A terrific read for older New York ladies: “The Fortune Hunters” by Charlotte Hays. It’s a great, gossipy, how-to book about fortune hunters and I know a lot of them! Boy, manicurists with trick pelvises* do end up RICH!

*My pelvis hasn’t moved since Grant took Richmond.

I’m off to QVC tomorrow morning EARLY for four big days of selling my jewelry and beauty line. If any of you want to catch me, I will be on air on Thursday from 5:00-6:00pm and later that night from 11:00pm to 1:00am.

Friday I will be on air throughout the day selling Keepsake Boxes (which I adore) and then on again from Noon-2:00pm, 6:00-7:00pm and 10:00pm-Midnight.

Saturday I will be on from 5:00-6:00pm and then Melissa will take over from 1:00-2:00am.

Sunday I’m on air from 10:00am-Noon and then I am heading home to take a nap – so stop complaining about how hard you work. I’m just not interested!!!

I bought a terrific book last week at O'Hare Airport* in Chicago called The Book of Useless Information  that is, as the title says, full of useless information. This book is “an official publication of the Useless Information Society” which I think I should become a member of because I really enjoy facts and trivia, so I thought I’d share some of the information that I thought was interesting and particularly useless. For example:

Eleanor Roosevelt received a number of threatening letters after her husband was elected president, so the Secret Service insisted that she carry a pistol in her purse.

Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin Look-a-Like Contest.

Every time Beethoven sat down to compose music he would pour ice water over his head.

Every episode of Seinfeld contains a Superman reference.

Tom Sawyer was the first novel written on a typewriter.

“Bookkeeper” is the only word in the English language with three consecutive double letters.

There is no such thing as Blue Food. Even blueberries are purple.

During conscription for the Second World War, there were nine documented cases of men with three testicles.

According to ceremonial customs of Orthodox Judaism, it is officially sundown when you can not tell the difference between black thread and red thread.

Apollo 11 had only twenty seconds of fuel left when it landed.

Because of the rotation of the earth, an object can be thrown faster if it is thrown west.

After eating, the housefly regurgitates its food and eats it again.

Shrimp swim backwards.

A donkey will sink in quicksand, but a mule won’t.

And my favorite fact is the final one: The average person speaks about 31,500 words per day. I counted myself and I am nearly double the average. That explains why, as a child, I thought my name was “Pipe down.”

 * My thanks to those blog readers who caught my earlier airport Logan/O'Hare confusion. To me, all airports look alike.

All of you come to New York and run to Broadway. This is right and appropriate as New York is the theatre center of this nation, BUT don’t forget that “Off-Broadway” is alive and flourishing and some of the best theatrical evenings I’ve had this year have been Off rather than On the Great White Way.

One of the Off-Broadway establishments that never seems to disappoint me with what they are presenting is Primary Stages which consists of one main and two smaller theatres at 59 East 59th Street and they manage to attract the best directors, actors and young and old playwrights. A few weeks ago I saw a new play called Opus there. At that time, I noticed that they were planning to present a new play by Horton Foote called Dividing the Estate which would star, among others, an old friend of mine, Elizabeth Ashley.

I went to see Dividing the Estate at one of the worst imaginable times to go to theatre; a matinee on a hot, sunny Sunday afternoon and I was blown out of my seat. Directed by Michael Wilson (who always seems to know exactly what he is doing), the play is as sharp and penetrating as any of 90+ year old Horton Foote’s other works. It is a big, smart, stinging, right-on-the-money, old-fashioned (in the good sense) play with thirteen – yes thirteen - characters. It is Tennessee Williams with a sense of humor mixed with William Faulkner ordering at Bob’s Big Boy and then just about every upper-middle class, bickering, divided family sprinkled in.

Elizabeth Ashley – along with the rest of the cast – doesn’t miss a trick as the matriarch. If she had been born English, she’d be carried around on a cushion a la Judi Dench, Vanessa Redgrave and Maggie Smith. Where are the parts for our great, American actresses? Where are the writers? Come on, how many writers does it take to pen "Dancing with the Stars"?
For more information, please go to www.primarystages.com  

I had 17 people for Yom Kippur dinner to celebrate the Jewish New Year and to break fast. I thought that I’d share the menu with you.  

Starter: Jew England Clam Chowder (an old family recipe and Mayor Jewliani’s favorite). 

Main Course: Jew York Strip Steak au Jews served with Jewlianne Fries. 

Dessert: Cherries Jewbilee 

Wine: Whites and Reds by Ernest and Jewlio Gallo 

Lance, who is my accompanist at the Cutting Room, played the piano throughout the evening and my guests heard such favorites as ..."Jew York, Jew York;" "I've Got Jew Under My Skin" and "That Jewdu You Do."

Here are a few New Year's resolutions I know I can achieve:

Exercise less

Gain weight

Gossip more (even if it means talking about close friends)

Don't correct bank errors that are in my favor

Become friendly with Brad and Angelina in the hope that they'll adopt me so I can be carried around for the rest of my life.

This is a nicey-nice blog (don’t get used to it).

WHEW! What a busy week it’s been. I want to take this moment to thank all of you for your support of Melissa’s and my Emmy evening coverage on www.emmyswithjoan.com. So many of you joined us on Emmy night that, at one point, you actually crashed VH-1’s server. I’ve been saying that our site got more hits than Naomi Campbell’s assistant. VH-1 sent me a breakdown of how many of you logged on to share this most boring of award shows ever with us and, I’m proud to say, that over 5,000 hits came from people who linked on from my blog. Thank you, thank you, thank you, blog buddies!

Melissa and I had a ball doing this and now we can’t wait till the Golden Globes in January. Our crew was amazing and the “war room” (a.k.a. my living room with lots of TVs, computers and camera equipment in it) was buzzing with energy and laughter.

We were up all of Sunday night putting the finishing touches on our coverage and then, early Monday morning, Melissa and I got ourselves ready and went to do CBS This Morning with Harry Smith. I then went on to visit my friend Howard Stern at Sirius and finally to do the Today Show in their new 10:00-11:00am hour while Melissa did a radio tour.

Tuesday morning, Melissa and I put on fancy gowns and went to do the Red Carpet for Regis and Kelly for their "5th annual Relly Awards show" (which airs tomorrow). Backstage it seemed like everybody was pregnant. There were pregnant wardrobe ladies, makeup ladies, hairdressers, producers, etc. etc. If you laid them all down on the floor, it would have looked like the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. On the Red Carpet itself, we met a lot of interesting characters including an 88 year old woman who is a tri-athlete (she is very nice, but looks a little like Jack Lalanne in drag) and a dog who can carry a glass of water on her head, but didn’t. It turned out that she threw a star tantrum when they put the wrong kind of Milk Bones in her dressing room and refused to perform.

What can I tell you, my life is good.

Last night was a huge success, www.emmyswithjoan.com got more hits than Naomi Campbell's assistant.

 I am sitting here in my house with Melissa and the VH-1crew (who have taken over my living room and are very sloppy eaters) and except for all the spot cleaning and Scotch Guarding we are having a ball watching the Emmy Red Carpet.

We are posting blogs and photos and finally getting to say what we REALLY think, so join the fun at emmyswithjoan.com. 

Life in Beverly Hills is unlike life in any other town in America. Yesterday evening I answered my front door to find an adorable, little lass selling Girl Scout croissants.

 Beverly Hills offers so much to its women.

There are all sorts of self-help groups, self-awareness groups and fad religions.   I once went to a meeting where a group of women sat in a circle and tried to channel their original noses.

I am so thrilled I’ll be covering the Red Carpet from home this year (make sure you come and find me Sunday at emmyswithjoan.com) that all I’ve been thinking about is how great life is in New York and how crazy life can be in Beverly Hills.

Beverly Hills is where an appointment with the free clinic costs $500.00 and handicapped parking is for anyone who doesn’t have a chauffer

I lived in Beverly Hills for many years and it taught me a thing or two - or ninety - about spoiled women. Most of them are born with silver spoons in their mouths (which is why they talk so funny). And as children they were told two things by their nannies. 1. Never to take diamonds from a stranger and 2. Never worry about parking, just pull in wherever you want and leave your car – Daddy will buy you another.

Attention Everybody!

I will be doing something for the Emmys on Sunday, September 16th that I’ve ALWAYS wanted to do. I’ll be commenting for VH-1 about what I REALLY thought about the people and events at the show. Look for me at emmyswithjoan.com . They are promising me complete freedom and I am very excited. Finally the constitution is on my side! I feel like Kunta Kinte before he got hobbled.

The ONLY thing that I will miss about working ON the red carpet is that I will not be wearing expensive jewelry this year.

Borrowing jewelry from such great stores as Fred Leighton or Harry Winston  is fabulous. I always walk out confident and knowing that, at least for that evening, people will stare at my chest without laughing. It is so wonderful to realize that the cheapest thing on my body, suddenly, is my plastic surgery. The only bad thing about loaner jewelry is that after the show I am stripped faster than a Chevy in Tijuana.

JOAN AND MELISSA RIVERS RETURN WITH LIVE EMMY RED CARPET COMMENTARY ON VH1EYECANDY.COM

LIVE ONLINE VIDEO AND BLOG COMMENTARY BEGINS EMMY NIGHT,
SEPTEMBER 16 AT 5 PM*

New York, NY, September 10, 2007 – She might be staying home this year, but she’s not staying quiet! Red Carpet Queen, Joan Rivers and her daughter Melissa are hosting the ultimate Emmy red carpet commentary online at VH1Eyecandy.com, VH1’s recently launched site that offers a host of tools for users to grab, embed, blog and remix photos, videos and news stories. The site currently houses close to 150,000 photographs and 5,000 hours of video of today’s most eye-catching celebrity and pop culture moments. New images and video are added to the site daily.

Joan’s online video and blog commentary kicks off on “Emmy day,” September 16, beginning at 5 PM* at emmyswithjoan.com, a dedicated section of VH1Eyecandy.com. Joan and Melissa will begin their live blogging on this year’s red carpet hits and misses. Following their red carpet dish, the ladies will waste no time and will begin live blogging about the most memorable moments of the Emmy telecast. In addition to the live commentary throughout the evening, Joan will tape a red carpet recap video podcast and an Emmy recap video podcast, which will be posted online at Emmys with Joan at 10 PM* and 12:30 AM*, respectively.

Additionally, throughout the night, exclusive pictures and video from the red carpet, press room and after-parties – courtesy of VH1Eyecandy.com’s exclusive partnership with WireImage – will be posted on the site. WireImage will also make available thousands of Emmy photos and hours of Emmy video footage from past year’s shows.

On Monday, extensive archived video and photo footage from TV’s biggest night and all of Joan and Melissa’s video podcast reviews and commentary will be archived on VH1Eyecandy.com for on-demand viewing/reading.

Watch more of Joan Rivers when she makes a special appearance on Best Week Ever, Friday, September 14 at 9 PM ET/PT.

(P.S. Click on emmyswithjoan.com now and check out my promo.)

For those of you who drink Starbuck’s coffee, you may notice that on the side of their cups there is always a little paragraph called “The Way I See It” written by guest writers who, even in THEIR hometowns, are considered minor celebrities.

Today I find myself drinking my $2.85 Starbuck’s drip decaf and being forced to read some toothless moron’s philosophy on how one could learn more from listening than talking and it is called “The Way I See It #280” and my assistant, Matt, whilst slurping down his double mocha-chocka locca latte to the tune of $4.75, is being forced to read “The Way I See It #242” which is lying and telling us that children are born with a sense of fairness.

Just a thought, perhaps the good people at Starbuck’s, instead of gouging America and giving us mind-numbing philosophy on the side of a pathetic paper cup, could drop their prices a few cents and let us pick out our own reading material.

In my play at the Magic Theatre, one of the characters was a Russian girl - delightfully played by Susannah Livingston. Backstage, over two weeks of performances, we started doing Russian women jokes. Here are some that we laughed at:

Russian women are tough. Mother Russia has a penis.

What’s a Russian woman’s favorite department store? Cossacks 5th Avenue.

Russian women are so fat, they put the “cow” in Moscow – during sex, Russian women moo.

And here is the last one that will make you groan. Ready? Here it comes… Russian women do not shave, so on their legs, they wear hair nyets… I warned you that it was a groaner!

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye to beautiful San Francisco. I’ve had such a good time while I’ve been here and am beyond happy that my play got up and running and that we got such great feedback (both praise and criticism) from our amazing audiences at the Magic Theatre.

I loved working with the staff and crew at the Magic and my co-stars; Carrie, Susannah and Lucas, were the best. Doing stand-up at the Plush Room was the icing on the cake as the club was packed with young, vibrant, smart San Francisco audiences who came to laugh and have a good time and, again, the crew and staff there were amazing too - thank you Robert, Rory, Gregory and Martin.

My favorite thing about my time in San Francisco was San Francisco itself. I don’t have one complaint about the city. The work experience, the views, the food, the bay, the weather, the fog horns at night, the cable cars, the architecture, the Fairmont Hotel and the people were all so terrific that I’m realizing on my last day in town that I’ve fallen in love with San Francisco.

Now my dilemma is how to tell San Francisco without seeming like I’m coming on too strong. I mean, what gesture should I make to let San Francisco know how I really feel without seeming like a stalker? Do I buy San Francisco an expensive gift or just a cheap bunch of flowers from the deli? Should I take San Francisco out for a nice meal or whisk S.F. away on a romantic holiday? Chocolates? Singing telegrams? Poetry? And how will I break the news to Melissa? Will she be happy that I’ve met someone special or will she feel threatened?  Could she, one day, learn to call San Francisco “Dad”?

I’m not sure exactly how to move forward with my feelings because it’s been so many years since the last time this happened to me and that time I got my heart broken. I’m talking to you, Peoria. 

I went to rehearsal yesterday and had a lot of notes for Lucas, Carrie and Susannah (my co-stars) and none for me. It’s hard to be perfect in a play, but I’m struggling with this and winning.

After rehearsal I left the sobbing cast (they’ll get over my tough love, criticisms and occasional smacks) and headed for a used book store.

ATTENTION MICHAEL KARLIN (my business manager): I AM NOW GOING TO USED BOOKSTORES! What do you have planned for me next? Second-hand furniture? Dumpster diving? Red Carpet dresses from the Good Will with smelly armpits and blood & vomit stains?

Anyway, as I said, we found a great second-hand bookstore – Book Bay – which is at the Fort Mason Center across from the Magic Theatre. My assistant, Matt, found the Maria Callas biography which was written by Arianna Stassinopoulos, now known as Arianna Huffington.

Looking at the pictures in the book brought back such memories. Jackie on the day of her wedding - looking 3 feet taller than Onassis, Maria Callas with her old nose and Christina Onassis who was so ugly that I’m surprised the Lord called her.

I found a great book too. You know when a book is just waiting for you and fate brings you to it? This book is simply called “Tough Jews”. No, it’s not about Streisand paying retail or my cousin Shirley’s Kabala class; it is about gangsters. I’m starting with the chapter titled “On the Lam”. I could easily see myself being Mrs. Meyer Lansky, Mrs. Abraham “Kid Twist” Reles or, my favorite, Mrs. Jacob “Gurrah” Shapiro who was one of the Gorilla Boys. Would that make me a Gorilla Girl?