My evening with Kathy Griffin (and 3499 other people)

Kathy Griffin and me a porn star at the gay porn awards

On Saturday night Andy took me to see Kathy Griffin at the Madison Square Garden WaMu Theater (the WaMu part was new to me ... but then the manhole covers in this city will probably have corporate sponsors before Bloomberg's done with it). As we approached the theater, the transient Midtown crowd started more and more to resemble what Noah's Ark might have looked like had he opted not to repopulate the world with animals but instead to preserve paired examples of the many species of gay men who live in New York City.

"Look, it's a pair of Prada-footed Guppies!" "Hey, a Muscle Mary ... and his matched mate! They do tend to travel together ..."

And of course whatever Andy and I would qualify as, other than old, boring, and probably not nearly fabulous enough for a classy event like this. Would they make us sit in the back? What if I went to the gift stand to buy a "MAIN GAY" t-shirt and they told me I wasn't fun or pretty enough?

The night was only beginning and already I was shame-spiraling into disaster. You can take the boy out of the Catholic Church, step-ball-chain, step-ball-chain, repeat...

Fortunately, the minute that Kathy's show started, I forgot about all that (and almost forgot about the private atmosphere of suffocating perfume that hovered over our section, courtesy of the 300 or so women drinking red wine out of plastic cups all around us). Clips of Anderson Cooper calling Kathy "Bitch!" from The Celebrity Mole?! Clips of Kathy on Seinfeld? Clips of Kathy having her face beaten in with a hammer by her pregnant lesbian lover from the white-hot B horror movie The Unborn?!?! 

Okay, this is where I belong after all.

Kathy's act was what you'd expect: polished, wonderfully serpentine, and selectively ruthless. In the show that we saw (which she presaged with the promise that it was ALL NEW), Kathy's main targets were Oprah, Britney, Barbara Walters, the Christians ...

... and Marie Osmond.

Oh my my my ... does everyone's favorite live televised dance competition blackout victim have a surprise in store for her once this show makes it to Bravo. Kathy went for the throat with Marie, accusing her of faking the fall on Dancing With the Stars (yes!), saying that she gave a "slave doll" to Oprah Winfrey, suggesting that she has beaten Donnie into submission for the better part of a half-century, and stating flat-out that the Osmonds' religion, Mormonism, is batsh*t crazy.

Not that I'm going to argue with any of this, mind you ... but having lived in Salt Lake city myself and having had a friend who was administered electroshock therapy by his Mormon college when he told his counsellor that he thought he might be gay, I don't know that I'd have the cojones to go all jihad on Princess Tabernacle like that.

Kathy's best story involved her long-delayed meeting with Liza Minnelli, who invited her to hop into bed wearing jammies and watch The Asphalt Jungle with her, mid-afternoon, at a Canadian casino (already, about a dozen of my favorite things wrapped up in one floridly camp package!). It's a hilarious story and one that helps explain why Liza's fans (including one of her old-school Alpha gays, whom Kathy also met) are so nuts for her. At one point Kathy asked Liza if she thought the supposedly straight hotel manager seemed a bit gay to her and Liza replied, "How would I know, look who I married!"

I tuned out a bit during the lengthy Britney section because at this point the less I hear about that idiot the better (although the bit about how preggers Jamie Lynn was supposed to be the "Marilyn Munster" of the family was hilarious) but when, after suggesting that Brit be placed in the Bad Girls Club house, Kathy launched into a deconstruction of what is possibly the most insane reality show ever, I perked up a bit.

Other topics included Ryan Seacrest (of course, but she was actually nicer than usual to him), her recent re-banning from The View (following her hilarious "Barbara Walters loves Astroglide" routine from her latest special), Fox News (she was merciless, thank God), Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes (thank Xenu), and the musical episode of the HBO whorehouse reality porn Cathouse (which I instantly tried to NetFlix and can't find anywere, curse her!).

Overall it was a fun show but honestly when you're sitting on a cloud between St. Peter and Charles Nelson Reilly and have to watch most of the show on a jumbotron screen anyway (um ... yes, they did make us sit in the back), you may as well just wait for the DVD. (The combo of the screen, the lighting and her new bangs - which I loved - also created the weird illusion that she was wearing a pirate eyepatch for half of the show.) As ever, Kathy took the time to acknowledge her gay fans in the audience and delivered a great performance, and had the pricetag not been a little steep (and the cut a little precious), I would have proudly worn one of the Main Gay t-shirts that she was shilling. If they'd have me, of course.

And really, I'm all for anyone who is willing to take down Marie Osmond for the greater good. I've had it in for that one since "Paper Roses".