Read I Hate Everyone...Starting With Me Online
Authors: Joan Rivers
I Hate Everyone...Starting With Me (4 page)
Can I just mention that I hated
Dennis the Menace
and
Leave It to Beaver
?
What’s with the mawkish rhyming? The kid was a bratty little boy so they called him Dennis the Menace? If he was a gay Jew would they have called him Schlomo the Homo? And FYI, I always thought
Leave It to Beaver
should have been about Katharine Hepburn’s sex life.
The only child stars I like are the ones who are troubled
because when they grow up they become troubled adults. And without troubled adults Dr. Phil would be doing pro bono work in New Jersey.
Healthy child stars become healthy adults: Ron Howard, Brooke Shields, Jodie Foster…
Booooooring!!!
I love that Danny Bonaduce (from
The Partridge Family
) was a junkie, or that Maureen McCormick, who played Marcia Brady, was fucking the entire bunch, including Alice the maid. Britney passed out with a baby on the dashboard and a Bud Lite in her crotch? Fan-tastic! Or Winona Ryder getting caught stuffing panty hose down her bra? Bingo!! I’m particularly fond of Mackenzie Phillips; apparently while she was on
One Day at a Time
she was not only an alcoholic and a dope fiend, but she was also having sex with her father! Talk about a Lifetme movie of the week… I mean, I loved the Mamas and the Papas, but not like that.
But my two favorite child stars are the Olsen twins;
those two girls have not a shred of talent or a brain cell between them and yet they’ve become
billionaires. I love them, I respect them, I envy them. I especially like the one with the eating disorder. That girl’s a perfect date—you don’t have to spend much on dinner and you don’t have to buy her really expensive fashions because when it comes to clothing all she’s really concerned with is absorbency. Plus, she’s worth a billion dollars
and
she’s single!!! You know, now that gay marriage is becoming legal maybe I should encourage Melissa to consider lesbianism.
And the thing I hate most about child stars are the people around them: agents, managers, publicists, I hate them, too. (More on that in the showbiz chapter.)
Mrs. Brady and her bunch.
Carol had a great relationship with Cindy and Jan and Marcia. Why wouldn’t she? Alice the maid had to do all the heavy lifting and deal with the girls’ crying and whining and cramping while all Carol had to do was keep her hair in that stupid ’70s shag cut, make the occasional pitcher of lemonade, and try to look interested while Mike Brady spewed out his long-winded, common-sense homilies about family life, while sitting in the closet.
Shirley Partridge and her family.
We all thought Shirley was the best mother and had a perfect relationship with Laurie. In reality, to this day Laurie is somebody with a bad twitch you shouldn’t make any sudden moves around. Mother of the Year Shirley Partridge not only forced the entire family to go out on the road and sing (sort of like white Jacksons), she made them all live in an old school bus so they could pick up extra cash smuggling undocumented Salvadoran immigrants north to pick oranges.
Samantha and Tabitha Stephens.
Sam assumed her daughter, Tabitha, was a witch because she twitched her nose. Ever heard of drugs, Samantha? That wasn’t pixie dust Tabitha was buying from Dr. Bombay a gram at a time. Both the Stephens
women were so strung out, half the time they didn’t even notice when two different actors played the role of Darrin.
Carrie Bradshaw and Samantha Jones.
Okay, technically they weren’t mother and daughter but given the age difference they could have been. (They obviously weren’t cycle sisters, either, because by the time they met Samantha had already gone through menopause.) Yet despite the vast, yawning, gaping age difference between them, they developed such a deep friendship they became almost like Oprah and Gayle. If Carrie and Samantha had become lesbian lovers the name of the show would have to be changed to
Very Occasional Sex After the First Six Months and the City
.
Sharon and Kelly Osbourne.
I love the way they put aside their differences and united for a common purpose: trying to figure out what the hell Ozzy was saying.
Lucy and Lucie.
Or as I like to think of them, Ball and Chain. Poor little Lucie, she only had one walk-on part in her parents’ sitcom. I think Lucy’s got some ’splainin’ to do about that. Also, Lucy named little Lucie with an
ie
instead of a
y
to make sure that the Lucy everybody loved was
her
. Everyone did love Lucy, especially Lucy.
Mrs. Cunningham and Joanie.
Not what I’d call a textbook example of motherhood, even for the 1950s. Instead of keeping Joanie away from bad boys who wore leather and rode motorcycles, Mrs. Cunningham allowed them to live in a room above the garage. Girls like Joanie usually get in trouble. If the Fonz told
Joanie to “sit on it,” she probably would have. Mrs. C was lucky that Joanie only loved Chachi. Joanie could have loved coochie.
Angela and Mona.
Angela was constantly embarrassed by her mother’s sex life. The question in that family wasn’t “who’s the boss?” but “who’s on top?”
Marge and Lisa Simpson.
I
looooove
Marge Simpson. She taught Lisa to lie about her age because after twenty years on the air, Marge is still only thirty-four.
Roseanne and Darlene.
I could relate to their hardscrabble, blue-collar existence because once Melissa and I almost had to fly coach. Thank God there was a death in first class, which freed up a nice aisle seat for me, while Melissa fit beautifully in the overhead compartment.
Kris Jenner and Kim Kardashian.
Most mothers would be horrified if one of their daughters made a sex tape. Not Kris. She used the sex tape as a screen credit to get Kim into the Screen Actors Guild. Who says “love” isn’t a four-letter word?
Mama Walton and her daughter (pick one).
The Waltons spent so much time saying “good night,” it’s a wonder Ma and Pa had the strength to make more little Waltons. The show could have been more interesting if they’d given John Boy a gender identity crisis like Chaz Bono. I would have liked to tune in one night and hear, “Good night, John Girl!” The show became much more interesting after Grandma Walton had the stroke and couldn’t speak, because then you couldn’t tell if she was grimacing in pain, smirking in
disgust, or nodding approvingly. Viewing fun for the whole family!
Melissa and Me.
See all of the above.
There are four types of old people:
♦ Regular
♦ Old and annoying
♦ Old and infirm
♦ Just not dead yet
Why do I hate old people? Because they smell, that’s why. It’s a fact. Check out the
New York Times
Science section. Right there, between “nuclear waste” and “raw sewage,” it says, and I quote, “a team of renowned international scientists and olfactory experts have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that old people—particularly those from the mothball generation—smell. And Mrs. Estelle Neiburg in apartment #2F is especially fetid.”
Why do old people buy in bulk? Whenever I’m in a hurry, directly in front of me at the supermarket there’s a one-hundred-eighty-five-year-old person standing with ninety-three jars of mayonnaise. Talk about an optimist! He’s not going to make it through the checkout
counter. Unless God likes chicken salad sandwiches, the guy’s an idiot. The only thing old people could use in large amounts is formaldehyde.
I don’t want to hear about “the good old days.” I have no idea who Clara Bow—
Beau?
—was and I don’t care unless I was mentioned in her will. But I do know that things
weren’t
better before air-conditioning, limousines, vibrators and stool softeners.
I hate old people who make irritating noises with their lips.
You’re sitting there in the sunroom with Grandpa watching
Wheel of Fortune,
when he sighs and blurts out, “That Vanna White sure knows her alphabet,” and then for no apparent reason starts making smacking sounds with his lips and gums. He’s not eating or drinking anything. He’s not even drooling yet (that doesn’t usually happen until eleven o’clock), and he’s not having a seizure. Just twenty minutes of slurping like a dog licking his crotch. Look, I read somewhere—probably in the same
New York Times
article—that you’re not supposed to hit old people, but sometimes a good whack on the nose with a newspaper is all they understand.
I hate early-bird specials.
Who the hell eats dinner at two o’clock? I know seniors are on fixed incomes, but to save eighty-six cents by eating dinner before lunch is insane. And people talk. I know; I’m one of those people. When I see the Weinsteins hobbling into IHOP at 1:45 for dinner I’m not thinking, “How smart. What good planners. A penny saved…” I’m thinking,
“Cheap humps. You’re the reason we Jews are chased and hunted down all over the world.”
On top of that, they only order half a chicken, take two bites, then put it in a doggie bag to take home, where it lasts them for six months. Anne Frank didn’t hoard food like this, and that bitch was hungry.
I hate old people who actually tell you how they are when you ask them.
So never say, “How are you?” to an old person. This just opens a door you do not want to go through. And “How are you feeling, Mr. Lubell?” is even worse. The old coot starts whining, “Thank you for asking me how I am, Joan—it
is
you, Joan? I have glaucoma now. I used to have cataracts but things have gotten worse. I can’t drive anymore so I don’t go out much. I had to eat cat food last night and I’m allergic to Friskies, so I got this rash all over my stomach. I scratched so much I started bleeding. Which is bad because I’m anemic, my doctor says. Not that I have a real doctor. He’s a quack from the clinic. I have to go there, as I have no money ever since my son-in-law stole everything from the bank. I’d ask you to sit down but I have no extra room on my scooter, which they’re repossessing on Friday for late payments. And then I’ll have to have a neighbor drag me to the store so I can buy day-old bread and fish soup, which I’m probably allergic to, as shellfish makes me break out in these boils, and when I go by all the kids will think, ‘There goes poor Mr. Lubell. He’s disgusting and Mom says he’s a perv and and and…’” And all
I’m
thinking is, “I hope you’re not allergic to mahogany or pine because I’m going to kill you right now.”
I hate old people who say, “I’m eighty-nine years young!”
It’s not cute. It’s stupid and irritating. You’re not eighty-nine years “young.” You’re six years beyond “good-bye.”
I hate it when old people are referred to as “feisty.”
“Feisty” means Nana got all defensive and angry when you had the nerve to point out that she accidentally shit all over your new car seats. And not only did she not even apologize for the blood in the stool that left permanent stains on your beautiful beige Corinthian leather, but she got even “feistier” when you mentioned the smell that the little pine tree on the dashboard cannot disguise.
I hate the elderly who refuse to die.
Old people are like dairy products—they have an expiration date, and if they’re left on the shelf too long they go sour. Every time I pass some
altacocker
sitting at a card table, hunched over and wheezing, I want to yell, “Get in the box, Mildred! It’s time to get in the box!”
I hate old bodies.
Which is why I’ve had mine renovated six hundred times. I’ve undergone more reconstruction than Baghdad. My plastic surgeon is on staff at Restoration Hardware. I keep a crane in the bedroom to make sure my ass doesn’t hit the floor. Everything drops when you get old… boobs, bellies, butts, everything.
Last week my friend Miriam was sagging so much she broke a hip when she tripped over her vagina.
*