Wonderful! - Wonderful! 152: Air Milk

Episode Date: September 30, 2020

Rachel's favorite electoral food! Griffin's favorite throwing game! Rachel's favorite old snacks! Griffin's favorite fall album!Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoyaDemand police accountability and reform: https://action.justiceforbreonna.org/sign/BreonnaWasEssential/Ways to support Black Lives Matter and find anti-racism resources: https://linktr.ee/blacklivesmatterRegister to vote: https://vote.gov/ 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. Just two autumnal sweethearts over here. Oh, yeah. Crisping it up. This podcast episode is going to be like a nice cold apple cider dumped in your lap. And you're on a hay bale ride. And I spilled my whole cold apple cider right on your freaking lap.

Is that a thing people like? It's the official kickoff to fall. I feel like it ain't fall until you've had somebody spill a cold apple cider on your lap on a hay bale ride. Or am I wrong? Is that just me? Is that maybe an Appalachian thing? Shoot. I think you might be wrong. I mean, usually this time of year

you serve it warm. Yeah. It may be because we've been watching a lot of Pin 15, which is one of the best shows on television right now exceptional show uh but i've been thinking about middle school a lot lately and i have this very vivid memory of being on a hay bale ride with like a sweetie and listening to um uh sugar ray's fly on the radio in like seventh grade. I don't know why that is like so ingrained in my mind.

I guess it was like a dope night. Were you like, I'm going to remember this forever. Apparently. And guess what? I did. I did. And I am. I have a lot of fall memories.

I mean, the big thing for us was ice skating rink. Oh, see, we didn't do that. So we weren't, I guess i guess hockey enough our town wasn't hockey enough for that uh hey do you have any small wonders uh my small wonder i'm you know what i'm gonna say fingerless gloves yeah sure you know like you can do your stuff but you can have your your comfort yeah um a lot of times now you can get the gloves that have the little touch screen sensitivity in them yeah i say i say if you can get the gloves that have the little touchscreen sensitivity in them. Yeah, witchcraft. I say if you can afford it, just take those fingers right off.

Just pop them right out. Yeah, living in Chicago, it's sort of essential to have a sort of fingerless glove strategy. And I had and still have the ones with the cap that like flip up over your fingers, but you can flip them off. Sometimes you got to get in your wallet and get that credit card out. You got to get in there. I'm going to say the bust cakes that were created in the first episode of the new season of Great British Bake Off.

Eater wrote an article about it. If you need to see an image of those and don't watch the show, somebody made a cake that was supposed to look like Tom DeLonge, the front man for Bl 182 uh that is i think about it all the time i think about cake tom delong all the time every day since i've seen him he is a he is a grim mask of pain and it's so fucking funny to me uh it made me think wasn't it eddie murphy what was the snl where they did

like a bake-off sort of parody and somebody made a cake that was like it was eddie murphy holy shit that like we are trending towards that direction which is funny because it's not nailed it great british bake-off isn't no but for one challenge it was nailed it because everybody a nightmare david attenborough like everybody made made a David Bowie cake that looked like it had been like fucking stomped on. It is so funny and good and weird and pure. I can't imagine the kind of person that wouldn't like Bake Off. But if you are somebody that has found that show perhaps too soothing in the past, this is a laugh riot. This is a hoot and a holler uh you go

first this week what's your first uh topic my first thing is a organization called pizza to the poles never heard of this one i just found out about it okay let me hmm do they are they sending pizza to the north and south pole? No. Oh, okay. I don't know. I was just trying to guess based on context clues that it was like a scientific organization of just like, let's see how far we can get this piece of pizza. Can we get it up to Santa Claus or evil Santa Claus? Does Krampus live on the South Pole?

Oh, man. That is a whole different show right there it is um no this is a non-partisan organization that started in 2016 in response to long lines during the election p-o-l-l-s yes now we're talking you know it could have been like telephone poles too it could have been line workers you know it could it could have been a lot of things sure that is the wonder of the english language could have been giving free pizza to polish people i don't know if they go by that but yeah i mean what else could it be let's keep going this is great um they offered a simple service free pizza to voters waiting in line regardless of their political affiliation.

In the four years since, the group has continued to provide this service. They delivered nearly 11,000 pizzas to voters at 611 polling locations across 41 states in 2018. Fuck yeah. What's the opposite of voter intimidation? Because that's what this is, it feels like. They started out in just Ohio, Florida, and Illinois, and then it became a nationwide effort. They take donations year round. And basically what they do is they invite donors to just give $20 here and there.

And then you can be eligible if you're standing in line to get the benefit of that. What you do is you go onto their website, and they will ask you a series of questions. If you are interested in receiving one of these pizzas, you have to provide a link to a report on social media saying like, this line's super long. And then they swoop in like Pizza Batman. Yeah, exactly. You provide your polling place address and your phone number email address uh so they can follow up when the pizza's on its way okay do the people in line get to

choose toppings depth of crust it's a very long form yeah it's like all right i want one that's half hawaiian half cheese and you have to you have to collaborate with everybody else in line regardless again regardless of political affiliation so like you look at somebody who you are so opposed to and you're like listen you fucking jerk what do you want on your pizza pepperoni me too oh my gosh we have something in common but also really really wicked important stuff super duper not in common um it also lists upcoming deliveries on the site too so you can kind of see where these pizzas are going out this is of course on an election day right now if you go there's nothing there uh and they also try and order local which i appreciate

there is a website i didn't know about called slice uh where you can enter in an address and they will uh give you a list of pizza places. And so they try and purchase local. And none of this money, so if a polling place or a election has passed, they will use this money to support other hungry people around the country in a variety of lines.

That's radical. Yeah. That's very cool. They have a team of volunteers across the US, England, and Australia to help coordinate these deliveries. And it's a really cool location. Do you think,

I know it's like a big fight to try and get Election Day to be a national holiday to encourage more people to go vote. If we could get it on the calendar as Pizza Party Day. Oh, that's fun. I think we would have 98% voter turnout. And the 2% would be people who just don't really like pizza very much. I think, you know, Texas is a place that does not allow mail-in ballots, except for extreme circumstances. So it's going to be kind of crazy at those polls.

We are fortunate to have early voting, so hopefully that will help a little bit. But I was just excited to know about this and think, like, this is a nice way to spread goodwill, especially for people who aren't able to vote until they get off work. And if I'm standing in line hungry, I'm really debating getting out of line. But if there's pizza there, maybe I'll stick around. Hey, go to vote.org. Just make sure that your shit's up to date and that you're good. Voting registration cutoff is for most places like now. Very soon.

For Texas, I think it's October 6th. Even if you're registered to vote, go check and make sure that you are. And if you're not registered to vote, please fucking register to vote and vote for Joe Biden in the election. I'm not sure who watched the debate last night. Wouldn't recommend it. We made it about four minutes in

and then we had to go to fucking SportsCenter for the highlights. So hugely anxious it made us. And yeah, it's a nightmare just to clarify this website that i was talking about is polls.pizza that's a good web address good job you've done it um hey can i do my first thing yes my first thing is darts darts is fun uh darts is tough by the way to like prepare this segment without getting the brian david gilbert darts song have you seen that it's time to get good at darts video oh you've showed it to me it's time it's time to get good at darts it's like sort of permanently stuck in my head i told

griffin just some context for where i'm coming from uh i don't really know how darts works yeah i know there are numbers on there and colors. I don't, and I know that you were trying to get the harder stuff, like the smaller spots are worth more. And so whenever I have played, I've always been like, well, I should probably try and get it in the center. But I don't know. I don't know how anyone can score.

So there is optimal aiming strategies depending on how good you are at darts so uh yes as if you have never like played darts and don't really know anything about the board you got the bullseye which has the inner circle which is worth 50 in the outer circle which is worth 25. And then there's different scores between one and 20 all around the circle. And then there is a ring on the far edge of the dart board that is double points. So if you hit double 18, it's 36. And then there's another smaller ring

sort of halfway in the circle that is the triple. So the highest score you can get with a single dart is triple 20, which is 60 points. How did you learn how to play darts? by going to bars with people okay play darts um so it wasn't like something you knew as a young child no i didn't really get into darts until i was like old enough to go to to bars because like i am not i've never been like a huge drinker uh and I'm also not a particularly adept socializer. And so if darts is there, darts allows you to have an activity to do,

but it also allows you to kind of peel off people into a smaller group. I find it easier to talk to one person than I do to talk to four people. And darts is like, hey, one at a time, please. Single file. And play a game that I think is really very very fun I thought darts was something kind of like pool where like people came fully formed to these games because they had somebody that knew somebody that had a basement that had pool or darts in it I mean I feel like I knew a lot of people who had dart we had a dartboard um yeah I mean they're like fucking five dollars at target like you can get a dartboard for pretty

cheap especially no you know what it was we the first dartboard we ever got was in justin's room i remember this very vividly we bought it from our neighbor at a garage sale uh and it had like the normal dartboard on one side but it had like weird baseball scoring there's like a weird baseball game we never use that um but the problem with having darts at your house is that if you have darts at your house you also have holes in the drywall at your house yes a real issue um but anyway we've digressed like almost instantly uh darts is just super fun we keep saying darts but there's you know a few dozen actual games fun. We keep saying darts, but there's, you know, a few dozen actual games that you can play with darts, the most common of which is 301,

which is you have, you want to count down from 301 by throwing the fewest number of darts. You get three darts in a round and you and your opponent go back and forth. If you go past that number, you bust and have to go back to where you were at the beginning of the round that you busted. And that's it. There's also 501, which is a common way of playing it because uh if you're really good you can finish a game of 301 in five rounds i think uh so anyway that's that's the main game the game i really like is cricket which i think i've tried to teach you the rules of cricket a couple times that's the one where you have to shut down zones. So 15 through 20 are these zones and you have to get marks in them

basically three times to shut them down. And once you've shut them down, your opponent can't score on them, but you can. So there's like an offense, defense, push and pull to cricket that I like love. There's an element of strategy to it because you have,

the point of the game is to shut down all the zones and bullseye and have the higher score. But you can only score on zones that you've shut down that your opponent hasn't. So like if your opponent has shut down 20, you want to shut that down as fast as possible because they can start scoring on that and like get a lead that you will not be able to make. How do you keep track of like what's been shut down because you're taking the darts out, right? Yes. Usually there is a chalkboard or if it's like an electronic game it will keep you know track of that stuff for you uh cricket once i discovered cricket that's when i got really into darts because it is a it's

it's again a game of strategy and risk where like if your opponent's shut down 20 but you're really close to shutting down 19 maybe you go for that before you make the defensive play to shut down 20 as well. It's maybe a bit complicated to hear out loud, but it's a fairly simple game to understand, and it's a very, very fun game. So anyway, darts evolved from archery, naturally. And when people were first playing darts, it was essentially like broken arrows and crossbow bolts.

The first intentionally made darts were made of wood and a strip of lead and split turkey feathers uh and then in 1906 uh folks started using like actual metal barrels which is like the part of the dart that you hold when you throw it and i thought for sure you were gonna say bones is that weird no i mean i'm sure somebody has a bone dartboard set um so the dartboard that has this wild circle of numbers that appear to be like placed somewhat randomly uh the like placement that we all use on on dartboards was set by a carpenter in 1896 and it was supposedly this may be like apocryphal like there to're to penalize inaccuracy by the way that the numbers were arranged,

by which I mean to understand the dartboard arrangement, no two high-value numbers are right next to each other. If you're throwing for 20, if you miss, you're going to hit one probably. So that is why dartboards are the way they are. So there is a cluster of numbers at the bottom left of the dart board that are kind of middle of the road.

So if you are a player who has a huge element of randomness where your darts actually land, that's where you actually want to aim is the bottom left of the dart board. If you're an incredibly skilled player, you want to aim for that triple 20 every time. So yeah, there's an element of strategy to it it even if you're not great at darts and what i love about darts over a pool is i feel like darts is a has an element of a you know a great equalizer where if you're not great at darts you can still have that game where you crush it that's that's a really good point the thing that always tripped me up about pool is i could never really picked a way to hold the cue that felt comfortable to me and And it was just a total hurdle that I could never get past.

And if you're bad at pool, you're going to be bad every time. Like you're going to be bad every shot. If you're bad at darts, sometimes you'll still hit the double bullseye. Like sometimes you'll still hit triple 20. But there is like there are strategies for every skill level that can kind of work for you that I didn't know about until I was prepping for this. It's also a game that you play with one hand right so it's like perfect for when you're at a sort of drinking occasion and you have a beverage in one hand and you're throwing darts with the other one it also

feels good like i love a you know me like i love a good tactile feel to things and darts like feel fucking great and it's very satisfying the way it like sticks in there yeah and the way that you throw it like it feels like it's just a very satisfying motion. I just really like darts. I wish we had a place to, I guess we could set up a dartboard outside in an area where the siding of our house is already kind of fucking trashed anyway.

Or we can get some hay bales and make a real big- At that point, let's just get a crossbow. Yeah. Yeah, let's get really into crossbows during quarantine. Yeah, I've also never been injured by a dart, but I bet it's... I bet it feels pretty bad.

Never been hit by a dart. Never seen anybody get hit by a dart. Was that in your notes? Yeah. You were like... I bet it hurts to get hit by a dart. I should really end this with talking about how it hurts to get hit by a dart.

I actually end it with with talking about how it hurts to get i actually end it with uh professional dartists which is what professional actual like professional dart players like to be called uh they have the best pop-offs of like any sport like when somebody nails like a perfect round of 301 like they pop off in a way that like football players don't pop off basketball players don't pop off like there's like celebration dances oh yeah oh yeah uh it makes me think actually wait was that darts or i think it was bowling there was a bowler who very famously like scored a perfect game and then like in his pop-off just screamed who do you think you are i am who do you think you are i am i think the verge like wrote about it like who is this dude and

why is that the thing that he shouted it's on like that level every time like they go wild they go wild anyway can i speaking of going wild can i go wild and steal you away is that you legally you have to say yes yes okay Yes. Hey, I have a Grambletram here. Can I read it, please? Yes. This message is for Allie. It's from Alan, who says, Hey, Al, I know I often tell you how proud I am of you

for everything you've accomplished in the past few years, but I figured it would be even better coming from our fave Chill Out podcast. Two time zones and several thousand miles has nothing on our friendship. You're the best day one ride or die this queer gremlin could ever ask for. I love you.

Is this a Chill Out? I always think of this podcast as being pretty fucking high octane i always think of it being a pretty high octane thrill ride uh-huh is that that that's what you tell people you say i do these things with my brothers and my dad and then i have a super intense podcast yeah check out that's the that's the tags i gave it on itunes when i put it up it's a high octane thrill ride huh i guess i guess I'll have to return to that. Can I read this next one? Please. It is for Noelle. It is from Kaylee. Hey, Noelle, surprise. You're wonderful. I'm so glad that we decided to grab a campus apartment

together last minute when we worked on RNG. Our friendship is something I treasure and I wouldn't trade it for anything. I can't wait to see what you knit next. Let's go watch more baseball anime. Smooch Edwina for me. Also, you whip ass, dude. Love ya. What's RNG, do you think? Do you think it's us? Do you think they worked on Rachel and Griffin?

Yeah. Or maybe Romeo and Juliet. And it's like Juliet's like a ghost or a zombie of some sort. It's like the sequel. It's like the sequel. It's like the sequel to Romeo and Juliet. Or Gnomeo, right? Isn't that a children's program? It is.

It's a movie. Why did you bring the gnome-verse into our house? Dang it. Hello there, ghouls and gals. It is I, April Wolf. I'm here to take you through the twisty, scary, heart-pounding world of genre cinema on the exhilarating program known as Switchblade Sisters.

The concept is simple. I invite a female filmmaker on each week, and we discuss their favorite genre film. Listen in closely to hear past guests like the Babadook director Jennifer Kent, Winter's Bone director Deborah Granik, and so many others every Thursday on MaximumFun.org. Tune in if you dare. It's actually a very thought-provoking show that deeply explores the craft and philosophy

behind the filmmaking process while also examining film through the lens of the female gaze. So, like, you should listen. Switchblade Sisters. Hey, what's your second thing? You want to go ahead and tell me your second thing? This one's going to be really controversial. So get ready.

Okay. And I've thought about how to package it so that it is concise. But I will say, when packaged dessert treats get stale and they taste better? I will seed Nilla wafers. Oh, that's a good one. I don't even have that on my list. But that's really, because that's all I could, that's the only one that I've been.

Oreos? You don't like when Oreos get soft? Okay, this is a wild segment. I'm going to just back off and give you the room you need to do your work, your grim, dark work. So this started for me with Oreos. And then in doing research, I found some other ones that I also prefer. Okay.

But we have taken, and when I say we, I mean I, to buying very large packages of Oreos. Yes. And I kind of cooled on them for a little while. And the other day I was like, you know, I'm just going to dip back in. Oh, they're so soft, so soft and tasty when they're stale. And you like that. And I like that. See, I find that the Oreo is a milk's favorite cookie. And I find that when they get like that, they are not as easy to saturate with the precious milks. Oh, see, a lot of this may be the difference because sometimes i'm just like popping an oreo and going i'm not getting out a

little dipping station maybe yeah maybe you're so angry i'm not angry i'm just conflicted because i really like stale nilla wafers like yeah because they're soft i want barrel aged nilla wafers like i really want to i want to sun dry them on our roof and then eat them i want to bury them in a jar like kimchi underground for six months um well that wouldn't work because they would be airtight right oh shoot maybe i guess i was assuming fermentation happened at some point in the nilla wafer process maybe i'll put them in there with some banana pudding and then just see what comes out.

so let me tell you. So I did some research because the question that I had was why does stale bread become hard, but why do these like little package cookies become soft? Okay. Was there an answer for this on the internet? There is. There's an answer for fucking everything.

I know. The example I found was actually bread and chips as the two opposites. Okay. But I feel like the logic is probably the same. Okay. So both those foods have starch, but when bread is baked, the addition of heat and water weakens the attraction between the molecules. As bread goes stale, the water and the starch moves to other parts of the bread, such as the crust, so that the starch returns to a dense, hard state, like it was uncooked flour form, which gives stale bread its crunchy texture.

Okay. But when you talk about something like chips, the water clinging to the starch evaporates when you make it crunchy. the starch evaporates when you make it crunchy. And then as the water in the air binds to the starch, it makes the chips pliable again. So what you're getting is water from the air is making it softer. Interesting. It's drinking the air water. Yeah, so when you leave a package of Oreos open, for example,

you're getting moisture in the air, which is making them soft. Huh? So it's like the air. It's like dunking them in water. But the air's doing it. Babe, you're blowing my mind right now. I wish there was milk air. Do you know what I mean?

Like milk air. I recognize that there's like, you know, whatever condensation, the rain cycles, all that shit. I remember that from elementary school. But I wish there was milk air where there was just kind of milk in the air. Do you know what I mean? No, I don't think I do. And I don't think I mean that because I'm somewhat lactose intolerant. So if there was milk air.

Are you wanting the flavor of milk or just the experience of milk? I'm confused about what milk air, what its practical purposes would be. Calcium for bone okay growth okay i don't i am not i i have no calcium source at this at this junction in my life that is not true there's calcium in a lot of foods okay but i i'm not getting it from milk which is like a calcium potion so i would just let it's like fluoride in the water put fluoride in the water put milk in the air griffin 2020 uh so here are some other foods that i found that people have said are better stale uh graham crackers yeah oh hell yeah i'll get i'll get down with that okay so here we go so nilla wafers graham crackers you're okay with uh ginger snaps

no because they don't snap anymore do they they're just kind of ginger uh pop tarts oh no no no because i'll bake them i like a baked pop tart and then it's gonna just get you know whatever it is you know i actually cook is. You know what I mean? You actually cook Pop-Tarts? Sure. Wow. I mean, I toast them. I said bake. I don't throw them in the fucking oven.

Like your brother used to bake Hot Pockets in the oven? This one I thought was interesting. Peeps. I don't think so. Wouldn't they get hard? Wouldn't Peeps, don't Peeps get hard? Yeah, people like the hard outside with the marshmallow center. I don't yeah people like the hard outside with the

marshmallow center i don't really like peeps in any sort of way shape or form okay there's a marshmallow covered in sugar it's like here's the here's the thing and this this is what makes me think that you have a point so i don't like when cereal is stale no so i think i think depending on proximity to milk that makes a big difference for me. Sure, yeah. Like if I were to dunk an Oreo in milk, I think I wouldn't like it. And milk as a moistening agent needs something to moisten. Exactly. But if there was milk in the air, we wouldn't have this problem.

Can I do my second thing? Yes. All right, I really do got big fall vibes. And when it's fall time, there's an album that i always return to probably uh i was thinking about it while preparing this maybe pound for pound my most listened to album ever very true uh this album is armchair apocrypha by andrew bird now i thought for sure you had talked about andrew bird but i think it was in the context of whistling no it was i think it was actually in the context of live looping. It may have been whistling. I think I definitely talked about it.

I did a whistling segment episode five or so. So you've been kind of, you've been dancing around. Dancing around Andrew Bird. But Andrew Bird is probably my favorite living musician. And he made this album in 2007 after, I don't know if you were into Andrew Birdrew bird around this time but he had an album in 2005 called the mysterious production of eggs that was like a big break breakout album yeah so because i remember i was listening to a lot of andrew bird when i was in chicago and that would

have been 2005 yeah for some reason like i think of him as being like very chicago-y but maybe that's just because like that was also when i discovered him uh so mysterious production of eggs was this big breakout album because he was doing the stuff that i talked about during the live looping segments he is like the master of this of just like playing a violin riff and then looping with a pedal and then playing something over it and whistling over that and singing over that like people heard that on mysterious production of eggs even though he'd been doing it for a while and were just like absolutely gaga about it and that style returns in armchair apocrypha uh although he uses a lot more sort of like electric guitars uh in this one i think to to great effect uh i i listened to this album just constantly when i lived in chicago and

so i feel like when it starts to get folly outside, I always come back to it and listen to it. Cause I think every track on it is a, is an absolute bop. Uh, it's, uh, the opening track of this album is called fiery crash.

Uh, and it's literally about sort of superstitiously imagining disasters before you like encounter them. So the, the, the title of the track is referring to somebody thinking about the plane crashing before they can even get on the plane uh and that is a weird idea but i'm going to play the song now because i think it will We dove in the CNN team on every monitor screen You were caught in the crossfire Whatever human faces you

Reaching for you and me so dear Kind of an imposition Without a premonition Every song on this album, I don't know how familiar you are with like the whole, the whole album. What's your, is your like relationship to Andrew Bird, like mostly the like,

you know, shit that I'm, you know, make you listen to on road trips or whatever. Mostly. Yeah. So my, my experience with the Andrew Bird was like a few songs here and there on my iPod

Nano when I was in Chicago. And then yeah, mostly listening to it in your car when we have driven places. I listen to it all the time. And I have struggled to sort of like think about what it is that I really like about Andrew Bird, like the novelty of the live looping stuff, which is not just live looping. Like it, it, as he experimented with that, like it informed what this album sounds like.

Cause every song has these like really rich layers of, of melody going on underneath them. It's not just that though. I think what makes this album so great and what makes andrew bird so great is fiery crash is like a melancholy song uh but it is presented in a non-emotional non like dramatic way and that happens in every song on this album it tackles ideas of aging and illness and war like these very very serious subjects that could be very easily just sad bastard songs which was my chosen genre of music like all throughout college uh this bucks that trend because it is very sort of

contemplative and very thoughtful and very an interesting way of looking at these subjects without being even remotely self-indulgent yeah that's a really good way of describing it because i feel like that is what i've always liked about andrew bird is i feel like the music tends to be suitable for any occasion uh because you're not getting getting as bogged down in the kind of the heaviness. Right. Even though the subject matter is heavy. Dark matter is about like your soul, like your consciousness, and it never names it. Like it never names that or applies any unnecessary weight to the concept. It just dances around it and it dances around it in very, very clever ways.

There's a line, do you wonder where the self resides? Is it in your head or between your sides? And who will be the one who will decide its true location? This idea of just like, where is, what in your body is you? Like what is, is like a real sort of- It feels very, they might be giants for some absolutely they

might be giants also also do this that's a great point uh they're way more i think abstract in how they like ask those questions this is fairly like direct and to the point uh compared to that uh there's a song called scythian empires which is uh he talked about how he has a much easier time writing melody than he does lyrics so to challenge himself he wrote about like a subject that was a seventh grade like book report for him that he wanted to write a song about but he then wrote a song about like america's uh habit of uh engaging in infinite unending wars uh with again without necessarily like naming it or being like particularly, I don't know, floral about it. There's a distance to it. There's an emotionlessness to it, but like not in a bad way.

I can't think of too many other artists who do that because I think that there is a tendency. And this is not like a drag on people who write emotionally right uh because that's beautiful in its own way too but I can't think of too many other sort of folks who write about things observationally like this uh and and and thoughtfully like this without sort of falling into the trap of just like being being emotional about it uh there's a song on the album, one of the last songs is called Spare O's that I've never been able to like really interpret,

but it is another sort of example of just a lot of different life subjects written about very, very cleverly. I'm going to play some of it now. Across the great chasms and schisms And the sudden aneurysms very, very cleverly. I't speak about the cycles of life cause your thoughts are so soft. I could come with a spoke or a bridesmaid. I think that I owe Andrew Bird a debt of gratitude

for sort of breaking me out of the sad bastard rut that I was in because that is a again no uh judgment necessarily to like people who are very into that style of music but it was like all i was listening to and it's very easy to glorify just being kind of down in the dumps whenever you're into stuff like that and andrew bird like writes about the stuff that they were writing about but in a just a just a way that makes you think yeah as opposed to like makes you feel sad clever it's very like generative like I that's part of why I always like Joanna Newsom yeah is that when I would listen to it it would inspire me to kind of be more creative instead of like in my feelings

you know yeah and there's nothing wrong with being in your feelings but i feel like part of a healthy balanced diet is to like get outside of it from time to time and like look at it from this third person perspective and that is this album to a t also like i kind of struggled with which album to bring i feel like he had andrew bird had like four albums in a row in the aughts that was banger after banger after banger almost on an annual basis mysterious production of eggs is amazing came out in 2005 uh armchair apocrypha was in 2007 there's an album that followed that called noble beast that it was i think 2008 that was also like remarkable and all during this time he was touring with these albums and like uh playing on letterman and and going on tv uh because again like the live looping thing is something that

really should be seen you know i saw him at lollapalooza in chicago which was a weird venue yeah to see him um but yeah i just remember being like well this is different than what anybody else is doing and hearing and and i feel like seeing those live shows and then hearing the albums like you you figure out the symbiotic relationship between the two in a way that like just got me absolutely obsessed and i still am obsessed uh he has a lot of sort of uh instrumental albums now that i whenever i'm working i just flip one of those on and go for it but But it's very fall-y to me. I think I get acoustic in the fall. And there's a lot of that in his work.

Do you want to know what our friends at home are talking about? Yes. James says, being from Hawaii, hurricane-style popcorn is the king of movie snacks. Have you heard of this? No. I have not either. It's just normal buttered popcorn, but with furikake,

toasted sesame seeds, and some small bits of Japanese rice crackers. It wonderfully puts every other preparation of popcorn to shame. That sounds good as hell. That sounds so good. That sounds good as hell, though. Like, I want to eat that for lunch today we should we have all

the stuff i think we i don't know if we have sesame seeds we definitely have the other stuff we have the crackers no we don't have that okay but we could mix it listen we get we do have like weird quaker oats rice crackers we could figure something out okay probably wouldn't be very good but uh and jess says uh joe para talks with you is a wonderful show it's like mr rogers for millennials and each 10 minute episode is like a kiss on the forehead at the end of the day this show is so good if you've never seen it i haven't it's just a very sweet show about a very sweet man who gets very enthusiastic about very specific things in each episode and tells you about them.

There's an episode that I feel like is essential where he discovers the song Under Pressure, I think. Is that it? No, it's Baba O'Reilly. He discovers the song Baba O'Reilly and hears it on the radio for the first time and calls into the radio station like, can you play that again uh and like gives it speaks at a church or about Baba O'Reilly and what a good like a song it is it's it's a very very pure show uh thank you to Bowen and Augustus for these for our theme song money won't pay you can find a link to that in the episode description

uh thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network they had a lot of good stuff there yeah and thank you to everybody who has been recommending our show on Twitter and Facebook. It always warms my heart to see people talking about this show as a way to kind of calm their anxiety in a very challenging time. Man, it is a very challenging time.

I know that's kind of how Griffin and I use it when we make it. So it's always nice to hear that other people are finding value in that too. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. This may help. I don't know if this helps sort of folks relate or whatever.

But like I would describe my mental state as pretty fragile and bad right now. Yes. And I know that everybody else, most folks are there too. So, you know, it may be little consolation, but you are not alone in feeling that way. Yes. Do what you can to help out other people who need it. Yeah.

Let's end it. Let's end the show. Let's end the episode right now. And that's it. See you next week. See you next week. See you next week. And do your homework. We never give out homework on this show.

What's the homework? Math. Algebra. Do some algebra before we talk next. And we will know if you don't do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the chip that we asked Tim Cook to put in your phone. The algebra chip.

The algebra chip. we asked Tim Cook to put in your phone. The Algebra Chip. The Algebra Chip. MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Audience supported.