New York Newsday June 18, 2006 SUNDAY All Editions SECTION: FANFARE/ FAST CHAT: Q & A: Kathy Griffin By Frank Lovece Special to Newsday (Griffin photo: Newsday / Bill Davis) She can't get no respect, no respect at all. On the new second season of her reality show, "Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List" (Bravo, Tuesdays at 9 p.m.), she goes to Louisville, Ky. — and Louisville slugs her. No respect at all. She auctions off a weekend with herself for charity — and the winner turns it down. I'm tellin' ya, she gets no respect. OK, so the idea isn't new — it's all in the execution. Kathleen Mary Griffin — a successful standup comic with TV specials, commercials, everything but her own sitcom — isn't on any celebrity D-list any more than Rodney Dangerfield really got no respect. It's a satiric hook with which she baits Hollywood's hyperbolic, hypersensitive and just plain hyper. Born in Oak Park, Ill., outside Chicago, and reared both there and in nearby Forest Park, Griffin went to L.A. with her retiree parents, John and Maggie, who appear on her show. She did improv with the Groundlings and teamed with Janeane Garofalo on the comedy act "Hot Cup of Talk," later the title of Griffin's 1998 solo HBO special. By then Griffin had made a splash as Brooke Shields' helplessly venomous office antagonist on the sitcom "Suddenly Susan." Married in 2001 to IT consultant Matt Moline, and divorced in 2005, but now reconciled and living together, Griffin has performed for the troops in Iraq and appears in the upcoming "National Lampoon" movie, "The Last Guy on Earth." We interviewed her at a midtown Manhattan hotel, so tony and expensive, freelancer Frank Lovece had to wonder: If she's D-list, what list are the rest of us on? Griffin jump-started the interview by raising the issue of airbrushed photos on her Web site. GRIFFIN: I dunno! I met her one time at a party and took her picture. No, that's me with a lot of hair extensions, airbrushing and hand cream. NEWSDAY: Yeah, and, um, Photoshop. So much Photoshop! In fact, I don't even know that it's Photoshop; it might be something beyond. I have to tell you, you're prettier here in person than I'd expected. People constantly say that! And that's a compliment how? It's worse when you get, "You look good in person!" That's what I get a lot. Or, "Wow, you're thin in person!" As opposed to what? How fat and ugly I look on television? Or I'll get "You look soooo much better in person." OK, c'mon — you looked good in the "Tyra Banks Show" clip on your second-season premiere, and in that bra-and-panty weigh-in thing. And that was with 17 pounds to go . But anything for a laugh. See? You didn't look "fat" there. Good. "You don't look fat there." How is that a compliment? You don't go to a woman and say, "Hey, you don't look fat tonight!" Honest, I was just responding to your "17 pounds to go." But you didn't say I looked great, either. If you were like, "Oh, you look hot there," that's a compliment. No. "You don't look fat there." Oh, thank you. Let's talk about your act. One good audience you've found is gay men. Another is soldiers. So — would the perfect audience be gay soldiers? Oh, would it! Believe me, whenever I meet a gay soldier I am so happy. But, y'know, you can't ask. Do they tell? No. Not without getting their --- kicked. It was really hostile over there [in Iraq] toward gays. "Don't ask, don't tell" was more like, "Don't ask, or you'll put my life in danger." I was shocked at the hostility toward gay men over there. And also toward women, in large part. You're talking about the Iraqis? No, the soldiers! We're supposed to be better than that. I was shocked at the stigma still against gay guys. Your act still seemed to go over well, regardless. There was no gay stuff [in it there]. It's not the place to get on my gay soapbox. I teased them a couple of times about it. I said, "Normally, I might start a show by saying, 'Where are my gays at?' but I know I'm not supposed to do that here!" And I asked 'em, "You guys watch 'Oprah,' right?" And they got all nervous, and I go, "It doesn't make you gay to watch 'Oprah'! Don't worry!" And they laughed at stuff like that. But I wasn't gonna lecture them about it. You've gone through some hard times, what with your dog passing away, the divorce/reconciliation roller-coaster, the Lasik surgery that's led to some truly tragic eye problems and the indignities we see you go through on your show. Even with your professional success, do you ever get angry at it all? Yeah. I am angry all the time. The only thing I can say that makes me different from a lot of other comics is that, like, I'm also pretty happy. A lot of comics sort of manufacture tragedy. I feel really strongly that life throws enough --- your way. You don't have to manufacture ---. Y'know? — top —