Episode 97 — Julie Klausner, Our Close Friend

[honlads 8798]

As a HH fan, which Reality Show Show episode(s) should I listen to first?

 

Start at the first episode imo. It's all very good.

[Game of Scones 5812]

listen to the last one and go backwards

[rod aug 5637]

Brother Lovers episode 7!!! Can you believe we recorded another episode? We did it, and it's extra long (we're really sorry).

 

[xoValeriexo 4369]

As a HH fan, which Reality Show Show episode(s) should I listen to first?

 

Reality Show Show is brilliant and consistently funny. I fell in love immediately. Start from the beginning and be prepared to love Sean and Hayes even more than you already do.

[Jakal 4475]

CHAPTER 1. Loomings.

 

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

 

There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs—commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.

 

Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see?—Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster—tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they here?

 

The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it.

But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand—miles of them—leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets and avenues—north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all those ships attract them thither?

 

Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries—stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.

 

But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest, shadiest, quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in all the valley of the Saco. What is the chief element he employs? There stand his trees, each with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a crucifix were within; and here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his cattle; and up from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deep into distant woodlands winds a mazy way, reaching to overlapping spurs of mountains bathed in their hill-side blue. But though the picture lies thus tranced, and though this pine-tree shakes down its sighs like leaves upon this shepherd’s head, yet all were vain, unless the shepherd’s eye were fixed upon the magic stream before him. Go visit the Prairies in June, when for scores on scores of miles you wade knee-deep among Tiger-lilies—what is the one charm wanting?—Water—there is not a drop of water there! Were Niagara but a cataract of sand, would you travel your thousand miles to see it? Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving two handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which he sadly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian trip to Rockaway Beach? Why is almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at some time or other crazy to go to sea? Why upon your first voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship were now out of sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.

 

Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I begin to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious of my lungs, I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a passenger. For to go as a passenger you must needs have a purse, and a purse is but a rag unless you have something in it. Besides, passengers get sea-sick—grow quarrelsome—don’t sleep of nights—do not enjoy themselves much, as a general thing;—no, I never go as a passenger; nor, though I am something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a Commodore, or a Captain, or a Cook. I abandon the glory and distinction of such offices to those who like them. For my part, I abominate all honourable respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of every kind whatsoever. It is quite as much as I can do to take care of myself, without taking care of ships, barques, brigs, schooners, and what not. And as for going as cook,—though I confess there is considerable glory in that, a cook being a sort of officer on ship-board—yet, somehow, I never fancied broiling fowls;—though once broiled, judiciously buttered, and judgmatically salted and peppered, there is no one who will speak more respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled fowl than I will. It is out of the idolatrous dotings of the old Egyptians upon broiled ibis and roasted river horse, that you see the mummies of those creatures in their huge bake-houses the pyramids.

 

No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast, plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head. True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one’s sense of honour, particularly if you come of an old established family in the land, the Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all, if just previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off in time.

 

What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to, weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do you think the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who ain’t a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old sea-captains may order me about—however they may thump and punch me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way—either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other’s shoulder-blades, and be content.

 

Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers themselves must pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But BEING PAID,—what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!

 

Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the wholesome exercise and pure air of the fore-castle deck. For as in this world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so for the most part the Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at second hand from the sailors on the forecastle. He thinks he breathes it first; but not so. In much the same way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many other things, at the same time that the leaders little suspect it. But wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt the sea as a merchant sailor, I should now take it into my head to go on a whaling voyage; this the invisible police officer of the Fates, who has the constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and influences me in some unaccountable way—he can better answer than any one else. And, doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. It came in as a sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive performances. I take it that this part of the bill must have run something like this:

 

“GRAND CONTESTED ELECTION FOR THE PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES. “WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL. “BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN.”

 

Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces—though I cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, now that I recall all the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment.

 

Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great whale himself. Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all my curiosity. Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled his island bulk; the undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale; these, with all the attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds, helped to sway me to my wish. With other men, perhaps, such things would not have been inducements; but as for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to perceive a horror, and could still be social with it—would they let me—since it is but well to be on friendly terms with all the inmates of the place one lodges in.

 

By reason of these things, then, the whaling voyage was welcome; the great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild conceits that swayed me to my purpose, two and two there floated into my inmost soul, endless processions of the whale, and, mid most of them all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air.

[JeffBurtMacklinMarra 6724]

So, I finished Staten Island Summer. I was real upset that there wasn't an ending narration. But in case you were wondering

Zach Pearlman got drugs and had sex.

Will forte rode a wheelchair into a pool.

Some cops shot their guns and smoked weed.

Fred Armisen blew up some kid with a flamethrower.

Bobby Moynihan was so goddamn Scooch and actually really funny.

Mean guy got something put in his butt by mob guys. Then attacked by wasps. And probably fatally poisoned.

Hot mom fell asleep in a lawn chair.

Hot guy realized tomboy was a hot girl so they mashed their faces together.

Jim Gaffigan made a great Epcot joke.

Main guy had a romantic scene with mob guys daughter.

Penny Marshall was in 1 scene. So was Nat Faxon.

There are 2 distinct "party montage" scenes within the last 10 minutes.

There are 500 plots going on at any given moment.

 

It wasn't terrible. B-/10

[Silvrwoman 4998]

 

Start at the first episode imo. It's all very good.

listen to the last one and go backwards

 

Reality Show Show is brilliant and consistently funny. I fell in love immediately. Start from the beginning and be prepared to love Sean and Hayes even more than you already do.

 

I'm getting some conflicting advice. Therefore, I'm going to compromise and first listen start to finish and then post a detailed diary entry about my emotions and experience. If you guys think that my feelings are incorrect, I will pay someone to hit me over the head until I no longer remember anything from RSS, and then begin a fresh RSS listening session, this time listening to the last one first and going backwards

[ABRAXAS 366]

You should probably start at the beginning (a very good place to start, our friend Julie Andrews tells us). HOWEVER (and this is imperative), you should then skip ahead five episodes, then back four episodes, then forward ahead 16 episodes, then listen to all prime numbered episodes, then hit all your double digit episodes. At this point, you're going to want to take a break for a while and think things over. Head to the nearest body of water and skip stones. Think back on old love interests. Take a deep breath, then look at your own reflection in the water. Say "This is who I love now, and that's all I need". Head back home and pull the turkey out of the oven that you had been preparing. Feel free to throw it away; you won't need it for the next step. Compile a playlist of any Reality Show Show episodes that remain unplayed at this point. Listen to them in chronical order in five minute spurts between crying episodes.

[Joe McGurl 8358]

Carl couldn't believe it. He walked out of "Earwolf Presents: Hollywood Handbook: The Podcast: The TV Show: The Movie" with shit all over his new white chinos. He looked around and everyone else had shit on their pants as well. This movie was so funny that the audience literally shit their pants laughing. It was the perfect film. Never before had he felt such elation and joy in his life. Joe McGurl was really handsome on screen and the greatest guest of all time ever. The cameo by SteveH and his baby covered in greasy pizza was an in-joke that Carl felt was just for him! His favorite part was when Sean said that the Hollywood Handbook forums were probably the worst thing that ever happened to him in his entire life and then when Hayes followed it up by strapping a gopro camera onto his head, walking into the Earwolf server room and setting fire to the entire thing so there could never be a forum again was just comedy perfection. From start to finish, Carl had the time of his life watching this film and he felt that nothing would ever be so perfect again.

 

Carl drove home in his Ford Fiesta to be greeted by his loving husband, Karl and their two beautiful children, Karly and Carli. Karl had prepared his favorite meal; farm fresh, non-GMO chicken with organic quinoa and kale gravy followed by a desert of parsnip ice cream or something gay like that made with Karl's frozen semen because their fucking gay together and that's what gay people do I assume oh my god they're an abomination and marriage should be between a man and a woman that's what it says in the bible I don't care what the supreme court says they're just gay-enablers or as I like to call them "gaynablers.". After dinner, they tucked in their poor children that had to be raised by two monsters and then they went into their bedroom to sodomize each other and probably speak in satanic tongues to blaspheme our Lord God and Savior some more but even after Carl had came onto Karl's back, Carl just didn't feel satisfied. Their was a hole in him and not just his asshole that Karl went to town on. No, a metaphorical hole. Carl couldn't stop thinking about the film he saw earlier today with his homosexual eyes. Carl felt cold and emotionless. He knew deep down in his gay heart that he would never feel as happy as he did when watching "Earwolf Presents: Hollywood Handbook: The Podcast: The TV Show: The Movie." The food that Karl made, which used to have such depth of flavor, now tasted like plastic. He had to feel again, he had to be happy. He immediately lept out of bed and rushed straight to the cineplex to buy a ticket for the next showing "Earwolf Presents: Hollywood Handbook: The Podcast: The TV Show: The Movie." It wasn't enough. Nothing would capture the initial rush of joy he felt during that first viewing. He knew what had to be done next.

 

Carl went to the pawn shop and traded his big gay diamond wedding ring for a big cool as hell shotgun with sick flame decals on it because America is great and you can't take the right to bear arms away from any American citizen even if they are big homos they have the right to guns it's their second amendment right and that's straight from the fuckin constitution brother. Carl also bought ammo too, I forgot to say that earlier but he did buy ammo, just so you know. Then he went home and killed his entire family and killed himself.

 

"Earwolf Presents: Hollywood Handbook: The Podcast: The TV Show: The Movie" went on to win every award ever, including Best Actor for Joe McGurl, good for him he really deserved it tbh and no one even cared that Carl died because he deserved to go to hell anyway for being gay or something.

[Game of Scones 5812]

too soon

[SteveH 11126]

Hey Monsterface - I know you're too cool to post on the forums bc you have a podcast and stuff now but I wanted you to know that I'm a big fan of your music. The first song of yours that I heard was the legendary "the day colt Barton met Shaq". I know it's a joke song but I honestly love it. I just googled "colt Barton met Shaq" and it actually brought me to your soundcloud page. "Mykel" is really really good. I just listened to it 3 times in a row.

 

Anyway, I've been listening for a lot of Sun Kil Moon lately (maybe I'm depressed?) and That one line in "colt Barton" where you say "I can still remember that day" reminds me a lot of Marky Koz/Sun Kil Moon. I think you should do more solo acoustic stuff. Maybe get a nylon string guitar, have something terrible happen in your life and move into an isolated cabin? Just a thought.

 

Your fan,

SteveH

 

P.s. Colt Barton and Kittens, you guys are dead to me.

 

Good night.

[A Bear 1813]

Carl couldn't believe it. He walked out of "Earwolf Presents: Hollywood Handbook: The Podcast: The TV Show: The Movie" with shit all over his new white chinos. He looked around and everyone else had shit on their pants as well. This movie was so funny that the audience literally shit their pants laughing. It was the perfect film. Never before had he felt such elation and joy in his life. Joe McGurl was really handsome on screen and the greatest guest of all time ever. The cameo by SteveH and his baby covered in greasy pizza was an in-joke that Carl felt was just for him! His favorite part was when Sean said that the Hollywood Handbook forums were probably the worst thing that ever happened to him in his entire life and then when Hayes followed it up by strapping a gopro camera onto his head, walking into the Earwolf server room and setting fire to the entire thing so there could never be a forum again was just comedy perfection. From start to finish, Carl had the time of his life watching this film and he felt that nothing would ever be so perfect again.

 

Carl drove home in his Ford Fiesta to be greeted by his loving husband, Karl and their two beautiful children, Karly and Carli. Karl had prepared his favorite meal; farm fresh, non-GMO chicken with organic quinoa and kale gravy followed by a desert of parsnip ice cream or something gay like that made with Karl's frozen semen because their fucking gay together and that's what gay people do I assume oh my god they're an abomination and marriage should be between a man and a woman that's what it says in the bible I don't care what the supreme court says they're just gay-enablers or as I like to call them "gaynablers.". After dinner, they tucked in their poor children that had to be raised by two monsters and then they went into their bedroom to sodomize each other and probably speak in satanic tongues to blaspheme our Lord God and Savior some more but even after Carl had came onto Karl's back, Carl just didn't feel satisfied. Their was a hole in him and not just his asshole that Karl went to town on. No, a metaphorical hole. Carl couldn't stop thinking about the film he saw earlier today with his homosexual eyes. Carl felt cold and emotionless. He knew deep down in his gay heart that he would never feel as happy as he did when watching "Earwolf Presents: Hollywood Handbook: The Podcast: The TV Show: The Movie." The food that Karl made, which used to have such depth of flavor, now tasted like plastic. He had to feel again, he had to be happy. He immediately lept out of bed and rushed straight to the cineplex to buy a ticket for the next showing "Earwolf Presents: Hollywood Handbook: The Podcast: The TV Show: The Movie." It wasn't enough. Nothing would capture the initial rush of joy he felt during that first viewing. He knew what had to be done next.

 

Carl went to the pawn shop and traded his big gay diamond wedding ring for a big cool as hell shotgun with sick flame decals on it because America is great and you can't take the right to bear arms away from any American citizen even if they are big homos they have the right to guns it's their second amendment right and that's straight from the fuckin constitution brother. Carl also bought ammo too, I forgot to say that earlier but he did buy ammo, just so you know. Then he went home and killed his entire family and killed himself.

 

"Earwolf Presents: Hollywood Handbook: The Podcast: The TV Show: The Movie" went on to win every award ever, including Best Actor for Joe McGurl, good for him he really deserved it tbh and no one even cared that Carl died because he deserved to go to hell anyway for being gay or something.

 

there are few opportunities in life to watch a true master at work. we are blessed to have witnessed this.

[A Bear 1813]

thing

 

Thank you Steven. You're a very nice boy.

[rod aug 5637]

that wasn't addressed to you bear, it was addressed to monsterface.

[chanson 9697]

Saving this space for later.... you know how it is. Real estate prices are on the rise.

[chanson 9697]

PS - Real talk tho, stop being so bitchy... assholes. fuck you. #realtalk #downtoearth #jennyfromtheblock

[chanson 9697]

Also redacted

 

#predictedthefuture

 

#drunkpost

 

#shoutouttoDevScoots

[chanson 9697]

Redacted

[chanson 9697]

Love you all... Especially Sean Hayes

[PeterRitchie 19]

Here in Australia it's winter, but even in winter it's scorching hot enough for a Teaser Freezer segment. So thanks for the cool seg.

 

What movie teaser would you like to see teaser frozen?

[robotam 4493]

GUYS! Hollywood Hbook (short for handbook) isn't working for me. The episodes won't play on Earwolf, Soundcloud, Howl fm or Howl app. Other podcasts are working, what's going on!?

 

I still have some episodes downloaded, so I can listen to them, but I want more!

[JeffBurtMacklinMarra 6724]

I'm worried about Chanson.

[elizamuffins 4228]

I love all these long posts. Do you all have liberal arts degrees or something?

[robotam 4493]

http://status.soundcloud.com/

 

Playback issues in the UK

 

 

15.50 CET / 6.50 PST

We’re currently experiencing some issues in the UK that are preventing playback as well as distorting the waveform image.

We’re looking into this now so please bear with us. Thanks for your patience.

 

[SteveH 11126]

I really enjoy reading the first few sentences of a really long post and then realizing it's just the 1st page of Moby Dick (for example) verbatim. I don't feel like it was a waste of time or anything like that!