RIP Joan Rivers, Forever Outrageous

UPDATE 10/15: Rivers is included in the new book Tokin' Women: A 4000-Year Herstory.

Joan Rivers, a breakthrough artist who was the first comedienne to perform at Carnegie Hall, has died at age 81.

As well as her stand-up career, which continued well past retirement age, Rivers was a prolific writer. She authored the films The Girl Most Likely To... and Rabbit Test, which she directed. She also wrote 12 books, starting with Having a Baby Can Be A Scream and the best-selling The Life and Hard Times of Heidi Abramowitz. She appeared on the Late Night with Seth Meyers to promote her final book, Diary of a Mad Diva, on August 4.

"My heart is torn in half. She wasn't done," tweeted Sarah Silverman, who just showed off her vape pen before picking up a writing Emmy for her new HBO special. Silverman and Jimmy Kimmel traded insults in Joan's honor on a guest appearance where Silverman's "clutch cam" moment at the Emmys was reprised.

As self-deprecating as Phyllis Diller before her, Rivers was a favorite of Johnny Carson while telling jokes like, "At 30, a woman is an 'old maid'; at 90, a man is still 'a catch.'" But when Rivers accepted an offer for her own talk show on the Fox network, produced by her husband Edgar, Johnny never spoke to her again. Edgar committed suicide after Joan's show was cancelled, leaving her to raise their daughter Melissa alone. She did what she could after that, turning her shrewd eye outwards, and was open about the plastic surgeries she endured to stay viewable.

Rivers won an Emmy for her daytime talk show, and was nominated for Drama Desk and Tony awards for her performance in the title role of “Sally Marr ... and Her Escorts,” a 1994 Broadway play based on the life of VIP Lenny Bruce’s mother. Later, she won Celebrity Apprentice, headed the hilarious Fashion Police and did a reality TV show with her daughter Melissa.

It was on her reality show that Rivers smoked pot in 2012.  When TMZ asked her who else she'd smoked with back in the day, she replied, "Oh, Betty White, George Carlin, Woody Allen, Bill Cosby...we had fun."

Rivers and Lily Tomlin were the two females picked to honor Carlin after, a few days before his death, he was awarded the Mark Twain prize for humor. That night, she said of Carlin, "We met in Greenwich Village, but we couldn't pinpoint the date because he was high on acid and I was totally wasted."

“Can we talk?” was Rivers's catch phrase, and she talked up a storm about marijuana on an Access Live appearance (below), where she says she loves marijuana "because it makes you giggly," but that she rarely smoked it because "it makes you eat." But interestingly, a new study says that although females seem more sensitive to marijuana, it's males who most often get the munchees.

Emerald at the Emmys: Sarah Silverman Pulls Out Her Vape Pen and Takes Home a Statue for Writing

UPDATE 9/19: When Sharon Osbourne asked her to show her purse contents to 2019 Emmy watchers,  Silverman said, "Funny, I got in trouble a few years ago; now it's legal" as she showed she had two joints taped to the top (to keep them from getting smushed) plus a vape ("for emergiencies"). "I know people always think of me as a stoner, but I really just take a puff," Silverman said. "What's wrong with that, people?" a supportive Osbourne said, to which Sarah replied, "Absolutely nothing." 

Silverman lost in her Emmy category (for the now-cancelled Hulu series "I Love America") to the mostly mediocre SNL, but got the biggest laugh of the night by pretending to be asleep when the winner was called, and made news for calling out the Emmys and our culture for silencing comedians.

UPDATE 10/15: Silverman is included in the new book Tokin' Women: A 4000-Year Herstory.

Five Tokin Women were up for Emmys, presented at an awards ceremony tonight. But it's Sarah Silverman who is now trending, after she won an Emmy for writing her Variety Special We Are Miracles - just after she showed off her vape pen on the red carpet, calling it "liquid marijuana." Silverman stood out in her long, green dress on a night when almost every actress wore red.

Silverman said afterwards she didn't "have a puff-a-roony" until after the event. But kicking off her shoes and speaking about molecules hurtling through space for her speech seemed the stoniest since Whoopi Goldberg accepter her Oscar. Fox News noticed what a stony night it was and Kate Rogers said Sarah seems to be aging in reverse (meaning looking younger all the time). "The magical properties of weed!" commented Gabrielle Karol. "Is high the new drunk?" asked host Diana Falzone. Now that 23 states have some kind of legalized pot, it seems so, replied Chris Kensler.


Former SNLer Amy Poehler was up for Outstanding Lead Actress in Parks and Recreation and told the best joke of the night: introducing Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey she said, "Please welcome two men who are menu items at marijuana dispensaries."

Jane Fonda, who recently won an AFI lifetime achievement award, was nominated as Outstanding Guest Actress for The Newsroom; Fonda's nomination reel contained a scene in which her character is stoned.

Whoopi Goldberg Presents Moms Mabley also garnered two nominations, for Whoopi as Outstanding Narrator, and for Outstanding Documentary or Non-Fiction Special. Whoopi recently waxed rhapsodic about her cannabis vape pen in a Denver Post article. (She lost the narration prize to Jeremy Irons and the doc lost to PBS's JFK.)

COSMOS, co-produced by NORML board member Ann Druyan (pictured), was up for ten awards and won three. Druyan is the widow of Very Important Pothead Carl Sagan.

VIPs in the Male Category who were nominated include Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey as actors in True Detective and Anthony Bordain for hosting The Taste. Bourdain's Parts Unknown won for Outstanding Informational Series and was up for five more awards. The Colbert Report received five nominations, including outstanding Variety Series, vying with Real Time with Bill Maher for that award (and winning). Seth MacFarlane was nominated for Outstanding Character Voiceover Performance for Family Guy; he was also a producer on COSMOS.

Also a winner is Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis and Barack Obama for Outstanding Short-Format Live-Action Entertainment Program.

Who says stoners don't contribute to our culture?

Allison Janney beat out Jane Fonda as Best Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for "Masters of Sex" and also took home an Emmy as Best Supporting Actress for "Mom." A little while back, someone wrote in that her mom smoked pot with Allison back in college.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus beat out Amy Poehler for best actress in a comedy series. See her searching for a bag of weed on her old Christine series.

Kathy Bates played a marijuana smoker in the 2011-12 series "Harry's Law," but had to play a witch in "American Horror Story: Coven" to win an Emmy. Another "Coven" winner was Jessica Lange, whose character apparently snorts coke. Bates, who also played Alice B. Toklas's lover Gertrude Stein on film, wore an outfit (right) that almost looked like it was decorated with big silver pot leaves. 

While reigning as People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive, Adam Levine gave a fistpump in support of marijuana legalization on the program.

Prominent Women "Woman Up" for Drug Law Reform in Letter to Obama that Addresses Children's Concerns

Actress and Obama campaign co-chair Eva Longoria

What do Eva Longoria, Roseanne Barr, Margaret Cho, Rosario Dawson, Cameron Diaz, Scarlett Johannson, three Kardashians (Kim, Khloe and Kourtney), Demi Moore, Sarah Silverman, Susan Sarandon, Ani Difranco, Missy Elliott, Jennifer Hudson, Natalie Maines, Nicki Minaj, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, and authors Michelle Alexander and Naomi Klein have in common with John Hamm, Ron Howard, Richard Branson and Mike Tyson?

They've all signed an open letter to President Obama calling for an end to the injustice of the war on drugs. Also signing were civil rights leaders and advocates, members of the faith community, business leaders and athletes, all members of a coalition 175 strong lead by Russell Simmons and the Drug Policy Alliance.

The letter says:

"The greatest victims of the prison industrial complex are our nation’s children. Hundreds of thousands of children have lost a parent to long prison sentences for non-violent drug offenses, leaving these children to fend for themselves. Many of these children end up in the criminal justice system, which comes as no surprise as studies have shown the link between incarceration and broken families, juvenile delinquency, violence and poverty....

"Many of those impacted by the prison industrial complex are among your most loyal constituents. Your struggles as the child of a single mother allow you to identify with millions of children who long to be with their parents. We request the opportunity to meet with you to discuss these ideas further and empower our coalition to help you achieve your goals of reducing crime, lowering drug use, preventing juvenile incarceration and lowering recidivism rates. We stand with you, ready to do what is just for America." 

The letter also asks Obama to form a panel to review requests for clemency that come to the Office of the Pardon Attorney. 

Justin Bieber didn't sign but made news when he tweeted support. And the NAACP president told the US to man up and reform the WOD, tweeted the Marijuana Majority. In response to a tweet with a link to this article, MM responded that Ben Jealous also said "woman up" in his excellent interview (well worth a look).

Anna Farris Gets NZ Apology for "Pothead Stoner" Smear

Faris in "The Young and the Stoned" episode of TV's "Entourage."

Anna Faris was apparently correct when she said New Zealand men were rather loutish in an interview with George Lopez (12/14/2010), where the "Scary Movie" actress told a story about men yelling obscenities at her while filming "Yogi Bear" down under.

Tourism New Zealand spokes-man Ian Long responded to Faris's statements by saying, "In the same segment (of the TV show), she accepts an award for being a pothead stoner of the year... I don't think she has any credibility." (Thus Long felt it was necessary to smear Faris as both a "pothead" and a "stoner," in case one or the other wasn't enough.)

Faris was awarded the bong-shaped Stonette award from High Times magazine for her role in the 2007 film Smiley Face. The Lopez show segment featured a mock acceptance speech with a surprise (but not too surprising) guest.

Now a statement from the Tourism New Zealand agency reads, "The inference that Tourism NZ did not take Ms. Faris' comments seriously is very much regretted and was certainly not intended." She is promised "great Kiwi hospitality" the next time she's in the country.

Stonette of the Year 2010 was Drew Barrymore for Going the Distance.

Her fellow nominees were:

Kristen Stewart - The Runaways
Sarah Silverman - Saint John of Las Vegas
Meryl Streep - It's Complicated
Edie Falco - Nurse Jackie
Megan Fox - Jonah Hex