Wonderful! - Wonderful! 364: Podcastin' Joe and his Grandson Tyler

Episode Date: February 26, 2025

Rachel's favorite words of affection sometimes from a dog! Griffin's favorite cousin-spiting artist!Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoyaWorld Central Kitchen: https://wck.org/

Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hi, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is Wonderful. Welcome to Wonderful. This is a podcast where we talk about things we like that is good that we are into. It is the number one podcast. For a husband and wife that talk about things

that they like. No, it's just the number one podcast. Wow. Yeah, we got up over all the big dogs. Joe fucking. Oh, okay. Can you believe that it took me a second to be like, what Joe could he be talking about? What podcast?

I'm talking about podcasting Joe. Podcasting Joe is an old man and. Wow, usually old people don't know what podcasts are. Well, his grandson set it up for him. Oh, see that does sound't know what podcasts are. Well, his grandson set it up for him. Oh, see, that does sound fun, actually. It's cool. His grandson, Tyler, comes on every episode and teaches podcast and Joe about the modern world.

You are joking, but you're such a McElroy that you can't help but come up with a new podcast idea that actually sounds viable to me. Yeah, no, I mean, I shit those things out, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I shit at every meal, a new podcast idea. I would believe it if you said it was true. Yeah, no, I mean, podcasting Joe's got legs.

I think we could fully develop that. The great thing about podcasting Joe is the guy doesn't have to be named Joe and he doesn't have to have a grandson named Tyler, right? Yeah, but he does. It's important, he's real. I'm saying if we want to franchise this. Podcasting Greg.

Oh, you're right. It has to be Joe. It's gotta be podcasting Joe. I also love someone becoming the most famous podcasting Joe. And I think that when you get your brand out there in this way, I think it could, do you have any small wonders? I am gonna say the fact that we have hot sauce

in our house. So much hot sauce in our house. You recently did a little project. No spoilers. No spoilers. And it involved you purchasing a variety of hot sauces, which is not something we normally do because of, you know, your tum tum. And it's just, I honestly haven't even really used them,

but I'm just kind of thrilled by the idea that they are available to me. Yeah. I just used the garlic parmesan one. When we partnered up with Roll for Sandwich for that whole series, he sent a sampler pack of great sauces and got me real into it. Melinda's, I think is the name of the brand.

Yeah. And man, it slaps. They have this parmesan garlic hot sauce that man, really, really hits, really slaps. Great on pizza crust. I'm gonna say, you know, I have been doodling around on the old iPad. I've talked about this before.

What do I wanna say? Do you wanna talk about hummus? Yeah, I mean, hummus is dope. We were talking last night, we were both eating hummus and it was one of those times and I feel like it's happened before with hummus where we just looked at each other and I was like, God, hummus is so fricking good.

But we also stopped eating hummus for a long, for a while. We kind of forgot about hummus in a way. Yeah. Because I think what inevitably would happen is we would buy a container that was too large and we would never finish it. And it started to feel like, why are we doing this? I mean, if I ever order from, you know,

a Mediterranean restaurant, I'm getting hummus. But it's not something that we kept around the house like we used to, we used to be fucking Sabra freaks. And then we took a break, but last night. I always liked it just, I don't want people to think that I think Sabra is my number one hummus. No, no. I like Grandma's hummus, which you could get in Austin. I don't know if it exists nationally.

Yeah. And also Caesar's is good too. Yeah, or Kirkland. Not above it, not above it. Not above it, not better than it. I love this creamy stuff. You go first this week. What do you wanna talk about today, my love?

My wonderful thing this week is love letters. Love letters. Yeah. I love these things. I don't have really anything to add about love letters. I was thinking about it because as you know, my love language is words of affirmation. No, words of affirmation. And the thing I like about a love letter

is you can return to it. Griffin and I have some lengthy correspondence from when our relationship started. Yeah. And, you know, obviously once you moved to Austin and we became an item, we didn't. I don't like putting labels on it. Oh yeah, okay.

Yeah. Let's keep things loose. It's just like, it's easier I think, if we just keep it loose. No, you're right, you're right. We stopped emailing as much, obviously, when we saw each other every day all the time. But occasionally, we will write a little nice note

to the other one. And like when Griffin is traveling, or when I'm feeling like I need a hit of the olden days, I can return to that love letter. I love love letters in the context of, check out these love letters that my grandma and grandpa exchanged during the big war.

Those always hit so good, because they're rarely that floral, and it's like, I miss your pies, and the sound of- You are in luck, sir. Shit, yeah. Because I pulled some love letters to share with you. Fuck yeah, you got any John Adams in there? John and Abigail getting hot and heavy?

I didn't do John and Abigail because I wanted to keep the letters like bite size. Yeah. You know, like obvious, a lot of these, I'm not reading the entire letter, I'm just reading the chunk. John and Abigail, like man, there's a lot of context. And a lot of these, I'm not reading the entire letter, I'm just reading the chunk. John and Abigail, like, man, there's a lot of context. There's a lot of-

And a lot of really explicit language in there. But when he's like, Saltpeter, John, and she's like, Pins, Abigail, it's like, you know what they're really talking about. Yeah. Gosh, now I'm really replaying that song in my head to see if the whole thing is just littered with innuendo. Innuendo, yeah.

I don't think it is though. Okay, first one, Mark Twain. Oh, that's not surprising at all. And I bet in addition to probably being mad horny, they were like, kind of like sardonic and dry and funny and witty. You know what's hilarious? Mark Twain obviously famous for like his river connection.

Sure, sure. There is a lot of water imagery in this chunk. Well, he likes to keep it wet. This is a letter in 1869. Nice. That he, I guess. That was not intentional. You're telling me that you didn't choose this for this.

I didn't. I love that, baby. There's a purity of spirit. Do you think you will get to an age where you can't? Never. Never. I'm just thinking, like, let's say you're giving a toast. Like one of our son chooses one day to have a ceremony

expressing his love to whoever he chooses to spend the rest of his life with. Yeah. And somebody says like, okay, the total on the bill for the venue is. $69,420. And then it's like. And then you'll just.

I won't know which one of those to really chuckle at. But I will give it a chuckle for sure. Okay, Mark Twain, this is a letter he wrote in the year that I said earlier to an American writer named Olivia Langdon who would become his wife. Great. Out of the depths of my happy heart

wells a great tide of love and prayer for this priceless treasure that is confided to my lifelong keeping. You cannot see its intangible waves as they flow towards you, darling, but in these lines you will hear, as it were, the distant beating of the surf. How tight must it be to be like,

oh, you like Twain's stuff? I have my own bespoke- I know! Mash note that Twain wrote for me only. I will say all three of the ones I chose are like professional writers. You can find a bunch of like, you know, non-writers. Do you worry that this is gonna establish too high a bar

for our listeners to ever become interested in doing their own love letter writing because they'll be like, well, I can't obviously conjure up anything as wild as what Twain just said. We probably won't get to it, but there is actually a New York Times article from 2017 called How to Write a Love Letter.

It gets very specific on like, these are the kind of topics and the kind of way you should talk about them if you feel so inclined. Okay, the next one, I'm gonna keep these kind of short. This is January 1926. This is Vita Sackville West to Virginia Woolf. Okay, I don't know who that first person is.

I mean, this is somebody who was in a relationship with Virginia Woolf. Okay, I don't know who that first person is. I mean, this is somebody who was in a relationship with Virginia Woolf at one time. I don't have a lot of details on that. The letter to Virginia Woolf says, I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia. I composed a beautiful letter to you in those sleepless nightmare hours of the night and it has all gone.

I just miss you in a quite simple, desperate human way. You, with all your undumb letters, would never write so elementary a phrase as that. Perhaps you wouldn't even feel it, and yet I believe you'll be sensible of a little gap. But you'd clothe it in so exquisite a phrase that it would lose a little of its reality. Whereas with me, it is quite stark. I miss you even more than I could have believed and I was prepared to miss you a good deal. That's fucking great, man. Isn't that, that's not even a whole thing.

Jesus Christ. It goes on. I just, I wanna be thoughtful of our time on this podcast, but I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia first. Amazing, amazing. That's really, really spectacular stuff. Anyway, and then the last one I wanted to share is from E.B. White, who is the writer of Charlotte's Web

to his wife. Sorry? To his wife. It sounded like you were taking a half-hearted run up to a Borat. You're really trying to pull me into your world with these references. Babe, we pull each other into each other's world.

We provide for each other a sense of equilibrium. Well, I'm saying this is my segment, my world, my rules. Your. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. Gimme, gimme, please, I've been so good. I know, you know how I am. I've been so good, please, baby, come on.

The more I'm very much like our youngest son in that the more that you want something from me, the less I want to give it to you. Okay. Okay, this last letter, E.B. White, written in 1930, by their dog. So when White's wife was pregnant, overwhelming emotions ran rampant through his mind

and it appears he couldn't quite express all the love he had for her in a way he'd prefer. So to tell her how amazing he thinks she is, he wrote from the perspective of their dog. Now I will say this. It kinda seems like maybe E.B. White was a bit of a one trick pony because Charlotte's work was also written from the perspective of animals.

This is my sweet spot. Yeah. Okay, this is my sweet spot. Yeah. Okay, this is very cute though. Dear Mrs. White, White has been stewing around for two days now, a little bit worried because he is not sure that he has made you realize how glad he is that there is to be what the column writer in the mirror calls a blessed event.

So I am taking this opportunity, Mrs. White, to help him out to the extent of writing you a brief note which I haven't done in quite a long time but have been a little sick myself as you know. Well the truth is White is besides himself and would have said more about it but is holding himself back not wanting to appear ludicrous to a veteran mother. What he feels he told me is a strange, queer, tight, little twitchy feeling around the inside of his throat whenever he thinks that something is happening which will require so much love and all on account of you being so wonderful. Well, Mrs. White, I expect I am tiring you with this long letter, but as you often say

yourself, a husband and wife should tell each other about the things that are on their mind, otherwise you get nowhere. And White didn't seem to be able to tell you about say yourself, a husband and wife should tell each other about the things that are on their mind, otherwise you get nowhere. And White didn't seem to be able to tell you about his happiness, so thought I would attempt to put in a word. White is getting me a new blanket as the cushion in the bathroom is soiled. Lovingly Daisy. That's very, very, very cute. So charming. It's very, very, very cute. So charming.

It's very charming. It would be confusing if for a moment you thought like, wow, I have the world's only writing dog. This is a remarkable, you would show E.B. White like, babe, you're not gonna fucking believe this. That is kind of a cute way to follow up that letter. Yeah, yeah. I just like, I like those three examples

because they're all very like, representational of the writer and like the relationship and clever and unique and love letters are just like, they're just the best. Yeah, they are really nice. I like them as, especially as sort of historical kind of artifacts, I think. Yeah.

There's a lot of really, I forget what museum I was at, but they had like a whole exhibit on love letters. Maybe it was Abe Lincoln, it was at the Abe Lincoln Museum perhaps, some bars he dropped on Mary. I don't know, anyway. I think it's like a lovely way of capturing how people thought about romance,

like romance is a subject that they usually, I think would not be so forthcoming talking about. Maybe one day our emails will end up in a museum because they'll have been leaked by some sort of deep web. There's one from you that I really like when you were filming the My Brother, My Brother, Me TV show

and we were apart for a very long time. Yeah. That I returned to sometimes, it's very sweet. Wow, I'm glad to hear that. Can I steal you away? Yes. ["Sweet Home Alone"] My topic this week was inspired by,

this is just a big thanks to listener Justin McRoy for their submission. Justin sent me and dad and Travis a TikTok of a young man beatboxing. And I was like, what's this gonna be? And then I watched it. I'm just like fuck. This is like gotta be like the third or fourth time he is inspired.

If not more, he's a man with his finger on a bunch of weird, different pulses. And today's pulse is beatboxing, a South Korean beatboxer named Wing, who has just released a new single titled Dopamine. I am not so active in the beatboxing scene these days. Yeah, I understand.

It's hard to keep up with all the new techniques, all these young guns getting out and they can like vibrate their lips in ways where you're like, that's not possible. So I've been out of the scene for maybe three or four years. Well, and it's like a dancer, right? Like there are certain builds and traits that make you, you know, it comes to you more easily, let's say.

My glottis never just- That's the thing. My glottis never descended. I have an undescended glottis, and so I can't do a lot of the tricks, honestly. I am not in the scene, but I have always, I feel like, found very enjoyable videos of people beatboxing at a very high level.

I get some stuff slipped into my algo from time to time, probably from the music theory stuff that I watch sometimes of just like beatboxing influencers doing their thing. Yeah. And it's funny, after I watched this video that Justin sent, I then started to see a lot of TikToks of those same beatboxers reacting to this video in just pure amazement. I like seeing really high level beatboxing,

and this is about the highest level I believe I have ever watched. I'm gonna play a little bit of dopamine now. I want to encourage our listeners to bear in mind that all the sounds that they are about to hear are being produced by one guy's mouth in front of a microphone. No editing or anything at all, just a dude at a mic. Just letting it fucking rip. This is dopamine Those Those, those react videos. First of all, I encourage you to go watch this video of Dopamine. It's, it's, it's fucking wild.

Uh, but I also encourage you to watch these react videos because it's, it's people acting like it's just kind of the second coming of, of, of beatboxing Christ. I, here was the thing. So you sent me that video and at first it's just kind of the second coming of Beatboxing Christ. Here was the thing. So you sent me that video. And at first it's like, oh, this is Beatboxing as I expect it to be. And then when it got super like complex,

I thought for sure there was a track that he was- No, that's just him. Performing over. No, yeah. I thought like, oh, he like hit play on a tape and now the tape is coming in. Yeah, my level of like being amazed by beatboxing is like if you can make a drum sound

and a harmonic sound at the same time, that's fucking crazy. But that's like 101 stuff from what I can tell. This takes it to a level that is beyond my understanding and frankly beyond the understanding of a lot of these beatbox influences who are like, I don't know how he made that noise and I don't know how his flow is clean enough to eat off of.

It is insane. I was struck by like, sometimes you watch videos of like really good beatboxers and you can like occasionally tell where they're sneaking a breath in, right? There's like a cyclical breathing thing. There's techniques, there's sounds that you make that you make sort of inwards. I couldn't clock it because it's so like on beat.

It's so on beat with no breaks whatsoever. Yeah. It's truly, truly astonishing stuff. Wing is the stage name of a South Korean musician named Gun-ho Kim, whose original stage name was WG for white glasses, because I guess he used to wear white glasses as sort of his trademark thing because I guess he used to wear white glasses as sort of his trademark thing.

And as he started to kind of get bigger, he wanted something monosyllabic to be his name. So he changed W.G. to Wing. I couldn't find a ton of information on him, partially because of the subpar nature of search engines piercing through the language barrier. True. But I did find out that he kind of made his big break

in 2017 when he won the Korea Beatbox Championship, which is like the national tournament in Seoul. It is a very active scene in South Korea. And after winning that, he started competing and like almost always podiuming in beatboxing competitions across Asia and globally and on like online contests when COVID was kind of shutting things down.

So he has really, really made a name for himself since 2017. I found one interview with a website called Human Beatbox, the only interview from Wing that I could find. And he said this of his origins with the art of beatboxing. He said, at first I saw my cousin beatboxing and simply thought it was cool. So I asked him to teach me, but he refused.

Furious, I started to practice beatbox just so that I would beat him. That's really, really good stuff. Real Michael Jordan story right there. It's really good stuff. You don't hear a lot of success stories of artists who learned their craft in order to spite their cousin, but it has definitely worked for Wing,

as far as I can tell. I believe he's only got one EP out, one three song EP, and then a bunch of different singles, of which Dope Mean is the newest. I don't know how standard it is for Beatboxers to release albums. Yeah, the visual component is so compelling, you know? Like obviously the music is awesome

and I enjoyed listening to it, but I feel like you're missing a lot if you're not watching it. Yes, at least for a solo beatboxer. He is part of a few different groups. He is part of a collective called Too Young to Die that does have some music out and a tag team duo, which I guess is like a format of beatbox competitions called Jackpot,

which also has some albums out. So maybe it's like in a group of people, you don't necessarily need that element of watching the person doing it, but it's, I've watched this video, listened to it a bunch of times. The comment I always see, other than like, holy shit, is like, this sounds like John Wick, like walking into the club, which I feel like is very apt.

It's a song called Dopamine, he's got some other tracks on YouTube, and I found some on Spotify, they're all really incredible. I've never, Henry used to watch these beatbox battle like videos a lot. And most of the time it was like these two video game characters having a fictional beep up. But like the person who did it was like really good.

I was like, wow, that's really good beatboxing. And then I haven't really, again, I've been out of the scene for a while. But this is truly, truly like biologically impossible sounding stuff. And I'm just obsessed with it. Do you wanna know what our friends at home have been talking about lately?

Yes. Chelsea says, my small wonder is seeing hawks or falcons perched on road signs. It's like they're the guard of the sign telling you what's up and where to go. I'll take this one step further. I feel like anytime you see a hawk or a falcon, it's like really cool.

I wonder if this listener, did they give their location? I don't know why they would. We don't ask for anything like that. No. I just think like if this listener is in an area that has so many hawks and falcons, that seeing one isn't as thrilling, but seeing one landed on a sign.

Because yeah, for you and me, just seeing one is incredible. Seeing a hawk is so cool. Yeah, it does not happen a lot. Feels like seeing a dinosaur, kind of. Like, you're seeing a mountain lion or something, where you're like, holy shit, what are you doing here, fella? There's no carrying around. Have you seen a mountain lion or something where you're like, holy shit, that's what are you doing here, fella?

There's no carrying around. Have you seen a mountain lion? No. At the zoo. Yeah, the zoo. This one's a long one. Andrew says, hey guys, just listened to the newest Wonderful and I am so excited to say that my small slash big wonder

is teaching people about birds. A good beginner app you guys are looking for is called Merlin. Like some kind of avian wizard, it will help you identify birds either by picture description or can even listen to the world around you and tell you which birds you're currently hearing. You can then log these birds into a list

that keeps growing called a life list. Bird watching combines many small wonders of mind like the birds themselves, light hikes, collecting things in lists. A bunch of listeners sent us this specific app. Eye Naturalist is another thing. I remember, because geology professors were telling me about this when I was at the community college in Austin,

where it's like you and the world can go on and contribute just things you see out in nature. Yes, I believe that is an element of Merlin as well. Citizen science. Yeah, exactly, that's what it is. I can't remember. Yeah, very, very cool. I mean, I'll probably get that.

I learned very recently that I also enjoy hiking. So maybe this is a new life direction for me. Whoa, so many evolutions of Griffin. I know. It's exciting to be your partner. It's exciting to be your partner. It's exciting to be your partner. Oh, thanks. Thank you so much for listening.

Thanks to Bowen and Augustus for the use of our theme song, Money Won't Pay. You can find a link to that one in the episode description. And thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network. We are pleased as punch to be a part of the network and hope that you will go to MaximumFun.org, check out some of the great shows they got waiting for you there. We have announced some new shows for the 20th Underdrive Tour. We're coming to Richmond, Virginia, Charlotte, North Carolina, Raleigh, North Carolina, Grand Rapids, Michigan,

Minneapolis, Minnesota, Columbus, Ohio, coming your way with a mix of MbemBem's and Taz's over the next four months or so. So we hope that you will come see us. Go to bit.ly slash McElroy Tours for more information and ticket links. All those Taz shows are gonna be Taz versus, we did Taz versus Romeo versus Juliet at the Tampa live show and it was a fucking blast.

So if you live anywhere close by, come see us. I always feel the need every once in a while to make clear to our listeners that when you say we, you are talking about you and your brothers. Yeah, it's not wonderful. Not the two of us. Sometimes we do open. Sometimes, yeah.

But only when we are traveling together, which is probably more common in the summertime months. Yes. So yeah, come see us and come see me and my brothers and my daddy. Is that better? Yeah, thank you. Please always do that.

And until next time, signing off for me and my wife. Oh, you couldn't let the episode go without one. I feel like I had a ball of muscle in my chest that just released. No, that's not healthy. No, I know, you're not supposed to keep that backed up. For me and my wife. See, we suspended, it has to be organic. Anyway, check you next time, bye.

Bye. to be organic. Anyway, we'll check you next time. Bye! Work it on, money on Work it on, money on Work it on, money on