Kathy Griffin: Bristol Palin's Fat. Oh, By The Way, Check Out My Smokin' Hot Body.

Performing for the troops, alleged entertainer Kathy Griffin decided to attack Bristol Palin.

This was selfish. Even ignoring the nastiness of her pounding on Bristol Palin, it was selfish to show up for a show, supposedly "for the troops" and rip into someone the troops had some affection for. Has she never heard of getting a sense of the room? Once the troops started booing her non-jokes, she went into Andy Kaufman villain mode and just antagonized them further.

Remember, she was there "for the troops."

Or was she? No, of course she wasn't. The audience consisted of troops but Kathy Griffin didn't go there for them; she went there because she is in fact D-list and will show up wherever they ask her to come. She was actually performing only for the VH-1 broadcast, and of course for her gay-only audience.

Why is her audience gay-only? I don't know. Apparently they dig being pandered to (seriously, gays, enough with this cheap-date stuff where any performer who panders in the slightest becomes a Gay Legend). And they seem to like her "act," which as far as I can tell, consists of no actual jokes, just talking about details of her shabby life at a quick pace with the occasional 2004-just-called-they-want-their-hack-schtick-back "Oh, bitch, it's on" sort of button.

It's not that she's entirely not funny -- it's that she's not professionally funny. She's the kind of funny that would be funny if it were your friend raging about this or that TV show in a quick-patter way (with 2007-just-called-they-want-their-catchprase-back mentions of "bee-yatch"). This is the sort of funny that you are willing to pay $2.35 for ("Here, let me get that coffee for you"), not the sort of funny you seek out on TV or, even more absurd, you spend $50 a ticket for and make special plans to see.

We all are lucky enough to have someone in our lives funny like Kathy Griffin. Like, civilian funny. Some of us are lucky enough to have three or four such people. But rarely do we listen to our funny friends and say, "Man, I have to get this guy on the stage at Vegas." There's a difference between pro-funny and civilian-funny, and Griffin is definitely the latter. (If that. Can you say "tired schtick"? Oh yeah, I went there. (2005 just called to say they want their "I went there" back. And then 2004 called, and they want their whole "2004 called, they want their x back" schtick back.))

Anyway, so, Bristol's fat, according to Griffin.

And Kathy Griffin wanted to do something "for the troops," so she came out in a bikini. Because that's "for the troops," showing off a surgically altered aging body which was never all that to begin with. Like, you remember when Phyllis Diller gave the troops a thrill in 'Nam, right? She did that "for the troops," and not, say, for her own personal vanity.

But since we're talking about fat... Ann Althouse noticed a picture taken from the rear view.

Now here's some comedy.

It's the ass equivalent of a busted-up stretched-out tangled-in-knots Slinky. You sort of can guess at its original function, but what remains is just a slaggy mess for the trash.

Just To Prove The Point... If Griffin was there "for the troops"... let's just put aside Bristol Palin entirely for the moment.

If you're really performing "for the troops," do you really come out and do a bit about that well-known troop-fave Dancing With The Stars?

Can you imagine a show less beloved by 18-to-30-year-old manly sort of men?

What was Kathy Griffin's encore? A tight ten-minute set on Gossip Girl?

"For the troops"?

posted by Ace at 12:01 PM

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