Roseanne Barr came over for lunch. At 58, she’s not afraid to be alone, but she brought her mother along. Through a chicken leg, Helen Barr told me: “She’s my firstborn. I have four children. And you know what? I’m dating.”
The mother’s dating? What about her daughter?
Said Roseanne: “I’m with my hippie freak writer musician boyfriend eight years. He lives on my nut farm in Hawaii but won’t marry me. I read him portions of my new book during the 2½ years I rewrote it 100 times. Then editors made me cut 200 pages.”
Nut farm?
“It’s on Hamakua coast. I raise macadamias, ride tractors, make roads, cut trees. Living there’s less pressure, more control, even though my phone rarely works. I take eggs each morning from the chickens, make omelets, feed the goats, cook every day, do my own housekeeping and laundry, do as I like, don’t venture out, get along with neighbors when I see them. I love cleaning. I’ve done friends’ houses.
“My brother says ‘We want you to retire from chasing s – – t,’ but life there is beautiful. I love farming and living in overalls. We’re a close family. I love when they come and we sit around and talk.”
Mom Helen: “I visit a month at a time, but I’m taking fun lessons at home now. Roseanne’s very special. She sent me a baby grand piano. My parents adored her. At birth, they wouldn’t let me drive her home from the hospital. They only let me carry her to the car.”
Roseanne: “I was a joy. Born to be a star. The family worshipped everything I said. They raised me to be a performer.”
But one with such a big mouth?
“Everybody’s always mad at me. I’m so hot, they love to hate me. See, my whole act is provocation. Yelling. Getting people out of their rut. Even that ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ experience was because I believed my mother, who told me I sang better than Shirley Temple. Afterward, it was, ‘Oh, s – – t, mom, what do I do now?’
“Somehow people don’t always know me in person. In Paris, they hollered, ‘There’s Rosie O’Donnell.’ ”
The new X-rated Gallery book “Roseannearchy: Dispatches From the Nut Farm” is hilarious. Her four kids, who work for her in Hawaii, haven’t read it yet. Maybe because she writes nobody has need for children and: “I wouldn’t think to put them in the oven, but they are ungrateful.”
Helen hasn’t read it either, although, Roseanne says, “I want mom to move to Hawaii with me but she prefers living in Salt Lake, Utah, for some reason.”
Grins Helen: “I think everything bad that happened was Tom Arnold‘s fault. And I won’t live with you because I’d rather look things up on the Internet than take your advice.”
I loved them both. The book, too.
APRIL 7 the Musical Olympus Festival features artists who won Carnegie Hall competitions . . . I’m trying dif ferent restaurants. Until April 7, I suggest you try Arte Café on West 72rd Street. It’s excellent . . . Housewife Jill Zarin buying Honeydrop tea at Whole Foods.
RECENTLY I pronounced this year’s junkiest movie, “Eat, Pray, What ever.” I now reassess. Include “Din ner for Schmucks,” and you must be one to see it. Also “The Tourist,” Angelina Jolie‘s insanely stupidly awful swamp that focuses on her Lisa Rinna lips, hair extension attachment, and — minus a handbag when she’s bashed, smashed, crashed, dashed, gashed — her industrial strength raccoon eye makeup. Last year, we didn’t understand filming “Salt.” This year, we don’t understand seeing “The Tourist.” Enough already with her playing some international agent/spy drek.
AFTER his New Year’s telecast, Dick Clark kept tradition and made it to P.J. Clarke’s . . . Just letting everyone know that you’ll sense your New Year’s Eve bash was not great when your Uncle Murray took off his shoes and waded into the cole slaw . . . After 15 years writing “Gene Wilder: Funny and Sad,” Brian Scott Mednick‘s book is out. Says people thought Gene gay and that marriage to Gilda Radnor “was not the fairy tale it looked to be.”
AFTER a big-time VIP-time holiday party, I’m told Ian McKellen grabbed a bus to get home. He’s sav ing that “Lord of the Rings” money . . . Dan Aykroyd: “I’m a Patrón tequila man, but I’m an investor in Crystal Head vodka. It’s pure vodka. We don’t add glycol, just water and our mash in a hygienic government still in Newfoundland. And it’s kosher.” OK . . . Sean Penn‘s dissed his Malibu house to holiday in a very unglamorous room in Haiti.
RECORDED announcement tells American Express callers: “You are important to us. We appreciate your patience. Operators will be with you in two minutes.” One caller waited 20 minutes to get a live person.
Only at American Express, kids, only at American Express.