Comedian Sandra Bernhard has a big mouth and a big history to back it up. If you look closely, Bernhard has been at the threshold of LGBT tolerance for the entirety of her career, though she doesn’t claim any crowns. She tells it like it is, sings it like she feels, dresses it up in whatever she wants and lets it go.
A self-professed bisexual (and a mother; clutch your pearls), Bernhard generally just screams on the right side of history, and has been doing so since the beginning of her time. Following notoriety from one of her comedy performances (and resulting record) Without You I’m Nothing, With You I’m Not Much Better,she was launched into the celebrity atmosphere of cheek kisses on red carpets and Madonna, with whom she was rumored to be canoodling in the wayback days. She made headlines on Roseanne as a lesbian character, then turned around and stripped everything off for Playboy. She meant to do that. She lives as an anachronism.
These days, Bernhard is in “Sandyland” as a host on Sirius XM’s Radio Andy (a product of Bravo chat-master Andy Cohen), interviewing movers, shakers and staring-at-the-camera-types about current events. We caught up with her in advance of her June 4 show at Parliament House for Gay Days, and she was at the ready with the currents of the events. And she’s still getting better.
Watermark: Let’s talk about the Donald Drumpf Situation. I know that you are engaged politically; you’ve always been. How do you feel about how this narrative has played out, especially with the Republican Party? And we can get to Hillary and Bernie later. It seems so apocalyptic with Drumpf at the helm right now.
Sandra Bernhard: I think that the Republican Party has been, you know and I am not the first to say this, I have seen op-eds about it ad nauseam but it certainly makes sense that the Republican party has been assembling this monster for a very long time with all of their covert racism and sexism and homophobia. And the list goes on and on with the things they want to control and help destroy. You know, rights of women, reproductive rights, the environment and healthcare and poverty and education and healthy eating initiatives. You know, the list is a thousand miles long. They got their monster, but their monster is also unpredictable, and they don’t know what he really is about. So it’s sort of the ultimate endgame for them.
I wonder if it’s showing all of our scars since the Reagan years. The huge fight to dismantle public education, to dismantle public anything: public jobs, state jobs. And I’m not here to get super political with you, but to me it’s a strange conundrum.
Yeah, it is and it isn’t. I think in a certain way it has to happen. It’s like a boil that keeps festering and suddenly it’s been popped and it’s revealed the superficiality of it all.And you know on the Democratic side, I think it’s obviously going to be Hilary Clinton. I think she is one of the most brilliant women in the world. She sits in the trenches, she’s been through a lot, she’s made some missteps, but I think that she is a formidable opponent, and somebody who will step up to the plate and will be able to handle herself in debates and public discourse when it comes to Drumpf. I mean, I’m not going to spend too much time fretting about it. I think that the outcome will be positive. I think the bigger issue is whether we can reinstate a Democratic Congress and Senate so that she has the support to get some stuff going here that the Obamas had to pull teeth to accomplish.
We’re a gay publication, obviously, and you’re coming here for Gay Days, but there’s a sort of “gays for Drumpf” entitlement ruse going on right now that I am not comfortable around. I wonder what your thoughts are on that, when people vote against their own rights? I don’t know; I’m not sure what it all means. I just think in the long run, and when it comes to the general election, he’s going to see how people really feel about him. I think people who would have voted for Ted Cruz will not vote for Donald Drumpf.
Let’s talk about bathrooms and the lying liars who use them. North Carolina obviously raised the gauntlet on peek-a-boo sex-shooting in the stalls by men who should know better. Also, the state effectively presented an argument that dismissed transgender individuals outright in retaliation for a municipality seeking to make things more respectful.
I think that we have had a president that is about gay issues. I think he has everybody’s human rights at his fingertips and he cares very much about that. It’s all positive. I think things will shift.I mean it’s outrageous. It really shows you how divisive the Republican Party is. The good news is it’s all going to get cleaned up soon.
Speaking of cleaning up, you had Rachel Maddow on your show recently. Do you feel that she has a fair sense of what’s going on in this country? Everyone is in this really polarized position over Bernie and Hillary, Hillary and Drumpf, bathrooms and safety. I feel like when Maddow comes in and says something, she’s always measured about what she’s saying.
Well, because she knows what she is talking about more than anybody I know. She is so well informed that it is makes anything that I have to say inconsequential. And that’s why we turn to people like that so that we can cut through the gristle of the political conversation and get down to the meat of it all.
You do a good job of mixing politics and entertainment on your Sirius XM Show. Is there a trick to the balance? How do you schedule that?
I don’t really. Everything that I do on my show is very improvisational. If something happens that catches my eye and I want to talk about it, I can talk about it. So I like to mix it up. I don’t like to drive people crazy with things they have been hearing day and night either, so I try to stay away from the obvious political stuff and talk about things that are fun and interesting and different and whimsical, and then I throw the political stuff in. I like to try to make it as irreverent and fun as possible.
Do you have a close relationship with Bravo legend Andy Cohen? Oh, yes.
Is he a fun person to be around? Oh yeah, he’s the reason I am on his channel. He wanted an anchor, a person who’s willing to do the show daily and do something at the level he knewthat I would do. Yeah, he has my confidence and my support and I have his confidence and his support. He’s definitely a good friend.
Let’s talk about your celebrity status and where it comes from. Going back to Kings of Comedy or Roseanne or Without You I’m Nothing or Madonna. Do you feel there has been an arc? Do you feel there has been a peak? No, my career keeps evolving. You know I think you have different peaks throughout your career,and I am sort of approaching another one right now, which is very exciting. I think when you evolve as a person in so many different directions it’s exciting when you get to reflect that in your work. That’s what the show is about, my radio show. I am writing and other things are happen and I can see the energy is shifting again, in terms of people remembering and understanding and wanting to work with me again. It’s a really fun time.
Who do you consider your peers? Specifically, who do you consider your comedic peers? I think there are so many people. There are those people that I started out with and there is new people. I think everyone is influenced by the previous generations and I see parts of myself in younger women who are out there doing their thing. Which is great, because I think that is why Lily Tomlin and Bette Midler were my influences and heroes. You borrow from people and you make it your own.
You were effectively queer before it was “cool” to be queer, but was it a shocking thing to do the Roseanne role as a bisexual? No, because we weren’t out to do something superficial. It was sort of fun and crazy to take that character in that direction because she started of being straight and then she decided that being married to Tom Arnold was too repulsive so she was going to end up with a woman and so that was how it unfolded. It wasn’t like, so now let’s beat people over the gay with the character. And that’s why it was so successful and had an impact because it wasn’t something contrived.
And you also had the Morgan Fairchild moment that was censored.
Yeah, exactly.
And who would deny a Morgan Fairchild moment?
Nobody would.
So, you’re coming here for Gay Days, what are your feelings about in general? We are the butt of every joke, obviously. Do you have any sense of what Florida is about? You probably do.
Well, I have spent enough time in different parts of Florida for years and years and years. It’s a beautiful state; it’s a great place to come and chill. In terms of the general population it’s very eclectic. From a huge Jewish population to Hispanic to sort of, you know, the right-wing key types and backpack water types. There are all kinds of people there, you know, it’ a microcosm of America, of who we are. Actually, I don’t think about it.
Nobody here does either.
I don’t think anybody does anywhere. You are where you are: sometimes by choice, sometimes just by chance. You got to keep making it all work.
Recently, you made some public noise about the Flint, Michigan, water crisis. That’s where you’re from, so it must be important to you.
I think it’s a part of the problem of cynical politicians to say they love this country and they want to make it great again and yet, when it calls for something as the infrastructure to keep people healthy, they don’t know about it. So, I think those are some of the things that need to get fixed and some of the issues that need highlighting. I am sorry that people suffered. This had to be the sort of turning point. They need change there and they need change everywhere. We pay taxes. It’s part of what we are owed in this country. It’s basic rights and, you know, health.
Do you think, and I am not asking this as sort of a leading question, God forbid, that’s sort of a symptom of where the privatization of everything is going: broken schools, broken pipes, broken prisons, broken bridges?
Right, that’s why I am hoping when Hilary Clinton wins, she can take the next step and start actually doing something about it. That’s what she says she wants to do, and I take her at her word. I hope that there is a big change in how this country is run and where we spend our money.
Tell me a little bit about what people can expect from your show here when you are here in June.
You know, all my shows are very eclectic, ranging from personal, anecdotal stories to musical pieces and improvisation all woven in with the band and my song range from rock to Jazz, and some are my original songs and some are covers. Everything is interwoven, so everything becomes kindof this wonderful evening of Sandy: All elements on point.
“Oh, Sandy” then. So it’s slightly musical, but it’s kind of this new cabaret thing.
Yes, exactly.
Quick! What’s the most defining moment from your illustrious career?
Well, I think it’s good to look forward. Of course everybody can look and Google and know what I’ve done and know what I’m doing. But on a creative basis, I feel like I am in the trenches and continuing to do what I love and I’m very lucky that I get to do that.
