Wonderful! - Wonderful! 134: Gamer Camp

Episode Date: May 20, 2020

Rachel's favorite moving movies! Griffin's favorite cleaning videos! Rachel's favorite esteemed poetry position! Griffin's favorite food stink!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. Do you feel us in the room with you or the car? You're probably not in a car. You're probably in a room. Do you feel us in the room with you or the car? You're probably not in a car. You're probably in a room. Do you feel us there? A lot of people talking about the lack of sort of physical intimacy in these trying times.

And I do not want to cross any boundaries. But I just want to say we're right there in the room with you. Hey, who's that attractive couple over in the corner in the beanbag chair? Listen to you. Who's that? Hold on. Who's that? Hold on. Who's that sexy, tight-bodied, hilarious couple? Who's that muscular man over there with that stunning woman?

Who's that hot-bodied, sexual? This is wonderful. This is a show where we talk about things that are good, things that we like, things that we're into. And we want to be there for you in a way that is socially responsible, and that's why we do what we freaking do, man. Yes. You don't need a mask for your ears to listen to this show

unless that's what you call your headphones, and that's a thing I've been trying to think of a good way of saying that for a long time. I think it still needs work. Do you know what mean yeah well don't give up i never ever do and how are you doing how's your heart and your spirit and your soul you know it changes hour to hour right now i feel good i feel great right now yeah i felt like dog shit earlier yeah in the week but now i feel like a million bucks they're no longer good days or bad days they're like good hours and bad hours for me oh no for me it's not good days and bad days it's like fucking apocalyptic end of the world days and then like pretty good i want to you know

yeah do some swing dancing hug a tree i want to well no but i mostly the i want to listen to zoos who riot that's where i get why i'm in it do you have any small wonders i do and i forgive me if we've talked about this before but i want to say pesto huh interesting pesto the talked about pesto i don't think so uh the it's the it's the ideal form that like vegetation can enter your body in i think you know what i mean above any cooked vegetables and above eating grass pesto is it man yeah i mean you can make a lot of different kinds of pesto um what we have been digging on lately is uh the basil kind you know with with the nuts in it and the parmesan cheese sure sure sure sure, sure, sure. It just like, it makes everything feel fancy, I feel like.

Yeah. You know, like for example, we've been hitting it on the pasta lately. You know, you could just, you could put a red sauce on it, but ho-hum, why not a pesto? That's a fancy meal. I love a good red sauce. You make a killer red sauce, but yeah,

occasionally you want to mix it up with some green because the color's different. Yeah. I i'm gonna say the video that we saw uh that our friend anna posted on on twitter of uh it's at a twista concert uh and twister raps very quickly a very very expedient rapper and uh there is a video of an asL interpreter on stage just fucking fucking dropping it just the best in the biz uh like twist is doing a verse that it's just like you know very twisty extremely extremely extremely fast and just seeing this woman like ASL it like yeah so fucking quick but not just like it's not even like frantic and fast. Like it's still like smooth as fuck. Like it's still like to the beat and like choreographed.

And she's like kind of bouncing to it. It is the best. I love there's this moment where he just like literally goes and stands next to her and just watches her. And the audience is so powerful. The audience is like losing it. It's so, so good. I wish I could.

I don't really know what, if you Google asl interpreter twista yeah you'll probably get there i highly recommend watching this video it is uh so fucking fresh i think i've seen stuff with her before i feel bad that i cannot remember her name uh she's like she's known for like uh doing asl asl at uh concerts like this and like be adding a sort of musical sort of like rhythmic uh uh flair to it which i'm sure she's not the only one doing it but like she's the one who i've like seen do it but watching her keep up with twista is like fucking amazing it's so good uh

i don't know who goes first because we kind of got off uh our usual schedule with our self-care sedan last week thank you we got so much fan art of our self-care sedan it's so awesome uh yeah i don't think we knew uh we were a little not confident in that episode because we were a little sort of down in the dumps but um i'm glad that people hopped and hopped in the whip with us so why don't you go first okay uh my first topic is uh dance movies yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Movies with the dancing. This is, at first blush, a fairly broad category. Yeah. And I'm going to break it down into kind of two distinct groups.

Obviously, there's the movie musical, which often will have dancing, particularly like West Side Story in Chicago, where dancing is really a prominent feature. And then there's the movies in which the characters dance because they are either trying to be better dancers or are trained dancers in the films. Right. I'm going to primarily talk about those.

Oh, okay. Interesting. So not a break into Electric Boogaloo, but more of a dirty dancing. Yes. Okay, fantastic. Yes. I have a real long list of, you know,

Teen Vogue did a list of like the best dance movies. Okay. And I realized I've seen a lot of them. Okay. More than half. You enjoy a dance. I do.

You turned me on to, what is it? Not America's Nice. So You Think You Can Dance. Yeah. So You Think You Can Dance, dance a dance. You turned me on to, what is it? Not America's Nice. So You Think You Can Dance. So You Think You Can Dance, dance, dance. You were big into that show. The brilliance of Travis Wall. Travis Wall makes a good dance.

And I don't think I really appreciated the form of it or how much you appreciated the form of it until we watched that show together. I am somebody, I took dance classes from like age three to like age 17. appreciated the form of it until we watched that show together somebody i took dance classes from like age three to like age 17 um i'm not particularly good uh that's not true i'm not asking you to agree or disagree on this i i get very in my head about it so when i was learning choreography i'm very much like focused on like is that the right hand or the left hand left foot

does left foot go first does it go in front of the right foot? Does it go behind the right foot? That's so interesting. It like really trips me up a little bit. Because when I watch you play like a dance central, you're just elbows and knees just sort of flailing around. But like you at a wedding, like having fun, like you're so fun to dance with. Yeah, choreography kind of trips me up a little bit um i i just i

get very focused on like you know doing it precisely right never a good recipe for dance no um and uh there was a kind of a golden age of dance movies that i will say is like 2000 to 2006, maybe. Not a very long golden era. Yeah. Well, so what really brought me to this category is Center Stage. Oh, wow. I don't know that I've seen Center Stage. The Peter Gallagher film?

Yeah. No, I know he's in it. And so it's a cry in shame I haven't watched it. It's like a super, like, it came out in 2000. It's like a super late 90s movie, though. There's like a lot of like late 90s fashion, like a lot of wedge shoes, a lot of sweaters around the waist. Upon further investigation, I'm willing to put like 2000 to 2003 in the late 90s. Okay.

Because we really, we have not stepped it the fuck up yet, really. Largely, that movie, not particularly um great but a lot of professional dancers in it oh okay like the cast is largely people who like actually worked with ballet companies uh and also a young zoe saldana oh yeah she actually had dance background um was not obviously a professional dancer, later became a very successful professional actress. Yes, yes. But like pretty much everybody else in the cast, like actually were like principal dancers

in like San Francisco and New York. And so it's just like a really impressive film. Is it your favorite of the dancing movies? Oh, see, that's hard to say. Oh, yeah. That's hard to say. Another movie I enjoy came out just a year later called Save the Last Dance. I know this one.

With the Julia Stiles. Yeah. Was she in other dancing movies? So she believes that her table dancing in 10 Things I Hate About You is what landed her the role in Save the Last Dance. I always think of her as being somebody who was in a lot of dance movies. But I think it was she it's the internet is conflicted as to whether or not she has professional training wow this is like a mandela effect thing i think part of it is that she

probably just took dance classes kind of informally right and that is her training um there's also a suggestion of whether or not she did her own dancing in the film okay um she says cgi like the ali mcbeal baby is that what it was the only thing that she has claimed or like accepted that she did not do is like the point scenes where she's up on her toes so they used to stand it for that god that man that would hurt i know there's people that really enjoy watching ballet and i don't i have nothing against the craft, except to say that when I do see them standing on their tippy, tippy, tippy, tippies,

it's hard to look at that because I think about just sort of the bones in there and what real troopers there be. Yeah, I always wanted to do it. My little community dance classes, it was kind of like an offshoot of like, hey, if you want to be doing this on point, you can do it. But it was never really pushed because the shoes are expensive and it's very difficult.

And the toes are expensive. Yes. The toe meat and the bones in there, they're quite pricey. Uh-huh. So Save the Lost Dance, again, like not not an incredible film the choreographer for it um fatima robinson has done choreography for michael jackson alia mary j blige black eyed peas megan trainer uh she's pretty like illustrious so the choreography is really good um she also did choreography for the whiz and dream girls

so she's pretty accomplished yeah i'll say uh so that's so that's 2000 2001 um there are films i haven't seen like honey and step up um uh that came out in in 2003 2006 Step Up was the sort of launchpad for the Channing Tatum. Okay, and Jenna Duhon, yes. Yeah, who has the dance show that we've watched too. Oh God, that's right. That I can never remember the name of. Yeah, I can't either. The premise of the show is that people go on a blind date,

but the blind date is just dance choreography that they have learned individually and now have to do together yeah and then they decide if they want to go on a second date after their dance performance it's something else it's really something else um and another uh film i haven't seen um i haven't seen magic mike i I have seen Magic Mike XXL. Oh, God. Speaking of Channing Tatum. That movie whips ass. It's so good. So good.

Channing Tatum, I looked him up because he's become quite well known for his dancing ability. From what I can tell, he does not have any real dance training. He just kind of leaned into it. That gives me hope, huh? He's just a powerful man. Yeah. there are a lot of other films a lot of documentaries about dancing a lot of american adaptations of international films i i love it yeah i love it so much it's so fun to watch it's such a nice

like athletic component of a film and to be able to act on top of that is just always it's it's charming would you watch break into electric boogaloo with me if i could find it digitally i bet it's on youtube somewhere i mean are the dance performances remarkable do you like like b-boy shit sure then yeah okay you're gonna enjoy it i would watch it there's some now should i watch the first break and you kind of have to okay it. I would watch it. There's some. Now, should I watch the first break-in? You kind of have to. Okay. It sets up the whole cinematic universe.

I've never actually seen the first break-in. We bought, me and my friend Justin Minsker bought Break into Electric Boogaloo on DVD. He may have gotten it for me for like a present or something like that, but it was like a joke because the name of the movie is so outrageous. And then we watched it and we were like, it's so silly. Let's watch it immediately again there's a part where somebody like has a like a first kiss with somebody that they are into and then they go into this room and they start dancing and then they start walking on the walls and dancing on the walls and dancing on the ceiling in this like completely uncut just like dancing

all over the walls of this room thing that's like uh it's it is hypnotic i mean just quickly i want to mention obviously there's you know footloose and oh yeah dirty dancing and black swan and any number of other dance films too many to mention i would argue black swan is maybe not mostly about the choreography there is some incredible dancing in it sure not as light-hearted as say a dirty dancing yeah um my first thing is just as sort of um sort of uh artistically enriching a piece of content as a dance-based videos especially one of just sort of like ballet and really smart stuff like that. My first topic is pressure washing videos. Oh, satisfying.

Yes, for sure. I didn't actually check to make sure we have not talked about this before. We really need to get better about that. Uh-oh. Oh, no. I typed pressure into wonderful.fyi and it got a result.

I was like, oh shit. But it was under pressure. The song. We've not talked about pressure into wonderful.fyi and it got a result. I was like, oh shit. But it was under pressure. The song. We've not talked about pressure washing before. Isn't it sad that like I kind of thought that that is the type of thing that we have for sure talked about before? Anyway, I, you know, my algorithms are fucking garbage at this point. It's all like at this point it is uh like final fantasy 14 walkthrough videos almost exclusively and also there's like a side category of just some shit and well chef club

don't forget about chef well that's in facebook i'm talking about specifically like youtube uh facebook facebook i do get so facebook it's still like we made a table out of reclaimed wood and resin. And doesn't it kind of look like a river? Or we made some sort of weird hot dog cake. Enjoy that. I don't even see pictures of like kids, like my friend's kids anymore. Now it's exclusively resin tables and hot dog cakes like all the way down. Anyway, pressure washing videos is just sort of the latest chapter in my garbage video feed.

Should we mention that we have never pressure washed? I've never pressure washed anything. Here's the thing about pressure washing. I find videos of pressure washing very hypnotic, might I even say seductive. The power of pressure washing videos really, really enraptures me. If you're not aware, pressure washing videos really really uh uh enraptures me if you're not uh aware pressure washing is i the technology of it is a little bit beyond me but from what i

understand this machine forces a tremendous amount of water through a very very small cavity thumb over a hose yes it's like that times an infinity times a lot uh and you point that at a driveway and it cleans the ever-loving shit out of that driveway yeah um and or you know insert whatever here anything that has deep deep baked on grime dirt stuff that i don't even know what the fuck like you look at a driveway you sweep it and you're like that driveway's clean. Like you look at a driveway, you sweep it, and you're like, that driveway's clean. And then you bring in a pressure washer, and the pressure washer's like, no, idiot.

You're only seeing the like layers of dead driveway skin that are on top of that. And when I remove that, it's going to elevate it. It's got a whole different hue. I'm a little scared of it myself. Yes. I like watching know about you. It's got a whole different hue. I'm a little scared of it myself. Yes. I like watching other people do it, but I am perpetually worried

that anything that we pressure wash would crumble. Explode. Yeah. Our house has some stucco siding on it. It's a little nasty. Like I wish we could, I wish we could just point a pressure washer right at it, but our realtor,

when we bought the house was like, don't do that. You will punch a hole in the fucking house and it will collapse everybody's kind of afraid of a pressure washer i think if you pointed it at a car it'll like strip the paint off that like it it it's a tremendous amount of force yeah but i'm all about i feel like i've talked about this on the show before like i'm all about like the hidden like worlds of everyday sort of reality. And there is nothing sort of more instantaneous a revelation than a pressure washing video where you point it at a driveway and you're like, I know what that driveway looks like. And then you just sort of sweep effortlessly sweep this magic wand across it.

And it's like, oh, shit shit that's what that actually looks like a big one for me is uh the interiors of pools where you see it and somebody could have just scrubbed the interior of this like pool that like sort of um synthetic like tiley material and then you spray it with the pressure washer and like i watched a video where i was like oh that's like a nice little aquamarine pool interior that somebody's done some real primo work on and then they just spray it and it's like actually it's a completely different sort of thing and that was what was on there there's a moment of terror of just like what was i've been touching that my car wheels have been touching that dirty ass driveway this whole time yeah my kids have been doing chalk drawings on that and it's just covered in what tar and shit i don't know i think it is the magic wand

element i think that's really what what speaks to us i i this bit is gonna make you upset but there's a part of me that i think actually enjoys the concept of cleaning and things being clean it is never and it's never something that like i prioritize um i'm so you may not believe this i'm better about it now when i was like in college and living by myself uh it was a fucking disaster area like i am i was okay with living in a level of filth that you would find absolutely jaw-dropping this i think here's here's a question this is a good question i as i've become an adult i'm not particularly clean but i've lived with a lot of people that are not clean and the biggest indicator i find is how often you wash your sheets um yeah when you ask somebody that the answer they give you will tell you a lot about how clean they are yeah for me not never

never i don't really i'm okay with that and i'm only like a once a month person like i'm not even you know particularly fastidious that feels fastidious i'm really showing my hand quite a bit if it for me it needs to be a sort of visible, a clutter. If there's like a visible clutter, like my office right now is like on the precipice. Like I probably need to, there's just some shit laying on the floor.

Like I would, I would like to get rid of some of that. Sheets that like, that has my stink and sweat and dead skin and whatever. Like I can't see that. I don't care. I, I just enjoy the sort of extreme home makeover transformation of just like, it's like we have a new driveway, Denise.

Yes, exactly. But also, I think that it's just you watch a pressure washing video and there's a grim part of your mind that is just fascinated by the dangerous raw power of the pressure there's there is a respect that's probably that's i think poe edgar allen poe talked about that sort of macabre fascination with pressure washes specifically uh-huh um but yeah it's i get served a lot of them these days i get served also a lot of uh we're going to detail the shit out of this car which is also uh hilarious considering i've never had that done to a vehicle ever before but it's i like it it's like a new

thing it's taking something and making it new can speaking of which let's renew this podcast by pressure washing it with advertisements. Can I steal you away? Yes. Can we talk about these grammatrons? Yes. Here's one for Casserole, and it's from Kyrie, who says, Thanks for being a wonderful partner and even better friend. There's no one else I'd rather navigate life's chaos with here's to figuring things out coping with some late night animal crossing and listening to our fave podcasts together we got this can i tell you something

embarrassing sure i have never had or participated in a meteor shower in animal crossing and part of that is i'm just not as committed to late night Animal Crossing as perhaps I should be. You are a real early, early worm. That's not the, what's, that's not what they call them. Once Nook's cranny closes, I'm like, see you tomorrow. What's the point? What are you gonna do?

Catch some bugs and sell them at an 80% loss? No, thanks. That's ridiculous. Here, you want to read the next one? Yeah, this is for Donna and Raphael. It is from Glitch. Donna, you and Raphael are the two most wonderful people in my life. You're always there for me, whether it's to comfort me while I cry or to kick my butt at games.

You also feed me all the delicious food. I'm so glad you two got married and that I was there beside you when you said I do. I love you. That's so sweet. It's super sweet. But you gotta get your game, step it up and come to my Griffin McElroy gamer camp. Oh my gosh.

If you're getting your butt kicked at games, come to Griffin McElroy's gamer camp. I'll make you win at any videos games. I'm talking about Halo. Yeah. Super Mario Party. Yeah. Fucking.

Zelda. The Zelda one. Zelda. Well, that doesn't typically have a multiplayer component, but Logical Island of the Zoombinis. Ooh. Chex Quest. Oh. Is that?

Cool spot. Any of these games that you're getting your ass whipped at, I got you. Come to Griffin MacRise Gamer Camp. It's a... How many weeks? It's $500. It's like a day. Oh.

It's like an afternoon. But we do provide lunch. Which is Mountain Dew. Which is just gamer fuel Mountain Dew, yeah. Hey, Max Funsters. It's Jesse Thorne. This week on my public radio interview show, Bullseye, I'm talking with Tina Fey and Robert Carlock

about creating Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, 30 Rock, and also just kind of why they're the best at everything. There was a window of time when we would just go to awards things and pick up our prizes and party with the people from Mad Men. You can find Bullseye at MaximumFun.org or wherever you listen to podcasts. Just search find Bullseye at MaximumFun.org or wherever you listen to podcasts. Just search for Bullseye with Jesse Thorne. Hey, what's your second thing? My second thing are poet laureates.

All of them? Just the the whole concept the whole position of you're the best poet just the the honorary distinction itself is there a dance laurie because to tie it back to your first point is there ever like a thing where it's like somebody gets a medal and it's like you are the country's best dancer well that's not really what Poet Laureate is. Come on. But there should be a Dance Laureate. I agree with you on that. Yeah. I, you know, I've mentioned the position of Poet Laureate a lot on this show

because a lot of the poets I choose have received that distinction, but I didn't actually really know much about it. I just knew that it was a title you could get, and it was kind of like the kind of the biggest one you could get. And it was kind of like the kind of the biggest, the biggest one you could get. I clearly have just shown that I don't know fucking anything about the

position or its history. Yeah. I had to do a little research because the concept seems crazy. Like our government would prioritize poetry so much. There would be an official poet of the country. And is, as far as I know, still kind of doing it.

Like still, they just named a new poet laureate fairly recently, right? Maybe I'm wrong. But like in this current administration. There's a 2019. Yeah, that's strange to me. Yeah. So it actually started as kind of a continuation

of what was happening in the UK. This started in the u.s in 1937 it is a position that is appointed by the librarian of the united states congress and serves less than a year typically although there have been poet laureates that have served longer than that i said try to kick me out of my poet laureate office. The position does provide a stipend and that stipend is $35,000 a year. Hey, not bad. Yeah, but you definitely can't live on that. No, but you're probably not saying, my job is poet laureate, right? It's like an honor, a prize or something. Yeah, it is an annual stipend that is provided from an existing kind of endowment.

That's maybe why we're still doing Poet Laureates, because $35,000 is not a tremendous amount of money in the grand scheme of the federal budget. The responsibilities of this position are pretty light, and each poet has kind of made it their own. All the poet laureate has to do is present an annual lecture, and then they usually introduce poets at the library's poetry series. Their whole job is to just kind of increase the greater appreciation of reading and writing poetry. Cool. Yeah, it's amazing that that is a thing. Isn't it amazing that that is still a thing?

So here's a few poet laureates and kind of what they've done. Maxine Kuhman, who I've mentioned, I believe, on this show, started a popular series of poetry workshops, specifically for women. And then Gwendolyn Brooks met with elementary school students. She has a big presence in Chicago. I recognize the name. Joseph Brodsky initiated the idea of providing poetry in airports, supermarkets, and hotel rooms. Okay.

Robert Pinsky, who I've also mentioned, initiated the Favorite Poem Project. And then Billy Collins did a Poetry 180 project that distributed a poem to all high schools for every day of the school year. Cool. Isn't that cool? Before we move on, I just want to say the 2019 poet is Joy Harjo, who is the first Native American woman to be appointed U.S. Poet Laureate.

She is a performer, actually. I don't know if you're, are you familiar with Brave New Voices? Yes. There was that, and there's like Deaf Poetry Jam. Sure. These are all like performance poetry and you can find some Joy Harjo poems.

Back when my Facebook feed had any redeeming value at all, I used to see those pop up. And I like watch this incredible Brave New Voices performance before it was pressure washing videos. So here's how Poet Laureate really took off in the U.S. There's actually, you may recognize this name. In 1936, philanthropist Archer M. Huntington provided an endowment

for the maintenance of a chair of poetry at the English Language and Library of Congress. I mean, I recognize that the name is the same as the name of the city that I grew up in, but he's not like the Huntington that people talk about, people know. He is the adopted son of collis p huntington oh interesting okay wow fascinating collis b huntington the founder of huntington yeah yeah uh so he um not only provided the endowment for this position he was also a major benefactor of the American Academy of Arts and Letters,

contributed extensively to the Hispanic Society of America, also founded the Brookgreen Garden Sculpture Center in South Carolina, the Mariner's Museum, and was involved in the founding of Newport News Virginia. Hot damn. That was established in the late 19th century,

largely through the efforts of his adopted father, Collis P. Huntington. That's interesting. I had no idea that he was such a sort of like- Yeah, I didn't realize they were like, they were just springing up cities all over the place. Yeah. So yeah, I think it's really kind of surprising

that this position exists. I enjoy that it does. I can't imagine any president would do away with it. I can imagine. I can absolutely imagine that. It almost kind of seems like this administration has maybe forgotten that the position exists. And we're all just kind of trying to stay quiet about it. So maybe they don't remember.

I hope this is something that continues. As you can see, some of the poets that have had this position have really done a lot of work to kind of spread the awareness of poetry, which of course is something that I care about a lot. Yeah. Can I talk about my second thing? It'll probably be pretty quick, but I got very excited about it. My second thing is aromatics, the things that smell good when you cook them. And they're the first things that you cook in most dishes. I don't think I appreciated aromatics or how common they were until I started to do cooking seriously.

And once you do, it is so eye-opening how every food has the same two or three things in them. Specifically, onions. eye-opening how every food has like the same two or three things in them uh specifically onions i remember the first time i had the realization i think it was probably during like the the you know when we started doing blue apron and i was like man i sure have been cutting up a lot of onions lately and then i was like wait a minute every recipe in the whole universe has onions in it yeah if it is a savory dish there there are odds are it's got onions in it but really onion is an aromatic that is a very very common one uh but every sort of culture every sort of like way of cooking has different base level aromatics that once you kind of like look at them on a list, you really do realize why

different cultures have food that tastes the way it does. And certainly like way smarter people than me can identify like why those became the aromatics. I'm sure like a lot of it has to do with geography and like what grows well in certain parts of the world. But I find it very, very, very fascinating that just like when you think of these different cultures and the flavors that their food sort of like brings to the table, no pun intended, it is largely because of the really core DNA-based stuff that goes in like virtually everything that is cooked in those cultures. is cooked in those cultures.

So you want to talk about French cooking. The mirepoix, I believe is what it's called, is like the holy trinity of aromatics. Very first thing you do, get some butter or some oil. I think it's typically butter for French cooking in a pan and you're going to put some onions, carrots, and celery. Cook that in butter.

Yeah. Get the, usually the butter or oil or ghee or whatever is like what brings out the the good stink in the aromatics uh and that is going to serve as like the base everything else that you add that you like you know supplement in on top of that is what sort of gives it the specific flavor that you're going to cook but that like core like depth of flavor comes from that and across all french cooking like it is almost like uh you know a universal that these three things are going to be in it uh those three uh vegetables are also the same components of a sofrito which is uh in in in italy uh the common aromatics that are used but they use olive

oil uh most latin cuisines also have a sofrito but it uses garlic onions bell peppers and tomatoes in olive oil and then of course like the things that they supplement it with are different obviously than french and italian cuisine where you have things like coriander and cumin. You have chilies, obviously, paprika, wine, and vinegar. The stuff that you add on top of that that really defines the flavor is obviously different from culture to culture, but there's so many commonalities between just those three things. Then you get into Chinese dishes have an entirely different sort of sweet where you do have garlic, but then you get scallions and ginger, of course,

always cooked in oil. And then you have the stuff you add on top of it, like five spice and star anise and different kinds of chilies and shallots. Curry paste is also another sort of form of aromatics where you have this thing the flavor sort of originates out of uh where you have shallots garlic and chilies is almost all for for thai curry that is like the the holy trinity for for thai curry um uh cajun cuisine has its own thing where I forget specifically, I think it's, I want to say

onions, celery and bell peppers. And that is like the basis of a lot of different Cajun cuisine. Yeah. I love this idea that there are these like, just sort of like first building blocks, the foundation that you lay down before you cook a dish yeah i just kind of think about like laying out like a like a pasta or like a rice and then choosing which ingredients and that's like what country you're going to yeah there's like a taxonomy like a almost like a genealogy there just like well i you know i'm gonna cook this thing i'm

gonna make a red sauce i know that i'm going to put these same things in it that have always gone in it for like across, across time and space. And your body just like knows like, oh, this is what, what nationality I'm eating. Yes. The, the other things that I really like about aromatics is one, it's always the thing that like when you are making something in the kitchen and I walk by, I'm like, oh, that smells good. It's always like I just start like what you are smelling right now is onions being

sweated out in oil and maybe there's some garlic in there. Yeah, exactly. I've not done anything particularly fancy to them. What you're smelling are these two stinky vegetables that I have made hot in oil. But like there's this Pavlovian response in my mind of just like, uh-oh, someone's cooking. And on the same note, and this is really the only other thing

I have about aromatics, when you cook aromatics, that is the moment where I always feel like I'm cooking. I'm not making some bullshit like, you know, I'm not making dirt cake with pudding and mashed up oreos i'm fucking cooking yeah i have chopped up look out look how small i chopped up this garlic and now i have it in oil in a pan i'm cooking like a big boy right now there's like a there's like a chemical reaction happening that you caused. That I made, this is, I'm really transforming this.

I can put gummy worms in the dirt cake and say that I'm cooking, but I'm really not making stinky vegetables hot in oil. That's capital C cooking. I really wanna cook some onions right now. Well, you know, you were talking, we have onions, we have carrots, we have celery. Yeah. yeah um we could really we have butter we could really get going we could get something going huh yeah let's figure it out okay maybe tonight maybe i'll just go down the kitchen

chop up them shits and put it in some butter and put it in a pan without knowing what i'm gonna do next oh that's exciting that'd be fun wouldn it? What comes out of that would almost certainly be bad. You'd be like, are you adding Honey Nut Cheerios? Yeah, I panicked. It was getting so hot. I don't know. Hey, do you want to know what our friends at home are talking about? Yes, please.

Heather says, something I think is wonderful is getting into a band that has a large discography. Recently, I've started listening to ELO, that's Electric Light Orchestra, who've got a large discography. Recently, I've started listening to ELO, that's Electric Light Orchestra, who've got a large catalog of albums and being able to deep dive into decades of music from the same artist is so good. ELO is like the perfect one of those. ELO is like the one where I remember I heard my former boss at Polygon, Chris Grant, sing a song at karaoke and thinking like, man, that song beats ass.

What is that? And every time I have that realization, it's always Electric Light Orchestra. The first time I heard Telephone Line, I was like, man, this song, who is this? And it's like, oh, it's the Mr. Blue Sky people. Yeah, they're fantastic. Marcus says, a wonderful thing that I've gotten

into this past year is the sport of cricket. I only dove in after the Don Bradman Monster Factory and it has been an ever-blooming rose that gets better and better. I've even found a team to play with in North Alabama. Oh my gosh. I would like to learn how to do that.

It is wild how arcane. It seems very complicated to me. Complicated isn't even the right word i feel like it's maybe even easy to grasp the rules of it but just the rules seem so wild yeah like so calvin bolly in a way did you actually learn any of the rules oh no okay no i learned how to hit i learned what button to press to hit the ball very far. And that seemed to make the points go up to a satisfactory level. So yeah, I just took that and ran with it.

Thanks to Bowen and Augustus for the use of our theme song, Money Won't Pay. Find a link to that in the episode description. And thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network. Yeah, thank you Maximum Fun for hosting our show and all the other great shows. I would really encourage you to check it out. If you are a parent that has been perhaps

struggling with parenting during this time one bad mother is is a solve a salve even it's not it won't solve necessarily the particular issue but it is a salve how do you say that i don't know i could split the difference and say solve. You just said it the same. You know, you just said it the same way. I think it's solve. Why can't we say this word? Well, it's not a word you hear very often in our lines of work, which are not medical. Actually, my dad was an apothecary.

So, yeah, he made a lot of ungenceents a lot of poultices that he would rub on boils and what have you oh okay people get boils rachel sorry sorry hashtag sorry not sorry about these boils Money won't pay. Workin' on it. Money won't pay. Workin' on it. Money won't pay. Workin' on it. Money won't pay. Workin' on it.

Money won't pay. Workin' on it. Money won't pay. Workin' on it. Hey! Hey! Hey!