arts & entertainment

Riffing In Print

Out with his first humor book, Gilbert Gottfried makes
a standup stop in Ferndale. Prepare to laugh.

Bill Carroll
Contributing Writer

children, Lily and Max.

IN: A belated mazel tov! Has your act got-

ewish comedian Gilbert Gottflied
admits he's an insensitive comic
at times, but he's adamant about
his legacy as a Jew even though he's not
observant. And he disdains other Jewish
celebrities who deny their Jewishness.
That's the serious side of Gottfried, the
standup comedian, actor and voice spe-
cialist with the squawky voice and irrever-
ent sense of humor.
Gottfried, 56, has a propensity for get-
ting himself into trouble with outrageous
jokes about international tragedies —
known as the "too soon" syndrome in the
comedy business. Who knows what he'll
say when he performs two shows Friday,
June 17, at the Magic Bag in Ferndale.
His most recent jump into hot water
came when he tweeted about two dozen
"too soon" jokes about the earthquake and
tsunami in Japan — and subsequently
was fired as the voice of the popular Aflac
duck ad campaign. Aflac is the largest life
insurer in Japan. Gottfried later deleted
the jokes from Twitter and apologized.

j

IN: The last time we talked to you was

in 2006 when you performed at Meadow
Brook. What's new?
GG: I got married to my longtime
girlfriend, Dara Kravitz, and we have two

ten any "cleaner" since your marriage?
What can the Magic Bag audience expect
to hear from you?
GG: I really have a clean image — most of
the time. But since I made a DVD and CD of
dirty jokes, I guess I'll have to tell a few.

JN: Besides appearing on Letterman, Leno,

the Howard Stern Show, Saturday Night
Live and the New Hollywood Squares,
you're a very successful voice actor. Who
are your favorites?
GG: The wisecracking parrot Iago in
Aladdin, Mr. Beetle in Thumbelina, a dog in
Doctor Dolittle. Counting movies, TV pro-
grams, cartoons and commercials, I must
have done about 200 shows. I'm tired.

JN: Similar to the tsunami in Japan, you

joked about 9-11 just two weeks after the
collapse of the Twin Towers.
GG: I was doing a Friars Club roast
of Hugh Hefner in New York; and said
I had to catch a plane to Los Angeles,
but I couldn't get a direct flight — the
plane had to stop first at the Empire State
Building. The audience became horrified
and silent then started booing and hissing
and shouting, "Too soon."' I got nervous
and panicky and wanted to make amends
somehow. So I told the Aristocrats joke.

IN: The Aristocrats joke! That's the dirtiest,

filthiest joke in the history of dirty, filthy
jokes. What was the audience's reaction?
GG: Yeah, but for some reason, they
loved it. They were laughing their heads
off. My rendition of that joke made it into
The Aristocrats movie. And, by the way, no
companies fired me for the Empire State
Building joke.

IN: I heard some of the jokes after the
disaster in Japan. What were you thinking?
Didn't you realize the power of Twitter?
GG: The jokes might have been in poor
taste, but I've had a whole career of poor
taste. Look who objected to the jokes —
people like celebrity blogger Perez Hilton,
who's not exactly the arbiter of good taste.
Then the media picked it up like I was some
governmental spokesman making official
comments. I don't think the average man
in the street cares about what I said. I'm a
comedian. Japanese people were busy look-
ing for loved ones after the tsunami. I'm sure
they weren't logged onto my Twitter account.

IN: Your new memoir, Rubber Balls and

In his book, Gilbert Gottfried provides a

series of clip 'n' save jokes: "A Jew, an

Italian, a Polish guy and a midget walk

into a bar. The bartender says, 'What is
this, a joke?"'

I can't say this or I can't say that.

IN: Your remarks about being Jewish are

very appropriate.
GG: I'm proud of my Jewish heritage,
unlike some celebrities who are born
Jewish and disavow their heritage. Some of
them say they aren't practicing Jews. What
does that mean? You never hear a black
person say he's not a practicing African
American. So my family didn't keep
kosher or observe the Sabbath. And yet
we were Jewish. I loved my 104-year-old
bubbie (there's a picture of the comedian
with her in the book). About the only
"Jewish thing" I do nowadays is to eat a
kosher hot dog and a sour pickle once in
a while. I I

Liquor (St. Martin's Press), is hilarious —
and dirty. It's like reading 272 pages of your
standup act. Even the cover flaps and
credits are funny. Did you write the book
yourself, or did you have a ghostwriter?
GG: I did it myself. I would send sec-
tions to the editors, and they would tell me

Gilbert Gottfried performs 7 and 10
p.m. Friday, June 17, at the Magic
Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., in
Ferndale. $25. (248) 544-3030;
themagicbag.com .

a manmade disaster abetted by an
agency that has little oversight or
accountability. The film is a warn-
ing that the corps is still making the
same mistakes in other cities, poten-
tially exposing millions of people to a
future disaster.
Beginners is based
largely on the life
of director-writer
Mike Mills, a graphic
designer making his
feature film debut. A
few months after his
father's death, Oliver
(modeled after Mills
Melanie
and played by Ewan
Laurent
McGregor) meets
Anna, a pretty French Jewish actress
(played by French Jewish actress
Melanie Laurent, 28, a co-star of
Inglourious Basterds). Oliver's love
for Anna brings up memories of his
father, Hal, that are shown in flash-
back.
After 44 years of marriage, the
death of Oliver's mother allows Hal
(Christopher Plummer) to live very
openly as a gay man. Mills' real-life

mother was Jewish, but she wed his
father in a church and rarely men-
tioned being Jewish. Likewise, in the
film, Hal tells Oliver, "She (Oliver's
mother) took off her Jewish badge,
and I took off my gay badge, and we
got married."
In real life, Mills dated a French
Jewish woman, but didn't marry her.
However, Ewan McGregor has been
married to Eva Makaris, a French
Jewish production designer, since
1995; they have four daughters. Their
children are being raised Jewish, and
the whole family has visited Israel at
least twice.
Now in theaters is Midnight In Paris,
praised as one of Woody Allen's most
charming films. Owen Wilson plays Gil,
a "Woody-like" character who travels
to modern Paris with his family and
fiancee (Rachel McAdams). Nostalgic
for the "golden age" of Paris in the
'20s, Gil is magically transported to
that era where he meets luminaries
like Gertrude Stein and Salvador Dali
(Adrien Brody) and develops a crush
on a woman who keeps company with
Picasso and Hemingway. I I

ews

t

*a I Nate Bloom
am Special to the Jewish News
._
L.
l c Art Imitates Life
Fran Drescher (The Nanny), 53, has

w
W

returned to series TV as the star of
Ism the TVLand show Happily Divorced,
airing 10:30 p.m. Wednesdays.
The show, "inspired by Drescher's
real-life experiences," according to
press materials, "follows Los Angeles
florist Fran (Drescher), whose 18-year
marriage ends suddenly when her hus-
band announces he's gay. And if that
wasn't enough, he can't afford to move
out. They've figured out how to be
happily divorced, but her being single
and his being gay while living under
one roof is a whole other story."
Happily is
co-written
and co-
produced by

to)

Peter Marc
Jacobson,

Jacobson and Drescher

40

June 16 • 2011

53, who also
co-created
and co-
wrote The

Nanny. He and Drescher were high
school sweethearts and wed in 1978.
In 1999, they divorced (no kids), and
a few years later Jacobson came out
as gay. Robert Walden, 69, plays
Drescher's father, with Oscar-winner
Rita Moreno, 79, as her mother.

New Flicks

Opening Friday, June 17, are the
documentary The Big Uneasy and
Beginners, a semi -autobiographical
drama.
Uneasy, screen-
ing at Birmingham's
Uptown 8 for a week,
is directed by Harry
Shearer, 67, a part-
time resident of New
Orleans who is best
known as a comic
Harry Shearer actor (Spinal Tap,
the voice of many
Simpsons characters). Shearer gives
bona-fide scientific investigators
the chance to explain how the Army
Corps of Engineers made a series of
mistakes that led to the flooding of
New Orleans in 2005. It was largely