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Wednesday, November 25, 3:30 p.m.  It’s a time, date and place I will never forget.  It was the day before Thanksgiving, at my parents’ house in what is coincidentally Lisa Lampanelli’s former hometown, and it was the first time anyone had ever said those magic words to me, surprising me as I answered the phone:

“Heeeeeeey faggot!”

I knew my interview with her had begun.  Of course, laughing, I also had to run upstairs so as to not shock and offend the family. After all, Lampanelli is known for being hilarious, but Comedy’s Lovable Queen of Mean also isn’t afraid to use some of the more colorful words in the English language.  So if you’re easily shocked, you’ve officially been warned.

After thanking her for taking time just before a holiday to chat (“Oh yes, in between cooking and giving to the poor at the food bank, I’m really squeezing you in.”), Lampanelli confirmed she will be making not one, but two stops in her former home state coming up. “Foxwoods MGM Grand in December and Torrington (the Warner Theater) in January. That’s what they always do. They always book me some place awesome with a gorgeous stage and professional staff and then they book me someplace halfway in between shit and crap just so that I can bring me down to earth and my price comes down.”

"Chocolate, Please" by Lisa Lampanelli
Click here to order in print from amazon.com

Biting the hand that feed her?  Not really. The Friars Club says they only roast the ones they love, a mantra Lampanelli holds dear. “Peoples’ warmth and their intentions are what you really see on stage. There could be some asshole ... ‘No, I love black people! No, I love Jews! Jews aren’t that bad’ and you know it’s a big fucking racist, you know? Me and Rickles, those that do insults and stuff, we’re insulting everybody equally so it brings everybody together.”
She added, “The only people I don’t make fun of are people I hate, so I leave the French out of it. Really, shave your underarm hair. They all look like lesbos over there with the underarm hair flapping in the breeze. Am I right?”
Lampanelli’s had a busy year, bookended by an HBO special that debuted in January and was released on CD, “Long Live the Queen,” and more recently released her book, “Chocolate, Please,” which discusses her long period exclusively dating black men (Katt Williams said at one Comedy Central roast that she had “fucked more black men then Equifax”). She gave that up recently.

“My shrink seriously told me I was a racist for not giving other men the chance,” Lampanelli said. “So, I was like, you know what? Maybe she’s right, I’m just being very shallow.  So what I did was I took a year off dating. I’ve gone to codependency rehab, took a year off and I was like, ok, now I just want to date nice guys, let’s see what happens. Any shape, size. I would even go, you know, retarded or maybe a cripple in a wheelchair if they were nice guys. So luckily, with the Italian (she’s now seeing), I didn’t even have to settle for some gimp in a chair!”

Lampanelli got engaged to that Italian in August, but it hasn’t changed her comedy style, even if the topics shift. “I already have 27 minutes on his nut sack alone. His nuts are freakishly huge and quite off-putting I must tell you. When you walk into a bedroom and his nuts are in his asshole you have to write about it. So I really talk a lot about that, I talk about our relationship, because  we’re two big wops, you know?  There’s struggles.  And I still do the insult comedy because that’s what I’m known for and I like to do.  I like calling people cunts and all that stuff. Fags seem to enjoy it, what can I tell you?”

The book also shares some of her best roast comedy moments, which she says takes a lot of work. “The roasts take 30 days if you want to do them right, to prepare for them.  So it’s just hell. It’s the worst 30 days every year.  But obviously worth doing because you’ve got the viewership.  Comedy Central, they really get into it.”

"Long Live the Queen" by Lisa Lampanelli
Click here to order in CD form from amazon.com
Click here to order in MP3 form from amazon.com

Of all the things she’s been accomplishing this year, Lampanelli says she’d prefer just working the road if she could. “If I didn’t have to do one more second of TV and radio, other than Howard (Stern), because that’s just really fun... if I could just sell 2,000 to 6,000 tickets a night without doing any media and that’s the level I got I’d be totally happy just doing that.”

She added, “I have a new life coach ...  She asked, ‘What’s your goal?’ I’ve already hit it! I’ve already got it! So my career goals are done.  What I really want to do is develop kind of a personal life and balance and all that stuff. I have to learn how to meditate because I’m a really cranky cunt.”

Lisa Lampanelli will appear Dec. 18 at the MGM Grand at Foxwoods in Ledyard, and on Jan. 16 at the Warner Theatre in Torrington.

More quick hits from Lisa Lampanelli

On whether her comedy will change now that she’s engaged:

“A lot of my material is about me or about my family, or about my fiance or friends. It’s still hardcore ... I do everything in the same cadence. ... short and sweet.  I don’t do comedy like a girl, tell stories and you want to just punch them in the clit.  I just (perform) punchline, punchline, punchline.  It really is kind of the same rhythm of the show.  I didn’t really have to change anything up. If I had decided to be one of those awful unfunny alternative comics, I would have to change to telling stories with no punchlines. That’s not going to happen really soon because Margaret Cho is still alive and still doing that.”

On whether she still spends time in Connecticut:

“I come to Connecticut once every couple of weeks to make sure my parents are still alive and that I’m still in the will even though now that I’m fabulously rich, I don’t need their fuckin’ money anymore, alright? I come there fairly often, but it’s really boring to me because I’m single. There’s no real social life.  It’s pretty much marry, with kids, in Connecticut so I don’t know how you do it, fag, I really don’t know.  More power to you! God bless you!”

On why she left her first journalism job:

“I was a feature reporter one summer. Then they hired me right out of college and then they put me on a beat. So instead of interviewing bands and stuff I was reporting on sewer commissions meetings and shit.  And so guess what I did? I totally plagiarized stories from the other papers so I wouldn’t even have to go to the meetings.  They said ‘We’re taking your beat away’ and I said ‘Suck it! I’m going to New York City.’ Right out of some Joan Crawford type thing. ‘Ah, screw you, it ain’t my first time at the rodeo!’ ”

On how her comedy brings people together:

“I get lots of fan letters saying stuff like ‘We all feel like we’re on the same page. Me and my black friend and gay friend and asian friend came together.’ It’s like, It’s about we all have similarities and we’re different.  I didn’t even give it that much thought when I started doing comedy that way because I just liked to call people names.  I think it’s fun to say chink. It’s hilarious! So now it’s just like, OK, people are going to get the point.”