Episode 135: "Walking Ballads"

Date

4 October 2013

Guests

Tom Ruprecht

Origin of the episode title

"Walking Ballads" are former athletes. They're sad stories.

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Episode Link

Monologue Transcript

Let’s do this. Let’s do a podcast. Hi Everybody. It’s Julie Klausner back for another episode of HWYW.

I am in Los Angeles where everybody’s dreams and hopes stink like shit. I came out here to sell something. I did not sell it. I am not taking that personally. I want to give a shout out to the Hotel Andaz, previously the Riot House, on West Sunset for having a 24-hour room service menu. They will make you chocolate chip pancakes in the middle of the night.

I have a lot of things to talk about, my list of things to talk about. Right now all I can think about is can I go to acupuncture today, is that possible. I have been waiting for a guy to call me back. He runs and acupuncture studio in West Hollywood, it’s called Poke. I’ll give Poke a Plug. This guy it H-O-T hot. He’s Nate’s type. He’s one of these sexy, you want to saw bear, but he’s in good shape. Bear means different things now. He has tattoos. He has a beard. His name is Russell. He has a masculine name. Poke Acupuncture everybody. Give it a try.

Hey everybody. What am I going to talk about this week? What else happened besides failure…not my failure, I’ll put it that way, it’s network television’s failure. There won’t even be a Peacock, an Eye, a Stopwatch and a Pendulum in a year. Yes those are the four major networks. I do like the Black List. I’ve only seen an episode of it but it turned me on. I like it, James Spader being sexy and ugly. It’s a feat. He’s got a hat. I like how network television wonder s what did people like about Breaking Bad? It was a hat right? Let’s give this character a hat. If you haven’t seen the Black List, James Spade is a criminal. He walks into the FBI. They ask, “What are you doing here, you’re the most wanted criminal.” He’s very smug. We learn that he will only talk to one girl, who’s clearly his daughter which is not a good; it’s not as good as it could be because there could be more sexual tension in the Blacklist. On the other hand the girl that they got to play this daughter has a face that is blanker than every sketchpad for sale at, I don’t know, Michael’s? What’s a chain art supply store, Pearl? Do you guys have a Pearl Paint in your neighborhood?

This girl that they got to be the Jodie Foster role in the sans Cannibalism Silence of the Lambs TV show has one of these mushy Disney faces where if you saw her in front of you, you would not recognize her. I can’t tell a Selena Gomez from a Demi Lovato. This girl is both generic and under-qualified for the role of a forensic something or another. The way she says it she sounds like Katie Holmes in that Batman movie. What was the Batman movie where Katie Holmes plays a DA? What? No, it was right after she married Tom Cruise and the roles started rolling in.

The Blacklist is sexy. James Spader is in a plexiglass cubicle at one point sitting very still. Then he’s in a fancy hotel room eating steak and there’s classical music playing. He lifts a glass of wine—this is all visible on the preview by the way. You can watch the trailer. You don’t need to watch the show. Please watch the show. I’ve only seen the first episode. As I mentioned it turned me on. James Spader will always be sexy to me. I think I speak for all straight women in my generation Stef from Pretty in Pink and whatever the lawyer’s name was from Secretary who came on Maggie Gyllenhaal’s was it back or ass? The Point is she never made those typos again, unless she did intentionally! Secretary. Secretary is a hot movie. Let me put it this way, nobody signed up for the cross-over. If you are into let’s play that you’re in charge of me and you treat me like an object, that’s fun, everybody’s on board with that the problem is when you realize oh this is just this guys world-view. I’m not talking about Shit-bird in particular, although I am technically. There are other people that I know that is a thing with.

The government shut down. That was a fun thing for me to chat about with the NSA on my way out to Los Angeles. If you chat with them and you are friendly with them then they don’t notice that you brought a cuticle nipper in your carry on. Sometimes they do sometimes they don’t. Look, my cuticles are not going to nip themselves when I’m on the road. Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. I said, “Why are you guys at work?” “Oh because our bosses are the ones who are furloughed.” “That’s fucked up.” “We know.” Then I bashed my foot into something hard. I walk into things a lot. Not like an acute clumsy Drew Barrymore, in Never Been Kissed kind of way. It more of, how would I put my clumsiness? Just too much of an agitated rush to be aware of her surroundings. Things I walk into on a regular basis according to, don’t too turned on by this, the consistent height of the bruises on my outer thigh: my dresser and subway turnstiles, subway turnstiles and things around the subway entrances and exits. Technically if you push on a turnstile it should succumb. Not according to my bruises.

I also have very bruisable skin. So, where was I? Oh yeah, I bashed my foot. I wore a pair of open-toed wedges on the plane. I generally don’t. Generally I like to go on a plane with a casual flat but I thought because I am doing a carry-on luggage situation, why don’t I pack my flats? They’re smaller than these open-toed wedges; I’ll wear those to the airport. Genius. Until I bashed my foot, I don’t even know on what. I bashed it pretty hard around the NSA conversation, so by the time I got to Hudson News and bought my two giant Smart Waters and the new Malcolm Gladwell because I’m concerned that guy is not getting enough money to maintain his perm. By the way please tip Spoony this week. That’s all I will say about it. Go to Julieklausneronacitibike.com click tip Spoony. Please send us money. None of us are selling any TV shows anytime soon. I know this sounds like a rich person’s problem, but it’s very much the opposite in that fuck you, give us some money. Visit bonobos.com I hear they have really terrific men’s clothes.

So I bashed my foot somewhere between the NSA and Hudson News and while I was buying—I also bought one of those garlic hummus and pretzels crisps combos. The pretzels crisps are on the top and the hummus on the bottom. Together they make this interesting shape that I’m sure physics has a word for. I realized that my foot feels wet, this is gross. By the time I get to the front of the line and pay for my stuff I realize that my, I guess the longest one of my toes is my middle toe, and this has actually happened before. For some reason I feel like my middle toe is oddly thin-skinned. It just opened. It was like you had a can opener and a lid. I told you this was gross. It wasn’t like my toe was completely off. But there was a deep cut in that toe for the bashing of it. I realized that my right foot was just cradled in a pool of blood. I said, oh boy, and thought to myself everybody is looking at me. Everybody is thinking, why isn’t bloody foot tending to her situation instead of buying hummus? Leave me alone. I’ll tend to my hoof once I get to the terminal. I get to the terminal convince that I was going to need my toe to be amputated in the air.

I found a handicapped…is handicapped still a word you can use? It probably shouldn’t be. What’s the name of that Ricky Gervais Show? Is it Wilford or Looper? I was in a handicapped stall which is a private stall and I was able to clean up my feet, wash my shoe…When you type Ricky Gervais into google and then I guess I clicked images by mistake, believe me it was a mistake. It says, “Weight loss Stephen Merchant Girlfriend Atheist. Then there are some photos that would relax your hair into a gentle wave. Derek, that’s the name of his show.

Anyway my foot is fine. My foot is fine. I want to mention that it is insane that as of today Friday October 4th I have not heard a single parody song to the tune of Tragedy by the Bee Gees about the movie Gravity. That doesn’t make sense. It writes itself.

Alec Baldwin, thank god, has a new show on either MSNBC or CNBC; the one that fired Keith Olberman for being a blow hard the first time, or was that ESPN? I think whoever that former employer was saw Alec Baldwin and they said to themselves I think we’ve found somebody more self-important and less informed. Was Keith Olberman ever informed? I don’t care. I couldn’t get past his whole thing. Alec Baldwin and Keith Olberman both have wives that are 1/3 of their age. Yes, it’s important. I’ve talked about this before, I don’t like the attitude, “I don’t like the guy’s personal life.” It’s important. It reflects on his professional life. It just does. “Why should it bother me that Anthony Weiner kept sexting?’” Because it should. “Eliot Spitzer did a lot for labor. Why do I care that he slept with a prostitute for an extended period of time?” Because it means that he thinks women are commodities and that his mind has a construct in which women are lesser than men because they can be bought like slaves.

Anyhoosies…

Alec Baldwin sitting down to breakfast with his young yoga wife who had a baby, which is disgusting. Not that babies are disgusting. Not that childbirth is disgusting no matter what Ricki Lake is trying to show us on film. I don’t like photos of Steve Martin cradling a newborn. It’s the opposite of hot dad at the flea market, that guy is cute and he has a baby. It like Ugh! Ew! Put that baby down, and I mean your wife. The wife is too young. Alec Baldwin sitting down to breakfast with his young wife reading The Times. Gray Lady says, “It’s like the government shut down just to give me something to talk about on my new show.” Yoga wife goes, “Hahahahah. Oh Al.” I tweeted this. I do have a feeling Alec` Baldwin’s new TV show is just him and Anthony Bourdain gentle touching the tips of their dicks together for an hour, depending on what’s in the news that day.

Britney Spears’ new video is a lot. I want to talk about it because I only saw it once. I felt like I got the gist. Work Bitch-when I heard the title I was excited. I’m not going to say that Britney Spears gets it. I doubt she’ll ever get it. I think she’s Derek with a weave. No disrespect to Britney. I’m actually a big fan of hers. I think she brought in something completely new. I think she had a sex appeal that was completely of its time. I like her songs. I liked her voice. Toxic is the best song probably in the last 30 years. But her trajectory as nymphet toward hot mess gay icon is flawed because she’s this porno-age’s Marilyn Monroe. We’re in the porno-age. We are in an age in which internet porno is the only thing the internet runs on. Fuck our tweets. Our tweets are the Hybrid cars of that situation. Then you take jet fuel into account. Never mind. I’m not doing anything. Britney doesn’t have the soulfulness or frankly the brains that Marilyn did. She is, it’s very Linda Lovelace-y honestly. I think of her as a woman with two kids who is haunted by her own perfection as an 18 year-old. Could you imagine how terrible something like that would be? All I do in my waking life is try not to be the 18 year old version of myself. And yet Brittany Spears kills herself in the gym every day since that time when she just went off the rails with pills. People called her bloated and fat on the VMAs. That was really nice. . People aren’t nice to women.

She’s clearly killed herself to look in this video the closest she’s looked to her original…if Warhol were ever to have done an impression of her, her midriff cast in amber. She looks like that. She really does in this video. It’s a drag queen song. When I first heard the song I thought ok, that’s what this is. It ain’t catchy but I can certainly picture Alaska Thunderfuck walking down the runway lip-syncing to it. The problem was, for me the video. Not because she was trying to capture some by gone era in which, I think Rob Sheffield would probably be the expert to have this sort of in depth conversation. But the time in the cultural zeitgeist when Riot Girl and visible female indie rockers from the Breeders to Courtney Love to some extent kind of gave way to the most commercial we’ve ever seen in pop music in quite some time in the teen band brand, ‘N Sync, Britney, Christina…I’ve always like Brittany better than Christina so I don’t even mean this to be an attack on her. But that was when the porno-era started. This version of the porno-era.

What Britney does in this video really bums me out because the notion of work bitch is taken really literally and it is from the straight guy point of view which is it would be hot if this girl were mean to other girls. There’s no drag to it. There are models on all fours being whipped by Brittany. There’re a couple of girls with gags in their mouths. By the way, I don’t like gags, like ball gags. Any type of gag imagery I don’t think it’s cute. I don’t think it’s interesting maybe because it’s modern. There’s no equivalent from the Master’s of Sex era. It’s too gear-centric. Somebody had to design this. It’s just gross. It bothers me. What’s wrong with a kerchief in a lady’s mouth tied to a tree like ginger on Gilligan’s Island? I guess one of the gags in this was Beats by Dre…some product placement. I just think it was gross. It really made me sad. It showed me Brittany as some sort of house n-word like Samuel Jackson’s character from Django UnChained and thinking it would be super hot to men, which in her mind is her audience still. It just isn’t, gay men are watching and women are watching. If straight guys are watching a Britney Spears video they have wandered into their girlfriend’s bedroom. In her mind the male gaze is everything. That’s her audience. She is constantly thinking is this going to make me look hot? It’s not enough to have this body that she clearly killed herself to get back to. What if on top of that I was kind of mean to other girls in a way that is a male porno-fantasy of degrading a woman sexually is sexy. Plus the lesbian stuff-it’s so porny, but not in a creative or original way. She has no autonomy. We’re all used to that. She should have better handlers, you know?

Who is her Jelly Bean? What’s that guy’s name? Jelly Bean, the guy who helped Madonna. He had a Latino last name Benitez. Who was her Jelly Bean Benitez.

Robin Thicke, boring. Boring and a bummer.

Mia Farrow did a big interview with Vanity Fair and she said Frank Sinatra was the love of her life even though that story how she wanted Rosemary’s Baby’s box office numbers to go opposite Frank Sinatra’s bombed movie box office numbers in a two page ad in Variety after he served her divorce papers on set. Robert Evans gives good myth. She said that Ronan Farrow could possibly be Frank Sinatra’s kid and you look at photos of Ronan Farrow and think why hadn’t that occurred to me? He’s gorgeous. I think the big part of that article that people maybe aren’t talking about enough is that Dylan Farrow, Ronan’s younger sister, finally came out and spoke out against the abuse she endured by Woody Allen when she was 7. He molested her. I’m not saying allegedly because remember when we had the director of sex crimes unit on the show? He made that great doc, and there was a whole section in it in which a health worker was giving a talk to the first responders who deal with women who have been raped or assaulted. When they are writing up the account, the instruction given in that room is not to say allegedly. That’s not your job, that’s the courts job. Your job is to say he did that to you. I also just happen to personally believe it. I think Dylan is very brave to come out and say what she did. I said as much on twitter. Some troll on twitter said, even though Mia Farrow’s chosen psychiatrist’s said that Dylan’s testimony was inconclusive. What are you doing dude? Is this your cause? Is going on a public website and fighting with people about whether or not a little girl lied about whether or not she was molested. Here’s my policy with that, give the victim the benefit of the doubt. That’s my policy in general. Listen to the disenfranchised because the fact of the matter is they don’t speak up enough. We don’t hear the voices of the disenfranchised as much as we do the voices of the powerful. The voices of the powerful as so deafening, Woody Allen insists on putting a fucking movie out every goddamn year. Blue Jasmine was over-rated. My theory is that when a woman speaks out or a child about something that could have happened to them that was abusive and abusive of power listen. Not every woman is Tawana Brawley, who by the way has not come out with a decent album since 1989.

I learned online from having skimmed twitter that Amanda Palmer wrote and open letter to Sinead O’Conner who wrote an open letter to Miley Cyrus. I thought to myself, good discourse everybody, keep those tongues a-flapping/ Let me just say this about Saturday Night Live because I did see the premier of SNL, I’m going to say this on the record. I don’t mean to be shitty to Cecily Strong, and I don’t mean to be shitty to any woman that is doing comedy otherwise, but Vanessa or Kate should have gotten that job. I’m just putting that out there because it’s my opinion. Not that it matters. Like I said in five years there will be no Peacock, Stop watch, Pendulum, Eyeball, or Winebottle.

I have an addendum, a correction to make, as it were. Last week I said I will never have a three-way. I neglected to take into consideration that I have not had a 3-way with Matt Stone and Trey Parker in my life, and that is number one or two on Ye Olde Bucket List. I also want to mention that Victoria MacRae-Samuels who is the VP of Operations at Maker’s Mark is in the Redhead Hall of Fame. She also has a cat.

I browsed a cat recently. I don’t know if I told you this but when Shit-bird broke my heart recently, whenever Labor Day was, I thought to myself in my grief, “I have so much love to give.” It was basically like I was on the Magnolia imdb quote section of that particular page and I just picked something and ran with it. I thought to myself what if I get another cat? First I thought about getting a dog and Martha Plimpton said, “You should get a dog because then you’ll meet guys.” Martha Plimpton you just want me to get a dog. I don’t blame you and I think it is a beautiful idea but I am not ready for a dog. There’s a possibility I am a cat person. I don’t mean to blow your minds but add it up; I don’t like leaving the house. I like talking to myself. I have issues with sentient creatures that unequivocally love me, so I thought to myself let me get another…I’ll just see what they have. I went on Pet Finder and found a tuxedoed gentleman named Ron. Ron is 8. Ron is handsome. Ron is portly. I thought to myself what if I had the tuxedo brothers. What if Jimmy had a mentor in the form of an older gentleman who taught him how to chill the fuck out and cuddle, and maybe played with him during the day while I was not in the apartment which is very rare? So I met Ron. I was in touch with the two women, the woman who adopted Ron and the woman who is taking care of Ron. I went over to a beautiful home in Brooklyn to meet Ron. The issue was that Ron had been there a year and bonded and was completely in love with the woman but did not get along with her husband. Fine with her kid, but very antagonistic toward the husband. The wife was in a position in which she was disappointed that she had to let go of the cat but her husband was… Meanwhile I’m a stranger so I could suggest can you get divorced? Can you just tell him to shut the fuck up and not listen to his feelings?

One day I’ll talk more about Jack, but not right now. I wasn’t a great girlfriend. Sometimes I was.

I met Ron. Ron was super cool. Ron was super into this woman, like in love with her, I felt bad about it. Ron loves this woman; he’s going to miss her. They have a bond. They have something beautiful. I was very fond of him. I left. I said let me think about it and maybe we’ll arrange a play date. She says, “I’ll bring a bottle of wine.” “I like you.” Then I thought about it. I met with Ted. I talked about it with Ted. I said to myself and to Ted, I don’t know. I think there’d be a huge adjustment period. Jimmy is just sort of beginning to get comfortable with me. He’s showing me his tummy more. They both might hide from each other for two full weeks. There might be cat box stuff. They are two males, and maybe that’d be a thing. I have a really small apartment so there might be litter box odors. Finally it came down to me picturing myself coming home and seeing two tuxedoed cats instead of one. It didn’t make sense to me. I thought to myself it’s not the right time. I appreciate the sentiment. I really loved Ron, but I had to go with my gut. I can’t do this right now.

I wrote. They say never make a decision about an animal when you are in a state of grief or heartbreak. I had gone on Pet Finder specifically in that state. So I wrote to the two ladies and told them as much. I was very honest. Two weeks later I get an email from Ron’s true Love. The subject header: RON THE CAT. She writes, Hi Julie. I’m not sure what happened but after your visit Ron turned into the perfect cat. I think you did some cat whispering. So thanks. My husband is no longer exasperated and I don’t have to give him up for now. Fingers crossed. Thanks for helping out.

This email blew my mind, not because I believe I have magical properties around cats. I’m not in that phase of my Messiah complex which I still think is a cute look for me on top of the perm. I refuse to believe otherwise. What I thought was great about this email was Ron’s awareness. I feel like cats know when they are being browsed. I go the sense that Ron thought oh fuck I’m on the chopping block aren’t I? Oh boy. I have to choose between the guy that sleeps with the lady I like or this rando who smells like another tuxedo cat. I don’t know if I like change. So Ron decided as much. Congratulations so to Ron.

Carrie Keagan is dating Michael Sheen. Keagan hosts VH1s big morning buzz. She’s very nice. I have been on that show a couple of times. She has large breasts.

I’m mad at homeland for starting too soon. I didn’t think it was classy that Homeland started the same night that Breaking Bad ended because I needed a full week to process the ending of Breaking Bad, the series, not that episode. No, he’s not dead. Vince Gilligan is the Ant-David Chase. He’s going around giving interviews , “He’s not dead. I wanted to tie up all the ends.” Thank you Vince Gilligan. You are a Pulp Fiction X Files guy. You don’t like ambiguity. I like your Van Dike I want a Van Dike ride. Thank you good night. Also Anna Gunn please at pizza. It tastes good. I am mad at Homeland. I have not watched last week’s homeland. I’m not going to watch this week’s homeland, next week’s homeland… Not because I am mad a Mandy Patinkin. I’ve never been mad at Mandy Patinkin. I just don’t like the timing of it. It’s too soon. I needed some absorption time.

There was a Bourbon Sermon earlier this week; I mentioned that the third Bourbon becomes the Sermon Bourbon. I get very loud and I disseminate my views toward the people that are unlucky enough to be drinking with me at that particular moment. This week I spoke about how much this country will always need Alf. How Alf is a great show. Not because of the genuine hatred that he and Willy exhibited toward each other, how odd that actor looked. They would never cast a man that looked like that in a TV show ever. I think this country has a finite number of comic archetypes and one is Borscht Belt comedian. Alf was that. The twist was that he was from outer space. Don’t mean to give away the premise of Alf for Millenials that are not familiar. I don’t mean to be mean to Millenials. You guys look up to me sometimes which is incredibly sexy to the fake men in my Britney Spears head who that I think are watching.

Alf is important. He fulfills that archetype. We need our Rodney Dangerfield’s. Look Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. People like jokes! Alf is so important.

I went to Philly on Monday to Camille Paglia who is going to be on an upcoming episode. I have no idea if I am going to release it as a bonus. We have a HWYW App that I haven’t had a chance to think about what it would be. It would be bonus episodes. You’d pay for the app and then get the bonus episodes. I’m still figuring it out. It’s basically a way to make money off of the podcast without being sleazy about it. There’s also about an hour and a half of Camille Paglia talking in rapid fire like Martin Scorsese meets Quentin Tarantino with a pile of cocaine pace about a lot of different things including feminism. I have some huge problems with a lot her ideology around feminism. I tried to get in there but you know at a certain point I gave up. You’ll hear that in the interview when we do release it. I’m kind of over 90s feminism, the porno-age stuff. The female chauvinist pigs model, the Britney Spears whipping another girl model. It’s not Betty Paige, these aren’t stills. This isn’t charming, it’s broadband speed and it’s damaging. It’s hurtful. If it hurts your feelings it’s probably sexist. That’s a good rule of thumb.

I was in Philadelphia met Camille Paglia who in some ways is absolutely so fucking brilliant and so funny. Occasionally I scream Hallelujah to the sky when she says things I agree with. That will come out soon and be something to look forward to.

I want to thank Howwasyourwikans. If you go to Howwasyouwiki.com you can participate in an exciting website in which details about the show are presented, edited and modified by you the listeners. It’s my favorite website on the internet. My only complaint is that I wish there was more content. I strongly encourage you to go to Howwaswiki.com and add comments and categories. They can be silly, how about Spoony’s recaps. Your favorite monologue quotes, why not? These make me feel good when I don’t want to google my exes! That’s called dialing for pain. I want to thank the Howwasyourwikans for adding to the site the differences between Spoony and Dee Dee Ramone section. They are all magnificent examples, some of which have to do with #filth. Finally I strongly recommend tipping Spoony and getting a mole removed if it is bothering you. I did that and I feel really good about it. “I feel great about it.” That’s what Robert Forster says in Jackie Brown when he talks about doing something about his hair loss, which is his indirect way of referencing his plugs. Robert Forster is flawless.

Let’s start the show. We have one guest…