Up until a few weeks ago, I think the most impressive giveaway opportunity I had ever been contacted with was from someone at Warner Brothers who emailed to ask if I'd advertise a competition to write jokes for Lisa Lampanelli. What would the winner get? An autographed photo of Lisa Lampanelli. I realize beggars can't be choosers, especially when I ate a bag of baked lays dipped in off-brand peanut butter for dinner tonight, but I think I actually laughed out loud when I read that email. Because that's like a competition to kill yourself and the winner gets raped. Pass, thank you.
Last week, however, I got an email about a giveaway opportunity that I was actually pretty excited about. It was from a promoter at the Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood Hotel & Casino asking if we'd do a giveaway to promote Kathy Griffin's upcoming performance on August 11th. Now, I love Kathy Griffin just as much as the next girl, but after reading his email, I knew I had to immediately contact two people: my mom and Dan.
I'm going to say something about my mother, and I need you to know that I am in no way just saying this for comedic effect: my mother loves Kathy Griffin absolutely more than me and perhaps slightly more than Evie. Yeah. I know. Them be fightin' words. If Kathy Griffin and Evie were dangling from a cliff and Diane could only save one, I think she'd a.) push me over for good measure, despite not being involved in this little Sophie's Choice to begin with; b.) think about her options for an obscenely long amount of time; and c.) ultimately decide to grab both of their paws and jump in some sort of a dramatic, twisted, three-way, feline Thelma & Louise style ending.
Truthfully, as I've discussed before, my mom is pretty supportive of this cat fashion show of a blog and my writing in general, despite it being primarily about body fluids, laziness and emotions. However, she thinks I'm greatly in need of a mentor. And who does she think that mentor should be? Kathy Griffin. Because besides being a fan, my mom also thinks she knows Kathy Griffin (or "my Kathy", or "my best friend Kathy Griffin", as she's more frequently referred to) and Diane knows that if I emailed Kathy with a few samples of my writing, she'd be on the next flight to DC to spoon with me in bed and tell me what to do the next time I get sued.
I, however, feel slightly less confident about that. First of all, I don't think Kathy Griffin is somewhere in LA just waiting to receive an email from me that says, "Hi Kathy. My name is Meg and I'm a moderately well-known comedy blogger who has emotions and diarrhea. Hold me?" Secondly, why is the answer to everything in my family always "email Kathy Griffin"? I hate to break it to my parents, but we don't actually know Kathy Griffin, nor do we know her email address. Every time I need guidance, both of my parents' go-to suggestion is always, "email Kathy about it." Really? Where do you suppose I do that? Kathy@Griffin.sup? "So google her." GOOGLE HER?! What sort of Pleasentville-like reality are my parents living in that they think I can just google Kathy Griffin's personal email address. I can't even track down my lawyer's new email address, and that's a woman who's cell phone number I have. "Well, use the contact page on her website." And that's when I'm forced into this uncomfortable position where I want to tell my parents that that email will probably never see the light of day, but there's such an adorable amount of faith and hope in their bright little eyes that she sits there reading her public contact email all day and suddenly I feel like I'm telling my kids that there's no Santa Claus, except in this situation I'm the parent, my parents are my kids and Santa Claus is Kathy Griffin and wooooo! It's just to much for a Sunday. So I'm like, "......Yes...I'll go do that...'right now'," and skulk away into the shadows hoping that they'll forget we ever just had that conversation. It's exhausting. And it happens more than you'd think. Surprisingly.
And then there's Dan. Poor, poor, Dan. You see, Dan is in a bit of a conundrum. He loves Kathy Griffin as well and apparently her new book was a very meaningful read for him. Now Dan is on a mission to somehow personally convey to Kathy Griffin how much she means to him. (Seriously, I can't tell you how many late-night drunken conversations we've had that end in Dan slurring about how if he could just talk to Kathy...) The problem here is that because Dan works in PR, he uses his Twitter account for business, so he doesn't want tweets about field research in Lebanon sandwiched between, "@kathygriffin ZOMG OH HAI GIRLFRIEND!! LOVE 2 LOVE U!!!!1" Because if there is a faster or more efficient way to out yourself in the office not involving homoerotic photographs, I'd love to know what it is.
I keep telling Dan that he should make a second Twitter account for the sole purpose of tweeting Kathy Griffin, but apparently he doesn't want to be That Guy. But you know what guy he will be? The guy who uses my blog to openly gush about his love for Kathy Griffin. That's right, after I told my mom about Hard Rock's email, I told Dan and suggested on the off chance that she see this blog one day, he should take this opportunity to tell her everything he's ever wanted to say but can't. Five minutes later, this letter was born:
Hi Kathy,I love you, and I've been wanting to tell you this for so long. I've been wanting to twat you (thinking it would be the most direct way to get to you) forever, but unfortunately I use my Twitter for only professional stuff. Which prevents me from tweeting most of the real things in my life, like, "Kathy you gave me #tears when you introduced Maggie to Don Rickles " or, "What's taking Pizza Bolis so long?" - though I did break that rule when I found out Levi and Bristol were getting back together. WTF! (update: they're broken up now but I'm still shaken).I'm a fan of yours. A huge fan, actually. I've seen all your stand-ups (taped, sadly), most of the D-lists, read your book, and follow you on Twitter. In the past year I've gone from a casual fan to being a serious having-gay-romantic feelings fan. You're hysterical, and everything you do is my favorite... but I also feel like its a lot more than that. I loved your book, and how heartfelt and honest you were in it...and so, now that I hopefully have your attention, I'm going to come out and say, I'M YOUR NUMBER 1 FAN!!!! (oh, and I'm also a red-head).Love,Dan
God bless him. God bless his heart.
So will we be doing the Hard Rock/Kathy Griffin giveaway today? Of course we will. I think Diane would kill me, raise me from the dead, and kill me again if we didn't. The day I got the email from Hard Rock, I called her to be like, "Oh, guess what? Your best friend is doing a gig at the Hard Rock in Florida and a promoter contacted me about doing something on the blog about it." "Why did they contact you?" she asked. "I don't know. I guess we have a similar humor and fanbase?"
And then from somewhere deep, deep in her bowels, she screamed in a guttural way that I didn't even know she was capable of, "WHAT DID I SAY?! WHAT DID I SAY, MEGHAN CATHERINE?! WHAT HAVE I BEEN TELLING YOU FOR YEARS AND YOU LAUGH AT ME?!?!"
"I know, I know..."
"SAY IT. SAY WHAT I'VE BEEN TELLING YOU FOR YEARS."
"...That I should email Kathy Griffin because you think our humor is similar."
"AND NOW WHAT'S HAPPENED?"
"Sigh. A consultant for Hard Rock wants me to promote her gig."
"WHY?!"
"Because our humor is similar."
"AND NOW YOU WILL EMAIL MR. PAMPALONE BACK IMMEDIATELY AND TELL HIM THAT YOU'D BE HONORED."
"His name is Mike, mom."
"YOU WILL NOT RUIN THIS FOR BOTH OF US BY CARELESSLY TOSSING AROUND HIS CHRISTIAN NAME!!!!"
I genuinely can't tell if my mom's zeal about this giveaway is because she thinks this is a good networking move for my career, or if because she thinks in some ass-backwards that this might result in her meeting her best friend and idol, Kathy Griffin? Either way, we're totally doing the giveaway.
In honor of Kathy Griffin's upcoming performance at Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood Casino & Hotel, on Wednesday August 11th at 8pm (tickets info available here), we will be giving away two copies of her new book, "Official Book Club Selection: A Memoir According to Kathy Griffin", and two ultra bad-ass Hard Rock watches.
For those of us who aren't math-savvy, that's a total of four winners. Hellz. Yeah. To enter, just leave a comment in today's comment section and I'll think of one of my fail-proof, highly scientific ways to pick winners (probably involving my mom and Dan, let's not lie) and let you know the results tomorrow.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be celebrating my ticket to a lifetime of piña coladas, loud farts and full-time blogging, should you need me.
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