7-16-10

In case you missed it...

VEGETARIANISM, WHY MISSY HATES TIMMY, AND THE ART OF TIPPING
Rosie started today's show talking to her assistant and segment producer Shoshana about her Vegetarianism.  Shoshana has worked for Rosie for a while and Rosie just found out that she's a vegetarian.  My guess is that Shoshana knows everything that Rosie will and won't eat though, HA!   Shoshana said she's not a vegan and she will eat butter, eggs and dairy.  She will not eat meat, chicken or fish.  Shoshana said when she was about 10 years old she remembers seeing a whole fish on a plate, eyes and all, and that was when she decided to cut out fish.  Then she went to a petting zoo and she had no interest in petting the animals because they were so dirty and smelly.  If she didn't want to pet them, she thought then  why would she want to eat them.  She doesn't miss any meats or chicken because she enjoys the meat and chicken substitutes but she hasn't been able to find a hot dog substitute she likes so she does miss them though only by smell, she would never consider eating one.  Rosie talked about some delicious locavore hot dogs that Tracy picked up for them. 

Pete admitted to seeing Rosie's chickens on the compound and thinking how yummy they look to him.  Pete does have issues eating eggs because of the Sarah Silverman joke.  It is about a chicken looking at an egg and saying "I can't believe this came out of my pussy."  Milk grosses Shoshana out too. 

Then Rosie's Chihuahua Missy started growling and shaking uncontrollably and no one in the studio knew why until Rosie discovered that her brother Timmy had entered the radio show house.  Missy hates Timmy and she could feel his presence!   Rosie made Timmy tell the story about why Missy hates him so much.  Timmy said that he was helping a repairman fix the roof and he went into the house to retrieve some drills for him and Missy started guarding the door and wouldn't let him leave.  He joked that he wanted to kick the dog to make it move but instead he buzzed one of the electric drills at the dog.  Missy got so scared that she lifted her leg and shot a cannonball poop at him!  Timmy said no one ever listens to him and he felt very empowered by this.

Rosie said that Vivi gets a new dog on her birthday.  She's been watching animal shelter commercials and has decided that instead of getting a purebred they are going to rescue a dog from the North Shore Animal League.  Janette, ever the cat lover, talked about how much easier cats are and said that all you have to do to potty train a kitten is show them the litter box and they're done.  Rosie said that Missy was supposedly already potty-trained when Rosie got her but she's not and she pees everywhere.  They talked about the Pottery Barn couch cushion that she likes to pee on that they keep having to send out to be cleaned.  Bobby has a Chihuahua too named Abby and said he didn't have a problem potty-training her at all! 

Rosie said she is excited to go to Fire Island for the weekend.  She said she doesn't mind the heat as long as  there is water around to go into and as long as no one makes fun of her in her swimsuit.  Janette said she will be walking her driveway this weekend for exercise.  Her driveway is 1/10th of a mile long and a very steep hill so her plans are to walk up and down it 10 times to make a mile. 

Rosie asked Janette if she considered smoking pot at all while on vacation and she did not!  After years of off and on pot smoking to treat her anxiety Janette decided to stop two months ago.  She hasn't smoked since!  She never expected she would ever be able to quit it completely and said she couldn't feel better about her decision. 

Rosie told Pete that someone on her blog wrote to her and said you can get the "zoom" feature that's available on the new Iphone by updating your old Iphone on the website.  

Shoshana read an article that studied people that tip at restaurants.  The study showed that 49% of the participants had at one time or another left a restaurant without tipping because the service was so bad.  Rosie asked if anyone in the studio has not left a tip?  Rosie did that one time a long time ago when the service was very bad and the waiter was very rude to her.  She merely paid the bill and left.  Janette has never not left a tip but she has complained to management.  Shoshana never has never not left a tip but admitted she's never had such horrible service to warrant not leaving a tip.  Pete tips in general and if it's really good service he leaves even more money.  But he admitted if the wait staff treats him like he's inconveniencing them by eating at their establishment he will not leave a tip.  Janette used to be a waitress and if she wasn't left a tip she would chase the customers outside the restaurant and ask them if the service was bad and why they didn't tip?  Pete described an experience he had with horrible service at a restaurant when he only left the waiter a couple dollars.  Bobby said he couldn't not leave a tip but if the service was bad he would only leave 15% and then complain to management.  They discussed tipping chamber maids and Rosie admitted she never knew you were supposed to leave a tip at a hotel until one time she was working with another comic on the road and saw him do it.  Rosie now leaves tips for chamber maids on the nightstand along with a note that says thank you.  They then discussed tipping at tip jars in convenience stores and ice cream parlors.  Bobby said he has friends who work in the piano bars who don't make anything but tips. They talked about tipping massage therapists and Janette admitted to tipping her massage therapist a lot because she feels so badly that they have to touch her body. 

So, little Rosie story...Liz, Michele and I (and other friends I've met through Rosie) were once in Rosie's home town of Nyack for the America premiere and we went to a bar there.  We asked the waiter if Rosie had ever been in that particular establishment and he told us that she had and the waitstaff always argued about who got to wait on her table because she gives a 100% tip.  She fucking rocks, that's all I'm saying. 

A SMALL ACT AND JENNIFER ARNOLD 
Rosie talked about an HBO Documentary she saw recently called A Small Act - about a woman who sponsored a child and what happens because of that small act of kindness.  Rosie called it profound, moving and uplifting. Watch the trailer below:

Rosie then introduced the filmmaker Jennifer Arnold who was on the phone to discuss her HBO documentary A Small Act.  A Small Act is not Jennifer's first documentary but it is her first feature film.  Jennifer told Rosie about how she got the idea for the film.  Jennifer went to the University of Nairobi for a year abroad and one of her friends at the University had been sponsored as a child.  Jennifer heard another wonderful story about a man who was sponsored and what he had done with his life and thought it would be a great idea for a film.  The man in the film was looking for the woman who sponsored his education and had since gone to Harvard and worked for the UN. The woman who sponsored him was Swedish so he got in touch with the Swedish Ambassador in Kenya who contacted the woman to ask her if she ever remembered sponsoring a boy in Kenya.  She remembered doing it but it was over 25 years ago.  He wrote her a letter and she had no idea that he had been walking around with her name in his mind for all these years as the angel that changed his life.  To her, it was just something very minor she had done and to him it was everything.

Rosie and Jennifer talked about the documentary, the testing the children have to go through, the notification process of who receives scholarships and what happens to those that do not.  In the documentary there were two children who were not chosen for the sponsorship program and Rosie said it broke her heart.  Jennifer explained that they waited until filming was completed (because they didn't want to influence the story they were trying to tell) and they stepped up and sponsored the two.  Rosie was so glad that they did and said she would have been haunted by their images if they had not. 

Jennifer said the film received an unbelievable response at Sundance and after the screening they raised $90,000 in only 10 days!  She said that audience members are changing people's lives directly from the film and they've created the Network For Good where you can put in your zip-code and find organizations in your area that you can give to.  Or, you can visit HBO Documentaries on Facebook were you can get giftcards that you can redeem for any charity you want.  They both discussed the President Documentary and Family Programming for HBO and Cinemax, Sheila Nevins whom they agreed was "the heart and soul of HBO documentaries."  Rosie said there is no one better and she hopes to be just like her when she grows up.  Rosie thanked Jennifer for calling in and for her inspiring film. 

SWIMSUITS, SWIMMING AND WATERPARKS
Then began an entire conversation about the dreaded swimsuit.  Jeannie got a swimsuit as a gift for her birthday from her 8 year old for their Mother/daughter trip to Miami.  Jeannie said it is like a swim dress/muumuu and has big black and white flowers all over it.  It is also a "bust enhancing bathing suit" and Jeannie said no one her size needs bust enhancement.  Her husband calls her "torpedo tits" in it.  Jeannie apologized to Rosie for being mean to her about the one that she wore to the Memorial Day party.  Jeannie said her issues with Rosie's swimsuit had more to do with her own issues with her size and the types of suits they can fit in than Rosie's suit.   

Janette hasn't owned a bathing suit in 20 years because her top size needs to be much smaller than the bottom.  Rosie said they got a lovely box of swimsuits from a website called Trunkettes.  She thanked, Hillary, the woman who sent them the suits and they opened the box and described the suits on air.  They seemed to really like them!

Rosie asked Janette is she would ever consider going to a water-park and Janette laughed and said that water-parks are "a fungus breeding ground."  She said the same stuff they put in pools are what her sister Lanette uses to pickle her metal!  (whatever that means!)  Janette used to swim laps at a gym near her home but they closed it.  And then Rosie got a fantastic job and hired her and there wasn't any more time for swimming.  Janette admitted that she's not comfortable any place where there are lots of people and Bobby said he's surprised she ever leaves the house.

THE END OF THE WORLD, DEATH, ANCESTORS AND WHAT HAPPENS AFTER WE DIE
Pete said he recently read on Helium.com that geologists can point to a couple different times in the Earth's history that a giant methane bubble has come up through the center of the Earth and caused massive extinctions.  Based on the large amount of methane coming out of the leak in the Gulf of Mexico and the pressure disparity, they are predicting that in the next 6 months another methane bubble will pop and cause the extinction of all humans.  Pete's not all that concerned which completely shocked Rosie.  Jeannie said if it's beyond our control why worry about it!  Janette's heart was beating fast and her mouth was dry just thinking about the possibility. 

Rosie then started to talk to Janette about her deep fear of death.  She explained that we're all going to die, that it's a part of life, so why be so afraid about it?  Janette said that she knows it's an irrational fear and she knows she's going to die but she cannot help being afraid.  Janette said she admires people who don't stress about it as much as she does and wishes she could be that way.  Janette does not believe in an afterlife and believes that when you die, you're dead.  Period.  She also worries that death invalidates her life. Janette said that in her 20s she remembers telling her therapist that if we're all waiting to die, what's the point of living?  Pete said the point of living is to not feel like you've wasted the one life that you have.  Janette said that her father's death a few years ago was the first death of someone really close to her but she has always been afraid of death.  She said her father's death was peaceful but there was that goneness, that disappearance, that terrified her.  Rosie told Janette she needs to see the documentary No One Dies In Lily Dale about mediums who communicate with the souls of the deceased.  She said that that documentary might give her some peace about death.  Janette said if she believed in anything other than "worms and blackness" she probably wouldn't be so afriad.  

Janette also thinks that part of the fear of dying stems from the fact that she does not have children to carry on her family.  She explained that she is the last recipient of the items that have been handed down in her family and she worries who will care for them once she's gone?  Janette said she had a few moments of wanting kids in her life but she didn't believe she'd be a good mother or a good parent.  Jeannie said her only fear of death is that she will leave her children without a mother.  It is not fear of death itself.  Bobby does not feel his life will be wasted when he's gone.  He's happy with all he's accomplished and the people who he has loved and have loved him. 

Janette said her downstairs is filled with all of her old things and remnants of the old house she grew up in.  She has many family heirlooms including books from the 1700s. Pete suggested giving some of those things to a museum.  Pete's grandfather has been giving stuff to museums and he gave away paintings that held historical significance to a museum that displays them as their prized possessions. 

Janette told a very emotional and heart-breaking story about an old beautiful pail that had been handed down in her family that was mistakenly ruined by her beloved boyfriend Barry.  To this day if you ask Barry about it he cries, he feels so badly that he ruined it.  The bucket was used to carry her ancestor when they went to fight the British and the story was told through the generations.  Janette wept as she told Rosie the story of the treasured heirloom.  When it happened, Janette said she felt an incredible sense of loss because those ancestors were extremely real to her and were all the family that she had.  Bobby tried to comfort Janette by telling her that the story of the pail is so much more important than the pail itself.  But to Janette it was these family heirlooms that proved to her that she "wasn't a piece of crap" and that she mattered.

Rosie thinks Janette's attachment to her ancestors is fascinating because she does not have those same feelings towards her heritage or ancestors.  Soon she is going to be going back to Ireland with her brother Eddie to follow her mother's ancestry for the program Who Do You Think You Are and she admitted she's not that invested in the outcome.  She wondered if that was because she wasn't brought up with the knowledge and stories of her history as Janette was.  Janette said that her ancestors and their stories are, in a way, her religion.   Rosie wondered about Janette's emotional attachment to "things" and said she keeps wondering if that is because her father was a hoarder.  Jeannie, who's mother is a hoarder, remembered her therapist once telling her that if she got rid of her mother's things it would almost be like she was dying a physical death.  Rosie was surprised at the emotion that the story of the pail evoked in Janette and wondered if her attachment to things and her resistance to intensely loving people held any connection.  Rosie ended the conversation by thanking Janette again for her complete and total honesty and being so forthcoming. 

GAME - BEFORE AND AFTER
The game was to name the famous people, before and after.  The first famous person shares their last name with the first name of the second famous person.  Aww, crap.  I can't explain it well.  Just read along and get a pen and paper so you can play too!  I'll give you the first one and then the answers will be below in an answer key. Keep in mind they had a time limit and we don't so it's easier.   

ROUND ONE
1. Janette - Name the star of When Harry Met Sally and the host of American Idol.  She got it!  The answer was Meg Ryan Seacrest.  Get it?  Okay.  Here we go. 
2. Bobby - The front man of the 80s group Wham and a famed basketball star and star of Space Jam.  He didn't get it so he was OUT.
3. Deirdre - An actor from Fargo married to Felicity Huffman and raspy-voiced female R&B singer.   She didn't get it so she was OUT.
4. Rosie -  The co-creator of Seinfeld and a star of Baywatch and Night Rider.  She got it!
5. Pete - The actress on the television show Maude and the Golden Girls and a British physician and writer.  He got it! And I'm out at this point. 

ROUND TWO
6. Janette - A television chef and talk show host and a singer voted number two on Rolling Stones 2008 100 greatest singers of all time. She was OUT. 
7. Rosie - The legendary singer songwriter and Lion King co-writer and the actor that played himself in the 1999 film named after him.   She got it!
8. Pete - The inventor of the cotton gin and one of the best selling female music artists of all time.  He got it!

ROUND THREE
9. Rosie - An actor who declined his best actor Oscar in the 70s and the Charles in Charge actor.  She got it! 
10. Pete - An Emmy nominated star of 30 Rock and an Oscar winning actor and narrator.  He got it!

ROUND FOUR
11. Rosie - a British novelist who wrote Frankenstein and an actress from Nashville and The Shining.  She didn't get it.
12. Pete - (for the win) A rapper who collaborated on 2002 Lady Marmalade and the mysterious leader of North Korea.   He messed up the leader's name so he didn't get it either.  The game continued. 

ROUND FIVE
13. Rosie - A confederate General who surrendered at Appomattox courthouse and the assumed killer of JFK.   She got it.
14. Pete - The singer famous for a wardrobe malfunction with Justin Timberlake and the famous modern abstract impressionist.  He got it! 

ROUND SIX
15. Rosie - Singer of the song Lucille of Tuti Fruti and the 20th century President who was "not a crook."  She got it! 
16. Pete - WWII Diarist and architect of the Guggenheim.  He got it!

ROUND SEVEN
17.  Rosie - An actress and famed ex-wife of many including Richard Burton and Country pop singer of "You Belong To Me."  She got it! 
18. Pete -  Former late night talk show host and current later night talk show host.  He got it! 

ROUND EIGHT
19. Rosie - Director of Apollo 13 and the DaVinci Code and subject of bio-pic movie Aviator.  She got it! 
20. Pete - The birthname of 3 time heavy weight boxer champion and American Idol runner up.  He got it!

ROUND NINE
21. Rosie - Author who created Ms. Marple character and American model married to Billy Joel.  She got it! 
22. Pete - The star of House and 3 time Emmy award winning actress for Roseanne.   He didn't guess it and ROSIE WON!  She then gave a very funny an acceptance speech.  So far the game scores for the month of July is Pete (1), Rosie (1) and all the rest of the staff 0. 

Rosie and the staff closed the show and in unison wished all the listeners a good weekend!!!!!!

THE ANSWERS: 
1. Meg Ryan Seacrest 2. George Michael Jordan. 3. William H. Macy Gray 4. Larry David Hasselhoff 5. Bee Arthur Conan Doyle 6. Rachel Ray Charles 7.  Elton John Malcovich 8. Eli Whitney Houston 9. George C. Scott Baio 10. Tracy Morgan Freeman 11. Mary Shelly Duval 12. Lil Kim Jong-Il 13. Robert Lee Harvey Oswald 14. Janet Jackson Pollock 15. Little Richard Nixon 16. Anne Frank Loyd Wright 17. Elizabeth Taylor Swift 18. Johnny Carson Daly 19. Ron Howard Hughes 20. Cassious Clay Aiken 21. Agatha Christie Brinkley  22. Hugh Laurie Metcaff


and that's what you missed -kw