Lauren Greenberg, Our Close Friend

**"Lauren Greenberg, Our Close Friend"** is the fifty-second episode of Hollywood Handbook.

Official Earwolf Page

## Earwolf Synopsis

Hayes and Sean start off with a round of Gmail Roulette where they tackle current topics like the NFL controversy and leaked nudes. Then, LAUREN GREENBERG is in the studio to talk about writing for the MTV Movie Awards, the winner of the “scared as shit” performance, and her job on Twitter.

## Notes & Memorable Quotes

### Pre-Guest Segment

* Hayes over the theme: "So Rob Riggle.. He's all mad, you know, when he's like 'Oh I get so mad!' Because.. he says 'I thought 'composting' was like 'posting on a, on a com''-- and he thinks a website is a 'com'. And it does end in com." "Well, you didn't explain that very well, then." "Well I said 'No, that's for trash,' and then he thinks I'm talking about my posts. And that's a whole other.." "He's very prideful when it comes to ('His posts.') his online persona." Yes. his comments and reviews, and.. for him to think I was calling all of it trash." Rob's stuff is not trash, and Hayes and Sean both can't stand online trolls. They're not going to throw any bread under the bridge! And that stuff doesn't work on Hayes, it doesn't make him mad it just makes him disappointed
* The boys decide to take a break from mixing it up in controversial topics and play a nice game of Gmail Roulette, it'll feel nice to play a game and enjoy some words from the boys' fun funny friends

### Guest Segment

* Sean over the theme: "So I'm.. at the stop light, and I turn, and there's a guy in convertible, right next to me, and I go 'Oh my gosh! It's Frank! Calliendo!' And I say 'Frank! Calliendo! Fraaank! Fraaaank! Frank TV!' And he turns and he goes.. 'I'm John Madden.' But that's how goood, Frank is! I just thought that was a great object lesson on impressions!" They try to discern if this was Frank doing a John Madden impression or if he was actually John Madden. He had a big turkey leg and was glomming, munchin on it (doesn't help). Big gentleman, big guy. They're both big. Sean doesn't know who he saw! He texts Frank.
* Hayes asks Sean to put his phone down (while he texts Frank). They discuss Lauren's twitter presence to begin. She gets paid to do twitter - in faves. Lauren has 17.3k twitter followers, and Hayes gets the wise idea that if she tweeted about the show, that many people would hear about it. This didn't occur to them before the show. Sean didn't want 17.3 thousand people to like the show, which would happen should Lauren tweet her followers, and this prospect scares him.
* Sean can see that Frank is typing.. but Hayes reminds him that sometimes he sits on his phone. Sean texts him "Just send it Frank!"
* Hayes has been teasing an idea the whole episode, a place where movies and music and TV all in one place at the same time? Why it's the MTV Movie Awards! Someone tell Sean more about that as if he's not just the biggest fan of it.
* They have trouble getting her to expand on these ideas. This year Zed performed! Sean asks if he's one of the Smashing Pumpkins, the Eastern one? How do you say it now.. the... Mongoloid gentleman? He's doing electronic music now. He's put away the guitar.
* They begin to discuss Judaism vs. Christianity-- in Christianity, they have the Holy Trinity: the father, the baby, and the Holy Ghost. They can be one thing, all at the same time. What's the Jewish equivalent of that, is it the show? (MTV Music Awards). The Father would be the music: you just hear it, like when your dad yells at you.
* Sean's Dad was screaming at him for leaving his shoes at the top of the stairs, before he goes down to his gorgeous basement apartment. When Sean's Dad was walking by to get a midnight snack (yogurt), he tripped on Sean's shoe! And this is *Sean's* fault that he doesn't turn the light on in the living room when he's sneaking to get a snack his nurse is trying to keep him from eating because he can't process it!
* Lauren suggests awarding something about what he did 'right' this year. For this situation, Sean would give him an award for Having His Robe Closed Properly (isn't always the case). It can be uncomfortable when you're getting yelled if it isn't closed properly. Lauren modifies it to possible Best Shirtless Performance?
* Hayes wants to talk about the different awards. What is it like when the different Hollywood stars lobby for these awards, because they know what they can do for their career? Lauren admits that the awards usually go to whoever shows up, Channing Tatum usually wins Best Shirtless Performance. He must live right by the theater, because he never seems out of breath when reaching the stage. This happens to Sean at the shows that he goes to
* When asks what shows, Sean suggests listing the shows he *hasn't* been to. Country Music Awards? Frank just wrote back to Sean and he says "Who ~~is this~~ dis?" Hayes thinks this might be Frank in character as Charles Barkley. Lauren doesn't have a question for Charles Barkley. This is a good example of playing along. Sean decides to write 'Lauren doesn't have a question for you, and I think that's 'turrible.'"
* Hayes: "Lauren, do you remember who won 'Best Scared as Shit' performance in 2013?" She does not. Hayes gives her a hint: It's the star of *Life of Pi*. Both his first and last names start with S. His last name is Sharma. His first name has 5 letters. Sunil? Sumar? First name is S-U. Not Sunil. Sundar? That sounds like it would be 6 letters. S-U-R-A. S-U-R-A-J. And what was he like? He was scared as shit, still. The movie really traumatized him.
* Being in a movie can be scary.
* Hayes wonders about the category: Best Latino Actor. Is it the best Latino who is also an actor, or the best person at acting Latino? Such as Javier Bardem who won for *Skyfall*. He won it for being very cultural.
* Hayes: "Why isn't there a Best Black Actor category?" Sean wants to know about Chinese guy! Why isn't there a Best Chinese Actor award? That Ken Jong is very funny, has anyone used him in a comedy?
* Sean: "When I was a little kid, they told me anybody could be president... now I believe it."
* Lauren has never voted and does feel like anyone could be president. Hayes asks if Engineer Sam could be president? She thinks he'd make a nice president. Hayes reminds her that he has tattoos up and down his arms, and is unqualified for even his current job, let alone a job with much more respons
* ibility.
* Sean mentions that Frank, as Charles, is saying "Bam!" It sounds to Hayes as if he's become a different character, and it sounds like somebody is punching somebody. Lauren thinks it might be Emeril? Hayes clarifies, wondering if he's talking about food. Frank says he's going to 'take it up a notch.'
* Hayes wrote on Emeril's show. It was his job to become an expert on various foods.
* Lauren admits that her job is Twitter, falling into Hayes and Sean's trap. Sean *knows* people are getting paid to say some of those mean things about he and Hayes on twitter. People with 17 thousand twitter followers? 10 thousand followers? 61 followers and following 402 people? There must be a lot of money being paid for some of the bad things that are said about them.
* Lauren gets paid more not to reveal any more information about these deals. It's like signing an NDA. (Lauren gets paid to tweet by an offensive rap group. )
* Hayes asks Lauren what the 'M' in MTV stands for, and he'll tell her what it *doesn't* stand for: 'music!' Because he thinks there would be music that he would see on there. Lauren reminds him that there is music playing behind *Teen Mom*, lullabies so baby can sleep
* There is a disagreement between Sean and Frank-- Sean thought Lauren would know what she was talking about, and called Frank Emeril. But actually Hayes was right, and he was punching and kicking someone, he was being Steven Segal! Bam - was the sound of punching an enemy.
* Hayes and Sean get really fired up about MTV's programming and lack of music videos. And then about the notion that fans pick who wins the Moonman: "Oh yeah, aw yeah, you would let the fans choose who would pick Summer's Biggest Teen Badass?! Oh yeah, some friggin' stooge!" Why doesn't Sam pick, he's got a computer? Sam can't even decide the Best Scared As Shit performance!
* Lauren's dad was Ben Stiller in *Greenberg.* He wouldn't get out of that house, did coke at a party, a dog got sick. The dog was based on Lauren's dog. Lauren wants a category for Best Dog award, although there is a category for Best Latino Actor. And why is there a Black History Month but no Dog History Month? Lauren might start this, perhaps in September? Hayes agrees that this is a very good month for dogs, laying down through the leaves.
* Sean was gonna go how come there's no Chinatown, but no Dogtown? But there is a Dogtown, that's where the Z-boys are from! So, good work on that, at least!
* Sean to Lauren: "If your dad is Ben Stiller from *Greenberg,* then how come your last name's not Stiller?"
* Sean doesn't know if he's going to be able to solve this Frank Calliendo business today
* Sean encourages everyone to post a review on iTunes, maybe something like "These guys are the funniest guys!" or "This is the best podcast, you gotta listen and subscribe!" And write 5 stars in the review. Word of mouth is great for the show!

## Recurring Segments

* Gmail Roulette - you might mistake this for That's Wheely Interesting but it is in fact a different wheel. The boys complain that they don't have a single Gmail Roulette theme song (none of which are very good) but not one for Gmail Roulette. They have three bad Popcorn Gallery theme songs, and that's not what they want, and zero Gmail Roulette theme songs, zero Teaser Freezer theme songs, zero That's Wheely Interesting theme songs.
	+ Sean gets an email from **Roger Goodell**. Even though he knows it's not allowed, he really really wanted to spin again. "Why did it have to be this e-mail, wwwwhhy!?" Hayes reminds him that it is the rule, however there is no rule on 'when' the e-mail is read, only that it must be read. Sean threatens to sit there all night, to wait Hayes and Engineer Cody out for three days and three nights, hoping they won't trick him by cutting out all the dead space where he was sitting and waiting.
		- "Hizo, Sean-Seans, Did I do good at the press conference? Didn't I do all that good stuff like what you said? And even I used some of your jokes? Wasn't that good? It was just what you said! Too cool for school, and nobody's fool. I really feel like I handled all the bad questions from the mean guys, and some of the nice ones. And I even think that it went good and had fun for everybody. Sooo? How you like that? P.S. Can't wait to see the movie that you talked about that you're gonna do, it sounds really good. Can't believe that you got all those big stars, and that it's going to be such a good movie!"
		- This letter contains spoilers for a project. Sean is so excited for this show *Selfie* to come out. Because somebody is finally going to start tellin a story of guys like Sean who take these roughnecks under their wings and make actual gentlemen and formal ladies out of them .Sean comes from a pretty spotty background, and ran with some pretty rough and tumble characters, and did a little hellraising. But.. he's managed to polish himself so he can mingle with the high society yet still understand the blue collar man. Someone like a Roger Goodell, who's only ever been around ruffian, does need a mentor of sorts. An 'enry 'iggins to sort of groom his Eliza Dushku.
		- "He now thinks that he did good at the press conference, but we all know, with some of what's been going on in the NFL, that he didn't do that good. And that Roger *Good*ell, has really been more of a Roger *Bad*ell, and he's really been battling with some stuff that's pretty.. not good."
		- In the league, if you grew up a certain way, like Hayes and Sean did, they came from a place where-- this is just a cultural thing, this is just what people do. Like you heard that Michael Peterson- he's using the switch, he got the switch. People are saying Oh a switch, hitting a boy? How dare you! But they're not from the south. It is a fine line between saying 'you can't hit your kids' and saying 'we can't hit anyone, including a criminal.' A bank robber is somebody's kid! And now you can't hit a bank robber as he's running away? He's got a big sack of money with a dollar sign, you're faster than him, you can catch him, and you're holding a switch, or a sledgehammer? You can't clobber him on the buttocks?
		- If you grew up where Hayes and Sean did, if you did a bad thing-- steal a plugged nickel, hide some skin magazines in a hollow tree, glued you sister's ponytail to the side of her face, push a frog down the slide at the playground and the frog got squished cause you push him too hard, trap your granddad in the attack and put a whole wasp hive in there and now he's covered in wasp stings- your dad would say 'Son, get in here, to the table room.' On the table he lays out some object - an ear of corn, a roll of paper towels, switch - and he says choose. And you don't know what it is he's gonna do with any of those things! Your best guess is, you have a very good idea of what he might do with that switch. It's either the devil you know or the devil you don't wanna know! Cause pretty soon you're eating that roll of paper towels and that switch is starting to look pretty good.
		- These people that are criticizing some of these parenting techniques, it's like it's better to have them eating paper towels! And it's like people are criticizing the little boy for making the wrong choice, he's four.
		- The ear of corn, that one is not that hard. Sean has trouble eating the ear of corn because one of his front teeth is imperma
		- nent. He'd have to eat it with the side of his mouth or cut the kernels off.
		- Sean didn't know what the ear of corn was until he was about 27 years old. What he imagined what the ear of corn was gonna be? Was pretty nefarious. Hayes thought he was gonna throw it at him. Right at his face! Part of its pointy! If you really think about it, what they were saying was smart!
	+ Hayes gets an e-mail from **Kate Bosworth**: His spinning sound effect involves the wheel talking to him. Hayes is not happy about getting this e-mail and proposes a rule change that starts *with* this e-mail. Or that he doesn't have to read the whole thing, that he can just read the whole part. Sean asks him to be honest! The rules is that you have to read the whole e-mail.
		- "Hey Two Scoops, (she calls them that because of his muscles, his biceps looks like a scoop of ice cream when he pumps it up), Hey, I noticed that I sent you all of those nudes and you never even said if you liked them or not. And I don't want to brag but I thought that some of them were pretty good nudes. So I put them online in case that you were going to be online and you could see them there, and I also put all my friends nudes online as well, so maybe you'd be searching around and you'd see some nudes and then eventually land on mine. My name starts with a 'B' it's not that far down the list. And so now that I think you've probably seen all my nudes, I was wondering if you could maybe write me back and tell me if you think the nudes are even good or not. Because, I don't mind if you say that they're bad, I'm just looking for an honest criticism of my nudes."
		- This gets Hayes to a subject that he actually has wanted to get to for some time: if you look at these photos, you are committing a *crime*. You are a *stealer*, you *stole* something. And it's the same as stealing anything else, any jewels. Sean disagrees. It's stealing a sexy thing, so actually you're a sex criminal. Which is even worse than stealing jewels. We've all done that.
		- These nudes were Hayes's. Give them back to him! Send them back to him, then wipe your computer and throw it in the dumpster. This is not a sexual relationship, Hayes is doing very well with Carrie Ann. She only wants a studied eye to give an honest evaluation of the photos themselves-- of the composition of the photos.
		- Hayes nor Sean have seen this, Sean because he doesn't want to be in jail, Hayes has been busy. Maybe one day Hayes will look at all of your nudes if all the girls from the movies sent *you* nudes! But he wouldn't do that, he's just saying what if he did.
		- Sean berates all the grimy, greasy, little reddit monsters with their 4chan, forums, and Celeb Jihad and your gross disgusting sites, you're digging around, muckin' around in the bottom of the internet, eatin the oooze that makes you live. Hayes stops him to say they don't eat ooze. But we don't know that! Coulda fooled Sean. They committed a sex crime, they don't eat ooze.
* Pro Version - you get all the clothes they were wearing while recording, every article of clothing anyone in the room was wearing if you buy it this coming week. Engineer Sam's Brewer's hat, his undiepants. Hayes's burning man watch. ajzthisisdumb gets Lauren telling another lie, as this seems like this is what she's best at: "Well you guys, I had a lot of fun today!" OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH! BYEEEEEE!

## Recurring Jokes

* Too Scary - Sean and Hayes have been mixing it up in some of these touchy, sensitive issues and they understand how listeners can feel a little scared. Choosing the ear of corn in the Table Room while being disciplined by your dad is a scary choice. Sean didn't want 17.3 thousand people to like the show, which would happen should Lauren tweet her followers, and this prospect scares him. Suraj Sharma is still scared as shit from being in *Life of Pi.* Frank Calliendo's character that is punching someone is pretty scary.
* Sean's Dad - was a disciplinarian, as was Hayes's. Later, Hayes warns Lauren not to dig in too much on the idea of a father yelling at screaming. Sean's Dad was screaming at him for leaving his shoes at the top of the stairs, before he goes down to his gorgeous basement apartment. When Sean's Dad was walking by to get a midnight snack (yogurt), he tripped on Sean's shoe! And this is *Sean's* fault that he doesn't turn the light on in the living room when he's sneaking to get a snack his nurse is trying to keep him from eating because he can't process it! Sean shouts back "I hate you!" when his dad yells at him, but he doesn't hate him, he loves him.
* Wife and Kids - Hayes and Carrie Ann are doing very well, thank you very much.
* Controversial Sean - Sean thinks that the reddit people who stole nudes eat ooze on the bottom of the internet.
* Speak on That - Lauren describes the Jewish Holy Trinity, the MTV Music Awards, listing music, movies, and TV as each component of the trilogy, prompting Hayes to encourage her to expand on this idea. Hayes asks Sean to speak on his statement "When I was a little kid, they told me anybody could be president... now I believe it." And Lauren, the same statement.
* Talking to the Engineer - Hayes, as a proxy for Lauren, asks Sam if he wants to be President. He never really thought about it.
* Holding Deal - Sean forces Hayes to define what an NDA is, hoping that he has trapped him. Hayes says the first word is not something that they should say on the podcast.. it's a rap group. And they, personal preference, but it's not something they should spell out. Something... doing attitude.
* Sean's Little Cousin - Sam is Sean's flesh and blood, but he's a stooge who can't decide on the MTV Movie Awards

## Episode Photos

*(left to right)* Lauren Greenberg, Sean Clements, Hayes DavenportHayes and Lauren Greenberg in the studioSean texting in the studio