If Daddy Were Here to See These Prices Hed Kill Himself All Over Again
Joan Rivers Offers Some Stand up-Up Therapy
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January 29, 1995
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FOR something billed as "a grief seminar," at that place were a lot of laughs. Joan Rivers, the comedian, extra, former talk show host and jewelry pitch adult female, has taken a new act on the road and it may add the title "self-assistance guru" to her already formidable resume.
Ms. Rivers has begun giving lectures on overcoming life's adversities, something she says she is eminently qualified to do. In a nearly breathless recital, she told almost 300 people who came to hear her in White Plains recently that she had coped with the suicide of her married man, Edgar Rosenberg, along with a devastating series of professional person setbacks. Her basic message to the mostly female person, well-dressed audience, which had paid $29.95 to attend, was: If I can practice it, you can practice it, and I'm going to tell you how.
The advice about coping with grief was certainly nothing new or startling. Ms. Rivers basically told her listeners that they couldn't change the past and that they needed to move on with their lives. What was different, however, was the package in which that counsel came delivered: a kind up stand-upwardly therapy routine, which was office nightclub comedy human action, part psychological advice and partly like having your all-time friend tell you over java that she knows you lot feel bad, but it'south time to get off your duff and take charge of your life.
It was all done with Ms. River'due south brand of tin can-we-talk intimacy and wildly irreverent humor. And, yep, not surprising from a woman who played the part of herself in a television movie about her married man taking his ain life, in that location were suicide jokes.
"After Edgar killed himself, I went out to dinner with Melissa," Ms. Rivers said. "I looked at the menu and said, 'If Daddy were here to see these prices, he'd kill himself all over again.' "
Or this: "The first year afterward Edgar killed himself, I was and so angry that if he had come up dwelling house, I probably would have killed him."
Ms. Rivers is unapologetic nearly her attitude. Laughter, she says, is healing, and anger is natural. People accept the correct to grieve how they want and on their own schedule.
"There are two kinds of friends, and both mean very well," Ms. Rivers told the audience. "One grouping doesn't want yous to grieve at all -- 'Come on, come on, it has been a week and a one-half that you lost Joe, go out -- plenty!' The other kind never desire to see yous exist anything but grieving. 'Your husband is expressionless only eight years, and y'all're wearing a ruby clothes?' "
Ms. Rivers, 61, blonde, perfectly turned out, and herself wearing red, strode to the phase clutching her purse, explaining to her audition: "I'm a New Yorker. I take my pocketbook everywhere." She is so petite that what appeared to be a milk delivery crate was put behind the lectern then she could stand up on it to see her audience at the Crowne Plaza Hotel here.
Ms. Rivers talked about her success as a guest host on "The Tonight Evidence" with Johnny Carson, her 22-year marriage to her husband and an offer from Flim-flam television for her own tardily-night talk show. So, she said, came a dizzying series of events that turned her life into a nightmare.
When she accepted the offer from Flim-flam, Mr. Carson stopped speaking to her and NBC "vilified me in the press." Her husband had a heart attack and sank into a major depression. Subsequently several months, Fox was unhappy with her ratings and dismissed her. Her married man committed suicide. Every bit she was sitting shiva (the Jewish bereavement ceremony), her agent arrived to tell her that she would never work again. Soon she became estranged from her girl.
She struggled to re-institute her personal and professional life and succeeded. Merely a 2d series of setbacks happened to her nine months ago, she said. Within ane weekend, her shopping show on cable television was canceled, her Broadway bear witness ("Sally Marr . . . and Her Escorts" in which she starred as the comedian Lenny Bruce'southward mother) closed, and the parent visitor that had bought the successful line of jewelry that she sold on QVC went into bankruptcy.
If Ms. River'southward audience was startled to hear her married man's suicide included in the aforementioned listing of tragedies equally low idiot box ratings, they didn't show it. Many nodded their heads in recognition every bit she described her hard times, and some took notes on her suggestions for recovery.
First, Ms. Rivers told them, they had to accept their grief. "I don't know why it happened to you," she said. "I don't know why it happened to Job." She told them they were entitled to at least "a weekend of wallowing" in which they could feel very, very pitiful for themselves, and they should brand a list of every miserable thing that ever happened to them. But then, she said, they should motion forrad. She highly recommended professional therapy, individual and grouping.
"I never idea I'd say this," Ms. Rivers said, "and that's because I'm a friend of Woody Allen'south, and Woody Allen has been in therapy for 36 years and I figured, whoa! And so I thought, who knows what he'd exist like without therapy? So go to a good therapist, I beg you."
She also recommended writing in a diary, writing messages and making lists of all the positive things in one'due south life. ("I, I don't live in Bosnia. 2, I never dated O. J. . . .") She encouraged the audience to apply positive thinking. At one signal, she asked anybody in the audience to look at the next person in the row and say, "I'm and so glad." The audience dutifully recited "I'm so glad . . ." and then Ms. Rivers gave them the residue of the sentence to complete, which was, "I'thou non you!"
With that, Ms. Rivers reduced the audience to helpless laughter, no small feat when the women who came to hear her began to reveal what had fatigued them there.
Rose Stock of Yorktown lost her married man to suicide only a yr ago. Ms. Stock said she found Ms. Rivers fantastic. "She gave us really uplifting comments," she said. "She has incredible inner resources. I especially liked when she told usa that each of us needs to grieve in our own way."
Joann Williams of New Rochelle said that she had lost someone she loved two years ago and was still not over his expiry. Further, she recently lost her task afterward x years, and was depressed. "Joan is such an inspiration," Ms. Williams said. "She lost her husband, her money, everything, and she shows y'all that you can get through loss."
Later the lecture, Ms. Rivers took questions from the audience. The queries concerned suicide, childhood depression, chronic affliction, abusive relationships and more than. The answers were Ms. Rivers's blend of pity, advice and humor. 1 woman said that she felt guilty considering she had to put her female parent in a nursing dwelling. "It'southward a terrible situation," Ms. Rivers said, "but don't feel guilty. You have to accept care of yourself, too. Don't feel guilty. Unless yous're Jewish, then it'southward impossible. A Jew volition feel guilty over what color linoleum you put down on the kitchen floor."
Subsequently the program, dozens of women gathered effectually Ms. Rivers to tell her their stories. She took the time to heed to each of them, embracing those who were crying.
"It'southward always overwhelming," Ms. Rivers said later in an interview. "You just talk from your eye. 1 lady tonight told me she had lost her hubby, her child and had cancer." Ms. Rivers paused every bit her eyes welled with tears. "I said: 'At least you're talking about it. And you laughed for a minute tonight.' She promised me she would go into group therapy. So many people are scared to go for help. They merely desire a hand to accomplish out to. We admittedly continued. Someone knows her pain."
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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/29/nyregion/joan-rivers-offers-some-stand-up-therapy.html
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