Wonderful! - Wonderful! Ep. 10: Undertaker Battle

Episode Date: November 8, 2017

Rachel's favorite political education organization! Griffin's favorite pie! Rachel's favorite 25-year-old album! Griffin's favorite infinite entertainment device! Music: "Money Won't Pay" by Bo En and Augustus: https://open.spotify.com/track/5hs2nY40aeqM0mpP8SBOon MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hi, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. It's a great show, everyone says. I'm so grateful to you, Rachel, my wife. And I'm not going to say it the way that you want me to say it. You know, the Borat way. Please don't.

Everybody wants me to do it right now. But right now, I'm just going to deny you that pleasure. I'm so excited that you waited until I was done doing my big, big stretch before you started talking, because I know sometimes you like to put me on the spot. I was doing the biggest stretch ever, like a kitty cat in the sun. No, I want you to do more stretching. So does literally every medical professional that I've ever talked to in my entire life. I was talking to Rachel about this just before we started recording. I've been doing baby lifts, where when I pick up and drop off Henry at daycare.

Our baby is not a huge baby, but in the car seat, the whole production weighs about 7,500 pounds. So I'll just do some lifts in there to get Yolk because the Undertaker, you know him? The wrestler? Yeah, challenged me to a the a big fight uh not televised wrestling like an actual punching and hitting fight and i don't know if you've seen he's about 60 years old and so i i do have that in my corner but he's 60 years of just pure muscle mass and so i'm trying to get my gains where i can because i don't he is an undertaker didn't we hear he lives in Austin?

He lives in Austin, of course. And that's why I wronged him. We were checking out the HEB. I grabbed the last box of Tic Tacs, and he was like, I want those. And I was like, Mr. Taker, you need to chill the fuck out, dude. And then he was like, I'm going to do a punch fight on you November 10th. Which is coming up. I don't have much time.

It's like three days from now. That's real soon. So I gotta get strong, and I've been doing the baby lifts and it requires a lot of stretching, because if I lose the fight, you know, he is like the coffin man, and he'll put me right in one. Oh gosh, he's got the scariest little things that he does, you know.

Well. With his eyes. Yeah, the eyes thing is pretty good. Just making your neck bulge out until new sort of uncharted veins. Every time he does his entrance, there's doctors watching him like, mm, new veins, new veins, interesting. They're writing down in their little nerd notebooks. They're naming the veins after him.

But when you're a 60, 70-year-old professional wrestler, I don't know, it's less. Professor of wrestling. Professor of wrestling. I don don't know it's less professor of wrestling professor of wrestling uh i don't know it's less intimidating more like whoa dude chill you do slow down and that's the thing i've got to contend with what if i get way too baby strong and i kill the undertaker in the fight we have i have heard i'm a big my brother my brother and me fan and i feel like I have heard oh shit you're right take it back I've heard you say this before that you're afraid that the fight you get into um will be the one where you accidentally kill someone is that true oh I thought you were

talking about my long-standing feud with gold dust which I did mention on the show now that's Travis's that's more Travis's thing oh really because Travis thinks he's so strong he'd punch somebody to death but this this is not a hypothetical situation. This is my what? Today's the 7th and it's Tuesday and Friday. Yeah. It's kill or be killed, me and The Undertaker. So either this is the last episode of Wonderful or

WrestleMania is going to be a little disappointing this year, I guess. Well, it's, you know, it's funny you should mention that because I did have a conversation actually with The Undertaker. Oh. And if he wins, I'll just do wonderful with him. Oh.

So don't worry, listeners. Don't worry. Are you going to marry him? No, of course not. You're never going to remarry, right? After The Undertaker takes me into the ground? I'm not planning on it. Oh, you better not because I'll come back a vengeful spirit.

I'd say I spirit about 88 sure every episode of wonderful after this one because let's be honest i'm not gonna win unless i start doing some like really serious baby you know crunches and lifts right now um every episode you're gonna hear the home listener you're gonna hear a weird crackling in the background that's me haunting it because i've come back as a vengeful spirit because you're hosting it with my killer, who is the Undertaker. And he'll be like, hey, Undertaker, get away from my wife. And then, but then I'll be like, and then in the background, you'll hear like, who goes first this time?

I think it's me. I think it is you. Yeah. So Griffin and I, again, had the same fear that we would be covering the same topics but i don't think i don't think i think this is the one dude i don't think so i think this is the one because i feel like i know what you're gonna say okay let's see what you got to say let me pull out my i'm saying if it's if we we've been on a streak now of like talking about things that we have been experiencing in the past week and if we do that we're gonna double up i don't think it's happening i do it the league of women

voters okay not my i do love the league of women voters but that was i will admit not my thing i know uh league of women voters i so two things one uh i know they're very helpful in helping me stay informed in some lesser known topics when election season's rolling around, especially in years like this one, where there's not like a ton on the Texas ballot. By the way, I hope you all voted. This is our election special. And you missed it if you didn't shoot. Not exactly timely. The other things that get them confused with the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen with Sean Connery in it.

But it's not that or the justice league or the justice league or um league of their own league of their own is another thing with league in it big um major league with uh television show the league legally blonde no that's a different uh tell me all about the league of women voters the league of extraordinary women voters Legally Blonde. this group was actually started in 1920. It was just six months before the 19th Amendment that gave women the right to vote. And the whole purpose of the League was to help these 20 million new women carry out their responsibilities. Well, these 20 million new women voters. Okay, 19th Amendment passes and then

20 million women crawl out of their biopods it's time metaphorically well yes but not yeah so all these women now have the right to vote uh and the league existed to help them become informed uh and so it was it was an experiment at the time i don't know that they anticipated it would have the longevity that it did but the league was an organization that was non-partisan and was founded on the belief that maintaining a non-partisan stance would protect the organization from becoming mired in party politics so the league is all about sharing information. So for example, on this most recent election day,

if you needed information about the different propositions, because often you do, the league was a great resource. And they have them all over the country. There are 50 state leagues and over 1,000 local leagues. Whoa, I didn't know that it was quite that. They had splinter cells. There's one for Texas and there's one for Austin. Okay.

And just so you know, in their 1974 convention, they amended the bylaws to allow men to join the league as full voting members. That's fantastic. So it's not just for the ladies. Finally, like an opportunity for us. members that's fantastic so it's not just for the ladies finally like an opportunity for us i this sounds i feel like this may sound weird on paper of why do you need somebody to tell you how to feel about a certain political issue it's super not i want to stress it well there might be people who aren't familiar with the league of women voters and sort of this this report that they put out um this year in in uh texas and

travis county uh the the ballot included a lot of things that were like a lot of shit that you don't really know about as a usually a lot of very granular very specific stuff like for instance should sports organizations have a cap on charitable donations received through raffles? And it's like, I don't—on paper, yeah, sure, that sounds good. But what are the drawbacks? Because there's a reason why this hasn't happened yet, I bet. And the League of Women Voters comes in and says, well, here's why people are supporting this, and here's why people are against this. And then you can make up your own mind.

It's not like, who should I vote for? Who's the good one? It's like, oh, here's details about this thing, a lot of which are very granular things. Yeah, and I think the point that you made about making up your own mind is what I appreciate so much about it, is that you can have friends and family members you trust tell you how they're voting. But if I think there's real power to walking in and making a decision based on how you interpreted the information. And I think that was the whole point of having everybody have their own vote. So sure. One thing I wanted to say, Everybody have their own vote.

Yeah, for sure. One thing I wanted to say, there's a website called vote411.org. And if you go to that website and enter your address and zip code, it will show you everything that's on your ballot specific to your location. And so if you can't, for whatever reason, find a League of Women Voters in your area, you can just go to vote411.org and enter your location and it'll tell you what's coming up. So I recognize now it's a little late to have this information. I mean, it's always, yeah.

But I really appreciated it and I continue to appreciate it every election season and I wanted to share it in case people didn't know it was a resource. For next time. Yeah. Just lock this one in the disney vault for for a little bit until the next election rolls around uh no that's a really good one it's a really good service that they put out also i'm so lazy and so like having a you know an organization sort of do some of the the research legwork for me yeah because so many times i've voted and I've gone in there not knowing anything

about what's on the ballot. Well, propositions sometimes, especially like county level propositions will sneak the fuck up on you. Yeah. And I know we sound like we are politically disconnected right now, but just realistically speaking,

during especially major elections are when I feel like they get the shortest shrift and then I make up my mind. And, you know, I try to read the different papers and what they're saying about different candidates on the more local elections and more like weird, sort of, you know, dog catcher level. Obviously, that's not one of them. I'm speaking florally. And then I press that big, you know, gray next button to move on to the next thing. It's like, oh, here's 20 propositions. Oh, you didn't know about these? Well, anyway. It's such a terrible feeling to be in there and recognize that you have this great constitutional power and you have done absolutely no homework. Absolutely no homework.

On some of it. Like, I feel good about the homework I did, but then a prop pops up that's like, should we spend $20 million renovating our city's speed limit signs? And it's like, I don't know. That sounds like an important thing. It tells people how fast to go. Yeah, it's good stuff. Do you want my first one?

Yes. Okay. My first thing is pecan pie. Oh. Pecan pie. This is what you thought I was going to do. I made a pecan pie. I made a test pecan pie this week. Because, you know, I have my pecan pie recipe.

It's actually a caramel pecan pie that I usually make. But because Rachel is not eating dairy because of of our son i have had to alter it somewhat so i came i i found a dairy-free uh pecan pie recipe and made it just to see if it would be good because we're on the we're on the books to make pecan pie for our friends giving that we're doing here in town and i'm pleased to report that the experiment was a massive success yeah i was telling griffin the other day that pecan pie is my all-time favorite pie and maybe all-time favorite dessert. Okay, the thing I said to you, which is why I wanted to talk about it, is that I think

pecan pie, I have other foods that I think I like more. I don't think pecan pie is my favorite food. It is my favorite flavor. The flavor of pecan pie science food science recognizes the five major flavors of sour sweet savory bitter and oh mommy i would i would put forward that there is a sixth secret flavor and it is simply pecan pie because pecan pie yeah it's sweet and you get that earthy note from the pecans you get some of that umami. Will you pull out, will you extract that umami that you just did so people can make it their ringtone?

I'll sell it as a ringtone. I'll sell it as a ringtone on iTunes for 99 cents. That's good. Because I don't think it tastes like, I don't think there's another flavor that I can really equate pecan pie to. When I eat pecan pie, I get so psyched. And I think it's because, unless you're making like pecan squares or whatever, don't be a jag. It's like the only thing that really tastes like that, I feel like. And it's very, very exciting.

So pecan pie is a great pie. I almost went into like what a pie was. The recipes, like any recipe, is uh pecans eggs butter and then some sugar i so the big thing is by the way in this recipe uh as a replacement was margarine yeah we use soy-based margarine and almond milk and it still turned out really fucking good uh it's the eggs that really sort of make it that that good creamy stuff usually the sugar that people use i didn't know this i've made a lot of pecan pies and this is apparently like where they got popularized uh was corn syrup is the sort of sugar material that people use for it and this is i'm speaking i'm revealing my own ignorance here uh because i

think caro uh syrup like put out like a bunch of ad campaigns back in the 30s like yo pecan pie check it out it's totally happening and you got to use this corn syrup for it and that is sort of i guess the main southern style way of cooking a pecan pie i always do brown sugar with a little bit of white sugar in there um and the origins are a little confusing um some have stated like specifically not i'm not talking about like uh eating pecans but the specifically pecan pie uh generally people think that the french uh sort of figured it out after they settled in new orleans after they were introduced to the pecan nut by several Native American tribes in the region. Like, it kind of has European origins in that it's basically a treacle tart,

but obviously there's pecans all up and over it. Can I ask you a question? Yeah, sure. Do you know anyone that says pecan? I'm sure. We live in Texas, so, like, you recognize we are in the minority here i believe well no see i don't think it happens in texas i think it's actually more of an eastern thing oh really yeah oh i didn't i then i don't think i've ever i don't think i know anybody who says

that i would be delighted to because it's a very fun way to say a word wrong um but yeah like you know anyone that says whale newnoot instead of walnut? Yeah, I know. I actually say whale-noot, and I say pea-noot, and I say ale-mans, and... Haz-la-noot. Pie-sta-chios. You know that one? Yeah.

Or I say, crack open that shell for me, baby, because I want to get my grubby hands on that green pie-sta-chios. See, that one's hard i say crack open that shell for me baby because i want to get my grubby hands on that green pistachios see that one's hard to say differently differently than what the way i said the way i said it uh make a dhamya um so the recipe for pecan pie was first published in harper's bazaar in 1886 and that was sort of the first recorded instance of it's funny going back through like histories of things it's funny how much of it is sort of firmed up and established by it was finally published in a magazine yeah because magazines used to be the only thing people did back in the day and so it was like it got in a magazine and everybody read it and there was no other way for them to like figure this shit out. And so it was like, oh, it was in a magazine.

So it's now it's official. There's just there's just something about a pecan pie. It has it has every texture. I feel like imaginable. You get that like flakiness at the bottom. And then you got just a mantle like a mantle of goo. Just that sweet fucking great goo in there and then surprise a big big crunch right on top just a big old crunchy little fucking just surprise there at

the top and that that crunch is made up of candied pecans which on their own you could pick them off the top of the pie and just eat those and and it's still a ball and dessert. It's delicious. Candy pecans rule. They sell them in movie theaters, and I was working in a movie theater when that sort of started to... I don't remember that. They sell them in some movie theaters. Like, in a box?

No, in a little paper cone sort of situation. That is unique. That is not something they do everywhere. I was working at a movie theater when that sort of machine was installed and i've seen in a lot of other places too and i cannot tell you the my olfactory experience working that job eight hours a day from stink ass hot butter which is if i love butter popcorn now but it took me a long time to sort of get back into the game because between the burnt popcorn smell and the like butter everywhere smell it was like just a bad situation all the time and then to have this fucking non-stop pecan just sugar potpourri in

the air like really really made that job much much better um and i don't know it's only served during holidays, right? You never really hear of it outside of the sort of November, December region. So it kind of gets me in that holiday mood. And you know that I love that. And it's just such a hearty, hearty dessert. And it doesn't make me feel like garbage every time I eat it, which I can't say of a lot of pies. I love a pie. I love making pie and I love eating pie. Yeah, see, this is why I'm a pie person. Griffin and I, when we started dating, he told me about his family's longstanding debate on whether you're a pie

person or a cake person. Cake or pie, right. And this is, I feel like this has really hit the mainstream and we invented it and never got any royalties. I'm 100% pie. I used to be team cake. I cannot believe that about you. Well, I love, here's what i would say in my cake in my cake well we can get into semantics and the semantics are like well is uh our pancakes cake yes is pizza pie whatever um i like cake i still enjoy a good cake right but then i would say like well but i don't like it when there's a lot of frosting and if that's what i'm saying then what the fuck team what why are my allegiances so firm in this wrong i had to name a cake that i

liked it would be difficult for me strawberry cake heath cake any poke cake like i get chocolate do you know chocolate cake have you had that one before? Anyway, I was saying, I can eat pecan pie and I don't feel like shit. I love pies. I think they're very, it's a fascinating food and it's really fun to cook. And I genuinely love pies. But a lot of pies, especially like, first of all, I don't mess with like, I don't like like a chocolate pie or a peanut butter pie where the thing you're eating, you just feel like you're eating just a big glob of chocolate.

Like that's not my favorite. And a lot of fruit pies, the problem is you're just eating so much fruit, so much, like, sugar-reduced fruit that it gets, like, super acidic, and then I feel kind of bad. Like, a cherry pie, I'm actually not that into. See, I love a cherry pie. I'm not that into it because I eat a bunch of it, and then I don't feel good. But pecan pie, it sticks to your ribs, and then it just doesn't, like, I don't know, I don't feel into it because I eat a bunch of it and then I don't feel good. But pecan pie it sticks to your ribs and then it just

doesn't like, I don't know, I don't feel super shitty after I eat it. It is the best pie and it's one of my favorite foods and my favorite flavor and I'm excited that I did this test pie because we ate a lot of it. And I know here in a couple weeks I'm just going to make another one of these fucking things.

It's really exciting for me. Me too. I'm going to have to make two of them. We've got a lot of friends coming to friendsgiving i think that's true yes uh hey babe yes can i steal you away you're you're blowing out your mic super super hard it was so loud it was so loud babe i just turned up my the monitor was kind of low and so i turned it up a little bit because i realized like i wasn't hearing what we were saying super good and then you assaulted me babe no don't be embarrassed it it literally physically hurt my body see it's really good and i don't want you to think i didn't think it was good it's really good. And I don't want you to think I didn't think it was good.

It's just like you went from being very far away from your mic to inside of them. You got shrunk down with the inner space machine. And then you were inside the mic screaming into me and on me. I loved it. Thank you. Maybe a little early. I also love blue. It's a little bit early.

We've been talking about our Thanksgiving special. And I'm excited. Thank you. Maybe a little early. I also love blue. It's a little bit early. We've been talking about our Thanksgiving special and I'm excited to get there. And maybe this time, you know, you won't go into labor. It was really, now that we're almost a year out, can I just say, a little rude. Well, I waited. At least we had one Thanksgiving meal. Yeah, but we had two Thanksgivings. And we were going to go to the plants. And you know the plants don't fuck around with Thanksgiving.

I missed the second Thanksgiving. I literally brought the fork up to my mouth, and that fork had the most luscious turkey dripping with gravy, a pile of Cheetos right on there. And it was like, ah, ring ring, you know, my diaphragm or whatever. And I think as a listener, you must wondering why were griffin and rachel apart i do we can say it's because you said do you want to do this you said go on over i'll be over later i feel like i have really bad gas right now and i said it's not you're sure you're not going to labor right and you're like no no it's just gas i'll text you if it's labor and then turkey oh the smell the turkey like hit my nose and i felt like

true happiness and release for the first time and then it's labor oh no it's not farts that's what it said it's not farts and that's how i knew i was gonna meet my son it's not farts oh i can't wait to meet him what's he gonna be like got a couple jumbotrons real quick special thanks to everybody who like sold out our jumbotrons basically instantaneously that was incredible uh i means a lot that you all think so highly of us and want us to say stuff like this message is for elise and it's from kyle i said it like that because they provided the most like hardcore phonetic pronunciation ever where it's like capital e capital e elise and it's from kyle who says hey. Hey, Lise. And it's from Kyle who says, Hey, best friend.

I thought it would be a nice surprise to have Griffin and Rachel wish you a happy birthday and good luck on your law school exams. You're the smartest person I know and you impress me every day. Thanks for sharing your love for all things McElroy with me and for saying yes when I asked you to marry me. I love you most and best.

Happy birthday, Lise. And good luck on those law school tests. Here's a cheat sheet for you, so just plug these. She's got the earbuds plugged in right now. She's taking the test. Jurisprudence is a legal term. Habeas corpus means the big corpse. Torts.

Torts are delicious. Here's one from Ruth, and it's for my good, good adjective boy, Dave, who says, I'm sorry I'm so far away, but fear not. I will be home for your birthday. I'm so excited to see you. I wanted to tell you that you are the most beautiful person I know. You listen to me always. You make my brain quiet when it's loud, and you hold my hand when I'm scared,

even from thousands of miles away. I love you so much, bear. Zig on him. Well, even that is kind of a zag, which I appreciate. And also, I just love that we've had our first message for a Stretch Armstrong cyber mutant. They can reach their arms out thousands of miles. And it's really incredible. The other day I was out walking the dog.

We don't have one of those. I was out walking me and I looked up and I just saw a big fleshy arm, just stretching across the sky. And I knew, I knew. In celeb news this week, the hosts of lady to lady took a break from hanging with today's hottest comedians, actors, and writers to sell a sex machine. What'd they do with all that cash?

Rent a party bus to go to Magic Mike Live in Vegas, of course. All of this on the heels of a salacious sizzler session with Home Alone four-star French Stewart. Want to know what the f*** we're talking about? Tune into Lady to Lady whenever, wherever you listen to podcasts. Can you keep a secret? Neither can we. You want to tell me about your second thing? I do. My second thing. I was really excited about this one because it was only a matter of time before I brought it up. And I am bringing it up this week because November 10th is the 25-year anniversary. It is the R.E.M. album, Automatic for the People.

All right. They're doing a deluxe reissue on November 10th of this album, and I will have to get it. Yeah, for sure. I know R.E.M. and I like R.E.M. I don't know anything about them or I don't know what songs are on what albums or anything. And I'm so excited for the history lesson. You're going to learn so much. I'm so psyched.

So this album came out in 1992. It has such hits as Man on the Moon. I know that one. Wait, I thought that was for the soundtrack to the Jim Carrey movie. Wait, no, that came out way after. Yes. The Jim Carrey, Andy Kaufman movie. So, no, that came out way after. Yes. The Jim Carrey, uh, Andy Kaufman movie. So they just used that song. That song was about Andy Kaufman. So it was very appropriate

for that film. But they made a new music video for the film that had scenes from the movie in it. I feel like maybe it was just a special, I guess not. Okay. Uh, everybody hurts. Oh, yeah. It was on that album. And then a few other songs that I personally love, like Drive, Night Swimming. Oh, Night Swimming. Sweetness Follows, and Find the River. I may ask you to put a little clip of Sweetness Follows in here. Yeah, Sweetness Follows. Tell me which one, and I'll drop it in. Well, either Sweetness Follows or Night Swimming.

I think maybe Night Swimming. Why don't we close with Night Swimming, because it'll put us in a good mood. Okay. And we, either Sweetness Follows or Night Swimming. I think maybe Night Swimming. Why don't we close with Night Swimming because it'll put us in a good mood. Okay. And we'll do Sweetness Follows right now. I always knew this all together Lost in our little world Oh, oh, oh, oh

So this was their eighth studio album. It came right out after... Eighth? Seriously? Yeah, they were around for a long time before they hit it big. I love bands that are like that. Yeah. But the previous album was Out of Time, which had Losing My Religion and Shiny Happy People on it, which were huge hits.

So when Automatic for the People came out, they kind of had this license to be a little more experimental because they knew they were going to get radio play no matter what because of the last album. Which one had Orange Crush? I think that's Monster. Okay. Which came after Automatic for the People. Not a very popular album. I like Orange Crush. Yeah, I do too.

So here's the thing. I got really into R.E.M. when I was in middle school, which was kind of early 90s, right around when alt-rock was a big thing. and what I liked so much about alternative music was that what was popular at the time wasn't really speaking to a lot of people yeah I mean that's why all music and grunge and everything sort of oh that's oh it can sound like that okay that's that's a lot better this is what's interesting so I looked up from 1992 when this album came out, the top singles. Oh, boy. I say, oh, boy, I was five years old. So I don't know that this is really gonna.

Whitney Houston, I will always love you. I will not talk any shit about that. And if you do, I'll quit the podcast. I swear to God. Mr. Big to be with you. That's also a really good one. Snap, Rhythm is a Dancer. Boys to Men, End of the Road. then nirvana smells like teen spirit that was number five i'm not saying these in any order i was gonna say i

thought that was like the biggest song of all time ever uh the reason i bring all that up is that these songs with the exception of nirvana Smells Like Teen Spirit, were all very kind of produced, very like, you know, like kind of a late, almost a late 80s sound, like especially Mr. Big To Be With You. I am blown away that that song came out in the 90s, I thought for sure, like it was out before I was born. So then Automatic For The People comes out and smells like teen spirit. And it's just this very, very different thing.

Were you in a Nirvana? A little bit. It was a little bit before you, right? Like. Well, yeah, there were some middle school kids that I knew that were into Nirvana, but I wasn't exactly there. Yeah. All that to say, when I was in middle school and feeling like I didn't fit in, to have music that was kind of welcoming those people and saying like, hey, yeah, no, that's not all that weird, actually. There are a lot of us. I really appreciate it.

And also Michael Stipe is so sexy. No. Hey. That was never my reason. But I did love Michael Stipe. What's not to love? He's incredible. Actually, I have this quote.

It's specifically about Everybody Hurts, which was a huge hit. It was released as a single in April 1993. An unlikely fucking hit, though. Because the song's literally called Everybody Hurts, and it's the saddest song ever. No, and that is wrong. That is wrong, because the whole message of the song i guess i don't know there are all these lyrics that say like if you feel like letting go you're not alone so hold on hold on over and over again it's not okay then it's not there's this hopefulness to

it's a very hopeful song but it's i'm saying like it's on some brick Ben Folds 5 level. This is the most popular song in America right now. And it's not about how much you love your significant other. Or really, I guess that's the only song that most of the time hits the singles. It's about a pretty serious subject. It is, for sure. And definitely, you'll see this message, I think, more frequently in songs of today. And at the time, Whitney Houston was singing that I will always love you. Oh, we can't say anything, even remotely, even a little bit, even a smidgen against that song.

So here's what Michael Stipe said. He said that a lot of people specifically about that song have talked so honestly with him about how it saved their life, and it was there at a time when they needed it. And he said there's so many of these songs that either are very overtly or kind of quietly speaking to the island of broken toys. It's the people that are, for whatever reason, outsiders, people that feel like they don't fit in, in one way or another. These songs are there for them. These are my people, you know, the songs are for us. And I really appreciated that because that was very much the feeling I had when listening

to that album. I mean, it's very beautiful and vulnerable. You know, there's all this like string element to it. Yeah, sure. And apparently the string arrangements were put together by the former Led Zeppelin bassist, John Paul Jones. Holy shit. I didn't know that.

Yeah. There's a lot of strings on this album. But it's just, it's very raw and it feels very intimate listening to that album, specifically the song Night Swimming, which is part of the reason that I love that song so much. But I would say this is around the time when I first started buying albums. And I would always get really disappointed because there was always like three or four songs on an album that I was like, Oh, I gotta skip this one. This was the first album that you were like, front to back.

Listen to it over and over and over again um so yeah i i was excited that they're reissuing this album that it's somehow been 25 years um does that kind of freak your being a little bit well here's the thing like i was a little late to it i was maybe a couple years late and i recognized that i was kind of on the young end of their audience so while 25 years is a long time it's not like it's not that it's not like i was kind of on the young end of their audience so while 25 years is a long time it's not like it's not that it's not like i was in high school or in college you know this is no offense if you were it's yeah it was just like for me i was a kid so being a kid feels like a long time ago i really sometimes do wish i was a little bit older during this era because we just

watched the inexplicably we just kind of put it on on a lark there's a foo fighters documentary i think on netflix and man when this scene was coming up i can't imagine how fucking exciting that must have been because obviously it had origins and things that were accessible to you if you lived in the right parts of the country or whatever but to have them be colossal and then all of a sudden so um they're just having there be so many bands with so many like songs in this style of music that was before like kind of tough to get at i don't know i think i think it would have been really really exciting it was such a perfect time to be a teenager yeah because it spoke to that shit exactly just this feeling of of being an outsider um and and and having these emotions that that kind of pitted you against anything that was considered

you know mainstream um so i don't you just felt it's so hard to talk about this without sounding like a huge not that you sound like a huge anything but yeah no you just it felt important to listen to and it validated all your feelings um it feels douchey to talk about it like that now but it was absolutely how like i thought about it when i was a kid like this is it i will say i was also a member of the rem fan club what did what benefits did that this was a time period when a lot of bands and just like i was also a member of the peewee's playhouse fan club on the mystery science theater fan club that was a good fucking fan club though so you so you would get like newsletters and like little stickers in the mail occasionally um it was it was all mail-based it was just things would come

to your house uh that would give you insider information. I love that. Because this was kind of before the internet. Right. So this is how you would find things out. Let's play Night Swimming and move on to the next thing. Here's Night Swimming by Ren. Did I pronounce it right?

Oh, Griffin, no. Night swimming deserves a quiet night. Deserves a quiet night. All right, I'm going to do my last one real, real quick. My thing, my second thing is the the humble unassuming deck of playing cards deck of playing cards you know about playing cards everybody loves them you can do stuff with them 13 cards and four suits for 52 total cards it's great i started to look into the history of it and then i realized that it's so vast and horrifying uh that it wouldn't make for a very good version of the show.

But needless to say, it has ancient roots and then was adapted and sort of moved around the world through different cultures in ways that still kind of resonate today. the French modern set of 52 cards, four suits with 13 cards in them with the jack, king, queen, and ace face cards, along with jokers, and then manufacturers include rule cards, but that's not necessarily the case. There is, there's like a Spanish symbol deck, and those use cups, coins, clubs, and swords.

German playing cards could use hearts, bells, acorns, and leaves, which is extremely good. I had no idea. Not that that's what they use, but that is sort of the I don't know if that's what they use or not, but that is sort of how, that's just to illustrate that cards everywhere are different. I think also

there is a tarot French set of playing cards with tarot cards in them, not necessarily traditionally what you would think of as tarot cards in them. Not necessarily traditionally what you would think of as tarot cards, but just different cards that they use for different match-taking games. Anyway, that's all to say that

just Google the history of playing cards and different versions of playing cards, because it's buck wild, and it would be like reading a full novel in order to prep for this topic. I did find this one thing. Do you know how the Ace of Spades in a deck will often have the manufacturer or the company that makes the cards their logo on it?

Yeah. That is a holdout from the reign of James I in England who passed a law requiring an insignia on that specific card as proof of payment of a tax on local manufacturer of playing cards oh so like to this day there's a lot there's a lot of like shit like that but this was the first one this is the first time i had heard that and thought i'm surprised that you went as big as playing cards because what would have surprised me less is if you had promoted the game euchre thank you babe for bringing me to euchre which you always this was a clever ploy on my part always aggressively try and get me to play i don't know why you hate euchre so much it's a very good game it's because every single time we

play i need to be taught how to play it's so simple babe it's a trick-taking game where you use the cards nine through ace of all four suits the jack of the trump suit is the the left bower and it's the most powerful card and the jack of the same color as the trump suit is the right power you have a partner and then it's ace king queen the usual stuff going down you have a partner and you have to take tricks and then if you think you can go solo then you try to take all the tricks yourself but if they take more tricks than you then they get two points and then you can shoot the moon right you can shoot the moon, right? You can shoot the moon. There's lots of different rules in Euchre, and they're so good. It's the best fucking game.

Anyway. Griffin loves rules. You should do a segment on Wonderful. Just about Euchre? No, just about rules. Oh, yeah. How much you love rules. I could do that.

When you have a deck of cards in your hand, the reason I didn't do Euchre and instead did a deck of cards, when you have a deck of cards in your hand, you basically are holding a infinite entertainment device because you can play anything from like gambling games like poker or blackjack to more traditional games like rummy or gin rummy uh euchre hearts uh crazy eights war go fish solitaire

bs fucking uh ers like anything like there's there's there's so many so many so many games so like you have one and it's just infinite games that you can play on so many different occasions uh maybe you're just like hanging out at a at a beach house and you just came in from the sun and you're there with some friends and then there's a deck of cards it's like oh well let's cool down play a few hands of hearts and that's really good you can also there are games that uh are for one person solitaire two people three people four people however many people you have like this small thing that you can hold in your hand will generate a game for your group to play no matter what maybe you want to do a drinking game.

Yeah. With your party friends, because you're partying. Maybe you want to do a partying drinking game. There's plenty of those also. The only other logical response when you see somebody pull out a pack of cards is, oh shit, someone's about to do a card trick. And the good news is, that's great also.

When you see someone with a deck of cards it's either time to play a card game great or they're gonna do a card trick also great it's the only object that when i see somebody brandish it i think one of two great things is about to happen has a card trick he can do i have a few is there a name for the card trick that you do uh it's like palming it's not really it's more sleight of hand i can do card tricks like traditional card tricks um but then the one i do is where i make it disappear in my hand just by like sort of gregor was younger he studied he studied the magic arts that's not true why would you say that well because you can do a magic trick that doesn't mean i study. I didn't go to fucking Hogwarts.

No, I learned it from Richard Fredeking. He was the magic trick kid at my school. Did you have a magic trick kid at your school? No. That's not that unreasonable. In the David Blaine era, you didn't go to high school in the David Blaine era. That's very true.

And in the David Blaine era, there was a magic kid at every fucking school, no matter what. And Richard was that for me. And I had lunch with him for like one semester and he taught me the, how to palm a card or whatever it is. The, when you put it behind your palm.

So anyway, um, you, here's the best card game that's on here. Uh, I think it would be my like desert Island thing. Other than a hatchet. Oh, that's smart though. A hatchet's really smart. Cause yeah, I agree. Cause than a hatchet. Oh, that's smart, though.

A hatchet's really smart, because, yeah, I agree. Because you can do it. You can, like, shave down a little kid, Gary Paulson. I wouldn't have even thought of that. But then, like, a deck of cards. You have a deck of cards, and it's literally any... You can do anything with it. And I love games, and I love toys, and I love all that shit. And you can use it to

spread things, like a knife. Yeah. Like, if you found an island fruit that you wanted to spread things like a knife? Yeah. Like if you found an island fruit that you wanted to spread. Yeah. You could use a card. Yeah. And you just don't get to use that card anymore. And then over time, the loss of that one card would drive you slowly insane.

Until you made more cards. Out of palm leaves. Yes. And it's like, what's he got in his hand? It's a straight flush. Well, one of those is a palm leaves. And it's like, what's he got in his hand? It's a straight flush. Well, one of those is a palm leaf. I know the palm leaf is the nine of clubs because Jerry over here used to spread some fucking durian. So, I don't know.

Deck of cards. Infinite, awesome. Good one. System for anything. Good one. Let's wrap up, huh? Yes, please. You want to hear some submissions?

Yes. Here's one from Nateate that i loved field trips are the greatest i love them as a student and love them even more now as a teacher i brought my students to a state park last week to take in nature and the look of awe in their faces and the fantastic questions they raise make the small bit of anxiety about losing a kid absolutely worth it don't lose a kid in a state park there's probably bears uh they are getting experiences that they might never get and this is certainly what they're going to remember in 10 years hell yeah that's so exactly true it's nice to hear a teacher actually appreciates those because i always felt like we were kind of punishing our teachers you know which one i remember the most

which one we went to the uh i forget the name of it but there is a system of locks and dams in around honnington and we went to it. I was blown away. The machines were so fucking big, and I watched them pull the lever to shoot all the water out. And the water moved so fast, and there was so much water. I was mind-boggled. Here's one from Brian who says, NaNoWriMo is wonderful.

National Novel Writing Month is every November, and to participate, you try to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. I've completed it successfully a few times. That's buck wild that you've done that. It's a huge accomplishment. But I haven't done it in the past few years. This year, for some reason, the madness has overtaken me again, and I'm going for it. It's kind of silly, since it essentially means piling work on yourself for a month, and the only tangible reward is a rushed, badly written novel that you'll never want to show anyone because it's bad but doing it gives me an amazing sense of satisfaction and accomplishment i always forget about that until the month is like well well into it yeah i have

ideas for novels and i want to do them but and maybe this is the only way i will ever actually force myself to do it even if you only get a few ideas out of it it still seems worthwhile uh here's one from mark who says i wanted to tell you something that gets me excited every year high school band competitions the marching band season is ending right about now and i already can't wait to start teaching next year seeing a bunch of kids pour themselves into a niche musical passion under the lights in the cold creates a kind of magic that only comes every october oh my gosh yes i loved marching band i was in marching band all four years of high school i played the flute and we had a really passionate band director who became one of my favorite teachers uh and just made it such a great experience for all of us it's so good and the the way that they describe like the sensation of like the season

of band competitions is like oh my god the feeling of like a cold bleacher under your butt and then you're just like bumping when the music comes on like oh man it's a i mean i was a spectator i was never in marching band i did go to a collegiate marching band competition called drums across the tri-state every year with my dad because he emceed it and it was the best because you got to see people bring out their fucking like game face and just go so hard i mean it's a performance like you can identify with that like you're with a bunch of people performing something it's cool last one it's from angela who says uh so my wonderful thing is bird watching also known as birding by those in the hobby best description so far of why it's wonderful comes from my husband, who says, you get to be outside and know things, and I like both of those. It's basically like

real-life Pokemon, only it can only be played anytime, anyplace, without anything electronic. Here's why it's really wonderful. I have an almost three-year-old, and when he was about two, he started noticing birds. I'd put my birding hobby on hold pretty much since pregnancy, but was starting to put out bird feeders again and find out what birds were in our yard. Around about when they were two and a half, he started being able to identify them on his own. We're not talking bird blue here. We're talking that's a Stellar's Jay.

It is so amazing. That's so great. That is really great. I have an ant that's into birding. Yeah, I never really got it. And then we were walking through Central Park and she was just like, that's that bird. That's that bird. That's that bird. That's that bird. And I was like, oh, wow. She took us to one tree and she was like, there's a family of like owls or something that live up there. Oh, they're not there today. It's like, you know which tree the owls are in? That's wild. Yeah, it would be very cool to live in a place that would give you access to that kind of variety.

It would be very cool to live in a place that would give you access to that kind of variety. Yeah. Man, there's a long one. Thank you all so much for listening to Wonderful. Thank you to Bowen and Augustus for the use of our theme song, Money Won't Pay. You can find a link in the episode description. You want to thank Max Fun for us? Because I'm very thankful. I would like to thank Max Fun.

Thank you very much, Jesse Thorne, and all the great shows at max fun, uh, shows like bullseye shows, like stop podcasting yourself. I listened to that 500th episode, by the way. Holy shit. It was so funny.

They're really great guys. Uh, and any, any number of shows on the network, you can find all of them by going to MaximumFun.org. You can also find other McElroy shows at McElroyShows.com. I think that's it.

That is it. All right, well, we'll talk to you next week, all right? Take it easy back there in the back. I want to see you with your hands up, people in the back. Money won't pay Working on pay Money won't pay Working on pay Money won't pay Bye. MaximumFun.org

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