Diary of a Mad Diva: With new material - Softcover

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Comedienne, Emmy Award–winning TV host, Tony-nominated actress, Grammy-winner (for her audiobook of Diary of a Mad Diva) and CEO, Joan Rivers was an icon of American culture, a bestselling author, Celebrity Apprentice winner, writer, producer, director, and savvy businesswoman who overcame great odds to reinvent herself time and time again. She hosted E! Network’s popular seriesFashion Police, and starred with her daughter, Melissa, in their own weekly reality show, Joan and Melissa: Joan Knows Best? on WEtv Network. Her critically acclaimed documentary, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work premiered in theaters nationwide and is available on DVD. Amongst all of her success, Joan’s most joyous triumph was being a mother and grandmother.

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This diary was written to the best of Joan Rivers’s memory. As such, some of the events may not be 100 percent . . . or even 5 percent factually correct. Miss Rivers is, after all, 235 years old, and frequently mistakes her daughter, Melissa, for the actor Laurence Fishburne.

Miss Rivers wrote this diary as a comedic tome, not unlike Saving Private Ryan or The Bell Jar. While Miss Rivers doesn’t really like skinny models and actresses, she doesn’t actually believe that they’re all bulimics and they all carry buckets instead of purses. Similarly, she doesn’t really think that all Germans are anti-Semitic Nazi sympathizers, that all Mexican Americans tunneled in across the border, that all celebrities are drug addicts, shoplifters or closet cases, or that Noah built his ark with non-union labor.

Miss Rivers does, however, believe that anyone who takes anything in this book seriously is an idiot. And she says if anyone has a problem with that they can feel free to call her lawyer, Clarence Darrow.

Fuck Lamaze. You try downing a bottle of Barbies with a dry throat.

JANUARY 1

Dear Diary:

This diary is my Christmas gift from Melissa and Cooper and I’m more disappointed than I was on my wedding night when I found out that Edgar was half Chinese—and not the good half. And this diary’s not even from a good store. I was hoping for at least a Car-tier watch. I wouldn’t even have minded if it was spelled with a K. I know, it’s Christmas season and we’re Jewish and we shouldn’t care about gifts, but if indeed we did kill Christ—and I’m not saying we did; for all we know he could have slipped and fallen onto that cross (maybe he was clumsy; maybe he drank)—then something’s got to ease the guilt. And the more expensive that something is, the less guilty I feel.

Anyhow, this is a new book for a new year and I’m feeling great. To celebrate, I got matching vagina piercings with my two best girlfriends, Margie Stern and Brucey Jenner.

I’m writing this in Mexico. On the spur of the moment, Melissa, Cooper and I decided to fly down here, and we were right: It’s a perfect way to ring in the New Year—great resort, private beach and plenty of servants who’ll do anything for a thirty-cent tip. This place is kind of like Downton Abbey with sombreros. Last night I got an eight-hour pedicure from Maria while resting my feet on her “brother,” Jose, who was crouched over like a footstool. I let him switch positions every two hours so he wouldn’t cramp and, more importantly, so Maria wouldn’t slip and accidentally paint my ankles dusty coral. Unfortunately I can’t take credit for the position-switching thing; I got the idea by watching Amistad on cable last week. I think if the ship’s captain had let the slaves switch sides every couple of days not only would they have rowed faster but they would have had the strength to make faces at Anthony Hopkins.

This morning when I woke up and looked out my window, there was Conchita, out in the field threshing wheat so that her “brother,” Juan, would be able to make me toast for my morning breakfast. I appreciate all of my south-of-the-border neighbors’ semi-hard work and hope they’ve stolen enough loose change and shiny trinkets from my bureau so that when they get caught trying to tunnel into America next month, they’ll have money to pay a mediocre deportation lawyer.

JANUARY 2

Dear Diary:

I haven’t kept a diary in years. The last time I kept one I had just come back from a girls-only weekend with Eleanor Roosevelt and her best friend, Gayle. We all giggled that girls are better than guys, and then we douched with Gatorade and wrist-wrestled till we fell asleep.

I wasn’t planning on keeping a journal this time, but when I told my friend Bambi I was going to Mexico for the new year, she said, “Oh, you ought to keep a diary, like whatshername did . . . oh, like Anne Frank did.” Like Anne Frank did???? Did you read Anne Frank’s diary??? What a bitch Bambi has turned out to be, to compare me to Anne Frank! I’ve written six books, and Anne? She didn’t even complete her one. She’s no writer. Did you ever read her book? She has no ending! “Uh-oh! The Nazis are coming up the . . .”

I’m trying to forgive Bambi; it’s been such a long friendship. I knew her way back when she was still Bernice, before the electrolysis, the implants, the Restylane and the glass eye that almost works. I forgave her bitterness. She turned the day her husband, Ernie, a prominent Long Island orthodontist, left her for a fifty-three-year-old Little League coach/Boy Scout leader with a severe overbite. Until this we were friends, but to compare me to Anne Frank? Who the fuck does she think she is? I’m nothing like Anne Frank. She lived in a walk-up; I live in a penthouse. And unlike Anne Frank, I do things: I go out. I shop. I go to the theater. I get professional haircuts. I’m way up there and I’m a gal on the go; Anne Frank was fifteen and that lazy bitch played the shut-in card for almost three years. No, Bambi, if I keep a diary it won’t be like Anne Frank’s; just for openers, it’ll be in English.

JANUARY 3

Dear Diary:

Trouble started today with AT&T. I hate AT&T. It obviously stands for Always Terrible Transmission. I tried to call the States and couldn’t, so I called AT&T about my international phone service, which sucks more than Monica Lewinsky under a White House desk, and I got a recording that told me “a disabled war veteran will answer your call.” Great. I have to complain about my long-distance bill to Private Jimmy, who lost his face, ass and limbs in Tora Bora. “I’m sorry you’re a torso on a dolly, Private First Class Jimmy, but does that mean for the rest of my life I have to pay an extra $6 for data roaming?”

What do you say when they hit you with “a disabled vet will try to give you a hand”? Do you chance it and answer, “Does he have one?” I hate being put in awkward positions, like the utter disappointment I felt after I did a benefit performance for thalidomide adults and no one applauded. To this day I’m not sure whether the silence was because they couldn’t clap or because they didn’t like me.

Anyhow, I did what any American would do: sent a check to Wounded Warriors, hung up on the motherfucker, and switched to Verizon.

JANUARY 4

Dear Diary:

Something about Anne Frank’s story kept bothering me and I finally figured out what. It’s not that she wasn’t pretty; a lot of girls aren’t pretty and they still do okay, right, Avril Lavigne? But Anne just didn’t try. How would it have hurt the woman who slipped her food when the Nazis weren’t looking to have included a lipstick, an eye shadow and, God knows, a concealer? The girl had nothing but time on her hands. Would it have killed Anne to take a couple of minutes out of her “busy” day and throw on a little blush? And there’s something else I just can’t make sense out of. With all of that “me time” available, why didn’t Anne’s mother redecorate? You can do a lot with blackout curtains if you’re willing to strain your brain a little and think outside the box. Hopefully the answer will come to me before Passover. I’d hate to interrupt the Seder by adding a fifth question: “Were there no throw pillows in all of Amsterdam?”

JANUARY 5

Dear Diary:

We’ve been...