Wonderful! - Wonderful! Ep. 51: Hot Speven Gossip

Episode Date: September 19, 2018

Rachel's favorite sports drama! Griffin's favorite way of getting perspective! Rachel's favorite youth art competition! Griffin's favorite super-long folk song! 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. Hi, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. Isn't it just? I think so. Isn't it just, though? Hey, can I say something? Uh-huh. Didn't it just? I think so. Isn't it just, though? Hey, can I say something?

Uh-huh. Didn't watch the Emmys last night. All right, so we could do a lot of stuff with that. About not watching it. Yeah, sure. And not in like a, like we're so cool because we didn't watch the... Yeah, no, we just didn't. But let's talk about some of our favorite Emmy memories from previous years where we did enjoy the program.

Ooh, I'm not going to remember any. memories from previous years where we did enjoy the program. Ooh, I'm not going to remember any. Emmy's, as we all know, short for Emmeline's, who made the first TV show, which was... Mm-hmm. Alf. Oh, my gosh. So... Hitting me where I live.

Yeah, Emmeline had your number. Let's go back and forth naming Alf characters. Okay, I'll start. Alf. Willie. The cat elf willie the cat what was the cat's name griffin garfield oh geez all right i'll just give you lucky lucky the cat uh and then there was raquel akmanic uh spieven is like steven but with a p in there because they are was willie's wife uh mel mac nope was the

planet yeah it's not a character though gordon shumway that's alf's real name randy shumway ah you win okay you know more shit about alf than i do i need to start an elf podcast what would the name of that be called buddy um uh maybe help me ronda why well on melnick his girlfriend's name was ronda okay uh and when he hears the song help me ronda it takes him back okay memories of ronda. Wow. Like sexual memories? Do they ever really get into Alf's sexuality? He has this weird thing with Lynn for a while, which is the teenage daughter. Wait, what?

Well, they don't get together, but there's this tension. You did say there's this weird thing between them. Yeah, no, there's a tension. He is a weird... He becomes interested in her. Sure, but he is like a wrinkle-nosed little goblin monster oh my gosh griffin and she no let's just call him how he sees him and she is a human being um woman how did they think that was cool for the tv show i guess mark and mindy though they

they they like were they were official right yeah and he was for sure an alien. But he didn't have a weird wrinkle nose. He looked a lot like Robin Williams, the actor. Mm-hmm. So what's your small wonder this week? Small wonders is another TV show. I think it's singular. Sure. I don't think there's multiple on that show.

Do you have a small wonder this week? I do. Okay. I am reading a book. I am so fucking proud of you. This is the second book I have. Ever. It's so exciting.

The first one was the third Harry Potter book. Mm-hmm. Now, since Henry has been born, I have not read many books. I read John Hodgman's Vacationland, which was excellent. That is the only book I think I've read. And then I read another one. Oh, actually, I'm currently reading. I don't want to get ahead of myself. You may not finish.

Let's leave yourself some wiggle room to really fucking... Although I got it from the library, so the pressure's on. Okay. It's Modern Lovers by Emma Straub. Okay. I'm not finished with it yet, but I'm enjoying it. Is it good? I think so. Okay. I don't know much about books. She wrote The Vacationers a few years back. Okay.

Which was like a real hip summer read. All right. My small. Oh, my God. The new season of Great British Bake Off or Great British Baking Show on Netflix is so fucking good. Noel Fielding is so good. The other co-host whose name I can't remember is very, very good.

It's all so good. And the challenges are a little bit more design oriented rather than like bake a good you know a nice loaf of bread it's like bake a loaf of bread that looks like a handbag like they do that sometimes in the old seasons but this season it's just like every challenge has like a wild design element yeah they're trying out a lot of new stuff it's very watchable and it was watchable before but now it seems a little more I don't I don't know a little more risque i guess yeah there's a lot of very suggestive humor no joke um so that's good uh i

tell you what's good the uh the movie from the 80s the thing um i i started i went down like a youtube rabbit hole of like practical special effects. And I watched like a video about the practical special effects of the thing. And man, I fucking love that movie. It is like, it is gory as hell and like can't be as hell, but the, the special effects in that movie that they accomplish.

I mean, do you remember the first time you saw it? It was not, I was maybe, I think it was in college. Okay. I feel like you, you were,

you're a big proponent of that. Yeah. I think we watched it together, right? Yes. Everything like all a big proponent of that movie. Yeah, I think we watched it together, right? Yes. Everything, like, all the stuff that happens in that movie, that scene where, like, the guy turned, every scene where guys turn into monsters

is all, like, puppetry and practical effects. And watching this video, I was like, I already was really impressed by it, but seeing, like, just how ahead of its time it was and how, like, brilliant that show was, like, really, really, really blew me away. I'm a sucker for, like like really good practical effects in movies i also watched a thing about the lord of the rings movie specifically um like forced perspective and how they accomplished

uh like the height differences between the hobbits and uh you know gandalf uh it's like really fucking fascinating because they had to do that shit the whole movie. Anyway, yeah, practical effects in general. I'm into the fly also. But the thing is just a good flick. I haven't seen the not remake. They made like a prequel in 2011. I haven't seen it.

But I think you go first this week. I do. Do you want to tell me what it is? Three words, Griffin. A-L-F. Friday night lights. Oh, my. Yes, yes, yes, yes. This is the one that's going to be a real touchdown, this segment.

Ooh, that's nice. Yeah. Love that show. I have watched the whole series maybe three times four times i think four times maybe i think i've done just the two yeah yeah no that's fair because we you watched it once i watched it with you for the first time but you had watched it before oh there was a sort of cult of fandom around the show for all of my austin friends that you all sort of adopted me into when i moved down here pretty much immediately when griffin moved here we were like you have to watch

this show and i didn't really get it um but like they shot a lot of stuff locally and so i think that there when you lived in austin like in that era you had to be watching this fucking show because they they shot stuff down at the Alamo freeze or whatever the actual establishment is. So this was a five season show from 2008 to 2011. Really a four season show. They had a, it's weird. You know how some hotels skip the 13th floor? They just go one right into three and then four and five.

Isn't that weird how they did that? Season two is not very good. Yeah, I'm not here to talk about that. No. A bunch of very popular actors these days got their start. Or not their start necessarily, but you know, gained notoriety on the show for any of this. Yeah, Cuba Gooding Jr.

Bobcat Goldthwait. What is this show you're describing? What an unusual pairing that is. Yeah, sure. Vince Vaughn. Yeah. Rutger Hauer. I don't even know what that name is you just said.

Cool. No, yeah, there are some big names on this one uh so michael b jordan michael b jordan indeed jesse plemmons jesse plemmons is maybe the big surprisingly the biggest name to come out of the tv show uh minka kelly sure um gosh and there's any number i mean kyle chandler and and Connie Britton were already pretty established actors, but definitely got them a lot of attention. Yeah, I've seen the kid who played. Oh, my God. I guess we have to watch it again because I can't remember.

This is the backup quarterback's name. Saracen. Saracen. I've seen him in a few flicks. Matt Luria. Yeah, I think that might be his name. And, of course uh riggins uh was he was in taylor kitch taylor kitch had a sort of everyone sort of thought he was

going to be the biggest thing and then we haven't seen him lately like a meteor he crashed into earth or should i say mars or should i say john carter's welcome to mars or whatever the flick was called yeah but while they were all, they were making some real magic. Oh my gosh. That show. So that's one of those shows where as soon as I finish it, I think about when I can reasonably watch it again. Yes.

So I found this really great kind of analysis from the Atlantic in 2016, which was the 10 year anniversary. Oh my God. That can't be right, is it? Maybe. Well, I just said it premiered 2008. It ran from 2006 to 2011. Oh, my dates are wrong.

Well, that makes sense because 2008 to 2011. Would not be enough seasons. Would not be enough seasons. So let me talk a little bit about what the article says. Okay. And I think you'll appreciate it. It showed those people struggling and striving and doing what they had to to get by. In a television landscape that largely obscured notions of class and financial struggle,

Frontnet-like scrappled explicitly with money and with the psychic strain that so often accompanies its absence. The Riggins brothers and their foraging of copper wire. Spoilers to come. Spoilers. Jason Street teaming up with them to flip a house in a downed market. The Taylors giving up their dream home, another turn of events foreshadowed in the series pilot, once they realized how much stress the higher mortgage payments would add to their lives.

Tyra and Julie working at Applebee's. Matt and Smash working at Alamo Freeze, Vince working at Ray's Barbecue. A crucial element of Friday Night Lights' expansive empathy was to recognize the ways that money can serve as its own kind of supporting character. Interesting. I've never really thought about this show like that. Yeah. The show, the article talks about how there's a lot of cliches in the show, you know, like there's football players, there's cheerleaders, there's like nerds.

And there's this idea of like, Oh, this is like every other show, but there's something about it that feels very honest. And I think it's things like that that make the difference. It would not surprise me if there was a large part of our audience who's never watched this show before. So maybe like,

it would be worth explaining that it's a show about a high school football team in small town in Texas. Yes explaining that it's a show about a high school football team in a small town in Texas. Yes. But it's a very, very good and like beloved football team that the town is sort of built around. And you hear that and you think fucking varsity blues and then go ahead and grab the steering wheel and jerk it clean in the other direction because it's super not that at all. Yeah. A lot of people heard the title of the show and heard that it was about football and just assumed it wasn't for them.

Oh, I don't care about football really at all. But the football's so good on the show. But the football is very good. This has maybe pound for pound, maybe other than Battlestar, like the best pilot episode of any TV show. What a big swing. It is a big fucking swing. But yeah,

what I like, like about what that article says now that I think people who didn't know what the show is kind of know a bit more about it is that it does like, it does, it is, it gets into like the, like the kind of bad behavior that you would expect from a very talented jock in a small town football team where everybody in the town wants to protect the football team at all costs. It gets into that.

And certainly it doesn't shy away from that. There's so much other stuff that feels like a local study. Yes. stuff that feels like a local study. Yes. Like it feels very, very deeply Texas in a, you know, in a way that is not like anything I've ever seen before, because it's not like obvious in any way. It's got atmosphere like for days.

Yeah. Well, and the other thing the article talks about has how each character like gets their time, you know, like there's no, there's no throwaway characters on this show like every character obviously serves a role but you get to find out a little bit about why they are the way they are and why they're serving that role and and uh and it's just it's just kind of incredible it like and i feel like if you watch that first episode, like if you get all the way through that first episode, like you're in, you know, it takes this very real thing for a lot of people. I mean, if you grow up in a small town, football kind of is, that's what people do. You know, there isn't a lot to do on Friday night in a small town except go to the football game. And it kind of gives you that energy. But then also kind of the very real stories behind it

and it's so good oh god it's so good it's so good um yeah i could talk all night about friday night lights there's a lot of like very powerful things but i just think you should just watch it uh because i don't want to i was going to talk like oh what's your favorite moment but like that's too i can't do that um do you want to know my first thing? Yes. My first thing is, and I had to be careful about how I worded it, getting up high in a big city, getting high up, maybe that's a better, getting high up in a big city, getting high up in a big city that I'm visiting. That's probably the best imaginable way to put it. See, this is a good conversation for us to have.

Yes. Hey, see, this is a good conversation for us to have. Yes. So pretty much any time we go, when we travel, and go to a place where there is a big high-up place, where you can see a lot of the city, like a tall tower or something, I always want to go right up that bad boy and look down at the place that I am visiting. down at the place that I am visiting. And I feel like this has a pretty universal appeal, although I think maybe you are dissenting on this because you want to have an argument about it. You can tell from your posture that you're like leaned in and ready to strike. Well, here's the thing. So I do appreciate that it gives you kind of your bearings to be able to see kind of the relative landmarks. But I will tell you, I get up there and I look around and I say, how long am I supposed to spend up here?

I think if you try to do it correct, I think if you try to do it right like that, like it's just going to, you probably won't enjoy it. I do like a lap, like, and I try and do a very leisurely lap around the space. Sure. And then what ends up happening is I think, okay. Yeah.

I've definitely been up some towers in some places. I don't want to name cities because I don't want to PO anybody who lives in these cities, but I've gone up a tower and looked around and seen the city from all around and thought like, okay, that's kind of cool. But I've definitely had experiences at the tops of towers where you couldn't pull me off that fucking thing.

You want trash on the arch? Is that what you're getting ready to do? The arch doesn't count. The arch, I love St. Louis. I love you. You are a beautiful city. First of all, a lot of people might not even know

that you can go up the Gateway Arch, which is the big arch in St. Louis. There is a little elevator. Very little. Very fucking little. And they like slam like six people into these tiny cars where you are literally like making a little um like knot with your knees uh and then you get up top and you are in a tiny crawl space with other people with these six inch high windows you can like look straight down it's really really it was built a very very long time really scared the shit out of me but uh the first time i went up willis tower sears tower in chicago i'd

been living there for like nine months of the one year that i lived there and it was incredible because i looked around and it was for the first time like i felt like i was getting this context for this city that i was living in and really loved living in. And it's not like I was up there doing some cartography. It was just like a moment of really appreciating the size and the scope of the city that I was living in and seeing some like landmarks. I could actually, you know, kind of see Roscoe Village. I could see my neighborhood from on top of the tower.

And that was really, really cool for me because holy shit, I've been living there for a time and i i've never really seen it like this yeah um i really liked i spent a lot we spent a long time uh on in the uh tokyo tower in in tokyo which is like right in the middle of the city there's also tokyo sky tree which is newer and bigger but also really hard to get into we have a little coffee uh that was in tokyo tower i appreciated that that was cool they gave me something to do yeah they have like a little coffee? That was in Tokyo Tower. I appreciated that. That was cool. They gave me something to do. Yeah, they have like a little restaurant up there that we had a little coffee and looked out at the city. And like this was a city that we were having an incredible weekend and I'd always wanted to visit.

And now like I had this sort of Sim City view of like this new perspective of. And I don't know. I think that's really cool. of and i don't i i don't know i think that's really cool i'm very into um the idea of when when traveling especially when traveling to like a big going overseas or doing some destination like that the idea of like doing something like this or going to like a um like a history museum for the place that you are visiting we did that both in in hong kong and we went to like a uh like a japanese art history museum in ineno Park. Like that stuff of like, and I know that's like very touristy, right?

There's another school of thought that's just like, no, immerse yourself in the authentic culture. And like, yeah, that's good and important too. But this is, I don't know. I think this is a pretty easy thing to do. And it is valuable and enriching in its own way. Yeah, no, and I do see that. I think traveling abroad especially, I think it is a lot more valuable in that way.

Stateside, I don't know. It didn't do a lot for me. No, I mean, there is some. I've definitely been to. Yeah, it doesn't do as much. I just feel like all cities kind of start to look the same a little bit. You know, when you're like landing in an airplane and you look down and you're kind of like, this is what most cities... This is fucking Jon Bon Jovi over here.

What is this, Memphis? All right, let's rock. No, I understand what you're saying. Although it does make the cities that are very like i don't know i don't want to trash on any cities because i i travel a fuck ton and play a lot of shows uh across the country i am i am very john bon Jovi-esque um and i don't have like i've always thought that about you thank you baby i don't have like bad city experiences but i do have cities that like i fly into and you you do kind of get that perspective as you are landing and you sort of break the the cloud cover um recently it

was phoenix like landing in phoenix like oh fuck like they're like in the mountain that's like a mountain right there that's wild like i do appreciate a good mountain yeah i mean there are cities in seattle i feel the same way we're going to seattle here in a couple weeks and i love i love going to seattle like kind of for this very reason because it's like geographically really fucking interesting yeah uh and it also has like a distinctive a distinctive look i think i just think that because i feel like i know a little bit more about that city than than most but um that's because i went up the the space needle so yeah uh i went up there and i watched i think the black eyed peas play a show at the stage that is like kind of under it for some TV show, maybe Oprah.

I am tripping balls right now. There's no way anything I just said is true. Whoa, you are stringing some things together. But it doesn't just have to be a tower, right? In Hong Kong, there is Victoria Peak, which is this mountain sort of on the western edge of Hong Kong Island, which is sort of the southern portion of Hong Kong. And that was really cool because it's kind of right on the edge of everything. It's not in the middle of the city.

It's like right on the outskirts of it, but it's so high up that you can see everything. And when you are in such an environment that you are so unfamiliar with, that is a really, really cool experience of just sort of getting the groundwork laid out for you um ferris wheel too like um getting getting a ferris wheel viewpoint of either you know a city where it's a permanent fixture or of the carnival that you're attending um is is neat giving you that viewpoint also ferris wheels

just like do a lot i feel like for a city sky Yeah, you're really selling me on this, Griffin. Yeah, and I know it's very basic. Like going up the space needle, I feel like sounds very like I'm endorsing sort of this touristy behavior. But I think there's some, I have, having traveled as much as I have, I have, having traveled as much as I have, I feel like there are certain like touristy things that are like, there's a reason everybody does it. And there's a reason everybody should do it is because it's a genuinely sort of cool and like valuable experience to have. Yeah. No, hey, hey, hey, listeners, get up high in your own town. Get up high in your own town.

Go up a tall building you've never been to before. I lived in the West Virginia building, which is the tallest building in Huntington, and I lived way up there, and that was fucking cool because that was a town I'd lived in for 22 years, and I saw new perspectives of it. Hey, can I steal you away? Whoa. Hey, can I steal you away? Whoa. Hey, can I steal you away?

All right, yeah. Yeah, that would have been better in our Disney episode. Yeah. You want to just go back and edit that in. Yeah. Yeah. That would have been better in our Disney episode. Yeah. You want to just go back and edit that in? Yeah. So, and then I'll take, I'll take the one from that episode and put it in here. Okay. Good.

Good. Awesome. This message is for Scott. It is from Dave. Scott. Hello. It is me. Your very own friend.

Davis Deacon Brawler Baron. I'm here to say you're cool. Thanks for being a cool good friend. That's a nice quality to have as a human. Good luck with this next part. Well, did you read the note at the top? So Max Fundstaff worked together to decipher this next. Okay.

So let me give you the letters and then I'll give you the codex I received. Okay. The letters are I-L-U i l sorry the letters are i l u i r l b b y now they now maximum maximum fun did give us this this breakdown of the three acronyms they did then say read it how you interpret it. Like they couldn't also figure out. So we think it's, I love you in real life. Baby.

Or bye-bye. Yay. Okay. P.S. friendship. P.P.S. Rachel and Griffin, you're great. P.P. God. What won't they say? PPS, Rachel and Griffin, you're great. PPS. God!

What won't they say? Is BBY baby? I think it's Bibi. I don't know anything. I'm gonna get that wrong, baby. You've instilled deceit and doubt in my heart. Better be you. Better be you. I love you in real

life. Better be you. Better be you. I love you in real life. Better be you. Okay. This next message is for Angela. It is from Sarah. Hey, BB. See, I'm telling you. You are the most wonderful friend. Your honesty and passion for love is everything.

Thanks for being my pal since day one when you agreed to go shopping with me after I awkwardly complimented your skirt. But then we went to karaoke instead. Soulmate, sending you all the extra magic today from the voices of these good, good McElroys. That is a wonderful day y'all had. That is a that's that's a day worth making like a coming of age movie about. I feel like we're going to go shopping, but we did karaoke instead. I feel like the first time that you go shopping with a friend always does feel a little awkward. I know.

Because you're learning a lot about a person in that moment. Yeah, like what kind of junk they like to buy, how they walk between the stores. When I went shopping once with this girl I was friends with in college, but not very good friends, I always thought she was real cool. And then I felt like, oh, I have to buy something that she thinks is cool, too. Oh, so you bought a gun? No, I bought a pair of purple pants. One of those is even worse than the other one. That's not true.

I own purple pants and zero guns. Okay. Hi, I'm Biz. And I'm Teresa. And we host One Bad Mother, a comedy podcast about parenting. Whether you are a parent or just know kids exist in the world, join us each week as we honestly share what it's like to be a parent. I'm just going to end with this.

Everybody, you're doing a remarkable job of swimming through the shit show that is parenting. So join us each week as we judge less, laugh more, and remind you that you are doing a great job. Find us on MaximumFun.org, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You want to hear my second thing? More than anything in my whole life. So I don't know what had me on a teen kick, but my second thing, Friday Night Lights is a show about teens,

are teen poetry festivals. Yes, I'm so glad that you're doing this one because you sent me one video, and as is my custom, YouTube's like Pringles for me, baby. I can't, once I pop one, I have to, I watched like 14 teen poetry contest entries. Very deliberately sent you a link because we've talked a little bit about slam poetry. Sure.

And there's a lot of misconceptions out there about it. Yeah. Because there's a lot of, like any piece of art, there is a lot of misconceptions out there about it yeah there's a lot of like any piece of art there is a lot of bad slam poetry can you talk a bit about your sort of background with this like specific this is interesting so when i finished college i was an english major and i did an emphasis in creative writing and i moved to chicago which has a big like culture of of performance and and essayists and and writers and poets and mcs and there's just a very vibrant literary like artistic scene there is that word louder than a bomb yes like okay yes so i started working at barnes and noble in the

cafe and then was trying to find gigs that kind of filled my interest. And I just happened to get two things at the same time. I got an internship at the poetry center of Chicago and chicken pox. Oh man. The story isn't at all connected. How weird that I brought it up, uh,

which is one day a week. Uh, and it was run by the school of the art institute of chicago and it was like a a more kind of refined like uh traditional poetry environment uh and then i became the volunteer coordinator for louder than a bomb which was at that point gosh it was 2005 so i think it was in its fourth year. Was this before the documentary? Yes.

Oh, yes. Several years before. Yeah. They made a documentary about Louder Than a Bomb. Actually called Louder Than a Bomb. Yeah, they got some- It was Oprah. It was Oprah Network. Oh, was it?

Okay. But I know a lot of people in that film because it was only maybe a year after I had left. Okay. in that film because it was only maybe a year after I had left because I did it in 2005. So they get hundreds of volunteers to like, take tickets and be judges in poetry slams and, you know, handle like meals and greet people and all that stuff. And so I coordinated volunteers for that festival. And then I came back a second year and did it again, uh, because it was just incredibly inspiring. Um, and so I did a little research just kind of on the whole concept of teen poetry festivals, because I, I wanted to like, let people know that there's this

whole movement out there of, uh, kids doing a lot of performance poetry in this like, really kind of incredible, like almost speech and debate kind of style. If speech and debate was cool, and sorry, speech and debate folks, I don't know how well the comparison holds up because this was, I went to a lot of speech and debate stuff. And this would, this moved me in a way that speech and debate was incapable of ever doing. where they were discouraging young people of color in particular from assembling in groups of more than two. And so there was this kind of what they called like an anti-gang movement. And so kids were discouraged from congregating together as groups.

And Louder Than a Bomb kind of came out of that, of getting groups of kids together to give them kind of voice against authority and to speak to their own experience. And so they worked with the Chicago Public Schools and several kind of independent teams to kind of build up this poetry festival. old in middle or high school or a community organization and they compete as teams. And so there are what they call bouts where a member of each team will perform an individual piece and then they'll perform a group piece and they are scored and then teams advance to semifinals, quarterfinals, that kind of thing. And teams advance to semifinals, quarterfinals, that kind of thing. What I loved about it is they make a big point about how this is not about winning. This is about sharing your story. Everybody has a story.

So the kids in the suburbs that live in Oak Park, Illinois, and the kids that live in less privileged parts of Chicago all have rights to tell their story and all have unique experiences worth sharing. And so they used to do this like call and response thing where the, the leaders of them. So Anna West and Kevin Koval were the founders who I got to work with when I was there. And they used to say, the point is not the point. The point is the poetry. And all these kids would chant it so enthusiastically. It like warmed my heart so much to just see these people. Just like, and these kids like cheer for each other and be so moved by each other's stories and like feel so like heard and excited. And so I did some research on Brave New Voices, which is the international kind of culmination so the kids

that won in chicago would get to go to brave new voices uh and their kids from like all over the world yes exactly every year over 500 young poets uh go to a different u.s city for four to five days and they get arts education and then they get to like these workshops and and then they get to like these workshops and, and then they get to perform. Uh, and so I, what I sent Griffin was the 2018 champions, uh, Baltimore was the team that won. They were called do D E W do more poetry. I did what ended up watching virtually every team. I really, really went to, it is the most poetry I think I've ever consumed in one sitting. I really, really went to it. It's the most poetry I think I've ever consumed in one sitting. Yeah.

It's so I read a little bit about brave. So Brave New Voices started in 1996. Oh, wow. OK. So they just had their their 20 year anniversary not long ago. But if you read a little bit about Brave New Voices, they say, we firmly believe that young people must think of their voices as vital tools through which they can process their lives, shape the world around them, and hone their abilities to envision and create long-lasting impact. To achieve this, our programs employ best practices of arts education and youth development while encouraging young people to write about issues relevant to them in their own vernacular. We ask young people to engage in their own cultures to help bridge their personal literacies

and the traditional academic literacies presented in school. Fuck yeah. It's just, it's incredible to watch these students get up and, you know, I mean, they're teenagers, right? So a lot of it is, you know, very dramatic and it's very emotional. And there's a tendency, I think, as an adult to start to listen to this and think, oh, yeah, I know this kid, you know, like, there's something about that experience of being a teenager that everybody

thinks they understand. But what is I think, incredible about these performances is these, these poets have, you know, have had the opportunity to really work with mentors and professionals and really get it exactly what it is about them that makes them so unique and makes their experience like so worth sharing, you know, and it's inspiring to watch. It's really fucking remarkable. Go watch some of the Brave New Voices. And the group pieces. The group pieces are the best. You sent me one that was all about how cartoons, like dropping a lot of names of like

cartoons was more of a i i got it it's hard to really put this into words was more of a positive uh role model guiding force in in the lives of young queer people than a lot of adults who were supposed to be taking care of them were. And it drops, it talks about this obviously very, very serious subject and does it through the lens of these things that were important to me when I was a kid weren't just like,

they weren't just stupid cartoons. They were standing in for something that like you were supposed to be giving me. Yeah, like making me feel accepted. Oh my God, it fucked me up. Yeah, so if you're looking for this, so the YouTube channel is Youth Speaks and the piece we're speaking of

is Brave New Voices Finals 2018 Baltimore Round Two. It's fucking incredible. I'll tell you, like, I what what moved me so much was obviously like you said like seeing this like um very very talented and brilliant group of like young super diverse poets get get out there and tell their stories in such a like crystal clear like uh very like super super relatable way was like very moving. But there's also, I think an impulse that like, I am kind of aging into of, um, and, and it's something I feel kind of guilty about. And I think that's normal too, of like, oh, wow,

we're going to be okay. Because the, the, the, the people younger than me, the next generation are going to save the world. And watching these videos, you get that. Like, oh my God, if this is the next generation, that's great. And I feel guilty about that because it's like they shouldn't have to. A lot of their poetry is about how they were wronged by generations that came before them. And so for us to look at their beautiful stories and think, we're going to be okay, is a very, very privileged way to look at it. Well, it just tells, it shares with you the value of empowering young people.

I think so much. And that's what the Brave New... And they seem, they are powerful as fuck in these videos the the the brave new voices kind of mission is to kind of bridge that understanding of like scholarly like i go to school and i get talked to and i learn about other people's stories and here's how i have my own story and how i tell it and you know with the influence and support of what i'm learning in school uh and when you give young people an opportunity to do that and motivate them and make them feel valuable like

there's so much strength there it's so inspiring i watch those group performances where what'll usually happen is they'll you know those they'll have portions of it where they're speaking in unison where they have shared shared lines, and then they will break off and kind of individually tell their own piece and their own story, and then come back together and speak in kind of one voice. And I just get chills nonstop. Same, same. Just over and over again chills, because they'll say something incredibly powerful, and then

they'll all join together and say something as a group. And it's just like, oh my gosh, when I got to witness this in person, I would really recommend you checking out videos because there's one thing to read a poem and there's another thing to see a group of people perform it together with just all of their heart and energy. And like choreography sometimes. Yeah, it's fucking great.

My second thing, I feel like this is gonna be pretty fast. It's a song. I realized I've never talked about Iron and Wine before, great um my second thing i feel like this is gonna be pretty fast it's a song um i realized i've never talked about iron and wine before which is weird because that they he i guess may be like pound for pound my like yeah that's crazy to me that you have favorite um i've talked about some of my favorites but when i think about like the music that has meant uh a lot to me for for a long time it's iron and wine i want to talk specifically about, um, I thought about bringing like some, some albums of his, but, uh, I think it would be better to

just drill down into one song. It's, uh, the trapeze swinger. Um, and, uh, it's, it's, it's, it's a very, very beautiful song that I think kind of, kind of encapsulates some of my favorite stuff. So iron and Wine is a American singer-songwriter uh his name is Sam Beam but he uh performs under the name Iron and Wine which I think he got from some sort of like old-timey supplement that was like get your get your bone in Iron and Wine uh I forget the the exact story about it. And he just plays these like really, like occasionally, like remarkably gentle and lovely folk songs. Although I think as his career progressed, he sort of experimented with other funkier genres. And that stuff is good too. But sort of,

for me, the golden age was his 2004 album, 2004 album, which is called our endless numbered days, which if you watched any movie or watched any TV show from the years at 2004 to 2006, you defo heard, uh, some music from this. He had, he had music. Um, I don't know, man, probably like Grey's anatomy. I'm just spitballing here, but I'm betting that there were multiple songs on there. He had a song on the garden state soundtrack, um, how i was first exposed to to his music um the trapeze swinger is actually it was written for a movie it wasn't on an album before it was first uh released on an album on uh around the well which is like this rarities and b-sides compilation album that is fucking phenomenal uh it was written for the movie

in good company remember that one no yeah that was tofer grace and dennis quaid and scar joe and tofer grace is i guess working for den i saw this movie i definitely saw it i think it was one of those i think i rented it at blockbuster if that sort of places it in time for you but like dennis dennis quaid was like tover grace's boss but tover grace was dating scar joe who was okay this sounds familiar uh dennis quaid's daughter um and i don't remember the movie being good but this song is a fucking like folk masterpiece and it was written for it it It's a weird, it's definitely the best thing to come out of this film. So I should go watch this movie.

No, I wouldn't say to do that, but I will say that The Trapeze Swinger is my favorite original song from a Topher Grace movie. I'm going to play a little bit of it now and then sort of talk about

why I like it. Please remember me of it now and then sort of talk about why I like it. The time when We counted every black car Passing your house Beneath the... So the song is nine and a half minutes long because it's so ambitious in scope. You remember when we were looking for wedding songs? I think we were thinking about this one

and then we looked at the time on it. Our first dance song was Iron and Wine's cover of Such Great Heights, the Postal Service song, because it's such a beautiful song. It has like a nice sort of romance. Y'all, picking a first dance song is fucking tough. It's so hard. It is so tough. Like, I felt pretty sure that an Iron and Wine song would do it because all of his songs are so beautiful and about love. But also a lot of his songs are about love and death our endless number days is first

of all titled our endless numbered days so like any track off that is going to be like i love you i love you i love you we're ashes and bones in the ground and it's like ah shit you're gonna stop before the third thing um the trappy Swingers is no different. This is a song, if God, okay, it is a message, right? It's like a letter or a missive of some sort from somebody who has passed away to a former love of theirs who is still alive. That is sort of brass tacks, like what this song is about.

But it tries to, in eight verses, no choruses, just eight verses back to back to back, tries to capture sort of the entire life experience through the lens of this relationship. Every verse starts out with, please remember me, and then some sort of direction in which that this person wants to be remembered. And it reflects on this person, this couple's life and their experiences. It also includes this really, really beautiful sort of interpretation of the afterlife, specifically standing at the pearly gates and seeing messages that people have written on the pearly gates to the people who are still alive who are going to get there after them so that they can like find each other like oh shit like yeah all right sam this is this is my favorite verse um it goes please remember me fondly i heard from someone you're still pretty and then they went on to say that

the pearly gates had some eloquent graffiti like we'll meet again and fuck the man and tell my mother not to worry. And angels with their gray handshakes were always done in such a hurry. Like it's, it's, it, I feel like there is a type of song that is so melodramatic that is like, so like, Oh God,

you're writing a song about like, I feel this way about um and that i'm not better than i'm not above this song but do you know uh i will follow you into the dark by death cab for cutie uh that that's like a song that's like it when you when you die i will die there right with you buddy and it's like whoa shit death and i think this is like touching that rail a little bit for sure um but it does so so beautifully like the the the imagery of this song is so so gorgeous um it's it's unbelievably sad uh like a lot of iron and wine's music is sad but it's like that good kind of sad that makes you feel like contemplative and romantic which no surprise

like this came out in 2004 i graduated college or uh high school in 2005 so i was like strapped in ready for the fucking ride uh that this album and all of iron and wine's music would like take me i rode this way for the next four fucking years and it's sort of defined this like period of like melancholy but this like very uh indulgent melancholy that's not all bad because you're sort of taking a big look at the bigger picture of things indulgent melancholy could be one of our wonderful things i know yeah i i think that there's a definitely an unhealthy way to take that but i think there's also a harmless and like fun way to take that but i think there's also a harmless and like fun way to tell you it's one of the things that i miss most about my 20s is indulgent melancholy yeah for sure and this is this is for sure a soundtrack to that but i i also think that it uh transcends it and i also think it

is like one of the most beautiful songs ever written both sort of like lyrically and narratively but also like it checks like all the iron and wine boxes of shit i love like very simple chord progression really beautiful harmonies really like a rhythmic acoustic guitar like all of that stuff that was all over endless numbered days and uh creek drank the cradle and uh around the well and all those albums it's like uh that's like my favorite stuff that iron and wine does and this song has it all in this nine and a half minute it's a fucking super long song that weirdly like miraculously when it's over you when somebody does highway to hell at karaoke i get furious because it's like okay the rest of us want to sing too like i felt all 15 minutes of that fucking meatloaf

song oh do you mean bad out of hell bad out of hell yes so sorry um but this song nine and a half minutes goes by and i feel like i i'm i what if somebody did that song okay that would actually be terrible that would be really really bad uh yeah because I don't want to get that sad. People who do sad songs at karaoke, I don't know, sometimes. Is there a good sad karaoke song that's like, oh, this is a good one. This is a good prompt. Man, it's tough to say. There's good sad songs.

I was thinking like Yesterday by the Beatles, but that's not a good karaoke song. Is What's Up a sad song? No, it's a sad songs. I was thinking like Yesterday by the Beatles, but like, that's not a good karaoke song. Is What's Up a sad song? No, it's a powerful song. Fast Car. Have you ever seen someone do that at karaoke? I think I've seen Justin do that at karaoke. Anyway, The Trapeze Swinger is great. It's off Around the Well, which,

well, it's off in good company, but it's also on Around the Well around the well which uh I well it's off uh in good company uh but it's also on around the well if you want to go listen to it that whole album man that used to be I would put that whole I had that whole album on my zune it was like two discs and the first disc was like his really lo-fi like uh the sea and rhythm like era shit that was I still that's still my favorite we have that on vinyl now actually we do yeah it's two discs once one side of one uh record is the trapeze swing yeah it takes up an entire side uh it's it's fucking it's it's it's a beautiful song it's one of my favorite songs uh do you want to know what some of our listeners favorite stuff is yes uh aaron says i just love

seeing little kids with their big backpacks they're ready to take on the world and their paw patrol backpacks are gonna hold it for them that is the cutest i you know what i thought about the other day because people talk about how henry's going to be older before we know it yes i pictured him walking into elementary school with a big backpack i need to listen to iron wine right now i almost lost my mind oh my god how could you do that to me i'm sorry just the image of him you knocked the wind out i know jessica he's not even two yet so we have some time not any time at all our days are numbered and endless beautiful poignant.

Jessica says, my partner roasts coffee. So even on days that our schedules don't allow us to see each other, he is always a part of my morning. Isn't that nice? That's so nice. Because it gets to the hot bean territory and I love that. But like, what if I made you special hot beans and then when I traveled and you made the hot beans in the morning to make the coffee? That would be perfect.

It would be like my stink was all around. And I'd get to stop sleeping in your dirty clothes. I don't do that anymore. Hayden, this is an emotionally challenging user submission, listener submission segment. I like how I said user. Welcome user to the wonderful experience. Please insert disc A to continue. What if podcasts came out in the early 80s and were delivered on floppy disks?

Oh, that's my new fucking aesthetic. That's like my that's like my new vaporwave surprise hipsters haven't started doing that i'm like here's here's my next episode on floppy disk do even we would have to compress it a lot because i don't know how big i think you can get like 64 megabytes people would have to get floppy disk players they probably do i mean i loved a good floppy disk not the big big ones, like the tinier ones. Oh, yeah. The hard plastic ones.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're more floppy, though. Hayden says, I work closing shifts at Starbucks, and after work, I go for a long walk at a nearby park. There are so many rabbits at this park late at night, and rabbits are my absolute favorite animal. I didn't know this happened. The rabbits come out at night. I didn't know this happened. The rabbits come out at night. I didn't know that that happened. What song were you just singing then?

You know, the freaks come out at night. The freaks come out at night. No. The freaks come out at night. I like that. That reminds me though, and I don't want to detract from the rabbits, but I saw 11 deer tonight.

Holy shit, what? We have a lot of deer in our area and they had all congregated in somebody's yard. They were having a little deer meeting. I tell you when I take the trash out to the garbage cans, I see a frog every time. This is great. This is a great podcast.

And it can be great too because it's like if you want to hear the rest of the frog story insert disc 17 and then it's up to you like if you do not want to hear the frog story i totally get it pop right in 18 and we'll we'll keep we'll tell you about the closer we're gonna read all about um sort of the max fun network and thank bowen and augustus and all that oh you don't want to do that disc either okay we'll see you next week. Expect the next package in the mail. So I do want to thank Bowen and Augustus for the use of our theme song, Money Won't Pay.

It's such a good song. It's a really good song. You can find a link to that in the episode description. I want to thank Max Fun for having us on at work. You can go to MaximumFun.org, check out all the great shows there. Shows like One Bad Mother. Shows like Inside Pop.

Shows like Bubble or Bubble. Judge John Hodgman. Yes, and so many more at MaximumFun.org. You can check out the other stuff we do at McElroyShows.com. What else, baby? Please review our show positively on your podcast app.

Yeah, every time you do that, we get $100. And other podcasts won't tell you that, but every time you do that, get a hundred dollars and other podcasts won't tell you that but every time you do that we get 100 from um from uh from apple uh so that's gonna do it for us this week we'll be back next time with a a whole lot of um just scandalous sort of scoop some celebrity goss i think the next one we're going to talk about what is new with Pierce Brosnan, Alf,

Dennis Quaid, Topher Grace, Topher Grace. What was that name that you said that I didn't recognize? Steven. Surely there's something in it. That's going to be a good final thing to say. I think so.

Unless you want me to talk about the juice boxes that are in your trash can. Goodbye, everybody. I will not. surely there's something in it that's going to be a good final thing to say i think so unless you want me to talk about the juice boxes that are in your trash can goodbye everybody i will not i know Hey! Working on Hey! Money more Hey! Working on Hey! Money more Hey! Working on Hey!

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