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Griffin Takes Crowd 'Straight To Gutter'

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By CURTIS ROSS

cross@tampatrib.com

Published: March 22, 2009

CLEARWATER - Kathy Griffin promised "an evening of swearing and negativity" at the start of her first of two shows Saturday night at Ruth Eckerd Hall.

She delivered so well on the first promise that little of her material can be printed here. The negativity? Not so much, unless you happened to be a celebrity. Or a Scientologist.

Performing in Scientology's home base had Griffin slinging thetan jokes and raising her middle fingers toward Fort Harrison from the get-go.

What brings the Scientologists up on Griffin's radar is its celebrity adherents, because the rich and famous are Griffin's real targets.

"I'm going straight to the gutter. Come with me," Griffin said, apologizing to any of the hall's season subscribers among the crowd of 1,875 who might not have known what they were in for. "I am so not 'Mamma Mia,'" she said.

Among the victims: Wynonna Judd and her line of diet pills, which Griffin speculated are "tiny doughnuts"; Sarah Palin, so rich a mine of comic material Griffin said she "sent her a muffin basket once a week"; and Ryan Seacrest ("I don't like her").

That's the printable stuff. Riffs on Octo-mom Nadya Suleman, the Jonas Brothers and Nancy Grace came fast, filthy and furious, although nowhere near as furious as her take on singer Chris Brown, accused of battering girlfriend Rihanna, where Griffin swapped mud-slinging for righteous indignation.

Her tone softened ever so slightly toward show's end as she talked about her irascible mother, a celebrity in her own right thanks to her appearances on Griffin's "My Life on the D-List" TV series, and spending her birthday with Cher, one of the few celebrities she discusses with affection.

It's that hint of vulnerability in Griffin that makes her acidic humor enjoyable. She's the celebrity-obsessed David aiming her stones at Hollywood's giants, felling them - if only in her routines - for our amusement.

Reporter Curtis Ross can be reached at (813) 259-7568.

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