Her choice of opening acts, however, is highly questionable. Madame, the raunchy puppet with a penchant for feathers and sparkles who starred on "Hollywood Squares" in the '70s (and is now powered by Joe Kovacs), warmed up the crowd for nearly 45 torturous minutes. Her cheesy, predictable jokes did make Rivers look positively cutting edge by comparison, and maybe that's the point.
The first thing Rivers did when she came out was to remove her dangerously tall high heels and, at an audience member's suggestion, throw them into the crowd. The six-piece band that had backed Madame stayed onstage, silently, throughout Rivers's act, providing her with even more subjects to ridicule.
Even after all these years, Rivers still has a million insults to make. She dove right into her "people I hate" riff: lesbians, old people, Chinese people, skinny women, ugly people. It's the ugly she really can't seem to stand. "If there is a message here tonight, it is look good, look good, look good," she said, pointing out that this was coming from a "185-year-old Jew with no shoes."
She made fun of ugly celebrity babies, and even critiqued the Virgin Mary. In the nativity scene under her Christmas tree, not only does Jesus have a nanny, Mary is dressed in a Chanel suit and carrying an Hermes bag. "You're the mother of God," she said. "Look it."
Not even a post-stroke Dick Clark was safe from her caustic barbs, nor were the kids in foreign sweatshops who supposedly make her line of QVC jewelry: "Little fingers set little stones," she said.
Botox injections aside, Rivers really doesn't seem her age. She lay down on the floor at one point to demonstrate how to watch TV while having sex (though it took her a while to get up) and climbed up on the piano to fetch a bottle of water.
The woman is a legend, and I must admit it was a thrill to hear her signature gasps and "Can we talk?" in person. Her baby-soft face makes her all the more fascinating. Even if she gives up standup, I can't wait to see what she looks like in 10 years.
