Wonderful! - Wonderful! 269: Bargain Bucket Emotional Toolkit

Episode Date: March 22, 2023

Griffin's favorite non-power ballad! Rachel's favorite social tactile interaction!Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoyaEquality Florida: https://www.eqfl.org/ 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. Vroom, vroom, beep, beep. Who's got the keys to the MaxFun Jeep? It's you, dear listener. That was really good. Was it?

It felt good to me anyway. It felt all right. Your approval means everything to me. It's the MaxFunDrive. And we're driving the Jeep to, but you're driving it. You're behind the wheel. Oh, okay. We're on the radio.

Hold on. You, dear listener, are driving the Jeep. The Jeep is the Max Fun Drive. We're on the radio. But that's what it normally is, isn't it? This is not necessarily. Yeah, nothing has changed. Nothing has changed except we are asking you.

Except the Jeep doesn't start. Okay. Without you. You have the key. Without you. Except the Jeep doesn't start. Okay. Without you. You have the key. Without you. The key is money. And you supporting. Normally you're just riding in the Jeep.

Okay, wait, wait, wait. We're the Jeep. We're the Jeep. The key is money that you use to support us and the stuff that we make. Here's the secret though. Like you don't have to really have money to start the Jeep. That's true. The Jeep will start without.

Can I suggest? Please. I'm really in the weeds right now. Normally you just ride in the Jeep. Yes. During the Max Fun Drive, we ask you to drive the Jeep. Yes.

Everything in the Jeep is the same. The Jeep is normal. Let's start here. This is wonderful. A show where we talk about things that are good, things we like, things we're into. This is the Max Fun Drive, which two weeks a year we come to you, hat in hand, and we say. And we ask you to be a transformer. Yes.

And turn your Jeep into. Into art. We are on the Maximum Fun Network. We have been since basically the- 2016, I think. 2016, wow. And we've been doing My Brother, My Brother and Me since 2011 as part of the Max Fund Network.

We've been doing this for a long time. We've been able to grow. We've been able to turn this into our full-time jobs. Well, I mean- Except for Rachel, but- I do still work full-time, but that- Most of us have turned this into our full time jobs and, you know, made a company and hired people to help us do video stuff and make more stuff. We've been able to buy equipment.

We've been able to do all kinds of different stuff pretty much only because people have annually come out to support us and the shows that we make. And can I say, like, as Griffin's partner, lover, friend, I think the addition of staff and people to support this work has changed your life radically. Yes. Radically, both in the definition of radically as, like, drastic, but also radically as in the both in the definition of radically as like drastic but also radically as in like hang ten like radical we have people to help us yes maximum fun.org join is the link that you go to if you've never looked at it never considered becoming a member but you've listened you've listened to our shows for a long time uh and and you have the means, please think about going to that link, maximumfun.org slash join. We have all kinds of like cool, you know,

pledge levels that have some really great rewards. $5 a month, you get over 500 hours of bonus content. This year for Wonderful, we picked back up the Rachel Plays Video Game series and she got very, very, very into Stardew Valley. Yeah, although when we recorded that episode, I was a real noob. You were a child. And I was like, wait, there's an elevator in the mine?

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We will talk more about all of the different pledge levels and stuff like that later on. But small wonders is a thing we do here sometimes. That's true. We do. Do you have any of them? You know, I'm going to say just a blossoming tree. Oh, gosh. So I still feel like I'm not entirely sure what the difference is between these blossoming trees here in D.C.

Yeah. But I know that there are a lot of them, and it's very pretty. Very pretty. Not green. There's a lot of non-green tree. A lot of shades of red and pink and white. And our son thinks that they're all cherry blossoms and I really can't argue with him. Who cares?

Yeah. Because I don't know, but they're pretty. We were delighted to find that we have some in our yard. Yeah. It's some kind of blossoming tree. I think it's an almond tree. I think that's what we figured out. Yeah.

Gorgeous. Gorgeous. I will say it does things to downtown traffic that I'm not wild about. Well, we don't have to go downtown, though, is the thing. I do. Oh, yeah? For business? For business.

Okay. For national security. Whoa. Yeah. Joey Bag of Donuts has been tapping me big time for national security. Yeah, it's like we need some muscle. NatSec, as we call it. Yeah.

I'm going to say last night, the St. Louis Blues played the Detroit Red Wings at home in St. Louis. And David Perron was there. He got traded off to the Red Wings. He was a staple member of the St. Louis Blues for 11 years. Yeah, it happened like. He was on the 2019 Stanley Cup winning team. Yeah, it happened kind of under the cover of night in that I believe it was the off season. It was.

So there was no real farewell when he departed. He came back. It was the first time that they've played the Red Wings since the trade happened. It was a home game and they had this whole beautiful video for david perron and he was like tearing up watching it from the bench and it was just a really lovely moment and that's like a thing about sports that i think about all the time especially in a super physical game like hockey about how fucking weird it must be to have been like one of the faces of a team and then come back and then like you know just tackle the shit out of your

former teammates well there's not actually that many players left on the blues sadly who were playing with david perron but like he scored the first goal against the blues in the game and you know as a fan that must have some sort of conflicting feelings of like oh nice nice goal there david it's a shame it wasn't for us but nice nice goal anyway yeah i thought that was a lovely lovely little video got me choked up yeah blues did end up losing that game though you know shoot out they did their best they got their point whatever um i go first this week. Great. Really excited for this one. And I think you're going to like it too.

Okay. It's a song. And usually when I do a song, I will send it to you to listen to first. That will not be necessary in this case. The song I am discussing is by one Lisa Loeb. It is Stay. In parentheses. I missed you.

Wow. What a, this song is an all-timer. And I think if you strip away all of the sort of iconic early 90s history that surrounds this song, which I will get into later, it just, it still goes so hard. I feel like it defined like people of my generation that had to wear glasses. Yes. It changed everything for them. Sure. Lisa Loeb was like, hey had to wear glasses. Yes. It changed everything for them. Sure. Lisa Loeb was like, hey, I wear glasses. Yeah.

And glasses can be fashionable and an improvement on your face and appearance. Yeah. And I don't know that anybody was really doing that before her. I would love to get data, I guess from lens crafters or whoever was in the space, of how tortoise shell glasses spiked, like sales for tortoise shell glasses. Well, and they were like cat eye. Cat eye tortoise shell glasses. Yeah. Cannot beat it.

The 90s, I feel like were unique in that there was just, it was the peak of like self unempowerment music that still is good. unempowerment music that still is good like still is is uh like the music is objectively good but it's not about like you know boosting yourself up or talking about what a boss you are well and griffin and i were talking about this the other day of like music videos of the time were very like person forward in that like as i recall lisa loeb's video she's just in like a loft space just her in her apartment i'm gonna talk more about the music i learned a lot about this song in that, like, as I recall, Lisa Loeb's video, she's just in like a loft space. Just her in her apartment. I'm going to talk more about the music. I learned a lot about this song and everything surrounding it that I found like deeply,

deeply fascinating. But I know our audience can skew a little bit young. This song came out in 1994. So I'm going to play it now because I think there's probably a pretty good chance that there's lots of people who haven't heard it who are listening to this now. And weren't born yet. And maybe weren't even born yet. This is Stay, I Missed You by Lisa Loeb. chance that there's lots of people who haven't heard it who are listening and weren't born yet and maybe weren't even born yet this is stay i missed you by lisa you say i only hear what i want to you say i talk so all the time, so

And I thought what I felt was simple And I thought that I don't belong And now that I am leaving Now I know that I did something wrong Cause I missed you So this song was Lisa Loeb's enormous breakout hit. Her career has had an interesting sort of turn now. At least personally speaking, I know her for for she makes a lot of great kids music. And that has been awesome for us as parents of young kids to like have this option to listen to music that is not Cocomelon, but is still, you know, gets our kids moving.

but is still, you know, gets our kids moving. But this song, when it came out, just launched her into the stratosphere at like an unparalleled scale, like at the point that she had this big breakout. And we'll cover that again shortly. But before releasing this song, before releasing this album, Lisa Loeb was in a band while attending Brown

called Liz and Lisa with another musician named Elizabeth Mitchell. The guitarist in that band was their classmate, one Duncan Sheik. What? Who was the singer-songwriter behind Barely Breathing and Spring Awakening, the musical. Oh, my God. I didn't know that. Just a wild bit of the 90s trivia. And the hits don't stop there.

So Liz and Lisa went their separate ways after they graduated. Lisa Loeb formed her band called Nine Stories, which this song was released under Lisa Loeb and the Nine Stories. And they did some touring. They were selling cassettes at shows. Then, while Lisa Loeb was living in New York City, she meets some people in the New York City theater scene. While Lisa Love was living in New York City, she meets some people in the New York City theater scene.

And she gets discovered by her neighbor and friend, Ethan Hawke. She meets Ethan Hawke through this theater scene. Reality bites. In New York. And she's written and recorded a demo for Stay at this point. Originally, she wrote the song to submit to Daryl Hall, who was starting a solo project and was like accepting submissions for songwriters. But then he stopped looking for songs. And so she records it. This demo herself plays it for Ethan Hawke. He's like, this is very good. Let me send this on over to my good friend, Ben Stiller. Ben Stiller hears the song and is like, this track slaps we're making this movie called reality bites we should

have this on the soundtrack and so they put stay on the soundtrack to reality bites can you summarize sort of maybe not the plot of reality bites but like what it represents for like early 90s yeah yeah i mean it's a bunch of people who have either just finished college or are like college age. They're like early 20s trying to like, you know, live on their own in the world with these jobs that are kind of not representative of what they want to do long term. She lives with Ginny Garofalo and they hang in this pack and Ethan Hawke is in that pack too. And there's this tension between Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke. And then Ben Stiller plays this kind of like corporate sellout guy. Suit dude. Yeah.

And Winona Ryder's like dueling between like, do I want to be successful with this guy who ultimately is a nice guy? He's a great dude. Or do I want to follow Ethan Hawke who is this like brooding philosopher type the cast for this flick is out of control obviously winona ethan ben you got janine grofflo you got steve zahn in the mix you got renee zellweger in the mix uh there's there's a john mahoney just can't what are you gonna do can't go wrong it is a it is peak it is up there with um empire records for me of just like the most 90s ass movie that does exist yeah and so this song i feel like is is intrinsically tied to to that vibe god that song in a way it's so good i'm watching watching it hit Rachel in waves how good the song is. So it shows up on the soundtrack, and then it's the biggest song in the country.

It reached the top of the Billboard charts for three consecutive weeks. Lisa Loeb was the first musical artist to reach number one on the billboard charts without being signed to a record label which is the first one to ever do it wow interesting nobody else would accomplish that again for 19 years man in 2013 it's a fun question 2013 who was the uh the musical artist and song unsigned to a label that hit top of the Billboard charts. 2013. It was a dude. Okay. I don't know.

It's fucking Macklemore and Ryan Lewis with Thrift Shop. Rarified air at the top with Macklemore and Lisa Loeb. I love that. The history of this song is so great because it also represents sort of how music discovery was so fundamentally different before streaming music was the order of the day where you went and saw this new ben stiller movie and it came out of it with a new favorite song that then became the biggest song of the country, which I don't feel like happens anymore for a good reason. Are you going to talk about our music video?

The music video is a fucking wild one. It's literally just Lisa Loeb. Yes. Just strolling around an empty New York City apartment. Kind of a decrepit almost looking one. It's a weird thing to describe it almost looks like a like a museum an empty old museum also apartment uh ethan hawke directed the music video and in interviews later said that they made it in just over they made it in two continuous takes

two continuous takes that's it this is not a long song so i think that total represents like seven minutes of footage and then they were done uh the song is just her the song the apartment and a cat who is also ethan hawke's cat which is wow just just fantastic kitty hawk kitty hawk that's the no i don't know what the cat's name is. I don't know what else to say about this song, man. Obviously, the place it holds in history is very fascinating, but as an object of almost indulgent sorrow over loving someone who can't love you back in the way that you need them to

is some of the best anyone's really ever done it. She was really like at the forefront of what became this like Alanis Morissette movement of like these like lady power ballads that were just like. But I would push back on that because I don't think this is a power ballad. were just like but not that but i would push back on that because i don't think this is a power ballad there is a lot about like talking about how the other person is just full of hot air and and not able to like give you what you want but there's also a lot of like i statements in this song of like i did something wrong like realizing that this is also my fault for wanting something from this relationship that it just could not be.

And I find that really, really, really fascinating about music of the time and this song in particular. Like taking apart the music of it, it is very rare, I think, for any song to be instantly recognizable in the first three notes played. But if you hear that, you're like, oh, shit, this is going to be Stay by Lisa Love. And that is a very powerful thing. But to have this sort of, I actually have a quote here. So this is from Rik Schamader with The Guardian, who kind of summarizes my feelings about the song really well in the closing of an article about it. He wrote, as a 13-year-old nihilist, I had never been close enough to a girl to be called

clever or naive or unattractively solipsistic by one nevertheless i had a sense that the bargain bucket emotional toolkit i was in charge of would doubtlessly derail relationships in the years ahead in the manner lisa was singing about and the perspective was oddly thrilling listening to the song now is like looking into a crystal ball backwards seeing myself looking into it forwards. Whoa. I love that. And that is the place that this song also has in my heart because I definitely don't subscribe to the feelings that it espouses now that we've been happily married

for almost a decade. But there was long stretches of my life where I ate that shit up breakfast lunch and dinner and man you could not you could not have better musical accompaniment for that kind of feeling than than stay by Lisa Love yeah I just like all I'm thinking about now is like what followed that which was like Natalie Imbruglia and Jewel and Fiona Apple and like these singer-songwriter artists who like were so like beautifully like spoken and I don't know it was just so easy to connect to. Yeah.

You know? Great song. Great music video. Just literally. It's fun to imagine the direction that must have taken place of that music video because it's a lot of like stand over here in front of the window okay and then when you get to this verse you're just gonna kind of like run from one side of the room to the other just do like a little skip that's great that's great that's great lean your head against the window uh look out the

window now look at me smile not that big um hey can i steal the audience away and hop back in the jeep for a minute to talk about the max please um we have different pledge levels that that you can choose to support us at we we would ask you know if you have the means and you enjoy the work that we do and you want to become a very direct supporter of it maximumfund.org says join is is where you go for that five dollars a month you are gonna get oodles of bonus content yeah hundreds upon hundreds of hours and this is not just this year's content this is content dating back all shows for as long as the max fun drive has has been going other boco we've done this year, for my brother, my brother, and me,

we got special guest Matt Doyle to do a read-through of episode 400 live from the blue carpet of Jimmy Buffett's Escape to Margaritaville. I listened to that the other day. It is still laugh out loud funny. Like how funny you guys were on the carpet just in your like adrenaline-fueled fueled jokes and then to have you all read each other's bits and have matt doyle read matt doyle who we did not speak to at the event but that

justin thought every person was yeah reading what al roker said to us to completely melt our asses down. And you say reading, but what struck me and I was not expecting is that he performs these people. Really well. Like he commits to, okay, they're talking to this person. How would this person sound? You know, how can I make myself sound so I really capture that person? Masterful, masterful performance. It's completely unhinged. At $10 a month, you get the Boko

and you get one of 37 reusable stickers and a Letterpress Max Fund membership card. Olivia Fields illustrated 37 gorgeous restickable stickers. Yeah. And I've read that a few times. I have no idea how it works. I don't actually know either, but I have seen it in action.

And it's like, oh, I want to put this on my water bottle. Yeah, the one. I want to put this on my computer. Wait, this is so easy. When I'm drinking, I'll put it on my water bottle and then I'll move it back to my computer whenever I work. Each of the stickers represents something from each of the shows on the MaxFun network. Ours is it says, what's your small wonder? It's very cute.

Yeah, it's very cute. And I will say too, as much as I am a supporter of our sticker, when you donate, you can choose any sticker. Yes. MaxFun is all about supporting all the shows. And so not only can you choose all the shows you listen to, but you can also choose whatever sticker you want. At $20 a month, you get all this stuff I've talked about already. You also get the MaxFun culinary kit, which includes the MaxFun family Cookbook designed by Tom Deja and features recipes from all of your favorite Max Fun shows and a jar of bespoke maximum flavor spice blend. We submitted my mom's old recipe for Chicago beef. Yeah. Like a Chicago style Italian beef sandwich, which is just a big wet sloppy mess it tastes

we did work on it right after we had watched the bear and so i think we were very conscious of like this is good i don't know if this is real it's not real we called it chicago beef growing up but there's no you know whatever it's called giardiniera it's very good though it's fucking great yeah we made it before we put it in the cookbook and it completely, completely rules. We have other levels that you can choose to support us at, too. But all that matters is if you can, if you have the means, your support is why these shows, honestly, why they still exist and why we have been able to do them as long as we have, why we've been able to add more shows to the network. This life that we live and the stuff that we are able to make is only possible because of the Maximum Fun Network. I know we do ads here and there,

although full disclosure, it's a really tough time for advertising in all spaces, but especially the podcasting space. Eagle-eared listeners will probably notice that we don't really have many ads on Wonderful anymore. And so it is, you know, through the MaxFun drive that we are able to do this thing. Just full stop. Yeah. And to make, I mean, MaxFun gives us the freedom to make the kind of content we want to make. I think a lot about how when we started the show, we were like a bachelor, bachelorette watch podcast. Yes.

And it was fun. And it was arguably more popular than the show we do now. Yes. But when we decided to pivot, Jesse Thorne was incredibly supportive. Yeah. And I think our listener number went down, but our donations went up. And I think that was largely because the community we have that listens to our show, like, appreciates what we do and is supportive of us, like, being happy doing it. So one last time.

Maximum fun. I say one last time. We'll probably talk about it again at the end of the show. But MaximumFun.org slash join is where you can go if you enjoy the stuff that we do and you're able to chip in, you know, five bucks a month. It is life changing for us in a very direct and material way. And we really do appreciate you. If you're already a member and you've been listening to maybe more shows or more of the shows that you that you like you can also upgrade your membership and and get those those different sort of pledge level rewards and yeah thank you thanks a bunch do you want to do your thing now yeah should we get out of the jeep yes or just leave

it like idling we're gonna ghost ride the jeep so we're gonna let the jeep run and we're gonna sort of walk alongside it so i like to think of the max fun drive as like sweeps week you know like i want to bring something you know that's like maybe a little sexy okay just really get the listeners like you know fired up yeah just like oh this is the content i crave okay so my topic this week and my mom and dad may want to fast forward i'm terrified it's hugging this is gonna get our first explicit tag i'm pretty sure well due to your swears we we have that tag I don't swear that much on the show do we

not anymore I feel like you used to yeah probably we've had children and you've really cleaned it up I think yeah it still weirds people out

including my family members that I do not cuss in front of our kids yes but that's only because I'm a very anxious person and I do not want to have a talk with like specifically

Henry's teacher about yeah some well and also the look i would give you i imagine would be pretty pretty wilting hugging is an interesting one for me like i almost want to say this is so wildly out of character i know i know i almost want to say hugging colon or hugging parentheses with your lover. Okay. I do not like a procedural hug.

No. I don't like like when you are entering or exiting a party and there is the expectation that you will hug everyone. No. I don't like being backed into a hug corner. Yes. And because of that, I am always surprised at how much I enjoy hugs. Yeah. I think when a hug feels like a currency, you know, almost like here is your entry.

Your hug and your hug and your hug. Yeah, sure. Your ticket for entering and exiting an environment. I don't like it. But a lot of times at the end of a day, Griffin and I will have been apart most of the day. Yeah. And when I say apart, I mean four feet away. Two layers of drywall.

We'll come downstairs. Our children will be largely crazy. Yeah. And we will hug. And I will think, this is really good. This is good stuff. Every crazy. Yeah. And we will hug. And I will think, this is really good. This is good stuff. Every time. Yeah.

I'm like, oh, wait. I like hugs. Yeah. It's like a real like, oh, gosh, green eggs and ham situation almost where I'm like, I don't like hugs. Yeah. Wait. I do like hugs. Sam, I am in this. I don't know. We're doing this i don't know we're doing a lot of confusing yeah

i i love those hugs i will say the other type of hug that i dig on is the i haven't seen you in a while hug like anytime we see the fam like at a tour or oh yeah something like that's good that's that's good hugs um i like I haven't seen you in a while hug, but I'm in the same boat of like, when I show up to a party or I'm about to leave, I have a little panic of like, so am I supposed to hug everyone or what? Really, you do?

I thought that was just me. No, I do because I don't know, a hug feels very familiar. I have a lot of hangups, I think, about sort of uh levels of vulnerability and friendships that probably influences this a bit but yeah so i who invented hugs tell me now what scientists and it was 1971 no one was hugging before you know you talk about science there actually is some science uns unsurprisingly, maybe. But what I was interested in is this kind of what they call cuddle nerves.

Okay. So Berkeley, University of California, Berkeley has a like whole institute. And there was an article in 2021, four ways hugs are good for your health. Gentle physical touch stimulates cuddle nerves that lead to beneficial changes in the brain. That's not all the title that the, what I read and then the subtitle. Anyway, they're, they talk about how touch consists of two systems. One is what they call fast touch, which is just like, oh, this is hot. call fast touch, which is just like, oh, this is hot. Or like, oh, there's a bee on me. Like this like instant like, oh, I feel something. I need to respond to potentially avoid harm. And then there is a population of recently discovered nerves, which they call C-tactile afferents that process the emotional meaning of touch.

afferents that process the emotional meaning of touch. Okay. I get pretty emotional if I see a bee on me. So that's a fast touch, I think. So the cuddle nerves are activated by a specific kind of stimulation, a gentle skin temperature touch. Oh. It creates kind of a neural input that signals the rewarding, pleasurable aspects of what they call social tactile interactions. That's great.

That's a really fun way of describing touching a person. Before I go, would you like to have a social tactile interaction? So yeah, there are signals sent via the spinal cord to the brain's emotion processing networks, which contains neurochemical signals, which have proven health benefits. I do not like thinking about my brain in this way. I like to think of it as just one big thing that's like, oh, a hug, huh? Cool. Loving it. So this is we're talking about oxytocin uh which plays an important role in social

bonding slows down your heart rate and reduces stress and anxiety good man i love that oxytocin me too man for me like that is what i am getting from a hug especially like when we enter this environment after being in an adult world most of the day, and our children are very needy and very loud, the hug, the oxytocin from that hug is like, oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. Well, also, as a parent,

and this has only been intensified since we doubled our offspring quota. Which the bosses love, by the way. love by the bosses are wild line the line graph it is so easy to forget your human your humanity it's so easy to forget yourself and your own needs when you have particularly young children, I will say, I would like to think this is temporary. This is not, and it's not,

I feel like a lot of like, you know, shitty comedians like talk about being a parent in this way of just like, it fucking destroys you. That's not it. It's that you,

it really requires all of your focus and attention to do the stuff that your kids like need you to do. And so you don't leave any of that for your there's there's very little room for like introspection at all and so when we hug while we're like just racing around with our kids it's like oh yeah like i am also a per i'm also a person cool i will say that when we hug inevitably one or both children will come over and join the hug. Yesterday, we were hugging on the couch.

The only time that that really happened. It's not like we're constantly canoodling. Rachel sat down next to me on the couch and hugged me. Gus climbed up on the couch and started pushing me away and literally said, Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. It was really, really brutal and hysterical okay okay okay okay all right okay okay okay um there also is a release of endorphins uh which is you know that immediate feeling of pleasure yeah that fast touch no no this is the slow touch the c tactiles are the slow touch maybe for you not the way i do it okay so you're saying that our hug is like a

landing on you it is okay sexy b the fan art for that i think would be i mean they're probably from like the whole sort of b-movie universe there's probably lots of sexy b-fan art out there right you're right in halloween costumes too yeah sure there's also a lot of like suggested long-term benefits to health i think largely because of this hormone thing like you know counteracting things like cortisol like these stress levels that are you know addressed by other you know, that like the oxytocin, for example, as I mentioned earlier, and that just suggests basically that, you know, physical touch is valuable to you, not just in the moment, but long term.

Yeah. Now, this is what I appreciated about this article. The very end, it says, of course, not everyone craves a hug. I was like, good, good. What are we supposed to do? What if Griffin goes out of town and I don't have a hug for five days? It says that giving yourself a hug has also been shown to regulate emotional processes and reduce stress. Oh, that is nice. Yeah. I think that's why like the weighted blanket thing has become such a phenomenon also been shown to regulate emotional processes and reduce stress oh that is nice yeah i think

that's why like the weighted blanket thing has become such a phenomenon is like that pressure i don't know where to put which arm is supposed to be i know i had a hard i tried it too when i was reading that and i was like where do i put my hands i like it vampire style oh really like put your arms like cross them over your chest and put them on your shoulders. Interesting. I would try that, but I would, I think, bump the microphone. Probably. It's a sort of pro microphone user technique. To be able to- Look at how much I can move around the mic without touching it.

You did just touch it. The other thing I will say also is that the article says even stroking your pet, which that phrasing- Not good. Can have benefits for health and well-being with oxytocin levels increasing in both the pet and the owner. So fear not. Those of you that have not found your life lover like Griffin and I, there's a lot of

hugging opportunities and hormone level increasing opportunities for you too. Great. I'm sure they're very excited to hear that. One last time. Maximumfun.org slash join. This really is the last time for this week. We are going to do this again next week because this runs for two weeks. But then for the rest of the year, we're not going to bug you about it. Yeah, you won't have the Jeep anywhere near you.

Nope. Jeep will be in a completely different – it will be back in the garage. Or you'll be riding in the Jeep. We got to stop with the Jeep. But please, please think about supporting us. Don't wait. If you go now, you won't forget about it. Maximumfun.org slash join. Check out all the different levels. Check out all the different bonuses that you can get for it.

And support the art that you like. Yeah. Thanks 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 MaximumFun.org. Just talked about them

for a long time, but for having us on the network. This is a good time of year to check out other shows on the network if you've never done that before because everybody's putting up their A-game.

Oh, shit. Rachel and I Yes. We're on an episode of a great show on the Maximum Fun Network It's Go Fact Yourself And it's up this week

Yes As we record this And it was Really fun And I have heard From listeners of the show That they all really enjoyed it Yes

Griffin and I Had a great time I think we talked about it On this podcast before But they ask you About areas of expertise and then bring surprise guests on the show to talk to you about that thing. In preparation, I listened to the one with Justin and Sidney. Yes. And Justin got to talk to John Linnell from They Might Be Giants.

So dope. And Sidney got to talk to an actor whose name escapes me from Grease 2. Fantastic. And Sydney got to talk to an actor whose name escapes me from Grease 2. And so that just gives you a little hint as to the type of people we might get to talk to on our episode. Yeah, I saw a screenshot that they sent us afterwards of my face reacting to the reveal of my surprise expert. And it was a very pure expression of delight. Maximumfun.org. Go check out the shows. Maximumfun.org.

Go become a supporter of the network. And that's it. We'll be back next week for our second Max Fun Drive Spectacular. We got lots of streams we're doing on the McElroy Family YouTube channel. I think this will probably be out after we do our Stardew Valley stream later today. And all that stuff is on YouTube. So if you miss it while it's happening. So the video on demand will be there of me.

Hopefully, if all the tech stuff we can figure out exploring Rachel's farm. So that'll be fun. And that's it. Thanks for listening. It's been fun. I feel good about this. Me too. I'm feeling really good about this me too um i'm feeling really good about this i think going forward we

should continue yes to do this for sure can't stop won't stop mustn't stop and in closing and in closing amen Amen. MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Audience supported.