Hello! And welcome back to The Nanny Goats in Panties Celebrity Hour. With us today is Quinn Cummings who has just published her memoir entitled Notes from the Underwear which I think ties in perfectly with our panties theme and… what’s that?

I’m sorry, my producer has just informed me that it’s “Underwire”. Notes from the Underwire.

Well, that works just as well doesn’t it? Because of underwire bras? And panties?

Well, anyway, Ms. Cummings is speaking to us via satellite. One of these days, we’re going to get a guest to come into our alien invasion-safe studio, buried sixteen miles deep inside the earth’s crust. So while we can’t exactly SEE her, as far as we’re concerned, she’s here, she’s Quinn, get used to it.

Some of you may remember her as Lucy McFadden in The Goodbye Girl (1977), for which she received an Academy Award nomination. Others may remember her as Annie Cooper from the television show Family. The rest of you are either too young (or were too stoned) to remember anything from the 70s.

If she were here with us, we wouldn’t have to ask this question, but Quinn, darling? Can you hear me? What are you wearing?

QC: A blue t-shirt and khaki pants. Probably should have put on rattier pants before I watered the tomatoes. I swear, my hose has aspirations of being a fountain at the Bellagio in Vegas.

NGIP: Where did the title of your memoir, Notes from the Underwire, come from?

QC: It was a meaningless phrase which came to me at a stop light one day, as many of my more life-affecting thoughts will. It kind of references Notes from Underground, but also gave my editor the chance to use that cover art, which I just LOVE.

NGIP: You tell us in your book that your Significant Other’s name is Consort. Is that short for Consortium?

QC: Yes, he’s a Roman senator. Actually, as I’m sure your readers know, Consort is the title a commoner takes when he marries a ruling Queen. Since I’m so not a Queen and we’re not married, it seemed like a natural fit.

NGIP: Has your daughter (named Alice in the book) read your memoir?

QC: She’s read carefully selected chapters. She is terribly proud of her mom and wishes I would spend whatever massive literary wealth I am irrationally hiding from her on ponies. Miniature ponies that can be ridden by kittens.

NGIP: What book(s) are you reading right now?

QC: I just finished “Lush Life,” which is breathtaking and next up is Maile Meloy.

NGIP: Who are your favorite authors?

QC: The Davids, Sedaris and Rackoff. Sarah Vowell. Jean Kerr. Edith Wharton, when I’m feeling fancy. I love nonfiction, preferably related to science and behavior; “Predictably Irrational,” “Mistakes were Made, but Not by Me,” “A Short History of Nearly Everything.”

NGIP: Starbucks or Coffee Bean?

QC: Coffee Bean, but only because I drink green tea and they have more tea options. I drink green tea even though I’m pretty sure that’s how gardeners get rid of their lawn clippings.

NGIP: What is your greatest fear?

QC: Outliving my kid.

NGIP: Why do people even bother? I mean, really?

QC: Because not bothering makes you snotty and passive in a way that the rest of us just hate. Better to be futile but active.

NGIP: In your blog, The QC Report, you recently mentioned a futile battle with Facebook. What is it with them, anyway?

QC: Oh, I wish I knew. This is some variation of how the garage door opener works for everyone but me. Truly, the kid and I drive up to the garage and I hand her the opener because otherwise it’s Quinn swearing and pressing impotently at buttons.

NGIP: So you invented the HipHugger. I have this great idea for an infomercial: we have ten naked male models wearing strategically placed Hiphuggers and you toss babies one by one as they catch them into the contraption, while you deliver witty anecdotes about growing up in a convent in Ecuador where you raised penguins. And then I talk in ALL CAPS the whole time while taking calls from old ladies who keep producing audio feedback because they won’t turn their TV down, despite the screeners repeated warnings. … What do you think?

QC: No offense, but that’s been done to death.

NGIP: Do any of your HipHuggers have goats on them?

QC: No, but they don’t have cats on them either and I’m so into cats that I nearly hork up hairballs.

NGIP: So what have you got against goats, anyway?

QC: It’s the pupils. I promise you, if they didn’t have rectangular pupils I’d be SO pro-goat. Even with the pupils, I keep trying to convince Consort that nothing says “Wholesome upbringing for the child” quite like her own goat to milk.

NGIP: I have this rash. What do you think it is?

QC: Goat fever.

NGIP: I have this screenplay called Nanny Goats Takes a Bleating. It’s a coming-of-age tale about a young goat who leaves her farm to go to New York City to become a supermodel but is hit by hay wagon on the way to her first audition. In the hospital she meets and falls in love with her plastic surgeon, but must make a choice between love and her career. Can you introduce me to a big name Hollywood movie director, someone whose name rhymes with say, “Poor Bessie” and tell him that my script is fabulous?

QC: I could if it weren’t for that darn injunction he took out against me.

NGIP: Is there anything else you wish to tell the many thousands, and quite possibly millions, of NGIP readers?

QC: That you’re looking awfully pretty today. Not everyone can use chevre as a hair treatment and come out looking so good.

Why thank you, my dear. Quinn Cummings, everybody!

And we’ll be right back after a word from our sponsor with some tips on how to pump your cat’s stomach.

What’s that? Oh, my producer is telling me that we have no sponsor. And since Quinn has already disconnected, I’d like to take a moment to tell you how hysterical her book is. I found Notes From the Underwire refreshingly sarcastic and self-deprecatingly funny. If you’re looking for a well-crafted, hilarious memoir, this is one of them. Last time I looked, you could find it in that Celebrity Biography section with the other best sellers in the front of the store at Borders.

Now, where’s that cat?

[Editor’s Note: You literal people who must know how much of this interview is real vs. made up: all the indented text in purple, from the moment I ask Quinn what she’s wearing until we cut for commercial is WORD-FOR-WORD verbatim. So there. Happy now?]

[Editor’s Note’s Addendum: A Big Thank You to Rene from Not The Rockefellers for hooking me up with Ms. Cummings]

Release of new game from iWin.com: Coconut Queen

Woo hoo! It’s here! It’s finally here! The casual online game where you are “stuck” on an island covered with hunky natives to do everything you say. Well, within PG-rated commands, anyway. It’s one of those resource management games and you can start playing right now if you go to the Coconut Queen website! I think you can play it for free for an hour, then you purchase the game to play the whole thing. If you laugh, then it’s quite possibly something I wrote, even down to the names of the buildings you construct. That is, the buildings that the hunky natives construct FOR you.

UPDATE

The above link to Coconut Queen is no longer active, but you can find the game on iWin’s website and now there’s an option to play for free. It’s also available on Amazon.com. Unfortunately, the game is only available for Windows PC systems, not Macs.