My Brother, My Brother And Me - MBMBaM 786: Flatman

Episode Date: October 27, 2025

After almost 800 episodes we finally make the big reveal that this has actually been a yo-yo-ing podcast the entire time. We talk in-depth about these orbs and demonstrate neat tricks like the Batman Punch, The Cilantro Grab, and the Crayon Saturn.Suggested talking points: Realtime Youtube Metrics, Let Me Finish Turning on Our Religious Upbringing, Armed Farm Guards, Upside-down Apple, Crying at the Wendy's Drive-ThruBorder Angels: https://www.borderangels.org/

The McElroy brothers are not experts, and their advice should never be followed. Travis insists he's a sexpert, but if there's a degree on his wall, I haven't seen it. Also, this show isn't for kids, which I mention only so the babies out there will know how cool they are for listening. What's up, you cool, baby? It's the start of something beautiful. A small acquaintance has blossomed, it's rapping, and two, A precious friendship I could have never seen

What was coming for me Hangs at the skate park Hangs by the beach My life It feels live Life It's better It's better with you

My life Ah It's better It's better with you This is true Oh, it's better. It's better with two. My way.

Ah, ah, it's better with you. Hello, everybody, and welcome to my brother, my brother, me, an advice show for the modern era. I'm your oldest brother, Justin McElroy. What's up, Traff Nation? It's me, your middle-list brother, Travis Big Dog, Wolf, Woff, McElroy. Oh, shit. He's doing remixes of some of your favorite classics. This is your super.

sweet baby brother, Griffin McElroy, and Justin is joining us from fucking G4 TV, fucking tech TV ass attack on the show. It's G4 mid-a-auts. I got my funco pops in here. Yeah, bro. We got a big office. Folksy cross stitches. Huge office remodel.

And folks not watching this because it may or may not be watchable. I'm so aware of the fact that I'm wearing a picture of my face. Yeah, but it's also my face. I hate that my face is on this, but I can see it. Justin's, we're zoomed out on juice. Establishing shot. Interior, daytime. Don't change your shirt.

Justin gets embarrassed and has to change his shirt. We're zoomed out. So the crop includes a little bit of desk. We've got some keyboard action on there. I think we're seeing the top of his monitor. This is the news station. It's like Justin's our man in the chair. And Travis, I noticed that maybe to match,

you've also zoomed out your own camera. so that your keyboard's in it. Did you just turn it backwards, the shirt? Is it backwards? It's backwards? I just, it was very distracting. Well, it's me. Yeah.

And I try to think about if I'm going to be looking at a camera. Yeah. When I get dressed in the morning to see if I have pictures of myself or things that I made up. Yeah, you're also, I don't like to do that. I think maybe it's just the way your shit's set up now, juices. You're barreling a lot. You're giving me lots of little Jim Halpery. Can I say what I'm getting right to the fucking dome, dude?

If I can bring you guys. inside the bit. Yeah. So I'm still figuring out some of the quirks of the studio, okay? You guys are down here. So do you see this blue thing?

Yeah. That's you guys. Yeah. And then, and then the hoops troops, they're up there. Okay. So what I'm getting right now.

What's helping me to remember to not focus on because I've been so focused on you guys. Yeah, but that's not we don't pay you. You don't pay me. No, they pay me.

And what I'm getting right now is very much just in like news anchor. And with my thing zoomed out, you can see so many plants that I feel like I'm in the field. Yeah. Like I'm reporting in the field. And so Griffin, I'm picturing you in a helicopter. See, for me, I was thinking I'm like the guy at the board and they switch to them like every, like just show them like doing that to like someone in the corner.

Oh, like when Regis and Kathy Lee used to like cut to their like director or Facebook or whatever. And you know who loves stinky pizza is Teddy and they cut to Teddy in the studio. And he's not even like paying attention. and he's like, over there, hit the tape. Yeah, don't talk to me right now. You guys in fucking 8K, fucking attack of the TV, TVS news desk. And I don't look like a clown. I love how Griffin keeps holding out high definition feeds as something to be embarrassed of.

You're so crisp, dude. I can see your vascularity. It's crazy, dude. Talk about my plants, Griffin. Your plants look good too, dude, but you're giving me like three, three and a half K tops. Yeah, I turned down the K so that it wouldn't be overwhelming. for Travnation. I'm getting blasted by the K's right now.

I can't give Travnation too much. You know what I mean? Yeah. The loyalty is already spiking. Dirty dogs. They are. Yeah. And I love it.

I love my dirty dogs. Oh, yeah, you do say that privately a lot. Will Batman get to heaven? That's from Matt. Thank you, Travis. Thanks, Travis, for putting that question in the show. This is a big swing at the beginning. Yeah.

And it's not an advice question. It's not the kind of. thing we normally do. No, I'm so confused by why you chose to lead off with it. I think sometimes it's nice to have a good thought starter. Matt, Matt, I will say what, what Travis just said is true is that sometimes it is nice to have a good thought starter. Yeah, and now, like that one, this is a boiled down, like, hey, do you want to get to the heart of morality in one simple question in a few words, would Batman get into heaven?

Yeah. This is going to say a lot, I think, individually about our views on morality. So this is actually one of the things the perks the studio does have that I think is really exciting is it's got this board that I've hooked up to our YouTube,

right? So I can see what Travis is doing, I can see the effect that's having our subscribers. And let me just take a quick look. No, it's not. moving the needle at all, Trave. We are stuck 398. I'm so sorry, man. I'm so sorry. No new subscribers from this bit. I'm sorry they want us. We do need to hit a million so that my children will respect me even more. Yeah. Because I have the silver play button up on my wall, but that's 100,000 subscribers. And I don't think that's reflective. If we don't get to 500,000 subscribers

today, they're going to put me back in the big button box. And you guys know I hate the big button box. They make me guess the button that lets me out, but most of the buttons just burn me and dump worms on me. One of the three of us is turning out the pixels that people crave. Yeah. And I'm wearing a Batman shirt, which is a complete happenstance for this question. So would Batman... That is still a pressing concern. Yeah. We are still going to address. Batman, okay, so we know from the movie where the boy gets, gets zapped while he's on the Ferris wheel and dies for 10 minutes, that heaven is for real. Batman, is debatable.

I'm guessing we don't want to get into semantics like, is Clooney getting into heaven? No, I think conceptual Batman. A Batman of the minds. Batman. Okay. He's never murdered, but that's just one of the sins. So, like, you don't get up there

and St. Pete's like, let me check, no murders, that's cool, go on it. Punisher's not getting into heaven. Punisher... Punisher... Why can't Punisher get into heaven? That's the thing. Punisher's done a lot of murder.

murders, but he's... Punisher is a vet. He's a vet, and I can't believe you'd say that. Have a good, have a good Monday. He's never done lust. He's getting into heaven? Enjoy your Monday, dude. Punisher's never had one impure sexual thought, even one time.

Nor has anyone who wears Punisher merchandise in real life. Never one lustful idea even cross-off. I will say we've seen Batman, we've seen Batman succumb to the charms of Catwoman. Oh, yeah. in Ivy. I bet he watches pornography on his big computer in his bat cave. We all know what happens in there. There's certain scheduled times where Alfred's not allowed to come down. Yeah, dude. So if he gets to heaven and we're, I think we have to assume, okay, the way we were raised. Thank you. The way we were raised. Back in my day. Okay, the way we were raised, what we understood is that the only way you got into heaven was through an abiding faith

than Jesus Christ is your Savior, right? They were way more chill than that for me. They were super chill. They did not say stuff. They were, like, you got a different pitch. They were like, just say you're saved. They're not time to save. And they were like, you're good, go for it, man.

But you don't know the content. You could say it out loud. You can proclaim it from the body of the church, but only Christ knows the contents of Batman's heart. You know what I mean? So, like, I can't sit here and tell you authoritatively if Batman will get into heaven because that is such a deep and personal connection

between him and Jesus Christ and His. if he has been bathed in that crimson blood that was shed so many years ago on Calvary. I will say Justin, the new studio setup has really changed. Your views on faith? Dude, I gotta say, it's changed a lot about the energy of this show.

I can't stress enough. We never push people to our video content in the audio feeds. You simply must see the vibe Justin's serving right now. It's really, really crazy. It's a power, it's a huge power play. It's a dominance play that I was, you did not want us.

Turning on our religious upbringing, if you'll let me finish the thought. What I'm saying is that Batman, I don't want to go to a heaven where someone who has worked so hard for the people of Gotham is not going to be admitted for why. Because he was Episcopalian or Methodist, whoever the wrong team? Come on. Well, I think it would more because he punched all those people. Punching. Punching's fine. Got Jesus flipped over the tables. Excellent point. there was that one day where Jesus beat ass And people really, really

I don't know, they like to bring that one up a lot I feel like you hear less about the parables And more about the time he went absolutely Ape shit on the moneylenders Yeah, that rule though I mean yeah, but it's like the deal He also healed people from death And he, but everyone just wants to talk about

The time he went fucking John Wick ass Nobody ass on those On those candy ass money lenders You know what? I wonder sometimes about the water in the warrant Because that was like his crappy mountain goats cassette first try demo tape and everybody's still talking about it.

I mean, he can't even talk about wine and water without somebody being like, do you think he could do other liquids into other liquids or do you think he was limited to that combination? I think it's probably just that. But we can talk all day about how cool Jesus. I don't want to talk about Jesus. I don't think Batman would go to heaven

because he would request to go to hell to beat more ass. Oh, that's cool, dude. I think St. Pete would be like, yeah, Batman, come on in. And he'd be like, no. Send me to hell Because I'm gonna beat up demons Okay, okay, wait Hmm

If I'm Batman and I get to choose Yeah Which I like that I would go to hell Why? Because of the existence of Lazarus Pit So Razai Gould and his daughter Talia Right

Access to the Lazarus Pit That can bring people back from life From death Excuse me To life Okay so Batman won't bring people back from life Batman's one rule

is he won't bring people back from life. I learn my lesson. I try to bring my mom back. She's a zombie. It's so scary. She's trapped in this big metal suit of arms now. She's the big penny. I fucked up.

I made my mom into a big penny with magic. She's my big pity. I'm sorry, Alfred. She's the big penny. Okay. What I was saying is, if I'm Batman and I know there's a chance that Talia Agu or her father, Razagul, is going to summon me back to existence with the Lazarus pit.

I do not want to be. pulled out of the bosom of Jesus. Yeah. I want to come back from hell. Yeah. Mad. Can you imagine a Batman who was already pretty scary? Yeah.

And then he was, he went to hell for a while? We get kind of a ghost writer Batman is what you're describing. That's probably a thing. There's got to be, like, we got to do that at Amalgam crossover. There's got to be like an Allen Moore strip where Batman does go to hell. So, Alan Moore's comic strips were amazing. I used to read him in the newspaper every Sunday morning. Yeah.

And they would crack me up Right below slylock fox His run on mutts was epic Yeah He took Beetle Bailey In such a weird direction Is Batman gonna get into heaven though Travis?

Well, he'll never die Okay, that's interesting See, that's why I was touching on the Lazarus pit It's like you're talking about a narrative version of a Batman that can't die Which is, I don't think most helpful for determining an afterlife, right? If Batman were to die, I think he would go to heaven because I think God would want to hang out with Batman. You guys don't know about this, but Batman can't kill people.

And so all of his bad guys, they also know they can't kill Batman. You saw me, just take Travis by the scruff of his neck and bring him back to the premise of the question and say what will happen. And then you immediately piled on and say, no, no, no, Batman can't die. Griffin, is Batman going to go to heaven when he dies? Or a hell. I'm saying if Batman doesn't kill people. Batman doesn't kill people so they know not to kill him. It's haunted house rules.

That's true because if Batman beyond, canonically, we get old man Batman. When Batman dies, it will be him trying to do one of his sick ass disappearances too fast. It'll be somebody turning around, right? And they're like, anyway, Batman, I was going to, and then they turn around like, where do you go? And then they're going to hear, oh, fuck. God, yeah, yeah. Fum, fum, boom, bum, bum, he zip line up.

That's how they'll get him. He zipline up to the gargoyle, but he doesn't stop it fast. Gargoyle fall right on him. Squish a Batman pizza. Yep. Now he's in a lot, man. I did that Arkham City constantly.

It happens all the time. It is a hazard of the job. He gets a Batman, he's nervous. He approaches St. Pete, St. Pete's like, don't worry. Punchin's okay. And you never had a single lustful thought. Also, the Joker is here.

The Joker is here. The Joker also got in. He did a lot of bad stuff actions, but his heart and his brain was very good, and we love that here. And he kept the tithe, man. I don't know what to tell you. Joker was, he was a dilly. He did 15% Batman. He went above and beyond.

Yeah, he's in, man. He got saved like six times. All we cared about was tithing. That was the whole time. That was the whole bit. That's why he kept Robin Banks to afford his tides. That's it. You didn't have to take care of anybody.

Just tithe 10%. I'll take care of the rest. Batman's got to go to heaven. Next question, please. Is learning the yo-yo really that hard, or is it just me? I'm not one trying to... Okay, sorry. There's a lot of words in this one. I'm going to take another pass. Okay. Is learning to yo-yo really hard, or is it just me?

I'm not one to keep trying at something that I'm not good at immediately, but I really want a yo-yo. Do y'all remember ever being relatively proficient in throwing yo-yo? I've watched so many tutorial videos, and I'm still banging my head against the wall here, please. I want to have yo-yo fun and also impress my BF. Thank you. You're going to say who that's from? Yep. Yo-nope in Charlotte.

That's from Yonope in Charlotte. Now, Justin, you had a proficient yo-yo phase. Is that correct? I, like all my fixations, I got just good enough to annoy people that actually know what they're doing. That's what I would say. that's what I would I got just enough to act like I know too much in conversation yep I could do like 10 tricks uh I will say honestly this person is probably the yo there are some yoos that have a tight fixed axle that just want to come right back tell me about it no I'm agreeing this is not exasperation this is me expressing frustration with a tight fixed axle yeah it's not it's not frustration that's better for looping tricks but if you want to if you want to do sleeping tricks you need a loose axle yeah you need a butterfly to DNA butterfly if you want to do like a looping trick like you want to catch it on the we love those yeah you could

mod it mod it too grace it mod it extra bearings add some LEDs fatter bearings LEDs I started with a yo yo yo yo ball that comes back to you all the time now that's interesting because that's one of the worst ideas that you've done today and it's because did you know that a yo yo yo ball is a toy invented by Satan to challenge us and it makes kids see it and they say I I want that, and you say, cool, yeah, yo-yo ball. That's a staple in my youth. Let's grab it. But what you forget is that it's a heavy plastic ball that you throw, and then it actually,

and they don't put this in the commercials, is designed to come right back at your teeth as fast and as hard as it possibly can. It's a plastic ball you throw that then comes right for your mouth. A self-inflicted mace. It's a mace. It's a morning star that you use on yourself. And it doesn't even look a little like yo-yoing. originally a yo-yo griffin was a weapon and a yo-yo was designed to be at the top of a tree

and you would hide in the tree and then you would drop the tool and you would hit the person and then how you bring it back up just like in star tropics just like in star tropics exactly but I don't think it was a weapon now I don't think they invented the yo-yo and the person who invented the weapon yo-yo was like hey guys check this shit out

wow wow pal in their own face to hurt themselves probably the first time though yeah the first person to invent a yo-yo pulled off walk the dog the first time it would be so cool if we never got weapons better than yo-yo's and so then all war was just sort of just doing and the second amendment was like right to bear yo-yo's yeah but i think that would be better yeah griffin i actually do think that would be better is it just our country because i do think we will be beat up a lot or is it worldwide we need all the countries to agree on it. Okay, Griffin, let's say this. If it's just our country, we're going to need some very good yo-yo's. Or very big yo-yos.

Yeah, and can't have any tight axles here because we're going up against... That would be the arms race. It's like just keep making yo-yo's bigger and bigger. Yeah, yeah. Until eventually they're like, you can't have that. Yo-yo is the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. You can't use that. It's a war crime to use that yo-yo.

You can have, like, Duncan have its own paramilitary force that they use mercenaries trained in the art of forbidden yo-yo. with two strings. Yo-jos. Yo-jos is good. I'm kind of struggling a little bit. Can I talk to you guys for a second? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's go over here. I spent that time, I spent that time learning a yo-yo tricks, and I have not done a yo-yo trick. I have not touched a yo-yo in years. I know you have one. I'm sitting here thinking, like, a younger me, a different me. A yo-younger you would have gone to get the yo-yo and say, like, for the podcast, for the vine, I'll do it. And I'm not, I'm clearly not, I'm not standing, I'm not going to get it. Yeah, I'm not doing that.

I'm staying here, right? Now, you didn't see him to turn your shirt around. So, like, we know that that is worth of it. Are you afraid we'll see your back and see the design with your face on it and know that your shirt is backwards? Or is it inside? So it's inside out? So that our faces are against your buzzerling? So sorry, Trave, the cut would be a slattering.

You're right. Yeah. I don't know what I was thinking. Hey, Justin, go get your fucking yo-you. Go get your shine box. Okay, let me get see. I don't even know if I have. Okay, this is the second time he's left

Well, he has to get his yo-yo Because I want to see I'll be honest, Travis, we just got back From what felt like our fourth tour In a month and a half I'm feeling a little bit worn out A little exhausted for this early morning record And you think this yo-yo's gonna really pump it up?

I think a yo-yo trick would boost me In fucking 24K Like he's serving right now Yeah, that's true My fucking high bit rate, my high bitrate king I can't wait to see this yo-yo 24-K rip-masic You see him fucking

Did you know that that's what the case he had for? Oh, he couldn't try it. I don't even have one. I don't even have one anymore. That's bullshit, dude. I'm not gonna, I probably have some upstairs. I'm not gonna go upstairs and waste a bunch of podcasts. Will you post it later, like, on TikTok or something?

No, the point is like, I don't, what I was struggling with is like, why did I hyperfixate on? You know what I was angry about? Because you can't control what you hype. If you can figure out how to decide what you hyperfixate on, we'd be unstoppable. Travis would be the wealthiest man in the, in the world. I know, but if I'm going to have the kind of. brain that is going to make me hyper fixate on stuff, it should, it should not be humbled in my older age to make it so that I don't seek out opportunities to yo-yo. You know what I mean?

Like, I should, I should continue to want to display this, this, uh, what you're describing as a hobby. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, right. No, but there's not so much guilt that I would hide all my yo-yo's that never want to look at him again, right? Travis, is that a hobby? That doesn't sound like a hobby to be. No, I'm saying that if what you had was a hyperfixation, which burns fast, burns bright. Right. You're talking about a lifelong interest in a thing that you demonstrate and practice regular. I'm looking for ashes. I'm looking for ashes where there is nothing, right? Travis, it just like, it was like a comet. I'm like. Yes, burn fast, burn bright, burn out. It's like trying to reason with hurricane season. It's just, it's not happening. All of my loves, all of my hobbies, live fast, die young.

You know what I mean? That's me. I have the James Dean of Hobbies. I've got to say, though, Travis, you really delivered on leather work. You talked a lot about leather work. And when that one paid off, that one hit big and it was very impressive. I'm so sad that I'll never do it again. It's so sad to know. That's a 2025 thing, dude.

I know. I wish. I still have so much leather to use. I spent so much of tools. He's got a big box of grommets that he's going to throw in the dumpster. Yeah. The key time to make friends with one of us is. right at the end of one of those

because God almighty am I looking to unloads stuff? Anybody who makes a passing interest like hey you know I've always kind of wanted to pick up the yo-yo here's five here's five yo-yo here's five take seven yo-yo's I never want to see a yo-yo again I'm so embarrassed

one of them is like a handcrafted from an artisan who specializes in making yo-yo's and I spent $5,000 on it it's yours please I think I don't know if Travis that yo-you gave me cost $5,000 of dollars. Are you serious? Yeah, man. Thank you, man. Yeah, that was made by Harold Duncan Sr. That was a Harold, that was an HDS. Yeah, man. I mean, it was made out of graphics cards,

so that's why it was pretty uncomfortable. That explains every time I did a walk the dog, a Bitcoin fell out. Yeah, exactly. That's why it was worth so much money. I don't know if, I don't know if yo-yo is extra hard. I don't know if yo-yo is like more than other things beyond your ability. But I do think yo-yo belongs to a special class of skill or activity that is difficult to practice because after you do it once or twice and you fail, you feel like the world's biggest asshole. Piano I can sit down at and I can play my scales until they get good. And I don't feel like an asshole the moment I mess up. But you drop a ball. The yo-yo don't come back up and you have to spend like 15 seconds winding it. I'm not going to do that more than two or three times.

And so I'm simply never going to get better at it. I mean, I've been trying to learn how to juggle for I mean it's been 11 years I've had juggling balls like handy yeah and I can do like five passes and I'm done five is crazy dude I will say that I get three and I'm like I'm juggling baby I'm I get one and my brain gets so excited that my hands that's absolutely just every Travis every single fucking time dude here's here's a thought I'm juggling mama look at me yeah dead dead dead two passes I'm juggling I'm dead dead dead but this is when having hyperfixation brain is a great skill because like the other day

my kids got like a paddleball game I picked it up once I was immediately bad at it and I said oh this brings me no joy and I had no desire to continue learning it whatsoever I thought that was gonna go a different way I would have played with my kids

I think in that case no then I just watch my kids do it and I'm like have fun guys but if something doesn't immediately bring me joy yeah I don't have to care about it anymore that's what Marie Kondo says she said give them one shot one shot she says everyone

gets one shot and if not you're gone forever. I will say also the one gag with yo-yo's if you can do the one thing where you throw it at the ground and it stays down there for a bit, you can do a whole fucking lot of stuff. That's the basis of most tricks. All you gotta do is fuck around with the string

and not do it so hard that the guy comes back up. Yeah. And then you can like twist it, you do walk the dogs, the same idea. It's all the same junk. It's just spinning. Also get like a toothpick that you want in that cool leather jacket and now you're just doing it on the street corner and I know you're waiting for something to go down.

Is there an opportunity here for us to make a kind of like perfect, synergistic, like, hyperfixation kind of like all-day carry, all day, what's that called? Everyday carry. Everyday carry situation where it is a yo-yo, but it's also like on one side of it is. Boy, you are a really, you are a tough target to bring down, aren't you there? Jason Borden. I can't remember the acronym for EDC. Griffin, highly muggable over here if you need a soft target.

Good fucking love. What do I have on me? All day, Carrie, though. Yeah. There are things that I'm like, I can't put this down once. My glasses, I think is probably it. My guilt.

My glasses. Yo-yo on one side. Virtual pet on the other side. It's got a lighter, maybe. It also does a lighter. And it's just like all of these like cool little affectations, hobbies, fixations that you

Fidgetts? Well, no, because I don't, you know, I guess it could be a spinner if you, if you want it to be. But I'm thinking beefy or something you can. I mean, yo-yo's were the original spinner. Yeah, no, I know. And that's why I'm saying we should get one. But I guess I'm just saying there should be a yo-yo with a gigapet in it. So what's, what else are we doing here today, guys? Well, Griffin, I'm glad you ask. We're going to take a quick trip to the money zone. A yo-yo that has a gigapet in it that, like, you feed by doing yo-yo tricks is so fucking insanely valuable of an idea. No, it's great. It's great, Griffin.

Yeah, I know. I'm just saying I feel bad that someone's going to take... But it's not funny. You know, like great ideas aren't always funny. That's true. That's true. That's why we save those for the money zone. You're right.

You know, guys... It's not called the fun. money's on. No, we can be, we can really let our hair down and be pretty serious here. It can get pretty tough to keep track of your money. Dollars and cents. It's going in and it's going out. Where's it going? Yep. Well, you need a friend. Hi, I'm Justin Mack where I paid endorser for rocket money. You need a friend in your corner. Somebody's going to be watching your transactions. Someone who's going to say, hey, did you forget about this subscription? I can cancel it for you or at least try. And Justin is willing to be that for you. Justin's going to do that for each one

of our list notes. It's going to fix your business. No, I'm, I am sadly announcing the closure of Justin's I fix it. I fix it. Money, all in one, financial accounting services. Yeah, I'm sorry. And iPhone screen repair. And iPhone screen repair.

Yes. Travis, my iPhone screen repair and money financial guy business is down the tubes because Rocket Money is putting me out of business. Oh, man. These guys are using computers. Yeah. Oh, that's what are you using? Yeah, my yellowed ledger Keep track of your finances in

is utterly humiliated by Rocket Money's ability to find subscriptions you forgot about and try to cancel them for you to help you to balance your finances to keep track of where your money's going, all that good stuff. Travis, one time Justin's yellowed ledger fell off his desk and it fell open

and it was completely empty. And I was like, what the fuck is he doing in there? It's terrifying, dude. Rocket Money has saved users over 2.5 billion, including over 880 million in canceled subscriptions alone. Their 10 million members save up to $740 a year when they use all the app's premium features. Well, this is weird, Griffin. I'm looking at Justin's yellow ledgered right now, and I have the moonlight reflected in the Osiris Stone. Yeah. And it's a bunch of names and the worth of their souls

next to it. Okay. It was the Osiris Stone that we were missing. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with rocket money go to rocketmoney.com slash my brother i'm reading the ledger now that's rocketmoney.com slash my brother rocketmoney dot com slash my brother griffin your name's in here yes and my don't tell everybody my sole value because it's embarrassing 53 cents yeah man i wish i hadn't worked so hard in that last ad because this next ad is for smalls and i'm going to work and you're like the biggest small's head like mr smalls but the fact is i want to talk about smalls because my cats love it so i had i have a much better would you say smalls is killing you

i don't think they would want that man yeah because that's kind of a negative connotation you're killing me smalls you know you guys remember that no yeah yeah totally but i don't think they they probably don't like it like if you call your company smalls you probably learn to not like when people say what about you're saving me smalls that's cool you're protecting me smalls you've you're putting your body between me and danger smalls yeah Yeah, so the cats love this stuff. They got smooth bird, smooth other bird, smooth pig, no matter which animal you want smoothed up, small as is going to do it for you. They're going to put it and ship it to you.

Smooth en route. You get the amount of food you need, right? You defrost what you need. So it's fresh when your cats want it and it's ready and they really, really like it. They will bother me in the morning until they get to enjoy it. Smooth criminals. They will do that. they'll serve you criminals

but all smoothed up you know how hard it is to do two ads back to back I know man Travis and I are trying to help Travis and I are trying to help and hop in and say something good It's not helping

It's not what if you do a call to action Smooth move What are you waiting for Give your cat the food that they deserve The song Smooth by Rob Thomas and Santana You're not doing a good enough job Because you're just reading it like a cat food ad This is important

What are you waiting for Give your cat the food they deserve For a limited time because you're a Mbimbam list You get 60% off your first order Plus free shipping When you head to smalls.com slash my brother One last time That's 60% off your first order

Plus free shipping when you head to Smalls.com slash my brother Because you're so smooth And they sell your smoothbird To feed you your cat Oh okay Well, I'm watching the subscriber Damn, the subscriber count going down?

This isn't even live. No one's hearing this as we record it. How is the subscriber count plummeting? Damn it. Now, Justin, I see there that you have a yo-yo. I didn't want to talk about it, but yes, I did find one during the break, Travis. You didn't want to talk about it, but you came in carrying it. Yeah.

Well, I guess you're right. Yeah, I found one. I had one upstairs. Is that like a tin Christmas yo-yo? What kind of yo-yo is that? This is a magic yo-yo. Magic yo-yo? Hold on, dude.

What? In my way? I feel like you're trying to trick me or something, dude. No, no, no. I got it. Are you about to, like, try to sell it to us for a lot of money? Oh, I would never. No, I would never.

He couldn't part with his magic yo-yo. No, no, no, no. No, no, no, no. At least let me make an offer. I can't. $5,000. You're embarrassed me. Looks like you had the loop maybe sized for one of your kids.

Sorry, it's a sliding loop. Are you, why are you talking to this? Justin, he doesn't understand it. I don't really know much about it. So look, so this is a loop, right? See, I made a loop for my finger. Oh, so it can slide. You've made a snare.

Okay. I'm going to stand up. I haven't tried. Yeah. And we'll see what I can still. I will describe it. Sorry, this has been a really visual episode, but that's, I mean, Justin's new desk is a celebration of video forward person.

Here we go. Okay, can't see it higher. Wow, it's, wow, he's sleeping. It's hanging. It's hanging, dangling. He's got, he did the thing, and it went right into his fucking hand. Yeah, I haven't done this in years. Make it roll down, though. Make it grind down your headphones wire.

That shit would be so dope. Oh, he's got it in the cradle. He's got the baby in the cradle. He gets it back down. He's going back up, now go back down. Oh, shit. He's the world's strongest man. It's his muscle.

And it's back to his hand. Oh, good recovery. he beefed it, but then he pulled it back up. I didn't beef it, but that's part of the trick. Justin, you're ready to start telling kids not to do drugs. Yeah, man. Okay, it's the cradle again. Well, you just saw the cradle.

Again, like it's that easy. I mean, it's just, you already showed us that way. That's the only ones I know. You got DNA it. Do DNA. Okay. The dog got away. The dog ran away, dude.

Runaway dog is a runaway dog. Juice, that looks awesome, man. You still got it. Yeah, imagine my relief, dude. I used to be able to do a lot. a lot more tricks, but honestly, in the studio, who hit his? Gotta be careful, yeah. Can't take the risk, you know.

Expensive equipment in there. Sure, man. Yeah. All right, so. Did you get out of breath from you? Did you get heartburn from that? Was it heartburn or out of breath from yo? Yo-yo, which one is it? What are you doing? Nistalgia?

Nistalgia burns sometimes. Makes your tummy hurt? My friend recently completed her first marathon. After cheering her on his spectators, my four-year-old daughter was so excited about it. she told me she was going to draw a congratulations picture for my runner friend she drew a stack of pictures while i was busy i grabbed the most polished of the lot and gave it to my friend the next day it was a picture of saturn and it had some letters next to it and a pretty shockingly good stab at the word saturn next to it brothers

my husband drew the picture and most of the letters i just gave my friend a picture of saturn my 34 year old husband drew in crayon help that's from doodd's out in to moines that's okay that's okay That's a sweet gift, regardless of who it came from. It's still, like, sweet that someone did a drawing for someone else. I assume your friend is either named Saturn or maybe they have a, like, they have, they have, they like Saturn. They're a fan of the planet, maybe? The planet is, like, one of their faves. I think the problem here is that when you are judging a child's drawing, especially a four-year-old versus a 34-year-old, there's different subjective criteria that one would use to be, like,

like this is amazing versus like, oh, you did your best, right? And if you reveal, after they've been very impressed by this pretty good drawing of Saturn, and then you're like, actually, that was my husband, drew that. It might take something away. I usually, I will say that don't judge too harshly because I am usually trying to like keep my light under a bushel a little bit when I'm drawing with the kids. You know, I don't want them to get discouraged when they see me drawing Saturn and they're like, God, I'll never.

Yeah. Do you ever find yourself drawn with the kids? And you draw something at about three course of way through, you suddenly are struck by how proud you are of the thing you're drawing. And you're like, man, I hope I get a really good... I drew a kick-ass, like, healer family. Oh, wow. Yeah, and I was like, everybody stopped what you're doing.

Hey, look at this. Look how good this is. Yeah. I would love to be able to draw. And be able to draw something other than just, like, a dog's face. Like a good drawer? Like a good drawer. And not even a good drawer, like, can do a...

Like, if you asked me to draw right now an apple, the result would be humiliating. And that's, like, one of God's most basic fruits. Draw it upside down. What? So it's a technique used because we in our heads have developed images of how things are supposed to look. And so, I'm sorry, as, sorry, yeah, you understand that as Travis is saying this, you need to get out a pen and paper attempt. I have e-ink, so all of us. So we get these things.

It's like, you know, when you draw a house, right, everybody starts to default like triangle roof, rectangle windows, right? Instead of drawing what an actual house looks like because we have shorthand images in our head and we are often trapped in those images and it's difficult to make a real thing. So by drawing it upside down, you remove that subconscious bias of what things look like and you start to actually think about the lines of the thing you're drawing, what the thing looks like. Oh my God.

Griffin is about to show us an apple that is going to absolutely knock us off our ass. Yeah, we're going to shit. He's doing it. He's doing it. Look. Oh, my God.

He's doing it. How do you like these apples? I feel like now at this point it's gotten to a joke because I feel like maybe it's not going to be a good thing. Hey, Justin. Justin? I work hard on it. He's doing it.

doing a good job. You work hard on jokes sometimes. But the problem is that the screen, I think, changes based on how it's, like, tilted. So the apple's going to look upside down no matter what. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a pretty good apple. I mean, it's really not bad, Griff, it looks better.

It looks better. It's got an anus thing. It's got an anus. Well, stop turning it. We can look at it upside down. We know not so close to the anus. Now, get back from the anus, please. That's the bottom of the apple.

The bottom of the apple. The bottom of the apple has... You're not supposed to do that. The bottom of the apple. Stop turning it. The bottom of the apple is where the... I don't know what the fuck's going on down there, but he's got a little, like a little hole. Trave, that's really strong.

That's really powerful. Thank you for that, tip. Yeah. We're all just like, I love this being a space of self-improvement. Yeah. Where we can yo-yo and we can draw and we can have fun and like... Create. I mean, we've forgotten how to create, I think.

I feel like maybe that's, maybe that's true. Now, do you just mean the three of us? Yes. Oh, okay. Obviously. Yeah, not like America. He's not like speaking to him. No, no, no.

Look on TikTok, man. People are making it incredible shit. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, it's been us. How about another question? I'd love that. I needed cilantro for a recipe. So I watched at the grocery store to get some, but they were out. On my way back home, I passed the herb garden of a local elementary school.

I make this walk all the time. And in retrospect, I've always noticed that these herbs appear poorly tended. You just realized. No, I just And are often going to seed Or otherwise seem uncared for So I reached through the friends And yanked out a clump

Is it okay to steal from children If they don't seem to respect God's gifts? That's from the Brooklyn Bambino burglar Did anybody else think that when they were like I noticed that these plants weren't very well tended? There was some small part of me that thought like So I took them under my wing And I started growing them helping them to find their

Yeah, you just grabbed a big handful, huh? Because you got big pesto plans Well, sorry, kids I've got noodles and nothing else going for them So I need these more than you do Sorry, kids I mean, I think I'm maybe unorthodox about this

Here's my opinion I think if it's growing in the land Yeah Nobody owns the sun Nobody owns the dirt If it's growing in the land It's all of ours Hi

No Well no, not in Maybe that's a little bit far to take it. I mean, it's absolutely deranged what you said, because that means you can just go to farm and, like, get it, get it, get it. They're not going to go to one corn gone, no one earns the land. You're talking about ethics. What I'm talking, you're talking about the law. I'm talking about ethics. There's no, there's no farm guards in the scenario I'm describing. You have an armed Italian defending the, the cilantro. Yeah. If the need is there, if the need is there,

obviously, yeah, I mean, it should be, it should be, yeah, no kids are going to notice this unless it's someone's science experiment. That's a real danger you didn't even think about. I think if you went to the cilantro farms and you were stopped by a guard and he said, Holt citizen, this is what your business? And you're like, I just need some cilantro. I want some. Yeah. Like a reasonable amount? Like a handful. I feel like if you're, they would give you some. Like that's not going to move the needle for them. Yeah. You've taken such an extreme position so quickly that I feel like your brain began showing you illusions, beautiful illusions of things that don't exist. Like cilantro guards. Don't let me be a cautionary tale people. Don't end up

like me. You got to have your head on it up. It was really instant too because you were like, one, I think it's okay to grab this cilantro. Two, there are armed guards at every cilantro farm. It's become almost like a post-apocalyptic thing where cilantro has become money. Yeah. And like there's a fort knocks of cilantro. I don't think that's the case. Like a year in town, but instead of going to the bathroom, it's cilantro. I want to make something very clear to everybody who does not have elementary school-aged children. When you see produce in the garden, that is like a class project, it ain't usually the kids who are getting those buds and those fruits to come up out of the ground out of nothing.

That's mostly an adult. That is mostly an adult job. There's nuance to that process that a lot of kids aren't going to be able to. to handle. So do know that you're not stealing from children. You are stealing from some adult and maybe this moment in the garden is the highlight of their day. Yeah, I bet it's also, it's interesting. You know, question asker, you talk about how, how, let me see if you see the seam in retrospect. I always notice that these herbs appear poorly tended and are often going to seed or otherwise seem uncare for. You know what would probably discourage me as a plant tender? People keep reaching through the fence and helping themselves the goddamn handfuls of my cilantro.

The fence is, like, the fence is, the fence is a bit of a deal breaker, huh? The fence is rough, man. I feel like you're not contributing, sorry, I feel like you're not contributing to the overall health of the cilantro patch. Yeah. And maybe you are making it look not even worse than it already does. Yeah. Take a cilantro, leave a cilantro, is what Justin's saying. Yeah, or at least some seeds.

Yeah. Yeah. Why'd they put the cilantro? are so close to the fence. Fucking Honeypot. John Cumunis is watching, waiting. They're not learning about gardening. They're learning about sting operations.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a plant. I recently, I don't know if you guys knew this, I recently found myself having a cry sesh in the car and stopped in the Wendy's Drive-Thru for a pick-me-up. Yeah. It was obvious that I had been crying,

but the lady of the drive-thru window didn't treat me any differently than normal. Guys, if people at the windows, sorry, if people at the Wendy's window, are going to start treating people different because they've been crying. That's going to be an exhausting day for them. They can't handle that emotional up and down. Okay, they're going to see a lot of people crying today.

They can't open up a vein for everybody that rolls through. It's obvious I've been crying. The lady that drive-thru window didn't treat me any differently than normal. It was nice, but I kind of wish she had felt a little bad for me and giving me some nuggets for my troubles. Is there any way I can make myself look more pitiable in the drive-thru? And which fast food chain drive-thrues seems most charitable? Yeah.

That's from McCharity case in Columbus. Thank you. That's awesome. That's a good one. That's a good one because it is extremely relatable to, it makes me so deeply uncomfortable when someone leverages some kind of personal difficulty or hardship into some sort of goodwill currency that benefits them vis-a-vis free nuggies for crying in the car. My fear is that if you codify that.

that too much, then people are going to start making themselves cry so they can get free nuggets at Wendy's. You can't institutionalize kindness like this. It has to be spontaneous. It has to be. The problem is, it's tough to communicate with the audio of the drive-through

that you've had a hard time and that you're going to need some nuggets for it, right? Yeah. Because I don't think you can eat, maybe with your order, maybe it's like, I'll take a hamburger and, oh, no wait, that was Stephen's favorite. I like chicken. You know be like put a little narrative in there that's uh that's dense it's a lot to chew on

it's a bit dense to drop because that's usually like the one of the first things you say over the loudspeaker is like usually it's hi welcome on windings and you would say like uh give me just a minute please and then you'd say let me get it and then you say give me a hamburger no that was stephen's favorite i like chicken the idea that i would dude are you serious the idea that I had the drive-thru window would say, give me just a minute, please? Are you fucking crazy? It's my time. You never have other people in the car?

I have to be... Do you remember how Dad used to get in the car? Yeah. Apparently, that's just genetic, and it sucks, but I've inherited it. I can't drive-through ordering, I've become the world's worst man. You just have to blast through it in one go. No time for deliberation. I need everybody.

I'm as I am pulling up, usually about two blocks away. Yeah. That's when the conversation begins. You're on the bubble then. I want, and the orders are in before I see a sign. Yeah. We're locked, okay? Call me Mr. Burzai.

It's frozen. Yeah, sure do. No, thank you, kids. I don't want to name names, but there is another adult in my family unit who is often in the car with me and my kids when we go through the drive-thru. I don't want to name names. Yeah. But she, I think, has what Dana Carvey had in Clean Slate about that.

Wendy's drag-through menu. Good and cute. Where she needs to see it fresh every time. What if they have new shit? No, now, Travis, that's, you sound so stupid, dude. The Wendy's menu is always changing. If she doesn't take the time to peruse, how's she going to know about the mozzarella pretzel burger?

Yeah. She got to know the, got to know the latest stuff. What if Wednesday has a new milkshake? That's my time to chat with a drive-through person while she decides and tell them about all the hard stuff I'm going. Jeff, she should be looking this up on her phone. Before, before you even go, she should be on her phone looking this.

I'll let this hypothetical person know that that's your advice, Justin. What's the softest fast food brand? Which fast food brand is going to give you the most for your tears? That's the question. My first gut said White Castle. No, they're two, like, Bing, Bang, Boom. They have like two things on the menu. They want to get you in and out as quick as possible.

They're not going to give you nothing. An Arby's? Arby's. Arby's would try to give you more and you'd be like I actually, this is as much as I need. But they have a history of slipping an extra curly and a regular fry

or some regular fries in a box of curleys. But the occasional bagler, that's true. Yeah, they're giving out freebies left and right. I think Jack in the box, I think Jack in the box, Jack in the box, fun food. And she's food. They can give you a taco for 50 cents.

They're not worried about it. They've got, they've got, fun shit just lying around they'll pitch something at you if they think you're having a tough one i feel like pop-eyes especially red beans and rice to me i feel like if you ask really nicely that's free yeah like if you if you're like i really need i'm really super super duper i'll tell you when you're not getting anything for a hard time what taco bell because no one's going through taco bell on the best day of their life yeah you're here yeah we know yeah man we know you made you didn't have a big graduation today uh weird i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm

saying that at best Taco Bell is a little reward or cheer me up that you're getting for yourself. Yeah. Right? You're at Taco Bell. You are already... You have already done the self-care for them, right?

This is the end of the road on self-care. You already needed this. Nowhere else to go. Yeah, you're taking care of it already. I'm trying to sit and farther away from the mic just so I can be kind of like one of the the boys, like one of the guys. How's it feeling? I mean, I'm so far from my computer that I can't read the words on it anymore.

Yeah. But I do feel like more. Travis, you can't zoom in now. That's like, you got to understand. How far can I go? It's an audio podcast, dude. I know, dude. How far can I go in?

Listen, the Halloween I've been told, this Halloween I've been to do into four, four times zoom? All right. This Halloween, I've been toyed with the idea of being the Grinch. Unfortunately, being the Grinch for Halloween seems like a full performance, tiptoeing around being a nuisance and other grinchly behavior. I'm a pretty fun-loving guy, so being a grump doesn't come naturally to me, and I have no acting background. How can I better prepare myself in the coming days to be able to pull off a Grinch costume, or I'm doomed to just be a boring green bummer?

That's from Nervous Nellie in Norwalk. P.S., I already spent $150 on the costume. Cool. Okay. Glad that you included that. It does change. Several years ago, we had a very realistic Grinch. Okay. Remember it came out and kidnapped Dwight? Yeah, and this very realistic Grinch, I will say, did a lot of realistic actions.

And a lot of realistic motions once they became the Grinch. And I will say that no one liked it. That had to be near it. No. No. We didn't like it. Kids, but also grown-ups. No.

Grown-ups, nobody liked it. Very impressive. But when they would get into the full... I've been raised from childhood to be afraid of this guy. Yeah. I mean, like it doesn't feel good. I will say this, what you're forgetting, is there are two parts to the Grinch. Grinch's journey.

Yeah. Yes. Yes. There's the, the curmudgeonly grumpy Grinch. Right. And then there's the

Heart Three Sizes Grinch. Oh, this is the Grinch after he gets saved. I'm, yes, I'm saying, this is the reformed Grinch behavior. I wish the movie

went a little bit longer. Yeah. Because I would love for the Grinch to after 20 minutes to be like, well, yeah.

This has been fun. Yeah. Okay. That movie, if it went on for five. We're going to start small, a little change every day. This is being great. I've lived all alone for 50 years.

I need to go or I'm going to scream. If there's 20 more minutes on that movie, the movie ends with them having the roast beast and they're all having their big meal and having a great time. 20 more minutes runtime gets us. Grinch finishes his meal and goes, oh, I'm stuffed. I'm going to get some rest, guys. I'm pretty worn out from all the Christmas celebrations. but he can't because of their Bing Bang Boomers and their Zipzzppers

and they're troubiting their bloopers and it's like He's trying to sleep Oh oh that's right that's this fucking sucks I still hate it I fucking hate I need rest I'm so tired that's why that's right I was up on night stealing your stuff and then bringing it back I'm exhausted I'm fucking tired you come downstairs at like 3 in the morning

And the Grinch he asked to stay with you as your guest is putting all of your presence into a bag it's like you promise promised me. You said you were done. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just the loud ones, though. You can keep the slippers and the rope and stuff.

Yeah. The flinglacks and the snooze bats and all that stuff. That's all good. Just throw away the alarm clocks. Yeah. Right? And the whiz trumpets. The whiz trumpets.

Put those in the whiz garbage. Thank you. Hey, thanks so much for listening to our podcast. We hope you've enjoyed it. We hope you've enjoyed yourself while you're listening to it. We hope you shouted some of your own jokes, as we encourage you do do we do we i mean i guess in when it's not a live show go ahead but i don't want to train people and say that particular that's true that's fair enough um hey we have some

new merch over at macroymerch dot com that we would love for you to uh to go check out pretty sure you can still get that hunger beanie which looks rad prep yourself for the cold winter months uh speaking of the cold winter months we're coming back to huntington for candle nights baby That's right. Home for the Honda days, December 6 at 7 p.m. Eastern Time. We're going to be performing at the Keith Alby in Huntington, West Virginia, doing our Canal Nights spectacular. We're also going to be recording it for video. And there's going to be a digital premiere of the recording of the show on December 19th at 9 p.m. Eastern Time. We're going to be in the chat for that. And all the proceeds from Camel Nights, as always, will be donated to Harmony House, which seeks to end homelessness in the Huntington area through permanent housing and support. supportive service programs, bit.ly slash candle nights, 2025 is where you can go. Get your ticket for the show or for the live streaming version. And avoid to note, your in-person ticket also includes the stream ticket. Yes, absolutely.

And yeah, it's going to be a hoot. We're really excited. It's been a minute. Also, November 3rd. So I think that's next Monday. Yes. At noon Eastern Time Champions Grove for 2026, it goes on sale. Come hang out with us at Ravenwood Castle in Hocking Hills, Ohio for a weekend full of gaming and hanging out with people and fun events and get to meet some RPG, TTRP creators and dress up and have fun at a castle in the woods.

You can go to championsgrove.com to get all the information. One more time tickets go on sale on November 3rd at noon eastern time, championsgrove.com. okay this is also extremely important if you go to i'm in a pumpkin carving competition it continues until halloween if you go to give butter dot com slash hc mvip's that's hines and children's museum it's a fundraiser for them i carved a pumpkin i'm currently and i don't want to worry anybody i'm currently being beaten by tony stroud who's the chief legal officer at marshal university he says that he in his bio says he has no artistic ability. So if I get beaten by him, I don't need to tell you how hard that will hurt. So please support the museum, but most importantly, help me beat Tony Stroud, a stranger I've

decided to make an enemy of. Tony Stark. Nope. Nope. Tony Stroud carved this pumpkin in a cave. Hey, do you guys... Tony Stroud. Do you guys... Has Tony Stroud falls asleep with nightmares about me and his mind. Whoa. I... Are you deep in there, huh? I don't know, Tony That well, so I don't know that you should say what you just said then, man. Yeah, maybe I do need to take that back. Tony Stroud, I take that back. Yeah, I'm sorry. You're currently beating me, so you clearly have a lot of powerful friends, and I don't want them to kill me.

And I think it's entirely possible. Justin is having Tony Stroud-based nightmares, and he didn't want to, like, he's embarrassed to say. I'm saying Tony Stroud has the juice in my town to have me killed if I get out of line. So I would love it if you would go to HCM. Sorry, givebutter.com. Yeah. Hey, your internal temp got a little high there. All right, good to know.

Well, it's perfect timing. That's going to do it for us for this week. Did you say thanks to Montaigne? No, thanks to Montaigne for these for a theme song. My life is better with you. It's a great track. Justin's camera got so hot that it stopped working, which is, I'll say, a flaw in the new system, maybe. Well, as long as you don't podcast for so fucking long, dude.

We're doing for an hour and one minute, man. Yeah, it's out of sight. Griffin. Here's a final fear for us to read. Here it goes. I want to be faster than my fear of the ghost woman in the movie Talk to Me

Who Sucks on a guy's toes in his sleep. Sounds pretty... That sounds like... Yes. My name is Justin McElroy. I'm Travis McElroy. I'm Griffin McElroy. This has been my brother, my brother.

He kissed your dad's squirrels. It's better with you. It's better. It's better with you. Oh, it's better, it's better with you. Because it's true. Ah, it's better, it's better with two. My life.

Ah, ah, it's better with you. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network of artist-owned shows. Supported directly by you.