Wonderful! - Wonderful! Ep. 52: NPR Takeover

Episode Date: September 26, 2018

Griffin's favorite time-saving invention! Rachel's favorite unorthodox bread! Griffin's favorite savory theater treat! Rachel's favorite guilty feeling! Music: "Money Won't Pay" by bo en and Augustus ...- https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 🎵 Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. What is up? It's Griffin. And this is Wonderful. Aroo! The dogs are out tonight. You're shaking your head. That's the fastest I've ever disappointed you.
Starting point is 00:00:29 Let's put them back. Let's put them back in. It's the fastest. I have it on Audacity right now. I can look at the time. 18 seconds and I disappointed you. Maybe even a little bit faster than that. Shit, babe, I'm sorry.
Starting point is 00:00:41 That's all right. I saw you lean your head to the side, which means that you're trying to get a little far away from the mic because you're about to do something loud i move away from the mic to breathe do you remember chocolate rain by tase on day i fucking love that shit still today um and that's my first thing is chocolate rain by tase on day it's very like irreverent and i think it's important like today it's relevant i mean to say i don't have anything to say about it about chocolate rain that's too bad um so this is wonderful to show
Starting point is 00:01:11 where we talk about things we're into a preface this is probably going to be a shorter one we're all sort of various stages of being sick and do you think people hear that and they just laugh to themselves because it has never ever been true the best laid plans of mice and men make god laugh when he's hanging out with all his friends zeus poseidon they're all hanging out and they find out you got plans to make a short podcast and god's like listen to this chump um at their god party um no we're not feeling good in some ways and in other ways. I don't know why I put it like that. Also, I'm leaving it. I'm leaving it like I have to wake up at like four tomorrow to go on tour.
Starting point is 00:01:55 And I feel like I'm already sick from that. Do you ever have something in the future that you look at and you're like, I'm going to go ahead and start getting sick from that. No, that's not a thing most people do. Anyway, it's already pretty late in the night, we're gonna try and keep it tight but i don't want to skip over the small wonders you have any you know i'm gonna say just lunch oh just going out to lunch oh going out to lunch or just lunch okay i'm a treat i'm fine with home lunch too i'm all right with just the idea of just... I didn't want to be that broad.
Starting point is 00:02:26 I wanted to be a little more specific. I like going out to lunch. I am okay with... I don't ever go out to lunch because I work from home. So, like, if I went out to lunch with my coworkers, it would be, like, me and Humphrey, my stuffy doll that I keep around for security. I've talked about Humphrey before, right? Oh, for sure, for sure.
Starting point is 00:02:43 My stuffy friend. And we go out to get ramen ramen and it makes a terrible mess um i'm gonna say uh bath time with our kid is like so fucking dope it's very good it's so good he's like he's such a he's such a treat in there he's so fun and he splashes all around he just has the best time he's willing to row row row your boat lately but all he knows is row row row and mare mare mare he'll do that yeah uh yeah he's he's a pretty great a bit of a mush mouth no i'm just kidding he's a he's a child who goes first this time i believe it's you i think it is too but the website's taking a freaking long time to load and i think that's user side not server side i would never talk shit about wonderful oh no it's it's cool i'm good i do go first this week so my first thing this week is the washing machine the laundry here's what's fucked up the washing machine that
Starting point is 00:03:40 lives in the kitchen that washes the dishes is called the dishwasher the clothing washing machine that lives in the laundry room or at the laundromat or the garage or wherever the fuck you keep it it's not called the clothes washer but sheets in there shit you're right towels some people wash towels i washed a hat once in the dishwasher but you don't call that a dish and hat washer now do you it's true put that in your freaking pipe and smoke it wow i just debated the heck out of you yeah no, no, I am schooled. I never did speech and debate in high school because I was a big time jock. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:04:16 And I think I would have been good at it with like little ripostes like that. A little parry, a little dodge, and then I come at you. Washing machine's good it's no secret folks griffin hates doing laundry it's true i yeah i'm currently um today was a three load day uh i realized i realized today i haven't done laundry since our disney trip which is bad even for me oh griffin um i let all my clothes get dirty this time. And I only did it today because I'm about to go on tour and I have literally no clothes left to wear. And this is an unhealthy way of doing things. But I still, I don't think I'll ever change because I just hate, I hate doing the laundry so much.
Starting point is 00:04:57 So it might seem disingenuous that I'm choosing the washing machine. But the fact of the matter is, if it weren't for the washing machine, I would have the bubonic plague or something from the righteous stink that I would just sort of be imbuing. This is a dangerous topic for you to bring. Oh, no. Because it's tempting me to just get all up in your butt on various issues you have related to laundry.
Starting point is 00:05:27 No, there's a lot. But I'm gonna keep it posse because this is wonderful. I basically, I know how much you like Fraggle Rock. Yes. Let me start there. Okay. And so I try to- Are you calling me a boober no and not to your freaking face
Starting point is 00:05:48 boober was the one that liked to do laundry oh no i was saying i like to make you feel like comfortable and kind of nostalgic every time you go into um where we keep our clothes the trashy because i try to make a trash heap with all my clothes right next to the hamper because um there's some jeans in there that still have some mileage left in them that's honest to god why i do what i do but this is baby we're unpacking our dirty laundry right now but okay so all things considered it's kind of incredible that there's this big wet box that i can throw all of my clothing into. Yes. A considerable amount of clothing that I have spent a month imbuing with all of my various stinks.
Starting point is 00:06:30 And then within like two hours, it undoes a month of the horrible things I do to them. That's fucking, that's incredible. That's remarkable. If I was born in any other era, I would not have clean clothes. I actually started to look into, this is the truth, I was like, I bet there's fascinating history nugs, which is strange, actually, because, you know, all over the world, people
Starting point is 00:06:53 are still doing laundry different ways, so it was a tricky subject to, like, get into, but literally the first thing I looked up, I saw while I was looking up this topic, was about chamber lye. You know about this? You heard about this story? I've done that so much in podcasts lately. I don't know why I keep channeling Jay Leno. I draw the necromantic sigils on the ground and Jay comes through me.
Starting point is 00:07:16 I've heard of lie before. Lie is like old time soap. Yeah. It's a chemical. What's chamber lie? It's like a chemical agent. And a lot of the times they would get it by like um drawing water through like the ashes of a fire or whatever and then mix it with some shit and make soap um chamberlain you know where else you can get the same sort of ingredients
Starting point is 00:07:35 like ammonia um stuff that you would use in soap is piss so they would, in ancient Roman times, I was reading, imagine my face reading, in ancient Rome, okay, garments started to become more mass-produced. It wasn't something that you made yourself at home, and so people needed a way to keep the clothes clean. They did so with chamberlain, where they would collect the piss from public restroom areas,
Starting point is 00:08:01 turn it right into soap, and it would keep the clothes i guess clean but it's all kind of relative at that point that'll be on goop do you think that there'll be this return to pee soap because they really had it right i am just so fortunate that i was here for the for the i was on this earth at the same time as the the washing machine um it's pretty it's pretty amazing i also learned about the future of washing machines at um ces this year the the consumer electronics show um there's a company called zeros xeros uh that's working on a new washing machine that still uses a little bit of water but way way less instead it supplements it with what they call zorbs which
Starting point is 00:08:45 are these little um like pea-sized like pea there's no piss involved with their product like pea-sized balls that do a lot of like the mechanical washing and scrubbing that like the water in a typical washing machine that like tosses the clothes about and massages the soap out though the the water there's still water. But it's mostly Zorbs. I think they said it uses six to eight gallons of water less than a traditional washing machine, which adds up.
Starting point is 00:09:14 What if I try to recreate something similar and I get a big plastic tub and I put a bunch of marbles in it? And then maybe, what, like a tablespoon of water? Maybe shake it. Yeah. And then maybe, what, like a tablespoon of water? Yeah, or, you know. And then just shake it.
Starting point is 00:09:27 Why water? You know, we gotta save and conserve water. Why not pour some La Croix down there? Or some urine. Or some pee-pee. Washing machines are great. Dryers can fuck off, though. What's your first thing?
Starting point is 00:09:41 My first thing is a delight to say out loud just to start pumpernickel really though i love pumpernickel and you never see it where you want to see it in your mouth specifically i don't know that i've ever seen you eating and i love a pumpernickel loaf we just it's not around here really i would have more of it if more was available. Sure. It doesn't taste like any other bread, does it? Well, so it has a similar composition to a sourdough or a rye. It is sour, yeah. Mm-hmm. Sorry.
Starting point is 00:10:15 A lot of times I'll get a rye or a sourdough. Right. Pumpernickel, though. What a treat. Pumpernickel is fun. Mm-hmm. It's definitely the most fun bread. It is. It's a bread that you can go after work you can take this bread out to like chilies and have like one too many margaritas
Starting point is 00:10:32 and then this bread will like say some shit about your co-workers and you're like pumpernickel you're so bad um yeah it's it's something actually now that it's mass-, you can't get real authentic Pumpernickel. Like I don't know for sure that I've ever actually had authentic Pumpernickel. What's that even mean? Well, so now since it's mass produced, they add a lot of the brown color and the like sweet flavor. Whereas previously it didn't contain any kind of coloring agents. It didn't contain any kind of coloring agents. But things like molasses, coffee, and cocoa butter are more common to be found now when you buy like a mass-produced loaf of Pumpernickel.
Starting point is 00:11:11 How do they get it so dark and sweet then? So they used to like bake it in a long pan for 16 to 24 hours in low temperature at like 250 degrees Fahrenheit in like a steam oven. Interesting isn't really easy to do when you're mass producing it. But it was used with like a sourdough starter and coarsely ground rye. And the cooking process itself made it like give it that deep brown color um and the flavor is that do you then take the pumpernickel and further like dry it the hell out in order to make melba toast i've never put two and two together is that where melba toast comes from oh babe what i have no idea all right let's just say that yeah it, it is where Malditos turns into. So what do you think is the story behind that unusual name, Pumpernickel?
Starting point is 00:12:09 Oh, I bet I'm about to find out. You are about to find out. Come with me. Okay. Are you ready to go to the Pumpernickel corner? Hold on. Those are my feet slapping against the marble floor of my office. There are so many fun stories
Starting point is 00:12:27 about the origin of this word. By the end of this segment, this show will be on NPR. Like we won't have to submit it or anything. There'll be like some like station manager who's like sonar, who's like internal radar will peak and be like is somebody giving interesting factoids about the history of pumpernickel and he'll press a button
Starting point is 00:12:50 and our podcast will just be on npr somewhere uh so just to just to get your your motor running i'm rock hard right now uh the oED does not commit to any particular etymology. And the first use in English was 1756. So there is a fun story about how the origin is Germanic, which Pumpern was a new high German synonym for being flatulent. Pumpern was a new high German synonym for being flatulent. And nickel was a form of the name Nicholas, commonly associated with a goblin or devil. Hence, pumpernickel could potentially mean the devil's fart. Oh my God.
Starting point is 00:13:39 Take us out, Terry Gross. That was my shit. We're not done yet. There's nothing that's going to be better than that. This has been proven untrue by Snopes. This next one here. What about the devil's fart one? Has anybody? I have not seen anybody disprove that one.
Starting point is 00:13:53 Okay. According to Folktale, Napoleon declared that a bread he received while invading Germany was not suitable for his horse, Nicol. So he said, C'est du pain pour Nickel. This one doesn't. I believe Devil fart over this one. You said Snopes already shot this one down, right?
Starting point is 00:14:16 However, the name Nickel is not confirmed for any of Napoleon's many horses. No, no, no. Which I love the fact check on that. No way. There was no horse named Nickel for Napoleon. The next fact could be like the bread was invented by a
Starting point is 00:14:30 Derek Pumpernickel and I'd still be like I think it's the Devil's Fart one, I believe. Very strongly with all my conviction. So Napoleon declared the bread was no good for him, but only good for his horse. And so I guess if you say Bumpernicickel it sounds
Starting point is 00:14:46 like pumpernickel i guess but yeah that snopes has a whole thing about how that is not true there's a very like avid pumpernickel fan over so kids you may hear some things in the schoolyard about napoleon and pumpernickel but they are not true oh man uh but man i love it so you can mostly find it in like delis like i guess more authentically uh it's so good on a sandwich it brings so much flavor i was just about to say i don't know that i've actually ever had a sandwich with pumpernickel bread in my mind it's always slices or rolls with like nice butter or some sort of topping on it but i don't i don't i used to love it so much i'd have like a peanut butter and jelly on pumpernickel that is fucking or rolls with like nice butter or some sort of topping on it. But I don't, I don't. I used to love it so much.
Starting point is 00:15:27 I'd have like a peanut butter and jelly on pumpernickel. That is fucking wild. I know. That is a lot of flavor to come at your, your young mouth. That is a lot. That's wild. Pumpernickel. Pumpernickel.
Starting point is 00:15:39 Damn, babe. I very much want to eat pumpernickel bread right now. And I don't think I'll be able to scratch that itch because it's very late and I leave at four in the morning. Do they have pumpernickel in the Pacific Northwest? I'm sure they do. Oh, I bet you Portland's got that pumpernickel game on fucking lock. That's bread country. Are you kidding me? Okay.
Starting point is 00:15:57 Hit me up on, well, I haven't been on Twitter in like a month, but hit me up psychically. Let me know where the good bread is, and let's go steal us away. You want to go this time? I want to go this time. How do you do the thing where you like make an O with your mouth? I've never been able.
Starting point is 00:16:16 Ow. Ow. Don't Griffin stop. Griffin stop. No. Oh. Give your phone? I can come sit where you sit.
Starting point is 00:16:33 Yeah, you're going to have to come sit where I sit. Okay, we had to switch seats so that you could... Oh, this is a nice microphone. It's got your scent on your musk. That's a strange thing to say. Thanks. So this message is for future Lucas. It is from past Lucas. Hey, Lucas, you've been getting pretty good at this whole loving yourself thing,
Starting point is 00:16:52 and I'm sure by now you're even better at it. I don't actually know what's up in your life right now because that's not how time works, but I'm optimistic. School going well? You came out? Maybe even got a cat only time will tell keep smiling my dude you've got this you know all those things got crushed got done check check check bucket list probably not bucket list i don't think you ever talk about a bucket list
Starting point is 00:17:19 unless it's in the context of like an older i don Yeah, I don't want that for Lucas. No, it's a, what's it like? We need a cool like young bucket list. Like a scoop agenda. A scoop agenda is true. And Lucas, you got this. You got it. This next message is for Zach. It is from Jen.
Starting point is 00:17:42 Zach attack. Go ahead. I bet you just really activated something in him. I'm sure he's heard that many, many times. Really? Yeah. I bet that might be the first. I bet that might be the first time.
Starting point is 00:17:58 Hey, Zach. Thanks for being the best brother I could ask for. You're always there to nerd out with me when we find any sort of media to consume and I can always count on you for advice on my D&D characters. Also, swapping pictures of our cat children is my favorite pastime.
Starting point is 00:18:13 I couldn't have asked for a better friend and sibling. You're wonderful. That is very, very, very nice. That's very nice. I'm glad to know there's siblings out there that get along well because that's not always the case. Yeah, and this is probably a weird sort of turn for the show to take, but sometimes there are siblings that just hate the crap out of each other, man. Cain and Abel, not buds.
Starting point is 00:18:36 Yeah, no, that's true. One famously killed the other with a big rock. Mm-hmm. So, this is wonderful. You want to switch back? Yeah, I don't like being over here. It's right under the AC vent. How are you not cold all the time? Ballparker panel, we have just 30 seconds to prove to Maxon listeners that we know what the F we're talking about when it comes to pop culture. All right, you guys, let's go. Famous
Starting point is 00:18:58 Chris's. Walk-in. Christofferson. Hemsworth. Karen, what's the most iconic lesbian snack? The wings at Hooters. The answer is fried green tomatoes. Margaret, what is the Marvel Cinematic Universe missing? My interest. Winter, name someone who will EGOT in your lifetime. Ike Barinholtz. That's beautiful. Top gear or top model?
Starting point is 00:19:16 Sadly, I have to say top gear. The clear answer is top chef. But top model taught us about smizing. Pawpocket, smart takes on everything. Catch us every Friday on Maximum Fun. Hey, can I tell you about my second thing? Uh-huh. You know that song?
Starting point is 00:19:38 Do you know that song? I mean, it sounds familiar. If I keep doing it, will it help? It sounds a little bit like the six flags guy song i've never been so insulted in my entire life um it's um yeah that's the popcorn song and uh i want to talk about popcorn not the popcorn song that would be cool though if we did like music from now on but we like had to do it ourselves at the top of the segment um but no i think i just want to talk about good old popcorn do you know about this if we did like music from now on, but we like had to do it ourselves at the top of the segment.
Starting point is 00:20:05 But no, I think I just want to talk about good old popcorn. Do you know about this? About popped corn? Yeah, I've had it. It's like regular corn. They make it super hot and it gets weird and like really crunchy.
Starting point is 00:20:22 And it's hard for me to know how much I actually like popcorn for popcorn and how much I like it because it's a special occasion food in my mind. Like, you know, I rarely and I know there probably are some people I see popcorn sold in big bags at the grocery store like the microwave popcorn dude. No, I know. But when you microwave popcorn
Starting point is 00:20:39 it's for a movie time, right? Here's the argument I'm making. When you buy it pre-popped in like the big bags and you're like, you're having it as a snack when you get that 3 p.m. feeling, I don't understand that. If it's a movie time and you pop a bag, yes, for sure. That's what I'm talking about.
Starting point is 00:20:55 I don't know if I like the popcorn flake. Not in my household, man. Popcorn was an anytime food. I guess around the holidays, if you have it in the big tin. Oh, that's good. When you get one of those big tins, my dad would go to a holiday Christmas party. A holiday Christmas party for the radio station.
Starting point is 00:21:13 And every year he'd come back with a big one. You're saying that, but we gave out popcorn as a favor at our wedding. I was going to get there. Anyway, I'm big into the idea of food as like flavor vehicles obviously i've talked about waffles and i don't know that you can you can beat is there anything better transmitting flavor than than popcorn it is essentially a blank canvas that you paint flavors upon and then it it delivers them and you get to decide how much that flavor you want because it comes in these just these little little pieces and i'm very enthusiastic about that.
Starting point is 00:21:46 If you are the type of person who eats unbuttered, unflavored popcorn, I don't understand it. The healthy popcorn, I've tried to explain this so many times just in this one segment. The big chick pop, chick boom, do you know what I'm talking about? Oh, boom chicka pop?
Starting point is 00:22:02 Is that right? Unsalted, unflavored popcorn, I don't understand why you eat that. If that's all you've ever had, there are worlds, beautiful worlds beyond the one that you currently occupy. And I want to take you to them. The first time I had artisanal popcorn was at Cornucopia, which is a place in town where, yes, we did give that away in little mason jars as a wedding favor. Because one, I think that a good wedding favor is something that people are actually going to use. They're not going to use the soap thing.
Starting point is 00:22:38 You know what's a popular wedding favor is Jordan almonds. Jordan almonds are dope. Yeah, we got those when we went to a wedding in New Orleans. I remember very, very clearly. I don't care are dope. Yeah, we got those when we went to a wedding in New Orleans. I remember very, very clearly you came in a little silk bag. Oh, okay. Cool. I like them quite a bit.
Starting point is 00:22:53 We gave away popcorn and it came in mason jars because we're free spirits who live in Texas. So we had to do mason jars somehow. Did we use mason jars as like drinking glass that would have been too much the venue the venue we use definitely had like a mason jar quality to it okay yeah they
Starting point is 00:23:13 were certainly they were certainly present um it honestly took me a while to get back here to the place where i love popcorn after working in a movie theater they do everything they possibly can to break you of your love of popcorn i did most of that work myself because i would bring a garbage bag of it home to you do that liquid butter uh yes oh no wow we're really on the now we're on different pages here i just don't like you know me i don't like a mess i don't get messy when you When you eat it, you get it all slippery. Okay. If that's your threshold for what a mess is, I can understand why the trash pile laundry monster upsets you so much.
Starting point is 00:23:52 I'm just saying a pumpernickel doesn't get you slippery. Okay, it's not a contest. Yes. It just, it occupies, the regular like buttered, like movie theater popcorn occupies like a very specific like flavor profile for me and that flavor profile is a is is a relief when you have too much of the sweet when you have too much of the sweet you eat too much of the sweet movie theater candy and you need a savory this popcorn is like or with uh i went to the hell in a cell down at the san antonio and saw all of the wrestling
Starting point is 00:24:30 that they had on display and i had two big horrible beers uh that is two two large miller lights two um child sized by which i mean the size of a child in the lights. And I drank them and they cost me like 30 bucks. And they were, you know, they were what they were. And then I had a popcorn after that. Oh my God, the popcorn was so good and so necessary. Yeah,
Starting point is 00:24:57 I just love popcorn. What's funny is like, I don't actually eat it that much anymore because Alamo Drafthouse is kind of like, Alamo Drafthouse has like full dinner menus and that has kind of phased popcorn out of most of my movie going experiences but if i'm at like a baseball game or uh any other kind of like occasion where they you know are selling selling popcorn i will always go for it just the fragrance gets me like ready to go yeah but again, working at the movie theater, I smelled burned popcorn like in your microwave. That's bad.
Starting point is 00:25:30 Burned popcorn on like a large scale like at a movie theater, it is apocalyptic. It is so bad. But good popcorn is good. What's your second thing? My second thing is gossip. Baby. I know.
Starting point is 00:25:49 Come with me. Come with me on this one. I found so much research and interesting facts about gossip. I got to tell you, I feel guilty. Yeah. I do. Yeah. I never enjoy, you know, that it exists.
Starting point is 00:26:07 Do you know that feeling, Griffin? I know the feeling. I just want to say at the top, I am so excited to watch you walk the tightrope of being like, it's not good, but it's so good. You know that feeling you get? Like when you get some good juicy goss? Can we lay out some definitions of good juicy goss? Because I think, what concerns me is there's definitely bad goss.
Starting point is 00:26:31 There's for sure. The spreading of lies, especially about your close friends, who you really shouldn't be. And a lot of people, I think every person, has been the victim of some unfortunate goss. For sure. But that feeling, Griffin. It's okay. Of the
Starting point is 00:26:47 good, juicy goss, not of the lies. Yeah. Of the good, the sweet gossling. Yeah, and I don't even want to give examples, because it is mostly hurtful. This is the wildest thing you have ever brought to the show for sure not even close there there have been so many researchers that have looked into that that that good gossip feeling a research team in 2014 and i found this um in psychology today from the university of
Starting point is 00:27:24 amsterdam found that% of total office conversations qualify as gossip. How many percent? 90%. Christ alive. Anthropologists believe that through human history, gossip has been a way for us to bond with others and sometimes a tool to isolate those
Starting point is 00:27:41 who aren't supporting the group. That's a really, that's a very anthropologist way of saying, like, yeah, it's a really shitty thing to do to someone for the most part. In 2015, there was a study funded by the National Science Foundation that demonstrated that people get a hit of pleasure in their neural reward centers after hearing negative gossip about celebrities. In contrast, they didn't get much of a lift from hearing positive tattle no matter how much they tried to pretend otherwise
Starting point is 00:28:10 that part bums me out for sure for sure actually for sure that is that that that one is a bitter pill to swallow some friendly gossip between co-workers i'm into the idea that negative things being said about public figures is like infinitely more like cerebrally, emotionally rewarding than positive news is like actual, like terrifying news for me. There was another study. And this one, I don't know how valid this one because they only studied 300 people. And this was in the London Daily Mail. people, and this was in the London Daily Mail, it was done by Dr. Nicholas Emler, found that 80% of conversations are spent on discussing other people and their habits. In general?
Starting point is 00:28:55 Of the 300 people they studied. 80% were about other people and their habits. See, here's the thing. All right, guys, I know, I know, I know Griffin. I know, but it's all anybody's doing.
Starting point is 00:29:11 That's it. Well, except for one out of every five people aren't doing it. Okay. This is the final one. I wanted to share a 2012 experiment at UC Berkeley found that people who witnessed immoral behavior felt better once they gossiped about it to people who might have been affected. Oh, to people who might have been
Starting point is 00:29:30 affected. Yeah. Now that's another, that's a horse of a different color. They were helping to spread the news and therefore raise the possibility that the person in question would be punished. But not by me, because that's, I've got a lot on my plate. That's the best fucking thing ever. Are you kidding me? I mean, it's awful, but it's the best shit ever. Oh, I feel so much better now that I've gotten off my chest and had no, in no way had any responsibility in fixing it or making it actually better in any way. So I hesitate, of course, to call gossip wonderful.
Starting point is 00:30:00 I would never say that. What I'm talking about is just that feeling, just that gossip feeling, you know? Yeah, that'll definitely hold up in podcast court. I wasn't talking about gossip, obviously. Jury, we can all agree. It's just that feeling. It's like when you're scratching a bug bite and you know, oh, this is probably going to
Starting point is 00:30:23 be a problem if I keep scratching it. But in this moment, scratching it feels good. Yeah. I don't know, man. I'm trying to be a team player here. I know. I know exactly what you're feeling. It is a real problem.
Starting point is 00:30:39 Honestly, I would say a lot of my friendships as a teen were founded on gossip. And I do not feel good about that looking back. I feel like a lot of people relate to each other through gossip and i don't think that's good either what brushes what the reason that brushes me in like a weird way is i have i have lived my life since like high school when i was like not a very like um self-assured person at all and in a lot of ways I'm I'm wicked still not but the only thing that like gets me gets me through and it has like allowed me to sort of assert myself in the ways that I do uh is this idea that everybody is so focused on their own shit all of the time that they are not actually paying that close attention
Starting point is 00:31:23 to like what you're wearing as you like walk the halls of your high school. It makes you think that's not the fact that apparently 80% of people conversations are about other people is a lot, but they're not talking about me walking down the high school and my fucking bowling shirt and carpenter shorts and uh and and you know skateboard shoes that i've never used for skateboarding they're talking about their friends aren't they aren't i mean sometimes but sometimes you're gossiping about that teacher who you're pretty sure wore that outfit yesterday oh you knowoh. You know? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:32:09 I debated whether or not to bring this, and I recognize that there was a lot of hurtful gossip. But I think there's room for just taking pleasure and just sharing some office gossip. I actually read a lot of the research I was reading talks about the benefits of office gossip and that it can relieve some stress and get you closer to your coworkers. Just not that one. It gets you really close to all of your almost pretty much statistic.
Starting point is 00:32:39 There's one statistical sort of anomaly and we can just factor that completely out of the conversation. It gets you close to all of your office co-workers law of large numbers like where it's it is insignificant i knew this was going to be a challenge for you griffin because you're a very sweet kind-hearted man no i mean i talk shit but like there's a whole industry based around celebrity gossip and i i believe i believe that it's unfair to many of the celebrities that are gossiped about yes for sure that said oh man people love to get those magazines in airports just sit on a plane and eat your peanuts and and and read about what's happening in the fancy world of Hollywood. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:33:28 Or not happening, probably. Probably definitely not happening. Yeah, I mean, that's a horse of a different color. Let's just, to close this segment out, again, narrowly tailor good benign gossip between friends. Benign gossip between friends. Benign gossip between friends and colleagues is, and the feeling that you get from benign gossip between friends and colleagues is good. Yes. Everything else is pretty bad.
Starting point is 00:34:00 Yes. But it's so good. Right? The feeling. Okay, yes yes the feeling is quite good that's a good that's i'm gonna be that one's gonna be on my mind on the flight tomorrow i'm gonna be thinking about that one a lot um i have some submissions from our friends do you want to hear it? Yes. This says anesthesiology. No, that's the wrong document.
Starting point is 00:34:30 Here we go. Lily says, writing with a fountain pen is wonderful. I love the feeling of the metal nib on paper. The way the ink glistens till it dries. The way it comes apart so I can refill it from my ink bottle. I like all the little rituals
Starting point is 00:34:45 it calls for turning simple tasks kind of magical i even like the ink on my hands i was with you to the last thing cannot stand having ink on my hands the rest of it sounds totally sick yeah i do i do love the look of a fountain pen for sure um taja says uh planetariums are wonderful you can learn about the universe get a cool 3d science experience and maybe do a kiss in the dark. If you live near, you know, it says that if you, if you live near a university or a museum, there might be one tucked away. You've never realized existed.
Starting point is 00:35:17 And the shows are usually cheap or sometimes free. I don't know that I've ever been to one. I thought you guys, I've never kissed a planetarium. You've never been to a planetarium you guys i've never kissed uh at a planetarium you've never been to a planetarium really i don't think so uh we went to one together in either new york or dc so definitely in one of those museums for sure absolutely we did huh okay uh i guess we didn't smooch no we did not here's one from la who says, a small wonder of mine is giving 41 cents of change back. I work retail
Starting point is 00:35:47 and counting back 41 cents always feels incredibly satisfying because I take one coin from every drawer. It feels very well-rounded and I always smile when it happens. I love that shit. Oh, that's nice. That's really, really good. Oh, that is perfect. Um, so that's gonna
Starting point is 00:36:04 do it for us this week thank you so much for listening where are we at what do we do uh we're not even at 40 minutes yet this was a good tight one i feel like this is about where i expected it to end up um apologies for it being a little bit short but damn we are we are right under that gun um thank you to bowen and augustus for the use for our theme song when he won't pay You can find a link to that in the episode description. Hey, can you give some shouts outs to Maximum Fun? Maximum Fun is the network that hosts our podcast. They also host a lot of other fantastic podcasts. Podcasts like One Bad Mother and Beef and Dairy Network
Starting point is 00:36:43 and Ono, Ross, and Carrie and a lot of dairy network and, uh, Oh no, Ross and Carrie and a lot of other really great ones. You can find them all at maximum fun.org. You can find the other stuff we do at McElroy shows.com. Is that it? Are we, is that it?
Starting point is 00:36:59 You want to hear more about pumper nickel? Um, do you have any, do you have any fun at more fun anecdotes about the, uh, epidemi, ep, epidemiology, ep, pumpernickel um do you have any do you have any fun and more fun anecdotes about the uh epidemiology what's the word that means that how the word came from etymology epinology uh the word stems from an old bavarian term for hard oh god and then i'm gonna instead of our usual outro i'm just gonna cut in the the music for all things considered right here Thank you. MaximumFun.org
Starting point is 00:38:13 Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener supported. Podcasts. Podcasts. Podcasts. They're audio programs that tell smart stories in innovative ways using editing techniques like this.
Starting point is 00:38:28 Like this. But let's face it, all that smart stuff can be exhausting. That's where Stop Podcasting Yourself comes in. It's so stupid. It's just two stupid dinguses being dumb idiot jerks for 90 minutes. Stop Podcasting Yourself.
Starting point is 00:38:44 The stupid show that smart people love. Find it on iTunes. Or MaximumFun.org.

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