Pam Roast

I’ve never been into celebrity roasts. I think I watched a couple of times back in the days of Dean Martin, and guess I just never got it. But a couple reviews (one in the New York Times) published prior to the Pam Roast piqued my interest and gave me the idea that this roast might actually be interesting transgressive. But ultimately, it was about as dull as I remember the old roasts to have been. I really appreciate good dirty jokes--but where were they? I mean, how many jokes about the size of Tommy Lee’s penis and Pamela Anderson’s vagina and breasts can one take? How transgressive is that?

The only funny comedians (mostly, I think, because they actually worked to prepare real material) were the women: Lisa Lampanelli and Sarah Silverman. Bea Arthur didn’t have to write any material, she just read from Pam’s latest novel. Brilliant. But Courtney Love was a true embarassment. Unfortunately, if viewers were keeping score on the rock musicians who appeared, Courtney made the vastly inferior artist Tommy Lee seem positively smart and literate by comparison. (The song that Tommy Lee and his group “performed”/lipsynched, however, was horribly boring & conventional indie rock.)

At least PETA made some money out of it, I guess. I’m going back to my practice of avoiding celebrity roasts.