Episode 148: "Goodbye, Spoony"

Date

January 3, 2014

Guests

James Wilson

Origin of the episode title

This is Chris "Spoony" Spooner's final episode as producer of How Was Your Week. He passes the torch to Ryan "Hotlips" Houlihan

Discussed

Monologue
Eminem's offensive Zombies sample, why you want to pick a muse with a big fat face (Leo DiCaprio), Mickey Rooney and how he's always stunk, and Jeff Daniels's songwriting.

Interview James "@lawblob" Wilson is here! We are going to talk to him about growing up Mormon, being a lawyer, and the time he was held up by gunpoint.

Trivia

• Julie is in Los Angeles for a few months!

Download the Episode

Episode Link

Monologue Transcript

Oh boy. Hello, hello everybody. This is Julie Klausner back for another episode of HWYW.

There is a blizzard. It is blizzarding here in New York City which just means it’s nasty out. It’s so fun to be inside when the weather is terrible. Am I wrong? For those of you who are confused and thinking Julie weren’t you supposed to be in Los Angeles by now? You are not wrong. I was supposed to be in Los Angeles by now but I postponed my trip. I am leaving on Saturday. Why? Well I couldn’t miss the blizzard. I had to postpone my trip a couple of days because I had a neck spasm. My neck is in spasm. I get muscle spasms sometimes. I have a bad neck. It’s weird to say that. Invariably if someone says what’s wrong, I say there’s this thing that’s wrong with my neck and my back, and then say and my pussy and my crack and people usually like it, but sometimes they don’t. I have dealt with this for a very long time since I was in a car accident when I was 18. I got a college essay out of it. My neck is in spasm and I was in too much pain to fly. I’m doing better now. Do I have a hilarious neck brace? I do. Do I wear it? Only when I feel erotically, no I’m not going to answer the door naked in a neck brace in the next ten minutes or so. God knows what life will bring me. I had to postpone my LA trip for a couple of days while I munch and crunch on muscle relaxers which are really interesting they are not pain killers. They do make you goofy and they are sedatives. I don’t know what about me seems to display I love Klonopin, but everyone, the pharmacist, the doctor, people who call all say, “You’re not taking these with Klonopin are you?” No. I’m not taking them with Klonopin. Wouldn’t it be funny if I said with a cosmopolitan, cheers! That was Sex in the City 3. Are they going to make a third movie? They should but they should only use the footage from that Oliver Stone movie from 9/11 that came out way too soon, Wall Street 2.

How angry do you think Oliver Stone is at Martin Scorsese for making The Wolf of Wall Street? He’s probably punching…maybe he has a tree in the back that he hits with a baseball bat and thinks to himself my movie title is in his movie title! That’s not fair. That’s not fair. Well, you know what? Next time get a muse with a chubbier face. They last longer. Leonardo DiCaprio who I do not care for has a lot of fat in his face. It looks like the moon in what is it, Moliere? He’s at the end of the Smashing Pumpkin video. Do you want to know what my one original reference is? That’s my original reference. Then I went to college and I took a film 101 class because I loved wasting my parent’s money and they showed us the original. I saw Hugo for some god forsaken reason. It was actually fine, but I will never see it again. There are so many movies I will never see again. Hugo was pretty close to the top of the list. I’ll see Schindler’s List again right now. I’m always in the mood to watch Schindler’s list.

Leonardo DiCaprio has a big fat moon face and that’s why he’s lasted in this town. Plus he’s probably blackmailed a lot of people. I don’t find him charming. I guess people do. He likes models. To each their own. Models, in real life to me look like a bird from the movie Up. They are wacky. They are funny and they don’t fit in. You just stare at them because they are going to do something silly like order salad instead of fries.

I am leaving DeBlasio’s New York City starting on Saturday I am going to be in LA for a little bit with the cat. I am going to come back for the cat because the apartment I am staying in for the first half of the week does not permit cats. I also want to set up the apartment for him, have a litter box there and he has his soft claws on. He doesn’t even know he has them on which is terrific news. Every once in a while he will put his fingers in his mouth, but that’s just what children do. By the way, my cat has, in my mind, morphed into a human baby. That’s really healthy yeah.

I don’t want to jinx anything about being in LA because anything could happen. I’m not moving. I don’t want to talk about it too much. When I’m out there I will talk about being out there, I imagine, but I am trying to be in the moment right now. Facebook during the holidays is fascinating. People that don’t usually use, I hate Facebook. I have talked about why I hate Facebook, but I also like looking at photos of people so I use it. People post links to odd article during the holidays that I don’t think they ordinarily do during the year. Somebody posted a link here are some lessons that TED Talks can teach us. Yes! Click this is what I need because I don’t have time to listen to Ted Talk, although I will when I am fucking driving around in the blazing sun in Los Angeles trying not to be depressed. I’m too busy to be depressed, too busy. How can I make myself more harried so that I don’t feel my feelings? I know I’ll be in a rush. One of the TED Talk lessons was be in then moment. Thanks TED.

I have been consuming a lot more media since I have been home for the holidays and not working, or just kind of getting ready to go, putting stuff in suitcases. Then I hurt my neck and I was out. Down for the count as it were. So I listened to 17 standup comedy albums in a row. I played Candy Crush too and watched a bunch of documentaries. I talked about this with our pal Alex Bordello, when he had back surgery he just listened to standup too. It’s interesting because really funny smart people are keeping you company and you can’t remember any of the jokes which is fine. I don’t think it’s anyone’s job socially to repeat a joke, or a routine that they heard. I listened to a lot of standup albums—Spotify guys, Spotify. Not only do they have standup albums but they also have Jeff Daniels album.

Jeff Daniels, of Newsroom, or The Newsroom, we’ll never know.  Jeff Daniels has a cabaret show at 54 Below which is a cabaret space in midtown and he is singing his own songs. Jeff Daniels writes songs you may say?  Yes he does. He does.  He certainly does. Do they have humorous titles?  They sure do.  For example there’s an album called Live and Unplugged to Benefit the Purple Rose Theater, the first song is called If William Shatner Can I can Too, which is a quasi-self aware tribute to the notion that he’s an actor but he wants to make music. The Lifelong Tiger Fan Blues which I have not listened to.  Mama Never Left Her Oldest Boy Alone which I have not listened to. The Dirty Harry Blues, I haven’t heard that one.  I haven’t heard Kathy which is the next track.  Then there is one called If I weren’t so Stupid You Wouldn’t Be so Smart.  I think I lasted about 10 seconds.  There’s also a song on here called You Can Drink an Ugly Girl Pretty.  There are other songs to.  Here’s my point, this is Boomer entitlement at its most flagrant.  I think that as an actor Jeff Daniels is very, very good.  I really liked him in Terms of Endearment but this is out of control. You want to give people the benefit of the doubt.  You want to say he’s not as bad as Aaron Sorkin.  He didn’t write that dialogue.  He gets to munch on it.  It’s a good part for an actor to play Matt McInerny on that fucking show. Didn’t he win the Emmy over other people who are better? 

Jeff Daniels took that role. Part of you thinks oh, Jeff Daniels, but then another part thinks I have no investment in Jeff Daniels and a third part says I would take that part if I were Jeff Daniels. I’m an actor in theory and it’s a great part. You get a lot of dialogue to munch on. You get to chew it up and spit it out in a frame. Frame your dinner plate with little pieces of spittle that you organize like numbers on a clock. (Spit sound, spit sound, spit sound) Jeff Daniels has an album or two on Spotify and he has a cabaret show which I assume you are all going to buy tickets for and attend.

The other entitled white man that I want to talk about right now is Eminem because I didn’t think was relevant but I guess he’s still selling albums. He’s got a new album called Marshall Mathers 2 LP. I don’t think he’s blond anymore which is oddly disappointing. He is rapping about how unfair life is for white men who have enough money to support their families. I know addiction is its own thing. Growing up poor, class knows no race, but Eminem’s anger to me is as retro as Tom Green being outrageous does that make sense? It’s a very 90s retro. I know that Eminem came into the world in the aughts right. The aughts and the 90s are melding.

Happy New Year by the way. I should have said that earlier, sorry. Happy New Year everybody. It’s still socially acceptable to say that whereas in two days I will want to kill myself when someone says Happy New Year. I’m trying to expose myself to new music, Eminem has a new record and I listened to a couple songs. I listened to a song by the new group HAIM but I think it is pronounce Hym because they all have hymen’s because they are girls. I liked that fine. Then Rob Sheffield had 25 Best Songs of the Year. I’ll check out this new music from 2013. One of them was from Eminem called Rhyme or Reason. In Rhyme or Reason he samples the Time of the Season. In that sample—this is like the B-I-N-G-O song. The Zombies Time of the Season is blatantly mangled for probably enough money for the Zombies to buy shinier tires for their tour bus I suppose. They are touring. They are around you can see them in a park. If you are in Chicago and you need something to do, you can look in the alternative weekly. That’s why I don’t like traveling for pleasure the idea of grabbing an Alternative Weekly and looking, what’s today? I guess we could do this. I don’t like traveling for pleasure. I don’t like doing things for pleasure.

Marshall Mathers, Eminem, samples Time of the Season by the Zombies. By doing so he decided to respond to the lyrics very literally. It goes: What’s your name?--Marshall. Who’s your daddy?-- I don’t have one.

I swear to god that is true. I heard that in my ears from Spotify. I did not buy that record. I laughed out loud in the street. I was on Mott and E. Houston and I went ha, ha, ha, ha ha, no way. The answer is yes way. Oh boy. At what point is it not ok, it has never been ok to just say faggot over and over again but to quote the great Andy Kindler, “I don’t think he got the memo,” that it’s not ok to use that word liberally. I don’t care whether Eminem got the memo or not, to be dangerously frank with you.

I mentioned in passing that I watched a lot of things and listened to standup albums. I want to give a list of what I watched in the last 48 or 72 hours. Time mushes together when you are on muscle relaxers and anti-inflammatory. I’m not on any Vicodin. I shouldn’t be as whacky as I am. I didn’t take any today. I don’t need to feel like a goof ball hopped up, not when I have caramel popcorn to stuff in my face because I am anxious. These are some of the things I watched this last couple of days:

Twenty Feet from Stardom-excellent, a documentary about backup singers. I wasn’t crazy about the third act. The first two were fucking brilliant. I mention acts because I’m Robert McKee. Six by Sondheim which I want to watch again, I was a little distracted at the time by the pain. When you are in pain, and people who have experienced muscle stuff or tears, any kind of muscular skeletal pain you cannot think of anything else. You cannot focus on anything. You can’t focus on anyone else. You are incapable of empathy. Now I am a little better and I will listen to what you are saying as long as it’s interesting. Six by Sondheim, Sondheim as our friend Jon Mulaney pointed out got into his first relationship when he was 60 years old which is a late bloomer frankly. He also has more skin tags on his face he can barely open his eyes anymore. He’s like one of those frogs with the eyelids. His eyelids come from the bottom as well as the top when he blinks. I saw the movie Alien for the first time. I know it is embarrassing. It was very, very good. I thought it was a good movie. I was pleased that, SPOILER ALERT, the cat is fine. I think I am going to start making art in the style of HR Giger, just kidding. I watched Maria Bamford’s Plan B which is on Netflix. It’s a comedy. I watched That’s Entertainment 2 on New Year’s Eve.

On New Year’s Eve I didn’t go out. I just stayed in. I sort of deliberately celebrated. I went to bed early and kind of had to sleep. I’m sorry I’m complaining constantly. There was a documentary on, I want to say CNBC, the one that had the Shoplifting Doc that I watched last week, they had a series about the 80s narrated by Rob Lowe and it wasn’t smart. It was interesting because they had great footage, a lot of footage of Yuppies (If you typed in Yuppie to stock footage incorporated they got a lot of hits) and Madonna stuff. I watched a little bit of that. Then That’s Entertainment 2 was on TMC, fuck New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, I’m watching That’s Entertainment 2 with fat Donald O’Connor. I don’t know if you have seen That’s Entertainment 2 from 1974. Gene Kelly looks fine. Mickey Rooney looks disgusting and is disgusting. He introduced a clip where he and Judy Garland make faces at each other and get really excited about let’s put on a show. I’ll write it and you’ll be the star, then all of a sudden they show a clip of Mickey Rooney in fucking blackface dancing. I know that historically you don’t want to wipe any of these things clean, it’s just odd that a proud still alive, oddly, man is speaking into the camera. I know it was 1974, but it was 1974! He’s looking into the camera saying, “I’m awfully proud of my work,” and they it cut to him dancing around in blackface. Fuck you. Fuck you. I hate Mickey Rooney. I hope he dies this year. I hope that 2014 is the year Mickey Rooney dies. The reason this is not a mean thing for me to say is if he had died ten years ago it would have been from natural causes. I think he sucks. I think he stinks. I don’t like him as a performer and even as a young man I find him very off-putting.

There was another part in That’s Entertainment 2 where fat Donald O’Connor, I don’t mean to body snark Donald O’Conner but he was chunky and it was weird. If you say Sean Hayes twenty years from now and he had the physique of Dan Aykroyd you’d think that was weird right? You would. If you don’t know what That’s Entertainment is, it’s a clip package from MGM where they made clips of classic movies. It’s a very digestible way to watch a bunch of musicals at once and not have to suffer through the part of them that are unwatchable. Fat Donald O’Connor says to the camera, “This next lady was incredible. I wish I could have performed with her because she had a beautiful face and a beautiful figure.” What? Ugh that’s the grossest thing I have ever heard Donald O’Conner. It turned out to be Esther Williams, is Esther Williams the one who swims? She has to be right? She was pretty. She was fine. She swam. She died last year? Jesus Louises, Esther Williams lived too long. Take a note from her book Mickey Rooney. What was our fascination in the 1940s with women swimming? I’m not saying it wasn’t fabulous and fun to look at and the choreography was sublime but I don’t get why it was entertaining in and of itself to watch a woman swimming and diving. Was that something that was rare then? Did people not have access to pools? Had pools just been invented? I watched a bunch of standup stuff too. I watched Dan Gould’s Let Me Put My Thoughts Into You. I am sort of obsessed with Dana Gould right now. I think he is absolutely brilliant. I re-watched a lot of stuff as well. I watched Jackie Brown. That’s another one I could watch. I could watch Schindler’s List, Jackie Brown, Fargo any time it’s on, The Birdcage, and The Shining also, and Splash, and Tootsie and a lot of others honestly now that I think about it. I re-watched Jackie Brown. I re-watched Out of Sight (which doesn’t standup.) I re-watched Jon Mulaney’s New in Town which is perfect. I re-watched a Band Called Death. What else?

I know that there was a controversy about Beyonce using footage from the Challenger explosion on her song XO from her new album. I just want to say to people who had a problem with that, that song XO is the best thing that ever happened to the Challenger or its victims, or the victim’s families. You should be happy and you should thank Beyonce. I also want to mention I got an email from my credit card. Well actually I use my debit card as a credit card; it’s a really interesting story. I got an email. I tried to log into iTunes and it said that my password was wrong and I needed to verify. Then I got an email from Chase that says, Is this you? Did you make the following three purchases? They were all just me buying lives for Candy Crush. This is humiliating; don’t get me wrong, I’m not proud of this. It was three instances of me spending money at the iTunes store on Candy Crush. Yeah, that’s me, obviously. I know that you are a robot but that you don’t understand that is what my spending habits are is disappointing.

I have a very special announcement to make about the show. Before I do I wanted to mention that Ryan Hotlips Houlihan has a new podcast called Hotlips. He was kind enough to interview me on his first episode so go into iTunes and type in Hotlips and download his podcast. Howwasyourwiki is in better shape than it ever has been, Howwasyourwiki.com please use it as your playground and to have sex with each other. Update it constantly because as I mentioned in the past it is my favorite website. Now there is a category called Cavalcade of Characters…I am a character person, I do characters, and I’m edgy. This website makes me happy that’s all. Please continue to update it and know I love it.

We are at a bittersweet part of the show where I need to announce that our long-time producer Chris Spoony Spooner is stepping down. He wil no longer be the producer of HWYW. Spoony as I mentioned earlier is expecting a baby. He has obligations that transcend editing and producing this podcast. We are entering our third year and he is passing the torch to Ryan Hotlips Houlihan who will be producing the show from now on. This is a very emotional time for us to absorb this information. The HWYW family is small yet robust. We love each other. Ours is an exclusive intimacy yet it burns very hot. It goes without saying , I don’t want to say I will miss him because I will certainly see him and talk to him and meet this daughter. He’ll be part of the videos we continue to make and the live shows going forward, but I am very sad to have to say so long friend in this particular way. I started this show with Spoony at my side and I really love him and am sad to see him go. I am happy to see him move on to wonderful exciting life things.

Without further adieu Chris Spoon Spooner has prepared a statement he wants to read himself as a means of resignation. I now concede the floor to Senator Spooner.

Good Morning, my name is Chris Spooner, producer of HWYW with Julie Klausner. Since its inception it has been my joy to edit and produce this podcast. To have the ear of the comedy community’s finest and to participate in the building of the show has been n small honor and words cannot describe the gratitude I feel. So it is with heavy heart and after a great deal of thought and prayer I am stepping down from my office as producer of HWYW in order to focus on my family more to spend more time building relationships at home. Effective immediately the office entitled producer is conferred upon Ryan Hotlips Houlihan a man with honor and integrity, the two qualities that this position must embody. Please show him the same respect and kindness which you have blessed me with. I would like to sincerely thank Julie Klausner who has become one of my closest friends over the last three years. Her taking me on board and allowing me access to her world, Julie you are endlessly funny and I am constantly in awe of your perceptiveness and ideas. Thank you. This has been a privilege and an absolute blast. To you listener, you have all of my love and gratitude. Your support has made this possible. Meeting fans of HWYW is always a great experience whether online or at live events. We love the same things and the same things make us laugh. Part of what makes this amazing is that there is a community of people like us out there. It is reassuring to know you are contributing to something that other people enjoy. I have gotten to know and become friends with a lot of you and I am a better person for it. For bringing me in on the joke and for your financial generosity you sincerely have my thanks. In the coming days there will be rumors around my activities as producer baseless allegations, I ask that you please respect my family and our privacy and that you allow us our space. My decision to resign is in no way influenced by any ongoing investigations the massage in question is in unrelated to how I performed as a producer. Together we have accomplished so much, I am honored to leave HWYW at a place where it is as strong as it has ever been with its best years ahead. Any discussion of my conduct is counterproductive giving credibility to these rumors of massages only serves to tarnish its progress. Who has been generous with massages or who was unreceptive to being massaged only serves to cloud the issues. Before I conclude I would like to thank the following people who I have been so fortunate to get to know and who have also been a real inspiration to me through their talent and encouragement my friends Ted and Jodi Leo, Tom Scharpling, Alex Cordelis, Billy Eichner, Michael Kupperman, Jack Ferry, Mindy Tucker Mary Ann Ways, Carly McCarthy, Ramsey Yes, thank you,you have been so good to me. To Jake Fogelnest you’ll get your dude, you’ll get yours. Thank You.

All right that was beautiful. I don’t how to change. We miss you already. You are the best guy in the world. In order to send you off in style we had a secret pow wow with Teddy Leo and his music men. Chris wasn’t expecting this but we asked Te dif he’s mind writing a song for Spoony because he’s leaving the show. Ted said sure. He sent us a song a couple of hours ago. It turns out Ted Leo is a rock star, Spoony this song is for you. I hope you love it as much as we love you.