Wonderful! - Wonderful! 318: You Could Do a Choo-Choo

Episode Date: March 27, 2024

Rachel's favorite non-soul-stripping confessional poet! Griffin's favorite maximalist musical experience! Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya Foundation for Black Women’s Wellness: https://www.ffbww.org/

Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hi, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. Vroom, I did a car thing last week, but errr but we're coming into the home stretch, aren't we? Well, I mean, it'd be hard to make the noise of another transportation vehicle. Maybe a train, you could do a choo-choo. Yeah, choo-choo is the train.

I think we all know that. But like, how do you- Airplane doesn't have a good autopilot. Yeah, I don't know what you would do for like a helicopter. Choppa choppa choppa choppa choppa choppa choppa choppa. Oh, that's pretty good. You say choppa choppa choppa. Choppa choppa, yeah, I like that helicopter. Chapa, chapa, chapa, chapa, chapa, chapa, chapa. That's pretty good. You say chapa, chapa, chapa.

Chapa, chapa, yeah, I like that. Boat is cool, because it's like. Boat. I like that too. That's like a tugboat. Man with a thousand voices. A real Michael Winslow here, and that's what you get by being a Max Fun supporter.

A reference that you don't understand. When you join the Max Fun Network and support this show and others like it, you get sound understand. When you join the Max Fun Network and support this show and others like it, you get sound effects. Sent to your house on floppy disk. That's not true. Listen, we got a couple days left in the Max Fun Drive. Now, Rachel and I, we record this show a few days in advance

to when it goes up, so I don't know what kind of state we are currently in. We're doing pretty good this week. I'm feeling all right, but I imagine we will still need some help to reach all of our goals and get the help that we need to keep growing the shows and keep doing the stuff that we love.

This is not the year to assume that everybody else has got you on the donating front. No. This is the year to be like, you know what? I'm gonna step up. Here I am. A lot of people have done that so far.

It means the world. It means more than I could possibly ever say. Wonderful supporters in particular have been and continue to be remarkably supportive. Every morning we get an email from April and I am always kind of expecting there to be no supportive. Every morning we get an email from April and I am always kind of expecting there to be no new donors and there always are new donors. Yes, and it really, it is humbling

and just, it really is something very, very special. We are gonna talk about it this episode and then that's it for the rest of the year. So if you missed the pitch last week, we are a part of the Maximum Fund Network, which is pledge supported. We have ads on the show sometimes, but they are not, they are a drop in the bucket,

I think, and especially since the podcast ad market has really fallen off a cliff, it is more important than ever that if you enjoy the stuff that we make and it means something to you, you can be directly responsible for, responsible sounds bad, responsible sounds like we're trying to pin something on you, but you can directly support us and the work that we do

by going to maximumfund.org slash join. You can pick a pledge level that works for you at just five bucks a month. You're gonna get access to over 600 hours of bonus content, including the triumphant return of Rose Buddies as we cover the beginning of this season of The Bachelor that we've been watching. And all of the bonus content we've ever made here

on Wonderful and Rose Buddies, actually, as a matter of fact. There's other pledge levels, we will get into those, but even just that $5 a month level, it really, really makes all the difference in the world, and it has allowed us to hire people to help us make the show, like Rachel, our editor, and Amanda, our business manager,

and so many other people that we work with every single day to make this stuff and make it possible. So maximumfun.org slash join is the link you can go to. If you're already a member, you can boost or upgrade your membership to get the new. Or update the shows that you listen to. Or update the shows that you listen to. Or update the shows that you listen to, absolutely. You can do that too.

The shows that you pick, they are the ones who sort of get the financial support that you provide. So that is also a very important step. If you don't wanna have a recurring charge, I totally feel that too. You can also pay for the year upfront. Just one lump sum, get in, get out,

help us out, help us make the show and get some great gifts along the way. So one last time, maximumfun.org slash join. If you're at a screen, don't wait, do it now while you are thinking about it and the spirit is moving you because you might forget later, that's just human nature. Do you have a small wonder? That is a good question.

I'm gonna say, when you don't know how to care for a plant and then you Google it and it tells you what to do. Okay, that's interesting. I have a little cactus plant and I don't really know how to take care of succulents. I know they don't need a lot of water. I know they need some water. I don't know how often they need it. I know they need sun. I don't know how much sun. Right. These are all things that have plagued me for a very long time. Yeah. Today, I justled, like, why cactus leaves shriveled? Why cactus leaves shriveled? And it was like, hey, you need to put a lot of water in there because it's super dehydrated.

And I was like, great, now I feel like it's okay to put water in there, because Google told me. I have never, I think, had a plant that I was responsible for keeping alive. But it does seem cool that you can just Google, how do I fix my plant? And most of the time it'll get you there. Yeah.

Except sometimes your plant is like, has a weird fungus on it. And then I feel like the wheels really fall off the wagon at that point. You know what? A lot of times that is because the moisture isn't escaping from the dirt. Shit.

It's not fully drying out. That's why I can't do this. And so that's why you get like a little fungus on the top, but it's not harmful to the plant. It's just- It's harmful to my aesthetic. It's just unsightly. I mean, I'm obviously, this is a very fungal year for us. Uh-huh.

Particularly on my brother, my brother and me, but like I want it on my terms. Do you know what I mean? I don't get much out of just sort of a mossy fungal growth. I like stalks and caps and gills and shit, you know? Okay. I need mushroom shape. Okay.

I'm gonna say Physical 100 is back on the air on Netflix for season two. This is a show I believe we talked about a lot last year in the sort of just absolute maelstrom of high production value Korean reality television shows. We were so curious after the first season, we were like, how are they gonna do a second season? What's it gonna look like?

Because in my head, I thought, what are the odds that they can find all new, super strong people from this one country. Turns out 99 out of 100 are brand new. Yeah, there's only one returning guy who had like a really tragic arc in the first one where he was like pretty fit and pretty buff and like ready to roll and he was smashing the challenges.

And then he went face to face with this huge dude in this competition where you have to wrestle a ball away from him. And he was a little too cocky, a little big for his britches, and the big dude just tossed him around like laundry. And so he is back with a vengeance. It's still really interesting to watch incredibly physically fit people

do incredible feats of athleticism. Every single person, it's still shocking to me. Like they will cut to somebody on screen, removing their shirt, and every single time, I'm like, wow, that person's really muscular. Wow, there's a lot of muscles on them. I never get used to it. Yeah, yeah, I'm glad to have it back.

Hopefully the other shows that we fell in love with, give me a season two of fucking Siren, please. Yes. Give me a season two of New World that feels like maybe it's not going to happen, but Siren's got to, right? Doesn't it feel right? I don't know, I have no sense of whether

other people are watching these shows. Yeah, I guess. I know that our Netflix skews towards these programs. I do not know if they show up on other people's like little dashboards. Yeah, maybe not. Yeah, our algo's got us pretty well pinned. You go first this week.

Yes. What do you got? I have a special Max Fun Drive trip to the poetry corner. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Chk, chk, chk. Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba. Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba,

boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It's a rare condition. Okay. Okay. I did not even realize that I was doing Family Matters. I know, I realized it immediately. I didn't, I didn't. I got a few bars.

Did you think you were coming up with like a off the cuff? No, I thought it was Frasier. I got Frasier and Family Matters, two shows that could not be more different. Who said Kelsey Grammer would be very shocked? Yeah, in virtually every way these shows are different. Yes. Anyway, thank you for having me in the poetry corner.

Yeah. After I made such a big mess last time. You're always welcome. I spilled my soup in here last time. We cut it out of the show, but last time I said the poetry corner spilled all my soup. And this carpet over here made a big fucking mess. Yeah.

Can I tell the story about when you tripped down the stairs and got coffee on our ceiling? Yeah, sure. I mean, it's a kick-ass story. And it makes me sound cool and smooth. You know that there's not much more to the story than that. That's basically the story. We have this like sunken living area. There's literally two stairs.

Sinkholes in DC are really a huge problem, trade this one. I think that's what you call it. I think you call it a sunken like living area. A sunken wreck of the. Yeah, there's two steps. A girl was carrying a full cup of coffee and two steps. Somehow it left my hand and when it fell, imagine a cup of coffee that doesn't,

it didn't rotate on any kind of axis. It was completely full. He had literally just gotten it. It was completely full, but it didn't rotate on any kind of axis. It was completely full. He had literally just gotten it. It was completely full, but it didn't like dump over and spill. It fell perfectly still like coffee cup straight up. And so when the bottom of the cup hit the floor, the coffee inside, I'm sorry, ejaculated,

just fucking, just an explode. The like physics of it was just cup goes straight down, no turning, no spilling, just fucking, just an explode. The like physics of it was just cup go straight down, no turning, no spilling, just hit, and then just shot up the top of the cup and got on our fucking ceiling. Not only did it cover a tremendous amount of carpet area that we just decided to put an area rug over because it was just not coming up.

But yeah, we have little coffee splashes on our ceiling now. And I just like, I know that I could clean them off, but it's just such a reminder of that story. Yeah. Not again, not a great story. If we had filmed it, it would be a great video. You are crying right now. I don't think of myself as somebody

that loves slapstick comedy, but every once in a while I'm like, oh yeah, I get it. Yeah. That was good. You usually don't like slapstick comedy, but every once in a while I'm like, oh yeah, I get it. That was good. You usually don't like slapstick comedy that impacts you in such a direct way as me getting coffee on our ceiling. Yeah, part of me was glad though, I'm sure carpet owners will appreciate this,

part of me was glad though that it was you and not me. Oh, for sure. Because the feeling of staying in a carpet is never good. Although you did spill coffee on our bed once, but you don't hear me talking about that. Cause I don't believe in keeping records of rights and wrongs. Well, the guests that come over to our house

don't see our bed. So it was kind of a victimless crime. Except for us, me and you, the victims. In our bed that always smelled like coffee. In our bed that smelled like coffee and looked like somebody had taken the most righteous dookie ever. The most wild, footloose dookie.

Footloose? Footloose dookie, just footloose fancy free dookie that anyone's ever done in a bed. I appreciate that I can trust Rachel, our editor, that she will not make that the title of this episode. Footloose Dookie? Yeah, I think it actually will be. Holy shit, I hope your poem isn't super serious.

Oh no, it is, isn't it? Oh no, it's gonna be. I have multiple poems. Okay, cool. I can start with the less serious one. Okay, cool. I can start with the less serious one. Okay, great. Yeah, just to give us a sort of gap, a buffer space. This was maybe the hardest poet to research

that I've ever done. Oh wow. Her name is Laura Gilpin, and she wrote two poetry books. One in 1977. Oh wow, okay. And then the other was published in 2008. So a little gap there.

A little bit of a gap. A small break. The 2008 one was published posthumously. She actually passed in 2007, but she had basically finished the book prior to her passing. Interesting. Otherwise we would only have one book for her.

So she only published one poetry book when she was alive. Yeah. I feel like that is quite rare for, I feel like any poet you bring to the show is like, well, they published 314 books of collections of their poetry. It's interesting to hear someone just do the one. Yeah, no, and she was incredibly successful

for somebody who in her lifetime only had one book. Her very first book came out in 1976, so she would have been 26 years old. And it was awarded the Walt Whitman Award by the Academy of American Poets. Wow, okay. Which is a pretty exclusive award in that only as far as I know, one person wins it a year.

She is often considered a confessional poet, which is kind of like in the vein of Sylvia Plath in that they write these very vulnerable poems about their personal life. But it's not, the poems that she writes are not dark in the way that a lot of confessional poetry is. When you said Sylvia Plath, I puckered up a little bit worrying

about the juxtaposition. No, so Chicago Review, which is actually a literary magazine that I worked for briefly, described her as a confessional poet, but said quote, "'Without the frantic stripping of the soul "'that often constitutes confessional poet but said quote, without the frantic stripping of the soul that often constitutes confessional poetry.

That's a fun distinction. They went on to say that though her poetry is plain, unselfconscious and elegant, the endings leave the reader feeling quote, that there is more to be said, some conclusion to be drawn, some emotion to be underlined. Which I think is a very apt description of her poetry.

So I'm gonna read the most famous one. The reason I even came up with her as a subject for Wonderful is because I saw this poem in one of the many poetry accounts that I follow. And I was like, oh yeah, everyone knows this poem. But then I stopped for a minute and I was like, I betcha I don't. Betcha they don't.

Is it the one about, is it Casey Steps Up to Bat? I've heard that poem before. It is. Holy shit, a baseball poem. I would not bring that poem. You don't like that one? It's a sad ending, I don't like that poem. It's more of a story than a poem, I think.

What's it called? Is it Casey, when Casey went to bat? Casey at the bat, I think. Something like that, yeah. Anyway, sorry. Anyway, the name of this poem is The Two-Headed Calf. Tomorrow when the farm boys find this freak of nature, they will wrap his body in newspaper

and carry him to the museum. But tonight he is alive and in the North field with his mother. It is a perfect summer evening. The moon rising over the orchard, the wind and the grass. And as he stares into the sky, there are twice as many stars as usual. Whoa!

Isn't that lovely? That was really lovely. Yeah, it's a tiny little poem. That's the shortest poem I think you've ever brought. Yeah. To Wonder. Except for maybe William Carlos Williams and those dang plums and that wheelbarrow.

Yeah, sure. Yeah, it's a. I loved that. It's such an unusual subject matter, treated with such sensitivity and it- And dignity. Ends in such a lovely way. Part of what I love about her poetry

is that just her genuine kindness comes through. Right. And I think some of that is because in 1981, she became a registered nurse. So again, she published her first book of poetry in 1977. She's somebody who went to college and got her MFA shortly after. And I think maybe could first and foremost be a poet,

but actually spent the majority of her career as a nurse. And she was a founding member of an organization called Plaintree, which I was not familiar with, but the whole focus of the organization was to work with hospitals to focus on a greater sense of compassion and partnership to healthcare. So the whole concept of patient-centered care, Plaintree was kind of at the forefront of that.

And so she traveled around the globe kind of speaking to promote this like vision of patient-centered care. A fucking cool lady. Yeah, very cool. So yeah, so a lot of her poetry is just about like caring for people that are unwell Very cool. So yeah, so a lot of her poetry is just about like caring for people that are unwell

and she writes it in a very like sensitive, respectful way. They can be very moving. Yeah. So I wanted to read one more poem. This one is more serious. Okay. Part of the reason I wanted to read second. It was actually published in Poetry magazine in 1984 and it is called

The Bath. I stand here bathing her while she sleeps in a far place beyond my reaching. I bathe her as I have been taught to do, first the eyes, then the forehead, the face, the neck. And as I work, I talk to her, in case she hears me, believing that hearing is the last to go. I tell her, I don't know why, but I tell her the time, day the season what the weather is doing Lifting each arm to wash and dry it laying it down again at her side Then the chest the abdomen each leg she offers no resistance

Except that of gravity the earth pulling her down while I lift as though something between us is being weighed Then I turn her to wash her back talking to her about what seems to matter in this life, though I make no promises. Only this morning, the promise of spring was in the air, and I tell her that. That was really nice. Isn't that lovely? It's such a great, it's a great poem on those different levels

that Chicago Review was talking about of like she is describing something that is a very typical action for somebody in her profession in a very detailed way that is like interesting and feels very like connected to what is happening. And then you just, it undeniably connects you to this experience of caring for somebody

who is like not able to care for themselves anymore in just this very thoughtful way. And when I realized that she only published that one book while she was alive, I just thought like, oh man, more people need to know about her. Yeah, no kidding. One problem, both of her books are out of print. Oh, that's not ideal. Yeah, I went, cause I was like, oh, I wanna own one of her books are out of print. Oh, that's not ideal.

Yeah, I went, cause I was like, oh, I wanna own one of these books. Some kind person on Reddit has transcribed and posted both books. So you can read both books in their entirety. The first, and they have great names by the way. The first book is called the Hocus Pocus of the Universe. And the second is The Weight of a Soul.

And both of them are in their entirety online. So if you are interested in reading all of her poems, which is very doable, you can do that. And one more time, what was her name? This is Laura Gilpin, G-I-L-P-I-N. Now there is a photographer named Laura Gilpin. Oh no. So if you just Google like Laura Gilpin,

you're not gonna find her. You have to do poet. Otherwise you will end up looking at a lot of lovely photographs that are not hers. Well, thank you for sharing. If I could take us out of the poetry corner and into the Max Fund Drive vestibule. Oh yeah. Welcome to the Max Fund Drive vestibule. Oh yeah. Dup, dup, dup, dup, dup, dup, dup.

Welcome to the Max Fun Drive vestibule. I wanna tell folks about some of the other pledge gifts that we've got for you at the different levels. Obviously, $5 a month, you got the Boko. Over 600 hours, all the shows, all their Boko throughout all of time, well past. There's not future Boko in there. That would be wild.

Well, I guess there are shows that continue to produce bonus content throughout the year. But that stuff's not there now. But it's not there now. Because it hasn't been made yet. Yeah, it's true. That's the point that I'm trying to make. But there's lots of stuff on there for you.

You can hear Rachel talk about her experience playing Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing, two video games that are maybe the only two video games that you've played in the last five years. There is so much stuff in there just at $5 a month. At $10 a month, you get the bonus content. You also get an enamel pin of your choice from all of the shows on the MaxFun Network.

Our pin this year, it looks like us in like Stardew Valley style, which is absolutely lovely. I've been dipping back into that by the way, for that 1.6%- Hell yeah, what do you think? I mean, we'll debrief afterwards, but it's fun. At $20 a month, you can get the Games on the Go or a MaxFun logo bucket hat. The Games on the Go or a Max Fun logo bucket hat.

The Games on the Go is a bandana, but it's like a checkerboard pattern and you get these little pieces so you can play checkers. Yeah, and those little pieces are good pieces. They're great pieces. Like if you lay this down on a patch of grass and put those pieces down, they will stay there. Yeah, also at $35 a month, there's a big fucking tote bag.

The biggest tote bag you've ever seen in your life. It says maximum bag on it. We just got ours in the mail today. I bet you anything we could fit both of our boys in there and they would love it. They would love that. Our backs probably would not enjoy it. And the boys wouldn't enjoy it very quickly.

They think they would, but they would not. They would probably think they would enjoy it, but they definitely wouldn't. That's just a handful of the levels. Listen, it really, all that matters is if you are able to support us in this way, in any way, during the Max Fun Drive, it genuinely makes it possible for us to do what we do.

It makes it possible for us to do more stuff. We've started doing more video content over the past year and a half because we were able to hire a video producer for the first time. We've been doing this for a long time, but we are still able to grow, I think pretty significantly every single year

because of the fact that we've been able to hire people because of the support we get through the Max Fund Drive. Yeah, and I can say too, I know that there's the $5 level and the $10 level, but somebody commented on one of my posts that they upped their donation $1 this year. You can also boost, yeah. So yeah, you can go from five to six,

and that's incredible for us, so thank you for that. Yeah, again, we're recording this a few days in advance of when it releases, Five to six, and that's incredible for us. So thank you for that. Yeah, again, we're recording this a few days in advance of when it releases, so I don't know what the current count is, but we've got some stretch goals lined up that we're gonna be announcing on our social media. There's some exciting stuff coming up on there

that I don't wanna spoil in case we have not hit those levels yet. We've also been streaming basically every day over the last week and a half. You can watch some fuser streams of DJ sets that I've done. And the Macquarie family clubhouse. Macquarie family clubhouse. Oh, I love it so much. A new streaming show on Tuesdays at noon.

It is a very aggressive, I will say, schedule. We are a little tired just from the sheer amount of kind of work that everybody who works with us has been putting into this. And yeah, this is our last episode of the drive. And so this is our last chance to say, like, if you've been a listener for a while and you've heard us talk about the Max Fun Drive, but you have never sprung for it yourself, I cannot describe to you how much it has changed our lives that we have received as much support as we have from you all, I get genuinely choked up when I consider

the magnitude of it and the extent to which it has changed my life and your life and my life. Oh, 100%. And I also know that it feels very, very good to support something that you enjoy. And this is such a direct way for you to do that. Maximumfun.org slash join is the link that you can go to.

If you're able to, we really appreciate you. If you can't, if you're not able to, we totally understand that too. Maybe tell a friend about the shows, tweet about the stuff. I don't know if people still do that. Tick tock about it. Tick tock us, please. One last time, maximumfun.org slash join.

Speaking of FUSER, I would like to do my segment. Speaking of FUSER. That's that DJ video game. Oh, okay. I wanna talk about mashups. All right. This segment felt inevitable, I feel like, based on how much of FUSER I've been playing lately.

I've actually talked about FUSER on the show before as a small wonder, like two and a half years ago or something like that. Yeah, because you did this last year for the last year's drive, right? Yes, I did, that's right. So FUSER is a video game that was released by Harmonix, who is one of my favorite game developers ever.

They made all the rock band games. They do just basically a lot of peripheral-based rhythm games. They made Drop Mix, that card game that you could move songs up with. Yes, God, that was so fun. It was so fun. I've done a segment on that as well. So, yeah, last year for the drive to kick things off, I did a stream of me doing a DJ set in Fuser

using the songs that come with Fuser. And that was a ton of fun, it was a hoot, the game is genuinely a joy to goof around with. This year, thanks to some help from Patrick Gill at Polygon, who is deep in this scene before I was, I've learned how to add songs to FUSER that other people have like compiled to work with the game. The community for FUSER is really very, very, very active which is very interesting

because you can't buy the video game anymore. Like a lot of Harmonix's games, they have been delisted because the licenses that they secure aren't for eternity, I'm assuming. And so, yeah, you can't get FUSER, I mean, through legal channels. I imagine it is.

Sorry, listeners, that just got very excited about this. You might be able to find it on the sneaker it on the torrent sites or whatever. I got mine when the game came out. But no judgment. I think this game fucking rules and I think anybody would have fun with it. And if there's no legal way to buy it then.

Ask your game guy. Ask your games guys. So yeah, I have basically spent the last two weeks, probably even longer than that, probably closer to a month, just going through all of the songs that people have like made custom for Fuser and just started dropping them in to see like which ones sounded good

and which ones worked and which ones didn't. Is it pretty user friendly? It's, I mean, if you have played a lot of games like this before, I think so. I think that it more kind of. Like, do you have to like drop the new song in at the exact right moment? You don't have to, but you get like more points and shit.

I've never actually played the game the way it's intended to be played. There's like a campaign mode where you get a score based on like. Like rock band. Like rock band, yeah, exactly. It's, I mean, the DNA, the genetics of this are so informed by Harmonix's earlier work.

I have only used it for freestyle mode because I just enjoy making the music. It is something I have always really, not always, I have liked for a long time, the idea of mashups and what I would do if like what I listen to songs sometimes and I think like, I wonder what this would sound like with that and Fuser is a way to like, it's an interface to do that in a very video game.

I watched some of the stream and didn't you do like the Ghostbusters theme mashed up with a Sam Smith song? How do you sleep? Yeah. Yeah. That's so good. That's one of my favorites. Yeah, there's the community,

the music community is outrageous. The amount of songs that they have created from a diverse sort of array of genres and there's like game soundtrack stuff. There's, I mixed up also Ghostbusters. I mixed Ghostbusters with basically all of the other 23 songs that I like had in my crate at the time, but with like Hide and Seek by Imogene Heap

and the Wee Channel, like Wee Shop Channel music. Yeah, I went ham on all those. I'm very excited for next week's, I got some more, some more tunes on Monday. Oh, you're doing it again, I didn't know that. Yeah, I'm doing it again on Monday. That's great. This past Monday when you're hearing this, so. But you can still see it some more. Oh, you're doing it again. I need to know that. Yeah, I'm doing it again on Monday. That's great. This past Monday, when you were hearing this.

This past Monday. But you can still see it on YouTube. Yes, you can. So, yes, I've loved mashups, as I'm sure this is true for a lot of people of my generation, since I discovered Girl Talk in college. I feel like everyone, or a lot of people, at least in my life.

Depending on the years that you were in college. Depending on the years that you were in college. Depending on the years that you were in college. I think he started like releasing albums in like 2003 or something like that. My on-ramp was 2008's Feed the Animals, which if you've never listened to Girl Talk before, maybe I should explain that. Girl Talk was a very, I would say,

was a very, I would say, influential musical act who just did mashups. His songs would include like little pieces and little samples from like a dozen songs in one song. It was a very sort of maximalist, like hyper sort of take on, sampling songs. And that album is so much fun. It also included play your part, part two,

which was the closing track for my brother, my brother and me for a hot minute. Yeah, I remember that. Before we joined the Maximum Fun Network and Jesse was like, how did you get the rights? Hey, by the way. He was like, it's so cool that you guys were able to get the rights to this Girl Talk song and this ABBA song.

And we were like, uh. Uh. The idea that like you could take different parts of music from different genres and like slice out different, not just sections of songs, but like instruments of songs. It was like not something that I knew you could do. And obviously Girl Talk was not like the first person to sample music like that had been a thing for so long.

You know, it really cutting its teeth in like the hip hop genre and like the seventies. But like this was my end point to this like very specific style of mashups. I saw him actually at Bonnaroo once, do a set at like three in the morning. And it was a lot of fun. And I also like look back at myself at that concert

and that's a different human being. Because I can't fucking imagine. Girl Talk was at ACL one year and it was when I was volunteering and I had to work outside the gates. So I just like heard the party and saw the lights and enjoyed it from very, very far away. Yes, another big album for me that came out

when I was in college was Daft Punk's Alive 2007, which was like a live album of theirs. But every song was a mashup of their own songs. So if you've never heard that album and you enjoy Daft Punk, I would suggest you go listen to it, because it fucking rules. And there are certain songs, it's fun to watch an artist mash up their own music.

And so like there are these two songs, Aerodynamic is a Daft Punk song I love, and Around the World is a song of theirs that I absolutely love. And they combine them on this album. And now when I hear those individual songs, I keep waiting for the drop from the other song to kick in and kind of spoil the songs.

But I listened to that album with all my friends so much around the time that it came out. These days, I feel like my main exposure to mashup music, aside from Fuser, is the gym that Rachel and I have been going to. We go to for like an hour long class, and so many times, every class, I will feel my energy start to just flag,

and I will feel myself get like just really single minded on like my physical discomfort, and my feeling of like, I want, I think I wanna just stop now. And then they play mashups, almost exclusively, they play mashups over the speaker system. And the number of times that like, it has pulled my attention away from how tired my body was for you.

And giving me like this second wind because of the mashups that they play, which I think each coach kind of like brings their own. Well, they pull it from some kind of like a playlist, some kind of like satellite radio kind of playlist. Whatever it is, man. It fucking works for me because sometimes the mashups that the gym plays are bonkers.

Like today, I was, today we were at the gym and I was on the treadmill. I haven't been to the gym in a long time. I've been like sick for a while. And this is my first time getting back in there is on the treadmill. I was dying. And then they played a mashup of a Zed song

who's like an electronic EDM artist and Bon Jovi's, It's My Life. Oh yeah. And it was like, I audibly laughed and I've done that so many times. We always, when we go together, like we're next to each other, you can attest to this,

like the number of times I have just open mouth guffawed at one of these mashups that pop up, it's so engaging and it's so entertaining. And even if like the quality of the song isn't good, the kind of like, there is a thing about mashups where it requires a sort of like lateral thinking about music that is really fucking cool. And obviously like it is, is it the most creative work

like inherently like, no, because it is using different parts of things that already exist, but it is a different type of creativity. Yeah, well, and it's like inherently. An ingenuity that feels really satisfying. It's like inherently playful, you know? Right, exactly. Because if I sat down in front of a computer

with nothing in front of me and had to pick two songs I think would sound good together, like I wouldn't be able to do it. Yes. Like you have to kind of experiment to figure it out and then when you find it, it's so great. Yeah, and like I am genuinely very glad for Fuser because it has genuinely given me moments.

I think this stream I did this past Monday was like the most fun I've ever had streaming because like I had a few moments there where I was like, oh shit, this actually slaps. And it's fun going back and rewatching some of the drops and the look of satisfied stank that I just reflexively had on my face. And I know that that was because I was feeling

really fucking self satisfied in that moment. I'm very, very glad to have this thing that kind of gives me a pretty, I will say simplistic, like version of that art of that craft, but- Can you like export or save the songs you make? I don't think so, no. I mean, it seems like it would be tricky with licensing. Yeah.

You know? Yeah, I mean, that's another thing about mashups is like the law of, I started to take notes on that and compile them, but it's like the same bullshit that you always kind of hear about like, you know, fair use and, you know, creative, what is it, creative commons. It's like, yeah, you can do it, but you have to attribute and can't make money.

And- I talked about that earlier when I was talking about covers. Talking about covers. And it's even more sort of more muddled with mashups. So yeah, it's not particularly interesting and it's way too complicated for me to feel like I am gonna do a good job talking about it. I just know I love mashups.

They entertain me. They come for me in my hour of greatest need at the gymnasium. And I've had a chance to play around with them a lot lately because of this now extinct video game. And that's why I wanted to talk about it today. Last time, maximumfun.org slash join is the link you can go to to support us

and the show that we make here and all of the shows. On the Max Fund Network, there's amazing rewards for whatever level of support you're able to provide. Just five bucks a month, you're gonna get over 600 hours of bonus content, and there's some genuinely delightful shit in there from all the shows. But more importantly, you will very directly support

the show that if you're listening to this part but more importantly, you will very directly support the show that if you're listening to this part of this episode, I have to assume you enjoy a little bit. Yeah, you hung out the whole time. You hung out the whole time. So I assume that you like us, I guess. And yeah, I don't really have much else to say. Yeah, I also kind of just wanna speak to the community.

I was talking about this. So I, this week I am on an episode of One Bad Mother as a guest, which was very fun for me to do. And I've listened to that show for a long time. And I was talking with the host, Biz Ellis, about the community of Max Fun and how when I typically listen to podcasts, I don't think about the community of hosts

within that network, you know? I think there are a lot of places you can go where you can listen to a discreet podcast and it is easy to think that these people never meet each other and they have nothing in common and they live totally separate lives. But MaxFun from day one has always been like, we're all kind of like-minded,

we're trying to put good things into the world and we're trying to be very thoughtful about kind of the message we wanna create with our show. And I feel very close to a lot of the people that have shows on this network because that's been the thought behind it from day one. And to get like, you know, inside baseball, like it is, I feel like that is in the bones

of like the structure of Maximum Fun. Over the last year, we became a co-op. Yeah. We own sort of operation. It is- We all wear little aprons now. No, that's not exactly how it works. That's what a co-op is, right?

That's not 100% that works. That's what a co-op is, right? That's not 100%. This is an incredible community that I am so honored to be a part of and have been a part of now for 14 years. Yeah. Just fucking wild. Yeah. My tenure with the Max Fun Network would be in high school if it was a human being, like that's bonkers. Yeah. And yeah, I'm getting verklempt again, MaxFun Network would be in high school if it was a human being, like that's bonkers.

And yeah, I'm getting verklempt again. So I'm going to just say one last time, maximumfun.org slash join in, thank you all so, so, so much. And we'll be back next week with another new episode. Same bat time, same bat podcast. What if we were a bat podcast? I have enough for about three minutes. Could it be a very short podcast?

Sure, yeah. Are three minute podcasts hot right now? Just make, yeah, just do a little queebie. Just drop a queebie. Rip queebie. Bye. Bye. Hey! Wake no Hey! Mari no Hey! Wake no Hey! Mari no Hey!

Wake no Hey! Mari no Hey! Maximum Fun A workaround network of artist-owned shows, supported directly by you.