On August 11, two-time Emmy Award-winning comic Judy Gold made a welcome Cherry Grove debut, playing to a rapturous crowd at the completely sold-out Community House, which was stuffed with as many seats as it could possibly hold—about 160. She loved us, we loved her, she kibitzed with us, and we kibitzed back, as she riffed on so many pertinent annoyances, large and small, that we all qvetch about and only wish that we could do so this eloquently. In short, she kept us spellbound, as she held forth on the political climate, mothers, lovers, children, therapists, food fads, Jewish traditions and foibles, LGBT foibles, and almost everything else.
Aging and body part replacements—who knew that prosthetic knees come in male and female? Recently fitted with a male knee replacement, Gold quipped, “I am the original tran-knee!” This led her directly to Caitlin Jenner: “She’s a lesbian, but she can’t come out, because she’s a Republican.” And that was just the beginning of her barbs about people from the party that makes us see red.
Gold said that she now resists looking at her phone, as part of her morning ritual, because she dreads finding out, “What’d he do now?” Continuing her diatribe about the orange one, she exclaimed, “He is the only one who would make American Jews want to move back to Germany!”
She admitted, “My therapist has the same name as my mother—Mommy,” and rued finding out that her therapist seems to have almost perfect offspring, as compared to her own only-too-human teenage sons. And she let us know what it’s like to have a life partner who’s a therapist—go process that!
Our heroine let us in on her pet peeve about the burgeoning alphabet soup that seems to be adhering to what was once just LGBT—Q, and we can’t seem to agree whether it means queer or questioning; I; A; F—it goes on. The saintliness of the holier-than-thou gluten free, the vegan, the dairy free, kale worshippers, and the perpetually dieting all came in for Judy’s jibes. She asked us to imagine a vegan cruise—no pigging out here. For herself, she confessed, “I’m on a plant-based diet: I smoke pot and then I eat.” Upper West Siders putting on airs, Israeli men with double standards, inappropriate tattoos—all were skewered.
Needless to say, Gold had pointed questions and comments for the Leatherman in the front row—me—and I later reminded her that we’d done this before, 12 years ago, at Mid-Atlantic Leather weekend, when she dubbed me “Leather Jew” and asked if I had a leather yarmulke—I do, so I showed her, backstage here, that, in her honor, I had worn it under my motorcycle cap.
Visit www.JudyGold.com to find out when Judy Gold is coming your way—and go!