Wonderful! - Wonderful! 72: Wetitation

Episode Date: February 20, 2019

Rachel's favorite musical evolution! Griffin's favorite place to think his thoughts! Rachel's favorite childhood poem! Griffin's favorite all-in-one medicine! 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. Bazinga. It's Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. I thought maybe if I started each one with a polite reverent Bazinga. Let's do a different one. Okay. Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Cowabunga ain't my shorts.

It's Griffin McElroy. That was two Simpsons, which equals one Bazinga in my mind. Oh, what's the conversion rate? I'm glad you've asked. Well, keep going. Let's try one more and maybe you can start to suss it out. Hi, this is Rachel McElroy Giggity Peter

I'm Lewis I'm Griffin McElroy What was that last? That was the dog one And he was drunk of course So this four of them Equals two of the Simpsons Equals one Bazinga Man

I watched A bit of Young Sheldon equals two of the Simpsons equals one Bazinga Man. I watched a bit of Young Sheldon. We just got our DVR working and tuned into a bit of Young Sheldon. And by tuned in I mean it was on when I discovered that our cable box was working again. And not what I expected

from Young Sheldon. I thought you meant that we had somehow DVR'd Young Sheldon. Well, my secrets that we had somehow DVR'd young Sheldon. Well, my secrets don't need to be aired out so publicly on this podcast, and I would appreciate it if you didn't try to shame me. Do you think the next spinoff is old Sheldon? I think the next spinoff is two Sheldons. I think the next one is called Sheldon, and it's him as an undersea mollusk. Or it's the Garfield and friends character, Sheldon.

That is another very likely possibility. Yeah. Maybe the next one's called Smeldon. And it's about... Bears that live in a den. Oh. I was going to say like his butt or a fart. Oh, see, I'm moving beyond.

I see. You like the den part of it. Hey, do you have any small wonders? I do. St. Louis Blues hockey. Yeah, they are crushing it. Yeah, so they have won 10 games in a row, which has tied their franchise record from back in 2002. And tonight they are playing the Toronto Maple Leafs.

And if they win, new record. Bunch of pushovers the maple leaves i am worried about it one bit hear that i'm too superstitious for that blow there you know what i call the uh the the uh st louis jazz blues call them the leaf blowers that's nice because they're they're gonna i guess blow all the leaves tonight. Yikes. What's going on here? My small wonder. I've been listening to this album usually during Henry's chill-out time before we put him down for bed.

But it's also a good work album. I think it's called The World of Studio Ghibli. And it's just this string quartet playing very pretty uh string covers of studio ghibli songs which i didn't realize i've seen like most of those movies at this point i didn't realize how uh much those songs have stuck in my mind because you hear one and you're like oh this is from spirited away and then you hear one and you're like oh this is from princess mononoke and then after the third one you're like oh fuck i just know all the studio ghibli music i guess uh it's very pretty it's on spotify and uh it. And I like instrumental stuff to work to,

especially like nice string chill instrumental stuff. And this is good for that. I think, who goes first this week? I don't know. Luckily, Wonderful FYI is back up. Of course, it was back up by the time our episode eulogizing it had been posted. Looks like first one to go this week is raw shell take it away uh so i wanted to talk this week about the

evolution of leon bridges yes so somebody used a sunstone on this fucking guy and all of a sudden he grew twice in height he got yellow stripes all over and now he can do fire attacks also so thanks to whoever did that you really did a lot of pokemon reference a lot of power creep no that was a reference to the that was that one was that one was not a pokemon reference what you just heard from me was a reference to the transfiguration from beloved German philosopher, the one who wrote that, and I think his name was Kopf. Kopf. Gregandry Kopf. Wow, I just got so many things wrong.

I just... Book about guy who turns into a bug the metamorphosis that's france kofka and we've made it here full circle arrived hello everybody i'm griffin i paid 10 attention in school but so anyway that was a reference i was trying to make which would have made me sound real smart if I'd done it. If you had gotten maybe 20% more right, I could have helped you out there, I think. I think I said Kafka, which is close to Kafka. But anyway, so.

So Leon Bridges has two albums. He's amazing. He is relatively new to the scene. He is a very young man. He is 29 from Fort Worth, Texas. I did not know that. Yeah. young man. He is 29 from Fort Worth, Texas. I did not know that. Yeah. His first album came out in 2015 when he was just 26 years old. The good thing about living in Texas is so many artists

are starting here now. This like didn't happen very often in West Virginia, but when it did, I'd be like psyched out of my mind, but it happens all the time. Everybody's from Texas now. It's amazing. You know who else is, is Gary Clark Jr. Yeah. I read an interview with him and Leon Bridges. Apparently they've been doing some collaborating. Lots of folks. St. Vincent is from Texas. Just like everyone. Everyone's from Texas.

Big state. Big old state. I think she's from Texas. So his first album, Coming Home, came out in 2015. He got a lot of comparisons to Sam Cooke and Otis Redding. And I think a lot of that came from his kind of relative newness. He also grew up not listening to secular music. He had like a very religious mom. And so his exposure to kind of the world and the music scene was relatively small. So when he came out, you know, it was just a lot of to kind of the world and the music scene was relatively small.

So when he came out, you know, it was just a lot of like kind of soul music. And everybody talked about, you know, how he seemed to be kind of from this different time. Right, because music at that time was almost entirely inspired by non-secular tunes, right? Like, I feel like all the like big singers that you hear from from that day like have some sort of connection to like you know i sang in the church or i grew up listening to like these you know if you read a lot of interviews with leanne bridges he talks a lot about his mom and being kind of shy about you know like letting her down or making her uncomfortable with his music adorable uh so you've probably heard this song but I wanted to play a little bit of the title song,

Coming Home. Baby, I would be grieving if you wanted to leave me all alone by myself. I don't want nobody else. it really sounds like it's just from it really sounds i i looked through the youtube comments of this one today and every one of them was like i heard this on the radio i just assumed it was like from 1967 like what the fuck because it does it sounds so authentically like old old school like that yeah uh very like very very sim cook um which is about as good a comparison as you could hope for i think oh of course uh but i read this interview with him recently. So his new album came out in 2018. It's called Good Thing.

And it's just a lot more complex and just like a lot more variety in the style. And in the interview, they asked what his inspirations were. Let me read his quote. Fucking Usher, Genuine, James blake portishead r kelly townsman's aunt willie nelson like the combination of names there to go like genuine willie nelson portishead usher like i've always said that genuine and willie nelson have more in common

than they have a part and i wish they would just squash the fucking beef already, guys. Well, and I have to recommend, so very, very recently, like Valentine's Day, like last week, he was on Jimmy Kimmel and did his own version of Pony. It's very good. Oh my God. It's very good.

So he gets kind of a lot more R&B on this new album. In this article from Esquire, it says, across the 10 tracks, all of which Bridges co-wrote, he toys with 80s style pop, flirts with jazz, and occasionally dives headfirst into throbbing R&B. No two cuts move in the same direction. Instead, the energy refracts from one song to the next, constantly beaming off into new directions. In a lot of the interviews with Leon Bridges, he talks about, you know, how sheltered he was, and how he, you know, since that first album has toured the world,

he's been nominated for two Grammys, he attended President Obama's last birthday at the White House. I saw also in all the YouTube comments for the second song you're going to play, all of them are also like Obama sent me here. Obama said. Yeah. So the song of this album I wanted to play is called bad, bad news. And it's from Obama's 2018 playlist.

This is a good playlist. I'm a bad music fan because I am very quick to be like, this isn't like the old thing that you did. And I don't like it as much. So, uh, and I've done that like more times than I can count. Uh, but I feel like this one there was

something really novel about his his old stuff his first stuff that came out but just based on how like genuinely classical it sounded um but then like to lose that layer of that layer of novelty novelty makes it sound like i'm diminishing like the the type of music he was making it wasn't that it was that the type of music he was making was being made in the 2010s uh to lose that and just be like now i'm doing like my voice but bringing it to like all of these other different sounds it feels like he's just like gone like well you haven't seen my final form yet and just to be fair his second album good thing uh there is still some like you know know, like more soul traditional tracks. But I don't think you could confuse it like with music.

No, no, it's a lot more sexy. Yeah. Like his other single off Good Thing Beyond is like, it's just like super. Doing it tunes. Super sensual. We'll have to throw that one down on the old wax spinner, which is what I call our jukebox which is what i call our record player um and now you'll lay me down slow on a bed of roses and we don't need to go

any further than that because folks know what we're talking about at that point um you make me blush you ordered fresh roses you ordered fresh roses it's tuesday night you know what that means you got the roses oh you know what i just got the thorns we'll make we can do something we can do something with that nasty uh so yeah more than like leon bridges for example being like my favorite soul singer my favorite r&b singer it's kind of like my favorite new artist to like watch mature and like find his his voice and his style and become more confident in what that is and like the value in that i feel like it just the the progression from the first to the second was just super cool to see it makes me excited for what's coming next yeah i think the reason that like i'm

so into album two even though it's a different direction which is a trend that i've like you know fallen out of favor with a lot of different musical artists who try the same thing is that it's not a like reversal or complete denial of what he first brought to the table it's not like you know oh you liked my old acoustic shit well tough here is a really grungy electronic album i'm doing electronic pop now and it's like ah this is just not your core comment i'm glad that you're trying new stuff and you shouldn't be hemmed in to just do the old stuff but like this new thing that you've decided to just completely pivot to doesn't work that's not what he did he was like i'm gonna bring this this sound that i you know curated in the first album and like bring it and explore it in all these other different ways. It's really good. Yeah. Can I tell about my first thing? Yes. My first thing is shower thoughts. And I want to

be clear here when I talk about shower thoughts, because there's like a thing, there's like an internet thing about shower thoughts. There is? Yes. The idea of a shower thought. I was doing research about thinking in the shower. And what realized is like the internet's sort of main library of information about this very subject is a subreddit called shower thoughts which already i'm not super excited about because i'm not a big reddit fan um but they did have this definition of what like the internet thinks of as shower thoughts they have it listed as small epiphanies that make the mundane more enjoyable. One example being your stomach thinks all potatoes are mashed. They're called shower thoughts because it's like another one is like once you have a PhD, every meeting you go to becomes a doctor's appointment.

That is fine. They're fine. They're entertaining enough. fine they're fine they're entertaining enough uh they are called shower thoughts because uh you generally have them when you are sort of doing a fairly mundane thing a fairly mundane thing that you do very regularly okay so it's not necessarily showering exactly you don't have to have them in the shower which is why i don't want to talk about this specifically i specifically want to talk about shower thoughts okay because in my shower time the shower is where i do without a doubt my very best thinking really some of my best thoughts have happened in the shower

okay um now that i do a long drive to daycare i'm starting to do some of those there also but obviously i'm always fucking ten and two i'm always eyes on the road two car distance between me and the next car a good driver boy so it does require a little bit more mental ram. Shower, I'll just stand there and feel nice and get relaxed. Talk about showers while I take a drink of water. You know what I used to have when I was in college? What's that? I had shower crayons so I could write down my shower thoughts.

Oh, that's fun. Before I forgot them. That's really good. But it was not a good look for the shower. Yeah, I can't imagine it did. So Rachel can probably attest that my showers sometimes last longer than they should when you consider that my needs in there are fairly Spartan. Yeah, I assumed you were doing stuff in there I didn't want to know about.

Uh, no, I wouldn't do that in the shower. I'm standing up because I'm not a caveman okay um the reason i don't really get in and get out is because i do my thinking in there i'll get lost in thoughts i'll explore thoughts okay um i've written a lot of taz ideas in there uh i've come to terms with some you know some brain troubles adventure zone adventure zone is the show i do um That might not be familiar. Not the Tasmanian Devil. But I have come up with some of my favorite Tasmanian Devil fan fiction in there. The whole thing where he accidentally does eat

the Tweety Bird and then Marvin the Martian has to zap him with a big beam to make the bird come out. What if he spun the other direction? And Tweety Bird came right out. Yeah. Yeah. What if he did spin the other direction? What ifety Bird came right out. Yeah. Yeah. What if he did spin the other direction? What if there was an evil?

Would we even notice? Would we even know? Yeah, whenever I have a hard decision that I need to think over, if I'm in the shower, sometimes I'll consider some new angle of it. Sometimes I just like, I work in front of a computer and generally deal with a tremendous amount of anxiety. The computer does not help much with. And so just like being in the shower, I get to sort of like take some time to unpack things. Oh, I gotta introduce you really to bathtub life.

Bathtub life doesn't do it for me. No? No, because I enjoy the feeling. Then you're like, you're sitting, you know? It's like an x level of relaxation but but i get bored i get bored okay i need to be able to walk out at any time okay um whenever i have like a fight with somebody about something like i can go in the shower and like really process like how i actually feel about it and so like i wanted to know why this was uh i found an interview with time uh with a psychologist at washington university his name's r keith sawyer uh who's written some books about

how like human beings find creativity um and uh in this interview with time he said many people believe creativity comes in a sudden moment of insight and that this magical burst of an idea is a different mental process from our everyday thinking. But extensive research has shown that when you're creative, your brain is using the same mental building blocks you use every day, like when you figure out a way around a traffic jam. In creativity research, we refer to the three B's for the bathtub, the bed and the bus places where people have famously and sudden where ideas have famously and suddenly emerged. When we take time off from working on a problem, we change what we're doing in our context, and that can activate different areas of our brain. If the answer wasn't in the part of the

brain we were using, it might be in another. If we're lucky in the next context, we may hear or see something that relates distantly to the problem we had temporarily put aside. Basically saying, like, if you really, really, really get focused on something, if you really, really focus on a problem that your brain kind of like siphons all of its efforts towards that one thing and any kind of like out of the box solution for it or a great idea about a completely fucking different thing,

it's gonna be harder for your brain to like actually cast a wide net and get that stuff, which is a sort of may seem counterintuitive way of thinking about how your brain works. But the more you focus on something, the less efficient your brain is actually being. I kind of buy that because this is like when I was talking about taking walks one week

and how like it was really helpful for me to take a walk and think my thoughts. Yeah, for sure. Like you just do any other task that doesn't require a lot of effort and it frees up your brain a little bit yeah uh i read a mental floss article that sums it up kind of like uh sums it up like this uh thinking hard about a problem deactivates your default network it boosts your prefrontal prefrontal cortex's control this isn't a bad thing it tightens your

focus and gives you the power to stop gawking at cat pictures and hit that deadline but it can also dig you into a creative rut because when you're deeply focused on a task your brain is more likely to censor unconventional and creative solutions yeah which is i like a perfect way of of thinking about it so like i got myself a fucking busy super anxious brain and the things that i do with it every single day just like work really, really work me up. And when I am trying to when I'm sitting in front of, you know, my document where I'm trying to prepare the next episode of Adventure Zone and I just sit there for 30 minutes and nothing comes out. I literally just have to force myself to stand up. And, you know, usually I don't take shower.

I take showers at weird times of the day, usually around like two or three o'clock. And I usually save them for when I have hit my absolute breaking point where like i cannot create anything else today i go take a shower i have one just one idea that can like serve as a writing prompt for something else and then i can go just like go get it done uh it's a nice transitional thing too like when i'm editing a podcast i'm so fucking head down on it and so uh dialed in that you know, I'm not going to naturally think of something cool to do in the next episode of tasks. So like going into the shower, and relaxing and letting my brain kind of like, you know, expand a little bit. And we're renting out all of that, like highly technical editing focus out of my gourd and and letting myself

think of other stuff too is like a good transitional period between like the different kinds of work that I I do and also I get clean in my hair and like my butt and my grundle and my armpits I soap them all up so good and then I come out of the I come out and I smell super great yeah I like I like thinking about the shower is less of like a task you have to do and more like an opportunity to go in this room of your house that is like just designed to like set you free for a few minutes. Yes. Which like I'm saying this all out loud and it makes me think that I should have been meditating basically my entire life because that's what this is about also. Yeah, but there's something about the required isolation and the like. meditating basically my entire life because that's all like, that's what this is about also. Yeah. But,

but there's something about the required isolation and the light. I work from home. I got no fucking excuse. There's apps and shit. Yeah. But I think there's something about being wet. Like you can't, you can't bring stuff in there with you,

you know, like you can't, you can't work on your laptop in the shower, you know, or you can't look at your phone in the shower most of the time. It's like it forces you to focus on the immediate. Let me hit you with something. Okay.

It's definitely the podcast episode title. Or maybe not because we might want to protect it a little bit until we can find a way to monetize it. Okay. Weditation. Okay. Okay. Okay. to like protect it a little bit until we can find a way to monetize it okay wettitation okay okay okay now is this an app or is this a state of mind it's i think i don't know how we could do it as an app i think it's a state of maybe the app is you spend fifty dollars and then it's just me and i pop up and i'm like, go get under some running water and just think really good. Or you provide the running water sound effect and then a splice in.

And so somebody closes their eyes. They feel like they're in the shower. And I'll come to your house with a super soaker and just keep blasting you in the gourd just over and over again. I'll make the water noise. You say some things you would say. Okay. Okay. Ready?

Stop thinking about. What are you thinking about stop it the super circuit's gonna make some noise too keep going got a thing at work that's tomorrow don't worry about that see you seems a little punitive usually meditation apps are like more calming. They're not like punishing you. You want me to try again? Yeah. It's time to stop thinking about that dumb shit thing you said at the big meeting today. And everyone laughed at your dumb idea. Babe, you're so bad at this.

I'm telling you it's time to stop thinking about it. It's giving me a real insight into how your brain works and I feel so bad for you. No, let me try again. Okay. Feel that water? Feels good, doesn't it? real insight into how your brain works and i feel so bad for you no let me try again okay feel that water feels good doesn't it anyway don't think about that terrible thing when you fell in the street and you the coffee splashed all over your okay your your jeans weditation right in your triangle hey do you want can i steal you away i have a message here for hannah and it's from tyler who says hello honeybee i'm so glad we're hanging out and in love and junk getting to live with you and our thick cat son makes me happier

than anything in the world. Charles and I love you. Charles and I love you more than anything in the whole wide world. Also, can we get stuffed crust tonight? Thanks, Bibber Noodle.

Can you still get stuffed crust? Where is this stuffed crust happening is what I want to know. Does Domino's still have it? Domino's, you're fucking out of this world

with these ideas, man. I can't believe they're still doing this dang thing have you ever had their cat named charles because i love that could be could be can i read the other one yes this one's for kaylee and it's from claire who says kaylee you are my dearest friend and someone i would be remiss without i hope you're having a good time in Scotland, even without Gatorade. And every moment with you is easy. Have a wonderful Wednesday. P.S. Bunky.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a real stream of consciousness there. Hold on, though. Is Gatorade illegal in Scotland or something? Maybe they just don't have it. It might be illegal. It's like when people travel and they get peanut butter sent to them because they can't get it there. I haven't heard of that either.

But then what's that in the peanut butter that you pull it out? It's a big bottle of Gatorade. Better luck next time, Scotland. Unless you binge watch TV at least 80 hours a week, Inside Pop is definitely not for you. Sean, that's a little extreme and also not quite true. Okay, Amita, how about Inside Pop is the podcast for people who love and appreciate the best pop culture has to offer. Oh, much better. In every episode, we interview the people who create the culture you crave.

Past interviews include the showrunner of Ava DuVernay's Queen Sugar and Mudbound director Dee Rees. You'll also get the very best pop culture recommendations in our Big Sell segment. Plus the opinions of two TV producers who are pop culture obsessives and actually do binge 80 hours of TV a week. Eyeballs. So tired. Listen to Inside Pop every other Wednesday on the Maximum Fun Podcast Network. What's your second thing? My second thing is a trip to the poetry corner. Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, tea i drink the hot tea that's my favorite one yet i mean i do enough of these eventually i'm gonna do a poem did you know you were doing hot tea from the beginning or did you just land there

uh i mean when you learn to beatbox which i you know i went to uh school for i um you learn you'll learn a few techniques and the first one is hot and the next one you can blend it into hot tea and that forms the basic sort of uh oral paradiddle if you will you're a very talented man thank you tell me your poem. So I was thinking a little bit today about poems that very first got me into poetry when I was itty bitty. Oh, interesting. So specifically, the poems for children. Okay. Now, I bet you think I want to go Shel Silverstein, but I'm not. No, yeah, you're too clever for that. I mean, I'll want to go Shel Silverstein, but I'm not. No, yeah, you're too clever for that. I mean, I'll probably get to Shel Silverstein.

Yeah, nothing wrong with Shel Silverstein, but I feel like your shit's going to be way more underground. I don't know if I'd say that. Way more underground. Can I guess? Not like I was going to coffee shops at age four. Was it like, are we counting like Maurice Sendak in this? We are not.

Okay. He was a poet, right? He did poetry too, right? I don't knowak in this? We are not. Okay. He was a poet, right? He did poetry too, right? I don't know. I mean, we're the wild things. Okay, anyway, sorry. It's more of a book than a poem. Yeah, I guess.

What is it? It is a poem called The Swing by Robert Louis Stevenson. Hey, okay. Does that name ring a bell to you? He made Winnie the Pooh. No. Then no. He wrote Treasure Island. Yeah, close. Does that name ring a bell to you? He made Winnie the Pooh. No. No? He wrote Treasure Island.

Yeah, close. And also The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Whoa, okay. Check out the range on that guy. Yeah, he's got some skills. I could have sworn he made Winnie the Pooh. No. Okay. Robert Louis Stevenson. Only lived. some he's got some skills i could have sworn he made winnie the pooh no okay robert lewis stevenson only lived uh till 44 shit uh because he was kind of a sickly dude okay he was born in scotland uh had a lot of bronchial trouble growing up and so this kind of steady stream of illnesses

kept him from school so he was taught a lot by private tutors and so he spent the first you know 20 something years of his life more or less homebound and if not homebound like searching for the ideal climate to like regulate his his bronchial issues okay shoes okay uh and then in 1875 he met an american woman while in france uh that he fell in love with but she was still married oh but she had kind of a a jerk husband she had two kids and she was spending time in france and her husband was kind of a known uh adulterer did he swoop that or what? Well, yeah. So he was super in love with her, took a boat to New York and then a train to California,

which like almost killed him just because of how sickly he was. And he like took the boat like steerage, like super affordable, but like very terrible conditions. Shit. And then in 1879, she divorced her husband and then five months later remarried Robert Louis Stevenson.

So the two of them and her kids returned to Europe in 1880. And then in 1882, he again became very terribly ill and was confined to his bed, and he was unable to speak. And so he didn't do much writing of prose in that time. But as he was recovering, he wrote A Child's Garden of Verses. Oh, that's where, okay. This is where I know him from. And that was in 1885. And so I had a copy of this book growing up, the Golden Books edition. I remember. So the book came out in 1885. The version I had was from 1951. And this poem, The Swing,

is what it's interesting, I didn't really think about it growing up. It wasn't until a few years ago when I was talking about this with my grandma that I realized it was like a part of my family history. Because I guess she used to read it to my dad and then my dad used i realized it was like a part of my family history because i guess she used to read it to my dad and then my dad used to read it to me and then recently my dad got a copy for me to read to henry yeah he is way too young way too young yes there's not a picture of a lion on it he is not interested or a picture of mickey that you have to find uh but the swing is is just kind of a like a magical little like three stands poem. And I wanted to read it if that's okay. Please.

How do you like to go up in a swing up in the air so blue? Oh, I do think it's the pleasantest thing ever a child can do. Up in the air and over the wall till I can see so wide. Rivers and trees and cattle and all over the countryside. Till I look down on the garden green, down on the roof so brown, up in the air I go flying again, up in the air and down. That's nice. I used to love that poem as a kid. And I also like the cadence of it reminds me of swinging back and forth a lot. Yeah i i i have to imagine that was intentional but this kind of like up in the air i go flying again up in the air and down like that that like rhythm of

it feels very much like swinging back and forth and i just um i don't know he he he is writing poems for children that are very much like in the world of children you know like swinging top five activities when you're a kid. One of the best. Maybe top three activities. Wow. Like Foursquare. Game Boy, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis.

It was like 15th for me, but it was still really good. I gotta say, listening to that poem, it's really clear. You can see like the footsteps that led from that poem to the- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hy led from that poem to the- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Well, to the tempting tip of my ice cream dripping down my hands. Lick it up, slurp it up, finish, finish, hurry.

Griffin is referring to a poem I wrote in second grade. I'm pretty sure we talked about it on this show before. It was more Shel Silverstein inspired, really, if you think about it. Yeah, sure. Yeah, more H hustler magazine inspired filthy poem filthy ice cream poem i love your filthy ice cream poem nothing has made me that happy in a long time um it's a good poem i like it i yeah i mean it's there's something about it that is like so fundamental to my like beginning interest in poetry that like

every time i see it i just have this like feeling of like this is where it started i'm excited to crack into that with henry yeah i'm excited to watch his eyes open to the to the beautiful wonderful world of rachel's poetry corner um can i talk about my second thing yes so let me take a drink because there's lots of long words in this one so you've heard me talk about bismuth that wonderful shape-shifting metal but what about bismuth subsalicylate what is happening are you friends with bismuth subsalicylate because it goes by another name do you know what that other name is no fucking pepto bismol oh really yeah i guess it's got that weird cool shape-shifting metal up your love for bismuth

it goes it goes very very very fucking deep listen y'all you know my fucking sitch at this point fluids i have drank fluids i drink in this life ranked goes water soda juice beer pepto bismol wine in that order if we're counting by fluid ounces i think pepto bismol beats wine but i'm becoming an adult man and now although the older i get the more pepto i'm just gonna drink so what the fuck you got the tabs the other day and i'm curious if you think the tabs are as effective tabs are bullshit but we were about to get on a boat and i didn't need to have a big bottle of pepto-bismol with me um i ate them i ate them very recently folks and listen it's the best medicine ever even though it occasionally leaves me horrifically constipated it only does that some of the time and every rose has its thorns baby um how many times are we going to reference that?

Colloquialism. So it is this pink goo, right? But that pink goo is not necessarily, you know, the bismuth subcellus silyte, just like in its natural form. It is called what's it's called a colloidal substance, which is science talk for it's got a bunch of insoluble particles floating around in another solution. So that pink stuff has other tiny insoluble particles just sort of floating around in it, I guess just chilling in that thick pink goo. And the compound also has salicylic acid in the compound, and that has anti-inflammatory properties. It kills bacteria.

And the bismuth has antibiotic properties, and it acts as an antacid. As far as I can tell, nobody can tell how it actually stops diarrhea. No one's 100% sure, but it just does it also which like what the fuck maybe i haven't done enough research but i did more research in a pepto-bismol today than i thought i would ever do um it was first on the market in uh the early 1900s like the year 1900 uh started showing up in this store uh some some derivative of it uh some pharmacist in in new york um and he it was developed as an anti-diarrheal for uh infants with cholera so good looking out pepto bismol well done uh when it was first sold on the market it was sold as bismosal mixture cholera infantum uh which is you know the scariest four words i've ever heard put together i think uh

and then luckily in 1919 they changed it to the way less scary pepto-bismol not pepto what was it bismosal mix your cholera in phantom i want to drink that pink stuff and go eat at pizza hut no i want to drink the pep did you find out about the pinkness i'm very curious the pink i think is just sort of a color color choice because it has to be i think all colloidal colloidal um materials have to have a very very sort of opaque what's the i get these i get the opaque and transparent opaque means it's like thick and you can't see through it right yeah it has to have like an incredibly opaque, the form that it takes, that like sort of gooey, gooey, thick, rich form

is the most important part because that's what sort of binds these non-soluble particles together. And so at that point, like your options are like, you know, creamy white, or I guess you could dye it like black, but that would be wild. And yeah, I don't know why they picked pink, but it looks, I mean,

it's striking, right? It is. And it's identifiable very easily. It's very identifiable. So despite the fact it's pink, and I don't know how much Pepto experience you have. I was trying to think about the last time. I don't even know if I've maybe taken it once since you and i have known each other so it's it's been like eight years yeah um you asked about the pink color i was certain that you know how when you drink uh a lot of like i think it's grape juice your stool can turn like green or something like that i think that that's the like the purple dye and the grape juice turns your stool green uh when you drink pepto-bismol for some people it can turn your tongue and your stool black oh geez and this happens to me and i i was never quite sure about it but i thought it was like the grape juice thing or it's just like the dye in pepto-bismol for whatever reason like the inversion of pink like it just left behind like this black trail

what it really is is that the uh the chemical compound in Pepto-Bismol can mix with the sulfur in your saliva and it will combine with the bismuth to form bismuth sulfide, which is an insoluble black salt. So your tongue and your poop turns black, but it's all good. No worries here. Is that what it says on the side of the bottle? That's what it says on the side of the bottle that's what it says in the side of the bottle it's all good it can also be extremely not good because if you use it for like prolonged periods of time you can like develop you know a pretty serious toxicity sort of situation in there also like young kids who have the flu or compromised immune systems can get very serious diseases from use and overuse of Pepto-Bismol. So, you know, it ain't perfect. It's got super serious side effects for some people.

Keep that in mind. Use it responsibly. But when you are able to use it and you do use it responsibly, when you hold a bottle of Pepto-Bismol, you are essentially holding a medicine cannon that you can then sort of randomly point at this specific part of your body and just fire it off. And that part of your body will be good at that point. And I can think of no other medicine or treatment like this. Like something is wrong with my stomach. Here is Pepto-B's Pepto Bismol. Go for it. I can't say like my sinuses are stuffy and my right eye hurts and my,

I can't hear it on my left ear and my tinnitus is really acting up. And I think I have pink eye. Somebody won't come up to me and be like, here is, here is head pills. And you take this and your whole head gets better. Do you know what i mean well i think what you're saying basically is that there's kind of only a couple symptoms that come with stomach problems but there's a lot that goes on up in your head that could be unrelated

i think we're i think when you're talking about upset stomach indigestion uh something something diarrhea that's not just a few stomach problems that's a sweet that's an array of stomach problems okay i'll tighten it up a little bit i'll tighten it up a little bit uh i got an ear infection and there's there's uh i got tinnitus and it's yeah this is gonna get gross i don't want to do the ear yeah i just i think the upstairs is a little more complicated than the downstairs i think so. But it doesn't change the fact that I have stomach. That's fair, yeah. I look all around my medicine cabinet.

That's the pill that helps me not be sad all the time. That's the pill that helps me when I'm getting very, very scared for no reason. I take that one. This one is for general aches and pains. This one I can take when the trees start shitting and doing weird stuff. And it makes my nose get all stuffed up. Yeah. And then here is the only stomach one.

The stomach fixer. The stomach fixer upper. There's some sort of game, like video game mechanic logic about that where it's just like, oh, my stomach got shot. Well, jab it with this stomach healer. Ah, I'm better. Okay. It's amazing. Stomach got shot. Well, jab it with this stomach healer.

Ah, I'm better. Like, it's amazing. The stomach works like that a lot. Like if you think like if you're hungry and then you eat food and then you're not hungry anymore. The stomach is just ready. It's just ready to solve problems. Or my stomach's really, really fucked up and it has been for a long time. Eat this yogurt. Oh, hey, that did fix it.

What the fuck, stomach? The stomach is ready to be solved i love stomach um what i don't love me and peto goes way way back right we're old old buds uh he's got me out a lot of heart scrapes over the years um his flavor is the worst taste in the fucking universe and it can burn in hell forever i don't care what kind of like tropical spin you can conjure like i again i it's been like i don't know six or seven years since i've had pepto-bismol but i can recall it in my mind it's it is indicative of the the colloidal sort of like substance uh sub-genre i feel like uh like have you ever had to do like an mri where you drink that like tracer goo no

it's sort of the same sort of uhural experience. For me, I think the flavor is undeniably bad. But what's worse is that it sort of coats your whole tasting zone, your whole tasting area in a way that is unpleasant, unpleasant. If it was a bad flavor, but like a nice liquid form that you could just kind of shoot down there. That would be one thing. But yeah uh anyway that's pepto bismol very grateful for it i took it before we went on a three-hour boat ride i was very nervous i was gonna get tummy sick on it because i've been tummy sick a bit since i got back from the latest tour but and bought me a beautiful exactly three-hour long reprieve which ended as we were pulling into the docks, which made me do the old fucking truffle shuffle back up the back up the back up. You really feel comfortable sharing a lot of information on this podcast.

I think that I've pretty much whittled my audience down to people who do this exact same shit at this point. I'm not worried about it. OK, that's going to do it for us. Hey, do you want to hear some submissions from our friends at home? Yes, please. Here's one from Meredith who says, I absolutely love putting maple syrup in my coffee. It's so delicious I don't put anything else

in coffee anymore. I've heard that this is a thing. Have you ever done this? Fuck no. Meredith went out of her way to announce that she is Meredith from Vermont. So there is maybe something to be expected about it. But no, you know me. It seems like you might be into it. I need to pour some sort of colloidal substance into my coffee to get it, you know, crimey.

And if I'm going to do that, it's going to be that hazelnut shit. And I drink coffee every day. I drink it so much. And I always get the same hazelnut shit in it. Because I've never had another flavor that pleases me as greatly as that does. Maybe I should. coffee every day i drink it so much and i always get the same hazelnut shit in it um because i've never had another flavor that pleases me as greatly as that does maybe i should maybe i should mix it up maybe i should throw some you know soy sauce or whatever in there who knows or maple syrup like like meredith suggested maybe i'll pour some caro syrup i'll meet you halfway

uh sofia says i love opening up a new tube of paint or lotion and using the pointy bit on the end of the cap to poke open the metal seal oh god that's good i love those because you look at it you're like oh god how am i gonna and then you see that little fun little spear and you're like i'm gonna it's a stabbing it's a stabbing full human beings love a stabbing uh and then one last one this one's from kirsten uh who says i love rearranging the furniture in my house once every few months it makes the normally arduous chore of cleaning under big places of decor more exciting and i like to experiment with different setups and vibes a room can have my friend ariel does this all the time like she is always rearranging she's got in her living space

and dining space are kind of her only areas to really play around and she goes for it i feel like every time i've been there it's been a different layout and i i once like i i was so inspired i brought her to our house yes our old our old house that was a little bit smaller than the one we have now and i was like hey hey can we do it here and she was like no i know she's so good at it uh that's gonna do it for us thank you hey to bowen and augustus for the use of our theme song money won't pay you can find a link to that in the episode description and uh big thanks to maximumfund.org for having us on their network uh what do you want to plug this week you know i just want to mention that the max fund drive is coming up it is coming up

very soon it's an exciting opportunity if you're new to the show uh we are part of maximum fun which is a pledge supported network that means if you enjoy the stuff we do you can donate some money to keep us going and get some cool pledge gifts when we do the max fun drive during the max fun drive we all kind of make a special effort to make really good shows and so it's a good time to check out new stuff uh and that happens in march and we have uh we'll be doing bonus episodes everybody's doing bonus episodes uh rachel and i are still trying to figure out what we want ours to be well we have an idea we have an idea maybe we should float with the idea we're gonna do just sort of all will smith just kind of uh uh review this is your life the music and the filmography

and look i don't want to dump on his his you know some of his later more questionable work, his After Earth. What was the one he did with M. Night Shyamalan? Anyway, I want to celebrate the things that do matter. And I maybe just want to celebrate him because I saw him as the blue genie. And not only saw him, I made him my desktop background. Rachel can see him poking through my windows that's fine yeah he's been the background my desktop my laptop a long time and i saw him

i thought like people are making fun of will smith and um you know whether or not he deserves it i just want to just turn turn turn back the dial we think it would be a fun episode and griffin does also know a lot of the lyrics to wild wild west i know a lot of the lyrics to uh yeah yeah yeah to that to um really all of the big willie style which is it makes me kind of basic i feel like as a will smith fan but and yeah there's lots of other shows on the network and you can find other stuff we do at mcelroy.family and uh any other things any other stuff got tickets for sale for mbam bam and taz in uh san jose st louis it's not st louis san jose and salt lake city thank you and anything else nope what's next bringing what's next do What's next? Do you know him?

No. Do you know that character? No. All right. What's next? No. It's Jed Bartlett from the West Wing. That's Jed Bartlett?

What? All right. What's next? All right. Bring me the next thing. What's next? Hurry up, Josh. When was the last time you watched it?

It's been a few years. Maybe that is exactly what he sounds like. Oh, come on, CJ. What's next? You're getting closer. Because I'm saying character names? Leo, I'm sick of it. What's next?

Give me that. Give me a freaking president hammer. Putin sent his robots over. I'm going to get them. What's next? Ba-ba-ba-da-ba.マリオ ワクヘロマリオ ワクヘロ マリオ ワクヘロ マリオ ワクヘロ

マリオ ワクヘロ MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener supported. There's nothing quite like sailing in the calm international waters on my ship, the SS Biopic. Avast! It's the SS Biopic. Avast! It's actually pronounced Biopic. No, you dingus! It's Biopic!

Who the hell says that? It's Biopic. It's the words for biography and picture. If you... All right, that is enough. Ahoy! I'm Dave Holmes. I'm the host of the newly rebooted podcast,

formerly known as International Waters, designed to resolve petty but persistent arguments like this. How? By pitting two teams of opinionated comedians against each other with trivia and improv games, of course. Winner takes home the right to be right. What podcast be this? It's called Troubled Waters, where we disagree to disagree.