11-12-10 - The Staff Shares Embarrassing Moments and an Interview with Jeff Dunham

In case you missed it...

LES MISERABLES, FAILING EYESIGHT AND THE HOLOCAUST
This week they've been testing out new Rosie Radio theme song versions and Deirdre thought today sounded like a "Dick Dale" version.  Rosie had no idea who Dick Dale was.  But Pete (and Deirdre) knew everything about him.  Pete told a story of when he went to see Dick Dale perform live and how amazing it was.  Rosie loved Pete's amazing memory and asked if he's ever had it tested (for savantism).  Bobby pointed out that Rosie shouldn't talk because SHE has just as an amazing memory as Pete just with different topics.  He listed off her knowledge of the Broadway show Les Miserables.  Rosie then began to sing all the lyrics from one of the songs in the play.

Bobby told Rosie that Les Miserables just had a 25th anniversary concert and he listed off many of the actors who are in it.  Bobby didn't get a chance to go see the concert but said on November 17th they're going to air the show one time only in theaters across the nation.  He told listeners they can go to fathomevents.com, put in your zip code and find a theater where it is showing near you. 

Rosie was frustrated because she needs new glasses. She can't read things close to her (like her computer) and see things far away from her (like the television) with the same set of glasses anymore.  Bobby feels the same way and said his prescription has changed so much that the reading glasses he once bought no longer work for him now.  Rosie recently saw a great documentary called Going Blind.  Going Blind is a documentary that aims to increase the public's' awareness of sight loss and how it profoundly affects the lives of more and more people.  Joe Lovett from the film is going to be on Rosie Radio to talk with Rosie about it next Wednesday (12/17).  Rosie said she can't wait to speak with him. 

Pete then identified the nearest theater to Rosie showing Les Mis.  Bobby said the first time he saw Les Miserables on Broadway he cried so much during the overture a woman behind him handed him a Kleenex.  Rosie said it's her favorite Broadway musical ever.  She was 23 when she saw it the first time and she said it was life-altering for her.  Deirdre and Shoshana had never seen it.  Rosie was so offended Shoshana apologized to her for never seeing it!  I've never seen it either Shoshana!  I feel as if we've broken some sort of Rosie law. 

Rosie was also offended that Shoshana has never seen Schindler's List!   Shoshana promised she was going to watch it soon.  It isn't that Shoshana had just never seen the film, she admitted she's almost afraid to watch it.  Bobby toured the factory they featured in the film Schindler's List when he traveled to Prague.  The staff (who had seen the film) then discussed the movie with each other.  Rosie remembered when her niece was only 6 years old and she came home from school after learning about the Holocaust.  She said when you learn about the Holocaust it's almost like the end of innocence.  Shoshana promised to watch it.  She said the images of the many Holocaust movies she's seen have haunted her and she hasn't been ready to see that one.  Bobby said it's so important to see the film because we can never forget the Holocaust or we are doomed to repeat it.  Rosie recommended the documentary Prisoner of her Past about a woman who didn't remember her experience in the Holocaust until her 80s.  Shoshana's grandmother is a Holocaust survivor but she won't talk about it in detail to anyone in the family.  Rosie's friend Natasha Lyonne's grandmother survived Auschwitz.  She doesn't like to talk about her experience either and says they've had enough suffering they don't need to go back.  But being raised by a mother who was raised by a Holocaust survivor formed everything that happened in Natasha's life.  Once a year Shoshana goes to the Synagogue where they have survivors speak of their experiences.

For my readers, a poem my mom wrote about the Holocaust...

naked
by Sara Holbrook

The first time I saw a man naked, it was not my brother.
I was born without a brother,
which everyone knows is like being born without green hair,
or a wart on the tip of your nose
or the skin of a reptile.
Being born with no brother was a definite asset,
or so I thought until fifth grade
when I started to wonder.
I wondered why every time I would say the word "it," in any context,
the boys would laugh and they'd fall on the ground.
Likewise, if I would say the word "them,"
in any context, the boys would laugh and they'd fall on the ground.
It was as if we were tuned into two different programs,
like they were tuned into cartoons and I to a mystery.
I wondered. And I wondered with the sense of urgency
of 4:30 in the afternoon and Mom says, "No more snacks before dinner,"
and you're starving. I wanted what I wanted and I wanted it now.

Prevailing neighborhood trade policies provided for such things,
a look for a look, even up. Worth considering until
a permission slip came home. There was to be a film about growing up,
which even I knew was fiftiespeak for "naked."
My wonder swelled within me -- I had swallowed a balloon.
I couldn't breathe. Breathless, until they showed us diagrams.
Diagrams? Bones without the meat.
It looked like a direction sheet on how to assemble a bicycle,
absolutely no help at all. I deflated gradually.
A couple weeks later, another film. No permission slip this time.
Just a film about the war of our fathers, World War II.
Germany. Hitler youth. Wind up soldiers. Waving train cars.
            Pits of white, white limbs. Ovens, not for cakes.
                 Three men standing against a fence, shaved heads.
                      Their collar bones poking out like coat hangers without the clothes.
                              The picture cut off at the hollow places where their bellies belonged.
             Except for one man, standing in the background, who stepped deliberately to the side.
                    Stripped of any sense of wonder or urgency, he made no attempt to cover himself.
                            He faced the camera because he wanted me to see.
                                   I dragged my feet on the way home from school that day,
                                            kicking aimlessly at the fallen leaves.
                                                    Not so much in a hurry. After all, I had seen.
                                                               For the first time,
                                                                        I had seen a man,
                                                                                        naked.

JEFF DUNHAM

Rosie then introduced the hilarious Jeff Dunham!  Rosie told Jeff how much she and her son Parker loved his show on Comedy Central and couldn't understand why it was canceled.  Jeff said the show was fun but a lot of work and ended up getting canceled because it was too expensive for the network. 

Jeff has a new book out where he talks all about being on the road and tells stories from his standup days entitled All By My Selves: Walter, Peanut, Achmed and Me. 
Jeff started ventriloquism when he was just 8 years old and started doing standup his senior year in High School.  Rosie asked Jeff what got him interested in becoming a ventriloquist?  Jeff said he saw a dummy at a toy store and got it that Christmas as a present and the rest is history! 

Jeff and Rosie, who are friends from the old standup days, then talked about the challenges of raising teenagers and divorce.  Jeff has three daughters ages 13, 15 and 19 and went through a divorce last year. Jeff told Rosie all about the successes of his show and how they're selling out bigger and bigger venues!  He said because of the Internet and YouTube he's now traveling all over the world.  If you haven't seen Jeff's work visit his YouTube Channel!   

Rosie told Jeff how her son Parker is such a huge fan of his.  Jeff said they have some new talking dolls coming out and promised to send some to Parker. 

Jeff said one of the best things that had happened because of the success of his show is that he's actually became cool to his teenage kids!  Rosie asked Jeff how he learned to be a ventriloquist and he said he learned through practice, reading a book on it and listening to records of ventriloquists.  He said they're coming out with a ventriloquist dummy for kids with an instructional DVD so kids can learn how to do it too!   He said ventriloquism is a great escape for children if they're really shy and the younger they learn the better they are.   

Rosie told Jeff when people tell her they're thinking of becoming a comedian as a profession she tells them not to.  She said a comedian has to have an amazing tenacity and desire in order to be successful at it.  They talked about the challenges of doing standup when you haven't done it in a while and both Jeff and Rosie shared a story of when they tried to do it recently (unsuccessfully).  Rosie said she admires comics who come up with new material every year.

Jeff told Rosie all about a new character he has named Diane, a character he created for the movie Dinner For Schmucks.  Jeff said he was one of the schmucks in the film that believed his dummy Diane was his wife in real life.  Rosie then told Jeff all the issues Diane should be concerned with at her age such as Spanx and the side-effects of menopause!   Rosie told Jeff when she was in the early stages of menopause she was convinced she had AIDS because of the horrible night sweats.  Jeff laughed hysterically at Rosie's stories of menopause and spanks and told his writers to make sure they were taking down notes for his act.

Rosie and Jeff talked about the rarity of making it really big and how it was merely the luck of 2-3 decisions that occurred in their careers that led to their success.  Rosie thanked Jeff for coming into the studio for the interview and told listeners that they can go to JeffDunham.com to find out when he's performing in their area.     



Listen to an exclusive clip from Jeff's autobiography!

THE STAFF SHARES EMBARRASSING MOMENTS
During this game, each staff member read an embarrassing statement they were given written by another staff member.  The staff had to guess which embarrassing statement belonged to which staff member.

Each staff member read the statement they were given:

Shoshana: I ran over a cat and said it was a tree branch.  This was Rosie's!  She hit a cat by accident and the kids were with her.  She stopped the car and saw the cat run off into the woods but she didn't want to scare her kids so she held up a tree branch and told the children that was what she hit.  Shoshana couldn't stop laughing at Rosie telling the story but Rosie felt really bad!
Rosie: I peed the bed in college and all over my girlfriend.  This was Lou. He was so drunk he peed the bed and on his girlfriend and then blamed the cat and she bought it!
Bobby: I fell over a chair at a Sweet Sixteen party and both my legs ended up over my head so my ass was exposed.  Rosie guessed this was Jeannie right away because she's always talking about exposing her ass.   She was right. Jeannie  went to a Sweet 16 party and the best looking guy was there.  She pushed her chair back from the table and it snagged on the carpeting and she rolled onto the dance floor with her ass in the air.  She still has the image stuck in her head.
Pete: I threw up in a sink at a friends house and it clogged and overflowed.  This was James!
Jeannie: I hit a car and drove away.  This was Shoshana.  She said it's been 10 years and she's still horrified that she did it.  No one got hurt but she backed into a car and drove away instead of telling the owner. 
Deirdre: I pooped my pants in 4th grade.  Deirdre guessed this was Pete and she was correct.  He said he is still ashamed of it.  Pete said he was in band class but was so scared of the teacher he was too nervous to ask to go to the bathroom.  He ended up throwing away his underwear in the boys bathroom that day and denying it was him when the school found out about it. 
Lou: I use my oven for storage.  This was Bobby because he doesn't cook. He empties it out between Thanksgiving and Christmas but normally keeps pots, pans and bottles of wine in there! 
James: I went to school in a skirt and no underwear.  Lou guessed this was Deirdre and he was right. She was 6 years-old when it happened.

Rosie had done a few of the embarrassing statements read by the staff.  She too had backed into a car and then came home and totally denied it to her father.  And she also threw up in a sink and clogged it!  It was during the trial for her magazine lawsuit and she was so nervous she threw up in the sink in the judge's chambers and they had to call a guy to clean it out.  Shoshana was once at a boyfriend's house and clogged the toilet with a tampon and then got yelled at by the mother.  Deirdre once overflowed Barbra Streisand's toilet with a tampon!  Rosie remembered and told Deirdre she was never allowed to do anything to Barbra Streisand like that ever again! 

OPRAH'S LAST SEASON, TEENAGERS AND RAISING KIDS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS
Rosie added that Streisand is going to be on Oprah soon.  Bobby and Rosie, the avid Oprah watchers on the staff, said that Oprah is kicking ass in the last year of her show and pulling out all the stops.  Both Bobby and Rosie are sad The Oprah Show is ending.   Rosie said no one can replace Oprah but said she's excited for her new network and all the really good shows they have lined up.  Rosie said Oprah is a once in a generation kind of talent.

Shoshana talked about a new App for your iPhone that can alert you when your teen is driving over the speed limit or when your car is taken without permission.  Jeannie didn't like the idea and said she'd rather her teen learn from the life-consequences than through her nagging her about it.  Rosie is having issues with Parker passing his classes at his new school.  She keeps having to remind him to study and get his homework done and she said she's thinking about just letting him fail instead of nagging him all the time.  Parker has been tested and he's very smart, his teachers just say he's lazy.  Rosie said Parker wants to go to LSU but he's never going to get in if he doesn't get his act together.  She knows he can do the work but said he's such a procrastinator. 

Rosie's girlfriend Tracy was at McDonald's recently and didn't like it how they differentiated between "boy toys" and "girl toys" in the Happy Meals.  She talked to the people at the drive-thru window and told them it's inappropriate to put those gender labels on children's toys. Rosie said Tracy has such an idealistic version of how she wishes the world would be.  Tracy's son Wyatt, who has Down Syndrome, was able to go on the regular school bus this year until very recently.  Last week they informed Tracy that Wyatt could no longer ride the regular bus and it crushed her.  Rosie admitted she doesn't really get what the big deal is since Wyatt doesn't know the difference but understands it's a big deal for Tracy.  Jeannie works with children with special needs and finds that the parents often have more trouble with the decisions to put the children into a special class or on a special bus then the children themselves.  Jeannie feels children are often even more ostracized when put in a typical classroom environment.  She said when they're among their peers they're often more accepted.  Rosie admitted how hard it is and how she doesn't know what it's like to have a child with Down Syndrome.  She said she doesn't know what she would do or how she would feel but to see Tracy suffer so much breaks her heart.  Jeannie felt that the regular bus can be a tricky thing and to have a child with special needs on the big bus can be challenging.  Rosie, who has often felt like she didn't belong with the typical kids, said she always felt like she needed to be on the special needs bus and that was where she most belonged.  

DRUNK TEXTING, FACEBOOK AND FOLLOWING THE QUEEN
James mentioned a new website test he found that tests your Social Media Sobriety.  You have to pass a sobriety test before you can get on a social media page.  Rosie asked Jeannie if she ever blogs or texts when drunk and she admitted she does!  Jeannie doesn't blog but she has a Facebook account and she admitted she Facebooks when drunk.  She used to call old boyfriends when she was drunk but now she likes to send texts and emails after drinking.  She did that to many of the staff members after the last party they all went to!  She texted them all and told them how much she loves them and she also told them what great friends they are.  All the staff agreed that Jeannie texts are surprisingly coherent for her state of intoxication. Jeannie said she often gets drinker's remorse later in the evening remembering all the things she did and said throughout the night and then she feels the need to text and apologize.

Rosie doesn't drunk text but she admitted she's addicted to online Scrabble.  Pete recommended the site Internet Scrabble Club.  He prefers it to Pogo.com because it has no frills, no ads and no intermissions.  Pete said it's a great site but it's totally addictive and he's had to take it off of his computer in order to stop playing.  Shoshana recommended to Rosie Bananagrams on Facebook.
Rosie started again explaining how many times she's tried to go on Facebook.  She said she has 4 Facebook accounts and can't remember any of them.  Her son Parker leaves his Facebook account signed on and Rosie admitted to snooping in his Facebook.  She said she will look through his wall posts and clicks around and reads about his friends.  But it still confuses her and she finds it very overwhelming. 

Bobby told Rosie that the fricking Queen of England can even manage Facebook and she's in her 80s!!   Okay, he didn't really say it that way.  That's me saying that if the fricking Queen of England can do it, why can't she?!  Rosie couldn't believe it and made Bobby go on the Queen's Facebook page during the show.  Rosie did a hilarious impersonation of the Queen while reading her wall posts.  You can click here to see Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's Facebook page!  Because you know you want to.  Rosie suggested they create a new segment on their show where Rosie reads the updates from the Queen's Facebook page. 

GAME
Brendan played Liza Minnelli singing Single Ladies and Rosie loved it!  He then explained the rules of the game.  Each player would be given a clip of a song that's a cover song and they would have to guess who was singing the cover and who sang the original.   

ROUND ONE
Deirdre: heard "Respect"  She guessed Aretha Franklin sang the cover and The Supremes sang the original.  Otis Redding actually sang the original. 
Rosie: "We Can Work It Out" She guessed Stevie Wonder was singing the cover but didn't know who sang the original.  It was The Beatles.
Pete: "Proud Mary"  He guessed Tina and Ike Turner sang the cover and Creedence Clearwater sang the original.  He got both correct!
Bobby: "First Cut Is the Deepest" He had no idea. Brendan let him know that Sheryl Crow sang the cover and Cat Stevens sang the original. 

ROUND TWO
Deirdre: "Nothing Compares to You."  She knew Sinead O'Conner sang the cover but didn't know who sang the original.  It was Prince.   
Rosie: "Big Yellow taxi"  Rosie guessed Hootie and the Blowfish singing the cover.  That was incorrect.  The Counting Crows sang the cover and Joni Mitchell sang the original, which she knew. 
Pete: "With a Little Help from My Friends"  He guessed Joe Cocker singing the cover and Ringo Starr singing the original and he got both correct! 
Bobby: "You've Gotta Friend"  He had no idea again.  James Taylor sang the cover and Carole King sang the original.

ROUND THREE
Deirdre: "Me and Bobby McGee"  Janis Joplin sang the cover and she guessed Bob Dylan sang the original.  It was actually Chris Christopherson who sang the original.   
Rosie: "Because the Night Belongs to Lovers"  She guessed Natalie Merchant sang the cover (which was correct) and that Stevie Nicks sang the original.  It was actually Patty Smyth. 

Pete was the winner!!! Shoshana made the game up and everyone said it was too hard.  Shoshana said it was payback to Bobby for the Broadway game and she told him to "Suck It!"

Rosie closed the show talking about how cute Pete's dad was the other day when she met him.

and that's what you missed - kw