September 30, 2014 - Jeffrey Tambor

EPISODE NUMBER: 11002 (September 30, 2014)
GUESTS: Jeffrey Tambor
SPECIAL GUEST: Erik Frandsen (Hans Beinholtz)
SEGMENTS: Muslims in the End Zone | Highlights of the Values Voter Summit | The Benefits of Pessimism - Hans Beinholtz | Jeffrey Tambor | Sign Off - Goodnight
SUIT REPORT: Dark Suit | White Stripped Shirt | Blue/Silver Stripped Tie
VIDEOS: Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Muslims in the End Zone

• Nation, I am a huge fan of the game of footed-ball. Every Sunday, I invite my bros over, grill up some brats, crack a couple of cold ones, forget to take the brats off the grill, burn down my house, apologise to my bros, and hold a vigil for Lenny.

• So naturally, I’m all over the huge controversy surrounding last night’s game [Patriots vs. Chiefs]

“N.F.L. Referees calling a 15-yard unsportsmanlike like conduct penalty on Chiefs safety Husain Abdullah for dropping to his knees in prayer after scoring a touchdown on Monday night football. Abdullah’s a devout Muslim. He was practicing the Sajda, a religious prayer.”

• A Muslim prayer in the end zone. And even more shocking — I was allowed to play footage without the express written consent of the National Football League.

• I didn’t even know there were Muslim football players. How can they play if they’re not allowed to touch pigskin? […] We’ll have to switch to halal balls.

• But there’s an even bigger scandal than a Muslim being penalised for his religious beliefs. The N.F.L. said they shouldn’t have done it. They released a statement this morning saying that the referee “is not to flag a player who goes to the ground as part of a religious expression and, as a result, there should have been no penalty on the play.”

• No penalty on the play? How about holding the wrong religious beliefs?

• […] In football, we thank only Jesus. Tim Tebow was so good at it, we started calling praying “Tebowing.” Though these days, “tebowing” means bagging grocery at a Safeway.

• But where does it end? How many other religious celebrations will we be forced to watch in the end zone? Druid players planting a tree? Buddhist players releasing a box turtle? Scientologists giving the other team a stress test?

Highlights of the Values Voter Summit

• Republicans are already warming up for the big fight [the 2016 Presidential election]. Last weekend they gathered for the 9th Annual Values Voter Summit. A four-day orgy of people fundamentally opposed to orgies.

• There were so many great speakers, and also Sarah Palin, who urged the audience to never back down.

Sarah Palin: “They scream racism just to end debate. Well, don’t retreat. You reload with truth, which I know is an endangered species at, uh, 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue, anyway.”

• Yes, truth is in short supply at 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue. Everyone there keeps insisting it’s a plaza in front of the Willard Hotel.

• But you won’t hear any of that from the Liberal NBC News over at 20 Rock.

• The Summit holds the first big straw poll of every Presidential Election. This year’s winner was Ted Cruz who surged to 25% of the vote up from 42% in 2013.

• Ted Cruz, to know him is to “eh.”

• But when it comes to 2016, I’m Jindal all the way. Governor Bobby Jindal finished a strong fourth in the straw poll, and I’m not surprised. Bobby Jindal’s a two-term governor of Louisiana, a champion of small business, and starting this year, he’s allowed to stay out past 11:00.

• Jindal’s pro-knowledge agenda has hurt his popularity. In recent CNN ORC Poll of New Hampshire Republicans, Jindal got only 3% of respondents, tied with Rick Santorum, and falling just short of “no one” at 4%.

C-SPAN 2: “Do you personally believe the theory of evolution explains the presence of complex life on earth?”
Jindal: “Look, the reality is I was not an evolutionary biologist.”

• Yes, the reality is he was not an evolutionary biologist. He just graduated from Brown University with an honors degree in biology.

• Come on! Nobody uses their college degree in real life. I went to Dartmouth but I don’t use my degree in — “Diploma withheld due to out standing library book.” I can’t get a job with that. True story, by the way.

Jindal: “I want my kids to be taught about evolution in their school. What I believe as a father and a husband is that local schools should make decisions on how they teach. I think local districts should make decisions about what should be taught in their classrooms.”

• Jindal believes evolution should be established science only on a “local” basis. Take the Galapagos Islands. On one of them, the finches evolved longer beaks to punch holes in cactus fruit. On another island, the beaks were shorter because Jesus.

• Jindal is off to an impressive retreat from knowledge. But there’s a lot more science he can run away from. For example, he should insist that thunder is just God bowling, and lightning is God getting his picture taken with his bowling trophy. And yes, I realise that the lightning comes before the thunder, which would mean God got his trophy just before playing his game. But you know what they say — God bowls in mysterious ways.

The Benefits of Pessimism - Hans Beinholtz

• I consider myself a positive guy. But now a recent study has made me sad about being so happy. Because researchers have found that “people with pessimistic views of the future were more likely to live longer and healthier lives than those with a rosier outlook.”

• That’s right, negative nellies live longer — a phenomenon known as the “McCain Effect.”

• The reason, researchers say, is that “those who are defensively pessimistic may be more likely to invest in preparatory or precautionary measures.” The same report had bad news for happy people:

Dr. Dilip Jeste: “Excessive or over-confidence can create problems. It may produce feelings of invincibility, and that could result in unnecessary risk-taking. For example, teenagers or youngsters may start drinking, smoking, using substances.”

• That’s right, optimism could lead teenagers to drink, smoke or use drugs. Whereas pessimism could cause them to also do that.

• Researchers reported that “subjects who were identified as most optimistic as children were the ones who died the soonest.”

• The study was conducted at University of Erlangen-Nurnberg using data from a nationally representative survey in Germany.

• Yes, Germany. Land of Nietzsche, Goethe and Sauerkraut, the condiment that tastes the most like human tears.

Hans: Glad to be here. I had feared our next meeting would be at my funeral.
Stephen: Come on, Hans. You’ve got plenty of great years ahead of you.
Hans: Time is a cruel invention to create the illusion of growth. In truth, the moment we are born is the moment we begin to die.
Stephen: Don’t focus on the negatives. Life’s too short.
Hans: Not short enough. Life is a noose with kilometers of slack, teasing us with the promise of release. And yet here I remain, doomed to greet another sunrise, alone even in company, the old man on the town bench whose only true friends are the ducks he feeds, though soon, they, too, will be dead.
Stephen: Well yeah, but you will be alive, Hans. According to the research, your bleak world view is going to keep you going for a long time.
Hans: Really?
Stephen: Yeah.
Hans: That’s wonderful! I am going to live! Yippee! Aagghh, mein heart …
Stephen: Hans, are you okay? You look awful!
Hans: You really think I look awful? Don’t say that just to make me feel better.
Stephen: No, seriously, you look like you’re at death’s door.
Hans: Thank you, Stephen. I am saved. It is my fate to once more ride this cold rock around the sun, only to wind up exactly where I started — alone.
Stephen: That’s the spirit, buddy.

Interview — Jeffrey Tambor

My guest tonight plays a transgender woman in the new show “Transparent” on Amazon. It’s putting mom-and-pop transgender shows out of business.

Jeffrey: Do not hurt my feelings.
Stephen: I need your help. I’m going to put my cards on the table.
Jeffrey: Do it.
Stephen: I’m not an actor. You’re an actor, and you *hold hands* I don’t understand certain things.
Jeffrey: I’m going to take you through this.
Stephen: Be gentle.
Jeffrey: Be gentle with me.
Stephen: Transgender to me is fascinating like quantum physics is.
Jeffrey: Okay.
Stephen: In quantum physics, a particle can both be there and not. And they can both be true.
Jeffrey: By the way, I’m lost.
Stephen: That’s the way I am when it comes to understanding the transgender community. How can someone be both identifiable as a man but self-identify as a woman their entire life? How can both be true?
Jeffrey: Mora, since she was 5, has felt she was in the wrong body and at 70 years of age, has made a break for freedom and her authenticity and she becomes for the first time herself and the leader of the family and a true parent.
Stephen: Does anyone in the family know before this?
Jeffrey: No, and in the series I have to come out to each one of them, which is also very common, and it’s the greatest transformative role I’ve ever had in my life.

Jeffrey: My daughter is seven years old and I said, honey, this is a little different. This is the woman who’s in transition, and she says, daddy, I get it. Seven years old, she says, daddy, she’s more comfortable being a woman.

Stephen: I’m going to get there. I’m first to admit I’m a cis-hetero-shitlord - I’ve read the posts on tumblr, thank you.

Stephen: Can I ask a serious question? Is there going to be a Hellboy3?
Jeffrey: Oh, my God! There’s actually talk of a Hellboy 3, but they better hurry, or I’m going to be in a walker.