Wonderful! - Wonderful! 66: The Mallpisode

Episode Date: January 9, 2019

Rachel's favorite friend-meeting process! Griffin's favorite typing optimization! Rachel's favorite hair length! Griffin's favorite place to hang as a teen! 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.

🎵 Hello, this is Rachel McElroy. Hey, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. Sure is, ain't it? Did you enjoy the little uh cadence i did there at the beginning that's the intro is you did a little sing-songy voice i said hello this is rachel mackleroy oh like a like a you know a robot or a broken teddy rock spin or something i like

to keep it spicy you did you did i burned my ears on how how good and hot the introduction was so i'm feeling it. I'm feeling this. This episode? Do you ever have recordings where you're like, I'm fucking feeling it. Usually I wait for it to get going before I declare it a victory. No, no, I'm not saying like it's already good.

Although your introduction was so choice. I'm just feel like I'm feel it coming in the air tonight. A good episode. Oh gosh, you know how I do feel it coming in the air tonight. A good episode. Oh, gosh. You know how I do. I crack under pressure every time. No, you're going to nail it. You're going to nail this shit to the floor.

Oh, okay. You're going to kill it. Actually, I feel really good about my small wonder. Can I tell you what it is? Please tell me now. Do you remember what I told you? I decided earlier this week what it was going to be, and I declared. Oh, yeah. You're like, I have to write this down because I always forget it in my phone.

Cause I didn't know. It's a good thing you did. Cause I have forgotten what it was. So, you know, when you get like a pair of jeans out of the wash. Oh yes. And sometimes your pockets are all kind of crunkled up in the jeans.

I hate when they're crunkled. And then you slide your hand in and you straighten that pocket right out. Yeah. That's my small wonder. You did that to me while we were sitting on the couch i had my pocket was out of my pocket it was crunkled and then rachel reached out and stuck and stuck it back into my pocket which could also be a small wonder for me um yes i remember now it is a pleasant i love that man like sometimes i'll do it like halfway through the day and i'm like oh gosh i've been sitting on this all day but then you have to confront like how long has my my pocket been all goofy like that crunkled crunkled i'm so sorry

i don't know why i keep for brain fart right yeah what's your small one tuesdays uh my small i mean i do it like twice a year but awesome game stun quick is happening right now and i've just been like watching speed you're stuck in a loop i'm stuck in a six month loop uh if if you're new to our programming it's a uh annual charity marathon where people just like speed run games for like eight or nine days and it's been good it's been good this year i had a donkey kong country tropical freeze run i very much enjoyed somebody ran the splatoon 2 dlc really liked that one i think they're starting the mario block like right now excited to just dip right into that will you let me know if when when

and if they do the sonic uh they did today and you missed it oh but you can all watch that shit on video on demand um i've been really like having a retro sort of uh week because i downloaded on my phone uh old school runescape is what it's called which is like a like a retro version of this old online game called runescape that they've like remade and remastered and then they just like re-released the very first old version of it which i played a little bit when i was like younger and it's been very very nostalgic for me i've just been like playing this game in the background while watching like classic games getting speed run it's been it's been a real blast from the past you want to know something i've realized about you i'm a huge fucking nerd with nerd glasses and a pocket protector and a permanent wedgie that bullies come down bullies come to our house and just

kick in the door and give me a wedgie and there's nothing i can do about it i wasn't gonna say that at all oh okay just say you really like video games i do i really really do i really enjoy them i enjoy them quite a bit i mean it's been like uh it's just been my hobby my whole life like i i uh it's hard to escape the fact that i know more about them than virtually any other topic on the planet and i wrote about them for a decade is this really new information for you i mean i was being a little a little tongue-in-cheek there i ache to talk about them sometimes i realize like not writing about them for eight months or so like

I've been kind of like itchy yeah no that makes sense this is kind of your only place to do it now kind of we did besties um revive that we did like a three hour long episode and that was that was a nice sort of I caught I was re-listening to it and I was like god I talked so much and it's just because I had a lot to say about video games, but yes. Hey, what's your first thing? Okay, so my first thing. Yeah, I'm really excited. You've been talking a big game about- I just feel good about my things. Yeah, I'm excited.

Meeting your partner's friends. Hey, all right. I love it. Yeah. I love it, especially meeting your friends. Yeah. This one makes me kind of sad though because you're not gonna do it again with me.

I don't have any other secret friends that you haven't met, I don't think still reap the benefits the reason i was thinking about it is that you know we go to west virginia every christmas and i get to see some of your friends and i like them all so much they're very good yours are as well i get we don't go to st louis i feel like it's often and when we do it's usually like very fly by night but uh sometimes we'll do like big gatherings with your friends in st louis and And I, I am so delighted by all of them. It's like, it's so affirming first. If you like your partner's friends,

it's really like, it's reassuring and it's affirming because it's like, Oh, this person that I like has good tastes and they picked good people to be around them. And I like them too. And you know, that means maybe that we're extra compatible because we have similar,

you know, qualities that we look for in people i think there's i mean that's definitely true right like because i think about a lot of my friends and there were a lot of my friends who made friends with like real shitheads that then i did i was never i was not as like our relationship was not the same after that um and i've had a lot i had some relationships in the past where my partner's friends I did not care for, and they did not care for me. And it really sort of broke the core Spice Girls rule, where you are legally not allowed to be my lover at that point.

Yeah, because you wouldn't want them to get with your friends. For sure yeah for sure not just wanted to close that loop yes uh so i've talked about friends before on the show great show like ross always cracks me up i feel like you made that joke last time i talked about i do and it's always ross is the only one i always speak about and it's not because he's the first name I remember. It's because I think he's so fucking funny. Okay. So I was reading this article from The Atlantic, and they had this professor of interpersonal communication from Ohio University, and he talked about the different types of friendships you have.

And he said they generally fall into three categories by the time you reach middle age. Active, dormant, and commemorative. That last category just set my mind on fire because it's so good. So the active and dormant are pretty obvious. Friendships, if you keep in touch regularly, if you call them for emotional support, if you know what's going on in their life, that's an active friendship. A dormant one is one you maybe haven't talked to in a while, you still think of that person as a friend i have lots of those i feel like as i feel like most people these days have most of a lot of my friends are dormant uh a commemorative friend is not someone you expect to hear from or see maybe ever again but they were important to you at an earlier time in your life and you think of them

fondly shit isn't that the perfect way of describing it this is like a lot of the people i did theater with who like moved away from huntington so like i will almost certainly never see you again yeah um not like my core group of theater friends who i do expect to see like you know many times throughout the rest of my life but like you know people i maybe did one or two shows with and we became show friends and then like their family moved away and it's like they're just gone. You know what I think might be different for you is I feel like you have a surprising number of old friendships

for somebody at our age, you know? Like when we go back to Huntington, I am surprised by the number of people that you've been able to kind of keep close to you and i realize a lot of it may be because you went to college in your hometown so anytime anybody would come home you would be available to see them whereas i feel like a lot of my friendships from high school are now restricted to seeing like once a year and have been for a very long time now i think that's like probably the biggest contributing factor.

I think it's also because like I go home pretty like I mean at least once a year and a lot of my friends like didn't leave Huntington. A lot of my friends like didn't leave like the tri-state area and especially like a lot of my friends families just like had just didn't didn't bounce and so they are all still there so they're kind of like the anchor yeah i think there's a lot of i think there's a lot of anchors in in huntington and so people just all sort of gather up i get so excited to like uh see all my friends we only saw a couple of them this year but like i get so excited to catch up i know it's gotten to the point now where i will like ask griffin about some of his friends i'll be like you know is so and so gonna be there because like i really i really, I like him. I'm attached to him too. Which is hard to reconcile, right? Because I'm really bad at keeping in touch with

them throughout the year. But like the term of like dormant friends, I feel like it maybe sounds bad, but there is also something kind of comfortable about knowing like these people I can call up when we're all in town and we can all, you know, hang out at somebody's house and drink wine and catch up. And it's like, well, that and it's still comfortable. There's no like judgment, like, hey, what the fuck, man. And that's specifically what, you know, this article said was that, you know, maybe you haven't talked in a while, but you still think of that person as a friend, and you'd be happy to hear from them. If they were in your city, you definitely meet up. Yeah, for sure. I feel like is a really good example. you definitely meet up yeah for sure i feel like it's a really good example um the other thing i like about meeting friends is that um i get to learn things about you oh boy i don't i don't

have a big reveal i thought you were gonna say like you started messaging my friends on facebook like give me the scoop give me that dirt although patrick stanley is really good at unearthing some gems he sure is you can't say that though he's in the fucking group patrick you keep your fucking mouth shut i will i will come for you uh so i i was reading um this article about the friendships you make during young adulthood and when they talk about young adulthood here they're talking about literally like in your like 1920 21 years old uh but they talk about how that's you know a big time period of self-disclosure and support between friends uh and they talk about specifically if you're fortunate enough to go to college that can be kind of like a golden age of friendships because you have a lot more available time absolutely people i feel like it's also when

like the core of your being more than like any other time in your life before that is starting to really firm up and so the friends you have then it would make sense like it would be kind of tougher to outgrow them uh so according to the encyclopedia of human relationships which is a thing apparently uh young adults often spend between 10 and 25 hours a week with friends uh and that people between 20 and 24 years old spend the most time per day socializing on average of any group uh yes that all tracks so so that's just all to say that like part of the reason i also like meeting a lot of your friends is that they've spent more time with you than almost anybody besides your brothers and so i get to like you know and a lot of times they like i don't know they like the same things about

you that i like yeah and it's fun to be around people that are kind of in the same fan club as you yeah and i mean from also from like a more practical standpoint when i moved to austin obviously like i uh i had a couple friends here but it was it was you know mostly your group of friends that i was moving into. And then it was like instantly like, oh, I've got a bunch of friends. Like that part kicks ass to me. It was a good subject, babe. Yeah, thank you.

I get why you're excited about this. My first one's not as like special by comparison. I'm almost embarrassed by it. Is it like Fritos or something? No, it's a nice mechanical keyboard I have written down here. I love that I was talking about human relationships. And I'm talking about a nice mechanical keyboard. I use my, I've been sort of reinvesting in my computer,

sort of ergonomic sort of computer usage setup, my station, my hub, my terminal. And it's because I came to this realization that like i'm on this thing 60 hours a week maybe including night times when i'm like on my computer watching video games computer i was like i'm i am on this thing a lot and i'm always typing on this thing like i want like a nice sort of setup so i got a nice new curved monitor and a nice new wireless mouse. And then I was like, I've been using this same gaming keyboard since 2014, and it served me well. But then I was like, what if I invest in a nice mechanical keyboard? And I did, and ooh, it has done all the difference.

What makes something a mechanical keyboard? I'm so glad you asked, because I'm about to teach you a lot of things about more about keyboards than you probably wanted to know. Well, not too much. A mechanical keyboard is essentially like an old school keyboard with, you know, elevated plastic keys that, you know, activate actual switches underneath the keys. Oh, and it makes that satisfying clicking noise. Yes, to varying degrees. satisfying clicking noise? Yes, to varying degrees. I have been doing most of my work like really since I've been doing podcasts on a laptop, which like that is not really a mechanical keyboard. On like the MacBook, it's just kind of like little clicky keys and they're fine.

But really, it hasn't been since I started using a mechanical keyboard again that I started to realize like how much more satisfying it feels and how much better it feels uh and I just think that like finding the right keyboard for you is such a like memorable experience it's like you know uh Ollivander's wand shop like finding your for you for well I think I don't know if you can generalize and say most people are searching for the right keyboard well it might just be because you haven't found the right one yet okay and I want to help you get there i want to take you on that journey um so yeah i got a new new keyboard it's a leopold uh keyboard 87 keys into your microphone no because i'm worried it'll stop the recording but just take my word for it

well it's also got a fairly sort of quiet switches uh of it. So I don't necessarily know that you would get. It makes a sound. It's very tactile and it's nice. Can I go touch it? You made me want to touch it. I guess. What button? Press the tilde key.

I don't think the tilde will do anything bad. That was nice. Okay, see, right? That was nice. Okay, see, right? So there is a wide, wide world of keyboard specialization out there that I did not know about until I started shopping around for keyboards. And I thought it was fascinating that these things we use every day have all of these fucking microscopic customization points that you can do to like make it the perfect keyboard for you which may not be like as important a thing for a lot of people but i think for like writers and for especially for programmers um i actually got inspired to do this because i like still am you know follow a bunch of

like programmer people from vox uh that that i worked with there uh and they post pictures of like their setups or their keyboards sometimes. I'm like, damn, those look really good. Hey, is there a subscription service where I could get a couple keyboards every month and then I could find the right keyboard for me and then return the ones I don't want? That might be cost prohibitive

because this one was actually fairly affordable, but they can get up there in price. There's a whole community of people who just build their shit from scratch also, but you don't have to get that buck wild on it so uh use like little skittles for keys or like what do you you can how do you build a key uh well most of the time you buy key caps so the thing on the very top like the thing that you press is the key cap uh the literal like the key there is like the plastic part i could pry that off with a you know a little tool and then that's just the key cap and those can be like different thickness they can have

different textures these have kind of a chalky texture to them that i kind of enjoy uh the the the gaming keyboard i was using started to get a little bit oily but that's just because i used it for five years and my gross human oils were just getting all over it uh so that's the key cap and then underneath that is the switch and that's what actually all over it uh so that's the key cap and then underneath that is the switch and that's what actually like tells the uh you know sends the signal over and it's what you know you you activate the switch and that says okay you've pressed the q key and then it you know gets sent to the to the computer those switches there is an infinite array of variation out there uh i learned about the most like common form of switches are

from a brand called Cherry MX. And then the Cherry MX brand has a bunch of different colors. And that's how they sort of like, that's how they identify the different tactile feel of each switch. So this is a Cherry MX Red, which is the most like lightweight one, it doesn't take a lot of pressure to activate. And in fact, I It doesn't take a lot of pressure to activate. And in fact, I think it takes the least amount of pressure to activate out of all of their switches. And it's fairly quiet. This keyboard also has a sound dampening pad in it so that it's not super, super loud when you're typing, which is good because I am the type of person that does not necessarily enjoy that. And then there's a bunch of different like colors moving upwards there's

uh cherry mx brown switches which uh are still linear switches which means you just like press them uh down and then at some point they activate and don't make like a lot of noise but this one takes a little bit more pressure so like if you're the type of person who like your fingers are constantly pressing the wrong key just because they're like landing on them maybe you need a higher pressure key this is like picking like a piano like when you went and picked oh for sure yeah your keyboard or whatever yeah your piano i i took that process also very seriously but that was a much more expensive purchase than this was obviously now i just kind of want to look at pictures of keyboards i bet there's all sorts of youtube videos honestly look at pictures of

keyboard switches because they're fascinating so So there's linear switches, which most keyboard switches are like that. You press them down and there's not much like tactile feedback. I think brown ones, actually, Cherry MX Browns, like you get a little bit of like a tap as you sort of reach the bottom that lets you know you've hit it. So there's all these escalations, right? There's Cherry MX Black, which is kind of like a hybrid between red and brown. And that goes all the way up to Cherry MX's like most buck wild one, which is Cherry MX Blue. And this is like a click activated key, which means that when you press it down, you feel the click, like you feel it sort of click into place and it makes a very loud, like it is compared to that it is much

louder. And there's a lot of people, it requires more pressure than most key switches do. But like, there's a lot of people who dig that. Like there's a lot of people who prefer sort of this loud tactile feel. Like, how do you know? So they actually sell, CherryMix will sell these little pads. And they have, I think, like a dozen different keys on them. And they're all different key switches. That's my subscription service there. I mean, you don't need a subscription service. I think like a dozen different keys on them and they're all different subscription service there I mean you don't need a subscription service I think you just need the one um so so

like there's lots and that's just the cherry mx brand there's a lot of different types of brands also uh and then there's different uh key profiles so like the cherry profile is fairly standardized and I think it's oem is a different type of profile. And that just literally means a taller key. So like, if you're the type of person who like prefers that or prefers more sort of a distinction between the different rows, the elevation of the keys on the different rows. Uh,

and then of course, like key cap, uh, aesthetics, I've actually like, I've been looking for some more colorful key caps because Rachel walked into this office and was like, that it's an old ass looking key. It looks like it fell into my office through a time hole from like a 1991 like IBM

yeah like a ridge computer like home computer I kind of like it I kind of dig it but it's just because my last one was like a backlit gaming laptop well and it's like your whole setup is so modern and then that looks like I know you know I want to get in a thrift store and that's why I'm shopping around for some stylish key capsps, like a nice color gradient going across it. I am kind of nervous now. Why? Well, I'm worried you're going to get some, like, I don't know, like flames on it or something. I'm not going to get flame decals on it, babe.

Although you can get Buckwild. Like, there are three- key caps. Like if you wanted, I actually saw a really great one and the escape key, they had just turned into this sort of, it was like a seascape scene. They had used like blue, blue resin and there was like a fish swimming in it and like a little beach,

like a little sand underneath the water. And it was like a very, very detailed little diorama that lives in the escape key. So you put that on. I don't know. I like that. I like that that you press the escape key because it's time to go go hit the beach there is there is this is like my thing of the week this has like been the thing i've been like really looking into because i think it's really fascinating and it's it is

i think if you look at it based on how much I have used any object in this house, like a keyboard is it for sure. A keyboard is it by far. And so like, I had never really appreciated the fact that of course there is a million different ways to tweak it and all these like really, really, really subtle ways to just make it the perfect sort of thing for you. I'm really attracted to that idea sort of in general across like all disciplines, like finding the right chef's knife that like really that feels good in your hand. And you're going to use a lot like the thing you're going to use a lot finding the perfect, the perfect one just for you. Like I think that's a really, really compelling sort of process. And I've enjoyed sort of getting into it this week with keyboards

it's kind of interesting to watch you kind of do that throughout your life you know oh yeah sure because like i mean there's me first yeah you know like you were the gateway that made me realize i need good things maybe all things in my life could be this satisfying yeah sure um no i mean you're not wrong like i never i i am putting away my childish things i feel like by which i mean my 2014 razor black widow gaming keyboard and your cargo shorts which is fun yeah oh god my shorts have been gone a long time um yeah keyboards i'm curious i'm genuinely into keyboard modern culture now like i think it's a cool like there's i've seen so many wild keyboards and i i covet them but anyway can i steal you away do you hear some jumbotrons more than anything i've ever wanted in my life

this message is for may. It is from Kevin. Hello, May. These six plus years with you have been the greatest and I'm happy to be able to announce we're finally engaged. I am immensely proud of you. Salem, Charles, and even Susie said hello

and that they like you. You got a Susie and a wow. This is my way of writing your name in the stars. I love you so much. Your best friend, Kevin. Kevin. Kevin.

First of all, are you announcing to May that you are engaged to them? Because that's what it read like. And if so, that's the wildest and most presumptive sort of proposal I've ever read. I assumed it happened before this was read. They're announcing it to us. Okay. I get it now. Or it was a called shot. was like you know what i'm gonna do it i never know when this ad is gonna air and this is putting pressure on myself to get it done i hope it worked out uh it definitely did uh and i also love the idea of our podcast being sort of this eternal

monument this undying flame i mean it's true. They'll always have this podcast. Unless they're EMP. The solar flare wipes it out. Shoot it into space with a big laser. Maybe now we're talking. But then we hit the alien planet and they're the bad ones. And it's our podcast that made them come get us. This is fun.

I'm enjoying this. Do you want to hear the next message? I guess so. It is for Kyle. It is from Scoobs. Hell yeah. Hey there, little boo slash Kyle. I reveal my trap card.

It's a Jumbotron. I'm going to need to stop and explain what Yu-Gi-Oh is to you, aren't I? Yeah, I don't know what trap card is. Okay. It's a Yu-Gi-Oh thing. Okay. Now you're trapped with me for the rest of 2019. That's how Yu-Gi-Oh thing. Okay. Now you're trapped with me for the rest of 2019. That's how Yu-Gi-Oh works.

Okay, it goes on. Okay. Today you are my small wonder because you are very small and very wonderful. I can't wait for more fun trips, dumb bits, and rad hikes with you in 2019. Love you more than Yoshi in a skirt. A lot. Scoobs. Damn. Ain't nothing wrong with that. love you more than Yoshi in a skirt a lot scoops damn

ain't ain't nothing wrong with that I think we can all agree there's a lot I need to explain to me yeah why don't I what how do you trap

what's the point of trapping with the cards in Yu-Gi-Oh? you want to start with that and not the Yoshi I want to hear about that too but I want to start at the beginning I'm just going to load up Tumblr and let you sort of get on it for about a half hour okay if you're looking for a new comedy podcast why not try the beef and dairy network it won best comedy at the

british podcast awards in 2017 and 2018 also i love there were no horses in this country until the mid to late 60s specialist Specialist bovine arse vet. Both of his eyes are squid's eyes. Yogurt buffet. She was married to a bacon farmer who saved her life. Farm raised snow leopard. Download it today. That's the Beef and Dairy Network podcast from MaximumFun.org.

Also, maybe start at episode one or, weirdly, episode 36, which for some reason requires no knowledge of the rest of the show. Hey, what's your number two? Who does number two work for? Oh, gosh, Griffin, this was such a good episode. Yeah, now it's a great episode. This one's worth shooting into space

at the alien planets. What's your second thing? My second thing is having short hair. Okay, short hair don't care. I love it. I realized recently, I got my haircut again, and I have been wearing short hair more or less my entire life. Is that true?

Well, so there was a period of time in college where I just didn't get a haircut. Yeah. And so that carried on from, I would say, 2000 until about 2007. Okay. So I had hair down past my shoulders. You did. And it looked kind of messy. And I thought, I can't be a business professional with hair like this.

I do want to say, and we should say this up front. Okay. There's nothing wrong with long hair. No. There's lots of people with beautiful, long, lustrous hair. My wonderful thing is having short hair myself. Yes. This is not a judgment of our long-haired friend.

Of course not. The majority of my friends have long hair. That's a good point. Of course not. The majority of my friends have long hair. That's a good point. I just realized that this is the length for me. And throughout history, when short hair started appearing on women, it was a powerful statement.

Absolutely. And so I kind of researched the history of the bob, which is the haircut, which is where you have hair have hair kind of above your shoulders right and it's kind of bouncy at the bottom swingy flirty do yeah for sure you know uh so this short hair used to be really like super controversial so much so that in 1920 the saturday evening post published an f scott fitzgerald piece called benice bernice bobs her hair a short story about a sweet yet socially inept young woman who is tricked by her cousin into allowing a barber to lop off her hair f scott fitzgerald who is that again i know the name great gatsby oh is that a good i never read that book is it very good oh you didn't read it in high school this is another one of those books you missed out on in high school.

So the story says that, you know, with her hair short, she is castigated by everyone. Boys no longer like her. She's uninvited to a social gathering. And it's feared that her haircut will cause a scandal for her family. I mean, sucks, F. Scott. But I guess also sucks society. It's sort of in general. Yeah society it's more a story about the time period than f scott fischier all i'm sure expressing his i haven't read it it might

end with like and me me also feel this way so kind of the first big foray into short hair was in 1915 when fashion forward uh ballroom dancer irene castle cut her hair off as a matter of convenience so she was a ballroom dancer in in broadway and in silent films and everybody saw her as this fashion icon so when she cut all her hair off everybody was like me too uh and then it just kind of became a huge trend there was a a 1925 story in the Washington Post headlined Economic Effects of Bobbing, which talks specifically about how bob hair did wonders for the beauty industry. In 1920, there were 5,000 hairdressing shops in the United States total. And four years later, there were 21,000 shops established. Now, hold on that's

that's wild to me well people just grew out their hair as long as it would go and that was it until they died well long hair was a thing i mean like in the bible they talk about the hair being but you still gotta cut that shit at some point right yeah but you don't have to pay somebody if you're just doing a little trim you're cutting it all off you probably want a professional interesting i never thought about the fact that like the the short hair sort of phenomenon not phenomenon it's of course like a thing that people should do uh is is what sort of sparked this this industry that is so interesting i guess so i i think you make a good point i'm not trying to say that there is a superior way to wear your hair.

Yes. I'm saying for me. Yes. Anytime I get my hair cut and have kind of a short fun do. Yeah. I just feel a little empowered. I feel a little like, hey, look at me. I'm doing something different.

And it makes me feel powerful. Yeah. I think it makes you look powerful. And there's a big history of women kind of taking a stand with short hair. And I feel a kinship to them in that moment i totally get it i also prefer short hair both on myself and on on you i i like i like your short hair very much um yeah that was a good one and interesting i'm gonna be thinking about that hair the the hair salon thing yeah how many are there now probably more than 21 000 more i wonder well

so i don't think they're drawing a distinction, too, between hair salons and barber shops. I see. Okay. It's not like men didn't have an option. No. God knows we probably had like 100,000 options and we demanded it. So and we cried if we didn't get our 100,000 barber shops, daddy. I want my 100,000 barber shops, daddy.

They have 21,000, daddy. I want 100,000000 barbershops, Daddy. They have 21,000, Daddy. I want 100,000 or I'm going to cry. Say all men. What's your next thing? My second thing is going to the mall. Whoa. Going to the mall. When were you at the mall?

1995. Okay. when were you at the mall uh 1995 okay this is more of a rather than like i'm not talking about going to the mall i'm talking about going to the mall you know what i mean like i'm not talking about i'm excited today to go to the mall the act of going to the mall is is something that i loved as a kid and honestly still thinking about going to a mall right now you could get me into a mall it's not my first thought it's not the first place i want to be but if you said hey i'm going to a mall do you want to come with me i'd be like yeah i want to see what that mall looks like this is interesting we were talking about this a little bit uh me and and some of our our friends we were talking about how like there's all these like memories associated with it because when you're younger you know and there

aren't a lot of places you can go the mall is the place and it's like you get some of that feeling still when you go now for sure i am mostly talking about this in the past tense where uh going to the mall was the most exciting thing for me in huntington well because you guys had to go pretty far yeah so it's funny the huntington mall is actually in barbersville it's it's a ways away uh because huntington like didn't want it and then it turned out to be like a big successful thing and it was a good like half hour away yeah not a half hour like 15 minutes away but like on the freeway not like yes you do have to drive quite a ways away from the city uh but still like that was the place to be like that was the most exciting place for me to go i loved going to the mall so much not because like of shopping

like i really did not have like enough money to go shopping when i was yeah a youth up until basically like i had my first job. Like we didn't get like big allowances or anything like that. It was just sort of going to the mall, just sort of being there. That was so exciting in a way that I can't really quite put my finger on. Like there were definitely things to do, right? There was a movie theater and an arcade at the mall. And, you know, I could scrounge up some quarters to play some arcade games,

some DDR and what have you there. But a lot of the time it was just sort of like looking around at all of the different shops and uh just seeing what was going on do you ever go with a a romantic interest oh my god yes oh my god do you ever like hold hands and walk around the mall oh my god yes i never. I never... Aw, babe. I never got to do that. And I always longed for it. Aw, man. I always wanted to be one of those couples.

Let's go to the mall. It never happened for me. So here in Austin, we have The Domain, which is sort of our big outdoor shopping complex. Yeah, but outdoor is different. It's different, isn't it? It's different from the indoor mall experience. You need that mall smell.

You need that mall smell. You need that mall smell. For me, it was like the fountain outside of the Sears store, the smell of that, the smell of the Babbage's, which was the game store that was- You talk about Babbage's more than any human I know. I mean, it was a very important store for me. I would go in there and just sort of like see what games they had. I would play the demo like shit that they had set up and then if i had like old games to trade in that was the only way that i could afford to get like new games and so like that was my main reason for going

there there was also a babbage's and an eb games in the same like mall which i thought was very strange like i think they're part of the same i think they're all game stop now uh justin worked at the toys r us i would go hit that up. That was very exciting. Did a couple Pokemon tournaments there. No big deal. Travis and Justin both worked at the Best Buy. When that opened up, the Best Buy?

Are you kidding me? That was part of the mall? It was like in the same sort of mall zone. It was like right next to it. Same for Toys R Us. It was just such an exciting place to be. And it was like this place of tremendous possibility. And I don't know, it was just a really exciting place for me when I was younger.

So I did some research on the history of Maul, which there is actually a lot of history of Maul. Yeah, I bet. Obviously, like there are roots back in like ancient times, like bazaars. Ancient Rome has like lots of great examples of these big trading houses. In, you know, recent centuries,

you have things like shopping arcades, covered markets and things like that. But things started to really take off post-World War II, early 19th century, early 20th century, when these sort of like real estate developers started to really take off uh post-world war ii early 19th century early 20th century uh when these sort of like real estate developers started to open up uh suburban shopping complexes where they had you know more room to stretch their legs and make bigger and you know gaudier things um in the 1950s uh there were big suburban shopping centers which is what they called them uh and

also like what a lot of places across the world call malls they just call them shopping centers, which is what they called them. And also like what a lot of places across the world call malls. They just call them shopping centers. They don't use the word mall. No, that makes sense. Because if you think about it now, like there are still those like shopping centers. Yes. You know, that like still exist that seem a little outdated now. Yes.

And I bet that was, I mean, you can see that's kind of where it began. Yes. But that's not true in like, you know, Europe or Australia. Like they just call them shopping centers there. They just don't use the word malls. I think. I may have just made that up. Anyway, there were shopping centers, suburban shopping centers in Seattle, Lakewood in California,

Framingham in Massachusetts, San Francisco, Southfield, Michigan. Massachusetts, San Francisco, Southfield, Michigan, and there were spots in Canada and Australia and all over the globe. These bigger sort of out-of-the-city shopping areas started to get developed. Then in 1956, an Austrian-born architect named Victor Green, how do you pronounce the name G-R-U-E-N? I mean, here in Texas, we say green. It could be wrong. It could be wrong. I'm probably wrong. But he designed a regionally sized, fully enclosed shopping complex in Adina, Minnesota, close to the Twin Cities. That makes sense. And it was called Southdale Center. And he basically sort of designed the shopping mall as we know it.

There was a big, big parking lot. There were restaurants. There were sort of big chain stores, like big chain department stores that were a part of it. Things that you expect to see in a shopping mall. This dude sort of first sort of designed it. The first place actually called mall, like the first time one of these structures was referred to as a mall, was in Paramus, New Jersey, Bergen Mall,

which actually started as an open-air shopping center in the 50s, and then it was enclosed in 1973. I don't know what that looks like. I don't know how you just say you're indoors now. And then in 1980, a developer named A. Alfred Taubman added some more sort of staple features to the mall as we know it, namely like water features like fountains, tile floors instead of carpeting or anything else like that. And sort of the two story structure that also was sort of built into a natural circuit. So you would have to walk through all of,

that was sort of his contribution to this. Also, he sort of got rid of all natural lighting that could come into the building and replace it with electric lighting to make the shopper feel like the afternoon was lasting longer to keep them in the stores for longer. Oh my gosh, like Vegas. It's a lolly Vegas.

So I thought this next part was completely buck wild. Mid-90s, malls are getting built left and right. In the US in the mid-90s, 140 malls were being built every year. Oh my gosh. That's quite a bit when you think about how much actually goes into building a mall. Then in 2001, this firm called uh price waterhouse coopers ran a study that found that underperforming malls were starting to like grow at an alarming rate uh creating these these these like dead sets of real estate they're called grayfield estates uh just these huge unused sort of worthless uh places uh and they were like uh this is starting to be a problem and then sure enough it did become quite a problem in 2007 right before the the sub subprime mortgage crisis

um and in the recession no malls were built that year in 2007 no years when no malls were built in america for the first time since like malls started being built which was sort of a sign of the times to come. And sure enough, like a lot of malls, a lot of malls went under and left behind these like huge real estate tracks. These days though, people are starting to like find other uses for some of them. Are you going to tell the beautiful story

of Austin Community College? The most notable example of that, like one of the most notable examples of that in the country is Austinin community college you have to go there sometime and actually walk around that campus it's incredible i know i went actually this is funny i went to that one as a mall i went to that one as a mall like a couple times when there was nothing i remember you telling me that it was crazy there were like four stores four stores i went there because they had a game stop there and they had like a used xbox thing that i wanted yeah and they were the only store that had it so i went

there and it was like them a bath and body works like a candy store and a shoe store candy store and like a chef supply store like and then and then the rest the other 50 50 storefronts in there were just completely empty chained up uh it was really wild. And now it is a huge campus for the community college that Rachel works at. Yeah. Well, and the amazing thing about it, and it's really easy to find if you're interested to find it on the internet, because there are lots of stories about it, is they retained a lot of the original stuff. So if you go to the Austin Community College campus now, and this is what I'm talking about,

it still looks like a mall. They've just turned a lot of the storefronts into classroom space. It's brilliant. I think it makes a lot of sense. And so the fountain is still there. The escalators are still there. People will still refer to it like, oh, where's the Veterans Resource Center? It's like, oh, well, you know where the Dillard's was?

And it's frustrating to me because I went to that mall half a dozen times, but I don't remember which department store it was located where. So I'm like, where's the bookstore? They're like, oh, by the Sears. And I'm like, I don't remember where the Sears was. Appropriately, though, the goth kids at the college can still hang out at the Hot Topic. They just left that one as is. God, Hot Topic.

When that one showed up, I thought it was the most scandalous thing. I was in there all the time. So, yes, I thought the history of malls was interesting. And I have not been to a mall in a long time. up i thought it was the most scandalous thing i was in there all the time uh so yes that's i thought the history of malls was interesting and i have not been to a mall in a long time we go to the domain you know often enough the barton creek mall is kind of barton creek mall is flagship mall situation yeah it's a bit away from us and i think it's fine um but yeah when i was a kid like this was the place to go to and oh yeah get in the car to go to the mall. Yep.

The mall I used to go to was really, really close to my house. It was Crestwood Mall. Yeah. And I would get a big slice of pizza from First Federal FrankenCo. Whoa. It was like a New York style pizza place. Okay. I feel like it had a very long name that started with a lot of Fs.

And then there was Exilorama, which was the arcade. Ooh, ours was called Tilt. And then Spencer's Gifts, of course. And we would wait for someone to kick us out because it seemed so adult-bait. We had a shop called Excalibur. And it dealt only, this is not a joke, it was called Excalibur. And it dealt in like pewter figurines. So it would be like a wizard holding an orb.

We had a Wix and things that was just like a candle store. Yeah, that's pretty good. And like a nature company that just had nature themed things. Mall stores were really weird. Mall stores were quite strange. We also had a Big Big Borders that actually I had a lot of friends that worked there. And I could sort of get some free drinks there if I wanted to. So I'd swing in the borders, get a free drink, walk around the mall, see what KB Toys was selling for 50 cents because they were going under.

It was, I missed the mall. I think I missed the mall. Yeah. Oh, damn. He spent hours there. That's what was crazy. I would spend days. My whole stardom. the mall yeah oh damn he's spent hours there that's always crazy the whole my whole i remember

thinking about that as i got older is that i would get dropped off at the mall and i would be there for like three hours and then as i got older i was like how did i spend this much time at the mall damn crazy anyway thank you so much for listening to uh wonderful um yeah i hope you enjoyed this one it was enjoyable for me to talk about the mall and uh i want to thank bowen and augustus for these for our theme song money won't pay you can find a link to that in the episode description i still get that one that pops up like in my like spotify recommends i still get it popped up and i'm like this song is the jam but i think i'd like to read submissions yes that's what i definitely know i didn't forget uh jalissa says one thing that fascinates me and sends me into

a YouTube rabbit hole is restoration, art restoration videos. Something about the careful and meticulous work that goes into making sure they maintain as much of the original piece

is awe-inspiring and it's always so satisfying to see the artwork come back to life at the very end. I recommend Baumgartner Restoration. He's got ASMR versions

as well as narrated versions where he explains the entire process. I did not know that was a thing. I am definitely going to check it out. I watched one of these videos that showed up in my YouTube feed because it is so exactly my fucking aesthetic. Watching this dude, there was this painting that had this gross dark varnish all over it

that had ruined it, and it was plastered to this huge chunk of wood and that's how it had been displayed for you know centuries uh and he like got the varnish off and he put in like putty and all of the little cracks and then matched the paint color and like the brush strokes and then he like found a way to shave off all of the wood to like get the actual painting back despite the fact that it was glued to this piece of wood for hundreds of years oh my god it's good it's very very good uh here's one from here's one from eli who says my girlfriend loves calling into radio contests and one time she actually won we spent our fourth anniversary at a green day concert in the pouring rain which is a date neither of us would have ever planned but turned into a wonderful memory especially since the tickets were free have you ever done i mean this is kind of cheating because your dad worked for a radio station and it's for that reason i never did

it oh because you didn't want people to be like oh mackleroy no we couldn't win we were prohibited from participating more than one radio station right yeah but like they were all part of like the clear channel network at one point. So it was prohibitive. Also because, I don't know, I was never the type of person to do sweepstakes or anything like that because I just figured that my vote wouldn't count. And here's one more from Athena who says, I love when I'm vacuuming the house and I come across a little patch of crumbs. The satisfying sound of sucking up the crunchy mess makes cleaning even better nothing is better than finding a big nasty mess and just

getting it up there this is this is like our whole life now our son particularly loves things that crumble and so i i feel like we specifically bought a dust buster for this purpose yeah i was getting him out of a car seat today and um i him up and as I did, I caught an angle of underneath the car seat. There's a little bit of banana under there. Oh no. Did you get it? As best I could. It was disgusting. It was mummified at that point. We don't have to talk about that though. Seriously, thank you so much for thank you to maximum fun for having us on the network it's a great place to work great benefits um and we just like it a lot i know i know i talk about it all the time but this week stop podcasting yourself is especially good it's a real barn burner yeah that one's good uh switchblade sisters you got uh beef and dairy network is very very funny if you've never listened to that one's good. Switchblade Sisters. You got Beef and Dairy Network is very, very funny if you've never listened to that one.

Jordan, Jesse, Go. Jordan, Jesse, Go. Can't beat the classics. Oh, and of course, our dear friends at the Flophouse. Yes. Dear, dear, beloved family friends. Yeah, I think that's it. Let's go ahead and, I mean, I know it's late.

And we have a child sleeping in our house. Uh-huh. But maybe we could just drop him off at the neighbor's, cut down to the mall, see what's going on at Gadzooks. Is the mall still open this time of night? Pfft. We can sneak in. We can have a mall episode. Oh, shit.

Oh, OC. But other things did it too Other shows did it too But we can do a mall episode Of Wonderful What would that look like? I think it would go A little something like this Hey hand me

Is that a corn dog from Auntie Anne's? A pretzel dog? Do you really say Auntie Anne's? I think I do Oh god I'm insuffer supported. MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener supported.

Genre film fans, hear me. I know you're out there. Do not be ashamed of your love for gore, action, sci-fi, or fantasy. It's time to come out of the shadows. Because on Switchblade Sisters, we celebrate our love for genre films. I'm film critic April Wolfe. Come out of the shadows. Because on Switchblade Sisters, we celebrate our love for genre films. I'm film critic April Wolf. Each week I have a conversation with a different female filmmaker about their fave genre film. And we cover film craft, getting projects off the ground, working with actors, and our general love for genre movies.

I've had so many great guests, like Heather Graham. In the past, it's like so many films are made by men that the female point of view is not always respected, which is why all these stories haven't come out till now. Jennifer's body director, Karin Kusama. I think there's a lot more fantasy and a lot more expectation projected onto a woman director. Comedian and actor, Kate Berlant. I mean, it sounds so cheesy to talk about it in yourself. Like, you just keep going. You know, I'm just a vessel.

Like, I just do it. You know, I don't think. But like, that is what a vessel. Like I, I just do it. You know, I don't think, but like that is what it is. And many others. So check out Switchblade Sisters every Thursday on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.