Diary of a Mad Diva (2 page)

JANUARY 6

Dear Diary:

Watching the news. Today was the anniversary of two of the biggest events in American history: Nancy Kerrigan getting clubbed in the knee in 1994, and Congress giving the 2000 election to George W. Bush. My world was changed on that fateful day, and since then I’ve never been able to watch figure skating the same way. Up until then I always thought of figure skating as something gay men who were tone-deaf and couldn’t sing in piano bars did to pass their time, but it turns out I was wrong. Figure skating is something needy women with thin lips and big thighs do to pass their time. Innocence lost.

JANUARY 7

Dear Diary:

Today was our travel day back to New York. The airport was packed and I felt a little guilty as we jumped the line. And Melissa didn’t help; she’s actually getting quite verbal and testy every time I hop into a wheelchair and make her push me past the pregnant women and sick children. She also says that my little act of rolling my eyes back and shivering and plucking at people’s chests and whispering, “Say a prayer for me,
amigo
. The prognosis doesn’t look
bueno
,” is a little over the top. I know it upsets her, but boy does it work like a charm.

I then try to make sure I’m not stuck sitting next to some chatty asshole. But I’m prepared. I have six Ambien and an intentionally open purse filled with Massengill, Vagisil, Preparation H, a copy of my will, and books on Amelia Earhart and Pan Am Flight 103’s surprise landing in Lockerbie.

JANUARY 8

Dear Diary:

One last thing about Anne Frank’s diary that was bothering me: the Nazis—and
their
sloppy work ethic. Anne and her entire posse were hidden behind a bookcase for two years and no one found them? Do you know what that means? Nobody ever cleaned or dusted the bookcase, that’s what it means! I know there was a war going on and maybe nobody had time to do a white-glove test, but seriously, how much work would it have been to casually walk by with a feather duster or a Swiffer? I find the whole thing shocking; and the thing that shocks me the most is my housekeeper obviously used to be a Nazi.

JANUARY 9

Dear Diary:

Our Mexican vacation is over and I’m back in rainy New York. I met my friend Margie for lunch, and in the six blocks from my house to the restaurant, I got splashed on, shoved, banged into and told to “go fuck myself” in three different languages. And just as I was entering the restaurant, I got shit on by a pigeon. It feels so good to be home.

JANUARY 10

Dear Diary:

I am shaking. This morning I did the “Howard Stern Show” and it was the most amazing experience I’ve ever had on the show. I must’ve been a guest on his show a hundred times, but today was the first time ever, ever, ever, in all these years, that Howard never once used the words “penis,” “vagina,” “midget” or “retard.” It wasn’t until later that I found out it was because he had a sore throat. In retaliation, this was the first time I never, never, never once used the words “cuntface,” “turd burglar” or “Palin.”

JANUARY 11

Dear Diary:

Flew to L.A. today to get back to work on
Fashion Police
. I didn’t realize how much I adore taping it. It’s been almost a month since I insulted celebrities, shamed lesbos and made fat jokes about Aretha Franklin. I need my fix!

JANUARY 12

Dear Diary:

I spent half the day in the car schlepping all over L.A. going from meeting to meeting, ass-kissing to ass-kissing. My driver listens to the top-rated oldies radio station in L.A., KRTH. It was fun listening for a while, but the station played the same Eddie Money songs over and over and over and over and over again, all day long. No matter where I was in L.A. or what time of day it was, when I got in the car they were playing Eddie.

I figure since 1960 there must be 100,000 songs to choose from, yet KRTH plays Eddie Money over and over, like an autistic man-child who has to wear a helmet just to eat cereal. I have nothing against Eddie Money; he seems like a lovely man. I met him once a few years ago; he was my waiter at Denny’s. But why is KRTH playing him all day, all the time? Is Eddie related to the station owner? Does Eddie have blackmail photos of the program manager fucking a goat? I don’t understand it. There are 3.8 million people living in Los Angeles; do any of them call up KRTH every morning and say, “If you don’t play an Eddie Money song at least fifty-eight times today I’m going to kill myself”? What I
could
understand is if they called up and said, “If you
do
play Justin Bieber even once, I’m going to kill you.”

I wouldn’t mind listening to Eddie Money all the time—or even Justin Bieber—if KRTH would just mix it up a little. Throw in an Anne Murray song every now and then. Even if you don’t like her, her songs are good for the listener. They work as a natural Valium. Or something nostalgic, like Jennifer Holliday’s first hit, “I Am Not Dieting.”

JANUARY 13

Dear Diary:

Cooper is totally into lacrosse, so Melissa and I went to his game today. He was very good. At least I think he was. I don’t know what lacrosse is about. All I saw was a bunch of thirteen-year-old boys with sticks and helmets furiously whipping a rock-hard ball at a kid with no shin pads (and no teeth) standing in front of a net.

Later: Googled “lacrosse.” It’s a French-Canadian word. It means “beat the shit out of the goalie.”

JANUARY 14

Dear Diary:

Red-eyed in from L.A. Found myself sitting next to someone who was the spitting image of my cousin Leon. And I say spitting image because he was spitting. (And shaking. And twitching.) Every time this guy spit he washed down the seats of not only the people in front of us, but also the people in first class. I haven’t been that wet since I went through menopause. I couldn’t sleep, and sleep is important—just ask Sunny von Bülow. Which is why I always request to sit next to Stephen Hawking. He doesn’t toss and turn, and his keeper, God bless her, wipes off not only his spit, but dries off the entire cabin. There’s even another bonus: the rhythmic hum of his ventilator can be so soothing it helps me go into REM sleep!

But back to the idiot next to me. I was about to say something like, “Calm down, Blinky, a lot of people are nervous about flying,” but the stewardess mouthed to me, “He has Parkinson’s.” I signaled back, “What? He has what? Parking problems? He likes
Parks and Recreation
? He’s a Parker Posey fan?” Then she did a little hopping, trembling motion, until I got it. I didn’t bother to say hello to him because (a) I could tell he was an upgrade, and (b) his wardrobe told me he had absolutely no juice in show business.

To top it all off, this guy was really aloof. You’d think anybody who took ten minutes to buckle a seat belt because of the Parkinson’s would be friendly. I mean, how many friends could he have? Other than the FEMA earthquake management experts, who could put up with all the shaking without getting nauseous? The stewardess had to take Dramamine before she came over to serve him. All night long his head bobbed up and down more than a ten-year-old sitting in Michael Jackson’s lap. It’s now three o’clock in the morning, I’m trying to sleep, and I swear to God he is kicking and thrashing like a Filipino day laborer trying to get out of Kathie Lee’s sweatshop. At one point I asked to buy him a drink and he said, “Martini.” I said, “Shaken or stirred?” The dumb fuck didn’t even get the joke.

JANUARY 17

Dear Diary:

I’m back in L.A. visiting Melissa, and tonight I went with my agent, Steve Levine, to a semi-important dinner party in Beverly Hills. And I say semi-important because if it were really important he would’ve taken Chris Rock or Jimmy Fallon or JWoww. And I know it was semi-important because there were only three or four people there who could help my career, and they could only do that if they called in a favor to someone more important than themselves. In Australia. I’m not complaining however; last week he took Kathy Griffin to an all-you-can-eat buffet at an Olive Garden.

Gayle King was at the dinner party, looking quite feminine and sporting a small tattoo of Gertrude Stein on her left wrist. I made the usual small talk with her, like, “You and Charlie Rose have such great chemistry,” and “Your new high-collared dresses really hide your large, mannish shoulders.” And she seemed delighted as she smiled and walked away. But what I really wanted to say to her was, “What’s Oprah’s private number? I want to crank call her.”

And while I’m on the subject, Charlie Rose—who I like to think of as a good, good friend—once came to a dinner party at my house with Amanda Burden, his longtime lady love. I adore them both. I saw a new friendship starting: Sunday-night screenings, meeting at the dog run, sharing a house in Mexico . . . I guess they didn’t see it the same way because I never heard from them again. In fact, Charlie turned down the opportunity to narrate a PBS special I had written on anti-Semitism called
Stop Bothering the Hebes
.

JANUARY 18

Dear Diary:

Exhausted. Just came back from yet another party, this time with Steve Levine’s assistant, Jackie. I’m starting to know how bacteria feel on the food chain. I was the oldest person in the room. They were all young hip actor types who made no eye contact with me. Is this generational or just rude? In my day, people made eye contact. Take John Wayne Gacy, for example. Good mood or bad, bless him, he made eye contact. Even at his busiest moments, like when he was waterproofing his crawl space, he always found time to look you right in the eyes and say, “What’d you do today, Joan? Tell some jokes, sell some jewelry on QVC, just hang with your peeps and smoke a little blunt?” instead of being self-involved and saying, “
I
was very busy: I drank a six-pack, made some clown paintings and fucked my cell mate. Care for some more punch?”

JANUARY 19

Dear Diary:

I’m really upset!! I finally got into the apartment of my blind neighbor, Esther Mortman (I slipped past her while she was groping for her tennis racquet . . . who’s she kidding?), and I was right! She
does
have a park view! This kills me. Why, why, why should blind people have apartments with park views? I don’t want to say anything negative about Esther even though she’s a lousy dresser. Checks and plaids together? Time and time again I chide her, “C’mon, Esther, what’s with this outfit, are you blind? Ooops.” But as I suspected, she doesn’t even appreciate her view; just to aggravate me she purposely places her easy chair facing the wall. As I said, I don’t want to say anything because I really like Esther. She’s so independent, for years I didn’t even know she was blind; I thought she was just a stuck-up cunt who never gave me a compliment like, “Have you lost weight? New hairdo?”

JANUARY 20

Dear Diary:

It’s Melissa’s birthday. Thirty-nine years ago tonight I was screaming, “Get this out of me!” And thirty-nine years plus nine months ago I was screaming the same thing. It was an easy birth and I remember my joy when my obstetrician answered yes to the following questions: Is she breathing? Is she healthy? Is she white?

On the way to Melissa’s party I ran into Wolf Blitzer and he broke my aura; he was
right in my face
when he growled at me. We were practically conjoined. (It made me think: Do people have to represent their names? Be careful what you name your kids. You could be jinxing the little motherfuckers. What if Sunny gets a job as a guard in a concentration camp? What if Goldie has black roots? What if Lucky has one eye, cradle cap and an open spine? Nice job, Mom. I always wanted to ask Gwyneth Paltrow, “Does Apple have worms?”)

I said to Wolf, “Wolf, unless you’re a dentist removing a molar or my Melissa trying to get my jewelry off of me before I’m dead, there’s no reason for you to be this close. And don’t give me that ‘what if we’re kissing?’ crap. You and I both know a hooker will fuck you, suck you, put things up your ass and call you dirty names, but she’ll never,
ever
kiss you. Especially if your name is Wolf.” Then as he was walking away I said to him, “Yo, Shorty, have a nice day, and by the way, who the fuck named you Wolf? Looking at you, so many other names come to mind: Raccoon, Ferret-Face, Llama-Puss or just a simple, right to the point No-Chin.” (There’s nothing I hate worse than a person with no chin. When they get old they’re just going to be a neck and a smile.)

JANUARY 21

Dear Diary:

Wolf isn’t the only person who’s in your face all the time. Take that narcissistic loser Tyra Banks. Tyra’s always standing up for herself and her “race” over perceived slights. For example, she’ll say, “You just pushed me because I’m black!” No, I pushed you because the train was coming right at you, you bulimic twit.

JANUARY 22

Dear Diary:

Just got another no for my PBS special,
Stop Bothering the Hebes
. John Galliano said
“Non.”
I think I’m going to sic Jerry Lewis on him.

Just finished watching President Obama’s inauguration. (I TiVoed it because last night I was watching the premiere episode of
The Price Is Right
with Winona Ryder.) The president’s speech was okay. The “we’re all in this together” stuff plus the usual “we’re all Americans” and the ever-popular “we’re all equal” shit went over very well. I like the first two sentiments but boy-oh-boy is Obie wrong on number three. We’re
not
all equal. I’ve seen nude photos of Tommy Lee
and
Bruce Lee, and no amount of legislation is gonna level that playing field. Tommy wins ten to one. Poor Bruce Lee. As Confucius say, “Be happy with a mini. Could be worse; could be an innie.” I feel so sorry for Asian men; not once in my nearly two hundred years on this planet have I ever heard the Asian woman who lives next door to me yell out, in a fit of unbridled lust, “Oh, Hop Sing, give it to me, baby! Punish me with your huge, yellow tool!” Not once. Usually what I hear her say is, “Is it in?”