Comedian Lisa Lampanelli graduated from Syracuse University, got a graduate degree from Harvard and now employs that Ivy League education in what even she admits is probably a waste.
"I'm like the most highly educated person who says (expletive) for a living," the self-proclaimed insult comic says. "Honestly, do you need to go to Harvard to say (racial epithet)?"
Lampanelli is an insult comic in the true vein of the king of the insults, Don Rickles. It's a tough gig, she says, and few comics today can pull it off.
"You have to have no prejudice whatsoever. If I thought any one of my jokes was real, I couldn't do it," she explained in a phone interview from her native Connecticut. "You can't make fun of something you hate, or it comes through."
In the 30-minute interview laced with racial epithets and cursing, Lampanelli insisted her comedy is for laughs only. When she hits the Rialto Theatre stage Friday, she'll tear you apart, point out your every weakness, make fun of the color of your skin, the shape of your body, your looks, your job, the way you speak. No one is safe, especially those sitting in the front row.
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"People love being made fun of. People in some markets pay extra to sit in the front tables. But I understand it. When I went to see Rickles, I wanted him to make fun of me," Lampanelli, 44, said.
Lampanelli started doing stand-up 15 years ago after a successful but unsatisfying stint as a music journalist at Rolling Stone.
Growing up, she watched the Dean Martin celebrity roasts on TV, which informed her comedy. On those shows, celebrities bashed the guest of honor with often sharp, biting jabs.
"Which I love," Lampanelli said. "I get no pride in saying I'm a comic. I get pride in saying that I'm an insult comic."
In 2001, Lampanelli took part in her first televised roast — the New York Friars Club roast of Hugh Hefner. The following year, she bashed Chevy Chase, then moved over to Comedy Central to take on Jeff Foxworthy. Her most notable roast appearance was last year's bashing of Pamela Anderson, in which Lampanelli didn't hold back in her comments about Anderson and punk rocker Courtney Love.
The show sealed her reputation as the meanest woman in comedy and helped her land a role in the new movie "Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector," which opened last weekend.
"Lisa's awesome. She's a good friend of mine," Larry the Cable Guy (aka Dan Whitney) said after jokingly apologizing for anything off-color that Lampanelli might have said.
On stage, Lampanelli is bruisingly brash, bitter and almost hateful. Off stage, she's a pussycat, she says.
"I even give to charity. I'm like the white Oprah (Winfrey)," she explained. "Here's God, why he hates me: I heard once that you should give 10 percent to charity. So I do it, but then I tell everybody. I think God cancels it out. So even if I give $10 to someone with cancer, suddenly I'm no (expletive) good because I brag. So, you know what, I think God just hates me and that's why I don't have a boyfriend."
She takes her cue from Rickles, who once told her that the nicer she was off stage, the meaner she could be on stage "because people know you got a good heart and you're not serious," she says.
"I say (expletive) now that I wouldn't have said a year ago. I'm just so happy. I love it," she says.
She warns her audiences, though, to take a lesson from the title of her latest album, "Take It Like a Man."
"If you can't take it like a man, don't bother coming out," she warned. "I would rather play to 14 people who get it than 1,000 who are like, 'Why isn't she clean or politically correct?' They should be able to laugh at themselves and others."
Quick Take
Lisa Lampanelli in concert
When: 8 p.m. Friday
Where: Rialto Theatre
Tickets: $22 reserved floor seating, $18 for the balcony through the Rialto, 740-1000
Et cetera: 18-and-older show due to off-color material, adult themes and adult language
