Let me preface this by saying I adore Kathy Griffin. She is one of the only people on the planet who is completely honest about her insecurities and aspirations, and that is to be admired and exalted.
Let me also preface this by telling you something I am not proud of whatsoever: when I was in 7th and 8th grades, I had a really, really bizarre obsession with the movie “Beaches.” I would watch it over and over again, memorizing every little detail, right down to the shade of lipstick Barbara Hershey said made Bette Midler look like a corpse.
I delighted in pointing out hilarious errors in continuity (Every scene on the beach, there are 2 people riding the same goddamned horses back and forth, especially during the “Wind Beneath My Wings” montage-it’s hilarious), and recontstructing the whole fight scene in which Bette Midler is wearing a denim-and-silver tassled number and screaming about how, “It looks like a flamingo threw up in here!” I spent a lot of time alone, and had a great time performing scenes from plays and movies and tv shows. I can play ALL the parts. You should see me do Jesus Christ Superstar. It’s something to behold, especially during “The Last Supper,” when I’m Jesus and get all pissed off and throw the wine and unleavened bread at everyone and then start singing like crazy. I’m also a pretty good Pilate, dancing around in circles singing, “What’s the Buzz?”
Clearly, I digress.
WHAT I’M TRYING TO SAY IS THIS:
Tonight, at one point in “Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List,” Kathy’s hair was styled exactly the same as, and she was wearing the EXACT SAME outfit Bette Midler wore when she was driving that car to watch Barbara Hershey pretend to die of a disease that didn’t even remotely look like the disease she was supposed to have (undifferentiated viral cardio-myopathy). Thanks be to Oprah, it wasn’t the cowgirl nightmare with tassles and shit. It was simply this: a tight black shirt worn under a royal blue cardigan-shaped sweater.
I have not seen anyone who is not a very talented tranny look more like Bette Midler.
I will take screen shots as soon as I feel like it. Probably never, because honestly, I don’t think I own a copy of Beaches any more. Doesn’t matter to me, though, I can still play the whole thing over and over in my head, although I’m 32 now, and Mayim Bialik, who played a young Bette Midler, is a neurologist I believe. Something to do with neuro-science at any rate. I can still hear her tap-dancing down those stupid stairs and telling the girl who played a young Barbara Hershey, “I’m glad she’s not MY Aunt Vesta,” and later saying, “Ta-DAH!” as she’s being kicked out of a fancy hotel.
I do, however, own a DVD of Jesus Christ Superstar, which I watch occasionally. I don’t think I could ever get sick of that acid trip of a show.
Also, I have been performing all the roles of Evita since I think it was around 1982 or so, whenever my mom got the LP of the London recording, and then the US recording, which I don’t sing with very well. Patty LuPone sings on her own register that I don’t think anyone could match. I’m not quite sure it’s on-key, ever, but for her it works. I mean, she got the job and everything. Madonna can suck my balls, but the movie version was worth watching because Antonio Banderas looks good doing anything, as long as there’s a mute button nearby. My first year of college (I didn’t attend a single class after Spring Break) was in Salem, Oregon. When “Evita” came to Portland in 1994, my friends and I went up to see it. That was the first time I ever saw it performed. A few days later, another friend and I went up to see it. That was the second time.
It’s definitely better on stage than on the movie screen.
There are many other plays and movies and television shows in my repertoire. If you need something performed by just one person, let me know. I just might have it memorized. The whole memorization thing came in terribly handy when I was a lifeguard and diving coach in high school. A less-interesting job has never been invented. At least, nothing is as boring as lifeguarding. Coaching diving was actually really fun, because I got to dive as much as I wanted, and sometimes, if a kid nicked the board with their neck or back, I got to “rescue” them.
There was one kid who got so excited before class one day. He came up to me, telling me he had taught himself how to do a back flip. I secretly LOATHED it when kids “taught themselves” anything, because it meant that I would have to re-teach them how to do it the “right” way. So this kid gets up on the board to show me. His stance was right, and so was his “hurdle,” which is really just an arm-motion when you’re facing away from the water. His form was great, right up until the time his upper jaw smacked the backboard.
When he came up, there was a lot of blood already, and I was in the water, towing him to the shallow end while stabilizing his spine with my forearms, keeping his neck still with my hands. I remember screaming to one of the kids to run and get another guard (the diving was in the outdoor pool, and the only “extra” guard was on break in the office) to man the backboard.
He lost a tooth, and had another one crammed up into his maxilla. Luckily, his mother had been there the whole time, and knew it wasn’t my fault, so nobody got sued. He was actually back in lessons 2 weeks later. Tough little guy. His name was Erich. I can’t believe I remember that.
I only had to put one other kid on a backboard, and she wasn’t hurt at all. Her name was Emily, and she had arched her back too far when leaning into a “beginner’s” back dive, and scraped the surface of her skin on the board. No big deal, but the rule is, if their back, head, or neck touched the board, they get put on a backboard and sent to the hospital just in case. I think that’s a pretty good rule.
My, my, tangents are FUN!!
Oh, another thing that’s awesome about Kathy Griffin-she is fantastic to her assistants. I have only ever been an assistant to one person who was (and is) only marginally famous. I’d known this person since I was 11, first in Seattle, and then in Boston, Philly and Rochester, NY. She turned into a total head-case. I made ONE little “audio documentary” making fun of her megalomania, and got fired not too long after. Oops. For all the time I knew her well and later worked with her, she was a hardcore born-again Christian. But that didn’t stop her from making everyone from her engineer to the janitor do her chores for her. Toward the end of my stint as her “assistant,” I couldn’t do any of the work I was actually supposed to be doing because I was babysitting her baby son. They found out when he was about 3 that he has some rare disorder that made him hurt really badly any time his skin is touched. That’s why he was constantly screaming, and I had to walk him up and down the hall, bouncing him. I’m just glad that period of my life is (whoa, I just did the math) 10 years behind me!!
But I’m not bitter. Kathy Griffin is not a douchebag. And you can quote me on that. I will be watching her show to see if there are any more Bette Midler costumes. I would be so much more her fan if she did that intentionally; dressing up every week in one of Bette Midler’s costumes from Beaches. If I was her assistant, I would totally encourage her to do that. She should hire me on the basis of that alone, don’t you think?
Honestly, I don’t know that I would ever want to be an assistant again. I’m much better working on my own, or with others on a project that I control. I prefer HAVING assistants.
I keep thinking about Kathy Griffin intentionally dressing up like Bette Midler in Beaches and laughing. Dude, that would be the greatest. I’d give her mad respect, and maybe buy a t-shirt. MAYBE. I can’t make any guarantees, due to the fact that I will probably forget all about all of this mere minutes after I hit the “Publish” button.
Let’s hear it for methadone!!!
Edit: I aplogize for the blurriness of the photo I took of my television. It’s pretty dark in here, so I had to slow the shutter down to let in more light. That means that the photo will be blurry unless I put it on a tripod, and I am far too lazy to put it on a tripod.
