By Michelle Macirella

Comedian Lisa Lampanelli, aka the “Queen of Mean,” is not so mean as I found out in a recent interview with her.  Probably best known for her Comedy Central celebrity roasts of Chevy Chase, Jeff Foxworthy and Pamela Anderson (to name a few) and soon to be seen as a contestant on the new season of Celebrity Apprentice, she is known for her sharp wit and raunchy jokes.  Lisa likes to tell it like it is and she is loved for it.  Besides her regular fan following she also has many celebrity fans like Jim Carey who describes her well:  “If you want to see real racial integration, go to a Lisa Lampanelli show. That’s where you’ll find people of every color and creed having a good laugh at themselves and each other.  She’s more than a standup. She’s a standout.”

Often controversial, but always good-hearted, Lisa is also known for her generosity. Like last May when she decided to turn a bunch of protesters at her show in Topeka, Kansas into fundraisers.  Forty-eight anti-gay protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church came to picket her show because she is agay rights supporter.  Lisa said she would donate $1,000 per protester to the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the nation’s oldest HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care services provider. She decided to round up and gave a check for $50,000 to GMHC.

Lisa didn’t start out in comedy though.  She began her career in journalism, but said comedy was always in the back of her mind as something she wanted to try.  When she saw a class being offered in comedy and how to put together your first five minutes on stage she knew it would help her get started.  “I had a great first experience and I just kept going.  And by the time I would start having bad shows or whatever I liked it enough and was enough into it that I felt this is something I want to do –  it’s pretty clear that it’s more good than it is bad,” she said.  With the journalism thing, I didn’t think I was a great editor, but was a decent writer.  So I’m good at it, but I’m not great at it, and I wanted to do something that I could be great at.”

During my conversation with the notorious “Queen of Mean” I found she’s not only warm, down-to-earth and of course funny, but she has a soft spot, and his name is Parker.  He is a cute Yorkie mix, who she named after actress Sarah Jessica Parker, and he lives with Lisa and her husband, Jimmy in New York City.

We had the chance to talk about many things including how she found Parker and why she chose adoption.  She also talked about the importance of being emotionally ready to commit to adopting a dog, a trait that is so important and, unfortunately, not all pet owners possess.  “Once Jimmy and I figured out that we were emotionally available enough to get a dog, because that’s like a big struggle for me like, Oh my God, suppose he dies and then I’ll be totally devastated, but I was like, you know, it’s worth the risk.  We have to do it.  We have to emotionally commit.”

There’s a pet store near Lisa’s home that features adoptable animals every Sunday.  She sent Jimmy to go check it out and see what it was like.  Unfortunately, they only had cats and large dogs, and they didn’t want a big dog while living in a New York City apartment.  Many dog owners will agree when they found and adopted their dog, it was meant to be, and Lisa is no different.   However, in typical Lisa Lampanelli style, Parker’s fate rested on one of her lunch dates.   “So the next week I was walking by and I was kind of disheartened; I didn’t think it was going to happen.  And Parker and some other Yorkie type dog were sitting outside and I was like, Oh my God, he’s so frickin’ cute.  That’s my dog.  BUT … I had a lunch appointment.  Now c’mon, food comes first – please.  So if it’s meant to be this dog will be there when I get back … and he was.”

Besides being emotionally ready, Lisa also knew she preferred a dog over having kids.  “What I’ve noticed in the past like 10 years or so is that I‘ve never looked at a kid or a baby and gone, Oh my God how cute! And I noticed that EVERY day like there would be tons of cute little dogs that I go, Oh my God they’re so cute! And if I’m noticing dogs and not kids I’m clearly not meant to have any kids.”  She and Jimmy would sit on a park bench when they first met and pick out different dogs they liked as they walked by, in an effort to narrow it down.  “But then, when the right one comes along, it’s not even anything that you thought it was because he [Parker] is just a mutt, but he is like perfect; he’s so hysterical,” she said.

And when asked why she chose adoption:  “It just doesn’t strike me as practical for the world (not that I care about the world that much), but I just didn’t want to, you know go, Oh one that’s out there isn’t good enough for us.  I mean me and Jimmy are a couple of mutts.  We’re not purebred, believe me, yet we still have value in the world I think.  So this is the way to go.”

She also added her feelings on purebreds saying they always struck her as not that cute. “Like they look too perfect.  They look like out of a frickin’ calendar,” she said.  She wanted a dog that didn’t look perfect and wasn’t perfect.   When she got Parker, she realized another benefit of not getting a purebred is that she didn’t get the bad traits of the breed.  Yorkies can be yappy, but Parker is very mellow and only barks when there’s someone at the door.  She says he’s the perfect dog.  “Everybody says there’s something special about him and I’m like, Yeah because he’s not some entitled little purebred.  He’s not a Paris Hilton; he’s more of a Sarah Jessica Parker really.”  When I asked her if she knew what breeds make up Parker’s mix she told me, “We don’t even really know what he is. He’s definitely got a little Yorkie in him.  He’s got a little Chihuahua in him, we think, because he’s got those big ears and that long tail.  And the rest … just his mom was a whore.”

Neither Lisa nor Jimmy had any pets growing up.  So when she went to adopt Parker she didn’t know anything about adoption and hadn’t researched anything.  “I went in to adopt the dog and I said, I want that one. And they’re like, Okay.  And I go, Well, what do I need to buy? Because I figured I had to buy stuff that day and just take him home. They’re like, Oh no, no we check your references.  And I’m like, Are you doing this because I’m me?  Like how dare you?  Just because I talk dirty in my act doesn’t mean I’m going to talk dirty to my dog.  And they’re like, No, no we do that for everybody.  Classic me, I thought they were just targeting me.”

This past fall Lisa got a chance to put her adoption experience to use when she made a guest appearance on the television comedy Whitney.  She played a strict shelter owner who gives the main character, Whitney and her boyfriend a hard time when they come in to adopt a dog.  Lisa said Whitney, played by actress Whitney Cummings, has met Parker and loves him – she and Lisa have done a couple gigs together in real life.  “Every time she emails me she asks about the dog.  I love that, we don’t ask each other about our boyfriends or husbands. It’s just, How’s your dog?  It was so cute when that part came up and she wrote that in because I’m like, Oh my God isn’t that hysterical. Because that’s probably how I’d be now.  If I had a rescue I’d have to hold it over people’s heads that they weren’t good enough.”

Like many of us whose personalities change after we adopt our dogs and we find ourselves doing the very same things we may have criticized other dog owners for, Lisa admits she has also changed since she got Parker.  “I have really expensive rugs and it doesn’t matter.  It’s like as soon the dog came in I was like, Aaahh so what.  But if Jimmy had even put a spot on the rug I would have been like, We are getting a divorce.  But this dog could do whatever he wants on the rugs and I’m like, Ohhh, its okay.  So I’ve turned into one of those people.”

She said she was also never a fan of dog owners dressing  their dogs up in little outfits, but now whenever somebody gives her an outfit she puts it right on Parker (despite the fact that Parker is not a fan either).  And she didn’t understand why people couldn’t just be strict when they were eating and resist the urge to feed their dogs pieces of food from their meal.  But when she got Parker she understood. “From day one, I was the worst.  The minute he cased the bacon it was all over.”

I was also curious if Lisa brings Parker on tour with her and if he’s made it into her act yet.  “A couple times I used to bring him out on-stage a bit with Jimmy because people love seeing a dog on-stage because he’s that cute.  I’d do my jokes about his name and things that would happen to me and him on planes and stuff.  The first couple times he came out on-stage he was so excited and ran right out to me, and then he got a little shy.  I think the big, big crowds really freak him out. So I’m like, Dude … c’mon, get with the program. Earn your keep.”

As I posed my final question, asking Lisa if there was something fabulous about Parker she wanted people to know that no one had asked her before, I was hoping for a classic Lisa Lampanelli response.  She didn’t disappoint: “Just that all your dogs suck compared to mine and you should just not even look at him or gaze upon him for the jealousy that you will have.”