Episode 122: "Rosie's Meds"

Monologue Transcripts

Hi everybody. It’s Julie Klausner back for another episode of How Was Your week.

I am 35, out of the demo, no longer 18-34. If you’re an advertiser you don’t give a fuck about me. It’s a relief frankly. God. I don’t need another ad exec ringing my doorbell asking me my opinions on things. How do you want your man to smell? Do you like this new animated series on Comedy Central? Wait, don’t go anywhere.

Let me get this out of the way first and foremost. You guys really stepped up to the plate in terms of wanting to see me on a Citibike. We have this thing. I don’t know how much money we raised last week. I think it was pathetic, like $200. As you know for $3000 I will pose on a Citibike. I will take a photo of myself on a Citibike showing a bra strap. This week you guys sent in $1382 which is unbelievable. One of you has to write me and tell me how far we are from our goal. I think we are half-way to our goal of me getting on a Citibike and taking a photo of myself on one. Then one of you will needlepoint it. It will be Jimmy Jazz’s pillow. That’s exciting, so thanks for that and the birthday greeting.

Also the How was your week family is a very tight-knit family. We love each other more than anyone in the world has ever felt love. There’s going to be a new addition to the How Was Your Week family, a baby edition. Spoony and his lovely wife are having a baby!! It is exciting. There is going to be a little Spoony or Spoonerina in the universe. We could not be more thrilled. Mazel Tov Spoony.

I did Karaoke with Hotlips Houlihan. That was exciting. We’re not pair bonding were group bonding at the How Was Your Week cult headquarters. I’ve expressed my intentions in the past to be the first female cult leader, on a grand scale. Rosie O’Donnell was up to the task. I’m curious about Rosie’s Meds. Rosie’s psychotropics would be the OWN version of Roseanne’s nuts. Roseanne-Rosie…Don’t combine the two ever, please. If there’s anyone thinking of doing that go instead with my idea of Lorraine Bracco and Patti Lupone just drinking wine for an hour. Call it “We don’t Give a Fuck” somewhere James Gandolfini will be smiling. Do that instead.

Yes, Rosie O’Donnell would have been a good cult leader as far as her commitment to fringe causes and her ability to fill the air with her words. I can do that. It’s really just about sometimes people have enough emphatic crazy that it makes up for charisma, or good hair. You can say what you want about Rosie O’Donnell; she has really good thick hair. What’s her new wife like? She’s probably completely normal right? When it comes to crazy people and you have a relationship the other person involved with the crazy person is never crazy. That’s sarcasm everybody. There’s no such thing as one crazy person in a relationship. Never tell someone, he’s crazy but his wife is totally normal. No she’s not, she’s not. No, no, no. Could we institute a vacation where I unfollow comedians’ girlfriends on twitter for a week? Is that something we can all agree to do? They’ll notice. Some people will some’ people won’t. Look, it’s no secret that I’m a professional in the comedy universe and that I am a female person. That makes me special. Like Matilda, I’ll talk about that in a second, I saw the musical. I thought it was fantastic.

A lot of my peers in the podcasting community are men. They have lady friends, unless they’re gay in which case I have no complaints. I end up hanging out with their gal pals and becoming friendly. Then there’s the dinner where I think why am I at the children’s table? I don’t want to come across like I’m not a girl’s girl, so I follow them on twitter. The point is I’m really glad that you’re at the gym.

The highlight of my week, my month, my life, your life is that Julianne Moore tweeted me Happy Birthday Now Julianne Moore has been following me on twitter for a couple of months. It’s been life changing. When I say life I mean your life and my life and life in general. Julieanne Moore has a sway over…maybe it is different for people who are redheads but I don’t think it is. I mention her to other humans and the ones among us who are culture, which is to say, we read for pleasure or I don’t know we know stuff. They will become overwhelmed. That’s the normal response. Julianne Moore is everything.

She, as I mentioned, looks like ever single painting and sculpture in one perfect, perfect meaning freckled shoulders, imperfect but perfect. I saw the preview for the new Carrie with Chloe Moretz, Julianne Moore’s hair in that, breath taking. Grace Coddington realness, served with a side of Betty Buckley, she did the role of the mom in Carrie the musical. That’s trivia that will come up on a first date. I have discussed how I don’t know how to date. There are certain things you shouldn’t dwell on when you are talking to straight guys who you are trying to not disgust. It comes down to specific song titles. It comes down to am I talking about Sunday in the Park with George too much or for too long? Does anybody want to hear my opinion about assassins? The answer generally is yes, but anybody whose dick you’d like to be hard in the next…I’m not going to be self-deprecating I know I’m a pretty girl. I’m an attractive woman but there is an element of haggery I guess. I accept myself. I’m not struggling with being ok with being myself. I’ve accepted the fact that there’s not an alternative. I guess I’m saying it’s interesting to learn thing even when you feel like you’re an old dog and some ones trying to teach you a new trick.

Was it Treach from Naughty by nature who was dating Pepa? Pepa must be amazing in bed. Can we establish that? Can we all agree with each other on how great in the sack Pepa has got to be? Salt not so much. Spindarella is a freak in the sack too. Salt is Christian now, the Christian that ruins all the fun, the Christian who you are about to go on tour…I saw that VH One show where Salt was Cheryl had some problem with some of the lyrics in Shoop because it goes How does it hang? She said, “I don’t want to say that, it’s none of my business how another man hangs besides my husband.” This is not a good advertisement for Christianity. Meanwhile Pepa was at a poker game with all dudes being terrific and broad shouldered. Was Pepa the original Nene Leakes? In terms of a lot of things don’t get touchy, in terms of being broad shouldered, confident, a lot of fun, rocking short blond hair. Think about it. Think about it before you don’t think about it.

I am tired and I don’t feel well. I know it’s not fun to listen to a Jewish girl complain into a microphone who doesn’t have a Punchline. I’m speaking to you now, it’s late. It’s post fireworks July fourth last night I went out for my birthday with some of my beautiful dear friends, I did karaoke. I forgot to sing Harper Valley PTA and I feel like a fucking asshole today. I didn’t do ecstasy but I’m having that thing where the next day you are disoriented. What are my brain pleasure receptors doing today? Not what they should be. At first I thought, oh yeah, I’m hung over. Now I have symptoms—warm skin, stomach, the idea of doing anything besides lying down in air conditioning is appalling not appealing but tomorrow will be better.

I did not take ecstasy last night as I mentioned nor did I take Molly. MDMA is very hot this pride week. I got several texts from close friends of mine on…When was pride? Sunday last week. I guess I woke up on Monday and I got a bunch of texts that didn’t make any sense. There were some photos that I couldn’t make out at a bar, a lot of expressed love, a mention of Whoopi Goldberg’s outfit in For Colored Girls. A couple of gay men I am friends with had lewd encounters with Australians. I feel like Australian and MDMA and Australia this year have been…remember when they kept releasing a crop of movie one year about that runner? Who was it La Fontaine? Anyway everyone I know fucked at least more than one Australian at the same time.

I went to Toronto on Friday. I did Andrew Johnston’s show. It was so fun. I want to thank everyone on Toronto who came out to see me and either pretending convincingly, or actually believing that I am famous because (whispers) I’m not famous. I felt really appreciated at the theater Buddies in Toronto. You guys all say ‘sore-y’ and it’s hilarious. It is cute. You say ‘eh’ also. I was on their turf so I couldn’t stop and say, “oh my god you actually do that!” Thank you. It was so fun!

Speaking of Canadians we have Merilee Wilson coming up. She also has a Canadian accent. Part of the apeeal of travel is the human desire to contrast things. This is what I know. This is what I don’t know. This is what is different. There is something about the slightly unfamiliar, the bizarro version. I have xeroxed this photograph enough times so that my uncle has a mole. There’s something about the Canadian version of life that is just fascinating enough for people to not shut the fuck up about it—people meaning me. It’s new. It’s not the LA versus New York conversation. Even if you move to a different coast for some reason, after years and years and years, it never gets old. There was something about being in Toronto and having everything be just slightly different, slightly cleaner.

I was only there for a hot minute, but it was interesting how you can inhale and taste urban planning and civil services, and what if everything that people thought about when they were designing a college applied to a city? It seemed like people thought about things more. It was also recent, maybe the 60s. People decided, “Hey let’s make Toronto.” Ok. Then they said, “Is that ok with you?” SO funny, my humor about how people are different than me. Did you get that? It was subtle. I was doing a Canadian accent.

I saw Matilda. I LOVED Matilda. I was treated by a very kind friend of the show, Robbie. She took me with her adorable daughter who is 10, her name is Poppy. Poppy is awesome. Poppy has really cool hair, some of it is purple, some of it is blue, some of it is blond. Robbie and Poppy took me to see Matilda. They’d seen it before. They’re big fans. I was so good. I want to see it again. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I have been listening to the score. Tim Minchin wrote the score. Tim Minchin is an Australian comedian. I’m pretty sure he didn’t have sex… there was a trend…a lot of texts.

It was like Fleet Week. When you come on an Australian guy’s asshole does the come go counter clockwise? I saw a charming musical with to charming people that has nothing to do with the pride detail I couldn’t help myself from disseminating.

Let me start this story from the beginning. Matilda is written by a godless man named Tim Minchin. He’s brilliant. I don’t know his stage work. I remember when he was doing stuff in New York. He and Daniel Kitson were in New York and everyone said you’ve got to see him. I didn’t. He’s brilliant. He wore eyeliner. He doesn’t believe in god. Ok. Then Matilda came out and I knew he wrote the music and lyrics and I thought, ok, maybe they’re clever. It’s the unfamiliar again. Especially with music, people want a point of reference. Then they get bored because they’ve heard it before, unless they JUST heard it before and your brain wants to hear it over and over again because it’s new. I know that I like it. When you hear something you like you’re eager to listen to it again and then it is no longer new.

There is also the thrill of falling in love. New music is an intangible, I feel like musicians do fall in love. You can’t own a person because he’s about to go on tour, or be distracted for a few months, or just needs to take it really really slow. That makes you want it more. That’s kind of a relationship with music when music is good that I have. Oh my god, where did this song come from? I want to possess it. So I listen to it over and over again until I do sort of possess. Then I take it for granted.

Whenever I find new music, and I am probably making something more out of Matilda than I should be, when you find new music that I like, that I love, it always seems impossible. Maybe because falling in love is so hard, at least with me. I’m very picky. When I find somebody I like I think how is this possible? Maybe there is a resistance as you get older to discovery, curiosity or anything new. Even though new isn’t the same as change. We are resistance to new. All of the musicals are based on something we know. Even though they are based on something we know, we don’t know the songs. Those songs aren’t “oh What a Beautiful Morning” which no one wants to hear. Are we on the same page? Even at a piano bar, the 80 year old gay guy who survived all of his friends dying, can we establish that he does not want to hear Oh What a Beautiful Morning? Maybe he’d like to hear Surrey with a Fringe on Top. I’d like to hear Surrey with a Fringe on Top right now.

Anyway, the score to Matilda really blew me away and my only complaint about it is that it is too brief. Which is silly, it’s not really a complaint. It was very smart, very clever. There is a lot of stuff with letters and words and playing around with internal rhymes. A lot of Sondheim-y stuff. The stuff with the letters reminded me of if Demetri Martin’s work was about human emotion somehow. That is going to be the pull quote, it is going to be really big on the posters. Demetri Martin could feel feelings. Come on in. It’s written by a godless Australian.

It’s almost like XTC dense which is probably not cool. If you’re interested in my talking about musicals you probably don’t give a shit anyway. I learned recently that XTC aren’t cool. I don’t want to talk about who said it, it’s just something I have been thinking about. I don’t care. I love XTC, but they’re not cool. I know their lyrics are a bit much. I didn’t know their whole thing. They Might Be Giants have turned a corner, they’re cool now. I’m just putting that out there. They Might Be Giants new album is great. That first song, You’re on Fire, I believe is about redheads.

What else do I want to say about Matilda? I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that the legacy, the future generations going forward will not be able to tell the difference between Roald Dahl and Tim Burton. I am worried about that because they are different. Roald Dahl was a writer. Tim Burton is a stylist with no doubt a sweat shop of hot topic employees that didn’t get the gig. “So what are we doing? We’re putting Helena Bonham Carter in a corset? What are her tights going to be? Black and white horizontal stripes?” We are not as artists…we don’t go down for influence. It’s not a quantity contest. It’s not like Tim Burton made a few really great movies let’s say, Peewee, Beetlejuice, Ed Wood… then Mars Attacks, Big Fish- oy! What was my point?

Legions and legions and legions of people love Tim Burton. His influence has been enormous. But that’s not how we judge artists. Roald Dahl was an incredible writer with a unique imagination, sense of humor, and the ability to tap into childhood id, pre-hormone darkness, a playful darkness. He was grounded in a specific whimsical macabre the stuff of fascination. He only freaked me out twice when I was growing up. I read everything Roald Dahl wrote for kids, when I was growing up. The only time he lost me was in his autobiography he wrote Boy. He talked about the doctor removing the roof of his mouth. It was very graphic. That was upsetting.

 Also the story the Swan from the Henry Sugar Book.  Holy Shit Roald Dahl.  You could not use your power for evil in that way to a child who cannot deal with bullying or animals being hurt. That was unfair.  I have read a little about Roald Dahl and he’s not crazy about Jews, so there’s that.  Pobody’s Nerfect.  He a said something like Hitler wasn’t all bad. I’m not doing the Jim Morrison vigil.  I’m not going to Roald Dalh’s gravestone and taking a photo of myself. 

Tom Waitt’s isn’t dead, although when that happens… Ladies when Tom Waitts dies he’s going to be buried in a graveyard and you are going to want to hang out during the day to meet the cool dudes that visit his gravestone to leave their journals and a feather with significance to take a photo to put on ok cupid and Facebook. Those are going to be the hottest dudes in the world and you should be under their trench coats and beneath their fedoras to run a finger through their oily hair and other stereotype details…to be continued later…

I have more thoughts about Matilda. I thought it was brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. I had a couple of questions about atheism in relationship to fate. There’s a song in there where Matilda talks about how she doesn’t understand why people in the books she reads don’t just change their story, why if Romeo and Juliet are destined to die maybe they could not get involved. I don’t know if that is something universally that atheists choose not to believe in. I know fate is connected to order. Order is connected to a being pulling strings, and that bothers atheists. They like talking about the notion of the watchmaker theory of the universe. God created the universe like somebody who made a watch. Then they disappear but the watch works on its own (sometimes you have to take the watch in to get rewound) As far as there being something prewritten, I didn’t know that atheists had as much of a problem with that as Bill Mahr does with women who are not prostitutes.

Should I start the show or should I talk about how there’s too much Josh Gad in everything I see lately? Let’s take a break from Josh Gad being in every preview. I also wanted to mention briefly that I began a conversation last night with Rob Sheffield, whose new book about karaoke is coming out soon and you must purchase it. It’s called Turn Around Bright Eyes. Let’s put I pin in that…

I began to start talking about sitcoms and comparing them to bands. I am going to work towards illuminating that more in the future. I’m just going to say that Cheers is the Beatles. Don’t give me any guff. Cheers is the Beatles. Cheers is the Beatles, Cheer sis the Beatles. Sheffield wanted to know if that made Frasier the Plastic Ono Band, the answer is no. Frasier is something else. Mash is Pink Floyd; Daniel Ralston had a good point about that. Rob thought Seinfeld was the Talking Heads but that’s not true, no. No, no, no. We’re going to figure this out. We’re going to crack it. Yes, Will and Grace is the B52s. We’re on this. This is going to be a thing. Just note that.

I want to recommend a couple of things that I saw, and did, and read. People like that. I’m not working, I’m funemployed. I have been going to see stuff and had time to read stuff. I finished Marie Calloway’s book. It was completely intense. I had a lot of emotions reading it. It is called What Purpose did I Serve in Your Life. I recommend it. It is very provocative. It is a conversation starter. I saw a documentary called, A Band Called Death. I loved it. I cannot recommend it enough. I saw The Assembled Parties, which was great. I sat in the row in front of Judd Apatow. I tweeted him, he didn’t tweet back. That’s his business.

I appreciate you guys very much. I am going to start the show…