Wonderful! - Wonderful! 73: Kayak Driver

Episode Date: February 27, 2019

Griffin's favorite other way to explore the world! Rachel's new favorite podcast genre! Griffin's favorite formative indie rock! Rachel's favorite voice-changing gas! 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.

is that how you're gonna sit fuck yeah it is hi this is rachel yeah this is gonna know how i'm gonna know how i'm sitting on this one it's griffin mackroy the cool sitter and this is Rachel McElroy. Yeah, this is kind of how I'm sitting on this one. It's Griffin McElroy, the cool sitter. And this is wonderful. Griffin is sitting. I feel like you talk about how I sit on this show a lot. Like a frontiersman. I do kind of feel like I've just slain a bear and I turned him into a new house for me and my wife and our kids.

We're all sick with something, but it's okay because I've just turned a bear into a big house and now I'm sitting down comfortably. I do also want to make sure the listeners at home realize not just that you're sitting like a frontiersman, but you got a nice new haircut. I have a nice new haircut. You can't hear it in the audio, but it looks great. I sat down on a barrel and three birds flew down and chomped it all off right outside of my new bear house that I live in. And thank you all for listening to our show. It's a fun time around here because we're about to go on a big cruise and a big fun family trip. And also the MaxFunDrive's coming up up so we're just cranking it out right now.

We're on our grind right now. But that doesn't, I feel fine about it for this show because there's no shortage of good things out there, I feel like. You know, that's true. There's always more things.

Universe is infinite, technically speaking, probably. People think, I don't know. I'm real little in the grand scheme of things. Do you have any small wonders? I do me really good customer service it's so important especially when you order stuff online so i did this thing today where i thought i was going to order something online and then as soon as i submitted my order i regretted it yeah uh and so like five minutes after I ordered it I canceled

it uh and they like got back to me right away and and were like please come back and gave me like a coupon for my next purchase that is I just thought what a great company I we just had to cancel a few flights uh with uh an airline and i'm not gonna put them on blast but the person i spoke to on the phone was so helpful as she explained that they were gonna charge us 200 per ticket oh no um yeah so they rogered us but good on that one but they were really sweet when they explained how they were gonna do it um i'm gonna say spaghetti oh that's a good one i don't think you can go wrong with spaghetti. I know I've talked about, what did I talk about?

I talked about lasagna, which is like spaghetti's big flat cousin. But man, you just can't beat spaghetti. Grisna and I went to a nice Italian restaurant here not long ago. We did. And I was just so excited to have Italian food because it is always what I want. Yes, it was, what's it? it oh locodoro here in austin it was very nice very nice yeah we show what if we did like a just like a restaurant review podcast but an extremely localized one how many people live in austin if we could net like half

of them i think we could make a sustainable podcast we have a fair number of wonderful austin listeners uh but i have a feeling they would tire of that podcast. I think they would. And also, we don't know anything about food. Yeah. And also, we only go out once a month. That is true also. Who goes first this week? I think it's you. I think it is me also. My first thing is being on a boat. Being on a boat. When you're on a boat, the feeling that you have when you're on a boat.

Okay. Now, can you provide a little background as to how many boats you have been on? Seven, maybe. Seven to 20. And I know that's a pretty wide range. Now, are we including canoes? I want to include every sort of watercraft imaginable here. If you include every kind of watercraft, we're in the triple digits.

Because I will say we are about to go on a a cruise we have not been on a cruise ship before i want to make that clear we've never been on a yacht that's probably that's not true for me i went to a i went to a party at comic-con on a yacht it was pretty it was pretty tight wow it was pretty good uh i don't i don't want to drop names but uh there was pretty big uh pretty big names let's just say it was com trues if you uh crom crom twos if you know what i'm saying wink wink wink i have tom cruise oh it was his big yacht was was it called the cruiser it was called the cruiser yeah it was called he actually made it say cruises cruiser which is like we get it you didn't have to double up what about cruising for a bruising cruising for

a cruising is actually what i said cruising for a crazing it wasn't tom cruise but yeah so we are about to put our money i am about to put my money on them where my mouth is by going on the joco cruise because it's going to be certainly the longest continuous boat being on that I've ever done by a pretty, pretty large margin. Um, my boating experience is admittedly kind of limited, but I'm always excited about the opportunity to be on a boat or some sort of water craft thing. Um, whether it's a pontoon boat or a barge or a canoe or a raft or whatever, we just went out with a group of friends for a friend's birthday out on a pontoon boat out on Lake Travis.

And it was really nice. And just being out there on the water made me realize like, I like this. I like this, I think. Yeah, I remember when I first met you, you had just returned from a 4th of July weekend in which you spent a fair amount of time on a lake. Yes.

And you were real jazzed about it that was mostly raft based uh raft based activities um but yeah so when i was trying to think of what i really like about being out on water on a boat uh my first big reason is that it's not it's not the land. And that's kind of wild. It's like you're in another sort of realm of the earth that we live on. And really, that realm is the biggest one. It's quite bigger than the land realm. You can't discount the fact that you're sort of exploring, you're experiencing the world on a completely different kind of surface.

I think that's very good. Like, what's even out there on the water i don't know because i don't go out there very often i wish i came in here and you had a dry erase board on the wall and it just showed your thought process for putting together a wonderful topic and because i can see you yeah writing down boat and then an arrow and then land and then a line i've written i've written Y in big capital letters and then like circled it. I'm just saying, I look out at a swamp

and I'm like, I can't go out there. But then I get on a hovercraft and I can. I have been on a hovercraft before. Really? Manani took me out on one down in Florida and we had ourselves a great time. I did not like the loud noise that the hovercraft made, but I like being out there.

It just makes you, being out there on water makes you feel like anything's possible because now you're on water and you shouldn't be. Okay. Number two, I don't usually get boat sick, but that may change on the cruise. Hopefully it doesn't. But I like the experience of just kind of being on a surface that's not exactly steady. think that it's very soothing i think that it can be very nice yes does this thrill apply to plane usage for you oh god no because you're up in the air and it's different if if if while i was up in the air the plane i don't like plane movement when i'm up in the i'm not like afraid to fly or anything like that but like uh i don't enjoy turbulence if that's if that's what you're asking.

But if the turbulence was like a gentle swaying back and forth, side to side, like I'm a baby in a cradle, you think about it, that's kind of what being in the womb is like.

Yeah. It's like being on a boat. I mean, I don't remember, but I can imagine. I think that's a Jimmy Buffett lyric. Something about a boat being like a womb. We need to have Justin McElroy on ready for questions like this.

I mean, I could probably get his number. It wasn't his boat either. I'm never going to say what yacht I was on. You'll have to guess. Also, if you're on the ocean, you don't only get that feel of the rocket and the rowan. You get the smell of the salt and the feel of the breeze and the sound of the ocean it's a sensory explosion it's so nice i'm very excited to get out on that big boat uh number three being on a boat is also usually tied to some other fun activity whether

it is jumping off the boat and swimming with all your friends having a good time or uh you know whitewater rafting which i've done before and very much enjoy, uh, or, you know, having some brews with your buds, as long as you have a designated boat driver, because I don't fuck with that. Uh, and yeah, it's just, nobody gets on a boat to do their taxes, you know? Have you ever driven a boat? Have I driven a boat? Uh, you're talking about a boat with like a motor on it? Yes. How else would you drive it? Oh, I was going to say like I've driven a kayak.

Well, that's paddling, dear. That's fine. I have not. I think I'd be really good at it. I'm really curious what it's like. You think they'll let me drive the cruise ship? I think they probably will if you ask very nicely. Give me a little cruise pin to put on like a like a little miniature

pilot i like that a lot you've painted a wonderful picture reason number four and this may be the most important reason boats have the best terminology boats have the best terminology when i played that uh return of the obra den game i had to learn very much about how boats work to solve them it's such a good fucking game do you understand the difference between like starboard and starboard to the right port to the right, port to the left. Yes. More about like job roles on the ship, like what the top man does and what a midshipman does. You say all this, but you won't watch Below Deck with me.

Rachel's been getting really into Below Deck. If Below Deck was, if it was a bigger crew and also they didn't cater to just universally horrible people, I might be into it. okay okay here's a few words that i learned today when looking at boat terminology okay uh a thwart a thwart means perpendicular to the ship's center line a thwart i don't know when you would have to use that specific direction words or one one word a thwart thwart it's like thwart like you can thwart somebody's plans but with an a in front of it uh gunwale which is a fucking great word that does sound like you know uh baby beluga strikes back it's a gunwale it's actually g-u-n-w-a-l-e that's the upper edge of the side of a boat wow uh and then this one i'd heard before but i hadn't really appreciated how phonetically pleasing it is mizzenmast the mizzen i have heard the mizzenmast is like it's the

shorter mast located aft of the main mast on a yawl or a catch the mizzenmast oh the yawl and catch is also extremely good extremely powerful you can make up boat terminology i would be none the wiser it's true it's just boats themselves are their own little universe and they let you explore parts of our world that otherwise are inaccessible to you it's kind of amazing to me how boats float i don't really know that i understand that you can't we can't start yeah like you put a car in the water it doesn't float doesn't why not but you put a boat in much heavier does float does float big boat too big boat big boat there's so many little mysteries like that in our world that if i start thinking about i start to get really panicky about okay what's your first thing my first thing and you

know what i've started thinking about a little bit huh you know how in that episode description you say like rachel's favorite x yeah i usually try to couch it sometimes if it's like if it's like uh rachel's favorite poem about the state of iowa written by i'm curious to see how you're gonna spin this one okay because the thing i want to talk about this week is true crime true crime so i don't want you to say like Rachel's favorite brutal murder. Interesting. Yeah, I wouldn't say that in a million years. Yeah.

This will be interesting to talk about. Yeah. I used to be right there with you and now I am super not. I held off for a while talking about this, even though I've been kind of really eating it up on the sly. Because it's not a thing that I like that i feel like i'm especially proud of sure but i started to do kind of a tally in my head of specifically true crime podcasts that i've been eating up and there's a lot of them yes uh there's i counted today and there are seven of them. The most recent one, Over My Dead Body, which just came out.

Okay. That's a good name. They have the best. I will give them this. It's not my favorite genre. They have the best names. Typically, the ones I like are like an unsolved murder. Yes.

Or like a death where there is some suspicion around it. Yes. I guess we should mention here, this is so not that it yes i guess we should mention here this is so not that podcast that i guess we're going to talk about murder for a little bit which may not be your jam but if that's true then well i'm gonna focus i'm gonna focus more on what about it is interesting that is good uh not specifically like the crimes themselves yes please so this this kind of became a big thing because not only are there podcasts, but there's a lot of TV shows about it right now. I mean, there's always been.

Yeah. I mean, did you watch Snapped? Snapped was my shit. When I was in like high school, I would watch Snapped and just be like, they sure did. They sure did. Yeah, like the staircase was really big for a while and then we watched some of that one that was on hbo i can't remember what it was called uh but i looked into the kind of the reasons behind people's interest in this and it made a lot of sense to me um so there was um an article on mental floss that kind of detailed a lot of the reasons one of them talks about the adrenaline

rush associated with it as you kind of like when you hear about this you get this kind of like euphoric like rush from like oh my gosh this crazy this crazy thing happened but i'm okay you know okay interesting um and then also like the solving the mystery you know like being you think you're gonna be the one to finally listen along um and then and then also the being scared in a controlled way right like it's like it's kind of similar to the the same reason people like horror movies of like this feeling of like i know i'm gonna listen to this i'm gonna see this it's gonna be okay at the end i'm gonna be a little freaked out in the middle and then i'm gonna find out what happens and then i'm gonna turn it off and then i'm gonna be done

that's that that is again that's like nothing new right like that was edgar edgar allen poe had the whole like macabre fascination theory of and that's like basic basic human human nature stuff um and then i also saw this interesting thing because so there was a study in 2010 by the social psych psychological and personality science journal that revealed that uh women are more likely to be interested in true crime than men why well so there there's speculation that I read this thing from Marnie Fuhrman, who is a clinical social worker and licensed marriage and family therapist. And she said, perhaps the biggest reason women are drawn to true crime is that most women live in fear on a daily basis that they can easily become a crime victim. And that many true crime stories end with the bad guy being caught,

and that provides women with a sense of satisfaction to see the criminal brought to justice. That is fascinating and bleak as hell. I know, it's very terrible. It's very bad. It's very terrible. I have been listening to a lot of true crime podcasts when I take my walks. Not great.

Which is not great. It definitely makes me more alert. I saw a lot of theories that people are listening to these to become more prepared in case of emergency, which I don't think that's why I listen. But it's an added side effect. But it has made me more vigilant. Nobody's going to serial me.

Yeah, for sure. I haven't been serial in a while uh so yeah so i i kind of struggled to bring this up but i recognized i was spending a lot of time enjoying it yeah and felt like i need to bring this to the podcast because it is a genuine interest of mine that i have slowly been discovering especially as uh my my work schedule has become a little slow it's like a nice little thrill in my day, you know? Yeah, sure. I feel like it doesn't necessarily,

it's a little incompatible with my anxiety these days, but I feel like it as a medium for storytelling, like it is, they are stories. I mean, Serial was the podcast that I feel like everybody was like, oh, this is gold. And now there are like hundreds of them. Yeah, sure. If you go to the like society and culture section gold and now there are like hundreds of them yeah sure i mean you go to the like society and culture section of itunes it's just full of them uh i mean

that didn't just launch the true crime sort of craze that launched like the storytelling podcast storytelling yeah the public awareness of it yeah yeah uh yeah i don't think you should feel any shame for liking true crime podcasts like everybody on earth more or less does they know um yeah should we start a true crime podcast what what is the opposite of a true crime podcast you know what we could do we get on next door yeah and we could follow the package theft yeah we could follow every time somebody posts on Nextdoor, like, a strange man came to my door. It's like, the mail carrier? We're like calling Amazon. Like, were you aware that packages are being stolen from front doorsteps?

What are you doing about it? We'd have to do episodes four times a day that would all just be labeled like gunshots. Or fireworks. Gunshots or fireworks. or fireworks gunshots or fireworks we used to be in a facebook group in our uh our old neighborhood that uh just was this very much all over it was it got pretty wild people used to really kind of troll each other so there was like a younger generation that lived in the neighborhood that was like moving up there and then there was a very old guard part of the part of the neighborhood and as you can imagine like the two sort of hemispheres there like uh jabbed each other from time to time there were a lot of concern about the teens in the

neighborhood right yeah in a very um overtly racist way coming from the the sort of old guard and the the younger folks weren't really having any of it yeah and then every fourth of july the younger folks would get on every night on fourth of of July and just be like, there's gunshots everywhere. We have to get the fuck out of Austin. Yeah, some fun little inter-neighborhood tension. But hey, can I steal you away? I got a jumbotron here, and this one is for Andrew, and it's from Diana, Katie, and Sarah, who say, Hi, Andrew. It's your good friends Diana, Katie, and Sarah.

We could tell you you're the world's best DM, but we'd rather remind you that you're seriously one of the coolest people on the planet. Don't fight us on this. It is now legally binding. Happy birthday, Andrew. I'm so glad they recognize our sort of legal authority over anything that we say out loud. Yeah, this will hold up in court. Yeah, so like in the big court case of the U.S. versus

Boats, this episode is going to be submitted for evidence, and Boats is going to win. Boats is going to win. Do you want to read the other one here? Aww. Aww. This message is for Rachel and Griffin, and it is from Sophie. And the message says, here's an idea for a restaurant called Pesto! The menu has a variety of pesto-covered foods, and the logo is a classic tux-clad magician

with a top hat and a wand, and he's pulling a bunch of pesto noodles out of the hat. And he's saying pesto change-o. I love pesto so much, but I only have $100. And that's not enough to open a restaurant. Someone help. Sophie, thank you so much. Thank you so much. I would like to see just the art for this yeah just a little magician

just with a wand saying pesto change up yeah i'd like i'd love to see that art illuminated as a neon sign hanging above the restaurant that this is going to be and it's like animated so the wand goes up and down and the pesto pops out oh like a rabbit from a hat. Damn, pesto's good. A custom magnet. Subscribe now to make sure you get our next episode. What's an example of a game, Manolo? Pokemon or medication. How do you play that? You have to guess if something's a Pokemon name or medication. First time listener, if you want to listen to episode highlights and also know how to participate,

follow Dr. Game Show on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. We'd love to hear from you. It's really fun. For the whole family. We'll be every other Wednesday starting March 13th, and we're coming to MaxFun. Snorlax. Pokemon?

Yes. Nice. Can I tell you about my second thing? Yes. I'm going to take us on back. I'm going to take us on back to the last decade, pretty early on in the last decade, a special time for me when I was in high school,

which was actually, I take it back, that was the least special, that was not a very special time. The only least less special time was when I was in high school which was actually i take it back that was the least special that was not a very special time the only least less special time was when i was in middle school but high school you know it had its ups and downs what it had it up was the shins when the shins released their first two albums when i was in high school uh i'm talking about you were going to talk about like your first like my first what your first my first good thing that happened to me in high school no like your first romantic experience in a movie theater or something i mean i could talk about that too no it's not terrible please don't it was gingerly just sort of rubbing

pinkies with name withheld here but we were in prince of egypt and my parents were there with me i'm talking about the shins on this segment have you heard of them i am familiar you gotta listen to this one song it's gonna change your life oh no she fell right into my trap uh they've released a bunch of albums uh obviously since i've been in high school and they've been good but i really want to drill down into their first two albums uh 2001 was uh ohverted World that came out, and that one had some tracks you might know from the movie Garden State that came out in 2004.

But before Garden State, in 2003, Shoots Too Narrow came out, and that one is just front to back, just all fucking good songs. Were you down with shins in this era? I feel like everybody kind of got on board. Yes, I had a moment while i was living in chicago which was from like 2004 to 2007 yes uh that i was uh shins enthusiast 2004 is obviously when i got on board because it's when um it's when garden state came out and i was like obsessed with that movie when i was a junior in high school and then these these two albums having just a a vault of shins music to

listen to was uh was really eye-opening and the type of music they were making really split the uprights for like 17 year old me's interests um so the shins uh was this side project from uh james mercer who was the the lead singer he was also in a band called flake music with some of the other members of, like, original members of the Shins, which I don't know if you've ever listened to Flake Music. It sounds a lot like the Shins. Okay. Which was apparently, like, a real conflict between the two bands. It's really good. I really like Flake Music.

I actually didn't know that it existed until I was in a record store, like, three years ago here in Austin. And I heard the Shins, and I was like, whoa, is this new Shins? They're like, no, it's pre Shins. It's Flake music. And it was really nice. Um, but eventually Flake like pseudo disbanded, pseudo kind of like transformed into, uh, the Shins. They started touring with Modest Mouse. Uh, and, uh, during that time when they were touring, James Mercer was like preparing the songs for O Inverted World. And yeah, he was going through some tough stuff. Like he was living in Albuquerque and the music scene there wasn't doing so well. And he started to become kind of resentful of a lot of the folks he grew up with.

And I think you get that a lot in the in the album especially in new slang which is just like explicitly about that exact thing uh new slang was their single that like set the the indie rock world on fire and and made the their first album like this hugely anticipated thing and then it it came out and obviously like i didn't listen to it because it was 2001 and i listened to like three bands total in my entire life at that point. Um, but, uh, it, it, it, it was, it was pretty successful. Uh, obviously Garden State sort of launched it into the stratosphere and it's a little bit played. I feel like, I feel like Garden State is a butt of an easy joke, but, um, but I feel like this is a good track. Caring is Creepy is on that album.

That's a good one. But New Slang is the one I want to play a little bit of. And you've heard this song a thousand times probably, but it's just really pretty and really nice. Yes. And I always get it very excited. Weirdly enough,

I was in CVS today and it was like playing over the radio as I walked in after I had just written these notes. And it was nice. It was nice.

Here's New Slang. And if you took to me like a and it was nice. It was nice. Here's New Sly. it's got the it's got these like simon and garfunkel vibes that i really like i see that i mean i also i think it's interesting that you like transition from ben folds to shins because it seems like a natural progression to me yeah and shins what i what i really like owe to them is that shins were like a gateway drug for me to like a lot of the bands that i was like obsessed with in college like clap your hands say yeah and islands and death cab like uh shins were like kind of the first as as uh as much as i can look back on how much i like garden state and find it kind of silly the amount of music i was turned on to because of the soundtrack of that movie is kind of wild.

Oh, yeah. I think that was true for a lot of people. Yes. So, yes. Also, before Garden State came out, their second album came out, Shoots Too Narrow. And their first album was well-received, but this one was really, really critically acclaimed. They still didn't have very many like resources because it was pre-Garden State.

So they recorded the album in Mercer's basement in like apparently a kind of rough part of Portland and close to the end of their recording of the album, somebody broke in to the basement and stole their computer with all the master tracks on it and they just had to do it again. Oh my gosh. But I mean, despite that rough patch that they they

went through there uh the album was really really really good it was a lot happier and sort of poppier than the kind of quiet keyboard uh led stuff on during that time period at least for me if i had to like explain to somebody what indie music was i would have definitely had the shins on that list this and modest mouse and the fact that they like toured together, you could kind of just like go there and then not go to a concert for 10 years and then kind of still be able to follow what's going on. So anyway, the music is like more guitar led and a lot like happier and more upbeat. And my favorite song in the album is what I'm going to play now to kind of show that off. And it's Mine's out a year after that. And then their song started appearing in McDonald's commercials.

And they were big fucking phony sellouts. Oh, Griffin. Who cares? Says the man that did an entire episode of his podcast devoted to Totino's. Listen, listen, listen. No, you don't understand. No, listen. That was for money.

I don't know. I feel like the Shins was like a perfect kind of band for the age that I was at. Yeah. Because it was so clever. But it was also I mean, there were a lot of clever bands around that time that I also found just unlistenable because they were very clever and smart and also like not musical in the way that I liked my music from like Ben Folds and They Might Be Giants. The Shins like was very approachable, but also like really, really clever and turned me on to a lot of

other good music. And like I said, their other music that they've come out with since then, I think they just released an album last year. It's been good from what I've heard of it, but I don't think I will ever be as big a fan as I was during that sort of formative period of my life when I got turned on to their stuff. I just came up with a new game as you were talking. Okay. We don't have to play it during the podcast. I'm excited.

We've talked a lot about how particular albums or movies can come to you at the exact right time. Yeah. That would be a fun game to play with somebody you just got to know of just go back and forth naming albums or movies that came to you at a very particularly important time period in your life that's good so i could say um uh oh god bare naked ladies uh oh shit what was the name of the album it was like a single word album it wasn't crash that was a that was a uh dave matthews band album anyway i would probably list crash by dave matthews band is one of my albums um yeah shit that's probably one of them too stunt

stunt by pure naked ladies is up there i would say title by fiona apple uh blues traveler the one with the cat on the front cover of it yeah yeah what was that one called it's the one that had hook on it four four was the name of that one uh the blue album weezer uh that one i that one i missed a little bit that one i was late to that one i was late to oh i changed my life yeah hey what's your thing? My second thing is the way that your voice sounds when you inhale helium. I'm excited to learn about this. Are you bringing this because of the new, I think it's a Geico commercial where like the helium truck explodes and the cops are like speaking and they have high, no, okay.

No. That's just for me. No, I honestly, I don't know exactly what brought this to mind today. But it did send me down like a YouTube rabbit hole. And I am pleased to report that there are videos of Vin Diesel inhaling helium. Love it. And Helen Mirren. I once watched a YouTube video that explained anti-helium.

That can make your voice go lower i saw that when i was doing my research but i didn't delve into it it's wild i haven't watched those so wild it's so good it basically makes your voice super deep and it's in the alternate sort of opposite register it's very good so this is this is apparently a popular game on jimmy fall Tonight Show. You don't say. I watched a few of these videos today thinking that I might find a favorite. And honestly, it's just kind of always the same. And so I did some research into why that is.

It's just Jimmy saying debase yourself as he does with all of it. Smash this dirty egg on your head and then go take a shit in the middle of the stage. It's just people with like kind of signature voices. So like Alan Rickman and Sofia Vergara, like he has all of them do it. And it's kind of similar results.

Mini small wonder, Alan Rickman, continue. Yeah. So here's how it works. Do you know how it works? I have no idea how it works. Okay. So the sound of your normal voice is determined by the shape of your mouth, throat, nasal passages,

tongue, and lips. All my favorite stuff. Your voice begins in your larynx and your larynx contains your vocal cords. These two folded membranes vibrate when air passes between them.

These vibrations resonate through your throat, nasal passage, mouth, tongue, lips, create sound. The air you breathe is made up of maling nitrogen and oxygen. Right. But helium is much less dense than regular air. Due to its lower density, sound travels over twice as fast through helium than it does regular air. Okay. I understand everything you've said so far. When you breathe in helium, your voice travels much more quickly across your vocal cords. And that's... So it's not that the helium is changing the pitch of your voice.

It is changing the frequency at which your vocal cords vibrate. So if you think about the chipmunks or like a track sped up, like the air is getting through your larynx faster and it's creating this kind of like sped up quality in your voice. Well, and your vocal cords are vibrating twice as fast because those are the things that actually form the, this is really interesting. It's interesting to do this actually

and talk about this while we are looking at audacity, showing us our sound waves because you can kind of visualize what that looks like so sound travels faster and thus the resonance of your vocal tract changes uh and makes it more responsive to high frequency sounds interesting so i'm guessing anti-helium does the opposite i guess so i didn't do research into that but it would stand to reason. It's chunky air, basically. And your vocal cords really have to work to get through it.

Well, and that's what's interesting. So obviously, prolonged inhalation of helium can be bad because you're not getting the oxygen you need. Yes. But doctors have sometimes used a mixture of helium and oxygen to treat things like COPD because helium's lower density can help improve airflow in the lungs. But the effect only lasts as long as there's helium around your vocal cords. So as soon as regular air replaces the helium, your voice returns to normal, which is why people have to inhale helium, speak, and then immediately inhale helium again to get the same effect i was always like

really worried i would do it too much and die i know right i'm glad i didn't me too i never like made a game out of it but it is just always a treat it's fun it is it is universally a fun activity i didn't like it though when like i would be at a party and they'd be trying to get the balloons to go up but then i would do the helium as a fun joke and people would yell at a party and they'd be trying to get the balloons to go up but then I would do the helium as a fun joke and people would yell at me because I was wasting good helium.

That always hurt my feelings and I don't know why they did it because I was just trying to have a fun time too. I know. Well you always get the party started Griffin.

I always show up at the party and I get it turned out and it's because of my funny high voice I do from all the helium. That was a very pure segment babe. You know it's a simple pleasure it's a nice nice sort of diametrically opposed to your first segment true crime podcast and inhaling funny balloon jokes you know i almost did i almost

did balloons this episode that would have been really yeah you know we're complex people you and me yeah i mean i like boats and uh early aughts indie rocks so can't beat that hey thank you so much for listening hey do you want to hear some submissions from our friends at home hey i sure do hey okay this one's from aiden who says there's a few crows that live by my dorm that i give food to sometimes crows are very smart and can recognize faces of people they like, so sometimes they follow me to the cafeteria or my classes. I'm so sorry to hear that, Aiden. Oh, my gosh.

You've made a bed for yourself there that sounds just... That's kind of adorable, though, if you think about it. It's adorable behavior for any animal to exhibit. I have to imagine people that see this person on campus like oh it's the crow folk it's the crow folks here they come uh here's one from kt who says something i think is wonderful is the instant you decide to go home there's a distinct moment between realizing you no longer want to be at a place and remembering that you're an adult and can just leave and it is such a relief every time it happens mackler Yeah. There is no more appropriate small wonder than this for you and me.

Yeah. This is actually the basis of finding Rachel's entire romance. Griffin, more than any other compliment he has given to our relationship. The one thing that stands out is that we both like to leave at the same time. Exact same time. Every fucking time. Every time we're at a party, we will look at each other and just like not even

need to say anything. He brags about this to other couples as if we are describing a very like powerful piece of our relationship. It is. Like, hey, you guys,

I know you think you've got something special, but me and Rachel, we like to leave at the same time. It's true. One last one from Madison who says,

the Twitter account Bodega Cats, an endless supply of pictures of cats in bodegas. Nothing's better than scrolling through Twitter and stumbling upon a cat curled up with some cup of noodles or laying on some LaCroix or snoozing in a Snickers box. Who submitted this? This is from Madison. Thank you, Madison. Thank you, Madison.

I'm going to look into this. Rachel's going to, we're going to put our best folks on this right now. Thank you so much, Madison. Thank you so much and thank you at home for listening uh thanks to Bowen and Augustus for these for a theme song money won't pay you can find a link to that in the episode description uh and thank you so much to Maximum Fun Max Fun Drive is coming up very soon uh real really looking forward to that um we are a pledge funded network and we are a pledge funded

show and your support has allowed us to grow and turn this into a career and start touring and do all kinds of great stuff and we I can't say how much your support means to me because it's changed my life can I give an example of how the support has changed our lives

I used to sit on a piano bench Rachel used to see us sit on a piano bench. Rachel used to sit on a piano bench. I sit on a real folding chair. A real big girl chair. Thanks to your support. But yeah, it's coming up here in a couple weeks. We will make sure to tell you more. You can support us and support your favorite shows on the network.

Get some cool stuff in return. But more on that later. What else? I mean, there's the max fun shows that you know and love yes i i am always hitting that max fun website to see what is on there week to week um there's a really great episode of jordan jesse go this week with matt bronger there's a great stop podcasting yourself with paul f tompkins it's a star-studded week here at max fun i encourage you to check it out not to mention the rebirth of dr game show has come to maximum fun it's a very fun game show uh from joe firestone

and um manolo moreno and they play games that their listeners just like send in ideas for and then they play them with their callers. It's a very, very good, very pure show also. And that's new on Maximum Fun now. Yeah, there's a bunch of good stuff. Anything else? That's all I got. That's all I got, too.

I'm plum out. I'm freaking empty over here. Look at me over here. I'll haul it out. Oh, no. I'm all empty. Need to fill myself back up with podcast stuff because over here i'm plum tuckered and plum hollered out i'm firing frog's hair split

four ways plum tuckered i i need like a compendium of all of your appalachian expressions. Well, I'm gonna, I'm angrier than a corn crow at midnight on the 4th of July. Bye. Mario! Working on it! Mario! Working on it! Mario! Working on it! Mario! Working on it! Working on it!

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