Shutdown Fullcast - Per Aspera Ad Astra

Episode Date: April 22, 2020

This is the end of a show that lasted longer and traveled farther than any of its hosts ever contemplated. Like most episodes themselves, that end is sudden and unexpected and may not make much sense to you. It contains answer to some questions, but not all of them, and gets bogged down with weird distractions. The moon is there, and so is Casio Dog, and the Fullcat, and Bobby Petrino. Welcome. This was the Shutdown Fullcast, and we hope you enjoyed it, because we sure as hell did. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the shutdown to the shutdown full cast. This is the Internet's only college football podcast. and that's kind of a shame, y'all. More like, more like the full last. Damn. More like the furlcast. The furlcast. More like the literally shut down.

Full cast. Again. The shut in furrow cast. The shutdown. Yeah, y'all. It's just going to be an hour of this, isn't it? yeah okay they've earned it don't you think that's true i can't stop them that shut up fullcast the butt down full cast because we're on the couch for the next three months

man that was clever uh oh It's not free It's not Dang it That's what happened You let them into your house And pretty soon

Pretty soon You find out No, I can't even do that joke tonight Woo-ho-ho Hey all we got some updates Because you say Oh man What could have happened

Over the past like week Everybody's still quarantined Except for you Patriots out there Let's review the possible reasons Why this show would be honest last episode uh one we all got sick of doing it maybe like in theory for four normal humans that would be a very reasonable case number two um podcast advertisers stopped having interest in it also seems exceedingly likely it's not actually the case somehow some way um number three

the FCC or some other authority stepped in and said no you can't do this anymore it's it hurt my ears too much not the case either Spencer what's behind door number four hang on I'm trying to get him a kush ball so he has something to do god damn it door number four I got two words for you fur low furlough yeah furlough It's it ain't a kind

It rhymes with Merlo As in what you can drink at 10.30 a.m. Apple bottom jeans. God damn it. Yeah. I am drinking straight Listen, I am drinking straight vodka

And I will for the entirety of this episode. Oh, I thought you were going to say for the entirety of our furlough. I might do that too. Can't prove them not. We appreciate the solidarity. right hold on

hold on somebody's breaking up bad it's them oh we're breaking up yeah yeah y'all got red bars hmm okay just take it from there

we should be okay I was trying to make a breakup joke I know so yeah right's idea of solidarity going hard like a Russian for three months I really appreciate that

if you could just start a soccer riot in the streets of Nashville, that'd be real good. It's just going to be you. And again, all the Patriots out there begging to get a potentially lethal virus. No, no. All the Patriots are getting

traded to Tampa. No, we're not doing that tonight. This is a place of healing. Gronk in Tampa? That is healing. He's Oh, this is good. They're breaking up like crazy.

Iris is returning to its natural state. Gronk is returning to his habitat. I looked out at the window in the middle of the street. There's just a gronk out there. So anyway, this is perfect. To be quite frank, it is perfect that Ryan and I can only sort of guess what Spencer and Holly are saying. I can get half of it, and then I use context clues to fill in the rest.

It's kind of like going to a Spanish-speaking country when you learned Spanish in high school, but you are not recently out of high school. Ryan, is it possible that you are getting half and I am getting half, and this is like a team-building thing? We have to combine them in some way. Yeah. We should try it. Okay, hold on.

Yeah. Do they record their own track and then you, when you're editing this, you can piece it all together to make it make sense? How about now? It's fine. We hear you again. It's cool. There's one thing I want

is for Spencer to talk louder. Overcome technical adversity. Just going to bend the internet to my will with sheer volume. No, if you're not like the rest of us and do not spend substantial time poisoning your brain on Twitter.com,

you may have missed the news that Jason Kirk and I have been furloughed for the next three months by box media. But that's not all. No, no, no. Alex Kirchner and Richard Johnson, our compatriots at Banner Society,

have also been furloughed. What is the exact number at SB Nation? Oh, come on. Come on. Like, that information would be given to us. Come on. Calm down. Like 22, 24.

I think it's higher. I like 22 because now we are a rogue football team. Sure. But it feels like it was higher, though. I think it's the unit of measurement you would call a website, a website of furlough. Yeah. Like the unit measured is like one really cool sports website worth of talent, furloughed. Yeah.

Yeah. So we are furloughed. What that means is that we don't get paid. We still technically have our jobs, but we don't get paid. We just don't do them. And I'm proud to be an American where at least I don't get paid. got still get health insurance and we've still got access to vox slack turn up no i don't think you do actually they'll turn that off yeah no you better get your slack in while you can yeah man

come on also you're never in slack what are you talking about spencer if you have any special memories in octa and ultip pro that you want to capture uh all my all my like HR folks out there you know what those words mean. That's good. You can tell me because I barely do. Screenshot that. Yeah. It's a great time for Spencer to find out we have email. I think, I think, obviously it's no surprise that the full cast is being affected by these furloughs. Because when you think about what is a media property deeply dependent on sports happening so that those sports can be talked about in a direct and.

the serious way. Like, it's this show. It's this show. Ryan, sorry, you're my boss, but that would imply that this show is valued or even acknowledged in normal economic times. You know,

I like to think of our show as the elements on the periodic table that nobody remembers. Like, they're there, and they are obviously important or they wouldn't be on the periodic table, but nobody ever gets them. in that Sporkel quiz, except nerds. Are we nicing our way through this, really?

For now. On the periodic table, we're like the Tennessean. Wow. It's on there. It's on there. It's never done a goddamn thing, but it's on there. Couldn't, like, Californian's on there, too. God damn, dude.

A bunch of chemicals at the end of the periodic table that are just somebody made in a lab for 0.0. oh, oh, oh, oh, eight seconds, right? Yeah, yeah, it's that type of shit. This sort of, like, dude, those are, like, the dude perfect elements where they, like, made it for three seconds, and all the other scientists went, oh. Dudeium.

Yeah. Bro! Thank you, Kel. Wow. All right, so, I think we're. what we're doing tonight and again this is just a perfect night for the audio to just be garbage um we're going to start by we i i sent out a um a google form for y'all to ask us questions about the full cast there is a reason i did this and the reason is um i have had the

distinct pleasure of discussing this show with important people at vox media um and one of the comments I got from these important people at box media is that they thought the show was too insular. They thought the show was not accessible to people who hadn't been listening for a long time or didn't get certain jokes, whatever, whatever. The punch line is that we found out later that these people don't watch college football. Yeah, I mean, one of these people, I'm not going to have named names, but one of these people may have pointed a Spencer tweet out to me, that had a photo of Nick Saban on it that was in some it was like a promotion for a live show or I don't know what it was and this person said see I don't know who that is so in the interest of not cooperating because there's no fucking point we decided to do the most insular show possible and this is the show where we're going to talk about our own show so if you are new here I'm sorry the good news is you have

have every reason to bail now. Ryan, can we call it an explainer? No, we can't because this show can't be explained. I think that's what I've learned over the last year is that this show cannot adequately be explained. Well, we have learned is that apparently to keep our jobs, we should have been making sports news for people who don't watch sports. Right.

And that's a neat trick. You know, technically, that's everybody right now. So with that, yeah, I'm going to let y'all pick one off the pile here, and we'll just do this until somebody's internet dies or I accidentally stop the recording. I don't like any of these. Okay. Let's see.

I can start us off. So if you don't like any of them, I like a couple of them. You're on the wrong tab. All right. You're on the wrong tab. You're on the wrong tab. Only took three. Good job.

There's only two tabs, so. Hang on. I got to get him a single grape. Let's go. Like as a reward for picking the right tab? Yes. You just called me. This is one of my favorite media stories.

You just called me Chris Matthews, but that makes you, that makes you, Keith Olberman. When Keith Olberman and Chris Matthews, we're covering, I don't fucking know what election cycle. I think it was 2004 together, and someone interviewed Keith Oberman later to ask him, what it had, it came up in an interview, what it had been like working with Chris Matthews, and he said that sometimes in commercials, Chris Matthews would turn to Oberman and boast of his restraint during the previous segment, and the interviewer said, what happens then? And Oberman says, I reward him with a grape. And all I can picture is just Keith Oberman gently placing a single craft services grape. into the patiently waiting mob Chris Matthews. Like media communion. Yeah, whenever anybody asks

what my insincer's relationship is from now on, this is just what I'm going to tell them. That's fair. That's entirely fair. Deeply unflattering to both of us, so let's use it. Yeah, it's way better than the truth. So, Ben and Houston asks, how y'all doing?

This is more of a feelings ball question. I don't know. It's a good way to start. I'm good I don't like I mean it sucks I was going to say you're a liar yeah

well it's not as much as you would think but honestly there are people in a way worse situation than me right and I just mean that

globally speaking right again furlough it sucks it confirms a lot of things that you think it shows you a couple of things that maybe you didn't realize and it's really bad for your savings account on the whole.

But I'm actually like, this is me being very sincere and in touch with my feelings here. I want to thank every single person who emailed me, every single person who tweeted us, every single person who has written hard for us and has been so goddamn kind over the past week about the full cast, about Banner Society, about everyone we work with. Yeah, it's too bad we don't work for any of you. I really cannot sum up the gratitude and, like, warmth I have felt reading all of that. So much so that I answered emails, you know, I will send me an email.

I'm going to answer it because I have a lot of time on my hands. Also, I cannot thank the following two entities enough sponsors, Homefield, And Cowbucker, both unbidden and unprompted, just started selling shirts for all of us who had been furloughed. And I'll come through with, I believe, just north of $30,000 to get the four of us through the summer, which just saying it out loud is kind of absurd in how inadequate the words thank you are. So thank you to them, and thank you to everybody who has been so incredibly kind over the last week. Homefield took the time to design two new shirts, both of which are great. Although, if I'm being honest, like the one that made me giggle more was Stephen Godfrey hates my team, because I saw several people on Twitter say that they're going to buy that and wear it to an old Miss game.

And then Cowbucker also released a new hat on our behalf, the Due Crimes hat, which is a hat that says due crimes. I don't think I need to describe it in greater detail than that. It was just like, it was simultaneously very nice and a little bit strange. And I'll explain that shortly. But it was very nice that both of these companies who we've enjoyed working with. and have reached out initially because they know who we are and they like the show, et cetera, et cetera, that they did this on their own.

It's not like Holly or I went to them and said, hey, could you help us out? It is a little weird in the span of, what, 15 hours going from, hey, your company is not going to pay you any dollars, and your sponsor is going to pay you. you lots of dollars. We are now NASCAR racers. That's kind of right. Either that

are like early MMA fighters. Yeah, we got Jimmy John's shorts. I'm getting the Golden Palace Tad on my back. I am going to be sponsored by Mellow because all I want to see when you look at me is petty. Yeah, Ryan's going to be sponsored by... Really?

Nothing? Oh, God, I just made the NASCAR connection. God, damn it. I'm not going to miss you at all. was an alley you pass and you drop the ball how out of character we're not going to do the full cast anymore holly and i will be starting our own podcast where holly gets to talk without being interrupted but then what are you doing on the podcast just listening quietly nobody wants that damn it for men um also we got 42 questions here so if we could do the rest of them at a clip yeah um Spencer you know it's great that you have feelings

but all right um i'll take this next one and holly i need your help with it because you're the only other one who will know the answer to this have you ever considered a musical episode from brian i don't i don't think we have i think five minutes i think we know that like spencer would hate it and jason would have no frame of reference for it's the last show i can say it spencer loves the music man oh of course spencer loves the musical about frauds yeah come on it's the best one

about fraud and thinking with your dick and marching band yeah that's true that is sort of your trifecta wrestling

and says that news schools are trash okay I have watched lay-miz two and a half times how did that happen um

I would guess Emily made me watch it once and then maybe I snuck another viewing okay Do you like Laymose? Yeah, I like the, I mean, Anne Hathaway alone is awesome enough to watch. Also, I like how Russell Corpenter.

She's the worst part of that movie. Okay, she's the second worst part. All right, we're going to move on because you said we have to go fast, Holly. So you have to back the next question. Boom. Why did Brian Floyd initially call y'all from a dial-up AOL connection from a country shack, 35 miles outside Pullman? have you been to Pullman is my answer to reader Robert Baker.

Next question. I'm going to do a burst. I'm going to do a few of a minute of time. We're going to switch from semi-auto, not fully auto, but we're going to go with the three-round burst. Yeah, you got it. Not an important detail at all, but do you guys have a video feed going between you while you record?

We keep trying to guess based on the cross-talk patterns, and it's highly inconclusive. Thank you, Matt. The funny thing is on this very episode, we tried video, and we realized we did not have the Wi-Fi strength between our three collective networks to pull it off. So very often, we are completely guessing as to who might be speaking next. I realize this is probably not a surprise based on the audio.

Thanks, podcast. From, sorry, my brain is as broken as those dicks, our favorite reader. I've wondered this more often and I'd like to admit to the dick pill ad people, stop buying dick pill ad time because you made fun of their dick pill ads, or had they already stopped advertising when you started making fun of them. Ryan, you know this better than I do, but I believe it was definitely we started making fun of them and then they stopped buying.

Well, so that's not entirely right. We did start making fun of them. I started reading all of them. Yes. We started making fun of them in various ways. That's where for men comes from, of course. But we also did say, I said at least at some point, like, look, you should be aware that it turns out there are,

women and other people without dicks who listen to this show and therefore we would like advertising that is not quite so flying in the face of that fact and we kind of just said no we don't want to do those reads anymore and fortunately like the ad people um like didn't really give me too much trouble about that there was also there's that and there's also like it was funny for like a month and then it was like we are making all our listeners feel like they're old guys with broken dicks. And that's, I'm going to say something controversial. That's not the audience you most want to court. Like, it's cool if those folks listen, but like, that's not like, no, but there are plenty of- That's not going on the front of the PowerPoint. They also have a lot of

sports content that's already directed towards them as it is. I also feel like, look, if you are a listener with a broken dick, hey, I'm sorry about that. And I hope it's not broken for much longer. I also sincerely hope that you are not waiting for the ads on this podcast to take medical advice of any sort. Oh, yeah. Can I give you my favorite real quick sponsor thing that didn't work out? Remember trunk club? Like we had like some kind of trunk club where they would send his clothes. My favorite thing was they kept sending me clothes and I kept sending them back and I was like, no, these are all ugly.

And I did that like three times and they were like, so do you like any of them? And I was like, these are all bad and I don't like any of them. and they never emailed me again. Nope. Were they, like, not sending you any tank tops? Not one tank top, not a single pair of bespangled, bootcut jeans, not one. Oh, God, that's the business we need. From Matt from Michigan, especially given recent events, would love to hear the story about how the whole team came together over the year.

So we did do an episode on this. I believe it's titled Your First Fullcast episode. We tried to pin it at the top of our feeds, but not technically, proficient enough so just go hunt for that that's sort of the public and uh right now you folks are getting the internal lore don't make me say that in petrino voice i won't i promise i won't um okay let's let's get this one right out how many people listen per week that's from dale deputy uh i have no reason not to tell you this now the answer is between 16 and 19 000 people an episode rough that's insane Which way do you think it's insane? I'm asking seriously. Oh, that's way too many.

I go back and forth. Sometimes I'm like, that's way too many people and sometimes I'm like, oh, man, I wish it was a lot more people. I will tell you in light of the furloughs, I wish it was a much higher number than that. But yeah, that's what it is. So it's not, it's definitely not the biggest sports podcasts. It's not, I will say this once and then we never have to. go back to it again. It's not the biggest college football podcast. But it's a fun, it's a fun thing. And we, and like, clearly there is a solid core of people who listen to it. Why is that number not bigger? We will get to that later.

I promise. Also, on the subject, on the subject of, like, theoretical other college football podcasts. Yeah. You know, we can't say we are definitely one of the very biggest. Yes, yes. I think that is right. I think that is right.

And we are the only one. Also, That is the, that is the, that is, and I honestly, I don't know why that wasn't enough to sway most of the ad sales, frankly. I'm going to go ahead and, so this is a good idea, Jason. I'll see if I can knock off a couple of these. Yeah, let's get moving. Sure. How does Spencer choose is talking about the buck's song guitar riff?

It is a generic. This is a good ton of for me to take a refill, right? Yeah, it is a generic guitar riff. out of rock band out of uh garage band yeah garage band yeah just garage band on on on your mac that's it with uh with you hit like pattern match with the drums and that's it i think it's like riff 17 it's like metal yeah and then they're talking about the books uh i don't know that's just what i just felt that from my soul about the entire miserable state of ohio that if you really kind of opened up that oyster that pearl would look at you and begin to

singing the box that's it you know and uh i don't i don't hate you frank i really don't i don't even hate the state of ohio not living there but you know a lot of people went to ohio state made that same decision too so ain't we all in the same boat next uh when will you return and what will you do with your time off this comes from rachel age 12 oh rachel i have no idea. None. I don't know when we'll return. There's a furlough for three months. There's a visitation on like July 31st that everybody's supposed to come together congregate and say, hey, here's you either work here or you don't. And I know I'll make a decision and I don't really give a fuck what anyone else decides about it. How's that? The kind of thing you want to say to a 12 year old.

The answer doesn't give a fuck. Rachel, you're 12. I'm going to tell you this. There's going to come a time in life where you have to say, you think I shouldn't be on this team? Well, cool. Any team without me is a poor one. I will say a 12-year-old who's been quarantined for a month

has probably said fuck or heard fuck by now, so I don't feel as bad. You hear this. Listen. Are we talking about the books? No, but kind of. I'm cussing at a 12-year-old. Oh, cool. With a 12-year-old.

As a 12-year-old. Spencer, this is cool Uncle Spencer. It's not like the kid that you cost at the Gator Bowl. No, no, no, not like that. No, this is kindly cussing. This is the question of advice. So Rachel, listen, go ahead and make your own decisions in life, okay? And understand that the phrase, kiss my ass, you get about eight of those in life, make them count.

I plan to, because I haven't used up all mine. And finally, the next question. why did they make you quit doing live shows the real salt of the earth ones not the stupid south by south okay i do want to i do want to dispute that south by overall i think south by is very stupid and largely ruins what is a super fun town but the south by show we did last year was awesome and i am very very glad we did it yeah i think we ever seen the adversity of our circumstances yes yeah it was also fun because that was a show where we got to to request from the people running the Vox Media Outposts there that we needed...

With divas. We needed a bottle of... Fuck, why is this... Fireball. Yeah, so a fireball. To represent Brian Floyd as a totem. And we kind of said it as a joke, and someone turned around and ran for it. Right.

And we had them bring out like an ice bucket with fireball in it and just sit it in a seat. We quit doing the live shows because we were told they were out. out of budget and not support it. So we would have had to pay for those out of our own pocket. Also, when I, uh, yeah, when I, the first time I answered this question truthfully online, uh, I got called to the principal's office. We can just say what the answer is. When we, one of the things we wanted to do when we started Banner Society was, um,

Not only grow and improve the two podcasts we have, but expand upon them and try some new shows and like explore a lot of untouched real estate. Within that, we were very clear that... Wait, can I start with... Can I put the joke in here? Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. Because there's a reason this is really funny. Yeah. So the reason we wanted to do this, by the way, is, you know, not only artistic growth, but we were trying to plan for a future in which, uh, digital advertising was not a major factor in our business. So it's really too bad we didn't end up getting to do any of that stuff, huh? Well, live and learn.

What funny! Anyway. Anyway. We said we would need a podcast producer to, A, improve the current shows and help them, like, explore new ground and start new shows. You may remember, if you've listened to this show for a while, that we listed for a podcast producer. Holly did a lot of work interviewing and going through resumes for potential candidates.

It was only two months that extended into our first football season as a team, so I had a lot of free time. If you're listening to this podcast and you heard the beginning where Spencer and Holly just dropped out for a section and Jason and I commented on how normal that was, you can probably guess that we didn't get a podcast producer and that is largely why we stopped doing live shows because it turns out when you're already writing and editing uh you know for a website and a newsletter and you are the hosts of your own podcast that it doesn't leave a lot of spare time to effectively plan and execute live shows i am very sorry that the ping pong place we went to in

Jacksonville closed. I think that was before the pandemic, but if they just want to blame it on COVID instead of us, that would be great. Plagues the both of us. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay, I'll do a lighting round if you all don't mind. Did you ever hear from John Popper or his people, if he has people, after that behind the full cast episode? This is from... This is from Abdi Haji. I, uh, no. No, I. We never heard a thing, and that's fine. I feel entirely good about that. Let's see.

Let me grab another random. I sort of just took the random ones here. Why, how does the active lineup of the show change week to week? Is there a selection process, some other determination of who's on one week, but not the next. That's from Rumblin Buff. I would say 20% of the time there is some consideration. like sometimes we will decide, one of us will decide to sit out because it's a topic we're not really well versed in. The, the WrestleMania episode was a good example. I didn't watch it.

I have like very little wrestling background. And I was sort of like, well, sleep sounds good. So I'm fine if y'all just do this one without me. Most of the time it comes down to somebody's kid is sick or somebody themselves is sick or somebody forgot we have to record. or whatever, and that is more likely the reason why somebody is or is not on in a given week. We try to make it Ryan or me missing the show, because we know who y'all are here for. That's pretty accurate. It's Brian Floyd. And then this is the last one I'll do in this lighting, right?

Who is someone that you found out listens to the show that surprised you? broadly speaking and you all may have different answers for this my answer is media members like I don't there are other media members who work for respectable institutions

who listen to our show and that is super wild to me it's not like I'm very flattered and I'm super appreciative that they do but like I don't I did not ever think that that would be a thing that would happen at all. I think my single favorite is the time we found out Tom Crean was like second-hand.

Oh, God, I forgot about this. Second-hand subjected to the audio of us talking about Tom Crean. Right. We can't top that. That's my favorite achievement. Yeah, we found out at the Michigan show that there was a woman working in Tom Crean's athletic department who happened to be playing aloud a full cast episode where we talked about Tom Crean as Tom Crean walked through

Spencer and Holly to your knowledge who is the like most famous person who listens to this show or has listened at some point John Walsh yeah John Walsh of ESPN is actually listened to this show

on the way of ESPN John Walsh really likes you and me I find that odd he's an odd guy I mean Bumani has been on the show sure yeah yeah yeah meana times has uh i should have just said jane coastin um i i had the very strange experience of finding out i think i just kind of this year that a friend of home lives who lives back home listens to this show and the reason this is weird is because i am the frivolous

dumb one at home i know nothing is different here um but you know my beautiful charismatic friend with a glass blowing degree at home just starts talking to me about full cast one day and I was like you're shitting me like as if I could feel like

any more mortified when I go home about my career path but hi Kara I love you can you can Spencer go get a glass a glass blowing degree in three months at Tennessee Tech it'll take longer than three months but they got a whole art school out in the world damn it no I'm going carpentry

I thought you were going blacksmithing. Blacksmithing really isn't going to get you very far because the world already has better ways of making nails and knives. What about swords? No, no, that's true. Listen. Oh, my God, please open a mall sword shop. And in pandemic America, I just have this sale for swords.

Don't have to reload a sword. You know, the only thing funnier than a mall sword shop is a non-mall sword shop, where you're like, that used to be a pizza hot. They used to be a bank and now it's a sword shop? We got a sword shop. I know it exists. Send us the photo. Spencer, can you open pandemicshorts.com?

If you can be a freestanding sword shop, I want you to wait outside it because that's where actual ninjas shop. That's right. That's right. Well, you're like, this used to be a photo development hut. And now we sell swords. You're like, yes, yes, Master Han, great, great genius of, the katana. Come on into this

former pizza hut. We'll show you a real slice. While you were worried about digital media ad sales, I was mastering

the blade. Master Tanazaki, please, turn left at the pool supply store. Go into that abandoned

mini mall and you will see an abandoned pizza hut. Right next to the driver's end course.

station. Right next to the DUI stand-up comedy school. Got a bunch of fucking skateboarders out front. All with swords. Past the dialysis center, you will see the sword shop. Kidneys, the swords of the body. If I

told you all about my mom taking Tai Chi and I was going to visit and asked her if she had gotten up to the level of Tai Chi where they give you the sword because she's been taking it for a while now. And with out a backward glance or a beat to think about it. She says, my hands are my swords and just keep it right on walking. Not a flinch.

Not a stutter. But also she has at least two machetes in my car that I know. Well, yeah, because you might lose a hand. Yeah. I'll do some questions. Okay. Can you tell A Sun Bowl story? Not to be confused with the Sun Bowl story.

Okay, sure, Notre Dame nihilist. I will tell a ass Sun Bowl story. My favorite Sun Bowl is a tie between hit winning the Sun Bowl 3 to nothing over Oregon State. And the year that it snowed in El Paso when Notre Dame was there. That's not the, that's not the USF game. And they were, wait, no, was it the, I'm talking about the year where they had to clear snow off the field. cafeteria tables sideways like plows, handmade plows, and then they cut to commercial and under the bumper music they showed I think a school employee trying to clear the end zone with a rake.

It's beautiful. Anyway, that's my Sun Bowl story. My personal favorite is the 2007 Brute Sun Bowl, Oregon Ducks versus the South Florida Bulls. That's where half of the USF team was viciously hung over. I still use my hairdresser from that symbol. Yes, and

that growth he puked on the sideline. Yes. Does he still wrap? I hope so. You can't stop that once you start. All right. Next question from Justin. I don't hear enough from Floyd. Can you do a Floyd-only episode at some point? Yeah, next week. They're all Floyd-only episodes now, baby. Thank you, Justin. Aren't you glad you asked?

Let's see if there's any more here I want to answer. Holly M. Possum's shruggy emoji, shruggy yes is my answer to that question if you want to know when Possums entered the shutdown full cast universe it was the year

which year Tennessee beat South Carolina there are so many it was the year Tennessee beat the Spurter South Carolina team in the deeply unfair fashion not the Kiffin year the one after that 2008? No I was looking at it 10

Anyway, I started hollering and singing along to Our God is an awesome god, youth group anthem, but changed all the words that rhyme with possum. If you're looking, you said it's not the kiffin year, or it is the kiffin year? It was after that. Then it's probably 2013 or 2014. It's 2014. that tracts. Okay.

Anyway, probably possums. Okay, last question, aren't you glad to ask last question? How old is the shutdown full cat? He will be 10 in July. Thank you for asking.

This is actually helpful information for me because I have never been clear as to which of the two cats is the full cat. It is the boy cat. Okay. The boy cat is more of a dog. This is helpful to know. Sure.

And for context, if you roll back to the dump dog's episode, the boy cat grew up with Champ as a male role model. And Champ is not a dog, so it implies us that Joe is not a cat. The other cat is extremely a cat, which means I see her for like 15 minutes a day, and then the rest of the day she's off doing cat shit. She has yet to turn her on the show because she is a cat and has her own life, unlike our other cat, a dog. Thank you for being with us on this journey. Okay. Jason. let the chopper loose

I think I'm going to go for five here wow because I see I see two addressed to me and three that are me and Spencer mostly from Barrett I still don't get what the shutdown full back was brother same was it fun to make

yeah it was a ton of fun would you do it again if someone would pay for it I would do anything if someone would pay for it what should I watch from the original run that holds up I don't fucking remember any of it I remember the ACC episode as being my favorite. The cocktail party episode. Cocktail party episodes.

Yeah, that was fun. We went and shot live in Jacksonville at Florida, Georgia. But yeah, every now and then somebody will send me a clip, and I'm like, who the fuck are these people who are so happy to be online? So young. So, like, youthful, too. Yeah. From The Bopper, longtime reader.

Is there a moment of shut down fullback you wish you hadn't done? probably i don't uh second question how did y'all predict chip kelly to the eagles this was how i learned that we apparently predicted chip kelly to the eagle i don't remember this at all me i'm going to take your word on it because you have been a very honest friend to us for many years online um why was the from zaws why was the video version of shut down fullback canceled uh so youtube gave i don't even we weren't even vox media yet we were still sb nation correct uh they gave the whole company a million dollars to make you

YouTube channel. Can I add like a real quick fun aside here? Yeah. So one of the things, and this predates me, so I've just heard this, but one of the things that the company decided to do with the YouTube money was send cameras out to like people who work for team sites at that point so that they could do like fairly basic but hopefully good videos on their own. They decided that the best way to ship this equipment, because I think somebody like found

a deal or whatever was to ship them all in gun cases. It turns out when you send like a hundred gun cases out, some questions pop up and some things get flagged. So I think like legal had a really fun month where they had to explain why a media company based in Washington, D.C., was sending 100 gun cases all over the country. I remember when these things showed up, it was like me and Bud are like, you know take take the rifle case open it up throw the shit in it over your shoulder close it again and admire your new rifle case did you did you get the stuff in the case huh yeah there was some there's some i don't know some object in there but not sweet rifle case fortunately that was the only time uh that vox's perception of the south and middle of the country uh ran a foul of

anything that they didn't understand carpet carpet baggers what are they also how did you pick your recording spot mostly thinking of Jason here I record on usually on my back porch sometimes on my front porch I've done it in cars in parking lots just just a weary traveler mainly I I the weather is nice and no one gives a shit if our audio is nice so these things go hand in hand the birds provide nice ambience sometimes the hurricanes and World War I bombers do not provide good ambience and also there's usually a lot of people in our house so I come out here and I say y'all I got a podcast and I got to smoke some smoke some pork so you know that's enough to sort of convey like man don't go out there there's really important stuff happening he's providing for our family right now yeah I'm making money and feeding you all and now and now all I can do is smoke stuff because there's no more no more podcast but wait

From Peter, what is the dumbest, silliest idea you had an episode that ended up working out way better than expected? EG. Jason takes everyone to Bible school. Bible episode was actually Ryan's idea. Ryan was pushing for it for a long time. And it turned out to be, I thought it was very fun. I had a lot of fun doing it as a person whose brain is at least 49% youth group. And it seemed a lot of listeners sort of come from similar environments or like Spencer come from a complete opposite environment. And it felt like everybody had fun. And this is sort of how I am actually going to be spending a lot of my summer. I've started a solo-ish podcast, vacation Bible school, VBS podcast on Twitter, jasonkirk.substack.com. Me and my wife are working on the first episode, Genesis 1 through 5. She is making charts. Oh, my God.

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I was an original wife guy, so we'll bring Emily in on this. Yeah. I mean, she was like, I haven't read this in a long time. she's like all right so Adam is bit like God is

is bringing animals before Adam like he's fucking Cinderella like that's what happens toward the end of uh yeah so this is going to be a lot of fun I want to have a lot of like you know weirdo sports internet guests on here

was Adam the first label maker yeah okay yeah also Kane was the first wife guy because Adam and Eve were not actually married oh shit I already went to school Yeah. Also, we will get into this, but when Cain was born, it is canon. He was born, not as a baby, but as a man. Damn.

He looked down and said, holy shit, there's an entire man. Hey. Yeah, she looked down and Cain said, hey, mama. And she's like, fuck this. Like, oh, that's a bad sign. Yeah, this guy's going to turn out great. Probably not great. I feel like we missed some formative years. This guy's going to have some issues.

We better try again. Was Kane the first gronk? I like to imagine that Kane was bored with jeans on. Abel was incredibly gronk. So I've prepared a meme, and we're going to break this down further on our initial episode. But Abel was your, I have a meme on this, the Chad Virgin meme. Yeah. Yeah.

Abel is your Chad. Because what does he do? There's an offering. He shows up and he says, God, look at this. I got a sick load of protein. and just dumps meat at God's feet. And God is like, yeah, bro, this rules. Yeah, grill master.

Yeah, and Kane is like, I brought you some vegetables. And God is like, get that shit out of my sight, loser. So Kane kills Abel. So subscribe today. There's no feed yet. You can subscribe on Twitter or substack, though. Fuck, now I'm just, I'm stuck on Kane being born with jeans on. like singing kiss as he comes out of the womb.

Spencer takes some questions. Yes, this one is from Aaron. Speaking of the Bible, individually, what are your favorite full cast episodes and full cast moments? My favorite one is Jason doing Bible stories. That is the most flawless single freestyle. I have heard like there's like Black Thought and then there's Jason.

Yeah, I. I am long in my vocal insistence that every time Jason unloads a monologue that you did not know was coming, it is the best thing that happens that show and in surrounding shows. My personal favorite one is a little bit of a deeper cut. It was Jason in, I think, year three of this show describing what would happen if the SEC went to war against itself. You basically were asking Jason to create a sieve board with just the SEC on it. Yeah. And it was a, beautiful seven minute fireworks show um on the subject of freestyling me talking about the bible that's white thought yeah yeah my favorite my favorite my favorite moment that i've been a part of

is uh an impromptu discursion into alternate moon history i don't think i don't think i've now and i hate citing that because like the part i laughed at hardest was started by something that I joked about. But God damn, it's been in my head for a decade and I didn't even know it, which is that once Neil Armstrong steps out of the LEM on Apollo 11, Buzz Aldrin locks the door and hits the ignite button

and just leaves him on the moon while cackling madly. I still will turn a corner and randomly laugh thinking about that. We're going to come back to that in just a few minutes in a very special way. I have no answer to this question because the full cast is the thing, by far the thing that I have spent the most time on professionally

that I retained the least. Like even episode, like this episode, when we put it out, tomorrow I will not remember the bulk of it. And it, like, it's a weird brain thing where like people say, oh, what is, like, remember this? And I'm like, I honestly don't. I'm not trying to, like, like slight my co-workers or myself,

I just honestly don't remember 98% of the show. No, like somebody pointed out recently that our episode after the kick six, the first 20 minutes are talking about Arby's. Like, like we open like, oh, so Auburn won a game.

I think that was Justin Ferguson who pointed that out. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, it was just Ferguson, yeah. And like, I, zero memory. I was like, wow, that's a really funny idea. What if we really did? Oh, we really did do that. Okay.

yeah i don't um i'm sorry i just don't um okay let's throw this one out for for everybody what has been the most surprising thing about doing these positive and negative that is from loyal listener blanks um positive is probably i think how how game the audience has been for some really left-turny shit. Like, I think, you know, I'd have to go, but Holly's been listening to the back catalog so she could probably tell you if this is right or wrong.

But I think when we started it, we sort of stuck to, like, some traditional modes of what a college football podcast would be in terms of how we structured the show and what we talked about, what we didn't talk about, whatever. And I think, I don't know, I feel pretty comfortable saying

in the last year or two, we have gotten farther and farther away from that. And it's been really fun watching that, like, the audience has largely gone with that. They're not all good. Like, I know a lot of people hate the NPR episode or my Jeff Goldblum impression. And that's fine.

Like, that's fine. But, like, people listen to them and try them at least. Negative, um, negative is probably, like, negative is probably that this has always been really without much meaningful exception a thing we all do on top of

a regular job and like I don't mean to say that it's a burden but sometimes it is hard because you're just like shit I feel like the full cast is the thing that got the last bit of attention or the thing we didn't pay attention to until the end and sometimes that just sucks to just be like

Fuck, it sucks that, like, we are not podcasters by trade. We want to do this show, but it can be the thing that, at least for me, gets pushed to the end. That is why there's an episode where we just decided to talk about the SEC sex tournament because we just forgot we had to record and just hopped on the phone. Yeah, I got to agree with that, as far as the biggest negative to this, it would be awesome if at some point in the future we could see what this show would look like when it had the kind of time to devote to it

that we would like to devote to it. But so far, the environment we work in just hasn't made that possible. Yeah, the other negative thing is I've realized like how bad I am at it. You know, look at the nights when you try. We try to tell you. No, like there's very, there's very little,

for me, there's very little in the way of how you do in an episode. there's very little difference between put a ton of prep in and walked in off the dome. There's just, I'm not saying being prepared, isn't it considerate or good thing to be. In terms of my own individual performance, the asshole is just written into the DNA. Like, that's about as good as it's going to get. See, you say that, but like small English town or quarterback prospect was great. And that, like, was you prepped the hell out of that.

Well, yeah, yeah. that's probably your outlier right? I wasn't going to say that. That's the outlier. Jason, you got positives and negatives?

I mean, I don't have a lot of negatives. Like, we've sort of ran through the negatives earlier in here, but like, I mean, the positives are like,

it's been fun as fuck. Like, this was some shit. We literally started in our downhand. We weren't even considering it part of our jobs. This thing you know

it was somehow officially part of our jobs. I still still, don't know how that happened um but but that's cool you know whatever um yeah it's been fun as hell i have been delighted to see the audience come along and you know when people when we say like all right we're going to do an episode about football and people say what why it's like okay you are you are in the right place you are our people you are actively revolting that we cover uh perfect i may be answering another question ahead of time with this but the really

surprising thing and the best thing at the same time about it. I was not prepared and did not anticipate the level of devotion and the bond and the difference between somebody who reads you and someone who listens to you. It is a way, way more intense, way deeper, way more vibrant thing if somebody listens to your show, whatever the format is. and no matter how big or small you are, if people ride for you for, like, writing, that's like a pretty, that's a cool medium, right?

That's something somebody's like, ah, I'll throw you a couple bucks with the credit card or I'll shout you out on Twitter or I'll maybe email you and say, hey, you did a good job. If you like someone's podcast, you'll drive like 200 miles to go see a bunch of strangers talk about this micro niche thing that you cover. It's also like, in our case especially,

I think super flattering that there are people who are, sad that this is not going to be a thing for the foreseeable future because like look I know we joke about the audio being grimy but I am not I am not um insensitive to the fact that we make this a challenging experience frequently and if you have stuck it out and if you have like you still like what we do and you listen to some of these long ass episodes that seem to go nowhere and then just end out of nowhere like that's that really does mean a lot and that is really um really flattering and really validating in a lot of ways. On that note, I'll go ahead and write this one Band-Aid off.

I want to yell at someone for killing off the two podcasts in the Vox family that actually understand the South and rural areas in general instead of looking down their nose at them. Who can I direct my anger towards? You know, I don't know exactly who made the decision as to who on our team was getting furloughed and who wasn't. I haven't asked that question. I'm not particularly interested in it at this point.

I know it was nobody on our team. I know who our CEO is and I know who our publisher is, the CEO of Vox Media and the publisher of Vox Media. Those are both Googlable facts. If they were not the ones who made the decision, they certainly are responsible for the people who did. So if those are the people you want to be mad at, worst case. How can it be safe to say that they agree with the decision?

I find it hard. Like, can we lay, all right, let's lay one thing kind of bare here, and then we can move it on because Spencer's not going to like it. It is. That's fine. That's fine. It is very fucking wild. Everybody who got furloughed, both on Banner Society and on SB Nation,

like my heart really and truly breaks forward, because almost every one of those people I have worked with or managed or looked up to in some capacity in my somewhat short but very strange path at the company. And that said, like I find it very almost darkly comic that Holly, Floyd, Godfrey, and I are supposed to run a college football thing for the next. three months, and Spencer Hall is not a part of it. And I seriously don't say that to disrespect Alex or Jason or Richard, who are super talented and work super hard. And in many cases, Spencer will attest to this, are like far less of a pain in the ass to deal with than Spencer. But like, we are all here in large part, and this is 100% directly factually true for me because of who Spencer is and what he has

done and what he has built. Like, if you think Banner Society is a fun and different part of the internet, it doesn't exist without Spencer there to lay that foundation. Like, we very specifically didn't want it to just be EDSBS 2.0. And in some ways it is, but in most ways, I don't, I think it is sufficiently different. But, like, it's not there without him. You're not here without him. I'm not here without him.

you're not here without him like the yeah go down the bag chain I mean quite literally go down the baguat chain Spencer pulled me into this I pulled Jason and Floyd so I came up through the falcolic our falcons site SB Nation Atlanta and all that and I was working at SBNation.com but like 99.9% of y'all

listeners would have never heard of me if Spencer hadn't brought me on to do a YouTube show with him like I would just be some editor at SB Nation and that's all so I include myself in this group of them Jason was toiling in the back of the spreadsheet minds with me and Floyd

it's it's weird and I'm trying not to be too like personal here because God knows this is not the place but like I still have a very vivid memory of meeting Spencer and Holly for the first time and how like this was this was what granted it was in a breakfast establishment in Knoxville next to an adult bookstore um but like and I think they both know this but like I was fucking starstruck like these were people that I had looked up to that I thought were

incredibly smart incredibly talented and just like the chance of being able to spend 30 minutes with them was like fucking crazy and i did not make this easy for ryan for reasons that we have already told on other podcasts no and and entirely warranted um so yeah like i have refused to meet you for like what two years at that point i think if you asked i'll i'll close this question um this way and then we can move on i think if you went around to every single member of our team, except Spencer, and said, who is the one person we need to keep going and to keep, like, pushing what we do and showing us who we are? Spencer Hall would be the answer. And, like, I can try to come up with some convoluted reasons why certain people got

furloughed or why the strategy is happening, I know that they're not decisions we made. I can't come up with a really good answer as to why Spencer is out. And it's going to be a very, being without Spencer and Jason is going to be incredibly weird for me for the next three months because like, listen, the company doesn't listen to this podcast and they definitely don't listen this to this deep to it i don't know what the fuck i'm supposed to do without those two are you fucking kidding me that's the dumbest shit i've ever heard can i take the baton from you here please do and first of all thank you for saying what we all think about spencer because every time every once in a while when i catch feelings and do it on

the internet everybody thinks we're fucking but no this this guy gave me a career uh literally found the house that I'm living in right now and, you know, has saved my actual life on more than one occasion. And he really hates it when I bring that up, which is why I only do it every once in a while. I would like to talk about Jason. Yeah. Which is going to be even more fun because we have video turned off. Can't see Jason cringe from this. Annie can't saw so he can't get here by the time I get all this out of my system. And he's even worse at talking about feeling I am. He's worse. He's of this than Spencer, which is right. I'm going to stare at the moon. I'm ready.

The one place where a man can have emotions, the moon. I used to famously tell this joke, and it was not a joke. The team was expanding that it took two people to replace me in SB Nation because I was doing like four people's jobs. Jason and Floyd nominally took over what I was doing, but both of them, of course, had expanded to do shit that I could never do and did this almost immediately. This site that you see and espionation as you see before that, the college football slice of expedition that you see before that and all of Banner Society, Jason, the ticking clock behind this, the person that makes all the trains run, that's not me. That's Jason. He has the

organizational mind of someone with way less ADD than I do. And also, He's the funniest person on this show, which you've heard me say before. And he is so much better at me than I am at both of these things that I don't even resent him for that. Do you have any idea how much far ahead of me he has to be for me to not be even a little bit mad that he's so good? But fuck, man, what the hell are we supposed to do without Jason? Here's what's fucked up. If you look at like Spencer and Jason in tandem, the thing I have learned from Spencer is like you can always, you can always push harder.

You can always be like weirder or different or more different or like lean into your instinct, wherever that goes. And the thing I have learned from Jason is that like, you can always make an idea better. And those sound may be similar, but they're actually very different. Like the value I have gotten from working with both of them

hand in hand is immeasurable. And like you add into that, Alex and Richard, who just like work their asses off for not a lot of money, who had to be on the union committee, not had to be, chose to be, part of the union that negotiated their own furlough terms and did an admirable job of it. And like, Holly will agree with this, I suspect, even though it's detrimental to both for a long-term chances of success. If you had room for four people and you wanted to start a dope college football thing, those are the four people you should hire.

No, I said this out loud on Twitter. If it had been my job to craft a Banner Society skeleton crew, I would have done the inverse of what has been done here. But also, like we said, we weren't consulted about this. I will, we're going to be sad and mad about it for a really long time. I would yank us vigorously back onto the tracks. I heard it yank us vigorously. I'm sorry about that.

Here comes the Patrino. What is the weirdest thing you now care about because of this show that's from Popeye's Rules? I think this is the answer for most of us, but you all can have your own opinions. I actually care about pit football. And like, I should, like, like, I have a soft spot for. for Arizona State and some of the other schools that we've sort of like picked up here and there. But like, I, I care about Pitt football in a way that when they, when they lost the Penn State game last year, I was like, I was visibly upset. I was frustrated.

That's crazy. When the news came out that Pitt was, I forget the exact thing, but they were making some progress on coronavirus research i was like wow my alma mom the value of my degree oh yeah it's the end of the world i went to pit like if if and when this show returns or some alternate form of it does and if and when we do live shows again there are two places i'm sure we're going one is indianapolis because this isn't even this isn't even funny anymore we have to yeah home field fucking rules and like we

will we will we will follow those dudes he wants to go also Alex is the Anthony Bourdain of Indianapolis that's right say Anthony Bourdain in a pit accent I don't think I'm calling and the other one is Pittsburgh yeah

and or Philadelphia which is also America's great Alex is also the Anthony Bourdain of Pittsburgh yeah I'm an ancestral West Virginia do you know how fucking weird it is for me to be like pulled around having sympathy let alone enthusiasm for pit you have reversed a rivalry that ended bitterly against my team in my heart thanks to the pit super weapon i guess the front yard brawl yeah i can tell you the thing that the weirdest thing that i did not know would

capture my heart would be two septuagenarians who call mission and call it with every single God, damn. Like Iota, Adam, particle of their being vibrating with nothing but sheer love for fundamentally sound, wholesome, family-friendly Michigan football. This goddamn crossing route. That's right. It's about honest football. I love Brandt Satter and Deerdorf so much more.

But when we brought that to the podcast, like everyone's love and excitement over this only magnified it for me. I really, I think if they were in the room, I would never ever. ever be able to convince them that I wasn't making fun of them. Right, yes. Right? But that this is just the highest form of love I know how to express. We did before the holidays attempt to get a pair of sacktime hats to Deirdorf and Brandy,

and that kind of fell apart due to the world falling apart. But if you're out there, I heard, I did hear that one of their daughters at one point may have listened to that episode. If you're out there, man, man, we love your dad. I know that's not new for me, but we love your dads. Tell them we love them and go blue. Also, shout out the Michigan football Twitter account. We see you.

You are seeing, you are appreciated. Yeah. We saw you participating in our love for your announcers. I forget the exact phrase, but it was very clearly that we were all in that thing together, man. All right, I'll take one. Do any of y'all's family members listen to the show? If so, please provide their reviews. I will do a lightning round.

I didn't think so. Nobody in my family has ever indicated that they do, which I much prefer. However, I don't know how else she could have found out by either listening to the show or following our Twitter account. My mother emailed me like eight hours after he first mentioned it to ask when Jason's education Bible studio was going up. um so you know get on that jason your audience awaits i know my wife doesn't listen to the show because um i have this very dipshit thing that i do whenever she's like i just listen to a new

a new podcast and i really like and i say oh the shutdown forecast you know i'll never listen to that um i cannot imagine any of my like or my my parents or no like no there's no no the close I probably get is like there is a friend there is a friend of mine who is married to one of Caitlin's very good friends who listens to this show and I don't know

if he wants to be affiliated with it so I won't name him here but hey Andrew I'll name you damn it sorry I met them they're nice no I know I just didn't know if he wanted to have but yeah no there no no I don't have family members who listen Andrew you should be used to disappointment go blue damn my wife does not listen

wisely she was at our Atlanta live show though sitting directly next to I think Godfrey's wife has listened to I think Godfrey's wife has listened to this show before yeah I think that is canon I hope not I like her a lot

listen you can tell by who she married she's not great at decisions also I have a my dad is a big college football fan and you know i said like hey we have a super stupid football podcast you should listen to it he's like uh-huh who's on it i'm like oh my friend ryan my friend holly and he's like uh-huh who else i'm like okay so spencer's on it and he's like i'm out

because back when we did our youtube thing spencer you made an atheist joke i only remember the context he heard that and he's like nope i'm out on spencer that young man i he's 100% right wait has your dad Bad been the one leaving us bad reviews on iTunes? I don't think so. Wait, are we getting bad reviews on iTunes? Oh, yeah. Yeah, we get a handful of bad.

Every now and then somebody who's like, their only other thing they've reviewed on the app store is like an encyclopedia app that they thought was woefully broken will leave us a review that's like, they're not funny anymore. And it's like, well, we weren't funny to begin with. So, checkmate. That's our secret, Kat. I do like the ones that call us Florida's finest unaccredited vacation Bible college.

Please, even after Jason's actual finest vacation Bible college is up, please keep trying to convince people that we are some kind of seminary. I think my favorite one is the one that a while back we put in our Twitter header. So, yeah, just go look at that one. That is the canonical description of our show, I think. Oh, God, that hurt. do we have our second forecast injury of the day yes oh god ryan's is funnier i'm not divulging that one oh no we can we divulge it after maybe i'm just out of vodka mostly is the main

problem with that so i i'm going to take i'm going to take a quick one here um actually no no i'm going to hold on that one you're holding on 30s i'm going to swipe one from jason which episode got you in the most trouble with vox media this is from john ed um Jason, do you claim this? Do you have an answer to this? I just wanted to note, I've never heard a single fucking word of feedback. No, I, I, listen, I know the shit we say about the Vox Media podcast that advertise that we don't know about going in here. I know that you can listen to certain Vox.com personalities tell you that you should give Vox.com money the same week that you find out that we're furlowing members of this very podcast.

Oh, by the way, that doesn't go to us, if you're wondering. No, it definitely, and it definitely doesn't go to Spencer and Jason now. So, yeah, like, I know what we say. I think the, my three co-hosts will agree that I am the most risk-averse member of this crew. I think the most why we gave you all these questions. Right. And I think the most about like, well, if this happens, this could go wrong, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is the one thing where I don't think about that because I know, based on history,

it has never come back, it has never come back to bite us. And if anything we've said on this show comes back to bite us, I can promise them that we won't do that in the next episode. Yeah, that'll be all up to Floyd. I'm going to swipe another question from Jason. Has Godfrey ever complained about the tweets that are directed toward him from the full cast audience? Godfrey doesn't listen to the full cast or check tweets next godfrey has muted all of you yep uh the last one i have is our doctor manhattan and one of these days we will all tell you a really funny true story about godfrey's dick yeah it's it's not know what i'm talking about is yeah i do i do i do oh miss rebel powder blue uh yeah you know you know how we know our managers don't listen to this show

godfrey's technically my direct report boy well i mean for the what time is it do i still have a job you do yeah unless i didn't get an email which is possible i'm ryan's director report this is funny everyone's everyone's boss now it's fine yeah oh god i accidentally told the truth about our org chart oh well they know nothing jason what were you gonna do for your last one uh the last one i had was will you ever let spencer do the british accent again who the fuck can stop him now wow oh jesus frankly i think it's funny so yes i will Spencer, you can come on my Bible show, and we're going to break down the book of Esther in your British accent. So I realize I don't actually resent Spencer's British accent. I resent Spencer doing Ricky Jervais. Yeah. If you brought Ricky Jervais into our sphere, if he did a company, this would be a different thing. Yeah, yeah. Or if he was just like being any normal charming British actor, it would be fine. But he's not. He's being Ricky Jervais. And therefore, trying to bother us.

What's it like believing in a dog? Hey, can I throw in one more? Okay, okay, I'm going to take a question here. What's the best time you have had as a team? Can I bring up something that I just forgot until this second? Sure. Another home field story. Fart Wolves.

Fart Wolves, yeah. The fart wolves incident was, I don't want to go, I can't possibly remember all the good times we've had as a team. The fart wolves incident and its outfall, its outfall, its fallout may have been the most fun I had all year. The most fun we've had as a team. That's, no, I actually know my answer to this, and that is the, um, the Atlanta live show. By far. Yeah.

Yeah. The Atlanta live show was, because we hadn't done one before, that theater was large. And I think we, like, I think we all had a lot of questions about, like, Will this work in this format? Will people, like, show up? And it was like, all of the live shows have been great. The Ann Arbor Live Show in a fucking library, like, the Ann Arbor Library is great,

and I will, like, always have good feelings about them based on how they, how they, like, helped us make that happen. But the Atlanta Live Show was, like, truly one of the best things we've done, really as a group because it was, like, we got, that's really where I feel like, we met a lot of people for the first time. That's also the point at the very first point at which I was like, because, you know, numbers are bullshit.

Downloads are bullshit. Apple charts are bullshit. And that time, you know, we hear that we have sold out the show. Showing up and seeing that many people, I don't think I had a clue until that moment that we might be what you call onto something. Yeah. Yeah, and I don't know if you can, like, I have a very hard face to read, and I made it worse by putting a big beard over.

it, but I'm terrified that entire time until like about, you know, 10 minutes from the end of the show. I just, like, I didn't expect people to show up, and then people showed up. One other very fun thing about that is we still had Bill Connolly, Bud Elliott, Harry Lyles, Morgan Moriarty. We had a bigger group at the time, and that was cool. Yeah. Oh, shit. All right. We have a couple more. Do we want to get those? Do we want to move towards?

Yeah, sure. Yeah. Let's do the last two. Let's do the last two. Okay. I'll take this first. You can take the first one, Holly. What's one thing you fully, sincerely, unironically love about this? I want to put a stop to that question. First of all, I don't believe in loving things ironically. You're either comfortable about what you love or you're not. Don't bring irony into this. I love everything about this show with my full, stupid, smoking, coal-lined pit where my human heart should be. I, I, um, this is, this is sort of barring from a question I didn't take for this, but somebody basically asked, like, if it were up to you, would you cover, would you, would this show cover, like, the most exciting and awesome parts of college football or the weirdest and stupidest? And I think, like, my answer is probably pretty obvious, weirdest and stupidest. But what I love about having done, not just this show, but, like, what the work we've done as a college football group is that even though, like, we're not always particularly nice about it and we're not always, like, we're definitely not deferential about it. I think working with this team and with the audience that we have that we have is has really like expanded what I care about as a football fan.

Like I'm excited when Florida wins, but that doesn't really dictate how I engage with the sport as much as it used to. And it used to a lot. Like, you know, Michigan's a really good example. I didn't give a shit about Michigan football five years ago. And I wouldn't call myself a Michigan fan, but, like, there are Michigan fans that I know and like, and it's because of this show,

and it's because of the work that we do. There are Georgia fans that I know and like because of this show and because of the work that we do. And that, like, it's, that kind of applies across the board. Even Notre, like, listen, they're Notre Dame fans. I know and like largely because of this show. The first person I hired at Vox Media was a Notre Dame fan. So I like, I hope that, and I think, you know, we saw a lot of very nice comments that sort of got to this.

I hope that this show has shown you, the listener, that college football is not just about who ESPN decides to put in prime time. who's contending for the Heisman, who's in the top 25. Like, the reason we love it, and I'm going to speak a little bit for the whole group, is that, man, it's a real weird buffet. There are some things on this buffet that shouldn't be there that are not safe to eat, but it's funny, they're there. And next year, they might be good. And next year, something that was good might have turned.

And I think it's the, the, the sort of the diversity of emotion and experience that you get with that that has made this a really rewarding experience for me. The thing I completely and sincerely love about this is that I get to record it with y'all.

I co-assign all those. One thing that means a lot to me is there's this idea that, you know, stupid things are bad. Well, I think the four of us and anyone who manages to clock in for this podcast would tweak that just a little bit, do stupid things are interesting? And even further, stupid things are entertaining and, in fact, stupid things are good. There's that from sort of a content standpoint. There is also this thing where, you know, only so many points in our lives

do we get to sync up with people who have these weird misfit brains like ours? And that is a special thing to treasure. That is a thing to remember. And that is a thing to hang on for as long as you can't because, you know, it is not easy to find. You know, it sort of goes without saying sort of the definition of misfit. But I think we have built a thing where people are comfortable with being, wrong. Oh, we're wrong all the time.

Shit. And proudly, defiantly, exuberantly. All right. I guess we'll start to close it out here. Wait, we got one more. Oh, you want to do this one? No. We can if you want. I don't mind.

If you have them real quick. You don't have to, there's no round, robbing around table. I kind of hit, okay, so this one. I remember all of them is. reason I wanted to do it. So this one came from Ed. It's what were your first impressions of each other. I've already sort of touched upon mine with, um, Holly and Spencer. I'll be real honest. Jason is so like calm and cool and collected in all, in all circumstances that I don't remember my first impression of him because I'm sure I was just like, cool. He's like, like totally fine and didn't

do anything to like really, you know, swore. like really give me a big feeling either way and that's just because like that's who jason is in a lot of circumstances he's just like yep i'm going to be here i'm going to be working and bud's going to guess your weight and um we're going to go from there but did guess my weight the first time i met i have i have told the story of the first time i met bud right i think so yes um but yeah holly i don't know what your first impressions were so i want to go last what were jasons okay um Ryan I assume you're wearing a suit it's entirely possible Holly I actually I remember it was my first trip to the DC offices for right after it was also my first trip and we were both sick as shit and yes I walked in I had no hearing because I had a sinus thing and then I got on a plane with a clogged head and I had no hearing for the whole first two days of meeting my like dream job co-workers um I walk in the room there's a whole bunch of people and this is back when the thing that became

box media was literally two rooms um i walk in and i'm like oh hello hello hello waving around at everybody i'd never seen a picture of holly's face so like holly i think somehow you recognize me but i had no way of recognizing you i don't know how because i don't think i knew what you looked like yeah i mean maybe i just sort of projected a whole like oh right this is the new guy i don't know. I remember us both sniffling in the corner like Victorian wards for most of that series of days. There was that. And it took me like three hours until I realized like, oh, this person is Holly. Hi, Holly. I do this thing where I just talk to people without introducing myself. And then like three hours later, it's like, oh, hey, I know you. Spencer, I remember this was SB Nation Atlanta's

launch party it would have been the summer of 20 2009 something like that um i remember i was there you know we're all like oh let's talk about the braves and the dogs and all that stuff and i look up and like oh shit spencer hall is here um number one braves fan i remember i walked over and i'm like and i'm like hey here are you spencer hall i'm i'm really big fan of yours um you know like all that shit and uh and yeah like spencer gave me the time of day we talked about what the there is the i think it was during the john isner match like the 50 the mega match at wimbled yeah like the isner isner mohut yeah yeah so like we talked about that and i was like wow this is so cool spencer hall talked to me about tennis and then like yeah next thing you know we were co-workers

and and then uh we went to wrestlemania that was when we sealed our pact of brotherhood was stone cold coming out on a yeah we were baptized in the green lights of the undertaker's entrance yeah um all right before we before we start signing uh this very long sign off if you don't have any impressions i do have

okay you can i didn't know i didn't think you wanted but go ahead yeah no no i got i got one for each of you one i thought rime was very clean he seems very he seems very well he seemed very well he seemed toothsome he seemed really well groomed you know like he seemed like a very so glad we pushed you to do this he seemed like a very well taken care of person you know that was it you know he was very well groomed he was clean he's very clean

I hope like the oldest old person thought ever about him I was like he's a very clean boy And then he went on to put out a fucking onion costume Somebody else wore Spencer you're like I'd like to see my daughter marry a guy I like him So now I need to have a daughter Yeah he's very hygienic

What Spencer's describing is medium dick energy So So moldering with absolutely average dick energy yeah no she's very clean

I was like wow it's a very please move on to somebody else no I would you're very clean I remember thinking I was like I don't know Jason could just be like a Georgia normie

then I noticed he had some pretty nary tats and I was like okay we can roll and that was like five tats ago yeah it was like five that was before he was seriously tatted up but yeah Yeah. I was like, oh, okay. All right, cool. And Holly, the time I saw Holly, I was just like, oh, hey, just walked in the door.

She's always been there. That's just never, just like, oh, yeah. It's not that I ever started working with Holly or stopped. Just always been there. Frankly, Jason and Ryan are at that status from, like, I don't know how. Ryan got clean and I got wallpaper? No. You did not get walled. paper you got like oh hey you got drywall you got drywall holly i think it's more like your

haunting haunting spencer the thing that i was going to say that i thought spencer was going to remember but he didn't is that the first time he met me he hugged me and i didn't say anything and i was like oh jesus christ this guy's a hugger i think he must have immediately sensed my repulsion because i don't think we hugged again until my wedding yeah it's like 10 years yeah yeah yeah so anyway i appreciate that i think thank you for the eight years between hugs that was a good if you can have an eight year rotation between hugs and expressions of emotion i think you're doing real well oh god um somebody made a request yeah yeah there is there is a song request on line 36 the spencer i would like you to so go ahead and hold hold on before we get there um

because I don't think we we kind of hit on this a little bit obviously starting May 1st which is when the furlough starts you're not going to see Jason Spencer Alex and Richard on banner society

that sucks and we're sad Holly Godfrey Floyd and I are still going to try to do something I'll be real honest we're kind of figuring out what the fuck that even looks like that said like You probably already guessed that, and Jason has already sort of alluded to it, Jason and Spencer and Richard and Alex are not just going to, like, sit in a corner and mope.

They will continue making really cool shit. I don't think you'll be surprised to learn that those of us still working for the company actively will be telling you to go check out. said dope shit. Not that you needed our endorsement to do it in the first place. But a lot of you have reached out in various forms to let us to ask how you can help, how you can support the colleagues we have who are about to, again, go without a paycheck for three months. The answer is we're working on it. And we're hopefully, they will hopefully have some information really soon about ways you can keep getting cool shit from them and supporting them in the process.

You've already heard about Jason's and when you hear about new projects from the other three of our, what we're calling our moon crew, please be assured that we will yell it at you. Meanwhile, the shutdown forecast Twitter account will just start glassing you spamware links to free iPads. I would love it if they tried to take that account. Like, I don't even... That would be quite a... What is the funniest thing we could do with that account?

Just like start tweeting out like extremely old Vox.com podcasts? Start beefing with RICOD decode. Wow. Now, Kara's tough, man. I don't really want that. I don't really want that heat. I'm going to start sending like mods or asleep tweets from like the Banner Society account.

I mean, what time did they go to sleep like 8.30? I'm going to send it at 9. Yeah, that's about right. So the second to last question we have on the spreadsheet is as following. Cassio Dogg, play the moon theme from Duck Tales. Wow. Oh, I'm going to be able to go ahead. Oh, wow, wow.

B'u-R-W-W-W-W-W-W-T-T-R-W-N-W-W-W-B-A-W-W-B-W-Hol. Yeah, that's great-gall-go-glo-bo-bo-bo-glo-bo-bo-bo-gw-gw-gw-gw-gw-gw-gw-gw-gw-gw-gw-d----------------------------. Yeah. The last question of this, our last question of this, our last question. episode of sure, whatever is no questions. Just talk about the moon some more.

Buddy? You're about to get your wish. Was that a dramatic pause or did I, did it go too long? I feel like it went too long. No, I think it's fine. It was super dramatic. Yeah. All right.

If you're clocking out now, we are the shutdown full cast for Spencer Hall, Ryan, Nanny, and Jason Kirk. I am Stephen Godfrey. The theme song you heard tonight at the opening of the show was by Angelie Shaw, who played it on every instrument she had around the house when she should have been studying for her medical boards. Thank you, Angelie. Go back to your books. Y'all, did you know that before Michigan Control had time to digest a reported UFO sighting from Gemini 6? They heard an extraterrestrial rendition of jingle bells

coming from space? No, I didn't know that. No. Anyway, this is me trying to shoehorn in the knowledge that Shira and Stafford smuggled a harmonica and miniature sleigh bells onto Gemini 6, especially for this moment. You can see the harmonica at the Air and Space Museum

at the Smithsonian. I thought that was an excellent way to get into this and clearly I was wrong. Astronauts were such assholes because there were all these scientists being like, listen, this is exactly what we're packing, this is exactly what we're not packing, don't fuck with

it, and they were like, fuck you, I'm bringing I'm bringing my skateboard. I'm bringing my trombone. I'm bringing my tromb. Why? Why? Why? Because it's funny. That's why? You put a bunch of white guys and I couldn't find space. One of them

will produce an acoustic guitar. So this kind of led me to something that I've wanted to point out about space for a very long time, which is that I think this show is one of the only media outlets that depicts space correctly. The only other, you know, we've seen the Apollo 13 movie. The theme is very stirring. We've seen from Earth to the Moon in IMAX. It's, you know, chills up and down your arms.

But the only popular depiction of space that I'm not. I've ever seen that really comes close to what it was like was in the H-boat show miniseries from Earth to the Moon in the episode Mayor Tranquilitatis. And in that episode, Michael Collins suggests to Neil Armstrong that he say, oh my God, what is that thing? And then scream and cut his mic the second he steps out onto the surface of the moon. But anyway, because there are not enough popular depictions that astronauts were really like in

popular culture and because we're not going to be with you for a little while, I have arranged via transcript from spacelog.org some of these were collected by Tumblr user Weaver

Z. Some quotes from Apollo 11 that I think we all really want to carry in our cards through these next few months. I have cast everyone in their bits as follows. In this first one, we are checking in with Michigan Control after breakfast. I'm going to have Jason play Michael Collins. I'm going to have Ryan playing Bruce McCandless in mission control. And Spencer, you're playing Buzz Aldrin. And Ryan, please feel free to make mission control noises with your

mouth. Yeah, sure, sure. We'll Police Academy of this shit. Yeah. you're super clean mouth like a dog Holly do we have any direction for these characters for our interpretations of them or so I have a lot of thoughts

about Michael Collins and Spencer I know you do too he's just like a I kind of picture him as a delightfully weird mildly demented dude let me tell you what Michael Collins is the human being who had to go by himself

farless from any other human being in the history of our species across the dark side of the Astronaut, I'm really jealous, though. He went across the dark side of the moon, was out of radio contact for over 45 minutes, and when asked to describe that experience, Michael Collins said,

not loneliness, but more a form of exhilaration of elation. Got it. I'm going for Sam Neal and Event Horizon. Got it. Yep. All right, yeah. Okay, so here we go.

We're after breakfast at Apollo 11. And Jason, you can lead us off. I'd like to enter Aldrin in the oatmeal eating contest next time. Is he pretty good at that? He's doing his share up here. Well, let's see. You all just finished a meal not too long ago, too, didn't you? I'm still eating!

Okay, does that, uh, that, um... He's on his... He's on his 19th bowl. Buzz all shut up there, just hoovering all the oatmeal. I'm actually surprised that you don't hear from Armstrong in this quote, but I imagine that's because Armstrong is on his 27th bowl of oatmeal. He was like, this is the most delicious meal I've ever eaten. So spicy.

You know Neil Armstrong missed astronaut food. Didn't have to think about it at all. All right. So in the next one, we have. have Jason. You knew I was going to include this one. Jason is Collins, Spencer is Aldrin, and they are having a fight over what does or does not constitute a good star.

And again, this is an actual transcript from Apollo 11. Minkent. God, what a star. Nobody in their right. Minkin's good. Nobody in their right mind would have picked that one. Minkin's a good star. I love Michael Collins.

All right. Jason is Michael Collins. Ryan comes in as Neil Armstrong and Spencer is Aldrin. And we are fighting over what to name Critters of the Moon. Let's see. This is a long line.

Let me read ahead here. Yeah. He's complaining about the quality. What is happening in this scene? He's complaining about the quality of the photographs that they're going to be able to bring back. Okay. Because I see the word.

shoot through this. Well, that's what caught my eye. I'm talking about shooting. All right. That's a horrible window. It's too bad we have to shoot through this one, but, oh boy, you could spend a lifetime just geologizing that one crater alone. You know that?

You could. That's how I'd like to spend my lifetime, but picture that. Beautiful. Yeah, there's a big mother over here, too. Come on now, Buzz. Don't refer to them as big mothers. Give them some scientific name. Big mother.

This does nothing to dissuade me from thinking that Buzz Aldrin is just like a badger. I'm going to fuck the moon. Yeah, yeah. That moon's got a big, sweet fanny. God damn, you see the can on that one? me my gun, I'm going to town. Look at the ham hawks on that, Mama. The gun I definitely brought on the moon mission.

In this next one, we're going back to Jason as Michael Collins and Ryan down at Mission Control. And at this point, they were trying to figure out how much more food they were going to have to load onto the lunar module for Apollo 12 to support Al Bean, who was going to pilot Apollo. or 12. I feel like with Collins having the first line in all these, that it's like the crew is sitting around, I realize this is a different group now, but like Armstrong will not speak unless

anyone else speaks, unless he has to speak, Aldrin is lost in his own brain, so then Collins has some sort of spacey thought that Aldrin wants to pounce on and Armstrong feels compelled to, I guess I'll say a couple words, right? Aldrin is just constantly staring at his own ass going, I know he'll betray me. Staring in his own ass like, there's another sweet fanny. Okay. We're trying to calculate

how much spaghetti and meatballs we can get on board for Al Bean. Yeah, I'm not sure the spacecraft will take that much extra weight. Have you made any estimates? It'll be close. 11, Houston. The medics at the next console report

that the shrew is one animal which can eat six times its own body weight every 24 hours. This may be a satisfactory baseline for your spaghetti calculations on Al Bean. Over. Okay. Thank you. That's in work.

I'm so grateful that they transcribe every moment of every NASA mission. I love that there's some nerds and horn rims and short sleeve shirts and ties, like two consuls of her. Like, true. This is true. This is where Alex Kirster fits in at NASA. Definitely.

What is the zip code of Hoisington, Kansas? All right, just a couple more of these because I feel like hammering my point home. I just like them. Ryan, you're playing Mission Control. Jason, you are Collins. And we are, we're having some sort of technical discussion, and then Jason reassures us that all is as it should be. Now, Ryan, when you check in here, I'm going to break it out of a stupor, so it's going to take a lot through to sink in.

Okay, gotcha. I got you. Apollo 11, Houston. Go ahead. Roger, Mike. We recommend the left VHF antenna for VHF. and this is your friendly backup CMP. Have a good trip and remember to come in, B-E-F.

You better believe. You better believe. Thank you kindly. We can see the moon passing by the window and it looks what I consider to be a correct size. Michael Collins is our greatest. Michael Collins was all. man.

Michael Collins, if you read about him, like, he didn't need drugs. He was the person who just came like pre-packaged that they're like, well, we need an astronaut to be completely alone on the dark side of the moon for hours at a time. They're like, Mike. That's Mike.

Yeah. Houston, I'm on a new level. Like, I did a lot of, I put a lot of Collins' love in here because I feel like, I do feel like if I could go back and redo any of our space adventures. I wouldn't change any of them,

but I would add in some more Collins love because he is underrepresented in popular culture. Two more things about Michael Collins because I'm a stand. One, Michael Collins loved the actual craft like the ship so much and loved flying it so much that he wrote it a thank you note

on the inside of the machine. What did that thank you note say? Say, I have never flown, a finer craft, I will never fly. like just just the sweetest note to to a can that they flew in and he absolutely like he left it a very sincere note the second is you know who else has a sweet can it's buzz aldrin yeah uh the buzz alder just staring out over the moon like all those curves and me with no brakes let me at it oh my god dan djordorf on the moon folks if we can ever get a show coming back we're doing

Deerodorf on the moon. Sack time just took on a much worse. So the other thing about Michael Collins, I read an interview with him, you know, when I think he was about 78, 80. And they said, well, what's, you know, like a surprising thing that he's, you know, like, what do you think about it?

And he goes, yeah, sometimes, like, I'll go out in my backyard and I'll just look up at the sky and they'll be the moon. And I'll go, hey, that's crazy. I was up there once. Yeah, he's awesome. We got one more. Zodiac time. All right, last one.

This is Spencer as Aldrin, Ryan as Armstrong, and Spencer in the weird reversal of not being the one who has weird shit in his pockets. And I should note that in real life, Spencer has spent the last five minutes peeling pieces of skin off his hands and dropping them onto my desk, but that's why it's called acting. Where's your watch? Got your stopwatch? Yeah, I got it in my pocket.

Well, that's over, okay? And one thing I'd appreciate if you could, see if you could, the map. The map. What do you want? I've got, that it? Where do you want it? Trade you for that piece of gum. There, there it is.

When do we have to get these? All right, go on. What do you mean by bringing CSM trash in here? Well, that's stuff I had left over in my pocket. Pox gun. Neil Armstrong could not empty his pockets before going into space. We can't let Spencer. or be an astronaut.

By the way, I love that the idea here, when he says trade you for a piece of gum. I assume Aldrey means that literally, and that he was planning to open his face mask to put it in his mouth on the moon. Like, hold on a second. That was brisk.

I feel like this is where we should play the Duck Tales Moon Dimm again. All right, thank you, folks, for listening to our journey through space. We would like to close our show tonight with a little something different that I don't think we'll ever do again because Ryan has already injured himself attempting it once. We're going to try a little song of praise with some more friends and some friends we hope to see again. How is this working again? How did we decide? Who wants to

play the backing track? Should it be me? Yeah. All right. Has everybody got everybody got their parts? I'm almost certainly going to fuck it up, but Yeah, you too. Well, that's okay because you're going first. That's true. Okay, I think I know what my verse is, so I think I'm good. All right. Yeah, Jason, you got the dirty one.

Yes, thank you. Spencer has the one about quitting. Spencer, no, you got read the lyrics on this. I got you, I got you. Close that. It's going to confuse you. All right. Folks, we're going to close on a hymn.

This is in the sweet by and by, sometimes seen in your hymnal as a land that is fairer than day. We love you. We'll see you on the dark side of the moon. The land that is fairer than day And by fate we can see in afar Oh, Nevada waits over the way To prepare us a dwelling place there

Bye and bye We shall beat on the beautiful shore In the sweet Bye and bye We shall meet on that beautiful show We shall sing On that beautiful shore The melodious songs

Of the blessed And our spirits shall sorrow no more. Not aside for the blessing of rest. It's good to be a gator. In the sweet, bye and bye, bye, bye, y'all. We shall sing on that beautiful shore. In the suite, by and bye. Okay, bye-bye, y'all.

We shall sing on that beautiful shore. Get there, two strokes, y'all. To our bountiful father above, we will offer our tribute of praise with a glorious gift of his love. And the blessings that hallow our days. In the sweet, bye and bye.

Bye, y'all. shall meet in the sweet by and by God, it's fed, the patrino. We shall meet on that beautiful shore.

It's like, oh, that beautiful show. That was terrifying. Should we just cut it there? Yep.