Tonight's guests are Kirsten Gillibrand on The Daily Show and Jason Segel on The Colbert Report.
Kirsten Gillibrand is the junior Senator from New York. She is on to promote her book Off the Sidelines: Raise Your Voice, Change the World
Off the Sidelines is a playbook for women who want to step up, whether in Congress or the boardroom or the local PTA. If women were fully represented in politics, Gillibrand says, national priorities would shift to issues that directly impact them: affordable daycare, paid family medical leave, and equal pay. Pulling back the curtain on Beltway politics, she speaks candidly about her legislative successes (securing federally funded medical care for 9/11 first responders, repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell) and her crushing disappointments (failing by five votes to pass a bill protecting survivors of sexual assault in the military).
Gillibrand also shares stories of growing up the daughter and granddaughter of two trailblazing feminists in a politically active family in Albany, New York, and retraces her nonlinear path to public office. She lays bare the highs and lows of being a young (pregnant!) woman in Congress, the joys and sacrifices every working mother shares, and the support system she turns to in her darkest moments: her husband, their two little boys, and lots of girlfriends.
In Off the Sidelines, Gillibrand is the tough-love older sister and cheerleader every woman needs. She explains why “ambition” is not a dirty word, failure is a gift, listening is the most effective tool, and the debate over women “having it all” is absurd at best and demeaning at worst. In her sharp, honest, and refreshingly relatable voice, she dares us all to tap into our inner strength, find personal fulfillment, and speak up for what we believe in.
There is also an accompanying website for the book
offthesidelines.org
I'm sure she will be talking about her not naming names on who called her porky
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand doesn't remember which 'old man' called her 'porky' while she was pregnant
I’m working out, doing my best, and this old man comes up to me and says, ‘You know, good thing you’re working out because you wouldn’t want to get porky.’ What an A-hole!” she said, citing a much-discussed chapter in her book “Off the Sidelines” while speaking to a group of Hearst employees on Monday night.
But Gillibrand refused to end the speculation. “I didn’t even know who he was,” she said.
As awful as that headline is, things get worse in the book, according to the story. One quote in particular stands out. Gillibrand reveals that one male Senator, after she lost about 50 pounds, came up behind her and gave her waist a squeeze. “Don’t lose too much weight now," he told her. "I like my girls chubby.” She says that he was one of her favorite senators(!).
‘I like my girls chubby,’ a male Senator told Kirsten Gillibrand. Yes, really.
I think we need to have some physicist determine what is happening to space-time around Washington DC because it doesn't sound like it is 2014 there.
Jason Segel is an actor, best known as Marshall Eriksen on How I Met Your Mother. Tonight he is on because he is also an author, coauthoring the book Nightmares! with Kirsten Miller.
Jason Segel, multitalented actor, writer, and musician, teams up with New York Times bestselling author Kirsten Miller for the hilariously frightening middle-grade novel Nightmares!, the first book in a trilogy about a boy named Charlie and a group of kids who must face their fears to save their town.
Sleeping has never been so scary. And now waking up is even worse!
Charlie Laird has several problems.
1. His dad married a woman he is sure moonlights as a witch.
2. He had to move into her purple mansion, which is NOT a place you want to find yourself after dark.
3.He can’t remember the last time sleeping wasn’t a nightmarish prospect. Like even a nap.
What Charlie doesn’t know is that his problems are about to get a whole lot more real. Nightmares can ruin a good night’s sleep, but when they start slipping out of your dreams and into the waking world—that’s a line that should never be crossed.
And when your worst nightmares start to come true . . . well, that’s something only Charlie can face. And he’s going to need all the help he can get, or it might just be lights-out for Charlie Laird. For good.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So the novel is about a group of kids trying to drive fear in the form of monsters and other scary creatures out of their town. What was the inspiration for Nightmares!?
JASON SEGEL: I had terrible night terrors when I was a kid. I’d have these terrible nightmares and then my parents would come in to find out why I was screaming and they’d wake me up, but my body would wake up but my brain kind of stayed in the nightmares. It’s really unpleasant and very disconcerting. It’s sort of like a cousin of sleepwalking. That has sort of stuck of with me because my dreams were so vivid. Also, growing up, I was inspired by movies like Labyrinth and Goonies and these movies that catch kids at a time when they need to be reminded that everything is possible — that you really could find buried treasure, you know? When I set out to write my first script in my early 20’s, I wanted to write something that or the other movies that most inspired me, the Jim Henson/Tim Burton-y type stuff.
Take a first look at Jason Segel's first novel 'Nightmares!'
It sounds like it could be a good children's book. I have been looking at books for my two nieces for their birthdays and there are some very strange children's books out there!
This Week's Guests
THE DAILY SHOW
We 9/10: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
Th 9/11: Tavis Smiley
THE COLBERT REPORT
We 9/10: Henry Kissinger
Th 9/11: Lonn Taylor