On TV: My Life on the D-List's Kathy Griffin is lewd, rude and on the ball

As many of my postings reflect, I watch more reality TV than I probably should. It will come in handy when I launch my new show. In the interim, I either love or love to hate watching certain shows as a means to rest my hyperactive intellect.

One such show I never before watched in its entirety, until today, is Bravo TV's My Life On The D-List. The show's star is R-rated comedienne Kathy Griffin (not to be confused with Kathie Lee Gifford: Kelly Ripa's predecessor as Regis Philbin's stage-right hand woman).

Kathy Griffin is lewd, crude and on the balls ball (about some things, anyway). She's also mercenary. "I'm quite motivated by money," she said in an episode featuring her corporate gig in Beaver Creek. Corporate audiences are not her crowd, she confessed, but if they meet her price quote, she's there.

Since I spent this morning abed, nursing a bug, I had the pleasure of watching Kathy travel to Iraq to entertain American troops who are stationed there (a journey she says many other entertainers decline to make). Her admirable goal: to make them laugh, if only for a day.

Some of Kathy's jokes about - and during - the trip classified her as an ugly American. The same can be said about much of her stateside act, too. Nonetheless, I suspect Kathy expresses, on camera and onstage, many politically incorrect thoughts that some audience members might be afraid to share.

Whether or not one agrees with or is offended by Kathy's views, one has to hand it to her. The lady's woman's got cujones. Moreover, she's cracked the codes governing the incestuous world of reality TV (where being on one show practically guarantees appearances on others), making money and staying in the public eye.

Kathy's love life is less successful, however. Although she's got a phat, A-list-looking house, lucrative, high-profile career, and renewed contract, I guess even she can't have it all. ###