Page 7 - CelebReadies: Joan Rivers' Enter Talking & Still Talking

Episode Date: November 28, 2025

It's time to kick back with some turkey day leftovers!Joan Rivers, everyone. What a character. She's complicated. But this book is about the first seven years of her career, and it's fascinating. This is Joan in her own voice, describing how she spent her 20s, in the 1950s, as a single woman trying to make it as a stand up. We certainly understand people who don't like her jokes, and still, it's amazing to hear the story of how she got her first break. This is a one and done, but we'll be back next week with her next book, Still Talking!Man, it just goes to show you how OPTIMISM is TERRIFYING. In this week's brand new book, we pick up a few decades after last week's book ended on its moment of beautiful, hopeful opportunity for Joan. This book is about how it all goes to shit. This book also really helps us understand how Joan Rivers became who she was to many of us who got to know her in the 90s and 2000s. This is a story of blind ambition, industry pissing contests, and professional and personal tragedy. Big ol' content note for discussions of suicide. This one is as much a list of grievances as it is a book, but if you're interested in show biz, it's a fascinating list of grievances! Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Page 7 ad-free.Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Get your turkeys out. Oh, yeah, and get your gravey's up. Okay, and get that baser in. But where? I hope that everybody made it through their holiday experience. I know we're still in the middle of all of it. But we made it through, we got two of them down, we got a couple. more of them to go and we got this and i hope everybody is having a wonderful holiday week and if not

plug yourself in with some podcasts just as to the podcast and it will all be over soon but we had adam's family values coming at you yesterday and today we're going on a little bit of a sadder place but also i feel like a very interesting place because yes today we are talking about joan rivers first two memoirs. Yes, over on our Patreon, if you are a lucky member of our Patreon, and if you're not, you should definitely come join over on patreon.com slash page 7 podcast. Every Wednesday, we put out an episode of celebrities, where MJ and I read a celebrity memoir and then discuss it so that you don't have to read it if you don't want to, or there are times

when sometimes we're like, maybe you should totally read this book. Now, I really enjoyed Enter Talking and Still Talking, which are the two books we're going to discuss about Joan Rivers today. And I really enjoyed them because I loved Joan Rivers. And yes, it is all, our relationships with her are very complicated. She was a very complicated person. So please, I would love for you to check out our usual Patreon exclusive celebrities today. And I hope you enjoy it. And if you do, come on over to the Patreon, come check out a bunch more.

And we love you guys so much. I hope you guys like it. And let us know if you ever have any other kind of memoirs that you're like, definitely this one, you must read it. We love getting info from you guys. I love your input. And I love your kiss. That's a scary thing to say. I don't know if I love your kiss, but regardless of reviews on kissing, I do want to wish

everybody a happy holiday week if you are celebrating this week. And if not, don't worry, we're all going to be back to normal. Come Monday. So come on over, baby. Get out some leftovers. And I hope that you are enjoying this hour national day of leftovers. Put it in the microwave, throw it in the oven, do whatever you got to do. Make sure you put a little broth in that, though, and make sure nothing dries out and I hope that you guys made it through unscathed enjoy just take a look it's in a book it's celebrities celebrities it's celebrities and it's sad well I guess this one is not this one is good and not this one is not as sad yes this one is not as sad I guess my problem is I know where this is going. And I know what I'm not going to say what I'm going to force MJ to read after this,

but I am going to say what I am going to encourage us to read after this because we have just read Enter Talking, which is Joan Rivers' first book. Now, her second book is called Still Talking. And I wanted to look up while I'm saying that, I want to see what year it was. Yeah, because the one we're talking about today and her talking basically spans the first seven years of Joan Rivers career from her from like it's her 20s basically which to place that in time we're talking about mid 50s mid 1950s until 1965 when her first appearance on the tonight show with Johnny Carson happens and so this is a very limited very specific glimpse into the very early career of Joan Rivers and I will say we're gonna I want to give a little disclaimer before we get all into it, because I really enjoyed this book. And also there's

caveats to talking about Joan Rivers and her comedy and everything. But I will say I really had an amazing time reading this book, and I'm really excited to talk about it. But I don't remember a lot about the rest of Joan Rivers' life, but Jackie does. And apparently this little glimpse that we had here at Enter Talking, it's about to take a real turn when we read the next book, still talking. That is what actually is even crazier about these books, and I didn't realize it until finishing EnterTalking, is that EnterTalking was published in 1986. Enter Talking was published in 1986. Okay, so it leaves us in 1965, but she wrote it in the 80s. In 1986, correct.

And her huge public downfall and everything that starts to happen starts in 1980s. And her next book is written in 1991. Whoa, okay. So the second book, both are huge bestsellers. And the first book really is just about her climb to get there. And now, personally, breaking in, basically. Right. I don't know how you have felt about Joan Rivers.

I didn't want to give like a quick little, you know, slurry of my love for Joan Rivers up top. Now, I know that Joan Rivers has been upsetting. Right. Since forever. Right. And for those that are unaware of where Joan Rivers came from and why she got to the place that she got to because she worked her fucking ass off. Yes. That is the account of this book.

And it is really moving to see her account from literally just being this, like, person. a young adult in her 20s who her parents desperately wanted to marry off at a time that that still in the 1950s was really kind of what you were supposed to do, what was kind of considered your real only path, you know, you could become a secretary or something or you can get married. And so she's like, as this whole time she's trying to break in, she's still living at home. But yeah, so this is the account of her just the seven years that she took trying to get her first big break. But go on to Jackie.

And I love reading it now. Joan Rivers is a huge inspiration. to me. I love that she has, and we will see in reading these books, maybe not necessarily just in these first, too, how she strived from the very beginning that every time something wasn't working, because she knew that she was destined for everyone to know who she was. And while we see so many people that come from money that are able to make it, you know, I would not call Joan Rivers a Nepo baby in any way she performed because her father was a doctor, but her parents were also like crazy penny pinchers, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy. Yeah, I think they were both immigrants.

It was like definitely like a kind of like Jewish immigrant experience that she described. It actually reminded me a lot of the beginning of Ina Garton's book of like, yeah, of like the coming from the kind of immigrant, child of immigrants mentality where it was. was just like you work hard, you work hard, you save your money, you work hard. Although her mom wanted to spend money. But, but yeah, like really coming from not, like having, she had a stable home and she was able, I think, able to do all of this because she was able to live at home. But she went to college. And she was also, I will say, encouraged by her parents, at least in a way to like, you know, take care of yourself by going to college, make sure that you have what you need, make sure that although while at the same time saying like hope you don't have like too many crazy dreams or anything though because like

you do have to get married and you do need to marry a doctor and you do need to marry up so while you're doing all this it was a huge pressure of sure sure go get your MRS we need you to go get married because they had two daughters and they needed both daughters to marry well essentially what was put into them from the very beginning but you got to remember joan rivers was born in 1933. This is a very, very different time period that we're talking about, especially with immigrant parents and what they came over from and what they were going through. And Joan Rivers didn't know quite what she wanted at first.

She just knew that reading this, man, this bitch had drive. And from the very, from the rip, she didn't know what she wanted, but she know that she was like moving forward and she was going to go out there and get it. And Joan Rivers was like that every second she was alive. Like to the end, down to when you go watch the movie a piece of work, her schedule every night is filled and she's in her late 70s. Yeah. And to her, an empty schedule is death. Right. Not having shows, that's where she ends. And she hits that section, though, of her life so many times because of how many times she had to reinvent herself. And I know a lot of us, our age, think of Joan Rivers and we think, oh, she makes fun of what people wear on the red carpets.

I feel like that's what a lot of us had a connection to Joan Rivers about. and I always like because you know for me I was always drawn to her voice I was always drawn to the fact that she had a raspy deep voice for a woman and or at least for what I had seen growing up and that is really what I was like well if she can sound like that and everybody loves her well I could do something you know like I just hated my voice so much growing up and Joan Rivers was a weird light for me and Every interview, everything I ever watched with her in it, as I started to become more and more obsessed with her. I feel like I got obsessed with Joan Rivers at the same time as I got obsessed with Lily Tomlin. Yeah. And like that kind of an era of, we don't give a shit. Because like Joan Rivers started telling comedy when it was, I believe, I don't know if it was necessarily illegal, but nobody. She was saying words like abortion on stage when nobody was saying.

things like that. She was making jokes about stuff before and especially a whoa, whoa, woman saying this stuff and she didn't give a shit. Right. This is just who she was. She learned how to hone herself and in reading

and her talking. It's so, I loved reading this after the Pam Anderson book because while the reason why we started reading the Joe Rivers book is because it was like, oh, I feel like the way in which she was ruined by society, Pam Anderson, and what society said about her is definitely

what happens to Joan Rivers over and over again in her timeline. Like society, it just keeps turning its back on her when she just works so hard, except I do wonder, because this was such a huge, enter talking was such a huge bestselling novel. And I wonder if, at least in the reviews that I'm reading, it seems that such an honest portrayal of how difficult this business is hadn't really been written from that perspective yet. And it was Joan Rivers, wherein she was similar to where Pam Anderson was eventually ripped apart by society. Pam Anderson was plucked from the ether, from obscurity, because she was hot at a football game. It's like the opposite of Joan Rivers because we think ugly, considered fat, considering all these. Oh, and always, and they're all saying this to her to her face over and over again, over and over again, and she doesn't make it until her early 30s.

Yeah, yeah. Which for back then, you think, okay, she. went to college in the 50s and then tried desperately to make an act for herself at a time period when it was all against her. And man, just like the whack-a-mole, man, she'd pop up and they'd whack her right back down. And she'd just like a cockroach just kept going forward. So like, yeah, so we need to talk about her kind of almost pathological work ethic. And I agree that the main, I think it's an incredibly powerful and moving account because of, you know, she was, like you said, she was one of the first women to, you know, really, not one of the first

women completely to be doing stand-up comedy, but it was at a time when it was just like they just refer to, oh, there's a girl, all right, we need a girl, get a girl, like really, not an easy, obviously, 1950s, not a great time to be a female stand-up comic. And I think that I found myself having just real profound respect for how hard she worked and also I do think any telling of any talk about Joan Rivers

just the caveat at the top especially because we did get some Patreon comments about Joan Rivers and her you know what she did there's a lot of things that Joan Rivers said and joked about that we do not endorse

oh yes that's why I'm saying I'm obsessed with her work ethic I'm obsessed with like I'm not talking I need everyone to know I'm not talking about the content of her jokes. I'm not discussing that. And it's complicated, right, though?

Because I thought about this the entire time I was reading the book because it's, you know, and you might hear me and say it's not complicated. Fuck that. She said racist jokes and she said transphobic jokes and she said, she said, you can, if there's a long list of the horrific things she said. And I'm not even saying that to be like, she was an equal opportunity offender, a bunch of shit that I don't like. And I have always had a kind of complicated relationship with her.

her work because my initial kind of exposure to her was her willingness to say all this super outrageous stuff. And at first, I was kind of like, whatever. And it really wasn't until a piece of work came out that I actually started developing my, like, more respect for her as a female comic, which I also was at the time, like, because I could respect who she was and what her work ethic was and what her, what her, how she got there, even though I was not always a fan of her type of humor and I just feel like it's like like many and I'm not going to go and you know I'm not going to spend too much time on this but I think it's just worth pointing out that there are plenty of good reasons and also you know just that like the way we could admire her for what she did as a

woman comic and also you know right just to you know to also recognize like there was you know she could be marginalized as a white woman comic but also she benefited from stepping on other marginalized groups all the time and So it's just a complicated. She wasn't a girl's girl. She wasn't out there trying to like lift up other women. No, no, no, no, no. That is not what you're not.

I'm not saying I want to be friends with Joan Rivers. I just, I'm inspired by how hard she worked. And I think it's just because you're so, but thank you for saying that because you are so correct. That is not like, I never, I am not here saying Joan Rivers was always hilarious and I was like, ah, yeah. It's just part of the pasty. comedian. Right. It's part of the pastiche of how you talk about her.

And you can also, I think that there are people who admire that about her, that style of humor, because it was like a woman saying these things. And, you know. That's honestly, and even just thinking back to like me on roundtable days, which I'm not compared to Russell, John Rivers, and I never would compare myself in June Rivers. And I know not to be like, it was different. But it was, it was wrong then, too. It was definitely wrong then as well. I think that's good to say. It was wrong in the 50s.

It was wrong. It was always wrong. To rely on those type of jokes. Yeah. As a female comedian, she thought that it set her apart because it did. And like so many controversial comedians, less so now, a lot of controversial comedians now have no, nothing to say. But there was a long time where people, a lot of controversial comedians, I feel like, I do feel like there is one of the things I learned as somebody who entered the stand-up world with a very, you know, know, kind of aggressive politics, and, like, I didn't like that shit then, and I don't like it now, but, like, one of the things I kind of tried to soften around was not that jokes like that are okay, but I tried to soften around the desire, not of, I'm trying to think of an example from back in the day, but, like, I think there were a lot of really smart comedians who wanted to push the envelope, not for the sake of just pushing the envelope, but who wanted to experiment and they wanted to see, they wanted to, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, struggling to like think of the of a of a great like you know of a contemporary of hers who is a who is a male

comic to compare but I think that there is like I I can respect the drive of comedians to I think that sometimes you throw a bunch of spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks and maybe two of the pieces of spaghetti are actually like brave and brilliant right like I think it was really cool that she was talking about abortion she was talking about the pill she was talking about sex like and I think that also a lot of the spaghetti was shitty and racist and all those things. And so I think that I tried to soften around like, I understand the desire to try to push the envelope to do really interesting things and then sometimes missing. I don't, I don't understand the desire to push the envelope just for the sake of pushing the envelope, which I also think is what she did

sometimes. And I'm willing to recognize that a lot of the ways that she did push the envelope were really pioneering and interesting. And then some of them really weren't, you know. And so, yeah, all of, like, I just think that, especially given how thoughtful our audience is, it's like this is something that's just part of any conversation about her. But it is like part of her story is that she is this woman on stage in the, and especially this book, we're talking late 50s, early 60s. This is a complicated political time in America, right? She's talking about, you know, the pill had just been introduced, the birth control pill, right? She's talking about like the ramp up to the Vietnam War. She's not a political comic at all, at all.

But she is coming in as a woman experiencing all this sexism, you know, and then metabolizing it and figuring out what kind of act she wants to do on stage. Well, I mean, the thing is that what kind of actions of finding is something that is very judgmental, very racist a lot of times, but also very self-depreciating in a way that women just weren't publicly doing. back then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I do wonder, because I feel like there was a through line in comedy back then of like, if you're making fun of everybody and yourself, it's kind of fine. I think that was what she is. Because then it's like you're spewing, it's like in your brain.

It's like, no, it's because I accept and under, like, I accept and that's why I'm making fun of them. And because if there was any person, she made fun of more than anybody. it was herself. Yes, I think there's an idea that it levels the playing field to make fun of everyone. Which it does not. And we know that it does not. We can understand the idea behind it.

Because even behind the fact that, like, she really found in the beginning, she found her community with the gay community. Yeah, I love that. That she's like, she starts performing on Fire Island. And she's like, that was the first time anybody liked me, you know. And she said she was like, because I did well with smart. like, you know, like thoughtful, clever, interesting people. And so I was doing all these, like, shitty clubs and bombing and bombing and bombing. And then when I went to Fire Island for the first time,

it was like the first time people were interested in what I was trying to do. And she was looking for a community that I feel like in ways in which she didn't know how to say back then. But it's like, and they all read each other. So I feel like they're reading each other. And now I'm reading them to the, like, I feel like in coming up, in the gay community, that she found herself and found her act in a way that I wonder if she maybe would have found a different kind of act if this wasn't the community that she had found. Because even as she's talking about them, like you said, it's like she's still making jokes, like she's still making gays jokes and

she's still making these. And like, but everybody's liking it. Right. So she's like, all right, well, then I'm just going to keep going down this road. And I finally found someone that is going to accept me because I feel like at that time period that even as just a female comedian, she felt so othered that she found a community of people that also were marginalized, even though she's not marginalized in the same way. I'm not saying that she is in any way, shape, or form. Right. But I do wonder if she found then with that a community of people that were also looking for a community. And this made me, again, it's been a long time since I saw a piece of work. I remember really loving it when it came out.

but I hadn't thought about Joan Rivers in a while, and reading this book and, like, as she describes these first seven years of her career, it made me respect her in a different way because I think when she, because again, we're, you know, we can obviously, you know, white women in the 1950s were the beneficiaries of, of, you know, of white privilege. And also, we can also say that white, you know, being a woman in the 1950s, you know, not a great time in terms of your, in terms of your options and in terms of how. people's, you know, her parents' expectations of her, her boss's expectations of her, her crowd's expectations of her, right? And she really started, she, all she knew was that she, you know, she's a simple baby, she wanted to be famous, she just knew she wanted to act, she wanted to be a star, and she kind of gets into comedy just because it's something, like, she gets into stand-up because it's something, oh, it pays like a couple dollars a night, and also I can do it without auditioning for plays and stuff. So she kind of just, you know,

stumbles into it. And she doesn't really have any voice at first. She doesn't know what she wants to say. She doesn't really know what her point of view is, except her own life. And so she describes the years it took of her developing her sets. And for the longest time, she was just stealing jokes from other people, had no idea what she wanted to say. She just wanted to be on stage. And the kind of breakthrough she has a few years in is realizing that she has to talk about herself and that, you know, she doesn't really know what she wants to say at first. But she does know what it's like to be a single woman in her 20s, you know, with these parents who just want her to get married with all of these men who don't respect her. And that's what, you know, again, the most interesting thing to me about Joan Rivers has always been the way she talks about being, you know, she talks about her own experience, the way she talks about being a woman and the way that she was able to kind of transcend what the expectations were for a woman comic at the time.

And so I feel like, you know, seeing her detail how she realized, well, I need to develop a point of view. And the one thing I can talk about is what it's like to be, to be, to be, to be me, what it's like to be a woman. And this is, she mentioned at one point she's talking about like the hoot nannies and open mics in the, in the West Village and stuff. And that's when like she, she eventually, you know, kind of middle of this time in the book, she makes it to second city. So it wasn't like she was the only woman around, right? There were a bunch of amazing women comedians coming up at this time. And then she mentions Nichols and May, which is like the hyperfocus as you had, I had a huge hyperfocus on Elaine May.

Ooh, tell me about Elaine May. I know nothing. So Nichols and May were a comedy team. Let me bring up all the info. So I'm starting to me to put that to me. Like, be by Wikipedia, MJ. So Elaine May was part of this comedy team with Mike Nichols. Mike Nichols went on to direct a bunch of movies and be super famous, but they did...

How she's still alive? They did like... 93 years old, God bless. John and I went into a big Nichols-in-May phase because they would do like partner duo, you know. Cool, cool, cool, sketches. And yeah, Mike Nichols, he has directed so many millions of movies. But she was like, there's all these... Oh, the bird cage!

Yes, right. And, but there's all these fantastic, like, early radio sketches of Nichols and May. And so it's really interesting to hear her describe herself. She's not the only woman around, but really she finds her, she finds her confidence on stage with Second City, which makes sense, right? Because that's where you learn to improvise. That's where she learns to kind of work collaboratively. She briefly is also in a comedy team. I forgets like Joan, Jack, and somebody else, a third guy, two guys and her.

and very much, I think, in the style of Nichols and May, but she decides she doesn't, she doesn't want to work with others. She just wants to do it herself. But once she brings in, once Rivers brings in, like, Second City, and she's like, that's where I, like, figured out how to be good. It's like, well, that makes sense, because if you're an improviser, you, I mean, you still can be selfish, but the whole act of learning how to do improvisation is, learning how to collaborate on stage, right? And so that ends up, even though she doesn't go that way of like, and then Elaine May and like going the like sketch route, what she learns as an improviser goes on to inform her stand-up style,

which is that she actually, she didn't like being in a team, but she did like having somebody to work off of. And that's how she discovers crowdwork. She's like, I love improv. I didn't want to do it. I learned a lot at Second City, but that wasn't my path. and I was doing these, you know, these shows in the West Village with, at the time that all these groups were coming up like Nichols and May, but I didn't want to do that. But she's like, but I did like having somebody to play off of.

And so what I would do is turn the crowd into my partner. And that was like one of her breakthroughs as a crowdwork, like that crowdwork was her strength, which I thought was really neat. Which is huge. Yeah. It's huge. Because stand up as something that like, as somebody that has done lots of like, sketch. work and things like that. Stand-up is a lonely business. It is not only a lonely business, it's a vulnerable business because you get up on stage and you're not hidden by a character.

You're not, it's just you. In fact, in the very top of the book, she's talking about doing stand-up and she said, when they don't laugh, that's a silence of rejection of you personally. And that, man, out the gate in this book, I was just like, yep, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel that. I feel I completely understand because when you say a joke when you're a stand-up, it is you telling a joke. In the same way that when you're saying a joke to your friends and it falls flat and you're just like, oh, yeah, I'm fine with it. But you're on stage in front of people. And it is something that you came up with you can't even be like, oh, you didn't like the character.

No, you didn't like me and you didn't like my perspective. You didn't like what I said about life. Yeah. And it is as someone that, like it's like both MJ and I have had to, over these many years, get used to doing comedy without hearing laughter. And that in and of itself was a huge, like that was a difficult thing to really wrap our heads around at first. Because it, like, you're used to, as a comedian, you're used to the given. take of an audience. And not only that, it's like the part that makes it all worthwhile is the

audience. Like also that is the part that will lead you to despair. But yeah, like I, like, that was why going on tour with page seven was such a game changer for me because I was like, oh yeah, there's people on the other end of this microphone, but it doesn't feel like there is. But yeah, there's like there's, and the way she describes it, I got to say, Joan Rivers had me missing stand up in this book because the way she describes it, like, you know, that feeling, the high and the feeling of connection that you get with a crowd. And, the thrill of when it goes well, I was like, oh, yeah, man, that's true. Really nothing compares. And, yeah, like, feeding off of the energy of the audience, it really is, like, an experience, not like anything else.

Yes, and even just thinking of her, like, even the beginning, you know, she was born Joan Malinsky, right? So she had to find Joan Rivers. She even tried, what was the other name? It was like, Pepper, Liver, Repertanias, or something. Yeah, I'll see if I could find it. A very, very. Hokey first stage name. Yes. And she tried that out as well, and that really wasn't working for her. But one thing that is really crazy that is just not changed is she wanted to be an actress. And over and over again, they just straight up told her in college, she wasn't pretty enough.

And, man, I tell you, you know, I know I went to college 20 years ago, but they were still saying that in colleges and just looking at me and being like, you're too fat to play a lead. So you should really get good at character acting because if you want to be on a stage, that's really all you're going to find yourself. Not even, not in any way of trying to like build me up or support me another. Like it really was a like kind of throw you off to the side of you're fat and you're really not pretty enough to be that fat. So just we don't know what to tell you.

And that still happens to this day. Like it is gotten, I'm sure it's gotten better. Like I mean, I will say oftentimes I don't. you go in, and it doesn't just say, like, fat, disgusting bitch anymore, but, you know, they'll use more creative words, but, like, to read this coming, yeah, quirky, sure, you know, not like the other girls. Rebel Wilson type. Oh, yeah, oh, it's always saying to Rebel Wilson or Melissa McCarthy type, and I get what you mean.

But crazy to read Joan Rivers talking about going through this in the 50s. Yeah. In six Cs and just being like, damn. Yeah. Guys, it hasn't changed that crazy. You're too ugly to be an actress. Yeah, too ugly. She just was told all the time, too ugly.

And she was talking about at one point, and she was like, I was the perfect weight. I was 112 pounds and I was 5'3. And I was like, I know. Go, what are you talking about? I know. We should, in case anybody is going to read this book, you know, just general content note for the way she talks about weight is really, really, really hard. And that, of course, that would continue on to be a mainstay of her for the rest of her life.

But, yeah, she works her way from, you know, these horrific club nights where she gets fired after the first show. She's bombing over and over. She works her way from that to, you know, when she eventually gets the opportunity to audition for Second City in New York, that's kind of, again, where she starts to develop her stagecraft because she's never been able to be on stage long enough without bombing to develop any stagecraft and they like it's like all these people who are working with her can like can they can tell that something's there but for years for the first like four years of her career it's just like

I don't know man like you you just you just don't have it right now like you you don't know what you want to say you don't have any stage skills and you have something right and it's definitely because she was finding it right and it like to read a full book about someone that just went out to find it yeah because finding your voice is very difficult to do as you're also trying to get to know yourself. Because we all know our 20s are forgetting to know yourself in the world. Even though back then they weren't. Like back then she was considered an old, you know, a spinster, an old maid beast because

she was on married. She was too old. She was too old. She was too old at 26, right? And so, you know, she, and she really just has no, all she knows is that she wants to keep doing it. And that is the most psychotic thing about her is that years of bombing, literal years and years of failing, bombing, not making any money. And it is a fun. If you like Joan Rivers, it's worth listening to because A, she reads it. And B, there are, like, a lot of funny stories, like, of her, the various moments of, like, pure despair.

You know, her parents kick her out of the house. But she tells them in a very funny way because she's Joan Rivers. Her parents kick her out of the house. They say, like, she performs at her parents' country club, or not country club, but either. know, club, social club. And she does so badly that her parents are like, you have to stop doing this. You can't live here. You gotta stop. You can't do this. And she's like, well, I don't want to live under your roof. And then, you know, she doesn't have any money to live anywhere. She's living at the YWCA for a while. She has this boyfriend who she doesn't even like. And then she tells

that boyfriend that she's going to kill herself and he calls the parents. And it's like, that whole scene is very, very funny, despite the underlying material of her despair. But she just, she just will not stop. And like, if at any point, a more rational person would have been like, you know, I just should not keep doing this, but she just will not stop. And one of the, let me find this, this quote that comes towards the end of the book, but the thing that keeps her going, there are many points over the seven years in this book that she, that she considers stopping, but she never does. And she says, once again, I confirmed with myself that this is the only life that offered moments of happiness,

all for the reward and the relief of exultation on stage. And it's just like she is failing over and over even after Second City, which is, which of course at the time was this huge, you know, emerging, you know, kind of star building thing. And even she's performing

with all these amazing, like, she's a contemporary. I mean, think of all the comedians who are contemporaries of her as these groundbreaking comedians, right? But she's still struggling, struggling, spinning her wheels, spinning her wheels.

But every time she thinks of, about stopping, she's just like, there's just nothing else that would make me happy. When this makes me happy, it is so worth it. And, you know, as Jackie and I, you know, both come from comedy, I guess I don't really identify as a comedian anymore, although I guess it is, my job is still a comedian. I think I'm still a comedian. I don't do stand-up anymore. But like, that thing of like, when it's good, it's so good that I can't stop, that I is very, very powerful. Although at the same time, I will say, I knew even from when I started stand-up that I did not have the pathological drive that a lot of stand-ups have. A lot of stand-ups know truly deep inside that they will never

be happy unless they are doing this. And that was her. She was like, there is nothing else. I would rather be kicked out of my parents' house living at the YWCA and having no money and still be trying to do this, which is really incredible. And it is an ambition and a draw that I just don't have. I don't have it. I just don't have it. I don't have it. I'm reading this.

It's like at first, I was saying this a little bit to MJ earlier, I was talking about this book to Jeff, and Jeff's like, well, do you wish you had that level of drive? I was like, no. I'm actually okay with the fact that my happiness does not depend on the laughter. Right, right. And it can't.

I had to separate that for myself, but that's also years of therapy. And that, in a way that if there's one thing we know, Joan Rivers wasn't doing it was therapy yes we know she wasn't dealing with like why do I feel these things why do because as somebody that is bipolar and has struggled with you know very erratic feelings about my place in the entertainment business right um I've settled in the long run and I'm happy that I've settled in the long run but it's like there is part of me that kind of wishes oh I could churn myself to that extent that I...

Oh, reading this book, it made me incredibly, like, nostalgic, or that same feeling. Like, it reminded me, I read Born Standing Up when I was a young, when I was a young comic, when I was in my mid... Oh, man, we should read that again. That's such a good book, or at least I remember it was at the time, which is Steve Martin's book. And then what's the other one that is about Richard Lewis? But also, yes, Born Standing Up, it's Born Standing Up, Colin a Comics life, that is Steve Martin's book. and that came out in 2007. That's, I'm dying up here is the other one I'm thinking of.

And I'm dying up here. I'm dying up here. Hell, yeah. It's not, it's, it's, it's, it's by a comic that you haven't really heard of. Is he a comic? Oh, he's also turned into a show. That's right. Is he a comic or is he, anyway, he, it's, I'm dying up here is the account.

It's, the subhead is heartbreak. William Noldoldoldold Stender, Loddle, Starder. Heartbreak and high times in stand-up comedy's golden era. And it's, starts with Richard Lewis, but it goes through, yeah, Elaine Boozler, Andy Kaufman, David Letterman, Jay Leno, that whole time. But reading this book, it reminded me of like when I was reading Born Standing Up and I'm Dying Up Here. And like, it just makes it like, you feel this like racing in your heart and you're like, I want, I want this. I want this. I want to be part of this. This is

something that's so magical and so special. And like, especially I wrote down a bunch of quotes from the end of this book when Joan finally has her moment with. Johnny Carson and yeah, it awakened in me something. I haven't wanted to be a stand-up comic in years. I have made complete peace with that not being a part of my life anymore. But reading this book and hearing her relentless ambition and then after seven years of pure struggle that she has this moment with Johnny that she makes it, it's so powerful. It's so moving. It totally made me be like, do I want to do this again? You know, it's like it's just to hear to see someone fight for it that hard and then get it is like is god I hope you get it uh yes it is and honestly

what's really cool is the audio book of this of enter talking was converted from a cassette tape that Joan Rivers had recorded in the 80s so it's sounds like it and it sounds like it It is a weird snapshot in time that I straight up felt like I was listening to a cassette tape. I felt like I was not in 2025 listening to this. No, that makes so much sense because I was listening to it. I was like, why is the audio quality of this so bad? And also, no one told Joan Rivers to like, slow down and speak more clearly. Slow down.

Oh, my God, slow down. Very hard to understand. But, yeah, she slogs and slugs and slags, and it all culminates. The book culminates with her, mind you, she's been on Jack Parr's Tonight Show twice and failed miserably. Like so much, like the first time she's on with Jack Parr, she gets a note afterwards. It's like, you will never be on again. Like, we're talking, we're not just talking bombing at shitty clubs. Like, we're talking big public bombings, you know.

And receiving, like, letters about how badly she was. Like, I feel like there were multiple times in her career, like in this start of her career, where people would openly go out of their way to go after, go up to after show and be like, you really shouldn't do this. Like, you really shouldn't stop doing this. Yeah, like the... It's kind of crazy.

It is crazy. Like, yeah, there's like the kind of, again, because we can all relate to like bombing at a shitty show. And we can, and then, but like, you know, to bomb at your parents' like social club is like a new level of pain. And then to bomb to be like, Jack Parr, I finally have my opportunity.

I can go on the Jack Parr show. And then you bomb there. And then you get the opportunity again, and you bomb again. Again. And it's just, she is just, again, because of Second City and she's doing all these weird, you know, hippie shows in the village, which again, relatable, we all did those shows. A lot of them still still going. I was literally at one point she named a guy that I was like, I'm pretty sure he still runs a show in the West Village. That was my show was, your show was La Puez-Orooge, yes.

But there was all those shows, you know, there was like the Yippie Cafe show and all the, you know, the cameras. and all of those down on. Always out, always doing shows, always seeing people, always going. And I mean, walking up and down second avenue on Thursday night and running into everybody from cabin because you were. Oh my God, because everybody was there. And you were coming from a different show or going to a different show. That kind of a comedy community, like I would not trade my 20s for anything. Same. I learned so much. I had a great time too. It was so difficult. Like we did crazy amounts of shows. We were always going. And you're, You're so right. Reading this definitely brought a lot of that to the surface.

But some of it in a way of like, there's also lots of things of like, oh, yeah, I don't miss that. I know. I don't miss. Yeah, I don't necessarily miss that part. And like performing for two people at three o'clock in the morning. And you're like, but at least we're doing it, babies. But like. Especially Murder Fist. You guys did so many shows. Like, we just did so much. And yeah, we've all done shows for eight people, you know, like. Oh, yeah. But it is also a little. crazy that in this time period, I think it shows a lot about where Joan Rivers is, you know, where most of her thinking was, was that in this time period, she also, I think this is like right before she gets married, but like she's about to find Edgar, but like this, in this time period, she did have a baby. And was she barely mentioned in this time period? In this, during

I mean, if it goes to 19... Like, Melissa was born in 1968, so... Okay, so 65 was her Carson appearance. So it's... Okay, 65 is a carcett appearance. Okay, all right. So just up until... Just up until it.

Because when you read the book, yeah, so it all culminates with the Carson appearance and... And she's like crying in the reading of... Yes, this is where I want to... Yeah, this is where I want to end it because this, the last chapter of this book, even if you only check it out on, you know, if you... you have Spotify premium, you can listen to it for free, and just listen to Chapter 17 because, right, this is all, and I, mind you, I didn't know that this was all, that her Carson appearance kind of bookends this period of her life and then this new period of her life where she gets

married, where she has a baby and where all of this other, everything goes to shit. But you can hear in her voice when she talks about the Carson appearance, how she gets extremely emotional. And so she talks about, she finally gets the opportunity, right, to do Carson. She, at this time, She's gotten, she's, like, had a couple of breaks. She's a writer for Candid Camera. That was her first wish. She's just like, can I stop working for Candid Camera? She's been, you know, she's been, she has Second City, which is a great credit to have.

And so Carson, in 1965, Carson's about to bring her on, they gave her the death spot, which is the last 10 minutes of the show, right? And meanwhile, again, remember, everyone is like, she's bad and she's not funny. So, like, even this night, everyone is being like, don't, I don't know if you should even book her. Like, she bombed Jack Parr twice. And so they give her the death spot. So right before Johnny Carson brings her out, he says, they say she's funny, so let's bring her on,

which really gave me female comedian flashbacks. Oh, oh, how many times we go, welcome this female comedian to the stage. I don't know if she's funny. You had to let everybody know that a female was coming to the stage. Okay. And she literally has a line that was like, at least he didn't tell the audience.

She says the audience blessed them had not been told I was not funny. And every female comedian that I know has literally had the experience of being brought up to the stage by a man who has said something either about them not being funny or about women not being funny or about your tits or something like right before you come up. So that's just something that happens. Happened in the 2000s, surely, surely happened in the 50s and 60s. So Carson says they say she's funny. So let's bring her on. She says, I was startled to be on the set. I had been watching for years. So you can imagine she's just like, oh shit, it's happening. And she says, those six years were paying off. Those layers of knowledge and experience and accumulated six

cents were carrying me through. I had the timing right. I could wait for the laugh I knew would come. And I knew too that if it did not come, I would not be destroyed. The audience blessed them had not been told I was not funny. And so she does the set. And at the, she, she does like, you know, she does it back and forth with one of the other comics there. And so afterwards, right there, still on the air, Carson says, God, you're funny. You're going to be a star. And she, like, doesn't even hear it. She's in complete shock.

She's, like, kind of ushered off the stage. And she's, like, swarmed by all the, everyone saying, like, that she did a good job, right? Yeah. And so it ends with her. And again, mind you, Joan Rivers, as she is reading this book, is audibly crying. You can hear her crying. She says, I finally let myself believe. After six years, it really, really happened.

I began to cry with relief and anguish. crying for everything that had ever happened, letting out all the hurts washing them away. Roy Silver, Jack O'Brien, Johnny Carson were saying to me now, you were right. You were right when you were a kitty cat. It had been 31 years of knowing I was right when everyone else was saying, no, no, no, you're not meant for this. And she calls her mom. Her mom saying she's getting all these calls. And she says her parents start saying, oh, yeah, everyone was saying, of course, of course, we always knew that you would be successful.

Oh, yeah. Which is not what happened. Is that what the case was? But the last line of the book, it was over 31 years of people saying no, 10 minutes on television, and it was all over. And I was sobbing as I'm listening to this because like seven years of rejection, 31 years of being told she is doing the wrong thing in her life that she was 31 and 10 minutes on television with Johnny that changed everything. But does it change it for good? I guess we're going to have to find out when we definitely read still. talking next week because shit's about to get very devastating in here and I'd like to explore it.

I would rather we just leave it here and I don't know anything bad that happens because it ends of this such as hope hope. I know. She made it, Jackie. She made it. 31 years of rejection and then she made it. It makes me love these books even more of the fact that this is the buildup and then immediately it's going to be the coming down. Except it's not immediate. There are are some years where it's pretty good and then the downfalls the 80s and this is the 60s so yeah she has a this is there's a whole but it's some time in there there's some time in there but let's uh we are going to read it and find out how that time went for her because you know this business has always chewed up and spit out people and hurt them in ways that are kind of unfathomable yeah and now

it's crazy because there's so many more celebrities that there's so many more ways for society to rip them apart. Oh, I know. Maybe that's something we can talk about with the next book too because I was thinking about this with Born Standing Up and I'm Dying Up Here, just how different the landscape was when you're not talking about, you know, the internet in this whole there's not, there was not really a diversity of ways to make it as a performer. You know, it was the stage, you know, like, if you're doing stand-up, it was the stage. And that's all so different now. And, yeah, now there's all these micro-celebrities and there's this, you know, we interact with

celebrity dumb. That's changed just in the 15 years we've been doing the show with the emergence of social media. Oh, yes. Very much so. And her, she has such a classic old-fashioned story of like, I worked, I worked, I did the time, I did the time, I did the time, I did the time. And that, you know, when we started Malcolm Gladwell's stupid book about the 10,000 hours it just come out. And every comedian was just trying to get 10,000 hours on stage. And it was just like stage time, stage time, stage time. And now it's completely different because it's like, you know, you got to be doing TikTok. You got to be doing this or whatever. And that's, I mean, that's just times change. But it's, it's, it's, there is a kind of purity to a to the, to her arc of just like, I just performed and I performed and I performed and I performed and I performed until I got good. And, and also she just wanted to hone it. What I also find fascinating about Joan Rivers that it was never about.

stardom. She really didn't want fame. She wanted financial stability. I feel like the one thing, like she says it even towards the end, I think she's, uh, people say money's not the key to happiness, but I've always figured if you have enough money, you can have a key made. And yeah, I mean, she is, but she did. You don't become this, you don't become famous unless you have pathologically want it. I think that it's true that she, she was driven by financial, security because she spent these seven years having no money, right? And because even though her parents were like fine and they owned a home and they wouldn't give her anything, they wouldn't give her anything. And also they had not come from money. And so I think that there is a kind of, you know,

a generational like need to find financial stability there. But yeah, I don't know. I think she wanted to be famous. You know, she wanted to be an actor. She wanted to be on the stage. You can be, you can want to be an actor and love the feeling being on stage without being famous. But somebody who works this hard at it. They got that crazy that wants to be famous. I guess that's what it is, is that like she obviously wanted it, but I find it interesting that she never talks about it in that way. And I wonder if that is like a difference in just being raised at a different

time period of not talking about it in that way. But I also imagine she blew a lot of shit out of the water for a woman to be talking about money this way. And she really did love the game. And this is the thing. Any good comic at least, I get maybe this is changed now with a different landscape. But at our time, when we were coming up, I always bring up Mike Lawrence because that guy worked so hard. He still does. But like when we met, like in 2008, and I met him at a Saturday afternoon, open mic, and he was, he was busting his ass. He would do 14 shows a week every week. And I was maxing out three, four shows a week. And

murderface, you guys would do a million shows a week. And I was just like, I cannot, I don't want to work that hard. I just, I also, I have friends here in New York City. I just moved here. I want to see. I want to hang out like I want to chill. And, you know, I feel like a lot of the best comics when we were coming up, they had no chill because they just wanted to be on stage, you know. And I feel like for her, she's like, she said, this was the only thing that offered me moments of happiness, which is, you know, again, a lot of comics have pretty significant depression problems. But it's like, this is where. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is where you get your joy. This brings you happiness, you know, and it's something that is largely out of your control, except getting

up on stage is the one thing you can control that you can control. And guys, oh, we're going to hear about a lot more that she can't control next week when we come back with Still talking. Sorry, MJ, I'm sorry, I have to do this to you. I should. Let's leave her at this sweet moment where it's all happened for her. We're not going to. We need to go find out what happens right after this book gets published. So we're going to find out. We're going to find out. next week, guys. So hold on to your butts. If you don't know anything about the Joan River story, you're going to find out a lot more and be like, why was she just a laughing stock? And you'll hear a little bit more about where that came from next week only on celebrities. MJ, thank you so

much. You know what, MJ also thank you because I feel, I'm not going to say I forced you to do this. I just want to say, I appreciate you. And I appreciate you patrons for choosing this book because I did really want to read it. And I had no idea that it stopped before everything else. And now I'm upset. I'm already upset before we read this next book. I'm glad we read it. It dusted off the old little cobwebs of inspiration that still lay latent within me. So that's nice. Hell yeah. Dust them off, y'all. Dust them off. Now, we will be back next week. Thank you so much for your patronage. Let's sing the song, MJ. Just take a look. It's in a book. It's the Celebrities, celebrities, and celebrities.

Just take a look. It's in a book. It's celebrities. Celebrities, celebrities. And we're still talking. Speaking of Reading Rainbow, did you see the very exciting breaking-ish news this week that Reading Rainbow was coming back with that super cute, sweet librarian guy from Instagram? Do you know who I'm talking about?

No. I don't think we follow the same people on Instagram. I will throw that out there. If you were talking about a snack fluencer that I just made it, I mean, then I'm all aboard. Yeah, no, our algorithms are different. I love discussing our algorithm. Like, I feel like that's like an underrated topic of conversation amongst friends. I had like a female friend group outing this weekend and we were all discussing our algorithms.

And really, that's the fodder for the talks these days. but there is a Bay Area librarian named Michael Threats, and he, like, runs, like, a cute, like, I Love Libraries' Instagram account, and he's just, like, so sweet. And he talks a lot about, like, no university. Oh, my God, you look so sweet. He's so sweet. He, his videos are as gentle, like, as you could imagine just by looking at a picture of him.

He's just lovely. And so yesterday, the news broke that Reading Rainbow is going to come back and have him as the host. And I love this for him. Of course, he was immediately, you know, there was an onslaught of like, you'll never be LeVar Burton. And he's like, I know. LeVar Burton is a hero of mine as well, you know. Yeah, of course he's never going to be LeBarberts.

Like, just let him live. Let him try something. Like, he's going to cook. Let him cook. Let him live. But anyway, so Reading Rainbow coming back. And I think it's absolutely terrific. Because of us. Because of us, because of our singing.

Because of us reading rainbow came back to your television screens. So that's a little diversion from what we are talking about today, which is Joan Rivers still talking. Yes, we are still talking about Joan Rivers. This is a separate book. Last week was its own book, Enter Talking. I thought that book was very enjoyable, very moving, and really interesting in terms of just the arc of the first seven years of very hardworking comedian, female comedian, early, early on in an industry, male-dominated industry. Still talking this week's book, very different book.

Very different book. Although it makes sense of why it was a very different book because it was written in a very different point in her life. Yes. I will say that it was very interesting that the first audiobook ended with her crying about starting to, guest host on the Tonight Show and the fact, even just like having one great successful outing on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. He said, you're going to be a star kid. He gave the like Paul Hollywood handshake that everyone always desperately craved, which was you're going to be a star kid. And she thought that she had made it. And the second book still talking

also begins with her crying, but for a very different reason. Now, I will say, trigger warning. Yes, content notes for this entire book, basically. I'm going to say some eating disorder conversation. I'm going to say some end-of-life situations. And so just in case, if this is not the time for you to be listening to this episode, all good.

We're going to be back here with celebrities next week. but we are going to be talking about some very sad stuff in here today. So just warning for the rest of the episode. Good note, yes. This is, we left on such a note of optimism last week to the extent that I didn't even really remember the whole rest of Joan Rivers' life. And I was like, it's just so nice that she had her big break. And she's crying at the end of the audio book because she's so happy that she made it.

And then Jackie's like, do you remember what happened in her life? And I was like, no. And so this book. Reminded you of what happened. Basically the next 20 years is kind of what we take a big leap, like the next two decades of her career. And if you like me, mostly remember Joan Rivers from like doing the red carpet stuff, this book is interesting because you're like, oh, like she was a lot of contradictions, right? Or she contained multitudes, I guess I should say.

And I feel like she was both a pioneer, you know, as a woman in comedy, both. this kind of like admired, you know, admired for who she was and breaking down so many barriers in terms of being this early high profile female comedian when there weren't that many others. And she also kind of, by the time we came around in the 90s and the 2000s, I'm not going to say laughing stock. I think there was also always some reverence around her, but also she obviously was not Johnny Carson, right? There was a lot of negative judgment around who she came, kind of became as a public figure. And so this book explores these, this two decades span, but really focuses on this one thing that happened to her, which was her getting a late

night show in the opposite spot of Johnny Carson, which ended up being this massive professional humiliation and a personal tragedy because the professional humiliation led to her husband, who was also her manager. And basically, as she calls him, a star's husband ending his life because of the massive humiliation of the show. And how much, how much she doesn't really process the guilt she must feel of what ended up happening with everything. Right. And, you know, while we just read Pam Anderson's book and, you know, we've talked about it with Carrie Fisher's books as well, where they were written from a place of, I have gone through these huge, massive. upsets. I have worked on them. I have come out the other side that I can see it from a perspective

that is a beautiful one to share with other people. Joan Rivers is not writing that book from that perspective. That is such a great way to start. That's a great point. She is not, this is not a reflective book. No. It is essentially a list of grievances and names, specifically a list of names of the people who wronged her. There is, it opens with some level of self-reflection as she discussed, it also opens with crying. As she reads his suicide note? Yeah.

You mean then, MJ? Yeah. The first chapter, I put it on, I was on a flight, and I started listening to it, and I was like, she is so openly upset because she starts with getting the phone call from her daughter that her husband has taken his life. And at the end of the chapter does read because he had written, he had essentially created these audio notes, but also wrote specific notes to individually her and Melissa and other people. And there was three, I think his best friend, his wife and his daughter, yeah. And she reads it.

And part of me thinks that like, did you talk to a therapist before you read your husband's letter? even though it's yours and it's yours to do with whatever you want to do with it. But I wish she had gone and worked on that a little bit rather than taking all of her ire and all of the anger she had towards the situation because even by the end, and we'll get to there, but even by the end of their relationship, they weren't really in necessarily, I would say, a marriage at that point is that they were more in a business partnership. And this had all really fallen apart after Edgar had had a very life-changing heart attack and had multiple of them. That impacted his mental health, yeah.

Yes. And so he started acting differently after those episodes. And I would have loved to see her explore more of like, how did you feel about that? How did you feel about this man that was your everything that, like, you guys were two peas. in a pod you were both like he was never a star's husband you were both neck and neck you respected each other you were moving forward together and then these horrible things happened to him and then he was never the same and she lost everything because i feel like so much more was built on the shoulders of both of them than she realized i think so much of this she thought she was building on

her and she was doing this alone and she was getting through this and that is what was spurning her forward but then in the loss of him i think even though she doesn't get into it it really is just the anger that is left that she's not dealing with of realizing that it was always on our four shoulders not just on my two and now i don't know how to do it i don't think she mentioned therapy at all in this book no no no no no no no no no no no but again again Again, this is the eight, these people weren't talking about, even if she was, she certainly wasn't talking about it, but I don't think she was. Yeah, she doesn't mention it.

And as far as I remember. And yeah, this book is, right. It's very, it's not, you're absolutely right. It is not reflective. It is reactive, I would say. It's like, even though it is kind of meant to be like, what it feels like is her being like, I experienced this public humiliation. The public humiliation led to this personal tragedy.

Now it's time to tell my side of the story, which isn't, you know, it ends up, I was, I will say, at first I was like, this is going to be a really hard book to read. And then because I think that industry stuff is interesting, I ended up, I gobbled it up. I was like, this is really interesting. I don't know if it is interesting to people who are not, yeah, to other people, right? But like, it is basically a play by play of exactly how she got fucked. by the executives at Fox, which, you know, I don't even think we, it's, I was like, I wonder how we'll talk about this book on celebrities, because I don't think we need to go into the, the whole details. I mean, the long, and the short of it is that she, after that, where we ended last

week, where we left her right at the beginning of like, of her career in a way, even though it's, it's after the first long, hard stretch of her career. And she gets the big, she gets the, like you said, the Paul Hollywood handshake from Johnny. And then. And Johnny goes on to really build her up. She start that, that's that initial, you know, spot on Johnny turns into, they build a really, um, mutually respectful relationship. She goes on the Tonight Show regularly, eventually becoming the guest host for Johnny when he's gone. And so weeks at a time of the year, I don't remember how many weeks, but she said she's regularly, she's the host. And it's huge for her career, huge.

And she's finally making money. and during this time period is when she meets her husband. He's a Jewish immigrant who like, he was a German Jewish immigrant who like, you know, left on foot, you know, during like the early part of World War II. And so he, you know, he has this interest. He's like incredibly ambitious. He is a producer. And as they fall in love, they're like, wow, this is going to be great. We're going to be like a great team.

Like, you're this rising star. I'm this like ambitious producer. And so they become this unit, but she starts referring to him as like, you know, that as her star rises, kind of his biggest fear takes grip of him, which is being a star's husband. Because he wasn't, he wasn't a nobody, right? He was this, like, already powerful producer when they meet. But her, he kind of can't keep up with her rising star. She eclipses him eventually. Exactly.

And he becomes such a support system for her. And they worked well as such a team. But her goals were definitely much more front facing than his goals were. Yeah. But at the same time, he felt that he was the pillar that was holding her up. So every time she got knocked down, he got knocked down even harder. Absolutely. And he understood, he knew how to, his whole thing was like, she knows how to be funny.

She knows how to perform. I know how to make a show. So they kind of needed each other, right? And she gets to this point, because her star is rising so rapidly, and she's guesting for Johnny, but she gets to this point. And again, this is all enumerated as a detailed list of names and grievances and companies and the president of NBC, the executive here, then the president of Fox and Brandon Tardukoff and how much they fucked her, names, names, names, all these people who fucked her.

But basically, she gets to the point where she's like, okay, I don't want to just keep being Johnny's sub. Like, give me something else. Like, let me have a show at NBC, like my own show. And they are, NBC is just slow walking her and slow walking her and slow walking her and being like, you know, you're, this is you being Johnny's guest host is really great for you. Johnny loves you. Johnny loves you. And that's also while she's doing this, she's building up her comedy career by doing shows because she also needs to make money. And also she's a workaholic and we know And she's a workaholic, and she finds no happiness except for the accolades of being on the stage. Of working. I mean, I will even say, she does say she did two shows on her wedding night.

But also, I will throw it out there in the first chapter when she's talking about losing Edgar, I will say the only time she did bring up therapy is she said, the best therapy for me would have been to go right from the mortuary to the stage. But my advisors agreed it would seem unseemly. And to her, I think that all of that, like all of her upset, like her even thinking about being on Johnny Carson and like this is like revving her to hit shows every night of like, oh, you're going to tell me I'm not good enough. You're going to. So she's churning, churning, churning, churning. And as she said in the first book, and Entertaic, you said this is, you know, I should have, and there's so many times I just should have quit. It's just that there's nothing else that brings me happiness the way that this does.

And so even though she is happily married, she definitely loves Edgar, right? But she's, you know, has a singular, you know, kind of pathological ambition. And she gets to the point where she's like, I need more. I can't just keep being Johnny's sub. And NBC is slow walking me and they're not going to give me a show. So then as all this is happening, Fox is also trying to develop a late night show. There's also, there's a very funny line in the book where she's like, she's like, you wouldn't understand today. The networks have are too, like, diffuse and they don't have the power that they did back when. we were talking about like, you know, Johnny, you know, Ed McMahon and whatnot. And it's like, funny for me writing that book in, I think, the late 80s, early 90s. When was this written? We'll figure it out. But anyway, obviously, the network's now completely different, right? Much, much, much less. I mean, back then there was still, there was still only a handful of networks, but what she's

talking about is a changing media landscape. And so Fox comes in and said, you know, Johnny is the late night guy. There's other. Because this is also while, like, in between that, she had also tried to get a pilot to go. Wasn't that in between these two things? Because she was churning and, like, working on this pilot with Edgar and also trying to get this pilot out. And everyone was saying that, like, oh, it's looking really good. Because you have to remember, too, she still kind of wants to be an actress somewhere inside of her.

And she finds out she is called, talk about, like, also how the studios used to work differently. she is called by the studio at 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve in California. So it's 9 p.m. New York's time to call her to tell her that the pilot got canceled. Yes, that's right. That's right. Oh, my God. I forgot about that. But yeah, this was written 91. And she's like, you don't understand how the networks used to, how the late night, you know, landscape used to be different. And I'm like, Joan, you don't understand now. So Fox is trying to develop its own late night show opposite. the same time slot as Johnny Carson and they are offering the show to Joan and this is just it's so hard to read this book because you're listening and you're just like Joe don't do it don't do it the man built you and he's a comedian of course his ego is going to be his ego can't handle this what are you thinking but she's like she's thinking what is she thinking she's thinking I am really talented I've been working so hard yeah he gave me the spot but now I have made made myself a star and I can't constantly be second fiddle to him. I deserve a show. I can do this.

I can be a talk show host. I deserve this. And so she secretly, this is all so secret. There's like only three paper copies of the contracts and they're locked in a safe, you know, like they're developing this show opposite Johnny Carson with Johnny Carson's guest host to be his competition. And she wants to tell Johnny personally, but she doesn't. And before she can tell him personally, the news leaks that she is started, this new broad, you know, Fox's, this is like new, completely new than building up this show, right? There's no, it's not like she's sliding into an existing thing. They're building this thing to compete with Johnny, her maker. And she doesn't tell him, she doesn't have the chance to. And he finds out. And he refuses to take her calls. She tries to call him from

Blacklist her. He won't answer the phone. She calls from a different phone where she calls his house from like her secretary's phone so that he finally gets him on the phone. She says, Johnny, it's Joan and he hangs up.

He uses to speak to her and she has burned the bridge of the man who made her, which is so agonizing to listen to. And that's before you even know whether the show is going to be a success. Because she was a permanent guest host

for three years on Johnny Garts. So it's like these were years that they had been working together, and it really been, like, he really connected with her. And a lot of people also thought what she didn't get into in the book, but I remember in the movie getting into a piece of work, getting into the fact that, like, Carson was trying to prepare her to take over for him. Like, that's what everyone assumed. Yeah.

Everyone assumed that when he stepped down, he was going to give Joan the step up. But she had waited. Yeah, but she didn't want to. If she had, she didn't want his show, she wanted her own. her own show. And now we can look back at that and be like, Joan, that was so stupid. That was so stupid. But she was at the time so groundbreaking. The fact that during a time period when you couldn't even say the word pregnant on screen, she was making these strides. And her head got too big, man. And as many times as I want to say, I would never do something like that. I'm just going

to take what it's given to me. Any opportunity that it's given to me, I'm going to say yes. I'm going to take that. But I don't know, man. I don't know if it gets down to the line of like, or you could do your own thing. Your own show on a brand new. And it can be your own everything. Yeah.

That is a really hard thing to say no to, except for the fact that you didn't talk to Johnny Carson about it. The fact that not only did Johnny Carson blacklist Joan Rivers, he then blacklisted every single person who would go on her show. show. So she couldn't get anybody to come on the show. It's Johnny Carson. And he is so mad at her. He refuses to speak to her. And yes, he says anybody who goes on her show will never be invited on my show. Fuck. Fuck. Like, you know, she's fucked. But, you know, again, she has this very ambitious husband who's a producer, but also he's like very abrasive. And he immediately

before the shit even goes down with Johnny. Her husband, Edgar, is in. an immediate pissing contest with, like, the president of Fox. I guess she, there's various, like, executives and, like, head honchos around various networks that she names her various grievances with, but the kind of head guy at Fox who is the, who is in charge of developing the show, he's constantly budding heads with her husband. And so Joan is in this impossible position, not only of having burned the bridge with her hero and mentor Johnny Carson, but also is in the position of trying to develop a show with Fox while also staying married to her husband, saying in love with her husband, and managing her

husband who is in a complete ego contest with the executives at Fox. Because that heart attack that we were talking about earlier, that all happened in between all this stuff. So right now, Edgar is also acting like a different person. And he'd see seems like he's a lot more like he's not as savvy as he used to be. Like I feel like there is like a sum of that because I will say Joan never says a negative word about him really, but I feel like the way in which she writes about him where it's like he was really struggling with all of this because not only then is she blacklisted and everybody on the show that's allowed on is blacklisted.

Fox is now trying to pivot in a way to make it still. work. And how do they do that? They want more control over the show. Right. And you know who doesn't want to fucking give it, Joan Rivers and Edgar. And neither one of them want because they're like, all right, then you're going to do what Fox is going to tell you to do. We're going to come in and we're going to, you know, you're not, you're barely allowed to talk to the writers. You are to come in. You're not to write your own monologue. You're going to be given a monologue for you to read. And she's like, no, I am the one. She's like, this is my show. She did this whole thing because she wanted to make her own vision. I did all of this. Yes. And she's like, no, I'm not

coming in and I'm not going to be a puppet for you. But here's the thing. Especially, and she doesn't get into this, but I imagine being a woman in this spot, hell, it's hard now. Imagine what It was like then, so she needed Edgar to push alongside her because it was all these big wig men being like, no, you're a woman, you're going to get popped on the nose and you're going to say you're going to do exactly what we want you to do. And she is like with Edgar, arm in arm, just being like, I won't. And that, in reading about it, of course, it's so easy to be like, that's so stubborn, just do what they want you to do. you got what you wanted you got to the place maybe you do that for a while and you eventually start to like push back for more power right and i feel like when i read this i could only hope that if i had ever been in that place that that's what i would do i'd be like okay you want me to kowt right now i will and we'll get this thing off the ground right and then we'll figure it out right but she was i truly feel And again, I'm putting this on her.

She's watching her husband, who is her support, fall apart. And be humiliated. That's the other, it's like this masculine power struggle where the ways that specifically Barry Diller, who was the Fox guy at the time, is like refusing, just like humiliate, like not letting him speak in meetings, you know, like public humiliation, like very masculine public accumulation of this guy. And yeah, so it's, it's, he's watched, she's watching him, sorry to interrupt you, but it's like she's watching him fall apart. And it's in this way that is directly linked to his own sense of self-worth. Yes. And right. And like he's getting

emasculated by Barry Diller. He's kind of emasculated by feeling like he's no longer his own big shot producer. He's just a star his husband. And, but also she loves him. And so she feels like she keeps needing to side with him, even though she doesn't like the decisions that he's making. Edgar, She's like, I don't trust you. Because he's not in his right brain. Right. I don't trust you. Like I like, so there's at one point, it's like she was invited to, it was like something

around the Emmys, right? She was invited, but they said he's not able to come. Don't invite him. He was blacklisted from this event that is for her show. And that's her husband. And so she's in this completely impossible position. Like what the fuck am I supposed to do? Abandon my husband, who I'm still married to and who I still love to protect my show.

or side with my husband and in this whole saga, mind you again, the show is struggling. The ratings are not that good, but they're also not that bad. But they're not that. See, this is also the thing, too, is that, like, she kept saying, like, Fox was so blind with the fact that they wanted to control me that I wasn't doing what they wanted, like, what they wanted me to do, that they, that this wasn't going to be this cakewalk that they wanted, that she was still getting the ratings that she didn't need to be canceled. Yeah.

She was still get, like, they were not losing money on the show. They weren't like, and the show only went for seven months. Yeah, no, they made, it was a stupid, it was like a needless, like Barry Dillard didn't end up staying at Fox very long, but like, while he was there, he greenlit married with children and The Simpsons. The show was doing fine numbers. It wasn't losing money, but it was like this specific interpersonal conflict. Like, it was really, it was like her and Edgar could not work.

with Fox and so and and they were they were shackling her creativity and so they could have waited and maybe she would have I think it's quite possible that the show would have found its voice found its audience and especially if she had been able to maybe have more creative control but again she wasn't her judgment is certainly not perfect and at her judgment was terrible yes and they even end up calling her back like a couple months later and they offer for her to do a week of shows every month. They were like going to be like switching out the hosts of it. And just so just do a week a month. And she immediately said no. Yeah. And but this was that was also at the same time that like she had she was like, all right,

my life is is really struggling right now. What do I need? What do I need? She's like, you know what? I'm, I want to go to Ireland. I've never kissed the Barney Stone. I'm going to go to Ireland. Edgar and I are going to go. We're going to have this great trip. Everything's going to be okay. We're going to come back and we're going to figure it out. And they get there and Edgar is having complications and he's supposed to go to a doctor overseas and he doesn't want to go to the doctor overseas. He just wants to go back. He just wants to go back home. So they cancel the trip in the middle of the trip so he can go back home to go to the doctors and then he refuses to go to the He skipped that appointment.

He skipped the appointment. And if anyone who has ever tried to make a man go to the doctor when they don't want to really understand that. Oh, man. I'm sorry to speak so generally. But the thing of being like, I'm going to ruin our family trip. And then I'm going to refuse to go to the doctor anyway. And she's just like, she's so mad at him. So upset that this is on top of everything else that you're not even going to take care of yourself for a second.

but it's also his brain is not cognitively working properly. And if she was in a better spot, I feel like she may have been able to see that. Yeah. But she wasn't. No, she was spiraling really hard. And he was spiraling really hard. Yes, this is the story of a massive public spiral and a couple that is trying to be a power couple, but that is just completely flailing.

And right, and right, and kind of in the midst of all this, he had this heart attack. He's in a coma for a month. And then when he comes out of the coma, at first, he's just totally depressed. And she's just like completely avoiding him. She's like, I just, I don't want to be around him. I'm doing shows. I'm working. I'm focusing on trying to rescue my career. And then, you know, he kind of comes back online. And that's when the, when the Fox show is starting. But he's, yeah, he just never, he's never the same mentally. And so he is, you know, kind of still working as her. It's like the, I'm thinking of the word momager. but it's like husband, you know, he's the husband. He's the husband, he's the husband, but he has, he's completely not functioning well. And again, she is kind of blind with like, you know, the regret and of what happened with Johnny and her rage that she doesn't have creative control over the show. And again, Barry Diller completely unable to even be in the same room with Edgar after a certain point. And so it gets to the point where she has to choose between him and the show, basically. like they say, if you're going to keep working on the show, Edgar can't, he just can't be, he can't come into the office, he can't come to the events, he can't, he just, he can't be around. And she sides with him. And the show kind of limps along for a couple more weeks, I think. And, and there's like all these rumors that it's going to get canceled. And again, it's just this like long dragged out public humiliation. And then like, the news leaks that it's going to get canceled. They still are doing.

in the shows. And then finally it's public. The show is canceled. And now she has no relationship with her mentor anymore. She has no relationship with her husband. They have essentially by the end before he dies by suicide, they had essentially separated. But again, it was this kind of like very long dragged out thing where she's she, she, the show ended because she chose him. But then after choosing him, she's like, I can't, I can't keep doing this. And very shortly after the show ends, is when he, and he expressed his suicidality to her over and over. And she talks to his friends about it. She talks to him about it.

She says, are you really suicidal? You know, like she does, like, to her credit, to some extent, she's trying to like engage with him about it and talk with him about it. Right. He's in Philadelphia. He has a friend there. She says, go check on him. Like, go be with him.

And so then he starts lying and saying, no, actually, I'm fine. I'm not going to do anything. Don't worry. He turns the friend away and then he dies. And, yeah, I mean, you're listening to this story and you're just like, Jesus, fuck. Like, yeah, like this happened in 87 and this book was written in 91, which in the scheme of grief, I feel like, is really not that much law. Like, you pointing out, Jackie, that she has really not processed this, this career loss and this personal loss, simultaneous. career loss and personal loss intertwined directly related to each other.

And she has really not processed it. Also, mind you, all this time, Melissa, her daughter is like a young adult. So like this is all happening to her as well. Oh, yeah. Right. I mean, she even says up top, instead of protecting my daughter, instead I was the catalyst of the death of her father. Yeah.

Joan, you got to talk to somebody, babe. That is, I think that a lot of people. you know, we were talking before we started recording where a lot of people only know Joan Rivers for the vitriolic jokes that she used to say. And I guess part of the reason why I wanted to talk about these books. And when I say I'm so inspired by Joan Rivers, it is because that is a work ethic and a way of living that honestly I used to want, but I don't want any longer. And I'm glad that we're processing, I mean, personally, that I'm processing my feelings about Joan Rivers because I used to look at how she spoke of, yeah, well, that's how you had to get by when you

were a female comedian for a long fucking time. And unfortunately, I think a lot of people did feel that way, not just female comedians. I think a lot of people thought that Oh, the more upsetting, the more eyes that get on me. And Joan Rivers also was just as easily going to be making fun of herself. I mean, her whole brand was not only do I make fun of myself, I'll make fun of everybody. Yeah, yeah, yeah, kind of the original, or one of the original, like, quote, unquote, equal opportunity offenders, which, mind you, is a phrase I hate. Yes. I hate that mindset.

It's so stupid. Yes. It is not as smart as you think it sounds, all of that. Right, right. But it was, and I hate also in the same breath to say, I hate to say that it was a different time. It was just seen differently than it was then, unfortunately. But she was also actively making jokes about her eating disorder on stage while still having an eating disorder. So she's writing this because right after, man, all this shit happens. And less than two years later, she starts the Joan River show.

And the Joan River show is her daytime talk show that wins her Emmys, that, like, runs for like five seasons. And that is what ends up. So this is in that time period. So what she does, after all this, is pivots and rebrands. It just keeps working. And just because then also in 1990, so 89, she starts the Joan River daytime talk show host. In 1990, she starts her lines with QVC, and that's what makes her. She ends up amassing over a billion dollars in sales from QVC.

This is her. She's crazy because Barry Diller also ended up at QVC. I don't understand how that worked. I'll do a deep dive on that later. I was just looking at it. I was like, oh, Barry Diller, the main subject of all of her grievances because he was the chief executive at Fox, and he's still alive. And I don't know if he's ever responded to this book, or if maybe he didn't feel like he needed to. Or, yeah, didn't want to.

But yeah, totally. It is so, and she gets back up on stage, like, almost immediately after he dies. And it's, it is, and it's not, you know, I don't think that she didn't, that she wasn't grieving him. Like, you listen to this book and it's very clear that she loved Edgar and that she has a ton of grief. She doesn't know where to put it. She doesn't know where to put it. She's not going to therapy. She's not fucking dealing with it.

So what does she do? She needs to be on stage. And this is how she deals with it. And if it gives you any sense of, you know, again, I completely am here for people who don't understand, you know, don't appreciate. I fully. You know, just it's not enough for them. Her, her, who she is as a person and her journey is not enough to overcome,

not an interesting enough to overcome, you know, the content of her jokes, which I totally get. But to give you just a little glimpse of her relationship with humor, which I do, there is a part of me that just appreciates. There's very few jokes in this book. obviously. Her first book included kind of more examples of her jokes, which is funny because at that time, her jokes were all pretty bad. Like, you know, she just didn't really know how to tell them yet. But one of the only jokes in this book is she's helping Melissa move into her dorm room very shortly after Edgar died in Philadelphia, by the way. And it's like a kind of dilapidated shitty dorm. And Melissa is like, you know, mom, this is, I'm excited. I'm moving into college. Like, this is nice. And Joan goes, Melissa, if your father saw this, he would kill himself. which is very good joke it's a good joke because like honestly I was looking up other feuds that Joan Rivers had and like the thing was is that she did because then it would come back around to like serious things weird like she would say shit that was not okay like what she did to Rihanna Rihanna and Rivers engaged in a Twitter feud in 2012 when the comedian fired the first shot she said Rihanna confessed to Oprah. Winfrey that she still loves Chris Brown. Idiot! Now it's my turn to slap her. And Rihanna responded by tweeting at Joan Rivers, wow, you really do get slow when you're old, huh? You should slap on some diapers.

And then her response was, honey, at Rihanna, everyone knows if he hit you once, he'll hit you again, read the statistics. P.S., love to have you on fashion police. And it's just, it's like, you can see why she made the joke in a way of like Rihanna, you're much better than that. And then circles back around to say, but honey, you're a lot better than that. Right, right, right. Even though that's not the way in which we describe domestic violence anymore, even though that is not an okay thing to say to Rihanna. I forgot when she was on Twitter.

I wish she had never. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, dude. Oh, it was bad. It was bad. It was bad. It was really bad. Because again, I do, I think that when we, when we think about Joan Rivers, I think the further away you are and the bigger picture you are, the more interesting she is. And the closer you are and the closer you're looking at her jokes, the less interesting she is.

Yeah, but the problem is that Gwyneth Paltrow said, she went to go try Botox and Gwet Paltrow said, I looked crazy. I looked like Joan Rivers. So Joan Rivers, when Gwyneth Boutre won People's 2013 in the selection of the world's most beautiful women, she said, oh, she must have been voted by Helen. Kella and Stevie Wonder. Yeah. Again, I think that it's, it's not okay, but it is, yeah, it's stupid. Honestly, none of her jokes were ever any good. That's the thing, her joke, like, this was, yeah, this is why I liked Enter talking so much because again, I was like, who she is as a figure is interesting. I just don't, I've never felt the need to die.

hill of her jokes, you know? No, and I need you to know that's not the hill we're dying on you. We're not saying she's a perfect comedian. We're not saying, oh, my God, go back and listen to her. We're not saying any of those things. Right, right, right, right. I just, you know, I'm glad that we read still talking after enter talking just to hear the anger that builds up over time in this business and what it can do to you.

It's, yeah, I mean, it's fascinating to read one book and it tells you this, it's this little glimpse and it ends with such hope and optimism. And then what, what this book is, is just a reminder that, like, life is long, you know, like, life is long and your career does not look like one thing. Although the end of the book, I did not quite find it so insightful in moving as the first book by any extent. But at the end of the book, she basically says, like, the reason you just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other, no matter what tragedies befall you. And the interesting thing about being alive is that you never know what will happen next. And she says, God is the ultimate dramaturge. And you just, you never know what the next act will be. And like, that's very true from

when we left her from this moment of hope and optimism at the beginning of her career to then seeing what the middle part of her career was and how it was just absolute despair. And, you know, it was to some extent self-inflicted despair. And to some extent, you know, there was all these different forces happening here. You know, of course, obviously she was a product. of a world that was sexist and, you know, misogynistic and all these things, but also she decided to step on other people to get her spot, you know. But yeah, I thought, where she lands at the end of the book is just like, you just, you just have to keep going because you never know what will happen next. And, you know, so it's like, well, yeah, in the, in the course of, of one long

life and one long career, you know, it's not going to be, it's not going to be one story with a happy ending. You have one story with a happy ending immediately followed by a sad story with a really sad ending. And then I am happy that her life after this, you know, turned around and her career continued. And she ended up, you know, again, having a career, what she chose to do with her platform. Again, questionable. But, you know, it is, it's just, it is a robust, long career to look back on with a lot of range. Yes. If you are intrigued by end, any of this. Don't read the books and watch a piece of work. Yeah, that's, I agree. It gives you the bigger picture. The bigger picture and also her perspective from the second half of her,

like from, it is not that far before she passes. I don't think. Like, I think it was only a couple years so. But I think she died in 2014 and the movies from 2010. It is something that is a bit of a, I guess it's not a cautionary tale for all, but it is a cautionary tale. for someone like me that I sometimes get concerned that I'll never be sated, that I'll always want to shoot for the next thing, and I'll always want to try new, and I always want, but like, that was Joan Rivers, and that is what I, outside of what she would make jokes about, I respect the work ethic of someone that in her 80s opened up her schedule and her planner and showed the director like she's like a night that's free is death to me she's like I need to be

on stage almost she needs to be on stage almost every single day to feel she needs it I yeah and she said if I if I could I die on stage like she was doing shows up until the very she never stopped and the way she discussed every time she'd be hit by back down. It was never like, and then I, you know, worked my way about it. It was a clawing process every single time. And like the blacklisting of Johnny Carson really lasted throughout her life. Think of the fact that like for our whole lives, she was always a laughing stuff. Oh, it's a joke. Yes. No, she got. She was always the butt of every job. Never had the same respect as somebody like a Phyllis Diller, right? Or like, oh no. But also Phyllis Diller was making different.

jokes. You know, it's like there is, she wasn't going after people. And, like, that was a niche that, like, that Joan Rivers found and stayed in that lane of. And it's too bad because I think that she could have been more than that. But I mean, down to, I mean, she said over and over again that she wanted her funeral to be a huge celebrity affair, like down to the point that she wanted like a wind machine on her casket, but she does get a huge public display where, like, the funeral was broadcast publicly.

Hugh Jackman performed the song Quiet Please. There's a lady on stage. And, you know, it's like it was this huge. She was a standard name for all of us, but never in the way she wanted to be. I find myself so torn between being like this, her life is a cautionary tale. for like when your entire self-worth is only wrapped up in your passion for work or isn't an inspiration like cautionary tale or inspiration I don't know I think the idea of saying an open calendar book is like death to me I find that sad sad I now I should five like it's like no that's not how we should live but she and was always terrified of it always coming out from underneath her at every second of every day. Totally. And you understand why she felt that she needed

to work so hard, especially, you know, coming up as a woman at that time and, and why she always needed external approval. You know, like, I mean, we could do this whole thing again in a psychoanalyst point of view. It's like, is it your parents' approval that you're wanting? You know, like she just always needs external approval. I mean, she even said that literally on the first day of her show and she was standing, like she was about to go on stage and all she could think was, I wish my mother could see this. I know. That part is. And that. Oh, God. Oh, what she says, like, I wish I had told my mother, you know, how glad I am that she was my mom and how much I love her. And, you know, you just don't get a chance to do those things. So you got to do it when you can. There's a lot of

beautiful parts to it. And there's a lot of inspiring parts to her life. And there is a lot of cautionary tale to it. And I think that her judgment was so clouded by her ambition. And, you Yeah, it is, it's, it's morally ambiguous. We love it here in the morally ambiguous space. We do. I mean, this is part of reading memoirs. It's learning, you know, it's learning a little bit further into some people that you may not necessarily agree with everything they do or say. But, you know, she still was a human being.

And an interesting, an interesting, an interesting one, whether you like her or not, I think that there is value to looking at, you know, at this arc, you know. But now, I mean, she has many more books, but I think we're going to put Joan Rivers on the shelf for now. And we've got to figure out who the hell we're reading next, Jackie. You're damn right. We need to figure that out, and we will. But we have to sing the song.

Thank you guys, everybody, for hanging out with us during our Joan Rivers talk. And again, please discuss below if you're like, I still fucking hate her. Or, oh, well, that at least maybe opened up a little bit of my perspective of someone that maybe I never thought about that before. We're here talking about people's lives and getting into, you know, reminding ourselves that everybody has a story and everybody has a struggle. And that doesn't mean that we need to accept everybody and their decisions.

But, you know, it's okay to sometimes hear the backstory. Absolutely. And we'll probably hear it on Reading Rainbow, the new Reading Rainbow. I don't know if he'll be talking about Joan Rivers as much, but, you know, I don't Maybe. I don't know. Maybe they'll get into it. Maybe that's going to be the first series on Reading Rainbow, and then we'll know we definitely encourage Reading Rainbow to come back. So you're welcome, everybody. And you want to sing the song with me, MJ? Let's sing the song. Just take a look. It's in a book. It's celebrities. Celebrities. It's celebrities. like you. Thanks to our ad sponsors. You can support our shows by supporting them. For more shows

like the one you just listened to, go to lastpodcastnetwork.com.