Wonderful! - Wonderful! 253: Our Favorite Washington, DC Stuff, Live!

Episode Date: November 23, 2022

Griffin's favorite presidential resting place! Rachel's favorite funky grooves! Griffin's favorite official prehistoric beast! Rachel's favorite field trip poet!Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoyaNorth American Indigenous Tribal Food Systems (NĀTIFS): https://www.natifs.org/ MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

Paul opened my can for me so I can't do the thing. Yeah, sure. Hi, I'm Rachel McElroy. Hi, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. And this is wonderful There's a show where we talk about things that are good Things that we like, things that we are into You probably know already

That I am very into the Cheesecake Factory's Chicken Piccata Because I realized moments before walking out here That it is all over my shirt. I thought you were going to reference that we are also very into D.C. because we live here. Oh, that's true. We do live here. And let me tell you, because we get out a lot, we have discovered this really charming, delicious bistro.

And it's like Italian slash Tex-Mex slash sort of East Asian slash hamburger slash. It's called the Cheesecake Factory. slash, it's called the Cheesecake Factory. But when you hear factory, you think like, oh, this must be, you know, like a real blue collar establishment. You would think that. No.

Anything but. Hi, we moved to Washington, D.C. in August. We are, I would say, old souls here now. We've been all over. The Cheesecake Factory. Build-A-Bear Workshop. A lot of, like, industry here. How comfortable are you saying DMV now? Not.

Not at all. Yeah, in the same way. District similar. I can't. No, yeah. I'm not ready yet. The Dees. Yeah, does anyone say that? Does anyone say the Dees? You do now. Who here has not listened to our

podcast before? Don't be ashamed. Wow, all right. All right. Were people booing the people who were cheering, or was that like a woo? We don't need this sort of rivalry now more than ever. We really do just talk about things that we like and things that are good.

And when we do live shows, we tend to do local goods, and that is going to be the case today. We are going to tell you the best things about yourself, Washington, D.C. We've interviewed all of your friends and family. True. And we got their feedback and we've compiled it into three short segments each. Yeah. We did not talk to your friends or family. We can't be bothered. We played rock, paper, scissors backstage to determine who goes first. I won. Rachel always throws rock.

Yeah, I do. It's so easy because you're already like this. Yeah. And then you just stay there. I will admit this. I hope nobody took a photo of me doing that just now. You're looking super angry. I did find that I came up with a couple things

that I love dearly about DC. Oh, you do Small Wonders? Oh, shit. I can't believe I forgot Small Wonders. I figured when I talked about the chicken piccata at the Cheesecake Factory that that would qualify as my small wonder. And that's evergreen, too.

You can talk about that any day. I am really enjoying this beverage here from Peabody Heights Brewery. That's my small wonder. That's great. I'm going to give a shout out at the Detroit airport. I had a long layover today. Sat down in a massage chair. And folks, massage chair technology

has advanced. Maybe it was during COVID, less people were getting out there using massage chairs so they were able to take a few of them back to the shop. This thing had inflatable sort of cushions on the inside that were

hot and it felt like there were marbles in it! Okay. I want to talk about... I want to talk about this first segment. I want there to be like a campfire that I can throw the dust into. I hope nobody took a picture when I was doing

the throwing dust into a campfire motion because it definitely looked like something else. Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I want to talk about the Capitol Crypt. Ooh. Y'all have some silly stuff here. You know, there's a crypt in the Capitol building, and they use it for, like, the launch pad

for a lot of tours and things, so a lot of people here are like, yeah, the Capitol building, and they use it for, like, the launch pad for a lot of tours and things, so a lot of people here are like, yeah, the Capitol crypt, duh. There's also an empty tomb that they wanted to bury George Washington in, but they didn't. So it's still just open and empty? Maybe.

They built the Capitol, they started building it in 1793, when old G- dubs himself was still around he laid the first stone so he was complicit that's pretty dark like build your own grave george well in 1799 after he beaved the building designers went to martha and were like hey can we put george in a special tomb underneath the Capitol building? And she was like, let me check his will. It says

no, but I think it would be pretty cool, so let's do the damn thing. But then uh-oh, War of 1812 happens. Capitol building gets all burned it up, and that's embarrassing for everyone. So they didn't finish the central like rotunda of

the capitol building until 1827 at which point the designers were like they got out their iou for one george washington bones and they were like hey let me get that presidential body please and then the then owner of Mount Vernon was like, uh, gross. And George Washington's will was like, ew, no, gross. What's wrong with you? Stop. So they didn't move the bod. And so they had this empty tomb. In 1830, somebody, have you heard about this thing, man? Someone tried to steal George Washington's skull from Mount Vernon in 1830, somebody tried... Have you heard about this thing, man? Someone tried to steal George Washington's skull from Mount Vernon in 1830. No, I don't know about that at all.

I blame those fucking National Treasure movies. Is that like your Twitter bio? Like, minute one? Like, I believe those National Treasure movies. Yeah, that's my... I actually just got back on twitter because it seemed like a cool time to do that time they ended up stealing someone else's skull from mount vernon which is one of the wilder parts of this story but then congress

was like see you can't be trusted with these famous bones put them in our great, but then Congress was like, see, you can't be trusted with these famous bones. Put them in our great tomb. But then John Washington was like, I'll just put more security in. So that's what they did. They didn't end up getting it. They did not get George Washington's body, so the tomb lay empty. But it wasn't a total loss because they used the crypt

for a bunch of stuff. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, they used the Capitol crypt for bike parking which rules it's so roomy you know it's so spacious uh yeah i want to do a quick sidebar and give a shout out to the capitol building also has its own cryptid the demon cat um y'all also know that this is a big nothing burger, right? Because the story of the Grimalkin, I don't know if I'm saying that correctly,

which is also a great term. In 1862, Union soldiers were holding down the fort, and the fort was the Capitol building. And one of the night watchmen reported seeing a black cat that approached him that grew to the size of a tiger before pouncing, causing the soldier to open fire. But then the demon cat disappeared. And then it's like, so a cat turned the corner and you got a little bit scared. Listen, tensions are high. I get it.

I get why you would shoot when you saw even the littlest bit of movement. But that was a little kitty cat. You didn't have to make a whole ghost story up about it. So it's like still a thing? There's like a painting of it or something? Well, apparently it comes out in times of national crises. But I would argue that probably cats also appear at the Capitol building, not around times of national crises. Yeah.

So it's a law of large numbers thing. What is your first segment today? My first thing. Okay, so as I mentioned, or as Griffin mentioned, we moved here in August. Yeah. And when we moved here in August, I heard about something called Chuck Brown Day. Okay. Which led me to Go-Go Music.

So I wanted to talk about that. Okay, please. Go-go music? Go-go music. Okay. That's what I shout when I get really excited about the music that's playing. Go music!

Go ahead. I interrupted you for nothing, for literally nothing. So this is something that, I mean, I was familiar with, but I didn't know I was familiar with, because it is everything. It is jazz. It is funk.

It is R&B. There is call and response. There is groove. God, I love groove. Yeah. I love when groove is in it. Yeah. And there's percussion and cowbells and it's, I mean, it's everything.

I don't know how you would have groove without percussion. That's a good point. Yeah, thank you. And so in my research into groove is how I found Chuck Brown. Okay. And DC, DC local in a big, in a big,

big way, seventies and eighties is kind of when he came on the scene. And I wanted to play a song that apparently plays at capitals and nationals games. And that song is called bust and loose. My laptop just died Uh oh How am I gonna finish the show? I don't know Can you appreciate the music though?

Absolutely I can While I have a panic attack on stage I've had a dream like this once This is a jam. Oh, Paul, please. I got the phone. It's fine. Thank you. I got 15% on the phone. I know. Sorry, I'm walking all over this bed.

This is a great, great track. That's good, Paul. Thank you. I feel ready to watch some sports right now. So Chuck Brown is considered the godfather of go-go. And that's because he created this kind of music that was a combination of blues and jazz and gospel and soul. And he was a huge fan, apparently, of James Brown. And I came to know the song Bustin' Loose from a 2002 song created by my hometown hero called Hot in Her by Nelly. Yes.

Are we about to hear Hot in Her? Okay, well, listen, when you leave a pregnant pause like that, I expect at any moment Nelly is going to like jump on stage i've never been so disappointed it's okay i mean i could get nelly if this was a saintly yeah right you could probably actually i could get nelly uh so yeah so so chuck brown is celebrated here. There is a day, there is a park, and there is several years of music festival built around Chuck Brown. I would be remiss in talking about Go Go Music and not talking about the other song that familiarized me with this music,

and that is a song that Paul and I were talking about before we came out on stage, and that is a song that paul and i were talking about before we came out on stage and that is the butt oh my This is how I fell in love with Griffin. This face and these moves. Oh, man. We're not going to get to that for a while, are we? Sorry, Paul.

Can you scrabble forward to Da Butt, please? If we can turn Da Butt down now. Thank you. I was getting a weird Doppler effect on Da Butt, and so I was getting it in like halftime also. It was a really, I had a dream like that once also. So in February 2020, Go-Go was named the official music of Washington, D.C. in a unanimous vote by District City Council.

And I love it. A plus. I love it too. A plus. Great job to Butt. We went pretty hard on our first two subjects. I'm going to turn my next one into a mini subject because I think we can really get through this pretty fast. I want to talk about Initiative 71.

Y'all realize it's very, very silly, right? We can all agree. Like, I'm not complaining, but it's a little bit silly. Who here doesn't know what that is? I thought you were going to make everybody out themselves as drug users. Who here? I'll make this very brief. You can't

sell weed to people in Washington, D.C. But you can sell them a sticker! That's about it. That's all initiative. That's all you really need to know. If you go to a weed store and say,

one sticker, please. I will say this was very exciting to us, having come from the state of Texas. Yeah, where it's, you don't, stickers are illegal in Texas. It's silly to me, especially now that Maryland just passed just passed recreational right great great work all uh that pretty much no matter where you are in dc at any given moment if you break out into a

full dead sprint in any direction eventually you'll be in a place where you can just go not even need to worry about the sticker part. Just do the weed part. I am burning through our savings on just the stickers of them. I don't know why these stickers cost 70 fucking dollars. Manolo, guess what? Manolo, guess what? What, what, what? Dr. Game Show has made it to 100 episodes on Maximum Fun. Oh, that's true. I knew that. Well, to celebrate, we are releasing our entire Earwolf archives to MaxFun members.

That's anyone who gives $5 or more monthly to support podcasts like Dr. Game Show. That's 63 episodes with in-studio comedian guests like Jason Manzoukas, Bowen Yang, and Matt Rogers, Joe Pera, Todd Berry, and Janine Garofalo, Connor O'Malley, Chris Gethard, and more. Plus three bonus episodes that include two pilot episodes. Wow, two pilots must be good. Find the feed at MaximumFun.org slash Boco, B-O-C-O.

Stands for bonus content. Presenting the new MaxFunStore.com. We've got shirts for your torso, hats for your head, drinkware for your finest beverages, and so much more. Starring your favorite MaxFun shows with new and classic designs. Find the perfect gift for the podcast fan in your life. Heck, that could be you. We're not judging. Head to MaxFunStore.com now. That's MaxFunStore.com. What I really want to talk about is, I love it when cities and states and regions

have official local symbols in a bunch of different categories. And now that we lived in D.C., I want to learn some of the big ones here. Like, D.C.'s official tree? You would think cherry blossom. It's a scarlet oak, you know? Official fruit's the cherry, of course. Official bird is the wood thrush official dinosaurs the capital saurus like normal stuff like griffin you're not pausing for applause

after each of these oh i was doing a joke structure where i tried to slip official dinosaurs the capital saurus in there um dc has an official dinosaur called the capital saurus and the story behind this is very good to me. In 1898, workers were building the sewers beneath DC because they had just invented them, and someone found a single vertebra from the base of some dinosaur's tail in the rock, and a few other sort of non-important bone chunks. In 1911, a paleontologist named Richard Swan Lull named the dinosaur it belonged to the Creosaurus potens, theorizing, oh, this is a theropod like the T-Rex from 110 million years ago, right in the Cretaceous period. Ten years after that, Smithsonian paleontologist Charles Gilmore was like, actually, that appears to be a tryptosaurus fossil

discovered in New Jersey at the end of the 19th century. And so paleontologists were just like bickering, like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. In 1990, a local paleontologist named Peter Kranz united all of the world's paleontological society when he did an interview with the Washingtonian and said that it came from the capital Saurus, every other paleontologist in the world was like,

well, that's not, like, we disagree, but we know that's not it, right, Peter? He tried to get this going. The Smithsonian refused to acknowledge this heroic discovery, saying, unfortunately, this specimen was used to try to name a new genus, Capitalsaurus, in honor of the nation's capital.

This is not scientifically justified, and the name Capitalsaurus has no validity. So then Peter Kranz made a move that I feel like has big Capitalsaurus energy, where he went to the D.C. Council, and he was like, y'all have to recognize that this is from a dinosaur named the Capitalsaurus, which is like an even bigger, more badass T-Rex. And so in 1998, the official Dinosaur Designation Act of 1998 was passed.

Oh my God. We used to be able to get stuff done, you know? We did. It is a long resolution. I will read some of the highlights. We're done, you know? We did. It is a long resolution. I will read some of the highlights. The Capitalsaurus was a large meat-eating reptile, which may be the ancestor of the, in parentheses, Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Did you originally write ancestor of the Rex? You know the one. About 100 million. This thing starts with, be it enacted by the council of the district of columbia about 100 million years ago the capital source lived in the district of columbia with many other dinosaurs including herbivores what yeah of course like yeah sure uh the uh so one smart thing peter kranz did is he teamed up with local elementary schools to petition the DC council. It was like, you can't say no to them. Just bags and bags of letters placed on that desk.

Uh, it all ends with the Capitol Soros shall be the official dinosaur of the district of Columbia. Not just that. If you ever find yourself at first and F street, you will find where they discovered this fossil. It has been named Capitol Soros Court. There is a sign hanging over the intersection declaring it as such.

January 28th, the day it was discovered, also Capitol Soros Day. And to this day, the world's top dinosaur scientists are like, what are you doing? That's beautiful.

In 2010, in an interview, Peter Cran said, to say we have a dinosaur here in Washington, it's a piece of city pride and educational inspiration. Local kids ask me all the time, do we have a T-Rex here? And the answer is basically yes. That's the capitalsaurus.

Soros. My next thing is a trip to the Poetry Corner. Oh, sorry. I was waiting. I don't know what I was. I was waiting for the actual Frasier theme song to play. I see Paul panicking over there Hey baby, hear the poetry corner

Toss salad and scrambled eggs I'm thinking about that large percentage of people That have never listened to our show before That are just unbelievably confused That's alright There's some diehards out there that are rolling right now I mean the background behind this is that There's some diehards out there that are rolling right now. I mean, the background behind this is that I took out loans to attend graduate school to study poetry.

And so I have worked it into this podcast. Yeah. Very deliberately. It's a tax write-off. So I wanted to take advantage of the broader DMV area to talk about the Poet Laureate of Maryland, which is Grace Cavalieri. Okay. No, wait, is that here for Maryland or the poet? Both. I like the poet, but fucking hate the state.

It's an amazing state. Stop it. You know that. So, you may know Grace Cavalieri because she is the longtime host of a radio show slash now podcast called The Poet and the Poem, which has been around for over 40 years.

Wow! I, for real, didn't know there was that much poetry i guess they're making more of this stuff every day she on her show she has had over 2 500 poets in 42 years so right yeah again same point didn't know there were that many poets i guess there's a lot of people on earth some of them gotta be poets that's beautiful uh so not is she not only is she the host of that show she has written 26 books uh and 26 plays

uh and yeah this podcast is still going the most recent episode was published november 5th 26 books and 26 plays. And yeah, this podcast is still going. The most recent episode was published November 5th. Each episode is like 30 minutes long. I would recommend if you are a poetry enthusiast. I recently listened to an episode that had Ada Limon on it. And gosh, man, I love that, guys. I love that I can say a poet's name into a microphone and people cheer. Yeah, sure. She is 90 years old. She's incredible. Her whole focus of getting this radio show,

she approached the radio station manager. She found out there was going to be a new station and she brought poets with her and she had them read aloud to the station manager and said, this needs to be a show. And that was in 1977. And then she had a weekly show on in primetime and went live regionally. And then now the Library of Congress puts it out. And so she is national. And that's been the case for 22 years. Now, why do you think it is that the Library of Congress puts it out, and so she is national. And that's been the case for 22 years. Now, why do you think it is that the Library of Congress does not publish our shows? Probably because Zank is stole up by Nicolas Cage and all of his thieving cronies. It's your conspiracy theories, Griffin.

Yeah, every episode of all of our shows actually do have Max in them. You just haven't decoded it yet. All the clues are there. So I read an interview with her in the NEA Artworks podcast 2019. I read the transcript, rather. And she talks about playwriting versus writing poetry. And I thought it was interesting because she talks about how playwriting is very collaborative.

Everybody's kind of a part of making it better. But she says, quote, poetry, nothing's at stake because there's no stall in the marketplace. Nobody wants it. You can write it, but that doesn't mean anyone has to read it. It is the most freeing, meditative part of my life.

It is when I know who I am and finding out who I am as I go through the poem. It is truly an act of self-discovery. It is a very interior process, and if someone publishes it, that's wonderful. And if someone reads it, you can't believe your good luck because that's not why you write it. Wow. Isn't that lovely? That wasn't even the poem. So I wanted to read a poem of hers that I just found really charming.

You know, as a 90-year-old woman, she has a lot of stories from her childhood that are just of a completely different experience than we have now. And so I wanted to read the poem and it is going to sound funny, but I want, I want to communicate that it is very sincere. It is called the hot dog factory. Rachel, I can't believe you've done this to me.

Babe, the hot dog factory. If there isn't one episode of one of our shows titled the hot dog factory if there isn't one episode of one of our shows titled the hot dog factory I will be I will be we have talked about hot dogs

quite a bit on this show we do like a hot dog around these parts okay the hot dog factory I hope I don't get hungry probably gonna use fancy descriptive words. Of course now children take it for granted, but once we watched boxes on a conveyor belt sliding

by, magically filled and closed, packed and wrapped. We couldn't get enough of it running alongside the machine. In kindergarten, Miss Haynes walked our class down Stuyvesant Avenue, then up Prospect Street to the hot dog factory. Only the girls got to go as the boys were too wild. We stood in line, wiggling with excitement as the man talked about how they made hot dogs. Then he handed us one, and Jan dropped hers, so I broke mine in half. This was the happiest day of our lives. Children whose mothers didn't drive and had nowhere to go but school and home,

to be taken to that street, to watch the glittering steel and shining rubber belts moving, moving meats ready-made. I wish I could talk with Jan, recalling the miracle and thrill of the hot dog factory when she was alive before it all stopped. Oh, one more line. Bright lights, glistening motors, spinning wheels. There was a pause after you read the poem, and I realize now they were all waiting for that last line.

Because everyone knows this by heart. I will also admit that I thought at one point in the poem, it would be like, and then Jimmy got pulled into the gears and became hot dogs. It was 1931, so he became hot dogs. And everyone was like, oh, man. Some say there's a little bit of Jimmy. I found that poem so charming. Not only does it speak to big field trip energy,

which you know I love. I love a field trip. I've never gone anywhere remotely as cool as the hot dog factory. But just the sincerity of it and the genuine joy and something that she could very easily, if she

were a more cynical person kind of poke fun oh for sure there's a version of that poem where they're like they showed us how they make the hot dog and then they were like do you want a hot dog and i was like are you fucking kidding me and i just watched it do you know the phrase how the sausage gets made and us stupid kids thought it was so cool. No, it's a very charming poem, and it's very sincere and beautiful. And if you have not checked out Grace Cavalieri, I would recommend it. Now you know. Now you know. Now you know to do that.

That's it for us. Thank you to Bowen and Augustus for the use of our theme song, Money Won't Pay. It is a bop. Thank you to Paul. Thank you, Paul. Thank you, Paul. And thank you to the D.A.R. Constitutional for having us. It's a lovely venue. We're so happy to be back here.

And thank you, D.C., for having us here as your newest residents. I don't have a funny outro. Yeah, see, this is the problem, is that we don't have a funny outro. Yeah, see, this is the problem, is that we don't have an outro. So instead, we can hype up the next act that, oh, wait, the dad's gonna come out and do an intro. So everyone, start your engines and get revved for Clint McElroy!

Bye, everybody! My mom. My mom. Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!