Laugh Lines: Conversations With Comedians Read online

  The war was pretty hot. A lot of people were for the war. In the Q&A someone wrote me a question. I’m just reading them cold. They said, ‘Who would you rather have for President, George W. Bush or the Marquis de Sade?’ I started riffing on that. Of course, people started yelling, ‘We don’t want to hear your politics.’ ‘My boy’s in Iraq.’ I said, ‘I know. We want him to come home. He shouldn’t be in Iraq. This is a horror.’ ‘You shut up and sit down.’ They almost started a fist fight. I said, ‘Come on up onstage. You can express yourself. You can have my mic. Everyone can come, and you can say what you feel. We can have a discussion about this.’ It didn’t happen that way. It was more like ‘I’ll come over there and strangle you.’

  It didn’t shock me. I actually like a little rabble-rousing, as long as no one gets hurt. A guy bit his finger off a couple days ago in California.

  That’s the only time they got really like physical, like stand up from their seats and stuff. I draw a fairly harmonious group. Even if they have different views they are…I don’t know whether to use the word open-minded or compassionate or something.

  Corey: People try to attach labels to us in the gay community: partner or husband or wife. With you working with Jane professionally as well as personally, is there a particular title you prefer?

  Lily: I usually say ‘my partner.’ Frankly, I’m for marriage. To me, I don’t know why people want to imitate. I always say something to the effect of, ‘I personally have some reservations about the issues of same-sex marriage. If all of us homosexuals start imitating heterosexuals, it could be a very slippery slope.’ That’s usually enough for me, but to kick it a little bit, ‘What’s next, monster truck rallies?’

  Corey: It’s one of those issues I’ve been torn about. We did get engaged moving to California. That does leave us in limbo right now.

  Lily: You certainly didn’t have same sex marriage in Missouri, did you?

  Corey: That was one of the first states to vote in the amendment.

  Lily: Amended the Constitution, right. Maybe because we’ve been here so long, I don’t know. Just Jane won’t go on the road. They’d be saying at the church, ‘Well, where is Jane? Someone call the house and see if she’s ready.’ ‘She’s en route, but she’s stopping at Neiman’s to buy a scarf.’

  Corey: As collaborators over the years, how do you balance the professional with the personal?

  Lily: I’m extremely flexible. We have such a similar sensibility. Of course, Jane really is not driven to work as I am. I like to perform. She doesn’t really want to work that much. She does when she has to. If I beg enough.

  Corey: Do you get sentimental at all or schmaltzy as you approach 40 years together?

  Lily: Not in that kind of overview. Here’s our 40th anniversary. Not like that. It’s such a daily thing. It’s so organically part of the base that I don’t. Just like I had my birthday, and I couldn’t be less interested in my birthday. It was nice. I got a lot of stuff from people, greetings and stuff. That’s a nice way to stay in touch from time to time.

  It’s just totally in our skin. We live it in the skin. If I planned a big party for her, she would kill me. Nothing she would hate worse than to walk into a big surprise party, but she’d be so gracious. She’s Southern. She’s from Tennessee. Totally Southern girl. Everybody adores Jane. They’re tried of seeing me because she won’t go half the time. When Jane comes, it’s a real event. And they all seek her counsel. She’s very, very engaging.

  Corey: Your comedy is not, as I like to call it, mean comedy. There’s the roasts on Comedy Central, playing up stereotypes. What is it you feel about comedy these days in general?

  Lily: You mentioned the roasts. Joan Rivers is a good friend of mine—has been for years and years. I wanted to do the roast for Joan, but I could not bring myself to do it. If they don’t get more inventive, it’s gonna get tired, too.

  There’s enough of, ‘living in a dirt bed,’ or ‘the dry vagina.’ And everybody’s, ‘It’s not the first time he got paid for sucking.’ The culture’s brutal enough. That’s not the part that bothers me, the sexual stuff. It’s the debasing and dragging you down.

  Someone should really compartmentalize the jokes and see what they are. They get tiresome. I know this because I had to watch the roasts to decide if I wanted to do Joanie’s. I hate the ones that really … how can I say all this?

  Don Rickles was on ‘Laugh In’ one year. He is a very loveable guy in real life. After a week of being brow-beaten and cut to ribbons, everybody on the show was a little bit…their guts were hanging out. There were people in their dressing rooms tearful. They’d have to flee to their dressing room.

  We’re not so validated anyway that we can take a whole lot of devaluing. And I’d rather see the best expected of us than the worst. Not that there’s not a place for it. I would not be one to censor anything one says.

  The worst thing that was said on a lot of the shows was when Farrah Fawcett was on. I think it was the William Shatner roast. She seemed to be out of it. She got up to the podium and said, ‘I’m not as out of it as I look.’ When Betty White said, ‘I feel a real affinity with Farrah. I’m in my 80s and that’s the last decade she meant anything,’ it’s too close; it’s too diminishing. I don’t see any point in it; it’s a cheap and degrading thing. Make her less than she already is. Already, she’s got enough problems.

  Even old game shows were based on ridicule and rejection. ‘Blank, you’re an idiot and get the hell out of here.’ Everything is just dump, dump, dump.

  I don’t know. I probably yearn for a little ‘Beaver.’ I don’t know.

  Corey: You did Kathy Griffin’s show this season. I really used to like her stuff several years ago more than now. It was self-deprecating. She really was living the D-list life that she talked about. It made her seem more relatable to those of us trying to do what we can to make it out there, instead of dishing and saying mean stuff about celebrities, which I think a lot of her stuff has become lately.

  Lily: I thought in the older days, she talked more about celebrities and made fun of them. Then I thought she turned a little there and made herself more vulnerable and the effect of that I liked much better. Now, you’re right, she’s anything but D-list. She’s like top dog. I don’t know where that leaves her. I can’t speak to that part of the culture entirely. I went on that show because I like her as a person. I know her a little bit. She asked me to be on it very early. I was always traveling. My mind was to be on with her mother in an earlier time and talk to her about behaving differently. That was my acquiescence to that part of the culture.

  Corey: I love her. I think she’s fantastic. As she’s gotten bigger, I know it’s gonna be difficult to seem real, like on the D-list and struggle to make it. I am amused. Her mother is a stitch. The whole season did seem put on, though.

  Lily: Maybe too many celebrities. Did she always have a lot of celebs?

  Corey: They got a concept this season. She’s gonna get higher-rung people to tell her how to be A-list. It’s a concept. They may have found out it’s not that successful.

  Lily: And she’s really fun, and that is how she is. She goes on like that all the time, and she’s good at it. I get a kick out of her, too.

  Corey: You’re certainly a role model to up-and-coming—not that she’s up-and- coming. You’ve got that timeless quality about you. I’m sure people have said you’re a hero and role model. How does that affect you, or how do you take that in?

  Lily: It’s nice. I don’t…I mean there were plenty of people before me, too. It’s an evolution of time and life. I was influenced by people. Maybe I influence some people in some way. I continue to be influenced. If people just come to like you for your sensibility or something, then it’s more personal. I don’t live out of reality that’s its overly significant, you know.

  Getting by day by day, year by year, then they’ll turn on me at any moment. I didn’t know. You have to be ready for it.

  Corey: At live shows
during the Q&A, have people brought up the YouTube clip of your filming ‘I Heart Huckabees’? (There are two clips online of Jane and ‘Huckabees’ director David O. Russell in heated arguments during filming.)

  Lily: Yeah, sometimes they do. Oh, the YouTube. I was doing an interview, sitting right in this little chair. I sit at the one little table because I can signal someone in the kitchen to bring me a cup of coffee. I was doing an interview with someone in Miami. That old clip had been around agencies for four years. You forget about what a clearinghouse the Internet is now. He said, ‘How do you feel about clips on YouTube?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. What are they? Oh, did I overlook something when I was getting out of that limo the other day?’ ‘From “Huckabees” or something.’ ‘Which clip did you see, the one in the car or the one in the office?’ So initially, some people would see just the office. They would call or write, ‘I was so proud of you. It was so dignified.’

  I’d say, ‘Did you see the one in the car yet?’ (laughs)

  So, what can you say? It’s right there in cinematic glory. I’m sure David wishes we hadn’t done it. We certainly wish it hadn’t been filmed; that’s what happened. I can only own it. It’s what I did. I’m not sure I won’t do it again.

  Corey: You, Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton are all gay icons. Do you think the movie was somewhat responsible for that?

  Lily: Not for Dolly and maybe not for me. Gay people are just hip. I’ve said many times, ‘There’s no excuse for a square gay person.’ We’ve been interesting artists over the years. Ernestine went a long way toward creating my aura, and Dolly created her own. And Jane was Barbarella for heaven’s sake.

  It’s just the way of it. In my opinion, our sensibility is just hipper. I mean the gay community’s sensibility is hipper.

  Corey: I had to bring up ‘9 to 5,’ because growing up—and now it’s still one of my favorites—I related to your character, having a strong, single mom in my life. There’s been talk of a sequel. Please don’t.

  Lily: I know; like doing the musical. It was difficult. They closed on Broadway or at least planned to over Labor Day. And Jane and Dolly and I went to the premiere in Los Angeles and New York. It was pretty surreal. It looks just like us onstage. And I’m friends with Allison Janney, of course, from ‘West Wing.’ Megan Hilty even kind of mimics Dolly a little vocally, little laughs. The audience just cheers when they do. The old costumes are even iconic. The things we wore are so recognizable because that movie played so much.

  Corey: There’s something very special about that movie—so many great lines. I just visited with a friend who lives in L.A. He was just doing scenes verbatim.

  Lily: We’re the ‘Mommy Dearest’ of this era.

  Corey: Is there a ‘9 to 5’ line that stands out for you?

  Lily: I love when Dolly goes back there and finds the wrong body in the trunk and leans up, ‘Violet, honey, could you come back here for a minute?’

  Corey: What was your first impression of Dolly?

  Lily: I was friends with Dolly before that. I went over to the Porter Wagoner studios a couple times. This was when Dolly was just sort of cresting, getting known outside the country field. I saw all the letters she wrote to Porter on the wall. That was ’74, ’75. And then ’77, I was on Broadway in the first show we did. She played The Bottom Line in New York. That was one of the big crossovers from country to pop. She came to my show, and I went to her show. I was friends with her since then.

  And Jane, too. I was friends with Jane because of political stuff, when she was married to Tom Hayden. In fact, Jane came to see one of my shows in ’75, the last show of that year. That’s when she started working to create ‘9 to 5.’ On the way home, Dolly was on the radio, and in that moment she thought, ‘Lily and Dolly and me will be in this movie about office workers.’ How that computes, I don’t know.

  Corey: Sometimes those little magical things come together. You mentioned ‘Laugh-In.’ Were you there when Nixon was on the show?

  Lily: No, I didn’t go on ’til the third season. The last season, I left early. Paul Keyes, big Republican speech writer for Nixon, he was responsible for bringing Nixon on the show in that early season. Paul came back to the show as head writer. I didn’t want to have to do his politics. I agreed to do a limited number of shows. I had offers to do specials. I owned all my characters, so I was lucky in that way. I could take my characters and go. I’m still close to George Schlatter, original producer and co-creator with Rowan and Martin.

  Corey: I still don’t know what sweet bippy is.

  Lily: You bet your sweet bippy? I wonder what it means. I can guess. I’d probably be pretty accurate.

  Corey: What do you want to be when you grow up?

  Lily: Yeah, that’s a good question. What I want to be is a hammock layer. I want to just lie in a hammock by a lake. I have a friend who does have a hammock. She doesn’t have a lake, but she has a creek. Coincidentally, I saw this picture of her house, and this is the image I had had in my head for decades—where I wish I’d spent the last 30 decades. I don’t have that many decades left. Well, maybe I do, who knows. We never know what marvels of modern science will evolve.

  Corey: We’ll see where this healthcare thing goes.

  Lily: That’s a good line. I should have said that. I should have said, ‘Who knows. We’ll see where this healthcare thing goes.’ They would say, ‘She’s so quick-witted.’ That little D-List Kathy Griffin is quick-witted.

  Corey: I’ve had the chance to interview her a few times. The timing is refreshing.

  Lily: She’s very funny.

  Corey: What is the perfect Saturday night for you and Jane?

  Lily: Oh, make popcorn and watch a movie. Or jump in the pool or something.

  Corey: I think I have one more question. Do you have a favorite dirty joke you like to tell?

  Lily: Favorite dirty joke? That’s what Barbara Walters ought to glom on to. Does she still do those specials? That would be better than, ‘What do you want on your tombstone?’

  The ones that come to my mind really fast are mostly jokes from junior high school and stuff. I don’t know how really funny they are anymore. My girlfriend, Susie and I, we were in junior high school and high school together, but this is one from junior high.

  These girls are talking about their boyfriends, and they’re saying … I don’t even like to tell it now, because now it’s racist—because it’s Chinese. It doesn’t have to be Chinese now in these days of tattoos, but then it did.

  She said, ‘My boyfriend has his dragon tattooed on his chest.’ The next girl says, ‘Oh, my boyfriend has his dragon on his back.’

  You can probably already hear it coming.

  The third girl says, ‘My boyfriend has his draggin’ on the ground.’ (laughs)

  We thought that was a scream.

  Then another one we always liked, because you could act it out.

  Some old couple wasn’t having sex anymore—one of those old stories. The wife goes to the doctor and says, ‘My husband won’t have anything to do with me and blah blah blah.’ He gives her some white tablets and he says, ‘Go home, lie on the bed, insert these tablets in the vagina.’

  My housekeepers are listening to me now; it’s embarrassing. (laughs) ‘It’s Lily,’ and throws her hands down like this is nothing.

  All right, this is how far you’ll go, Lillian, to be in the limelight. The loss of your dignity is a terrible price for fame.

  Jane switches it. ‘Fame is a terrible price to pay for the loss of one’s dignity.’

  OK, so he comes from work, and she yells, ‘Harry, hurry, come upstairs.’ He goes upstairs. ‘Quick, take the two white tablets on the dresser and throw them inside my vagina. The doctor says we’ll be compelled to have sex or something.’ He does, and she shrinks back and he says, ‘What happened here?’

  You use your face like you’re chewing something.

  ‘I’m looking at your vagina, and it’s going like this.’ She says, ‘Oh my god, y
ou threw in the Chiclets!’

  Those are the two that come to mind. (laughs)

  Dan Aykroyd

  He’s been a Blues Brother, Ghostbuster, Miss Daisy’s son and Fred Garvin: Male Prostitute.

  Legend of Comedy shouldn’t get tossed about nonchalantly, but Dan Aykroyd is certainly that, a living legend of comedy. He was one of the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players on “Saturday Night Live” and a scene stealer at Second City Toronto in the early ’70s (yes, he’s Canadian, but we won’t hold that against him).

  His interests include the paranormal and old rhythm and blues music, and he has parlayed his loves into a helluva career, co-writing the aforementioned “Ghostbusters” films, hosting a syndicated television program on the weirdly unknown and becoming Elwood Blues, brother to “Joliet” Jake, otherwise known as John Belushi.

  “There’s something classic about a tall guy and a shorter, heavier guy in black suits and hats that seems to work,” Judy Pisano, widow of John, told me. “It’s easy for you to believe you can be them—sort of like a costume like Superman.”