Good Job, Brain! - 43: Our Favorite Things

Episode Date: December 24, 2012

Brown paper packages tied up with string...these are a few of my favorite things! Chris shares his Nintendo expertise and that old box of videogames in your attic might be worth lots of money! Colin quizzes us on his love of typography. Karen's favorite thing is actually extremely poisonous. And Dana schools us on her favorite thing: wordplay. ALSO: how to prepare for a quiz bowl, genetic hybrids (ZORSE!), the trivia-heavy story of Fleetwood Mac, and "Painter? Or Cheese?" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an airwave media podcast. Hello, positively perky, pumped problem punchers. Welcome to Good Job Brain, your weekly quiz show and off-beat trivia podcast. This is episode 43, and of course, I'm your humble host, Karen, and we are your cauldron of calculating calves calarizing calzones and calamari it was a long day i couldn't think of a good one i haven't calarized a calzone in a while i'm calling it actually fits with the alliteration oh i'm dana broke it and i'm chris we brought it back yeah i have a touching email that i want to share with everybody and this is from adam and he wrote in he said hello smarty pants my name is adam and i'm an eighth grader

in Connecticut. I've listened to every single one of your podcast and always look forward to hearing the newest. However, I'm not just emailing you to give you compliments, even though I could. I need help. I entered a quiz bowl. If you don't know what that is, which is probably impossible. It is a trivia quiz. He's the eighth grade. It is a trivia quiz event that is attended by other schools in your state. Are there any tips that you can give to help become ready for the quiz bowl and to help me compete well in the quiz bowl. P.S. Did you know what looks like a horn coming out from a male narwhal is actually a long tooth that penetrates through the head? Nice. I actually did not know that. I think I did, but it still sounds painful. I don't know

if so. I did something kind of like the quiz bowl when I did the academic decathlon when I was in high school. One tip that I remember getting that was really helpful was if they give you a reading list ahead of time. These books, you're sort of responsible for this knowledge. Read the captions in the photos because we got burned on some questions and we went back afterward. And sure enough, it was in the book, but it would be in the caption to a picture or in the footnote to something like that. So that's one little bit of advice to scour the details if they give you a reading list. Yeah. Any other advice for someone preparing for a quiz bowl? I mean, I would say you can know a lot of the answers to the questions, but what will happen is you'll get really nervous because of the pressure,

because of the situation of you kind of standing up in front of a bunch of people, or like having a buzzer or a timer, and so you might freak out a little bit and miss a question that you would ordinarily get. So I would say practice in as realistic a quiz bowl setting as you can, like have your family prepare questions that you don't know the answers to, figure out how it all goes and like stand up, shine a bunch of spotlights on you. You know, really try to simulate what it's going to be like standing up there on stage, stand in front of a whole bunch of people and raise the stakes. Yeah. And just go through the nerve-wracking part of it as much as you can before the real thing so that you're just sort of prepped, you know, the presidential

debates. They don't just like hang around in their living room and talk about what they're going to talk about. Like they actually set up big stages where they do mock debate so that they're comfortable with how it's going to feel when you're really up there. Oh, good point. Try to wear comfortable clothes when you go there. I know this sounds like being physically comfortable is really important, I think, to feeling okay when you're in a stressful situation. Practice with your teammates. I don't know if you're on a team or not. Being really comfortable with the people that you have to perform with is a really big deal. What about preparation? Some of the good things, like periodic table of elements, always good to go over. Academy Award winning films. Exactly.

Like knowing the Academy Award. Of course, I would definitely recommend knowing your geography and especially bodies of water. Black Sea versus Red Sea, can you tell which one's which? You know, a lot of people would be like, okay, I know we're all the countries, but bodies of water sometimes are trickier. It seems like, Adam, you're pretty young. I would suggest you to go on YouTube and watch some of the Animaniac songs, and we've talked about Animanics on the show before, where there are a lot of songs and mnemonics and things that help you memorize capitals of states, different countries in the world, even though that might have changed a bit now. And also, for Geography Nerds, one of my favorite apps available is called Geomaster, and that can quiz you,

on the locations of all the countries, but also bodies of water, capital cities, and all of that. So that's a really handy tool. And we wish you guys the best of luck. Yeah, good luck. Go kick some brains. And we get 30% of your winning.

This concludes our address to the children of America. Speaking of Quiz Bowl, we have our little mini quiz bowl here with Pop Quiz Hot Shot. I got a random trivia card here and get your buzzers ready. And here we go. Wedge for geography. Where is the Sulab International Museum of Toilets? Multiple choice.

Casablanca. Istanbul or New Delhi. See, I was going to say flushing New York. Istanbul. It is New Delhi. Nah. Yeah. Who knew?

New Delhi. Old toilets. Pink Wedge, pop culture. What TV show features this string of numbers? Four. Eight. 15. 16.

2342, calling. That would be lost. Correct. Yellow Wedge. What company is credited with spreading the popular image of Santa Claus and red robes with its 1930s advertising? Dana. Coca-Cola. Purple Wedge. Which is not a roll doll book.

Oh, too easy. Oh, really? Okay, multiple choice. Charlie in the Chocolate Factory. Chitty, Chitty, bang, bang. Fantastic Mr. Fox or James. and the giant peach Dana

Chitty Titty bing bang correct written by Ian Fleming That is correct Yes the Ian Fleming James Bond

James Bond and shitty chitty chitty bang bang Quite a range Green Wedge for Science What 2006 Documentary based on a slideshow Help Fuel the Green Movement Oh

Chris Collar An inconvenient truth Yes And last question Orange Wedge if you're playing the name game with the name hazel what is the second to last word you should sing what a weird I think we should make Maisel sing I think Chris should sing yeah it is Maisel please show your work good job everybody so it is the holiday season and for this week's show

we decided to go with a pretty general theme we all picked our favorite things to talk about so The theme is our favorite things. So one of my favorite things to study and work with is fonts And you guys, we've talked about before you guys know I'm a big typography nerd And I love choosing fonts and laying out So I've put together for you guys a little font and typography quiz And I figured that you guys will probably do pretty well Being that we're a collection of voracious readers

And professional writers and design-minded people I'm going to give you guys So keep in mind everything here around fonts or typography or print setting. All right. What is a serif? When we talk about serif fonts or sanserif fonts. I think that's Chris.

When you have a letter, it's a little extra slash on the end of the letter that makes it fancierger. Yeah, that's right. It's the little, like a feet, exactly. Although they can also be on the top, like the top of a bee. They're like little wings or little decorations. You know, we really associate them with like Roman engraving, like just that really kind of classic-looking style. And it's funny, for a long time, there was this hot day. debate that, oh, this is more legible than this.

That's what I always thought. And certainly in my early days, like designing for the web and font design and things like that, I was always taught that seraphons are easier printed, sans seraphons are easier on screen. And the more I've dug into this, it actually is really, really not that clear that one is better for legibility or another, especially with, like, high-rest devices now. So it really comes down to, what do you prefer? where do the terms uppercase and lowercase come from?

Why do we call the two different styles of letters? As printing, printing press? Were they two sets of letters? Yeah, that's right. It's as simple as that. When you would have the pieces of metal type in an old style print shop laying them out, you would literally have an uppercase above with the what we call the capital letters, and you would have a lower case down below with the more frequently used, more easily accessible letters.

Oh, that makes so much sense. Because you don't use uppercase, that's why it's stored in the case that is on top. And for any given, and for any given letter, you'll need way more of the lowercase versions than you do of the uppercase versions. It's easier to reach. Right, right. Wow. Yeah. What are the names for the parts of a letter, like the tail of a lowercase Y or the left part of a lowercase H, the parts of a letter that go below the baseline or.

above the top of a small letter. Oh. That's not the name. Tittles. They are not Tittles. No, that's all the... Tittles is the dots on the I and the jet. Oh, okay. Yes.

I'm talking about like the tail of a Y. Connected. Yes, you were correct. Not the dots, right. They are, simply enough, the ascenders and descenders. If I'm adjusting the kerning on a line of type, what am I adjusting? The space between the characters. Yes, that's right.

Yeah, your kerning is the space between the letters. So if kerning is the space between the letters, what is the space between lines of type, Karen? Letting. It is the letting. And this one is a good one because there's two bits in here. One is that a lot of people think it's pronounced leading. People who may only see it written out and may not work with fonts or type.

You'd say, oh, adjust the leading in Microsoft Word. Do you want to guess where the name comes from? From lead? Yeah. They would have little shims, little strips of letters. lead. And if you wanted to adjust, if you wanted to adjust the letting, you would add more lead to space it out. Oh, okay. So people see that and they assume it's leading. This is leading up to the next line. Yeah, yeah. It makes, again, folk etymology. It makes sense.

Yeah, some of the old words, you would never use it outside of print shop. That's cool. All right. Last one here. We'll close us out. Fonds are historically measured using a couple specific types of measurements called points and picas. How many points are there to an inch? So if I talk about 10-point font, 20-point font. These are the things we're talking about. I have no idea. And these have a very specific relationship to real-world measurements. Wow, no idea. Can I figure this out? You can figure it out. This number has a very, very common occurrence in computer world and digital printing. Karen. 32. No. 24. No. Are there 12 points to an inch? There are 12 points to a PICA, six PICA's to an inch, so there are 72.

So we often talk about in printing 72 DPI. That's not a coincidence. It comes from print, it comes from the print, that's right. 72 points to inch. I thought PICA was an eating disorder. It is also an eating disorder, yes, but you can also use as a measurement of bonds. Like people who eat paper or things, right, right, right, right. All right, well, good job, guys.

That was pretty good there. Oh, man. It's hard. So you'd think it'd be pretty easy to prep for today's show because it's like, oh, it's our favorite things. But where do I start? I kind of asked myself, you know, what was the first thing that made me think like, holy crap, this world is so cool. I can't believe this exists. And it's just absolutely in awe.

You know, I think back, maybe when I was five or six, I got this toy and it's like a clear plastic cube with like a maze platform inlay. And what you're supposed to do is you're supposed to balance and there's a beautiful. need of mercury, you're supposed to guide through the maids, right? I totally remember those. I totally remember those. And, of course, after the first few times you saw the maze, I'm sure a lot of people like me broke open the plastic case, and played with the mercury. And that was the first time I've ever seen Mercury and played with Mercury in my bare hands.

And I don't know, like, I hope I'm speaking for everybody here. Like, the first time when you see Mercury or you learn about Mercury, it's just mesmerizing. Oh, it absolutely was. It's shiny and it's reflective and it's heavy, but it moves like water and it separates into like little balls when you squish them. It's just amazing and it's quite seductive. Back in my father's day, they used to just give it to kids. They were like, here, play with this. Is it cool?

We didn't know, yeah. And of course, like most beautiful things in the world, it is very, very, very, very, very, very bad for you. Highly, highly poisonous and toxic. Mercury used to be called Quicksilver. So one of the older names is hydrogen. Is that where its elemental symbol comes from? Yes, HG. And hydra, water, and ardurum, silver.

Oh, of course. Water, silver. Like, Argent, Argentina. What, Argentina was named after? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And I remember in, I think maybe like high school science class, you learn about why the Mad Hatter is called the Mad Hatter. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I believe that's something to do they used mercury and felt production, right? Somehow you is what was binding the rabbit hair to make felt somehow? Close, yeah. There's something called a method called kerating. And basically it was used in felt hats.

It helped separate the pelt, like the fur from the skin. And it helped mat the fur together to make felt. And so that's where Matt Hatter came from because a lot of milliners and hat makers were exposed to Mercury and got poisoned and made them kind of cuckoo in the head. That's where the term Matt Hatter came from. Dark. How dark was Carol? That whole industry is full of people with mercury poisoning. And people back in the history times didn't realize that mercury was bad.

And, you know, it's so mysterious and beautiful. People in some of the older cultures actually used to have like pools of mercury and they would bathe in them. Oh, yeah. Where did they find all this mercury? Yeah. Yeah, well, I remember reading once about one of the Chinese emperors who was buried with his elaborate, elaborate miniature underground city that I had read had rivers in the, the city and it was quicksilver in the little rivers to look just kind of ethereal and

magical. Qingshih Huang which is the first emperor of China who unified China was obsessed about immortality and I don't blame people back in the day with the alchemy craze and attributing magical properties to mercury because it is kind of amazing and so in his necropolis he had rivers

reported legends of it. Sure. They haven't opened it up yet but scientists actually have put and prods through the earth and found, whoa, there's a buttload of mercury underground. And he also probably died from drinking mercury because thought it was an elixir to prolong his life. No. Jokes on him. So, of course, we also learned about Lewis and Clark in the history books, right?

Sure. Sure. After the Louisiana purchased Thomas Jefferson appointed Mr. Lewis and Mr. Clark to go on an expedition with a team to explore what was essentially the wilderness between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean. Nobody knows what was in the middle, so these dudes. There's like barely anything there now. And so at the time of the expedition, and this is early 1800s, a lot of the medical hoopla is around humors and body fluids and bile and blood.

And keeping things in the right balance relative to one another. Bloodletting and laxatives and enemas and vomiting, all are, quote, acceptable ways of getting rid of disease because that's what they thought. People still do that, though. Trotting through the wilderness, Lewis and Clark and their team of people, their diet consisted of whatever they found and mostly, like, dried and stored salted meats. They were prepared for constipation, basically. And of course, they brought constipation pills. And they used to call these pills thunderclappers or thunderbolts because they're like serious business laxatives. So when you see the commercials that say gentle overnight relief?

This is the opposite of that. This is colon blow. This is vigorous, immediate relief. And they were made of 50 to 60% mercury. Oh, my God. Eating mercury. And back then, people knew that mercury was kind of toxic, but it flowed through the body so quickly. It would just pass through a person's system that it didn't really have much opportunity for the body to absorb it.

You're really taking your life in your own hands there. Exactly. How bad do you need to poop? They basically ate Mercury and pooped Mercury across America. That was the name of their tour. Poop in Mercury across America. A sparkly trail in their wake. There's silver in them hills.

But these mercury laxatives did prove handy eventually because mercury cannot be broken down. And so modern-day scientists are able to trace their path, Lewis and Clark, by finding Mercury in the soil. Wow. That's amazing. A silver lining, if you will. So there you go. Mercury, one of my favorite things. So one of my favorite things, as you guys all well know, is I collect video games.

And I haven't really talked about that much on the show. I collect old games. I love researching old video games. You're kind of a stark. Well, I mean, I don't know about that. But we go to video game conventions and do retro game road show, which you can look up on YouTube, and we basically do Antiques Roadshow of video games. You have on more than one occasion been checking eBay auctions between recording. Absolutely, yep.

And so here's the thing. I was thinking about what is, you know, for the good job brain listener, for the average person, you know, got to be something interesting. So let's talk about, okay, you might not care about old video games, but you would care if you might be holding onto some old video games that are worth tons of money. So let's talk about good job brain listeners That old box of Nintendo games in your attic Because I want to bring up a few games And I want you to think about like Hmm do I have these sitting up in my attic

Could I be sitting on thousands of dollars worth of video games And don't know it Nintendo Entertainment System Is really catching on now that the people who grew up with it Are entering their 30s For the next few years I see these prices going a little bit higher As this becomes kind of a hot collectible

Atari kind of already had its day Like, the people who wanted to go back and get Atari's already got them, and so a lot of those prices came down, but Nintendo is kind of on its way up right now. So the rarest retail Nintendo game, does anybody from having these conversations with me, remember what it is? Sold in retail stores. Karen. Oh, I was going to say, is it the world events? Oh, it's, you're close. Stadium, stadium events is what it's called.

It was for the PowerPad. By the way, I'm speaking specifically about the American releases. There were other releases. Stadium events was available for a long time in Europe. It's not hard to find. We're talking about just the U.S. version. So basically it was for the PowerPad, which was the mat that you would put on the floor, and you'd run on it to do like Olympic-style games.

Or if you're a fat kid, like me, just hit it with your hands. Nintendo saw this pad, which was made by an outside company. It was called the Family Fun Fitness Pad. And they were like, oh, this is good. This addresses a lot of the issues that we have with, oh, kids are sedentary playing video. games, here's what we're going to do. We are just going to license this from you. We will rebrand it the power pad. We'll take your game's stadium events and we're going to call it world class track meet. The stadium event is not a very good... Yeah, that's what I played. So you have played

the game stadium events if you played the game that came with the power pad. It's called world class track meet. If you have a family fun fitness pad, that was taken off the market too, but a few copies of stadium events. And I mean like, you know, in the thousands were actually produced and got out there. And so right now, the cartridge itself goes for about, oh, two to three thousand dollars. And it's really, if you have the box and instructions and everything,

it's like maybe $20,000 to $30,000. What? Wow. And again, as people have been becoming aware of this, there have been some people who are like, oh, I have that, and people have gone into their garage and pulled out a box of games. And a couple of people have had sealed ones. Because they bought it, never played it,

nobody ever wanted to play it. They put it away. And they bring out this sealed game, which now worth like $30,000 to $40,000. Wow, man. Yeah, got to watch out for that. Nintendo did make a few cartridges available to contest winners, and these are the Nintendo World Championships cartridges. Remember the movie The Wizard?

Yes. After the movie The Wizard, which is about a fictional Nintendo championship, Nintendo had real Nintendo championships. They had regionals all around America, and kids would go. And, you know, the great thing about this is every kid thinks he's the best Nintendo player. Oh, yeah, yeah. Because you're not really competing against. anybody.

You're like, well, I've beaten my sister and my friend. Therefore, I must be the best. I must be the world champion. And basically Nintendo put together a special cartridge that had Super Mario, Radracer, the racing game, and Tetris. And you'd play these games in a sort of special timed setting, and then it would add up your score, and that would determine who would win. The finalists, there were 90 finalists.

Every one of them got the Nintendo World Championships cartridges, the special cartridges that they had been playing the games on. They're all serially numbered. And so the highest serial number is in the 300s, so that's approximately how many of them are out there. Those go for about $8,000 to $9,000 each, and going on. There's also the gold cartridge, which, because it's colored, you know, gold is kind of like the real holy grail of collectors. They're only 26. In the world.

In the world. They were handmade. I think they took the cartridges that the kids played and put it into a gold, legend of Zelda cartridge casing. Right, because I remember they had the Zelda, yeah. Yeah. Printed off anything. inkjet printer, they printed the logo, and they glued it onto the cartridge.

And these, they were only 26. They were a contest prize, and they go for about $26,000. Wow. Of the 26 that were given out, only 13 have been found. That was my next question. There are. How many, yeah. Yep. So only 13 are present and accounted for. Some may have been destroyed, but there could be another

13 of these guys in your attic right now. Could be in your house. So those are the three big ones for the old Nintendo entertainment system. in general, if you have any games that you're like, oh, I remember that weird old game that nobody else had, you know, that game might actually be worth money too. There's tons of games now that are worth like hundreds of dollars. Don't just go and think that that old box

of games is an old box of games. Like, you should really do some research into them. The new BMO, V.I. Porter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks. More points. More flights. More of all the things you want in a travel rewards card, and then some. Get your ticket to more with the new BMO ViPorter MasterCard and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply. Visit bemo.com slash ViPorter to learn more. The creators of the popular science show with millions of YouTube subscribers comes the Minute Earth podcast. Every episode of the show dives deep into a science question you might not even know you had, but once you hear the answer, you'll want to share it with everyone you know.

Why do rivers curve? Why did the T-Rex have such tiny arms? And why do so many more kids need glasses now than they used to? Spoiler alert, it isn't screen time. Our team of scientists digs into the research and breaks it down into a short, entertaining explanation, jam-packed with science facts and terrible puns. Subscribe to a minute Earth wherever you like to listen. All right, welcome back to Good Job Brain. We all picked our favorite things to talk about. out. So as you guys might have picked up from earlier episodes of Good Job Brain, I love word puzzles. I love figuring out riddles and puns. I love puns, kind of silly things you can do with language. So I took this quiz from National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. So basically they took proverbs and then translated them into fancy big words. You know, everything's a $2 word. Got it. And you have to figure out what the simple proverb is. All right. Yep. Okay. So here we go. If a large, solid-footed mammal becomes available to you without compensation, refrain from casting your faculty for seeing into the oral cavity of such a creature.

What? Chris. Don't look at gift horse in the mouth now. Karen is not going to do well. Each vaporous mass suspended in the firmament has an interior decoration of metallic hue. Every cloud has a silver lining. It is not advantageous to place the sum of your barred yard collections in the same wicker receptacle. Don't put all your eggs in a basket.

Judges? In one basket. Yeah. It's not the basket that's the problem. It's just the fact that you just have the one. Deviation from the ordinary or common routine of existence is that, That which gives zest to man's cycle of existence. Variety is the spice of life.

You guys are good. He who locks himself into the arms of Morpheus promptly at evening tide and starts the day before it is officially announced by the rising sun, excels in physical fitness, increases his economic assets, and celebrates with remarkable efficiency. Early to bed and early to rise makes a man have. Healthy, wealthy, and wise. Karen's pouting.

Do not traverse the structure erected to afford passage over a waterway until the time of drawing nigh unto it. Let's cross that bridge when we come to it. Yeah. There's no value to be derived from demanding attention by loud screeches

over falling white liquid derived from the lactic glands of a female bovine. Don't cry over spilled milk. A body of persons abiding in a domicile of silica combined with metallic oxides should not carelessly project small geological specimens. Everybody. People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Yeah. That thing that goes to those guys said. One last one for, this one's for Karen. Okay. A canine which gives vent to his sentiments by a series of vocal efforts. Rarely finds use of his bicuspids. Something about barking and teeth and biting. Yeah.

I think the problem is I actually don't know the idiom. Oh, like his bark is worse than his bite? Yeah. Yeah. See, that's my problem. I actually don't know anything. No, I'm not saying, like, Karen's dumb, she can't do it. No.

English is a second language. She doesn't encounter these idioms. One more? Yeah, one more. One more. I can't, Dana, do it can't, Dan. A consolidated mass which forms the Earth's crust and which progresses by turning over upon its surface without slipping does not successfully gather together a cryptogamous plant. A rolling stone gathers no moss.

What? You had me a cryptogamous. That's good. And so nerdy. I like those. It's like so many levels of puzzle solving. An avian creature possessed that at the end of one's arm is infinitely more valuable than two similar avian creatures.

A bird in the hand is hidden inside of a shrubbery. Insconstant foliate. Ensconstant foliage. So as you guys know, one of my favorite things is art and art history and famous painters. And indeed, we do get a lot of these painting-related ones. It's all you. trivia quizzes and it's always ah Colin who what painter is this so I'm going to combine a quiz here that has a little bit of my love of painting and fine Italian art uh with another one of my

loves Italian cheeses oh okay I'm not a big fan of the French cheeses more Italian I tend to a little bit creamier I like that style so I'm going to give you a name and you need to tell me is this the name of a famous Italian painter or is it the name of an Italian cheese awesome Painter or cheese Here we go Buzz in if you think you know Boconcini Chris

Painter It is a cheese Boutiro Well I'm not buzzet in anymore now Cheese It is a cheese Dana correct Tintoretto

Karen Painter He is a painter Montegranero Chris I'm going to say cheese That is a cheese

Verrocchio Chris Painter He is a painter Posterino Karen That's got to be cheese That is a cheese

I feel like the cheese names you can kind of Yeah break down Like pastor or like mountain Interesting All right You've got an insight here Girlandayo

I don't say cheese? He's a painter. Debbie Girlandaio. Caravaggio. Painter. He is a painter, yes, famous, famous runs not spade. Saraso. Chris, painter is a cheese.

I was going to say, it sounds delicious. Masaccio. Karen. Painter. Painter, yes. Valca Soto Chris Cheese

It is a cheese Sounds like risotto Last one here guys We'll close it out All right Brunelleschi Karen Both

No I was not going to be tricky Brunelleschi is a painter Painter All right so there you go guys Next time you need to decide Painter or cheese That's a good game show too

Painter or cheese I'm hungry now As you know, from listening to my music rounds, I really like Fleetwood Mac. And this is a band full of trivia. They are nothing but trivia. They were formed as a blues group in Britain in the late 60s. And having survived almost without interruption to this day, but with an incredible amount of musician turnover, basically. Tons of people have been in this band and left.

But what's funny is so we record. Good Job Rain at Colin's house. I'm always sitting right next to his CD racks. And we've actually looked at this particular CD that Colin has before. It's John Mayall on the Blues Breakers, which features Eric Clapton. And it's this old recording. It says in the liner notes, it's the first recording in which Eric Clapton ever sang. Guitarist, Eric Clapton, is attempting to sing a song.

Good luck, buddy. Yeah, right, right, right. We wish him all the best. This album is actually really interesting and important because it also has John McVee, who is the bass player, or would go on. to be the bass player of Fleetwood Mac. Eric Clapton, after that album, left the Blues Breakers. He was not with the Blues Breakers for very long. As it turns out, the fact that Eric Clapton quit the Blues Breakers is the reason Fleetwood Mac exists.

Without that particular event happening, there's no Stevie Nix. Well, I mean, Stevie Nix would still be born. But, like, there's no landslide, no thunder only happens when it's raining. None of that because there's no Fleetwood Mac. Butterfly effect. So what ends up happening is Eric Clapton, leaves this band, which is started by John Mayall, famous British blues man.

He was replaced by Peter Green, who was a blues guitarist, singer. Everybody was in everybody else's bands. Yeah, I was saying these days are so much overlap. Peter Green had been in a band called Shotgun Express, and this band featured him, drummer Mick Fleetwood, and the vocalist was Rod Stewart. Whoa!

Yeah. Though Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart, Mick Fleetwood, you know, everybody was in everybody else's band. Peter Green, got into the Blues Breakers and was like, hey, well, we need the new drummer, we should totally get Mick Fleetwood, have been in these bands with him, and he's really good, you know, really young, you know, they bring

him in. So at this point, the Blues Breakers is now John Mayall, the rhythm section is Mick Fleetwood and John McVee, who would form the core of Fleetwood Mac and Peter Green. Peter Green gets into the recording studio at one point with Mick Fleetwood and John McVee, and they record a bunch of songs together that sort of apart from the

blues breakers, and they record an instrumental song. Peter Green was always a sort of guy to give credit to the other people that he was, you know, hanging out with. He, like, pushing other people to the forefront. And he named this instrumental song, which was eventually released, but he named the song, Fleetwood Mac. And it was named after Mick Fleetwood, the drummer, and John McVee, the bassist,

because he thought they were a really great rhythm section. Peter Green then left the Blues Breakers, and he was like, hey, guys, let's start a band together. We're going to call the band Fleetwood Mac, and it's going to be about you. So Mick Fleetwood was like, okay, yes, totally. I'll be in this new band named after me. And John McVee was like, no. I like being in the blues breakers.

Peter Green names the band Fleetwood Mac anyway. It hopes that by naming the band Fleetwood Mac, he will eventually convince him to leave the Blues Breakers and join this new band. Only a couple of weeks later, John McVee came along. So the ploy worked. And the core of Fleetwood Mac is the rhythm section bassist John McPhee and drummer McFleetwood, and they have been with the band for basically the entire time. One of their first singles was Black Magic Woman.

A lot of people do not know was a Fleetwood Mac song. Yeah, that is a Peter Green composition. Obviously, Santana made it very famous years later. Great trivia question. It is. So all the while, John McVee was dating and then married to Christine Perfect, later Christine McVee, who would form like the third member of what we kind of know as the Fleetwood Mac that became really popular. She was sort of peripheral to the band during all.

all this time. She would play on their albums as, like, a session musician. She actually drew one of their album arts, but she was never in the band. But she only, she officially joined later after, like, Peter Green left. People just started going crazy in Fleetwood Mac. Like, Peter Green had mental breakdowns, and so he left. Another guitarist that was with the band named Jeremy Spencer, he was the fourth man when they started up.

He joined a religious cult when they were out on tour. They had to spend a couple of days, like, looking for him. And it turns out he was like, with this. religious cults, and they were like, nah, you're out of the band, bye. You know, another guitarist kind of, like, freaked out at them and I had to quit, so they just sort of this churn constantly. They shouldn't have made their instruments out of Mercury. They ended up in the U.S.

They were kind of popular in, like, U.S. college tours. They did okay, profitable, college kids paid to see them, but it was just sort of weird, like they weren't really, they weren't catching on as they were when they were doing the blues thing. mid-70s, Mick Fleetwood, John McVee, Christine McVee, they don't have a frontman for their band, basically, and they're just sort of like we have no idea what we're going to do. And they discover Lindsay Buckingham.

And he had just cut this album with his girlfriend, Stevie Nix. And they called it Buckingham Nix. They're really original. It is super 70 hippies cover. It is the two of them, naked on the cover. He's got long, huge hair

down to his shoulders. They're just both staring intently into the camera. so they are like Lindsay Buckingham please join our band and he was like no because we're a package deal you actually have to hire both of us and they were like Stevie next I don't know well okay fine you're in the band too you know it's like it's a very strange band because you have three super creative singer songwriters in this band well surely there will be no tension oh no not at all well they they got one album out before the tension started and it was a it was a huge hit it was the first you know Fleetwood Mac, just titled Fleetwood Mac. That was where Landslide was on that. They have this hit with Fleetwood Mac, and then they go to record rumors, the follow-up album. And of course, this is going to become one of the biggest albums in the history of music.

And what all is happening at the same time is John McVee and Christine McVee are divorcing. Right. Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks are breaking up. And Mick Fleetwood is getting divorced from his wife. And Mick Fleetwood's wife is Jenny Boyd. And she was the sister. of Patty Boyd who was George Harrison's wife

but she had an affair with Eric Clapton and she is the woman after whom Layla was written. She also has claimed in later years that she is the person who something in the way she moves George Harrison something is written about Wonderful Tonight was written about her

probably because she eventually did get married also to Eric Clapton but yeah so She's like a crazy spiderway Yeah so Mick Fleetwood is getting divorced not from her from her sister. And as it turns out, this produces phenomenal album about people breaking up with each other, right? That's ever really happened. They got out another couple albums. They did well, but then it just tensions between all of them just sort of fell apart. And in 1987, Lindsay Buckingham was out. But after he left, a lot of people just sort of assume they

broke up. No, they hired more people to replace him. They kept touring. But they did one more album than Stevie Nix leaves. Fleetwood Mac kept going until 1995. Wow. And then in 95, they were like, okay, we're done. But it was Bill Clinton's inauguration because he had used Don't Stop as his theme song. He had them reunite in 93. And then that kind of planted the seeds later for them reuniting finally in 1997. Bill Clinton, man, he's going to bring peace here. That's building bridges.

That was always one of his core principles. Yep, yep. Couldn't achieve peace in the Middle East, but got Fleetwood Mac back together. Really, what's harder? on august first may i speak freely i prefer english the naked gun is the most fun you can have in theaters yeah let's go without getting arrested is he serious is he serious no the naked gun only in theaters august first all right let's share our last favorite thing and it's my favorite thing i love genetics and science and I love reading about weird genetic hybrids and we actually get this in pub trivia

you know what do you get when you cross a donkey and a horse right what do you get when you cross a lion and a tiger you get a liger oh wait no that is you really do yeah so here I have a quiz I'm going to tell you what the quote parents are and you tell me what their hybrid offsprings are. And they range from plants to animals. So what do you get when you cross a camel with a llama? Oh.

Oh, is that an alpaca? No. It's its own animal. I hope it's a clamble. A clamble. It is a camma. A cama. A C-A-M-A.

I guess we should buzz in. A comma. Most of these are portmanteau words. Okay, all right. A dolphin, animal. A whale. Dale. A walfin.

A whale fin? It is a walfin. A walfin. Extremely, extremely rare hybrid. There is a walfin in Hawaii, and you can go see the wulfing. Interesting.

But very rare. All right, what do you get when you cross a pomello with sweet orange? Uh. An orangelo? Oh, yeah, an orange aloe. I've heard of that. Incorrect. It is a grapefruit.

What? What? That's not a portmante. A grapefruit is a cross between what is known as a Pamelo and a Jamaican sweet orange. I did not know that. Why is a grapefruit called a grapefruit? Oh, is there a reason? There is a reason.

Is it to make it sound better than it actually tastes? I'm going to guess something to do with the way they cluster when they grow? Yep. When they grow, they often appear like, look. looking like a cluster of grapes, hence grapefruit. And before the name grapefruit, grapefruit was known as a shaddick. S-H-A-D-O-C-K or S-H-A-T-U-C-K. What do you get when you cross a zebra with a donkey?

A zedonk. Correct. Also acceptable is zonky. Oh, yeah. That sounds like a pastry. Like a hostess. Yeah. And if you cross a zebra with a horse, you get a zorce.

It's a zorce. What do you get when you cross a wild boar and a pig? Wild boar and domestic pig. A poor. A big poor. Wild boar and domesticated pig. Yeah. I don't know.

This takes a history buff. It's actually called an Iron Age pig. Whoa. And there's a story behind this. In the early 1980s, scientists started a... breeding project or program trying to recreate the type of pig from the prehistoric iron age seems like it's a blend of boring pig maybe there's a reason it went away maybe it tasted too good maybe we had to kill them all for some reason this was known as backbreeding trying to

reverse engineer and cheap an animal that used to exist in the past so bore plus pig iron age pig all right we had this in trivia before what do you get when you cross a blackberry with a Loganberry. Oh, God, we told it. Is this the boison berry? Correct, boisenberry. What do you get when you cross a coyote and a dog? Hmm.

The best dog. A cog. Oh. A coy dog. Oh. I almost went to that. There's also coy wolf. I'm going to end the segment with a fact.

This was kind of mind-blowing and also unsettling. A bee farmers were working on trying to. breed a tamer and more manageable breed of honeybees, right? So they crossed European honeybees with African bees, hoping that they would get something that produces honey, but also a lot easy for beekeepers to keep in their apiaries. Ironically, what they got. They bred killer bees.

Oh, no. The ones you see from movies. This is why we do not play God! Yes, scary news headlines were a result of humans trying to breed nice bees. I did not know that. Instead, they got killer bees. This is why we can't have nice bees. This is like the end of planet of the apes.

Nature is a cruel mistress. All right, so those are a lot of our favorite things. And I want to end this show on a very warm and fuzzy note. I got this really nice Facebook message from Pastor Allen. And he's a big fan of our show. And he wrote, I know you're not a Christian show, but I want to thank you for helping me. with my relationship with God.

Your collective awe at the beauty and marvel of creation is both contagious and inspiring. Thank you so very much for this show. Aw. So have a happy holidays, everybody, and that's our show. Thank you guys for joining me and thank you guys listeners for

listening in. Hope you learn a lot about Fleawood Macs. Yeah. Phrases and hybrids and killer bees. And Mercury. And Mercury. Yes. Pooping Mercury. Across the USA You can find us on Zoom Marketplace

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