Episode 128: "America's Morning"

Origin of the episode title

The Today Show. Julie proudly follows it on Twitter.

Monologue Transcripts

Hello everybody. Hi. It’s Julie Klausner back for another episode of HWYW.

I’m waking up groggy from a summer evening nap which is ill-fated. Something ill went into my decision making process in choosing to get under the covers at 6. Now it is 9. My body is confused. It wants frozen yogurt. This summer huh? I feel…How do I feel? What do I think and how do I feel? What do I feel and how do I think? Women! I feel guilty about not going to this party. I slept through this party. I’m just tired. Next week I have off from Billy on the Street which has been really fun, but apparently exhausting. I don’t know. I feel awful. I really wanted to go to this party but every time I get an invitation to a party that I have a feeling is going to be on a school night, I think to myself, “Yes! I will go to this party.” Then part of me doesn’t want to be invited because I know that the guilt that I will face when I don’t go, invariably, will be…nothing I can’t handle, but it will disappoint. That’s ridiculous, by the way, what I just said.

Please continue to invite me to parties. Eventually I will have more energy. Eventually I will stop eating like a vacuum cleaner at a movie theater after an action movie where people have been and the floor is full of all kinds of sweet and salty things. Nothing that Michael Pollen would be psyched about you putting into your face.

There’s nothing like the resentment towards healthy people and people that approach their attitude toward food and nutrition with some variance of discretion when you are going through a phase when you are juts eating your face off. You know it is going to end. You’re not going to eat like this forever but that’s just where you are at. When you are in that place it’s funny, not funny, I’m talking to people with food issues so if you don’t have food issues why are you listening? I don’t get that, people who don’t talk about food in relation to their bodies or food in relationship to their morality. I’m disgusting, I’m a horrible person—You’re not, Kathy, but let’s look at your choices.

For dinner, we’re not talking about what you’ve done. Look, I had more cookies this week than I feel good about. Does that make me a sick murderer? No. Tell that to my lizard brain. In addition to my lizard brain with the self-flagellation There is also what I was mentioning before, that jealousy button, so anyone who..I was walking, oddly enough passed a farmer’s market and I was seething with recall for Michael Pollen. Remember when he put out that book called Food Rules or something like that? What was it? Eat food, thank you Michael Pollen. Not too much-urgh!!!, mostly plant, bleck. All right dude, cool book. Let’s get it in hard cover. Let’s print out all of the pages and frame each one.

I think I am over food. I don’t mean I am over eating food. Obviously when you can’t think of things to write what is better than to reach for and grab and put in one of your holes, if there are no cocks around, frankly? As far as the culture of food, I think I am officially over that. By that I mean cooking. Didn’t Michael Pollen also have that thing this year? I didn’t read it but it seemed like Salon-link bait, but it probably was a well-though out thing that if I were more knowledgeable, I would have actually followed through on and read. Didn’t Michael Pollen say that one of the bad things about feminism is that women stopped cooking and now nobody likes to cook? Oh boy. Oh jeez. Don’t. Ugh!

So the culture of food as I am sick of it—well I don’t watch top chef anymore, that’s basically it. I used to watch Top Chef. My ex used to be into food and he liked to cook. We would watch Top Chef together and he’d say, “That looks really good.” That’s over. I could not be less mournful of that presence being gone in my life. I’m still talking about food culture. Am I? Yes I am. I don’t like the notion of someone describing what’s in front of me on a plate for longer than a second before I am allowed to eat it. I don’t like conversations about restaurants. I will say I love talking about Pichet Ong recently.

Maybe I’m differentiating and backpedaling and I’m going through this from a personality perspective. My conversation with Pichet Ong if you check the archives and dig it up like so many bones in the back yard, you’ll find, first of all, he’s a delightful man and Pichet Ong could talk about anything, but also, I think that is more about food than the culture of foods, but maybe I’m wrong. Trends are boring food-wise. I don’t like hearing about kale or their baby weight on social networks but that could also be that my lizard brain is fired up with envy because I am eating like a trash bucket, which will not go on forever as I mentioned before. Is everybody here for the Overeaters Anonymous meeting? Good. Let’s pass these around.

Listen, there’s a lot going on besides my gazing at my own navel in regards to eating things. I have stuff to say about Lovelace, the movie Lovelace, which was so bad. Guys, my original instinct about it was correct and I should have gone with my ‘gunt’. Lovelace stars Amanda Seyfried who’s not good in the movie at all. She plays a porn star. They do this thing where it is like a ‘gotcha’ is it a gotcha? Let’s ask Nicki Fink. Or is it a ‘Member them?’ from TMZ—that’s a fun feature. What is it called when you tell a story one way then you force the audience to endure the same story again, only this time someone is being raped? What’s that called-pulling a Land before Time? I’ve never actually seen that movie, is that the one with the Dinosaurs? Lovelace was terrible. Here’s why. As I mentioned the first part of Lovelace involved Amanda Seyfried in frankly a bad wig. It talked about her rise to fame in pornography. It looked like she was having a great time on her way up and I couldn’t stand watching that, I didn’t like watching her character get exploited and her being cool with it. Then it jumped forward six years and you saw Linda Lovelace taking a lie detector test because later she was involved in a lot of legal proceedings against that creep Chuck Trainer. If ever there were a Hall of Creeps that guy—give him the Dildo scepter and have him sit on the terlet because he is ugh, a garbage bag. Chuck Trainer exploited Linda Lovelace, certainly. She claims he beat her up, I’m sure he did. He raped her and forced her at gunpoint to be in these films. So everything we saw for a I guess the first 45 minutes of the movie, we had to see again only now it was shown from her point of view which meant we got to watch what’s his name Alexander Sarsgaard? Peter Sarsgaard-one of the Sarsgaards beat the shit out of Amanda Seyfried. Nobody wants to watch a woman being exploited and loving it and nobody wants to watch a women being exploited and being miserable unless you’re watching porn. I don’t want to have that conversation with you.

I’d rather talk about food culture than what kind of porn you watch. Never talk to me about that. I will say that the part about Lovelace that bothered me most, and I should say that I didn’t watch the whole thing. This is a tragedy. Didn’t Linda Lovelace have enough to endure beside her name being lent to this horrible movie? Beyond the tragedy of what actually happened to this woman…Is it a great story? I remember when they said they were doing two Lovelace movies. Are they still doing the one with Malin Akerman? Is she too busy playing Debbie Harry in the CBGBs musical? She’s in that TV show right? Moms or just Mom? There’s Mom and then there’s Dad with Seth Green. Oh the entertainment business sis really on track, this year and forever. I remember when they first said they were doing a Linda Lovelace movie, ew…. Is her story necessary to tell? You know they are going to make it titillating..

They did. The first half of the movie was tee hee, this girl can suck a dick. Oh wow what a funny premise. Not just for the movie inside the movie but for the bio. There was a scene where they showed the set of Deep Throat. It was parallel to the scene in Boogie Nights where Mark Wahlberg makes love to our heroine, Queen of the Redhead Hall of Fame and the universe, Julieanne Moore, and he finishes his business. They are talking about what they were going to do. He asks, “Do you want me to do it again?” and they zoom in on Burt Reynolds, William H. Macy and the whole gang. They are all, “What? This kid’s a star.” It’s fun. There’s music.

The Lovelace equivalent of that was basically Linda Lovelace performed oral sex on not Adrian Brody, it was the guy playing Harry Reems and he finishes and they are like, “What?” in other the words the crew, including Hank Azaria, Chris Noth…everybody is in this movie. They are trying to make a joke out of this scene that this poor runaway can suck a dick. Everyone was like, “Wow what a star.” That’s really depressing. Don’t exhibit comical wonder at a women’s sexual ability to be exploited you sick jerks. I am talking about the filmmakers of Lovelace, not just the filmmakers of Deep Throat who are all dead from gonorrhea as god intended the seventies to end.

This is how god intended the 60s to end—with the Manson Murders. How did god intend the 70s to end? Technically with Iran Contra, I haven’t thought about it actually, I know it involves the homeless on the streets freed by Regan. Regan ripped off the solar panels from the White House roof. Regan was a horrible president and Linda Lovelace’s love life, everything about that movie and her life is a tragedy and Sharon Stone deserves better roles. Sharon Stone imitates Sammy Davis Jr. in it, and James Franco plays Hugh Hefner. Neither of those things are fun or funny. You shouldn’t watch that movie even though Amanda Seyfried has beautiful breasts.

There’s a turtle named Progo who was photographed recently by our friend Tavi listening to this very podcast. This is very exciting because we have now crossed over into, I guess, the amphibian layer, barrier. We’ve broken a particular barrier of photos of animals listening to the podcast and we’ve done that by virtue of the fact that we now have a box turtle listening to the podcast and I believe the iPad in the podcast was propped up in his tank on top of a couple of pebbles. That made my week. Thank you Tavi for sending that in.

I mentioned Julianne Moore earlier, Julianne, as you all know is the most beautiful human living, follows me on twitter. This is the best thing that has happened to me all year. It’s been quite a year. Julianne Moore follows me on Twitter. Sometimes she retweets me and when she does I find that out because my @mentions are all cuckoo-birds. Some of them argue with me. Some of them are friendly. Some of them want me to retweet links to purses they make. Then I figure it out because they are also @replying Julianne Moore and I think to myself, Julieanne you’ve done it again. You’ve taken your perfect ivory freckled finger and you’ve hit, I know this sounds a little pornographic but you can deal with it, Hank Azaria isn’t standing by watching going, “What? That woman can do what all women can do because they’ve been programmed to because they live in a world controlled by men whose sexual needs are our number one desire according to the rule of people who are in power. We prioritize men’s sexual needs in this civilization of ours on this blue marble. That’s just a fact. Lesbians know that. Lesbians study that, the phallocentric history of patriarchy. Come on.

D o I need to write Michel Focault on a blackboard and walk away and pose in a pencil skirt in order for me to learn you?

Let’s get back to Julianne Moore being wonderful, Julieanne is wonderful. She retweet something I said. It was the following, “People crowd sourcing their children’s’ books sicken me, I had to self-publish a shabbis for Jimmy Jazz with my own cash and was better for it.” That was a joke. I never wrote a shabbis for Jimmy Jazz although I do feel strongly that I would kill it. It would be a beautiful story. At the end you’d see Jimmy Jazz behind two candle sticks. He’d have a little yarmulke. It would be a white yarmulke because most of his head is black. His schnozzle area looks like it has been dipped in cream, and the rest is a Batman mask. If you put a little white yarmulke on the top of his head it would look terrific. That was a joke. After Julianne Moore spread it, people on twitter told me, “I self-published my book and I think that was the way to go,” and there’s a link to a novel. “Who are you to say what people can and can’t do?” Good point. Nobody was “ha, ha, ha” But I believe Julianne Moore was. Julianne Moore, as you know, is the author of the children’s book, Freckle-faced Strawberry which is about being a little girl and accepting yourself. I think.

There was a play around the corner from a very good coffee shop, Gasoline Alley, I haven’t had their cookies—ugh enough with the cookies Klausner, but I’m pretty sure it is about being teased for being different and then not only is it ok for being different, it’s better. It really is better to end up looking like Julianne Moore than anything else in the world, and to be as talented. I don’t mean to minimize her abilities. She just is blindingly beautiful. The Today Show twitter is something I would like to discuss right now. I follow the Today Show on twitter. I am proud to. I consider it to be America’s morning. I think they have a new social media person. If you listen to this podcast and you work for the Today Show, let me know because I have a feeling there is somebody working the Today Show twitter who is a little bit more psyched than the person a couple of weeks ago who said, “Coming up the band Train and a recipe.” Whoever is doing it now is putting a little extra muscle, extra oomph . Yes, there are more exclamation points. There are also quotes from interviews that which wouldn’t ordinarily be live tweeted. They are trying to do things like: Here’s what Savannah Guthrie looks like now—before, and then an hour later, here’s after. They are doing some cliffhanger stuff on the Today Show’s twitter. By the way, Savannah Guthrie, that before and after thing, she dyed her hair red. If you think Savannah Guthrie is going anywhere near even the area code of the Redhead Hall of Fame, you’ve literally never met me.

What else did the Today Show tweet recently? I am trying to prove my point. I shouldn’t have opened with that because now I feel like I have to prove it. You have to take my word for it. It might be an unprovable enthusiasm that’s present. I will say that they have been soliciting stories from people following the twitter more than in the past. They asked which famous TV or movie home would you like to live in. That’s not something they would normally ask. They don’t usually care. People responded. Suzanne Nally said Diane Keaton’s house in Something’s Got to Give. No fucking kidding, Suzanne Nally you fucking win. Then the a woman @theRusted Chain said the rural home form Marley and Me. No one has ever seen that. Ryan and Reynold’s character from the Proposal’s family home in Alaska. I saw that. I wouldn’t want to live there. It would be a nightmare, bears and such. I’m such a Sandra Bullock in the Proposal.

They solicited stories form people because on August 14th this week it had been ten years since the blackout in New York City. I know most of you listening aren’t New York City residents, but I am. If you don’t believe me ask my nose. By the way, it’s been ten minutes ten minutes since somebody wrote about what a fucking fat Jew I am. Can we get another one of those trend pieces? The thing about Klausner’s podcast is that she’s such a fucking Jew. She’s so New York you could practically taste the blood in the Matzoh of your first born boy. I was here ten years ago in the 2003 Blackout and I remember it very well. They were asking for stories. I know this because I follow somebody I used to work with, my first job out of college. She’s a very sweet lady but she’s a Mommy Blogger. She uses her social media to talk about herself in the Mommy Blogger kind of way. She replies to the Today Show twitter a lot. They said,” Can you believe it has been ten years the 2003 Blackout? Where were you that day? Tweet your memories.” #when the lights went out. This woman said #whenthelightswentout I was on bed rest, luckily my daughter waited five days….It’s back to how long did it take you to lose the baby weight? Oh? You’ll tell me in a year?

If you’ve had a kid and you’ve lost the baby weight, I am thrilled for you. I really am. Not now, not right now, not with the sesame sticks in my bloodstream like this. Social media is not for telling people how much weight you lost unless you were obese. Is that fair to say? Can we put that out there? Is that something you agree with? Is it true that if you lost eight pounds you should never tell anyone? If you lost baby weight, which from what I understand, I haven’t had any children that I know of, it is impressive. That’s really great. I’m happy for you. All women are happy for you. I don’t remember what my point is. Shut the fuck up is my point. Where were you ten years ago on this day when the lights went out? I remember where I was, it was not a fun story that the Today Show with the background Toyota wallpaper featuring Jimmy Buffet and parrot hats would like to hear. That is the following story; I was in between office jobs. I was taking pretty much any job I could get teaching art to children. It was 2003, I was 25. I was working at the Y one of the Manhattan, NYC Y arts camps. It’s up town. It’s a good camp. There’s a pool. Kids learn to sing. There are snacks. I worked there as a counselor. I was a great counselor. The children loved me, especially this one kid, Lily who wanted to be a star. I hope she is nowhere near that aspiration because show business is terrible.

There was an avant garde puppeteer who worked at the camp with me. He was very good looking. I know this is going to a place you are uncomfortable with and frankly you should be. My job was to take the kids around to art classes and his was one. He would help kids make puppets. The kids would make puppets and then their parents would swing by after whatever was so damn important besides hanging out with them all day, and I am really talking to the men here on the upper east and upper west. When they came by they were in their cargo shorts—dude you were doing nothing. How much did this even cost you. You could have just taken him to the zoo.

They’d pick him up at 4pm, but before that I’d take them to puppet class. The guy who was the puppet instructor, don’t bring this back to puppetry of the penis. It’s not about that. It’s not about dick tricks. It’s about a guy who made skulls, and Tim Burton-ish creations that were sort of creepy. It was very Steampunk. He had a studio full of antique burnished objects bought from people that have..they are probably bought in pawn shops in New Orleans where there is a back room that has all swastikas on it and lamp shade made out of you don’t want to know because it is a terrible tragedy we have to live with everyday that man did that to other man and women in ovens. Where was I? Anyway this guy ended up eating my pussy. It’s really not that big of a deal. The light went out in the afternoon during an assembly. The parents were there. The kids were singing. The lights went out. Everyone thought it was terrorism. We all ended up walking home, a very long walk to my place downtown and he walked with me. Then he walked me upstairs. Then one thing led to another and I was on my floor.

The next day I made noodles on the stove because I don’t have an electric oven.  I read by candlelight.  I remember conserving my cell phone.  I met my brother the next day. It wasn’t a story that the Today Show would have appreciated but I will say this, this puppeteer person, who I have not spoken to since, for the sake of everybody’s well-being.  For the sake of everybody being a better person, I have avoided puppeteers.  He was very angry.  It’s silly to be an avant garde puppeteer because all puppets are creepy inherently; you don’t need to make them creepier.  Second of all Steampunk is very silly.  Third of all this guy’s story, his schtick besides from being very handsome, again, I reiterate he was really hot.  Judge away at least I’m conforming to lookism which is religion in its own right.  He was very angry at Charlie Kaufman.  He claimed that Charlie Kaufman hung out with him for a week before he wrote Being John Malkovich and “stole the first 20 minutes of the movie from his life.”  If you have seen Being John Malkovich, which if you haven’t seen you should see, it’s a beautiful movie.  The first 20 minutes are about a puppeteer who’s a loser being unsuccessful.  It’s not a thing you want to tell women or people in general, that was stolen from you because that’s every puppeteer’s story I imagine. It seemed like not a good line to take around.  He was good at other things. That’s how I’ll end that story.

That’s way more than 140 characters.

Face –off came back. It is a really good season so far. They made fawns. I still don’t know what a fawn is, but I know that this Laney character did a very good job. Laney is this anime suicide girl who is probably wearing contacts that make her eyes look like they are all pupil. She is a new comer. They are setting rookies versus returning veterans, from Viet Nam, actually which is a twist. It’s people from passed seasons. I’m rooting for Roy from Texas. The End. Mackenzie has never looked more elegant and I do believe Glen Hetrick is doing something with his goatee, is it a beard? It’s a beard? it’s not a goatee right? The first half of it is dark and the bottom half of it is not. His eyes are smokier. He is doing a smokier eye this season. I would still have sex with Glen Hetrick even though as our friend John Mulaney points out he probably needs some sort of suspension hooks in order to do it.

Talking Bad…Why did I even write down Talking Bad? What is there to say? What do we talk about when we talk about talking bad? There’s a beautiful graphic…Jake Fogelnest used some of his time to make a mock-up of “What we talk about when we talk about talking bad,” as the Raymond Carver novel cover. I have to say about Talking Bad that hasn’t been said except for the fact that I thought Billy Eichner was joking when he told me that Julie Bowen was the first guest. There’s no reason for Julie Bowen to be on after an episode of Breaking Bad talking about Breaking Bad. I will argue that Breaking Bad is one of the least water cooler friendly show of all time. Meaning after you watch it, even when you are with a loved one, God Willing, what is there to say about it besides, “Oh my god that was a really good episode, “ or, “Oh, I hope they don’t kill Skyler. I can’t wait for next week.” I have to watch low-water. We are making Spoony recap that. Spoony is away but when he comes back he’s in for a rude awakening. He’s going to have to watch, what is it? Low Water Down? He’s going to have to recap that. He’s going to have to take a picture of me on a Citibike and that’s all. Oh, he’s going to be a father to a beautiful little Spoonita.

We got a bad review from this week’s Podmass on the AV Club which is fine, we can handle it. We an take it. The criticism went as follows: Episode 127 features, “An interview that dwells for far too long on the benefits of dogs as pets. Podmass, I respect what you do as you me. But I think we both know that thereis no such thing as an interview that dwells far too long on the benefits of dogs a s pets when you consider the fact that dogs have been saving our lives since before history began! There is a section of Temple Grandin’s book, which I have loaned out which talks about people and dogs co-evolving, and that as our brains got bigger their brains go smaller because they trusted to take care of them. That’s insane. They found bones from years ago. They didn’t even know they’d find bones, they found bones that prove that dogs have been with us from way longer than we knew. So don’t tell me that there’s such a thing as too much talk about the benefit of dogs as pets when we haven’t even scratched the surface!

There was an article on the Daily Mail which is a garbage rag that was re-blogged on the Huffington Post which is somehow worse because it’s just an aggregator that recycles stuff and it basically steals it. I’ll tell you this, the webs is the wild west out there. You don’t know what the rules are. You start a meme, that meme goes all over the place you’re not credited. You have to be ok with that. Or you don’t, I don’t know. I’m 35. There was an article o on the Daily Mail abut a dog who points to peanuts. This dog looked so cute. He was a golden doodle. I don’t remember his or her name, but he wore a vest and he had a little girl who he worked for, that is his boss. He travels with her. When he sees a peanut he points at it. This girl could die if she ate a peanut, so do not …what did you say again? Whatever, I don’t care what you do. We love you Podmass.

Jimmy Jazz no longer wants to be called Josh, he now wants to be called Johnny and he wants to spell it the punk way which is J-o-n-n-y. Please ignore this. This is a passing phase and I’m not going to indulge this. Do not change the Jimmy Jazz entry on howwasyourwiki. Do not acknowledge this in any way it will go away if we all ignore it. He is an adolescent.

Speaking of Howwasyouwiki, Howwasyourwiki.com—let’s all go there together while we are in front of our computers shall we? Yes we shall. Now, Thomas Ezekiel Williams did a beautiful job of setting this up but it is your responsibility to maintain it. That means you must add to the Howwasyourweekwiki. I made a suggestion—What about a section in which you explain the origin of each show’s title. None of you tool me up on that. That’s your business. You have ways of wasting time during your day jobs that are different than my ways…I don’t waste a fucking minute. But if you don’t like that idea, come up with another one. This is a blank canvas of silly things for us to play with. This is about play more than anything.

I want to address the Redhead Hall of Fame right now just so we can do a little bit of housekeeping. I want Cynthia Nixon in the Redhead Hall of Fame. Can we please move Cynthia Nixon up from the Supporting Tier into the actual Hall of Fame? I don’t want Jack Warden in Ahoy. I think Ahoy should only be Robert Loggia. Additions to the Redhead Hall of Fame this week include Christine Quinn, you can tell me DeBlasio is a better candidate, because Christine Quinn is Bloomberg’s lackey, guess what, sorry, I like Bloomberg. I know go figure. He favors the rich, who knew? Manhattan is going to be a bauble that no one can afford and it’s going to sink into the ocean. That’s just a fact. Bloomberg is just on board with that faster than all of us are. Yes, did he pave our streets with Citibikes? Sure. I don’t know where this is going. I just like him. I like Christine Quinn. I’m sure DeBlasio is a better person. Maybe I’ll end up voting for DeBlasio. It’s none of your business. Once I am in that voting booth, unless I am masturbating, it does not matter what I am doing in there. It’s not masturbating.

Christine Quinn is in the Redhead Hall of Fame. The end. I will address other nominations at the end of the show. There is one I have to address right now because it’s important. Our friend Andrew Johnston who lives in Toronto wrote to me and said I am thrilled to be the first one to nominate Kate Mulgrew’s character Red from Orange is the New Black. Absolutely. Red from Orange is the New Black is shooting up to the top—although it doesn’t matter, it’s Julianne Moore, I’m just saying she should be there. Please, PLEASE make sure that is corrected by the end of the night.

No Laura Prepon is not, Alicia Witt already is. Marcia Wallace-yes, sure. Robin Lively, Louise Miller in Teen Witch –No. John Ritter’s widow, and Wings star Amy Yasbeck yes. One degree from Amy Yasback problem child, no. The red-headed Aguilera sister from Christina Aguillera’s video inspired for Candy Man-no. Lindsey Lohan-no. Although I cannot wait to see her in East Bound and down.

What else do I have left to cover? I still have a crush on Vince Gilligan. I tuned in to Talking Bad and I saw him in a T-shirt. People started talking. I got it Breaking Bad is a great show. So is Real Housewives Miami. Not everything needs an after show. Sometimes you can just watch something with your friends and be quiet. If it’s good. It’s a different kind of good. There’s something that is talk back TV that’s very Bravo…How many new shows does Bravo have? I watched Real Housewives of Miami even thought I was very disappointed that the dentist Karent isn’t back as a cast member. I just watch it for Lea Black. I just watch it to see what Leah black does to volumize her hair. That’s the plot of Real Housewives of Miami to me. The ads they have in between the commercial breaks for Bravo shows… The New Atlanta, Married to a Doctor, Below Deck, What are you doing? I just want to see menopausal women be insane in dresses I can’t afford that they will never wear twice.

I think we have covered quite enough.