Episode 125: "Shitty Shoes"

Origin of the episode title

After often seeing T-Shirts saying Zog Sports Julie finally googles it to discover that it is a for-profit recreational club for adults encouraging them to socialize by playing games like volleyball, dodge-ball and kickball after work and on the weekends. Not only is the thought of spending time out of the office with colleagues playing these games in either red and blue pinnies appalling, the type of shoes you wear to play these games in the grass are the titular "Shitty Shoes"

Monologue Transcript

Night swimming deserve a quiet night…

Hi everybody. It’s Julie Klausner back for another episode of How Was Your Week. We just heard Night Swimming from REM. How is everybody’s summer doing? Dog days, Dog days.

I am fine. How are you? Boop Boop Be Boop? Baby is here, the royal baby. They sent that poor Natalie Morales to England to wait outside of Buckingham Palace like a chump. Yes, I follow the today show’s instagram. Every day they posted another dopey photo of Natalie Morales sitting on the sidewalk. They couldn’t even get her one of those portable chairs. Those are really cool. You know the person is really cool when you see them carrying a fold-up portable stool just for themselves, like they wait on a enough lines outside that it was a good investment. Natalie Morales was basically just in England. She had to pose for one instagram photo a day. This is justification for whatever her salary is. Every once in a while they’d give her a funny prop. One day she was ‘reading’ Great Expectations.

At some point the Today Show just became Rocky and Bullwinkle. The people that come up with these ideas are basically the same ancient Jews that wrote cartoons in the 1960s. “What would be a funny thing for the moose to be reading when they are waiting for the British Prince to be born?” I don’t know why my old Jew is Italian in that particular example. His name is Sal Rabbinowitz. Natalie Morales—so truly useless she makes Savannah Guthrie look like Joan Didion in her seriousness.

The baby came. I don’t know anyone cool who cares about the baby. Sorry to say it and sorry to make it a thing about cool versus not cool. My impression of people who care about the baby is that they are all the same 45 year-old middle management woman who works at a desk and has thing of tic-tacs near her stapler and checks out Perez Hilton and thinks he’s funny. I’ve talked about that photo of Perez Hilton naked in the bathroom holding his baby right? If you haven’t seen this photo please google this photo because it’s disturbing (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2296980/Perez-Hiltons-baby-Mario-Were-thrilled-introduce-angel-son.html) nobody likes gay people more than me, but I saw this photo and thought, Anita Bryant had some good points. It made me feel homophobic.

I’m back at work at Billy on the Street. I have two pals in the room with me, our pal Jeffrey Self and our pal Jake Fogelnest. I’m having a blast to be perfectly honest. We’re dangerously close to a Potbelly Sandwich Shop. Here’s what I discovered today, this was exhilarating in the way that my brained ticked on the uh-oh this is dangerous. I had a chiropractic masseuse. He’s just a masseuse but I put adjective in—let’s say orthopedic, so it didn’t seem sleazy. One day I realized he was dangerously close to Loehman’s. I found out that Potbelly sells the same cookies that Panera Bread sells. Fine, this is not a sexy story. I am not flirting with you, that’s the nice thing about this show. You can stop being polite and start being real. There’s an oatmeal chip cookie, and it’s so good. It comes in a bag, and the ingredients are listed on the back—cool story.

The royal baby, I think it is weird they named him Jason Alexander. Everybody likes that show. I can’t believe they paraded that poor woman out in front of the cameras not even 24 hours after she gave birth. She was beaming. Do you know why? You know why. I confuse her with Kate Beckinsale. I know it’s not Kate Beckinsale, nor is it Katie Holmes. Couldn’t it be? Couldn’t those all be the same brunette?

The other things that all came and went this week faster than any meme I have experienced being exhausted in that amount of time was the Carlos Danger meme. That was beaten to death with an aluminum bat on twitter so quickly it was a hate crime. Anthony Weiner, who is garbage, maybe it’s old fashioned of me to take umbrage with politicians who are sleazy sex creeps, but I do. It’s just part of who I am. Maybe I’ll give you my “We are All Monica Lewinsky” lecture in a minute. That’s one of my favorite sermons. I haven’t delivered that one in a while.

Anthony Weiner was calling himself Carlos Danger. You know this. Like I said, it was exhausted. We fucked it so hard it had to sit in an oatmeal bath for a few days, the whole concept. The jokes were good. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed our jokes together. It was just over so quickly. That’s what we all said.

Everyone is in Montreal at the Montreal Comedy Festival this week. You can learn more about by going to HaHaHa.com. This is not a joke that has been the website for the Montreal Comedy Festival since it began, I think. I don’t know why it’s not HaHaHa.ca. Maybe some of our Canadian friends can help me debunk that.

Congratulations to our friends who are new faces of Montreal. Andrew Johnston is one, I think. Jimmy Jazz is another. Jimmy Jazz wants to be known as Josh now. That’s weird. He wants a Bar Mitzvah.

It’s no longer as hot as it was. We are basically in the part of the summer where David Letterman has Jay Thomas on. It’s hot. There was Carlos Danger. Everyone is tired. Why don’t I have the money to go to the Hamptons? That’s where New York kind of…believe me this is more linear than my madness lets on…In Ghostbusters 2 the bad energy that New Yorkers… what was the plot? I know there was some painting restoration. Wasn’t there bad energy? I know Dan Aykroyd got a blow job from a ghost in the first one. Jake Fogelnest points out was PG. Parental Guidance suggested not enforced—Dan Aykroyd is not going to get blown by a ghost or anything.

My point about this time of the year, New York City and Ghostbusters is that New Yorkers don’t need any additional negative energy. We begin psychically to resemble the hot garbage smell that has worn us down gradually, slowly, surely. We work so hard to live here. Our air-conditioning is not up to the task. We are better than it and we are barely even making the line.

My next guest is Jay Thomas.

I used to intern at Letterman. Did I ever talk about that on the show? I interned at Letterman when I wa sin college. I wasn’t his type. I got Courtney Love Fiji water. It was the first time I’d ever heard of Fiji water before. I got Dane Cook Imodium AD. It was his first time on Letterman…you know why, because he had diarrhea. Why else does anybody get Imodium AD to be a manic pixie dream girl?

Hey guys, before I come over can you have two kinds of string cheese? A tiny harmonica and a sugar bowl full of Imodium AD? Oh my god Chloe is adorable. Dennis Farina is dead. Based on my limited knowledge of god he’s trying to rob us of all of our character actors that can play trustworthy fathers, which is interesting in the sense of what America and American culture means and has become. Enjoy those dad actors, God. Who are our dads now? James Gandolfini is dead. Dennis Farina is gone. Who are our dads? Alan Thicke? Fuck you, Thicke with an ‘e’.

I have one more episode of Orange is the New Black. It’s so good guys. Holy Cow. It’s so good for so many different reasons. It’s good because it very Television-y, capital ‘T’ Televison-y, even though it’s on your computer. It’s cliff-hanger-y, serial, and characters. I talked about how charming it was that Crazy Eyes has an arc. It’s opened my mind to the bisexuality that I didn’t really explore at NYU. That’s none of your business. The show is evocative. Natasha Lyonne couldn’t be better. I wonder if the show is rounding up lesbians. I will say that I am a little concerned that Orange is the New Black might be a secret government project to get all show business lesbians on some kind of list. I don’t think the government gives Lea DeLaria anything she can’t handle.

I want to thank Thomas Ezekiel Williams for setting up Howwasyourwiki.com. Please go there. Howwasyourwiki.com. You can update the things that you know about the show on that website yourself. It’s a user interactive friendly site. Go on Howwasyourwiki.com. You are way more organized than I am. You can add or subtract to the Redhead Hall of Fame. You can list facts from past episodes, guests, morsels, best interventions ever...

Did you see that last Intervention? Oh god it crushed me! It crushed me like a tin can. So many people are going to die now that that show is gone. 64% rate of people staying sober. I’ll take it. I’ll take those odds. Allison the keyboard dust huffer, she’s doing great. It was a beautiful show. Now it has been replaced by Catfish. If you think I am wrong, I’m not. I’m not wrong. Catfish is our Intervention now. We have updates at the end. We should be ashamed of ourselves.

Do you know what we should also be ashamed of ourselves in regards to is I just learned what Zog Sports is. I’ve seen people wearing the T-shirts. I just assumed it was a cult. They have dorky T-shirts. They are all over the place. Everyone has seen people in a Zog shirt. Am I completely off-base? Is this an East Coast Jewish thing? I don’t know. I always wondered what that was but never enough to ask. I guess somebody referred to it on Twitter which is my only interaction with the outside world on some level. I googled it. I found out that Zog Sports is basically a way for adults to play sports with each other even though they work in offices. Zog Sports is a for-profit corporation that operates Co-ed Sports Leagues throughout NYC, NJ, Washington DC, CT, Atlanta, San Francisco, and LA. The company brands its services as an attempt to bring together young professionals—you already lost me—and to encourage them to live a more active social lifestyle—ugh!!-- while promoting social action. Zog sports organizes, this is when I got-why did I eat that extra piece of turkey sick. Zog sports organizes recreational sports leagues in various sports such as American Football, soccer, Volleyball, Basketball, Dodgeball, and Kickball. The end. I’m closing this window.

The only good thing about being grown up is that you don’t have to play kickball. I don’t understand why anyone would willingly, and for-profit means pay for the opportunity to wear a red short or a blue shirt—everything I hated as a kid. I imagine it’s the same person that thinks that going to the office and doing the same thing everyday isn’t so bad because I can play volleyball at the end of the week? What the fuck is that? OH! I am alarmed.

It’s like you realize that people walk among you with these very dark beliefs. How can we co-exist as humans? How is this pleasurable to you? That’s not what the weekend is for. It was very hot last Saturday. You have to see Jimmy from down the hall in shorts on top of it? Do you know what kind of shoes you have to wear in grass? Shitty shoes. Shoes that make your legs look like garbage. How muc sun screen you have to put on. Should I roll up the sleeves of this T-shirt. You know I don’t own a T-shirt, right?

I have one T-shirt.  It was a Monkees tour T-shirt and it was a gift. I’m keeping it because it’s adorable and a very cool memento. If it were up to me it would be a flattering tank and I’d wear it over the the bike shorts I am going to wear to pose on the Citibike that you guys raised enough money for you  to be photographed on.  This is very exciting.  As of this week we have raised enough money to get me to pose on a Citibike.  I’m just telling him right now via this recording-Spoony you are going to art direct it.  One of my bra straps will be showing.  That’s all you know about it. Congratulations, you scoundrels.  You’ve tipped Spoony the sufficient amount of money for us to stage a photo shoot in which I will straddle a Citibike and take a photograph. Congratulations. Mazel Tov. 

Should I talk about Anthony Weiner and Monica Lewinsky? Fine. This whole idea that we walk among people that have different values than us is occasionally alarming when you hear people like Adam Carolla say that men and women have more differences than different races. Oh, gee. Ok. Is this your way of abetting a race war.

Abetting—that’s my favorite character on Community. I head Dan Harmon is not going to make a stink this season. Why does that character talk like a man named Winslow? We all have different values. Men and women are different. Sex means different things to men and compartmentalizing, and values aren’t necessarily the same. Just because someone cheats in their personal life doesn’t affect their professional life. Here’s why all of that is wrong. Whenever we reward men in a position of power by giving them more power despite how they treat other human beings we are basically saying the human beings they treated terribly don’t matter. Those human beings are invariably women whom they’ve abused their power. Young women on the other side of those text messages.

I know that I should feel as bad for Huma as I do for the young lady I am sure the New York Post will disparage with an unflattering photograph soon enough. I always feel for the misled girl. I always ache for her because she could have been me in a flutter of a butterfly’s wing. I could have been Monica Lewinsky. We talk about this sometimes on the show. If things had been slightly different who would you be? I would have been a burlesque performer. I’m self-deprecating. In reality I would never be a burlesque performer, give me a break. Come on. I like noodles sure, I have a little extra on the side but I’ve got taste.

I’m not going to shake it to Las Vegas grind at jumbos Clown Shop. I’m just not, in any universe. Let’s take that off the table in terms of who I’d be if things were slightly different. Do you know who I’d be if things were slightly different? I’d be Monica Lewinsky. We’d all be Monica Lewinsky. Monica Lewinsky is all of us. She is an educated beautiful young woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was giving him Nicholson Baker novels. The whole thing was…we’ve all read pop fiction in the 90s that was sort of sexy.

If I had chosen to be in politics instead of whatever god forsaken incarnation of show business I consider myself in at the end of the tax year when I have to write it down. I had berets. I wore a beret in college in the winter. Maybe that’s why I didn’t get to explore my bisexuality enough. Girls were like no to the thanks. But I think Anthony Weiner is a despicable human being. I think his wife is a coward and garbage and a lousy role model public figure. I think there should be consequences for men who are garbage. That’s all.

Who’s the other one? Spitzer? He’s looking more and more like Richard Kiel. His frontal lobe is increasing daily. He is becoming a monster. He’s disgusting. I feel so bad for Jews. It’s not bad that we’re thought of as more sexual than we have in the past. I guess Woddy Allen put a dent in that. Hey guys, remember when Woody Allen fucked his adopted daughter and then married her and said it was the only relationship he has managed to make work. That’s hilarious! You are a sick person. But Blue Jasmine sure looks fun. Hey guys, Andrew Dice Clay slicks his hair right back for it.

I’m sanctimonious this week, but I do love men. I love men so much. I also have a strong sense of right and wrong. Oh boy! This week on How Was Your Week Julie does some grappling, not that kind of grappling Grandpa. Put that waffle syrup away.

Why did women wrestle in mud in the 80s? What was going on with us? What was in our collective unconscious that we thought sploshing was really interesting? Let’s think about that for a second. I know that it’s tied to wrestling. I know that when I saw Who’s Harry Crumb that my parents got cable and that move was on constantly either on HBO or the Movie Channel or both. There was a scene where Harry Crumb was rubbing mud into some character actress that I should be humiliated not to have instant recall of. He was rubbing therapeutic mud into her ass and playing tic tac toe with his fingers in mud. Was it erotic? Yeah but it was also confusing. There’s something about those comedies. They assume you are in it for goofy laughs but also that you’re horny teenage boy. Great, I’ve gone back to the sanctimonious box.

The Sanctimonious Box, by the way, is going to be my next one-woman show. It’s going to be in a black box theater.

Speaking of theater Stage Door Manor is doing a production of In the Heights this summer. I don’t think I’m allowed to attend because I don’t have a child. It would be creepy if I went to a sleep away camp and said, “I’m here for In the Heights.” One, for In the Heights. Who are you? “I’m Jubees. I’m Jubees Klausner.” No dice. No dice lady.

Let’s start the show.