Going with the flow: Joan Rivers revels in various streams of her life

By Diana Nollen

Don't let her sharp tongue fool you. Joan Rivers is a softy at heart.

“I think everybody is,” she says by phone from her apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side. “... The people who don't appreciate the good are idiots. Maybe it's because of my age, but you look around and say, ‘Stop complaining. You're so lucky. We're so lucky. You go to China or you go to Nepal, you come back and say, ‘Excuse me, what are you talking about?'”

The comedian, philanthropist, author, actress and entrepreneur knows what she's talking about. Rivers, 76, has recently been to China for one of her many charitable fundraising endeavors. 

“I just walked the Great Wall in China for cancer,” she says.

She also supports God's Love We Deliver, a meal program in New York City for people with life-altering illnesses, and the national Guide Dogs for the Blind, in honor of her mother, who was going blind with glaucoma at the end of her life. Rivers is chairwoman for osteoporosis and former chairwoman for cystic fibrosis efforts, as well.

Choosing the groups to support are very personal decisions, she says.

“There's so many good charities. You have certain ones you love. It's whatever you're very aware of that strikes you.”

She also has a soft spot for animals, and shares her home with rescue dogs Max and Samantha. Daughter Melissa has two rescue dogs, as well, so that's one of many traits that run in her family.

Rivers, a native New Yorker, has always known she was funny and could make people laugh.

“My family is funny,” she says. “My father was funny, my sister's funny, my grandson is funny. It's all genetic. Melissa is funny.”

She'll bring her lifetime of humor to the Mississippi Moon Bar in Dubuque's Diamond Jo Casino for two shows Nov. 6. The local Hunter Fuerste Orchestra also will appear in what Rivers calls her “concerts.”

She makes about 150 such appearances each year and when she's home, she performs on Wednesday nights in an intimate venue, the Laurie Beechman Theatre in Times Square, which seats 100 people. “I just get in there and talk,” she says. “It's fabulous and everything comes out.”

She also tours, having just come back from Canada and will be going to England and San Francisco.

No stranger to England, she has given several command performances for members of the royal family, including Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip. Did she soften her show for them?

“No, and it was wonderful,” she says. “You just choose different material. It's the Queen of England, so I'll talk more about aging and the old men that I date. You pick different things. I'm not going to talk about things that are necessarily going to make her upset: Women's bodies have dropped and their vagina's on the floor. Even though she's got a great sense of humor, I don't think I'm the one to say that. She can get that on my CD.

“You just work a little more careful, that's all.”

Prince Phillip and Prince Charles both have wonderful laughs, she says.

“Their whole family has got terrific senses of humor. They just can't show it. You can't stand there and laugh at people, but back at the palace, I'm sure they say, ‘Did see the woman who was wearing ...'”

Her audiences in Dubuque will see “exactly what they would have seen if they had come to Vegas a month ago. ... It's just me talking about everything.”

What makes her laugh is “anything that you can't handle otherwise,” she says, including death, because she sees humor as a coping mechanism.

“In my act are 9/11 jokes,” she says. “I was here when it happened. Anything death because it's such a trauma for all of us. Aging. Anything that you wake up at night and go ‘oh my god,' I'll make a joke of it the next morning.”

Very few topics are taboo. 

“If I say it, then I can say it. If it's off limits, I won't talk about it. Just don't go after my grandson and don't go after my daughter. Go after me.”

She can take the arrows, as well as sling them, as proven on her recent Comedy Central roast.

“It was the perfect storm,” she says. Everybody was good; nobody was weak on it. That was terrific.”

A woman with no regrets, she says her whole life brings her joy.

“And of course, if you're a parent, if you child is happy, you're happy. If Melissa is having a good day, I'm having a good day. Melissa's having a good day only if (son Cooper, 8) is having a good day. So if you say, ‘How are you?' You'll know how my whole family is.”

FAST TAKE

What: Joan Rivers with the Hunter Fuerste Orchestra

When: 7 and 10 p.m. Friday, Nov. 6

Where: Mississippi Moon Bar, Diamond Jo Casino, 301 Bell St., Dubuque

Tickets: $50 and $75 at the Mississippi Moon Bar Box Office and www.diamondjo.com

Ages: 21 and older

Information: www.diamondjo.com and www.joanrivers.com

More online: To read more of Diana Nollen's interview with Joan Rivers, go to http://thegazette.com/blogs/art-scene