Wonderful! - Wonderful! 244: No Time for Language Play

Episode Date: September 14, 2022

Griffin’s favorite mom-loving moody-guitary musician! Rachel’s favorite same-word words!Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya Earthjustice: https://earthjustice.org/ MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hello, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. This is wonderful. Can I ask you, so you just recorded another show that you do, Besties. Besties is another show I do that I did just record. What do you do to switch gears and get in the wonderful space? Oh, I'm so glad that you asked.

I was just curious. I like to take a little morning constitutional. Bathroom? take a little morning constitutional um just a bathroom no like i feel i really immerse myself in the city i guess oh and i get some good uh d from the sun i mean reconnect with nature you you did just finish like 15 minutes ago yeah i was very fast with my constitutional. Went out into the city, connected with nature, fresh air, meditation, prayer. Okay. And then I look at myself in the mirror and I scream. I scream and I scream.

Mostly about Pac-Man, Tetris, game stuff. Like get the game stuff out of my system. That's a big thing. Like if we ever do this show right after we record Taz, like I'll take my dice and I'll like try to eat one of them. Just to cleanse any last bit. Just to cleanse the palette to get all the bits out. Because I want to be fully honest with you.

I don't want there to be any artifice in this show. Is it going to be hard for you? So I just got out of the shower and I'm wearing a little towel, a little turby twist on my head. Yeah. Is that going to be hard for you? No, I think it's cute. Okay. I like it.

Okay, good. I mean, you're also wearing overalls. You got a lot. You got a bold look going on right now but it's the look of our generation i almost put on a yellow shirt again yeah it was very funny last time you did that and travis i think it was travis said you were cosplaying as a minion it was travis and what was funny we were on tour and he was exactly right i was wearing my little blue shorter alls and like a yellow t-shirt

uh and and travis told that to griffin in confidence and then griffin immediately ran and told me it was fucking funny it was so funny it was undeniably funny and and then travis was very embarrassed that you told me directly but he i mean he may have pretended to be embarrassed but i also know the satisfaction he feels with a well-executed observational joke. The whole room got a laugh out of it. It was fantastic. Do you have a small wonder? I do.

Actually, I wanted to shout out, speaking of Tor, when we were at Dragon Con, one of the questions I got was like, what new poet or poem are you into? And my first thought was like, I mean, every time that happens, I immediately do it on the show. Yeah, sure. But I will recommend there is a Twitter account, a woman named Nikita Gill, who constantly tweets poems and poets.

And I started following her and it's been a great resource for me to get new stuff. That's great. So I would recommend that. If you are like one poetry corner a month, that's not enough for me. Yeah.

You should follow that account. We've been watching Severance. Yes. The show that's got Adam Scott in it, directed by Ben Stiller, about a workplace where your memories are severed from the rest of your life and the sort of implications

of that concept it's it's uh it's kind of a tough watch it's a bleak show and i think griffin and i were hesitant to dip in because our evening time is so limited uh but then we did it's so damn fascinating and we're in it now the idea is so existentially kind of like i mean horrifying but also uh because the work selves basically are trapped and are unable to access their memories from from outside and so it's all about uh it really does explore the implications of that from both sides in a way that is like i don't know it's amazing it's really the every episode i feel like they add some wrinkle to it that kind of it makes it hard to stop watching the show yeah yeah for sure so difficult watch uh but it's uh

i don't know i think it's a cool it has of like a mystery, like thriller element to it as you try and kind of figure out the whole situation and the consequences of it, which really hooked us in. And the cast is out of sight. Yeah. Patricia Arquette, John Turturro, Christopher Walken. Yeah. Adam Scott puts on a real clinic. Yeah. It's fantastic.

I really like it. It's on Apple TV+, if that's something you use. I think I go first this week. Wonderful.fyi has stopped updating. I hope everything's okay with the folks who are operating that. It's a lot of work. I get it. So we're kind of just going on what feels right.

What feels right. I think it is me. It feels right to me. I'm going to bring music. Yes. The gift of music to the show, which I haven't done in a while, but I've been listening to this artist

just nonstop lately. Her name is Indigo D'Souza, and she is, get this, an indie rock singer, songwriter, female vocalist. So you played this in the car the other day this artist did i oh probably we were like driving to scramble yeah and um and it sounded so familiar because it had that kind of indie rock energy of a lot of the artists that we've recommended on this show i mean

i've talked about snail mail i think you may have actually talked about Snail Mail you may have been the one to bring that but yeah this is very much to my type of music that I bring to her

but like I heard it this song that you shared with me and I was like I really like this song but then I was kind of embarrassed

because I was like is this somebody I already know so I didn't say anything I don't think so so our friend so I was anyway

so I was glad when you when you shared this with me because i was like oh that's who we were listening to because i really liked it yeah so our group of friends in austin uh we have like a text thread going and occasionally we'll all like drop music recommendations and stuff in there so our uh our friend johnny actually is the one who really johnny's got some number one hits for us. He really does. Yeah. And I'll play the song that he sent here in a bit because it was the first song of hers that I heard. But she fucking rules.

She's been making her own music since she was nine, self-producing her own album since 2016. She has two albums out, the first of which was self-produced and then re-released when she got picked up by a label called Saddle Creek Records called I Love My Mom. Is the name of that album? Which is true. She does. I believe the art for all of her albums is made by her mom. And it's pretty wild. Last year, though, she released her first full album with Saddle Creek called Any Shape You Take

and it is it is spectacular it is such a good album front to back it's one of those that I will just I don't listen to full albums like that's not really how I've talked about this on the show before but this is one Any Shape You Take is one that I will always dive into so before I talk too much about like what music sounds like, I'll play it. And then you can hear it. And then I don't have to describe it as much. This is the first song of hers I heard. It's from Any Shape You Take.

It's a song called Way Out. I'm looking for a way out, a way out, away, out There are too many ghosts in here I see you in colors, in reds and pink That song lived pretty rent-free in my head all summer, most of this year, honestly, if I'm being honest. I love that kind of like moody, guitar-y, like, I don't know. It's very moody and guitar-y, yes.

I would grant both of those things. It has a grunge feel at times. I'm always excited because you're into a lot grunge feel at times. I'm always excited because you're into like a lot of electronic music. Yeah. And so I'm always excited when you bring an artist to me

that's like kind of more in what I feel is my wheelhouse, which is like kind of grungy. Yeah, I like, yeah, I mean that is, I would say I oscillate these days between those two categories for the most part.

It's just so, her music is just so interesting and so like um like enthralling she does the thing and this is like incredibly um i i don't know such a a surface level observation about music and i acknowledge that but the way that she kind of moves between like really ferocious vocals and lyrics to like really vulnerable and tender vocals and lyrics building to these like just grungy rocking, surprisingly catchy riffs. catchy riffs uh and and like the the subject matter of her songs are like really another overused term but confessional about like past relationships and friendships and death and stuff like that uh and and so that is very vulnerable too and then it gets like transgressive and kind of taboo sometimes like it she plays with extremes in a way that I know a lot of you can make that observation about a lot of musical artists. But like I can't think of anybody who does it better that I've been listening to lately than Indigo D'Souza. It's it's really, really affecting.

It's really heavy shit sometimes, but I really love it. but uh i i really love it um so i i think the fact that while you're listening to her kind of go between those extremes and she is talking about like deeply personal stuff kind of amplifies how uh how you can't kind of put it down it's like pringles okay no i'm sure she gets that all the time her music is a lot like Pringles. That's, I think, what Pitchfork said. I've seen a lot, just to sort of, like, encapsulate her vibe, I saw a lot of reviews refer to her music as nervy, which feels good, which feels apt to me.

Yeah. But, like, I don't know. I feel like it is easy to as i'm describing it like make her music sound like painful uh but really like they're extremely catchy and use like repetition of different like riffs and uh lyrics in a way that just, it cannot help but get deeply embedded in your skull, which like, I don't typically think of music like this as being catchy, but yet here we are, which I think speaks to like a deft songwriting hand.

I want to play my favorite song of hers as we depart this segment together called Darker Than Death, which like, I can't stop humming, favorite song of hers uh as we as we depart this segment together called darker than death which like i can't stop humming what you wouldn't expect from a song called darker than death but here it is you were darker than death when i spoke to you last, you were darker than dark. When I spoke to you last, was it something I said? Was it something I did?

Was it something I said? Dear darling, I'm sorry I never meant to So yeah, I've just been listening to this album Any Shape You Take non-stop for most of this year and I just can't recommend it enough. I'll warn that some of the lyrics and subject matter of the songs

get kind of troubling, particularly in what i believe is the final song on the album called kill me um so be be forewarned uh but that's also kind of part of the thing so uh yeah that's indigo de souza i'm glad that you brought a music a music artist it's been a while yeah me too um i i like i guess i'm kind of a music guy no i know that about you i guess i could i guess you could say that i'm sort of a music nut i know that you'm kind of a music guy. No, I know that about you. I guess you could say that I'm sort of a music nut. I know that you're kind of like trying to put on an affect right now, but I think that is actually true. Yeah, I know.

I'm a nut for music. Uh-huh. I love this stuff. Uh-huh. Can I steal you away? Yes. Got a bubble pop here, and I would love to read it, because it is for Lauren with an O,

and it's from, get this, Dorian, who says, Happy birthday. I hope you're enjoying your newly finished developing prefrontal cortex. I treasure your friendship dearly, and though you may have moved away by the time you hear this, I'm sure I'm still texting you nonstop about whatever book we're reading.

Love you. Let's watch Naruto soon. Had to take a couple runs at that. I'm always unsure where the emphasis in the word Naruto goes. Your commitment to correct pronunciation is admirable. Naruto, Naruto, Naruto is another take that you could have. That's probably it. So, Rachel, when you edit this, if you could just take, I'm just going to say Naruto in like a bunch of different ways and you just use whichever one you think sounds good. Naruto, Naruto, Naruto.

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every other Thursday on Maximum Fun. in the trailer. Subscribe to Let's Learn Everything every other Thursday on Maximum Fun. Are you ready to binge watch something old? The Greatest Generation is a podcast about Star Trek by a couple of hosts a little bit embarrassed

to even have a Star Trek podcast. Hosted by me, Ben Harrison. And me, Adam Pranica. We get into the critical, the technical, the science fictional aspects of the show we love while roasting it and each other at the same time. We've completed an entire series about Star Trek The Next Generation

and another one about Star Trek Deep Space Nine. And we've just begun Star Trek Voyager. So now is a great time to start watching a new Star Trek series with us. So subscribe to The Greatest Generation on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts and become a friend of DeSoto today. What are you working with over there? So my thing this week was another thing I kind of stumbled into backwards.

Did that hurt? No, it was softball. Oh, okay. I kind of knew what I wanted to talk about, but I didn't really know what it was called. And then I found what it is called. And what it is called is homograph. I don't think I know what that is. I don't think I know what that is that is

when a a word is spelled alike but different in meaning or derivation or pronunciation so like the bow of a ship or a bow and arrow like a word that has multiple meanings but it's the same damn word yeah exactly the same

like not like one of those homonyms like the word is the same the definitions are different. That's, yeah. I can't imagine being a non-native English speaker and just how fucking cruel this word is to speak. That's fair. So the word I wanted to talk about specifically was run. Run. Yeah, huh. Uh-huh. So are you familiar with the Oxford English Dictionary? I love it. Yeah. It has everything. I mean, that is true. It's got

it all, folks. It even has some of the dirty words. It has 600,000 words. And I became familiar with it in grad school. took some like shakespeare courses and you know a lot of times like with shakespeare he's like inventing words basically like the first written usage of a word is in shakespeare yeah he made up most of the words so we spent a lot of time with the oed as we called it you know just, just casually. God, that's cool. Yeah. Holy crap. I know. I know. But basically, it just shows like the history of words and different usages of the words. And they issue revisions every so often.

And you always hear about like this word's now on the Oxford English Dictionary. Yeah. I feel like there's a big sort of like social media grab that happens every year where it's like, what's up, guys? It's us, Oxford. Yeet is in it now. Yeah. So the next print run is expected in 2037.

Oh, God, I can't wait. Are you kidding me? But we got a little teaser with run, which is going to have 645 meanings. Shush. So it's going to be the word with the most meanings. How big is this book? I mean, it's a big one. Run is going to have 75 columns of type.

Apparently, it took a lexographer nine months of research to complete run just by itself. I think I could tell you five what five runs okay do you i mean do you want to go fast uh-huh computer program uh-huh a baseball score okay water can run water can run okay i think that might be that might be just about all i got actually that's just four and how many did you say there were because i did four uh there are 645 okay so four is not bad no i mean you're a percentage of the way there what's other run what are some other runs okay i guess you can run for office yes five okay i feel good about five. You can run a fever. Yeah. You can run a bath.

Yeah. You can run up a bill. God almighty, there really are a lot of ways to use the word run. You can get a run in your stockings. You can run over on your budget. Run DMC. Run DMC. I don't think that one's in there.

Ha ha. Take that, Oxford. How would you use that in a sentence hey look it's is that run dmc hey look i'm at the airport and i think that that's run dmc on my logan's run logan's run is another great one um there's also like uh when something runs out uh when you run over a nail in a parking lot. Why is there so many? When you run amok. That doesn't feel right to me.

No? No. Should we get rid of that one? Yeah, get rid of that one. So it used to be set back like, I guess that was a more popular like in the english like over on the european side uh the word set set yeah i could see that yeah you said something now there's a movie set is your watch set things come in a set of yeah exactly uh but but now run has surpassed it congratulations run i knew you had it in you i read a few articles about this and they kept citing this author, Simon Winchester, who I guess has written specifically about like usage and the Oxford English Dictionary.

And they asked him directly, like, why do you think run is being used so often? And he suggests that it's just kind of the, quote, feature of our more energetic and frantic times. Wow. Mm-hmm. That's deep. So other words with like a lot of meanings, go. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

That one feels. Like how does a song go? Where did you go? You know, that kind of thing. Take, stand, get, turn, put, fall, strike, all those. Verbs. I mean, verbs mostly, you know. Yeah, verbs will get you there.

If you think about it, that would, I mean, that would do it. Sure. Yeah, so I like, I mean, as somebody who likes poetry and likes language play, like this is a really kind of a fun. You love language play. Kind of a fun. A little too much if you ask me sometimes it's like babe i'm tired babe it's been such a long day the baby's been keeping us up i don't have time for language player i don't have the energy for it it's not unusual for me to do this thing with

griffin where we'll be like kind of working out a bit just for us yeah and I'll go quiet for like 20 minutes and then I'll just say yeah Griffin will be like have you been thinking about this the whole time and I will say yes yeah it's it's great okay it's good fun for all I'm glad that you like it as much as I do uh yeah so I don't know this is a short one but I this is a short episode it's starting to seem like it may be our shortest episode ever. Should we do more japes? I guess we can. What else has been going on in your life?

This is really the only time we have that's dedicated to talk to each other. That is true. We could take advantage of it, I suppose. How are you liking that big city life? That big city lifestyle? I do actually like it i i i still and i think this will be true for like the next year i still like have these moments where i'm like i'm in the city i'm a city person yeah i have had those less i would say since uh i feel like once henry started school and work kind of got yeah buck again. I haven't been just going on train rides to go get

boba tea. Once you get that bike, that's the thing. Like I ride my bike to work and like I rode it to the bank today and it feels very much just like. I feel like once I get a bike, everything else just kind of all the other city stuff falls into place. Like I will start really enjoying boa tea. I don't know why that's a city thing in my mind. Yeah, I don't either. It surprises me that you like that actually. I don't.

Oh, okay. I don't think, well, maybe I've just never had good Boba tea. I feel like texture is important to you and I feel like the texture of that is. I like squishy balls in there, yeah. Yeah. Do you remember Orbitz? Yes.

Wild stuff. For sure. For sure, for sure sure you watch anything else good tried to watch that new lord of the rings show last night oh yeah i couldn't get to couldn't crack into it couldn't break couldn't crack in i was like where's where's vigo you know what i mean so is this like the kind of thing like Marvel where they're like really plumbing the depths of what characters they haven't covered? Well, not insofar as Tolkien really plumbed those depths pretty hard himself. Yeah.

No, I'm wondering if there's like if they're pulling stuff that wasn't in the films and they're now like, oh, what about this guy that had 17 pages? We could talk a whole show about him. Yeah, I mean, that's sort of the whole gimmick. That's more or less what the Hobbit films were too, where it was like, y'all like Tom Bombadil? You know, Tom Bombadil, let's go. We're gonna have a whole hour-long Tom Bombadil sequence and you guys are gonna eat that shit up.

To my father's great dismay, I have never read The Hobbit. No, or seen any of the films. I've tried to watch a Lord of the Rings film. Yeah, I think after watching Lord of the Rings, I think over the last, at some point over the last year, I watched all of the Lord of the Rings movies and The Hobbit movies, which I had never seen anything but the first one, which I didn't care for. And they weren't great. And then I've watched a little bit of the show. And it's really just made me appreciate the Lord of the Rings movies more because I think that

those are great. And I cannot really hang with any of the others. I think I will watch those movies once Henry is old enough to watch them. Oh, that's interesting. That'll be a while. There's a lot of beheading, like way more than you would think. Well, it's just the amount of time, the commitment. Like, I'm not going to commit to something like that unless you know it's like a family activity yeah um i mean i think i think that this is just gonna be a short one folks listen i'm not gonna make excuses but and so i won't we're're running late. We're running a little bit late. We're running a little bit ragged. And so we're expediting the recording process

to get the show to you quicker. Yeah. Like a Jimmy John's. Only without all of the sort of deeply problematic big game hunting associated with that sandwich brand. That's fair.

This has been the show. Thank you to Bowen and Augustus for the use of our thong. It's comfortable, sexy. Yeah. Really squishes them together. Oh, is that? Okay.

Is that a feature? Not typically. Okay. Money Won't Pay is the name of the song, and you'll find a link to that in the episode description. And thank you to Maximum Fun for the name of the song. And you'll find a link to that in the episode description. And thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network. There's a lot of great shows on there.

We have some tour dates coming up. And boy, howdy, if you live in San Jose or Denver, it'd be great if you bought tickets to come see our show. We announced them pretty late and ticket sales have not been blowing up. So don't be shy, you know, because there could be a run and maybe you'll miss out

if you don't do that. But just go to bit.ly slash McElroy Tours or go to McElroy.family and come see us. It's going to be a fun old time. And then we're also doing Cincinnati, Detroit and Washington, D.C., which I believe we're going to do wonderful

to open up in Washington, D.C. Yeah, we're going to have to develop some expertise real quick. I mean, I'm already right there, man. Oh, yeah? Yeah, I know where all the good stuff is. Okay. The boba tea.

The boba tea. The hot dog. Where the good target is. Uh-huh. I mean, the real good target. The one where that dog and that old lady with the big glasses, they're there. Whoa. Isaac Mizrahi, working the registers.

That's your go-to. I don't think he has a line at Target anymore. Oh. Well, I don't. That's all I knew about that man. Well, you still have the dog. The dog, I think, is still relevant. The dog and the old lady who were in commercials 20 fucking years ago we love them we love them Working on it. Money more. Working on it.

Money more. Working on it. Money more. Working on it. Money more. Money more. MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned.

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