Episode 136: "Layla"

Date

11 October 2013

Guests

Nicole Holofcener

Origin of the episode title

In the monologue, Julie sings the lyrics she wrote for piano part at the end of "Layla."

Discussed

Here it is! One of the best episodes of this thing yet. Writer/DIrector NICOLE HOLOFCENER joins Julie to talk about ENOUGH SAID, James Gandolfini's first day on set, the perfection of MODERN ROMANCE, her oldest friend, watching the dailies of HANNAH AND HER SISTERS, and meeting Catherine Keener at the gym.

A plea for people to feed their dogs Cheerios on film, some observations about cartoon characters and their fuckability, "Stand By Your Man" and its terrible messages, and Julie presents a very special version of the end of "Layla" with her very own Lyrics. Don't miss it!

Trivia

Cannibal Cop mention!
Cartoons that Julie would have sex with in order: Bugs Bunny, Pink Panther. Definitely NOT Boris from Boris & Natasha.
Episode contains a Boredwalk Empirezzz recap from Chris "Spoony" Spooner.

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Episode Link

Monologue Transcript

Hi everybody. It’s Julie Klausner back for another episode of HWYW. I am going to barrel through this monologue because we have a very exciting guest, director on the show of whom I am a fan, but also just because I have done a pile of cocaine. That’s not true.

Congratulations Alice Munroe, god people I follow on twitter are really into Alice Munroe. Alice Munroe got the Nobel Prize in literature and the way people reacted on twitter it was like Kanye was doing something worth noting. I could not care less about Kanye. There are so many other manic babblers why focus in on his spittle? Yeah, people freaked out about Alice Munroe and her success. Congratulations Alice Munroe. Congratulations to people I follow on twitter who mentioned it you read fiction.

I am back in New York. I was in Los Angeles last week. It’s actually autumnal here. I know because I passed the frozen yogurt place, Yoogies and they said Flavor of the Month-Pumpkin. I thought to myself that makes sense. Then I wondered, do I like October? I think I do. I like Halloween. Then I thought, do I? By then I had already arrived at my shrink’s and it was time to focus on other matters of the mind. Wouldn’t it be great if my shrink were a big fat hypnotist from the 40s with a Turban? I haven’t seen Curse of the Jade Scorpion in a really long time but wasn’t there a fatty? I don’t mean to disparage people of size in general but wasn’t there a fat guy in that movie and he hypnotizes? There’s hypnosis in it. It seemed to be the domain of the rotund and the vaudevillian at the time. Anyway, I would like it if that were my shrink. I would come to her with neurotic matters. She’d say something in a booming voice. Out would come the medallion. I am a cougar. Oh boy!

Speaking of doctors, I talked about getting my mole removed a couple of weeks ago. The cool thing about it is I got to go to a plastic surgeon to do it because my dermatologist said that if he did it, it might scar or have a pock mark if, this is gross, he scooped it out. So he told me to go to this person instead. Lo and behold I am at a plastic surgeon’s office on the Upper East Side and I am offered ginger ale by one of the women manning the phones. This is how she asked us if we wanted a beverage, she said, “Ladies would you like something to drink, some water, ginger ale?” I thought this is more like it. I could see why a woman of a certain age in a certain economic comfort would spend…I can see why this would be their community center. You know it’s 4 o’clock after school. Maybe it’s time for some Juvaderm, maybe it isn’t.

I like the idea of threatening my friends with the notion that one day I will just go to that plastic surgeon with a photo of Jennifer Westfeldt and a blank check. I am obsessed with Jennifer Westfeldt’s face. Jennifer Westfeldt is Jon Hamm’s piece. One time somebody told me I look like her…that’s all… I’m not one of those people don’t tell somebody she looks like some celebrity unless; this is Scharpling’s rule, unless it is Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie. I think it’s fascinating what other people see in me. Somebody once told me I looked like Deborah Winger. I don’t, but I liked hearing it. Jennifer Westfeldt and I share a similarly shaped head and face which is to say we both have a strong cheek and a prominent chin. The cheek to chin thing and then the eyes are in the same local. But her nose is winnowed down to a flesh colored pen. There’s a lot of filler. Her mouth is doing something. I think she is beautiful in a way and very ambitious. You can see, oh boy! You can put as much filler as you want in that face but it is not going to obscure the ambition in that woman’s soul. Soul? Is that where you keep your ambition?

I’m so obsessed with Jennifer Westfeldt that when I type west into my phone, I was looking for direction to West Sunset when I was in LA and it suggested Westfeldt. I have never seen one of her movies. Are they about whites? I’d like to rent a movie about whites please. Auntie Renate did a beautiful job watching Jimmy Jazz while I was away; there are photos on Instagram.com/julieklausner if you would like to see those.

I finally caught up on Homeland. What is Homeland now? What is that show besides more Jewish. I’m not against it. Mandy Patinkin as head of the CIA is hilarious. That F. Murray Abraham is lurking…I don’t know what’s going on anymore. All of the characters are dead from last season. He haven’t seen ‘Hotty’ the hot ginge whose bald now I guess, based on his Emmy’s appearance. Claire Dane’s is off her meds again. “No, it’s ok, I’ve got it under control, and I’m running.” Oh please! Take your meds Claire Danes! I don’t know what that show is about anymore. I don’t like it. Also, as I mentioned, I was holding a grudge against it because it was too soon after breaking bad, or they premiered it the same night breaking bad ended. I’m not ready for it. You inevitably compare it to Breaking Bad. Compared to Breaking Bad guess what stinks? A lot of things.

We are men was cancelled on CBS. We are Men; I think was a Jerry O’Connell one. Also there’s Welcome to the Family, Men, Men, Men, Dad’s Incorporated, Oh Boy, Look at these Dorks, and Just the Tip which was ABC. We are men was cancelled. I believe the poster I saw on the subway was all of these dudes leaping into a pool and freezing in mid-air as if that were a thing that would be festive to document. May it rot. I don’t care. I think network television based on the headlines I read on Deadline, some of the Deadline headlines I think network television is getting very close to cracking friendship. I think that will be the next thing because they have already figured out the family, men that’s it. Next year, mark my words, friendship and the dynamics between the characters, the characters. I caught up on other TV too. I saw Hello Ladies, I did not care for it, although I was thrilled to see Eddie Pepitone in an episode, in a Pepisode. It bums me out that there were that they wrote a book about a girl being dumb. They asked, “Name a jazz musician,” and she says, “The loneliest Monk.” That’s a bad joke. I’ve heard it before and it was always bad. Is Hello Ladies sexist? Let’s put that on the table. Is Gravity sexist? I didn’t see that. Gravity looks terrifying and I’m not just saying that because of Sandra Bullock’s haircut. Have you seen her without the helmet? She looks like Brian Benben from Dream On. There’s no evidence that she is wearing diapers. Here’s why I’m not going to see Gravity. Before I even saw the Gravity trailer I would on occasion think about what it would be like to be in space, not tethered to a vessel and I’d think to myself ugh! It’s a very specific fear, the fear of being lost in space because it is a fear that none of us even considered until the 60s in a way. That’s when we put a man on the moon, or we staged it. Did people really think what would it be like? Did people even know what an astronaut looked like? Did Back to the Future deal with this? I can’t remember. I was too busy rocking out to the News and Huey Lewis. Gravity is such a silly thing not to see because it will scare you because it is the least likely thing to ever happen to you. Not that things have to be plausible in order to be scary but don’t you feel like that would be closer to the core? I wouldn’t see Last House on the Left. Isn’t a lady raped? No thank. Irreversible, more like Reversible because I’m not going to get into it in the first place. Those are things you can viscerally connect to. You can empathize, you can empathize—that’s the word. The idea of floating around in space is scary but it is also a mental construction—that’s why you should see it Julie. No. No. Maybe. Maybe I’ll see it.

I was getting a pedicure and I saw an Entertainment Weekly that said Fall Preview. I’ll read this. I’ll read anything besides a women’s magazine where they just take lipstick and they break it in half and smear it on the page-Lancôme, great thanks. What a great magazine. There was an interview with Sandra Bullock and she was talking about the challenge of acting in Gravity. She was saying, “You have the special effects guy telling you to do this. You have the green screen person. You have the director making sure you are in the right position in this costume that you can’t breathe in, and on top of that you have to hold the character’s intention.” Oh! Good one! That seems stressful. No wonder, now wonder you adopted that black baby. How is your black baby? Is he doing well? That was the best thing that ever came out of the Jesse James affair, right? That baby. When Sandra Bullock won that Oscar, that baby did not know he was going to be on the end of a domino effect-like spiral of events that would end up with him just bleeding Sandra Bullock money. That kid can go through money like it’s TP. I don’t mean to work blue but I’m going there.

Anti-Semitic Elmo is in jail. I don’t know why I saw this as a headline on Gothamist, ‘Anti Semitic Elmo is one of these New York characters that we like to keep an eye on here in New York City in addition to Cannibal Cop. Cannibal Cop, for those of you who don’t know, is my beau in my mind. We will be together one day, no. Cannibal Cop is a cop that never cannibalized any women but he planned on it. It said that he intended to. He certainly fantasized about it. He had a lot of Cannibal porn on his Cannibal computer, a lot of which was drawing-based which was completely creepy and unacceptable. We threw him in jail because that’s how society works. Also he met his wife on OKCupid.

Anti- Semitic Elmo is a man who dresses up like Elmo and runs around Time’s square talking about how Jews are responsible for all of the wars in the world. Is that our game in this Herald? Anyway he’s in jail. I don’t’ know why. I guess being Anti-Semitic is illegal which is bad news for the girl on twitter who after I blocked her when she called me racist because I said Kanye sounded like a rambling dum-dum, she said, “Ha! Julie Klausner blocked me. What a stupid Jew.” Ugh! Perfect, I couldn’t have scripted it better.

Julieanne Moore got a star on the Walk of Fame, if you can think of anything more belated I’d like to hear it. Finally! That woman deserves a constellation of stars, Suzanne Somers fucks too much. Suzanne Somers said something about the Miley Cyrus—is it a meme? Or is she just sort of over exposed. Her record came out. This is all based on her record. It’s called Bangerz. I don’t know what the point of entry was but Suzanne Somers made a statement to the press saying she fucks her husband twice a day which is too much. It’s too much fucking. I’m not saying that because she is older, but that sounds like a recipe for chaffing. It’s just too much. I don’t even need to explain why, it’s just too much. I know she’s into squirting hormones directly into her vagina. Maybe that’s what she thinks fucking is. Suzanne Somers knows what fucking is.

SNL right now, to be fair I only watched the first episode this season. These are all young strangers. SNL to me right now is like I’m a substitute teacher for 6th grade and I am in front of a classroom with all of these young strange faces. I don’t know if any of them are friendly. You guys know how I feel about Kate McKinnon and Vanessa Bayer, I will follow them to the end of the earth, however, SNL based on this We Did Stop—did you guys see this video? There are so many steps to explain—Miley Cyrus as Michelle Bachmann. Already you are like Ok? Keep going I guess? And then who is Tarim playing Jon Boehner singing about the government shut down like it was a shot by shot remake of Miley Cyrus’ video. People loved it. This is a question, is SNL now what people who would say, “I could write for SNL.” Have all of those people been hired? Like my relatives? Or anyone who says I’m funnier than that when they’ve watched it in the past? Cartoon characters were mentioned. When I was in LA and hung out with my pals. It was nice, Rachel Lichtman, Aaron Glickstein, Jake Fogelnest and I, Boobs Radley-Juliane Smolinsky, Gaby Dunn—we were brainstorming which cartoon characters are the sexiest. Bug Bunny, for me, is obviously number 1. Have I discussed this? Probably. Bugs Bunny is number 1. After Bugs Bunny who would I like to have sex with? The Pink Panther. He’s debonair. He’s sort of a creepy-crawler. He’s French-ish. He’s very mod. He’d look good with my furniture. Someone suggested Boris from Boris and Natasha. That set me off on a tear. Even when I was a little girl when I was watching Boris and Natasha made sure that I knew that even if you grew up to be this stunningly beautiful Russian pinup you still have to settle for this short fat Danny Devito mother fucker. This is how Rockabilly and Psychobilly… The Psychobilly community works in the following way, the women are stunning; they all look like Traci Lords from Crybaby. The men are like, “Hey I’m a big fat fuck. I have dice on my shirt. I’m going to drink a lot of booze, and be a fucking fat piece of shit. Isn’t that great? Look at my Hawaiian shirt.” Ugh! Meanwhile the girls are corseting. I don’t know I haven’t been in that scene. Let’s all move out of the 90s shall we?

Denis Leary’s relationship to Firemen and EMT workers, at this point, is rivaling Gary Sinise’s to Veteran’s. I get the feeling that firemen EMT workers and Policemen just want Denis Leary to leave them alone. How many ride-alongs can you go on where it’s no longer research for your show, you’re just looking for friends?

Mario Lopez, Lindsay Lohan and her mom were all photographed on Citibikes in New York City this week which is also proof of the apocalypse. Furthermore, this is what I have been reduced to, I was at Whole Foods the other day, or as Nate likes to call it Whole Paycheck. I am trying to order less delivery because it is expensive, and I also had this thing where I wasn’t hungry for a while, because I was depressed. Now I’m hungry but only for garbage. I feel like I have the appetite of a child and I am eating around the vegetables. I went to Hugo’s on Santa Monica. It’s really hard not to order a salad in LA. They bully you; the menus bully you into salad ordering. Can I have a hotdog? Can I have the Daffy Dog? So this is actually what I have been reduced to. I bought these organic frozen meals form Whole Foods that I can stick in one of my appliances that have vegetables hidden in them. I have a couple of Mac and Cheeses—this is honesty, this is raw honesty. This is gritty. It doesn’t seem gritty. That’s what I will be eating this week. I’ll report back on precisely how disgusting that it.

I would like to feed your dog Cheerios. Have I discussed this or have I just tweeted about it at four in the morning? If you have a dog I would like to feed it Cheerios. Also if I can’t get to your dog physically in person, will you take a video of yourself feeding your dog Cheerios for me and send it to me at klausnerama@gmail.com ? If you want you could use it POV cam. If it were me you could put your arm out. Throw the cheerios at the dog and he could catch it in his mouth, that kind of thing. You could let the dog eat out of your hand. I just want to see dogs eating Cheerios. I am not presupposing that they be in milk. It’s just something that I want to see. I want to plug HWYW Live on October 30th. It’s going to be a legendary show. We are doing a big musical surprise. We have great guests such as Jean Grae, Laura Bananti, and AC Newman. This will sell out. Go to the bellhouseny.com to get your tickets for HWYW LIVE

I want to congratulate American Horror Story Coven for being the gayest show on television. Wow! This is Designing Women, Golden Girls- this is every females ensemble—Models Inc. You have Gabourey Sidibe, Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, this is basically fantasy football for gay guys, the cast of Coven. I don’t even like what’s going on. I watched the first half of it. There was a slave being not nice. Then every character actress in the world showed up to sit around a table and I thought, oh boy. Then I thought about a couple of my gay friends. Are they ok? This is a lot.

I had an experience with a couple of small children in LA that was completely wholesome. How dare you! I went to the home of a colleague and her son who must have been 5 was having a play date with another similarly aged individual. The two of them were acting like loons, running around and just being goofy guses like little boys—I know nothing about that world. I don’t know if being, “Oh children,” is a good look for me or not, I just know that it is something where I don’t know what to do. I’ll just sit in the room and talk to the dog. I talked to the dog. The kids were trying to figure out a game to play. That’s a nice thing about kids, their imagination. You can’t just plop them in front of a Monopoly board. That’s not fun. They know that. Adults on the other hand…there’s a spectrum. There’s trivia, it’s a whole counter-culture. I have a lot of opinions. They’re all correct. Anyway, children like making up games. A lot of their games don’t make sense. A lot of my cat’s games don’t make sense. I throw a mouse across the room and he runs into the other room. That doesn’t make sense. Who wins? No one. Literally no one. I guess Jimmy wins because he gets exercise.

These kids are playing a game where they come into the room where I am sitting, and then they scream at me and run away. Ok, I’ll just hang out, talk to the dog, and do my thing. What am I supposed to do? Scream back? That’s not an option. That happens a couple of times and then finally I hear one of the little boys say to his friend, should we go next door and scare that lady with the hair again? Should we scare that lady with the hair again? I am oddly flattered because they didn’t say the fat lady with the hair. I know who they meant.

Stand by your man is a song that I was pretty much introduced to as far as being zeitgeisty around 92 when Bill Clinton was running for President and the irony of it. Hillary was standing by him despite the fact that he had put his dick in literally anything, that was the first time when I heard that song a lot. I’m from Scarsdale. I have been thinking about Stand by Your Man and listening to it. All respect to Tammy Wynette… She’s fierce bitch. She’s dead right? Dead as a door knob. Thinking about the lyrics to Stand by Your Man, it tweeted fun fact Stand by Your Man was recorded at gun point. That’s only because it has to be. These lyrics are so fucking sexist. I know there is a tradition of country music with women hating on other women a lot. Loretta Lynn who is this incredibly strong woman and seems like a kickass bitch most of her songs are “I am going to punch you in the face if I see you cheating with my husband. Punch your husband in the face while you are at it, while you are in fist city. Maybe discussed with your partner that you vowed to be faithful on your wedding day! The Stand by Your Man lyrics are what Homeland should be about. If it were up to me, enough about the Middle East, do you know what real terrorism is? I’d say being a housewife in the 60s. That’s Mad Men. Listen to this. Here are the lyrics:

Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman giving all your love to just one man. You’ll have bad times. He’ll have good times doing things that you don’t understand.

How fucked up is that? Oh no, I understand. He’s fucking another woman. That’s the good times you’re referring to. He stuck his dick in another girl. Correct. That’s what I understand. If we’re not on the same page please let me know. But considering I do understand that, fuck you. I understand it. I’m not in favor of it.

But if you love him, even though he’s hard to understand.

This is not a rhyme. It’s a reiteration of something that is untrue—that men are hard to understand. No they are not. Some of them cheat on you. Kick them right in the cunt-their man-cunt.

If you love him. Oh be proud of him.

That has gone too far. It’s one thing to stick around like a fool, like a huma-weiner. It’s another to be proud of him. What? Oh honey, your dick looked so big in that sext you sent that intern. Terrible, terrible message Tammy Wynette. I’m not mad at you Tammy Wynette, I’m mad at you George Jones.

Now it is time to read one of Spoony’s Bored Walk Empirezz recaps. 'Spoony' Spooner has taken to blending his own nightmares with his Boredwalk Empirezzz recaps.

"Nucky’s nephew is in a jam. He stole some booze and made a classmate shit himself to death because he hated him. Michael Shannon fell in with a bad crowd and now he’s doing coke with Al Capone. J Edgar Hoover had Nucky’s butler tied to a chair and has some kid punch him until he barfs [laughs]. Gretchen Mol’s child custody hearing didn’t go well so she smashed a glass, touched a dick, and peaced out to score some smack. The Untouchables show up and shoot up Al Capone’s brother; they show him the Chicago way. I can taste bile. When Nucky’s butler is finally let go, he goes back home to Nucky. The bile is starting to rise in my throat. I can’t hold it down and it’s bubbling out of my mouth and flowing harder and harder, and it’s thick and black and it’s collecting and splattering all over the floor [Oh Spoony...]. I can feel masses and shapes coming up as well. They collect in the black puddle and coalesce into something that’s moving and squirming. It’s beginning to sound like a shriek and scream and the bile won’t stop pouring out of my mouth and the wailing is becoming deafening. Nucky wants to know where the butler’s been and why his shoes are covered in bile, so the butler jumps out the window.

Great Job Chris Spooner. That is what happened this week on Boredwalk Nightmarezz.

Howwasyourwiki.com remains my favorite website on the internet. All of you who update it make me happier than I usually am in my day to day life. I want to thank you for being so cool, great and funny. You make me laugh. Go to Howwasyourwiki.com today and enter new categories. There are favorite monologue quotes, Julie’s favorite animals of all time ranked. My opinion about Las Vegas. By the way Jimmy no longer wants to be called Josh he wants to be called Jax because of Sons of Anarchy. I do not know how he saw an episode of that garbage show. I am not thrilled about it and I am not indulging him just so you know.

Here are a couple of other suggestions for categories to add to the wiki. Things I despise and thing I adore. What about about a list of things I have called exhausting? Song I have dissected. We did Sowing the Seeds of Love, and I decided at the time it’s was my favorite song. I think I was on Molly—I have never been on Molly. What if I was on the unsinkable Molly Brown?

Before we start the show I want to mention Eric Clapton is a horrible person.we discussed this last week. What he did to George Harrison. Who he is as a man. Should I make this joke or are people going to get mad? I’ll make the joke. We’re in a safe space. You won’t write this out in quote me on the internet and then people will take it out of context and be mad at me right? All I am saying is that I am not positive that he didn’t push his son out a window so that he’s get a Grammy for Tear sin Heaven. All I am saying is that there’s a possibility considering Eric Clapton, that he saw his child and like in cartoons when a character is hungry and sees the other character like a ham, maybe he saw his kids as a Grammy. That was a terrible joke to make at the expense of a child. Actually it was a really good joke but what can we joke about and what can’t we joke about? Let’s have a conference.

The other thing I am mad at Eric Clapton about is that he is responsible for the end of Goodfellas. He has contributed to this boomer classic rock, what Alec Baldwin thinks is cool. For your entertainment and benefit I will now sing the lyrics I have written to the end of Layla which is the piano part of the song over the wrap em ups. Now this part of the song has lyrics:

Layla, layla, layla, layla,layla, layla………