Calling a Truce in My (Fake) Twitter War With Sandra Bernhard

Sandra put me in the dog house

I met a cute KIT212 reader at Boston Market a trendy cafe in Chelsea recently who told me how much he'd enjoyed my Twitter "War" With Sandra Bernhard post from last month, and it reminded me that it was high time to finally reveal the answer to the Which Was the Toxic Tweet poll, where you voted on which thing I wrote caused the snarky comedienne to block me from following her on Twitter.

As you can see, 162 people weighed in, and a whopping 74% of you thought it was my Dental Fuck You Hall of Fame post that made Sandy decide, "Honey, I've had enough of your ass." As I stated in my original post, I am not completely certain which tweet did the trick, but I am sure it was not that one. (Sorry, voters.) That was one of the oldest ones and she wrote to me several times afterward, and even referred a friend to me to promote his swimwear line on my site. The Kim Clijsters tweet was older too, and she was fun about the Snatch Batch. Which narrows it down to two. Although she is a huge fan of the Williams sisters, it's hard for me to believe she went out of her way to read my blog so thoroughly as to find my Venus and Serena "crack" buried in a post about Tracy Austin's old line with Avon. So with those possibilities eliminated, it leads me to believe with near certainty that this was the offending tweet:

What I meant by this was that Margaret Cho -- whom I know Sandra is friends with -- seems to be conquering the world again, and I think Sandra should be too, hence why I think she should meet Cho's agent. After giving it some thought, though, I can now see how a thin-skinned celebrity -- wait, isn't that redundant? -- could read a slight into this. This is, after all, the woman who titled one of her tours "I"m Still Here, Damn It" -- and that was over a decade ago. You can imagine how she's feeling now. (A less likely possibility is that she felt it was a dig at her agent, who has been with her a long time, but I think that's a bit of a stretch.) What's ironic is that the majority of the people I know are quick to call Sandra "irrelevant" or "past her prime" -- "I might care that she blocked me -- if it was 1988!" was a common refrain from friends who heard about the "scandal" -- yet I'm the first to stick up for her. Not because those types of sell-by-date comments are completely inaccurate, but because that's what happens to ALL comedians. (Ask Joan Rivers about this.) Sandra was The Female Voice of comedy of the late '80s/early '90s -- she was HILARIOUS! -- and then the torch was passed. And if I'm not mistaken, she passed it to Margaret. I think one of the main reasons Kathy Griffin has held on as long as she has -- and God knows she's terrified of Chelsea Handler's rising popularity -- is because the entertainment world is so different than when Sandra and Margaret were on top. With literally hundreds of cable channels, Web sites and celebrity magazines, it's a lot easier to stay in the public's consciousness now than it was 25 years ago.

Still, I saw Sandra perform with Rosanne Cash a few weeks ago -- Rose kindly got us seated near the front, but I didn't have any interaction with either of them after the show -- and Sandy was as sharp, witty and hilarious as ever, a nice reminder that live performances are where she excels ... and that she's still here, damn it!

So with this post I will officially put this fake Twitter war with Sandra Bernhard to bed, and let go of any hope that she will one day unblock me -- you know, her fan who pays money(!) to see her perform and buys her books and albums. Whether it was the tweet about Margaret Cho's agent that soured you on me, or the cumulative effect of our interaction, I'll never know. But it won't be the first time I've rubbed someone the wrong way. And seeing as people are often annoyed by the people who remind them most of themselves, Ill take it as a compliment, honey.

UPDATE: At some point Sandra unblocked me!