Insert expletive here!
Lisa Lampanelli is a hero of mine for many reasons…
1. She is Paisan suffering from an unpronounceable “g” in her family’s name (Lampugnale) just like mine (DeFiglia). If you’re Italian you know.
2. She went to Harvard.
AND 3. She has huge freakin’ balls. She’s the kind of girl who gets invited to bachelor parties ‘cause she can hang with the boys… just like me.
I have a theory about Italian girls and their sense of comedy. They develop it young to entertain/get the attention the men in their family. I was able to sit at the adult table AND stay up way past my bedtime as a kid… just kept ‘em laughing. I got to phone interview her one on one on Thursday, June 4th at 2:45PM CST. She was in her car with her boyfriend and she had me rolling… though she admitted she was showing off for him. I could have talked to her four hours.
Lisa studied Journalism at Syracuse, then the graduate program at Harvard, and from there: on to work for Popular Mechanics, Rolling Stone, and Spy Magazine. She was, in fact, the only woman on staff at Spy. Member at several prestigious boys’ clubs? Check.
I wanted to ask her all about being a woman in comedy, about being an insult comic, about standup and roasts, about everything ‘cause I am a nerd.... THANK GOD she said everything I’d hoped she’d say or wanted her to say.
Listen to the full recording of the interview HERE! (WARNING: There is VERY GRAPHIC, EXPLICIT, yet hilarious language)
Here are some of my favorite highlights:
CCE: What do you think about improv?
LL: I’d rather swallow a gun.
CCE: What do you think about Christopher Hitchen’s Vanity Fair article?
LL: Didn’t read it.
CCE: Are Facebook and Twitter a distraction?
LL: They are great publicity tools.
CCE: What was doing the pilot for “Brother’s” with Michael Strahan like?
LL: BASTARDS CUT ME OUT!
CCE: Is it ok to steal bits?
LL: F yes. I’ll make more.
She called me a (rhymes with wussy and starts with a p) (sound like runt but starts with a c) for doing improv …and I loved it. Her point was that you didn’t have to say “yes” to every asinine bit, that it was all about you, AND you could drop the “n word” whenever you wanted. I hear ya’ sister.
It is my theory that you have to be incredibly smart to go blue. You can’t just do dirty for the sake of being dirty. You have to be good at it. As Lisa pointed out to me, no one does what she does besides Don Rickels and that makes her 800 million times more special. She embraces being called an ‘insult comic’ and that is inspiring to me. It’s obvious that she is in her element and LOVES it when she’s roasting a celebrity or ranking on an audience member. She’s good at it. Her amazing mouth has not only catapulted her over gender barriers but racial lines too. She’s one of a handful of white comedians to be on BET’s “Comic View”.
Lisa will be doing 2 shows at The Chicago Theatre on June 20th at 7pm and 9:30pm.
For more information on her 'Just for Laughs' shows click here!
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