by Janice Watkins | photo contributed

“I’m so angry with these people in Topeka.”

I casually laugh, thinking a joke is about to hit me full-on, as these are the first words that follow our exchange of “hello’s” and “how are you’s.” What else would you expect from comedy’s crowned “Queen of Mean,” Lisa Lampanelli? What I expected was the sassy, insult-spewing diva that takes the stage and holds no prisoners. What I received was the “off-stage” version of Lampanelli. Remove the stage and there sits a woman – angry, hurt by injustices, saddened by once-loyal fans and overcome with emotion by what takes place in our city.

About to take the stage this Friday, May 20 at 8 p.m. at the Topeka Performing Arts Center, Lampanelli is preparing for a show unlike any other that she has encountered in her 21 years of experience. She was prepared for the Westboro Baptist Church, but she was not prepared for the seeming backlash on her, as a result.

“This whole WBC [Westboro Baptist Church] thing makes me sick. It’s disgusting,” Lampanelli said, voice cracking. “I just expected more from my gay followers. They know these assholes are coming to protest this show, so they know they should come out and I don’t even want them to buy tickets. I just want them to come and stand outside,” she finishes overcome with emotion.

Following an active week on Twitter, in which she has received several messages from fans refusing to come to Friday’s scheduled show, due to the likely presence of the Westboro Baptist Church, compounded by fans accusing the comedian of using the probable protest to sell more tickets, Lampanelli was more tears than her normal jeers.

“I play the Midwest. I don’t group Midwestern towns together. I don’t group together, you know, certain parts of the country,” Lampanelli choked out. “I know there’s hateful assholes all over the place it, this, just really bothers me.”

“I guess maybe the people in Topeka are over it,” Lampanelli suggested. “”Do you think that might be it?”

Just like that, I went from being the interviewer to the interviewee, responding to Lampanelli’s serious inquires into the practices that I sadly explained, I have become acclimated to. I quickly realized that I was likely not going to be able to possibly affirm my suspicions that the Hoff smells like malt liquor and cheeseburgers or if she enjoyed having roasted a potential presidential candidate, before the Donald announced that he was declining to run. Instead, here was a celebrity that was ultimately concerned for the future of our city, our actions in response to the Westboro Baptist Church, and her long-standing advocacy for the homosexual population and what an appearance in Topeka will mean to her fans.

“I don’t know how you guys deal with it – it’s a shame. It’s almost like your town has become synonymous with that,” Lampanelli firmly stated. “It’s sad because it’s a reasonable town. It’s a small urban city. It’s not some po-dunk piece of shit. It’s a shame.”

“It’s like living with that horrible, inbred stepfather that you unfortunately can’t kick out of the house,” Lampanelli suggested of the Westboro Baptist Church’s longstanding presence in Topeka.

Although overcome with emotion in anticipation of Friday’s performance, don’t expect the professional Lampanelli to be lacking when it comes to actually taking the stage.

“My show is audience-dependent, so I don’t do the same show every night. I do the same energy show, but I’ll be more fired up than usual because of this, which is always funnier,” Lampanelli finally eased with more of the sass I would have expected.

“It’s so fucked up because it’s always funnier to be angry, so you’re [Topeka] probably in for a really funny show.”

Update: Last night, Lisa Lampanelli tweeted about a plan to turn the Westboro Baptist Church protest into a fundraiser for New York City’s GMHC, an organization that advocates for gay men and seeks to prevent and provide treatment of AIDS. Check it out:

[ May 2011 | story by Janice Watkins | photo contributed ]