Wonderful! - Wonderful! 250: Where's the Anxiety Here?

Episode Date: October 26, 2022

Griffin's favorite disco explosion song! Rachel's favorite emotionally challenging poem!Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoyaFair Elections Center: https://www.fairelectionscenter.org/ MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hi, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. Ooh, I came in hot, didn't I? I can't help it. I'm excited to record this show with you is wonderful. I came in hot, didn't I? I can't help it. I'm excited to record this show with you. Okay. I love you. I love doing this show with you. I love you too. I think the energy in the studio, if I may be so bold, has really been opened up. And so like,

there's a channel of energy that I'm just getting from that side of the studio that's just hitting me so right right now. Are you feeling this? Can I be honest? Yeah. Not entirely. Oh, okay. I'm still feeling a little queasy. Yeah, yeah. You know, week two. Yeah, you've been riding that train for a while now. So yeah, hesitant to say that I've got great vibes right now. Okay. But I appreciate it. Hop on my back, baby. Your vibes. Hop on my back. My vibes are big enough for the both of us. Will you carry me through the sand? I will. Give me some of your nausea.

What if I could do that? Like the green mile? Like, no, it wouldn't be like, I wouldn't like do anything gross, but like, it'd be like green mile where I'm like, give me, can I have some of your nausea, please? Boop. And I take it away from you. Don't you wish that was real? I guess so.

But I don't want you to have that. But this is the sacrifice that I love to make. I gotta make it. I gotta keep you from being sick, honey. Okay. And I gotta use my magic powers to do so. Do you have any small wonders? Did you say what the show's about? This is a show where we talk about things we like, things that are good, things that we're into. The title of the program is wonderful. This is our 250th episode. Yeah, like maybe there are people out there

that only listen to the 250th episode of a podcast. And so we want to make sure that they're clear on what they're listening to. Is there a name for what 250? I guess it's not Bicentennial, man. We should do a segment on that though. I never saw it. Oh, jeez. It's not Bicentennial, man. We should do a segment on that, though.

I never saw it. Oh, it's so funny. Okay. Probably not. Yeah, I don't know that that would hold up particularly well to 2022 scrutiny. Anyway, Small Wonders, you got any of them? Do you want to go first? Yes.

I finally decorated my studio. Yeah. I'm really, really excited about it. The art. I keep saying studio. It's really an office. It is an office. The art though in here, like the placement of it, I really appreciate.

Yeah. I spent a long time kind of sketching it out in my mind's eye. I did like put a bunch of screws into the wall and it was like well i would have maybe done it differently were there not there's actually a screw hole hidden by the head of the guitar so you know i've got my little secret passages hidey holes in here well we're gonna live here forever so it doesn't matter i'm never leaving this fucking house never ever i don't i know my goal is to not move again. At least let's make it more than a few years

in this house. Yeah, if we could do maybe four years in this house. Yeah, that would be a new record for us. Then we're on the road again. You got any small wonders? Oh, I'll say New Season of Love is Bind. Y'all. This one is wild. This one. This one

is wild. I have, this one is wild. I have never seen so many unrelatable people in one season. Yeah. People who make choices and say things that I would never do or say. Can we slip off? This may be controversial. Can we slip off our wonderful slippers and then put those to the side and then slip on our Rose Buddy slippers for like a few minutes. Oh, man.

The crowd's going nuts right now. The crowd is losing it right now. Yeah. Because we've just been watching Love is Blind. We've also been watching The Mole and it's like, I don't have anywhere to put this energy. I mean, you. You get all of this energy. Yeah, it's true.

And our friend JD, who I text about reality shows nonstop. Are we talking about The Mole, too? Or just Let Us Play? I guess. They're so similar. Shockingly similar. Yeah, I would say the contestant pool seems to be the same. The same contestant pool as like that and Love is Blind and The Circle and Fuck Island.

Do you think Netflix has like a farm where they keep people? Yes. That they pull from for these variety of shows? And it's so interesting because it works really, really well for Love is Blind and does not work very well for The Mole. Yeah. I want to watch real people solving mysteries. I'm convinced that the longer we watch The Mole, the more we will enjoy it because the people that are insufferable will hopefully be eliminated. insufferable will hopefully be eliminated there's a guy named dom on it who kept shouting dom cruz at every at every mission and in every like confessional and it was uh it was really that's a challenge for me my theory was that there was always at least one person in the room that hadn't heard it yet and so he thought like oh man she's gotta hear this okay maybe yeah they are far from

the worst member of that we as audience members got to hear this. Okay, maybe. Yeah, they are far from the worst member of that cast. We as audience members got to hear it at least six times. Yeah, back to back to back to back. Yeah, it's not hitting for me, sadly, because we talked about the mole in this show before. We talked about it. We did a whole segment on it. And I don't know that they quite nailed it. The production's great.

Alex, who's the host? Alex Warner? I don't know. I never uh never encountered she's a cnn correspondent or something uh she's doing great yeah the challenges are interesting challenges are super fun she's not the best guest there are a lot of people who very intentionally are trying to draw suspicion in a way that is not clever or like particularly savvy no and it's really showing everyone's ass and they're also competing now for like 250 dollars they have so clearly like destroyed their pot it is uh that part that part's great i do like that part of it but love is is blind. Love is blind, though. The things people say on the show.

I mean, it moves at a clip, which I really kind of appreciate. It sure does. Like, you are on episode two, and people are in love, and they're proposing, and you're like, this surely seems fast. Although I imagine there are hours and hours and hours of footage we do not get to see. Yeah, of course. But yeah, some memorable moments. Some great quotes.

Some horrifying moments, but some very memorable ones too. There's a dude whose name I'm not going to, Sean? Jean? I don't know. I immediately forget their names when I stop watching.

He found his match, Zenub, and was quite smitten when they parted those beautiful cartons and came sprinting at each other down 200 meters of uh walkway and he was just so he was in he was indescribable in his elation and he stepped back as they like parted after they had met and made out and stuff and as as the doors closed, he just went, put her in a magazine. And so we've been quoting that to each other a lot. Put her in a magazine. You made that a little Dave Matthews there at the end.

Put her in a magazine. Yeah, it has been highly watchable i mean the thing that flix does that's a little annoying is they do these deliberate clumsy cliffhangers yeah so you have to kind of watch the next episode if you want to see like an issue resolved um but then you tell yourself i'm only going to watch two minutes just so i can see the resolution and then all of a sudden yeah there you are there's a guy who does a pretty i will say extended thorough sales pitch on himself as a sexual partner as sexual teacher he talks a lot about his prowess in a way that which was taught to him by an older woman, I believe in Italy or something like that, who taught him how to have an orgasm without ejaculating.

And I'm sorry if this is upsetting for you to hear, but we had to hear it too. And then he talks about how he could force himself into having several mini orgasms. And the other person behind the wall is like, uh-huh, uh-huh uh-huh cool cool cool i i at first thought like this is a test right like he's trying to see how down this other person behind the screen is going to be you know and this is like his way of weeding

out people who you know aren't as uh candid maybe as he is uh but he he kept going yeah i don't i don't want to say too much um but there are definitely moments uh that make this season unique yeah now that they have met i will say that all of these dudes are real kind of scumbags a little bit. Yeah, I have high hopes for, no, never mind. Yeah, right? I was going to say somebody that initially I had high hopes for, but then once they met.

It just fell off the face of the earth. Yeah, the problem with these shows is that it's great in the pods. And then usually once you leave the pods, that's where my interest starts to wane. Well, and they talk about the very real thing of connecting what was said to the face. Yeah. You know, like to them, this is like a new person. But it's like, no, you were the person that I talked to. Yeah.

And you said these things. Okay. We need to take these slippers off because they're really comfortable. But we need to put on our wonderful slippers again. Yes. And talk about things we like, things that are good, things that things that we're into yes can i tell you about my thing yes my thing my thing is uh a little track called the loneliest time by carly ridge epson featuring rufus mcgarigal wainwright you know what I was thinking is last time you brought CRJ,

you only gave her a few notes. And this time you're giving her a few song. Or a full song, rather. Yeah, I mean, so it's also the whole album is also called The Loneliest Time. Just dropped last week. We are eating good in this household. I say that. I don't know if you've listened to the whole thing.

No, I listened to the whole thing this morning, actually. It's fucking great. Yeah. It actually great yeah so so so good um Beach House Beach House is great so there were a few singles if you've been following Carly Rae Jepsen since the release of Dedication in 2019 few like big singles like Beach House and uh oh my God, what's the really, oh, Western Wind, which has that like kind of breathy Stevie Nicks vibe. She's definitely on some, she's on a sort of astrological journey, I would say on this one, which we enjoy a lot of talking about. I'm a Scorpio. The moon is there also. And I like that. But what I really like is the like little disco sound that was kind of happening that was budding in dedication has blossomed into a beautiful tree.

It does feel like very like a very specific time in music. Like 80s disco pop is what it's going for. And it is like not subtle about that shit at all. The last song on the album is this track that I want to talk about, The Loneliest Time with Carly Rae Jepsen and Rufus McGarrett Wainwright. It is so over the top disco. Like you will hear sounds in the song. Like there's a certain type of like sort of sweeping tom drum that sounds like disco to me that's like the like little drum this one goes nuts with it like it sounds uh very very

much of its time or i guess the time it's supposed to be sounding like uh and i was like man this is like wild disco music this is not what i expected but when you listen to the whole album i feel like it builds to it oh yeah in a way where it's just this disco explosion at the end. Let's play a little bit of it. And I'm going to try really hard not to say the word disco 55 times. I've had one of those bad dreams where we're standing on New York Street. I quit smoking those cigarettes, but I'm never getting over it And you're looking right through me

Just like Shakespeare on a tragedy But our story never finished it Cause our love, we never finished it I'm coming over tonight These two sound so good together. And I would not have in a million years imagined that as a duet. But I want them to release a full Captain and Tennille duet album together. I think that would be very strong. I was a big fan of Rufus Wainwright

back when I think Poses dropped. I think that was the album that I got to know him through. Yeah. I don't know what he's been up to, honestly, this past decade or so. But it was a pleasure to have him on this song. It was a joy to have him on this song

and in the music video where he looks amazing. He has a nonchalance about him in all things. And seeing it in this music video next to the queen of blades, Carly Rae Jepsen. I will say I found the choreography a little uncomfortable to watch because it is clearly not his forte. But I mean, I kind of like that. I enjoyed the vibe. The harmonies that they get up to in this song are like bonkers. Like the very first one that where he like picks up in the first verse, like sounds so amazingly good.

It gave me chills the first time I heard it. And yeah, it just has like iconic pop duet territory like it's got big don't go breaking my heart sort of uh islands in the stream and uh i'm all about that it's just fun that's what kind of surprised me about this album is that like it still talks about heartbreak and all the usual crj stuff but it's just like it there were so many decisions that were made along the creation process that were just the most fun decision that could be made yeah i mean i will say one of her core competencies is fun you know like call me maybe super fun for sure for sure i would say dedicated slipped on that a little bit i i love dedicatedicated or Dedication. No, Dedicated.

We saw her on that tour. It was great, but it didn't hit that like emotion level for me because there were just so many just wall-to-wall bangers on that album. And I feel like The Loneliest Time is right back there, man. I only listened to it front to back

for the first time today, also this morning, and was like, well, I'm going to do this again now. And I've had this song on rotation forever. There's a spoken word breakdown at the end. Yeah, I noticed that. It's so good. And it's about going to outer space. It went viral on TikTok, apparently.

Oh, okay. When she's like, I'm coming back for you, baby. I'm coming back. That clip is viral on tiktok sadly the tiktok audio cuts out right before the song then does this like insane bass arpeggio for like a long time that's just like anyway i'm excited i'm excited about music i feel like i was feeling the same illness that you were feeling and then the music got in me. Okay.

It got in my stomach, got in my bones. You had me convinced probiotics was the way to go. Probiotics and music. And Carly Rae Jepsen. They're in there both. Osmosis Jones style. Okay. They're battling whatever horrible ailment has taken over this household.

And I think you just started taking the probiotics too. So I think you've got now that you also listen to the Carly album. Talk to me this time tomorrow. I guarantee you right as rain. And if not, I'll call the doctor and I'll say, listen, I'm doing everything. I'm doing everything I can. Everything. You're like, you know, you'll have to do the probiotics with the Carly Rae Jepsen, right?

She needs them. They're her weapons. Oh, okay. Probiotics is Carly Rae Jepsen's weapons. Okay. What a strange sentence you just said. Yeah. Yeah.

I think probiotics is Jamie Lee Curtis's weapon. Can I steal you away yes got a billy bob here and i would love to read it uh if i may be so bold as to do that please so this one is for sarah It's from Ben, who says, Sarah, thanks for the wonderful Jumbotron you got me for my birthday on the 3-10-22 episode. That's March 10th, 2022.

I know if you live in the British Isle, then they do the dates backwards, but I'm assuming, because 10-3-2022, I mean, that just came out you know what i mean yeah it would have been hard to get that one in so this was march i love griffin gently dunking on me because my favorite pokemon is a giant ghost it was one of my favorite birthday presents so far if science finally gets its act together and makes pokemon real i will for

sure hook you up with a vulpix i lava Yeah, I would say science kind of got sidetracked these past couple of years. Oh, you think something was going and then it just got busy? I think that science was pretty close to cracking real Pokemon and then COVID. And then they all had to, and I'm glad that they did, clearly.

But some other projects got sort of sidelined. And I think we're all suffering for that. You don't have anything to add to this Pokemon. No, I was thinking about how a gibbon kind of looks like a Pokemon. Wow. Yeah. I was trying to think of, like, in our world today, what animals are like Pokemon,

and I think a gibbon would be like a Pokemon. Well, you do know the animals came first, right? Yes. The gibbon would be like a Pokemon. Well, you do know the animals came first, right? Yes. The gibbon. They made the Pokemon. They made Mankey after a gibbon. Yeah. If I wanted to step into your reality where science does create Pokemon.

Real Pokemon, yeah. What would that even look like? Also, can they pick me up with their mind? Because now we're dabbling in the supernatural. There's ghosts in the Pokemon world. Yeah. Well the supernatural, like there's ghosts in the Pokemon world. Yeah. Well, some might say there's ghosts in the real world too.

Some might say that. Not me. Not me. Some might. I'm Jesse Thorne. On the next Bullseye, our annual Halloween spectacular. We'll interview Anna Fabrega from Los Espookys, Monet X Change from Drag Race, and the great R.L. Stine, creator of Goosebumps.

You know, I don't really get too deep into the real fears. It's a lot safer to do a dummy coming to life. That's on the next Bullseye for MaximumFun.org and NPR. the next Bullseye for MaximumFun.org and NPR. 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 Mother and me. What have you prepared for me, your husband, your co-host, your partner, to feast up my senses upon? So the week before last, I took us down the poetry hallway. And I imagine there are some people out there that were like, you really got me excited. I thought I was going to a poetry corner. I didn't. They've been walking for two weeks. This week, you're going to the corner.

And you haven't been mad. You've been so good. Baby, did you workshop that in advance? Because that's good. You know, I'm just feeling spicy all of a sudden. You got the energy. You got the probiotics. You got the Carly.

You got the studio energy, babe. Yeah, you really. It's happening for you. I absorbed it from you. Yes. I told you. Yeah, so I've got a poet. And his name is Miller Williams.

Miller Williams. That's a fun name to say. I just sounded like elf. Didn't mean to. But it's a fun name to say. His first name is Miller Williams. Miller Williams. That's a fun name to say. I just sounded like Elf. Didn't mean to. But it's a fun name to say. His first name is actually Stanley. Stanley Miller Williams. Yeah.

When it's a middle name, it's actually kind of hard. Yeah. So here's the thing about Miller Williams. You may not know him, but you do know his daughter, who is songwriter Lucinda Williams. I do know Lucinda. Not personally. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, me neither. his daughter who is songwriter lucinda williams i do know lucinda not personally yeah yeah no no me neither uh so he uh was a uh a poetry writer as well as a translator and an editor and he wrote over 25 books um i think that's all the poetry jobs and including a dozen poetry

collections so there were you know translations and other stuff in there. Yeah. And he is incredible. I'm going to like talk more about him because the poem I'm going to read by him as a warning is kind of devastating. Yeah. And not in a like depressing way, in a like emotionally challenging way. You remember the like umbrella, the mom poem with the umbrella? It's a lot like that. Okay. And that we may need to do some editing to get me through it. Okay. And I thought people love hearing you sort of breathlessly just sit there and stew in your... I had a moment where

I was like, I don't want to read this poem because it's so difficult to read out loud. And then I was like, no, that's why I have to. That's why you have to. That's why you must. Towards the fear. Yes. We can't get to the corner without you, babe. So the interesting thing, so he is maybe best known for reading a poem at the second inauguration of Bill Clinton. But before that, he was actually pursuing science. He had a bachelor's degree in biology and a master's in zoology. Whoa. Whoa.

And he just kind of happened to become friends with Flannery O'Connor. Are you familiar? I know the name. Famous writer. And Flannery O'Connor wrote him a recommendation. In 1961, LSU advertised for a poet to teach in their writing program. And at that point, he had only had three hours of freshman English formally. But without mentioning to him, she wrote them and said, the person you want teaches biology at Westland College. That's great. And so he submitted like a packet of work and they hired him. And that kind of his career went from there that's

great uh it must be dope to be at a party and with him and it's like man i bet he knows about a bunch about poetry stuff but then somebody says something about like a rhinoceros and he's like let me tell you 80 things about a rhinoceros and it's like whoa he does animal stuff too uh more more than more than sciencey poems he's uh this is a quote from a critic named lee ozer called williams a poet of quote eloquent sanity and distinguished formal competence a fine observer of the emotional and imaginative lives of his fellow citizens it was hard for me to get through that sentence just being honest that. That was a challenge for me. I mean, basically, he writes about people more than he writes about zoo animals, I guess, is what I was trying to accomplish with that quote.

So the other thing to note, and this becomes valuable, I think, in the poem, is that in addition to having the daughter of Lucinda Williams, they have a son and another daughter, and they have three grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. All right, get it. So the poem I am reading is called A Poem for Emily, who, based on the context clues of the poem, I'm assuming is a granddaughter of Emily Williams. I see you, like, stretching.

It sneaks up on me. Okay. But I think I'll be okay. I've read it a few times now. Okay, good. Small fact and fingers and farthest one from me, a hand's width and two generations away, in this still present, I am 53,

you are not yet a full day. When I am 63, when you are 10, and you are neither closer nor as far, your arms will fill with what you know by then, the arithmetic and love we do and are. When I by blood and luck am 86, and you are someplace else and 33, believing in sex and God and politics with children who look not at all like me. Sometime I know you will have read them this. So they will know I love them and say so and love their mother. Child, whatever is, is always or never was. Long ago a day, I watched a while beside your bed.

I wrote this down. A thing that might be kept a while to tell you what I would have said. When you were who knows what and I was dead. Which is I stood and loved you while you slept. which is I stood and loved you while you slept. Whew. Yeah. Yeah.

I think devastating is, you have a way with words, you have a way with reading poetry. Thank you. Gorgeous. But also you're very good at describing how what kind of emotional reaction it's fun for me because i don't know much about poetry and i don't know when one is gonna tickle my sad bone i guess uh but you you're able to kind of like get out there in front of it and warn me which i appreciate it yeah that's the thing the content

is depressing if anything it's incredibly beautiful uh but it it's such a like relatable like beautifully described experience of like you know having what i imagined like having a grandchild is like yeah or having a great grandchild or just being a family member to someone who is in a totally different phase of life. Yeah. And you know that you will not get to be there for the whole part. Yeah. Pretty much no matter where you're at in this crazy, crazy old thing called life, you're somewhere in that. Yeah.

You're somewhere in that binary. And so that's, yeah, I that's yeah i imagine and i just appreciated like how restrained it was too you know like that that is i think where you're getting to see miller williams is that you know like it's not flowery not trying to like create these like incredible comparisons to you know things that are outside of of your daily life um but man it's like i don't know it just feels it just feels perfect yeah that was amazing thank you thank you for sharing that you are welcome thank you to bowen and augustus for the use of our theme song money won't pay you can find a link to that one in the episode description this episode description

and thanks to maximum fun for having us on the network. Go to MaximumFun.org. Check out all the great shows that they have there. You're going to find something on there that you're just going to gobble up and absolutely love it. Hey, we got some shows coming up very soon in Cincinnati and Detroit and here in Cap City, as they say. No, do they? I don't think anyone says that. Washington, D.C. And you should come see us. Go to McElroy.family and find links to the shows and where you can get tickets and stuff. I had a dream last night that we did The Wonderful Show. Yeah.

But except my dream picked up when the show was over. Oh, how'd we do? Well, I was asking you. I was like, i can't remember what i talked about uh oh my god yeah that's you you almost had the actor's worst nightmare but you like it sounds like it was already done that's dope i wish i could skip that and then i was panicking because i hadn't worked out child care and i was like where are our children oh there it is okay i was like where's the anxiety here there? Oh there it is. Okay I was like where's the anxiety here? There it is.

Where's the anxiety here could be a catchphrase for all of our shows. Maybe that's what we say at the end. No that's not really on brand. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to our 250th episode

of Wonderful. The first miniaturized length episode of Rose Buddies that we've done in forever. Even that felt like touching a power that we can't. Here's the thing, we don't

know how either of those seasons end. That is a fair point. We are like three episodes in each of them. This is the risk, right? Yeah, we won't be keeping up of them. This is the risk, right? Yeah. We won't be keeping up with them. Okay, that's it. Bye. MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned.

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