Wonderful! - Wonderful! 166: Pockets of Flesh

Episode Date: January 20, 2021

Rachel's favorite eye moistener! Griffin's favorite pricey pastime! Rachel's favorite portable storage! Griffin's favorite old synth!Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoyaWays 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. Hello, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. Big changes afoot. It's a day of of metamorphosis wouldn't you say yeah no are you talking about the new top i'm wearing i'm talking about the well we have new friends in the studio and i always like to give new friends in the studio a shout out everybody give it up for rug that's right we have rug in the studio today. How's it going, rug?

Oh, rug, you're crazy. It's a circular rug with a sick geometric pattern. I think it really ties the whole room together. Let's also give it up for six new floating shelves. Yeah, six new floating shelves! Haven't really taken a lot of time to put things on those floating shelves. They're more aspirational. Griffin has had to do a fair amount of video work recently.

Yes. And it has brought to light that his office needed a little oomph. Yeah, I think during a D&D streaming thing, or some sort of RPG streaming thing that we did during the god maybe even the last max fun drive austin walker from uh friends at the table said that my office looked like a like a hotel business center and it really cut me deep um yeah really it's looking huge in here and that's the thing that everybody was thinking about when i was talking about the metamorphosis today was that there's nothing else happening in the country that's bigger than rug i know everybody's tuned in to cnn right now for

the live stream of rug it's a live rug stream don't miss it who's gonna step out onto the rug no probably just me and rachel Hey, do you have any small wonders? Can you go first? I mean, it's Inauguration Day. We were recording this in the morning time. I think things are already maybe happening a little bit. And that's very exciting. Yeah. You know, turning over a new page.

Stoked about that. But I don't know. I don't know. don't know can you go first uh you know i'm gonna say uh fashionable glove part of what i have enjoyed at the inauguration is the winter wear yeah uh most specifically the type of glove uh that the folks are putting on their hands because a lot of people don't think about that no uh and there was there's a great clip of bernie sanders coming in wearing these these mittens oh i gotta see that they're just darling so he's not feeling the burn oh i guess he is feeling he's not feeling the chill the icy the icy chill that's really nothing um i'm gonna say god i don't know man i've been

playing i know i talk about chess a lot on this show and i've been playing a lot and but there's a thing that i really like doing called pinning where you aim a piece at the king that there's a piece in between them that your opponent has and then so they can't move it and so it's like oh i bet you'd like to use that rook but you can't move it i own that rook is mine now and i'm gonna stomp on it however i want so satisfying every time um sorry that it wasn't more interesting than that do you want to tell me about your first thing though yes uh my first thing is blinking you're really we were talking yesterday about how you were struggling to come up with a concept like topics for this week and you're like i you know it could get to the point where i would just talk about something really really sort of basic like blinking i feel like you said even i don't

think i said blinking okay well here we are moisten let's moisten those eyes together there is nothing basic about you're telling me every time you blink you go like ah that's the stuff it's so critical and it and it makes a huge difference i read a lot about blinking all right and a lot of the kind of the eye strain issues and the problems that we all have with technology are due to not blinking enough. Yeah, I'm always saying that. Not drinking enough water, not getting enough sleep. Sleep is like one big blink if you think about it. It's like a blink, but with dreams in it. Not your most poetic assertion, but I'll go with it.

I think it's actually maybe my most poetic assertion, but I'll go with it. I think it's actually maybe my most poetic assertion. The average person blinks 15 to 20 times per minute or about 1,200 times per hour. I bet I could do more. Yeah, probably. Is that a fucking challenge? Ow. Why does it hurt when you do it this fast oh i uh later in this segment i will introduce a blinking exercise oh fine okay um so you can take on that challenge okay uh are you any good at

staring contests where you don't blink i'm dog shit at them i cannot do it i have the most sensitive tender baby eyes that need to be just so intricately maintained i mean they're national treasures they are yeah not a lot of people realize how beautiful griffin's eyes are no they're too deep pools i think it's because you hide them behind glasses which you think would emphasize them no but in fact people can't really they're just they're they're so magical yeah rachel's the only one that gets to see me without glasses. And the glass really obstructs them. That's true.

But enough about me. Some animals, such as turtles and hamsters, blink their eyes independently of each other. That's a cool look. I bet every hamster's like, are you trying to get with me? Oh, no. You're moistening your eyes one at a time. My mistake. I got very excited.

There are a lot of muscles up in there. I don't think I realized how many muscles. I'm not going to say the names of the muscles because I don't think anybody really needs to know them. There's your occipital flange. You have an occipital flange on each one right that's one of them the acceptable the oxy oxon oxon by old flames uh okay so there is a muscle that opens the eye there's a muscle that is in the upper eyelid uh and there is a muscle that functions as a squinting and winking muscle why not just have one muscle do all that stuff there's a a muscle that pulls the

lower lid down when you're looking down uh when you're widening out your eyes there's a muscle in there i don't like this i know a lot of muscles in there. Blinking is also a way to kind of determine whether or not there are particular illnesses or disorders in the nervous system. Because the blinking can be a criteria for medical conditions. Sure. Yeah, that makes sense to me. Infants do not blink at the same rate of adults. So you know how I mentioned 15 to 20 times per minute for an adult? Yeah. Infants only blink an average of one to two times in a minute. Can babies do anything right?

We're about to have another one. And like, I feel like I know a lot about the shortcomings of babies now. So I'm just gonna be looking at this kid's eyes like, blink, what are you doing? The article, now I didn't read a lot of studies on this, obviously, but the article I read, they're kind of uncertain as to why that's the case. There's a suggestion that there's just kind of less surface area, and so there's less lubrication needed. Right.

Also, infants get more sleep, and so there's less fatigue. Okay. Maybe that's why yeah lazy too aren't they uh so when eyes dry out or become fatigued that's often because uh you are not blinking as much so if you are reading or focusing on an object for an extended period your rate of blinking decreases to about three to four times per minute. Interesting. Yeah, so that's why I feel like now, especially if I try and read at the end of the day,

it's much harder than it used to be because I'm looking at a screen all day and then I go to try and read and my eyes dry out real fast. Well, for me, I noticed this last night. I was reading a book on my Kindle after you'd gone to bed, right? and so it's like illuminated backlight and depending on like the angle that i'm laying down while i'm reading sometimes my left eye which has that blind spot will just drift like wildly

drift like to the side and i have to like blink to like real to like re-center yeah yeah that that is the big suggestion is that if you make a conscious effort to blink every 10 to 15 seconds it'll keep your vision sharper while who makes a conscious effort to blink every 10 to 15 seconds how long could you maintain that it would be the only thing you did all day you need to put a little alarm on your phone that goes off every 10 to 15 seconds? Uh-huh. Yeah, that's going to make you very popular in the Zoom meetings. Okay, so here is a blinking exercise. Sure. Set aside five one-minute sessions spread throughout the day,

every day for two weeks to blink. During each minute, look each of the five forward directions up, down, left, right, center, and blink 10 times in each direction. You should make sure your eyes are closing fully, but do not squeeze your lids tight. How do I look right now? Cool? Real cool. Do I look really cool right now?

This is hard, babe. How do you blink looking up? Ow. Ow. Fuck. Ow. God, Fuck. Ow. God, why does this hurt my eyes to do that? Hey, folks at home, I feel like we should put a disclaimer in.

Don't do this because you may hurt your eyeballs. I was wondering a lot because I can only wink one eye. That's true. I wonder about the muscles on the right side of my face that I can't like. Yeah. You know, I can't wink. Watching you try to wink with that side of your face is among my favorite things in the world sometimes you just like don't close either eye so you do what you just did which is kind of like move your head diagonally a little

bit like you know and sometimes I have to like that's that's the sign I have to know in order to know that it's on you know I can wink my left eye yeah at least i think i can now i'm embarrassed let's see it you definitely can i say something you make a meal of it every single part of your fate even your right eye is like contributing somehow um can i tell you about my first thing yes my first thing is trading card games or collectible card games, which is like this. It's something that I have had so much exposure to. And it's something that I would be willing to bet you have had virtually zero exposure to. You never have played a Magic the Gathering

or anything along those lines, I'm assuming. You know what? I feel like a real cool kid on this podcast sometimes. Hey, there's nothing not cool about not playing Magic the Gathering. That sentence got away from me a little bit, but it's, and it's been a minute since I've been in the scene.

I think, especially now in these pandemic times, like virtual, you know, online trading card games, whether they are sort of a virtual extension of a magic the gathering or hearthstone is the big one that's the one i used to play a whole lot i noticed you're not saying pokemon and i'm wondering pokemon is coming pokemon is coming later we will we will talk about pokemon but like i played a lot of trading card games growing up yeah to varying degrees of like seriousness pokemon's probably the most serious i got in that i competed in pokemon tournaments uh with my with my beautiful deck as a psychic fighting type deck which is you sold off

some of those cards to like get college right not to get through college no i sold a binder of all of my cards and these were like first generation original run pokemon cards that are now worth a disgusting amount of money i had a charizard i had a hologram charizard from a first series that would be worth so much money uh but i sold all of them to build a pc when i was in college that is a that is an important thing no i mean i count that yeah i got like 400 bucks out of it so like you know that's that was a decent return on investment adjusted for know that's that was a decent return on investment adjusted for inflation that's a million dollars now adjusted for the value of those cards now it would be worth much much much much much much much much more than that

um so traditional like collectible card games involve you putting a deck together that you then sort of battle other people's decks with. You can get pre-made sort of starter decks, which is usually how people get their start, which you kind of supplement with booster packs, which, you know, you see videos of people opening a pack that has, you know, seven or eight cards in it, and they get excited. Maybe they get a good one. Maybe they get one that has a hologram on it, and that's especially exciting. Very, very shiny cards. I think I collected Pokemon cards long before I ever learned how to actually play the game, because I just a hologram on it and that's especially exciting very very shiny cards i think i collected pokemon cards long before i ever learned how to actually play the game because i just liked opening up the

deck and seeing pictures of pokemon and sometimes they were shiny and it would be like five dollars every time i wanted to get that thrill anytime i wanted to uh it was essential i mean you're essentially talking about you know a fresh pack of smokes at that point. You just need a little bit of a rush. Magic the Gathering is sort of the quintessential trading card game. It was the first one and it is still very, very much going strong. It was created by a guy named Richard Garfield, who has gone on to make like a few other things, none of which have sort of been the smash hit success uh that magic the gathering uh has it came out in 1993 and was just instantly huge like instantly incredibly incredibly successful you

could not find magic cards in the store in 1993 and like the game has gone on to evolve and incorporate all these other things and uh shed other things an element in magic and in a lot of trading card games like back in the day was essentially gambling where you would have to draw a random card for your from your deck and that would be the ante for that game so that if you lost that game you would get the opponent's ante so there was an actual sort of like yeah see that's what i was wondering about with trading card games is is is it like other games where you end up stealing other people's cards and they're yours now um i mean that that was sort of a that was very quickly sort of phased out that was an element in pokemon too and and i definitely got some cool cards that way and i definitely lost some cool cards that way and it uh because uh there are sort of as magic went worldwide and different countries have like

different extremely strict gambling laws that that sort of element has it has has gone by the wayside but magic introduced like these concepts like you have mana cards that you have to spend to cast these spell cards or summon creature cards and then you battle your opponent's creatures or try to punch through them to actually damage the the opponent and if you lower their health all the way you win that is like pretty standardized now like that's how hearthstone works that's how like all of these other games work so this game that came out in 1993 really did set the set the the stage for every other trading card game that came after it. And man, did I play a lot of them.

I played Magic for a bit. I played Pokemon for a long time. Won second place in the Mid-Ohio Con tournament. Won a couple of Toys R Us tournaments, which was very exciting. Can I ask? This is a real practical question but how do you carry around those cards uh i mean there's a whole did you i mean like because industry you're getting ready to play right so it's not like you want them in a binder you want them like ready no

so i had a little plastic box basically like a little plastic box that was the size of a deck that you you know take care of i i was never into a lot of people put their cards into sleeves i never did that like each card individually every single one yeah um yeah that was never that was never my scene even when i was like deep in pokemon um but i mean there was a i played an x-men trading card game i played a harry potter trading card game for a while i think there was a power rangers trading card game that i played for a little bit and a lot of them were very like derivative of of one another pokemon was cool because you weren't trying to damage like your opponent you were just trying to knock out a certain number of enemy

pokemon and you could like switch them out at will uh pokemon still has a very vibrant and active trading card game scene as well i think dragon's lair back before pandemic times had like pokemon tournaments like all the time you think you could still do it no no way i mean obviously you don't have the cards but like do you have the skill no i don't think so i i there's a certain amount of investment that you have to do i mean financial investment certainly um but i played a lot of hearthstone when when that first came out and I played it for many years actually. And there is a huge financial investment that goes into that

because you are spending real money on virtual cards to build your deck. Yeah, I remember seeing you play that. And so in order to be good, like you not only had to have like a solid deck, you had to essentially know what every card in the game was. So you could anticipate

what your opponent might have in their deck. It's a huge amount of sort of time investment and money investment that like I am, do not think I'm capable of anymore. Um, but I just have always really, really liked it. I,

I twofold, right. I like the idea of you having your deck, my psychic fighting type deck, uh, which was called brains and brawn. Uh, I like carried that through a couple of years years like constantly iterating on it where i'd

like play somebody and i would notice some shortcoming in the deck that i would then try to switch out cards here and there and so the thing i had was very this was like before internet where you would like go on and find out what the best deck is and then just try to replicate that this was like this is my this is my sword there are many like it but this one is like that was like so cool to me uh as as as a kid um but also like i was obsessed with opening booster packs and yeah seeing what you got i mean there's still a whole youtube industry around sure there was a kiosk at the mall where they would sell you a booster pack and you would open it and if you got

like a hologram charizard or blastoise was kind of valuable too they would buy it right back from you on the spot if you wanted to like a charizard you could get like 100 bucks like right back which then you could just reinvest into more booster cards um yeah there's another thing these days called deck building games where you get like a big pack i think netrunner is a big one that i've been kind of curious about for a while but you get just a big box with all the cards in it and then you sort of draft cards to make a deck when you play it but you don't have to go out and buy a bunch of you know maybe i'll get this very rare card or not yeah um yeah i like card games in general um and i've been kind of itching there's been like a lot more digital card games coming out lately and i've been kind of itching to get back into one of those but i do not think i will ever ever be able to break back

mostly because i don't know who the fuck i would play those against unless you also wanted to get deep into magic the gathering with me these days um no it would be pokemon if i got back into one it probably would be that but that even seems like a further a further which one would you rather play i don't know enough about either to really make that call that's the correct answer can i steal you away yes oh we have bumblebems did you know we have them and i'd love to read one because this first one was uh it's for tanny and sean and it's from uh emory zeitz who says you introduced me to the mackleroys and i introduced you to monster factory from there our friendship has only grown more meaningful

sean you are one of the funniest and most thoughtful people you both are such amazing friends i'm so thankful and proud to know you two here's to more motwa games and frank's givings i love you both that is of course an acronym for monster of the week i believe the game that we played for taz amnesty i'm just assuming i can't imagine what else it could stand for um but yeah i kind of miss that i kind of miss that system i kind of wish i was still playing monster of the week uh not on in a recorded format but just for funzos well i mean there's still time there is still time i'm a young man can i read the next message please this is for patrick it is from melissa hey patrick i'm so proud to call you a best friend. Even though we're far apart, we always have fun and deep conversations about anything and everything.

I cherish our terrible puns. Someday we will meet in person and have an excellent best friend hug. I hope you get to chillax every day and throw on a cool record. I love you, bro. My glasses are filthy right now. And I was kind of like going cross-eyed trying to read the small text on my phone here. And so I did think it said, I cherish our terrible puma. And I was like, there's a story there.

I want to know. I like there's just enough personal detail here that potentially there is a Patrick and Melissa listening that's like, is this? Is this us? I do have a terrible puma. I do. Like chillaxing. I do say stuff like that a lot. Welcome back to Fireside Chat on KMAX.

With me in studio to take your calls is the dopest duo on the West Coast, Oliver Wong and Morgan Rhodes. Go ahead, caller. Hey, I'm looking for a music podcast that's insightful and thoughtful, but also helps me discover artists and albums that I've never heard of. Yeah, man, sounds like you need to listen to Heat Rocks.

Every week, myself and I'm Morgan Rhodes and my co-host here, Oliver Wong, talk to influential guests about a canonical album that has changed their lives. Guests like Moby, Open Mic Eagle, talk about albums by Prince, Joni Mitchell, and so much more. Yo, what's that show called again?

He rocks deep dives into hot records. Every Thursday on Maximum Fun. What is your second thing? My second thing? Pockets. Alright, alright, alright. But what is blinking except putting your eyeball

in a pocket of flesh this so sometimes i i think of like an everyday thing yes and then i'll look into it to see if there's anything there and a lot of times there's not right pockets much like blinking a lot of stuff there yeah yeah no yeah. No, for sure, for sure. Definitely. I mean, yeah. Here's the difference between the two of us. Uh-huh. I didn't play a lot of games, you know? Right, right.

My time prior to meeting you. What, a lot of pockets? A lot of pockets. You have no excuse, honey. There's nothing. you have no excuse honey there's nothing there's no there is no excuse i feel like i'm curious to hear about the history of pockets right i'm just saying i have never heard you talk about pop i guess maybe in the context of like why do you think i like overalls so much yeah that's true it's just pockets all the way down why do you think when i when i wear a dress i'm always excited that there's pockets in it?

I feel like you're describing every person who wears dresses. I know. But here's the thing, all right? So pockets weren't really a thing for women for a very long time. Sure. Yeah. So that was what was really interesting about this research is that, yeah, like every person I know that wears dresses is like there are pockets in it and universally this is like acclaimed right and i was always just like why is this so exciting and i realized it's because like based on the silhouette based on the history like whatever is popular at

the time like it is not common to find a functional pocket in a item of clothing for a woman. Right. And so this used to be a thing for everybody in the medieval era. Both men and women tied little bags to their waist, which is why when you go to those Renaissance fairs, everybody's got the little bags tied to their waist, you know? I always just assume there's some sort of ungent in there, some sort of magical dust. I mean, probably just like weapons. I'm guessing, right? A little bag tied to your waist that is filled with weapons? Just little tiny weapons? Like a small sword?

Little throwing stars? Like a cocktail sword? Why do you need? Why would they need? Wait, hold on. You think people at the rent fair are walking around with pouches filled with shuriken? I'm saying the olden days. You're saying in olden days?

Yeah, people needed little- Little shuriken to throw around. Little hidden weapons. Specifically throwing stars, though. Well, I don't have a wealth of knowledge on weaponry, so- About medieval throwing weapons. That's what I could think of. Okay. just a little

tiny mace all right isn't that cute to think about like a little mace and like a a bad guy coming for a night and the night's like but then he's been killed by the bad guy's regular size weapon uh part of the reason that we moved to pockets is that like for thieves, you know, like you really wanted to like hide your valuables. You didn't want like, here's this bag that you can rip off my waist. So pockets became more of a thing too. I mean, it's the logic there. Like I want to put my valuables closer to my butt and privates because I'll feel it

more that like I will definitely know that you have touched my butt. You just don't know what somebody has, you know, like with a big bag, you can be like, oh, I bet there's a lot of good stuff in there. I bet there's a lot of tiny weapons. Right. Well, that was the whole term cut purse was essentially like that, right? Because you could cut that bag right open and they would never be the wiser about it. You can't cut somebody's butt open. I mean, I guess you can. I don't really want to get into that. Yeah, I don't want to either. In the late 17th century is when you start seeing pockets in clothing, permanently sewn into coats and waistcoats and trousers.

Women at this time is, you know, like big wide skirts. And so you were getting sometimes like pockets, just like in various parts of the skirt but not in like a functional like i can slide my hand in kind of way right but in like a storage hidden within layers kind of way okay i guess i don't really understand what the function of that would be if you have to like lift your dress up and like dig around in there for a bit to pull out your chapstick. Yeah, I think the idea is that it was not a public pocket. Oh, it was a secret pocket. It was like, I've got to go to the powder room and dig in my skirt for 20 minutes to find what I need.

Yeah. There was also something called the reticule, which was a highly decorated purse. Oh. Also, something called chatelaines, which was like waist chains. Oh. Also, something called chatelaines, which was like waist chains.

Whoa. Wallet chains? These are like the beginning of purses in like the 1820s. But wait, they actually have wallet chains

is what you're talking about? It was a waist chain. That attached to your valuables? Yeah. That's a fucking wallet chain. You can't tell me that's not a fucking medieval wallet chain. I mean, your valuables? Yeah. That's a fucking wallet chain. You can't tell me that's not a fucking medieval wallet chain.

I mean, not medieval. What is a purse? I mean, basically it was a purse, but it went around your waist. So it's a fanny pack? Like a fanny pack, yeah. It's a fanny, it's a wallet chain fanny pack. Yeah. Why do we not still have those?

Why do we not still? I would wear that every time I left the house. Are you kidding me not especially adjustable though if you think about it i don't want it to be adjustable because i don't want thieves to adjust it off my body okay i mean i'm sure there's a market out there for it if you want to go on shark tank fuck yeah i would love to go on shark tank i would love to meet mark cuban give him a piece of my mind that would be great for you to go on shark tank and just have justin and sydney like stumble upon you and we'd never tell them that

it happened yeah just watching and suddenly you're on there with your that would be great your chained fanny pack i think they only like that weird canadian sharks tank though i don't think they watch dragon's den yes uh so what really made the difference for pockets uh for women was uh 1890s there was an organization called the rational dress society fuck yes that called for women to uh dress for health ditching corsets and wearing loose trousers and adopting clothing that allowed for movement like bicycling awesome yeah that's such a what's what's the name of the organization again rational dress society that's awesome uh and then this is this is right you know this is right around when women are like going into the workforce right so all of a sudden they're like able to wear pants and do all these

things because they're desperately needed to have these like very important jobs right uh and a 1910 uh quote suffragette suit uh with no less than six pockets became all the rage awesome uh so this so this was like a really a big time there's a whole book about this called the pocket colon a hidden history of women's lives from 1616 to 1900 uh just talking about this evolution of pockets for women that is very fascinating um but you know as fashion changes you know there are setbacks i mean i i was reading an article so a lot of what i pulled is from a vox article in 2016 but uh there's just a lot of articles talking about how like essentially the front pockets for women are never functional like they're always just like decorative uh and a lot of that is for like as i mentioned earlier like this this silhouette

you know there's there's a lot of movements where like oh we have pockets now nope now we don't now it's not fashionable anymore um just to kind of, you know, slim the front and the hips. Yeah. A lot of times they're removed. In 1954, Christian Dior famously said, men have pockets to keep things in, women for decoration. All right. But yeah, it's just like in 1933, you know, Women's Wear Daily is still saying, should

women wear trousers like there there's this has been a conversation uh for a very long time and continues to be uh and you know speaking of silhouette it made me think of the cargo short oh sure how it is like you know reviled now because i think a lot of times it was a it was a more baggy appearance yeah no we're definitely we're cresting the wave right now where we're gonna soon just hate pockets again i know yeah for everyone i know but i love the pocket i'm i guess it's sort of i'm more of a minimalist than you like i don't need my wallet most of the time you know uh-huh but you oh you have a smaller phone now you don't have a giant phone a tiny little

phone i could keep i could hold this thing in my mouth and just walk around my mouth is a is a pocket for my teeth if you think about it and tongue what is happening to you today what is happening to you today i would argue madam can i do my second thing yes my second thing is i promise it's unironic i don't know that I will be able to sell that. I don't bring ironic things to this show. I feel like that would be contrary to the spirit of the wonderful brand for us to bring things that we don't actually enjoy. So when I say that I love the song What a Fool Believes by the Doobie Brothers, I need people to understand that that is, that maybe that started out as an ironic enjoyment. I mean, here is my history with the Doobie Brothers

and really all sort of music from the Yacht Rock era, which is that my dad fucking loved it. This is what I'm wondering. I'm wondering how many more years I get with you before you become Clint McElroy. I'm there, babe. I'm so sorry. At least from the kind of

media I consume as it's I've been there but my dad would like play this music and I'd be like this sucks when I was younger and then yacht rock the the uh web series the web series came out and then it was kind of like fun to make fun of it and And then I did enjoy, like, ironically, like I would put it on the jukebox whenever we went to bars or whatever. And I think there's just been a very pleasant backslide into unironically enjoying the works of the Doobie Brothers, specifically What a Fool Believes. And I think this song absolutely slaps. specifically What a Fool Believes. And I think this song absolutely slaps. And if you laughed when I brought it up or just missed it out of hand,

I want you to just sort of cruise on the vibes right now as I play a little bit of the song What a Fool Believes by the Doobie Brothers. He came from somewhere back in a long ago He said a better fool don't see Trying hard to recreate what had yet to be created Once in her life, she musters a smile Did you listen to it when I told you I was going to bring it? You know the song, right?

I do know the song. I didn't seek it out no because i feel like i'm familiar with it i mean the thing for me about this song there's a lot and i'm gonna come back to this but that synth sound that they have in it is the most pleasant that like almost like calliope fucking circus whistle ass synth sound that's like that was a really good impression of it it's throughout the whole song it's like my favorite little it's like my favorite little instrument in all of recorded music it's throughout the whole song it's so pleasant and they use every like inch of it it's

constantly like in the background just sort of like accentuating the melody and then at one point it's just like very very little tiny little stabs of chords as they get into the pre-chorus uh that you can just barely hear in the background but if you know to listen for that delightful that delightful little synth it's it's it's always right there uh i'm a sucker for i think this song when did this song come out like 79 i think uh yeah they came out on on the doobie brothers 79 album minute by minute uh i like love old synths like that like it's why i love mort garson as much as i do and to hear one that is this prevalent in a song that went number one on the charts is like is so fucking delightful to me um i also just like the structure of the song is so bizarre uh i had

never really read the lyrics to what a fool believes yeah i have not i'm just gonna read it i'm gonna read some of like the beginning lyrics of what a fool believes because when you hear it not in the context of the song you're like wait a minute that that's lyrics to a song i'm just gonna start okay he came from somewhere back in her long ago. The sentimental fool don't see trying hard to recreate what had yet to be created once in her life.

She musters a smile for his nostalgic tale never coming near what he wanted to say only to realize it never really was. She had a place in his life. He never had to think twice.

The only kind of rhyming couplet in the song. There. And he rises to her apology. Anybody else would surely know he's watching her go but what a fool believes he sees no wise man has the power to reason away what seems to be is always better than nothing and nothing at all keeps sending it like what are you doing it feels like shakespearean it's it's so wild like this is it was written by michael

mcdonald and kenny loggins yeah uh and it just goes it just goes and goes and goes and goes and goes and goes like that can't really attach to a particular image or narrative and that right it's just like one long train of thought yeah so from like a songwriting perspective that's wild that's like i i think you kind of have to give them a little bit more credit than you usually would when you hear Here's a Song by the Doobie Brothers. Yeah, it's just absolutely, it's absolutely wild. They won, minute by minute, one record of the year in 1980 Grammys and What a Fool Believes won song of the year at the 1980 Grammys. Wow.

I think it's well earned, man. I think it's just a pleasant song that i like to vibe to for sure but i also think like by a lot of different ways that you could judge uh a a you know a song lyrically uh melodically yeah you haven't mentioned the harmonies compositionally i mean yeah i mean the harmonies are absolutely gorgeous yeah uh yeah it's a good fucking song it's my favorite doobie brother song and that's saying something because they got some slappers they got some slappers in there china grove forget about it taking it to the streets stop it oh that is a good one not as good as what a fool believes uh okay so let's talk about what our friends at home are into

uh finn says i am a sewist and something I find oh so wonderful is that sometimes I get to work with really soft fabric like Sherpa, which means spinning the whole dang day half wrapped in the

fluffiest material you ever did touch. I also find it wonderful that sewist is the term for people who sew. It's just very fun to say. I didn't know that. I didn't know that either.

Fun fact from Finn. Thanks, Finn. Derek says, rarely does a garnish punch as far above its weight class as the maraschino cherry it completes an ice cream sundae becomes a boozy sweet treat in an old-fashioned and they're even good enough to eat right from the jar i love a maraschino cherry

oh my god yes i think that's my favorite part of old fashions which i enjoy in old fashion every now and then is when you do get to like the little fruit snack at the bottom huh you don't like that you don't like it so sweet so yes that's a feature not a bug i do like them in a milkshake because like i know what i'm getting into right like that is sweet on sweet and i'm ready for it yeah but when they're like in a alcoholic beverage i'm like whoa is what what's this doing here you don't like a little chunky so that's not true you like a bloody mary it's not the texture that's upsetting you though it's the it's the sweet yeah interesting interesting i think it's maybe uh it's like a little gusher in there you know yeah i mean i worked at tcby where we just had an infinite supply of maraschino cherries so i'd just be in the back room just running them down if my blood sugar was getting low i would

eat some maraschino cherries and I'd be like, what? It's vitamins. I wish, I wish I had some footage, some security camera footage of you at that TCBY.

I mean, I know that you found a spot where you could be undetected. Yeah, where I could just play my Nintendo DS and eat maraschino cherries by myself in the corner

behind the coats. Yep. Yep, yep, yep. Hey, thanks to Bone and Augustus for our theme song,

Money Won't Pay. You can find a link to that in the episode description. And thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network. Go to MaximumFun.org. Check out all the great shows that are on MaximumFun.org. Yeah, you should check out Reading Glasses. Oh, yeah. I feel like, you know, Poetry Corner for me is just like a little segment that I do every once in a while.

But if you want to hear more about books, every episode. had a uh i want to recommend fanti we had an episode on on our our feed here last year and uh that show is fucking great it's funny yeah getting lots of insightful and how good that show is yeah absolutely uh catch catch the wave catch the fanti wave um yeah i think that's i think that's probably gonna do it i mean i can't think of other announcements oh uh the podcast book comes out next week uh everybody has a podcast except you uh it's a book that me and my brothers wrote that uh rachel got got uh what would you call like a guest a guest diverse on yeah there is a a chapter focused on research and just the experience of researching for a podcast.

And me and Sydney and Teresa all wrote a little segment in there. I would recommend, okay, if you're like, oh, I'm not going to do a podcast, so I don't need it. It's not a super technical book. It's very accessible. I would think if you enjoy the MacW word podcast and you want to know what the, uh, the special sauce is. Sure.

That's the book. We wrote it from a sort of hobbyist before a hobbyist reader, not for somebody who's like a, you know, going to start working for WNYC or whatever. Um, and, and so,

yeah, it's, it's, we worked hard on it and I'm, I'm proud of it. And it comes out next, next week and you can, uh,

find out more like how to preorder it or whatever at McElroy.family. It would be super cool if you preordered it. There is something of a freezing effect that our current sort of life situation has on book sales. So anything you can do to help us rectify that would be pretty cool. But that's it yeah thanks thank you hey thank you thank you thank you thanks thanks a million spank you no very much nope spank you very much no no thank you spanks for the memories do you like this guy no not at all you don't what do you not like about him?

Ooh, there's a lot. There's a lot. Okay. Just to say it. He's a big boy. He can take it. Say what you need to say about Spanker, and then let's move on. He's not remotely funny or charming or attractive to me.

You said he could take it. He could? i can't Money won't pay Workin' on pay Money won't pay Workin' on pay Money won't pay Workin' on pay Workin' on pay MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned.

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