Some people try desperately to be liked, to be cool. And some people just are. If anyone was born hip and totally sorted it’s Janeane Garofalo. She would disagree (of course), having been brought up by a conservative family and been educated in a Catholic school. We’re with you there Janeane.

She grew up in New York but moved to Ontario, California and Texas during her childhood. This sense of displacement got to her but she decided to use her status as outsider to examine life and take the piss out of it.

She started as a stand-up comedian in the 80′s, paying her dues in clubs all over New York. This was the decade of Generation X and Janeane fit in perfectly. She vocalised all of the tribulations of the disaffected, while not pandering to any concept of what a woman is supposed to look like. She was herself -  intelligent, cranky and hilariously funny.

Don’t bother being nice. Being popular and well liked is not in your best interest. Let me be more clear; if you behave in a manner pleasing to most, then you are probably doing something wrong.

The masses have never been arbiters of the sublime, and they often fail to recognise the truly great individual. Taking into account the public’s regrettable lack of taste, it is incumbent upon you not to fit in.

It was this ability to tell the untold truth with a heavy does of humour, which turned Janeane into a cult figure in no time.

The leap to TV was inevitable and she joined forces with Ben Stiller in 1992 as a writer on The Ben Stiller Show. His light-hearted approach coupled with her anger, made the perfect writing team and they won an Emmy for their work.

The big screen beckoned and, when she stole the show as Winona Ryder’s best friend in Reality Bites, the world was her oyster.  In 1996, she starred alongside Uma Thurman in The Truth About Cats & Dogs. In some scenes the 5’1” actress had to stand on a box beside Thurman. She hates the film.

I think it’s soft and corny, and the soundtrack makes you want to puke, and everybody’s dressed in Banana Republic clothing. The original script and the original intent was very different than what it wound up being when it became a studio commercial film. It was originally supposed to be a small-budget independent film where there would be much more complexity to all the characters, and Abby and the guy don’t wind up together at the end.

In 1997, however, she did something that I’m finding hard to let go. She made the truly awful The Matchmaker; a movie about tweed and Aran jumper wearing Oirish folk who drink alcohol by the gallon and have hearts of gold. She was still excellent in it and makes it bearable. Now there’s an achievement.

Janeane wasn’t the type to jump into films and forget about the telly. In 2005 she was Louise Thornton in the West Wing. In 2006, she was the voice of Bearded Clam on Comedy Central’s Freak Show and, most impressively, in 2007 she wrote a dedication for the mini-book included in the box-set of the wonderful TV series, My So-Called Life.

This is a woman with brains, cagones and huge heart. She is a rabid liberal who has fought against the system not for the sake of it, but because she believes in saying what needs to be said. After 9/11 she said:

Who would have thought that I’d be angry on behalf of my country? I’m used to being angry at my country.

She was vehemently against the Iraqi war and labels herself a feminist.

A lot of the hate mail I get is clearly misogynist. I am a proud liberal, feminist woman, and the hate mail I get about those three things is not about me. It’s about those signifers, and about what the right in this country has managed to do to perpetuate anger over what they mean.

And to make things even better, she’s totally loving the gays.

Our country is founded on a sham: our forefathers were slave-owning rich white guys who wanted it their way. So when I see the American flag, I go, ‘Oh my God, you’re insulting me.’ That you can have a gay parade on Christopher Street in New York, with naked men and women on a float cheering, ‘We’re here, we’re queer!’ — that’s what makes my heart swell. Not the flag, but a gay naked man or woman burning the flag. I get choked up with pride.

If you’re not convinces, check her out live in 1997

Or you can go see her live in the Olympia on Sept 23 as part of The Bulmer’s Comedy Festival.

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