Wonderful! - Wonderful! 310: Body Burn

Episode Date: January 24, 2024

Rachel's favorite human-friendly  poet! Griffin's favorite cream-based experience! Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya World Central Kitchen: https://wck.org/ MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. And this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. Welcome to Wonderful. Shall we talk about things that's good that we like that we're into them? Can I just get started with a thing that I like? Oh my goodness. I don't know if you've noticed this yet. So we are starting to get warmer temperatures and all the snow that accumulated is starting to melt. Yes. Have you heard the sound of the snow coming off the roof?

Yeah. You like this because it scares the piss out of me every time it happens every time it happens it sounds like a reverse santa claus has has yeah yeah we uh and this happened we live in austin too although it didn't snow quite as much uh but we have a particularly steep roof and now that everything is melting you hear these huge crashes it sounds like a um like a big dumpster is rolling off the side of our house yeah uh and i i don't know it's like a nice little like because you know you always have that moment where you're like oh my god what is and then you realize what it is and you're like oh good that's good i am it's funny because i feel like last week i was very bullish on snow uh-huh me too bullish is right? I get it confused.

I'm not like a stocks guy, but I think bullish is good. We like snow. Last week, we were like, hell yeah, baby, snow, sledding, snowballs, snow angels, making dinosaur footprint tracks in the snow. We love all this stuff.

Igloo. We're not used to living in a space where snow sticks around for a long time. Neither of us has really experienced that since Chicago. So when we saw snow, we were like, ooh, yay, snow. And then two days later, it was like, still snow? And then a week later, it was like, done?

The same snow. Done snow? Done now. But we're moving on. We're excited for the wild 60 degree temperatures that we're supposed to be having this weekend. I'm already looking forward to the outrageous sort of sinus reaction I'm going to have to that. I'm just penciling in Friday, snoozing, netty.

I'm going to be a netty Freddy. Do you have another small wonder or is that it? Like, is that, do you think does that qualify? I can do another one. Okay. Okay. So I'm going to start out. It's going to seem like it's not a good thing.

And then you're going to find out why it's a good thing. Okay. So I'm going to start out. It's going to seem like it's not a good thing. And then you're going to find out why it's a good thing. Okay. So I have been called to jury duty for three times. Yeah. Which is kind of be pretty unique, right? I've never been called. So I, yeah, this happened when I lived in Illinois. This happened when I live in Texas.

And now that I have been in DC all of a year and a half, it has also happened. Yeah. And each time I am told, thank you for your service. We are not needing you for anything. And the feeling of that. Rachel was a Marine. We should make clear Rachel was a Marine. Well, you're like when you're called to jury duty, you can like only be called as I understand it once a year.

I don't know. There's a set span of time. And if you don't have to serve the you still counts okay so like i can't be called back anytime soon and i love double jeopardy that's what that is i love that it counts and i didn't have to do anything yeah that's fun that is fun i do like that maybe they came to a plea arrangement maybe a plea was done oh uh-huh yeah one of those like 4 p.m pleas the day before one of those 4 p.m pleas we're not lawyer guys over here we're the we're the only people in dc we're the only non-lawyers that are not lawyer guys um i'm gonna say tingus goose is a game on yes okay i would like more of

an explanation about what this is tingus goose it's an idle game do you know that genre you have told me about this it's like where you like set something up and then it just goes yes and you come back to it later you get stuff in this one you have a goose that is just a long head a big head on a big long neck and it grows upwards like a tree. And then things branch off of the sides of your goose tree that are sort of like different little bounce pads, right? You think about them as like little trampolines, right? And then you have little tinguses, which is basically just like little babies that shoot out of the top of the goose, and then they go down and down and down and fall down because of gravity and they bounce off all the different bounce pads and the idea

is to just create a sort of like machine that bounces a bunch of babies and gets a bunch of money you get money every time the baby bounces if you get three babies to touch they combine into a better baby worth more money uh and then if you three of those touch and it keeps going and keeps going keeps going so you basically it's just like setting up a little vertical conveyor belt a little marble run situation where you try to get the babies to combine and make you a bunch of money and it's very weird it's a very very weird game uh there's like a there's like a pregnant lady on a table and the goose is growing out of her belly um and that's why I guess there's so many babies. It gets into a lot of sort of like existential horror stuff,

but it's one of the better idle games I feel like I've played lately because I just love tweaking my goose, you know? God. You go first this week. I do. Okay. I woke up this morning determined to take our audience on a trip to the Poetry Corner.

And good news, I found a corner in which we can have poetry together. Brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, brown, eggs i forgot it's been so long since i've been to the poetry corner i know it feels like a really long time i forgot how we get in it uh the poet i wanted to talk about this week is ron paget don't know ron ron uh born in 1942 in tulsa oklahoma oh now i know ron yeah were you thinking of don paget i you thinking of Don Patchett? I was thinking of Don Patchett, who hails from Nebraska. This guy moved to New York City in 1960, attended Columbia College, and still there today in big old New York City. big old new york city um but uh i was kind of fascinated to learn about him because i you know i kind of have like a poetry biography in my head like if you had to ask me how did this poet get started i would say oh well they went to college and they took some creative writing classes

and then they published some poems and now they teach at a university. Boring. Boring. Ron got started really early with this kind of fascinating capitalization on timing. So when he was 13, he started writing, and then he started a literary magazine in high school called The White Dove Review with his friends and started soliciting the work of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Robert Creeley, Ted Berrigan, and Amiri Baraka. In high school? Yeah.

Yeah. published five issues and i guess just had a sense of like what poets were doing doing the big stuff and reached out to them directly and said hey send me something and i'll publish it in my literary magazine and they're like okay you think maybe jack kerouac didn't like google the magazine name to find out if it was a high school publication or not i mean as you might remember he was born in 1942 okay so when he was in high school it was like the 50s we didn't have no google yeah i mean there was no way for these poets to know yeah like and and at that time i'm sure all these poets were you know desperate to be published yeah probably had pieces that they had been shopping around and nobody had taken uh yeah so this. Yeah. So he got it started before he even entered college. He moved to New York City, as I mentioned, and became really interested in kind of

the New York School of Poets, which I have mentioned before. o'hara was was one of those poets um but while he was at columbia college he had the opportunity to study with kenneth coke uh who i've mentioned before on the show uh just what is kind of amazing i mean i guess it's always amazing when artists find other artists but like i i see that as a big incentive to like return to academia is it's like you get you get connected to these people that are doing the work and are tremendous resources for you well yeah especially if you go to school in new york city in whatever the the early 60s yeah no that's true probably uh one of the more one of the hotter hotbeds of poetic activity. So let me share a little bit.

So his work has been described. The poet, James Tate, wrote, Ron Padgett's poems sing with absolutely true pitch, and they are human-friendly. Their search for truths, both small and large, can be a cause for laughter or at least a thoughtful sigh. Which is exactly the kind of poet that I'm looking typically to bring to Wonderful. Yeah, for sure.

You know, a poet from a human. You did bring that dog poet one time, which I thought was interesting. Bark, bark, bark. Right. Bark, bark, bark, bark. I carry it in my bark. So I wanted to read the poem Survivor Guilt that he had published in 2014. Sounds funny so far. I mean, a lot of poets at this point, I mentioned he was born in 1942.

He is now 81. Been around for a while in his poem survivor guilt is more in reference to the fact that he is an older man okay uh it's not going to be anything uh particularly traumatic i would hope for people survivor guilt it's very easy to get just keep living and you'll find yourself getting more and more of it you can keep it or pass it on, but it's a good idea to keep a small portion for those nights when you're feeling so good, you forget you're human. Then drudge it up and float down from the ceiling that is covered

with stars that glow in the dark for the sole purpose of being beautiful for you. And as you sink, their beauty dims and goes out. I mean, it flies out the nearest door or window. It's whoosh, raising the hair on your forearms. If only your arms were green, you could have two small lawns, but your arms are just there and you are kaput. It's all your fault anyway. And it always has been. The kind word you thought of saying but didn't. The appalling decline of human decency. Global warming. Thermonuclear nightmares. Your own small cowardice. Your stupid idea that you would live forever, all to a culpa. John Philip Sousa invented the sousaphone, which is also your fault. Its notes resound like monstrous ricochets but when you

wake up your body seems to fit fairly well like a tailored suit and you don't look too bad in the mirror hi there feller old feller young feller who cares whoever it was who felt guilty last night to hell with him that was then that's good shit, man. Isn't that pleasing? That is very pleasing. And very relatable, even though I am not an 81-year-old man. Yeah, yeah. I found this like a nice little affirmation, you know? I have that experience a lot where, you know, yesterday I'm just like devastated and torn up and like focused on the hundred things that I feel like need to be improved. And then I wake up and there is always that moment where it's like, oh, that doesn't feel as intense to me right now.

Yeah, sure. And I just liked that poet and that poem as kind of like a nice way to start this new year. Yeah, I like that too. I hope that I'm that sort of, I don't know, wistful and also whimsical when I am in my 80s. Yeah, no kidding. The idea of there being that upswing in the morning when I'm in my 80s sounds actually pretty appealing. Well, to be fair, this was published like 10 years ago. So he was in his 70s.

Oh, okay. Totally different story. Totally different. Totally different. Can I steal you away? Yes. Thank you. From the twisted minds that brought you The Adventure Zone,

Balance and Amnesty and Graduation and Ethersea and Steeplechase and Uhtraspace and all the other ones. The McElroy brothers and dad are proud to reveal a bold vision for the future of actual play podcasting. It's, um... It's called The Adventure Zone vs. Dracula? Yeah, we're gonna

kill Dracula's ass. We're gonna... Well, we're gonna attempt... We haven't recorded all of it yet. We will attempt to kill Dracula's ass. The Adventure Zone vs. to attempt, we haven't recorded all of it yet. We will attempt to kill Dracula's ass. The Avengers of versus Dracula. Yes, a season I will be running

using the D&D 5th edition rules set and there's two episodes out for you to listen to right now. We hope you will join us. Same bat time, same bat channel.

And bats. I see what you did there. People say not to judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree. Which is why here on Just the Zoo of Us, we judge them by so much more. We rate animals out of 10 in the categories of effectiveness, ingenuity, and aesthetics, taking into consideration each animal's true strengths. Like a pigeon's ability to tell a Monet from a Picasso or a polar bear's ability to play basketball. Guest experts like biologists, ecologists,

and more join us to share their unique insight into the animal's world. Listen with friends and family of all ages on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get podcasts. You ready for this? Are you ready for this? Oh, you need my consent? Yes. Yes, I'm ready. You really left me hanging to dry there.

I thought that was just like a, like a... Like I was about to go into a jock jam, like a solo jock jam? Yes. No, I'm asking, are you ready for this? I think so, yes. Ranch flavor. Ranch flavor. Ranch flavor and dressing. Ranch.

All right. Ranch. All right. You're trying to play a cool hand right now, like you don't like ranch. No, I would say it was kind of my gateway salad dressing, for sure. For a lot of people for a lot of americans yeah uh it's one of those flavors that i feel like um is is usually a hit yeah always always love to see ranch always love when ranch is involved yes um i'm talking about

the flavor and the dressing here now because you can kind of abstract them from when each other one another but they are both very powerful in their own right uh henry has gotten very into ranch flavored chips lately so much so that he has requested ranch flavored variations of chips that do not exist uh what was he what did he ask for he really wanted ranch wheat thins for a while that was a thing i think it was but it ain't it ain't no more yeah i know because i searched it and and saw a photo of a box proving that at one point they did exist yes but not not not not any longer good idea though great idea yeah um seeing him sort of like

really get fired up about this this zesty flavor has really kind of rekindled my own appreciation for for this uh this creamy white stuff uh because i also kind of rekindled my own appreciation for, for this, this creamy white stuff. Because I also kind of discovered it in elementary school and ate it with basically everything for a long, long time. Like what? Can you give me an example?

I mean, salad, certainly, but then like any kind of anything that could be dipped. So I was big into like popcorn chicken or popcorn shrimp. I would go nuts. Okay. Pizza crusts.

Yeah, absolutely. Going and going. That blew my mind, by the way. Somehow I grew up in the Midwest for 18 years, did not know that was a thing. And then my college town had a chain called Gumby's and they had what they called Pokey Sticks, which was basically cheese bread. And it came with ranch. And I was like, oh my God, where has this been my whole life?

It's very, very, very good. I've never really considered the constituent components that make up ranch flavor, but it is usually made from buttermilk salt garlic onion mustard chives parsley dill pepper paprika and ground mustard seed all of which are sort of incorporated into a mayonnaise like base um that makes sense there's not much surprise in there if it had been like and also watermelon or something um ranch dressing is the most popular dressing in the U.S. According to a Slate article that was published in 2005, it overtook Italian dressing all the way back in 1992. These days, I will say, I don't usually spring for ranch as a salad dressing.

If I am dressing a salad or ordering a salad from a restaurant, ranch is usually not what I spring for. It's very heavy. It's very physically heavy. Yes. I love it as a dip. I love it as a flavor. Yeah. But on a salad, it turns the salad into a mostly cream-based experience. Yes. That is kind of not as pleasing for me. It's a very strong flavor, as you mentioned, too. Yes. Like, it's kind of good on, like, one thing at a time. A salad has a lot of things in it.

Yes. And it's just all going to taste like ranch. Yes. These days, I will spring for an Italian or a balsamic vinaigrette. Yes. I like a Russian or a Thousand Island dressing. If I want to go the more sort of cream-based route, I will typically go that way. Ranch dressing's strength as a dip, though, is just unrivaled.

If I see a veggie tray, I'm always like, eh. But then when I see ranch dressing with a veggie tray, I'm like, then when i see ranch dressing i'm like okay on a carrot stick on a carrot stick forget about it when i was in high school our cafeteria had like a little uh like condiment stand where you could uh they have those like ballpark lever action like ketchup and mustard pumps and then there was then there was a ranch dressing one. And so just pretty much every day I would have ranch dressing with whatever it was that I was eating for lunch that day,

which is probably too much ranch dressing to eat. So, okay. Ranch dressing was invented by a guy named Steve Hinson. The background that I could find leaves some pretty huge gaps in the story of ranch dressing that I did not have time to really hit Nexus Lexus and do my own firsthand peer-reviewed research on. So instead, I'll just call attention to those gaps and try to – maybe we can piece it together ourselves. He lived with his wife in Anchorage, Alaska. He was working as a plumbing contractor the wikipedia article on this man says it fails us tremendously here because it then says after stating where he lives it says while there he invented a new salad

dressing i want the like slumdog millionaire background story behind the story behind it, because people don't just invent salad dressings. I mean, if you had to ask me the story of ranch, I would assume one that it took place on a ranch. Yeah. That it, you know, somebody maybe had like a large property and, you know, had to feed a lot of people and just combined a lot of seasoning together. Like in my head, the story of ranch is very, I don't know, like agriculture based. We'll get there. But I'm more surprised by like, I don't know, a hobbyist invented ranch dress. invented ranch dressing like not a profession not a food scientist or a you know chef a contract plumber just on the side invented ranch dressing why how what happened how did he do this um we

don't we don't know but apparently uh it it worked for him because he retired from plumbing uh at 35 which seems young to retire from plumbing. And he moved to Santa Barbara, California in 1956. He bought a sort of guest ranch in San Marcos Pass in California, and he renamed it. Oh, Hidden Valley? Hidden Valley Ranch. And he served his amazing dressing to the guests who had come through the, the, the little shot glasses on like a sterling silver tray. in 1957 on a very small scale basis but very quickly he realized like we gotta fucking hit folks uh and basically converted the entire building the entire ranch into a a production

line for his incredible zesty stuff by the mid 1960s no longer was the ranch taking guests instead it was just creating ranch dressing and ranch dressing flavors, which he sold through a mail order business up until 1972 when, of all companies, Clorox bought the Hidden Valley Ranch brand for $8 million. Our cleaning solution doesn't smell enough like food. Yeah, that's what surprised me. I didn't know Clorox had a food sort of subsidiary. Clearly they do because the idea of, I don't know, ranch-flavored Tide Pods or whatever seems like so yucky to me. In 1983, Clorox would sort of find out how to synthesize non-refrigeratedito Chip, which was really sort of the first introduction of ranch flavor on a thing that is not a salad. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And some other sort of chip brand. I mean, every chip brand has like a ranch version. Wavy Lays has a Hidden Valley Ranch flavor that's been around since like 1993. And so, you know, obviously they started singing a song that got the whole world singing. I still to this day will destroy a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. Oh, yeah. And allow it to in turn destroy my stomach and breath and finger smell. Finger smell.

My finger smell and just my sort of my general aroma. I will also say the creation and then heartbreaking discontinuation of the Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Taco at Taco Bell remains one of the cruelest sort of stories in the history of food. You know what's funny is that whenever you go out and try something like that, I always think like this is insane you're an insane person and then it goes away and i'm like well now i never got to have it you never got to have that look at me i thought i was i was too cool for school and now i never know imagine a

taco bell you know hard shell taco okay but then like make it taste like Cool Ranch Doritos times a million. Yeah. Pretty fucking good. Yeah. A lot of flavor per bite. Yeah. The FPB on these bad boys is off of the charts. I was thinking about this guy inventing ranch. There had to be like a hundred milder versions that he just kept stepping up until he was like, that's it. That's the one.

And everybody was like, it's too much. You're crazy. And he's like, I'm going to do it. I'm And everybody was like, it's too much. You're crazy. And he's like, I'm going to do it. I'm going to put more. This is how much I want. Yeah. It's not a simple recipe. It's not like a, again, I'm just blown away by this dude.

Because it's not just a couple ingredients that you mixed. You didn't put honey and mustard together and was like, is honey mustard? This has a lot of components in it yeah you have to sort of alchemize into a a proper a proper blend and my man just fucking crushed it right out of the gate i will say when i um was avoiding dairy uh for our for our son's reasons i kept looking for like a vegan ranch. Yeah. And it was very difficult. Like everybody could kind of handle the flavor, but the consistency was challenging without that like buttermilk, like heavy fat. Yeah.

Yeah. We didn't really have, I can't remember a good one of the, I also ate a lot of vegan options. And I was surprised to find out how just sort of solid the offerings were across the board. But we never really did crack the ranch code on that one. That's really all I've got. I just – I really do – I do love ranch as a – I eat less of it now because it is an overpowering flavor and it does sort of just take over whatever it is that you eat. Oh, God.

On a buffalo wing? Yes. To counteract the spiciness of a fucking – forget it. Oh, my God. My mouth is watering. Yeah. Right now. Just thinking about that.

The celery stick. On a celery stick, too. I just there's lots of subtle flavors in the world. And that's good. And then there is ranch, which has just a singular overpowering flavor that is unlike anything else. And I think that is also beautiful. It takes all kinds. And I would do anything to eat some ranch dressing right now.

I don't think we have any in the house. We don't. I think about that every time I like, we have leftover pizza, for example, which includes today. And I think like, how good would it be if we had ranch in the fridge right now? We just don't. Let's make a- Add it to the list.

I'm adding it to the fridge right now. We just don't. Let's make a- Add it to the list. I'm adding it to the list right this second. Get a little notification on my phone that says Griffin McElroy added ranch to your shared list. And now- I typed it in an autofill in our grocery app. A former entry that just says, ranch flavor wheat thins question mark? I know.

I optimistically left that on our list for so long just so i would keep searching for it thinking maybe there is an establishment in this region that has them i have not found it yet we also had ranch uh rice crackers and ranch rice cakes yeah do you have a big ranch rice cake i do like just a big sort of personal pan pizza of rice cake. Yeah. I haven't been able to find them. Damn. Okay.

Anyway, that's it for Ranch. We got some submissions for our friends at home. If you want to send yours in, please send your email to wonderfulpodcastatgmail.com. Keep it brief, a sentence or two about something that you're fired up about, and maybe we'll read it on the show. Let's start with Jake. My small wonder is watching YouTubers do circuit bends on musical consumer electronics uh some of the creations they make really push the limits of what the brand's originally intended i don't know if you're uh familiar with this scene i don't know what this means basically there is a sort of subgenre of uh like music maker content creators uh and also electricians who will crack

open a thing like a speak and spell uh and then change the wiring inside or change the voltage that is being powered through the various components to make it make other wilder noises so maybe it's the sound that the speak and spell is supposed to make it make other wilder noises. So maybe it's the sound that the speak and spell is supposed to make, except it's like crazy glitched out, sort of like screaming. There's, there's like a whole world of people taking any sorts of, you know,

battery operated toys or whatever. And then circuit bending them. Furbies is a big one because you can make a Furby open its mouth and shout some arcane cyber language that is very, very cool to watch. Danielle says,

my small wonder is a hot bath on a cold day. After a very cold day, when you can feel the chill in your bones, there's nothing like a hot bath to thaw out and feel like a human again. This is true. I miss, we don't really have a great bathtub chill in your bones, there's nothing like a hot bath to thaw out and feel like a human again. This is true. I miss, we don't really have a great bathtub solution in our house. But I did, we have been playing with our kids outside a lot in the snow this past week. And I think two days ago, I came right in from outside and hopped right in the shower.

Oh, man, that was good stuff. I bet that was good. That burn, like the sort of burning feeling that you get from like heating up your cold body. Really fast like that. Really fast like that. That is so good. It's the opposite of brain freeze. It's body burn.

Griffin's new fitness series. My new fitness series. My new erotic thriller, Body Burn. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you bowen and augustus for these for theme song money won't pay for a link to that in the episode description thank you to max one fun for having us on the network they got so many good shows over there that you should go check out um and we also have a bunch of merch over at mackroymerch.com um that uh we're gonna be updating very soon when the new month rolls over. Gosh, I can't believe January's almost over.

I know, I know. It's a fast one. It's a fast one. That'll happen when your kids are out of school half of the month. But we're back in it, baby. Back in the swing of things. February's looking bright.

Sort of. Sort of. Until then, stay with us well don't no leave we'll be come back in a week but keep us in your hearts keep us in your hearts please Bye. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network of artist-owned shows. Supported directly by you.