Wonderful! - Wonderful! 84: Boomer at the Bat

Episode Date: May 15, 2019

Rachel's favorite big bread! Griffin's favorite sports climax! Rachel's favorite new Norwegian Pop Star! Griffin's favorite underappreciated folk musician! Music: "Money Won't Pay" by bo en and Augustus - https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya "High Five" and "Don't Kill My Vibe" by Sigrid: https://www.thisissigrid.com/ "Jesus Was a Crossmaker" and "Soldier of the Heart" by Judee Sill: https://www.amazon.com/Judee-Sill/dp/B000AL8Z8S MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

🎵 Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hello, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is Wonderful. Let's kick the tires and light the fires, baby. Come on. Let's get it. Let's spin her up and light the fires, baby. Come on. Let's get it. Let's spin her up.

Come on, baby. Kick them tires. What's the name of this character? Jeffro. Jeffro. Is the last name Ro? No, Jeffro is the first name. Okay.

I don't have a last name. Kick them tires, baby. Come on. That's real nice. Have you ever kicked a tire? I have out of frustration when my team lost the game I needed them to win. And you're like, oh, shucks. I said, no, I said shit.

Yeah, I said shit and I kicked my tire so hard that the car exploded. And I regret that. Like, I know that anger is regressive. It doesn't get you what you actually want. It only makes it digs the hole even deeper. I think that's an ancient proverb. Let me tell you something that might be useful for you. Okay.

When you feel so mad and you want to roar, just take a deep breath and count to four. Oh, that's helpful. Yeah. I also, I watched that episode of Daniel Tiger. I didn't take it to heart as much as the Potties Everywhere song. They have a song on Daniel Tiger about there's potties everywhere. There's potties for us to share, which makes it, if I'm a kid and I'm learning how to potty train it, it's like, wait, you're saying like there's potties, we're supposed to use them at the same time? Yeah. supposed to use them at the same time yeah um but for me as an adult like that brings me a lot of comfort there are potties everywhere and as an ibs sufferer those are words of great comfort thank you um this is a show where we talk about good stuff so um do you want to tell me a small wonder that you're into a small wonder is that eyebrows are back baby whoa so you probably weren't aware okay but in the 90s around

friends era oh yeah you you really didn't want eyebrows yeah that should have been invisible as thin as possible yeah and this was challenging for me a woman that has been gifted with- Blessed, I would say. Yes, great eyebrows. Tremendous eyebrows. A lot of eyebrow. And I waited. I waited patiently. Like two big mustaches over your eyes.

I waited patiently for a very long time. And now, eyebrows are in. Eyebrows are back, man. Yeah, they've been back for a little while. And I got nervous that it was just like, you know, a quick, ugh, boot, like phase. But man yeah they've been back for a little while and i got nervous that it was just like you know a quick ug boot like phase but no they're still back what do you think kicked this off what do you think was the oh geez i mean you know i'm not a huge fan of the work of anne hathaway but i have to think she helped a little bit she was definitely involved i think game of thrones has a lot of assertive brows yeah in there and i think that's fair uh people are into that show still

the resurgence of frida kahlo frida kahlo is very hot right now very hot very hot um i can't talk about my small wonder yes i saw the detective pikachu movie i saw it in theaters with my two and a half year old son it was his first movie and it was rachel and i were i was kind of terrified to do this uh because it was a solo adventure well it's me and henry we'd already had a conversation that like okay you know what if he wants to bail after 10 50 minutes take him out in the lobby can i say now though maybe try a second time that was bullshit if he had if he had freaked out and wanted to leave i would have it would have broken my heart um no i i thought it would be like a good he's aware of uh pikachu's work his body of work he

does he does in fact know the name pikachu he knows pikachu and he knows psyduck and really you can you can get there with just those two but we saw it in the theaters and it was my first time taking into the theater and it was such an incredible like like parenting experience that that part was really nice like sharing a big bag of popcorn with them was like good stuff and then the movie was like good it was it was very uh cute and fun and enjoyable and probably the best video game movie um which is not yeah i think it made you a little uncomfortable with how good it was it made me a little uncomfortable with like how much i was like i'm not a closet you know pokemon fan but uh i am in the sense that i did not think i would be going to see this movie in theaters but i did and i'm glad i did it's a fun flick yeah it's a fun flick

hopefully the first of many it's exciting to think that when it becomes available to rent or i guess in our case purchase uh we will have it we will have it you and henry to watch again i just remembered i actually did see Pokemon the first movie. That's the title of the film when it came stateside. I did see that in theaters. And now that I have thought about that, I'm going to definitely buy that on Apple so that we can watch that with our son ASAP. Because now this is a project for me. Oh, God.

What's your first thing? You don't have notes. Can we talk about that? Rachel's flying without a net. And that's exciting for me. So I printed out notes at work. And what I usually do is I fold that piece of paper in half and I put it in my purse. Like a permission slip.

I looked in my purse and it was not there. Not sure what happened to it. Checked my car, not there either. Hamburglar. That's okay though, because I feel pretty good about my retention. Okay. First thing, Texas toast. This is the big toast, man. The big toast. It's, Texas toast. This is the big toast, man.

The big toast. It's that big toast. Obviously, I'm a big fan of it because it's also a bed. So when I was growing up, very picky eater, always could count on bread, though. Bread never steered me wrong, right? Like if I went to a Thanksgiving or a Christmas, let's say, and there was a bunch of meats that I wasn't familiar with,

I could count on bread. Who was bringing unfamiliar meats to their Christmas party? Well, I didn't eat a lot of ham or turkey in the off season, if you think about it. Oh yeah, that's fair. And then all of a sudden on the holidays, you've got these huge birds in front of you

or this huge pig and you're like, oh, this is not the way I'm used to seeing meat. I mean, were they roasting hogs? No, but a ham is pretty large. That's a big boy, yeah. I'm used to lunch meat. I'm not used to just a big old thing of ham. We got an Easter ham and that shit was-

It's very delicious. It was good, but man, it lasted for too- It overstayed its welcome in my diet, I would say. And so when I encountered Texas toast, that's just bigger bread. That's just something I like in making it bigger. I tell you what, I don't traditionally care for like a thick slice of bread. Like if I get a sandwich especially, it's like two thick slices of bread and like you can't put much more in that without my mouth having to do like too much work, right? You can't put much more in that without my mouth having to do like too much work. Right.

But Texas toast, they managed to keep it so like soft. And it's usually just doused in an irresponsible amount of butter and garlic and shit. So basically, it's just bigger white bread. Well, yeah. Yeah. Was there a question about that? The origin story. And this may just be an example of a restaurant really trying to take credit for something. But there is a location called

The Pig Stand. And in 1941, supposedly the manager asked a local bakery for bread with a thicker slice. And when it arrived, couldn't fit it in the toaster. So they put it on the grill. Put it on the grill with some butter. You are a bad business person. Yeah, let me get the, hey, you ever cut them slices real thick? Well, no, it wouldn't fit in a, do it, do it for me. Everything's bigger, yee-haw.

Oh, shit. Oh, man. So they threw it on the grill with a whole bunch of butter on both sides. And the Texas toast phenomenon was born. All right. In 1941. Okay, I believe, I mean, that was post-World War II. We were starting to get some food science going. The Texas toast phenomenon was born. All right. In 1941. Okay. I believe, I mean, that was post-World War II.

We were starting to get some food science going. We were starting to explore what the riches of victory had brought us. So the original location for Texas toast was in Beaumont, Texas. It was demolished in 2016. Too much toast. It fell over. They're like, let me make the biggest slice of toast ever. Slice it thicker. Well, we're not even slicing it anymore.

It's just an entire loaf. Oh, my God. The ground caved in. It was too thick, man. There is apparently one final pig stand left in San Antonio. All right. Let's get there. So you can also, for those of you that are not located in Texas.

What are you doing, right? You can find Texas toast in the frozen garlic bread variety. Right. Which is actually a New York company that makes it. New York City! There it is. I knew you were going to do that. That makes it less fun for me when you know I'm going to do it.

I specifically waited. I paused for that one. In my defense, anytime anybody says the word New York City, even when you're not talking about something in comparison with Texas, I always have to say it like that. I know. So funny. So fucking funny.

It's always good. Yeah. It's like my wife, you know. What's that? It's a thing people say sometimes like when you use the word wife sometimes they'll reference this uh this movie oh from cheers from cheers norm norm would come in and they would say norm and then he would respond my wife you see norm was a time traveler he was a time thief and um uh i tell you i wasn't aware of

the non i think the first time i had like true texas toast and not the frozen garlic bread variety was actually at a county line here here in austin it's a barbecue joint it's a thick slice holy shit it's a thick slice holy shit it's a thick slice and you can buy it by the loaf which is hot as hell give me that option at every restaurant i will take it every time yeah i think i will eat a loaf of bread but sir that's traditionally something you would take home from the grocery store no i think i'll eat the whole load right now thank you it's very sweet um yes that's i mean that's that's texas toast it's a it's a simple concept right uh most states don't have their own bread though did you know that well i was trying to

think and one that there's not there's just texas toast when i was in missouri it wasn't like there was you know like like missouri waffles well that's a I mean, I'm not proud of this, but in college there was a lot of gross dude humor and they would talk about Missouri waffles as like a sexual thing. Oh, could you describe what that is to me? A Missouri waffle? Yeah, what's a Missouri waffle, Griffin? Well, hold on. Let me turn the microphones off because it's really gross. Okay.

Okay, so first of all, you to be in missouri to do it i think i left the mic on okay once you get to missouri with your sexual partner you're gonna get a what this is not as funny as i expected it to be then you're gonna say like so miss for example, is the show me state. So there could be some kind of show me element. Well, you didn't let me finish. You didn't let me finish.

Once you're in Missouri, you show me. You have to go to Missouri. You do have to be in Missouri to do it. Uh-huh. And then what happens? Where does the waffle come in? Well, hold on. I'm getting to it.

Okay. You go to an IHOP. And then you make love in the IHOP bathroom. You're right. This is not funny. So were there a lot of folks in West Virginia saying like, oh, man, that girl and I, we totally drove all night to Missouri to have sex in an IHOP. Real Missouri waffle. I'm sorry.

A waffle house. A waffle house. It was a waffle house. When you did it in an IHOP, it it was called don't you have waffle houses in west virginia yeah but it's not called a fucking west virginia waffle okay okay what's a west virginia waffle people fucking the waffle house in west virginia all the time it's like not a name we don't have a name for it it's just like okay breathing it's just like air for us you fucking the waffle house you swing by jolly pirate donuts because you don't eat at the Waffle House because people do some stuff there.

Can I do my first thing? Yes. Sports. Are you excited? You did this to me. You've turned me into a real sports man. Oh, yeah? Yeah.

You've made me watch a lot of sports. I've watched the most consistently the most sports I think I've ever watched in my life over the last month. The St. Louis Blues made it through two rounds of the playoffs. They're now in the Western Conference Final with San Jose Sharks. Yeah. We have been watching a lot of hockey. Yeah. I don't want to comment on where that game was when we came up here to record the show.

I know. We don't know. We don't know. We're not talking about it. Man, hockey kicks ass. Hockey is such a fun sport. But anyway, I want to talk about buzzer beaters. Buzzer beaters. Buzer beaters are good as hell and i am not a huge basketball fan like by any

stretch of the imagination i think it's a very fun sport but like i don't have much interest in all sports put together so it's nothing personal basketball but the the the concept of basketball allows for buzzer beaters and i think that makes it actually a very good sport i wanted to talk about this because uh the nba playoffs are happening right now uh i believe last night it was game seven of a playoff series between the toronto raptors and the philadelphia 76ers score was tied 90 90 with like six seconds left on the clock and um raptors get possession They pass it to Cowie Leonard. I may have mispronounced his first name.

If I did, I apologize. He gets the ball with like four and a half seconds left and he just runs all the way around the three point line and just like dives out of bounds. And as he's diving, he puts up a shot that bounces four times on the rim before it goes in. Oh my gosh. And that whole time, like the entire place place is just, like, dead silent, and everybody stops.

And he actually, like, after the first bounce, he crouches down and gets really low because he's out of bounds at this point, so he's trying to see, like, if it's going to go in. And it takes, like, two and a half seconds for this fucking ball to go in. And then when it does, the city of Toronto, like, explodes. Because that sends him to the next round. It was so exciting and so good. That's very good.

It made me realize it was the first buzzer beater in game seven of NBA in NBA history. It was very, very, very hot. And it made me realize buzzer beaters are really exciting and amazing. And I think for me, and I think think this the reason why this was such an exciting buzzer beater is because for me it's all about the moments between when the ball leaves the player's hand which it has to do before the buzzer goes off um and when it you know either goes in the basket or misses uh because at that point it feels like you can't do anything else. Even if you're a player, obviously you can't do anything else.

But as a viewer from home, I feel like there is this deep, deep part of your soul watching a sports event that you're invested in where you do feel like you are somehow involved in the outcome of the event. Yeah, I guess that is a phenomenon that really should have a name if it doesn't already yeah and even if it's not like oh i'm superstitious i still have the thought of my it's a fucking schrodinger's cat thing my viewing of this game is like you know sticking a pin on its place in the in the universe but when the ball has left the player's hand and it's sailing towards the hoop like that's it and now it's just the ball has left the player's hand and it's sailing towards the hoop, like that's it. And now it's just the ball.

Like now it's just up to the ball. Whatever the ball is going to do is going to decide what happens next. And that's very exciting to me. That loss of like complete control. Let's just see what happens. Oh, you know what else is like that is like when a quarterback throws a football. I was going to say. Super far.

A Hail Mary pass. This is the only other. I was looking up buzzer beaters wikipedia says that hockey has buzzer beaters and i was like what the fuck and then it was like it's when the puck goes past the goal line when there's still time on the clock because if it doesn't go past the goal line with at least 0.1 seconds left it doesn't count i've seen a lot of that's not a buzzer beat i've seen a lot of replays though where they're trying to figure out if it went in before the buzzer sounded. That is a close one. It's not like it's suspended. And that's why the Hail Mary doesn't.

Obviously, a Hail Mary pass to win the game is amazing. It's second only to a kickoff return touchdown to win the game. That's amazing. But there is a human on the other end of that pass that still has to decide what happens next. Buzzer beater in basketball is just like, good luck. Good luck, my baby.

Good luck, my friend. Go in the hole for me, please. I'm conflicted about how I feel about the other team's reaction to it because I don't think it's like, it's obviously a surprise and it's obviously bad because oh no we lost but maybe it's i'm not it's not schadenfreude but i feel like seeing one unit

of people like lose their minds with excitement of this legendary thing that's just happened and seeing the opposite group of people just go like oh fuck really because that's almost always the reaction it's not like oh no it happened it's always like really that one really we lost really yeah um i watched a lot of like compilations of buzzer beaters today which like i'm not a sports highlights guy but i'll watch a 30 minute long youtube video buzzer readers everyone had that exact thing of the person who shot the buzzer beater like instantly like sprinting a victory lap around the the the stadium while people are like chasing after him while everybody else on the other team just like puts their arms down like wow really huh okay i think that softens it for me um yeah buzzer beaters obviously my only like connection i've never performed a buzzer beater myself

save for in nba jam which is very satisfying, very exciting. When my Charlotte Hornets, which was the team I played as exclusively for some- Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Why did- Well, because they said they had the second highest stats right behind the Chicago Bulls.

And I feel like if you play as the Chicago Bulls in NBA Jam, you're kind of a dick. Okay. Yeah. I want to be Scottie Pippen. Oh, you are? Okay, cool. Let's play Mortal Kombat. I'll be Godzilla. Is that easy? Yeah. I want to be Scotty Pippen. Oh, you are? Okay, cool. Let's play Mortal Kombat.

I'll be Godzilla. Is that easy? Yeah. So I just got a few of those, and those are exciting, and I imagine it's like magnitudes better when you actually do one in real life. Well, and then there's baseball when it's that last pitch. Oh, yeah. That last pitch.

When the boomer gets up there. Yeah. And puts some salami on it. With some baseball mayonnaise on that bad boy and smacks it right back into 1942. I love baseball mayonnaise. Oh, you got to get the salami and smash that big old nut out of the field of dreams, baby. Right in your frickin' neighbor's window. You know what I'm saying?

When the boomer gets up there, fucking forget about it. His big bat they let him use? He's gonna get the salami on it every time. I know. And I don't know why they let him use the big bat. I know. Well, because he's the boomer. He's the boomer. And it does say boomer on it every time. I know. And I don't know why they let him use the big bat. I know. Well, because he's the boomer. He's the boomer.

And it does say boomer on it. Uh-huh. And every time they do it, they get over the PA and they're like, boomer did a slam job. And everybody has to like do the boomer dance. It just feels like the sport has really become exclusively about the boomer. Yeah. Well, and the salami. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

His special trademark salami. That's the only thing you can get in the stadium. The baseball mayonnaise. It doesn't go well together. Can we steal us away? Can I tell you a jumbotron? Yes. I got one here for Meg, and it's from Morgie, who says,

Happy belated birthday to my wonderful cousin Meg, and congratulations on your new house. I think it is so special that we can share this podcast together and talk about things that make us happy. I'm so lucky to have you in my life for guidance, fun times, and lots of love. What is my small wonder? Cousins who are more like older sisters. Love you lots, Morgie. Love you lots, Morgie. Love you lots, Morgie. Love you lots, Morgie. This is like the Hamilton letter, the comma.

What's it mean? What's going on there? Who loves who? What is it? Who is it? When? Who does the love, baby? Do you remember that Black Eyed Peas song?

Who does the love? Who does the love? People dying, people yelling, people sad and people dying. And we don't know where it is. The rest is still unwritten. Wow. That's miraculous. Happy birthday, Meg. Happy birthday, Meg.

Happy birthday, Meg. Can I read the next message? I wish you would. This message is for Alex. It is from Monique. To Alex, who knew that our Tinder back in 2017 would blossom into something so wonderful and beautiful. Thank you for almost two years of love, kindness, and friendship, and I can't wait for what the future holds for us.

Love always, Monique. This is great. The cyber web, the information superhighway is bringing people together in all these different ways, and I love that. Why did they call it Tinder with an I and not Tinder with an E? Because wouldn't that to you suggest more like it's Tinder here?

Tinder. Yeah. It's Tinder here. Well, I feel like Tinder doesn't suggest like a fun party app, you know? Right. And I don't think Tinder with an I suggests a fun party app. I think it suggests like it's Tinder. Like a fire like Tinder.

Sure. Like getting ready to start a fire and you need your Tinder. Well, if I would rather be set on fire or touched tenderly, I think I'd go for the latter one. See, I would rather be set on fire. Okay. Our love languages are very different. Hey, I'm Janet Varney. And like many of you, some more recent than others, I used to be a teenager.

In fact, just about all of my friends were too, including wonderful women like Alison Brie. I'm dead center on the balance beam. And this is like a big gym. All the kids' parents are there watching. I have to stop, like, you know, when you have to pee so bad and you can't even move. And then I just go. I just pee right in the middle of the high balance so join me every week on the JV club podcast where I speak with complicated funny messy humans as we reminisce about our adolescences and

how they led us to becoming who we are find it every Thursday on Maximum Fun. Hey, what's your second thing? My second thing is cigarette. I thought for, and I can't wait to hear from- Did you think I was gonna say cigarettes? You did, basically. Cigarette, cigarette. Okay, yes, but I just wanna know from the audience who thought Rachel was about to bust out

a good 12 minutes on how dope these great, great tobacco logs are. My parents would have been so shocked. Yeah. I mean, Rachel fucking burns down heaters day in, day out. No. She's always just chuffing that stinky stuff. Just yellow stained fingers. She's got all those camel bucks that you use to buy all those fun hats

and stuff i don't think you can do that anymore i think that's illegal camel bucks yeah right i hope not or else my retirement plan is fucked i would love you to go to bank of america with just an envelope full of camel bucks yeah like to open an account sir you're the worst smelling that's the worst smelling envelope i've ever smelled in my life it smells like actual hell what i think it smells like uh sigrid yes yes she is a norwegian singer uh 22 years old and she her first full-length album just came out in march oh really wow because i know she had the the songs that you sent me today i had not heard of her until today and holy shit she's very good yeah

she had a few eps okay uh she got signed in 2016 and released a few eps before the first album okay uh and she uh has kind of cited some influences that i think you'll hear right away, like Robin. Oh, yeah, for sure. I've also read comparisons to Florence and Machine and Regina Spector, which is another good one. You sent this to me and you were like, if you like Carly Rae Jepsen, you'll like this. So that's my thought. So she does like a synth pop, kind of like a real like ballady, like anthem kind of stuff. I guess not really ballad,

but anthony. Anthony for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Anthony would be a good name. Oh yeah. Anthony McElroy. Yeah,

that would be good. I noticed while I was driving your car to the Lowe's. Well, no, you just had the radio turned on, which is like not a judgment, but like I typically just listen to podcast day in and day out which henry loves he is very very very invested in night veil um but every song that came on the radio station that you were on was all anthems

it's the it was like it was like a panic at the disco song that was like a anthem about saturday night i guess and then imagine dragons i think i heard two songs in a rowco song that was like an anthem about Saturday night, I guess. And then Imagine Dragons. I think I heard two songs in a row from them. That's like, I'm thunder and lightning. It's like everybody must be inspired as fuck right now. Everybody must be ready to like go to war right now because of all these power ballads. Yeah, I'm not really sure what exactly about our times. I mean, it's probably just the people feel the need to

really you know rise above and an anthem is a good way to do it no yeah the the backstreet boys that was a that was a time of peace that was a time of that was a time of great serenity but now we gotta fucking gird it gird it up uh so every year every year BBC does a like sound of 2018, sound of 2019. And previous winners have included like Mika and Haim and Adele. And 2018 was Sigrid. Wow. Yeah. So she's really making a name for herself.

So I wanted to play one of the songs I really like off of one of her EPs before this album came out called High Five. you've said you're the best you ask and they say yeah she looks incredibly incredibly young if you watch like her videos um she looks like she's like 17 years old and maybe it's because the video for high five is actually like in high school she comes from kind of a musical family but she like dropped out of college and decided like she was really going to pursue it and found somebody and just started writing music and all of a sudden is enormous uh mostly in

europe not not over here yet which i think she is i think it's only a matter of time like oh i don't know like robin never penetrated necessarily, like, the mainstream music consciousness, despite the fact that, like, she's writing some of the best, like, pop songs of this decade. But, yeah, I think it's only a matter of time. So her new album is called Sucker Punch. And it came out, as I mentioned, March 2019. Debuted number one on the Norwegian charts and at number four on English, Irish and Scottish charts. And I wanted to play a song. So this is actually a song that she released on us as a single in 2017. And it's called Don't Kill My Vibe. And it's a song that

she wrote in response to a writing session she was having, she felt like there were people in the room that weren't really being supportive of her as a songwriter because she's very young. And so she left and thought, that's it. I'm going to forget about it. And apparently called her mom. And her mom was like, no, you get back in there and you do this. Maybe something good will come out of it. And then she wrote this song. And it's incredible.

Yeah. The original title was Eat My Shorts, Dweebs. But then she changed it. I try to play it nice, but oh, oh, oh, don't kill my life. Oh, oh, oh, don't break my stride. I try to play it nice, but you think you're so important to me, don't you? But I want to know that you don't belong here. So I'm really excited about her. I feel it does give me that kind of Carly Rae, like pop anthem.

Like, you know, I'm going to like take over the world kind of thing. Yeah, for sure. I have a softness for that. It does remind me of like the same feeling with like Florence and the Machine, kind of like this, you know, I'm turning it all around kind of music. Yeah. I don't know how else to describe it. Yeah. Can I talk about my second thing?

Yes. My second thing is also a musician named Judy Sill, who I have not talked about on the show before. I think I posted a picture of our new record wall. We bought these cool record shelves that stick to the wall so you can put up 15 albums over your record player. And I had a Judy Sill one on there. Yeah, Griffin found that on Etsy, by the way. Yeah, it's very, very very very very very slick uh and people were commenting like oh shit I love Judy Sill and I didn't realize like that there was that wide of a

um an audience for her music because she is a she was a folk artist from like the 70s that didn't for whatever reason like just didn't take off in the way that like a Joni Mitchell did despite the fact that I think like her work is just as sort of like culturally important and like musically great. I don't know. I feel like I have hesitated to talk about her on the show because I did, her background is kind of similar to Nick Drake's in a way.

And so like, I didn't want people to think I'm like glorifying the like, oh, their life was so tortured, but so much beauty came out because that's bullshit and exploitative. Well, that's kind life was so tortured, but so much beauty came out of it. Yeah. Because that's bullshit and exploitative. Well, that's kind of, I mean, the odds when you're an artist are a little bit higher to have kind of a tragic story, I feel like, because you are living a hard existence, you know? Yeah. Hers was pretty bad, though.

But before we get to that, if you've never heard Judy Sill before, I want you to hear what is probably her most recognized song. There have been a bunch of covers of it. The Hollies did a cover of it that's probably the better known version of the song. But her original version blows me away. It's called Jesus Was a Crossmaker. Looking in the radio I'm a Heart in me I flee Desire to bite me He's a bandit And a heartbreaker

Oh, but Jesus Was a crossmaker Yes, Jesus Was a crossmaker Sweet silver angel This song is so fucking good. I remember the first time you played it for me

and just being like oh my gosh you would want to listen to it again immediately it's so good it is good from a performance standpoint her voice is incredible and on both her albums they did this layering it sounds like it's a chorus effect in the mix but it's actually her

singing over the same lines four times and the precision with which she does so that you can't really that's not like an uncommon thing from back in the air but like she nails it so hard her voice is so gorgeous but like this idea and also the the like structure of it is it's just like the same verse like uh setup it's like hallelujah in that way where it's just like uh you know you look at the lyrics on a page and they follow like literally the same map throughout the entirety of the song um but the phrase jesus was a crossmaker is so like i don't know the idea of describing somebody's like self-defeating habits like that is like so poignant i never really thought about i never really thought about that like what the

meaning of the meaning of yeah um and she wrote it about like an ex of hers who was like part of her like musical entourage. And then I guess things went sour. And the impulse to like return to him is like, ah, shit, I know I shouldn't be doing this, but Jesus was a crossmaker. And I don't know. I think the thing that stuck out to me about this song and the thing that stuck out to me when I started to sort of look into her music is just how much sort of religious symbolism was in her stuff. Because it's everywhere. It's in every song has some sort of religious element. And people back in the 70s, like, she put out two albums before she died.

And, like, people did not really know what to do with that. Yeah, that may be part of the reason she is unappreciated. Maybe. She was listed on like, she was on the cover of Rolling Stone because she wrote a song called Lady O that she sold to a band called The Turtles. And she started to get some recognition from that. This was like before she started releasing albums, like actually really early in her career.

So she was on the cover of Rolling Stone. And then she was also included in like this the top 10 contemporary christian artists magazine interesting uh just because like people didn't really understand like what it was that she was going for because it's not like it was like uh uh you know contemporary christian music by any stretch of the imagine imagination but just the the the lyrics included so much of this like imagery um and so when you go back and you look at her, like her origins, her like very early childhood was pretty bad. Her dad died when she was young. And then she met an older dude and they started like robbing places together. And she got caught and sent to this reform school.

sent to this reform school and it was there that she started she was um hired as the church organist for this reform school and started to learn like gospel music and stuff that would have like an enormous impression on on her work moving forward um and then like things got even worse her mom died uh she was addicted to heroin and she started to like engage in more like criminal activities to pay for it and then she ended up in jail and And when she was in jail, her brother died. So she didn't have a family connection anymore. Just all this terrible stuff. And then as soon as she got out of jail, she was like, I'm going to start writing music

because I think I have some stuff to say. And she got some recognition very, very early on. She played with graham nash and david crosby on tour from crosby sills and nash um and she sold that song uh but when she started to like release records uh she she worked with a producer named uh henry louis who actually produced joni mitchell's music and so like i think there was this expectation like oh yeah she's the next yeah she's the next chosen one but then her first album flopped and she started working on her second album which is called heart food uh and like busted her ass on it like wrote all these

like beautiful like string compositions and orchestral compositions and she released that and it flopped and then she got really frustrated and cut ties with her label uh and then she started to work on a third album and then she got in a car accident and uh had pain problems that she treated with drugs and then she died of a drug overdose in 1979 um and the thing that was horrible is like she the small amount of fame that she had scrapped together from these two albums and the recognition that she had found within the music community, it only went so far. And when she dropped the record label and kind of left, she just disappeared off the face of the earth. Like Nick Drake, I think people know more than her work. But similarly, like way, way after she died, like people started to talk about what an incredible impact that they had, that she had on them.

Warren Zevon is like always talking about her work. Liz Phair, like a bunch of other people are like, and actually the way that I found her music was on this album called Crayon Angels. That's just a cover album of her songs songs and there's so many artists on there who are all like singing these these songs and it makes you realize just like what beautiful beautiful work she put together yeah and it's like sad it's bittersweet um and it's heavy right like her songs explore these like really like theological and philosophical and like transcendental themes that like is probably why I didn't get a lot of radio playback in the day.

But despite all that, she wrote some bops too. She wrote some absolute like bangers. I want to play one because it got heavy and sad there. But she wrote really, really good, really beautiful music and also really cool danceable jams. And this is one of those. It's called soldier of the heart Judy still is very very talented and uh I'm glad I found her work and I'm still I'm just like blown away that she is not so When you think about the folk artists of the 70s, like I don't think her name is traditionally like in the conversation.

I think that's a shame because I think what she did was unlike anything. I'm excited for all the people that love Joni Mitchell that are hearing this for the first time because it's like, I don't know, if you're into Joni Mitchell, you would definitely be into Judy Sill, I think. I think I would say if you like any folk music from like that era, you are going to like Judy Sill because she made some of like, I think some of the best of it. Yeah. Hey, you want to hear what our friends at home are talking about?

Yes, please. We have two. Amy says bread bowls. Am I right? Yes. Yes, you are. Yeah. God, it's been so long since I've had a bread bowl.

We went to a trivia night at a bar here in town i got a bread bowl with a beer cheese and broccoli soup inside oh my god oh my god this must have been a long time this was a long time we haven't been a trivia in this was a long time obviously but that that is how big an impact this bread bowl you still remember this bread bowl uh chris says I work at a grocery store and I'm always excited about cans of veggies or soup that are tapered at the bottom so they stack together. The modularity is great for organization, but just really dang satisfying. Yes.

Yes. Yes, 100% yes. Everything needs to be stackable, folks. Yes. Everything does. Ice cream, like the good tubs of ice cream where the bottom of the tub exactly fits into the... That's good shit. That's good.

Agreed. I'm just thinking about organizing things into neat stacks. I'm getting so excited. I like at grocery stores when they make little castles out of Pepsi 12-packs or whatever. Uh-huh. I like that. What do you like about grocery stores? Oh, I mean, sometimes there'll be people standing on the end of an aisle and they've got a little glass of wine for you.

Yeah. They're like, hey, try our wine. And it's like Sunday at 1 p.m. And they're just like, hey, hey, try this wine. And you're like, oh, it's not even 5 o'clock. I like when you go out of an aisle and somebody coming the other way doesn't stop and almost hits your car. And then they say, God, I hope you don't drive like that. Oh, Griffin.

That reminds me of your Disney World story. I've never told this story do you want to tell it it's pretty great it was raining and we were walking from for some reason we were at Beach Club even though that's not where we were staying we were walking back to Epcot and uh it started to rain and so like I wanted to get Henry out of the rain and so I was like I was scooting I was scooting pretty fast and I was holding Henry and I was holding an umbrella, right? And you were on quote the wrong side of the street, let's say. I was quote on the wrong side of the street, right?

But in my defense, I was trying to like keep my shit together. And I was a good 30 feet away from this pack of like four older ladies. And one of them just shouted 30 feet away. Why do I got to get out of the way of this dude like when you are holding a small child holding a two-year-old you want people to give you a little bit of slack and i was gonna get out we were we were not even fucking close to running into each other and the happiest place on earth what was amazing was that she was obviously angry and she was with like a a cohort of maybe three or four other people and they all looked angry.

They all were like, fuck that guy. Why do I got to get out of the way of this dude? We should thank. I gave it back to them though, didn't I? Because we kept walking. And when I was like well out of earshot, I was like, really? You told them. I got like, well out of earshot, I was like, really? You told them. I got them,

didn't I? We should thank Maximum Fun. We should. I first want to thank Bowen and Augustus for these for a theme song, Money Won't Pay. You can find a link to that in the episode description.

And I hope you enjoy it. And hey, Max Fun is pretty good too. Yes. Thank you, Maximum Fun for hosting our show. Yeah. They have all kinds of great shows on their network.

Like Stop Podcasting Yourself, and Can I Pet Your Dog, and Switchblade Sisters, and Storybreak. And Inside Pop. And Inside Pop. And a bunch more at MaximumFun.org. We got other stuff at McElroy.Family. Hey, we got tickets on sale. We got tickets on sale for some shows from m&m and taz and you should come see us uh what day is this coming out wednesday hey cleveland get out there

huh come on and get some since today there's some for you too that's on tomorrow so come on in ohio and come say hey i bet you would even invite people from other states and not even from other cities, Columbus, you know what you did Akron, you could sit right back down in that chair nobody comes for Akron I'm pretty gutsy anyway that's it, I gotta go, I got an appointment what's your appointment for you know it's for my you know it's funny

it's for a funny thing but i don't want to say it on the show i don't want to say don't make me say it um don't make me say it's funny but it's personal and private is it funny like earlier when you were telling that story you can't even remember it it was so unremarkable sorry I failed you everybody goodbye Bye. Hey! Hey! MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener supported. Welcome everyone to the live wrestling spectacular in Los Angeles.

So far, the world's most boring wrestling podcast has been destroying the competition. Isn't there anyone who can save us from this travesty? Wait, could it be? It's Titan Fights, the perfect wrestling podcast. Titan Fights is here to save us from the monotony of boring wrestling podcasts with hilarious conversations woke trips through the history of wrestling and joke about the finer points of people wearing spandex what a match and the tights and fights podcast will be back every week. Thursdays on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get podcasts.

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