Wonderful! - Wonderful! 112: Tidal Brain Force

Episode Date: December 11, 2019

Rachel's favorite superstitions! Griffin's favorite party activity! Rachel's favorite outdoor lighting! Griffin's favorite music phenomenon! Music: "Money Won't Pay" by bo en and Augustus - https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

🎵 Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hello, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. And here's the tea, folks. Okay. Oh! Literal tea. roy and this is wonderful and here's the tea folks okay oh literal tea i thought we could do more prop comedy we've been getting a lot of reviews lately that have been scathingly negative

because of how little prop comedy and not scathingly positive no scathingly negative, they say, like, the words that we do, the skits that we do, the jokes, the songs we do, we sing them together. They're great. They love those. But there's not enough sort of tangible physical interaction with props for the purpose of jokes. Can you give me an example of a podcast that does have that, that you feel like we should emulate? Oh my God, Serial Season 3. A lot of props? Very funny.

A lot of bicycle horns. All the Malcolm Gladwell ones. That dude is always fucking ripping it up. With a lot of really funny funny a lot of whoopee cushions yeah he'll say like here's an outlier liar and then he'll pick up liar liar on dvd and point at it but you don't you won't see it that's really funny he'll be like here's the tipping point and then he'll fall over in his chair and that's fucking funny to me it is yeah and and only me i get it this is wonderful is the show where you talk about stuff that's fucking funny to me. It is, yeah. And only me. I get it.

This is wonderful. It's the show where you talk about stuff that's good and that we're into. My small wonder is this cinnamon tea. That is the only reason why you're hearing my sounds at the moment. We've had some wild temperature changes here in Austin. And Griffin's body is reacting negatively to it. Austin and Griffin's body. Doesn't respond well to that.

Reacting negatively to it. My body is like one of those old thermometers that you would find at a Gadzooks that had all the little multicolored balls and it would float inside of the little glass cylinder full of water that would show you. They would be at Gadzooks. Would they not have them at Gadzooks? Or Spencer's Gifts would be more likely.

Spencer's, i feel like really specialized in erotic they have plasma ball they famously had plat anyway thermometers i'm like that only instead of little colorful balls floating to the surface yes it's plague it's disease it's miasma and um yeah there's rough rough stuff but this isn't a complaining podcast it's a it's a podcast where we sing songs and do skits do you have a small wonder gingerbread gingerbread the concept i almost did that as a big wonder so i'm glad i didn't glad i sat back on it i was trying to think if i know what's in gingerbread and obviously there's ginger yeah i imagine there's nutmeg probably some cinnamon what's the brown probably some cloves what's the brown molasses molasses yeah this is a fun this would be a fun cooking podcast that we

could do what's the brown you can say like of any food. You'll be like, yeah, so this right here is broccoli casserole. I'll be like, what's the green? And you would say, well, sweetheart, that's the broccoli. I would like it if it's always brown. And the podcast is called What's the Brown? And every week. That could be good. That could be good.

Who goes first this week? It can't be me. I think it's me. I think it's you. Let's just do it. It can't be me. I think it's me. I think it's you. Let's just do it. I can't go to the website right now. Okay. Because of your really comfortable talk show pose.

I'm seated in a very comfortable talk show pose. I have tea in one hand and I'd have to set that down in order to go to the website. You have your legs crossed at the knees. You look very conversational. Thanks. I always cross my legs at the knees you look very conversational thanks i always cross my legs at the knees i used to get a hard time for it when i was like in like first grade second grade when boys were like real shitheads about stuff like that oh yeah you're supposed to put your ankle on your knee to look like a real man because of my huge hog yeah right guys because of my huge

first grade dong fucking weirdos what's your first thing uh my first thing is superstitions okay i realized this today it's the knock on wood thing the knock on wood thing is real important to me okay like you're talking about harmless superstitions yeah like like the little rituals people do to kind of ward off possible negative repercussions okay yeah i knock on wood you knock on wood right yeah i find myself feeling very nervous if i make some kind of declarative positive like this is going to be great and then like i feel this desperate need to knock on wood. And then I realized like a lot of those rituals are very entertaining to me. Okay. It is the kind of thing I don't think about, but I do do that every time I say anything remotely positive.

Well, and when I was trying to kind of research the history of it, there's a lot of kind of conflicting stories as to how these things came about. Well, tell them all to me. Which I found interesting. So knock on wood. So there's a few things. A lot of it either goes back to kind of religious origins or just kind of ancient things that may have been religious and may not have been religious. Okay. So knock on wood.

Ancient pagan cultures believe that spirits and gods reside in trees and that knocking may have chased away evil spirits or prevented them from listening when you boasted about something, thereby preventing a reversal of fortune. Okay, so you're punching the spirits right out them trees. Or Christians have often linked the practice to the wood of the cross for Christ's crucifixion. Okay, that's probably... Or, and this one's my favorite, British folklorist Steve Roud traces the practice to a 19th century children's game called Tiggie Touchwood. Tiggie Touchwood? Tiggie Touchwood, which is a type of tag in which players were immune from being caught whenever they touched a piece of wood. That seems apocryphal.

It's a fun thing to say. I think it might be my roller derby name. Tiggy Touchwood's a really, really good roller derby name. So it sounded kind of like a home base, like if you're playing tag, like you would go to home base. Sure. And you couldn sure be it it was the pagan one though that was like explicitly for the exact reason that we still do it to this day yes which makes me think that that's that's where it is that's the one that

holds the most weight with me the knock on wood feels very like i am acknowledging this thing i'm saying is chancy and so i'm to knock on this wood and that's going to address that I know what I'm saying might be foolish. So I like that one. That's a good one. There's a few other ones I wanted to talk about just because I learned a little bit about them and I didn't realize anything. So the mirror, the mirror thing, breaking the mirror. Oh, yes. Mm-hmm. Ancient Romans believed that souls regenerated every seven years.

That's news to me. That your health and your body regenerates every seven years, and that a mirror contains fragments of your soul. So if you break the mirror, that's seven years bad luck until everything regenerates again. That, are you sure? That's what I found

on the internet. That's wild. That's what I found on the internet. Ancient Romans thought every seven years, you, Well,

have you heard that about like your skin? Like every, I don't know if it's seven years. I don't think it's, it's like 36 hours. Every 36 hours, you're a bunch of new cells cells but like your skin sloughs off and basically the person you are now sloughs off jesus this is visceral every seven years my soul is regenerated and it lives inside that mirror

so please don't i think that this whole thing came from back then mirrors were very expensive. That's possible. And so people were like, if you break my mirror, your soul will be destroyed just to keep people from horse playing. Yes. Do you want to hear about the ladder? Yeah, yeah. Walking under the ladder, this is the one with kind of conflicting source material. So in Christianity, there's the doctrine of the Trinity. And when you lean a ladder against the wall, it forms a triangle. This can't be it. That's such a wild stretch.

And that like breaking the triangle is like desecrating the Trinity. That's not true for anything else. trinity that's not true for anything else i've also seen a tie to egypt uh the ancient egyptians obviously placed a lot of uh value on the pyramid the triangle and to break the triangle again that's a problem i don't think it's either of those i think it's i again i think it was some sort of foreman situation was like on top of a ladder and little kids kept running under it. And he's like, that's 50 years. That's bad luck. Girl, go to hell.

There was also, and so there's a lot I don't know about Christianity. Just heads up, guys. Like, I don't have a lot of exposure to it. I got you. There was a ladder that rested against the crucifix, which became a symbol of wickedness, betrayal, and death. This is, again, they probably, I mean, okay. They probably used a ladder to get them up there. And then that ladder was just there.

But in like, I don't, but my, you know, me growing up, if I had like a crucifix necklace, it didn't have a little ladder on it. A little ladder charm that you could attach. That's nothing. The ladder is nothing. I'm not a deep biblical scholar, but I don't think the ladder is anything. So you feel comfortable walking under a ladder? Do I feel comfortable?

No. But not because of Jesus. It's just because you shouldn's you shouldn't what about opening an umbrella indoors uh that one i feel like is just rude i feel like it's rude to do that because it's probably wet and you're gonna get drippy drips on people i saw two explanations one was like some culture placed a lot of value on their very fancy umbrellas and another one was like umbrellas used to be super dangerous and so it was. And another one was like umbrellas used to be super dangerous. And so it was a good idea not to open them.

Umbrellas used to be super dangerous. They were very like faulty. Like the mechanism was not reliable. And so you could very easily hurt yourself. Just the top would go just launching off and impale somebody, but they'd be dry. I don't know. I have two more.

One is about the number 13 13 which is actually relevant because this friday is friday the 13th oh interesting so this one's religious right of some okay yes judas was the 13th guest at the last supper uh and then also and this is wait that's it yeah he's just you know he's a bad guy and he was number 13. Okay. You don't want to be 13. That's really it. I thought it was different. Well, there's another one. So there were 12 gods invited to dine at Valhalla.

Loki was the god of strife and evil. Crashed the party, raising the number to 13. The other gods tried to kick Loki out. Baldur, the favorite, was killed. So not a great time for a must-fall. Yeah, so just 13 13 not a good idea here's the one i think you'll like this is about your friend the moon i love the moon greeks knew that the moon and its goddess luna held the tides in their thrall and aristotle

considered the human brain to be the moistest organ particularly susceptible to luna's pull so your brain is like the wettest and since luna oversees the moon the moon pulls the tides on a full moon you have to be really concerned about the impact on your moist organ aristotle you said said this aristotle was like that brain's the gushiest what's what that brain do though it's the gushiest that's a gushy brain you got there gotta be careful the moon doesn't pull it right out of the top of your skull people still talk a lot about i'm aristotle the smartest one alive right now but folks don't It's going to get a lot better than me. I know you hear me say stuff like the brain's the wettest organ.

And so the moon's going to whip it around in your head like a bumper car. And you're going to think this is the smartest one. Don't worry. It's going to get smarter from here. Hippocrates apparently also said one who is seized with terror, fright and madness during the night is being visited by the goddess of the moon. Is that better or worse than

your wet, wet brain is slip sliding away? I love it. I love it. I think it's fun. I think superstitions by their nature are just like doing things without really understanding why you're doing it. But just being a little terrified that if you don't, there's going to be some kind of negative result.

And who doesn't want a little more luck in their life? Sure. It's the original chain letter. Yes. Kind of. I guess a little bit. I think a little bit. Can I do my first thing?

My first thing is murder mystery parties. Oh, Griffin. thing my first thing is murder mystery parties oh griffin i've only done a couple of these but they've they left quite an impression uh because there's a lot of things about a murder mystery party that is just right up right up my alley um i guess for one thing it's a party that you can win and that's rare but doesn't it okay so this is what's been hard for me in my previous experience with murder mystery which has only been twice here in austin have you done them prior to living here no okay i find that if people don't share the commitment to it it becomes very frustrating for me i but i

don't know that that has been true for the murder mystery parties that we have attended i recall are you about to put our friends on blast no no these are people we don't actually know very well I recall having conversations with people who seemed deceptive to me just because they Were approaching it differently than me. And so a lot of times I'd be like, I can't trust that guy He's a shady character and then I find out later like he was just kind of drunk Yeah, was this are you talking? are you sub tweeting me right now no no no i you know i enjoy you inebriated it's one of my i didn't enjoy me inebriated at this the first murder mystery party i ever went to because um i didn't exactly knives out it i didn't necessarily

use my little gray cells you did disappear for a while and then i found out later it was not out i was out front doing some heavy breathing it did not have to do with your character no a lot of people did think that was a clue though which is fun um i like it it brings out the spirit of uh competition with your friends and it's in a you know a setting where that's not normally true and i think that's really fun a big thing for me is that it is a guaranteed party activity sometimes when i like before i go to a party i get anxious about like what i'm actually going to be doing at that party like am i going to find am i going to find a zone where my friends are hanging out where we can all chill and talk or you know have snacks or what i would like to know that i'm going to have some

sort of nice activity because i've been to parties where uh even i might know some people there and i still feel unmoored in a way of just like i don't really i don't have a headquarters at this you need a job kind of i'm not a not a job that makes it sound like i don't know how to party i do i'm a fucking monster okay uh but i do i do like knowing that like i'm gonna have a a comfortable area there and knowing that there's gonna be a murder mystery to solve like that fixes that for me solving mysteries is also like fun as hell and not something that you usually get to do true uh unless you have a like a mystery solving job in which case you're probably not going to be invited to parties like these.

Role-playing is fun to do. Also, it's fun to see your friends do role-playing, especially if they're the types of friends who you don't play D&D with or anything like that. Did you feel like either time you were close to and or solved the mystery? No, God, no. And that wasn't frustrating to you?

I guess a little bit. I think I more enjoyed being a player on the stage. I enjoyed being, oh, me, Dr. Hatfield. Have I seen the vial of the shrinking potion? It's been a long time since we did one of these. As somebody who likes to win, I'm not saying that you're like a super competitive nightmare, but like you're somebody that likes to figure something out and do it well.

It wasn't frustrating to you to not crack it? No, because like you you mentioned like it is actually there are a lot of there are a lot of ways that these things can break bad yeah you could have one person there who is just being shifty for no reason yeah uh and then that can just like throw off the whole thing because it's tough to ask a bunch of people to come into your house and pretend to be other people and also here's clues and don't spill the beans and play your part and there's going to be people who aren't equipped for that yeah i i am for whatever reason not especially competitive when it comes to this specific and only this thing um i just i really

like being i think i just like being i think i might like larping like if we could get all of our friends to go out to the park and just larARP a little bit? Oh, man. Just a little LARP round? Maybe for like my 40th birthday party, like a big one that I can be like, you all fucking owe me. Take this, you know, foam sword. What do you think I'm missing? Right? Like, why do you think

that it's not a thing I'm comfortable with? Because I'm open to it, but it also makes me very uncomfortable. And I'd like to know kind of what hurdle I need to overcome. What if we could like murder in small town exit or to use a reference that more than six people are going to get. What if we could like Truman show it where you're the only person trying to

solve the murder and everybody else's actors. That might be fun. Okay actors that might be fun okay that might be fun unless it became this thing where it was like very embarrassing that i hadn't figured it out it's like you know when you're watching somebody play charades yeah like everybody else has figured out what they're doing and the one person that's guessing has no idea yeah i mean that would be pretty savage uh but you would just have to not do it it would add extra pressure for you to crack it. And that's always fun. That's always fun.

Also, my last thing, I like that they have a built-in conclusion. So if you're hosting a party, you can be like, well, get out. That's it. Murder's solved. Yeah, we've been to a couple of them. I think they were both kind of purchased off the internet as little packages. Right. If I remember correctly, there were like, you said how many people were in your party

and they would give you the right number of characters for that many people. Yeah. I mean, this was, you know, there were various variations on different parlor games, like in the early 19th century that were kind of this mafia basically came out of this, the game that Werewolf was was sort of originated from uh but they had these very very brief like year-long swings like in the 80s and 90s where they would sell them in uh box sets called how to host uh and they would be like little box sets it's like the thing that they played in that one episode of the office like

it was basically that but then once the. It's like the thing that they played in that one episode of The Office. It was basically that. But then once the internet sort of became a thing that everybody had everywhere all the time, distributing those became obviously a much easier prospect. I just realized the second time I did this, you weren't in town. And maybe that's why I didn't enjoy it as much. The first time we got to be this sweater vest couple. And we both wore turtlenecks and sweater vests and I can't remember.

Yeah. It was a cruise ship. Yeah. But then the second one, it was like a high school reunion theme and I was the girl that went to Harvard and wanted everybody to know she went to Harvard. Did that hit a little? Did that hurt? Well, so I like went to the trouble of buying a Harvard sweatshirt, but I don't think people

really got that was my character. I think they thought I was just kind of a dick. Oh no. Well, uh, I'm sorry to abandon you like that. I was out solving real murders. Real murders.

Yeah. Sorry, everybody. I guess Rachel wanted them to get away with it, but, uh, I don't have, I don't want to talk anymore because my throat hurts.

Can I steal you away? Yes, please. Can I read you our first personal message? This is for Squawks. It is from your best gal. To my dearest Squawksks you are made of light and love the life we've built with peepums and pie whack it reminds me every day how lucky I am to know your patience and kindness I only wish I could tell the whole world

how truly spectacular you are for now I'll start with letting the wonderful listeners know I've done it I've found the best boy sorry Derek I'm talking to derek who's standing in the room who thinks he's the best boy you're finished yeah sorry you're nothing now derek it's squawks it's squawks now derek hold on derek left i feel terrible derek didn't deserve this had to know that squawks was

biting his ankles nipping at those heels here is another message this one's for leah and it's from alex who says to my wonderful sister leah i know i won't be able to afford a good wedding gift for you and brand dog because i'm just your poor dumb baby sister so i hope this dose of macaroys will do wishing you a lifetime of love like rachel and griffin have for hot dogs and each other lilas because you're my sister alex it almost sounded like you said gear fin there did i say gear fin it sounded like you were saying gear fin a little bit i for sure said lilas yes which that of course stands for love. You like a SpongeBob. Exactly.

I've got a message for you. Hi, it's me, April Wolf, the host of Switchblade Sisters and co-writer of the new horror film Black Christmas. And I'm Katie Walsh, film critic and occasional host of Switchblade Sisters. We're here to announce that for one episode, we will be doing something a little different. Much like Jeff Goldblum and David Cronenberg's The Fly, I will be going through a truly disturbing transformation. April will transform from the interviewer into the interviewee. I will be asking her all about her new film, Black Christmas,

her writing process, and ongoing existential dread. But I will also be discussing John Carpenter's perfect masterpiece, Prince of Darkness. You guys seen any movies you like? So tune in to Switchblade Sisters for a one-of-a-kind episode with April Wolf and me, Katie Walsh. See you then. Only the corrupt are listened to now. Can I tell you my second thing? Yes.

My second thing is Moon Towers. These are the... Is there a murder history to these? Maybe. Okay. But not Maybe. Okay. But not confirmed. Okay. So we pretend maybe that it's not.

Okay. We should talk about it because I can't just say something like that and we don't return to it. We will talk about it. Cool, cool, cool. I wasn't spending a lot of time on it. All right, all right, all right. It's a great way to start this segment, though. Yeah. I'll just do as many days as you can.

When I said superstitions, you didn't jump to murder, but you could have. Right, I guess. But with moon towers, they're only in Austin. They don't exist anywhere else. Nowhere.

Maybe you should explain what they are. Okay. Moon towers. So in 1894, Austin purchased 31 used moonlight towers from Detroit. The whole idea behind moon towers was that cities all over the United States were starting to produce outdoor lighting. And with a moon tower, you could get a significant amount of light, and it was more in that way cost effective than getting a bunch of different lampposts it's basically a street light if a street light wasn't a fucking baby about it

yeah it's it's like a water tower i mean the reason they're called moon towers is that they they shoot like 15 feet up in the sky and they are able to shoot light over a much larger amount of space let me find okay okay they're much taller than 15 feet just gonna say that's not very tall babe so moon towers are 165 feet tall that's 11 times bigger i remember that there was a one and a five in there forgot about the six holy shit 165 feet tall and they illuminate a 1500 foot radius they're bright as hell yeah they're super bright um austin had 31 when they uh bought them from detroit did detroit was detroit using them at that point or was were they just making? They were making them. Okay. But they bought them used from Detroit.

Okay. In this time period, Austin's population was only around 18,000 people. They first went up in the Hyde Park neighborhood, which was Austin's first suburb. Now there's only about 15 in existence in Austin, so about half that many. Cities all over the United States were starting to explore these options. The hilly terrain of Austin made it a little difficult to do the street lamps. So instead they used 165-foot-tall Uber street lamps. They were connected to electric generators at the austin dam um

and in 1920s their original carbon arc lamps uh were super bright but time consuming to maintain so there was a big kind of overhaul of them in the 90s where they dismantled every tower and restored them to make them last like, you know, 50 more years. The way you may know about them, because again, they don't exist anywhere outside of Austin, is from Dazed and Confused. Right. In 1993,

there was a party at the Moon Tower in Dazed and Confused, and this was actually one that they artificially created for the movie. Really didn't know that yeah because moon towers aren't designed to be climbed oh right they're not they're not like water towers in that way and so they had to construct one that was climbable for the film okay yeah you just sounded so texas by the way when you said the word water towers it was like you were on some for real tammy taylor shit and i've never been more turned on my life maybe the tammy taylor size glass of wine that i've had this evening yes uh here's where the murders come in so

around that time period there had been some serial killings and so there was a suggestion that maybe the Moon Tower movement was motivated by a desire to kind of light up these neighborhoods to make them safer. Yeah. But obviously there's nothing written down anywhere of like, and we shall erect these towers

to address the murder issue. Like it's not documented. So they can't say for sure. Right. And serial killers are also famously very skittish. So you turn a light on one of them like a cockroach they just zip right away did say actually when i was reading about it that after these were installed the murders did cease so what were they murdering to get more street lights so

that their kids could play hockey in the street at night Was it just a very ill-advised protest? What's going on? Who's to say? There's a little documentary online. It's called The Last of the Moonlight Towers. It's like 50 minutes long. It's available for rent on Vimeo. It seems very cute.

You can watch the trailer for free. Talking about the different reasons for the creation of the moon tower. But it's just a really beautiful thing. And they're like, the way they're set up in Austin, they're kind of total surprises. Like if you're walking around Hyde Park, for example, you'll just be walking down the street and you'll just kind of run into one.

They're all, as of 1970, recognized as Texas landmarks. And they are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Huh. Only six are in their original locations, and the one in Zilker Park that makes the Zilker Park Christmas tree is still there. Oh, that's right. So the big Christmas tree they string all the lights to

that they claim is the world's largest Christmas tree is actually attached to a moon tower. That's neat. I had no idea. They're they're so neat they're so pretty if you've never been to austin ever seen them like they are for a city that is as sort of hippy dippy as austin is to have these monolithic like industrial pieces of like electronics all over is like really kind of i mean they're not i don't know it's not like brutalist or anything like that but but they they do stick out i feel like in a really neat way and the thing about austin that was a little troublesome to me when i moved here is i felt

like it was a city that was abandoning its history. You know, like everything was brand new. There were all these new high rises. It seemed like the city was constantly under construction. And it wasn't until I spent some time in Hyde Park that I thought, oh, there are pockets of Austin that are really connected to the history. And what's great about Moon Towers is, yeah, I mean, they've been around for over 100 years. It's like a real reminder. Of those grisly, grisly murders. Yeah, Rachel never letting people move on.

Like, they've grieved already. Let's drop it, you know? I want to do my second thing. Please. I'm going to be so brief with it. I'm going to let the singing do the talking for me for the most part. Oh, okay. Because I'm going to talk about key changes key changes are the most powerful things that you can do in a song

scientifically speaking uh it's formally known as modulation i mean a key change is what it says on the 10 you don't have to be i think especially well versed in music to know what a key change is it's where you take the key of a song and you make it different from what it was where it started a lot of the times following certain sort of harmonic rules uh and i just really love them i feel like they were the original sort of dubstep drop before we had dubstep drops good point uh and that goes all the way back to like classical music there are certain like forms of classical music where key changes play like a defining part in in in that form uh i learned about a sin the the sonata form is a you know a formal piece of classical uh a formal type of classical music where uh there are three movements and a key change uh separates i know about the moonlight one the moonlight sonata yes

uh famously yeah because i've talked about it on the show the where it pops off i think it's separates. I know about the Moonlight one. The Moonlight Sonata, yes. Famously. Yeah, because I've talked about it on the show, where it pops off. I think it's the second movement that's like, that kicks ass, man. But yeah, to establish the kind of raw power that I'm talking about, I'm going to start by discussing sort of the most influential

hit song that really revived this particular phenomenon. It wasn't until this song came out that I think musical artists sort of realized what they were capable of doing with their craft. And the song that I am talking about is, of course, Billy Ocean's

Get Out of My Dreams and Into My Car. Ooh. Get out of my Get out of my dreams you're not you haven't you didn't just listen to it but do you i didn't do you remember the the incredible a lot of people like to talk about about coming in the air tonight as having like the best drop of a song from that era. The, I would argue that the key change in Get Out of My Dreams, Get Into My Car is like, there's so much pretense to it. They like stop the music and there's like,

Get out of my, there's like a pregnant pause there that I could just take a nap in. But of course, you know, that's not the only song to really benefit of a key change. I mean, it hits hard and it hits good. But what I like about key changes is that they can make good songs great, but they can make terrible songs kind of good. And to illustrate that point, I'd like to play Mr. Biggs to be with you. Oh, Griffin, this is perfect. Mr. Biggs to Be With You is not a good song, traditionally speaking, by any metric that you could measure it by. I used to love it, though, as a youth.

Sure, sure, sure. Yeah, I would roller skate to this one. Absolutely. What really fascinates me, this song, I think, only stands the test of time because of the key change that you get in the middle of it and because of how much stink they put sort of on it. What I love about the key change in To Be With You is that it only lasts for one like repetition of the chorus and then they drop back down to the original tonic you fucking cowards like i've never i can't think of too many other songs where they do that where they're like oh brace your asses i'm the one who but then they're like no guys it's almost like they went it's too high too high too high too high drop it back down uh of course this is uh not the only song that has more than one key change and to sort of leave us leave

us off and really the song i was thinking about when we started doing this segment the song that everybody's probably wanting me to talk about what do you what's the song that you think of as having most key changes in it because i feel like this answer is pretty set in stone. Oh, I'm so bad with this stuff, Griffin. Love on Top. Oh, God, yeah. Love on Top is... Oh, that's so good. Exquisite. It's a good song and just, it's a good song.

It's a good, good song. And if she had had no key changes in it and just had that like fun music video, it would have been like, this is a good song. But instead, Beyonce was like, let's do a key change and then another one and then another, and then a fourth motherfucking key change. Because I'm Beyonce, and I just have these key changes lying around. I mean, it's like Mariah Carey, right?

Like people, there are people that realize they can do it. And then it's like, how far can I go? You know? Probably, I think Beyonce probably could have done about four or five more. It's just that the song, they ran out of tape on that one. It's like, hey, Beyonce, we got to get home by eight. It's 7.58. you've done 64 key changes you found a new octave we're all very tired we're very impressed we're very tired key changes

they're powerful use them responsibly are you gonna play some love on tom i already did oh good uh i got some submissions from our friends at home please uh kaylee says my wonderful thing this week is the Rubik's Cube. I finally learned how to solve one this week and the absolute joy and adrenaline I felt when I saw all the sides solved was amazing. Have you prioritized this as a thing you want to learn how to do? Never in my life. Me neither. I can't care about it.

I understand why people do. There's no part of me that wants to know how. Justin's deep into it. Travis is just now getting into it. I can't, I cannot be, I hate, I love puzzles and games and all that shit. The two things I don't fuck with is slide puzzles and Rubik's Cube, which is basically six slide puzzles.

I know that there is a way to do it. I understand that it takes some skill and some practice. And like anything, it takes skill and practice. It can be very impressive. It is, man. It makes me tired. Yes. It's like if I dropped 100 pencils on the ground and I had to pick each one up one at a time.

And also you could mess up very badly how you pick. Yes. Emily says, well, hi. Something I love is small town weirdness. I'm from a very small community that's obsessed with squirrels. I mean, there's a giant squirrel statue in the Civic Circle, enough squirrel bridges to be in Ripley's Believe It or Not. And in 2013, the spin doctors performed at the annual squirrel fest.

Wait, what's a squirrel bridge? Is this a bridge between like buildings so that squirrels can run across them? That is delightful. I like that. I just made that up, but that might be what it is. I like that. I mean, when I think of Huntington's small town weirdness,

I just think of the endless food festivals. The many food festivals that we do. Yeah, I mean, there was the big, the time that our mayor got abducted. The many food festivals that we do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there was the big, the time that our mayor got abducted. I don't think I know about that. By aliens. Jean Dean, her name was. Mayor Jean Dean.

Tell me more. Patron of the arts. Big booster for the local community theater productions. Got sucked up in a spaceship once. Never saw again it made the news huh she came back bristling with tentacles covered in slime are there gene dean bridges between buildings now so that she can skitter between there are no more buildings she smashed them all up under her huge gooey feet it's weird to hear haven't heard about this the time our mayor got sucked up and turned into a big alien godzilla gene dean huh she fucked it all up she exploded it the whole town and we've been rebuilding ever since but you know it's it's home

uh thanks to bowen and augustus for these for a theme song money won't pay you can find a link to that in the episode description. Tell me everything you know about Maximum Fun. So here's the thing about MaximumFun.org. They are a site that hosts just dozens of incredible podcasts. Hundreds!

That are funny, that are topical, that can be narrative, that can touch your heart and your soul and your funny bone. And I would recommend you check it out. It'll grab you right by the funny bone, folks. Both of them. You got two, you're only going to need one.

Two would be redundant. I don't feel good. Yeah, I don't feel good. I don't feel good. I don't feel good. Yeah, I don't feel good. I don't feel good. I don't feel good. Can I tell you a funny story about a mayor that I'm going to make up right now? It would be a little derivative. But this mayor was a ghost.

Are you making fun of my mayor? And then we created a whole throne for the ghost mayor and the throne was haunted and so the ghost mayor was scared to go on the throne and nobody would go on the throne and then that throne became a white castle i don't know that that makes sense my alien one had a beginning a middle and it had a whole dramatic arc and also was the truth i think yours was a freaking lie why would the ghost be afraid of a haunted chair would you believe burger king yes okay it was a burger king your day. MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture.

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