Sunday, June 08, 2008

I just got back from a really quick trip to New York. I was the keynote speaker at a Cancer Day event in Great Neck, New York. Thankfully, I am fully recovered from my terrible cold and my ears were cooperating on the assent and descent of each flight.

The coordinator of the cancer day event, who was lovely and made it all very easy for me, is a Hilary Clinton supporter. We spoke about her speech today – which I only saw in bits and pieces. I still wish Obama would have her run with him as the vice presidential nominee. And not just because it would make a funny show. There was something so genuine and hard working about her speech, about her campaign overall – it transcended everything I was previously angry about. Call me mercurial, that’s how I feel. For now, at least.

Also I watched Kathy Griffin on Larry King last night in my hotel room. She is a friend of mine, and I really do like her a lot, even though I think her comedy is not always so… well, kind. But ohmygod she was so DAMN funny on Larry King last night. She was running circles around him. I think they are going to re-air it on Sunday night.

21 comments:

Sheldon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sheldon said...

I saw Kathy Griffin in SF a few months back, and my stomach muscles are still sore. It's a guilty pleasure being a KG fan, I'll admit...and I don't like what's happening to American entertainment and how cruel it seems to be (all those reality tv shows seem to be based on really sick Schadenfreude). Still, Kathy's "My Life on the D List" is one of only a few reality shows I watch, and I just love her wit.

By the way, 1/3 of the voters on Larry King's website poll called her "Annoying and obnoxious." How rude is THAT! LOL

Julie said...

I didn't think she was very funny until I saw her reality show and now she totally cracks me up. Could be that wit sometimes doesn't come through as well in routines but when you get a chance to see it in the everyday....
Thanks for the heads up on the repeat of Larry King....will tivo it tonight.

Petra said...

I love Kathy Griffin.

I think it is because she isn't afraid to say what others may consider taboo. There is a bravery in that. Not unlike your bravery in your honesty about your atheism, Julia.

Yes, she can be unkind, but it is ALWAYS with a twinkle in her eye and her tongue planted firmly in her cheek. She pokes fun a hollywoodisms. I find that hilarious.

I TiVo'd LKL and watched it yesterday. It was, hands down, the funniest hour of television I have seen lately. Perhaps ever. I am really trying and I can't think of a time when I have laughed out loud THAT much at a television show.

: ) P

Anonymous said...

KG and Bill Maher are 2 of the very few guests who tempt me to watch LKL because each of them reduces LK to helpless laughter while they take charge of his show. When LK is actually trying to run his show, it's a mess -- unless the guest has good interviewee skills and steers the show.

Here's a video clip from the CNN website from the recent KG appearance on LKL:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/06/07/lkl.kathy.griffin.cnn

Julia Sweeney said...

Read Rebecca Traister's articulate and insightful and passionate article about Hillary Clinton's campaign here: http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/06/08/hillary_concession/

Anonymous said...

hey when r u going to tell us all about ur wedding?!

Joey said...

Hi, Julia! I stumbled across your blog last week, and I love it!

I just want to tell you that I was totally bummed that you weren't in the new "Sex and the City" movie as that nun you played on the show. They could have done a whole storyline where you left the convent and then banged every man in New York. That would have been awesome. I actually know an ex-nun who kind of did that.

Anyway, I'm very excited to keep up with you via your blog. I saw you on "The View" a few months ago was was quite intrigued by your whole "Letting Go of God" thing. I'm dealing with some of the same issues.

I look forward to reading more about it!

Anonymous said...

Julia, I totally agree about Kathy, I think she is hilarious and unpredictable. Her comic timing is absolutely impeccable. Her comebacks really left Larry speechless. As I was watching her I was wondering if you were a fan of hers (I don't know why).
I think I might watch it again tonight.

Anonymous said...

Julia, I totally agree about Kathy, I think she is hilarious and unpredictable. Her comic timing is absolutely impeccable. Her comebacks really left Larry speechless. As I was watching her I was wondering if you were a fan of hers (I don't know why).
I think I might watch it again tonight.

Petra said...

Hey Julia,

Your link to the Salon article got trimmed.

Here is a tinyURL link to it:

http://tinyurl.com/4l9mtf

If you haven't already discovered it, let me introduce you to
http://tinyurl.com/

Which will replace the long web address with a tiny URL for easy pasting. I am in NO way affiliated with them - just use it ALL the time!

Thanks.

: ) P

Voyager said...

I pre-apologize for my neglegence - how are you involved in the ACS? I'm very involved in the ACS's Relay For Life, personally - my father died of a type of liver cancer. I'm always interested in talking about the ACS and, more specifically, about new ways to get involved with the ACS.

giddy girlie said...

I just recently found your blog also and am enjoying keeping up with you - welcome back from NY!

Last night I was talking with some friends about how awesome you are (and re-watched "God Said Ha") and one of my friends is very close with Kathy and he was telling the story of when he had her introduce him to you and he was so excited that all he did was stammer and sounded like a complete moron. Ha ha. So remember that moron you met that one time? I know him! :)

Marjolaine Hébert said...

My first post on your blog, Julia. And since I'm not sure where to start... here's one Canadian woman's thoughts on Hillary -

Admittedly,there have been times that her excessive efforts have left me unnerved. But I do admire the hell out of her for fighting the old boys club all this time, despite the media's undue influence on the campaign. She did, after all, have the popular vote. This has had outsiders wondering WhY she was being pressured into throwing in the towel. (Imagine having to break down patriarchal walls as thick as yours. Ugh, poor woman!)

Obama is a good speaker, but in the end...I think Hillary could have delivered what Obama might not be seasoned well enough to do.

Anonymous said...

Glad you're on the mend, Julia.

The part of Hillary's speech I liked the most was the part about the 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling.

However, Hillary and "genuine" aren't often mentioned in the same breath. Marc Cooper wrote this in last week's L.A. Weekly:

"Her humiliating fate was sealed neither in Iowa nor Mississippi this past winter, nor in Kansas this past spring, but rather right on the Senate floor more than five years ago when she rose in support of the authorization of the war in Iraq. Though the fate of that catastrophe faded during the Democratic primaries as the explicit lead issue, Clinton’s original support for the war remained a thundering reminder to millions of Democrats that she was — at her core — an unprincipled and unreliable opportunist."

Most Americans probably don't have the attention span to recall who voted for what in the Senate, but part of me would like to believe that it was Hillary's horrible voting record that doomed her and not the fact that she's a woman. I would LOVE a woman president. (Julie, please run for this office soon.) But let it be someone who doesn't authorize optional wars for political expedience.

Wow. That felt rant-like.

T

Anonymous said...

No, it isn't a rant...and it does touch on our acceptance of a mistaken as well as (to me) dichotomous idea that women are, on the one hand generally more temperate, more idealistic in their decision making processes,and on the other hand, equal to. as consequence of being no different from, men.

Maybe it's time to consider that if brain formation has anything to do with our behavior, then the human being who aspires
to ultimate power, and/or inclusion in the history books, is neither male NOR female, but something entirely otherwise, from a race apart, the third sex: the Power Seekers... and at any cost:
those ultimate egoists who have the imperturbable belief in their superior abiity to do what can never be accomplished by the common clay.
Or at least convinced of it by kingmakers, who are almost always men anyway.

I'm surprised, if not disheartened by those, women and men, who don't seem to recognize the significance of Mrs. Clinton's support of what became George Bush's permission to pursue our unconscionable as well as self-destructive war.
Where strong leadership was (and still is) required, she elected to follow, and to have voted without any attempt to learn more, as her upstate New York, rural, conservative constituency might have wanted.
Where marching to a different drummer should have been her pursuit, she settled for mindless and demogogic flag waving and false patriotism.
That, the facile and thoughtless vote for the power to wage the war: is the horrific error from which most of our other horrors flow.

To use a religious metaphor (certainly Mrs. Clinton would not demur from a declaration of FAITH...all our candidates unfortunately fall all over each other declaring their devotion to religious and specifically Christian dogma): sometimes biting an apple is much more than just tasting a piece of fruit.

Norma Manna Blum

jimaal said...

Hey Julia!

Last year for Halloween, my friend Hannah dressed up as Pat. You might be interested in knowing that she won an "honorable mention award" at her theatre dance or whatever. Here are pictures:
http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b8d830b3127ccec403b029057000000025108AatGTVu3atQe3nwQ

http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b8d830b3127ccec403a97d45b000000026108AatGTVu3atQe3nwQ

"eeeeuueegg"

and I listen to the This American Life episode that features you a lot.

jimaal said...

Sorry about that! Here are the links to the pictures again:Pat #1

Pat #2

~ L said...

I don't know what was funnier, the comment about Barbara Walters preferring Astroglide (from KG's latest standup) or Larry King not knowing what it is! He had to be kidding, no?

Kathy Griffin is a total crack-up.

Anonymous said...

I LOVE Kathy Griffin and I appreciate her "no fear" approach! I admire her too because she isn't afraid to turn the same edge of the sword towards herself as well....which all great funny people have the ability to do, and I think this is why she shouldn't be punished as often as she is. She says what many of us want to say....only we can't say it publicly. That's why so many people love (or hate)comedy like SNL (at various points in time), LGOG, Kathy Griffin, etc. because it's fearless, and it makes us laugh until we are physically in pain and forces us to question at the same time. This is why I think it's all so wonderful & valuable & intelligent.

Anonymous said...

I don't think Hillary is any more genuine than anyone else simply because she is a woman, but I think she's got to appear to be genuine because she is female. I think she is a politician first, and I have little doubt that she can turn on whatever side of herself that she wants us to see as skillfully as her male collegues, and so she can use the genuine "factor" more to her advantage.

I shamefully wanted to hold her to a higher ideal simply because she is a woman and I figured we should all somehow be able to trust her more because of her gender and her evasive, if not boldface lying predecessors were all male....but that is probably warped thinking on my part.

I would love to see her in there with Obama; I would. Why couldn't Bill just have admitted to the blow job in the first place? It would have been so much easier on all of us, and it could have influenced the public's perception of Hillary for the better. If she can stay married to him after the Lewinski fiascoe, why can't she say that his lies caused more of fiascoe and still remain married to him if that is what she is determined to do? This would make her seem like a "genuine" human being in the eyes of the public, irregardless of its direct impact on world politics in general. It does come down to who we think will actually follow through on what they say are going to do based on how they say what they say when compared to what they said and/or did in the past. To me that is a measure of "genuine."