Endless Thread - Best of Summer: Goblins, Toenails, and Beach Rap

Episode Date: July 26, 2023

In times like these, you've got to take joy wherever and however you can get it. Amory and Ben swap unexpected sources of joy they've bumped into recently — from a goblin-themed Reddit post, to the scariest toe talons on the internet, to a funky 1980's little-known bop about going to the beach on Massachusetts' North Shore.

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Yeah. The book is about Goblin Corps. And you know what I said when I saw it? Beach read. No, I said, I'll be having that. Yes. And if you don't get that joke. You're about to.

We we shan't say anymore. Emery, we're looking for the joy. Who, joy, where are you? Are you just like, are you like in a musical right now? Or maybe it's like that almost sounded more operatic, you know, the opera of Amory's life. Joy, where are you joy? But moonlighting is a musical theater artiste. I just like the idea of an opera where Amory is searching for joy.

Joy. Where are you joy? So we're searching for some joyful stories today because it just feels like we should be doing that. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Big time. Yeah. And I've got a couple of small items.

A couple doses of joy? Yeah, a couple of joy snacks. Love it. What do you got? Mine is on the musical wavelength. Maybe that's why I'm feeling so melodic right now. Well, mine are both shorties. Okay.

So maybe it's a double shorty and then a longie. Yeah, sounds good. And then I'll pump up the jams. So my first one is one that you know, and I think many other people know. I think you originally shared this with me. And I just feel like it's, you know, we've been needing to talk about it. I think I have a guess. Yeah, this comes from the Confessions Subreddit.

And the title is, I like to creep around my home and act like a goblin. Do you know this one? I do. I do. Yeah. But I could use a refresher. Honestly, I'm not sure that I made it past the headline because it's like, yep, that sounds good. Oh, it gets so much better.

It gets so much better. Good. So I both know it and I don't know it. And I am ready for this ride. Okay. So this is from a username Sasuke in SSBU. This was posted, I think it was posted on Christmas Day. So the post says, I don't know why, but I just enjoyed doing this.

Maybe it's my way of dealing with stress or something, but I just do it about once every week. Generally, I'll carry around a sack and creep around in a sort of crouch walking position making goblin noises. Then I'll walk around my house and pick up various different, quote, trinkets and put them in my bag, saying stuff like, I'll be having that. I was going to ask for your goblin voice. Thank you for. I'll be having that. I think that's better.

That's pretty good. And then laughing maniacally in my goblin voice, trinkets can include anything from shit I find on the ground to cutlery or other utensils. The other day I was talking with my neighbors and they mentioned hearing weird noises like what I wrote about. And I was just internally screaming the entire conversation. I'm 99% sure they don't know it's me, but God, that 1% chance is seriously weighing on my mind. Oh. He should invite them over.

Yeah. Well, it could be a woman. Could be a female godwin. Oh, you are so right. I hope it is. Yeah. I hope it's a lady goblin. A lady gob?

Lady goblet. What's your lady gob voice? Can I get a lady gob? I'll be having that. I'll be having that. Oh, that's like a more fairy goblin. I like that. Yeah, that's good. My whole body just contorted down to do that voice. You went into the goblin crouch? I'm a method actor, Ben, a method goblin.

A method goblin. You got to get into that goblin mindset. You know it. The top comment is, bro, I'm laughing my ass off. It's so weird yet innocent. I have no idea what to think about it. Ha, ha, ha. And then someone said, I hope O.P. never stops doing this because it seriously brings so much light into this life.

I agree with that. So that's my goblin story. And for my next trinket, this is a weird question. But can you look at my Twitter feed? Yeah Twitter dot com I have a post

from this morning where I say well that's enough internet for me today going to call it Ooh I think I did see this but I did not zoom in on the picture because

reasons that will soon become obvious Okay you should describe this photo I mean, like, I don't even really know how to describe it, but it's somebody who has found, I don't even know if it's a BB gun or not. It might be a real gun, but the picture is pointed down at the gun and down at the floor. And behind the gun, the gun is in the foreground, and it says, Ponchop find Jericho 941.

And forgive me, I don't know a lot about guns. So this may be a very real gun. It looks real. But in the background of the shot is naked man legs, I guess, we could say, going from about mid-thigh down. And I don't know what to say, but this person has crazy toenails. Like someone commented, I believe on this picture, someone commented, you could run up a flagpole on a sprint. with those talons. And that's basically what they are is talents.

And the thing that's messed up about this, Amory, the thing that is crazy is because the internet, people started responding to this with more pictures like this. What? And I don't understand. Their own toe talents. Look, so, like, click on the tweet, click on the tweet that I,

that I, like, retweet, click on that one. The good Reddit tweet. Yeah, now scroll down a little bit to the one of the gummy worm. There's one of dog feet. That's good. Okay, to the gummy worm. Do you see the, here's, it says.

So it's someone holding a gummy worm. And then their toes are just like long dagger toenails painted, hot, flaming red. And the caption is, look at this worm. Excuse the foot, which like, the foot is not the problem. It's what is coming like piercing out of the foot. I just, it has to be a genre, right? Or like, I don't know if it's the same user who's making these photos. I honestly don't know.

But this is like, I don't know what to say about this, but it's like it brings me joy. It does bring me joy because it is clearly so ridiculous. And these look like fake, they seem like it has to be fake. Like people can't be walking around with toenails like this. I just don't, I'm sorry, I don't believe that this is possible. From a very practical standpoint, putting a foot like that into a shoe, you know, unless these people live in warm weather climates where they are only wearing flippy floppies. Is this what real clown's feet look like?

Real clowns? Oh, because the big shoes. That's true if you're a professional clown. You've got a good three to four inches of toenail space there, if you so choose. Yeah, also I can't tell if the toenails are painted. They look like they might be painted like a minty green. But maybe that's just what happens to the color of your toenails when you really try to push the limits of toenail length. All right.

Well, you know, we'll post images. Go to my Twitter feed. Go to my Twitter feed if you want to see photos of this. I'm at the Brock Johnson. You can find them. This is good. We were like micro-dosing joy. Joy and terror all mixed together.

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Whatever your goal, we can help. Discover how the magic is made at WBUR.org. So I think we're just going to start with the old hot hit of music. I sent you a link. Okay. You want me to watch this video? Watch is a generous term. Just fire the link.

Okay. You hear that crashing wave sound? Whoa, that was quite a synth, like, note run. Yeah. This is very, this is very, I want to say this is like early 90. It feels like late 80s, early 90s? This is from 1984. Oh, wow.

Early. Okay. It was ahead of its time. That's what I'm trying to say. Okay. It says Russ McQueen to the beach. Yep. To the beach.

And it's just like a photo of like a family from what looks like the early 80s all standing maybe near a beach. Mm-hmm. It's very. It's very funky. Very funky. Can you describe the person in the center? It's kind of a blurry photo, but there's a person in the center wearing a hat. I don't know how well you can see that.

Oh, yeah, I see that guy. Yeah, he's the center of attention. For sure. Yeah. Yeah, he has kind of a fedora on. He's wearing white pants, which is a bold move for any man, and certainly any man, you know. The way the light is hitting his shirt, it looks. like the shirt might have a little shimmer to it, but I can't really tell.

Yeah, it's got a little sheen on it, yeah. Where the drinks are cool and the women are hot. Hey, come on into the TikTok. Hey, come on into it. They got a heater on the meter and they sure do shine. They got the bone, they got the yon, and they all pop in their car. To come to where the action is and find their shine and stop. Hey, hey, hey, find their shot and stop.

Oh, hey, love the video games and the bumper car. Want to slide and the midway bizarre. Pitch till you win the Himalaya My Cupid dolls and a lucky number To the beach Where the drinks are cool and women are hot Hey come on into the TikTok Come on into the TikTok

Okay, I dig it Okay, so Russ McQueen Longtime musician He plays keys and sings So that great little synth run that you heard Those were the stylings of Russ McQueen He's also a DJ And he's local to our area

here in Massachusetts. He's performed a lot around the North Shore in particular. And he's my father-in-law. Oh. Oh, yeah. And like you said,

he is the life of the party. Like, you think you're a ham, Ben, and you can't hold a candle to, you can't hold a disco ball to Russ McQueen. He has a whole big plastic storage tub

full of various hats and wigs. that he brings to the gigs that he plays. Okay. And I watched a video of him earlier today where he's performing at some sort of assisted living or independent living center, and he's serenading the crowd with the song That's Amore

while wearing a big pizza hat on his head. Hearts will play, like a gay bottle of teller. He's a nice little. And at one point, a petite woman using a cane walks in, and he gets down on his knees and knee walks over to her. This is like a 70-plus-year-old man. Knee walks over to her to sing to her at eye level. And then, you know, the next minute he has a giant foam cowboy hat on, and he's singing Alan Jackson's Chattahoochee. I'm a sweet man I'm always trying to a hoot. You know, I'm someone who's always trying to chat a hootie.

You know what I mean? You could have a chatahoochie off. So he just has boundless energy and he really loves nothing more than making people smile. And back in the 80s, he made this song to the beach. It's been kind of this. This. family lore where I've heard the song before. I know that the song exists. I know that there are copies of it in the world, like seven-inch vinyl copies of it. But it doesn't, you kind of forget about it until it gets brought up for one reason or another, like it did just over the course of the past week or so. Because my husband and I recently went up to my in-law's house to help move some things around, clean some things. And my husband found this old drum machine in a file cabinet. It's a Yamaha RX7. But my in-laws weren't using it anymore. So we adopted it. That's why it's here

next to me. And my husband belongs to the Discord channel for a podcast called Election Profit Makers. Are you familiar with this podcast? No. It's hosted by or co-hosted by a guy named David Reese that I like a lot. He's kind of a humorist and quirky guy. And they basically just bet on certain things happening in the news. But they have this really popular Discord channel that's taken on a life of its own. And there's a channel in there that's called something like pedal mist connections. So instrument pedals.

But Mike posted a picture. My husband posted a picture of this drum machine and was like, hey, check this out. And he didn't realize it until after he posted the picture that the name Russ McQueen is on the drum machine, like a little label maker label. Right. And someone in the channel was like, you mean this Russ McQueen? And they linked to a page on a site called Discogs. Do you know Discogs? Oh, yeah.

This is like a web, it's sort of like an online marketplace and also community for DJs, basically. basically, I think, right? Oh, possibly. Yeah, I know it as like an online marketplace. There's a lot of vinyl, old, rare vinyl being sold there, or you can tell people when you're looking for something. So this discogs post, you see a picture of To the Beach, the single, released in 1984. Genre is funk slash soul. Style is boogie. Style is boogie.

And you can see. see that it last sold earlier this year in January for, I believe, like $27 or something. Or it has sold for as much as $27, this single from the 80s. Then we find a link. We start digging around because we're just like, who is buying to the beach? We find an Etsy link where a signed copy is being sold for $27. We found just recently this is on a site called Grip Sweat that I don't know about. It sold back in 2019 for $75.

So I'm going to play you a little more of the song right now because you just got a taste of the lyrics. But I want you to actually, I want you to hear the lyrics. And, you know, my dad's also a musician. Your dad is a musician. there is great joy in hearing our parents being themselves before we existed, before we were glimmers in their eyes. So I just want to play through the first chorus of To the Beach to celebrate some love for the boogie-woogie Russ McQueen of the 80s.

I love that. Yes, let us boogie. Okay That's That's That's A trip to fantasy And boogie to your left

And boogie to your right All the way to Salisbury The way is clear The way is fine I'll make your roof That's Salsbury Beach On the North Shore Clearly

Well, some people Don't know Salisbury Beach in Massachusetts Ben They don't mess around They don't cause any trouble They just think that life Life is a champagne bubble.

You hear those bubble sound effects? Oh, great bubbles. From 290 to 495, a left in all the way you see. Marlborough lived in the Shrewsbury. By the time they get the lower, the boy said, hey, pull over, I've got to pee. Feed on down the avenue. Hey, keep your eyes open for the man in blue. The sun is hot and the air is sticky.

Traffic is heavy, but you move on. Quickly to the beach. Where the drinks are cool and the women are hot. Hey, come on into the TikTok. Come on into the TikTok. There's so much, there's like so much lingo in here. I know. Like, I can't even figure out what's happening.

I know. It's just north shore Massachusetts in the 80s. He references the TikTok, which was like a popular nightclub on Salisbury Beach on this local. Of course. beach. He played there all the time. It was like a big part of his personal and professional life from like the 70s to the 90s. And when it closed down, I forget when it closed down, probably at least a decade ago now. When it closed down, it was just one of those, you know, the loss of a

real local institution. Yeah. To the beach. Yeah. So this song brings me joy. I hope it brings you joy. I hope it brings everyone It makes me yearn for summertime. I'm ready for my hot girl summer. Exactly. Because we're still stuck in this like, it's sunny and there are birds, but it's also 19 degrees right now where I am. Yeah, same.

Yeah. And also I'm married. So I don't, what I mean by that is I'm ready to be a part of the hot girl summer. Like I will be a hot girl this summer. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah. I mean, it doesn't make sense, but you know what I mean.

I support you having whatever kind of summer you want to have. Hot Girl Summer. Likewise. You know, long toenail summer. Long toenail summer. Weird, creepy, photo summer. And I just like, I want to be at the beach. This song makes me want to be at the beach.

God, I'm ready. Here's to Russ McQueen, a legend. Here's to all of our parents. being cool and doing kind of strange, quirky things before we were alive. And here's to the person in Estonia who just gave this a five-star rating on Discogs. Thank you for that. Russ McQueen appreciates it. I'll pass it along.

And, you know, Mike and I are trying to figure out who these people are that have recently paid a large sum for just the ability to listen to the beach uninterrupted. So we will get to the bottom of that. If you too are a Russ McQueen fan out there, you let me know. Yeah, I would happily, let's go to the beach in Estonia. Do they have beaches? I think they do. So could we do that?

Sure. Yeah. Whoever is in Estonia and bought this record, let's play it out of a boombox on the beach in Estonia this summer. To the beach. Very good. You're already a true fan. Yeah, heck yeah

Heck yeah All right Well those are our joy stories this week Yeah stay strong everyone Take care of each other Summer will come Someday and stay safe And find joy in the meantime

The Rivin era Where the drinks are cool And the women are hot Hey come on into the TikTok This episode was produced by Nora Sacks Mix and sound design by Emily Jankowski And we'll be back next week unless we're at the beach where the drinks are cold and the ice cream is colder.

Now we'll be back next week. This episode is dedicated to my sweet, wonderful father-in-law, Russ McQueen, Mosquito, who passed away earlier this year. And I think he'd want you to listen to a song that you love today and sing along, loud and crowd and maybe do something a little rascally, just for the hell of it.