Wonderful! - Wonderful! Ep. 47: LYLAS

Episode Date: August 15, 2018

Rachel's favorite school-times memory book! Griffin's favorite new TV competition! Rachel's favorite local bookstore! Griffin's favorite unclassifiable Japanese band! 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. And this is wonderful. Do you want to know what my first thing is? Yes. Do you like that shit? Do you like that shit? Do you like that shit?

You didn't expect that shit. The first time I want to do Small Wonder. No, no, no. This is quick in the dead style, baby. You saw me over here. You're like, hi, welcome to the... It's begun. We're in it.

We were downstairs and we were having a frank talk about how the show's becoming a little bit longer, run time. And I made a suggestion. Rachel said, well, you know, sometimes you do sort of a freestyle scat intro. And it's fun. She said it's fun and funny. And the people love it. And I love participating in it.

But it goes on for about 15 minutes. And here I am doing the damn thing again, aren't I? Small wonder. Shit. Do you have any? Got a new hat. Yeah. Went to a Houston Astros game with my boys and um had just sort of

a fun weekend outing last weekend and uh remembered that i can't drink alcohol anymore with my 31 year old body um but i did get a new hat at the game and it's a nice hat and uh i like it a lot and the minute made park where the houston astros play baseball is indoors and it should a nice hat and I like it a lot. And the Minute Maid Park where the Houston Astros play baseball is indoors. And it should be a legal requirement that all athletic places, venues have roofs. Roofs, is that the plural? They should have roofs on them because damn, middle of summer baseball game

but not sweating just through my clothes is an absolute treat. Also there, they have what's called the Torchy's Party Deck, where they have just like Torchy's tacos there. And it's like a little deck that people can hang out in and sit in chairs and get table service and watch a baseball game. It was the ideal way to, it's the Alamo Draft House of watching baseball games. It was so fucking choice. So that, i don't know there's a new hearthstone expansion out that's good it's a good little card game i don't know

if i've talked about it before but i feel like you have i maybe have maybe just to me i really just like all of blizzard's games they're the game developer who made that and world of warcraft um which i also got a code for the new a new expansion but that also came out uh yesterday uh and so i dabbled in that and got kind of terrified at how big that game has gotten but I also got a code for the new, a new expansion for that also came out yesterday. And so I dabbled in that and got kind of terrified at how big that game has gotten. But I just appreciate that these games have run for so fucking long and they're so fucking big. And I just liked it.

There's this developer out there making these huge games. Yeah. A lot to be grateful for this week. What do you got? Small Wonderwise. Yeah. I was just going to say kimchi. Kimchi's really good.

Mm-hmm. It's like... It's like a fermented cabbage. Cabbage. Cabbage. It's fermented cabbage. It's spicy. Spicy.

You ate it with ribeye. No, yes. We get it from a place called Chilantantro uh very frequently which is like a well how do you even like korean mech tex mex yeah it's it's like a fusion um which as you can imagine korea and mexico and tex texas get together and form a sort of army against my stomach because none of their foods are known for being especially gentle to me but holy shit they have kimchi fries yeah cheese and like special sauce on them and like you can get ribeye like beef and stuff in there too or you can get that shit inside a burrito a kimchi fry burrito it's out of control you can get it in a burrito oh my god yeah did you not

know that i did not know yeah i had one of those actually when it was still just a food truck it used to just be a food truck and so i got it while I was covering, I think, like South by Southwest Gaming. So I was downtown and I got it. And I was like, uh-oh, I have to go home right now. And I missed an interview. All right. All right. That's a good one.

That's a real good one. It's a classic. So first up this week is Rachel McElroy. Rachel McElroy, what is your first topic of discussion? She's 5'4". Hey. Weighin' pounds. Right?

Coming in with her first thing. Here she comes. What would your intro music be at a baseball? At a baseball-like game? Come on, try and win. Oh, yeah. Wasn't that a joke I used to make? Oh, was it?

I think so. Oh. I think I was trying to think of, like, that most inappropriate song. Oh, no. That was from your great bit about MTV's Next. Oh, yeah. That was such a good bit. Man.

I'm a pretty funny lady. You really are. But what's your intro song my intro song uh oh maybe ace of bass i saw the sign oh that's fun i feel like i swear to god i feel like i've heard that as a baseball yeah not at like the majors but like i feel like at a round rock express game i've heard somebody come out to that or all that she wants is another baby that'd be a strange one i think sure i mean so i saw the sign. But what's your first thing? Yearbooks. Yearbooks.

Yeah. Almost lost my yearbooks. That's true. When we were emptying out our house. Yeah, emptied out our garage. And I was like, I'm going to do one last pass. And I found a box with all my yearbooks in it. That would have been tragic.

Or good. Because I don't age well in those old books. Yeah, well, that's the thing. Like, obviously, there's a lot in my old yearbooks that I would not share, you know, globally. I mean, obviously, the star of your yearbooks is not you, unfortunately. Yeah, I was wondering if you were going to bring that up. Rachel has a yearbook from, what was this, high school? Yeah, it's my senior year of high school.

Senior year of high school. Senior year of high school. She went to school with a gentleman named Jerron Vale. Yes. And there's a picture of him, and he looks just dapper and happy and smiling. Yeah. And underneath, they left off his first name, so it just says Vale. And it's so mysterious. And every time I go to your parents' house, I always take a picture.

It's so magical. What do you like about yearbooks though uh so i like that they're little time capsules you know um i also like the whole process of of the signing of the yearbook you know i like i like reading those old notes one of my friends when i was in high school uh because you know you're so concerned about like losing touch with everybody when you graduated uh he wrote his social security number in my yearbook so if i wanted to steal his identity now i could yeah that's fun it's a nice little side business you've got going on there i don't think i ever got anybody to sign any of my yearbooks when did they give them out did they give them out? Did they give them out? End of the year.

End of the year. Like very, very end? Like last day of school? Pretty close to the end. Because we got them a few weeks out, so you had time. Yeah. I don't remember. I just, I don't think I got any. I still like yearbooks a lot, though.

Did you sign anyone else's? Yes. I do remember signing somebody else's. And so in that exchange, you said, oh, yeah, I'll sign yours. And then you just held yours close to your chest. Yeah, I think it probably was not that I was unpopular. I think it was that I was too afraid to ask. But yeah, I definitely signed some yearbooks.

Did you ever work on the yearbook club? No, I didn't. I did newspaper. I didn't do yearbook. I did. And I think that there is a type of person that works in the yearbook club and it is a type of person who would very much like to be in the yearbook, but knows that they have no other way of making it in the yearbook.

So what did you do? Like, what was your role in the club? I mean, mostly like taking, I remember we had an old digital camera that you would actually put a whole fucking floppy disk into to take a picture and you could save like eight at a time so i'd go to like different club meetings and take candid photos oh so you didn't do like layout i also did layout yes mostly of like the club section there were a lot of people in there did you have a title were you like associated no i don't think it was anything that formal but i did definitely put a lot of theater club picks in there maybe more than it was weighted certainly in that direction uh there's a fun picture of me a senior year um digging for like a campus cleanup situation oh uh and you can very clearly see the wallet in my back pocket because i was not a fan of purses

oh that's so badass i know there's definitely one of me in theater club wearing a big milkshake costume. So that's cool. Let me tell you about yearbooks. Please, I'm waiting for you to. Uh, so the very first yearbook is credited to George K. Warren, who was a early American photographer working and living in Boston. He capitalized on the ability to take a single negative to produce many images,

which was a relatively new technology in 1860. Does that mean like a role of, like an actual role of film, right? Yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah, and he would persuade students to buy multiple copies and share them with their friends. And then a lot of these people would go on to bind these images into a book. Around what time was this?

1860. Oh, fuck, that was a long time ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I found an Atlantic article from June 2018 called, Why Do People Sign Yearbooks? Why do they, though? And so basically they just went through decades on decades of yearbooks, starting in 1914 in East St. Louis.

Oh, wow. And they talk about how in the early 20th century, people would write rhyming poems. Like little limericks in there? Yeah. Do you want to hear a couple? Sure. Yeah.

I would love to hear this freestyle heat that these 1914 people were dropping. This one is so reserved and removed. I really enjoy it. Remember me early. Remember me early. Remember me late. Remember I am an old schoolmate. Oh, that's so good.

Oh, I'm never going to say the word best friend again. I'm only going to say old schoolmate. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Sorry. Is it old schoolmate? Yes. Okay. I thought it was like, I'm an old schoolmate.

When the future is present and the present is past, may the light of our friendship burn bright to the last. Burn bright. Burn bright. I would write like burn bright in your ass. Have a good summer. Oh, we'll get to those ribald entries a little bit later. Let's go. Let's go.

Not later now. I want it. So by the 1940s, people were signing their year, like junior or senior with their name, which I thought was interesting. And then in the 60s and 70s is when you started to see like love everywhere. Oh, nice. Like love so-and-so so which was not so this was breaking down the the actual like content of the structure the syntax of messages throughout time that's interesting i bet that's a really fascinating way of sort of tracking sort of yeah to see like the common messages the sociological progression of like school-aged

people in in the u.sS. throughout the 20th century. We're talking about during the Great Depression, it just became popular to just do... Eat the yearbooks. No, just... That's not funny, Rachel. Hey, that's not funny. To just do a signature next to your photo. And they speculate that it's because of ink shortages.

Probably, yeah, yeah. Also because they probably had lots of other stuff kind of popping at that point. Also, if there's an ink shortage, how are they printing yearbooks? Also, who's buying fucking yearbooks in the Great Depression? Who wants to be like, never want to forget these great days? So in the 70s is when you get to the- Dirty stuff? Well, dirty is-

Come on, come on, come on. Don't you hold back now. This is a taste thing here. Let me, so they're all plays on Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue. Oh, nice. Give me that nasty stuff. You ready? Yes.

Roses are red, violets are blue. When I take out the garbage, I think of you. Oh, man, that was such a letdown. Get them, get them, get them. I mean, get them, yeah, but still, dang. Roses are red, violets are blue. Toilets were made for people like you. That one's a little better. And I don't know if they're talking about like you're a dookie person or if they're talking about someone like me who does need a toilet. Technically, toilets were made for all of us, but nice try.

This is also when the acronym started. Okay. I don't know what that means. So if I said H-A-K-A-S to you. H-A-K-A-S? Yeah. Have a kick-ass summer? Okay, good.

Okay. I wasn't sure if you would know. Yeah. I mean, I say kick-ass all the time, so. There were some others I didn't know, like R-H-T-S. R-H-T-S. Really hate to split. Oh, that one's good.

It's actually raise hell this summer. Raise hell this summer? That's not good. Anarchy! Get them! Trash a Starbucks. Go. I guess this is the 70s.

It'd be like trash a, you know, a Piggly Wiggly. And then they talk about how in the 90s, people used to write in the spine and say the first to sign your crack. Oh, I definitely did that. Oh, Griffin. I love it. Little stinker. It's so good. And then there was also was up with a carrot sign or like an arrow instead of the up.

And then people would respond NMH. Nodding my head? No. Well, that would be K. No, well, that would be K. Or would it? Nodding? Oh, gosh. Oh, gosh, you know I'm not going to delete that, too. It's the worst part about it. That's too bad.

No, it would be not much here. Okay. So you're like, what's up? Not much here. Okay, that doesn't, no. No, it doesn't make any sense. I don't think that's real. Somebody was pranking whoever wrote this article.

And then also people would write that their signature was going to be worth a lot of money. Oh, that's good. Yeah. So things have really fallen apart. That's basically what you're saying. That was fun. That was a fun little trip down memory lane. Yeah. I am disappointed that you don't have more yearbook stories.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, i just liked them i liked having a collection of of of memories of school but like if i'm being completely honest i don't want to get like a bummer on our upper show but like i didn't have the best school experience and i wasn't like some of the best things about yearbooks are looking at other people's yearbooks yeah because when I think about it I am more excited

to look at yearbooks oh always than I am like my own yeah for sure I think that if you if you were the type of person

who like high school or even middle school we had middle school yearbooks uh was like a really great time for you we did too

we had middle school yearbooks which was awful um if that was like a really great time for you then I think too. We had middle school yearbooks, which was awful. If that was like a really great time for you, then I think that it's like a nice little treasure trove of memories because there's a lot of pictures of you, you know, in your prime or at the very least like having good times. And it's not like my high school experience was miserable. It's just like I was very under the radar.

What if I said L-Y-L-A-S? Love you like a sister. Don't even step to me on that. Do you want to hear my first thing? Yes. My first thing is, and this is probably going to be a pretty short segment because it's brand new. We've only seen two episodes of it because there's only two episodes of it.

There'll be three extra by the time this comes out. New show called Making It. Y'all, holy shit. I think maybe we talked about it in somebody's submission or something uh last last week maybe a lot of people have been tweeting it at us okay yeah y'all exactly yes you crushed it this is of course this is us this is the fucking perfect storm of like things that we're into and i remember hearing about this show like last year when it was green lit and thinking like oh my god this is going to be my favorite show ever like during the super

bowl or something maybe teaser yeah and and now here it is and it's like oh yes this is very good so making it is uh and again there's only two episodes of it so like get on board catch the wave now please don't let this thing get canceled that would be heartbroken uh it's a reality competition show where uh competitors who are like different sort of crafty people who work in different mediums, so like a woodworker and a paper craft person and somebody who works with felt, and all of these different sort of disciplines come together, and they compete in these different crafting challenges, sort of a la Great British Bake Off.

So similar to Great British Bake Off. Very similar, like they are participating in this competition in this like verdant farm that is so picturesque and very, very quaint. And the show is hosted by Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman, who are both incredible. And you have seen them together

on Parks and Recreation, which is probably the greatest TV sitcom ever made. And it is so very nice to see the two of them together in any regard. And they are so good. Most people that know both of them a little bit know that Nick Offerman is like a self-described maker and very talented with woodworking. Yes, I think anybody would describe him that way. He made a, I haven't read it, but he wrote a book called build your own boat. Um,

and they show his boat, his canoe that he has made. Paddle your own canoe. It is. It's paddle your own canoe. Build your own boat is, um, you're going to leave in my,

my cane. I'll leave that one in. Um, yeah, build your own boat is actually my sort of knockoff book that I wrote. I got him confused. Cause I, I, I've spent all year working on this, actually my sort of knockoff book that i wrote i got him confused because i i've spent all year working on this um sort of uh diy unofficial fan book of his book that i haven't read um but yes he's a very crafty person amy poehler is a self-described

just not crafter at all and so it's fun watching her learn and she's actually very enthusiastic and in in the two episodes i said like actually, I'm learning a lot of things about woodworking or paper craft or whatever. I will also say it did not go unnoticed by me that she wore overalls in the first two episodes. to balance this show, right? Because everybody works in different fields. And if there's a challenge that was like, you know, make a wooden sculpture, then the person who works with paper is like,

okay, well, shit. The way that they get around that is by having pretty broad categories for the different competitions in a way that I think is really, really clever. So every episode, there are two sort of challenges. The first one is called the faster craft where they only have like a couple hours to make something. And then there is the master craft, which is much more, uh, in depth and detailed and sort of the expectations are much higher. And the types of things that they will ask you to build aren't like, you know, make a, this wooden sculpture.

It's like make a fort and then with a fort like with with something as broad as that like you could make it out of anything um and seeing like the way that these different artisans use their different mediums to like fulfill the requirements of the challenge are really it's really exciting to watch like this is what i'm talking about it being the perfect storm and i think we've about this, like our fascination with craft videos and people making things. We talked about Kiwami Japan, uh, who just made a new video where he makes a knife out of potatoes and then

uses it to cut a potato. It's so choice. Like that's something we're really into right now. We love parks and rec. We love reality competitions and we love like, we love like nice shows. We love like competitions and we love like, we love like nice shows. We love like nice reality competition. And also they kind of poke fun at the way that those shows are dramatized

often. Like there's a lot of riffing between Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman about like the, the heightened mood in the room. Yes. Trying to kind of poke fun at the way reality shows try to build that tension but it's a really sweet tempered show like they uh after every challenge the the winner gets a little merit badge and everybody's so excited to get the little merit badges and

everybody's just really really friendly even when somebody makes some real shit uh amy and nick and the two judges who are on the show are usually very sort of forgiving of it and sort of don't want to dunk on the person, which is like so much, God, I like that so much better than the alternative. They also do this thing where the eliminated contestant like kind of joins them at the very end of the episode to kind of,

I guess, show there's no hard feelings. Yeah. They're like sitting on a porch, like drinking tea. There's also like cutaway segments where Amy and Nick are doing just random goofy stuff, like trying to have a competition to see who can think of the most craft-based puns. Oh my gosh, that's so good.

It's so choice. There's just something about this like positive. I mean, it's also a great idea for a show, right? Like we've had so many cooking shows and i really like watching some of those because it's cool to watch food go from base components to like you know fancy meals and i don't know that i've ever seen a show like this where it's it's not food that you're making but it's like cool forts or a cool terrarium or something along those lines so far the challenges have been really personal like they've asked the contestants to make something that's like representative of them

and their experience and their interests. So you're like learning a little bit about everybody too, which is neat. Yeah, so it's a good idea for like a competitive show, but also just like that positive vibe. And I think there's a few shows like this now, like British Bake Off and Queer Eye, which is not really a competition show.

Nailed It, I think, was a big contributor to this, where it's just like, they're nice to each other, and they have fun, and it's a competition, but it's like a kind of a, you know, they're very sweet about it. Yeah, it's more about enjoying the experience. I was trying to think, because it does feel like there's more of those shows,

and maybe it's just because we have been watching just so much Terrace House. And while not a competition show, again, it's still kind of that good vibes feeling show. If like, are we getting back to with shows like this? Are we getting back to like earlier days of reality television where things weren't so mean or what i think is actually the case is there never was a good old days of reality television where everybody was nice yeah like when it started out it was like survivor which has definitely gotten more cut through less manipulation i think that's what we're noticing maybe like there's less intervention yeah it's more like people being celebrated for who they are instead of trying to push them to their brink.

Yeah. But even like season one of Survivor had like the big betrayal at the end, which I still remember. And the speech about the woman saying, if you were dying in the desert, I wouldn't give you. And then there was like Real World. Like I think the thing that a lot of people remember about that show are the fights and like American Idol. People just liked it when Simon Cowell like went, went ham on it. Like,

I don't think it was ever like nice. I don't think it was ever like sweet and kind. And so it's, I don't know. It's nice to see like things moving. And at least for these, this small handful of shows moving in that direction. And that's why I really want you to watch this show one,

because I really enjoy it. And I don't know if there's a market for a crafting competition. They have it at, it comes on, on nbc tuesdays at 10 9 central which is not i don't think this the sweet spot but i don't know um so please watch it and um i will uh give you three dollars whoa griffin i won't i have no way of enforcing that Can I steal your way? I knew you were going to do that. I kind of wanted to pretend like we had never committed to the home improvement stinger and just change stream. You want some gumbo troms?

Yeah, and jumbo troms. This gumbo trom is me telling you to go check out lighter than air.com it's free it's a free website and i have to be explicitly clear here air is not spelled the way that you think it is it's a clever clever word switcheroo instead of a-i-r it's h-e-i-R. Like air to the throne. Oh, okay. Yeah. It's lighter than hair. But it's not hair. There's just no... It's fun. It's a fun sort of homonym, but it's tough to do over an audio medium.

But anyway, Lighter Than Air is a webcomic about a young woman named Zeppelin who joins the military in an effort to upstage her war hero father. Also, she can fly because her dad could. Don't question it. The story follows Zeppelin and her fellow recruits as they make their way through boot camp before becoming embroiled in an international conflict that leads to war. Featuring a manga-inspired art style, there's over 600 pages of adventure, conflict, and comedy in the archives of lighterthanheir.com.

And then, if you don't know AP style, it's T-H-A-N. A lot of people are going to goof that one up too. So, I'm just going to spell the whole URL. L-I-G-H-T-E-R-T-H-A-N-H-E-I-R.com. Go check it the fuck out. Here's another message. This one's for Kim,

and it's from Matt, who says, Happy birthday, Kimberly Wimberly Woo. Sorry to call you by your mom's favorite nickname for you. That sounds like it takes a long time to deliver when you're shouting it up some stairs because you've stepped on a Lego. But I'm not going to. That made you sound like you're eight. They probably haven't done this anyway.

But I'm not going to throw away my gumbo trompe-slot to have our wonder buddies send some good vibes your way. I can't wait to call you my wife next June. And I'll take that again. Please do. I can't wait to call you my wife next June and have a wonderful road trip listening buddy for life. I love you. That was a really sweet message. And,

um, yeah, I mean, getting married is great because you do get to do like a hundred percent more Borat stuff. So you're going to love it. Oh man. Oh yeah.

It's the best part, right? It's the best part. The sweetest thing. Hello. I'm Oliver Wong, DJ, scholar, and journalist. And I'm Morgan Rhodes, music supervisor and stiletto devotee. And we host Heat Rocks, a podcast where we invite our favorite musicians, writers, and scholars to talk about the albums that have changed their lives. Morgan, what exactly is a heat rock?

It's a record that's like hot fire, combustible. Basically, just a really, really good album. We've taken a deep dive into Nigerian funk from the 70s. He kind of had like a bad reputation in town as just being like a sketchy dude. And he was just making music that for thousands of miles around him, he was the only person doing anything like that.

1980s teen comedy soundtracks. This soundtrack always felt the same to me as, like, when I would find a great blazer at a thrift store. That I could, I was like, oh, this is going to be me now. We've talked about Prince, Boyz II Men, Kendrick Lamar, and everything in between. Heat Rocks, every Thursday here on Maximum Fun. What's number two for you, babe? My second thing is Book People. Book People's a great store.

It's a great bookstore. They did a signing there. They were really sweet. They gave me lots of chai tea. So two thumbs up from this guy. If you got to do a signing, do it at Book People. Yeah, for any future venues looking to book Griffin, all he needs in payment is chai tea. Yeah, I mean future venues looking to book Griffin, all he needs in payment

is chai tea. Yeah, I mean, I wasn't paid for this signing. I just really did just get two cups of chai tea. So yeah, that is accurate. Book people opened in 1970. Holy shit. We should establish this is a bookstore here. Is it local

to Austin or is it in other places? Okay. It is local to Austin. It's a really great store here in Austin. And I feel like it'll harken back to everybody else's personal independent bookstore that they love. Definitely didn't have one of those in Huntington, but... Oh, no? No. What about like a used bookstore? Probably.

No, not that I can... I used to love going in used bookstores because they all smelled like old books. And usually there were like these piles that were totally in disarray. And so you'd discover things that you weren't expecting to find. And sometimes there was a cat. You're describing my local comic book shop that I grew up near called Purple Earth, which is kind of like that. But yeah, I don't think we had a used bookstore. Not that I can think of.

Wow. Yeah, I know. There probably was one. I just never went to it. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. So the book people used to be called Grok Books,

which was taken from Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. G-R-O-K Books? Yeah. Is that where the term Grok comes from? I guess so.

I've heard you say it. I've never heard anyone use it conversationally. It means like, it's like to understand a sort of jargon or that's interesting. Okay, I'm learning a lot. I was started by Michael Nill, who had been pursuing his PhD, and then dropped out of school to open the bookstore. There was a lot of turmoil going

on at the university. And so he so he dipped and focused on the bookstore. Just a quick sidebar. That word did come from that book. And it's in the dictionary. It's not just like the name of that shop, but it's in the dictionary. It's to understand intuitively or by empathy to establish rapport with. Interesting.

Cool. And so he opened Grok Books in an old house on 17th Street. Him and his wife and another couple each put in $2,500. And none of them drew a salary from the bookstore. For how long? Well, after three years, he moved to New York and passed the bookstore on to some other graduate students. Interesting. And they kept kind of accumulating more inventory, but not selling much of it. And so it was about to go out of business when Philip Sanson bought the inventory in the early 80s. And he moved it briefly to this shopping center because he lost his lease on 17th, which makes sense given the growth of Austin. And so in keeping with the store's sci-fi tradition, he renamed it Book People as a

reference to Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. The people, I guess, who have books in Fahrenheit 451 are called Book People? You know, I've actually never read that book. You've never read Fahrenheit 451? I have not, no. I definitely read it in, well, wait a minute. I've read it, but it's on the banned books list, which I'm pretty sure it is. I know it is, but that usually didn't stop most high schools from.

Yeah, that's probably when I read it. Yeah. It's badass, man. So by the mid-90s, the store had grown to 75,000 titles and needed a bigger space. So to raise funds, Sansa reached out to his friend, the co-founder of Whole Foods. Oh, okay. And they were able to raise enough money to the current location at Sixth and Lamar next to Whole Foods in 1995.

This location was 40,000 square feet. It's enormous. It's the biggest bookstore. It's the biggest bookstore in Texas. Is it really? And Texas is the biggest state and that's science is it really and texas is the biggest uh state and that's science and so don't argue with me about that uh supposedly it's the third largest bookstore in the u.s that's fucking wild yeah uh it used to have uh three stories but then with the kind

of the dawn of the amazon online age uh they reduced down to two stories. At their peak, they had- That's not true. I went up to the fourth floor in that building. Oh, well, the retail space I'm talking about. Oh, okay. Because they used to have 300,000 titles in that store. Jesus Christ. And they reduced down to 180,000 to kind of meet the-

I didn't know there were 300,000 books. The idea of writing a book to me is so exhausting. The idea of 300,000 people me is so exhausting. The idea of 300,000 people doing that is like wild. Yeah? Yes. Well, I mean throughout time though? And did you know that there are people who write more than one book?

I don't know how they do it. It's nuts, man. How they do it. This is a really good bookstore. I feel like there's something for everybody there and it is palatial. The reason I'm bringing it up is I went there on Sunday with our son, and it was like 9.30 a.m. on a Sunday, which almost nothing is open, but book people was. And the second floor is almost entirely devoted to kids' books. And so I was just able to hang out with him and look at all these different books.

And there was just like tons of different types and authors and stuff that I never would have known about if I hadn't brought them there. And it was me and a bunch of other parents with their little kids like toddling around that it was just like the most pleasant experience. There's there's a type of gratitude that Rachel and I feel towards places like this, because this is something that they do not tell you when you are having a baby, is that you're going to hit this weird period where they're too young to like go out and play on like a playground by themselves and climb up on things and throw a ball and you know do sports or whatever and but they're old enough that they want to like do shit and there's not that many

places that can cater to that like in between well especially in austin because you know we don't have like a baseball team or like a a huge you know zoo or a huge aquarium we have small zoos and smalls aquarium but like nothing like to spend a whole day doing yeah you know and so these little gems that are have long hours and provide a lot of entertainment are the absolute best. And I have always loved bookstores, too, just because it's like, I don't know, it gives you an opportunity to learn about new things that the Internet doesn't really give you, I don't think, unless you know what you're looking for. Yeah, sure. I mean, there's still a lot of value to having a book in your hand and reading it. And the promise of, you know, 180,000 of those experiences just waiting for you

is exciting. Obviously, you know, libraries fill the same need, but I think a really nice bookstore, there's a lot to be said about that, too. Yeah. We definitely would go to used bookstores like paperback bookstores whenever we'd go on vacation, like dad would make these little pilgrimages to them. And definitely would go to used bookstores, like paperback bookstores, whenever we'd go on vacation. Like, Dad would make these little pilgrimages to them. And he would buy, like, a cardboard box full of paperbacks that would, like, tide him over for the next year. Yeah.

It was adorable. Do you want to know my second thing? Yes. Okay, my second thing is a musical artist. And I introduced Rachel to this band earlier today because I was pretty sure you hadn't heard of them before. Rachel to this band earlier today because I was pretty sure you hadn't heard of them before I'm so fucking excited to talk about them because uh I'm pretty sure if you haven't heard of them before there's a good chance that they're going to be like your new jam you listener at home listening to this now they are a Japanese band called Wednesday Campanella and they kick a lot of ass they're kind of tough to categorize they're just like equal parts sort of like J-pop and electronic music and hip-hop.

They are a trio. There's a director named Director F. It's actually D-I-R dot F, which I have to imagine is Director F and not Derf. And a producer named Kinmochi Hidefume. And he is the producer of most of their music. And then there's Komuai, who is the vocalist. And she's also the face of the band. The other two actually kind of prefer anonymity.

They never appear in their music videos or on stage performances. It's just Komuai, who is the sort of face of the band. They're really eccentric. They're really fucking fresh. The music that they make is really inventive and really, really catchy. They dabble in a lot of different genres. All their music videos are fucking brilliant. If you enjoy the music you're about to hear, I totally recommend going down the rabbit hole.

It's how I spent my entire day today. And it was so good because all their music videos are so fucking good. So I originally found Wednesday Campanella through Spotify, Discover, of course, a few months ago with this one track that I'm going to play a little bit later. But I didn't really dive too deep. I liked this one song. I added it to like my good songs playlist

that I've been accumulating since I lived in Chicago and didn't dive any deeper until this past week. I learned that they last week did a collaboration. They released a collaboration with one of my favorite electronic music groups, Churches or Chiverches, who I was lucky enough. I got to see them live in Austin, I think last year. And man man they fucking rule uh if you were if you're not familiar they're a they're a scottish synth pop band they've been around for like half a decade or so um they did the song the mother we share which was probably

their their biggest hit uh so they have a considerable following in japan and so they did this song with wednesday campanella, who, como I described the collaboration in a press release as Kawasaki meets Glasgow, Kiyoshiro Imoano, who is like this Japanese rocker, meets David Bowie, and Edamame meets Fish and Chips. The song is really, really great. It's super, it has this great catchy hook. And it has this also incredible anime music video that you should watch. It's called Out of My Head. Here's a little bit of it. so i was i was kind of reminded of how much i like that other song i had heard by wednesday campanella which sent me down this rabbit hole of listening to their music and then learning more about them and their style uh komo i was sort of found by director f and and ken mochi they were

they wanted a female vocalist for uh this new band that they were putting together and they met komo i at a party and she that's by the way not her real name it's like a stage name it's k-o-m underscore i oh yeah uh and uh she joined the band when she was in high school and she had no music experience whatsoever which is dope they yeah ken mochi talked about how uh her voice didn't really match the the rap that she was like delivering and that sort of dissonance would sounded really cool and so that's why she she got she became like the front the front person for this group um so this is the first thing i heard from them it's

called shaka shane uh it's pretty simple it's just like this rolling acoustic percussion with komoai rapping over it uh the rhythm of this song is just so fucking dope and the music video is really great too uh here is shaka shane So I want to talk about the lyrics to their music. The lyrics to this song, I've listened to this song a whole bunch, and the lyrics to this song are really fantastic. I found a translation online and learned that Shaka Shane is all about cool things you can do when you're in Hokkaido. So the lyrics are, this is one section, cutting through the park on the hill where you can see the whales,

luminous moss in Makaosu. What's your ahead in Wakanae? Not disappointed, Sapporo Clock Tower. Sabina in the winter. Eat up, Marachan Yakisoba Bento. A yummy kaisendon. Lunches included. Like, damn!

From the ocean observatory to meeting spotted seals for the first time. Yo, man! That's fucking really really really good the whole song is just about all these different places in hokkaido you can go and do all this stuff and like i didn't know that because i'm not a fluent japanese speaker and so like finding out that this song i've been like jamming to like driving in my car like this would be like a badass like action scene movie and then finding out the lyrics are like a tourism video for the prefecture of hokkaido is

really neat and so like i was inspired to look up that translation after i sent you a link to a music video and this is for the last one i want to talk about it's called aladdin i found this song uh yesterday and just fucking fell in love with it it's got this dope ass rhythm to it i actually realized what it reminds me of it reminds me a lot of thriller like the bass and rhythm and the music video for this is so fucking good please go watch it it's como i basically just freestyle dancing in a bowling alley a la christopher walken in the weapon of choice music video for like two minutes it is did you enjoy it i sent it to you and i was like this is my favorite thing i've ever seen uh okay so here's a little bit of the song. It's called Aladdin. so i sent this music video to rachel and i was like here's this here's this band wednesday campanella i want to talk about them on the show before and i want you to

to know their music a little bit and she said this this video and then she said holy shit the lyrics are amazing and I realized that I had watched the video without closed captioning on which has the English translation lyrics so I turned it on and learned that this song that is fucking like so fresh and I've listened to it just bopping all day is mostly about uh abrasive cleaning products and a home goods store uh the lyrics i don't even know where to begin uh the aladdin compound giving metal a quick rub with it makes it shine it even gets stubborn dirt and rust off it's almost like some kind of mysterious magic power let's shine up that filthy lamp over there and put it on display shining for you i

scrub for you and then there's a whole like and then it sort of goes into like a description of the actual like uh like aladdin plot agrabah a country of mystery and glamour in the desert a boy who seeks freedom and a future a princess who's escaped the royal palace and a spirit in a lamp a genie ah make your rusty life sparkle the aladdin home center opens at 10 a.m it's so fucking good it's so fucking good and i can't profess to understand like what led them to write a song about this this home goods sort of supply store and these different cleaning products are people like singing along, like, at their concerts, are people, like, singing along? I don't know.

I don't know if it's ironic. I will admit, I don't know that much about, like, J-pop, and I don't know that much about, like, this band. I've only sort of been diving into them for, like, a day. Their aesthetic is super genuinely pretty weird sometimes, but in, like, a really cool, like, Kiari Pamyu Pamyu way, like, that I'm very much into. I don't know. Like, I don't know like i don't know

why this song about abrasive cleaning products in this home good store is like my fucking favorite song of the the year that i've heard um but it's just so good uh i don't really have a lot to add except like the act of i talked about like discovering a new favorite thing and this has been that because i i heard this this This is yesterday. I was walking through the grocery store with my earbuds in, and I was listening to this new Church's track with Wednesday Campanella. I was like, oh, shit, Wednesday Campanella. I remember them. Went back, dug into their music, loved it,

then dug into their music videos all day today and loved it, and then I dug into their lyrics and loved it. And it just keeps coming at me in waves and waves and waves of how fucking great this thing is and how much i like it seriously go dig in there's one called uh kamehameha the great that's all about like she turns into like a golden turtle at one point and spits eggs out of her mouth like all the music videos are so dope and the song is really good anyway that's wednesday campanella they're the best um do you want to hear some submissions from our friends at home yes natalie says i live in chicago and the L, aka the subway to work every day.

Is the L just all the trains or is it one specific? I thought like the, is it the red line or the brown line is the? They're all. They're all the L? Okay. It doesn't happen frequently, but sometimes when two trains pass each other going in opposite directions, the train conductors will honk at each other in a cute call and response, often with the second conductor mimicking

the pattern of the first. I find it really wonderful that the train conductors have this fun on their tough jobs, and seeing this exchange always brightens my commute and reminds me to stay playful while living life in the big city. Oh, that's nice. I don't think I ever noticed that when I lived here. I don't think I did either.

I mean, I was always jamming to my Zoom when I was traveling on public transit in Chicago. Here's one from Emily who says, something I find wonderful is that blast of cool air you get when you walk into a hotel room for the first time. I typically am only in hotels during the summertime and it's so refreshing. I like that too. I mean, there's nothing better than walking into a hotel room the first time. I know. In so many different sort of sense experiences. Like, oh, it's nice.

Oh, this is where I'm going to be staying. Or at the very least, like, oh, I'm so fucking tired. Or, oh, I've been waiting to check in for so long. I always run to the bathroom to see what quality shampoo is in there. Do you really? I do. Oh, man. I'm always curious.

Like, is my hair going to get a treat while I'm here? I've been in so many hotels at this point. And going into one and having it be like a nice hotel and I'm not like picky but like one that's like nicer than I deserve is always such a like delightful surprise. You are picky

about the pillows though. I mean yeah. We stayed at an Airbnb when we went to this Houston trip. Yeah what was the pillow situation? One. One. One pillow? One bad pillow. And so I went and I raided the couch and I took the pillows from the couch. Even though one of our friends was sleeping on the couch.

I did a sort of discreet maneuver, but he caught me. And I stole two pillows and I was like, all right, I'll bring them back, but I only brought back one. What's up? Uh-oh. I don't give a fuck. Here's one more from Jason who says my wonderful thing is people saying the F word

in PG-13 movies most are allowed one and it's always fun to hear when you don't see them coming I love this did you know this in PG-13 movies you can say one F I feel like I heard that a long time ago but I've forgotten about it and where do you cash it in that's what I'm excited about

where do you cash in your F I's what I'm excited about. Where do you cash in your F? I don't know. It's exciting to me. It's exciting because you watch the whole movie and you're like, I know it's PG-13. Where's the F? Here it comes. Nope. Nope.

Not yet. But they close it out. I don't think I ever really thought about it as I'm watching a movie. Okay. Well, now I've changed your whole life. I know. Now I'm going to think about it. Hey, thank you for listening to Wonderful.

This has been a lot of fun, and I hope you enjoyed it. And thank you to Bowen and Augustus for the use of our theme song, Money Won't Pay. You can find a link to that in the episode description. Max Fun. Yeah, thank you to MaximumFun.org for hosting our show and hosting a bunch of other really great shows. Inside Pop is a good one. Hey, yeah. Friendly Fire is a good one.

Sure. And there's so many more. Yeah, all at MaximumFun.org. If you want to hear other shows we do, it's at McElroyShows.com, and if you want tickets to live shows or signings, or we got some stuff on the books, it's at McElroyShows.com slash tours.

We got some tickets actually going on sale Friday for TASM and BIM BAM for Portland and Seattle, so if you live there, you can go get those those and i think that's about it huh yeah that's about it well that's about it partner let's just keep saying that's about it but do like different accents hey griffin yeah l y oh a A-L-H. Love your ass, lovehunk? Rachel, we're doing a podcast. People listen to this.

Pervert. Love you a lot, husband. If you had a yearbook now, I would sign it, and that's what I would write. What would the yearbook contain? Me? Just one picture of you. Just one big picture? I think that's what funerals are. Bye. Working on it. Money on it. Working on it.

Money on it. Working on it. Money on it. Working on it. Money on it. Working on it. Money on it. MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned.

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