Wonderful! - Wonderful! Ep. 27: BEAN DELIVERY!!!

Episode Date: March 28, 2018

Rachel's favorite modified garment! Griffin's favorite super-accessible party game! Rachel's favorite chewy candy! Griffin's favorite piano folk album! Music: "Money Won't Pay" by bo en and Augustus - https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

🎵 Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hello, this is Griffin McElroy. This is wonderful. Oh, it's gonna be a wet one, folks. It is raining here. We should have explained first that it is raining because me just saying it's a wet one out of context is not. What if we did an episode in a kiddie pool?

Fun. Oh, that's fun. Swimsuits, like summer and spring. It could be our first stunt episode. Yeah, some sloshing in the audio. A little sloshing, a little gloshing, a little electrocution because we will have electronic equipment and microphones. But fun, beach, pool, summertime.

You can just do what you did on your TV show. That was horrible. I would never do that again. That was the worst day of my entire life. I had to sit in a non-functioning cool tub, essentially, with my two dirty, dirty brothers, unable to move an inch, or else the mic pack would fall in the water

and our show would be shut down because we'd gone over budget, because we destroyed it. Those things are like $100,000. What, the mic packs? Yeah, we were doing professional quality. The one I used, Christian Bale had actually used in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean 5.

Was he in that one? Yeah, he was one of the skeletons. There's a lot to tackle in what you just said. So let's take it piece by piece. I don't know how many Pirates of the Caribbean's there have been. Nine or ten. It depends on if you count Pirates of the Caribbean, Captain Silly's booty patrol. And that one was sort of a sex romp, but set in the Pirates of the Caribbean.

Is Johnny Depp in all of them? He is in that one twice. Yeah. He has two different characters? Yeah, he has two different characters, and they both aren't great. So this is wonderful. It's a show where we talk about some of the stuff that we're feeling right now,

some of the stuff you're feeling right now. And baby, right now I'm feeling you on this wet day. Oh. Baby, I'm feeling you. Wasn't that a Joss Stone song? I don't know. So... Was it in Pirates of the Caribbean 9?

It was in 3, 4, and it was the main theme of 7. Okay. So do you want to get started with the thing that you're feeling right now i would i'm sure we do some small wonders first i don't actually have any small wonders this week my small wonder this week is are you making it up right now no i've had it for a long time. My small wonder this week is... I have a new piano. Yeah.

I bought it to help with Adventure Zone music, and it's like a full one, and I did a lot of comparison shopping for the pianos. It's the Roland, I think, RD-2000. It's the 2000th piano they put out, 2000th anniversary edition. They started in the year 18 AD, year of our Lord. And I was comparison shopping, and I found a video about this piano. It's from a dude who does, like, piano YouTube stuff. And he was showing off some of the voices on the piano, like the different sounds it makes. And there's one called Jazz Scat, Jazz Scat 1 and 2.

And depending on how hard you press the keys, it can either be like do, or it can be like bah. Or if you really slam it, it goes dow, like that. I like that a lot. It's very good. And this dude does a song on the piano. And this guy is the happiest I've ever seen any human being as he plays this song. It's just like a do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.

He's just like bouncing up and down on the piano. I wonder if he could do some Carmen Sandiego theme with that. Ooh, maybe, or the Doug theme. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. So just- Just to clarify. Yes. Your small wonder is the video or the piano?

The thing. The whole, the piano, the man, the happiness that this person's gleaming from the jazz scat that they're producing. Okay. Do you think when they invented scat, do you think when scat man was like, I got a new song for y'all. Yes. He knew sort of what it was going to mean later, or perhaps at the same time, was he

trying to reclaim the term scat? And he's like, I'm not the doo-doo man. Do you want to do your first thing? Well, no, I think I want to spend the next 30 minutes or so investigating what you just posed. Okay. I imagine it started, scat started as a word for excrement. But then he was like

it can also describe this no I think you have it backwards maybe I don't know what's your first thing I'm dying on the vine here my first thing cut off shorts I'm entering spring

I'm ready let's establish the terminology here. Are you talking about shorts that somebody else cut off? Are you talking about more this old house DIY flip or flop? You know, I'd have to say DIY. Yes. I have bought pre-cut pants, but what I'm speaking of specifically is the pants that you cut yourself into shorts.

It's, shorts are tough, aren't they, in general? Because it's hard to know how much of the goods that you want. Yeah. Oh, no. And I've definitely had a lot of off-level short bottoms. Most of mine, I think throughout my shorts buying history, too much covering of the goods, down to below the knee. I think that was sort of the fashion for for quite some time they were essentially jinko shorts yes and the goods were and by goods i mean my sweet milky thighs um so the the um griffin does have great thighs by the way yeah it's important to every day's leg day uh when you live in a house with stairs uh so the shorts i'm speaking

of in particular do you know the ones oh and think broad so for halloween am i on the right track here a few years ago we won i wanted to dress up as uh our aren't arty the strongest man in the world from pete and pete couldn't find a red and white striped shirt. And so I had bought these red pants and I was like, well, I'm not going to use these. And Rachel looked at him with her fucking genius crafty mind and said, I can find a use for those, but not these parts of them. And she pulled out a samurai sword and she slashed through the legs. And now she had this pair of red, some Ronald McDonald ass shorts. Yeah, they're sweatpants.

Yeah. And now you have them and you wear them a lot and they look good and the goods are put up in the shop window. My favorite thing to do is to ask Griffin

as I'm wearing these very obviously low budge low budge DIY piece of short material. low budge low budge DIY piece of short material I like to turn to Griffin and say hey can you believe these used to be

pants? It's a fun joke that Rachel likes to because I was there when you slashed them with the samurai sword you did it really cool like you asked me to throw it up in the air and then you had the sword in the hilt and you like did an upwards. I did one leg at a time actually.

That's what was amazing. Yeah. You threw it up in the air and I did a left leg. Right. And then you perfectly matched the right leg. Yes. These shorts are comfortable and good. You could probably wear them actually.

It's a very loose waistband. It's sort of like the TARDIS in that it can sort of shape itself to the wearer's will um and you do wear them you do wear them a lot and i'm not hating because i want you to be comfortable first and foremost they come down to about my knees because i i also went for the long the long short option helps you when you're on the court they got pockets yeah no all all true the pockets also help you when you're on the court because when you're actually trying to do research on cutoffs. And you know what was disappointing is that pretty much every piece of history I found.

Daisy Duke. Yeah, exactly. It was like I was hoping for this kind of rich, lesser known history. And everybody was like, oh, you know what? Have you considered the possibility that you are perhaps sort of a shorts pioneer and that this is not something that normal people do? And I'm saying that having cut off my own pair of shorts at some point, I may have gone to Ikea to buy a pair of fabric scissors to do my own sort of conversion, my own sort

of batch conversion process. But it's not something that I think is normal vis-a-vis fashion. The way I used to do it is I would take a pair of jeans. I would wear them until they were falling apart. God and gravity did most of the work for you. And then I would wait until they were almost unwearable. And then I turned them into shorts, add like a whole additional year. New life.

Renew. So, yeah, I mentioned Daisy Dukes. add like a whole additional year new life renew so um yeah i mentioned i mentioned daisy dukes um nothing wrong with daisy dukes yeah no but apparently the concept of trousers where the legs have been cut off midway which is i love that that description right there uh has been around since the 1930s when shorts became acceptable to wear outside the sports field. Oh, God. Disgusting. It disgusts me that you're so close-minded.

You're telling me that in the summertime, living in fucking Texas, people would just be walking around with long pants in 1929 just like, this is good. This is exactly how I like it. I know. A swimming pool of my own water. Like wool trousers. Oh, God. Isn't that terrible? And then, yeah, and then, of course, everything I found cited the

Daisy Duke shorts from the Dukes of Hazzard, which there isn't enough. There isn't enough. Somebody put together a thesis. Well, there isn't much to go on. There's not much to pull from. We need things that peer-reviewed research can pull up. That is why I am pitching for you today, right now here on this show, reboot of Dukes of Hazzard, again, not with Johnny Knoxville.

Ashton Kutcher. I had Jessica Simpson in it. I know Jessica Simpson was in it. I forget. Sean William Scott, I think. Yeah, yeah. It sounds right. But it's us two.

And you're wearing your red kneeling sweatpants shorts. And if I'm being fucking honest with you and the audience and myself, I'm probably wearing something very similar. And we just get in the car, our sensible automobiles that don't have these sort of emblems of the Confederacy on them. That would be a cool sort of update. And then we're just sort of driving our son to daycare. And we're not being pursued by the police. We are not breaking county laws. Listen to NPR. I do have moonshine, but it's unrelated. Just at home in a cupboard.

Yes, and not an open container in the car. These shorts are so good. I'm wearing pants right now. I hate it. I would encourage all of you to think beyond the denim cutoff. Yes. Go into the realm of other pant and make some cutoffs out of just about anything. Just about anything.

You know, a chair you got, tear off the upholstery. A piano. A piano. You take some of the keys and then you can wear that to the fucking Met Gala. I have my first thing you want to know about. Yes. Hidden identity games. There's no real good way to sort of encapsulate what i'm talking about the

werewolf game like the werewolf so if you've ever played werewolf or mafia or any of those sort of party games you kind of know what i'm talking about i first i didn't really get into i've been playing games my whole life but i didn't really get into these until like a couple years ago i feel like you were we were together when i when i started playing these and then i got like obsessed and we would play them every time our friends would come over because it was so novel even though they've been around since like forever um and like here's the thing I love board games and games of any type of all sorts cooperative games competitive games board games card games tabletop games whatever but what really intrigues me about games like werewolf and other hidden identity games is that they test an entirely different skill than any other game really rewards i'm like not luck not strategy

um in hidden identity games they test your ability to deceive people and read when people are deceiving you oh my gosh you're right which is such a different it's it's a it's a thing that is not tested in games really at all in any other sort of circumstance and there's lots of different Oh my gosh, you're right. team of just like villagers who are working together to suss out who the bad guys are before they all get killed or kicked out of the game in some way. And werewolf is like the quintessential game. I think mafia probably predates it. But werewolf is the one that I think more people know about where there's a night phase where everybody closes their eyes and the werewolves knock somebody out of the game. And then during the day phase, everybody kind of gets together to talk about who they think did it and then does a vote to uh try to get rid of the werewolves um and there's complications that get

introduced in the form of like other roles like somebody who can during the night phase figure out exactly what team people are are are on or somebody who can like protect people during the night phase um and that introduces like a lot of really cool complications and there's a ton of different games with a ton of those variants that you can sort of introduce at will i used to have a lot of trouble with these games because i am very uncomfortable lying and i'm not a particularly good liar but then i realized there's a there's a new strategy you can do where you just are totally uh flat yeah you give very little emotion uh and people will suspect you, but they won't be able to pin anything on you.

And then I found some success in that. So you're really good at these games. And, and I feel like we have, we play this a lot with our group of friends and now we have friends who don't really like playing them as much for this very reason. Like that was like the next thing I had to hear is that like these games put an enormous amount of pressure on the people who are in these secret roles who have to sort of protect their identities and deceive the other

players and it's really hard to keep your from giving yourself away and what I found is there's no like baked in skill at this like I think I'm I'm pretty good at picking up most games and that that is like a skill in and of itself that you develop as you play games this idea of like gamesmanship where you can learn rules and how they work and try to like figure them but here this is the great equalizer i'm not actually that good at these games actually one thing that happens to you is that um i go deep in the paint like you start talking a lot too much i try to politic too much and then it gives me it gives me people get suspicious when you start taking more of a leadership role in the game because they assume that you're trying to cover yourself.

So as much as I love Risk, I love Catan, I love Betrayal at House on the Hill, I love these games that have all these rules and then you have to be very strategically minded and know how to work the rules to get ahead. I still love those games. But there's something so cool about a game like werewolf where your first game you can sit down become the werewolf by luck of the draw and you know how to do this like you know how to deceive people or even if you don't maybe you just don't go super hard and nobody suspects you and then you win the game anyway or the other tactic that we started doing is you kind of wait for somebody to compromise themselves in some way.

And then you just point everybody towards them. Dump on them as hard as possible. Yeah, like, oh, hey, did you notice what he said? Why did he say that, do you think? I bet he said that because it's him. Yeah. And then everybody will move like a pack in that direction. And that was so valuable to me because I used to play these big games, these big, deep, six-hour-long risk campaigns or nights where all we did is play Last Night on Earth.

But here in Austin, our friends aren't as into those sort of deep games, but I love playing games with them. And something like Werewolf is just instantly like, here's how you play. Let's do it right now. And everybody's instantly on board. And that's so cool and so valuable. We've focused mostly on Werewolf. There's a there's a we've focused mostly on werewolf. There's a lot of really cool ones. One night ultimate werewolf we've played a few times, which like boils down this idea into a single round like this single

frantic, wild high stakes round of of werewolf. There's a game called coup that we used to play a whole lot where you kind of have two identities that are dealt to you in in cards face down and each one has different sort of abilities that they can do where they can like take money from the bank or they can steal money from other players or they can assassinate another player or they can protect themselves from those different moves but because your cards are face down you're basically saying what you're doing and you could be lying because you might not actually have that ability and so you're trying to track what everybody else is doing and then calling them out when you think they're trying to do something they can't actually do with the cards they have um it's a really fucking

genius like take on this and we've played that one probably more than werewolf we played that one every time our friends came over um what's neat is that this idea is also being incorporated in video games in some point last year i think Ubisoft released a virtual reality werewolf game, which is very novel and very cool. It probably doesn't completely encapsulate like the social experience of playing these games of just like looking for beads of sweat on your friend's forehead and trying to call them out for there's so many little like, clues that come from people's like physical body language and stuff. But I still think it's a neat idea. Oh, yeah, we played a game once where i crossed my arms and people cited that for like 10 minutes they're like well rachel did lean back and cross her arms and that became like the going

theory in the group another neat thing in games is that people are experimenting with the idea of hiding yourself among ai-controlled characters. There's a guy named Chris Heck who's been making this game called Spy Party for over a decade now, where one player is a sniper looking into this room full of characters, and all but one of them are controlled by AI, while the one human-controlled player in that room has to do different objectives around the room, like touch a vase and plant a bug on somebody and poison somebody's drink or something like that. So the sniper's watching everyone and trying to look for the person they think is actually

human, which then starts to get into some Turing test shit on top of everything else. And that is so delicious. That reminds me, another way to think about this would be like murder mysteries. Yeah, for sure. Did you ever? Well, I mean, we only did the one for our friend's birthday but like pre austin no never did never did one but you know me like that would absolutely be my shit i know justin and travis and and the fan back home they do a bunch there's

a place in west virginia that like hosts them at a big castle which is super cool um yeah i mean that's that idea sort of on a very large, large scale, uh, idea, but this is like a small scale thing that you can do with your friends and it takes like five minutes to play around and you could, all you really need is a deck of playing cards. Um, and you can sort of assign the roles out that way. Um, but yeah, it's really, I love these games. They're so unique in like the games space. I'm all about having like a diversity of different like games experiences and like what they offer and what they challenge you to do and how they reward

you and what kind of feeling they give you. And these occupy a very singular space that almost nothing else kind of can, can scratch. Hey though. Hey, this isn't a lie. And I'm not hiding my identity here. When I say I'm going to steal you away.

Here's what I'm going to do this time. Oh, boy. I'm going to try and whistle. Let's do it. You're just perching your lips and blow. Listeners should know that I do not whistle very well. Oh, but hey, can you do me a big favor, though? Yeah.

Just don't do it right into the mic or else it will be so bad. You know, sometimes you do something into the mic during this part and you go, oh, no, stop, stop, stop. I wanted to get ahead of it this time. Okay, okay. Oh, no, I lost it. I was doing so good. The tea is almost drinkable. oh no i lost it i was doing so good tea is almost drinkable now it's too cold you've made my tea too cold i started out so strong you did good i had that embouchure of a flute player and then i lost it the problem is that it didn't get it was it's a wet one but then it got a little too dried up i think yeah you did say it was going to be a

wet one this episode. I told you. And this is what I was talking about. Over-promise, under-deliver. That's our role. I just realized about three minutes before we started recording, you were sitting right there and you said, I feel like I'm about to sneeze. Did that take you 25 minutes?

It is my only superpower. That was wild. But specifically the future in which I am sneezing. Hey, do you want to read some Jumbutrons? Yes. Here are some Jumbutrons. Ooh, this message is for Chris B. And it is from Chris G. I got your message, Chris.

I got your message, Chris B. Where's my money, Danny? You know the room. Oh. So that's nothing. That's nothing. Happy 30th birthday to the best husband I could ask for. Your unfailing love and support continue to surprise me, even after being together seven years. You're the best thing to happen to me, my best friend, and I love you.

I hope Griffin or Rachel reading this brings you even a fraction of the happiness you give me. You brought me a fraction of the happiness. And let me tell you, it must be a big happiness. This is big happiness because I'm feeling a lot of it. A big happiness between Chris's. A big, big Chris happiness. Chris happiness. Happy Chris?

Is that something? It's nothing. Okay. This message is for Caitlin. It is from Shane. Happy anniversary. Thank you for your beautiful words, your seemingly infinite ability to care, and for always letting me rewrite my bad goofs. You're my whole entire jelly, and I'd pick you over even the best of

air horns. I'm so glad we met through this podcast. I love you. Also, we're dogs now. I can't stress that enough. Oh, no. Bow wow for now. We got to get these dogs away from the jelly. They met through our podcast, though. I mean, that's great, but this is an emergency. If the dogs eat the jelly, they'll get so sick. And also, I need that jelly.

That's true. To put on my... Ooh. Milky white thighs. Gross. Didn't you say mil White Thighs earlier? I did, but I don't want them all jelly jammed. Hi, my name is Susie and I love Judge John Hodgman. My name is Ryan and I love Wonderful.

Judge John Hodgman is a show that gives you the answers to those questions you didn't realize you needed answering. It's about discovery and enjoyment of new music, new poetry. He is just a wonderful person. He speaks from the heart. It's positive, it's funny, it's trained-hearted, and it's very forgiving. I just feel that Maximum Fun seems to attract the sorts of people that want to help, that want to do good with others. I wanted to support the things that I was getting so much entertainment and joy from. These are listeners just like you, and they support Judge John Hodgman and Wonderful with a MaxFun membership. The 2018 MaxFun Drive is April 2nd through 13th,

and if you want to support your favorite shows too, it is the best time to sign up or upgrade your membership. Just tune in starting April 2nd, and we'll give you all the details. Hey, thank you to Ryan for saying all those nice things about our podcast and for promoting the Max Fund Drive. Thanks, Ryan. It's coming up next week. It's going to run for two weeks. It's going to be real fun, and we'll talk about it more at the end of the show. Okay, my second thing?

Yeah. I think will surprise you. Jelly beans. What? Can you believe? Oh, no. I'm coming, Margaret. Wait, who's Margaret?

I know. Now you're the surprised one. I like jelly beans. You don't fucking like jelly beans. You're doing your own hidden identity game. Specifically. Okay, let me drill down. Oh, and here comes the caveats.

Juicy pear jelly beans. Then you like jelly bean. I like jelly. Today for you, I've brought jelly bean. Well, I like a lot of the jelly belly variety but specifically juicy pear jelly beans i'm just this is the first time that you've brought something that i would definitely definitely also bring in is this is how you felt when i did french fries and i was like i only like one kind of french fry that's true because i yes i fuck up i'm a

regular ronald reagan over here specifically in the context of jelly beans and in virtually no other- I love that you know that about Ronald Reagan, because that was part of my thing. Oh, okay. Sorry. I didn't mean to spoil it. No, that's okay. Jelly beans.

Yeah. Obviously, there's only specific flavors that I like, and maybe I should withdraw my thing. No, please. I love it. But it's seasonal. What do you hate? We're in jelly bean season right now. Oh, man.

The black licorice? Forget it. Yeah. Pretty much any of it. Throw it out the window. A lot of the dark beans don't But it's seasonal. What do you hate? We're in jelly bean season right now. Oh, man, the black licorice? Forget it. Yeah, pretty much any of it. Throw it out the window. A lot of the dark beans don't do it for me. The buttered popcorn? I don't think so. Yeah, they went a little too.

And they think people love it, but nobody loves it. Don't at me. Okay, so the thing with Ronald Reagan. So Ronald Reagan took up jelly bean eating in the 1960s in an attempt to wean himself away from smoking. Too bad he didn't stick around for vape. That dude would have blown mad clouds. Somehow, I don't know how the website I found this knows this, but they talked about the red, white, and blue jelly beans that he had in his office. Apparently, Jelly Belly sent him two and a half tons of jelly beans.

What the? He doesn't. He didn't need that. He didn't fucking need you to send him two and a half tons of jelly beans. He was the fucking president of the United States of America. This next sentence, though, I think you'll love. Perversely, the president's favorite jelly bean was none of the three. It was black.

Reagan liked licorice. Reagan? You've done it again. One, how is that really perverse? And two- Oh, it's perverse. Licorice? No.

It's perverse in my eyes. I wonder if licorice no it's it's perverse in my in my eyes i wonder if licorice is like cilantro where either like some people just don't have the taste bud for it and they don't like it because it it hits them a different way than the rest of us i mean i'm thinking specifically about black licorice it has that flavor that is like not uh the flavor of black licorice is black licorice and there's no other sort of way to talk about it i'll eat a twizzler and that's licorice is black licorice. And there's no other sort of way to talk about it. I'll eat a Twizzler and that's licorice, but whatever. He got two and a half tons of jelly beans that I would have eaten, except the white ones. Because I can't think of a white jelly bean also that I'm in.

I guess a pina colada one can kind of hang. And he didn't eat those because he liked the bad jelly beans instead. So they dumped it, fed to the dog or something. God. I'm sure he offered it to dignitaries. Yeah, I bet that went over great. The earliest known appearance of a jelly bean is a 1861 advertisement for William Shraft of Boston that promoted the sending of jelly beans to soldiers in the Union Army during the Civil War.

I mean, and that's why we won the day. That's why we crushed it. Got that jelly bean strength. Now, here's another thing that I'm skeptical of. Okay. Because jelly beans have been around for a long time. And so it says archives of the 100-year-old product show some of the candies offered by the first generation of

Gullet's family candy makers. Candies were commonly made into the shapes of vegetables, such as chestnuts, carrots, and turnips, as well as seasonal shapes. Interesting. The diet of most Americans in the 1880s was dominated by beans and vegetables. Some clever candy maker figured out

how to make a bean-shaped soft jelly. So, the suggestion here is that Americans were familiar with beans. They loved beans. They knew beans. They trusted beans. Need beans. Have beans.

Gotta get beans. The only way to get Americans to eat candy at that time was to also make them bean-shaped. What is that? Well, it's a Mars bar. It's cool. It's got four little pockets of it. Because candy at that time was also being shaped. What is that? Well, it's a Mars bar. It's cool. It's got four little pockets of it. I hate it.

Now that, that looks like my trusted friend beans. I trust beans. I eat candy? No. I'm beans for me. But that looks like my friendly beans. Huh, huh interesting i see what you've done there that is wild yeah i found that a little a little hard to believe i am going to as soon as we're done recording smash through the window of this office to land in my automobile and drive to the nearest jelly bean vendor uh to us because i have the deepest hankering for jelly beans right now.

I'm sorry that I've done this to you. It's fucking wild. You're making me realize I have not eaten jelly beans in a very long time. Now's the time. They're everywhere. They are everywhere. So your favorite is the – Juicy pear.

Juicy pear. That's your favorite. Jelly belly? Yes. We're being very jelly belly centric right now. There's lots of other ones. Oh, that reminds me. I had one more thing I wanted to share. Okay, okay. I like the lemon lime jelly belly. That's my favorite, Jelly Belly? Yes. Because we're being very Jelly Belly-centric right now, and there's lots of other ones. Oh, that reminds me. I had one more thing I wanted to share.

Okay, okay. I like the Lemon Lime Jelly Belly. That's my favorite one. Okay. Okay. According to University of Oxford psychologist Charles Spence, there is a reason that people tend to pick red and pink candies as their favorites. Interesting.

He said it's most likely due to the way food color affects our sense of taste. Red jelly beans may have an edge because we tend to experience red foods as sweeter than they actually are, as opposed to green foods, which we tend to experience as sour. Fine, but no, sir. I'm sorry, but you're wrong. I do remember that as a kid, though. Like always, if I had to choose, like a blow pop, for example, red seemed like a good bet. Well, it's because like cherry and strawberry candies, and I'm going to go right down the fucking way down the rabbit hole right here.

Okay. But I feel like when I look at a fruit candy and they have multiple offerings. Yes. Hypothetically say it's a new fruit candy. I've never eaten it before. Yes. multiple offerings yes hypothetically say it's a new fruit candy i've never eaten it before and they have a yellow one a green one and a you know a white one and a blue one and a red one i want to eat the red one first because in my mind like cherry or strawberry candy is the fruit flavor of candy and everything else is sort of branches off from that am Is this the wildest thing you've ever heard me say out loud?

The other reason is if I see a bag of Jelly Bellies and it's an assortment of colors, I'm going to reach in and grab the red or pink one because I know the odds of me getting something very foul is very low. The only thing I think of is cinnamon, which is okay, but it's obviously not what I wanted. But the odds are much higher that I'm going to get some sort of fruit punch or strawberry. I go green. Green won't do you wrong. Green apple is good.

Sometimes green is watermelon. Lime is always good, too. I tend to go green first because red tends to me to not taste like anything. Interesting. Red tends to taste like red. God, I want to eat some fucking jelly beans right now jelly belly sours are also very good the soda flavored jelly bellies is fine the harry potter every flavor beans get the fuck out of here with that this isn't this isn't a this isn't a fucking

game to me i'm an adult now i need to eat jelly beans this is i'm not playing around i i think they're actually very fun but and then like the starburst jelly beans i will'm not playing around. I think they're actually very fun. And then the Starburst jelly beans, those can't go wrong. I will 100% destroy a bag of those. And that's some Easter shit right there. Gotta get some jelly beans. Do you want to know my second thing? Yes.

It's a music thing. Okay. I think it's one that you are familiar with, though. It is Regina specter's major label debut album soviet kitsch oh my gosh yes yes yes uh so this was her third album uh but it was her her major label debut and sort of when she started her her ascent i hope you've heard of her at this point she is a russian-born pianist who I think immigrated to America when she was young, like 10 years old or so, and was sort of part of this anti-folk movement in New

York that was, I don't know how to define it, because I don't even think maybe even they did, but she came out of that and has these incredible albums. She's gone on to make way bigger albums, I think. I remember there was a few years that you couldn't see a movie or watch a TV show on primetime TV without hearing one of her songs. But this was- Yeah, her sound is so unique. It's very unique. This album, though, came out in 2004. It was kind of before her career popped off. And I listened to it. I started college in 2005. I listened to it constantly my entire college career. It is, in my opinion, like one of the most gorgeous albums of the aughts.

It is like start to finish, just a really beautiful thing. And the album is mostly just her singing over a piano with some like stringed accompaniment on a few tracks. Uh, and again, like she had follow up albums, like begin to hope came out in 2006. That one had fidelity on it. That was like her hit single on everything. It's a very, very good song. Um, but this was before that. I hope I'm not sounding like i liked her before uh she blew up but like i really think this this album soviet kitsch is really unique because it was unlike anything i'd ever heard when i when i first heard it um so if you've never heard regina specter i want to play the opening track off of soviet kitsch it's called ode to divorce and i i think it really sets up what made me kind of fall instantly in love with this album and with with regina's music so this is Ode to Divorce. Like you might make a dollar

I'm inside your mouth now Behind your tongue so Peeking over your molars You're talking to her now So like one of the things that I really like about her is her vocal control is banana cakes. Yeah. In every song, she just her volume. And I know that's like a weird thing to talk about when you're talking about somebody's voice, but her ability to go from this gentle, almost whisper-like, delicate voice to these huge, operatic, soaring notes is so good. And her lyrics are phenomenal.

There's a part of this song which is about going through a divorce. They're so great. So break me to small parts, let go in small doses, but spare some for spare parts. There might be some good ones. This idea of like bargaining your way back into a relationship that is not going to work is so like, profound and so sad. And I realized after doing The Weaker Thins that I'm making it sound like I only liked very sad music in college. And I did. But this song is such like a weird way to open up an album, but it does so really wonderfully, because it was also the first song of hers I'd ever heard. And it's just like, oh, here's what I'm all about. And it's really weird and very cool. Her style is so recognizable. Like it's one of those things that you instantly know

you're listening to regina specter song um i feel that way kind of about joanna newsome too oh yeah for sure it's such a unique voice and such a very precise way of putting lyrics together like you you hear it and you're just like charmed instantly so this song did this album did have a big hit on it but it didn't really become a big hit until i think around like 2006 they put it back out as a single after she had started to increase in notoriety they made a music video for it it's us oh gosh that song that song is really good the music video was fucking rad it was stop stop motion for the most part and and really really cool um and so i'm gonna play a clip from it. This is us. Not this hit, not this show. I've listened to this song like probably about 500 times.

And what I really like about it is I have no idea what it's about. And sort of searching for like what the established meaning of what us is there isn't like any consensus which is really cool because the song kind of invites you to try to figure out what it's about because it has all this powerful imagery in every line about like is it a song about a love that is so great that people literally made a statue sort of enshrining it? Or is it a song that is sort of an allegory about the biblical apostles? Or is it a comparison between American and European belief systems? Can I tell you something? I've noticed this.

This is a thing. And maybe, I don't know, maybe I'm not getting as much as somebody else, but I tend to treat music lyrics like I do poetry, where I just don't spend, maybe I'm not getting as much as somebody else, but I tend to treat music lyrics like I do poetry, where I just don't spend a lot of time thinking about what the writer is trying to accomplish. Definitely, definitely same, which I only now looking back, I have like a huge 400 song playlist of all the music I listened to in college. I'm just now realizing that like most of this stuff I never really thought about.

These songs that I was very bad about in college when I was a freshman, I found like 50 bands, new bands mostly that I really liked. And that's all I listened to for four years without really expanding. So I listen to this music a ton without ever critically thinking about like what the songs were about. But I think it's really fascinating to do so now because it's like, oh my God, I'm enjoying this thing that I've listened to a billion times in a whole new way. It is such a good song.

And the trill that she sings on living is fucking, it makes this song uncoverable by any other human being. Because you can try and do it, but they're like, we're living in a, That sounds bad when anybody else does it. So my favorite song off this album is maybe it's like simplest, like quietest track. It's Ghost of Corporate Future, which comes in towards the end. And it's almost like this narrative song about a businessman who is visited by a ghost who warns him of like letting his career take over his family life. And it's kind of a cute song. Like, it has these lines that are overstuffed

that don't really fit the rhythm of the music at all. Like, maybe you should drink less coffee and never ever watch 7 o'clock news. Like, it really tries to, like, rush it in. And it has, like, sort of this appropriately kitschy way of delivering its message. But it's also got some really interesting stuff in there to say about some stuff that really resonated with me as a sort

of self-involved college student. So here's a clip from it that going, if you don't toss your plastic The streets won't be so plastic, and if you kiss somebody Then both of you'll get practice, the world is everlasting Put dirt balls in your pocket, put dirt balls in your pocket And take off both your shoes, cause people are just people People are just people, people are just people like you People are just people, people are just people People are just people like you. People are just people.

People are just people. People are just people like you. The world. So, like, as you can imagine, me hearing this in college, I feel like in college, and this is totally cool, and this is, I feel like, what you're supposed to do, but you get very into yourself, you know, in a manner of speaking. Yeah, no, that's true. That's kind of what you do, because you're independent for the first time, and you're, like, figuring your stuff out. Well, yeah, and not just college, in a manner of speaking. Yeah, no, that's true. That's kind of what you do because you're independent for the first time and you're like figuring your stuff out. Well, yeah, and not just college, just your early 20s. Yeah, I think it's different for everyone, right?

But I feel like there is a, this is a phase that everybody goes through where it's just like, I'm on my own now. What does that mean? I'm all about me. Who am I? And that's important. And you have to do that. You absolutely have to do that.

But it also kind of isolates you in a way and keeps you from sort of like, thinking about how other people are going about that and thinking about themselves and all this different stuff. So this refrain of people are just people like you, I found that so beautiful. And I still do. Because it's really easy to get inside your own head and not be as thoughtful about what other folks are thinking about or going through. Because you're just not like expressing much empathy, you're thinking about yourself. This song was always such a good reminder to like, keep that fact that there are so many similarities between people on like a basic human level of what we all have needs and these human desires, like in mind, not to like ignore the differences between yourself and them,

but to, you know, think of them as people like you, like to try to put your own mind, like in the way that it works and the things you think about and the things that stress you out and the things that make you happy and the things that make you sad that, and just remembering that those people also have a set of those things.

I know it's such a basic thing, but like, I don't know. It really, I feel like opened, opened my eyes up in a things. I know it's such a basic thing, but like, I don't know, it really, I feel like opened, opened my eyes up in a way. Yeah, it's true. I mean, it just makes everything more meaningful. Like that's one thing. My dad was a history major in college. And he always talked about how for him, history was always a really exciting subject, because he was able to think of these great historical figures as people just like him. And it really connected him to these events and kind of what it must have been like to be in that position. And I think it continues to make him a more empathetic person

today. And so I recognize like kind of the power in that of not feeling like this unique individual that you know has never existed before but but somebody that's connected to like a much larger thing and you can do both but you can't you can't do one despite the other yeah um yeah it's also just like a really nice song on a really nice album i love this album so much i've i've been prepping for this i've been listening to it non-stop and it's really taking me back and just reminding me how genius and how special it is. And speaking of genius and special, our listeners have sent us some submissions. Yay! Shannon says, something I find wonderful is I just bought my first real big-ass couch. We previously had a futon.

Life-changing. Comfort is no joke, y'all. Couch. I love a good couch, man. Man, it's maybe the most important purchasing decision you make. You gotta get real with it. And you gotta put your butt on a lot of couches before you jump into it. And special moment. Don't you think? Yeah, sure.

Isabel says, I work at a library and often work with kids. moment. Don't you think? Yeah. Sure. Isabel says, I work at a library and often work with kids. Seeing their little faces happy while reading and learning makes my day. It's great to see kids enjoy literature, science, and more in this day and age. Anyway, hope you guys are doing great, and don't forget to share the magic of reading with your little baby. Oh, it's so good.

It's so good. There is nothing better. Henry's in this phase lately where he will pull books off of a surface and then hand them to us. And if we're lucky. And say like usually like, buh. Because that's about as far as he's gotten. And if we're lucky, he will actually sit and pay attention to us. And then he will ask us to read it again. And I actually don't tire of that.

I enjoy that a lot. It depends on the book. It depends on the book. Griffin does great. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see? I will do that shit 10 times in a row. I am spitting fire when I am reading Brown Bear. Some of those books, though.

Barnyard Dance. Listen. I like Barnyard Dance. What's her name? Sandra Boynton? Yeah. I love all of her books. You do great work. You do great work.

You do great work. Barnyard dance is a rare sort of miss for me, but I know lots of people who appreciate it. Uh, Rory says, I recently started to get into hot sauce. And for me, it's a revelation.

Not only does it taste great, but it's scientifically pretty rad that it triggers your body's pain response and floods your brain with endorphins. It's like a cheat code for happiness and food that can take a mediocre meal and make it great or take a great meal and make it amazing. Huh. I used to put a hot sauce on everything when I was a little boy. I used to go to Florida, visit my nanny, and come back with like 30 bottles of hot sauce

because that's like their main export down there. Fucks me up. Now I mostly do Cholula, which I think is on the milder side of the spectrum. And Sriracha. I do a little bit of Sriracha. Boy, I love hot sauce, though. Hey, next week. Next week.

Let's get into it. Yes. The Max Fun Drive is going to be kicking off. It's going to run for two weeks, April 2nd through April 13th. How much is two weeks? It's going to start on April 2nd and it runs for two weeks and it's going to be super, super fun. If you're not familiar, if you're new to the show, we, uh, the maximum fun network is, uh, it is supported by people like you. And we ask for

your support during the max fun drive. Um, you can become a member of the network and help donate and help us grow and do more, do more stuff. And then if you do that, we, during the max fund drive has special gifts that we can give out to you. Why am I talking like an infant? We have special gifts.

We have special gifts that we give out to you at just like $5 a month. For instance, you get access to all of our bonus episodes and all the bonus content that every show on the network has ever made it is like a huge videos and live shows yeah a bunch of really really cool stuff and then we have other sort of gifts that we can give out too uh and we're going to talk about those actually during the max fun drive which again starts next week but yeah we uh we we really appreciate your support we appreciate all the support that we've gotten from the network since we started doing this. And since we transitioned, we're doing Rose Buddies up until last fall. And then it was kind of a scary thing to come off this sort of stable and fairly successful show because it wasn't making us as happy to do it anymore and try to do a show that would make us happy, even if it didn't make the best sort of business financial broadcast entertainment sense.

Yeah. And we have a really great community of listeners. And this is kind of the one time of year that we ask, you know, if you have a little extra money and would like to contribute to what we're doing, we would appreciate it. We'd appreciate it. and would like to contribute to what we're doing, we would appreciate it. We'd appreciate it. So that'll be next week.

And thank you to Boanne and Augustus for the use for our theme song, Money Won't Pay. You can find a link to it in the episode description. And that's on it. If you want to check out more McElroy products, you can go to McElroyShows.com. That's on it. That's it.

Smash! That's it. Smash. He's on that jelly bean hunt. I'd like to buy 10 bags of jelly beans, please. I don't know why my voice gets higher when I'm far away. That'll be $30. That seems a pretty good price for 10 bags of jelly beans. All right, bye.

Unsmash. Bean delivery. Money Walk MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener supported. 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 in to Lady to Lady whenever, wherever you listen to podcasts. Can you keep a secret? Neither can we.