February 3, 2014 - Jennifer Senior

EPISODE NUMBER: 10057 (February 3, 2014)
GUEST: Jennifer Senior
SEGMENTS: Coca-Cola’s Diverse “America the Beautiful” Ad | Tip/Wag - Litigious Cheerleaders, Pope Francis & China | J.K. Rowling’s Ron and Hermione Bombshell | Jennifer Senior | Sign Off - Goodnight
SUIT REPORT: Navy Suit | White Shirt | Purple Patterned Tie
TAPING REPORT: [Link]
VIDEOS: Monday, February 3, 2014

We had a great ep here with an audience on fire! Clearly they were giving Stephen a nice ovation for his Superb Owl commercial success. And nice to see our friend advertising pistachios on his own website, a perfect capitalistic synchronicity.

Last night, we learned words we thought we might never say, or at least I did: monoxidasemethylhydrate and Miaphysite. Of course, the latter refers to the Henotikon of Emperor Zeno, which I totally knew about and didn’t have to look up on Wikipedia. Thanks, TCR!

As a parent, I was very interested in the interview. I was kind of contrasting this one with the interview with Amy Chua (who also has a new, controversial book coming out.) It does get to be ridiculous, in my view, the expectations placed on you when raising your kids. I could go on and on with this subject, but let’s just say I found what Ms. Senior saying about the joy/agony paradox of parenting very relatable.

What did you think of the ep? Sound off in the comments, and we’ll get some pretty pictures up (purple tie!)

Coca-Cola’s Diverse “America the Beautiful” Ad

• That footage has nothing to do with football, but [Peyton Manning’s failed first snap] felt just like that.

• The real reason I was the game is to see the ads. Last night you had all the big names, Budweiser, Ford, Radioshack. Really the only commercial that mattered, a truly nutty ad, (audience cheers wildly) that drove the country nuts, I’m talking of course about Coca Cola.

• They blew it with me, and I didn’t even see the ad. For some reason, they blew it when the game was already over, the second quarter.

Coca Cola’s multi-cultural ad rings painfully to Stepen’s uber-conservative ears.

• They were singing “America the Beautiful” in foreign talk! I mean, only English can give that song a certain “je ne sais quoi.”

• Yes, this man [Allen West] once represented florida and then served in Iraq, how is he supposed to recognize Spanish and Arabic?

• Yes, the old e plurubus unum….that’s latin for “speaka da englis.”

• For Pete’s sake, since when are gays allowed to gay up “America the Beautiful”? If the woman who wrote the song, Katherine Lee Bates, saw this ad, she would be disgusted, and so would her life partner, Katherine Komen, with whom she lived for 25 years in what was then referred to as a “Boston Marriage.”

• Women could not be lesbians back then, ok? They couldn’t even vote, or as they call it, “scissoring.”

• That’s it, I’m officially removing Coca Cola from all-American meal, which we all know is hot dog for entree, a side of baseball glove, apple pie for dessert, and or course, MOM, which stands for monoxidasemethylhydrate, a shelf stable coagulate which gives apple pie its sustained feeling of wetness. Coke, of course, was the vegetable.

Tip/Wag - Litigious Cheerleaders, Pope Francis & China

Wag: Litigious cheerleaders

• The NFL can’t give cheerleader raises! If they have more money, they might be able to afford more clothing. How can we know they’re excited if we can’t count their ribs?

Teamster-cheerleader.

• And if collective action works in this case, it could lead to a cheerleader union, and soon you’ll be in the stands getting revved up by this guy. Don’t touch his pom-poms, only he can move the pom-poms.

Stephen laments some sort of perceived lack of hotness on his part in high school.

• This makes me question everything I thought I knew about cheerleaders. Maybe they really did want to talk to me in high school, but I was too hot.

Wag: Pope Francis on Rolling Stones cover

• I’ve said it many times, I’m no fan of Pope Francis. I know he’s God’s voice on Earth, but sometimes he comes off as preachy.

• That’s right, it’s Daft Pontiff.

• What’s next? You’re hearing his encyclicals playing in Starbucks? We real Pope-heads are only into the papacy’s early stuff, like Felix the Third, 483-492 [AD], that is old school! His repudiation of Henotikon of Emperor Zeno reconciled Catholics and Miaphysites at the beginning of the Acacian schism. That is my jam!

Wag: China’s school smoking ban

• From now on, if Chinese students want to smoke, they’ll have to get their smooth flavor from the sky.

• America is the land of the free, but China is the land of freedom of regulation. It’s the only country on Earth where drywall is a flavor of toothpaste.

Wag: Chinese rover

• …the moon is clearly not over us yet. Why else would it keep looking through our windows at night?

• [Wag] not just for [the Chinese] invading our moon with their rover, but for trying to make me care about it.

• China’s actual written statement about the problem was written from the point of view of the doomed rover.

• (crying) Damn it! You made me mourn a piece of Chinese technology! And I didn’t even drop this one in the toilet! (shows iPhone)

Jade Rabbit’s technological sunset ruminations cause Stephen to weep.

J.K. Rowling’s Ron and Hermione Bombshell

• Nation, regular viewers know, I loves me my Harry Potter books. There’s just something about a dark-haired kid with glasses who saves the world that just speaks to me.

• J.K. Rowling admitted…what we have known all along. Harry and Hermione are perfect for each other! [..] It’s as clear as the chemistry between Dumbledore and Voldemort! That which must not be named…is their love.

• Well, J.K. I demand that you give us the ending we deserve with a new book, Harry Potter and the Realization He’s Made a Huge Mistake.

• Don’t worry about Ron, he’ll be fine. It’s all there in the final book, Ron Weasley and the Studio Apartment of Shame.

Stephen: The joy [of parenting] is the hard part.
Jennifer: Joy is very hard to tolerate. […] because you’re so deeply bonded to something…that is a harder feeling to tolerate than sadness.
Stephen: There is an exquisite agony in knowing that this beautiful thing is here and some day it will not be here. Even if things go right. Your child will grow old and die. Thank you so much for coming (pretends to wrap up interview.)
Jennifer: … a psychiatrist put it beautifully, he said, “Joy is grief inside out.” And that’s not the same as fun. That’s different.
Stephen: Okay, joy is grief inside out? This guy needs to go to better bars.

Stephen: I think happiness is over-rated.
Jennifer: Me too. […] There was a time when kids…were our staff. The used to work for us. [..] The problem is right now, I think ever since the progressive era, we work for them, we take them to soccer practice, we take them to baby Gymboree, we take them to violin lessons, all without..knowing if this is helping them, or if it’s helping us. […] There’s something to be said to not hovering quite so much, and I think we’d all feel better.