0:00

Hi, this is Rachel

0:04

McElroy.

0:16

Hello,

0:19

this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful.

0:22

This is a real show hosted by two

0:24

real married people about things we

0:26

like that's good that we're into. It's

0:28

a podcast. We're

0:29

real married. We're

0:31

real married, not the kind of married that

0:33

you do as little kids where you say,

0:36

this is my husband. Oh, I was more

0:38

using real in the sense of like extra,

0:40

like we're real super married. Right? So

0:43

this is not a

0:43

thing that they tell most people, but when you're

0:46

super duper in love, after

0:48

the wedding, there is

0:50

a second sort of priest

0:53

or parishioner. In our case,

0:55

it was a parishioner

0:57

who came up and was like, hey, you guys

0:59

seem super duper in love. Would you like to get for

1:01

real married? And we were like, what did

1:03

we just do? Because it's like an extra level.

1:06

And he's like, it's extra level. Yeah, super

1:09

religious. And me and Rachel are

1:11

like, whoa. But it's like

1:13

extra. It's like the most married you

1:15

can get.

1:16

Yeah. And you know, we're about those achievements.

1:19

So we wanted the extra

1:21

for sure. We wanted the extra. You

1:23

get a second ring. You

1:26

get two cakes. There's

1:29

two DJs that play at

1:31

the party after. There's

1:34

another certificate you sign, but this

1:36

one is like. It's a death certificate.

1:38

And you sign each other's. But

1:42

it's like romantic. Okay. In a way.

1:45

I don't remember that part. So we're super duper

1:47

for real married. It sounds like

1:49

the Lady Dolph protest a little too

1:51

much. Like maybe we're not married at all. And

1:53

it's all a sham. That

1:56

would be the longest most nonsensical

1:59

sort of.

1:59

that anyone's ever around their audience. Can

2:02

I say, we make a big deal out of

2:04

the fact that we are two married people that have a podcast

2:06

together. I don't think people would really care if

2:08

we weren't married. I don't think they would be like,

2:11

well, I thought I was listening to lovers.

2:12

Forget it. Right,

2:15

no, I mean, we do, yeah, that's interesting.

2:17

I mean, there is a certain dynamic between us

2:19

that people seem to enjoy, but would

2:21

it be even better if we weren't married

2:24

and then there was all of a sudden a Jim and Pam

2:26

energy? Oh yeah, people could ship it. Yeah,

2:29

Japan. That's what

2:31

they called him. Uh-huh, Japan. So

2:34

this is wonderful. And do you have any small

2:37

wonders to talk about please for me

2:39

now? Do

2:40

you have them? I

2:43

got yesterday,

2:45

I do a lot of impulse purchasing

2:48

around the weekend because I feel

2:50

like I need a lot of tools

2:53

to get through it with the children. Typically,

2:55

yeah, Marshalls. When you go to Marshalls, it's like, I

2:58

don't know what the fuck you're gonna come back with

3:00

because it's always a surprise. That's their new ad

3:02

campaign. Yeah, Marshalls, come on

3:04

in with plans to buy some gym shorts,

3:07

leave with

3:09

a basketball set.

3:11

Yeah, no, well, anyway, I got one of

3:13

those little Play-Doh sets. This was through

3:15

a grocery delivery platform

3:18

that I use typically for groceries, but

3:20

also goes to other stores that have toys.

3:23

And so I got one of those little Play-Doh

3:26

boxes where the hair, the

3:28

Play-Doh becomes the hair and it goes through

3:30

the top. This is something that I think I always

3:33

wanted personally because

3:35

I basically like pushed our children

3:37

out of the way to use it first. And

3:40

it was exactly as rewarding as I wanted

3:42

it to be.

3:43

Yeah, it feels good to extrude

3:46

anything. Uh-huh, true. Especially

3:49

though, especially

3:51

Play-Doh. I'm gonna say Rachel

3:54

has a recipe in her repertoire

3:57

that you do not bust out very often.

3:59

but when you do, it is grounds

4:02

for a national holiday. I believe it is

4:04

your shrimp and grits

4:06

recipe. Rachel, it's out

4:08

of this world good. The shrimp

4:10

and grits that you make. Can you describe what

4:13

is happening there? Because I don't know.

4:16

Yeah, I mean, I found a recipe

4:19

that claims that it is southern

4:21

style, which I don't know that there's

4:23

another style of shrimp and grits, but

4:26

it involves, when you

4:28

make the grits, it involves butter and milk

4:30

instead of just water. Okay. So

4:33

it's like super rich, and then you add like a big

4:35

cup of cheddar cheese at the end. Love that. And

4:38

then you make the shrimp and what

4:40

they call a Cajun seasoning, I just use Old

4:42

Bay. Oh. And then

4:44

you sprinkle some green onions,

4:46

and you make the shrimp too in bacon fat.

4:48

I mean, it's just, it's- It's not

4:50

good for you. No, and there is

4:53

a reason I don't make it all the time. It

4:55

is very rich.

4:56

I put a little bit of hot sauce on there.

4:58

It is fucking great. It's

5:00

so good. And so

5:02

I celebrate. I see you and I celebrate you.

5:05

Thank you. In this moment.

5:07

And most moments. You

5:10

go first this week. I do. What do you want

5:12

to say? What do you want to talk about? You

5:14

got the laptop on the floor I see.

5:17

Here we come, here it goes. Backing

5:19

it open, just jacking in. Wow,

5:22

no password on that, huh? I

5:25

had the little touch with my finger. I

5:27

do have a password, but you know. A

5:29

password's your finger. It's

5:32

not secure. Someone could steal your

5:34

fingerprint with a wine glass, a

5:37

Danny Ocean type, get out of your files.

5:41

Just saying. Yeah, all

5:43

of that could be true. Do you want to hear my thing? I

5:46

was stalling there. No, I know,

5:48

I know. But I had my computer

5:50

open, I was ready. I wanted to let you know you could

5:52

stop stalling. Please. Because

5:54

what I have is a trip for us to the poetry corner.

5:57

Oh, it's been so long. Let me dust out these cobwebs.

6:00

with this big standup bass. Bum,

6:02

bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum,

6:04

bum, bum, bum, bum,

6:06

bum, bum, bum. I gotta restring this thing. It sounds

6:08

terrible. Oh,

6:11

is that it? That was it, yeah. Wow. It's

6:14

really messed up right now. I gotta take it into

6:16

the shop. The

6:19

poet I wanted to share

6:21

with y'all this week is Franny Choi. Ooh,

6:24

I don't know that one. Yeah, I didn't either

6:26

until just recently. Oh, that's fun. I

6:29

do this thing sometimes where I will find a poet

6:31

I know I like, and then I will just kind of follow

6:33

the train from that poet. Like, you

6:36

know, a lot of sites will be like, if you like this

6:38

poet, you should check out this one. And

6:40

that's how I found Franny Choi. Okay.

6:43

So I wanna communicate who

6:46

she is in the way that she

6:48

seems to define herself. I

6:50

read several interviews, and they always introduced

6:53

her as a queer Korean-American

6:55

poet, playwright, teacher, and organizer.

6:57

So many hats. So many

6:59

hats. Yeah, she

7:02

has three poetry collections.

7:06

The most recent one is The World

7:08

Keeps Ending and The World Goes On,

7:10

which came out in 2022. And

7:13

she actually, speaking of somebody

7:15

cutting off my finger to hack into my laptop. I did

7:17

not say that. I

7:19

did not say that. What did you say? Like on

7:21

a wine glass, you know?

7:25

Have you seen any of the ocean? Danny

7:28

Ocean doesn't cut someone's finger off

7:30

to

7:30

hack in. Sorry. Anyway,

7:33

she writes a lot about tech. Her

7:36

first book of poetry was called Soft

7:39

Science. It came out in 2019. And

7:42

there was an interview with her in the Paris

7:44

Review, and the

7:46

interviewer asked her how soft science began.

7:49

And she said, the book came

7:52

out of writing a series of poems that were inspired

7:54

by and in the voice of a character from the film

7:57

Ex Machina, Kyoko. Oh, cool.

7:59

When I watched that film, I had a particular combination

8:01

of emotional responses that provoked a desire

8:03

to write, a mix of love, confusion, and

8:05

outrage. I started writing

8:08

to try to understand what I was feeling about

8:10

her, and then quickly realized that the poems were

8:12

speaking to other poems about my own experience

8:14

as an Asian American woman, as a

8:17

queer Asian American woman, about

8:19

moving through the world in a body that had been

8:21

made an object of desire, fantasy,

8:23

and power, living as a soft,

8:26

fleshy, objectified human of

8:28

the

8:28

world. I think about that

8:30

movie a lot. It really got stuck

8:32

in my craw in a way that some movies

8:35

do.

8:35

A lot of challenging ideas

8:38

in that film. If you haven't seen it, it's about

8:41

this sort of amoral

8:44

tech bro asshole played

8:46

by, I think, was it, was that Oscar Isaacs?

8:49

Was, was it that one?

8:52

Oscar Isaac was it? Yeah, wow. And

8:56

he has this like retreat in

8:58

the wilderness that a

9:00

new employee at his tech company

9:02

comes to, and he reveals that he has developed AI,

9:06

like an AI person. And

9:08

Kyoko is a much more

9:11

earlier, sort of very, very subservient

9:15

AI

9:15

controlled entity in

9:18

the film, who ends up having kind

9:20

of a tragic arc, as pretty much everyone

9:22

in the film does. Yes, yes, yes. Very messed

9:24

up ending, I would say. Very, very, very,

9:27

very scary stuff. So

9:29

I wanted to read a poem that she had published

9:32

in the New York Times

9:34

that is called Unrequited Love

9:36

Song for the Panopticon.

9:38

All right. Once

9:41

I breathed without your blue metronome

9:43

rising beside me at night.

9:45

Once I turned the pages of magazines

9:48

and only God saw. When we met,

9:50

we chatted first in placid facts.

9:53

How many siblings do you have? What was

9:55

the name of your first pet?

9:57

After I cover your eyes, walk off

9:59

into.

9:59

where you couldn't follow. Back

10:02

then, I had just one brain. I

10:04

was lonely, that is, when you emerged,

10:06

sturdy as a cage. You remembered

10:09

every anniversary.

10:10

You licked my data and didn't wince at

10:13

the smell. What is your mother's maiden

10:15

name? Do you want to save your billing address?

10:18

Truth is, I wanted to be known, cracked

10:20

open by gentle hands. You

10:22

completed my sentences, sent me gifts,

10:25

gifs, wine wrecks, calibrated

10:27

to my thumbprint, reminders to meditate,

10:30

reminders to menstruate, my own

10:32

memories.

10:33

Are you still watching? Who have you

10:35

called and for how long did you speak? You

10:38

listened when I asked for advice, when

10:40

I hummed in the shower, you were always listening.

10:43

Now I'm porous as a spreadsheet, tethered

10:46

to your tentacular benevolence. List

10:49

of prescription medications. Darling,

10:51

I have no secrets from you, though I've

10:53

never seen your face. Difference

10:56

in heart rate during and after playback,

10:58

during and after sex. Tell

11:00

me, does your inquisition carry a smell?

11:03

Genetic predisposition toward impulse

11:06

spending. What are you afraid of? Where

11:08

do you go when you're a dream-based investment

11:11

potential

11:12

in sleep mode? Can you feel

11:14

it when I touch you here? Will you think of

11:16

me when I'm gone? That

11:19

fucking ruled. That

11:22

was the best poem ever. Tentacular

11:25

benevolence is the strongest

11:29

two words I've ever heard

11:31

said together. That

11:33

fucking rule was a good

11:36

ass poem.

11:36

I thought you would like that.

11:38

Fuck yeah, I did. I thought you would

11:40

like that. Yeah, you know what's interesting? So

11:43

I- Boris

11:44

as a spreadsheet. That shit,

11:46

rule, what a good fucking poem. I

11:48

was watching YouTube clips of her

11:51

performing her poetry,

11:57

which I usually do just to kind of get a sense.

11:59

one of how the writer

12:02

pronounces their name, but also

12:04

just kind of what the tone is

12:06

of the poem. And then I did

12:09

a little more research on her. She was a finalist

12:11

in the National Poetry Slam, the

12:15

individual world poetry slam and

12:17

the woman of the world poetry slam. And

12:20

she is the co-director

12:23

of the Providence Poetry Slam.

12:25

Just a slammer sort of 24 seven, it sounds like.

12:29

Yeah, and that explains like if you

12:31

watch footage of her reading

12:33

her poems, if you read some of her work too,

12:36

it has that kind of cadence like

12:38

the word play and the

12:41

kind of preference towards

12:43

sound. Like

12:46

you can tell right away. If you're somebody who

12:48

has seen a lot of

12:50

performance poetry, which I have at this point.

12:54

But anyway, yeah, she brings

12:56

a lot of energy to

12:58

her work

13:00

and she talks a lot about

13:02

technology, obviously because of her first book,

13:05

Soft Science. But she talks

13:07

about how she understands that

13:09

it is kind of this thing that people are

13:11

afraid of or that they

13:13

view kind of as a guilty pleasure, but she

13:16

sees like there should be room for

13:18

kind of more emotion and more complicated

13:21

feelings. Of course, yeah. About it and kind

13:23

of how we retain

13:25

ourselves in that. And

13:28

I feel like that poem really speaks to

13:30

it.

13:30

I genuinely,

13:32

I loved everything about that poem, but I

13:35

think I love that most of all this idea.

13:38

There's this like weird stigma around

13:41

technology in the arts.

13:44

And I

13:47

think we have it through like a very specific lens of

13:50

having kids and

13:53

having this enormous sort of stigma around

13:56

how you use that as

13:58

a parent. when that

14:00

kind of ignores the fact that it's

14:03

like everything we

14:05

do now involves

14:08

this sort of panopticon and

14:10

to just sort of write that

14:12

off or say that it is not worth

14:15

thinking about artistically

14:17

or creatively in that way, I think

14:20

is like pretty stupid. Well,

14:23

and there's just such an opportunity for

14:26

like a worldliness, you know? I feel like

14:28

there's a chance to kind of move past

14:29

a

14:33

lot of ignorance when you can access

14:35

information and from all

14:37

parts of the world. I

14:40

just think about our

14:42

big son who is incredibly

14:44

curious and

14:47

is always kind of chasing

14:49

his interests through his use

14:51

of technology. And

14:54

that's exciting, that's cool as a parent.

14:56

Yeah, it's like I'm not

14:58

saying

14:59

that technology and

15:02

I guess in the case of this poem, sort of like

15:05

the way that we are observed

15:07

by the technology that is designed to help

15:10

us and also sort of absorb and

15:12

assimilate our personal data for

15:14

the use of the corporations

15:16

that made it. Like I

15:18

feel like there is a knee jerk

15:21

demand

15:22

to be

15:24

to like shun that shit in the like

15:27

bankiest way, imaginable 100% of

15:30

the time. Without acknowledging the fact that

15:32

it's like

15:33

you are just also describing a thing that every

15:36

person uses, well, most

15:39

people use like every day throughout their lives

15:41

and it's just like an aspect of life

15:43

now that is worth

15:45

considering and reflecting upon without

15:48

just instantly being like, it's bad.

15:52

Yeah, that's great. What a good poem, thank

15:54

you for, what was her name again? Franny

15:57

Choi. Franny Choi, excellent, great

15:59

work, Franny.

15:59

Keep it up. 10 out of 10, Paul. 10 out

16:02

of 10. Can I steal your wig? Yes.

16:05

Cool. Hey, Griffin. Hi, babe.

16:08

Can I talk to you about parking? Yes. Oh,

16:10

God. It's terrible, right? So bad.

16:14

where are we going to put our car? We

16:17

were like, oh, yeah, we're going to Austin. We're going to Austin. We're

16:19

going to Austin. We're going to Austin. We're going to Austin.

16:22

We're going to Austin. We're going to Austin. that

16:25

for me? What's that? Electric

16:27

e-bike. Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah.

16:32

And I, I mean, set it and forget it,

16:34

you know? Well,

16:38

don't forget it. You'll, you'll want to get the bike

16:39

back. That is true. And you know why I want to get the bike

16:41

back? Because this is a great bike. Is a great bike.

16:44

It's a great bike. It drives really good. It's

16:46

multi-purpouse. Yeah. It's electric.

16:49

The whole thing's electric. It's kind of a ride-that-works-perfect thing. It's

16:51

a good thing. It's a great bike. It's a

16:53

great bike. It is fully foldable. So

16:56

you can throw it in the back of your car if you want.

16:58

It's got a bright LCD

17:01

display so you can see

17:03

how fast you're going and what gear you're on.

17:06

And there are five levels of pedal assist,

17:09

which comes in super handy for me because

17:11

there are lots of hills. Oh yeah. And

17:13

I don't want to sweat going up that hill. No.

17:16

But I have five levels to choose from.

17:18

I am really excited to have this bike.

17:20

I feel like it has kind of changed my whole

17:22

experience of this neighborhood. It's

17:25

an incredible area to bike around. And now I have

17:27

one and I have a super good one. Yeah.

17:29

Make every day feel like an endless summer vacation with

17:32

an XP 3.0 from Lectric. Visit

17:35

lectricebikes.com to

17:37

learn more and explore the epic models

17:40

Lectric has to offer. That's

17:43

L-E-C-T-R-I-C

17:46

ebikes.com.

17:48

Griffin, you know the economy. Oh, sure.

17:50

You know how sometimes the economy makes

17:53

you have different money than you would normally

17:55

have?

17:55

That's a very good way of putting it, baby. I know.

17:58

I really simplified it for you. I

18:00

have been trying to pay more attention to

18:02

how I'm spending my money. And

18:05

the platform I have been using is Rocket

18:08

Money. Yeah. They send me

18:10

these little emails that tell me how much I'm spending

18:12

each week. And then like the

18:14

areas I'm spending them. And then it helps me

18:17

categorize my transactions too. So

18:19

it's like, you spent this much on health and wellness.

18:21

And you spent this much on entertainment.

18:24

And it's like a really good way to be mindful

18:26

about how you are investing your resources.

18:29

Sure. Rocket

18:29

Money is a personal finance app

18:32

that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions,

18:35

monitors your spending, and helps you lower

18:37

your bills all in one place. Cancel

18:40

your unwanted subscriptions and manage your

18:42

money the easy way by going to rocketmoney.com

18:45

slash wonderful. That's rocketmoney.com

18:48

slash wonderful.

18:49

One more time, rocketmoney.com

18:52

slash wonderful.

18:57

The greatest generation. Maximum Funds

18:59

irreverent potty mouth Star Trek podcast

19:02

is a big deal. How big? It's

19:05

the only Star Trek podcast big

19:07

enough to have our very own live

19:09

show tour. And we're inviting all Star

19:11

Trek fan max funsters everywhere.

19:14

We're calling it the share your embarrassment tour.

19:16

And this year we're going to celebrate and roast

19:19

Star Trek five, the final frontier.

19:21

We're going to go to a bunch of cities and

19:23

greatestgentour.com has all

19:26

the

19:26

info. That's greatestgentour.com

19:29

for dates and ticketing info for

19:31

the share your embarrassment tour. Share

19:33

your embarrassment and grow stronger

19:36

from the sharing.

19:42

Hi, I'm Travis McElroy. And I'm Teresa

19:45

McElroy. And we're the hosts of Schmanners.

19:47

If you're looking for a good place to jump into

19:50

our show, we really recommend

19:52

either the playgrounds episode or

19:54

the job interviews

19:55

episode. Or if you want to go

19:57

way back, you can check out the episode where we compare the differences.

20:00

between afternoon tea and high tea.

20:03

So check out those episodes and new episodes

20:05

every Friday on Maximum Fun or wherever

20:07

you get your podcasts.

20:15

This is another one of those segments that I cannot

20:18

believe we have not done before. Maybe

20:20

the most

20:21

that I cannot believe we haven't done before. It's

20:24

trains, baby. Now

20:27

I will say in going on wonderful.fyi,

20:30

I did see

20:32

that you very recently did talk

20:34

about the zoo train. I do not believe that

20:36

there is, I think there was a lot of depths

20:39

left unplumbed there. Because

20:42

I don't think people are using zoo trains for long

20:44

distance.

20:44

Yeah, I imagine the way you're talking

20:46

about the train is when you would want to potentially

20:49

travel between cities and not

20:51

between exhibits at a zoo. Right. I

20:53

cannot

20:54

believe I haven't talked about this before because I feel like I

20:57

very frequently and loudly

21:00

exclaim my love of a train

21:02

to anyone who will

21:04

listen. And that didn't used to be the case.

21:07

But really once we started touring a

21:09

lot, once we sort of hit the one

21:12

tour a month schedule that we

21:14

are kind of back on now at this point

21:16

after a brief hiatus, thanks

21:19

to the novel coronavirus 2019 edition.

21:22

We're back at it. And now that we live in

21:25

DC,

21:26

the train opportunities for us are

21:29

through the roof. Are you

21:31

specifically talking about Amtrak? I

21:34

mean, yes, I guess I am talking about long distance. I

21:36

love a subway train. Yeah, because I was gonna say

21:38

there are a lot of... Sure. I think a

21:41

light rail, any other form of sort of

21:44

public transit that one would use on a daily

21:47

basis, that's obviously amazing too.

21:50

And I love availing myself

21:52

of that here in DC when

21:54

we have a chance to use it. I

21:57

think I am mostly focusing more on trains

21:59

as well.

21:59

long distance sort of

22:03

transportation. Yeah, I will say it's interesting

22:06

because there was a period of time when I live in

22:08

Chicago and I would take the train to St. Louis and

22:10

I kind of hated that train ride

22:13

because it's- I'm so short.

22:15

It's not though. Chicago

22:17

to St. Louis- Okay, six hours? Yeah,

22:20

about that. But the problem is that

22:23

there were

22:23

always delays and I think it was something

22:25

unique about that route because

22:28

a lot of times what would happen is another train

22:30

would need to go by and you would have to

22:32

like sit on the side and wait. And

22:35

that was at the time when cell phone technology

22:37

was not great either. So I was

22:39

like scrambling to like tell my parents

22:42

like, hey, I am actually

22:44

going to be an hour to maybe two

22:46

hours. Please don't leave

22:48

the house yet. So it's funny

22:49

because I looked up just as a data

22:51

point, like the comparison between air travel

22:54

and train travel with regards to- Delays.

22:57

Delays, right? And the

23:00

numbers are somewhat comparable actually. Like

23:02

if for air travel across the airlines,

23:05

some are better than others, like Frontier, it's

23:08

like 31% of flights are delayed

23:10

in some way. I forget what the

23:12

best one was, but it was only like 20%. Basically

23:15

between 20 and 30% of flights

23:18

are delayed regardless of what airline that you

23:20

are going on. The numbers are roughly

23:22

the same for train travel because

23:24

a vast majority

23:27

of those delays are due to

23:30

freight trains that block

23:33

routes, right? That's an inevitable.

23:36

Freight trains always run on time. Freight trains are

23:38

always going to get there because I guess they take priority.

23:41

But delays are much, much shorter

23:43

in duration on average. I

23:46

saw some fact about like for an Amtrak

23:48

train that goes like 550 miles on a route, on

23:54

average is arriving at its final

23:56

destination just like a half hour past. Yeah,

23:59

see.

23:59

compared to a plane, like once

24:02

a delay starts to happen on

24:04

a flight, odds are it's going to

24:07

keep rolling and keep rolling

24:08

and keep rolling. No, that's true. And just the,

24:10

I mean, the experience of airports just

24:12

seems to have gotten worse and worse

24:15

as we have gotten older in a

24:18

train station and the process of getting

24:20

on a train, oh, it's so pleasant. Right,

24:22

so the amount of time you have to factor

24:24

in when you fly between getting to the airport,

24:27

parking, getting on the shuttle

24:30

at the parking lot to the terminal,

24:33

getting your boarding passes, dropping off your

24:35

bags, going through security, waiting

24:37

at the gate, boarding, waiting to taxi, then

24:39

flying and then landing, and then waiting to park at the

24:41

gate, waiting to deplane, waiting for your bags.

24:43

Like there's so much time not

24:46

spent flying when

24:48

you're flying. And

24:51

it's stressful, that

24:54

entire process of just getting on the plane,

24:56

especially with kids, it's so fucking

24:59

stressful. And with

25:01

a train, you show up to the

25:03

station five minutes before the train

25:05

arrives at the station and you just

25:08

walk on, you just walk right on

25:10

it and you put your bags in the rack and then

25:12

you go on the train.

25:13

It's so wild to me that you get

25:15

on a train, you sit down and only after

25:17

the train starts moving does somebody come by. Come

25:19

and get

25:19

your ticket, it's crazy. You

25:23

know, like I get that there's probably

25:25

not a lot of people trying to scam the train

25:27

system, but it is surprising

25:29

to me, like

25:31

just to be like, I'm already here. And

25:34

now you wanna know if I'm supposed to be here. Like

25:37

obviously

25:38

trains are slower than planes

25:41

for longer distances, right? Like we

25:44

live on the East Coast as a result,

25:46

when I'm about to fly to Seattle

25:49

for PAX and that flight is

25:51

like five and a half hours, that's a long flight.

25:53

The train would I think be about like 36 hours,

25:57

like that's not tenable for me where I'm

25:59

at.

25:59

in my life. Now I will

26:02

say my great dream is that in

26:04

my lifetime, we will have a high speed

26:06

rail system that crisscrosses

26:08

this beautiful country of ours like they have in Japan

26:11

or China or most parts of Europe. Not

26:14

happening

26:15

quite yet, which is unfortunate. But

26:18

yeah, I gotta fly to the West Coast. That's just how it is.

26:20

But for Washington

26:23

to New York,

26:24

I think it's actually faster once you

26:26

factor in all of the bullshit

26:29

at the two airports that you have to

26:31

go to to just take a train. It's

26:34

faster and in most cases,

26:35

much cheaper. Yeah, definitely faster than

26:37

driving also. Yes. Also

26:40

train stations are, especially

26:43

in bigger cities,

26:44

gorgeous. Union Station here in DC

26:47

is one of the most unfathomably

26:50

beautiful insides of a building

26:52

I have ever been in. It is cathedral-esque

26:56

and I love it so much. I'm hopping all

26:58

around my notes right now. I'm just quantum

27:01

leaping all the way through these notes because I'm just so fucking

27:03

excited about trains. They're

27:05

huge. You get so much more

27:07

space. Sometimes you can get a table where you just sit

27:10

across from the people you wanna just chat with and just

27:12

play a board game or whatever the fuck.

27:14

Yeah, the fact that you can get out of

27:16

your seat and move around is

27:18

a huge pro now that we have children. Our

27:21

young son is at an age that is

27:23

the worst for travel because he is

27:26

very active and rambunctious and

27:28

cannot sit still for a minute.

27:30

Yeah. On an airplane, that sucks because

27:33

there is nothing for us. We will literally just run

27:36

up and down the aisle and

27:38

then just stay in the back of the plane

27:41

with the flight attendants.

27:42

And you just have to pray that you get a flight attendant

27:45

that is very forgiving. Yes, on a

27:47

train. Because yeah, obviously planes

27:49

are not intended to have children

27:51

running back and forth on them all the time. On train,

27:54

run around as much as you want. Hop between

27:56

cars if you want. Go to the dining car, buy

27:58

yourself some snacks.

27:59

I didn't even think about this. I was reading

28:02

an article on why train travel kicks ass.

28:04

Bring your own snacks, bring your own

28:06

food and drinks from home because they're not going to make you throw it

28:09

the fuck away as soon as

28:11

you get to the train station

28:12

like they do at an airport. The number of

28:14

times that we had to fly

28:16

with one of our kids and

28:19

every single TSA agent looked

28:21

at the bottles of milk that we would bring through

28:24

as if they were some sort of like

28:27

improvised explosive device is 100%

28:29

of the time. It's every single time when

28:31

it's like, no, that's milk. The baby needs that for nutrition

28:34

and living, like babies

28:36

do it.

28:37

They don't care on a train. Just bring whatever

28:39

the fuck you want. The bathroom's

28:42

so spacious. You don't have to squeeze your knees together

28:45

just to fit in the thing and then somehow get your

28:47

hand down there when it's wiping time. I don't want

28:49

to get blue, but like it's a reality of

28:51

fact of life and

28:53

you don't have to do that on train. I

28:55

don't remember train bathrooms being that much

28:57

bigger. Oh my God, they're so big. On the Amtrak

28:59

that we took back from Richmond to

29:01

DC, those were like the size of this office.

29:05

They were gargantuan. Let's

29:08

talk scenery. It beats planes in every

29:10

way. Okay,

29:12

I will say this, in a plane you get a good

29:15

vista of a nice big city or

29:17

clouds, just an ocean of paradise

29:20

of clouds from above. I love

29:22

that. But you've kind of seen one, you've

29:24

seen them all. Trains, you're down

29:26

in it, man. You're zooming through all the beautiful

29:29

biomes of this great planet of ours. And

29:31

I like that very much. Some trains have observation

29:33

cars that are just big windows. You can just sit and just

29:36

kick it and watch the trees go

29:38

by, the foliage.

29:39

You've been on a train that had like a

29:41

sleeper situation, right? You can get a sleeper

29:43

car if you really splurge. Not

29:46

all trains have them. Not all trains have them. And

29:48

frankly, you don't need them for a lot of things,

29:50

but we, I forget, we were on tour,

29:53

traveling on a train. We didn't really even need

29:55

the sleeper car because it was only like a four hour trip,

29:58

which is not, you

29:59

know. You can go four hours without sleeping. I

30:02

hope. But I did avail

30:04

myself of it. And it was amazing

30:06

just being rocked and lulled to sleep by

30:09

the movement of the powerful engine.

30:12

I was in hog

30:14

heaven, plugging in all my

30:16

devices to the copious power

30:19

outlets, jacking into the web

30:21

on the free Wi-Fi that most like long

30:24

distance commuter trains have now.

30:26

I mean, what else do I need to say?

30:30

They're

30:30

amazing. They beat plane travel in

30:33

every conceivable way. Much more affordable also.

30:35

Much more affordable. I don't get like terrible

30:38

like sinus problem. I get

30:40

bad like baro trauma from being on

30:42

an airplane from pressurizing the cabins. Like

30:45

I would say coin flip like 50% of the time, especially

30:48

if I don't pound the flow nays like a couple of days

30:50

before, which remind me I need to

30:53

start hitting that now for the Seattle flight. I

30:55

get sick on an airplane. On a

30:57

train they don't pressurize the cabins because you're on

30:59

the ground where

31:00

God intended you to be. Now we are recording

31:03

this in 2023. The future

31:05

of train travel, I mean, maybe it

31:07

gets. Even better. Here's

31:10

the thing because train. I will say people also

31:13

used to love planes. That's what I will say. People used

31:15

to love planes. So planes have fucking fallen off.

31:17

Every

31:17

single sort of airline has

31:20

like had a, I would say a steep decline

31:22

in quality over

31:25

the last five or six years, especially

31:27

during COVID. Train demand

31:31

has gone up. Amtrak has had to add

31:33

new trains to their lines. So

31:36

there's not, tragically we just had

31:38

this big infrastructure package in

31:40

late 2021. I think that

31:42

it did not include, I believe one

31:45

red cent for high speed

31:47

rails.

31:47

But imagine if we did have that,

31:50

it would be a totally different conversation about

31:53

how people got around in this country in

31:55

such a major way.

31:59

I joke

32:01

a lot about my enthusiasm for

32:03

trains, but it is genuine and

32:05

it is very powerful. And I

32:07

would be so, that would be a life

32:09

changing thing for so many

32:11

people if we could get that.

32:13

You think Joe Biden would be all about it.

32:15

You think that would be a operation? Scraneman

32:18

loves his trains. Like took

32:20

the train into DC every

32:22

day or whatever. I feel like, you know. I'll

32:24

talk to him.

32:26

Yeah, see what you can do.

32:27

Romantic too, trains are. And

32:30

Joe Biden maybe. Trains are so romantic.

32:32

If before sunrise took place on an airplane.

32:35

True. Totally different story. Because also

32:38

I think Jessie convinces Celine

32:40

to get off the train before

32:42

she reaches her final destination which is not how

32:45

airplanes work. They

32:47

would jump out of it. They would have to skydive out

32:49

of the, oh okay, or more importantly,

32:52

the beginning of the film, she trades, she

32:54

changes seats because there's a couple

32:56

arguing next to her and sits next to Jessie. That's

33:00

how the romance sparks. They don't let you do that shit on airplanes. So

33:03

there, take that in your pipe and shove

33:05

it airplanes. You're

33:08

the worst. I like that we've set up this

33:11

environment where you have to be pro one and

33:13

anti the other. And we are very firmly

33:16

pro train

33:17

anti planes. There's parts of plane travel

33:19

that I also do not mind. It

33:21

is genuinely very beautiful to see a city

33:23

from above as you're coming down into

33:26

it.

33:27

A short flight is

33:29

incredible. I will say when

33:31

you are flying, when

33:33

we used to have to fly from Austin

33:36

to Dallas or when I used to fly from

33:38

St. Louis to Chicago, those flights

33:40

that are like an hour at

33:43

the train. They're fine, but you're also spending an hour and

33:45

a half going through all the airport bullshit.

33:47

Just take a train, man. Just take

33:50

a train. You

33:52

get to watch movies. I watched John Wick 4 on

33:54

an airplane recently. That was nice. Sometimes

33:57

there's food.

33:59

And you know, I love

34:01

having gadgets on the plane and

34:03

just sitting down and playing a game or something.

34:06

But most of the time there's no chargers. Uh oh,

34:08

my switch is dead. Now I'm

34:09

just bored. Not a problem

34:11

on trains. Trains kick ass in every

34:13

way. Thank you so much, trains. Brigid.

34:17

Oh wait. You got an

34:19

intro. Hey, you wanna know what our friends

34:21

at home are talking about? Yes, please. Brigid

34:24

has a small wonder here. Brigid says, my

34:26

small wonder is reaching the end of a tube of ChapStick.

34:29

It's rare that I can keep track of one long enough

34:31

to use it all up. It feels so satisfying when

34:33

I do. I'll be honest, I do not know this

34:35

feeling.

34:35

Yeah, I don't know that I've ever. Ever, ever,

34:38

ever. I've never lived, I mean

34:40

maybe, okay, if I like grew up

34:42

in Minnesota or Chicago

34:45

or whatever and

34:48

lived in a sort of chappy environment,

34:49

then maybe

34:52

I could see myself staying. Well, I will say

34:54

I'm always convinced that there is a better

34:56

lip product out there. And

34:59

so a lot of times I will switch halfway through only

35:01

because I have decided that this

35:04

is not the one I want. I've gotta

35:06

chase this $9 thing because

35:08

that's gonna be the best.

35:09

James says

35:12

cultural festivals are wonderful. Specifically,

35:14

the chance to eat lots of super delicious foods that

35:16

are otherwise hard to find

35:18

in my town. Yes,

35:20

yes. Growing up in Huntington,

35:22

there

35:23

was. You guys have food festivals

35:25

every weekend. We have food festivals every weekend that were

35:28

not inherently cultural

35:30

in nature. No, unless

35:32

the culture was in fact Huntington, West Virginia.

35:34

Well, I mean, yeah, hot dogs and rib

35:36

fest and chili fest and like we had lots

35:39

of fest. But there was a Greek festival that

35:43

was like a

35:44

big deal and it was across

35:46

the street from my elementary school. And

35:49

we went to that shit a lot. And that is

35:51

where I had heroes for the first time. I

35:56

had lots of tasty food at the Greek festival.

35:58

Yeah, I'm always looking for stuff like that.

35:59

in DC. Like I will always

36:02

eagerly check out a like an events calendar

36:05

to see if we can bring the boys to something

36:07

like that. Hey thanks to Bowen

36:08

and Augustus for these for a theme song Money Won't Pay.

36:10

You'll find a link to that in the episode description. And

36:13

thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network. I

36:15

mentioned it a couple times during my preaching

36:19

about trains but we're going to be in Seattle this

36:21

weekend doing My

36:23

Brother, My Brother and Me and the Adventure Zone

36:25

during PAX West. We're also, if

36:27

you're going to be at PAX, doing a couple panels. If you

36:29

go to Macroi.Family you can get tickets for those shows.

36:32

I think they might be sold out. I don't know. And

36:35

find out details on when our panels are and

36:37

stuff. Come see us and it'll

36:40

be a great time. We got some more shows coming up

36:42

too that you could learn about at Macroi.Family

36:44

as well. Got more merch over at MacroiMerch.com.

36:46

Can I mention your YouTube streams? Yes

36:49

please. I will

36:51

kind of save them up and treat

36:54

them as a little lunchtime entertainment

36:56

but Griffin and his brothers

36:59

will play some

37:01

Mario games together. Yes. And

37:03

it is so fun and funny

37:06

and I always enjoy it. If you've

37:07

not watched it we play Super Mario

37:09

World. By the time you're hearing this we

37:11

hopefully finished the game yesterday

37:14

in a series we called

37:16

Super Macroi Brothers and

37:18

we split up controls so that I do the jumping,

37:21

Justin does the moving, Travis does everything

37:23

else and it's cockamamie and so

37:25

fun. It's insane that it works. Sometimes

37:27

I watch it and you guys will not

37:29

be communicating you will just be like

37:32

blood harmonizing. Same brain. Yeah.

37:34

Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of fun

37:36

and we have a lot of other stuff on there too. A lot of video

37:38

game stuff. A lot of good stuff at the

37:41

Macroi.Family YouTube channel. Go check that

37:43

out.

37:43

That's it. Thanks for listening. We sure

37:45

do appreciate you. We'll be back next week with another

37:48

great episode. Have a great

37:50

time. Have a great time out there. Have a great weekend everybody.

37:53

Have a great weekend. Any big plans? Oh

37:56

that sounds fun. I'm talking to the audience

37:58

now. No I know.

37:59

I'll probably answer back. What's that? Oh,

38:03

that sounds exciting.

38:06

Oh, and also I'm

38:08

sorry that your weekend plans

38:11

are not what you want them to be because

38:14

there's probably listeners that have that too. Oh,

38:16

okay, yeah, you do the sad ones and I'll do the fucking

38:19

party animals.

38:50

Yeah. Maximum

38:58

Fun. A worker-owned network of

39:00

artist-owned shows.

39:02

Supported directly by you.