Wonderful! - Wonderful! 335: Late Night Overnight Docent
Episode Date: July 31, 2024Rachel's favorite plot device! Griffin's favorite cards he can't win! Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya Palestine Childre...n's Relief Fund: https://www.pcrf.net/
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                                         ["Wonderful"]
                                         
                                         Hi, this is Rachel McElroy.
                                         
                                         Hello, this is Griffin McElroy.
                                         
                                         And this is Wonderful.
                                         
                                         Welcome to Wonderful.
                                         
                                         It's a show where we talk about things we like
                                         
                                         that's good that we are into.
                                         
                                         And this is episode 300 something, which is wild.
                                         
    
                                         We never really, we haven't stopped to check in
                                         
                                         about how high the number's getting.
                                         
                                         Are you comfortable with how high the number's getting?
                                         
                                         Cause it's creeping up there, man.
                                         
                                         Yeah, I mean, I didn't have like a terminal number
                                         
                                         in my mind of like, well, we'll never hit this number.
                                         
                                         Yeah, no, I think that's fair.
                                         
                                         I mean, we've got it's outlived Rose buddies,
                                         
    
                                         I think by a significant degree at this point,
                                         
                                         which is the only metric that I have to go off of.
                                         
                                         For me, I feel like once a podcast hits 300,
                                         
                                         you can start talking about it
                                         
                                         to your friends and your family.
                                         
                                         Oh, is this a hint to me?
                                         
                                         You do, no, I was not trying to guilt you in some way.
                                         
                                         Rachel.
                                         
    
                                         You do not acknowledge the existence of this podcast
                                         
                                         to your friends and family.
                                         
                                         But just like, you know, before 300 episodes,
                                         
                                         it's like, you don't know whether or not
                                         
                                         it's gonna be a thing.
                                         
                                         Yeah, okay.
                                         
                                         So at episode like 200, it's like, okay.
                                         
                                         Okay, sure.
                                         
    
                                         Do you have any small wonders for me to snack on over here?
                                         
                                         I was gonna say maybe for the first time ever,
                                         
                                         I have the phone number of our next door neighbor.
                                         
                                         Oh, great.
                                         
                                         I honestly don't remember how that exchange happened,
                                         
                                         but it has been tremendously useful.
                                         
                                         I say that because the other day,
                                         
                                         we got the recycling container out a little bit late.
                                         
    
                                         And I was doing that dance of like,
                                         
                                         do I keep leaving it out?
                                         
                                         Nobody else has theirs out.
                                         
                                         And so I texted our neighbor, Jill Biden,
                                         
                                         and I said, Jill, is it okay that my recycling is still out
                                         
                                         or did they already come?
                                         
                                         Right.
                                         
                                         And she was like, listen.
                                         
    
                                         They already came.
                                         
                                         And she doesn't always respond to the text.
                                         
                                         She has a little more time on her hands now.
                                         
                                         And if she does respond, she's like,
                                         
                                         Rachel, urgent message.
                                         
                                         Yeah.
                                         
                                         And then it's like a nap.
                                         
                                         And it'll be like, hey, should we take the trash out
                                         
    
                                         or bring it back up?
                                         
                                         And she'll be like, Barbara Streisand, 600% match.
                                         
                                         Text now or we're fucked.
                                         
                                         I said, that's not helpful.
                                         
                                         That's not what we asked.
                                         
                                         Yeah.
                                         
                                         I don't think Jill would swear like that.
                                         
                                         No, but every other campaign ad that I get texted does.
                                         
    
                                         My small wonder I'm gonna, is Noah Lyles,
                                         
                                         he's a runner for the US Olympic team.
                                         
                                         I don't know exactly what his jams are, running-wise.
                                         
                                         That's what they call them, right?
                                         
                                         Yeah, if it's like a long distance,
                                         
                                         I think he's like a sprinter guy.
                                         
                                         Okay.
                                         
                                         And he's going Olympics, and he's been showing up
                                         
    
                                         to his like qualifiers and stuff with Yu-Gi-Oh cards
                                         
                                         of various rarities.
                                         
                                         Has there been an interview with him?
                                         
                                         Does anyone know like what?
                                         
                                         Yes. Okay.
                                         
                                         I believe so.
                                         
                                         I just, I don't know if there's been an interview
                                         
                                         with him about it,
                                         
    
                                         but I've seen some news stories about it.
                                         
                                         But yeah, he ran this qualifier,
                                         
                                         and then he reached into like his Unitard,
                                         
                                         what's that thing called that athletes wear
                                         
                                         when they're doing athletic stuff for the Olympics?
                                         
                                         They're a little onesie.
                                         
                                         And he pulled out a blue eyes, white dragon.
                                         
                                         Singlet? A singlet, and he pulled out a blue-eyes white dragon. A singlet?
                                         
    
                                         A singlet, and he pulled out his blue-eyes white dragon,
                                         
                                         famous Yu-Gi-Oh card, and then he showed up
                                         
                                         for this promotional shoot for the US team
                                         
                                         holding a full Yu-Gi-Oh machine deck around his forearm
                                         
                                         with all the pieces of Exodia,
                                         
                                         which is a rare thing you can do in Yu-Gi-Oh.
                                         
                                         I don't know much about Yu-Gi-Oh,
                                         
                                         but I do know that I like this dude's style.
                                         
    
                                         Yeah.
                                         
                                         Is machine deck, like that's what it's called?
                                         
                                         That's like a thing?
                                         
                                         No, it's like a deck.
                                         
                                         I think it's called a deck.
                                         
                                         And it's like they wear it on their arm,
                                         
                                         and when they play their cards,
                                         
                                         they put it down on their deck.
                                         
    
                                         But then like the thing comes out.
                                         
                                         Like, so like, you know, Yu-Gi-Oh will be like,
                                         
                                         I play my blue eyes, white dragon.
                                         
                                         Boom, he slaps it down on his little forearm machine.
                                         
                                         And then what's that out there?
                                         
                                         Holy shit, it's actually a bit dragon, I guess.
                                         
                                         I've never watched Yu-Gi-Oh, aside from clips.
                                         
                                         Do you feel like you're letting everybody down?
                                         
    
                                         Yes.
                                         
                                         I feel like people will be like,
                                         
                                         well, Griffin, you know about Yu-Gi-Oh,
                                         
                                         and you would be like, sorry, guys.
                                         
                                         No, only tangentially.
                                         
                                         He's a strange friend who sometimes,
                                         
                                         when I was trying to watch Pokemon, he would be on,
                                         
                                         and he would be like,
                                         
    
                                         are you ready for me yet?
                                         
                                         And I'd be like, no, man, your shit is so intense.
                                         
                                         I don't think I'm ready for you yet.
                                         
                                         Yeah.
                                         
                                         But I'll get back to you.
                                         
                                         Who goes first this week?
                                         
                                         It's me.
                                         
                                         Let's do the dang thing.
                                         
    
                                         Okay, my topic this week is the meat cute.
                                         
                                         Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay, my topic this week is the meet cute.
                                         
                                         Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
                                         
                                         And I'm talking about M-E-E-T.
                                         
                                         No, yeah, I do like a little, little stay.
                                         
                                         A tiny little pork chop.
                                         
                                         I was curious if there was like an origin for this.
                                         
                                         This is like kind of one of the like most signature moments
                                         
    
                                         of a romantic comedy.
                                         
                                         Yes.
                                         
                                         Is when the two potential love interests meet
                                         
                                         usually in some kind of like wacky surprising way.
                                         
                                         Or cute way even.
                                         
                                         Well, it can be both.
                                         
                                         It can be both.
                                         
                                         Often it is both.
                                         
    
                                         Sometimes they hate each other's fucking guts.
                                         
                                         Like in Pride and Prejudice.
                                         
                                         It's true.
                                         
                                         I will never speak to that man.
                                         
                                         Yeah. I'll never speak to that man. Yeah.
                                         
                                         I'll never marry him, she tells her sisters.
                                         
                                         But guess what?
                                         
                                         At the end, they do always get married.
                                         
    
                                         So the earliest example in literature,
                                         
                                         and this is, when I say like earliest example,
                                         
                                         so the Oxford English Dictionary will track,
                                         
                                         you know, phrases and words like this
                                         
                                         to identify in print where it appeared.
                                         
                                         And so the mystery novel,
                                         
                                         the case of the solid key in which a character says,
                                         
                                         we met cute as they say in story conferences.
                                         
    
                                         Story conferences.
                                         
                                         Story conferences.
                                         
                                         Oh man, I bet those were lit back in, oh.
                                         
                                         That was a good joke. I didn't even mean to do just then.
                                         
                                         I would love to go to a story conference
                                         
                                         in the 17th century.
                                         
                                         And they're like.
                                         
                                         Lit, lit, it was the thing?
                                         
    
                                         Yeah.
                                         
                                         Just forget about it.
                                         
                                         Okay, so the term was already well known.
                                         
                                         In a 1996 Paris Review interview. Screenwriter Billy Wilder was referring to a 1938 screwball comedy film called Bluebeard's Eighth Wife.
                                         
                                         Sounds pretty funny, man.
                                         
                                         And I wanted to give you the plot of Bluebeard's Eighth Wife.
                                         
                                         When was this film created?
                                         
                                         1938.
                                         
    
                                         Yeah, that sounds about right. On the French Riviera, wealthy businessman Michael Brandon
                                         
                                         wants to buy pajamas, but just the tops.
                                         
                                         When the store refuses to sell the pajamas without the pants,
                                         
                                         an attractive woman named Nicole offers to buy the bottoms.
                                         
                                         I need a remake of this. I need a remake of it.
                                         
                                         I need a reboot of this franchise pronto.
                                         
                                         I need this on my desk by EOD Hollywood,
                                         
                                         please and thank you.
                                         
    
                                         Another early- Kevin James and Sigourney Weaver.
                                         
                                         Wow, interesting pair.
                                         
                                         You would pair those two up usually.
                                         
                                         But my man only has tops,
                                         
                                         but she's gonna get him with the bottoms.
                                         
                                         Okay.
                                         
                                         And her bottom game is so tight.
                                         
                                         Is this gonna be a thing we work into every episode?
                                         
    
                                         But through a series of unfortunate events,
                                         
                                         we are recording this episode one day
                                         
                                         after we recorded the last episode.
                                         
                                         So I still have that sort of-
                                         
                                         I think Rachel made the title of the last episode.
                                         
                                         My bottom game is not so tight, yeah.
                                         
                                         Something like that.
                                         
                                         All right.
                                         
    
                                         People will probably recognize that reference.
                                         
                                         Fantastic.
                                         
                                         In George Axelrod's play,
                                         
                                         Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?
                                         
                                         In 1955, a character explains,
                                         
                                         "'Dear boy, the beginning of a movie is childishly simple.
                                         
                                         "'The boy and girl meet.
                                         
                                         "'The only important thing is to remember,
                                         
    
                                         "'in a movie, the boy and girl must meet in some cute way.
                                         
                                         "'They cannot meet like normal people
                                         
                                         "'at perhaps a cocktail party.
                                         
                                         "'No, it is terribly important that they meet cute.'"
                                         
                                         That's okay.
                                         
                                         So I, of course there are endless lists
                                         
                                         about the best meet cutes in romantic comedy history.
                                         
                                         Oh man, I would love to talk about this.
                                         
    
                                         So this is the list from Buzzfeed,
                                         
                                         which I think really has cornered the market on lists.
                                         
                                         So I just went with that one.
                                         
                                         Is it ranked?
                                         
                                         It is ranked.
                                         
                                         Okay, great. Yes. Can I guess number one? Okay. Is it ranked? It is ranked.
                                         
                                         Okay, great. Yes.
                                         
                                         Can I guess number one?
                                         
    
                                         Okay.
                                         
                                         Is it When Harry Met Sally?
                                         
                                         It is. Yeah.
                                         
                                         Nice work.
                                         
                                         You cannot beat that.
                                         
                                         I mean, that is the quintessential,
                                         
                                         that is the quintessential,
                                         
                                         it's maybe the best romantic movie ever made,
                                         
    
                                         but it's like that meeting of like,
                                         
                                         we don't like each other.
                                         
                                         I'm not going to marry you.
                                         
                                         I'm never gonna marry this guy for sure.
                                         
                                         And then they keep running into each other
                                         
                                         through like surprising circumstances for years after.
                                         
                                         It's very good.
                                         
                                         Number two is a film I have not seen,
                                         
    
                                         I believe that you have though,
                                         
                                         and that is the movie Hitch from 2005?
                                         
                                         Kevin James, Sigourney Weaver, Will Smith. Will Smith, yes. No, yes, I have seen Hitch from 2005? Kevin James. Sigourney Weaver.
                                         
                                         No. Will Smith.
                                         
                                         Will Smith, yes.
                                         
                                         No, yes, I have seen Hitch.
                                         
                                         I saw Hitch in theaters.
                                         
                                         But I was in high school when Hitch came out,
                                         
    
                                         so that's okay.
                                         
                                         That's fine.
                                         
                                         Everybody makes mistakes.
                                         
                                         Everybody.
                                         
                                         It wasn't a great flick, but I don't-
                                         
                                         I think, I mean, the premise sounds fun.
                                         
                                         Will Smith is like a relationship expert
                                         
                                         who helps guys marry the attractive women in their lives.
                                         
    
                                         Yeah, no, I mean, that's Hitch, baby.
                                         
                                         Another, I mean, there's a few on here.
                                         
                                         50 first dates is number three on this list.
                                         
                                         I mean, we gotta have Celine and Jessie up in the mix,
                                         
                                         right?
                                         
                                         They gotta have Jessie and Celine up in there also.
                                         
                                         Oh, I don't know if it's in this list.
                                         
                                         It was definitely in another list.
                                         
    
                                         Oh, I think it was in Entertainment Weekly's
                                         
                                         24 best meet-cutes.
                                         
                                         This one is only 15.
                                         
                                         The fact that it doesn't crack the top three
                                         
                                         of this list is a travesty.
                                         
                                         Before Sunrise is a meet-cute.
                                         
                                         It's a motion picture length meet-cute,
                                         
                                         and the best one of all time.
                                         
    
                                         Yeah, Entertainment Weekly lists that at number 12 of 24.
                                         
                                         Okay.
                                         
                                         The wedding planner I have not seen,
                                         
                                         but apparently Jennifer Lopez's character
                                         
                                         literally gets her heel stuck in a manhole cover
                                         
                                         and Matthew McConaughey's character has to save her
                                         
                                         so she doesn't get hit by a vehicle.
                                         
                                         That's cute.
                                         
    
                                         So I thought it would be fun.
                                         
                                         If you go to screencraft.org,
                                         
                                         they give you meet cute scenarios
                                         
                                         that you can use in your story.
                                         
                                         Okay.
                                         
                                         And I thought it would be fun for me to give you
                                         
                                         a scenario and then you build a meet cute app.
                                         
                                         Yeah, absolutely, easy.
                                         
    
                                         This is what I do all day basically.
                                         
                                         This is basically my job.
                                         
                                         I thought you were going to say scenarios
                                         
                                         in which you can have your own real life meet queues.
                                         
                                         So it'd be like, just go to the deli down the street
                                         
                                         and get your heel stuck in the manhole cover
                                         
                                         and then just wait for the love of your life to appear.
                                         
                                         So this is not your problem.
                                         
    
                                         High risk, high reward, the manhole cover strategy.
                                         
                                         Just every day out there hoping.
                                         
                                         Some poor, exhausted construction worker
                                         
                                         or city utility worker just like, come on lady.
                                         
                                         Again.
                                         
                                         Again, but then what's that?
                                         
                                         They start talking.
                                         
                                         The lady in the utility worker, they start talking.
                                         
    
                                         He brings her a cup of coffee.
                                         
                                         Griffin, this is not your prompt.
                                         
                                         You're right.
                                         
                                         Don't waste all this good energy.
                                         
                                         You're right.
                                         
                                         Okay, so some of the ones on this list of 100
                                         
                                         Jesus.
                                         
                                         include like both reach for the same book on a shelf.
                                         
    
                                         Yeah.
                                         
                                         Bumping into each other while reaching for the same coffee,
                                         
                                         wanting to adopt the same dog.
                                         
                                         The one I'm going to give you is number 24,
                                         
                                         Museum, Discussing a Historical Artifact.
                                         
                                         Okay, that's cool.
                                         
                                         They are, it's Kevin James and Sigourney Burke.
                                         
                                         And Sigourney walks up and Kevin's there
                                         
    
                                         and he's like a docent for the museum.
                                         
                                         And you're probably thinking already, what a twist.
                                         
                                         I certainly would have expected of those two,
                                         
                                         Sigourney to be the, anyway, and then she's like,
                                         
                                         oh, what is this called?
                                         
                                         Or that he would be a museum security guard.
                                         
                                         Yeah, no, he's a docent. He's like smart about like old stuff.
                                         
                                         And he's like, well, this is the Ankh of...
                                         
    
                                         And of the, this is the Ankh of the Pharaoh's Ankh.
                                         
                                         The oldest Pharaoh.
                                         
                                         The Pharaoh's golden Ankh.
                                         
                                         It was recovered by which I mean stolen from a tomb
                                         
                                         many years ago and some say it has magical powers
                                         
                                         and Sigourney Weaver's like, interesting.
                                         
                                         But the whole time she is like looking at this sort
                                         
                                         of security systems around the goal.
                                         
    
                                         Oh, Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
                                         
                                         No, he's a docent.
                                         
                                         Okay.
                                         
                                         But then she tries to steal it, Mrs. Smith. No, he's a docent. Okay.
                                         
                                         But then she tries to steal it, but he is working late as a docent,
                                         
                                         a late night, overnight docent shift.
                                         
                                         Overnight docent.
                                         
                                         And he's the one-
                                         
    
                                         Security guard, the thing you're describing
                                         
                                         over and over again seems natural
                                         
                                         for him to be a security guard.
                                         
                                         I'm not finished.
                                         
                                         He's not a security guard.
                                         
                                         Okay, okay.
                                         
                                         He went to museum school for 10 years to become a security guard. I'm not finished. He's not a security guard. He went to museum school for 10 years to become a docent.
                                         
                                         It's his life's dream,
                                         
    
                                         and I will not let you take that away from him.
                                         
                                         He catches her in the middle of the night break in,
                                         
                                         she's doing the glass cutting, opens up the box,
                                         
                                         and he's like, no, stop.
                                         
                                         She grabs the ankh, he reaches out, grabs her hand.
                                         
                                         Okay.
                                         
                                         The ankh starts glowing.
                                         
                                         Ooh.
                                         
    
                                         They switch bodies.
                                         
                                         Oh, vice versa.
                                         
                                         Yes.
                                         
                                         Have you seen the film with Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage?
                                         
                                         No, but that's the body swap motion picture
                                         
                                         you wanna reference?
                                         
                                         That's the body swap motion picture you wanna reference?
                                         
                                         They like each grab like this like historical artifact
                                         
    
                                         and switch or something.
                                         
                                         It's something similar to that.
                                         
                                         Okay, that's fine.
                                         
                                         Anyway.
                                         
                                         It's, I guess then in that sense,
                                         
                                         it is more Jermaine than Freaky Friday.
                                         
                                         The sort of socially accepted body swap motion picture
                                         
                                         reference.
                                         
    
                                         They switch bodies, they fall in love with each other.
                                         
                                         In each other's bodies?
                                         
                                         Yeah, it's fucked up.
                                         
                                         You don't usually get that. Actually, there's a great anime movie called Your Name
                                         
                                         that was pretty similar in premise.
                                         
                                         That was very, very good.
                                         
                                         But yeah, Kevin James and then Sigourney Weaver,
                                         
                                         they fall in love with each other,
                                         
    
                                         swapping their bodies.
                                         
                                         Then at the end, they swap back
                                         
                                         and they fall, they're still in love.
                                         
                                         They're still in love.
                                         
                                         I love that.
                                         
                                         Thank you.
                                         
                                         Thank you.
                                         
                                         I'm tired.
                                         
    
                                         I was gonna give you more prompts,
                                         
                                         but you took a fair amount of time on that one.
                                         
                                         So I think we can call that a segment.
                                         
                                         I think we can call that a segment.
                                         
                                         That is, yes.
                                         
                                         Okay.
                                         
                                         Can I steal you away?
                                         
                                         Yes.
                                         
    
                                         Now I'm embarrassed.
                                         
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                                         best clocking Hal Upland. See I can wrestle and be an announcer.
                                         
                                         Get ready for types and fights.
                                         
                                         Listen every Saturday or face the pain.
                                         
                                         Find us some maximum fun.
                                         
    
                                         Now ring the bell.
                                         
                                         Ring, ring, ring.
                                         
                                         Hi, this is Biz.
                                         
                                         And this is the final season of One Bad Mother, a comedy podcast about parenting.
                                         
                                         This is going to be a year of celebrating all that makes this podcast and this community magical.
                                         
                                         I'm so glad that I found your podcast.
                                         
                                         I just cannot thank you enough for just being the voice of reason as I'm trying to figure all of this out. Thank you and cheers to your incredible show and the vision you had to provide this space for all of us.
                                         
                                         This is still a show about life after giving life. And yes, there will be swears.
                                         
    
                                         You can find us on MaximumFun.org. And as always, you are doing a great job.
                                         
                                         You are doing a great job.
                                         
                                         All right. Mine is going to be a surprise to you, I think,
                                         
                                         and to a lot of people.
                                         
                                         It is not something I personally subscribe to,
                                         
                                         but it is something that I am immensely interested in.
                                         
                                         That is tarot card reading.
                                         
                                         Shaking your head.
                                         
    
                                         I can't believe you're walking into this space
                                         
                                         because there are people that are very, very knowledgeable.
                                         
                                         I understand this.
                                         
                                         I understand this.
                                         
                                         And I'm going to keep it.
                                         
                                         There are people that have built
                                         
                                         a significant amount of time around interpreting this
                                         
                                         and being able to do this.
                                         
    
                                         And you're saying, I like it.
                                         
                                         And please understand.
                                         
                                         I'm not going to profess any sort of great knowledge
                                         
                                         about it, but I will say as an outside observer looking in,
                                         
                                         I always see that world, that space, that craft.
                                         
                                         And I'm like, pretty cool.
                                         
                                         We should go do this together as like a little,
                                         
                                         like a date you would see on a reality television show.
                                         
    
                                         That would be-
                                         
                                         Where we get our tarot cards read.
                                         
                                         That would be neat.
                                         
                                         As a couple, I don't know if they did that.
                                         
                                         I think that does happen in Before Sunset,
                                         
                                         or Before Sunrise, one of those before movies.
                                         
                                         Anyway, I find the whole practice of cartomancy pretty neat.
                                         
                                         I mean, you like cards.
                                         
    
                                         Yes, that's number one, absolutely I do.
                                         
                                         My exposure to this is mostly through video games,
                                         
                                         like there's the Persona series,
                                         
                                         which is probably my favorite game series ever,
                                         
                                         which includes a lot of references to modern occultism,
                                         
                                         specifically to the major and minor arcanas of the Teradek.
                                         
                                         Before we get into this, how much do you know about it?
                                         
                                         I have never had my tarot cards read.
                                         
    
                                         I don't even know if that is the right way to say it.
                                         
                                         I've never had a reading done either.
                                         
                                         No.
                                         
                                         But I have seen other people do it.
                                         
                                         Okay.
                                         
                                         I feel like I have witnessed other readings.
                                         
                                         I have also had friends talk about it in detail,
                                         
                                         but I do not know the experience personally.
                                         
    
                                         Okay, I am the same.
                                         
                                         I'm in the same boat.
                                         
                                         I feel like I had friends in college who were into that,
                                         
                                         who like had a deck.
                                         
                                         They never did one for me,
                                         
                                         but I don't know, I feel like you see it a lot in TV
                                         
                                         and cinema and especially in the late 1990s
                                         
                                         if you're watching television late at night
                                         
    
                                         and you see Miss Cleo pop up doing her thing.
                                         
                                         Oh yeah.
                                         
                                         So tarot readings are usually executed by a, executed.
                                         
                                         It's a weird way of putting it,
                                         
                                         by a sort of knowledgeable practitioner.
                                         
                                         And it requires like a lot of sort of training
                                         
                                         and practice in order to, you know,
                                         
                                         really do a good tarot card reading.
                                         
    
                                         Yeah, and I assume you have to be pretty perceptive
                                         
                                         because I think, I mean, as I understand it,
                                         
                                         like you share information that you believe
                                         
                                         is going to be relevant or useful to the person.
                                         
                                         Sure.
                                         
                                         I'm not even talking about how good you have to be
                                         
                                         at understanding a person's problems
                                         
                                         and how these cards that are landing on the table
                                         
    
                                         might have some sort of, I'm talking about the fact
                                         
                                         that there's 78 fucking cards in a tarot deck.
                                         
                                         There's 78 cards in a tarot deck.
                                         
                                         Yeah, that's a lot of cards.
                                         
                                         That's way more cards than I thought there was goingot deck. Yeah, that's a lot of cards.
                                         
                                         That's way more cards than I thought there was going to be.
                                         
                                         Yeah, you would have to know each card man.
                                         
                                         Exactly.
                                         
    
                                         Because you don't know which one's gonna pop up.
                                         
                                         And I mean, that sounds like a challenge
                                         
                                         that I could really sink my teeth into.
                                         
                                         There's also like a way to lay them down too.
                                         
                                         Yes, so there are different spreads
                                         
                                         that you can lay them down.
                                         
                                         I believe there's like a cross
                                         
                                         that you like lay them down in. So there's like the, there's a cross that you like lay them down in.
                                         
    
                                         So every card has like sort of a different meaning,
                                         
                                         which changes dramatically based on
                                         
                                         a few different variables.
                                         
                                         So of those 78 cards,
                                         
                                         there's 56 minor Arcana cards in a tarot deck,
                                         
                                         which are actually, you can think of as sort of
                                         
                                         our playing, like playing cards,
                                         
                                         like normal playing cards have 52,
                                         
    
                                         spread across four suits.
                                         
                                         This is 56 spread across four suits.
                                         
                                         There's an extra card in each suit.
                                         
                                         So there is wands, swords, cups, and coins.
                                         
                                         Those are the four suits, which are the counterparts
                                         
                                         of clubs, spades, hearts, and diamonds respectively.
                                         
                                         So these minor arcana represent sort of like
                                         
                                         the more mundane aspects of life.
                                         
    
                                         Wands represent like creativity and career ambition.
                                         
                                         And I mean, all of these represent a lot of things,
                                         
                                         but to sort of give a brief uneducated summary.
                                         
                                         Swords represents conflict.
                                         
                                         Usually cups represents
                                         
                                         like love and relationships, and coins represents
                                         
                                         like material possession.
                                         
                                         Each one of these suits has 10 numbered cards,
                                         
    
                                         like an ordinary, you know, I believe French deck
                                         
                                         of playing cards is what we all use.
                                         
                                         But then there's four face cards.
                                         
                                         There's the Jack, the Knight, the Queen, and the King.
                                         
                                         So those are the minor arcana,
                                         
                                         and those cover less groundbreaking sort of meaning.
                                         
                                         The things that sort of, I think,
                                         
                                         focus on stuff you might encounter in your day-to-day life.
                                         
    
                                         Yeah, like don't suggest huge changes
                                         
                                         to your life necessarily.
                                         
                                         Yes, then there's the 22 major arcana,
                                         
                                         which are sort of the inverse.
                                         
                                         They're the ones that like you are probably familiar
                                         
                                         with some of them, even if you are not like
                                         
                                         deep into this scene.
                                         
                                         The major arcana's, they differ depending on like
                                         
    
                                         what type of deck you use, but I am most familiar
                                         
                                         and I think probably if people are only exposed
                                         
                                         to this world through pop culture,
                                         
                                         are familiar with what's called the Rider-Waite deck,
                                         
                                         which has the Fool, the Chariot, the Tower,
                                         
                                         Wheel of Fortune, which is always fun when that pops up,
                                         
                                         Death, you know, all the classics.
                                         
                                         And major arcana cards cover bigger life topics and themes,
                                         
    
                                         a lot of which have something to do with a change,
                                         
                                         or in the inverse, a stagnation
                                         
                                         that you are sort of suffering from.
                                         
                                         All of these are often open to interpretation,
                                         
                                         depending on the question or intention
                                         
                                         that the reading is focused on. These are often open to interpretation, depending on the question or intention
                                         
                                         that the reading is focused on.
                                         
                                         And the orientation of the major arcana cards
                                         
    
                                         also have an implication on their meaning.
                                         
                                         Because you can deal a card and it will be normal,
                                         
                                         sort of right side up, or it can appear upside down.
                                         
                                         And if it's upside down,
                                         
                                         then the meaning of the card is inverted.
                                         
                                         So the hermit right side up is like a positive,
                                         
                                         like you're soul searching,
                                         
                                         you're going through a period of introspection.
                                         
    
                                         But if it is upside down, if it's inverted,
                                         
                                         it could reflect like isolation or loneliness.
                                         
                                         Do you know, you may not have learned this part,
                                         
                                         but like, does the recipient of this reading,
                                         
                                         do they like cut the cards?
                                         
                                         Do they shuffle the cards?
                                         
                                         Like- Yes, I believe the recipient of the reading
                                         
                                         is the one who shuffles all of the cards.
                                         
    
                                         Oh, okay.
                                         
                                         Cause like, if I'm gonna invest in this,
                                         
                                         I have to believe that somehow these cards have touched me
                                         
                                         so that they have some connection to me.
                                         
                                         You know? Can I just say, I think that fucking rules, baby.
                                         
                                         You're saying that like, I don't know if I'm gonna,
                                         
                                         if I believe in sort of like tarot readings,
                                         
                                         but if I were to believe, I need to touch them.
                                         
    
                                         I need to touch them so a bit of my-
                                         
                                         I mean, the idea is that the person
                                         
                                         is laying the cards out.
                                         
                                         If I never put my hands on them
                                         
                                         or involved in any shuffling or cutting or whatever,
                                         
                                         then it's more about the person reading than me.
                                         
                                         Anybody could have sat down in that chair,
                                         
                                         the cards would have been the same for them too.
                                         
    
                                         So if you got a sort of fortune telling
                                         
                                         with like a crystal ball,
                                         
                                         you would immediately slap your hands right on that.
                                         
                                         Yeah.
                                         
                                         Because if I don't touch the orb,
                                         
                                         what's the fucking point?
                                         
                                         Yeah, if I'm gonna believe that the person
                                         
                                         that is doing this reading is pulling something
                                         
    
                                         from me or about me
                                         
                                         related to my present or future.
                                         
                                         Like, I gotta get my fingerprints on that somehow.
                                         
                                         Yes.
                                         
                                         This is where we start to get into the area
                                         
                                         of showing my ass potentially, right?
                                         
                                         Because I don't think that this,
                                         
                                         that tarot readings are about telling the future.
                                         
    
                                         It's not about soothsaying.
                                         
                                         As much as it is like, I don't know,
                                         
                                         sort of helping you contextualize different events
                                         
                                         or factors in your life that you're experiencing.
                                         
                                         Certainly, I'm assuming it can be used for like,
                                         
                                         oh man, you got Wheel of Fortune face up.
                                         
                                         Get ready, baby, let's head to Vegas.
                                         
                                         But for the most part,
                                         
    
                                         my instinct just sort of based on researching it today
                                         
                                         is that it is much more about like understanding
                                         
                                         and less about like, here's what you got
                                         
                                         coming down the mystic pipe.
                                         
                                         And I think that's neat.
                                         
                                         I, again, like, this is not,
                                         
                                         I think that if I really believed in the power of this,
                                         
                                         like the occult power, if you wanna like think of it that way,
                                         
    
                                         I would have sought it out by now.
                                         
                                         But I do see like the kind of like meaning that people get out of it.
                                         
                                         Yeah.
                                         
                                         And that's very, very cool.
                                         
                                         Yeah, I mean, if you have the opportunity to sit down
                                         
                                         with a professional of any kind,
                                         
                                         it's always kind of nice to get their perspective
                                         
                                         on an issue as it relates to you,
                                         
    
                                         because it's somebody who has some kind of background,
                                         
                                         you know, like they do this a lot,
                                         
                                         they have familiarity with this,
                                         
                                         and they're telling you something
                                         
                                         that you couldn't figure out on your own.
                                         
                                         And I kind of appreciate that.
                                         
                                         I do, I would like a professional, I think.
                                         
                                         Like when you go to like a new doctor, for example,
                                         
    
                                         and they're like, tell me about you,
                                         
                                         and what does this mean, and blah, blah, blah.
                                         
                                         And then it's like, you get this new input
                                         
                                         from somebody who has some kind of background
                                         
                                         in what you're talking about.
                                         
                                         It's nice.
                                         
                                         Yeah, and that background is again,
                                         
                                         like this is a difficult thing
                                         
    
                                         because not only are there what,
                                         
                                         what did I say, 78 cards in the deck,
                                         
                                         there's different meanings depending on
                                         
                                         if they are inverted or normal
                                         
                                         and also you lay them out in a pattern.
                                         
                                         So if you lay them out in a cross,
                                         
                                         then the meaning of a card could be influenced
                                         
                                         by the card that is adjacent to it.
                                         
    
                                         So like the number of variables are so enormous
                                         
                                         and incalculable.
                                         
                                         I wonder if when the reading is done,
                                         
                                         if people ever take pictures
                                         
                                         and then they like bring it to somebody else,
                                         
                                         they're like, would you have interpreted it this way?
                                         
                                         Like this person thought this was gonna happen.
                                         
                                         Would you say?
                                         
    
                                         Almost certainly not.
                                         
                                         Almost certainly not.
                                         
                                         What would you say based on this table?
                                         
                                         I tell you my main worry.
                                         
                                         I think the reason that I haven't sought this out
                                         
                                         is not because I have some staunch belief that like,
                                         
                                         well, this isn't real.
                                         
                                         I think it's that my busted brain would try to win
                                         
    
                                         the game of tarot.
                                         
                                         There is like, these were playing cards.
                                         
                                         There's like a whole history of tarot cards
                                         
                                         that like honestly confuses the shit out of me
                                         
                                         because they were introduced as playing cards
                                         
                                         in like the 15th century.
                                         
                                         And then they threw these major arcana cards in there.
                                         
                                         And I guess that changed the game of tarot.
                                         
    
                                         And some people were like, yeah, well, this has ties to,
                                         
                                         you know, this cardamom has ties to ancient traditions,
                                         
                                         to the, you know, Kabbalah and I Ching
                                         
                                         and all of sort of that stuff.
                                         
                                         And then there's people like,
                                         
                                         no, this is a fairly new tradition.
                                         
                                         I saw that, I looked at the history of this world
                                         
                                         and I was like, I'm not going to focus on that
                                         
    
                                         because frankly, I think it would be a little bit boring
                                         
                                         but also because I'm sure I would do a very bad job of it.
                                         
                                         But as a, again, outside observer,
                                         
                                         there is so much about the concept
                                         
                                         and the frankly, the aesthetics.
                                         
                                         I get served ads sometimes.
                                         
                                         This bit was inspired by, I got served an ad
                                         
                                         for this upscale tarot deck that looked so fucking cool.
                                         
    
                                         They have cool art on them and shit.
                                         
                                         That I was like, I have always thought
                                         
                                         that was so interesting and I've always been
                                         
                                         so fascinated by it, even if I haven't dipped into it.
                                         
                                         And I don't usually do topics like that on this show
                                         
                                         because I try to, I think, talk about things
                                         
                                         that I'm like deeply familiar with.
                                         
                                         But as I like on a whim was like,
                                         
    
                                         I'm gonna look into some of this stuff,
                                         
                                         I started to realize like,
                                         
                                         mostly through my exposure to video games,
                                         
                                         like, oh, okay, a lot of this is kind of familiar.
                                         
                                         Did you make the connection in your head
                                         
                                         to like role-playing games like D&D?
                                         
                                         Um...
                                         
                                         Because there is something about the randomness of the card
                                         
    
                                         and the way that changes the story
                                         
                                         and how it's communicated that feels very similar.
                                         
                                         Let's get even deeper. I'm gonna take this one layer deeper.
                                         
                                         We just finished our season of Taz called Taz versus Dracula,
                                         
                                         which was inspired by a big campaign module for D&D called the Curse of Strahd,
                                         
                                         which is a fantasy take on let's hunt down and kill Dracula.
                                         
                                         I thought that was cool. I didn't want to do it straight up, but I was very, very interested in that. It has a whole system where entire branches of the story,
                                         
                                         entire arcs are determined by a Taroka deck
                                         
    
                                         that you do actual readings with to determine
                                         
                                         where they can find the weapon that can kill Dracula.
                                         
                                         So yes, is the long, long answer to your question.
                                         
                                         Yeah, I just, I think you would potentially be
                                         
                                         a very good tarot card reader is what I'm saying.
                                         
                                         I don't think I would be, I think I would be in the way.
                                         
                                         I think you are good at taking like concepts and ideas
                                         
                                         and like weaving as evidenced by your Kevin James
                                         
    
                                         Gourney Weaver movie.
                                         
                                         But that is different, right?
                                         
                                         There is a, I appreciate you saying that.
                                         
                                         I feel like there is a level of intuition
                                         
                                         and perception about a person
                                         
                                         and a sort of connecting of the dots of the events
                                         
                                         that they have told you and the things that are being revealed to you
                                         
                                         that I do not think I am or would ever be good at.
                                         
    
                                         See, I think I might be good at that part.
                                         
                                         So maybe we should be a team.
                                         
                                         The first ever husband and wife,
                                         
                                         this is again, my ass has fallen out of my pants
                                         
                                         and it's showing to everyone.
                                         
                                         Probably not the first ever.
                                         
                                         Probably not the first ever married couple tarot readers.
                                         
                                         But there is, I mean, there's probably a lot of money
                                         
    
                                         in that world for us.
                                         
                                         That's tarot.
                                         
                                         Hey, I got some small wonders from our friends at home,
                                         
                                         if I may share those.
                                         
                                         The first one is from Iz, who says,
                                         
                                         "'My small wonder is root stairs.
                                         
                                         "'When hiking up or down a hill in the forest,
                                         
                                         "'the roots of large trees can grow across the trail
                                         
    
                                         and form root stairs.
                                         
                                         It makes me feel like some sort of magical forest elf
                                         
                                         when I walk up or down them.
                                         
                                         Oh, that's cool.
                                         
                                         Is included a little picture of root stairs
                                         
                                         with the little meme guys saying
                                         
                                         when the trail got root stairs,
                                         
                                         that I do like a lot.
                                         
    
                                         I love that.
                                         
                                         JJ says, my small wonder is the new robot litter box my roommate and I just that.
                                         
                                         JJ says, my small wonder is the new robot litter box
                                         
                                         my roommate and I just got.
                                         
                                         Nothing funnier than receiving a notification
                                         
                                         in the middle of the work day
                                         
                                         that one of our cats has just taken a dump.
                                         
                                         I think, is this the one that Justin has?
                                         
    
                                         Justin has one of these products in it.
                                         
                                         Where you can like track the like, yeah, the waste.
                                         
                                         I don't know how much it's changed the workflow over there,
                                         
                                         but I will say that as somebody who stays in their basement
                                         
                                         where the cats usually roam,
                                         
                                         it is a much more pleasant sensory experience
                                         
                                         to have this tiny little discreet cybernetic helper
                                         
                                         in this field.
                                         
    
                                         That's it.
                                         
                                         Thank you so much to Bowen and Augustus
                                         
                                         for the use of our theme song, Money Won't Pay.
                                         
                                         Find a link to that in the episode description.
                                         
                                         And thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network.
                                         
                                         Go to maximumfun.org, check out all the great shows
                                         
                                         that they have over there.
                                         
                                         We got some new merch over at macquariemurch.com
                                         
    
                                         that you can go check out,
                                         
                                         especially once August rolls around,
                                         
                                         which I believe it has by the time this episode goes up.
                                         
                                         If you're listening to this on release day and you want to come to Gen Con, me and Travis and Dad are going to be there.
                                         
                                         We're going to be doing some signings and photos and a couple panels.
                                         
                                         And then we have live shows coming up all across the country.
                                         
                                         If you go to bit.ly slash McRoy Tours, you can find links for where you can get tickets and more information, see if we're coming near to you.
                                         
                                         I think that's it.
                                         
    
                                         Let's get the hell out of here, man.
                                         
                                         Let's get on my recumbent bike
                                         
                                         and just fucking ride, babe.
                                         
                                         Never look back.
                                         
                                         Our kids will be pretty bummed.
                                         
                                         And so will we pretty fast.
                                         
                                         I'm having a hard time visualizing how we would take off
                                         
                                         in a recumbent exercise bike.
                                         
    
                                         Yeah, it'll take a while.
                                         
                                         We'll both need to take turns pedaling.
                                         
                                         Okay.
                                         
                                         Eventually the fan inside will,
                                         
                                         no wait, this one's magnet powered.
                                         
                                         We're not going anywhere on this thing.
                                         
                                         Roller skates it is. inside will, no wait, this one's magnet powered. We're not going anywhere on this thing. Mm-hmm.
                                         
                                         Roller skates it is. Yeah.
                                         
    
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                                         Work it on
                                         
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