There are several more posts coming today from Saturday night’s LA Gay and Lesbian Center gala.

But I want to start with some of the comedy provided by host Lily Tomlin and guest Kathy Griffin. Both were absolutely on fire. We know how funny Kathy can be but, I must say, the 71-year-old Tomlin was an absolute revelation. Her comedy and her timing is absolutely brilliant.

First Lily and her thoughts on former President George W. Bush’s new memoir Decision Points: “He’s been promoting a memoir and claims he has written it. Did any of you see his interview with Matt Lauer and Bush attributed his anti-abortion position to his mother having shown him a fetus in a jar that she had miscarried? Too bad she didn’t show him somebody being waterboarded.”

Kathy, of course, was far more crass: “I’m calling complete bullshit on the George Bush fetus in a jar story. I’m going there, I don’t give a fuck. That’s fuckin’ nuts, he made that shit up. That’s shit that drunken fuckin’ uncles make up to make their political point. So you’re trying to tell me that Barbara Bush miscarried and then at the hospital said, ‘Excuse me, we happen to have a jar here.”

Lily had some very thoughtful and funny things to say about the LGBT equality movement and coming out: “Years ago when Judy Garland died and the Stonewall Riots happened – in June of 1969 for the upstarts in the room – I was working in New York at Howard Johnsons. Honestly it’s hard to believe that even then, at that late a time, at a gathering like this, we could be surrounded by paddy wagons and we could all be arrested just for being here as gay folk. How far we have come.God love those pissed off queens from back in the day! You have to love them, you have to remember them, you cannot forget. I certainly will not.”

She added: “While we still have a lot to worry about – gay teens suicides, marriage – there are lots of good things to think aboit, to talk about. So many of us have come out of the closet. And the recent gang: Sean Hayes, Meredith Baxter, Ricky Martin, Stephanie Miller, [Chely] Wright a country singer that in itself is amazing, Kelly McGillis, Angelo Garcia from Menudo. …. One thing to consider is once you’re out of the closet, you simply cannot believe how constricting it was inside that closet. But sometimes you have to admit it was sexier. Of course a lot of us came out of the closet, some of were able to get married or we started living together. It created a whole new problem: we found ourselves sharing a closet and that’s a bitch, isn’t it?”

Tomlin later returned to the stage in character as Ernestine the telephone operator, one of her most famous characters dating back to her years on Laugh In. She had big news: Ernestine is now out!

“No one’s asking but I’m telling. … You’ve been wondering about Oprah and Gayle. Well you’ve had your eyes on the wrong two gals. Ernestine is coming out. Yes, my beloved Fenicia and yours truly are truly in love. Even as I speak her name, I am tingling with longings I now know are of a somewhat sapphic nature. i think my awakening began when I saw that episode of The L Word when Cybill Shepherd plays that woman who’s been straight all her life and then suddenly she falls madly in love with another woman? I love when that happens.”

She explained, complete with Ernestine’s signature snorts, that she was downsized from the phone company and now works as a volunteer at the LA Gay and Lesbian Center’s switchboard: “I’m giving back. I’ve been giving back for 20 years at the Gsy and Lesbian Center switchboard. I find giving back so much more dignified than putting out.”

Comments

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2 Remarks

1. November 15th, 2010 at 9:34 pm
   2201 East says:

   Wish Kathy Griffin had an ounce of the class Lily has. What she might says might be worth taken seriously.

2. December 31st, 2010 at 7:37 am
   Tim Dwight says:

   That fetus in a jar thing is really creepy. I wonder if it influenced his stance on giving the death penalty to retarded teens.