Joan Rivers, You Tremendous Tramp.

She wasn't perfect and even said horrible things, terrible things, things that could even get you kicked off of television in some eras (that she lived through), but the thing of it is, she survived and already earned a lot of respect. Let's be honest, some of the dumb shit she said that other people would find objectionable could have been said by Don Rickles or Jackie Mason, and who would care?

I liked Joan Rivers for her potty-mouthed self. She wasn't full of shit. She said what she thought. Her face was an amazing thing. I admired her weird agelessness. She didn't seem to be striving for youth--just not looking old. If I look at today's fashion, her ongepotchket jewelry collection has made today's statement necklaces look reasonable.

I loved Heidi Abromowitz. You know--the tramp stereotype in Joan Rivers' hands got played out to where she was saying "Wouldn't you?" The best joke I got from her re: Heidi, was that being told you looked like a tramp was wonderful--because who could sell themselves, an ugly yenta? No. To be a successful tramp was to be a beautiful thing. She tried at being that beautiful, and feminine, and vicious. You (a woman) could marry being feminine and joking. You could be mean. You could talk--because can we talk?

Can we talk about Joan Rivers, as a pioneer, and somehow divorce her life from later ugly comments, that were not her at her greatest? Because she started in theater kissing Barbra Streisand and like me, she loved dogs and a good steak. She was an 81 year old person when she died, and maybe her face didn't say "Grandma"--but she was the kind of grandma  you might have forgiven her sometimes bullshit attitudes to respect the blazing trail she made for others.

Rest in power, comedy Queen. You were tacky and loud at times, but you were a survivor. And your act might have warmed up for a lot of others once, but is hard to follow, now.