Episode 132: "Julie Klausner on a Citi Bike Dot Com"

Discussed

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Monologue Transcript

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

I hope you all had a great 9/11 and are having the best fashion week ever. I am fine. I rediscovered Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. That’s something. How come that Clay Aiken photograph isn’t a meme the way you see Grumpy Cat. Wasn’t there a disapproving Asian Father? That wasn’t racist. Why don’t I see a photo of Clay Aiken in his coat of many colors constantly? Why hasn’t that taken over the internet? That makes me feel like the internet is a hetero…no that isn’t the right word. I’ll just call the internet homophobic.

Oh Clay Aiken will do justice to that role, I feel. If you don’t know the story of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat it goes like this. The narrator comes out. She’s one of two female roles. The other is Potiphar’s wife and she’s a slut. Ugh! I slut-shamed Potiphar’s wife within five minutes of my monologue. The narrator comes in and she talks about how some people have bigger ambitions than others. Some people have intentions to be more on this earth than the schlubs who will mouth breath on their crosswords puzzles when you are just trying to get to 34th Street without having their long hair brush against your bare skin. That is the thing I am looking forward to most in fall is being on the subway and not feeling someone’s hair brush against my skin just because I happen to be sitting or standing next to them. There is literally nothing worse. Anyway, the narrator, who I played in camp and there was a British counselor who kept telling me to wear a waistcoat and I’d say what are you talking about? What’s my costume? Get a waistcoat, get a waistcoat. I found out she meant a vest which I found because it was 1989. Everything worked out great. Anyway, the narrator, who’s really the main character. You want to be the narrator. The narrator sets up the story about Jacob whose wife died and had a lot of sons. He very blatantly favored one which was a recipe for resentment. The one he favored reminded him of his wife, which is not explored.

Tim Rice was a lyricist until Andrew Lloyd Weber was having no more of him, for good reason. Tim Rice is not a good a lyricist. He’s just not. I’m not going to qualify that. I am not going to apologize for it. It’s a fact. There are worse things to be, but not many. What was I up to in the story? The father bought a colored coat for Joseph because he liked him best and then at this point in the show Clay Aiken will spin around. He will never stop spinning around to show off the coat. I also think it’s weird, and not just because I’m Dolly Parton-centric, I think it is weird that Jacob bought the coat instead of made it.

Where are we? Joseph has a coat. He’s being sort of a cock about it. He talks about how great he looks in it. I don’t remember how he’s a cock about it but he’s a cock about it and the brothers decide to kill him? They get mad. One of the lyrics has to do with getting our goat. There is a goat. They kill the goat. I think at one point they are going to kill him. Maybe Benjamin said no. Benjamin is the youngest. Benjamin is the second favorite. In the Bible it was perfectly ok to rank your children. There were different parenting ideas, although as I say that, count down for the next fucking blog to book deal of some asshole in Brooklyn saying wouldn’t it be fun if I raised my children in the way they do in Biblical times? How about you play Russian roulette instead? Let me pack the chambers—wink wink she says with a fistful of bullets.

So the brothers have a change of heart or Benjamin convinces them otherwise. They decide to kill the goat. The narrator, who as I mentioned is really the star of the show, has a line where she says, “The wretched beast or creature is dead, and then they spill the blood…by the way this is a Jewish show. Jesus Christ Superstar is a goyish show-New Testament. This was ALW’s Old (school) Testament show. It was a testament to how lousy a thing can be and still please the ear. Now where was I in the story? The brothers put blood on the coat. If you are the prop master of the production of Joseph here’s what you need. You need two coats. You need one coat that looks great. You need another one that has blood on it. They bring that coat to the dad and the dad is devastated because the son is ostensibly dead. It’s already dark. I am telling you growing up I related to everybody in this play, except for Potiphar.

Clinky, clinky, guess what’s back? Mr. Maker’s Mark. I related to the idea of being jealous of someone getting special attention, of deserving special attention because of special abilities and then being bullied. I felt this show in a deep place which is why my role as narrator….the other thing about that British counselor is that she called it ‘nar-ATE-or’ which is not how you pronounce it. Did you ever know someone who will use the British spelling of things or pronounce things Britishly in their American day to day lives because at one point they decided to have an affectation? Those people are the most fun.

Act II, Joseph is sold as a slave by his brothers to some people. He ends up in jail. Then he predicts dreams from a baker and a butcher, or a tailor and a tinker, and a soldier and a spy--some semblance of the archetypes that were or were not going to fuck, marry, kill, Tevya’s daughters. They were in the prison cell with him. They have dreams. They tell Joseph. Joseph says here’s what your dreams mean, not in a shrink way. People say Joseph was the first psychiatrist. No he wasn’t. I had this dream. That means there’s going to be war or famine. He was basically doing the equivalent of holding an index card to his head while Ed drunkenly guffawed in times of old. Those were the good old days. No Steve Higgins was Ed McMahon. So Pharaoh said you’ll be my dream interpreter. He comes up and prepares them for famine. What happens? Potiphar’s wife tries to fuck him. He says no. She says he tried to rape her, because that’s what sluts do. I slut-shamed her again. Joan Collins plays her in the movie version with Donny Osmond. I strongly recommend you looking that up. I think the guy that plays Otho from Beetlejuice is in that scene. It’s not bad. There are worse ways to spend an afternoon than watch that.

What happens next? Joseph does well for himself. The brothers forgot to plan for the famine or something. They come and beg for food to the Pharaoh. Joseph says, “Surprise it’s me!” They say, “Argh!!! Oh boy.” “No it’s cool, I forgive you.” Jacob is psyched. To be honest that is also where Joseph kind of looks like a cock because he extended kindness to his brothers while everyone was watching. Then he sings a song at the end called Any Dream Will Do. There are two songs that Joseph sings. One is Close Every Door to me which he sings in a prison and the other is the one I just mentioned. Close Every Door to Me was originally going to be the opening theme song to Orange is the New Black. They decided it wasn’t long enough.

There are so many other things I should be talking about besides this.

I’m not good at prioritizing. I put this monologue list together before I recorded it. It is ramshackle. It should be organized by priority, yet it isn’t, but I have a feeling that Clay Aiken will bring a dimension to the role that will further affect me because he is a redhead. I know that especially as a redheaded male it is easy to feel like you are getting too much attention and not the best kind. I will be interested in seeing what he uses from his personal experiences in playing the part of Joseph. What production is it anyway? Is it going to be televised? Is Clay Aiken doing it on Broadway? Is this going to be on Ovation with Raising McCain, Meghan McCain’s new talk show? There are a lot of talk shows.

Women get daytime talk shows. Men, as long as they are white, or Arsenio which I will talk about in a second, rule the night. Women need to take back the night in a different way starting with laughter. So Meghan McCain has a talk show. Bethenny has a talk show. Queen Latifah/ Chris Jenner’s was cancelled, fine. Arsenio Hall came back this week from 1992 frozen in amber, everything is the same. It was crazy. From the funny opening announcer, “Here’s the man that invested in MySpace.” Even though it seems like it was written in 1992, I know there was no MySpace then, but the way it was delivered… remember MySpace, Bill Clinton, Saxophones, Sunglasses? He told some monologue jokes. My brain was wondering how is this happening? I felt like Larry Sanders was dating Sharon Stone. It was so specific and it wasn’t intentionally retro and I don’t know what is going on anymore.

Sometimes I look around and I don’t feel like this is my country. I mean that in a cultural sense of you know, Jenny McCarthy has murdered children with her views, that’s one thing, but then the Jenny McCarthy Show. She has had so many opportunities to have television shows this last round on the Vh1 debacle that preceded Loudest Week Ever where she was lying on the floor sucking a lollipop talking to the guy who was in that GoDaddy ad. Her sister looked like Michelle Visage and sort of cackled on occasion. Who watched that and thought she’s going to be on The View? It alienates me. I don’t want to go all R Crumb on you and threaten to move to France. I’ll never move to France. I’m not crazy about French people. I think I have talked about this before. Be descended from whoever you want but don’t expect me to sit next to a French person at a dinner party and be happy about it. I’m just not. I know they are not going to like my jokes. Oh there’s more to life than being appreciated for being funny—not for me. What if they want to fuck you? I guess. I guess, but if I make a joke about the Nicki and Sarah show they won’t get it. So it goes back to the first thing.

Speaking of America, Neil LaBute, this is another one from the category, is this my culture? NBC nabs Neal Labute romantic comedy set in a mental institution is the headline I had to read, I was forced to read earlier this week. Congratulation to everyone involved with this. Hopefully Neil LaBute will be the one to crack men on network television. He will pick up where dads will leave off this fall.

I am eating now. Last week I spoke to you about being depressed and I am still depressed but I have begun eating again. I am not hungry. My appetite is low which is completely weird. That’s the part of me that feels least Julie. But I am eating now. I find that if you are not hungry a good thing to do to get yourself to eat is to get a thing of cookies. You will eat the cookies. Those Le Petit something or other, see if I were sitting next to the French guy at the dinner party he would help me pronounce the name of the stupid fucking cookie. The one with the imprint of a child on the chocolate part that is a square on a biscuit that has a scalloped edge—fantastic. Honestly, do you know how many portions are in a box? Two. Duh!

Two announcements before I talk about more things. One is that we have the exciting news that the Citibike Photo is done. It’s been finessed. It has been produced. It has been lacquered to a blinding shimmer and it’s ready for your eyes. This is because you raise money and tipped Spoony, and now there is a photograph taken by Dicky Dibella of me on a Citibike with one bra strap showing straddling a Citibike, that photo which is, I hope, to your liking, is viewable at http://julieklausneronacitibike.com/ if you go there you will see the photo that your Spoony tips made possible. As I mentioned last week if you didn’t tip Spoony but you still plan on looking at the photograph see if you can live with yourself. When you realize that you can’t go to Paypal.com enter klausnerama@gmail.com and send us some money.

But that said that photo is going to go live momentarily. It’s Thursday night as I speak to you. It’s raining outside. Jimmy is in the other room because he’s scared of a toy I picked up. He’s evolutionarily an anomaly. But I will tell you this. This photo, it will have been worth the wait. When you see the photo you will say to yourself, this is quite a photo. For those of you who say Citibikes are actually a really cool helpful way to get around town. Are you making fun of them? The answer is I’m not sure. I have never seen somebody riding them that didn’t look like if they were hit in the head with and orange it wouldn’t be hilarious. And I have never seen anyone I haven’t wanted to push off one. That’s all been said. That’s all in the past. What remains now is for you to see me on a Citibike. That’s what I promised you and that’s what we’ve delivered at http:///Julieklausneronacitibike.com/

The other announcement is that the next HWYW Live will be at the Bell House in Brooklyn we will be welcoming at least three incredible guests, AC Newman, Jean Grae and Laura Bananti, those are all musical super stars and they are a super team of super stars. Get tickets for that at the Bell House.

The Bell House was the site of the Bill DeBlasio victory party on election night the other day. I don’t know if non-New Yorkers followed the mayoral primaries. I know that you know about Anthony Weiner being in them, which he was because he is shameless and insane. Eliot Spitzer was running for comptroller. As Tom Scharpling put it both of the sex creeps lost. It was a bad night for sex creeps politically although I have a feeling when they logged onto their Tinder accounts and right swiped they may or may not have had more hits depending on what part of town they were in. I voted. I was very happy to see DeBlasio won, not only because Cynthia Nixon’s wife Christine Marinoni was directly behind Bill DeBlasio as he accepted the nomination but also because Bill DeBlasio has two really cool multi-racial children who are really fun to look at and super cool. At the end the whole family danced together. His wife is a strong black woman. They met when they were both working on the Dinkins campaign. Dinkins was not how do I paraphrase for people that don’t know about Dinkins? If Dinkins were a part of town he’d be that area by the UN. He wasn’t the worst mayor but he wasn’t… he was who he was. He’s dead right? He’s not? Oh, he’s in that band dead can dance. Tha will be my new graffiti sticker—Dinkins can dance.

DeBlasio gave his speech next to his gorgeous wife whom he met at the Dinkins campaign. I guess before that she had written an essay for Ebony? She wrote an essay titled, I am a Lesbian. It was at the time her way of giving a voice to women of color who were gay and it’s all awesome—sexuality as we know from our friends in the Cisgender community is fluid. Therefore she’s on team dick again, I don’t know. She married to this guy. They seem in love. I think it’s wonderful. Their kids are fucking awesome looking. One is has an afro that makes Quest Love’s look like a Velcro ball you’d throw at your friends Velcro dartboard. The other is a girl that completely ripped off my style. She was wearing a flower wreath.

I wear those. At least I have in the past. Do you want to know what’s a funny story? The day of the Citibike shoot, it was a whole to-do. We had a photo shoot here. You’ll see the credits on the website, there was Craft service, Hair and Makeup, Wardrobe, Lighting, my god we’re losing light. It was a whole to-do. We did not phone this in. That was the day I met the guy I was seeing for three weeks and he ended it with me. Oh really, I made time for this after a busy day. Thank you for getting me out. I remember getting ready for what I called a date at the time. It was after the shoot it was 8 or 9. We’d shot from 3-9 and I took my Citibike makeup off and brushed out my Citibike hairstyle. My stylist Kyle was till there and I ask would you mind helping me make my hair look presentable, he did. Before I left I asked, “Should I wear the flower wreath?” Because I have a couple wreaths, it’s my thing. I told them the backstory of the guy I had been dating and how he’d sort of been a Shitbird. Should I wear the flowers? They said no, because flowers denote hope. I didn’t. Two nights ago I saw DeBlasio’s daughter on the stage at the Bell House wearing flowers. I will tell you this. Last night I went to see Ted Leo and Aimee Mann, I saw The Both at Bell House, and guess what? I put those flowers back on.

The Manson book I talked about, people wrote in and wanted to know what it was called, it’s called Manson, the Life and Times of Charles Manson by Jeff Guinn.

One more thing about the election. The fact that I actually had to pull a lever to prevent Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer from accumulating more power and re-integrating themselves into whatever elite is in the ruling class is shocking and reprehensible. The fact that it had come to that, that they hadn’t dropped out, experienced any shame or self-awareness that you can’t do what they did and still expected to be accepted and championed is so beyond the pale of anything I can comprehend. I know that there are people who think that whatever a politician does in his sex life has nothing to do with…I don’t care about that. Well I do. I think a lot of that I don’t care, actually is how the male brain works. The male brain compartmentalizes sex. Some of my best gay friends will say they same thing—I don’t care who he screwed. But when straight men do that at the expense of women, and it’s always at the expense of women, I don’t care if Sydney Leathers showed up in a peplum top made out of dental floss to what’s-his-name’s rejection soiree. It’s at the expense of women. I have talked about this before. It shows contempt for women as full beings and it really just shows that these guys think of half of the population as need fulfilling objects. That’s not acceptable. That’s not a moral person. That’s not a whole person, I would wager to say.

Ugh, say what you mean, mean what you say.

Here’s a thought I had about Meryl Streep. Meryl Streep is beautiful because she is happy. That’s all. It may not be interesting but it’s kind of a bummer. I guess I better work on being happy. There is scowly beautiful. Kristin Stewart, is that sexy?

Oh no Julie’s talking about the sexy versus beautiful thing again. That’s when I’m really feeling sorry for myself, I don’t think I’m beautiful I just think I’m sexy, seriously? That’s when you put a Klonopin in my mouth and take that same hand, put it over my face and do a gentle pushing motion into bed. Make sure I have a laptop that is not connected to the internet, maybe there’s a DVD in there of something I have seen before—Fargo, Lebowski, not Clockwork Orange it will set me off, the King og Kong, that’s a good one. Then you close the door and you make me go to bed. I got an email from someone who I will call James Stone, because that’s his name. James Stone listened to the podcast last week and he took issue with my calling Charles Manson racist when I in fact didn’t condemn Michael Bloomberg specifically for his stop and frisk policies. Basically he called me a racist. He called me a hypocrite. This is what he said. I am going to read this out loud. This is important for me not to paint….It’s not everyday you get an email comparing you to Charles Manson in your racism. Charles Manson, so you know, believed the following thing. This is the episode in which Julie explains Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamharness and then the Manson murders.

The reason why the Manson murders happened is because the first guy was a complicated drug deal. They sold lousy speed to bikers. What else is new? After they killed him they wanted to make it look like the Black Panthers had done it because Charles Manson wanted to start a race war. Then they decided to murder some other white people and in their mind they tried to make a paw print on the wall in blood and wrote words on the wall. They assumed everyone would see it and think words in blood? Looks like the work of the Black Panthers. His intention was starting a race war aka Helter Skelter which in turn would expedite the fall of society. Black people would kill all of the white people or they would at least dominate them and they would be in charge. Then this whole time the Manson family would be underground in a hole that the girls were charged with finding in the desert. Here’s where his racism manifested itself. There are a lot of other places where his racism manifested itself. The blacks win the race war, right? Were up to that. Then black people rule the rule but because they’re so inept they fail at it. That’s when the Manson’s come out of the desert hole and they say, “Don’t worry.” Don’t worry baby as the Beach Boys once crooned. We’re here. We’ve got this.

So apparently that’s me, that’s me from James Stone. He wrote, these are his words, not mine, I’m not paraphrasing anymore:

I just listened to you relate the Manson book anecdote vis-à-vis racial politics in the 60s as manifest by the LA PD questioning persons of color. Bloomberg’s shameless endorsement stop and frisk and his combination of DeBlasio as a racist would seem to suggest your embrace off Bloomberg makes you a hypocrite.

Ok, keep going, keep going. Let’s go. Where’s this going? By the way I voted for DeBlasio, I didn’t vote for Christine Quinn who everyone said was in Bloomberg’s pocket for a couple of reasons. She’s still in the Redhead Hall of Fame I will have you know that. But keep going James…

… you keep attempting to convince your audience that you are a decent person. Oh! James Stone’s got me. James Stone’s got me under his scrutiny lens. What is that called? A telescope, a microscope? James Stone has boiled down my entire agenda. This is my agenda as an entertainer. I’m going to read that sentence again.

… you keep attempting to convince your audience that you are a decent person.

That’s what I am putting on my tax returns from now on as an occupation. I keep attempting to convince my audience that I am a decent person. He adds,

You probably are.

I get the benefit of the doubt even after the Manson comparison.

You probably are but maybe don’t embrace a loathsome creep like Mike Bloomberg and expect us to ignore his explicit racism.

Don’t call Mike Bloomberg a loathsome creep. I don’t think he’s a loathsome creep. I think stop and frisk is unacceptable and racist and fucked up but Mike Bloomberg contains multitudes. Mike Bloomberg’s legacy is more than stop and frisk. He’s a complicated and I think, a great Mayor, even though a lot of his decisions were complete and utter bullshit. He absolutely contributed to the economic divide of this city. He also said yes to Citibike for some God forsaken reason. There’s a great interview with him in the new New York magazine. I strongly suggest you read it. He’s a complicated guy but I have always liked him. Sorry. I’m not really sorry. Stop and frisk was bullshit. Tearing down Occupy Wall Street in the middle of the night was completely fucked up. Where am I in this letter? Buh buh buh buh ba. Loathsome creep… that he got some things right more or less doesn’t get him off the hook for all the ways he was really wrong.

That’s true. I agree with that. I agree with the parts of it that were grammatically correct. That’s it. That’s what James Stone said.

Then I fought with him, no I asked if he was white. Hi James, are you white? He didn’t respond. So I sent him another one, I don’t know if you got this email, are you white? He got defensive and said I misinterpreted him. He basically called me Charles Manson.

Carson Daly is joining the Today Show because he clearly has incriminating photos of someone who works at NBC. He has worked at NBC for longer than makes sense. Speaking of boring, I am going to introduce the first recap of the new season of, you guessed it, Boredwalk Empirezzz as presented by Chris Spoony Spooner, soon to be father to a daughter as you know or may not know from past How Was Your Week episodes Chris Spoony Spooner is in charge of recapping this television show. In the past he also recapped Luck. I think it is funny to make him watch these shows. His recaps are wonderful. In the past season Spoony decided he was going to start recapping Boredwalk Empirezzz by combining them with his own nightmares. It doesn’t take away from my understanding of what’s going on in the show. I watched the first season of Boardwalk Empire and then I watched the first episode of the second season and asked why am I doing this? It was expensive and it was dull. That’s my take on it, and it’s keeping Steve Buscemi from making more movies which bums me out. This is not about that this is about Chris Spoony Spooner’s brand new --Season 3? Season 4? Who gives a shit?—recap of Boredwalk Nightmarezz. Here we go.

We’re a minute in and half-face has sawed someone’s head off. This is going to be a long season. Nucky opened up a dance studio and he likes to watch the girls practice from behind a curtain. Gretchen Moll became a full on junkie between the seasons and she’s doing sex stuff to pay the rent. Al Capone wrestles his brother on the floor while he slaps him with a shoe and Sweetback cuts someone else’s head off with a bottle for touching his privates in a sex game. Here’s where we shift into the nightmare territory. Nucky takes his hat off and where his hairline is supposed to be is a row of long teeth that wraps around his head that forms a gaping, snapping mouth. It whispers a name. It’s a girl’s name, a name for a girl that hasn’t been born yet, a name I wanted for my own daughter. All Nucky’s head mouth whispers this name again and again as the credits roll. Chris Spoony Spooner everybody. He is going to be at the October 30th How Was Your Week Live mostly to creep Laura Bananti out. If you follow Chris and Laura on twitter you can see them flirt. It’s weird and it’s filth. It’s a lot of fun. He’s going to be close to her, at least physically, so get your tickets right away.

Finally I just wanted to say I have been thinking about Kiss lately because I have been looking at photos of other tuxedo cats online because I’m thinking of getting another cat. I don’t know if that would help Jimmy be a little less skittish or if it would help me to have more cats in my life. So many of the cats look like Paul Stanley, which is the one with the whiskers? Don’t tell me by the way, please don’t tell me. So I have been thinking about Kiss and I have been thinking about cockshots, when people send you pictures of their dicks. I believe, this is something I have thought about, that the members of the band Kiss have been sending cockshots since before there were smart phones. I don’t know how. I guess the answer is you drop off a roll of film at Walgreens and then what do you get, a forever stamp?

I feel like there were other ways to show girls their dick-pics that Kiss pioneered. I wanted to share that with you. I’m not asking you for your own ideas about the logistics of it.

We have one guest this week…