Comedian shares life on D-List with A-List jokes

People either love or hate comedian Kathy Griffin.

Judging from the packed Abravanel Hall on Saturday, Utahns love her.

The foul-mouthed, red-headed, 49-year-old made up for never having visited Salt Lake City before by delivering a generous 100-minute set in front of an adoring audience, skewering pop-culture icons including Oprah Winfrey, Levi Johnston ("a pissed-off bitter queen"), Carrie Prejean, Jon Gosselin, the balloon boy, Marie and Donny Osmond, Nancy Grace, Paula Abdul, Britney Spears and many more, including Ryan Seacrest, of which she snarked, "She does a good job."

Despite frequently joking that she was pregnant with Johnston's baby, Griffin has embraced the LGBT community and they showed up in full force to support her. Griffin was tuned into her audience, remarking early on that all of lesbians in the crowd must have been Tivo-ing Suze Orman to come to Griffin's show, and later apologized to the "seven straight guys" in the crowd for making them sit through her act.

She needn't have apologized, because Griffin's gift is that she is readily identifiable to the rest of us who will never walk down a red carpet. Her act is party based on her successful, Emmy-winning show "My Life on the D-List," in which she recounts awkward and embarrassing run-ins with movie stars and pop singers. She also connects with the audience because her stream-of-consciousness, type-A aggressive act boldly proclaims what so many of us feel inside

Before the show, in an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune , she promised all-new material, but she didn't live up to that, by recycling many jokes about her box-of-wine-addicted 89-year-old mother that she took from her recently released comedy album "Suckin' It for the Holidays."

But Griffin's fast-and-furious delivery, with her right hand tightly gripping the mic stand and her left gesticulating wildly, ensured that any dry spells were short-lived. Most of her jokes are unprintable in a newspaper, but she connected with lines about her well-documented plastic surgery experiences, which she calls "dental work." She added, "I have more staples in my head than a f------ Office Depot."

dburger@sltrib.com