Jordan, Jesse, GO! - MaxFunDrive 2025 - Niche Subreddits Day SIX: r/birding

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

Jesse and Jordan read you comforting subreddits chosen by you! Every day during MaxFunDrive 2025 9:30am PST, March 17th - March 28th (except weekends). Austin Taylor (Secret Histories of Nerd Mysteries) joins to chat r/birding.It's MaxFunDrive 2025, become a new or upgrading member today! Live Jordan, Jesse, Go! in Chicago at Sleeping Village on April 11th!MaxFunDrive ends on March 28, 2025! Support our show now and get access to bonus content by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join. MaxFunDrive ends on March 28, 2025! Support our show now and get access to bonus content by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

Give a little time for the child within you. Don't be afraid to be young and free. Undo the locks and throw away the keys and take off your shoes and socks and run you. It's Jordan Jesse Goh. I am Jesse Thorne, America's radio sweetheart. Jordan Morris, Boy Detective. It's a joy to see you today, Jordan. It's the second week of the Max Fun Drive.

In a beautiful week it is going to be 87 degrees here in Los Angeles. There's your Los Angeles weather forecast. 87 degrees. Oh, that's the return of an older segment. That used to be a Jordan, Jesse, Goat, chestnut. Yeah, then I thought maybe I should think of things to talk about on the show. Later, I had that thought. Hey, Alex Inc. update, right? Oh, and we have a guest. We should introduce our guest because he's sitting right here.

It's not like we're... He's just here. Austin Taylor from Secret History of Nerd Mysteries. Hi Austin, how are you? I'm good, how are you? Good. How's the weather in Michigan? It's snowing.

Thank you for asking. Hey. All right. Well, it takes all kinds after. That's why people are tuning in. It's snowing. Thank you for asking. Hey! Hahaha! Alright. Well, it takes all kinds after. That's why people are tuning in. Local weather updates. Are you into the snow? Are you like thriving in the snow? I think snow should understand that it outlives its usefulness after December 31st.

After December 31st, I have no use for you. You should really wrap it up, wrap it up, pack it up. Do you see it as useful before Thanksgiving or is this just a Christmas operation? And that's that it's useful before Thanksgiving because I'm a big like Halloween ends in its Christmas supporter. So Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving to me stopped existing after all of my elder relatives passed away and I no longer had to go somewhere for the holiday. Once that obligation of like, there's a dinner you have to be at because of grandma ended,

I was like, why are we still doing this? We could just move right along. We could be at Boston market right now. Well it's great to have you here, Austin. As you said, Jordan, it's time for a quick Alex Inc. update. What's the update? Yes. So something we're doing for our bonus content, bonus content, of course, is something that Max Fund members get to listen to maximum fund dot org slash

join our bonus content show for this year. Once a month episodes, podcast, movie, MaximumFun.org slash join. Our bonus content show for this year, once a month episodes, podcast, movie, movie, podcast. Sometimes we also talk about shows where we are going to review media that is about podcasting or has podcasting as a crucial element. For our first episode that you can listen to right now, we watched the one and done, one season and done season,

Zach Braff sitcom, Alex Inc., where he plays a podcaster. The pilot is one of the worst half hours of TV I've ever seen in my life. Very, very bad. But we realize- Jordan? Sorry, do you mind if I interject real quick? Sure. No, please. We each had our own opinion about it. Jordan thought it was really, really bad. I'm sorry, I don't mean to. And one of the worst half hours of television he'd ever seen. I thought it was really, really bad and one of the worst half hours of television I'd ever seen. Good. Austin, have you seen Alex Inc? Do you want to weigh in?

I don't mean to speak for you. I don't mean to. I have not seen Alex Inc, but it does, it does hurt. So I like Zach Breff. I want him to succeed. I really do. Yeah, I really do. But he just keeps like I saw Alex Inc. Like I was promoted and I was like, I can't follow you down this road, Zach. I simply listen if you're a doctor who's talking to the camera. I'm fine. But but this is a bridge too far. Just too far. He was the first podcast I've ever run.

Oh really? Yeah, it was August on his Scrubs We Watch podcast. It was a lot of fun. It was the first time I ever podcasted, and I really want him to do well, but oof. Well, yes, despite, yeah, interesting that despite your fondness and connection, you didn't even watch the show. We watched the pilot for this project and because we know that our audience is composed largely of nasty pain freaks who want to see us hurt bad, We are promising to watch another Alex Inc episode for every 300 new

and subscribing members. We are, I should say new and upgrading members. I should say we are up to 600, so that is two additional episodes of Alex Inc that we much must watch and relay our thoughts to you the Max Fund members so thank you slash fuck you to everyone thank you slash fuck you we're gonna make some time in the course of podcast movie movie podcast to watch some things that aren't awful like I've seen pitch perfect 2 which yeah we've which we're gonna watch at some point because it does have all the exposition in that movie comes from podcasters. And I will say about Pitch Perfect 2, pretty funny.

So it's not all going to be torture, but the more people go to maximumfund.org slash join and become members, the more torture will be introduced into the process. I think we can get to three. The experience will become more tortured. I think we can get to three episodes. I don't necessarily want it to happen, but I think we can do it. So maximumfund.org slash join.

Austin, what are y'all doing for the Secret Histories of Nerd Mysteries bonus content? For bonus content, so I interviewed Rebecca Sugar and Ian Jones-Courty. Oh hey, cool. They are the cartoonists who created Steven Universe. Ian Jones-Courty also created OK Go. And so that was a lot of fun. I interviewed them on specifically the episode of Steven Universe titled Jailbreak. That's the episode where, spoilers to Steven Universe, if you haven't seen this

cartoon from over a decade ago. Austin, our audience has seen Steven Universe. Go ahead and assume that our audience is familiar with the totality of Steven Universe. If you're familiar with the Jailbreak series, we find out Garnet's a fusion, and also hear the song Stronger Than You by Rebecca Sugar and Estelle. It was a lot of fun! I really enjoyed getting to interview them. I interviewed them because it's the decade anniversary for that episode this year.

And I just had the idea of making an oral history for it because no one had yet and it was a lot of fun. I learned a lot of stuff about the episode I didn't know before, despite what my whole stick is for my show. And I think it's a really fun interview, something really special to listen to. The other stuff we're doing for the Drive, one of our milestones that, as of right now, we're like 30 members away from, I want to say, is that 200 new upgrading boosting members, we're going to start doing like live studio recordings that people can watch. Cool. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. Maximum fun.org slash join. Very, very cool. I interviewed years ago Jordan, Rebecca Sugar and about Steven Universe. I think it was

the last season of Steven Universe. And rarely in my 25 years of interviewing people on public radio has someone so thoroughly delivered on their promises. Rebecca Sugar. What a joy Rebecca Sugar is to talk to. Just an absolute delight. Steven Universe. Wonderful program, not just because it employed my friend Tom Sharpling, but largely, not insubstantially, because Tom was on it. But yeah, that Stronger Than You was like played over and over and over in my house for multiple years in a row because it was all of my children's favorite song of all time.

It's a good song. I sing it to my kid before bed. I sing it to Jordan before bed. That's true. It's the only way I can get to sleep. I get a little kiss on the forehead and off to dreamland. Austin, we are We're playing a game on these live streams. It's called the subdoms where we dominate discussions on various subreddits You've actually brought us something to look at today. Are you a Reddit guy?

I was like, I've used this website four times, but I will do it a fifth time today for maximum fun drive. So I did. Hell yeah. We love it. We appreciate it. Yeah. Should we jump into it? What have you brought us today? Okay. So I brought a few things. Does anyone hear else really into birds? I? I like them. I like them a lot Yeah, I like I like birds. I don't I don't bird. I do have a like a book on the local birds of Pasadena Pasadena, Altadena where I live has a lot of like interesting bird stuff going on including Where I live has a lot of like interesting bird stuff going on including

These parrots that were brought over from somewhere. That's not America by a Rich lunatic in the 1920s so there are these like very loud very colorful parrots that fly around Pasadena It's one of the best fucking things ever So yes, I have a birding. I have a local birding book. I have flipped through it. I maybe have a future as a bird guy, but you know, it's something I aspire to, but it's not something I am now. I just want to give a shout out to Ali in the YouTube comments, Austin, who commented, caw caw, I love birds. Birds love you back, Ali. So I have, one of the things I found was someone's girlfriend drew a picture of a bird and wanted help identifying it on Reddit.

Now I will say it was solved, but I would love to see... I would love to see...... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

... ... ...... that was put on Reddit. It is, if you're just listening to this, allow me to describe for you what we're seeing. It is an oval with two dots for eyes and a tiny little triangle beak and that is it. It looks like it was drawn on a piece of paper that you get in preschool for coloring time. Wow. You're selling this short Jordan because it also has a line underneath it and a vague line by the side of it. It's the framing, right? You gotta talk about the framing. For scale, yes. How big the bird is and where could it be?

It's about composition and I think it's also worth mentioning that all of this has just been drawn with a pencil. Truly a second grader's picture. Well, I'm going to say a fourth grader's picture because a second grader would have used like crayons or colored markers. Yeah. And a sticker. Yeah. Wrote the word bird on the bird. I mean, honestly, Austin, if someone wrote the word bird on this bird It would make it a lot clearer that it's a picture of a bird

For example don't have wings no Yeah, and no attempt at feathering no attempt at anything that looks like a feather But I mean, I maybe it is it. I mean maybe it is a penguin, maybe it is a sleek arctic bird. I don't know. Someone with a penguin could be a penguin. No, it looks like an egg. It looks like, in my initial guess, it would be an egg that a bird is coming out of. Sure. I mean, if you really think about it, egg is bird, right?

Yeah, egg is bird. Good point, Jordan. We have words for reasons. Egg is bird, right? Yeah. Good point, Jordan. I don't think egg is... We have words for reasons. Egg is not... Egg is almost. No, no, no. I think if you really break it down, egg is bird. Austin, you're not really thinking this through. Yeah, I think the problem here is you're not thinking this through.

If you think about it... And Jordan, I think you made a really good point here, but Austin, if you think about it, egg is bird. Okay. No, the more I think about it, you're right. egg is bird. Okay, you know the more I think about it You're right egg is bird egg is also. Yeah, I don't mean to complicate this But is egg lizard? Is bird not just related to lizard oh

How about this is egg dino? Jesse, you know, I respect you. I think you're a smart guy Thank you in this case. I think you're a smart guy. Thank you. In this case, I think you're wrong. Egg is bird. Okay, thank you. In the Bible, Jesse. The Bible.

Egg is bird, so sayeth the Lord. The more I think about it, the more I think egg is bird. And I remember, of course, because I'm very smart and highly educated. I remember Dino eats egg Yes, yes good Yeah, yeah Yeah, so what so how did this play out someone posted this

Oval on reddit saying they need it on reddit and this is I need Someone posted this oval on Reddit saying they needed it. On Reddit. And this is, I need to know, this isn't birding. So people took this deadly serious. Yeah. People people were looking. So the first thing I saw was like someone's like, is she a police sketch artist? This is great. A lot of people said it could be some type of owl, which is a good guess. Yeah. Some people do the gross image searches and they just find like memes of bad drawings.

But birders like, if you say much to our birding, one, I knew there'd be nothing weird there. Well, no, birders can get weird too. I do like birds a lot. One person suggested Good Night Poon Poon, which is a manga and not a bird. I can't recommend Good Night Poon Poon. It's called Good Night Poon Poon, huh? Yeah, I can't- hey, Good Night Poon Poon is an incredible manga, I can't recommend it, it is horribly depressing. Oh, hold on. I'm looking at Good Night Poon Poon, this might be a picture of Good Night

Poon Poon. Yeah, I mean, is this from the illustrator of Good Night, Poon Poon? It might be from the illustrator of Good Night, Poon Poon. Such a distinct style. What happened is no underscore ticket underscore three three three, who is the person who posted this, it's their girlfriend who drew it, found the exact picture she drew it from. It is a head on shot of a bird called a green heron. Oh yeah, okay.

Okay. Austin is showing us the picture of the green heron. I'm not only seeing that this bird is somewhat ovular in shape when seen head-on, it's also attached to some grass that I think is what those lines were framing the bird. So this is a very good picture and a very good bird. So yeah, the drawing was good? Yeah, that's the plot of the drawing is accurate. I do have to say,

green herons do feel like a fake bird. Yeah. Like the eye placement on this bird, like it feels like sometimes when you're a birder, you see a bird that you and you say you didn't finish buffering. Yeah. You're not. You didn't load all the way. It's very fluffy, but it does have a certain aspect of like pixelation or digital distortion Its beak seems a little sideways its eyes seemed crossed

It seems like it's going I the bird the bird to me the bird to me has a little bit of a care and energy It looks like it's about to ask to see the manager Yeah, I think it has some concerns about its rental car sure It's a heron, and it's not big It's like listen I know you were expecting like the heron from the boy in the hair and the Miyazaki movie But this is what you got bud an oval. Yeah, I'm a different kind of hair, and I'm just a little ball

I'm a fluffy little ball. I Mean, it's really grabbing on those grasses. No honestly really feeling it guys egg is ball and Ball and egg is bird so ball is bird Wow ball is life. Yes, so ball is bird. Ball is life. Wow. Ball is life, yes. I have, so bird is life. The transitive property is extraordinary.

Yes, the transitive property. I have learned so much during this program. We should post that on r slash birding. I bet r slash birding has some generally good vibes. That's a pretty good place to be. Yeah, have you noticed, and I know you're not a huge Reddit guy. I bet our I bet our slash birding has some some generally good vibes Austin you Yeah, does it have you noticed and I know you're not a huge reddit guy You kind of mainly did it for this project, but did you did you notice our slash birding getting spicy anywhere? No, it's all pretty I had to like kind of dig for something that I thought would be like

More than just like here's a picture of some birds I saw which is I think interesting but I was like of course yeah birding Program so I don't know how the world out of play because most of it's just like There's I saw some really pretty pictures like snowy owls I just find some videos of people like there's one person who keeps updating Where their their boyfriend keeps getting a woodpecker that visits his office window Their boyfriend keeps getting a woodpecker that visits his office window Mm-hmm, and it's just it's just like good vibes. Yes, mostly if you want to see pretty pictures of birds. It's mostly that I

Do I do want to know that yeah, I want to see that I like a I like a Raptor it's the kind of bird I like yes. Yeah,. I like to see like a hawk or a mighty eagle. Oh yeah. I saw a hawk the other day. Take a squirrel. Hell yeah. Oh my. Get that squirrel. I mean, squirrels are very cute and everything, but I want to see any ground animal fly.

Oh yeah. I mean, hey, hey circle of life motherfucker, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm Mm-hmm is circle of life egg. You know what? No Sorry, jesse. Okay, I decide what is that? I didn't think it through. I didn't think about it. Yeah me and the bible We decide what is egg? Um, yeah, I love seeing are there like Yeah, I love seeing this. Austin are there any like Michigan birds that you enjoy seeing just in your day to day life?

Oh that are Michigan specific? I can't think of things that are Michigan or my region specific that I enjoy to see. I do, I mean we just talked about like hawks. I also really like to see, I like seeing wild turkeys and explaining to people that, yeah, that's a turkey because it's bizarre. If you've never seen a wild turkey, they can fly and they kind of roll around like gangs if you go out in the country deep enough here. And it's really weird.

One time I was on a walk and I saw like no less than 15 wild turkeys perched on someone's roof the way you kind of see like crows perched on roof sometime. Just watching the road. And I was like, man, imagine you come home to just 15 turkeys posted up. They are livid about last Thanksgiving. They are here. Where is he? Well, this is where your position as an anti Thanksgiving guy.

Exactly. I was I was saying on a podcast recently that Thanksgiving was bullshit, and then they let you pass. I didn't take your cousin Vinny for a colonizer holiday, not me! I do actually really like Heron though. Heron are a big Michigan... I think they're... no, they're not our state bird, but they should be. Heron are cool. Again, they're bigger than you think. And they look like dinosaurs, because egg is dinosaur.

Egg is dinosaur. Hey, can I try something? I just want to do a little experiment here. Would you guys go with me on this? Yeah, I'm here for science. I want to see if I can make the chat blow the fuck up, okay? I want to just want to see how crazy I can make the chat go. I'm pretty hopeful for this Hey chat, what's your favorite local bird from your area? Oh Fuck oh hell. Yeah, fuck. It's gonna get wild in the chat

fucking a dude Fucking what's your favorite local bird from your area? Oh Man, oh things are gonna get wild. It's gonna go wild This is like when they bring macho man Randy Savage in to fucking inspire a baseball team during the world Yeah, brother, what are your favorite local birds from your area? I always called him nacho man, Randy Savage I mean nothing wrong with being a nacho man. I said by the way, you know, I Want to give a shout out to like Kelly and Hunter and Fathead Philip for answering this question sincerely. And I want

to give a big fuck you to everybody who just wrote crows because they know that I hate crows. Oh no, how dare you. You got beef with crows? Fucking chat. know that I hate crows. Oh no, how dare you. You got beef with crows? I bet these people writing crows aren't even members of Maximum Fund. Yeah. You know what? If you're a member of Maximum Fund, you can do crotons to me all you want, but if you're not, I'm coming after you. I'm sending hawks after you and your fucking crows.

Circle of life motherfucker. Okay, well now I need to I want to hear about this crow beef. What they're fucking creepy they make plans they hold grudges they fucking hang out outside your house and fuck with you and They're enemies of the majestic eagle Okay, it sounds okay. Do you have beef of crows or like? Use with nothing to do Hmm, that's a good question like if crows were if crows had jobs would I still have a problem with them? Like if crows did had a nine to five

Yeah, I mean I guess my problem with crows is that they foster a culture of dependency You know that's also why. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's also why I support welfare. Oh boy. And not be so dependent. Austin. No, I think my my problem with crows is that they is that they are. I guess if I was going to use use a single word it would be like evil

That's a pretty big one yeah in line with Satan Yeah, get your shit together crows get a job get a haircut and get a real job Don't be a slob pull yourself up by your bootstraps and hey, get some boots while you're at it. Yeah, come on, Cruz. Put on some fucking boots, dude. Come on, Cruz. Get some boots. And not like Ugg boots, practical boots that you can wear out of the house and not look

like a dick. Thank you. Thank you. Dress them up, dress them down. Crows, you know what crows are doing Jordan? Crows are like the fucking people I saw at not South by Southwest at the Sundance Film Festival. You know that's in Utah where it's all snowy like where Austin's at. And there's just these like publicist ladies walking around in Ugg boots and their Ugg boots are just soaked with frozen snow juice. That's what crows are like when they put on boots. They're just putting on Ugg boots and going in the snow because they're dickheads.

Come on crows, get some real boots. Head on down to the work boot warehouse. That's okay. Austin, it had to be, Jesse, it had to be said. It had to be said. Austin, thank you so much for joining us today and bringing us that truly, truly magical subreddit post. Thank you so much. Yeah, absolutely, you're welcome. Hey, for the people of Maximum Fun, do Maximum Drive, I'll do just about anything.

So you should go to maximumfund.org slash join because I want to read it you know and that was hard for me it was exactly yes Austin suffers for you the least you can do just go to maximumfund.org slash join this is so easy it's really easy you could do it right now you're on the internet currently Chuck right you have

an internet you have phone in pocket. Phone is internet. Phone is internet. Phone is internet. Austin, if people haven't heard Secret Histories of Nerd Mysteries, is there like an episode or two that you recommend to them to check out for like a first step? Okay, so what I think is very fun to do is to go listen to our very first episode on Chuck E. Cheese that we did long before

we were on Maximum Fun and we came up with in the middle of the episode what we should do this episode on. I think it's fun to do that. And then you should go listen to a well polished episode like our episode on Shadow of the Hedgehog. We have an episode recently on the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, the ride. We also have two episodes on Neopets, a few episodes on Neopets, we have two episodes on Neopets that are out. Yeah, you can't fit that into one episode, Neopets. Why not? No. Yeah. I'm very excited to hear your episode on Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog's friend

who shoots cops with a real looking gun. Yeah, I love Shadow the Hedgehog, because I'm the hedgehog's friend who shoots cops with a real looking gun. Has a gun. It's so crazy. Shadow fucking rules, OK? I can't listen. I could do we could do a whole half hour on. I almost brought something about Shadow and I was like, well, then I won't be funny. I'll just be very locked in. Yeah, no fucking joking about Shadow of the Hedgehog. No, I don't joke about Shadow of the Hedgehog. I'm really serious about the hedgehog.

All right. Well guys, I got to go record Judge John Hodgman. It's been great to talk to you, Austin. Everybody out there, if you're not already a member of Maximum Fun, MaximumFun.org slash join. If you're listening to this on the podcast, the link is in the episode description. So go to maximum fun.org slash join and you can get access not only to a treasure trove of members only bonus content, but also tons

of other stuff, including Jordan, we just took some pictures with those amazing bucket hats and that bonkers ass beach towel mm-hmm maximum fun org slash join thank you thank you thank you thank you everybody thank you Austin and yeah we'll see you here tomorrow same time same channel all that stuff bye bye Bye! Bye! I'll hug you and kiss you and love you. Love you. Love you. Love you.

Love you. Love you. Love you. Love you. Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artist-owned shows, supported directly by you.