by Joan Rivers
I’ll cut Sir Edmund Hillary some slack because he wasn’t an adventurer or thrill seeker. Everyone knows he was the first person to reach the summit of Mount Everest. What most people don’t know is that he only did it to get away from his wife, Lady Esther Crooker, the Duchess of Nagging.
I hate Annie Oakley. Okay, maybe hate is too strong a word. I don’t hate her, I resent her. Yes, she was a great markswoman and could shoot a dime out of midair from ninety feet away. Color me impressed. But what were the practical applications of this ability? Was America under attack by swarms of flying dimes at the time? If Annie wanted to do something useful, why didn’t she learn how to shoot pennies out of the air? Everyone hates pennies. They’re useless.
Aileen Wuornos was an even better shot than Annie Oakley—she could shoot a john in the head from fifty feet while counting her cash and putting her stained pants back on at the same time. Where’s her Broadway show?
I hate nudists, because the people most likely to waltz around naked are the last people in the world who should ever be waltzing around naked. The only people more disgusting to look at than nudists are swingers. In both cases they’re giving it away for free because nobody wants to buy it. You don’t see men who look like George Clooney flashing their bits on a nude beach; you see men who look like Rosemary Clooney.
I hate the Boy Scouts of America. Nothing pisses me off more than having some pimple-faced kid offer to help me cross the street. Keep your dirty mitts off me, tent boy, or I’ll hit you with my walker. Boy Scouts are taught totally useless survival skills, like campfire making and whittling. Who whittles anymore? Last I heard, all of that Ozark/hillbilly craftwork had been outsourced to China and now Pappy Foo Yong whittles ashtrays and pipes for eight cents a day on a porch in Yangtze. The only good thing the Scouts do is teach the boys knot-tying skills, which will come in handy because they’re all probably closet cases. I hope that someday the Boy Scouts of America get on the reality train and start giving out merit badges for fisting and nipple torture.
I hate the wilderness families on television. Every rustic ranch family is portrayed as hardscrabble workin’ folk, who believe in a day’s work for a day’s pay. I believe in a day’s work for a month’s pay, plus residuals and, if it’s a feature, points. Do you remember Bonanza? It was about a widowed father (Lorne Greene) and his three relentlessly unmarried sons (Dan Blocker, Pernell Roberts and Michael Landon) who operated the Cartwright family cattle ranch. There were no womenfolk around, just an Asian servant named Hop Sing whose family died when Dan Blocker sat on them. The Cartwrights worked together, played together and fought together. They were America’s last frontiersmen, carving a new nation out of the unforgiving earth of a vast continent. Oddly enough, Lorne Greene and Michael Landon were Jewish. Jewish cowboys? “Watch it, folks. That murderous sidewinder Tex Blickstein is comin’ to town tonight with his six-shooter and his tax attorney and he’s gonna want to see everybody’s federal return from the past five years!”
Because Bonanza was such a hit, Michael Landon went on to do another show called Little House on the Prairie about illiterates living in piles of their own horses’ shit. I hated it! Mom and Pop and all the young’uns roughin’ it in a little town with a church, a barn and a store. That’s right, store. Singular. Not stores or malls or outlets—a store. Plus, the church hadn’t even been converted into a gay nightclub yet—the townspeople were still using it for worship services. Who does that?!? If I want to spend time in a little town with only one church and one store I’ll go to East Hampton. Little House was on the air for 245 years, and every time the ratings sagged either one of the kids would go blind or Ma Ingalls would shit out another brat with a biblical name. What was really creepy was that they all lived in a one-room cabin, so whenever Ma and Pa got to feeling frisky all the kids in the family had to listen. Ma Ingalls was like the Kate Gosselin of her time, except fewer people hated Ma Ingalls’s guts because they didn’t have Internet back then. The only thing I liked about Little House was the relationship the mother had with her daughters, which, on a scale of one-to-Joan Crawford, was an eight.
Since the advent of cable and the Internet there are hundreds of shows about nature and gardening and the outdoors; in fact there are entire networks devoted to useless programming, like the Discovery Channel and the Nature Channel and OWN.
The only good thing about nature is that it takes its course, and in that regard human beings could learn a thing or two. When animals get old and sick they go off into the woods to die; they don’t burden their families with private nursing and hospice care. When was the last time you heard a gray wolf say, “Jimmy, we’re not gong to be able to send you to college because Nana can’t clean her paws by herself anymore, so we’re going to have to use your college tuition money to provide for an assisted living lair.” If dying birds can fly to distant mountaintops to die, then certainly old people can fly in formation a lot farther than Boca Raton.
WILDLY OVERRATED NATURAL PHENOMENA
There are a lot of natural occurrences for which there is no explanation, like the northern lights or migratory birds’ travel patterns. But there are others which, while easily explained, are just not that fucking interesting.
Rainbows
Judy Garland, Kermit the Frog and Jesse Jackson may have loved rainbows for their mystical, magical qualities, but not me. When I think of a rainbow I think of a family of five driving down the highway in a storm when all of sudden the sun comes out and little Susie in the back seat yells, “Hey, everybody, look—a rainbow!” And they all look up at the pretty colors in the sky. And drive under the truck in front of them, killing four and leaving little Susie in critical yet stable condition.
Earthquakes
Seismologists say earthquakes occur when giant plates under the sea shift and create a disaster. Similar to what occurs in Las Vegas when the giant plates in Wayne Newton’s mouth shift. Because I spend half my time in California, earthquakes don’t really bother me. In fact, I hope that the next time there’s a quake my house slides into a better neighborhood. And FYI, I hate the assholes who say, “Stand in a doorway during an earthquake; you’ll be safe.” Sure. And I’ll hide in the pantry when they drop a hydrogen bomb.
Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls bores me; the only people who find it fascinating are honeymooners and the suicidal. If you can get a suicidal honeymooner to go, then it might be worth my making the schlep. For years daredevils used to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel or wearing flotation devices to see if they would survive the fall. The last person to survive a fall over the Horseshoe Falls part of Niagara was a forty-year-old-man named Kirk Jones, of Stupidville, USA. He went over the falls with only the clothes on his back. What a schmuck; they weren’t even waterproofed.
The Grand Canyon
It’s just a giant crack that has thousands of people inside of it every year. Do your own Snooki joke. (Do I have to do everything for you?)
Cows
They eat grass and produce milk. Why not challenge these biological marvels? Feed them aluminum and steel and see if they can come up with a Mercedes or a Humvee.
Rain Forests
Rain forests are essential to Earth’s ecosystem, but since the only time I spend outdoors is walking from my plastic surgeon’s office to the parking lot, I really don’t give a shit about our global ecosystem. When I hear the words “rain forest” I think of three things: humidity, humidity, humidity. Have you ever been to the Amazon? Frizz central. Every baboon has split ends. Which, coupled with the thumbs on the feet and the purple ass, is not a good look.
I HATE SHOW BUSINESS… IT’S A CRUEL MISTRESS
Due to residuals there are dead people who actually make more money than I do.
Not only is there a broken heart for every light on Broadway, but a broken cherry, too. I know; I “lost” my virginity 163 times. I spent more time on my back than Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel and all I’ve managed to do is fuck my way to the middle
and end up with a vaginal canal that seats ten.
I hate that the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences calls itself the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences. Any institution, organization or body that includes Carrot Top, Gallagher and the guy from the Jackass movies in its membership is neither an art nor a science.
I hate that the Academy Awards ceremony calls itself “The night Hollywood honors its own.” When are these fuckers not honoring their own? These people have more award ceremonies than Mia Farrow has children. Other professions don’t carry on like this. When was the last time you saw a TV awards show for proctologists? “And the winner of best supporting finger is… Dr. Murray Weinstein, for his fine work in Marvin Schissel’s ass.”
I hate the SAG Awards, even though they were named for my boobs. The show always opens with some of the stars in attendance looking directly into the camera and saying, pretentiously, and with ridiculous amounts of fake gravitas, “I’m Robert De Niro and I’m an act-or! I’m Denzel Washington and I’m an act-or! I’m Christian Bale and I’m an act-or!” Calm the fuck down. You’re actors. You’re not curing cancer or solving the Middle East crisis or buying smiles for those one-toothed cleft palate kids on the back of the Enquirer. You pretend you’re Batman. You wear tight pants and a cape and you pretend you’re saving Gotham City from the Penguin. Get a grip.
I hate Christian Bale. This is nothing personal. I hate all men named Christian.
I hate the Emmy Awards ceremony. It’s just an evening to honor actors who are too old, short, homely or uninsurable to work in movies anymore. I keep mine on the mantel above my fireplace.
I hate the Tony Awards show. I can’t get booked anywhere that night because every gay man in the world is at the fucking Tonys.
I hate agents, managers, lawyers and publicists (except mine, of course). For those of you not familiar with show business, imagine a large, hideous vulture with wet lips and a pinkie ring circling around, picking bones. Now imagine the carcass isn’t dead yet, just between projects or waiting for a green light from the network. In a nutshell, here’s what these showbiz hangers-on do: Your agent is supposed to protect you from unemployment and poverty; your manager is supposed to protect you from your agent; and your lawyer is supposed to protect you from your new cellmate, because jail is where you’ve landed after your agent and manager fucked up. And your publicist is there to make sure that your misfortune is somehow spun properly so that even though your career is done, she’ll be able to benefit from your troubles and move up the PR food chain and get really big clients, like Leonardo DiCaprio or Tom Cruise or the Taco Bell dog.
I hate actors who don’t admit their age. Goldie Hawn came up to a friend of mine one day and said, “Can you believe I’m a grandmother?” The answer is: Yes! You’re sixty-six fucking years old; you could be a great-grandmother. If you were Puerto Rican you could be a great-great-great-great-great-grandmother. Laugh-In was fifty years ago; move on.
I hate Tom Cruise. First of all, he’s always smiling. No 5 8 man, not even one who lives on a diet of Ritalin and gin, is happy like that all the time. He’s always got this shit-eating grin on his face, like he just got a note from his managers telling him that Mimi Rogers and Nicole Kidman are extending their confidentiality agreements. Second, in TV interviews Tom laughs inappropriately and much too vociferously at non-humorous declarative statements, which is ironic because in real life he can’t take a fucking joke at all. All you have to do is make one simple, little, harmless, innocuous aside like, “The Scientology spaceship was late today; it had to stop in Fire Island to pick up Tom Cruise,” and he has a pack of lawyers at your door faster than Katie Holmes can say, “No, really, he loves me in that way. I swear.”
I hate Nicole Kidman. She makes stupid movies like Cold Mountain and The Hours. She became an A-list actress for wearing putty on her nose. My face is made entirely of paraffin and chewing gum and that cunt wins an Oscar? Hate her.
I hate Jennifer Aniston. She keeps making the same romantic “comedy” movie over and over and over again and it’s always not funny, not funny, not funny.
I hate Marlee Matlin’s interpreter. I want to give him the finger.
I hate reality stars who act like they have talent. Getting punched, beaten, arrested and contracting STDs on a weekly basis is not talent, its alcoholism. (Snooki, I hope someone is reading this book to you.) I have a new reality show I’m pitching: Take Katy Perry, Justin Bieber and Dog the Bounty Hunter and his wife and put them on an island and let them fight to the death until only one is left alive. The show’s called Who Gives a Fuck?
I especially hate The Real Housewives of New Jersey, Atlanta and Orange County. A real housewife is more concerned about her children than her ratings; okay maybe not more, but at least as much (unless the child is really ugly, in which case she should try to sell him on eBay and use that as a story line during sweeps). A real housewife has her plastic surgery done quickly and quietly and would never be seen in public until her Donald Duck lips have settled down and the scars have either faded or been pushed so far behind her ears that you can only see them in a rearview mirror. The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills know all of this—which is why I don’t hate them as much. Plus, one of them was smart enough to possibly have a gay husband with financial troubles who killed himself in the middle of the season; that’s my kind of gal.
I hate Hollywood fads, especially yoga. If I want to see a downward facing dog I’ll push Betty Friedan off of a chair. I picked Betty Friedan because (a) she’s homely and (b) she’s dead. If I make that joke about a homely woman who’s still alive, NOW, NARAL, the ACLU and the LPGA will all tell me, “FU.”
I hate Pilates, Rolfing, Spinning and est and I don’t need them. They involve twisting, turning and peeing. I do all that in bed every night now.
I hate night tennis. The only people who really like hitting balls at night are debutantes and Nathan Lane.
I hate all of the fad diets, like the grapefruit diet or the cookie diet or the Beverly Hills diet where you only eat fruit and you shit seeds. Or the Scarsdale Diet, where you lose weight because you only eat prison food because you killed your diet doctor. I hate the meat diet where you swallow meat five times a day. It’s very popular in West Hollywood. I think the most effective diet is the Jersey Shore diet where you only eat foods you can spell. Those kids haven’t seen an egg in twelve years.
I hate celebrities that get paid to lose weight almost as much as I hate not being one of them. Jenny Craig probably gave Valerie Bertinelli hundreds of thousands of dollars to eat their food and drop twenty pounds over the course of a year. If they would have given me the money they could have kept their goddamned food and I’d have gone to Auschwitz for a week and dropped fifty.
I hate Scientology. Their spaceships don’t offer frequent-flyer plans, and when you travel as much as I do you’re always looking to build up miles or earn points or get coupons for an upgrade. I can forgive that they believe aliens come down and bring you to another planet, but flying to that other planet in coach? Not pour moi. John Travolta and Kirstie Alley are big Scientologists—and I mean big. I could never join them because I don’t do fattening.
I hate Kabbalah. Call me stupid but I’m not going to use Madonna as a travel agent on my spiritual journey. Quite frankly I’m not going to use Madonna as a guide for anything. I just saw her movie, W.E. It s.u.c.k.e.d. And I’m not going to wear a red string as an accessory unless it’s made by Yves Saint Laurent.
I hate Deepak Chopra. He’s written the same fucking book thirty-five times and these dopes who buy them still can’t find their inner serenity. Want some peace and quiet? Save your money on Deepak’s books and slip your kids a couple of Xanax and put them in the closet.
I hate showbiz restaurants that have caricatures of their famous customers on the walls. You’re supposed to be proud that your chin goes into the next picture? I’ve had so much work done restaurants have two caricatures of me: “before” and “before tha
t.”
I hate “in” restaurants that are hot for a minute. I really hate that they let you know how hot you are by where you sit. You go to the right or the left like Sophie’s Choice. Jane Seymour’s knuckles are rawer than the steak tartare from hanging on to the leg of the table. “I’m not going left in Spago… noooo!!!!”
I hate it when I can’t get into trendy, phony, pretentious restaurants. “There’s a three-month wait, Miss Rivers. Sorry!” And then some scrawny, anorexic party girl with no underwear walks right in. “Who is that?” “Oh, she was in Mean Girls!”
What the fuck is Mean Girls? No matter whose name you mention, she was in Mean Girls and I couldn’t pick her out of a police lineup if my life depended on it. If I find out that Judi Dench and Helen Mirren were in Mean Girls I’m going to go out and buy an AK-47 and hunt my agent down.
I hate spending three weeks trying to get a reservation for four months later and by the time July rolls around the place has closed and become a rehab center. Do you remember the Fashion Café? It was a hot spot owned by Hollywood supermodels that lasted for a week and a half. What a good idea. A restaurant run by bulimics. They didn’t have a tasting menu, they had a purging menu. The place only had six tables but thirty-two stalls. Their special of the day was Imodium. Their slogan was “Bring a friend! Second guest pukes for free.”
I think I’ve found a way to get into these places: Stand right behind Betty White. You’ve got a fifty-fifty shot at a good seat, especially if she’s got a cough.
I hate Hollywood fund-raisers. I am so bored going to a twenty-five million dollar house to hear a mogul say, “Good news, everyone. Tonight we’ve raised almost twelve thousand dollars!” You paid your gay hustler more than that, you cheap thing. Why not spare all of us the canapés, small talk and crème brûlée and just write a damn check?