Wonderful! - Wonderful! 163: Party Time!

Episode Date: December 31, 2020

IT'S PARTY TIME!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/blacklivesmatter  MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

hello this is rachel mcelroy hey it's griffin mcelroy this is wonderful are you laughing about that funny joke i just told right rachel told a real ripper right before we started and we can't um we can't tell it here because it was in my it was very poor taste it was blue and it was crass it was crass and it was so sexist. I was, but no, I'm laughing because babe, this one's footloose and fancy free,

free wheeling. Here we go. The free wheeling Bob Dillon. We're going to have fun in this episode. We're loosening the suspenders. Loosey goosey. Why are we so loosey goosey,

you ask? Well, we don't have anything prepped. Listen, here's the situation. We, every time I say that, I always think of the intro to that one episode of parks and recreation where leslie nope goes on to sing all of parents don't just don't understand when ron comes in and says here's the situation

and she's like so what do you need and he's like someone's on fire in the park okay anyway um we just did a live show last night for Austin Batcave. Thank you to everybody that bought tickets and checked it out. We had a really good time. Yeah, and you all helped raise a lot of money for that really cool organization. We will probably put up an audio episode of that show here at some point later on down the line. A lot of folks weren't able to join us and kind of lost track of time and so that will be a way for you to hear part of it too you'll also hear the debut of an

exciting new segment that uh i've been piloting um but we so we did that and we um didn't have time to prepare we're recording this the night after that yeah we do not have child care this week and so we don't have time ever did we ever we had child care for a minute there right i didn't dream it we did but it was i feel like i had a sweet sweet dream at some point that there was somebody who lived in this city who came to help us with our child sometimes but now it's i don't even back hey it's the holiday season it's the holiday season you're right everybody deserves a little time yeah i'm not trying to scrooge it over here. You know what I mean?

But all of that to say, we came up with a concept for the show. Rachel came up with a concept. We were thinking about a theme that would require no preparation, something that is timely and delightful and just with like an endless amount of stuff to talk about. Do you want to introduce today's topic? Yeah, so we are recording this and we'll release it the week of New Year's Eve slash New Year's Day. And the past few years we have invited friends over to our home to have a nice little party in our house a little casual but like kind of classy get to i feel like there's an unspoken agreement that at a new year's eve party you're

gonna get a little bit classy and i feel like that's completely but i did why like why we have some friends that showed up where people people put on nice clothes and just set a precedent we make some fun cocktails yeah it feels like we're real grown-ups doing grown-up things i think that's why i feel like new year's eve is fancier because it has something to prove it's like i've put away my childish christy crimbo things i'm gonna bring in this new year just looking so nice looking so grown up um and i don't know we really we really like hosting parties i think griffin and i as a And I don't know. We really like hosting parties. I think Griffin and I as a couple, I don't know.

I didn't attend quite as many parties in my previous life before I met Griffin. Yeah. He's a good date, I guess, is what I'm saying. But anyway, all of that to say that it got me thinking about parties. And I thought we could do an episode where we talk about just kind of the wonderful parties that we have been to and the wonderful things about parties yes on this year where we and a lot of other people may not have parties to attend what was our last party probably it was probably on the Jonathan Colton cruise yeah earlier earlier this year before things really popped off um which potentially New Year's last year.

Or potentially New Year's last year would have been, yes, the last proper party. Oh, man. That'll be an interesting moment for people to listen back to because you can hear the weight of this year sort of accumulate and land on me in like one sort of moment um which is good which is cool and which is super relatable super relatable um i love a party i love a new year's eve party so we thought we would just sort of talk about parties our favorites um do you want to go chronological chrono like of every party i've ever been to no but like hit some highlights from from the child years and maybe 18 years um i'm curious about this because i feel like there is a point when you really enter the theater scene of huntington west virginia

and then i think your party experiences may diverge from mine a little uh wildly yes i would argue yes um i i mean i any good birthday parties any any time as a child you were like this is it we we did it birthday parties were largely a bring kids over to my house and there would be some little caesars and do like a laser tag or a burger well there was one, and we have video of it. It's in like one of the home videos my dad shot of me and my buds wrecking a McDonald's when I was like four years old. There's a great moment in that video

where I'm wearing these big baggy pants and at the McDonald's parties, they would set up kind of games for you using McDonald's things. So they would have those old of games for you uh using mcdonald's things so they would have those old styrofoam things that the mcnuggets would come in and you have to see how many of those you could stack up before it fell down oh that's the game i played at the tender age of four or five you had to hold a straw up to your nose and then try and drop it into a cup on the floor that is a lot of coordination it's a lot of coordination but also my pants were so baggy

that the straw fell and it landed right on a divot, right on my ding-a-ling. And it was really funny. Everybody busted up. Everybody's like, Griffin caught it with his ding-a-ling. Is that when it hit you?

When you were like, I want to be an entertainer. Yeah, that's when that one hit me. I want to make people laugh. Yeah. Best party though ever was at the, I was, I want to say seven. I want to say seven or eight. And ever was at the uh i was i want to say seven i want to say seven or eight and it was at the gym factory the gym factory was a sort of infamous place in huntington lore where uh it was a you know like a gymnastics training facility so they had the long

runway of trampoline floor they had the big pit full of styrofoam geometric objects that you could like swing and jump into. They made that like a public venue for kids to play because that is the one thing about my friends that took gymnastics that I was always jealous of. Yeah. That just looks fun. I mean, you had to pay. It wasn't like a free park or something like that.

Later on in our teen years, it would host a really shady teen night in the back room of the gym factory. What was that back room used for usually? I do not know. I think it was like a stage. So maybe they would do gymnastics things on a stage. That's nothing. But anyway, this was before that, before the sort uh nasty times and uh i just had a birthday there that was pretty baller uh i remember i got a star named after me by my nani she did one of

those like star registry things and that like blew my mind that was like the best gift i ever got it is kind of the perfect age to do it right oh yeah because any older than that and you're skeptical yeah but like right at that age you're like yeah part of that space out there is mom yeah age nine is like okay but like who's it is that who's gonna say that it's my name who did you register it with because i could name a star nonny right now and i can say that's your star up there nonny that one up there in cassiopeia it's a tough word to say i can't think of too many other from like my young younger days justin and travis i have a memory of a justin and travis party because they have this yeah they share the same birthday november 8th and i remember uh a

party they had where a bunch of their buds came over who i knew like also and we all played poker using our Halloween candy as the as the the steaks and I remember thinking that was the most fun idea ever and I always wanted to do it again uh and then also because it was their birthday I did get one toy as was the custom I think that's betting a lot on the fact that your child would still have a significant amount of halloween candy a week after yeah yeah i mean it was most i'll be honest it was this nickel fritz it was there were a lot of uh atomic fireball uh hard can't hard jawbreakers in there yeah god those were miserable who who was that for who wants to eating like a spicy cinnamon candy is already not great but to be like but now it's here in jawbreaker format so

it lasts forever that's some that's some like really masochistic stuff i feel like i mean you know i'm that way with all sugar candy like nerds you know smarties all that stuff doesn't do anything for me yeah no any big parties from your childhood think about that i feel like all of my birthday parties were also in my house i don't yeah and and i'm mostly remembering them from pictures uh and so i just like i'm just picturing my backyard in my basement in a lot of these parties okay so it's hard for me to really pinpoint a birthday did you ever have a pool party you had a pool you're on the above ground pool for a while at your house birthdays in march honey oh yeah march march in st louis is not yeah we did not have the pool open yeah um i had a roller skating party yes in my backyard and that was yard well i have that like

that patio space under the deck okay so it was just going around in circles on the pad that's fun that was right when some people had rollerblades and some people didn't that was the that was the cast system that had been forced upon us um and i had a party that was kind of beach themed and there was twister when i was in middle school and i had boys there oh you knew exactly what you were doing it's a picture of me wearing like a yellow hawaiian shirt and blue corduroy pants. Jesus Christ. Very of the time period. Very, very attractive. It must have been a very fetching outfit. But yeah, no, I feel like my party life

didn't really kick off until high school and it was never at my house. No. Did you have a friend that had the party house? have like a friend that had like the party house? Did I have a friend who had like the party house? Yeah. Our close friends, the Minskers growing up, we sort of like just kind of occupied

like squatters their basement. There was like a summer where I helped like our friend Justin Minsker like clean out that basement and then Justin and justin and his brother evan uh and we like bought a bunch of beanbag chairs and they set up like a projector like a film projector that we could like play games on and stuff and there was a pool table down there and we would do new year's eve parties down there like every year for like probably four

years in a row if not more with like everybody with all the theater friends because that's the thing you missed out on the theater friend circle and i imagine this is a universal thing is way more liberated than like any other friend circle i ever had like if i wanted to go to a boy girl sleepover party in like middle school with my theater friends it was a-okay i still cannot wrap my brain around that still can't still can't ponder that i can't i can't because even if you had grown up with these people things change you know i don't know if you recall the beginning of dawson's creek sure but dawson and joey grow up and they develop urges yeah and so it just surprises me

that that y'all continue to sleep in close quarters. No, yeah. I mean, it was pretty puritanical. I don't know what to tell you. I can't write a fan fiction of my high school years with you. I would say the other big thing that you missed out on was cast parties.

You wanna talk about parties. Oh my God. You get that adrenaline my god you get that adrenaline pumping you get that that that on the stage that that theater night just like opening night adrenaline going or then you have that closing night where you just finished your last show oh my god i'm gonna miss you guys let's scoot down to the pizza pub and play in the arcade and just like kick it there for a couple hours and calm down. The closest example I have of that is when I was in marching band

and after the football games, we would go to like steak and shake. But, you know, it wasn't free spirited. It wasn't. And you didn't play theater games, which was a big thing you missed out on and a big staple of parties, I feel like. This is interesting that you bring this up because the other day I jokingly referred to Zip Zap Zop with you and you had no familiarity with it and it blew my mind because I thought that was the theater game.

I have always thought of Freeze as being the theater game, the one where you tag people in and out to like step into scenes. Gosh, you'd play that for fun. Oh God, yes. in and out to like step into scenes and gosh you'd play that for fun oh god yes we had uh uh we never talk about this because it sounds bougie when in reality we had a basketball court in our backyard which if you hear that and you think like oh we had a backyard that was grass that we liked to play in and And then at some point we, they paved it in.

Now, and then there was a basketball hoop. A court in my head has two hoops. No, it was just one hoop and some cement. And honestly, most of the time that court was covered right with dog dookie. It was covered with dog dookie.

And if you didn't want to play basketball, you'd have to scoop it up. So at that point it's like interface with, with excrement to get exercise. No, i'm okay thank you um but we would go back there and i mean a basketball court's a perfect place to do some some theater games perfect place i'm wondering if there's people reeling from the revelation that the mackaroy household had a basketball like facility you can't call it a facility or a court if you just have a hoop.

I feel like 30% of the country has a basketball hoop just in their backyard. Right, but what about me and my brothers would make you think that that was something that my parents would prioritize? There was a period of time when I was in middle school where I also wanted a basketball hoop in my backyard. And I think it was just because it was something to do yeah and also you know jordan jordan oh right um anyway i've taken up a lot of time here but that's because i've been

to way more parties than you i i really my party experience I feel like really started my senior year of high school. And that was because I had a couple friends that reliably did not have parental supervision. Oh, yeah, that's huge. And these friends also had alcohol, which at the time. Those two usually do kind of go hand in hand. And it was also because my senior year we still had connections to the people that were seniors when we were freshmen in high school and so they had just turned like 21 of course and so they were kind of you know they got us our our cranberry jack daniels coolers

yeah i mean i can't i can't cast aspersions i was not a uh high school uh imbiber maybe like like uh homecoming senior year i feel like we had some smeared off ices but that was mostly my you didn't feel like i felt this urge like things have to start getting exciting we can't just watch movies at each other's houses anymore i mean we have freeze babe you know this we have freeze um yeah i i all of the parties that i went to honestly after i started doing theater because we got started pretty early were just theater parties i like didn't really go to a lot of school friend parties um but i was okay with that because the theater parties were secretly like quite lit um and i had a very good time at them i will say that i did not particularly enjoy my my rebellious teen parties i feel like new year's was really fun senior year because that was the year it was

the year 2000 and our friends had a party and there was this like excitement around like whether or not the world was gonna end yeah oh wow that felt rowdy and fun but for the most part i just i was never uh one to drink very quickly or very much and then i would just witness this this display you know the teen display of drunkenness yeah where it's like where it's like oh wow what am i doing i have no control over myself you know and you're like yeah i'm watching it and you're kind of like what's going on here really i mean i i all i participated in that as well i will i will admit but for me it was in it was like in college it was not in it was not in high school i was also uh kind of terrified of uh any any kind of losing control generally yeah so so i was a little slow to that party i will say i was more scared that somebody would tell on me to jesus that somebody would call up jesus and be like

uh-oh somebody is straying from his walk. You better do something. And then my dog would get sick or something. Oh, man. Growing up in the Southern Baptist tradition, that is what we learned, is that if we did drink alcohol or- Something bad would happen to your family? If we played table games at the dog track or cussed. It's a real mobster dynamic.

Like, hey, you want to cuss? You want to see what happens? Huh, how about that? Yeah, I guess so, huh? We hosted New Year's Eve party at our house every year. This was not obviously debaucherous in any way, but it was always a thing at our house. Like for whatever reason,

I never went to anybody else's house, I think, for New Year's Eve. It was always a thing at our house like for whatever reason i never went to anybody else's house i think for new year's eve it was always at our place uh and my mom would just crank out the appetizers oh my god the appetizers i'm talking about bacon wrapped little uh little weenies i'm talking about uh oh god uh chocolate chip like cheesecake dip when you put little graham crackers in it like a little velveta little velveta ground beef queso don't mind if i do i wonder do you think that's like a regional thing i think it's absolutely a regional thing because i know i've noticed when we've gone over to the smurls they have like a kitchen island that is full just apps apps apps apps 30 different kinds of appetizers it's a low country boil with 50 sides you can treat yourself you can

have bagel bites with your low country boil it's so choice nothing is better than that i would say that makes up like the majority of my young party attendance. I remember quite distinctly the small handful of school friend parties that I went to. I had my first little smooch-a-roo at a boy-girl party in middle school in a way that made me really recoil with terror and shame when we watched pen 15 uh which i cannot recommend highly enough because it was uh seemingly biographical uh of of my experience uh yeah it was like i will say too yeah my first my first kiss was in middle school at a ymca teen night in the stairwell of a of like a gymnasium who was i'm gonna kick this dude's ass who was it well i've told you i've told

you about this oh that's right remember i i re-encountered him in high school and was kind of joking like we had this shared history and he had no memory of it i. I gotta tell you, he definitely remembered. He was trying to play you for a fool. Ours was spin the bottle and yeah, classic. You can't beat it. Oh, I hate it. And let's just say the bottle landed on me and the girl who spun it started to say, no, no,

no, no. And only agreed to do it if we went behind a sheet on the other side of the room and I got a little lip service and then she a sheet on the other side of the room. And then I got a little lip service and then she went back to the other side and everybody was laughing at her. Was it ideal? No.

Does it make me sad to think back about? Yes. I wish I'd saved myself for you. For our wedding. That's supposed to be your first kiss is the wedding. I'm glad you didn't, honey. I'm just gonna say, I'm glad you got a little experience little you know we would have had that uh video what was i can't even remember that show uh you're the one that showed it to me yeah it's two people who've never

kissed and they kissed for the first time at their wedding it's it's it's a it's a rough watch um hey can i do would it be okay with you if I stole you away? Yes. Okay. Oh boy, we have Grandpa Bonds here. And we're going to just start reading them because we have a lot. This one is for Sophie and Grace. And it's from Darren who says, Dear Sophie and Grace, happy first anniversary. Wow, it's only been a year.

Time flies, right? Not this year, I'd argue, Darren. It's been my honor to be there with you on your journey from perfect strangers to life partners. I'm so proud of how far you've come together and I can't wait to see what the future brings. I love you both with all my heart. Darren, what a sweetheart. Are you going to make a reference to Perfect Strangers?

I wish I could, but the truth is I didn't watch that much Perfect Strangers. I just know the theme song because it's the greatest. Standing tall on the wings of my dreams. For all of those that may have doubted that Griffin could hit that note. Have you heard our show before? He's an incredible singer. Here's another one. It's for Danny and it's from Julia who says, hello darling, or sorry,

hello darling, with a U. You're my wonderful thing today, tomorrow, and always. When this airs, you'll be in the midst of your last year of university. Keep working on getting that iron ring. For now, let's take a day off, eat some ramen, and play video games. I love you most.

Do you get an iron ring from graduating from where? Julia says university, which makes me think that maybe this is across the pond. Do they get iron rings over there when they finish school? I mean, you can get a class ring not a class ring i'm not talking about some you know white gold jostens i'm talking about an iron ring forged in mount doom and you could fashion one i i imagine yeah if you knew the right people if you had like an iron hookup i I mean, if you find a big enough nut, you could just slide that on you. Just a big enough nut or washer.

Oh, you're talking about the hardware material. Yeah, sure. Okay. Okay. Hi, it's me, Dave Hill from before. Here to tell you about my brand new show on Maximum Fun, the Dave Hill Good Time Hour, which combines my old Maximum Fun Show, Dave Hill's podcasting incident, with my old radio show, the goddamn Dave Hill Show, into one new futuristic program

from the future. If you like delightful conversation with incredible guests, technical difficulties, and actual phone calls from real-life listeners, you've just hit a street called easy. I'm also joined by my incredible co-host the boy criminal chris gersbeck say hi chris hey dave it's really great that's enough chris and new jersey chicken rancher des say hi des hey dave dave hill good time hour brand new episodes every friday on maximum fun plus the show's not even an hour it's 90 minutes take that stupid rules we nailed it i want to hear about let's take it let's take the the limiters off should we talk about the college years i'm not sure i want to i didn't even like i didn't

even like tear it up i had like a do you have any like good parties like let's let's not yeah sure let's not like let's not you know embarrass ourselves maybe as much as we refer to the particularly remarkable parties we have attended. I had a few, and I look back on them somewhat fondly. I had a few sort of archetypical college parties that were like madcap, I would say, in a way. like, madcap, I would say, in a way. And I'm glad that I did them, but I wouldn't ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever wish them upon any other person ever. I had the, like, doing something I shouldn't be doing

when the parents who were supposed to be out of town that the kids said were gonna be out of town, like, came in and started yelling at everybody situation. Oh. And a literal sprinting out of the building and running all the way back home situation. I had one of those, but I don't know that I would call it

the best party I've ever been to. I remember, I think it was my junior year of college, I started running in a crowd of people that was into the theme parties. Oh, that's fun. You do a costume, you know, or there's like a theme to the music and or the snacks or the potluck or whatever. And I always really enjoyed those. I think at first I was kind of like, oh, this sounds cool. And then I was like, no, this actually is really cool.

I feel like I reached a point after all of those things no this actually is really cool i feel like i i reached a point after all of those things i described were freshman year i feel like freshman year was uh uh a rough year for uh yours truly um going through a lot of let's say personal uh crises uh that i was sort of struggling to deal with and so i i just was like going to parties of people I didn't know, like with people I didn't know. I will tell you that is freshman year for most people. Yes. I know that again, like it's a stereotypical thing. Like I'm not, I didn't reinvent the wheel, but then I pretty much stopped going to parties and the ones I did go to, nobody was putting in as much effort as the parties you were describing. I don't know that I ever went to a themed party.

I think that was the thing. So freshman year, and this is probably true with every college town, there is like a part of town where all the students live when they get older. Right. And you would just walk around like in the desert of this neighborhood

trying to find a party. Oh, I never did that that so we used to do that like freshman year we didn't know anybody we didn't know where parties were and so we would just head over to that part of town and we would just walk that's a bummer i feel like a little bit like we'd like start walking up to a house because we could tell there was a party happening and then we'd like poke our head in and there were like four people and we were like, oh, right. Oh, no. Like back out.

How did you not like accidentally break and enter into someone's home? I mean, that's probably technically what we did. I mean, when you open a door and walk in. God opens a window. But then a lot of the parties that we did go to that were like actual parties we would just end up sitting on the couch talking to each other yes we did not have the skills or the ability to like mingle yeah be like party animals i did in that debaucherous period that was the thing i wish i could take that year

where i was a complete fuck up and like lost my scholarship and like really kind of wrecked things and like take away the bad parts where i lost my scholarship and really wrecked things yeah but i could keep hold of the part of me that was bold enough to just be like yeah fuck it like i'll go to this whatever man i'll go to this party it's that nothing to lose energy that nothing to lose energy the problem is that i quickly developed things to lose uh and so i guess i just gotta get back out there babe and i'm sorry i gotta go i gotta hit the open road you would never i would never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever, ever, ever, ever. It makes me feel uncomfortable even joking about it.

I will say the college years is also when I discovered a love for the Halloween party. Halloween parties are, yeah. That was really fun. Just because it gave you a conversation starter and gave a purpose to the evening i feel like a lot of times i would go to parties and i would kind of be like how do i know when i've had enough party yeah but i feel like with a halloween party it's like oh i've seen everybody's costume i've had a few drinks let's call it a night right you know but but at other parties you're like if i leave now did i miss the party the answer is almost always yes for people i think like you and i but i i feel like uh there

there stopped being parties at a certain point and then there were just kind of hangs yeah like we would go to our friend's house every single night and just like hang and play beer pong or NBA jam or whatever. And those were the best times I ever had. I tell you, I didn't play beer pong or flip cup until I moved to Austin, Texas at the age of 26. Oh, wow. I just totally missed that. Partly because of what you're saying. I like stopped going to parties at a certain age. It is stigmatized and rightly so as a sort of, you know, fratty bro activity. Yeah.

I wish I could reclaim that for general purpose use because it's a, guys, it's a fun game. I have seen you. Not even the drinking, the like throwing a ping pong ball into a cup skillfully. I love that shit. There is something about the skill that is required to do that that you have exactly. It's the only thing I've ever been good at.

I feel like Griffin will roll up to a drinking game table and everybody will be like, oh, this guy. Yeah. Let's see what he's got. And then everybody will rally. But then buckets, buckets, buckets, buckets. buckets there's cheering there's lifting up on shoulders well that's the secret is that i don't really like beer especially very very cheap uh watery beer uh and so i had to get good as a sort of survival mechanism if i didn't want to drink the gross stuff no but you realize when you

oh never mind were you so unfamiliar with the rules of the game that you thought that you well the game like like flip cup like you have to like drink the beer no matter no not beer beer pong the other team does yeah um i just wish that there was a i just wish that we could like croquet like like a nice summer game of croquet. I guess actually, if you saw somebody playing croquet this day and age, there would be some level of stigma about that. You would make some assumptions about that person in the same way that if you saw somebody playing beer pong.

What's a neutral sport? Cornhole? Nah, even that. What do you mean by neutral? Like if you see somebody doing it out in the, throwing a Frisbee. Why do I only like fratty bro stuff i mean most most games that you play kind of casually yeah are kind of bro games i guess so yeah i wish i could go back and tell myself throughout all of my like childhood through college not to sweat how many parties i wasn't going to because i now with

the um with the hindsight that comes with my old age i realized that only when you become an adult do parties actually get pretty good i feel like that's fair from a from a logistical perspective and from a like you actually enjoy it instead of just like being a disaster yeah i will say that when you get older you go to fewer parties where people are dancing but you gotta make them count you gotta make them count yeah now i i specifically miss those parties where you'd go to and there'd be really good music and people be dancing dancing. Yeah. You don't do that as much when you're older. No, I guess not. I remember there was a weird period right after I'd moved away from Huntington where

I came back in town and a lot of my friends were still like seniors in college. And so I went to a couple of college parties having like graduated, which first of all made me hugely uncomfortable. But also I felt like this immunity from the need to like milk it and make a night of it in the way that you do when you're like yeah like in it and seeing everybody else like in that desperate stage of just like i gotta make this count was like a week like a time travel like astral projection you just reminded me of that like getting ready for a party yes i did not like that no it lasted so long it lasted so long there was a there was a dance

club that we would go to every friday night in huntington called club echo and it was the best friday nights they had the same dj a dude named jesse who would go and he would play the same like set every night. And it was the best. And it was so fun. But every time I would hang out with a big group of friends who all wanted to go together, they'd get started at like 7. And then they would keep going past the time when the party started.

It would be like 10 o'clock. And I'd be like, can we please just go? And they're like, but we have this keystone light here for free. Oh, my gosh. That is still hard for me because I was somebody in high school who had a curfew of like 10 p.m. But when you are in your 20s, parties don't start until 10 p.m. Yeah. And so I would go over to a friend's dorm room and we would sit around and like, quote unquote, get ready.

No. friend's dorm room and we would sit around and like quote unquote get ready no for like an hour and a half which it only ever took me like 15 minutes yeah and then you're just sitting there and you're starting to like second guess whether or not you even want to do this thing yeah and then you get there and then like it hasn't even really started yet it's it's a weird purgatory it's party party tory and it's not fun it's not especially great it just makes you more nervous and more sort of like desperate for the night to come to be like the best we're gonna remember this night for the rest of our lives i guess it's a wednesday we're not it's a wednesday well and that's what people don't like about new years honestly is that there's like so much buildup.

I guess. It's the only holiday with a preordained kissing segment. Yeah. Which is like already a lot. Yeah. I'll grant you that. I mean, as an adult, I meant to say that like people finally throw parties with some effort. Yes.

And resources thrown behind them. If I wanna be, if I wanna cheat a little bit, I would say of the top five parties I've ever been to, probably four of them were weddings, which are just like by definition, the dopest party that you'll ever throw. I haven't really considered those as parties. Sure. I have,

and maybe this is just a recency bias thing, but like I have a lot of memories and a lot of stories like with our close group of friends from that like whirlwind three year period where all of us got married. Yeah. And just like had a bunch,

had a really, I know weddings are also a very stressful time for some people and it's not like everybody's cup of tea. I hated going to weddings when I was like a kid. Yeah. Because there's nothing for you there. But like when you're there with your pals and you're dancing and eating good food and watching Eternal Love Commitments.

Oh man, you really can't beat it. I wasn't interested that you brought that up. I wasn't even including that in the category. I was like thinking strictly house parties. Yeah, I mean, it's cheating because it's also like, for most folks, the most expensive party you will throw.

So of course it will be competitive. I loved when I, so in, gosh, it would have been 2011, 2012, 2011. I like moved by myself and had little parties in my backyard. Yeah. And it was the best. We had a New Year's party. It was actually, it was the first New Year's you and I were dating.

Oh, yeah. I was still living in that house. I remember. A little fire pit. Yeah, we ate. We did the grapes eating thing. Yeah. And somebody threw something in the fire pit that it shouldn't

have been there and an ember came up and it burnt your leg like through your hose yeah i was wearing stockings and we like couldn't get it out it was a that was a scary moment i had a i had a burn on my i remember that very clearly you i think you still i think have a scar on your leg no i don't anymore anyway um yeah i think weddings are probably the best. And of course, themed parties now, you do get a lot more effort put into it and a lot more coordination. The murder mystery party is, of course, right up our alley. I figured you were going to bring that up. Yeah, it's a good time.

I think it's more up your alley than mine, honestly. Yeah. yeah it's a good time i think it's more up your alley than mine honestly yeah i i i get very focused on people's performance and whether or not they just seem suspicious because they're not really selling what they're doing it's i think it just goes right back to the theater kid shit i think it goes right back to the theater kid shit. I didn't know how insular a like formative experience that was until I was an adult. That like there were people who did theater kid shit who were like a certain way. And then there were other people who like just didn't even tap into that world or or energy like at all and that was mystifying to me yeah i see i grew up in a very kind of like too cool for school environment

where you were hesitant to show real enthusiasm for things and so when I encountered theater people, I was like, they are so excited about everything. So sincerely excited. And I didn't like it knocked me on my heels a little bit. I'm like, are we enjoying this genuinely? Is that what we're doing? Is that the vibe? Oh, sometimes you'd go to a clunker. Sometimes, I'm not going to make it sound like all theater kid parties were great.

I remember distinctly going to one theater kid party where I showed up and I was like in middle school and I was like, what's up everybody? And they're like, not much. We're watching, uh, in and out starring Kevin Kline. And I was like, we're kids. Are you, we're kids. You sure? Okay.

I was telling Griffin the experience I had the other day. Are you sure? Okay. That's why I was telling Griffin the experience I had the other day. I definitely hung out with theater people, but I hung out with a certain kind of theater person who just really loved the music more than the theater game itself. And so I would go to these slumber parties and all of a sudden everybody knew Rent. Yeah. And I was like, how is everybody singing along with this song right now? What did I miss? And I realized, like, I was in a theater group. I just wasn't experiencing the. Yeah. You missed the bus.

Yeah. And the boat. And the train. Yeah. Anyways, it's always a party when I get to be here with you in the studio. Sorry again for the strange energy of this of this maybe it's an odd one to cap out 2020 with but also maybe an incredibly appropriate one to cap out 2020 with two extremely tired tired parents talking about the parties that they used to go to

there will be parties again maybe what will be then i guess it depends on you know vaccine rollout protocols would love to get out there for a fourth of july party if we could just secure an independence day party like guarantee earth day arbor day i don't remember when those are uh my birthday is mid april i'm not feeling especially confident on that one no, I can't really count on that one. No, no. Fourth of July, I like that. Fourth of July feels, it feels like we can start putting a lot of our weight behind Fourth of July. Yeah, I don't even want to say it.

Yeah, we should stop being downers. Thank you to Bowen and Augustus for these for our theme song, Money Won't Pay. You'll find a link to that in the episode description. Thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network. There's a bunch of great shows on there that you should go check out pronto. For sure, for sure.

For sure, for sure. And thank you. Thanks to everybody who tuned in to our Austin Batcave live show and supported us there. And really, thank you all to you listening. I feel like we could get incredible, there's a version of this

where we get incredibly sentimental about what this show and you all and recording it has meant to us during this fucking nightmare year. It really, it feels like a practice, like doing this show feels like we have undertaken a conscious effort

to be grateful in our lives. Which is like a thing you hear people talk about, but then also like challenge yourself to do that publicly and with a weekly deadline. It's different. It's like it becomes a sort of mechanical thing that you like have to do. Can I give you a spoiler for what I was maybe going to talk about this week? Yeah. French bread pizza.

Fuck yeah. Are you kidding me? Yes. When you do this show, you sit there and you think, what is something that brings me joy? And a lot of times it's difficult to get in that headspace.

Oh. And you go back to being nine and you think, you know what I really liked? It was French bread pizza. French bread pizza. No, I have spent i have spent the day in a pretty deep funk i would say um just because we are pretty we're worn out we're very

tired we're very very worn out and i'm not trying to join the chorus of like tired pandemic parents but fuck um but this every time that we get in this room and we get in front of mics and we talk to each other, that all goes away very quickly. And I'm very grateful for that. I love watching you rub your belly. It's so big. Rachel is, if you're following the timeline of the show, 16 months pregnant. I am entering my third trimester. Chugga-chugga-choo-choo.

You know, there's only three. There's only three trimesters. So we're getting to the end. We really need to start doing stuff. We really need to put somewhere to sleep for this guy. Somewhere to, yeah. Um,

where is it? There's some, I feel like Scandinavian country where they just like send you home with a cardboard box. And it turns out that that's great. And the kids love the box there's a scandinavian country where they they like did this did a study and they were like we just send you home with a box and a blanket. And the kids love it. I know that you can't go to my doctor's appointment, but I wish you could.

Just for that question. Like, excuse me, doctor, we're preparing for our second child. And I've heard that there is a country where there's a box. And your doctor would be like, oh yes, I don't remember exactly. I do remember it's Scandinavian. Somewhere in that, it's in the Scandinavian region. Oh, holy shit.

We'll have to look on Ikea and see if they sell the box. They definitely, I bet they do. Somebody in the Facebook group, please prove that I'm not like completely off my nut. Are you thinking of kittens? Oh yeah, I did it. because it was my little fur babies anyway happy new year everybody we'll see you in 2021 um and um yeah we'll do we'll do we'll we'll try harder next year no we try pretty fucking hard this year i think making it through it is a cause for celebration enough. Cheers.

Let's just cheers to New Year's. MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Audience supported.