Episode 124: "Dicks for Days"

Monologue Transcript

Hello? Yes, this is she. What may I say this is regarding? Ok, but…ugh! That’s disgusting! Who gave you this number?

Hi everybody. It’s Julie Klausner back for another episode of How Was Your Week. That was my ‘I’m on the phone character.’ I’m delirious and it’s not cute. It’s very hot in New York City. I am not doing well in this heat. I don’t leave the apartment and yet I ‘m suffering. I saw my parents last night. We were walking one block. We were trudging like we were going off to the camps of something and my mother said, “We’re from Lithuania.” Got it.

She gave me seven bottles of water to take upstairs which I did and I have. It’s not unwise. She said in case of a black out. At first she asked, “Do you have enough water?” I said, “I have a tap.” Julie! I guess we could brown the grid. Is there anything worse than the term brown out? That’s where New York City is heading. We were just not made for these times. This city, which we’ve established will sink into the ocean, is not equipped for pretty much anything. Our subways are from olden times. The air conditioning is garbage which I complained about last week. If I was smart I would just be hanging out at Old Navy or Best Buy actually. Any chain store is going to have good air conditioning. So yes, I apologize in advance if my brain is a mushy bean.

Remember how people used to call your brain your bean? Am I making that up? I know noodle—do I know noodles. Where did that come from? Oh because of the kidney bean. That makes sense. Good job everybody.

This is public now, I can talk about it. On Monday I start Billy on the Street Season 3 which is so exciting, mostly for you because you get to enjoy entertainment for free. It’s high quality entertainment. The thing about Billy on the Street, which as you know, I work on, so I’m not objective. It’s one of the few shows that when it’s over you are disappointed and surprised. It goes by so quickly. The only other show I can say that about is the Muppet Show when I was 8, or 7, 6…all of the above. I remember watching the Muppet Show as a little girl and whenever they would show the orchestra in the pit, the musicians, not the Electric mayhem. They had member so the Electric Mayhem, but they had session guys. The credits would roll. Whenever I saw the musicians in the pit I got so sad. I knew the show was over.

I’m going to tell that one day to people who will smile. People who will be listening will think I understand her influences. That’s so cool. Ugh!! I hate it. I hate cool. It’s hard enough to tell if something is good, but then to go that step further. It XTC cool? Nobody knows. Nobody knows. I bet god knows because god thought that song Dear God was hilarious.

I feel like god collects…he has atheism’s greatest hits on a Spotify playlist. He plays Tim Minchin. Does Ricky Gervais write funny songs about there not being a god yet? I know that Penn Gillette was in that band Bong Water. Oh good, Julie’s mentioning Bong Water within five minutes of the opening monologue. This is going to be a great episode, really relatable. There have got be a lot of songs about how there is no god and isn’t it funny how stupid people are.

Look, some of my favorite people are godless.

I have been surrounding myself with a lot of media since I mentioned that next week I start at Billy, even though I have been unemployed for a couple of months now. When was I working on the Black Talk Soup? No one knows. My life is a blur. I have been treating this last week like I’m on vacation, even though it’s not any different from the week before. I am going to do what I want this week. I’m going to watch movies in the middle of the day. I’m going to eat pizza. Just dumb child-like ideas of what someone unattended to would pursue as leisure. Do you know what? It’s been a lot of fun! I’m going to pat myself on the back for having fun.

I have talked about this, not having enough fun. It’s been something—I’m not —not that I need an equation. I’m not Little Man Tate. What are you going to do? What do you want first? Fun, joy, or happiness? Bring them all out at the same time whenever they’re ready. Ok? Did I introduce myself?

I’m tipping 40% now. The great thing about doing that is that I am telling people about it. Everyone knows I’m a great person.

I have been watching a lot of movies. I talked about Matilda on the podcast a couple of weeks ago. I saw it and loved it. Tim Minchin who wrote the music and lyrics is an interesting comic from Australia. Our pal Michael Shulman lent me a DVD of his live stuff playing his songs. Michael also wrote a profile of him for the New Yorker which is definitely worth reading. Tim Minchin is a little complicated to me because there is some stuff he does that I like, there’s some stuff of his that really gets on my tits, and there’s some stuff that I straight up don’t like. There’s some stuff that is catchy. It’s tough because he’s from that school—do you call him a comedian? It’s performance art-y. I know Australia isn’t Europe but you know what I mean when I say he’s from the British Empire. Is that a thing? Is that something we can use as a point of reference when I talk about him and Eddie Izzard in the same breath? Eddie Izzard, Ricky Gervais, Daniel Kitson. I like him. He just talks. I like storytelling.

There’s a kind of one-man show that is very European. I guess what I am with Eddie Izzard. I guess what I am trying to say is that I don’t like Eddie Izzard. I have no problem with Eddie Izzard. If he came over, I’d probably love a chat. I think the reason I don’t like Eddie Izzard is that people I have known have pressured me into watching his stuff. Isn’t this great? That’s never effective unless you are dealing with a very shapeable mind like an adolescent and you’re an older brother who thinks the Doors are cool. Then you think the Doors are cool!

If you do comedy and you meet someone, worst case scenario who isn’t from this country/continent Canada, I see you Canada. I met this one guy from Spain. He was so hot. He did these beautiful illustrations. I should have fucked him but here’s the thing. I will never be able to love another person who grew up in another country because they don’t have the same pop culture literacy as I do. That shared experience is as important as religion is to other people. Isn’t that interesting? Isn’t that interesting that I could never love someone from another country? The reason why, not the fact of it? So this guy from Spain knew I was into comedy and asked, “Do you like Eddie Izzard?” At the time I was thinking, I don’t have to date him but I could fuck him. That didn’t happen either. I wasn’t attracted to him to be completely honest with you. He was hot. He had skin that was like a whole fish you bake in salt and just put olive oil on. It was perfect. He liked Eddie Izzard. I don’t know, I’ve known a couple of other people who aren’t comedy fans but they like him. Especially if they are summarizing his bits or his points, it gets on my nerves. Tim Minchin kind of suffers from a little of that but because he’s musical hey look. Music really is the universal language, am I right? Fuck you laughter. I watched that.

Like everybody else I’m into Orange is the New Black. As annoying as it is when people get on twitter and say this is what I’m watching and I love it. It is annoying when you’re not watching it and when you are it is completely fine. I am heartened, I guess, by people getting addicted to a sort of narrative scripted story telling with characters and actors and writers. That’s always exciting. There’s always a novelty to that which is people still want old-fashioned television. Television to me is so great. At this point it is almost charming to say, “Wow, what’s going to happen with…

So Orange is the New Black had considerably hot lezzy action than I had been prepared for when I started watching it. Look, it is in a women’s prison, now I am broadcasting how dumb I am that didn’t see that coming but, yeah that first episode you were like “Awuga” Then you remember that you are watching it on Netflix which is on the internet. Netflix is on the internet. Hi everybody. Then you could probably watch the most sickening lesbian porn in two clicks. You guys don’t use the search bar when you are on a porn site do you? That’s a low I try to…

I’ve discussed my aversion to porn in general, my guilty participation as a viewer of it. I don’t do porn. I’m not participating in that way. I did some punch up for Game of Bones. It’s one thing to click around and it’s another to know what you are looking for and go into a porn site and type it in. You never know if the auto fill is going to come back if you are looking for a greenhouse in the area and you put ‘g’ and gangbang grannies or a sick thing for people. I don’t judge that stuff. I don’t judge porn categories as long as they cast people that are not traditionally beautiful. I’m kidding, those are every bit as dehumanizing.

I’ve been watching Orange is the New Black. I watched both of the Stepford Wives movies for this list I am writing. If you’ve never seen the original Stepford Wives you should watch the original Stepford Wives with Kathryn Ross who is achingly beautiful. She’s all angles and hair. Everything about her is how 1975 needed to look. She wears things that I try to wear. I do the best I can. I have a very different look. Beauty is what it is. She can go braless in ways that are like fine art. I find myself infatuated with the early 70s, 1972. Because Stepford Wives was shot in 1975, I’m all about 1975 now. I’m moving forward.

The idea that men would make robots that wore maxi-dresses, sunhats, and wrist gloves. They’re not opera gloves. Opera gloves are longer. What are those called? Hand gloves. I’ll call them hand gloves, the idea is funny right? Not unless it’s freaking you out. That movie is upsetting to me. I’m just going to go ahead and say it. When they are bulldozing Tina Louise’s tennis court because Tina Louise has been murdered and replaces with a robot who is submissive to her husband’s desire to have a pool instead of a tennis court, she’s gleefully saying, “I never needed the tennis court.” “But you love tennis.” I know that sounds like privilege problems, but it’s not. It’s disturbing. It’s upsetting to see a woman glibly acknowledge that her interests are nothing. That is horror. The comedy version of it, with Nicole Kidman, America’s favorite comedian, or Australia’s favorite comedian after Tim Minchin. Do you know what? After the platypus. Let’s put the platypus as #1, Nicole Kidman #2. Platypuses are so funny. They can kill you. Do you know they have a poison thumb? They have one claw, or maybe it’s their big toe. They have a claw and if you are stabbed by it, it releases poison. Basically at all times they this James Bond style pen filled with cyanide. They also look like furry ducks. I don’t want to bury the lead, about why platypuses are funny. I wish I could just hang out with one.

The Stepford Wives starring Nicole Kidman is uniquely disastrous. I remember seeing it in the movie theater and thinking it was absolutely terrible. I have since revisited it. Do you know what it is? It’s very Paul Rudnick-y. Paul Rudnick wrote it. Frank Oz directed it. Paul Rudnick writes a lot of Shouts and Murmurs for the New Yorker that involves anything Nora Ephron was going to write into a scene in You’ve Got Mail but decided was too hacky and a little too broad. Like women waiting on line at, not even Zabars, is it Eli’s Bread. Is that it? They say something about their daughter, and then a gay guy joins them, the kind of gay guy that makes jokes about Dolce and Gabana. I don’t know. It is a very specific sensibility. I think my parents probably think it’s hilarious. I think their contemporaries do.

I like Paul Rudnick, I just kind of dissed him, but I like his plays and I like that he exists. I like the 2004 remake, even though Nathan Lane wasn’t in it, he was basically in it. Roger Bart was in it and Kate Schindel, who is Miss America before she joined the cast of Legally Blond on Broadway. These are all interesting facts to me and Billy Eichner. Glenn Close has a speech at the end. Her character is the person who is in charge of masterminding the scheme. They really took liberties with the plot. She’s married to Christopher Walken. At the end she has a 25 minute soliloquy where she explains why she did it and how and how she still loves her husband. Her husband is a robot and she kisses his disembodied robot head, and he electrocutes her. That’s how she dies. I can see there being a couple of women named Susan and Phyllis who went to see it in Boca Raton and say that was a lot of fun. Then they never again speak of it. I guess what I’m saying is that I wish there were more movies like that.

I don’t even know. Why do I talk about movies anymore? I can’t say I am comfortable with that as a casualty because look what we have with that instead. What do we have instead? What is Pacific Rim? I have no idea. Apparently it is good. Apparently it is not a Punchline. It’s not Battleship. I feel like the movies during the summer just play sports. That’s how I feel about action movies like Xmen and Ironman—all of that shit. To me it is like, do you know the movie theater that you like to go to that’s air conditioned and you sit there and watch some fun previews and then watch something either funny or interesting or weird or sweet—for the months between Memorial Day and Labor day is it going to show sports games. That’s what it feels like to me.

I saw The Heat. I liked The Heat. It’s really good. Of course it’s a UCB joint. I’m not entirely objective but I will say this, Katie Dipold wrote it. She knows how to write a gag with a cat and a dog, I’ll tell you that much. I don’t like comedies that don’t get animals. I don’t like comedies that assume it is funny to be cruel to animals. I guess to some people that’s funny because it is not real. To some psychopaths it’s funny because that’s just funny but there’s a big cat and a big dog in that movie. Both of them were terrific. I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed more than just the cat and the dog, so you know I’m not being a weird person obsessed with marginal details like if I were on the spectrum and said, “I like the orange trees.”

Speaking of oranges there’s a beautiful image that is referred to within David Rakoff’s final book. It’s an image of a girl holding up two oranges in front of her breasts. I was honored to take part in a reading of his beautiful rhyming novel last night. It could not have been more perfect. The book itself could not be more perfect. It’s called Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish a novel by David Rakoff. Please check it out. It’s just wonderful.

Do you ever get jealous of people who have a better imagination that you? They are younger or more playful, or they accept things their mind does. I have been thinking about imagination. I did the audio book of Art Girls are Easy last week. There’s nothing like reading your own book out loud to make you realize exactly what your problems are as a writer. My plot stuff is a little…whatever, I’m here to sell you the book. Julie talked for 15 minutes about what was wrong with it. I’m not doing that. My goal at least in the next fortnight, let’s say, is to not argue with a compliment. Along those lines I am very aware of my weaknesses as a writer as it comes to plot or story. I’m great at dialogue, I’m great at jokes. Characters—I’ve got a million of them but when it comes to story I do feel like I suffer from lack of imagination in a way that I didn’t when I was little. I would make up stories all the time. I could make up a story off the top of my head. My mind was sort of in blissful reverie.

I would fantasize about what if I did a play that was based on Cats but was about candy? I had better ideas then, before the critical voice devoured the playful voice—the ‘yes and’ of it all. Now my imagination is pathetic. It’s just dicks for days. When you are an adult and your imagination gives way to sexual fantasy. The choreography of it is repetitive. I’ll put it that way. I would love to have a mind that is what if… something instead of dicks for days, here we go… You bought a ticket to the matinee right? Good because it’s a marathon. The air conditioning is working come right in.

I guess I’m not a sci-fi girl. We’ve talked about this. I love mumble core sci-fi, things that are fantastical with humanism to them, like Kurt Vonnegut, Charlie Kaufman, and George Saunders. I don’t think I could ever write something like that. Maybe I could. I don’t know. Does anyone have any mushrooms. That’s what I am getting at.

Let’s start the show—oh before we actually start we have a Citibike photo update. Because it is very hot out and because I’m not very good at this kind of thing I forgot how much money we need to raise. I think it was short of $500 as of last week. Is that correct? Could you guys let me know? I know that this week we have raised $385. Will somebody please tell me how much we need? Once we raise that money I’d also like to ask if any of you are photographers who live in NYC and could take a flattering photo of a Jewish lady on a Citibike. There will be photo-shopping. Don’t get me wrong. I want you to make my arms look like toothpicks. This looks like it’s happening. We are just a couple of hundreds away from me straddling one of those god-forsaken objects. It’s all because of you. Keep tipping Spoony we just found out that Spoony’s wife is pregnant with a little girl—wonderful news! She’s going to be a Spoony girl, Spoonerina. It’s so exciting. But it also means she’s going to need a dowry. Tip Spoony his daughter’s dowry everybody. Please. Go to paypal.com go to klausnerama…

That’s the housekeeping part of the show. Our play Thomas Williams is starting the Howwasyour weekwiki. When that is up I will give you the URL. You guys have to help me maintain it with important information.

For example, this week I added anti-Semitic Elmo into the Redhead Hall of Fame, that’s the guy who dresses up as Elmo in Times Square and has a monologue about Jews that you should audition with.

We have two great guests this week…