Episode 142: "Betty 1, 2, 3"

Date

November 22, 2013

Guests

Jill Soloway
Denny Tedesco

Origin of the episode title

What children should be called to avoid classroom confusion. Also a recipe of Julie's creation. It is Spaghettios on noodles.

Discussed

Good November Day. This week features two guests: DENNY TEDESCO, who made a documentary about The Wrecking Crew, has a personal connection to that iconic troupe of '60s studio musicians because his dad, Tommy Tedesco, was one of the greatest guitarists of all time in that group. Julie chats with Denny about Cher, the Three's Company theme song, and the woman who came up with the bass line for WICHITA LINEMAN: Her name is Carol Kaye and she's a badass.

Then, JILL SOLOWAY is here to chat about her various television, film and web projects, strippers and prozzies, what it's like to be a "food Jew" and to have a gay sister, and what kind of tweets make her jealous.

Also: Julie is coming for Alec Baldwin's job! Charles Manson is getting married! Two ladies who love Sandra Bullock and what Julie wants from them! And Happy JFK Assassination Day to all.

Trivia

Yoko Ono is added to the Redhead Hall of Fame

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Episode Link

Monologue Transcript

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

This is the week before Thanksgiving week. What are you grateful for? Please don’t answer that. I hope everyone is having a nice time. It’s November. I have this godforsaken show tomorrow night and I am talking to you for free—that’s the way you do it in show biz—hoofing it. Look, we all make choices, and we all have to balance things unless you’re really bad at balancing things.

What am I going to talk about? We should definitely talk about Charles Manson getting married. Did you guys hear that? The news that Charles Manson is getting married to a lovely young woman named Star. He needn’t bequeath her with a nickname unless he already has. She and he are to be married! Which is almost as disturbing of the latest photo of him with a goatee. I don’t like it. I do not like the goatee. Meanwhile, I’m still single and I adjust my bolo tie. Charles Manson is going to be married to a brunette woman that either the post or the daily news, some tabloid pointed out that she looked just like Susan Atkins and they put a side by side. Guys is this your angle? Then they called him a serial killer, but is he? He’s just a doofus. I mean he’s more than just a doofus, he’s an asshole.

Did we really let Dennis Leary sing a song called Asshole? Were we asleep at the wheel? We were asleep at the wheel then and we were asleep at the wheel when we didn’t realize that Ronan Farrow looked exactly like Frank Sinatra. Once in a while we have to throw our hands up and say, “We are broken. We are broken robots.” For those of you who don’t know Dennis Leary had a song, “I’m an asshole,” and it talked about how he was an asshole. This was a real thing. It wasn’t necessarily a novelty song. There is a fine line between is this a novelty song or not? Then around the same time Henry Rollins had a song about being a liar. So Dennis Leary is singing about being an asshole, Henry Rollins was singing about being a liar, and women everywhere were certain that whatever progress we made in the riot girl revolution was quickly being swept under the rug and replaced by Britney Spears.

Hi, welcome to millennial history. My name is Professor Klausner. What's your name? Skylar. What’s your name? Tyler. What’s your name? Skylar P. Isn’t that the worst thing to be Eric F. or Tom S. if you were in school and someone else had your name. The only other time they do that now is on Bravo shows, or on Face Off which is basically a Bravo show. Face Off is Top Chef but with makeup artists. It is exactly the same show except that Glen Hetrick is on Face Off. I’ve had sex dreams about him. They use your first name and if there are two say Daniels they’ll say Daniel M. and Daniel T. Just visually you think get rid of the clutter. I remember on time we had a substitute teacher once when I was growing up at Solomon Schechter, myself Nick Kroll and approximately 50 other Jewish people in our class growing in a robust fashion. It was the first day of school and the teacher was looking over the names of the people in the class and she noticed there were 12 Lizzies, everybody was named Lizzie when I was growing up. Then they all changed it to Liz. The same fucking thing happened to Jennys they all became Jens. I remember this teacher said can’t one of you be Liz, another be Lizzie and the third be Beth? I remember those girls laughed in that teacher’s face. Beth! In retrospect, fuck all of you. You should all just be called Betty 1, 2, 3 which is the name of this recipe I am going to give you. It’s called Betty 1, 2, 3. You open a can of Spaghettios and you pour it over a pot full of noodles. That actually sounds amazing. Somebody make that for me for my last meal before I am sent to the electric chair.

I had a long week damn it! I bought something from Uniqlo. They have lightweight down jackets and I bought one. I have a lot of guilt about buying something but then I start using it and think, I should buy more stuff. My attitude towards owning things is complicated. Complicated is not the right word. It’s boring. It’s silly. What else happened this week? I sat down next to two women who really liked Sandra Bullock and were talking about Sandra Bullock and how one liked Sandra Bullock and the other LOVED Sandra Bullock. The one who LOVED Sandra Bullock was telling the other one the plot of The Heat. It was like she was pitching it, in the room. All right we open on… I overheard it and thought this is who I want to reach one day these women and their dollars. This is my eventual audience, god willing this is my eventual audience, these administrative assistants. I have nothing but contempt for them and nothing to say to them but if they think I am funny then I could get a bigger apartment. These girls, these women they are Jens and they are Lizzes. It wasn’t that I wasn’t popular growing up; it’s just that there was nobody like me. That’s what life is guys. So when you find somebody you connect with you have to cling to them. Every breath is their last breath, just suck in their breath. That was the thought I had next to these two girls—a mix of contempt and desire for a better apartment. That’s me grappling with my ambitions.

Speaking of ambitions I had a hard time getting past level 23 of Candy Crush Saga. That’s the full name of that game and I guess the word saga refers to your life once you become addicted to this fucking color ball game and you are spending ninety nine cents after ninety nine cents for things that aren’t real such as more lives, a lollipop hammer, and five extra moves to get past the level. Then they say do you want to ask your Facebook friends who also play Candy Crush to help you out? How could they possibly help me out? They say why don’t you help them out? Then they show you who your FaceBook friends are who are also playing Candy Crush, they’re all losers. You think to yourself WHAT HAVE I DONE? Then you click click click and send as many fucking requests as you need because they won’t let you play until you do. Then you do and you play more. The woman at the thing I did the other week looked over my shoulder, “What level are you on?” Another woman said, “I’m so addicted to that.” I said, “Oh my god it’s so addictive.” The other woman said, “Do you know the trick?” “What’s the trick?” “When they say you are out of lives all you do is turn your clock forward. You go to settings and you change your clock so it is the next day.” That is dastardly and that is fucked up! I haven’t done it, but I might. I might do it. I don’t know. I don’t know how long this is going to go on. It probably won’t go for very much longer, maybe it will. The throbbing of the candies I could do without.

I tweeted Bill DeBlasio that level 23 of Candy Crush was impossible without buying boosters which I think should be illegal. This is a good question. Is it possible to win Candy Crush or to go through each level without buying things with your money? It has to be right? If it’s not then that shit is illegal. If everybody tweets Bill DeBlasio we’ll figure it out.

Alec Baldwin, who is very quickly digging his own grave with this whirling Dervish of bad judgment that he is and has always been, called a paparazzi photographer a faggot cocksucker, right? Then he said, “No I said fathead” like Alec Baldwin should be calling anyone else a fathead. That guy is the definition of fathead and I don’t mean physically. I don’t know if he’s coming back to his show. I’m not up to date about it. I just know that if they give me that show that will signify a revolution. That will make up for us trading in the Riot Girl progress we made for…I don’t want to use Britney Spears, everybody else has. She makes me so sad. You know what I mean. This would be payback. This would be a revolution. This would be a great thing for MSNBC to do, to strip this boomer fucking fat-wad, blowhard sperm whale of his show and give it to me. I will go to that fake diner he has into a pizzeria. I will have a fat man in the back tossing a pizza pie in the air and making a pizza pie. People will come in and buy slices of the pizza pie. I will engage with those people, or I won’t it depends on how I feel that day. I will make it a joyful place. Give me Alec Baldwin’s show MSNBC.

What is MSNBC? Is that the Rachel Maddow one? She’s great. I’d like her as a colleague. I want a job. I want a job where I show up and they put me on camera. You just talk and then you go home and have sex with someone and then there’s dinner. Is that so wrong? Alec Baldwin—It’s never enough for him. It’s never enough. Nothing is enough. It’s like you give someone a taste and they are besieged with greed. They never had a taste for it before and now they can’t get enough. He drives me crazy. That guy drives me insane.

Incidentally I wish Alec Baldwin and all of the other baby boomers very Happy Birthday of the JFK assassination. I wish that to all of the boomers listening. Get that out of the way…That’s your Anthony Bourdains. John Laroquettes and whoever else remembers where they were on that fateful day. Probably Martin Sheen; Happy 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination Martin Sheen. How’s everyone celebrating it? That’s cool.

Alec Baldwin tweeted... I don’t follow him on twitter because I would lose my mind or I would lose all of my followers because all I would do is just retweet, not like Joe Mande when he retweets something that Dennis Miller says that’s so bad. I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I’d eat myself alive. Alec Baldwin tweeted the day he got in trouble or they put him on hiatus or suspended him or his show was possibly cancelled. He tweeted, “My producers and I had a very enlightening and well researched program prepared to air on 11/22 dealing with John Kennedy’s assassination. That show is off the air now. Oh, I’m so sorry Alec Baldwin. Aw, because you called someone a faggot no one will know how JFK died. Fuck you-well researched. Oh thanks. That’s such a ugh!! What a backhanded compliment to the research team. It was really well-researched. Gee thanks, I’m glad you noticed that I do my job so all you need to do is show up and put pomade in your hair, make your hair look like the Statue of Liberty’s crown, go in front of the camera in a fake diner set, read the teleprompter, and then go home and tweet about it in your town car on your way back to your yoga wife. That tweet is the equivalent of saying because I was punished unfairly for having called a paparazzo a fathead which is what I did. If TMZ says I called him a faggot I’ll sue.

This is how boomers use twitter, he said, “You know it’s not just me who suffers from this, it’s you the audience. We had a really well researched and enlightening (he said enlightening) dealing with JFK’s assassination. We had it ready to go.” We put this thing together that was both well-researched and enlightened. It was therefore substantial. It showed breadth. Now you won’t get to see it. Isn’t that unfair that you’re suffering my potential audience? You guys are the ones who are suffering, not me, not me Alec Baldwin. My audience, you, reading this tweet, are in agony because you will never reap the rewards of this fucking show that probably shows JFK getting shot in the head. We’ve seen that clip right? It’s a classic. It’s like, “Madge I soaked in it” or Billy Joel yelling at the audience. Scharpling covered that on his show this week. I was so glad. That’s great. Billy Joel’s meltdown. Please google that on YouTube. Alec Baldwin calls a photographer a faggot, and then he has a temper tantrum. The tantrum is, in my opinion, “Now I’m calm. I am going to tweet.” That’s his idea of operating from the reasonable brain. “You know we had this thing about JFK and now we can’t show it to you.” You called the guy a faggot. Fuck you. I’m done.

I’m not done, but I’m done.

Variety had some sort of bullshit thing about Sarah Silverman’s special, it was just depressing. Plus why are we reading Variety for criticism. Have you ever read a Variety review of a play? The writers who work at Variety are remedial, they’re all like Jackie Harvey from the Onion. They’ve never read a book. They see plays and say, “This is boffo.” They wrote up Sarah Silverman’s stand up special and said things like, “It’s such a shame. She’s such a pretty girl. Couldn’t she find a nice acting role?” It was so stupid. One music critic said (about a band)”they have such nice singing voices can’t they find girlfriends?” Fuck Variety.

Loretta Lynn got a medal of honor at the White House this weekend which was great news. She got an honor and then Oprah got an honor as well. I feel like that’s a little…does Oprah need an honor? What was it, the Presidential Medal of Freedom? Is that really necessary especially when she endorsed Obama? Not that it is a conflict of interest; I just don’t think you should be in Lee Daniel’s The Butler and get a Presidential Medal of Honor in the same year. I’m not sure if I like the new Lady Gaga album. I don’t think I do. I’ll tell you this right now I don’t think I like it. I’m pretty sure I don’t like it. There’s one song that she wrote about Donatella Versace that is so terrible it actually makes me feel bad. Hasn’t the Versace family suffered enough? This one died. I don’t know maybe they can take it.

Adam Levine is the sexiest man alive according to People Magazine which has officially turned into your disgusting older sister. I follow People Magazine. I don’t follow great idea, that’s their entertaining column. They say things like put a bunch of Twizzlers in a drinking cup and put it out on the end table and you’ve got yourself a party favor. Great Idea. I follow People Magazine of Twitter and they had something n Adam Levine, click here to see some shirtless footage. Ugh, I am uncomfortable. It’s not even the idea of Adam Levine shirtless there’s an implied hovering. I picture these dowager middle age women doing. They live in an old timey apartment building. They’re all looking out their windows at the courtyard because the Levine boy is hanging his laundry up on the clothes line. It’s hot so he took his shirt off. Ahh! Age gracefully and never think about your genitals, Adam Levine. What a goober. Doesn’t he date the Victoria Secret’s model? I know she’s Indian, is she Indian? (looks her up online) Adam Levine’s fiancé, Behati Prinsloo. Oh she’s from Namibia, what is that? She’s Afrikani. Ok. This is where you can find out first-hand how ignorant I am when it comes to geography—Namibia is in Southern Africa. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east, and South Africa to the south and east, ladies in the front, ladies in the back. This girl is very beautiful and Adam Levine is the sexiest man alive why can’t we all just be happy for them? The Victoria Secret’s model and the man on the show with a chair are in love. Why do you have to make it mean? Good point.

I got my hair done again. I got hair extensions again. They look amazing. It’s nice to have a lot of hair on my head again. I look like a sexy Dave Mustaine doing the curly long red bangs. It looks great just trust me.

I have written down on a note of things to talk about put Yoko Ono in the Redhead Hall of Fame. Yoko Ono is my favorite Asian. I realized that she’s not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and will never be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because everybody who has anything to do with the RRHF and the 12-12-12 Concert which as far as I’m concerned is an atrocity. They made a documentary about it. Not even a documentary, they just put out what they showed on TV in movie theater which is a waste of resources when you think of all the things that are on TV that could have been in movie theaters such as Blacklist—I don’t know I stopped watching the Blacklist. Can you guys just give me the gist? Can someone cut James Spader’s parts together? This is disgusting but I don’t care, should we masturbate during the Blacklist or after? Women love James Spader. He’s so sexy, argh!! I was talking about this with, not to name drop, Billy Eichner the other day. He said girls love James Spader. Yes we do. I don’t care if he’s fat (he’s not fat) and I don’t care if he’s bald. In fact it kind of makes it hotter. He said ok and then we changed the subject.

12-12-12 Yoko Ono fine. All of those assholes never gave her her due. Yoko Ono is awesome. Yoko Ono is punk rock. Before she even met john Lennon Yoko Ono was doing her thing in the Fluxus art movement being a bad ass and has always been the shit. She‘s great. Because she will never be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame I’m putting her in the Redhead Hall of Fame. Please put Yoko Ono in the Redhead Hall of Fame whoever is updating Howwasyourwiki.com. By the way Howwasyourwiki.com is my favorite website. I visit it every day if it is not updated daily I am sad. Please use it constantly and update it. Don’t make me sadder than I am naturally.

George W. Bush painted Jay Leno and went on the Jay Leno Show. We got to see George W’s rendition of Jay Leno. That was really intense. That was better than anything Jeff Koons has ever done or thought of.

I also have finally given thought and …basically Rob Ford has my attention; I’ll put it that way. I’d been doing a great job of ignoring him and it. I do my best to avoid geography and politics. But Rob Ford you have my attention. Rob Ford is gorgeous. Come on, this guy is hilarious. This guy is punk rock. He is a lot of fun. This guy makes me miss Chris Farley a little less. It’s amazing that he exists and it’s perfect that he exists in Canada. Canadians are too polite to impeach him. I believe he’s still Mayor. I believe Rob Ford was simply stripped of his power, so he’s like the Queen. She can sign it but it doesn’t mean anything, but she’s still the Queen. There’s still security , corgis, the whole deal. Meanwhile that is what they have going for this guy who said he has plenty of pussy to eat at home and loves crack. He attacked someone on the floor of what, a senate? I don’t know what he’s doing but it is all outrageous. I think it’s fantastic and I think it is really funny that Canadian people are like, “Well maybe in a week we’ll have a meeting asking him to step down.” He’s not going anywhere. I think you should elect him king.

Now I’m thinking about what Canada needs. Canada needs a king. Canada needs Rob Ford to be its King. If you elect or appoint him maybe things will get better for you or maybe they won’t but at least you’ll have a King who is a fucking badass! That guy is like GG Allin. He is a legend. He isn’t necessarily good but he is big. He did an interview recently where he said crack isn’t my problem food is. What are you talking about? Why aren’t you talking about stepping down? It didn’t come up. Rob Ford kicks ass. I’m not putting him in any Hall of Fame anytime soon. Not next to Yoko Ono that’s for sure.

We have two guests this week…