By Jonathan McNamara
It started with a montage of clips from every bit of her career. She hated on Jerry Seinfeld. She assured Marcellus Wallus that she would testify in court for him. She antagonized Brooke Shields before finally taking her place among these personalities as the star of her own show “The D-list.”
Kathy Griffin would have you believe that despite her regular encounters with hollywood’s elite she’s somehow managed to barely scrape together what few scraps of stardom she has; a scenario that’s a little hard to buy when she simultaneously claims to be the “most popular traveling female comedian.” Don’t blame her for it though, it’s her schtick and she does it well. Well enough that even I, a straight, white man found her antics laugh-out-loud funny despite her promise that she had nothing for my particular demographic.
“Where are my gays at?” A roar of applause rained down about the petite comedian with the ever-auburn hair. “Where are my ladies at?” Another burst of applause. And finally for the few of us who “were dragged here by your wives and girlfriends” she asked for a show of applause from the straight men. Five people, including myself, gave up decent round of applause. “I’ve got nothing for you,” she said.
I could hear a crowd of gay dudes and women laughing at the remark and for a split second felt slightly alienated until she reminded us that while we weren’t getting anything from her, we were definitely getting blown for slogging it out anyway.
And just like that, I was engaged.
What followed was a two and a half hour one-sided conversation peppered with “fuck balls” and poor imitations of Cher calling Kathy a “crazy bitch.”
No, I didn’t catch all the fashion designer references and all the punchlines about Joan Rivers and plastic surgery were about as effective for me as a knock-knock joke, but this crazy bitch does a hilarious James Gandolfini. And her story about Betty White jumping into the conversation to say that she “fucked Don Rickles” was priceless.
I walked away from Dodge Theater thinking not that I was going to start watching “The D-List” (because come on, there’s football to watch) nor that I cared she won an emmy. I was still giggling like girl because Griffin swore she would have “fucked a donkey” to win the two she’s got.
