, ol Joan was in rare form, her observations dead-on.

 

When she was done raking humanity over the coals, the audience who looked to be made up of a bunch of old Jews, gave her a “standing O” as she threw bouquets to them, taking her second bow costumed in a hastily-donned statue of liberty get-up, holding a torch. I didn’t rise from my recliner, but I did give a nod of approval to this feisty non conformist for thumbing her nose at propriety.

 

Then it occurred to me that Joan and Carol were 2 sides of the same coin; one edgy, the other playful. What they have in common is an awareness of how so much in life is superficial because reality is a bitch and the truth hurts. For most senior citizens, religion is the remedy for the mortality they face. But for me and Joan Rivers and Carol Burnett, born during the Great Depression, growing up and growing old during a remarkable period that has turned out to be one of the most multi-facted eras in American history, laughter is the best medicine.

 

Excuse me while I chuckle to myself…and at myself. ;) 

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