Wonderful! - Wonderful! 233: The Big Guys with the Spotty Spots

Episode Date: June 15, 2022

Griffin’s favorite cold edible tube! Rachel’s favorite late-blooming Pulitzer-winning poet!Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoyaFairness West Virginia: https://fairnesswv.org/ 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. Woof, woof, it's those dog days of summer, I think. No, I don't think summer officially has even started yet. It's all relative, isn't it? Who decided, whoever decided summer starts on June 23rd, I think, is out of their gourd. Here's what I'll say.

Yeah, say it. With climate change. Climate change. I've heard of this. Maybe summer really did start back then. At that time. Winter used. I've heard of this. Maybe summer really did start back then. Okay. At that time. Winter used to run until May 16th. And then we had a little spring.

No, it's weird. It's like wherever you live in the world, it's like the seasons and times is different. Fair. Because it's hot as a hot dog here in Austin, Texas. Yes. And that's a saying that we like to use. Big hot dog people down here. Yes.

And that's a saying that we like to use. Big hot dog people down here. I told somebody yesterday on a call in like a meeting that I lived in Austin. And they were like, hmm, bet you love those breakfast tacos. And yes. Yes. There's more to it than that. We're multifaceted people as Austinites. We love hot dogs too yeah i mean i

think it's possible that the person was just trying to be friendly i didn't even consider that hon didn't even think about that yeah this show we talk about things we like things we're into things that are good and do you have a small wonder uh i am to say my small wonder is the fact that our son inexplicably says that he wants to be an astronaut when he grows up. Really good. Which I'm not really entirely sure where that came from. I mean, other than, you know, that's a thing that people can be. Some people, yeah. I would say there's not too much opportunity in that field.

And then the other day he said he wanted to be an astronaut and singer. An astronaut singer, I believe. Yeah. Which is the best, right? That's the best of both worlds. Because the idea is kids get to a certain age and they want to be multiple things. Yeah. And they see no reason to whittle it down.

Sometimes when it's a lullaby time, in which I deliver the lullaby to our child, he does a sort of like slam poetry version on top of it at the same time. I've been doing this song from Adventure Time, Everything Stays. It's been like pretty hot in the lullaby rotation. And it'll be like, let's go in the garden you'll find something waiting like it's very powerful and evocative uh i i don't i did not i don't have i don't have one but i will think of one as I am. Looking around the room. Speaking, looking around the,

I'm gonna say when you get in the pocket when you're like writing is really good. Yesterday, we're doing a live Taz that I'm gonna be running here in just like three or four days. And I had like a little bit of time to prep yesterday for it and i just got in the fucking groove and it was so satisfying to like work for a couple hours on something and have like

eight or nine pages at the end of it it's like griffin came downstairs and he told me some of the uh character names in some of the big ideas and uh it's very exciting yeah i can't wait can't wait so exciting to be doing live taz's again they're terrifying they're the scariest thing ever but a lot of fun um i go first this week fantastic i want to talk speaking of those dog days of summer i do want to talk about the humble freezy pop although you may call it you may call it something else you may call it freeze pop or freezy simply put i'll talk about all the wonderful names for this but it's it is it is 200 degrees every day here in austin now wait before we get going yeah favorite flavor or color color sometimes it's funny because i have it at the end of my notes

grape or green i know what grape is the green flavor is something it's not a natural shade it's like a tmnt ooze uh colored but or an ecto cooler ecto cooler i think is like kind of clear it's a little bit more translucent than than this is like bright yeah neon i'm green on green it's so good always green It's so good. Always green. It's so good. I'll fuck with a grape, but I just want that green stuff. We've started getting into more sort of aquatic outdoor fun time activities, and nothing enhances an outdoor aquatic fun time activity quite like a freeze pop.

Yeah, it's wild how kids and kind of intuitively know that popsicles are a fun time summer treat and the enthusiasm for popsicles which is ultimately just frozen juice uh is through the roof i mean there's a i i did not know much about the taxonomy of popsicles until i researched this topic but a freeze pop pop, if you also don't know about the taxonomy, that's the juice in the plastic sleeve and you cut the top off and you push it up. Yeah, I love when you can buy like big mesh bags full of them. Yes.

And it's just like liquidy, like a big water balloon divided into sections. Yes. Mom would go to, we got pretty much all our groceries at sam's club like in bulk like and she would come back with like a fucking bandolier of flavor ice that would last us for like three years three i can't even imagine three kids trying. Period. Yeah, period. But also trying to grocery shop. Like, you would have to.

You would have to buy like a hundred of everything. Yeah. So Flavor Ice, because of, I pronounce it that way, because of the hyphens inside of it, I'm not just being a total weirdo. Is maybe, it depends on which part of the country you live in. It depends on which part of the country you live in. You probably have to think of Flavor Ice or Otter Pops, depending on what store your parents shopped at when you were a kid. They are called so many different things depending on what country and region you're living in. The generic name, right, in North America we got Freeze Pop, Freezies, Icy's with with two e's which i've always understood to be the slushy brand yes i c e e you see that that's a slut i don't know some people just call them

icies i guess okay uh and then they got free you know freezer pops is another name for north america in other parts of the world of course they have way more fun names in the uk they call them ice pops and ice poles which is i mean that's accurate yeah in australia they call them icy poles india they got sip ups and pepsi ice which is fantastic philippines has maybe my favorite name for them they have ice candy which is what it essentially is it's it's water that is frozen in a sort of rail shape uh and like so many things it's impossible to know like who was the first person to freeze juice and say i'm gonna i will eat that now on this hot day uh but the first brand in north america was called pop ice uh which was acquired by a company called Gel Cert, which is a Chicago-based

company in 1963. Six years later, they would rebrand the product as Flavor Ice. And then there was this East Coast, West Coast beef that happened where Otter Pops came out in the 70s, and Otter Pops were like a West Coast sensation. Have you ever had an Otter Pop? No, this just feels very familiar. Talking about Otter Pops? And we have not talked about popsicles or freezies. Okay, maybe I heard it on a different, like a Jordan Jesse Go maybe or something.

They seem like the type to talk about Otter Pops. Yeah. I've never had an Otter Pop because I've never lived on the West Coast. But that was like the rival. Everyone on the West Coast loved Otter Pops. So you know what Jelcert did? Acquired Otter Pops too.

Establishing a nationwide stranglehold on the freeze pop market. You know, monopolies in this country, it's unreal. Like, who else is supposed to compete? Well, I mean, it's frozen juice. I guess. You know what i mean like i get it and i'm totally right there with you on most things but it's frozen juice we we i don't know the brand that we eat the the the you got a big fucking pack of freeze pops it's like it's like good pop or something it's it's one of those like oh this is only real juice it's good it is

good they have a cherry limeade one that knocks my fucking socks off. It is good. I mean, the whole incentive is like. It's no green. Is that like, oh, you're giving your kid a popsicle. Let's make you feel like it is a healthy choice. Yeah. It's not the most novel thing, right?

It's frozen juice. Every country has their own brand of freeze pops. And I don't want to list them all because I just did that with like the generic names. But I do want to give a special shout out to the brand of freeze pops in Australia that is the most popular, which is called. Which is called Zooper Dooper. Is very strong. We have a lot of listeners from Australia. I bet I bet they will.

Shout out to the Zooper Dooper community. Zooper Dooper fandom. I'm only going to to the Zooper Dooper community, the Zooper Dooper fandom. I'm only going to call them Zooper Doopers, by the way, sort of the same way that some Midwesterners refer to all soda as Coke. All freeze pops are now Zooper Doopers, and that is a legal law. Did you ever have those little plastic trays

that you could make your own popsicles in? Yes, I don't think I ever successfully did it. Did you ever have those little like plastic trays that you could make your own popsicles in? Yes. I don't think I ever successfully did it. I always put orange juice in there. Oh, interesting. As a real treat. We didn't need to do that because we always had approximately 500,000 flavor ices. Yeah, I guess that's true.

I guess when you are larger than a family of three, you don't really want to make your own popsicles because you're generating enough mess everywhere all the time as is um it's just such a simple thing it's so beautiful they travel well you throw them in a cooler and they serve as ice packs yeah and it keeps your food or whatever cool until it's dessert time and then you eat the ice packs you can't do that with a normal ice pack. You would get sick probably. The fun part is with kids, they have special sort of demands.

Henry, obviously the best part is when you have finished eating the body of the freeze pop and then you get the juice at the end that you can kind of like wheeze. Henry demands that we decant his freeze pop and then you get the juice at the end that you can kind of like you know wheeze uh henry demands that we decant his freeze pop into a new sort of carafe that he can then drink with a straw yeah which i get because the plastic sides the like fins on the sides of i've definitely cut the corners of my mouth and been like a sort of like icy dessert joker or or something like i get it i just i love the thing that makes me nervous about just a regular unsheathed popsicle

is like the amount of mess like the huge amount of mess yes an unsheathed popsicle and uh i love i love the flavor ice because it's just like, you know, it's like straight from canister to mouth. Yeah. Very little drip. All food should be pole shaped in its own sort of. Like a mashed potatoes in a sleeve. Yeah, man. Or like cereal in a sleeve.

Well, I mean, they have like cereal bars, which was like. No, I'm saying like milk and like little O's. Oh, that's disgusting. bars, which was like- No, I'm saying like milk and like little O's. Oh, that's disgusting. Yeah, that's so gross. Maybe there could be like a divider that you kind of like crack open and then the milk and cereal. I mean, how do you feel about Go-Gurt? How do I feel about Go-Gurt?

Yeah, same concept. I had to eat it. Well, I didn't have to, but I did eat two Go-Gurts on our last tour. And you guys really enjoyed it. And I got really sick the next day though you enjoyed it though in the experience of the yogurt i mean i did it for the vine i wouldn't have i bought gogurt since then and like had it recreationally on a non-professional basis no no i haven't is there anything you would eat in a sleeve i mean you the mashed potatoes idea

got me pretty excited. The idea of a hot pop that's like just hot mashed potatoes that you could kind of goosh up. And maybe it could have its own little gravy reservoir. Oh, like a two-channel one? Like a double-barrel mashed potato hot pop with gravy reservoir. New from the gel cert company. maybe you only snip one side because you want to save the gravy for the end oh yes tm tm tm tm don't t i don't want to tm i don't want that trademark i mean you can't t it has to have a name to tm it i don't know that you can just

what is it a patent a copyright yeah patent patent yeah. Patent, patent, patent. Patent, patent, patent, patent, patent. I think that, like, I love all popsicles. I love a Dream Sickle. I love a Fudge Sickle. I love an It's a Caduzzi. We have these Jolly Rancher popsicles that are pretty dope. But you cannot beat the simplicity of a freeze pop. And also, like, the nostalgia factor is off the charts for me.

I have, anytime I eat a freeze freeze pop i'm immediately taken back to the olympic pool in huntington west virginia where they had a concession stand where you could buy a freeze pop for a quarter which is the most like a grandpa i've ever said oh yes i gave myself chills there a little bit i don't think you should be spending more than a quarter on a freeze pop it is plastic encased cold juice yeah i feel like the whole thing of them costs like four dollars yeah um but that's a freeze pop i love them uh i think i went a long time without them but now that henry is sort of a popsicle age i'm getting back into the scene and it's it's really exciting yeah that reminds me and we need we need more we're out of fruit punch let's get the real

shit because i do want that green. Do you know what I mean? But our child and the real fruit, you know, he's too young for the green. I ate green. Look at me. Big and strong. Can I steal you away?

Yes. Got a couple crumple toms here, and I would love to read the first one if I may. May I please? Yes. May I please? May I? It's for Lilybutt, and it's from Mama, who says, To my tiger lily puppy cat, LA's finest road buddy, the goofiest kitten, and sweetest stinky high school teenager in the universe. You are creative, resilient, tenacious, and kind,

and you are ready for the next adventure. I love you every second. I like you every moment. Who's my baby? You's my baby. Baby, baby. P.S. I spent your allowance on this gumbo prawn. Pretty close, actually.

I think, have I used gumbo prawn before? It seems... Almost certainly. I think it's law of large numbers. I've said every sort of iteration. I don't think I've said tumble-dob yet. So maybe we'll save that for the next one. I'll be honest. I forget what the real word is.

I do not know. Hey, do you want to do the next one? Yes. This message is for Sam. It is from Abby. Sam, you are wonderful. I love raising a couch eating cryptid monster disguised

as a bunny with you. I'm so glad I married you and can kiss you forever and I hope whatever day you hear this is splendid. Love, Abby and Dr. Bonks. That's fun. I'm guessing that's short for Dr. Harris Bonkers, but it's possible that this is a spinoff

from Taz Amnesty. Okay. It's a this is a spinoff from Taz Amnesty. It's a LARP spinoff, which you don't hear about a lot. Either way, you're coming for royalties. Yeah, that will be $100 billion. Hey, it's Jon Moe. Join me on Depresh Mode for conversations on how mental health shapes our life. This week, David Sedaris with stories of his late father that he's finally willing to tell.

I think there's a difference between, you know, a good person and a good character. Like, he was a good character, my boyfriend Hugh. And my father was another one of those people. He was a really good character, but he wasn't a good person. Depressed Mode with John Moe, wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jesse Thorne, the founder of Maximum Fun, and I have a special announcement. I'm no longer embarrassed by my brother, my brother, and me. You know, for years, each new episode of this supposed advice show was a fresh insult, a depraved jumble of erection jokes, ghost humor, and frankly, this is for the best, very little actionable advice. But now, as they enter their twilight years, I'm as surprised as anyone to admit that

it's gotten kind of good. Justin, Travis, and Griffin's witticisms are more refined, like a humor column in a fancy magazine. And they hardly ever say bazinga anymore. So, after you've completely finished listening to every single one of all of our other shows, why not join the McElroy Brothers every week for My Brother, My Brother and Me? What you got? I got a round-trip ticket to the Poetry Corner. One of these days you're going to say something else there. You're going to be like, I got a round-trip ticket to Bora Bora corner one of these days you're gonna say something else there you're gonna be like i got a round trip ticket to bora bora let's go now we can do like a bye bye and

then we'll like take a few you know months off while we really find ourselves i don't even know i don't either bora bora i've seen pictures those beautiful yeah okay let's um okay hold on wait asmr myself you did a really good job of avoiding my two pitfalls which is frazier and 76 trombones i did it was frazier and the fact that you didn't pick up on that i i heard a little bit there but i thought maybe I was just imagining it. Yeah. It's like a Mandela effect. That's not what that is. Is that what that is?

My poet is Liesl Mueller. No, I don't know that one. Okay. That's okay. Yeah, you're right. I'm not here to shame anyone for their lack of knowledge of poetry. Not on the podcast. Although. But you should hear her when we're not recording.

At some point, there will be a quiz in which I will ask you to name five to ten poets that I have featured on Wonderful. Okay. And I will see what you can do, unless you want to do that now. Robert Frost. Yes. Have you done Maya Angelou of course you have not done Shel Silverstein I don't do I get a point for that for knowing the ones you haven't done yeah no Sylvia Plath you know honestly I don't even know if I have or not. Okay, we'll say yes then.

And then Liesel. Last name. The one we're doing today is five. Five points for me. I have not done Sylvia Plath. Now who's the poet? Shit. Shit.

But you didn't know, so I think I should still get a point for that. Now who's the poetry master? The poet laureate? It's me. Her last name is spelled M-u-e-l-l-e-r which i am tempted to say is muller but i could possibly be miller there is a muller street in austin yeah that is pronounced that way but austin has a lot of streets that are pronounced in wild ways. I've lost perspective on what is correct pronunciation because Austin just kind of makes its choices. Sure.

So this is a poet that was born in Germany in 1924. Obviously not a great time to be in Germany. She was the daughter of teachers and her family fled when she was 15. Her father was a teacher who's anti-fascist. It's tough. It's tough. Anti-fascist views left him kind of in trouble with the Gestapo.

So he went to Evansville College, which is now the University of Evansville in Indiana. Oh, wow. And then in 1939 was joined by his wife and his daughters, one of which is Liesl. Okay. So at 15, she had to pick up the English language. That's pretty late.

Yeah, I can't imagine. I mean, I took Spanish classes throughout all of high school and have a rudimentary understanding of the language. But imagine if that was like all. The only form of communication. Every class you went to. She didn't get her first volume of poetry published until she was 41 wow uh which i always love to see because i think maybe one day yeah maybe you could you could get a book of poetry published tomorrow whoa who do you know probably i could probably figure it out i was hoping you would name another poet oh well i know sylvia nope shells no dead yep shoot

dang it i'm wondering who you know that told you that they were shell silverstein actually now that i'm wondering about that probably probably wasn't shell it probably wasn't Shell. It probably wasn't. And you know what? I think it may have been Justin doing a joke on me. So she said in an interview with Chicago Tribune in 1993 that she didn't really get invested in writing poetry until her mother passed away in 1953. poetry until her mother passed away in 1953. And she found that that kind of grief, like, pushed her kind of towards writing, specifically poetry. And she wrote this great poem called When I Am Asked. And this is not the poem I'm featuring. Oh, well, then don't say anything else about it. Well, then don't say anything else about it. And it ends with this section, which is,

I sat on a gray stone bench, ringed with ingenue faces of pink and white impatience, and placed my grief in the mouth of language, the only thing that would grieve with me. Ooh, chills, right? Golly nits. Can you imagine just like, oh, I lost somebody really important in my life.

Let me bang out this incredible poem. Yeah, no kidding. So she has won the National Book Award, and she has also won the Pulitzer for her collection, Alive Together, New and Selected Poems. And the poem I'm going to read is from that collection. And it is called Things. What happened is we grew lonely living among the things. So we gave the clock a face, the chair a back, the table four stout legs, which will never suffer fatigue. We fitted our shoes with tongues as smooth as our own and hung tongues inside bells so we could listen to their emotional language. And because we loved graceful profiles, the pitcher received a lip, the bottle a long slender neck. Even what was beyond

us was recast in our image. We gave country a heart the storm and i the cave a mouth so we could pass into safety how fun that was kind of a fun poem that i think the context of her not being a native english speaker yeah really kind of brings some some fun to that poem yeah absolutely um it's the kind of thing when you grow up speaking a language that you don't always think about yeah for her to have that perspective of like hey it's weird that we call things having human body parts yeah yeah and just and the and the idea that that we did it to kind of solve some sort of loneliness uh i really found charming yeah i remember the first time i saw a cave i

was like i would love to hang out with him uh yeah so i mean she has tons and tons of poetry she passed away in 2020 but there is a lot out there uh if you're interested she she continued to live in illinois and the midwest for the rest of her life she uh got a house out in lake county illinois that she lived in for a long time and like right next to like a neighbor that had 200 acres and cows beautiful and so she wrote a lot of poems kind of poems kind of about like domestic farm life the big boys with the spotty spots that was one of them that's actually did you know that was one of the poems the big guys with the spotty spots the big guys with the spotty spots. That was one of them. That's actually, did you know? That was one of the poems. Watch them.

The big guys with the spotty spots. The big guys with the spotty spots. The udders that provide the sweet life. Nectar, what are you chewing on? A mystery. Griffin, you are keeping the world from your true talent which is poetry where's the beef inside you not yet beef though still just cow parts yum yum yum yum give me some yum yum give me some beef. As he signs off all of his poems.

Yum, yum. Gimme some of that good cow beef. The end. The end. This was a poem. This was a poem. You can't say it wasn't because poems can be anything. Beautiful.

Hey, thank you so much for listening. Thank you to Bowen and Augustus for the use of our theme song, Money Won't Pay. You'll find a link to that in the episode description. And thanks to Maximum Fun for having us on the network. Go to MaximumFun.org and check out just all the great stuff

that they have on there. I'm talking about Depress Mode. I'm talking about Jordan Jesse Go or Jez John Hodgman or any of the other mini fine shows

on the Maximum Fun Network. And we have stuff in MacRoyMerch.com that you can buy. We're going to be doing shows for MbamBam and Taz this week in Boston and Mash and Tucket. And you should come out and see us if you live in that general area. And when he says

we, I mean me and Justin and Travis and dad and some kids some some arrangement of children will be there too but they will not be performing uh it'll be but they will participate in soundcheck rather gleefully yeah uh so that'll be you can get tickets at mackroy.family and And please come out and see us. It'd be great to see you. And that's it. That is it. I think that's going to do it for us. We're going to wrap up now.

Okay. I think it's time for us to hit the road. Okay. Look at the clock. Uh-oh. We're late for our next appointment. So I think it's time that we probably should be getting on out of here. This has been a podcast.

What if we wrap up now and start moving in that direction? Uh-huh. All right. Well, I'm just going to— We've reached a natural conclusion. Unscrew my microphone and put it away. Unscrew it? I'm kind of pretending like it's like a tent pole or something that you have to disassemble. Oh, that's fun. Fold up.

I can make a past. Let's do that instead of whatever we were going to do next. 100%. Bye. Bye. Working on it. Money won't pay. Working on it. Money won't pay. Working on it. Money won't pay.

Working on it. Money won't pay. Working on it. Money won't pay. MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Audience supported.