I will have to confess that I love zingers — as long as they aren’t slung at me. Remembering Joan Rivers and the way she was able to laugh first at herself and then poke fun at others brings a smile to my face and heart. “The trouble with me is, I make jokes too often,” she told The Associated Press in 2013. “That’s how I get through life. Life is SO difficult — everybody’s been through something! But you laugh at it, it becomes smaller.”
Joan River’s sardonic wit could cut a person in two but she also had a compassionate and tender side. One of the organizations she supported with money and presence was God’s Love We Deliver. The mission of God’s Love We Deliver is to improve the health and well-being of men, women and children living with HIV/AIDS, cancer and other serious illnesses by alleviating hunger and malnutrition.
The organization also provides illness-specific nutrition education and counseling to its clients, families, care providers and other service organizations. All services are provided free of charge without regard to income.
I don’t wear make-up to hide my life-lines but have always loved her line, – “I’ve had so much plastic surgery, when I die they will donate my body to Tupperware.” In addition to making us laugh, I feel Joan Rivers also made us think. She was a trail blazer for women in comedy and a feminist voice in society in general.
There is no debating that Joan Rivers worked very hard to be successful. She was once billed at a strip club by the stand-up name “’Pepper January’ — offering “Comedy with Spice.†So I am offering you these images: “Popping Peppers†and “Lines and Lamps†in honor of Joan Rivers.
Without Joan River’s one-liners I guess we might have to depend on the captions for the cartons in the New Yorker to keep us laughing – although there are all those up-and-coming women comedians, thanks to Joan’s inspiration and trail blazing into the lands once dominated solely by “Johnny.â€