Beantown Podcast - US State Power Rankings 50-43 (07152022 Beantown Podcast)
Episode Date: July 16, 2022Quinn comes to you LIVE to kick off the 5-part US State Power Rankings series, culminating in a sexy beach vacation to Hawaii. Who will earn the prestigious honor of coming in last?? Tune in to find o...ut.
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Hey, what's going on? It's Quinn David Furnace. Welcome to my show.
Quinn David Furnace. But it was the bean town podcast for Friday, July 15th, 2022.
What's going on? What's happening? How are Hawaii? Can you believe that July is halfway over?
It's almost August.
And that means almost end of summer.
Which for me is kind of,
we were talking about this the other day
and then it'll actually segue nicely into an opening topic
that I wasn't anticipating discussing,
but we were discussing this at Bar Trivia.
On Wednesday night, I'm gonna come back to that
but essentially that you know summer is is you know the end of summer is creeping near it's not an IGH if you will
but it's not like when you're a kid and it's like oh no summer's almost over like rats I you know I wish I had done more like oh no for, summer's almost over, like rats, I, you know, I wish I had done more like, oh no. For me, it's like, I am, falls my favorite season. So like getting closer to like
October, November, football, and then you get to like holidays and less work, like I love
all of that. I'm a big fan. I don't like sweating all the time. I don't like air conditioning.
So we're getting closer towards the end of that, which is good. And it's just kind of
like for me personally, I, you know, summer's not over and there's certainly more things
that I'm going to be doing. But I've really done a lot of things that I like to do. I've
hung out at the lake. I've gone swimming in the lake. Tragically, I might add. I've done a lot of things that I like to do. I've hung out at the lake, I've gone swimming in the lake,
tragically I might add.
I've gone to a couple of Cubs games.
I have drank a lot of good drinks.
I've seen friends, I've seen family.
It's kind of like it's not like going to a summer's over,
like time to start working on my lists.
No, I've been working on my list.
We went to, or listen to this question as advised,
we're listening to beat up podcast number one,
in case you use some language,
number two, this podcast is objectively terrible,
although there's a lot that we're getting to today.
The topic of today's episode is kicking off
our US state power rankings.
And I believe it's not a, you know,
we're doing this in five chunks is the plan,
but there's not, it's not 10 every day.
They're going to be lumped into categories.
Today's category is a little bit smaller.
I think there's maybe seven states on there and have to go back and look.
I'm going to get to that in a hot second here.
What a couple of housekeeping notes.
A couple of things that I want to mention.
Summerfest, Bart Trivia, don't let me forget.
I also want to say hello to our friends in Pakistan,
the mid east out there, hello Karachi,
hello Hyderabad, hello Kiber Pass.
If you're listening to this, we're not power-inking
Pakistan, but maybe you'll learn a little bit something
about the United States of America, who raw?
Today on the show.
The other thing I want to mention is,
I have been in such a funk today, I don't know what it is,
I think it's just the rain.
We haven't had a really kind of crappy weather day
here in Chicago for a while, and it has just been like dark,
drummy is the word that I just said,
that is not a word, dr-o-o-m-y.
Driri and gloomy is sort of the port,
Mantovia going on there,
P-o-r-t-m-a-n-t-e-a-u.
And just an overall high level of ink, okay?
And I don't know, it's just been a weird day
from the start.
I woke up at 5 a.m. this morning on the couch, and I didn't go to bed in the couch, or on the start. I woke up at 5 a.m. this morning on the couch and I didn't go to bed in the couch
or on the couch. I went to bed in bed and I was watching Seinfeld and it was the parking garage
episode and I went to bed. It was like 11 11 15 something like that. My phone was there. My laptop
was there with me in bed. Next thing I know I wake up There's light streaming through the windows and it's 5 a.m. And I'm on the couch and
It's like oh hot what I have no clue man really kind of spooky start to the day
So I went back to bed and finished my slumber there
So that was a weird sign of things to come I've just been like sleepy So I went back to bed and finished my slumber there.
So that was a weird sign of things to come.
I've just been like sleepy.
I didn't feel like working out.
I went for like a road bike for 40 minutes
watching the fugitive, which was exciting.
I used our new gym for the first time ever,
a month and a half into living here.
And it works out pretty nicely, actually, it's not sexy.
Here's the gym setup.
There's two stationary bikes, there's two ellipticals,
and there's two treadmills,
and then there's dumbbells, two a piece from five to 25.
And it's like, you know what,
but there's TVs, they work, they have volume. And I'm just thinking like, you know what, but there's TVs, they work, they have volume.
And I'm just thinking like, you know what, this isn't, this isn't, you know, the Chicago
athletic club, but it gets the job done.
You know, I can go, I love it.
I can go ride a stationary bike on a day off or something like that.
I'm a big fan.
I think I'm going to be back there soon.
And I do have a regular gym, my, my depoly gym, but that's all the way downtown. day off or something like that. I'm a big fan. I think I'm going to be back there soon.
And I do have a regular gym, my, my depoly gym, but that's all the way downtown. And there's,
I don't know how many people myself included are interested in, you know, taking public transportation 30, 40 minutes just to get to the gym and then go back. Like I'm just, I'm not
really into that. So I use that. It worked out pretty well. But, but man, it is, like I'm just, I'm not really into that. So I used that, it worked out pretty well.
But man, it has, and I've just been slumped.
It's just so dark, they cancel the Cubs game.
It's just kind of a weird day,
and I'll be completely honest with you.
I did not really feel, it was like five o'clock,
it was on the couch like halfway napping,
and I really didn't feel like doing this show today.
But I forced myself up off my ass
Because really all I've done today is ride the stationary bike go to the grocery store and do a couple work calls
That's pretty much it. So I said you know, let's play some piano. Let's uh, you know
Let's get through the day. Let's do the podcast
So we can get it out there to the listeners,
they can enjoy it on this fine weekend.
So I apologize for a little bit low energy,
I'm doing my best, but boy,
I'm just not feeling it today is strange.
I just have not felt an ounce of motivation.
Anyways, to continue on here.
Wednesday night, I played bar trivia
for the first time since before the pandemic started.
So we're talking two and a half years, what give or take. And it wasn't intentional. I just
met up with some college friends who I was very random put together like an hour before,
but I just said like, hey, you know, haven't seen folks in a while like let's let's make it happen. Let's do something and
Just picked a bar. There's a Cubs game going on
So I wanted to pick a bar that I knew wouldn't be crazy
So into the Greystone tavern one of my favorite places. It's also the default
Minnesota Vikings bar
In the region now that Redmond's tavern is closed
sort of Vikings bar in the region. Now that Redmond's tavern is closed.
So we went, we sit down at like 7, 15, 7, 20, four of us.
And next thing you know, they approach our tables.
Like, so you're here for trivia and we're like, no,
but sure why not?
Fortunately, it was a company, it was a format
that I'm familiar with.
A very difficult one, very challenging one I might add.
And you know, not much to tell from the game itself,
we finished third out of six I think it was.
It was just like the top two teams were really good teams,
and then they're kind of the normal folks like us,
and we were at the top of that pack.
So I'm taking a lot of pride in that,
but there were two questions that we got,
and I'll share with you,
can I keep that trivia theme going?
Thanks to those of you who played our July 6th trivia on last episode.
Two questions we got correct that I was really proud of.
So, the first one was, what are, and they actually, the question itself, they gave you one of the letters,
but I'm just going to hide both of them from you because I figure that's a more fun question.
So what are the two letters of the alphabet
that don't show up in a periodic table of element abbreviation,
or periodic table of elements abbreviation?
So like, you know, oxygen is O, helium is H-E,
so it's not O, it's not H-E, that's sort of thing.
So they actually, they gave us one of them.
We had to figure out the second one.
So the first one, and if you're really rack in your brain, and you really want to think
about this, go ahead and pause this episode, because I'm just going to tell you both of
them pretty much right now.
The first one is a Q, and that's the one that they gave us.
The second one, I was really proud of, because there were four of us playing.
We're not chemists.
We're not science whizzes.
But we were able to figure it out.
So the second letter is J.
And I don't know.
I think I had seen that question before in a trivia game.
I definitely, I'm not quite smart enough to sit down in my mind.
You'd be like, OK, A, A's in that element, and B,
and then OK, yeah, B's in that.
I probably couldn't narrow it down to about three letters.
But there's something in my mind that said, J, I think it's J.
And that's what we went with, and that's what it was right.
So I was really proud of that.
Second one was one of the final questions.
There's two final questions.
You can do like, jeopardy, weight, was really proud of that. Second one was, one of the final questions, there's two final questions you can do,
like, Jeopardy Way during sort of thing.
And it was a math question.
And again, none of us are mathematicians.
And the answer or the question was,
and this is challenging because it's under time.
Like, if you just gave someone this problem
and it's like, give it to you tomorrow, anyone could figure it out.
But we had maybe, I don't know, three, four minutes
to figure it out, which sounds like a lot,
but when you're drinking, old styles, all two of them.
I only got charged for one of them.
Thank you, Grace Donetabbern.
And there's loud music.
It just gets cacophonous in there.
So the question was this, how many prime numbers
are there between one and 100, in which one does not count
as a prime number?
So it's, again, it's a very simple,
straightforward, standard question,
but we, I was so proud of our team.
We flipped over our scorecard, we whipped out our pen,
and we said, let's go to work.
And we did, we went, you know, two, three, five, seven,
11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 27, yada yada yada, 27's on a prime number.
Good thing we did include that.
And we got it, and it was tough,
because man, when you get up to the high 80s and the 90s
and times running out and you're just trying to think like,
okay, I know this isn't divisible by three.
I know it's not by seven, but then you start thinking
like 13 and 21 and stuff, it's like,
it gets tough to sort of do that multiplication,
quit or division, quick on the fly.
And we got it.
So the correct answer, how many prime numbers
are there between 1 and 100,
and which one does not count?
It's 25.
There's 25 prime numbers.
So we got that.
We didn't win.
We didn't get any cool prizes.
But you know what, we fought.
We were tenacious.
And I'm proud of our team.
So the other thing I wanted to touch on
is summer fest, because we haven't done a podcast
in nine days.
And so Rachel and I went to summer fest last weekend.
We drove up there Thursday night, came back Sunday morning,
shout out to good friends of the podcast, Ryan,
Austin, Liggin and Christian
English. We got brunch with him on Sunday morning, great time, nice to catch up.
Good to see him as always. Go check out their Twitch channel. You can find them on
Twitch at reekent.reke.nt. They would love your view upon one of their streams. You're a longing gaze
G A Z E
Well, we were at summer fest if you don't know summer fest huge music festival in Milwaukee right along Lake Michigan
It's a really fun time. We got early bird tickets $50 for three-day pass and there's just tons of bands, tons of artists. A lot of really food that's terrible for you, cheese curds, chicken tenders, French fries, I had half a chicken one day. A lot
of drinking, pre-gaming in the hotel, both from stuff I bought as well as the hotel bar.
So I brought up some tequila, some celtzer water, some high noons. And then on Friday, we hit the hotel bar. We had a martini for I
think five or six dollars. We had some beer. It was just it was a great
time. We got lucky with beautiful weather. Shout out to all the artists who
played there. My favorite, my highlights from the weekend were John Fogarty for Shore, lead singer of CCR, and Death Cab, great set.
I've kind of been, if he on Death Cab, when I've seen them live in the past, I feel like
they've kind of been, you know, not bad, but just like, this was okay.
And I love Death Cab, but this set, they were locked in, they were really good.
And then a very confusing performance from Portugal, the man who clearly hadn't rehearsed
and was really bizarre. It was like half of their set was covers. They didn't play any new music, I don't't think which was really strange since they
have a new album do out this year and they released a single like two months ago
I don't know I didn't really make sense to me that they would just go up there
and play like a couple of their big hits like feel it still sleep forever and
they they did play Atomic Man, which
is kind of an underrated song of theirs that I really love.
And then they played just like a lot of covers.
They played Nirvana.
They played Metallica.
I think they might have played Pearl Jam.
They ended with the Beatles.
It was just kind of, they ended with a cover.
Like, I don't know.
You know, I'm glad I was able to see him, glad it happened,
but really kind of a bizarre set on our first night there.
But Summer Fest was really fun.
Milwaukee's so much cheaper than Chicago.
That was a good time.
Thanks to Rachel for coming along with me.
And thanks for everyone we saw up there.
Okay, folks, this is the start of a five part series that I have been teasing for years
on this show in advance of my trip to Oahu, Honolulu Waikiki, Moana Loa, Hawaii.
Lulu Waikiki, Moana Loa, Hawaii.
It's our top 50. We've done a lot of power rankings on this show,
but this is gonna be the first power rankings
that spans five episodes.
It's our top 50 United States power rankings.
So today, what we're gonna be tackling
are honorable mentions followed by, where we're going from worst to best.
OK.
And just to preface this, I mentioned this last week,
but the way we're doing it is sort of in groupings.
So it's not as big of a deal.
What's 49 versus what's 47?
It's at least in my mind, it's a bigger deal.
Hey, what group or category did you fall into?
Because that's really the most damning or celebratory aspect of this.
So, excuse me, we're going to start off with the honorable mentions.
The guys that just didn't quite make the cut. Number one, Washington DC.
They've been bitching about stay hood for a long time.
And I feel like, you know, one of these days someone's just got to go for it.
And Washington DC is really expensive.
It's super hot.
There's a lot of blowhards, which I don't really know what it means, but it's just seems
if you were going to describe like, I don't know,
You were gonna describe, like, I don't know.
One, like Joe Manchin, and who's that crazy blonde Senator, Marjorie Taylor Greene,
I think she's a representative, right?
Or like, Kristen Sinema?
I would call them a blowhard,
without really fully understanding what the term implies.
It just feels right.
Ted Cruz is definitely a blowhard.
Matt Gates is definitely a blowhard.
So Washington, D.C. has a lot of blowards.
And it's really crowded and rent is crazy.
And the Metro could be so good,
but it's not, it's really unreliable.
I don't think it runs 24 hours,
which is just kind of bizarre in a city
like DC. And so DC needs to kind of shit or get off the pot. And that's why you were
matching it because it's it's kind of a disarranour will mention I guess. So continuing on
here, we have Puerto Rico. Remember what Trump would say Puerto Rico. Remember what Trump would say? Puerto Rico.
Remember when Trump went to Puerto Rico,
and he threw the paper towels into the crowd?
It was just really bizarre.
In the grand scheme of like presidential reactions
to natural disasters, that's just a really weird one.
And there's a lot you can say about Trump and how awful he is,
and it's all true. But at the end of the day, he's also just really weird one. And there's a lot you can say about Trump and how awful he is and it's all true.
But at the end of the day, he's also just really weird.
I think he's kind of socially awkward.
I don't think he really knows how to react
when he's not yelling or how to act when he's not yelling.
Puerto Rico, I'm gonna go one of these days.
I don't know what flight prices are like now,
kind of in the pandemic, post pandemic.
But before, and I think my brother could speak to this,
you could find some dirt cheap flights
like in the 100 range,
at least from New York to San Juan.
And I think pretty similar from Chicago there.
So I'm gonna go one of these days.
I would love to go. There's no reason not to go.
I haven't just haven't,
hasn't fit in yet with my sort of schedule with my
my wants my needs. Puerto Rico being this far down it's it's not like Washington DC where I would have put
that pretty low. This is just it's an honorable mention because it's not a 50 state. So I'd love to get
that going though. I think that would be cool. And then Guam. it's our last honorable mention. Don't give me any of that US Virgin Island bullshit
or Utah.
I hear your protests.
We are going to include Utah in the 50s states,
although it couldn't easily be banished
to some Dante's eighth level of hell.
But Guam is one I didn't do any research on.
I didn't put any notes on it.
Somewhere in the Pacific. And there's probably like 25 people there. I don't know.
Beentown, bean town poll trivia question of the week. Guam population. Take your
best guess. We're googling it right now. Gum. Oh, gum population. No,
Guam, not gum.
It was actually gum popularity, is what I was getting auto filled with,
but that's not what we wanted.
I'm aware of how popular gum is.
Okay, take your best guests right now,
live on air, the population in gwam.
Here we go, drum roll.
168,783.
Who wants to guess,
if you go to the Wikipedia page, can you scroll down or is it all fit on one page? Oh, you can scroll
So Guam is just kind of what do you think Guam means? It's kind of a fun name
GUAM. Oh, there's a section on sports Guam's most popular sport is American football
You think they have room for a
Football field there?
I don't know.
Guam's men's national basketball team
and the women's team are traditional powerhouses
and the oceanic region will know shit.
You're playing against the now-rules that Tahiti's,
the Duvalos, the Borah Borahs of the world.
You just gotta watch out for Papua New Guinea,
the Oceania region,
behind the men's national basketball team.
Well, yeah, those guys are gonna clean up.
There were some giants down there.
Those banished cons.
Guam is home to various basketball organizations,
including the Guam Basketball Association.
Of course, the GBA, I know that.
GBA had its first season in 2015.
Yeah, it was huge on that in college.
Here are the teams, the Auto Spot Phoenix,
sponsored by Auto Spot, University of Guam Tritons.
So the University of Guam plays
in a professional basketball association.
That is badass.
The KFC Bombers, the MVP stars.
What great names.
This is like when you buy an unlicensed version of Madden
or something, and these are the teams that come on there.
The Mitsubishi Outlanders, the Mac Tech Nerds,
by Mac Tech, a magazine owned by Apple computers.
So let's just get this straight.
There's a Guam Basketball Association team
named after a magazine owned by Apple.
And finally, the tooth fairies, I'm not shitting you,
go find the Guam Basketball Association Wikipedia article,
and you will see that one of the team names
and the GBA is the tooth fairies.
What just a wonderful, what a wonderful find.
Okay, you're never going to know about that. You're never going to learn about that unless you listen to the bean-tongued podcast.
We are inspiring. We are funny. We are inspirational. We are good looking. We are charitable.
And most importantly, we're teaching the youth of tomorrow. Well, they're at the youth of
today, but they're going to be older than youth tomorrow. I want to take this time before we get
into number 50 here, before we jump into our first category, and I think we're doing 50 through 43, 44 today.
I think there's eight states we're doing.
I want to give a shout out to our sponsors.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, yeah.
I took copious notes for six of them,
and then I forgot to do the last two.
So those are gonna be off the top of my head.
Our sponsors, Home Prior to Oregon.
When you need your home inspector in Central Oregon,
you can need it to be safe.
You need to be certified.
You also want it to be quick and easy.
Like me and college or me today.
You're gonna wanna call my dad, Steve,
541-410-0316.
I forgot to put in the rainbow's family phone number.
When I was shopping at Jewel today,
I missed out on like three bucks and savings.
It was brutal.
Really just catastrophic.
So the sorry, Betty, you didn't get,
you didn't get any gas rewards points from me today
on my purchase of breakfast sausages, ranch,
I'm not sausages, ranch,
I'm not kidding, ranch dressing, white wine,
cheddar pretzels, and bourbon.
I've been living alone for what, six years,
two in Baltimore, two in Rogers Park, so five plus.
And that's, we got one week left until Rachel moves in.
Maybe this will mean an inherent uptick in Rachel appearances in the bean tonne podcast.
She doesn't like to think so, but maybe, because maybe it'll just be like, oh, it's a
Friday afternoon, like Quinn's doing bean tonne podcasts.
Like sure, I'll hop on and, you know it's a Friday afternoon, like Quinn's doing Bean-Tum podcast.
Like sure, I'll hop on and share my thoughts on the Guam Basketball Association or the grocery
list or, you know, forgetting, he remembers to get the bourbon, but he didn't get diapers
and baby formula.
So I see that in my future.
But yeah, my grocery list, it sounds really bad when you say it out loud,
but they all had a purpose.
Ranch dressing, because I've been having salad all night,
or all week for dinner, and I'm just almost out.
I reach for likes for ranch dressing,
so I figured let's make sure we have some breakfast sausages
because I've got plenty of eggs,
and I want to have some sausage to go with it at some point.
And, oh, bourbon, because I mentioned I've been,
I'm actually sipping on pretty much the last
drags of my bourbon that I got from my birthday
from Hashtag brother and Hashtag future sister
in law of the podcast.
Time out from our ad read, congratulations
to brother of the podcast, Jack Fernes,
we're getting engaged last weekend. Jack's a good friend of the show.
He probably, maybe behind Matt Feedler,
holds a record for second most,
I think he's probably second most appearances
on the show, although Jack and Matt are close.
So congratulations to Jack and we'll look
forward to your wedding at some point in the future.
But yeah, the ranch dressing, the pretzels,
I just was in the mood for cheddar pretzels.
I just wanted to munch a little bit today.
And the wine because you're gonna want wine,
and it's summer.
I love white wine in the summer.
I put a nice cube in there, best way to do it.
That's what I was drinking at kickball last night.
Also shout out to a friend of the podcast
she's never been on. She probably doesn't even know that the show exists. But Aaron Murray
we're at her wedding like a month ago. She threw a seven inning complete game shut out and kickball
last night. It was it was all attitude. And what I loved about it, she wasn't just you know,
lobbing it down the middle. She was painting corners.
She was bringing them to full count.
She was making sure she gets the pitch she wanted.
Immaculate defense behind her.
Partially courtesy of yours truly.
I made it at least, I don't know, three outs, four outs,
maybe something like that.
The first aining, I just threw myself in a right field.
They kicked it out there twice, nailed them.
And I was also, I'm not going down the rabbit hole here,
but just to cap this thought off, I was two for two,
I only batted twice, two hits, two runs scored,
two out of the five runs courtesy of a boy.
So all this is to say, 541-03416 call Steve or go to
homeprydorgan.com when you need your home inspector in central organ, trust the
experts. Home pride organ inspection perfection. All right. I also want to give a
shout out to our good friends,
the Samson Q2U series.
It's got crisp, clean audio quality guys.
We've been doing this for five, four and a half years.
That's how it goes.
Yeah, four and a half years, but in our fifth season,
guys, we're mere months away from getting into season six
of the bean town podcast.
It's never ending.
It's eternal at this point.
I think, you know, I think it'd be for me, it's like, okay, if I, if you do a show,
haphazardly, maybe, maybe, you know, a couple of weeks in a row, and then you take three weeks off,
then you jump back into it, which is what everyone does, right? Is that okay? Yeah, that's cool,
like, fifth season, whatever. But no, this show is a locomotive from hell.
Filled with laughter, joy, and mirth.
Franken sends gold and mirth and mirth.
There was a house of mirth question
on Jeopardy the other day.
There's also an Ethan From question.
And I got it and no one else did.
I think it's From, right?
That bastard, my ambi-alix, it Ethan From,
but I always was taught it was Ethan From.
So gonna have a boss bet on her hands.
Don't get me started on the Jeopardy host controversy.
My ambi-alix is awful.
Speaking of the Samsung Q2U series, I just dripped a little bit of bourbon on there. So that's fun. Guys, here's what you need to know.
From Genesis to Exodus, Liddiquist, number of students around me, Joshua, Judges, Ruth,
all those minor prophets, ecclesiastes, Nehum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Zechariah, Zepadiah, Zipiti-Dudah.
When God speaks, He uses the Samson.
And finally, our good friends, the Cuts by Q. I don't know.
Just Cuts by Q. It's not the Cuts by Q. Like the Ohio State University.
Give myself a nice little neck shape today, a little front neck back neck.
The works, excuse me, if you will, we are independently owned and operated barbershop serving
North-West Indiana Chicago, County, Greater Chicago, and area, heck Southern Wisconsin,
if you want.
Again, it's got to be Kenosha.
I don't go any further.
This is where the train stops. I also got to hop on an Amtrak. It's 25 bucks compared to like seven. You know, it doesn't
seem like a lot, but it adds up when I'm only charging 20 bucks a haircut. So overhead
people, when you need a fresh do, something snappy and new called the experts at cuts
by Q. Okay. So we've done our honorable mentions.
We're getting to the second half of the show here, and I got a lot to say, so I'm going
to do my best to try to find the balance between giving each state in today's episode, the
hate it deserves, but ultimately sort of the just general time that it deserves.
I don't want to just completely embrace past anyone except maybe like Oklahoma or Kansas or Nebraska because
Or North North Dakota like what the fuck am I gonna say about those states?
Corn beans sand
Timothy McVeigh, you know, it's just it's a bad taste. Okay, so I'm gonna do my best
But bear in mind, this power ranking
is highly personal and highly subjective
and highly dependent on not only how much preparation I put
into each show, but also how much personal history
slash association I have with each state.
And it varies, right?
New Mexico, I've been there for a couple hours. Illinois, I've
been there for 25, 26 years, right? So I'm going to do my best, okay? I promise. But I'm
not going to be it around the bush anymore. You probably are just as curious for anything else. What comes in at number 50 on
my
Power rankings list. Here we go folks. It's a show that I
Notauriously or a state that I notoriously bash. It's not it's a state. Honestly that I spent more time in in the last couple of years than
A lot of other states
just due to where I've taken myself for work travel.
It's a state where I haven't had any really terrible personal experiences,
but it's got to go there, okay, because it's just the perfect storm.
Coming in at number 50, oh, and I'll mention the title of this grouping
that we're going through today
after honorable mentions DC, Puerto Rican, Guam, and Guam is I titled this absolute trash heap.
So it's going to be an important distinction between the this week's category and next week's
category. This week's category absolute trash heap, iridimable, irregardless, all that stuff.
And the next week's category is going to be similar,
but it's going to be a little bit different.
And I'm not going to give anything away.
But I just want you to know that these states,
these seven or eight that we're about to go through,
I deem them to be just the lowest scum of the earth.
And I'm fully embracing alienating listeners here
in the show today.
I'm not trying to be polarizing.
I'm not trying to be divisive.
All I want to do is poke fun at mostly stereotypes,
because even though I've been to 49 of your 50 states, a lot of what I have to go
off of is just kind of stuff that's going to be relatable to everyone.
Okay, number 50, the great state of Alabama.
You knew this was coming.
We've done a whole show bashing Alabama in the past, back in sort of year four, I think it
was. Bashing Alabama in the past back in sort of year four. I think it was
Guys, it's it's it's it's sucks down there. I mean you if you ever walked around
downtown like Tuskegee or
Hack downtown Birmingham. I was there back in January. It's just a lot of like
trains and
publics markets and
really a lot of weirdos out on the street and
You go outside of the urban areas and it gets five times worse just the horror show.
Here's why I put Alabama number 50. There are states that are like worst places to live
in my perspective, but Alabama thinks,
and we've mentioned this many times in the show in the past,
Alabama thinks they are the shit.
They think they are cool, They think they are trendy.
They are hearted Dixie, baby.
That's their nickname, the hearted Dixie.
They embrace it.
They are the ones doing the Confederate soldier
reenactments on Saturday mornings.
They just think they're so good.
It's hot, it's muggy. It's like weird because there's a lot of like,
fields, you know, plantations, crops, whatever.
And then some weird like, like the talented,
a forest and some hills, but still kind of flat.
It's just humid, it's hot.
You don't get any like fun seasons. They had
that terrible Josh Lucas movie, sweet home Alabama. And essentially when you look in the
grand scale of US history and you talk about race relations and Civil
War, Alabama is the villain of US history.
Remember how much they embraced that, what's his name, Judge Roy, something that the guy
who dated children?
What was his name?
I'm glad I'm happy that I can't remember because I don't want him to be a part of my sort
of mind, judge.
It was Roy, right?
Or maybe not.
Alabama.
He was a politician at some point, and then he tried to run for
off-plit, another political office. Judge Roy Moore, is that his name?
I think that's his name, Alabama Roy Moore.
Okay, yeah, Roy Moore.
Roy Stewart Moore, American politician.
He was the 27th and 31st Chief Justice
of the Supreme Court of Alabama.
Oh, I didn't even know this.
Each time being removed from office for a judicial misconduct.
He was the Republican nominee in the 2017 U.S. Senate Special Election Alabama in the
seat vacated by Jeff Sessions.
Boy, you read this one Wikipedia article and it just gets really upsetting.
He also ran on a successor for you as set in 2020. This guy dates children. He's a judge.
He's been removed for a traditional context. Twice from state office. It's, look, if you
are a Republican and Alabama and you lose a Senate election to a Democrat,
which is essentially a Nazi or a commie, you fucked up.
And Alabama, that's what you should put on your license plates from now on.
We fucked up.
Coming in at number 50, folks, it's Alabama. I have no reservations about that ranking.
No second thoughts.
I hold firm.
Okay, coming in at number 49, it's this twin brother, really.
And I've said this on the show before,
guys, the difference between Alabama and Mississippi,
or 49th state is nothing
other than Mississippi thinks or knows that they suck. No one from Mississippi or
anywhere really is like oh yeah Mississippi like we're doing okay we're good
right where is you go to Alabama and it's like, ooh, rolling town football.
Josh Lucas movies, Jeff Sessions, we're cool.
No one says that about Mississippi. That's why it's 49 in Alabama is 50.
Basically being crap, here's the thing, okay.
Being crap and knowing your crap
doesn't get you any higher than 49
But it does get you ahead of Alabama
Here's the thing miss Cippie's all the way at the the South deep South
Bottom of the US it's named after a kick-ass river that starts all the way in Minnesota and
Spoiler alert you guys are gonna have to wait several weeks
for us to unveil Minnesota's ranking.
Your state capital is named after a genocidal president.
Andrew Jackson, trail of tears, baby, relocation, all the good stuff.
Why did they even name a town in Mississippi after Andrew Jackson?
The guys from Tennessee.
Like, can't you come up with something original?
Has anyone serious question?
Here's our bean town podcast poll question of the week.
Email us bean town podcast at Yahoo.com.
Again, it's bean townown podcast at Yahoo.com. Again, it's beantown, beantown podcast at Yahoo.com.
You can also tweet at the show, we're at Beantown Cast.
Like you broke your arm or something.
I am personally at White Buns with a Z.
And you know who follows me, the DePaul Athletic Director,
my coworker, Dwayne Peeby.
So that kind of tells you I'm hot stuff.
Here's a question. Has anyone ever willingly wanted to go to Mrs.
Cippie for any sort of trip? I'm not talking like driving across a
border for cheaper cigarettes. I'm talking like, oh, yeah, we're going to
Mrs. Cippie because XYZ, there's this cool thing there. It's Mississippi's high up there.
If you know up, I'll never be less than fourth right with you on the show. Mississippi's
high up there for me personally on the list of states that I've spent very little time in. And so I'm not, I don't wanna sit here for
five more minutes and be like, oh yeah, Mississippi,
this Mississippi, that, like I haven't been there.
But guys, it sucks.
No one talks about Mississippi,
and it's not because it's a hidden gem under the radar.
It's just, Mississippi is just Mississippi.
Does anyone know it?
Like, can you could you could I call you on the phone?
You could give me three facts about Mississippi.
I mean, here's what I know. It's named after a river.
State capital is Jackson. One of its larger cities is Vicksburg.
It has a very short golf coast.
It borders like four states or some three states maybe.
And it's known for its high rates of obesity, illiteracy.
And here's that, that's it. That's, that's what I know about it. Pretty
much sucks. That's Mississippi. Okay, let's move on. This isn't a Mississippi bashing
show. We don't often get the chance to talk with Mississippi because who would talk about
Mississippi. Here's something that I have a little bit more personal
connection to and feel strongly against.
Number 48, Louisiana.
First and foremost, guys, who'd at more like you stink?
I wrote that down so I could deliver it well.
Louisiana, you're named after a French king, like an idiot.
What's the one way that you as a state can project?
Just absolute weakness.
Be named after a French king.
I'm gonna need a whiskey refill by the time Louisiana's done.
Not only because Louisiana makes me want a drink,
but I finished my drink before
back in half way through Alabama. Louisiana, you're named after a French king, but I don't even
know which one. There's literally like 19 Luis. 14 is the sun king, right? 14 is the sun king.
16 had a really cool wig. It was huge. It looked like Charles Peralt
Or if you want to do the French pronunciation Charles Pudot
Herculee Paul
I think that's how you say it
Guys, let's just set the records straight in this one. Fuck the Saints
You guys cheated and
You got a Super Bowl out of it. I know Sean Payton got suspended a year.
I know Greg Williams got in definitely band, although he got brought back two years later.
Who's the kid here?
We'll get to Oklahoma later, probably next week. That's a Van Gundy quote for those of you
from like 16 years ago.
Who's the kid here?
You cheated, you won the Super Bowl,
you had some suspensions, Jonathan and Vilma, whatever,
but you didn't have to give the trophy back.
You didn't have to replay the 2010 NSE Championship game where you intentionally tried to injure a man
And got just all the ref calls. Here's the thing
Remember how rigged that 2010 NFL Championship game was the
Refs had to do so much the combination of the refs
and bounty gave had to do so much on top of the Vikings giving the game away just to
get the game to overtime.
And then in overtime never got a chance to have the ball and a phantom fourth down conversion, a phantom passenger interference call and Jeremy
Shockey.
Next thing you know, John Carnier, whatever his name is, said you guys is super well.
Remember when the NFL rigged an entire championship game so that your team could get some sort
of ill-conceived redemption for Katrina.
I remember, I watched every second of it, I hated it.
Your state capital means red stick again in French.
You guys really love France.
Like what the hell?
Red stick?
I'm all for like cool names, that name sucks.
You think you're cool because you have parishes
not counties, what the hell is a parish?
Like parish is like a Catholic thing.
Why do you need parishes?
Just be normal.
Your graves are above ground.
Okay, underrated criticism.
Literally, this is where the zombie apocalypse starts.
In Louisiana. Why? Because spooky zombies, ghouls,
demigorians, it's a lot harder if you have to fucking, you know,
dig yourself out of the ground. We can just swing the door open,
like, shrek out of his outhouse at the start of Shrek.
Some bodywass told me the world is gonna roll me.
I inked the sharpest tool in the ship.
She was looking kind of dumb with the finger
and a thumb in the shape on the yell and a forehead. I'm not gonna keep the thing, I'm in a thumb in the shape, I need a four head.
Not gonna keep going, but I could, because my laptop's at 36% and we got like five more
sheets ago.
Okay, last thing I'll say about Louisiana, the food could be kick ass, like Cajun cooking,
Creole cooking.
Dude, some of that stuff is bomb.
I've had good like gumbo, good jumble eye
before good grits, like some of that stuff is awesome.
But you had to go and fuck it up.
This might be the record.
And I apologize to the kids out there.
That's why I gave our listener discretion and advice
at the top of every show.
I gave you a fair warning that we might use
some inclement language, but this might be
the show record, honestly, because I don't,
just in life, I don't use the F-bomb much,
but I've dropped it like five times already today,
because I feel really passionate about my disdain
for some of these states we talked about.
You had to go fuck it up.
By throwing a whole bunch of, you know,
crustaceans in there,
cephalopods, slugs,
but mostly, mostly crustaceans.
You know, these are crawdaddies, crayfish,
prawns, shrimp, just their gross. I don't want a stew that has creatures with eyes in it. It's really off-putting.
That's why I request my gumbo with no shrimp. Okay. And if you are doing a, you know, early birthday planning
eight months away, no shrimp. Okay. It's just not necessary. If you're going to serve me
shrimp, pluck the eyes out first. It's gross. I don't want to eat your eyes. I ate this
stew in Africa once. Fish had, you Fish had sort of stew something that had eyes.
It's not a fan. Houston me. I'm going to take a quick pause. Whiskey refill. They're going to come
back blitzcree gigs. We got 33% left like five states. Be right back. All right, 60 second break. I'm
back. That was an unfortunate amount of bourbon that I have left,
like less than a shot.
So we're going to power through here.
I will say the ones I've mentioned,
I'm a little bit more passionate about
than what's coming up here.
Number 47 on our list is Arkansas.
Okay, have you ever seen Boyer Raste?
Have you ever seen Ozark? Combined the two and you have Arkansas. Weirdos, gay conversion therapy, mega churches, drugs,y Bird, and
Ran out of things to say. That's Arkansas.
The best part, the, the, the, the actual best part about Arkansas
In the entire state is that it's across the river from Memphis, which is a kick-ass town
Blue collar, buffoon,
beehive street, blues, barbeque, yeah, we got that.
It's nothing. It's an empty void of meaning with a bunch of crazy Bible people.
It's basically the deep south and the Ozarks,
which I can't imagine a worse combination. You say,
Quinn, what do you, what do you thought on the deep south? I say, I don't like the deep south.
I say, what could make the deep south worse? I say, I don't really know. I guess pretty bad.
And you say, well, what if we threw the Ozarks? Spooky hills, lakes, mountains, drugs, and
help people? I say, whoa, I'm spooked.
I'm gonna tell you what, a quick time out here. I was not feeling the energy going into this podcast
and it's still kind of like dark and gloomy outside,
dreamy, and all that jazz,
but I gotta say just the fervor of contempt.
I've used a lot of good dictionary words today.
This could be like a script's national spelling
we sponsored podcast.
That I have for these states here at the bottom.
It's gonna be different.
Look, we go into the third category.
It's gonna be like middle of the road.
And we're gonna be like, oh yeah, like Arizona, cool.
But Arkansas, oh hell no.
Don't send me to Arkansas and okay speaking of
Arkansas why do we pronounce it like that we got Kansas and Arkansas same
thing both in AR in front of it speaking of AR I assume lots of AR 15s in
Arkansas just because I predict that most schools are going to want to have one for
hill people.
But look, we got to pick a lane here.
We can't have Kansas and Arkansas.
We got to get together on this.
There was no coordination when we worked on pronunciations here, which is just a black
mark on our country. Okay, an absolute black mark.
Also, Walmart.
Okay, number 46.
Maybe one, I don't know if you're expecting this.
Look, we got 46, then we got a couple of heavy hitters.
Number 46, South Carolina.
Succeeding bastards, the first state to leave the union.
When everyone else is, you know,
kind of, you know, propping up their credentials and making their case or, hey, we want to be in the union.
You know, let's build something here.
50 states sounds pretty cool.
You know what South Carolina when they did?
They left.
Fort Sumter, Charleston, whatever.
They're out.
We never should have let them back in.
It's really hot and muggy.
And South Carolina coast is kinda blah.
Hilton head and Mertle Beach are your two main attractions and they're pretty tacky.
Very touristy, a lot of bugs.
Remember the size of the bug?
I found in a cabin in Hilton High Island.
It was, I was spooked until next year.
The whole state is basically a swamp or Charleston,
which is like a weird deep south, southern bell,
like lynchings at 5 p.m.
kind of place.
Cool hats.
I will I'll give them that.
Okay, cool hats, but cool hats can't carry you.
You know who else is cool hats? Kentucky Derby
Louisville. We'll get to Kentucky next week. South Carolina is definitely, oh it's
being a Charleston. I prefer the Charleston West Regina. It's quaint. That's just a great
word to use. Okay, South Carolina is absolutely one of those states where the billboards
along the interstate either say in all caps, God listens, call 1-800-God-speaks
or they say Uncle Dix adult pleasure palace next exit. Pretty much those
are your two options and yeah, the last the last no day road on South Carolina sounds like a really good
place to get lynched. Let's move on. We got guys, we got two
heavy hitters here, like big time, big time dogs. Number
45, which coincidentally works out because President 45 has his permanent address there.
Florida. Guys, we can do a whole show about Florida.
I'm not going to beat around the bush too much, I promise.
You, everyone's going to have their thoughts, everyone's going to have their perspectives.
I get it.
Maybe you had a magical time at Universal Studios.
Maybe you're a big Florida A&M booster.
I don't know.
This is just how I feel.
Have you ever wanted to get mauled by an alligator?
What about being stuck in eight lane traffic hell You ever wanted to get mauled by an alligator?
What about being stuck in at lane traffic hell trying to get across Orlando?
What about actually being in a Orlando between February and November?
Have you seen the Disney prices?
Okay, I gotta stop reading my notes.
It's getting really kitschy.
Okay, also Miami is like L.A. fake, fake, fake.
And I mean, look, I love a good Cuban sandwich,
but I don't get the hype about Cuban cigars.
I'll put that out there.
Miami is just like South Beach and bikinis.
And it's like, you know, it's so it's so gilded. G-I-L-D-E-D.
Like what are you actually doing with your life other than like getting fake
tits and putting them on Instagram. It's so shallow. It's so like 15-year-old
boy, horny, like we can do better than this, right?
I will never forgive Florida after the whole, taking my talents to South Beach. And I know
that was LeBron James, but I'm putting him there just as well. And we have barely scratched
just as well.
And, I mean, we have barely scratched the surface. Has a Florida sports team ever sold more than like 50%
of their tickets to a game?
Think about it, okay, you got Marlins.
Who, yes, are still in existence.
The Florida Marlins, Miami Marlins, sorry.
Miami Marlins are still a team.
I know no one has ever heard
anything about them since 2003. The Tampa Rays, I prefer the Devil Rays. That's who Dennis
Quaid plays for in that movie The Rookie. Who else we got?
We got the Miami Dolphins, okay, cool, 50 years ago.
Got the Jacksonville Jaguars, Tampa Bay Bucks,
only relevant because of Tom Brady.
So, you're welcome.
You got the Miami Heat, no one gives a shit,
outside of the four years, the Bron was there.
Did you know that, what's his name still plays
for the Miami Heat? He's like
half a player, half a coach.
Uh, Haslam, Udonas Haslam.
He's like 45 and he still comes
off the bench every once in a
while. It's ridiculous. Hang
it up, dude. You have the Tampa
Bay Lightning. The one two out
of the last three Stanley cups,
went to three straight, and their daily attendance
is like 200.
And then you have the Florida Panthers.
Did you guys know there is a pro hockey team
called the Florida Panthers?
The Florida Panthers?
Could you do you know where they play?
I think it's called the Sunset, Florida. I don't know where it is
Somewhere outside of Miami, I guess
No one in Miami is like, oh, yeah, we're going to the panthers game
You say that people will be like dude Cam Newton retired, which he didn't and when Cam Newton was on the Patriots disaster
And then last thought he got the panhandle. The Florida panhandle is also hell like Arkansas.
It's the deep south, but with shitty beaches, it's just awful.
Who would want to go there?
I always get sent, when I worked in Baltimore, I always get sent to Florida, but not Miami,
not somewhere cool like Daytona Beach.
I would get sent to Orlando, and if you're not in Orlando to pay $2,000 to go to Disney,
it is office buildings and weird geckos and landlocked and humid and 95 degrees in
March and awful. And that's my fondest memory. Not my fondest memory. My dad
took me to Florida when I was a kid. I really appreciate that. He got
food poisoning from Bob Evans. We did a whole song about it shadow to has shake dad of the furnace
Dad of the furnace. I guess that's true dad of the podcast Steve furnace happy birthday
All so you know from home prior to organ his birthday is tomorrow happy birthday dad
Okay, we got two states left and I got 19% on my laptop I
Okay, we got two states left and I got 19% on my laptop.
I mentioned there was gonna be another heavy hitter. Coming in at number four, it's Texas.
Another thing we could do a whole podcast about
and this is where I stopped taking notes
because I forgot that I was gonna record today.
Guys, Texas, it sucks.
And whenever you say Texas sucks, people are like, oh, have you been to Austin?
It's like, yeah, Austin is cool.
It's good music.
Great food.
But it's also like a million people.
And super expensive.
And have you seen those university of Texas Austin colors?
They're orange.
Like, got to pick a different color, man.
No offense to you of I, but orange.
Yeah.
Everyone is like, oh, let's go like float down the river or like stand in the lake.
Well, they're so crowded.
Have you seen the weather forecast anywhere in Texas?
Not just Austin.
This time of year, you pull it up as like 103, 104,
106, 102.
Ooh, things are cooling off, 97.
I don't know who would wanna go there.
And this is close to home,
because I got a brother and sister who live there.
And this is no personal attack on them.
I don't think it's their favorite state either.
It's just, I don't get it.
They got their own power grade.
They think they're so cool until the power grid fails.
And it's like, oh, we need help.
Has anyone ever been to Houston and been like, oh, we need help. Has anyone ever been to Houston and been like,
oh, that was cool.
No.
Houston is grid traffic suburban hell.
Houston's not a city.
Houston is just a giant suburb.
And then he got Dallas.
And Fort Worth, like like what is Fort Worth? No one knows anything about Fort Worth.
It's like Staten Island or the Rhono Conny.
It's like no one knows anything about it, but it's huge.
So many people down there, it's so hot.
Everyone wears a cowboy hat.
They think they're hot stuff.
I don't get the appeal.
And then you go, you go down to Corpus Christi.
It is like a 24 or 7 365 oil spill on the ocean. I don't really get that one either. And then you go
anywhere west of, you know, San Antonio, Austin, Dallas Fort Worth, and it's just
wide open swaths of grass and cattle. What a lonely, dark, hot, miserable place. I don't know. When I think of no country
for old men, I just think of like West Texas. And that is just, it's really depressing.
It's like Napoleon Dynamite, but without kind of like innocence feel, it just feels very awful.
Okay, our last state of the day, last state of the episode,
I promise I close my notes, it's embarrassing.
But I remember what it was.
Okay, so that was 44 Texas.
Number 43 in the next time we pick up with number 42
and a whole new category.
Number 43 and this was a late edition.
So five minutes before I started recording, I took a brief glance over the notes
because I hadn't touched it since like Wednesday or Tuesday.
And I took one look at it and I said, you know what, if we're going to do,
if we're going to throw one of these states into this group,
like there's another state that it's got to come in here.
And I don't feel
bad about it.
Number 43 is Missouri, or Missouri.
It's a steppesister to Arkansas.
They share the Ozarks, and we've already talked kind of extensively about all of that.
Missouri's got Branson.
It's just like if you're anyone other's got Branson, it's just like if
you're anyone other than a white person, it's basically like a horror movie,
Branson, Missouri. And then you got St. Louis, which is very different from the rest
of Missouri, but St. Louis think is so cool, gritty, hip, up and coming in urban,
when in reality it just sucks. They have a trolley that goes on one road and that's pretty much your public
transportation system. You have the St. Louis cardinals. No one thinks the
cardinals aren't douches. Like everyone knows they suck. And then you go across
the state and it's basically in the south. It's like Ozarks and
Hilly and help people you know north and it's just Iowa. And look I don't hate on Iowa,
but I'm also not going to sit here and say like, oh, here are the top 15 hidden gems
in Iowa. No, it's just it's corn. That's northern Missouri too.
The one redeeming factor is almost enough to get it into the next category, Kansas City.
I do like Kansas City.
I'm actually having to go there, not Kansas City, but over in part Kansas, in two months here for work.
I like Kansas City. Kansas City holds a special place in my heart.
It's where I took this current job that I have.
It's a cool place.
Downtown Kansas City is nice.
The barbecue is not as good as Memphis, but it's not bad barbecue
But it's not enough to save it
Missouri
You got some really backwards politics
It's just kind of icky. I
Don't really want to go wake at the Ozarks is like I
could I could just like,
take a cooler blow up an inner tube and sit on like Michigan and get drunk and then
still be in Chicago and not have to drive eight hours back. That's all Lake O'Theos X is. Okay, that's, that's round one. That's the
bean town podcast. Part one of five of our US state power rankings. That was a lot
to get through, but you know, that was still, I think that was, it was like seven or
eight in the three honorable mentions. So that's about part for the course.
It's about our average.
So these are going to be media episodes.
But I do think that like, yeah,
I'm going to have a lot more to say about the states.
I really hate 50 through 43 then, you know.
Look, when we get to Oklahoma,
when we get to Idaho, when we get to Idaho,
when we get to New Hampshire, it's like, okay, like,
yeah, let's say this, say this,
and then, but how much can I really say?
That's what I got.
I'm not gonna beat around the bush anymore
because I have to pee and my lap has that 10%.
Let me know if you agree, disagree with rankings,
where you'd put your own states.
Again, this is just part one of five.
We've got former parts, all in anticipation leading up to our big grand 50th state celebration
in Hawaii next month.
I'm hoping that you're going to come along that journey with us.
I hope you enjoy these power rankings.
I hope you enjoyed everything we had today here on an extended edition of the bean town podcast
My name is Quinn David furnace everyone. I hope that you stay safe
Stay sane and I will check in on you next time. Bye everyone I'm just going to sit there. ndご視聴ありがとうございました
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