Wonderful! - Wonderful! 142: Hot Bones

Episode Date: July 22, 2020

Rachel's favorite local cryptid! Griffin's favorite sword fighting! Rachel's favorite body meat! Griffin's favorite double album!For more ways to support Black Lives Matter and find anti-racism resour...ces: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/To become a supporter of the Maximum Fun network: https://maximumfun.org/join/ MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hello, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. No Joe. Out of Joe. Oh, finished your coffee. Finished of Joe. Finished your coffee. Finished my Joe. My cup of muds.
Starting point is 00:00:27 You and I work from home. We have been for, holy shit, four months now together. Yes. And I feel like there's not a lot of sort of workplace shenanigans that happen between us. You know what I mean? Like most of our water cooler moments are like based around uh acquiring new sort of slimy toys for our son like things that aren't necessarily like fun officey things like you've never talked to me about printer paper or how much you don't like i haven't well we are lucky to have a pretty
Starting point is 00:00:57 good printer our printer kicks ass as you as those devoted to the episode know, we have invested in a quality brother printer. My fourth, my third brother. Yeah, but I feel like you and me could complain about the boss a little bit more. So let's give that, can we try that? Okay. Boss has really been riding my butt cheeks this week, honey. And I don't know how it's been for you,
Starting point is 00:01:18 but the boss has really been on my butt cheeks and crack. So I got number one boss mug for boss and i am on good side now oh man yeah you're such a uh teacher's pet but for the boss or the i guess the boss's pet speaking of the boss yeah it's max fun drive okay gotta gotta pay respect to our boss the max your boss max fun drive the max fun drive yeah uh we have had a really remarkable turnout so far and we cannot thank you all enough uh we are part of the maximum fun network which is a pledge supported network of shows that try to make good entertainment that uh make makes you happy and good to feel when you hear it and that's what it says on that's our mission statement on the site if you are interested in supporting
Starting point is 00:02:11 us we know it is a a strange time to be asking for uh for for money like this uh but if you are in a place where you can do that and you want to you know help us grow the show and support the network you can go to maximumumFun.org slash join and check out all the cool pledge levels and the gifts and stuff that you can get. We'll talk a little bit more about that later in the episode though. Hey Griffin, do you have any small wonders?
Starting point is 00:02:36 See, I jumped in. I jumped in so you have to go first. And you know what's fucked up? You know what's messed up? I don't really. I didn't have one ready. Because if I'm telling the truth, I use the time
Starting point is 00:02:45 you use to like stall and think of things i also am stalling to think of wow we are really opening new channels of communication in our relationship um i used a soldering iron for the first time yesterday and it's a thing i've been kind of scared of one because it's a remarkably hot piece of metal and so like there's a fear there, but I was building a Game Boy Advance SP and I was so afraid I was gonna just like destroy it, but it was not that hard. And it felt very satisfying to do like electrical work. Like it felt very satisfying
Starting point is 00:03:17 to connect two electrical components. It was thrilling. And now I just wanna solder everything. I wanna solder my phone to the tv and see what happens probably nothing or i mean something will happen i'll destroy both but soldering it's like knitting but with metal do you have a small wonder i do i'm gonna say the friendly dog that we saw over the weekend my lord yes, yes. We were out with Henry, and Henry loves dogs, but he's a little afraid of him. Or dogs, I guess, not just him.
Starting point is 00:03:49 No, yeah, all dogs. And this dog came over to us and just stood there patiently waiting for me to pet it and stood there long enough that Henry got a real good look. And I was just grateful for that friendly old dog. Yeah, I mean, since we have been quarantining, we've only just kind of started going out to park early in the morning when there's hardly anybody there so like henry's
Starting point is 00:04:10 exposure to other people and especially like pets is nothing like there is no exposure and so like this was like this was a nice little moment and like a little flashback to when we would go to this park every weekend and uh and henry would just give live commentary on every dog that he saw yeah it was nice uh you go first this week what's your what's your first thing my first thing is round rocks hairy man round rocks hairy man yes hairy h-a-I-R-Y? Yes. And this is a Hursute gentleman who lives in the township of Round Rock some miles north of us. Yes.
Starting point is 00:04:52 Okay. And he is special to you in some way. Yes. So I didn't really think we had a lot of cryptids in our area okay i thought it was it was either going to be a cryptid or a mascot of some sort like towel man it's both turns out whoa okay tell me everything so uh the round rock express is a uh team that we would occasionally go see uh it's a minor league baseball team round rock is right up north from austin like what 20 minutes north of us austin doesn't have any sports teams uh and so
Starting point is 00:05:32 we would go to baseball games occasionally yeah back in the day and so i liked them on facebook so i could stay on top of all of their activities. Yes. Currently, the Round Rock Express has granted a temporary expansion team in the Texas Collegiate League to use their stadium. Are they still playing baseball? How is that like? How does that work? So this is a team of collegiate players that compete from June to August. It's like a summer league.
Starting point is 00:06:07 Right. And it's, you know, it's not an official minor league team. It's more like college players who are in, you know, their school's off season. Yeah, I'm mostly thinking about the logistics of playing baseball in a pandemic. I guess, I mean, anything's a risk, right? But like, I guess it is one of the least contact sports. I mean, yeah, and all the sports are coming back, know yeah hockey's next month yeah that's true this is something that everybody's trying to figure out uh and so what has taken the place of the round rock express
Starting point is 00:06:35 is the round rock hairy men hairy men yes okay and i saw this on my facebook feed and i thought that is an unusual name for a team i didn't know that you could have an adjective in, do you know what I mean? It's not like the Chicago Cool Bulls. Your 1996 Chicago Cool Bulls. Yeah, and I think that just kind of adds, it couldn't just be Round Rocks men. No. You know, you can't get excited about that team oh man what would that what would that like mascot kind of like look like
Starting point is 00:07:12 just like just like a stick figure and it's that's it like that's literally i was just picturing like a guy in like jeans and a t-shirt coming out and just being like hey hey everyone shirt coming out and just being like hey hey everyone i'm uh thanks for coming i'm matt but you can just call me man and uh i'm gonna eat a hot dog if you guys want to watch me eat a hot dog if that gets you in the mood to watch some baseball let's go men that feels weird to cheer that out loud a little exclusionary it's about time someone's been cheering for me uh so i of course had to do a little research because i figured there's a story here and there is uh but it is maybe the weakest story i have heard for a uh a cryptid character okay there are various versions of the legend but the story that is consistent is that a young boy in pioneer days fell off a wagon uh and then lived on his own in the woods and then grew into a man
Starting point is 00:08:16 that became kind of reclusive and hairy and wandered through the woods okay so it's kind of like round rock's bigfoot but they were like, hey, Bigfoot is crazy, right? No one's gonna believe Bigfoot. This is like just a guy. This is an abandoned boy who grew a lot of hair all over. Did he have powers? I mean, what's the,
Starting point is 00:08:35 is there lore around the sightings? No, the idea is that he would just chase away strangers or hide in trees to scare people. It's a lost child. They should call themselves the Round Rock Lost Children. So this is what is kind of interesting, too,
Starting point is 00:08:52 is that they have a story where the hairy man... I can't with that name, though. Especially if he got groomed and then it was like like the round rock clean shaven man so the story is that the hairy man fell in front of a stagecoach and was trampled and now haunts the road they it's almost like they knew the first part was bullshit and not a good story. And so then they had to add ghosts to it. Right, like people stopped seeing this guy, but they wanted to keep the legend alive. So they're like, oh, well, you know what?
Starting point is 00:09:32 He died. But he haunts this area. Anyone who sees a ghost and says, wow, look at the beard on that ghost has had so many ghost encounters that like the spectral vision in front of them doesn't bother them. It is the way that they wear their hair
Starting point is 00:09:49 and their facial hair. It's astounding to me. So Round Rock has paid tribute to this hairy man in several ways. I mentioned the baseball team. There's also a hairy man road and a hairy man festival. Hairy man festival. Hairy Man Festival.
Starting point is 00:10:05 Boy, howdy. I hope they don't hold that during the summertime. No, it is in October. They tie it in with Halloween. Right. It's got your traditional crafts, food, music, kids activities. It also has a Hairy Man Contest. Of course.
Starting point is 00:10:19 And I found an old article just to figure out what this contest was all about. I found the winner of the 2014 Hairman contest who took home $500. Hey, okay. Can you describe what they look like? I imagine a big shaggy. Oh, I don't have the picture in front of me. Oh, okay. I mean, one can picture Harry.
Starting point is 00:10:36 Yeah, no, I know. I would say. Yeah, sure. There is also a 5K run every year. Interesting. I enjoyed this a lot. I kept searching for more richer lore, maybe some grainy photos.
Starting point is 00:10:52 That does not exist that I can find. This seems to just, this just seems to be a furry guy that was in the woods. I feel like most cryptids don't have like really, I don't think the booger cat ever had like his day in the sun. I love that.
Starting point is 00:11:09 The hairy man. The hairy man. It's so accessible, right? Yeah. It sounds like a Mbimbam character. It sounds like a skit the hairy man does. You should check out though this baseball team. They do have a mascot and it is adorable and it is adorable it's just a man
Starting point is 00:11:26 with a very large mustache and beard i love it uh and it's it's cute like a stuffed man like it's just a cartoon right on the on the logo i haven't seen the actual um suit gentleman okay i hope it's like a suit like a mr baseball head and not just like some, again, just a dude going out there and he has some facial hair. Yeah. That's not inspiring to me. You know what? It is inspiring to me.
Starting point is 00:11:52 My first thing, which is fencing. Fencing is my first thing. I'm mostly bringing this because like I've been thinking a lot about how, if not for the global pandemic, I think the Olympics would be happening be happening right now yeah it bums me out so i mean obviously it is not the biggest casualty of this uh terrible thing that has happened to the planet but uh it bums me out because man i love the summer olympics i i have always been surprised at how much you know about fencing i feel like you know more than the average individual so i had a fencing. I flirted with fencing in college.
Starting point is 00:12:28 I was looking for. In college, yeah. I mean, the order of operations went thusly. Me and Travis and our friend Justin, not our brother Justin, bought some fencing foils at like a garage sale, which is maybe by far the best like garage sale pickup I've ever had in my entire life. And we would just sort of fuck around with them in the front yard.
Starting point is 00:12:53 And that was a lot of fun. Didn't have masks or any kind of protective equipment. So we weren't doing especially well at following the rules of fencing, which there are a lot of. And then I was working for the radio station, the college radio station for the news program and had to put together a package. And so there was a fencing team at Marshall that I did a radio package on where I interviewed them. And I sat in on a couple lessons and never got the gumption up to like, say,
Starting point is 00:13:22 hand me, hand me that blade. never got the gumption up to like say hammy hammy that blade um i also learned that the fencing team and the uh society of creative anachronism which is the larping uh group in a lot of overlap that vin diagram is just one big circle uh and i yeah i learned quite a bit about about fencing but never really took part in it i bet it is a workout like watching these these people like fence in the gymnasium at marshall university uh seemed like they were getting getting their exercise muscle confusion right like oh am i going this way am i going this way you have to respond so quickly um so it's it's been a part of the the uh summer olympics as we know it since like the Summer Olympics became a codified thing, along with four other activities, which is athletics, cycling, swimming, and gymnastics.
Starting point is 00:14:12 And it is actually, when you say fencing, you're talking about a collection of three different combat sports based on the weapon that you use. So a fencing foil is the standard weapon, and it is, I think, probably the most common type of fencing foil is the standard like weapon and it is i think probably the most common type of fencing that you see a foil is very light it's like under a pound for the whole uh blade and uh it's just a very light lightweight very flexible rectangular blade with a point on it and you have to uh push that point that tip into your opponent specifically where they have this wire mesh jacket that they wear mostly for protection but also because it like forms an electrical circuit which like helps you keep score uh i didn't know this you have to have the tip pushed into them for at
Starting point is 00:14:58 least 15 milliseconds that's like a rule i don't know what the i guess in case you do like a like just barely glancing blow off the side, but basically you have to hit them in this jacket, which covers your torso and your groin. So that's just funny. Oh, so like the groin shots. Groin shots count, baby. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:15:17 Groin shots count. Do you know any other, the other two, either of them? I've heard you say epee? Epee is the other one one epe is the heaviest of the blades it's a triangular blade not nearly as flexible uh and mainly just like the rules are different for epe fighting you have um uh you can score anywhere anywhere you you can get your opponent it counts as a point uh and but you do have to still thrust into them uh and then the final one is a saber a saber is i mean it's essentially it looks like the same exact type
Starting point is 00:15:53 of blade but you can score with a you know a swipe you can score with the uh front side or back side of the of the blade as well as the tip uh And with sabers, what's exciting about saber is there's, again, a specific area that you're allowed to target. I think it's the same like jacket around the groin area. But if you hit an illegal area, the play doesn't stop. So you just keep going. So saber is like wet and wild.
Starting point is 00:16:20 You think there's fencers out there that specialize in the groin? Yeah, probably. I mean, there's fencers out there that specialize in the groin uh yeah probably i mean there's fencers out there who specialize every fencer who like takes it like goes goes hard and it really specializes in one weapon so i would say probably foil foil fencers are like all about that groin it's like their signature move you know like mortal combat that's like the thing they do yes like that's how you know that you fought je Jeff is he got you in the groin. Yes. Fencing is like way more complicated than it looks.
Starting point is 00:16:50 And it already looks kind of complicated. There are rules about like right of way and posture and footwork that you have to follow. And so the differences between those three sports are mostly in like how you how those rules differ for Epe. There is no such thing as right of way. And so fights can be a lot more dynamic. There's like counterattacking is like a huge thing in Epe because of the changes in the rules. And fencing terminology is so shit hot. It's so amazing. It has its roots in the two main disciplines of fencing
Starting point is 00:17:32 were Italian and French. And so a lot of the terminology is Italian and French, but you get words like riposte, faint, a balestra, which is a type of footwork movement. It's basically like a lunge, more or less, forward forward uh a cora core do you have you ever seen that i've heard i've seen that word before corps but it's got like the accents on it cora core is basically means body to body which is illegal like you're not allowed to you know bum rush the uh your opponent like chest bump like full shoulder charge yeah uh redoublement Like there's so many fucking great words in fencing.
Starting point is 00:18:07 And obviously like fencing originated actually from sword fighting. It was sort of a military training thing. The person who is often credited for changing that is a guy named Domenico Angelo who opened this fencing academy in London called Angelo's School of Arms. And that's fucking rules. It's such a good name. And Angelo's family ran this school
Starting point is 00:18:31 for three generations. And Angelo wrote a lot about fencing in a way that changed it dramatically in the way people thought about it and really codified it into this specific thing. The biggest thing that he did is sort of reframed it it from being a military thing like a fighting thing to a thing for health and for sport uh and like sort of the rules about posture and footwork but like he he codified those in his writing uh so he like really transformed it in this in this huge huge way uh and some of the things have obviously changed over time but like there's a lot of core dna to fencing that still is sourced back to this guy's writing which i think is really really cool um but yeah i uh i i think i would still enjoy fencing maybe it looks it looks so hard it looks so extremely hard yeah if you want to learn a lot about fencing if you
Starting point is 00:19:23 watch the special features on princess bride oh you can learn a lot because mandy patinkin like intentionally learned a lot about fencing so that he could do those sword scenes himself yeah uh and you get a lot of detail on those special features on like all the technique that was involved that's so interesting i do want to watch that very badly is you have to wear a mask would it be i don't know if the mask prevents pathogens from entering your system are you saying this is like the go-to i'm saying it could be right i don't know uh anyway hey before i steal you away can we tell our friends at home a little bit more about the max fun yes uh yeah you want me to talk about levels yeah tell me about them levels that you can give at at maximumfund.org join okay so for just five dollars a month that gets you all the bonus content and when we say all the bonus content we mean all from the history of time of max fun drives
Starting point is 00:20:16 bonus content there's so so so much just from us this year we uh recorded rachel's first steps into animal crossing on the 3DS because we recorded it before the Switch version came out. We have our Will Smith episode. Our best work of Will Smith. We have, back from the Rosebuddies days, we did an interview with Jasmine Lorimer from The Bachelorette. Yeah, The Canadian Bachelorette.
Starting point is 00:20:39 Yeah, we have, and that's just our show. There's a ton of stuff on there. I personally, if I were to recommend one piece of bonus content, I would recommend Yeah, we have, and that's just our show. There's a ton of stuff on there. I personally, if I were to recommend one piece of bonus content, I would recommend the My Brother, My Brother and Me prank show. Oh, yeah. Gosh. Among my favorites. Wow.
Starting point is 00:20:54 Yeah, that was good. It really drove a lot of wedges between a lot of friendships that we have, both professionally and personally. So as long as you're a member at the $5 a month level, you get access to that and all the show's bonus content. And then at $10,
Starting point is 00:21:12 you get some cool stuff. You want to talk about that? Yeah, you can get a pin that is specific to each show designed by Megan. And you pick. And you pick. It's designed by Megan LeCotte
Starting point is 00:21:20 who has done pins for us in the past and they're so cool. They look really nice. You also get all the bonus content and a MaxFun membership card. And at $20 a month or more, there's a game pack that you can get that has special MaxFun playing cards and dice and everything you need to have a fun game night in. There's other levels too, most most folks give at that five to ten dollar range and like there is no uh way of really telling you all how much the support you have shown us over uh i mean in my case the past 10 years of doing the max fund drive yeah this is to us this is the mackler household
Starting point is 00:21:58 primary source of income true you know y'all know that i am a community college grant writer but as you can imagine that is not what is keeping our house afloat uh so we are very grateful for your support uh this drive and any any other drive that you may have participated in so those are the pledge levels you can see them all at maximumfund.org join if you're already a supporting member thank you so much uh we've in the past we've heard from people who like uh maybe they give it ten dollars a month but they don't really want to jump up to twenty dollars a month and double it uh now you can boost your membership and you know if you've been listening to our shows a little bit more you can kick up how much you're uh you're you're giving on a monthly basis without having to leap all the
Starting point is 00:22:39 way up to that next pledge level uh you can also gift a donation to a friend or family member who, you know, maybe doesn't have the means to support the network, but really wants to. There's so many options to do what's right for you. And if what's right for you is not giving because you aren't able to right now, that's also fantastic. We totally, totally get it. but if you can't go to maximumfund.org join to join up yep to join up to join up to the to the wonderful hashtag wonderful army that doesn't feel good no wonderful navy what are what will we i imagine we would be more of a c-based wonderful utopia yeah that's better hey can i steal you away yes hey i have a grandpa tron here can i read it oh i like that are you gonna do it in a grandpa voice
Starting point is 00:23:37 no but this message is for jerry and it's from cassie who says jerry you've accomplished so much i don't even know where to begin you got a master's a new apartment and a new job all while quarantined you do so much to make me happy every day and there's no one else i would rather adventure with i hope future you is happy to hear a message from your favorite podcasters i love you so very much that is that is somebody on their grind and this who knows i imagine this message was written a while ago who the fuck knows what else jerry has accomplished oh jerry i bet jerry's bacon bread you think jerry's bacon bread i think jerry went to fucking mars and found the cure up there that's that's what jerry's up to that's beautiful can Can I read the next one? Uh-huh. This one is for Brunch Squad.
Starting point is 00:24:26 It is from Dwight. My dearest Brunch Squad, I am so glad that we all randomly decided to get brunch together last year after seeing the McElroys live and then decided to be best friends after that. You all make my life so much better and I love all of you so, so much. Stay powerful. Stay unstoppable. So good. You heard of this Brunch Squad? I have heard of this so, so much. Stay powerful. Stay unstoppable. So good. You heard of this brunch squad?
Starting point is 00:24:46 I have heard of this brunch squad. Yeah, they are a very active community of wonderful folks who I see a lot in our Facebook group. Just talking about things they do together to support each other. It's beautiful. But only brunch. That's their rule. They only can do brunch together.
Starting point is 00:25:02 And they can only talk about brunch things. Every member of brunch squad at this point is like 50 mimosa will you please tell me your second thing come on okay this is gonna surprise you uh-oh i'm gonna have to do some couching oh good my second thing is muscles all All right. Okay. Hey, babe. I get it. Do we have to do this here? I'm not talking about like a bodybuilder.
Starting point is 00:25:32 Okay. I'm just talking about how great muscles are and all the things that they do for you in your day. The meat on our bones that moves us around, that moves around, I guess, our skeletons. That's the stuff you're talking about. You're crazy about. Yeah. Although there are a lot of different kinds of muscles that i learned about while doing this research can i see how many i can remember okay there's like stir stir there's one that starts
Starting point is 00:25:54 with stir striated striated muscle striated muscle there's i think your heart muscle is like its own special type of muscle right cardiac cardiac muscles and then uh smooth muscle yes wow babe where are you pulling that from uh high school anatomy class oh my gosh is that it those are the only three yeah cheers to huntington high school yeah did a great job coach willie wilson he taught anatomy as well as coach the volleyball team uh smooth muscles, they do the stomach, the intestines. Anything that is hollow that moves stuff around in your body has a smooth muscle associated with it. And then skeletal muscles are the ones that move your parts up and down, round and round. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:26:43 Skeletal muscles cover bones bones they give bodies their shape uh for every skeletal muscle on one side there is an identical one on the other side there are 320 pairs of identical bilateral muscles whoa yeah so when the bicep when my huge biceps get bigger it's like move over other muscles i'm in charge now uh they actually so this kind of brings in tendons too um we gotta talk about tendons muscles are attached through tendons and when muscles contract and generate force the tendon pulls uh and that helps stimulate your bone growth so for people that might be at risk for osteoporosis, they recommend muscle work
Starting point is 00:27:28 to kind of keep that bone strong. Nearly 85% of the heat produced by your body is due to muscle contraction. That makes a lot of sense. I don't know what else. My bones certainly aren't making heat, I don't think. Yeah, where's that heat coming from? Turns out it's your muscles.
Starting point is 00:27:44 Okay, where's the other 15% coming from? Is it my bones? Nobody knows. Do I have hot bones? I mean, I would say so. Oh, hey now. Hey now. I have been doing, since quarantine started,
Starting point is 00:27:59 I have been doing a little bit of strength training. Okay. And I find it really rewarding. Here's something that made me feel extra good about it. There was a study published in October 2017 that said just 30 minutes twice a week was shown to improve performance in bone density and structure. Of strength training? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:28:21 What does that mean? Does that mean just like lifting weights or doing like... Yeah. Okay. They said high intensity resistance and impact training. Strength training? What does that mean? Does that mean just like lifting weights or doing like? Yeah. Okay. They said high intensity resistance and impact training. Is that what anaerobic exercise is? I still don't know. I think you're right.
Starting point is 00:28:31 Yeah, because aerobic is like cardio. Right. Yeah. Damn. You are a doctor. Turns out. Nobody knew. At around age 30, we start losing as much much as three to five percent of lean muscle mass per
Starting point is 00:28:46 year yeah some of us probably even more um there's a lot of other benefits uh to you know muscles uh through the oxygenation of blood and and exercise it improves your circulation yeah just generally um also with posture if you have good core muscles that can improve your posture don't i don't um and also one thing i should say too is that uh in order to really build muscle tissue you have to take some breaks in there oh sure it's that time in between strength training that your muscles are really like building up it's not necessarily happening while you're you're pumping iron it's that time in between where they have a chance to kind of rebuild and reform yeah that makes sense they have to like overcompensate like during the the the chill down period um i i don't know i
Starting point is 00:29:43 don't know it's a weird thing for me to say as a person that is not a you know a fitness guru but you have this very helpful meat inside you like all over yeah and i just you know as as i get older you know i feel like it's important to to really put some good good scaffolding in there help help keep me afloat i love you so much thank you honey and i'm gonna go um drink a protein shake okay and uh beat up some nerds so the usual the usual stuff yeah uh can i tell you about my second thing yes really excited my second thing is uh an album from 2003 which is fucking wild uh technically it's two albums it's a double album called speaker box the love below by outcast changed my life a little bit i would say yeah i said that i was like blown away that it came out
Starting point is 00:30:37 in 2003 i think mostly because like looking back 17 years is like very long time ago but also like there was a solid year of high school where like this is this is all i listened to uh they have a combined runtime of i think like over two hours uh it is a very very ambitious project from uh outcast uh who is of course big boy and andre 3000 each of which sort of uh put together a solo album for this duo set. Big Boy did Speakerbox. Perhaps suggesting that they were not a pair long-lasting in this world. Well, I mean, they did release Idlewild after this,
Starting point is 00:31:14 both the album and the film. And then, yes, they went on more or less permanent hiatus. I love the idea, though, of bands putting out these box sets where each band member is like, I'm going to do my own thing. Yeah, so there was a lot of kind of press around this album because uh it was the fifth studio album from outcast fifth of uh only six uh and they were recording in separate studios andre 3000 had like uh sort of gone on break to pursue other things, both like musical, he was making his own music at his house with like lo-fi equipment and experimenting with different sounds and different genres. But he was also like trying to take a run at like an acting career, which didn't really go
Starting point is 00:31:58 anywhere. And so he focused back on the music. And the whole time he was doing that, Big Boy was working on Speakerbox, essentially. Between them them they had recorded like a what like over a hundred songs that were going to go on these albums uh which you know not all of them made the cut uh but yeah andre 3000 did the love below which i think reflects like a lot of the strangeness the kind of like spaciness the experimental stuff that he was working on at the time while speaker box is just a more sort of straightforward and not in a bad way uh just fucking great oh yeah i mean and i've mentioned this before i started college in 2004 and literally every college party i went to was playing speaker box yeah it's funny because i feel like at the time
Starting point is 00:32:43 there was a lot of i it's not like i was plugged into like the outcast fan forums but there was like a lot of chatter about these albums before they came out partially because uh andre 3000 was like making a name for himself he was becoming more of a household name i think more than big boy and so there was a lot of conversation about this album and are they breaking up and what's the drama between them uh and i feel like a lot of people slept on speaker box which was in my opinion and also sort of critical consensus like the standout part of the set uh he big boy did an interview where he talked about the direction for the album which i think is so uh beautiful and clean and strong he said the idea was just
Starting point is 00:33:24 to keep it funky, keep it jamming. It's always bass heavy and lyricism. It's all about lyrics, taking pride in your pen and your pad. Yep. I love that. There's just so many.
Starting point is 00:33:34 I remember back in high school when it came out, it was like the new Beatles or Elvis, like which album do you like the best? And I was always a speaker box man because the number of just absolute slaps on this album is unimaginable uh you get the way you move uh which is so good uh probably the standout uh single from from speaker box but there was also church which is really good this song i'm gonna play is the one i like fell in love with the first time i heard it and i still think
Starting point is 00:34:02 absolutely rips ass uh i want to play the rooster. It's a song about just like family turmoil and it goes so fucking hard. I thought the covers back and people through the draperies. My daughter, my baby, my baby mama all escaping me. It's a song about just like family turmoil and it goes so fucking hard. And the brass loop behind the entire thing is so, so good. I'm glad you picked this one. I'd forgotten about that song. I can't forget. Like this was the, this was the one I was sitting in my friend's car.
Starting point is 00:34:43 We were driving to school and this song came on. And I remember sitting in the parking lot because I wanted to listen to it again yeah uh it was so so so fresh and so like clever and playful and pun filled but also like big boy just like fucking tears it up like it is uh it is a perfect song uh and the love below is like a lot more i mean there are a couple like standout tracks obviously Hey Ya came from the Love Below which is the most listened to song of all time so I'm not going to play it here on the show. A lot of slow jams on that album. There's a lot of slow jams but there's a lot of sort of experimental
Starting point is 00:35:14 singing and guitar focused funk and like Prince inspired like riffs and just all kinds. There's, there's a lot of stuff. There's also a whole narrative component to the love below.
Starting point is 00:35:29 It is ambitious in a way that doesn't always succeed. But when it does succeed, it's so good. I think, Hey, I was a fucking fantastic song. And I think it got, you know,
Starting point is 00:35:40 played out, not a bit, a lot. But I still, these days when I hear Hey Ya, I sort of look back on it fondly. Uh, but there's another song on the album that I, I really like. It's not like the rest of the album. It is, it feels more like a classic outcast song. Uh, but it's got like really good Andre 3000 on it. Uh, and of course,
Starting point is 00:36:00 like everything else on this album, it is profoundly horny. I want to play a little bit of Spread. Griffin. I had no idea. more so than your soul and it's me gotta be how i roll fuck the rhythm tuck the rhythm under your wisdom you're the prism charlatanism what's the first let's rehearse picking a baby putting your order i want a baby daughter dance on the tip of my tongue shake the clouds and chew there's no more wetness in them tell your homegirls that you will send them a postcard from 3000 hard so yeah that's the that's the the sort of difference between these two and they to their credit andre 3000 and big boy always played down the like drama of this album and its creation and their sort of slow inevitable like breakup they were just like
Starting point is 00:36:51 yeah we like working solo like it's an environment that we both really like working in but we like enjoy each other and collaborate and listen to each other's stuff and work on it so like this double album is i think weird to call it an outcast album because it's an andre 3000 album and also a big boy album but it's uh i don't know man you said it defined your your your experience the year yeah for sure i mean i like a lot of people probably first became exposed to outcast through this album and then went through the back catalog and was like, oh, how have I not heard of this incredible group until now? Yeah, I definitely got in on Stankonia,
Starting point is 00:37:31 which was the album before this one, which is so fucking good. It came out in 2000. And so like I was looking forward to this album. It's like, I didn't look forward to a lot of albums. I didn't like know about music in that way the way i did about like video games and movies uh but this album was one where i was like on on tinderhooks waiting to to get my hands on it it's so good hey can i tell you what our friends at
Starting point is 00:37:55 home are talking about yes patty says forged in fire is wonderful it's a knife making competition show i have no interest in blacksmithing but i get very invested in these knife makers i pick my champion at the start based on facial hair or accents or overalls and root them on throughout the episode this sounds like maybe a new heat for us it sounds like a very hot heat for us and uh patty did not include the platform but i bet i can google that up and find it uh thanks for the the hot tip uh park I can Google that up and find it. Thanks for the hot tip. Parker says something that always brightens my day is passing people in their cars that are singing loudly to themselves.
Starting point is 00:38:32 There's something so pure and unfiltered about it, and it always makes me smile and wonder what song they are jamming out to. I do love that. I do. That is one thing I miss about just like not driving a lot these days is just pumping that music and singing along yeah i uh i this was never like a huge thing for me but then when i started driving henry to daycare and picking him up from daycare every single day uh and he got into rock music
Starting point is 00:38:56 he like really really liked hearing me like wail along with ledger acdc and everything uh hey thank you to bowen and Augustus for these for our theme song, Money Won't Pay. You can find a link to that in the episode description. And of course, thank you to Maximum Fun. One last time, maximumfun.org slash join. Go look at the levels. Oh.
Starting point is 00:39:16 I should mention on Friday, they are doing a dinner party event. Oh, yeah. That will feature a lot of MaxFun hosts just kind of talking about various cocktails and foods. And there will be a video from me making my famous chili. Her famous ground beef turkey, beef ground turkey chili. So if you want to check that out,
Starting point is 00:39:43 I believe the proceeds from the event are benefiting Meals on Wheels. And you can find that on the MaximumFun.org website. Yep. And also on that website is MaximumFun.org. And please look at what you can get for the different pledge levels and think about helping us out. I think that's it. So let's go. Right now. Let's I think that's it. So let's go right now.
Starting point is 00:40:06 Let's go. Let's go. I forgot how many claps. Oh, no. How many is it? Oh, no. Oh, no. Thank you. MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture.
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