Episode 164: "That's The Twist"

Date

April 25, 2014

Guests

Juliette Danielle

Origin of the episode title

Tommy Wiseau's explanation for just about everything.

Discussed

Ohai folks. This week's show is a cult sensation, but deserves widespread popularity!

Our guest this week is JULIETTE DANIELLE, best known as "Lisa" from the motion picture THE ROOM. Juliette is here to talk to us about what her audition for Tommy Wiseau was like, how she found her church, what she likes about cats, and how she was actually Tommy's third choice for Lisa. What happened to the other two Lisas? Nobody knows and nobody will ever know.

Also, Julie has learned something anagram-related, and it's ABSOLUTELY AWFUL! The best reason to keep an archive! Jimmy and Bernie's forbidden love! And exactly how Aaron Sorkin should apologize for The Newsroom so he makes an impact.

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Episode Link

Monologue Transcript

Transcription by Amy

Hello, Hello. Hi everybody its Julie Klausner back for another episode of HWYW. It is late April. Before we go any further into this pretty memorable monologue, what is it, sparkling from the first breath? I want to mention we had a Premium release this week. We were hoping to put it out on Easter, it’s Wednesday that’s Easter-ish.

In October we did a live show at the Bell House. It was a production of Jesus Christ Superstar. On Wednesday we released it as a Premium. You can buy a Premium subscription on libysn. It’s worth the price of admission alone. Get that. Download it. It is one of the things I am most proud of in my life and my as yet to be determined legend.

I spent today cleaning out my apartment. I have been fussing, redecorating, and putting things in corners that they don’t usually exist in since I got back from LA about a month ago. It is fun to fuss around with your space. Today I decided to work on organizing areas of storage that I have spent years avoiding. I got on the floor with paper towel and a thing of Endust or Pledge, the stuff that smells like lemons and is oily. You spray it on wood and wipe it off and the ew! I am getting cancer. Did I just blow your mind? If you are someone grieving because a family member died of cancer and you don’t like a podcaster speaking cavalierly about that issue?

I went through DVDs, CDs, it’s embarrassing. Media is embarrassing. The way people older than me joke, and they are not good jokes, about 8-tracks. You are never going to hear a good joke about 8-trak tape. Yes, it is old technology. Is that funny? It is awkward an embarrassing when you regard a plastic jewel case. Then you open it and look at the artwork for a band you listened. I found a tape for the band Frente! I also found a lot of stuff I was keeping for reasons I found tarnished or sad. By that I mean old reels of my acting I had put together r during more optimistic times. I also found old postcards for shows that I was in and also promotional materials like postcards and color photocopies of articles I had blown up and kept that reviewed UCB shows that I was in.

There was a folder of materials that went into making a flyer from eight years ago that I did with a comedy partner I had that no longer speaks to me. I said I don‘t need this and threw it in the garbage. In the process I kept one of each thing. So I have one DVD of my reel from however many embarrassing years. I have one copy of my old headshot, 30 pounds ago. I have a couple of other things I kept one of and I put them in a cabinet area that could either be a time capsule or a valuable archive if I am murdered in a NY Post front-page-worthy way. So if tomorrow, god forbid, some mad man pushes me onto the tracks of the subway and an oncoming subway car…you know what I am trying to say, he basically Frank Thunderwoods me by which I means speaks so bleakly to the camera and absurd things happen to him. People are so honored and give WGA talks about overseeing events having to do with Freddy and Robin Wright sleeping, and other such things.

If, god forbid, someone takes my life in a way that is sensationalist and sells copies of that blessed tabloid, then someone will have a one-stop shopping experience going through this one cabinet and saying, “Oh that murdered citizen who had intriguing, she had good cleavage, can we get some B roll for the news?” “Here you go.” Then it will be me on VH1 with really bad bangs. That’s something I did today.

I also gave a bunch of books to Housing Works because some of us still care about AIDS. They take books and don’t ask questions. Where’d you get this advanced galley of Kitty Kelly’s unauthorized biography of Hamish Linklater? None of your business.

Other things I learned this week include, I found out this week and I didn’t know this in advance, it is probably embarrassing and many many people knew but I didn’t, but now I do. I have eaten the apple and I am in the Garden of Eden and everything is made out of snakes like so many Patti Stangairs, this week I learned that Mr. Mojo Risin’ is an anagram for Jim Morrison. Did you know that? You probably did. I didn’t. It practically killed me. Mr. Mojo Risin is an anagram for Jim Morrison! I couldn’t visualize a world in which everything I knew about Jim Morrison couldn’t have become stupider. The fact that at the end of LA Woman, which is a cool part of the song, he menacingly…could you imagine if you were doing that at the end of a song trying to be cool and it was just an anagram of your name? All cats must fail (sings to tune of Mr. Mojo Risin’) I am not saying that ‘All cats must fail’ is an anagram for anything. If there are any of you who are anagram inclined, some They Might Be Giants fans perhaps, by all means, work that out. Puzzle people will know that. There are puzzle people. Stephen Sondheim was one. There are a lot of things that guy has.

If you have a brain like Stephen Sondheim you can’t judge his amusements. What he does to relax that Rube Goldbergian sort of flesh and blood machine he has behind those multiple skin tags, don’t judge it. It might be puzzles. It might be extreme sadomasochism with a young man who works for College Humor. Whatever it is it is. Don’t judge him. Puzzles huh? They are amusing.

I am recovering from a procedure I had done, I am fine. I am spending a lot of time at home. I am still not 100% so I am hanging out at home. I have learned things about Jimmy Jazz that I would not have know if I were not spending this much time with him. Jimmy likes to hang out by windows. All cats do. They like to watch birds and feel fresh air. The other day I saw Jimmy sitting on the sill looking out my bedroom window. He was really into something. I walked over thinking he had found a bird. He makes a sound when he sees one. I was waiting for him to make that sound. Technically he’s my co-worker, so he’s intrigued and I wonder what he’s laughing at. I went over and said, “What do you got there Jimmy?” It wasn’t a bird.

The apartment next to mine is catty corner from my bedroom window and you can look into the window of the apartment next store which I learned one time maybe about 6 or 7 years ago. I learned I could see directly into the window of my next door neighbors when I had my blinds open at night and they were watching on their living room television, which was pretty big, a porno starring a very hairy woman. I took that in. I noticed it. Now there is a different couple that lives next door. If you remember from past podcast episodes they have a Boston terrier, the ones with the googly eyes—not that smart. There was a period over the year ago when I had broken u with Jack. I was really depressed and I wanted to sleep all of the time. It was what it was. I barely think about him because it’s too painful to think that anybody who knew me that well could still leave me. So things are great. When I was trying to sleep off that experience there were voices coming from outside my bedroom door. They were the voices of the couple next door. They were reprimanding their dog, the Boston terrier whose name is Bernie. Every two seconds after they come home from work I hear, “Bernie! Bernie! Bernie! Stop it! Bernie no! Bernie! Get down from there.” I dealt with it by putting an anonymous note under their door and running away, so they wouldn’t know it was me who left the note. It worked. Also Bernie grew up a little, maybe we all did in the process.

I remember trying to use a different handwriting than my handwriting as if my neighbor knew my handwriting in the first place. There were words I underlined. I wrote, I live in this hallway. I started with I love animals. My parents were right; I should have gone to law school. I am a persuasive arguer. Anyway, Bernie lived next door. My point is the other day when I walked in on Jimmy engaged at the window I noticed that he was engaged at the window because he and Bernie have been staring at each other. That’s intense. Jimmy has a relationship with the next door neighbor’s dog consisting of the two of them being black and white and staring at each other intensely, Bernie’s googly eyes and Jimmy’s crazy greenies. Jimmy meows and stretches and shows of his tums to Bernie. He crouches down like he stalking, and presses himself against the re-enforced screen. Jimmy is performing these antics for his secret boyfriend, these two star-crossed lovers, if everything goes well they will never meet. While Jimmy is showing off Bernie is doing the following thing, “Duh.” He’s just staring completely vacant. Then Bernie walked away. He didn’t walk away because I was there because I was dressed up like a dog. I wish. The point is that we’re better than them and Jimmy has a friend. Every time he goes to the window now I ask if he’s looking for Bernie.

I have been spending more time alone than I am used to spending. I have been going to movies, so there’s that. I want to thank Julie from the Tribecca Film Festival. She invited me to judge a panel of Vines for the Tribecca Film Festival. I said sure. I watched them and told her which ones I liked. She said, “Thanks, here’s your pass, you can go to any movie at the Tribecca Film Festival free.” Holy shit! Thank you. I have been doing it. It is the best. It is great. I go to this theater on 3rd and 11th where I saw the Wallace and Grommit Curse of the Were Rabbit movie, oddly enough with one of my former comedy partners who doesn’t talk to me anymore and a guy she was sleeping with at the time who later I hooked up with. I think he has Asperger’s. We were in the top theater of that movie theater which is the smallest one and while we were there a rat scurried right underneath our feet.

The movies have been really good. Do you know what the seat could have? They could be a little higher so that I could rest my head. The movies have been great. I saw the Alice Cooper documentary which I loved. I saw Mala Mala Documentary which is a fabulous documentary about transsexuals and drag queens. It’s about the transgender community in Puerto Rice. April Carrion was there. She was on Ru Paul’s Drag Race. I refused to dig myself into a pit with a sorbet spoon by addressing any issue in the LGBT community because god forbid I as a member of the cisgender community have an opinion about that because it is just not cute. I am not being completely facetious; therefore I will not say that the LGBT and queer and questioning community should literally everyday get down on their knees and thank Ru Paul for being Ru Paul. I will not say that Ru Paul takes where Oprah left off and goes into outer space. We are so lucky to be alive when Ru Paul is alive. He is funny, wise, soulful, smart, entertaining and talented. Most of all Ru Paul is kind and compassionate. That we would ever attack him, question his intentions, take advantage of a show and an outlet so essentially sensitive who listens to what people who have otherwise been marginalized have to say, that would be a mistake. I’ll leave it at that. If you are going to come for RuPaul, don’t be surprised if I throw myself in front of him and take whatever punches you have to throw because there is nothing I can say that will articulate how precisely lucky we are to be living in a time with him around and in it.

Also I love Darianne Lake because she reminds me of Smiley Muffin and now I know for sure she is exactly like Smiley Muffin. I watched Untucked and Darianne Lake is kind of an asshole. The thing I like about heavy set men that dress up like women, heavy set drag queens are great because unlike certain heavy biological women, they are not shy or invisible. They don’t sit quietly. Darianne Lake represents the way I wish all women of size could be, bitter that society is an asshole about it, fuck you! Darianne Lake is mean and I respect that tremendously. I respect the entitlement of bitterness, “How dare you? Yes, I can insult you more harshly. I have had tons of time to think about how I would hurt somebody because I have been busy deflecting all of the pain that has been lobbed at me like so many tennis balls my entire life. Therefore, Darianne Lake reminds me of Smiley Muffin, not just because she looks exactly like her, my late cat, RIP, my best friend to eternity. Also Smiley Muffin was a real asshole to people. I miss her a lot.

I saw Red Dragon. I saw Alice Cooper, Mala Mala, and then yesterday I saw a documentary about a mentally ill person who forges art and donates his fake artworks to universities so it is not illegal. He’s a very disturbed person. He talks about his mother’s death two years earlier. It’s tragic. He lives in a hoarder place. His skills in art reproduction are incredible. It’s a little bit like crumb in that you are spending time with this guy for two hour? Ok? The most disturbing part of the movie is when he eats Country Crock butter out of the tub by scooping it out with Melba Toast. That’s something you could watch on a large screen if you care to. Keep in mind that grocery stores in this country do not really suit the needs of people who don’t have the skill of people 10-20 years ago. If you can’t cook, if you live alone, if you don’t want to have a lot of money for takeout and haven’t figured out ramen noodles, your options are to buy a couple of frozen meals and/or to scoop out Country Crook with Melba Toast. In no way is a grocery store providing concierge service. Why can’t there be a concierge at a grocery store? Isn’t that a good idea for community outreach? Nobody is going to want to spend time with them. If I walked into a Key Foods and someone asked, “Can we help you with some recipes?” I would call the police.

That said, I think groceries are important. I don’t know where I am going with this except there is nothing more depressing to see someone eat butter out of a tub. Maybe watching somebody heat up a Marie Callender’s turkey dinner in the microwave and then opening the plastic and waiting for it to vent. I lived in LA for 3 months and I would not cook. I was all about the plastic venting. It does a number on the old depression.

Did I talk about Red Dragon yet? I saw Red Dragon. I saw a couple of movies that happened to be on TV with commercials. It’s charming? I saw Hard Eight. It was spectacular. I loved Gwyneth Paltrow’s pharmacy peach lipstick with sparkles and no liner. She was actually really great in it. I saw Red Dragon which is the Prequel to Silence of the Lambs but it was made after Silence of the Lambs and I think after Hannibal. I’m not positive about that. Anthony Hopkins is in it as Hannibal. He looks at least 15 years older. I don’t know if it was made 15 years after Silence of the Lambs. Or Anthony Hopkins has been living hard. He’s permitted to do so. After you do Remains of the Day you can do whatever you want. Red Dragon—I was going in and out. I was in the kitchen or getting dressed, but I was checking in on it. I wasn’t seated captively absorbing it. I will say that it stars Ralph Fiennes, who recently made love to a celebrated performer in our clique or our community here at Joe’s Pub in NYC who may or may not have guested with me at my cabaret show this winter. Hooray for America. Ralph plays this creepy sicko. He has a tattoo on his back of a dragon. That is supposed to be scary but at no point do you see him getting it done by Kat Von Diesel.

What is scary is that he takes people and tortures them and then transforms them. The edited it for TV so you only see the mid-mutilation. He is making people into; I don’t know if he’s putting horns on them. Please don’t tell me. It’s not that I can’t handle it it’s just that I don’t care. He kidnaps Phillip Seymour Hoffman, poor Phillip Seymour Hoffman, not just because we miss him, but because he was the best actor ever, but his acting in this compensated for everybody else. Not that Ralph Fiennes and Anthony Hopkins can’t memorize a line or two but Phillip Seymour Hoffman was saying, “Oh no, oh no!” He knew how to do his job. Ralph Fiennes was obsessed with William Blake. By the way I have never been a William Blake fan. I don’t know if that is going to alienate some of you English majors or art history people. I don’t like his artwork and I am not crazy about his poetry, just getting that out of the way. “Julie you hate everything.” “No I don’t I like Frank O’Hara.” “But who do you like in terms of water colors?” I don’t know if I like water colors very much. I like paintairs. I like De Kooning. Red Dragon, fine. Ralph Fiennes is obsessed with a William Blake painting. Also he’s dating a blind woman. I think it’s Samantha Martin maybe it’s not. She’s going out with him. There aren’t as many blind jokes as I would have liked. When a serial killer is dating a blind girl, there’s some set up, and stuff is in place for some fun. They didn’t have a lot of fun. I think there was a fire. Other things happened.

To be honest with you I don’t remember anything about the movie looking back. The only thing I remember is that Ralph Fiennes made an appointment at the Brooklyn Museum. They found a museum that was not the Brooklyn Museum and they put a sign in front of it. He went in and had a private meeting with the woman who worked there. He told her he wanted to see the William Blake painting. She said here it is and then she turned her back. When she turned around Ralph Fiennes tore the painting out of the portfolio she was showing him and he stuffed it in his mouth and ate it. That’s all. The point of that story is that in Red Dragon Ralph Fiennes eats a painting. It was a good movie. Oh do you know how it ended? This is how Red Dragon ended. Remember how I said it was a prequel to the Silence of the Lambs? The last shot Hannibal Lecter is in jail and somebody says, “Hey Lecter, there’s an FBI agent here to see you, her name is Agent Starling.” Credits. That’s how Red Dragon ends. It’s a great movie.

Aaron Sorkin says he’s sorry about The Newsroom, too little too late. I want to know what Alison Pill is sorry about but I think we already know. I want Aaron Sorkin to go on apology tour, but, god forbid, he books colleges. I just want him to go to Curves Gyms and take each woman individually aside and give her a Dannon Greek Yogurt, the 100 calorie kind, and say I’m sorry then just let her talk. Give her twenty minutes. If he does that nationally I’ll be satisfied.

I don’t watch the Lindsay Lohan Show on OWN. I tried to watch the first one with Holly but we stopped watching it because it was too depressing. It put us both in a bad mood. We had already eaten pizza and didn’t feel well. Her baby was sleeping at the time so I headed out because he wasn’t awake for me to mush him! Apparently I was on the Linsday Lohan finale when she admitted having a miscarriage and they showed her destroying a car with Billy Eichner from Billy on the Street, and I was on the set that day and I had hand warmers and at the end of the shoot I gave them to her because she looked very cold and fragile. I got a couple of tweets saying, “Was that you lending your hand warmers to Lindsay Lohan?” Oh, yes! Had I known there were cameras on my generosity I would have, I don’t know, given her my shoes? My point is where’s my TV show Oprah? Why don’t you send me and Iyanla on the road? It will be like 48 Hrs only terrible.

Are there any of you listening who are editors and can shoot short films who might want to do that for free? I know that is a big ask. It won’t take long. It will be fun and you get to hang out with us. We are a lot of fun and we are nice. If you can do that for free please email me and let me know. I know it is audacious. The Audacity of Nope. There’s a title that has nothing to do with what I am asking for or talking about. Look this show is free, why not ask for something else that usually isn’t free but could be? Maybe this is a waste of everybody’s time.

Finally I send love and light to LA. I know this weekend they banned vape pen use in public. You can no longer smoke your e-cigarette when you are at the Skybar. Congratulations to Jenny McCarthy for marrying a complementary bag of garbage. We’re all really just looking for a lid to a pot.

We have one guest this week…