Wonderful! - Wonderful! 64: 100% Gamer Energy

Episode Date: December 19, 2018

Rachel's favorite word fusions! Griffin's favorite final holiday! Rachel's favorite sometimes convenient gift! Griffin's favorite sing-speaky band! Music: "Money Won't Pay" by bo en and Augustus - https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

🎵 Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hey, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is Wonderful. Let's fuckin' burn it down! Okie doke. Let's burn it down! Let's do it. 2018.'s fucking burn it down. Okie doke. Let's burn it down. Let's do it.

2018. Time to burn it down. Cut the finish line with your scissors as you run right through it. 2018. Looks like we made it. This is a strange amount of energy to bring to our podcast about wonderful things. Yeah, I just finished recording four hours of another podcast in a row. I don't know if we've announced it yet, but my body is half podcast now. My blood podcast content, I'm blowing a.5, and it's pretty rough out here for a podcaster.

And so I apologize if the tone won't... You know how when I talk about Master Chief and Halo and... Oh, okay, it's the video game podcast. It is besties. When I talk about Master Chief, I get down here. I get down here because I'm so psyched about shooting aliens. Well, and that's your dude podcast with your dude energy. Yeah, it's a lot of dude gamer energy.

But when we do our... I'm asking you to bring your husband energy. Well, flip side, you could bring your gamer energy, which I would love to hear that. Oh, yeah? Yeah. So talk about Call of Duty for me. But use your gamer voice, please, for me now. Call of Duty is a game where you shoot.

I don't know why. It's like Bob Dylan a little bit. Call of Duty. Modern Warfare. The times, they are changing. That's a really bad Bob Dylan a little bit. Call of Duty. Modern Warfare. The times they are changing. That's a really bad Bob Dylan, huh? Uh-huh. It's not very good, huh?

Yeah. This is wonderful. It's the other podcast that is not games, except for the times where I do talk about games, and I apologize for that every time I do it. This is not the venue for it. Hey, you don't have to apologize for what you like, Griffin. Okay, because my first Small Wonder is the Kingdom Hearts series.

It's a weird one, huh? The next one's coming out next month, and I didn't think I was going to get excited for it. You know, you had described this to me, but I didn't really understand it, I don't think, until I saw a little YouTube footage. Yeah, so we've run out of Mickey Mickey based content for our son to consume. Our son very much enjoys the mouse's work. And we have watched every episode of the clubhouse and all that stuff. And so I dipped into, you know, Kingdom Hearts footage because Kingdom Hearts 3 comes out next month.

I forgot about this. The last Kingdom Hearts game came out in 2005. It's been 13 years. So I was, what, 17, 18 years old when the last game came out that's buck wild to me so i didn't think i was gonna get excited for it because it's uh it's a it's a very weird game that mixes japanese role-playing games and disney but uh here here i am here i am getting getting psyched again this one's got um tangled in it it's got tangled in it there's a frozen world i can't you know like i don't know if you're making a joke right not

no these are there's a toy story world how excited are you about that that'll be cool okay how do how is this licensed exactly uh disney's like deep in it's a disney product i mean it's a square enix product um They are the makers of Final Fantasy and such. And so there's Final Fantasy characters up in it too, but then there's also Woody and Buzz. It's never not weird. Mickey takes on a sort of pivotal role. And so you see these like shadowy embodiments

of evil and darkness, literally putting Mickey Mouse in a chokehold in battle. It's like, it's so good. It's so weird and so good. Do you have any small wonders, though? I do, actually, and this is not something for everyone's taste, but I have been listening to a podcast called The Teacher's Pet. Oh, yeah.

And I have not been following any of the real-life news story related to it, so I'm just kind of experiencing the true crime story as it happens on the podcast. And I am deep in it. It's a good one. It's a good one of the true crime ones. Yeah, I would recommend it. You know, I really don't have much of a taste for true crime.

Yeah, see, and I know that. And I know a lot of people don't. And typically it's not something I seek out, but I was just, you know, I was looking for something that was real life, real stories, true stories even. I love that the podcasts you're listening to right now are the True Crime Teacher's Pet and also Stop Podcasting Yourself. I know. It's a yin and yang. The last episode that they did that we were listening to in our car ride yesterday was very, very good.

That's another small wonder. See, I'm telling you. Yeah. It's a good way to spend some time. It's a great show. So you actually go first this week. Ooh. Yeah.

Do you know what your first thing is? I mean, you should know. It's your brain. Yes. My first thing, portmanteaus. Portmanteaus. Yeah. That's a good one.

Love to love them, love to hate them. Yeah. I feel like they get wrapped up in puns a little bit and just in the category of things that people say they don't like but actually kind of do. I actually think I weirdly like puns more than I like portmanteaus. And it might just be because Travis tries to make so many of them happen on our other podcasts. I know. A bad portmanteau can really derail a podcast is what I'll say. And sometimes I edit them out. I've got a secret treasure trove on my computer of portmanteaus can really derail a podcast, is what I'll say. And sometimes I edit them out.

I've got a secret treasure trove on my computer of portmanteaus I've removed from our podcast. So portmanteaus are words which combine the sounds and meanings of two words. A portmanteau itself is a combination of two French words, porter and manteau, which means to carry and cloak, respectively. Did you know that? No, I didn't, although that's really recursive and amazing, but I don't know why carry and cloak are the two words that were combined. I wonder if that was the first portmanteau, and they were like, well, this is just called this.

I guess I always like, you're carrying two words together and throwing one cloak over them. It's a little cloaked by the new construction. Yeah, for sure. I don't know. That's kind of a poetic interpretation. Well, that's you all over. That's me. So there are lots of portmanteaus that I don't know if you even realize are portmanteaus.

Yeah, I feel like this next segment is going to melt my so i'm gonna go ahead and get it's already pretty melted after talking about master chief and his friends for four fucking hours but let's have them velcro velcro yeah can i uh is it is are the root words of those english or are they like latin c'est francais c'est francais uh then i don't know C'est Francais. C'est Francais. Then I don't know. Velours and Croche. Is Velcro a French?

It means like hooked velvet, you know, crochet. Yeah, sure, sure, sure. But is this a French invention, the Velcro? Yeah, so the guy, George de Mestral, and there's probably a Frencher way to say that, invented Velcro in 1948. Wow. Okay.

Yeah. Didn't know that. Did you think it was American? No, I just like... Just in your pride for our country and our industrious history? I didn't just assume it was American. I was just... I don't know, man. I'm so tired.

What else is on there? Smog. Smog? Do you think about there? Smog. Smog? Do you think about it? Fog and smoke? Yeah. Okay. All right.

Dr. Henry DeVoe in 1905 used that word to distinguish the difference between real fog and the dangerous smoke fog emitted by coal factories in London. Yeah. Is it smoke fog or isn't that just kind of smoke? I don't think of smog as smoke i think of it as just kind of like nasty nasty stuff which i guess is just smoke and fog um i told you i was not i was going to be non-functional during this segment uh so this next one is not going to surprise you you've probably heard of brunch

yeah but here's the thing that i thought was interesting there's actually like an origin story for the word brunch which i mean i guess isn't hugely surprising but sometimes you just don't think like to me this has always existed yeah but like a bunch of 1800s millennials were having mimosas at 11 a.m and they're, we should call this something. There was an English columnist who wrote a piece titled Brunch, a plea, which asked for a midday meal on Sundays, which he said would make the lives of Saturday night carousers much easier

because it gives them enough time to rest and sleep. Yes. Rather than to be forced to wake up early just to eat breakfast. When was this? I don't have a year on this. Okay.

I love it because this is what it is this is what it is that's exactly what it's for brunch i don't brunch anymore but then again i don't really party on the weekends anymore but you can still have brunch because i guess you know this this is a free world with free will the problem is if i have brunch i most of the time sleep through dinner so it's really just a. Brunch really knocks me the fuck out, especially if I have a mimosa with it. Like if I do a heavy one, like the chilaquiles or what is the breakfast?

Huevos rancheros. Like if I do those, like that's obviously I'm on the ground. Like a biscuits and gravy. The biscuits and gravy, I'm done. But also sweet ones, like a big stack of pancakes or some fancy French toast, that also kills me. So I can't eat any of it.

And if I have a mimosa with it, fucking forget about it. Now it is tomorrow. I leave the restaurant and it's tomorrow. Other words that you would be familiar with but were less interesting to me, things like sporks, for example. Chortle is from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. It's assumed that it was made from a blend of chuckle and snort. All right. So this is all from Oxford English Dictionary where I saw a lot of these.

They say that bash could be was made from a blend of bang and smash. Smash. Which we know as smang from the turquoise jeep song i've got thought of the turquoise jeep song let me smang it girl smash it then bang it in maybe three years so thank you for taking me back so he could have just said bash let me bash bat smash it no it doesn't work it's not as good uh what is it you like about portmanteaus i like i mean i like the uh concision of it you know you're saving yourself a little time yes um i like the kind of the fun construction i tell you what i like about a portmanteau is that it's almost like a battlefield it's almost like um

there's almost constantly like a, a, some combat, mortal combat going on with people who try to create portmanteaus because I don't, has a new one come up that I feel like the last really good one was frenemy. And then like did that. And that was a long time ago. And nobody's come up with a good one since frenemy, but there's a lot of people who try, there's a lot of people like my middle brother, who I love very much who are like, Ooh, I got a new portmanteau. And then they and it's like that's bad i would rather just say the two words but someday somebody else is gonna come up with a fucking good portmanteau and that's exciting to me that's what i appreciate or appreciate about it too is that uh many try and when they get it

right it's good it's good but we're talking about one in every three billion that actually stick. And the last one was frenemy. That's a good one. I like that. My first thing is the holiday, New Year's Eve. Oh, yeah. Halloween and stretches all the way through the end of the year, you know, it peaks at whatever, you know, holiday you celebrate in December. And then New Year's Eve just kind of comes into the cleanup crew, the Zamboni of the year. Although we know, no, the Zamboni is to be celebrated. I love New Year's Eve. I love it conceptually. I love it in practice. I love that it is an event that is a guaranteed sick party because staying up late is like programmed into it. Things like kissing and champagne are like traditions of this thing. So it's pretty much going to be a party, at least in the States and several other countries that do

turn it into a party. I just love that it's like the party holiday and that is wild to me like i can't think of too many others that are just guaranteed party uh i have loved it since i was a kid we would always host new year's eve at our house um where my mom would make like banging appetizers like chili cheese filled frito scoops and bacon wrapped uh little weenies those were absolutely my jam. And like all my parents, friends would come over and you know, they would watch the stuff and talk and socialize while the, the kids would usually go upstairs and play with like our Christmas video

games. Like the year the Nintendo 64 came out, I was like, y'all got to see this shit. That was very exciting. And then as I became an adult, like I love it now. I love it now too

because we don't really have many opportunities to go out and have parties. But New Year's Eve is kind of like, you're gonna do that probably. I will say, so a couple of caveats for me and I'm sure you'll agree. I like New Year's Eve on my terms.

Okay, yes. Like I wouldn't prefer to go downtown. No, no, no. Or to let's say Times Square. Well, a party, I mean, it can be a party at your house, right? It doesn't have to be you going clubbing or whatever. But if that is your choice, then your choice is valid and it's beautiful. I think that the party with your friends at your house is my ideal version of New Year's Eve.

Because I love hanging out with our friends and doing like special events with them. But there's something about the core of New Year's Eve, like the symbolic core of the holiday that like when you share it with your friends, I think is a really beautiful thing. Like I love the idea of like, let's all do our best in the coming New Year. Let's all hope for the best in the coming new year. Let's all hope for the best for the coming new year. Let's look forward to what is awaiting us in the new year. I think that that's a special thing that like we all decide to celebrate, not necessarily resolutions, right? I think resolutions can be a harmful thing a lot of the time for certain

people rather like, I just like the idea of let's be optimistic about what is what is coming um because like if you think about it like the end of a year could be a very like hugely bummer of an event if it weren't for like this thing that we do to celebrate it like if the year just rolled over and you're like well shit did i do enough in the last year like being anxious about what you didn't accomplish the previous year and being uh you know scared of what awaits you in the future uh could be scary or just like i don't know that big checkpoint of the passage of time of oh god another year is gone like that could be a very psychically upsetting thing and to combat that we have this fucking sick party uh that we that we get to spend with our friends i do like it i i like. I like that it is just kind of

a celebration, like on whatever day of the week the 31st falls on. And that there's not any particular religious significance to most people's celebrations. Well, there are some. I mean, it changes from country to country, right? In America, it is pretty

much a party holiday. I guess it feels more inclusive than a lot of holidays do around here but what i what i will say is that obviously like different countries different cultures celebrate new year's eve in in different ways there are some where it is a much more solemn not solemn but like quieter religious event there's lots of countries where it is like a a church holiday like easter is to. Like we are going to church because it is New Year's Eve. A lot of countries, it is a quieter event that you like spend with your family reflecting on the previous year and, you know, entering the new year as family.

And then there's lots of countries that just tear it the fuck up. There's lots of countries that get turned up and, you know, turn their city skyline into this big, wild technicolor light show. And that is also very cool across all of those, though, like across countries and cultures and time zones, like there is something universal about the fact that we all do celebrate the coming of a new year. And, you know, obviously, for some cultures that actually the date can change, it's not maybe not December 31. But still, like, there's something nice about knowing that everybody is like, okay, well, this means something.

Even though it doesn't really mean anything, this means something. We are deciding that it means something. And the symbolism of that, the reason that we recognize it, the reason that we celebrate, I think is a very, very cool, cool thing. No, that is really nice. I think a lot of people put pressure on like the big spectacle of it and, and, you know, like getting ready for it and then feel like it fails to live up to their expectation. But if you think about it as just kind of the closing of a chapter and the beginning of a new one, it's really nice. Yeah. Um, yeah. New new year's eve i've always really

liked it i obviously it is overshadowed by christmas for me and it always kind of has been but now that i'm getting older i actually like i don't know we usually do really fun stuff with our friends on new year's eve and it is a thing that i really i really look forward to yeah also it keeps you from fucking up your checks for the first like two weeks of january that the fact that you make a big deal out of the passage of the year, I feel like kind of makes that burnt into your brain a little bit more. Also, I love hearing people's

like little traditions and things. I feel like I find out about a new one every year. Yeah. Do you remember that year that our friend Tyler told us about the eating the grapes? Yeah.

I always remember that. And then a lot of people, what, eat like red beans and rice red beans and rice i think is one is the feast of seven fishes tied to new year's eve i could be way fucking off i'm probably way way off about that um do you want to know what we did in my house what'd you do uh my parents would order carry out from the pasta house oh and we would eat pasta and salad and then i'd usually be asleep by 10 oh yeah i mean it took me a long time to work up the the the vigor to make it past uh make it past 11 o'clock but um yeah i love it i have a very very very vivid memory of my youth of playing wave race 64

uh with our friends and uh it was one of the years where we didn't host. So I was over visiting at somebody's house and we played wave race 64, which is like this jet ski Nintendo 64 game. We played it all night and we heard the countdown downstairs and we're just like, well, let's finish this race. And like, so we missed the ball drop and everything.

Cause we were doing some sick jet ski stunts. I regret nothing. Hey, can I steal you away? Yes, please. Got any gumbo tromps? I do.

Hit me. This message is for Miles. It is from Destiny. To my darling Miles, happy birthday. Holy jamoli, I love you so much and I'm so grateful that I get to share my heart and home with you. I love always there, straight up and down.

I knows one when I sees one, and that's just good love, folks. You can't beat, and you can't beat that. How appropriate that we get Jamoli on our portmanteau episode, which is a combination of... Jesus and Moli? No, James. Oh. And? Oily.

Oily. The word oily, the adjective oily. This next message is for Tricia. It is from Bethany. Merry Christmas, Mom. I think you are the most wonderful mom ever. I love listening to Wonderful with you and talking about it with you each week. Thank you for being invested in my interests and always supporting me in them.

You're the best. Griffin and Rachel, thank you for always bringing a smile to our faces. Mom, I love you so much. I'm so glad we can do that for you. I wish I could bow for you i wish i could give you like a a you know a bow like a respectful bow like you're like you know a performer at the end of the show i'm gonna do it but i'm gonna like hit the mic so you know who are we bowing for everyone the audience okay uh this is just a quick reminder that the cutoff date for the wonderful jumbotron

drawing is this friday december 21st yes do not uh wow my mic sounds different now i think it's because i headbutted it um but if you want to enter the drawing to purchase one of our very limited jumbotron spots on wonderful go to maximumfun.org slash jumbotron drawing uh we are only accepting personal messages this time, no commercial messages. And the air date is estimated, if you haven't figured that out yet, by the like Valentine's October. Although this one was right on time.

This one was great. But anyway, you can go to maximumfun.org slash jumbotron drawing. And we'll be right back after a word from another podcast on the network. Hello, Maximum Fun. I am Oliver Wong, scholar, journalist, DJ, etc. And I'm Morgan Rold.

I'm a music supervisor who loves stilettos. We host Heat Rocks, a music podcast where we talk to influential artists and scholars about the albums that changed their lives. On our most recent episode, we had the chance to talk with none other than R&B legend, Macy Gray, about one of her favorite albums, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Yeezy.

We get deep talking about everything from Kanye's college dropout days all the way up to his most recent shenanigans. I just think it's weak, and I don't think he has to do that, and I was just disappointed. So make sure you, dear listener,

are subscribed because you definitely do not want to miss this conversation. Heat rocks every Thursday right here on Maximum Fun. Hey, what's your second thing?

Numero dos. Your second one. My second one. Yeah. Just in time My second one. Yeah. Just in time for the season. Please. Gift cards. What a weird one to like.

What a weird one to go for. This is the gift card of wonderful topics. I couldn't think of anything else. That's so great. It's very good. Can I tell you, though, do you remember a time period? Because I definitely do. Yeah.

Where, like, I was all I wanted it is all i want like as a teen getting a gift card to like best buy yeah oh god it's a it's a key to paradise or old navy i guess for me too yeah now that i'm thinking about it like i had no money like growing like i did not get allowance like i had no personal uh you know fun income and so like for that aunt or uncle that you see like twice a year and you know doesn't know you. Yeah. And so they decide I'm not going to get you a weird sweater you're never going to wear. I'm going to get you this, you know, $20 gift card and you get to spend it as you like. One year I think my nanny got me like a, or not, it wasn't my nanny.

It was somebody gave me like a a 50 babbage's gift card which i was like this is basically any video game i wanted i can this is alchemy and i can magically transform this into any video game i want this is the best present ever i know i i would say you know like as you get older you're less excited about it but that's true with a lot of things now it's money i have to spend here when you And it's also kind of a guilt trip. We had a Chili's one that just like stared at us like the portrait of Dorian Gray. Like, God, I really got to spend that Chili's gift card. Can I tell you about a gift card that I just got for this Christmas?

Yeah, please. Cracker Barrel. Who gave you a Cracker Barrel gift card? A very sweet coworker I have that does not listen to the show. Can I say something? I would fuck up some Cracker Barrel gift card? A very sweet coworker I have that does not listen to the show. But can I say something? I would fuck up some Cracker Barrel right now. Yeah, it was strange to get. I looked at it and my eyes were just kind of like, oh, this exists.

This is a thing that exists in the world. Let's go to Cracker Barrel this weekend. It's one of those places we could just drop our son, like, you know, set him down on the floor somewhere and he'd find a toy to play with did you know there's a story behind the origin of the gift card i know it's inventor couldn't think of something better it wanted to it needed to invent something uh they weren't invented till the 90s which i mean kind of makes sense it also was a surprise to me uh the first uh retail store to advertise and display gift cards blockbuster wow yeah before that it was all like paper coupons and stuff okay people could counterfeit really easily and so the gift card was kind of the like magnetic we're talking about like the magnetic strip like gift card yes okay yes neiman

marcus apparently also had gift cards but they didn't advertise and display them it was like it was more of a of an opportunity for people that shop there regularly not like a here's a gift to give yeah somebody uh by 2001 starbucks was kind of the leader in gift cards. And probably still is to this day. That is such a like, that's probably the gift card I've gotten as a gift more than any by far. In 2012, 1,500 Starbucks gift cards were purchased every minute in the United States and Canada. Can I say, I don't really go to Starbucks at all anymore.

So that's another one that I look at like, oh, I guess I got to go to Starbucks and get something. Yeah, I can't imagine doing my whole morning routine of showering and getting dressed and then getting coffee. Going to shop somewhere before I can start my business. Yeah. In 2018, U.S. adults spent $46 billion on gift cards. 2018 U.S. adults spent $46 billion on gift cards. The National Retail Federation found that the most popular gift category during the recent 2017 holiday season was gift cards, something 61% of consumers said they wanted. When I was researching this, I found a lot of people kind of dismaying the rise of the gift card.

Yeah. Because it can be kind of impersonal but like yo buying gifts for people is hard because it's a challenge and how much how well you know them a gift card is like i i couldn't figure you out but here's i would argue to if you are buying something for somebody that you don't know that well i think everybody at the table recognizes that's true yeah then it is almost like like least considerate to be like here's a thing that i'm going to make sure that you take to your house and now you have to do something with it if you get it wrong it's like here's some garbage and also gift cards for like strangers you do kind of need to know where they shop like you do at least need to know that because if you give somebody a gift card to a

place they don't go again, it's just kind of like a guilt trip. It's a weight that rides around in their wallet or whatever. Like Cracker Barrel. Like Cracker. No, we're going to use that. I'm not joking. I will use I will steal it from your person, use it myself one working day. And then again, I will be just done for that day. I used to steal their little syrup bottles and pretend that I would clean them out and put like, you know, soda or water in them. I would pretend they were little potions that I would drink while I larped Final Fantasy on the playground. Adorable. Yeah.

So do you want to know my second thing? Yes. My second thing is some music. And it is a band. And the band is called Life Without Buildings. It's guess what? I saw it on Spotify. I actually, so this is actually another one that I heard one of their songs called The Lean Over, I believe.

I heard it a long time ago and I was like, whoa, that's weird and interesting. And then I didn't think about them until it showed up on my weekly playlist. And I listened to the whole album. I've been listening to it a lot this past week and uh i'm really into it can i just say this has been like a really fucking good year for me finding new music more than any other when i think about all of the artists that i discovered first of all it's almost exclusively like either bands or solo like super strong uh women like singers like women vocalists, like Snail Mail and The Roaches.

These are bands that I've been listening to nonstop, those two in particular. The Hop Along I just kind of got on board with, and I think Life Without Buildings fits that mold also. It is an art rock band, but fun. It's an art rock band, and it's's math rock but good and fun and jump and jumpy and uh enjoyable it's a really weird band um the thing that sort of makes it one of a kind uh and sort of demands your attention i don't think this could be a song that you've never heard before and it comes on like over the speakers of like a coffee shop and you ignore because it's very like it stands out um uh is because of the

vocals uh that are provided uh by sue tompkins who is a painter and visual artist and like poet and sound artist uh she's from glasgow and uh the whole band actually is formed from uh ex-students of the the glasgow school of Art uh the band formed in 1999 they got together uh they played some live shows they got picked up by a label they recorded a few singles they recorded this album uh in 2001 it was originally released in the UK and then in 2002 they broke up got in did their thing made a record got out because it stopped being fun uh and it's really really good um i guess the kind of energy that's necessary to put out a song like that like you really have to be into the being in this band yeah basically they said like it was we didn't

think it was going to take off and it kind of took off and we weren't like we didn't really want to be committed to it so that was it We've kind of danced around like how unique the vocals are. And so now I'm going to play a little bit of a song off of their only album, the album, Any Other City. And it'll kind of give you an idea. There's probably going to be some people who this is not for, totally get it. For those who do, I hope you enjoy it. Here's a little bit of Let's Get Out. it's so good and this is not like uh this is not uncommon like this is how every song on the album sounds this is how uh this is how sue tompkins like spoke saying in in all of the all of the songs and it there's something sort of discordant about it. Discordant is not the right word,

but the meter of what she's say singing doesn't always fit up with the backing instruments, which I also feel like it ignored the actual backing music. The band actually started as an instrumental band and then they discovered Sue Tompkins and not discovered, but decided to include her in the band because they thought the way that she spoke saying was so like interesting. The backing music kind of reminds me of like Harvey Danger, like that like late 90s, early

aughts kind of crunchy guitar sound. I'm very, very into that. But obviously like the vocals are so weird and sublime um and like it took me a couple listens i think i was so intrigued by it that i was like i'm gonna listen to this a little bit more and it took me that long to like decide whether or not i actually really liked it or not and i did back in its day it was sort of critically panned a lot largely because like people could not get down on those vocals. But it was re-released, I believe in 2012, this, you know, only album this band ever made. And since then, it's been

more of a sort of like cult band that like a lot of people have come to enjoy. Yeah, it feels really familiar to me. I was telling Griffin, it reminds me of something and I can't put my finger on it exactly. Like it is a really unique sound, but maybe it's just that kind of that like grungy, crunchy. Yeah. The music certainly is, is very familiar to me. Like that is the,

that's the kind of like a rock, you know, type music that I grew up enjoying. I referenced Harvey danger. Like that's, it really, really reminds me of that, but the vocals are,

maybe that's what it is. I don't know. I'm trying to, I'm trying to pin it. I can't. I don't know i'm trying to i'm trying to pin it i can't um i don't know i think it's i think it's not really like any band that has ever come before or done it again largely because of of uh you know sue's sue's vocals um and i don't know it's kind of a bummer that there's not more music from this really unique band there's just this one album there's a live uh show like a record that they put out also um so like i'm sad that

there's not more music from them because i've been really getting into it this week uh but i really appreciate when like a label or when an uh like an artist or band can like create something really new and fresh and then like stop when it stops being enjoyable for them um i think that that's a i don't know i think that's cool cool. I'm glad for them that they made a thing that was neat and then stopped because it stopped being fun. There's a Pitchfork review actually of the re-release of the album that really like summarizes my, like what I think is great about the band.

It reviewed this album very, very positively. I think like 8.6 or something like that, which from Pitchfork is quite good. They said, this record is all about the wild wisdom of youth. Here are four musicians who have managed to recreate that sense of wonder and invention and play that most people, and let's face it, bands, lose when they

get older. Look around, Tompkins insists. Just information in the leaves. In the leaves. In the leaves. The phrasing is a bit a little awkward, like an expression stammered out before you knew the proper rules of grammar or a big word uttered before you knew how to pronounce it right but who cares if the sound doesn't exist she seems to be saying invent it which is exactly what life without buildings did that's such a good review every once in a while i remember what actual like music criticism sounds like and i realize how much we fall short that's fair yeah we haven't done maybe a great job

of talking about life without buildings but uh i don't know i've been a fan of theirs for about five days now so get off my get off my case i think they're neat and i think that uh they don't sound like anything else i listen to and so like it's been it's been a nice way to cap out this year of musical discovery with a you know discovering this this new long dead act yeah and i will say like that's one thing i like about doing this show with you is i feel like it really like makes us kind of look out in the world for new things to be excited about yeah that's uh that's the that's the idea uh so that's been our episode quick programming note uh before we get to the user submissions we will not be putting out an episode next week because it's the week of

Christmas and it would require us to record on Christmas Day which we won't even be home for that yes we will be in West Virginia celebrating with the entire McElroy bunch yes but we hope you have a lovely Christmas week a lovely holiday

whatever you celebrate we hope you'll have it a very very excellent two-week break before our next episode new terrace house on netflix by the way terrace out is out oh yeah that is why we're recording this at like 4 p.m and not in the evening so we can watch terrace house tonight um yeah it's been a this has been our first like full year doing wonderful and it's been really really great and um the show is like turned into something and the community around it has turned into something like that is a very great positive force in in my life and i hope in uh the people who listen to it in some small way so uh thank

you all very much for that and thank you to rachel for being being the best co-host ever and just a really supportive life a wonderful partner through which I'm exploring the valleys of this life. She walks with me. She is my rod and staff. She comforts me. And you're my rod and staff, Griffin. Good.

So here's some submissions from our friends at home. Brandon says, I'm a mailman and every year all of the carriers collect letters to Santa that kids have put in their their mailbox they're so adorable in the post office response to each letter it makes me so happy and it gives me the fuel to keep working hard did you ever do this do what exactly write a letter to the red man oh see we call the red man elmo in the house so that's true yes that's more of a baby. He's more of like a talking weird baby. I don't remember mailing letters to Santa.

I remember leaving them on the table next to the, you know, cookies or milk or whatever. Oh, for sure. For sure. Here's one from Kenny who says, I find the little crackles of static electricity that occur when taking off a sweater in the winter to be such a wonderful occurrence. Sweaters are charged up from the friction of rubbing up against our bodies or other layers of clothes and cause the air between the two surfaces to get ionized causing a rapid heating of the air which we recognize as the little pops of static electricity fun little science lesson

in there and also something cool did you ever used to take certs into like a dark room and like break them in your teeth and they'd spark you know i remember i i do remember that life's life saver not life saver breath when there was another like winter wintry ring based event that i can't remember the name of now breath savers i don't know uh ali says my wonderful thing is when you run out of printer ink and panic because you need to print an important document but then you take out the cartridge and shake it so that it magically, you get a few more pages to print. Such a relief. Didn't know you could do this.

I've wasted a lot of money on printer ink. You definitely can. I remember this. I still try this sometimes. I don't know if this is even the way they are made anymore. No. But I remember it definitely used to be. You prime it.

You suck the cap a little bit just to prime it just to get the flow going a little bit don't do that do not do that printer ink is probably pretty pretty toxic maybe uh that's it thank you to bowen and augustus for the use for our theme song people want to send in wonderful things where should they do it i'll go to wonderful podcast at gmail.com don't go to it it's not a website but send your shit there uh thanks to bowen and augustus for these for our theme song money won't pay you can find a link to that in the episode description thanks to maximum fun for having us on the network such a great network so supportive great friends good country music that they have that they play on their radio station shows like stop podcasting

yourself and heat rocks and heat rocks and stop podcasting yourself again it's a great show i'm like Stop Podcasting Yourself. And Heat Rocks. And Heat Rocks. And Stop Podcasting Yourself again. It's a great show. I'm going to recommend it twice. All at MaximumFun.org. Two Stop Podcasting Yourselves are waiting for you at MaximumFun.org. And we have a website. It's McElroy.family.

Are we done? Do you think? I think so, yeah. I think we're done for the year. Any wisdom you want to share about 2018? You know, pee first. That's just good advice. Pee first?

Pee first. Before what? Before sometimes. Do you have to pee right now? No. No. This is a life lesson that I have learned as a new mother. Yeah.

Which I still consider myself. A lot of times you will think there's something I need to do and I need to do it immediately. But I really have to pee. Pee first. It's never worth it. It's never worth it. During Besties, I snuck away to pee

while they were talking about other shit and I didn't tell them. I did it twice. This is like a fun little appendix. If you listen to Besties this year, try to pick out the times where I just ghosted so I could go pee. Because I didn't pee first. But it's four hours.

There's several sort of pee instances that happen in there. Yeah, I pee first. I pee before I leave the house to go to daycare to get my son. And then I pee while I'm there, just in case it happened. And that's a 20-minute span, folks. I take this shit real seriously. So from all of us at Wonderful Industries, thanks for a great 2018.

Looking forward to a beautiful 2019. Rachel, I love you more than anything in the whole world. I love you too, Griffin. And pee first. Psst. Money won't pay, workin' on it. I'm on it. Maximumfun.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned.

Listener supported. Welcome back to WKEP at night. Up next, looks like we've got a PSA from local forest ranger, Duck Newton. Do I start now or? Yeah, lean in, Duck. Yeah, sorry. Okay, I wanted to address the unfortunate situation that... Okay, listen.

Two people, good people that I and a lot of y'all have known our whole lives are dead. Torn to shreds by- A savage, bloodthirsty beast that defies human comprehension. If you'd like to know more, stop by the Cryptonomica, Kepler's premier museum of the macabre. Just off- Come on. We just wanted to warn y'all, to beg you. If you see one of those things out in the forest, don't fight.

Don't scream. Run. Run as far as you can. Doc, it's almost midnight. Listen, folks, if you see anything, please go to thelamplighter.org and let us know. And get behind a locked door tonight. Anything else we need to... Oh! They're leaving.

Okay, well, that's thelamplighter.org and stay safe out there, Kepler.