Wonderful! - Wonderful! Ep. 5: Robert Frost Fist Fight

Episode Date: October 4, 2017

In today's episode, Griffin's talking about video games, and Rachel's talking about poetry, so the level of expertise brought to the table is simply breathtaking. Also, Griffin gets VERY defensive about Sean Astin. Music: "Money Won't Pay" by Bo En and Augustus: https://open.spotify.com/track/5hs2nY40aeqM0mpP8SBOon MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hi, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is Wonderful. I was, I didn't even realize what I was doing while I was doing it while we were recording, but I just took the socks off. And that means it's time to play. Come on, babe. It's time to play.

In this space we create together. Can't have socks on because I need to feel the earth between my toes, connect with nature, and just really appreciate all the good stuff going on right now. Do you do all your recordings sockless? Gotta be barefoot, baby. Gotta get that Jack Johnson vibe flowing through me. And my first topic today, I'm so glad we could find such a smooth segue,

is Jack Johnson's wonderful music. No, it's not. His wonderful beach poetry. It's not. Baby, why do you think I take my socks off? It's so you can admire my bubbly toes. That's nice. Wait, that's the Colby Callie song.

His is, damn it. No no i think it is no she did you're right you're right you're right you're right you're right sorry i had a but she has a song too that's also like in your bubbly toes or choose and i'm pretty sure those songs came out in the same year so now the the illuminati is definitely real it's like a um oh what are those disaster movies that came out at the same time? It's an Armageddon deep impact situation. Definitely. Now, I think Jack Johnson would be the deep impact. And Colby Kelly would be the Armageddon disgust at home.

I don't know who this Colby is. She did that. It starts in my nose and my bubbly toes. Are you sure? Yeah, that was her, I think. Anyway, this is wonderful to show. It's a Koli Kali fan cast. Did a bad job saying her name.

And what we really do here is we talk about things that we're into. I want to say a special thanks. The reaction to last week's episode was really delightful. It really meant a lot. It kind of proved what could be cool about doing this show. Again, we're still pretty new at it. But Nick Drake, talking specifically about Nick Drake, is something that's really important to me.

And it resonated with so many people. And it really meant a lot. It was so cool. Well, we had some nice synergy, too, between our picks. That is true. This is a fun fact that I think I would like to continue doing, is that Griffin and I do not discuss our picks prior to recording. We do not. I was

thinking today, because I started to get psyched about Halloween, is that we should have like a spooky episode where we talk about Halloween things we like. And I think the whole month of December we can go pretty hard on the holidays, because you know how deep I get into that. Also, special thanks to Lizzo, who retweeted our episode last week, which is very, very cool.

Yeah, so thank you all. That really meant a lot, and I hope that we can keep sort of connecting with you in that way, because I've been doing podcasts for a while, and I don't know, that was so specific and so wonderful. I can't say that fucking word. We need a jar or something that we put money in when we say the word wonderful unironically.

I think you started last week? I did. Do you want me to start out this time? Yes, please. My first thing that I am going to bring this week is, and this is a timely thing, and I haven't really done something like this before, but it's the SNES Classic, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System Classic. Oh, here we go. Here we go. Strap in, folks. First things first, it's dang cute. This little guy is so tiny, so little, and I like it so much. We also have the NES Classic. We were lucky enough to have one bestowed upon us by the gods,

which was the only way that you could get an NES Classic. You had to climb the mountain, bring the sacrifice, and then Reggie Fils-Aimé, the Nintendo man, came and gave it to you. The Nintendo man? There's a big man. Oh, this is wonderful. Shit, I did it again. There's a man who is the, this is wonderful. Shit, I did it again. There's a man who is like the main sort of face of Nintendo right now.

And his name is Reggie Fils-Aimé. And he used to be the king of Pizza Hut. And he invented... See, I don't know what that means either. He was like the corporate marketing chief. Okay, like the spokesman? Spokesman for Pizza Hut. And legend has it that it was his idea to do the Bigfoot pizza, the like 15-foot pizza.

And that's funny because he's an eight and a half yard tall man. Oh, really? Okay. And when I say yard, I'm not using a measurement. I'm talking about like a yard in front of your house. Take like eight blocks worth of, anyway. take like eight blocks worth of anyway um the snes classic if you do not know it is a sort of little uh box that you just plug right into your tv and it is a compilation of 21 super nintendo games there's some really great ones on there and i have a few reasons why i wanted to talk about it first of all i wanted to try talking about something sort of like actively happening in

our lives right now um because we just got this last friday is when it came out um but also because like the super nintendo is it was sort of like my first console that i felt like ownership of i was born in 87 and that's like when the the original nintendo the nes uh was was out and that was in my house when i was born and so so I grew up playing that a bit, but I was like, zero years old. So it wasn't like I came out like, hand me the controller, hand me the zapper, let's get some fucking ducks. But the original Super Nintendo came to North America in 1991, when I was four years old. And that was like, oh, okay, that's what this is. And now I'm going to get into it. So that was like really my first touchstone with video games, which I have loved my entire life. Um, and you could, I don't think you could do any better for like having the super Nintendo

be that console in, in your life, because there were a lot of really great games. Nintendo made a ton of really great games for the console games, like all the Mario games and Zelda and a super Metroid and pilot wings and a bunch of really great games. Um, but there was a developer called square soft, which is now known as Square Enix, which is a Japanese developer that made all of these role-playing games. And those were the games that I spent my entire childhood playing. Yeah, this is kind of fascinating to me because I grew up in a Sega household. Very deliberately so.

I told Griffin my dad. I love this story, by the way. My dad, who reads reviews of everything before he purchases. Big Consumer Reports fan. Yes. He had heard that the graphics on the Sega Genesis were better. Got duped. So that is what we had.

on the sega genesis were better got duped so that is what we had uh so when griffin has shown me these these games that he loves so much i just think like how did you how'd you get into this it's just little blocks little squares oh how dare you um we could get into i which i guess is what minecraft is which is and it's also what a lot of the Sega Genesis games were. Rachel and I had this big heated debate, and I realized, like, oh, man, like, elementary school? This is literally all we talked about. The faction war between Mario and Sonic and the different sort of universes that they represented. Like, this was all that we talked about. Anyway, like, this is a huge tangent.

But Squaresoft's games were like hugely influential for me um and i have like countless anecdotes because like it was how i spent i was did community theater growing up so like that was like my main like a capital h hobby but like my my free time i spent playing video games and most of those were squaresoft games so like final fantasy 2 which was actually the fourth Final Fantasy game that came out but only the second one that came to the states it was called 2 um I played that game when I was probably six years old and learned how to read really well because of it um there was a game that came out called Chrono Trigger which I think is one of the best games of all time I got for Christmas and I can

remember like that was the best Christmas of all time there was a home video that was like hugely embarrassing because i had like a fucking fit when i opened up the box and there was chrono trick i was so excited for it one of my favorite stories is me and my dad used to play this game secret of mana which is actually on the snes classic it's one of my favorite games of all time you've actually been watching me play it yeah which is like a role-playing game with some action elements and you can play with two people at a time and we would play that together. And so me and my dad would always play Secret of Mana. And it was like a really cool like I never played sports.

And so me and dad didn't play sports together. And so like this was the thing that we did together. And it was really great. And I remember distinctly coming home from school one day and didn't know where dad was. And so I went up in the attic, which is where the Super Nintendo was at the time. And I caught him playing Secret of Evermore, which was the sequel to the game that he had gone to the store and bought for himself so that he could play it. It wasn't like a birthday gift or Christmas gift, which was like our only means of acquiring new video games. We'd have to wait for Christmas and be like, oh, hell yeah, new video game time.

Dad like went to the store because he wanted to like get this game and keep playing it. So we played that together, too. Like that one is unfortunately not on the box so like uh that that is like sort of the the space that the super nintendo filled in my life and the snes classic has like a bunch of my favorite games from that era it's real cute and real little and i just love the idea of like having this little self-contained like treasure chest of nostalgia and like the nes classic had that too but again like those games are great and important but they didn't like mean as much to me because they weren't like the games that i

really was born into that's what's so smart about re-releasing these consoles is all the games are already built in so it's not like people are like having to reinvest in all these cartridges again yeah because i as you can tell by looking literally into my closet right now like i have a lot of these games they're expensive as fuck there's a game on here final fantasy 3 which was final fantasy 6 in japan one of the best games ever made and if you wanted to find a cartridge of it like an actual snes cartridge of it it'd probably run you about 80 bucks which is the price of the snES Classic. I just love the idea of having this thing that is full of these little memory capsules. And I'm not saying that to be like, poetic, like

that is like, that is the space that it fills for me, like more than movies or books or any TV ever. Like, this is the thing that creates nostalgia inside of me, because it is the thing that I spent so much of my time playing. So the idea having a a little library of that stuff that also like i'm constantly thinking about like when henry is older like i can show him like these are the games that i grew up playing like i think that's really cool and it gets me so excited yeah um so that's the snes classic it's kind of hard to find which is a little bit of a bummer it's a little bit easier to find than the nes classic you don't have to climb the mountain are they gonna be releasing more i think that's the plan they're gonna try to do better with their inventory the nes classic they just did not

make enough of them and then they stopped making it yeah so it's like this i guess huge collector's item um but yeah we have some i have a list of the games here but i talked about enough of them i think um super mario rpg is a good one on there, too. I'm excited to dip in. And that Donkey Kong game. Donkey Kong Country is very good. Rachel and I played Kirby's Dream Course, which I'd never played before, but it's like a competitive Kirby-based

mini-golf game. I thought it was really fun. Yeah, I had a good time with that. I enjoyed playing that with you because I'd never played it before. Yeah, so here's the thing. I, as I mentioned before, have not played a lot of these games before and it is not a lot of fun for me to play games with griffin uh because he has logged so many hours into so many of them that uh the deficit is too great yeah in order to find a game that rachel and i can really get into together it needs to not have have that factor in it uh

which is like what why we really enjoyed the telltale games the telltale walking dead games we got really into especially with a two-player game where you take turns playing like griffin and i tried to play some mario together yeah super mario world and uh i would play for i don't know three minutes and then i would die and then it would go back to him and i was like well this is not yeah it's not really designed, this is not a great experience. Yeah, it's not really designed for that. There's not a ton of games on there that are good for that. Except really Secret of Mana is like great. It's just like you can play together

and explore together and cast spells and shit. I love it. We should play that together. Will you please? With me? Yeah. I'll be your father in this scenario. Well, we didn't have to take it in that particular direction. What is your first thing this time? So I try really hard to do current things, but it's difficult for me because I feel like most of my interests right now involve the baby.

You're done being interested in new things, essentially. So for this week, my first, I don't know mention is uh wallace stevens wallace stevens he's a poet okay he was a poet okay i thought it was the dude from princess bride that's wallace sean yeah although that could be wallace sean would be a really good one dude's had a storied career yeah you know, Jesse Thorne interviewed him on Bullseye. Oh, you're kidding. I haven't listened to it yet. I want to hear that. So Wallace Stevens died in 1955. But his kind of big thing that was really memorable for me for a while. So I learned about him and William Carlos Williams around the same time.

Okay. And what was notable about both of them is they had very kind of boring jobs. William Carlos Williams was a doctor. And Wallace. That's not really a boring job. You're pulling shit out of boring jobs. William Carlos Williams was a doctor. It's not really a boring job. You're pulling shit out of people's. Not at all artsy. Not poetic.

Yeah. Yeah. And Wallace Stevens spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance company in Connecticut. Yeah, I don't think of that being like the on-ramp onto the stage of poetry. Kind of the big mythos about him is that he used to write poems on slips of paper on his walk to the office, and then his secretary would type them up for him. Oh, that's great. But another cool thing about him,

he didn't get his first publication until he was 35, and his first book of poems didn't come out until he was 44 holy shit yeah which is really really kind of unique i mean i think a lot of people hit 30 and feel like oh i haven't accomplished anything i guess that dream's dead and very few people i think even like as much smaller subset think like oh i'm 35 time to become a poet like what uh so some of his best known poems uh which i'll say just for the people out there who may be big poetry nerds uh the emperor of ice cream which is kind of his biggest one uh and the snowman um sunday morning the idea of order at key west interesting thing about

wallace stevens much like heingway, got real into Key West, Florida. There's actually all these stories. So Wallace Stevens, the guy, not particularly great, like big alcoholic, and apparently got in physical fights with both Robert Frost and Hemingway. Now, I wouldn't, Hemingway, I could see that being true about. Was Frost

a real, like, did he have a tight haymaker? I would not assume that most of his feud with frost took place in letters and correspondence they would kind of jab at each other for a poet that's like that's like a dirty shot to the nards so here's here's my thing with wallace stevens it's very rare for me to like entire wallace stevens poems but he's got these little pithy stanzas that just kill. I really hope you're about to read poetry.

Cause that's my favorite thing in the whole world. Oh, good. Uh, so this is from the snowman and this is just, this is just three lines of the poem that just like, get me, uh,

for the listener who listens in the snow and nothing himself beholds, nothing that is not there. And then nothing that is. Damn. Wallace Stevens. Great. Is the whole, the whole poem is about this kind of stark wintry wasteland.

And I just love that line. Then nothing that is not there. And then nothing that is. That's really good. Do you have more? I want more, more poetry. The thing.

So this is all going to sound like I'm kind of like high, but I promise you. I've been with Rachel all evening, I assume, unless she went to the bathroom to eat weed. Do you eat weed? I don't know. I don't know what the kids do now. Okay, so this is from a poem called The Well-Dressed Man with a Beard. We've never talked about this, like, ever. Rachel went to school for poetry, and it is not a thing that, like, really comes up a beard. We've never talked about this, like, ever. Rachel went to school for poetry,

and it is not a thing that, like, really comes up a lot, but whenever it does, like, I cannot tell you how much happiness it brings me. Yeah, I went graduate school at University of Chicago, and they have a one-year program in humanities that I went to, and I wrote a collection of poems.

You realize by saying that that folks are going to want you to read them on the show. No, well, that's your that's it. Please do not pressure Rachel. That's your prerogative. This is another three lines from the well-dressed man with a beard. I think also at the end, both these are the big closers. And this I feel like this is so poignant right now and like all the terrible things that are happening in the world.

So here are the lines. After the final no, there comes a yes. And on that yes, the future world depends. No was the night. Yes is the present sun. Isn't that incredible? Rachel just dissolved after she read that. It was very good.

I literally got chills while I was reading it. Yeah, it was really good. It's so powerful for me. It's interesting. Again, I'm not a huge fan of his poems start to finish, but those closers are incredible. Just thinking of this, you know, 40-something-year-old man walking to his insurance company job. Did he eventually quit the insurance company job, or was that like his, is this his side gig? I mean, that's the thing.

Like, so he won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry for his collected poems in 1955, which was also the year he died. So I'm not sure if it was costumers or not. But I mean, it's not like poem. It's not like it's bringing in the big bucks. I'm sure he's making a decent living at the insurance company. It doesn't necessarily seem prudent to quit that for his poems. So, yeah. So I just love a lot about him. And I obviously love those those little short snippets there.

I would pay any amount of money for I don't know how this would exist, but like a nice like viral video clip of him just tussling with Robert Frost. of him just hustling with Robert Frost. Yeah, he was really critical of Robert Frost and they would exchange jabs because they had very different styles. How can you be critical of Robert Frost's poetry? Shit, okay. I think the road less traveled

is bad. I have to find the clip from their correspondence. I'll share it in the Facebook group. Some gold things can stay that was him right i don't think oh no wait oh shit hold on nothing gold can stay wasn't robert frost i apologize i'm not very good with stuff like that oh it is give me your give me your degree it's mine now. Now who's the poetry one? You know that?

Just kidding. I just like the outsiders a lot. Yeah. Well, that's what I was thinking. That's what resonated with me. Now, memorizing poetry is not a big part of poetry school. Really? Really.

Then what are you doing? That was actually something that was really popular my grandma who has a terrible memory now is still able to recite poems that was my favorite my first meeting with with your grandma like you guys just her reciting poetry to you from memory was like oh my god i'm getting i'm getting i'm getting touched just thinking about it uh yeah so that's that's wall stevens that was really good i really want you to talk about poetry on the show as much as you possibly can because i think it's very good i got i got a whole arsenal of poets i'm a big fan of good um before we get into that though maybe we could this is the opposite of poetry so there's just no good segue but maybe we could Hmm.

Is that a fish? A little fishy? Yeah, sure. It's whatever you want it to be. Just like poetry. You want to read the first Jumbotron for me? Yeah. This message is for Caleb Zane Hewitt.

It is from Austin. I am so proud of you for getting your book published. I won't say the name of it so that this still counts as a personal message. Oh no! But I'm sure motivated audience members can find it. Thank you for reminding me that magic is easy.

That's the name of the book. Magic is easy. If that's the name of the book, this is the best like we oughta baby it's a boy shit ever. And I'm so into it. I love you immensely. And I'm so excited for your next book. We all are. That's so wonderful.

Congratulations, Kayla. Thank you for sharing that with us. From one published author to another. Listen, a lot of the folks don't get this, but when you're part of the literate elite. Do you want to say what the book is? Yeah, I wrote a short story for a Star Wars short story compilation called A Certain Point of View.

And I have no problem promoting it because all of the proceeds are going to charity. So I'm not making any money off of it. But it's a really cool project and I was very honored to be included. So thank you, Star Wars. Here is a message. It's for Maddie but it's a really cool project and i was very honored to be included so thank you star wars uh here is a message it's for maddie and it's from kate who says dear maddie thank you for being an excellent cousin and friend for watching dumb space nerds and duane the rock johnson related products with me and thanks for hassling me to listen to so many mcelroy products

you got me happy nearest life event to airtime from Kate, Griffin, Rachel, and everyone's good, good son, Ango. Keep it up. And they wanted this in early October. So like, I don't know, it's probably your birthday. Happy, very spooky Halloween. God, we have to figure out costumes.

I wish there was a service you could just pay to like have them figure out the costumes for you because it brings me so much anxiety and dread. I mean, it's called just going to Amazon. I know.

Who's got the time? Congratulations on whatever holiday means the most to you right now, Maddie. How's it going, everyone? I'm Oliver Wang. And I'm Morgan Rhodes. We have a brand new show on the Maximum Fun Network that we'd love to share with you. It's called Heat Rocks. Morgan, we should probably explain what a heat rock is.

It is a banger, a fire track, true fire. Right. Dope album. Each episode, we will bring on a special guest to join us to talk about one of their heat rocks. It might be a musician. A writer. Maybe a scholar. I mean, I would have been happy to just talk to you about your heat rocks, but this is a different show.

Yeah, I think people might enjoy hearing maybe the guests instead. To that you'll have to go to maximumfund.org so if you want to talk about hot music you should check us out heat rocks do you want to hear my second thing i do you've broken my computer in a way that i don't quite understand i pressed the down arrow oh my god you press the down arrow how could you do this the second thing that i wish to discuss on this week's episode of wonderful why are you laughing at me you're so formal is getting a haircut okay i bring this up because i'm getting a haircut tomorrow and i could not be more excited about it and thinking about that i'm almost always excited to get a haircut when i've scheduled a haircut and i got that haircut haircut appointment on the books i just know like i'm in

for a pretty good time whenever i come around that is a good point because you and i both push it i push it we both go as long as we can until we literally hate looking at ourselves in the mirror my hair is doing i don't know if you can see, it's doing the flip up over the, maybe the headphone's been pushing it down. My hair grows in real fucking thick, real fast. I am at basically once a month, every four weeks I need to go in to get my shit touched up. Griffin has hair unlike anyone in his family and unlike anyone I've ever met before. Yeah, it grows out and up it's unique i don't know why i was given this this blessing but the result is that like my hair doesn't get longer

it just gets thicker and thicker and thicker and thicker and thicker and thicker so i think i in particular like am genetically suited to enjoy a good haircut for so many reasons i will never forget i let my hair uh i i used to go to a place that my mom picked out for all of us a a hair salon in huntington west virginia called happy hair boutique what's up what's up hhb because the woman who worked there worked at church and i assume gave us some pretty good rates um and i would never get my hair cut i would only get it thinned out ever ever i would only get it thinned out ever ever i would only get thinned out so they would use the thinning scissors to like yeah thin the hair but they would never actually cut it and the result of that is it was thick like

a briar patch thick like molasses up on top of my head and it looked awful it looked so bad didn't it get super long though it didn't get like long it didn't like go down it just went out right uh and i let it i that was like my style because i kept going back to the hhb through like college to like my senior year of college and then my senior year of college my brother was friends with a woman named mo who was a hairstylist who worked in this place downtown um and she like cut all of travis's friend's hair and i was like okay well you know i've been doing the same thing for 15 years basically as long as i've been getting haircuts why don't i see how the other half lives

and she cut my hair and she cut it all the fuck off and i was like oh my god it was the most liberating day i'd ever had in my entire life and i like went to school like i had class at marshall that same day and people were like what because i literally had my hair like puffy and out and terrible how old were you 20 21 um and so like since that day like i just always love a good haircut and for a lot of reasons first of all i think haircuts feel good as heck like the actual act of getting your hair cut feels good like a scalp massage element to it that is good i think there's a lot of people who dig on like the asmr-y sort of parts of it like scissors making the snippy sound around your ears um and i i just think it feels good to get your haircut especially when you have like a, this has nothing to do

with like the tactile feel of it, but like it is nice when you have a hairstylist with whom you have not only rapport, but trust. That is the jam. Griffin, like, and this is interesting to me because I never think about this, but Griffin is really concerned about his

ability to make polite conversation with the person cutting his hair and always feels badly if he is not able to do yeah there's this thing that is like uh it's this new thing that like it's just sort of starting to catch on uh gain sort of popularity called just like huge social anxiety yeah like overwhelming social anxiety in literally every circumstance where i leave the house not a joke and so like uh yeah i stress out about that and and so it is nice to like not just have somebody you can talk to but somebody who you know is going to do a good job and you know is like there's just not going to be like uncomfy gaps in the convo um and so like that that is really nice just like having a person who in in not just with hairstyle it's just like anything

where you have a trusted source that you can go to and not just with hairstyles, just like anything where you have a trusted source that you can go to and build rapport with, whether that is the butcher around the corner or the barista at the coffee shop you like to go to, or the record store owner, any person that you go to their business or whatever and form rapport with them, I think is awesome. And this is a very common form of that. Um, and then you get your haircut and you look way different. Isn't that, you're, you're laughing, but like it is, it is thinking about it wild to me

that we have this stuff that grows on our head for a lot of us. There are folks who, who do not have hair that grows on their head. Um, but for a lot of us that you, you have this stuff that grows on our head for a lot of us there are folks who who do not have hair that grows on their head um but for a lot of us that you you have the stuff that grows on top of your head and then you go to somebody laughing because this whole episode sounds like we are wicked or super not high i promise i i think that like there is something to like when you get high it opens up your mind in a way where you start to appreciate things that have always been actually kind of awesome. And one of those things that we have this stuff that grows on top of our head that we go and we see somebody and they cut it. And then the whole like our whole visage looks different now.

That's great. That's really wild to me. And if they do a bad job, it's just going to keep on coming. It's going to come on back. Who cares? just gonna keep on coming it's gonna come on back who cares i will tell you the other thing i appreciate about a haircut because i am right there with you is um that it it will kind of class up whatever you do anyway so i um i'm not somebody that puts a lot of time into um like a like a beauty routine sure uh so i kind of need my hair to look as if I did something to it. And a haircut can definitely do that for you. And a lot of times I just feel interested, feel like more presentable

and professional. Sure. But even if you can't go to like the salon and get like a nice service or whatever, just like getting your haircut and looking different because of this stuff that's on top of your head that you changed. That's really cool. That's really, really neat. And then when people talk, like tell you, people recognize that you got a haircut or say something about it, that's the best too. Yeah, that is really nice. That's really good. Do that. Whenever you see somebody and you know they got their haircut, or you think they got their haircut, I pull that trigger all the time. And I miss a lot of the time.

But it doesn't offend people when you're like, did you get a haircut? And they say no, but they love it when it's true. I will say Griffin says that to me a lot. If my hair is particularly dirty. That's mean. Okay.

Do you know about the barber pole? Do you know the origins of it? Are you interested to hear the origins? I tried looking up like the history of haircutting. I do. I think I do. Can I, can I shoot it?

Shoot it. So barbershops used to also deal in like bloodletting, like surgery. Sure. Yeah. And so the barber pole is supposed to represent like, like blood. Yeah. The red stripe is blood and the blue stripe is like

unoxygenated blood. And the white stripe is supposed to be a bandage. It has meant several different things throughout time, but that is the original. Baby, you passed the test. You solved my... I thought that was going to be like a fun new trivia segment, but you just crushed it. I can't memorize poems, but I

can memorize things like that. Alright, well, that's the end of my segment. I want to hear what your second thing is. Okay. This, I think, will be fun. So, I think, will be fun. So, today, when I was coming up with things to talk about, I was thinking about the movie Breaking Away. Okay. Which I had you watch. That's not actually what I'm talking about.

Wait, did I watch Breaking Away? Oh, yeah, the biking movie. Okay, with Daniel Stern. Yeah, it's a movie from 1979. Daniel Stern, I think, is one of the only recognizable actors in it. But it's a movie about a bunch of townies who participate in this college town bike race. And I was just thinking about, do I want to talk about that? And so I was researching it a little. And then I found that the American Film Institute has a list of top 100 most inspiring movies.

Oh, my God. Are we going to just do the damn thing? Well, so I obviously I'm not going to read all hundred. Can we have an episode that's reading all 100 of the most inspiring movies? That episode would be intolerable because it would just be us like saying like, Oh shit, Rudy.

Yeah. You know, Rudy's number one. Here's the thing. I knew you were going to mention Rudy. And so I specifically looked where it was listed on. It's not even in the top 50. It's like 53.

You know what? Fuck this list. Hold on, Griffin. Slow down. No, I'm taking the offense position. No, I can't slow down because Rudy's the most inspiring. Let me tell you the criteria. Can't have Sean Astin in it. Okay, so starting in 1998, the American Film Institute did a series where each year they would release a new list, including like top heroes and villains, top comedies, top scores, top musicals, et cetera. And this is top cheers.

So the criteria is movies that inspire with characters of vision and conviction who face adversity and often make a personal sacrifice for the greater good. You're literally describing Rudy. Go ahead. Whether these films end happily or not, they are ultimately triumphant, both filling audiences with hope and empowering them with the spirit of human potential. Still sounds like Rudy with... But listen...

Okay, so listen to the top... Listen to the top 10. All right, but I'm going to be coming at these hard. They better be bangers. It's a Wonderful Life. Yeah. All right, but I'm going to be coming at these hard. They better be bangers. It's a Wonderful Life. Yeah, all right. To Kill a Mockingbird. I never actually saw that.

Oh, Griffin. I've never seen it. You have to. I've read it. I've just never seen it. Oh, we have to watch it. It's so good. Okay.

Schindler's List. Yeah. Rocky. Yeah. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Yeah, that one's really good. Here's one that I can see, but surprise me. Oh, this is the weak point.

I'm coming for you. Number six, E.T. No. Like, it's good. No, but it's not inspiring, and it's not even close to Rudy inspiring. Seven is Grapes of Wrath. Eight is Breaking Away. Wow, okay. Yeah. Not as good as Rudy. Nine, Mirrapes of Wrath. Eight is Breaking Away. Wow, okay.

Yeah. Not as good as Rudy. Nine, Miracle on 34th Street. Ten, Saving Private Ryan. Eleven, a movie I'd never heard of from 1946 called The Best Years of Our Lives. I don't know that one. Apollo 13 is number 12. See.

Hoosiers, number 13. Hoosiers. Hoosiers above Rudy. Come on, guys. Hoosiers number 13 Hoosiers Hoosiers above Rudy come on guys Bridge on the River Kwai for number 14 and for number 15 The Miracle Worker so is it the thing

that you're bringing just like this list of super fucking inspiring I just love that it exists yeah it's really good I mean it's the criteria

bullshit but it's also very cool Griffin Rudy's so good I think here's what I think Rudy universally universally men love that it's too obvious yeah it's too obvious and also it appeals mostly i think to men untrue falsehood not true

hateful a hateful thing to say i think it's it's it's more exclusive it's not as much about the human experience maybe as it is about the um small boy experience it is about the small boy experience but it is also not a football movie at all because there's not this is actually i remember the first time i watched the movie i was and i'm so sorry to have hijacked your thing but i remember thinking like at some point certainly the boy will play football right and he doesn't until the very end he plays a little bit of football and that's enough that's what's great about that movie it gives you no football no football no football no football and at the end it's like here's a little football and you're like yeah it's the best i just think it's it's a wonderful life is number one though yeah

i mean that that oh jesus that movie like Like, you watch it and you feel like, my life could be okay. I became a better person after I watched that movie for the first time. I watched that movie for the first time when I was, it was like late college for me. And they had a showing of it in December at an old movie theater in Huntington. You didn't see It's a Wonderful Life to Lake Cove? We've talked about this before.

Like, we did not watch that many classic movies in my house. That's so interesting because the McElroy tradition now is exclusively to watch Christmas movies the entire month of December. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We would watch Christmas movies. It's just It's a Wonderful Life was not on the rotation. Yeah, I know. It's strange. I do not know why that was a...

Probably because, like, the three of us just were like, ugh, black and white. Nope. No thanks. No. Yeah, we watched a lot of classic classic doctor who but not a lot of classic movies um that movie yeah we watched that i watched it in a theater when i was like 19 and i remember walking out of it like oh my god like that's what holiday movies should be like like yeah yeah the relationship this is not the point of my topic but but the relationship between Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed, I think it is. I think so, yeah.

It holds up. It's the best. Griffin and I watch that every year, and I'm still charmed by their pairing. Yeah, it's timeless. So good. Timeless. So, yeah. So, if you're interested in the other movies that made the list, again, it's the American

Film Institute. And I just, I saw that and I thought, like, this is how I'm going to pick movies the next time I'm feeling the need for some triumph. Some inspiration. Yeah. Yeah. I would say maybe go a little bit further down the list for an inspirational movie, particularly spot number, like, 53, say, for instance.

We'll film with Sean Astin. And, oh, who's that dude who plays lucky in the iron man movies john favreau john favreau's in that one what other movies has sean astin been in the lord of the rings films the goonies okay okay all right what were you about to sorry were you were you looking for evidence right there what was going on right there i know that you weren't about to go after sean astin my dude there was a great thing with sean astin in um i saw the goonies late too i saw the goonies pretty late the first time i watched it was on a dvd that was like the special edition of goonies and i fell in love with it instantly because it's a great film and that dvd has a uh a video commentary track where like all of the stars the movie would

like pop in and talk about stuff and what is really great is they recorded that while sean aston was filming the lord of the rings movies and so there was at one point during the commentary he's like okay well sorry everybody i have to go because i'm gotta go shoot lord of the rings and everybody else sitting there was like well i don't have anything else to work on right now. And they gave him such a hard time. And they popped out a little Samwise Gamgee action figure in his place and put it up on the table instead of him. It was very good.

Hey, I have a few submissions here. I'm going to read them real quick. Here's one from Zach, who says, I am a teacher at an English school in China, and my students, mostly middle or high school aged kids, get to pick their own English names. students mostly middle or high school aged kids get to pick their own english names some of my favorite have been salt sailor meat gorilla master verrock lucifer duke big gun rom stain uh summer boy and philip underwood i love the self-expression and it always makes my day to go through attendance that's awesome that's the best shit ever. Here is another one from Rachel and Casey, who say,

My husband and I agree that a bed made with clean sheets tops our list of wonderful things. The clean smell of the detergent and the crisp feel of the sheets is one of the best things in life. Bonus points if the sheets were line-dried on a breezy, sunny day. A lot of people write about sheets. Sheets are very good and very important to a lot of people. Cameo says, Guys, I'm so pumped about halloween cereal it's the only time of year they make boo berry so i buy a ton at once it's my favorite um what's your do you like i don't really i know boo berry very very well i'm very intimate with boo berry but i don't really know like count chocular or anything like that i don't really have connection to sugar you don't really like sugary cereals

uh but it is very exciting thank you cameo here's one from brett who says i love shoveling snow the whole world is quiet except for the of your boots with every step there's some robert frost for you because it's poetry not because i was making a frost pun uh it's cold and hard work sometimes but it's wonderful when i get back inside have a steaming shower and snuggle back into bed now that's the best that part i can get into. Live in Chicago. I shoveled snow once and I said never again, but I did like the shower and bed afterwards. It was extremely good.

Hey, thank you to Maximum Fun for having us. You can go to MaximumFun.org. Check out all the great shows there. Shows like Lady to Lady and Judge John Hodgman and Stop Podcasting Yourself. And I think our son just woke up, so it's really hard to keep listening to things. Let's wrap up the show very quickly.

Thank you. Go to McElroyShows.com and check out all the great podcasts there and anything else, baby? Yeah, that's it. Okay, we gotta go because the baby just woke up. So's really hard to keep listening things let's wrap up the show very quickly thank you go to mackaroyshows.com and check out all the great podcasts there and anything else baby yeah okay we gotta go because the baby just woke up so we'll talk to you next this could be our new outro baby woke up bye bye Money won't pay, workin' on it Money won't pay, workin' on it Money won't pay, workin' on it Money won't pay, workin' on it MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned.

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