THE SCHEDULE CLAIMS ANOTHER VICTIM
Artie started off the show explaining how he didn't feel well yesterday: "I don't know what to tell ya. You're a good guy, Howard - you don't want to fire anybody...I don't know if I can do it anymore. The schedule." Artie asked what Howard might say if he asked scale back his schedule, so Howard replied: "I would say you've been a great asset to the show and you're a friend...if you can't handle it and it's affecting you, I'd understand...you gave it a shot and if it didn't work, it didn't work. You gave it a great eight years."
Artie confessed he made the "fundamental" mistake of booking too many stand-up gigs this year: "It's ridiculous. I don't know how I'm handling this." Artie added that he wants to see how well he can do with no weekend stand-up gigs - and just his duties on the show. Howard thought it sounded worth a shot: "He's got comedy shows the next three weeks in a row."
ARTIE ON JOAQUIN PHOENIX
After playing some clips of a nonsensical Joaquin Phoenix on Letterman, Artie recalled seeing him in LA once. "I was staying at the Bel Age hotel in LA. I saw him once in the bar there. He wasn't drunk, he wasn't high. I've never seen anyone with a look like that on their face before. He looked kind of maniacal. He looked dangerous."
LISA G HAS STOPPED MASTURBATING
A caller asked Lisa G if she ever masturbated to thoughts of Howard, Artie, Fred or Benjy, but Lisa denied it: "I've been too stressed lately." Lisa explained that she's been so stressed by media reports on the power plays being made for Sirius, she hasn’t been able to masturbate: "When I get stressed I get really tired." Howard told Lisa she had no reason for concern: "You go back to masturbating and not worrying about it."
JASON AND ARTIE ON FATHERHOOD
Howard again speculated that Jason would not be a great father: "He sits around all day and smokes weed and does nothing with his life. He's not father material." Jason came in to say he now planned to have a kid: "Just to prove you wrong...I'd be a decent father, but I have a real fear of having a son and not being able to teach him how to be a real man." Howard joked that the kid would be better off in an orphanage: "Octomom is a better candidate." [Howard later told Jason he was just breaking his balls and thought that Jason really could be a good parent.]
While they were on the subject, Artie confessed that he had a pregnancy scare a while ago - with a stripper: "And this broad is looney tunes...I was like, even after the kid is born, we might consider killing it." Artie laughed that the kid turned out not to be his: "I was one of eight candidates."
ELIZA DUSHKU AIN'T EASY
Eliza Dushku stopped by to promote her new TV series, "Dollhouse," and Howard asked her if it was nice to be so fit and good-looking. Eliza deflected, saying she was just a tomboy from Boston. Howard also asked when Eliza became sexually active when she first moved to LA in her early teens, but Eliza denied it ("Not a very young age."), joking that Mickey Rourke would've been first in line: "I was fourteen. I saw him in a hair salon. He was with his dog and feeding me Marlboros."
Eliza told the crew that she got some good advice early in her teens: "That's when my brothers gave me the talk about boys. Nobody likes a whore." Eliza said that's why she doesn't date Hollywood-types: "I've dated chimney sweepers." Artie was shocked: "What? Were you dating in the 1800s? [You] grew up in a Dickens novel or something?" Eliza replied that the guy was a bookie who swept chimneys on the side. Artie loved it: "Wow."
"NOBODY LIKES A WHORE."
Eliza told the crew she became sexually active around 17 - and once made out with a girl in Vegas: "Some sleazy agent guy was like, 'You should make out with her,' and I was like, 'Ok.'" Eliza said misbehavior could quickly betray a celebrity: she once had a "kiss and cuddle" with "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane and though she knew to stop there, the NYPost picked up the story/photos and claimed she'd been dating him.
Howard asked why Eliza broke up with MLB pitching ace Brad Penny, so she explained that she was free to travel with him early on, but as she picked up work, they couldn't spend as much time together: "I'm like an 18 month marker. At 18 months you either sink or sail...but he made a good move. He's now on the Red Sox...when he first takes the mound at Fenway, I might freak out a little. I might...yeah."
DOUBLE A WANTS A DATE WITH ELIZA
Double A came in dressed as Cupid to meet Eliza and Howard asked him how he got so fat. Double A confessed that he'd been doing "a lot of drinking." Howard told Double A he must be slathered in cologne ("I can smell you over here.") but Double A ignored him and made his move, asking Eliza: "What are you doing tonight? Can we get a date or something going on?" Eliza said she had to appear on Conan and do press all night long. Double A was excited: "That's not a no!"
ELIZA DUSHKU IS SLY, HAS A QUESTION FOR DOUBLE A
"Did you go tanning?"
“No I was in South Beach baby.”