LA Weekly: Talking the Pith Out of Kathy Griffin - 11/18/09

[Lolita]

Full interview at the source: http://www.laweekly.com/2009-11-19/colu ... y-griffin/

Talking the Pith Out of Kathy Griffin
By Libby Molyneaux
Published on November 18, 2009 at 7:34pm

Though her TV reality show, My Life on the D-List, is on hiatus after its fifth season, Kathy Griffin’s pushing a heap o’ new product.

Her book, the cheekily titled Official Book Club Selection, spent several weeks on the New York Times Best Sellers list. Her new standup CD, Suckin’ It For the Holidays, is just out, and a DVD, Kathy Griffin: She’ll Cut a Bitch, is due in January. And she’ll play two shows at the Gibson Amphitheatre on Thanksgiving weekend.

Griffin has come a long way from her days performing for few dozen of the comedy-enlightened upstairs at the Borders bookstore on La Cienega.

L.A. Weekly: You won’t see Chris Rock or Dane Cook playing huge venues on a holiday weekend. That’s a tough time to get people away from family.

GRIFFIN: That’s my theme: Ditch your family, or if they have a very good sense of humor, bring them. By Friday at 8 or Saturday at 8, you’re going to be full of food but also family.

I try not to talk that day, like Celine Dion. It’s one of the many ways I’m exactly like Celine Dion. I write material until the last second. I’m thrilled if anything happens that day. I watch news around the clock: You never know what’s on Nancy Grace. Jon Gosselin could have a new girlfriend or Kate Gosselin could have her hair with a little wave in it.

You know what’s funny? In L.A., they don’t come. When I played the Garden, I got celebrities right and left. In L.A., none want to come. If they do, it’s like under a shroud of secrecy. Hollywood has an even worse sense of humor about itself than politicians. I love to make fun of Fox News and the Glenn Becks, but I have to say that I would probably be more welcome at Fox & Friends than I would be at a Hollywood party.

Jennifer Hudson and I were on an elevator together. She was on her BlackBerry so furiously that her body language was literally screaming, “Please don’t look at me.” It was all that I could do not to press the emergency button to trap her with me.

[BarbaraWalters]

Thanks for posting, great Q&A

You’re so articulate and quick-witted — that’s a sign of a high intelligence. You might be a genius.

I really wish you would leave the Weekly and run NBC Universal.

That's exactly what I think and what I admire

On New Year’s Eve, I’m going to be a nervous wreck and not about my jokes, but I’m going to be thinking about signing the check back over. Part of me thinks, f--k the money. I’ll get more mileage out of swearing.

Yes Kathy, please be inapropriate, I'll send you 10 bucks to make up for the income loss ( I'll figure out a way to come up with the others 99990 $)

[dietsoda]

Agreed, inappropriate is the ONLY way to ring in the New Year!