Wonderful! - Wonderful! 308: This Song's a Real Clapper
Episode Date: January 10, 2024Rachel's favorite old-timey instrument! Griffin's favorite leftover-assuring food! Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya Worl...d Central Kitchen: https://wck.org/ MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.
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Hi, this is Rachel McElroy.
Hi, this is Griffin McElroy.
And this is wonderful.
This is wonderful.
A show where we talk about things we like that's good that we're into.
A lot of people say, who the hell are you to tell me what is good?
A lot of times it's just people on the street just walk right up to us.
Yeah, they just say, who the hell are you?
They don't even say the other stuff.
And I say, hi, I'm Rachel.
And I say, hi, I'm Griffin.
And then they give us $200.
No.
I don't know why.
That doesn't happen for me. Oh, man, I'm always getting $200. Here in D.C. Specifically $200. No. I don't know why. That doesn't happen for me.
Oh, man.
I'm always getting $200.
Here in D.C.
Specifically $200.
Specifically here in D.C., you tell someone your name, they give you $200 and a nice firm handshake.
Usually it's a politics guy who does it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because they want you to feel like you're part of the process, part of the machine.
And that's so huge for me.
I'm so happy to be here in the studio with my lovely wife, Rachel,
to tell you about all these wonderful experiences that we've been having.
I got so scared that you were going to spring something on me.
I'm so happy to be here today because I need to tell you that I've found a new co-host.
And his name is Reggie.
He is super funny.
We are not married, me or Reggie,
but he's got a lot of big ideas.
And a skateboard.
And I can't compete with that.
No.
I mean, you're pretty good at skateboard.
I will say you're more of a street skater.
Reggie's more vert. um do you have any small
wonder like reggie doesn't ever come up with small wonders so maybe you know you can hedge the hedge
the market there um i'm gonna say the feeling after you get your teeth cleaned yeah and it's
just like i did a good thing and now it's done.
I mean, ideally, I wouldn't have to go back.
Unfortunately, I do because it had been several years.
But I had this feeling of like, I've been thinking about this for a while and I haven't done it. And now I did it.
And that was a good thing.
And I'm glad.
I also, in a long time without dentistry because of COVID, became very easy to say like, well, I don't want someone in my mouth.
I know that seems like the worst place for them to be.
But then last year, I sort of broke the dam. And I did a lot of dentistry work last year.
Yeah.
And now I feel like I'm good for another three or four years. Just kind of like kick it.
That's what they tell you. They say, hey, we say every six months.
Yeah.
But you've been such a good boy.
You've been a good boy. Go on your own dental journey.
And so that's my current plan.
I'm going to say Taskmaster, man.
We've gotten back into it in such a big way.
We fell off.
Didn't we mention that last week?
Maybe we just mentioned that we were watching it.
Man, I don't know.
We've finished the most recent series, I think, series 16.
So funny.
Just, I think, the best cast front to back.
Sue Perkins.
Sue Perkins.
I'm pretty sure we talked about this last week.
Okay, did we?
But maybe it wasn't your small wonder.
Maybe we were just chit-chatting.
Maybe just shooting the shit.
We do that sometimes on this show.
That's the thing on this show.
You go first this week.
I do.
I would love to hear what you've prepared for us today.
So I decided that my topic should be and i've
kind of been wanting to do this for a while and it was one of those things i had to check and make
sure we haven't done this because i've been thinking about it but i didn't know if i would
have enough to say but it is the stadium organist yes yes yes huge yes i it's what a weird facet of just sort of sports culture of just like organists are in two buildings.
One is church.
The other is sports buildings.
And I like that.
It's true.
Is the connection there that we are supposed to be church-like in sports arena is it is it meant to sort of evoke a you know like a transcendental experience while
you're watching these beautiful games being played well so organists used to be like in
movie theaters too right i guess like if you were doing like live accompanied entertainment
it was usually an organist that was doing it yeah um i wish they still did that by the way
and didn't warn you but you just like walked into
wonka which is a musical and but they have just an organist sort of jamming over the other music
that is taking place yeah it it always feels really delightful to me some of it is nostalgia
some of it is like if you are somebody that went to sporting events as a child it is maybe one of the few things that feels similar okay you know like it it it's i don't know it's it's been a constant
for a lot of teams for a long time uh and there's just something i don't know it just it it like
i find it delightful one time i was visiting my nani in florida with i mean my whole family was there and um she took us to a pizza
restaurant that had an organist but he also had like all those other like wild supplemental like
there's a button that sets off symbols and uh it's like that uh i think you should leave sketch
with fred willard yes um and it was a really really really really weird
fucking vibe just the weirdest vibe it was not suitable i think for a dining experience i think
it's also like a lot of environments you go into just have background music you know like if you
go into a retail establishment usually they have some kind of music playing yeah but the organ
really stands out for sure you really notice like this is this is different i have a deep fondness for the organ right now because i've been incorporating a lot of
organ into the music for our upcoming adventure zone series which starts tomorrow the adventure
zone versus dracula quick plug check that out is organ heavy uh so organs as i mentioned were used
in theaters obviously obviously church.
They first started appearing in sporting events at Chicago Stadium, which is where the Chicago Blackhawks and the Chicago Bulls played in 1929.
Geez.
Wow.
That's a long time ago.
Yeah.
I guess that is kind of the golden age of organs.
age of organs now when i was researching this they talked about how organs were used for quote a psychological accompaniment for events uh which it was used in quotes i have not searched out the
source on that um but i like this term this like phrasing of psychological accompaniment
yeah i guess so it's really supposed to get you hype yeah that's weird
like in 1929 i get it because we didn't have like a bunch of other stuff but then like you know i
think that darude creating sandstorm really rendered a lot of organ or other sort of sports
music completely redundant um but i do love the i guess the novelty of keeping
that keeping that that dream alive i have no idea the reference you just made
darude sandstorm i swear to god you'd know it if it's man now i have to play darude sandstorm oh yeah sports okay yeah sports sports hockey basketball football baseball let's go hockey
let's go what if this is the new theme song to waterfall maybe just for live shows we would
have to start the whole show differently we would have to come out in jerseys yeah okay i don't have to pay darude any money um so organs uh as they are
typically used today uh and have been used uh national anthem um charges the short musical
pieces that foreshadow something happening so like dun dun dun dun dun dun dun yep uh clappers what's that music or melodies that get fans
excited i don't okay okay clappers is what we call those yeah like let's go that's a real clapper
yeah and then in baseball the seventh inning stretch yeah um as you mentioned though uh
organists starting to fall out of favor in the 80s and 90s. The Tampa Bay Lightning,
though, took out 574 seats in their arena to install the largest pipe organ in the league
back in 2011. I like that. So I kind of love, like, everybody's kind of moving away from it.
And they're like, no, no, no, no, no. No, not us. No, we're going to make sure people can't buy
tickets. So we have a big organ. Yeah.
There are a few teams that don't have it.
A lot of them, it's said that it just kind of doesn't match the tone, which I kind of understand.
So, for example, Vegas, which is a relatively new team.
Yeah. Tried out an organ, felt like it didn't really fit, and I think it's kind of like the nostalgia thing I was talking about.
fit and i think it's kind of like the nostalgia thing i was talking about like if you have been with a team for decades and the organ is part of it you hear it and you're like yay yeah but if
you've got a brand new team in your in your city you're like wait what is what is this like i was
just jamming out to the black eyed peas and now there's an organ jokes aside i would be very curious to hear how organ adoption uh fell off when jock jams
yeah became like the the the conversation yeah no so some for a lot of the articles i read
were recent like 2022 um washington capitals is somebody who um got rid of their organist after
22 years of the same organist that's the thing that's the other thing is that people that become
the organist stay the organ well yeah because who all plays the organ it can't be too many folks
this also happened with vancouver canucks that same year 2022 bloodbath they got rid of their organ asai asai taking all the organist
jobs uh of the 32 nhl teams only six don't have organists it includes philadelphia carolina
dallas arizona vegas edmonton and i guess now vancouver as well tragic a tragedy how do you even get psyched for hockey without an organ
bumping in your years another new team the seattle kraken brought in an organist uh very specifically
apparently now i don't know a lot about the film slap shot yes but their organist is the same
organist that played in the 1977 movie slap shot he apparently cold called them when they were getting started and was like
hey i happen to play the organ if you're looking for somebody and they they brought him in and now
he's just part of the scene i do like that assert yourself put yourself out there i didn't realize
that the st louis blues had a particularly notable organist until i was reading this article about
seattle and it said one of the peers he reached out to for advice is jeremy boyer
who has been the organist for the st louis blues for 15 years uh and has a massive social media
following which i was like what i mean i don't know what massive is he's got i mean for an
organist right it's a matter of perspective i imagine he has like over a hundred thousand
subscribers pretty fucking good i will say for anyone, especially an organist.
Probably, yeah, pretty
good. He has been around
so I don't know a lot about organist history
in St. Louis.
Ernie Hayes for 30 years
did both the Cardinals games
and the St. Louis Blues games. Damn
busy dude. And when he passed in
2012, Jeremy Boyer took
over for both of those roles.
So this same dude plays for the Cards also.
Yes.
That's a lot of playing an instrument, I will say.
Well, and as you mentioned, his other gig, perhaps not surprisingly, I don't know how common this is but he also um plays at his church okay
uh that is his his role he uh is the director of sacred music and liturgy at saint francis of
assisi's catholic church in oakville and also plays organ covers of black ip songs
every other night yeah so if you want to look this guy up on YouTube, I sent Griffin some links.
I particularly enjoyed his cover of Rage Against the Machine's Killing in the Name of.
Yeah.
Really, really, really good.
Part of his appeal, and I think social media following, is that he will-
Organize songs that have no right to be organized.
Yeah, he did a medley of songs from the 2010s
that included, like, Katy Perry's Firework.
Can't Stop the Feeling.
Yeah.
Party Rock Anthem.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Just a delight.
There's something so charming to me
about a modern music being played on a old-timey instrument.
Yeah, for sure.
Jerry Boyer, also a young guy. He is only two years older than me. So, like, somebody...
I thought you were going to say, he's only two years old. It's incredible, one, that he can play this huge instrument. Two, that he's been playing it for 15 years. That's wild.
No, he, I didn't think people in their 40s were playing the organ.
But apparently he got his Bachelor of Musical Education at the Southeast Missouri State University and just started playing the organ right around the time that he graduated college and kind of apprenticed with this ernie hayes guy who i love that was the previous organist it reminds me when
we talked about uh what are they called carillon bells the like big tall towers and there's like
six people alive who do that shit i i have to imagine there's more organists but not not like a ton more yeah yeah anyway this is like
this is one of those like relics uh that i don't know may may have an expiration date on it but i
really enjoy that it exists uh and it and it feels like part of attending a sporting event especially
when it is reactionary to something that has just happened on the field. Like they'll play like
you know that
na na na na hey hey goodbye song
on organ when someone like strikes
out at a ball game just to really fucking
raz the other team. Yeah. I mean when the
team scores obviously when
they have to like in hockey anyway
when they get like a power play or they have to kill a
penalty. Yeah. It just feels like
a I don't know like a touchstone. Yeah. It just feels like a, I don't know,
like a touchstone.
Yeah.
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Yes.
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I just picked up my phone
to start reading my notes
and was just greeted with Darude's
very serious looking face.
You're doing great, Griffin.
Keep it up.
I want to talk to you today about appetizers appetizers
oh you're good at this appetizers well I just feel like you always have an eye out for it
appetizers yeah for sure that used to be one of those questions when I would go to a restaurant
when they were like oh can we start you off with anything I would instinctively say no yeah just
felt like I am here to to save money and I'm only going to be focusing on my meal.
Thank you.
Me, though, the extravagant hedonist that I am.
This is like a McElroy family tradition, though.
It's just always having like a selection of apps.
I like a selection.
Yeah, for sure.
I like options.
options. I will say that this bit was inspired by during all of our sort of holiday drives, we got into the Off Menu podcast, which my brothers have been suggesting for a while with
James Acaster and Ed Gamble. It's a delightful show. They invite a guest on each episode and
have them sort of devise a dream menu complete with drinks and starters and side dishes and
main courses and desserts and etc
there's a great episode with greg davis a host of taskmaster uh whose bold stance on uh his starter
of choice was to skip it was to just not have a starter because it uh detracts from yes the main
the main course which feels like sort of where you used to operate from before i yeah
there was this idea like well i don't want to fill up before my meal uh i don't want to pay
for additional food that i was not coming here for right a wild sentiment i know i know i know
now i really appreciate it though yes i when when we go to a restaurant i feel like one it doesn't happen that often these days it is hard for us
to get out to a restaurant yeah uh with or without our children uh a huge draw for me is like
experiencing that restaurant like getting a feel i like to feel like i've gotten a feel for like
what that restaurant's whole vibe is all about. I love going to a restaurant, like finding out what the like big all-star item on the menu is and trying it and just feeling like
there's an understanding there. And appetizers are the easiest way to accomplish that in my book.
Can I ask you, and you may not be aware of this, but when you get a menu,
do you look at the entrees first and then go to the appetizers absolutely not wild no oh really when you read a book do you jump in at chapter 15
i always like i figure out like what do i want to eat and then it's like oh do any of these things
up top look good too but i start with the main and then double back on apps but i didn't know
if that's how you did it when i am choosing an appetizer
in a main course i am building a narrative of course for the for the meal the two things have
to be in conversation with each other true and so like it's hard to tell which one i look at first
because i'm kind of looking at both of them at the same time to write a story of food um or i guess reading the story of that the restaurant has built for me uh
there's some appetizer staples that i will always like spring for if i see him on a menu i love an
egg roll i love an oyster um i love a if we go to like any kind of like tex-mex restaurant like i
will want to get chips in either guac or queso. Queso if I'm feeling naughty.
And these are not things that you can make a whole meal out of, right?
Like I would not ever have a meal of egg rolls.
But as like a little bonus bite, that's always very, very exciting for me.
for me um if we are going to like i i genuinely jokes aside do like to kind of like think about how my appetizer is going to pair with the main course yeah if we go to a japanese restaurant and
i know i'm going to be eating raw fish or some other sort of sushi experience from for my main
course i like to start out with something like fried and greasy that is not
going to be anything like what i'm going to have for my main course yeah like a and i think that's
why you get so many options in the vein of like takoyaki or gyoza or i love a croquette like a
potato croquette yeah just something fried and kind of greasy. And then you get that just peak of freshness with the sushi experience at the tail end.
And then there's, of course, like restaurants where the apps are sort of the star of the show, be it a Cheesecake Factory or a Chili's or, you know, an Applebee's, which we don't hit up i would say a lot these days it still really surprises
me a lot when i'm at a restaurant like that and it's like your apps can range from like
garlic bread to like crab rangoon to like pretzel bites you know just like yeah just like every app
you could think of but that's great because now you've just given me an even greater challenge
in writing a food story tonight in this Cheesecake Factory. Writing a food story at the Cheesecake Factory is like improv. It's like your audience has yelled at you like a bunch of really incongruous sort of suggestions and it's up to you to kind of like make a narrative out of it.
a narrative out of it as you know my tastes have become slightly more refined and my access to like very good food has uh has has developed you know tapas is just all appetizers that's basically
what that yeah experience is if we go to a like a place with like a chef's tasting menu small bites
fuck yeah like yeah absolutely that's that's uh that's an appetizer marathon and i'm i'm here for
that as well i'm just saying when you get appetizers with your main course, you get two dinners.
And that is just efficient.
It is hard to track the exact origin of appetizers because it's not that outrageous of an idea
to have a little dinner before your big dinner.
Well, and the way I always view it too too, is like, how hungry am I?
If I am super hungry and it's going to take a while for my food to come out, give me something to pass the time.
That's a good point.
I guess it changes based on what you're bringing into the experience.
But across a broad range of cultures, there are different takes on appetizers.
takes on appetizers. There's the Russian zakuska, the Middle Eastern metze, the Swedish smorgasbord, the Italian antipasto. All the way back to like ancient Rome, dinners were usually
two main courses with a bunch of little bits of like fish and cheese and veggies and other stuff
mixed in there, which they called promolsis.
Ancient Greeks did something similar,
called it propoma.
France really cornered the market back in like,
all the way back to like the middle ages
with your hors d'oeuvres, your canapes, your entremets.
Your mozzarella sticks.
Your mozzarella sticks.
Entremets also sometimes weren't food.
It would just be like a little bit of art that they would bring out, which is wild.
I don't know.
Whoa, interesting.
I don't want that.
I don't want that.
I'm sorry.
I can't finish.
I'm full up on art.
I filled all the way up on art.
They would just know that it is good to bring out a bunch of little dishes either before
or between the main courses, the order of which specifically in France
became sort of more and more formalized throughout history. Though there are a lot of different sort
of versions of appetizers throughout history, the logic behind appetizers in sort of ancient
cultures was pretty uniform, and it was to have a little bit of food to stimulate the appetite before you ate
a lot of food that has that seems weird to me i will say because i have never tucked into
a order of mozzarella sticks thinking like this is really going to get me
hungrier for the the meal that is to follow usually i know i am always robbing peter to pay
paul i am not like starting up my eating engine by having a bunch of uh mozzarella this leads me
to a question do you consider a basket of bread an appetizer yeah sure i think yeah i mean
not legally it but it is a starter it is a pre thing we've talked about i feel like we've talked
about starter bread specifically on on the show before i'm trying to broaden the horizons a little
bit by including all sort of starters um because i i know i'm not getting hungrier by eating an
appetizer i am reducing my capacity for the main meal but i don't care because that's the last
benefit in my book of the appetizer.
And I swear by this, whether I'm out at a restaurant or ordering out from like a nice restaurant.
It's why I almost always spring for appetizers.
If you eat the appetizer, you eat less main course, which means leftovers.
This is something you have taught me.
Yes.
taught me. Yes. This idea that the appetizer is part of your meal and that when you get full,
you will probably still have entree left, which is good news. That's lunch. Yeah. That's tomorrow's lunch. And that's amazing. We don't have the opportunity to go out to restaurants a lot.
And so I feel like choosing food when we do have that experience, is somewhat stressful because you want to do it.
You want to win dinner. You want to do the right thing. And I feel like knowing that I can have a
few different options via appetizers takes a lot of the weight and stress off of that decision.
I just, I love appetizers. Yeah, no, I know that about you. By the way, as you were talking, I was thinking about how a restaurant that served very large
portions and called themselves Tomorrow's Lunch would be-
That's huge.
Would be great.
That's really-
I want to get that on record.
Yeah.
2024, Rachel McElroy, Tomorrow's Lunch.
Unfortunately, that isn't how any of this works.
I've learned, unfortunately, after generating so many great ideas.
You mean you can't just say TM, TM, TM?
No, I've learned from our lawyer and lawyer team and legal guys that that's not actually anything.
Okay.
Hey, do you want to know what our friends at home are talking about?
Yes.
Hannah says, my small wonder is my hiking boots.
They have been keeping my feet warm and dry through all the snow sleet slush and rain we've
been having we have not been having we had a fucking lot of rain over the last week no no snow
i know a bummer but i do love we do i do have a pair of like heavy yeah like winterized boots yeah i always feel fucking great when i wear i feel i wore my
rain boots my rain boots my rain boots yesterday yeah uh and it was really exciting because when
you purchase something like that you know that you're only going to be wearing them like maybe
12 14 days out of the year at least if you live in a place like this yeah it's like oh this is
one of those times yeah i will say when i wear them I have to sort of like re-acclimate when I drive so that I don't just like slam the pedal down with my incredibly heavy and powerful and impervious boots.
This one was sent in by I think I'm supposed to come up with a clever name or something.
Who says, my wonderful thing this week is the sound of a flute.
I work as a machinist at a company that makes flutes. and every now and then i can hear snippets of flutes being tested
while i'm on break it makes my job feel whimsical what a fucking job man what a job to make flutes
but also just like be working and just hear like that feels like a video you would watch on mr
rogers like we went to a flute factory and then you just watch in awe
yeah i can hear mark summers saying we all love flutes but how do these sweet silver
tunnels of sound get made join me today what's that show called make how it's made how it's made
that's a good name for it yeah thank you so much for listening thank you to Bowen and Augustus
for these
for theme song
Money Won't Pay
you can find a link
to that in the episode
description
thank you to Maximum Fun
for having us on the network
go to MaximumFun.org
check out all the great
shows there
again I'll plug it
The Adventure Zone
versus Dracula
starts tomorrow
it's a fun
lighthearted romp
to kill Dracula
and you can get in
on the ground floor
yeah this one's
for everyone
this one's for everyone
except Dracula.
Yeah.
He probably wouldn't like some of the stuff that we say about him.
Yeah.
We have new merch over at McElroyMerch.com, including a three brother wolf t-shirt.
That's so good.
Which rules and I'm very happy for.
We got some nice fun galore merch coming down the pipeline, which I'm stoked about.
If you don't know every time i see a piece of macklory merch i had i go through this internal war of like
is it weird if i wear that but this three brothers wolf thing it is i think that specifically i
probably couldn't wear probably couldn't wear a shirt this. This is my husband and his brothers on a shirt. You could wear it, just not where I am with you.
Yeah, that's true.
Wait, is that, is he on your shirt?
Is he?
But that's it.
Thank you so much for listening.
I love doing this show every week.
It's a nice little break.
Me too.
And I hope you all feel the same way, dear listener.
And we'll be back next week with more good stuff to tell you all about.
So join us then for another exciting installment of the Chronicles of Narnia.
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