Episode 108

Fiona Apple: When the Pawn... (1999)

Beck Did It Better Podcast 1999

About this episodeWe know we're the mess that you don't want to clean up, but we promise it's only kisses on the cheek from here on out this episode when we become the best podcast about Fiona Apple and the 108th greatest album of all time When the Pawn... But before we get to the album we find something sweet and enjoyable and totally ruin it when we discuss fig-flavored desserts, ballpark nachos, and realizing that you are in fact...inside-out shirt guy. We also talk about dating someone younger than you (Leo style), rules for watching TV shows with your spouse, and Pageant of the Masters performance art. T

[00:00]Russell, you want to try to take it, Russell? I'm going to go first, then you guys go for it if I can't get it. Or we each try it. In 2020, four friends decided to listen to the Rolling Stone Top 500 list. This resulted in a text chain and something that excurs in the order which led us to making this podcast. All opinions are our own, unless you disagree. This is Back Did It Better Without Rob. In 2020, four friends decided to listen to every album on the Rolling Stone Top 500. This resulted in a text chain that celebrated the artist, excurs in the order, and led us to making this podcast. All opinions are our own, unless you disagree. Please sit back and enjoy. Back Did It Better. Yes, Matt, you got a run in it? In 2020, four friends decided to listen to the Top 500 album list of all times, excoriating the order and giving all of their own shitty opinions at some order.

[01:00]Nobody cares about, and only we have dozens of listeners, although we hope to have hundreds someday. And now, at 107 on the list, we have, nope, 108. I'm sorry. Oh, see, look, I said just like Rob there. Oh, is it 106? Oh, 108? Oh, nope. Oh, at 108 on the list, we have Fiona Apples. When the pawn hits the conflicts, he thinks like a king. What he knows, throws the blows when he goes the fight, and he'll blow the whole thing before he enters the ring where the body by batter, the matter, the might, so he goes solo, you hold your hand, own hand, remember the depth, the greatest of heights, and if you know where to stand, then you know where to land, and if you fall, it won't matter, because you'll know right there. That was like the Micromachines Man. In 2020, four friends decided to listen to every one of the greatest 500 albums as decided by Rolling Stone Magazine. This resulted in a text chain that celebrated the music, excoriating the order, and led us to make it this podcast. We are far from experts. We promise to do almost no research. All opinions are our own, unless

[02:01]you disagree. Please sit back and enjoy. Back did better. We are all the way up to album 108, and from 1999, we have Fiona Apple, When the Pawn. And guys, I know what you're thinking. Did Rob do a parody song about Russell being a cowboy, and then made an extraordinarily dirty song about it? Yes, I did, and we're going to listen to it right now. What is it? Welcome to K-Rob. Late Night's Western Edition. Last week, Russell showed us his cowboy hat, and I gotta admit, we had a listener send in the song saying she was very interested in maybe going for a ride. Oh, yeah. I am a bad cow girl and I am looking for a cowboy

[03:01]man. Russell, forget those pearls. Treat me like a test at school. I need you to cram. Come on and fuck me hard. Wear your hat and I'm ready to ride. Think of me like a cowboy bank. Ready for a deposit deep inside. For like a mirror, I see you in my pants. I'm the cow and you're the big strong fool. And I'm a milking machine, so come on and jump my pants. It's the cowboy hat that I love. When you want to hear about the greatest, best albums of all

[04:00]time. But you're just too lazy to look it up online. Here we go. So just to let everybody know, I should say before we do this, we started with people in my apartment sitting here while I was getting ready to record and the guys just started doing the intro. So we're going to leave all those in. You get right in. Who do you think did the best intro? Who should be the new intro guy? Okay, there has been criticism of the past that I'm trying to sound too much like a radio, radio, radio guy. So we'll see if that's improved at all. Mad cow. So let us know. And you know what? Feel free to send any voicemails and texts whatsoever, actually, because we are scraping the bottom of the burrow. No offense to our listeners, but that's what it is. But listen, I've got three guys here, okay? Who, in my mind, well, I don't know. What would you say? I think, Russell, you're kind of a rook. I think, Matt, you kind of look like a knight to me. And Aaron, I mean, he's the bishop, right? He obviously looks like a bishop. But look at that guy. He's kind of tall. And of course, I'm the king and queen combined

[05:01]into one piece. I've got Russell in Minnesota. Russell, how are you doing today? Rob, am I your favorite co-host or should I get out of town? I just need to be reassured. Do you just deal it out or can you deal with all that I lay down? Ooh, wow. It's laying down. It reminds me of something. Hey, you see how it works when you're prepared, Rob? Things go well. I've got, man, no, we're not going to talk about how unprepared I am today. We've made that agreement, I thought. But I can't remember. Matt in Minneapolis. Matt, how are you doing tonight? Yes, queen. Good to be here. Thanks for having me. And I've got Aaron all the way out in California just in time for fire season. Aaron, how are you doing today? Oh, fire season is starting up. September's going to be a hot one. You know, Rob, I know I'm a mess that you don't want to clean up, but I promise it's only kisses on the cheek from now on. So let's talk about Fianna Fáil. I cannot believe that I forgot to do my intro for Aaron, but I want to say intro for Aaron who still wears his Big Johnson shirts. So a lot of people don't realize that that Aaron

[06:01]still has a number of Big Johnson shirts. I mean, I got a Big Johnson. Like, what do I can't like? And what am I not going to wear the shirt? Big Johnson fire department. We got the hoses and then the butthole or whatever. The second part was always like, it's not even that subtle. Like it was never like what would you guys remember any Big Johnson? I remember. What was it? It was it was Big Dog, right? Well, no. Big Dog was clean. Big Dog was normal stuff. Rude Dog. Rude Dog. Yeah. Rude Dog was not clean. But Rude Dog was more binders, right? I had a Rude Dog binder. I don't remember. Is there all these? You can't you can't say these on the radio. Big Johnson. What is this? May I force one in you? Oh, no. You can't say that. That's not allowed. You can't say that on the radio. We got Big Johnson fishing rods. Okay. It's easy to reel them in when you've got a Big Johnson and they're in a boat called Catch and Snapper. So I'm just going to leave that. I think that's good enough. Big Johnson mud tires. No holes too deep or sloppy when you're driving with a Big Johnson. I mean, you can't

[07:01]say that stuff on the radio. Oh, my God. Now, think about this shirt. You are in eighth grade. You are going to buy this shirt, by the way, for sale on eBay. Seventy dollars. I'm just going to say that right now. I'm more of a retail guy at Snyder's. Snyder's at the mall. What was it called? Snyder's? Was that it? We used to talk about that place. No, it was Spencer Gifts. Spencer Gifts. Spencer Gifts. Once again, somehow we find the most offensive content on the most thoughtful. Well, now, wait a minute. I didn't get done explaining my shirt. It's Big Johnson tequila. Never mind the salty taste. Just swallow the big worm. Now, I don't actually get that one. I think that one's fine. Like, do you think, guys, do you think this podcast, if you went back and did its Ancestry.com, could it be traced to Big Johnson shirts? Is that possible? Big Johnson hand jacks. I mean, that's not even a thing, right? Big Johnson bowling balls? Get your nuts off easier when your Johnson's in jail. I mean, I've got to edit that out. That's terrible. That's absolutely nothing. But anyway, we're here to talk about Fiona Apple. So if you're here as a big Fiona Apple song and you fan and you

[08:00]just listen to our bid on Big Johnson shirts, good for you. That's excellent. Let's get right into the voicemail. Now, I want to be clear. This voicemailer texted and requested that I play this in a Sally Field voice. Okay. Now, probably the least surprising thing ever. There is no Sally Field voice. I don't know why he thought somebody would have put together a voice emulator for Sally Field. This is the replacements guy, right? Only the replacements guy would come up with that. Instead, we are going to listen to this. A generic female Google voice. Okay. As the faithful dumb shit listener I am, I fast-forwarded through most of the episode

[09:00]just to make sure I made the cut. If that screws up your ratings, I apologize to absolutely no one. Keep up the good work. That, of course, is from MagicMike69. One of our oldest, most faithful listeners. And if you haven't listened to the Beck Did It Better best of, like Aaron, I highly recommend you go back and listen to How About MagicMike in one session of voicemails. Both got told by Chris Farley's brother he was going to get laid and then did and then went to a fuck fest and did wear socks. So, our podcast is presenting people's truth out there. And if you guys are listening to next week's episode in February 2023 and we've all been murdered, it's because Matt gave MagicMike our Vegas trip date and we are all now dead. You see, here's the ploy. You guys are dead. MagicMike and I are good buddies. I'm still walking the earth. You guys are dead. I feel like MagicMike and I get along. I don't remember saying anything bad about him, for example, when he first left the iTunes review, which sure is not to be one of like three iTunes reviews

[10:00]we have. And I told him to eat shit because he said we had a slight factual error. So, I mean, you know, kind of MagicMike is a great dude and he's a great music fan and we are all better for having him as our listeners. Let's just say. I think I have to go full Instagram blast and start blasting this whole episode that's just came out. I think we need to do a big social media push, guys. The whole episode is so good. We need to get people to listen. We need to buck up our listenership. Listen, summer's over listenership of the episode plateaus in the summer. No problem. It's like one of the whole episode or part of the episode. I would do part of the whole episode. Yeah, it's but to me, the parts were, you know what they were the beginning of the whole episode is the end of the whole episode or the whole episode. I would say the big whole episode. I think that was the that was the best part of it. Yeah, the whole we got to do it, guys. We got to get some more. We got to start. I mean, the bottom line is we got to get famous right? Like we've been fucking around for two years. It's time to get famous now. If we went up to once a

[11:00]day, if we were recording every day, we would get through this by what 2027 then instead of 2037, whatever it is. God, can you imagine? I read it. So I was reading about Marky Moon for last week's episode. Have you ever taken a math class? I don't think you'll take us to 2027. Do you know how many days are in a year? Confused, confused. Aaron was doing that math in two, four times. So he was he does a little bit different math. I read that the old the old article on Wikipedia still says that Marky Moon is at number 128. I was like 128. We're doing great. We're really moving through. And then I remembered Rob's 107 joke and I was like, oh no, we're only at 107. This is terrible. So now every time Rob says the letter or the number, I'm just dismayed. But these albums are great. I mean, I I'm really enjoying listening to them. So and I like talking to you guys. So you're stuck with me for the next. I'm not going to do the math number of years. I also like the albums and I like talking to you guys.

[12:00]This is very good. I am not sleep deprived at all by doing these episodes during the week. That's true. That is that is the only thing is that I am back to teaching now. So I'm like, hmm, how tired do we want to be tomorrow? Like today? When you say back to teaching, what did you what exactly was your day like today? It sounds like you're back to workshops where you do nothing but like drink old fashions and eat lobster tail. That was at the end and they were lobster rolls. Russell, read my text, please. Better. They were lobster rolls at the end of the day. They did have little drinks. Now I'm going to tell you right now. They had three different drink stations. One cans of beer. I skipped it. Didn't need it. Number two, but they also were serving lobster rolls there and they also had wine. I didn't get any wine station. Number two, they had sweet potatoes and pulled pork and then you could get a old fashioned like just out of a craft. It was crazy. I had like three that's wonderful. I had three and then I go over to the head of school and that one of the guys goes,

[13:01]oh, is that your second? And I was like, dude, why are you saying shit like that? And I said, no, this is my first like what are you like? Why are we talking about how many drinks I'm having in a school function? Like, you know, my deal. I drink one too many at a school function. That's my goal. Rob, I got a question for you. I mean, you know, you you talked about how you spent all summer wearing speedos and moves at the, you know, like have you had to like get back into like remembering how to dress again and things like that? Is it do you have enough? No, I had to like dig out like I was digging out long pants. I was like, I don't even know where my long pants are right now. This is crazy. Like finding underwear is that's part of my problem right in the summer. I'm wearing those shorts with no underwear. That's why I'm constantly pissing myself. At least you put your pants on the correct way, right? Not inside out or anything. You know, those text chains that we don't have to bring up everything I put on the text chain. I did today and partway through my CPR training. Okay. I realized that my shirt was on inside out and it's a collared shirt with buttons

[14:01]and somehow I was inside out. You sent a photo. I was impressed that you figured out how to put on a collared shirt inside out. Did you leave it inside out then? I switched it because when I was walking out, somebody was behind me and then they talked to me and I could see them scanning my body. Has anybody ever done that where they're talking to you and they're scanning your body and you're like, Jesus Christ, what's going on with my body that they're and I just said to them, I know it's inside out. I haven't had a chance to switch it. So did you go switch it at some point or not? The worst part is, is I post on Facebook at school, second day workshops, shirt is on inside out. And you know what everybody put on Facebook? Yep. Makes sense. I was like, what the fuck? Like, is that really who I am? I'm inside out shirt guy. Like, yes, that's it. No, I'm not inside out shirt guy. I'm like hero to kids. I'm like trying to help. I'm trying to make the world better. I'm not inside out shirt guy. I absolutely refuse. How many classes are you teaching this year, Rob? Like three. I mean, come on. You were mentioning all the food you got. We had

[15:01]a fun treat at work today. The building that I work in hired Minnesota nice cream. So like an ice cream truck to come in and do like, they've got like all the great ice cream treats. So it's not like an old school bluebell truck, but it's like a food truck that just does ice cream. So you can go in, pick from like 18 toppings or whatever. It's huge line out the door and I couldn't resist. So I was kind of curious. Is there like a food thing that if you guys ever see it, whether it's like a food truck or something you're walking by that you always have to get. I'll tell you right now in New York, the answer to that is what's it called? It's not called these every dish. It's not called these nuts. It's called what's it called? Jenny, what's the nuts thing called? What? Oh my gosh. Sorry, Rob. I can't hear you. It sounds like you're cleaning dishes. I'm in the living room. I'm in the living room screaming my brains out. Jenny's not even listening. Is it roasted nuts? Because I do have a roasted nuts story about Russell. Nuts, for nuts. What? Nuts, for nuts. They make the roasted nuts on the street corners here

[16:01]in New York. I have to get one every time I see one. It is addictive. I cannot. It's just sugar on nuts. I love it. It reminds me of my T-shirt I had. Big Johnson nuts. My best experience with roasted nuts. The bigger the nuts, the sweeter the... Am I on mute? I don't know. My best experience with roasted nuts was with Russell at Miller Park. We discovered the roasted nuts stand at Miller Park when we were there to watch the twins. Fantastic. And it was the most delightful treat. Perfect for a ballgame. Comes in a little paper cone. Lasts you a couple of innings. I hear you, Rob. I think that's good. Oh, man. But for me, a cart... Speaking of New York, a cart that I cannot walk by is the Halal cart with the white and red sauce. If you get the Halal cart, I gotta have it at least once if I'm in New York. It's been 10 years since I was there, but for me, that's the number one. Quality is their motto. Quality is their motto. That's how you know it's good. Made with love. What about you, man? The thing that comes to mind instantly is nachos at a baseball game.

[17:01]I don't know, but like, I just have to get nachos when I'm at a baseball game. There's something about nachos at a game that you can extend that for a few minutes. Like, if you get a hot dog, that thing is gone in 18 seconds, right? That's what I'm talking about. But if you get nachos, you can turn that into like a 10-minute food adventure, don't you think? Yes. Yeah. You've got the swamp chip at the end, like, where you really gotta go for it. Nachos are a whole experience that you just can't get from a lot of other ballpark foods. Cheese gets cold. Yeah, it just gets real cold all of a sudden. And I love, oh, I love, you put some of those jalapenos in the cheese, and then you kind of dip it in, and sometimes the jalapeno makes it on the chip, and sometimes it doesn't. You're like, I love that. It's one of those, like, searching for the perfect bite. Like, you want to get that perfect bite of nacho, and you don't get it every serving of nachos, but you're out there chasing that dragon. I will say, a baseball game is, I think, the one place where I am still, like, all done, time to get up and simply walk away

[18:01]from all my garbage that's under my seat. I have left every single piece of garbage under my seat. I walk away, do not care about who has to pick this up, not even entering my mind. Actually, I've never even thought about it until right now. So, I don't know. You guys aren't picking up after yourself after, like, a baseball game, are you? No. I go buy a bag of peanuts just to throw that shit on the floor. I don't even eat them. I just throw them on the floor. You buy the peanut shells just for a discount? You're just buying the shells? I do have one pet peeve with nachos, and this is, I think, changed within the last probably 5-10 years or so. I don't like when you go and they give you, like, the pre-packaged bag of chips. I don't want the old Dutch bag of chips. I want them to scoop the chips in there. I want it to be, like, an unknown. Maybe I get a lot of chips. Maybe I don't get a lot of chips. I like the excitement of, like, feeling like these are, like, special chips, not just something that came out of a single pack from old Dutch. That is a crazy idea. The fact that you would just risk your number of chips based on the people working there trying to fit them in. The old Dutch bag is great. I'm always shocked when you open a the old Dutch bag, put it in the nachos. There's a shit ton of chips in there.

[19:00]But you could get more otherwise. What if you got lucky and got more, Rob? Yeah, you got those volunteers from the local church who are just trying to make, like, $5. They're back there sneezing all over all that stuff. Then they bring it up front to you. I like that, too. But I'm with you. They used to have the thing where they had all the trays sitting at the metronome, right? You can picture it. And they would just grab a tray from down below and start putting the cheese in and walk away. Maybe a little gets poured over the top of the chips. It can kind of ooze into it before you start eating them. I think it's the way to go. I would, too. Yeah, I like it for a while. The metronome was doing Big Johnson hot dogs, but they couldn't come up with a motto. I mean, they couldn't even think of one. Like, can you believe it? They're like Big Johnson hot dogs. They taste good. They're like made with losing seasons over and over. Maybe somebody made with the tears of Twins fans who've had nothing to cheer for in 30 years. Well, maybe somebody put $10 on them to win the AL Central. They've just been hoping and hoping, and they're happy when the Giants

[20:01]come to town. Listen, rolling going, how's it going with you? What is up with everybody? We haven't seen each other for so long. We haven't seen each other. How is it going, Aaron? Rolling going. Tell me how it's going with you. Rolling going. As always, it's a little bit of bitter, a little bit of sweet. It's rolling going great. Sounds like a Big Johnson t-shirt. Okay, so let's think about that. What could be a Big Johnson t-shirt that's bitter? Bitter and sweet. Bitter and sweet. I'm going to say Big Johnson piranhas. Bitter and sweet. It's going to be a piranha chewing off the swimsuit of a rather busty woman in the river. But I got a couple of updates. And then there's Aaron behind a small bush and he's spying. His egg-shaped head is peeking over the top. I think you are on mute. I think you are on mute. I know. I think I'm on mute. I don't think Rob hears you. A couple updates on some previous things I've mentioned. Figs have overtaken my life. I cannot pick a fig fast enough to get rid of the goddamn figs.

[21:00]We're giving them away to as many people as we can. My lady already made like three jars of fig jam and then I picked enough figs to make three more jars of fig jam. The figs are completely overrunning our lives. It's terrible. I don't know what we're going to do for the next month. I had a cousin that I don't remember what country they came from, but they visited a different country and they brought back gifts for all of us. And the gift that I got was a big bag of figs. And I was like, what the fuck am I supposed to do with these figs? You make jam. They're delicious. We learned that a fig is an inverted flower. It is neither a fruit nor a vegetable. It is a flower with air. We're not using the word inverted on the podcast. Okay, wait a minute. Inverted flower? That kind of sounds like a big Johnson shirt to me. Honestly. A fig is not like... I thought a fig was like a pear that was all like dried up and wrinkly or something. I don't know. No, a fig, you just eat the fig fresh. You pull it right off the tree, you can eat the damn thing. The old balls, the 42-year-old balls of the pear. Tonight we're out there trying to eat dinner and this is my other part of my rolling going. My son is the world's pickiest eater, but he has been eating school lunch

[22:01]which has like wildly opened up his life. Dad, I love Italian Dunkers. Son, that's just cheese and bread. It's not a real thing. He came home last week and he was like, Dad, I ate chicken off the bone. And I was like, what? I've been cutting your chicken up for five years. And I asked him what he was talking about and I showed him a picture of chicken drumsticks. He was like, yeah, like that. It has sauce. So tonight I made chicken drumsticks. He ate three drumsticks. I'm telling you. Can you, like, do you know how adorable a child eating a drumstick is? But we're out there eating the drumsticks and then there's a fucking squirrel up in the tree tearing after our figs because I didn't pick any today. And the squirrel's up there. And the squirrels, they eat the insides of the figs and then they leave the outside. They just drop it for you. These squirrels are so damn smart. It's like they're eating Oreos. They, like, eat out all the filling and leave the rest of the cookie. So Rob and Matt, did you guys realize this before? Like, were your kids super picky eaters and then they started going to school and life just opened up for them? Or did that does that not happen with all kids? No, I give my kids cash and they go fucking out for lunch.

[23:01]They have lunch out in Manhattan. I don't even have lunch out in Manhattan. So they have remained picky eaters. My plan is they're going to go on vacation with a friend's family and the friend's family is going to eat weird stuff and they're going to have to eat it or look weird. That's how I started eating food. Like, I was convinced I hated salmon until I was stuck at a dinner where people were eating salmon and I had to eat some and I was like, oh, I actually love it. I think it's really good. Yeah. Matt, are your kids picky eaters? No, but they're, uh, how do you say it? We're eat the same thing over the, um, they like to eat the same thing over and over. At least Leo does. You know, so the older one, I mean, he'll have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and grapes and dots, pretzels and a cheese stick for lunch every day, every day, you know, at school, that kind of a thing, right? Doesn't drink just water, doesn't drink any juice. Does anything just water, you know, kind of thing. So Eddie's a little bit more adventurous and wants to change things up a little bit. So, um, yeah, so no, they're, they're not necessarily picky, but they do like, they do have their habits,

[24:00]I guess. Now, Aaron, Aaron, I do want to say I have looked up figs on allrecipes.com. So I want to show you some of the top recipes they have and tell me what you think. Yeah, what you got? All right. I've got a fig spice cake. Ooh, that's a good choice. I would try that. I know. Sounds good. I mean, what part of that sounds good? The fig or the spices? Look at that picture right there. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's a beautiful bundt cake. Yeah, it looks delicious. Has anyone ever wanted more spice in their cake? Nobody. Everybody's like, I love this cake, but it's not spicy enough. That's the type of thing you get at a homemade party. Someone puts spice in the cake. On Arrakis, the house of Hakonin was probably trying to get more spice. I hope your eyes don't turn blue if you have this fig spice cake. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, where the sandworms, they make all the spice. Uh, let's see what spices are in there. Cloves? Cinnamon. Is that a spice? Cinnamon? That is technically a spice because otherwise... Well, they should just call it a cinnamon cake. That sounds much better than a spice cake. Cloves are kind of spicy. We got fig preserves and you claim you're baking. That's what I got in my fridge right now. I had some on toast yesterday and today. All these foods

[25:00]are incredibly brown. Like, this is an incredibly brown food. You know what I mean? And if you're in your 40s and own your own house, are you allowed to send, like, fig jam as, like, a Christmas present or, like, a birthday present? Well, I don't know because I don't know if it's going to stay, you know, shelf stable. I've been trying to figure out if we can send fig jam around the country, but I'm not sure how that works. Aaron, if you send me a jar of fig jam, I'll put it right where I put the figs my cousin sent me in the garbage. I was going to say, nobody will ever find out if it's shelf stable because nobody will ever open it. Hey, do I want this fig jam from Aaron and apparently a squirrel's been shitting in it? Or do I want this delicious strawberry jam with a picture of a strawberry on the front? It's so good. And the red checkered top. And I'm just going to open it in a normal jam. It's got its own squeezable bottle to squeeze out exactly what you want. Did I ever tell you guys I had a neighbor who used to, like, make banana bread for people in the winter all the time and they would always leave it on your doorstep and I never

[26:00]would eat it. I never trusted homemade baked goods from the neighbors. Oh my god, that's insane. The real thing is homemade baked goods, Russell. They made you homemade banana bread and you wouldn't eat it. You're a monster, Russell. That's terrible. No, I'm not. I'm out. Oh god. We've been sharing fig. We sent fig notices to all of the neighborhood, you know, distribution lists that were on. Everybody wanted some fig. What does that mean? Like, come pick them off of trees? No, we picked them and then sent them out on the front, you know? Like, here, here's a basket of figs. And people come grab them. And people come and add their own figs. They have more figs. Now they have double the figs. They're dropping them. Everybody's trying to get rid of figs. The fig repository. Fig jam, fig cookies. I would eat fig cookies. Russell, I'm not even going to ask you. Nobody thinks of fig cookies. Just his face. It's like, why ruin everything in life? Don't we have enough problems in life? We've got to be like, hey, let's take something that we would otherwise find sweet and enjoyable and we got to like, put them with figs? What the fuck? It's like, I used to think raisins and cookies

[27:00]were the worst thing. I don't anymore. How about a big-ass raisin? It's actually not a raisin. It's an inverted flower. It's an inverted fruit. Yeah, it's a flower. Inverted flower. Fig cake, fig bars. I mean, come on. And then here's one, Aaron. Fig preserves with rum. There you go. I mean, that's just the recipe to preserve. Any of these can be with rum. But no figgy pudding, right? None of them are figgy pudding. We've not made figgy pudding yet. Fig smoothie? Fig smoothie. See, I'm going to need you to send this to me because we're picking like 50 figs a day. And I don't really do all this stuff. You just pull up a search engine. Honestly, I'm terrified that if I send this to you, you're going to mail me some fig products. And I do not need that in my life right now. Okay? I got enough shit going on. I do not need more figs. I don't know. I heard somebody in your living room or your kitchen, or I'm not sure where you're at, pipe up about the figs. So maybe we should send some fig cookies your way, Rob. Seriously, Rob, how long have you been home? You couldn't have washed those dishes before you got home? I will say don't get washed in the back ground. Jenny today had a little get together for her

[28:00]birthday, which is on Monday. It's a couple days away. And she's also washing the dishes from her get together. So she not only planned it, she made everything. She washed it. Hey, do you have any more of that trifle? Bring over that trifle. Show these guys that trifle. This is where Rob, remember when Rob made us look at watching me make cupcakes the one night? Yes. Tune in next week to hear how Rob celebrated Jenny's birthday with his dog. It's fig free. This trifle is no figs. It's not pretty anymore. Look at this. Doesn't that look good? That just looks like a bucket of stuff. Is there a meat layer? Is there a meat layer? Whipped cream. It was prettier. Angel food cake, strawberries, black berries. Black berries. No, black berries are good. And vanilla pudding in there. I can get it with that. That sounds nice. You know what would be nice in there is some figs. Man, I could see you being a mince meat pie guy. Is it mince meat pie something? Isn't that kind of like an old man, little step pie? Come and get it. Mrs. Loves meat pies. I do love a savory pie.

[29:00]Big Johnson savory pies. Matt, rolling going. How's it going with you? Good, good, good. The, uh, I've been having a good time watching Hard Knocks again. Yes. Which we could talk about it every year when it comes up. Um, I'm pulling for the Detroit Lions this year. I mean, they're coaching, they're coaching staff. They've, they've got some good guys. I'm pulling outside of the Vikings. I'm going to pull for the Lions. They got some good guys this year. So none of the bullshit about, you know, trying to stroke these guys and tell them how great they are and all this stuff. It's a bunch of ex-players like Deuce Staley's, uh, one of their coaches and Antoine Randall L, you know, and, uh, they're the coach. Yeah. You know, so they've got a bunch of ex-players that are there and I think that helps out, you know, so that'd be all right. So Jared Goff is definitely a NFL level quarterback. There was definitely that not a Hard Knocks where it opened with him, not knowing which way the sun rose in the East. Right. Just the dumbest human possible. And they're like, Russell and I saw, we saw Jared

[30:01]Goff live at Stanford. We saw him at the, at the big game and he was so disappointing. Like it was like, we went to see this like huge QB prospect and like he did nothing. That's my recollection. I don't know, Russell, you might have a different recollection, but no, it was fun. Yeah. Big game at Stanford. Aaron and I took the train down from Oakland to Stanford to see the Cal Stanford football game. The big game. That's right. Hard knocks is rough though. Cause you do watch this team for like the month and you kind of grow attached to them. And then they always just go out there and just eat shit. Like all these plans of like, Oh, we're going to do so well. And then they just get fucked. You guys are looking great. You guys are looking great. And then they're all in. Yeah. I mean, we don't need to talk football, but this lion's team is horrible. And that head coach is horrible. He is a horrible head coach. Like he, he, he belongs like coaching seventh graders. Like he can motivate little kids. I bet. I bet he, he can't coach his way out of a paper bag though. They are going to get this is I just love this. Cause this is again

[31:01]proof, Mr. I don't watch football and I don't watch sports anymore. Has a take on every single sports thing we ever bring up ever. Never misses it. I disagree, Russell, but I can definitely see your point. You know what you're talking about there. I think he's I think he's going to be a good coach eventually, but it's going to take him a couple of years. But the topic that's been going around our house just a little bit is the fact that Leonardo DiCaprio 47 year old Leonardo DiCaprio has once again broken up with a girlfriend once she's turned 25. Have you seen the limit? Yeah. Have you seen the visualization? I've seen the graph. What do you mean the graph? What's the graph? Well, he keeps getting older, right? So it's like the yodel-ay, yodel-ay, yodel-ay you know, they're going up, jumping up the mountain like that, right? So that's the way, wait, wait, wait. That's how you explain a graph going up as you do the mountain climber yodel-ay? But that's what it looks like. He's getting a little older, you know? But then every time it's like, it goes like three or four years and then they fall off. And then he gets

[32:01]a 22 year old and dates her until she's 25 and then falls off. And then a 19 year old and so, you know, there's some pretty funny people on the internet. I think I've told you that before and I have zero I steal everything, all my takes. I have zero creativity in my life and so I just steal things from the internet and there's some pretty funny people on the internet, right? And so they're pointing out things like you know, that a person born today, a girl born today will be when Leonardo DiCaprio is 72 she'll be 25 and that's when he'll be breaking up with her. So if he keeps this streak alive, he's 47 years old. I mean, and I'm bringing this up because we're all, you know, 41, 42. Right. Could you guys imagine dating a 23 year old right now? Yes. I think they'd be horrible. Oh yeah, no. I mean, I could really, I mean, I guess, yeah, 24 and then dump her in three years and another 24. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Russell and I going on a double date. Just these

[33:01]just these like, oh, I want to go to graduate school. We're like, yeah, you're gonna do that without me. See you later. I'm out of here. No, I mean, how could you, how could you go back to that life of like, I have no idea. Hey, we're going to get together. Let's meet at 10. I mean, I used to go out with my friend. I'm going to leave the house at 11 PM. Yeah. I used to go out with my friend Greta. We would not see a regular movie. We would only see the late shows. So if it was after nine, that's the only time we'd go and we'd laugh at people coming out. And now well, I mean, I replaced it with doing the podcast with you guys, but that would tour. I could not do that. I mean, I, you know, I'm trying to think of the benefits of dating like a 24 year old and I can just think of so many. I mean, just there's just so many like but any that I can actually talk about in this podcast. I don't know. Like I like if I'm, I think it would be horrible to talk to their friends, right? Like friends. Oh my God. Like you go, you go out with them. Great. All this stuff, right? You know, all the above board stuff, right? But then you think about like having to meet their friends

[34:01]and talk to their friends. I mean, man, like right now, what'd you say? Russell? I'm sorry. It's just a number. Russell is a dog. He's a big dog. Big Johnson. Rob, if you, and ideally if you, if so, if you were going to date a younger lady, what would be the ideal amount of time before you'd go Leo on her and dump her like a year, three years? How, how long would the relationship last? Three months, six months. Yeah. I mean, what happens at the three to six month part? Is that when they start clanking pots and pans in the back of your apartment? No, that's fine. Okay. Pots and pans playing it is actually a cool part of the podcast. Everybody loves that. I think it would be about the time where she was like, Hey, why don't you come and meet my parents? And then I'd go and like the parents would be around my age. Younger than you. Yeah. I'd be like, Hmm. Yeah. I'm not going to go meet the, like I, but honestly it

[35:00]would probably be the friends like, Hey, come let's go do something with the friends. And I do it once and then realize what a huge mistake it is. Cause I mean, honestly, Matt and Aaron, let's be honest. What percent of your wife's friends do you actually like? You know what I mean? Let's just say right now, like what percent is not high. It's not I can think of, I can think of one. What? The great part of it. More, more than one listens. So they're out there like, wait, am I the one that has like five? Yeah. They just got to figure out which one of them, which one figure it out. I like, Oh, we all know which one it isn't though. Right? Yeah. It's the ones who are at our double secret podcast. We talk about the one terrible. How about you, Aaron? What percentage of your wife's friends do you enjoy spending time with? A hundred percent. I like all of her friends. Hmm. Who's this all of her person? I know, I know, I know I was supposed to create content and a joke there, but the truth is I like all of his friends. So

[36:00]how about you, Rob? How many, how many of Jenny's friends do you enjoy spending time with? Uh, I guess almost all of them, but I don't know, like at this point, Jenny and I, our friends are kind of the friends for both of us because we're, you know, we meet him at the gym. So we're both there. Like, I mean, I, I mean, I'm not bringing home like work colleagues and being like, Hey, here's somebody I work with. Like, let's hang out together. No, never. No. And she's not bringing home somebody from work. So I don't know. We have friends. I mean, but I guess we had people over today that Jenny knows better than I do, but they were great. Like it was, I was talking to a guy and he was like, I was like, what do you do? And he's like, I'm a glass blower. And I was like, if I got a big Johnson, I was like, this is perfect. And I said, Oh, what would anything work? And I think cool. He goes, yeah, I'm making this thing that is going to stick on your wall. I'm going to put a neon light behind it. And it is the shape of a woman's vulva. And I was like, okay, so I need to talk more about this. Like we need to get way into this, how this is going to work. We're going to hang it up next time. Next time. Can you call a call on me first for my role and go on

[37:00]Rob, you kind of stole my thunder there a little bit. I mean, but if you're going to, if you're going to be a glass blower and maybe you're not all that great, you might as well be doing a woman's vulva. Right. Yeah. I mean, must be a good excuse. You know what it probably was. He probably got caught online. He was like, Oh, it's for research for glass piece that I always stuck making a vulva glass piece. Honestly, if you gave me a pointing stick though, and I had to point to a vulva, not sure I could do it. Is that it, Matt? That's all right. I don't want to cut anybody off. Russell Roland going. It was just about the vulva, Matt. We're done with it. After the vulva, we're done. Okay. No, I just don't want to cut anybody off. I could use some dating advice. Why don't I go to the dating advice corner? I got a couple of questions to run by you guys. It's been a solid year or two since we've been in the last time for Russell's advice corner. Russell's like, okay, yeah, I'm 42 now. So half plus seven is 2128. I can date somebody who's 28, right? That's the rule. Half plus seven question. Can I use my

[38:01]ex-girlfriend's, the flight attendant's buddy passes to take other women on a flight? Yes. As long as it's not her flight, that's the ultimate baller move. My first question was going to be, I don't know if we've ever talked about this before. Recently, Game of Thrones, the new, uh, the dragon house of dragon came out that just started out. It's coming out and it's a weekly show. So it's not like you can binge it yet because it's just coming out one episode at a time when it comes to like a new exciting TV show. Do you have to watch that with the person you're dating or can you just go off on your own and watch those on your own? What do you guys, what is your suggestion when it comes to watching the new show with your spouse or your significant other or the person you're dating versus just doing your own thing? Here's the issue. If you're if the person you're dating is anything like my wife, okay, what happens is we started watching down nabby together, right? What you did there? We watched down nabby together. Great show. Anything like

[39:01]any, any kind of like any similarities at all. Just yeah, we would watch it together and it's like an it's like a hour long show or a 40 minute show. Bernie Jenny can only watch about 25 minutes and then it's bedtime like no matter what she's like, it's bedtime. So we'd get to a thing where it was like the butler has a secret and Jenny be like, it's time to go to bed. And I was like, what? What is the secret? Like we have to hear this. We can't do it. And then it just takes so long to watch the show. Russell. I don't know. I just watching this TV show committing to watch it with another person. I think you're kind of fucking yourself. I don't know why. I don't know. You're kind of painting yourself in a corner. It really depends, right? Like I think like if you really want to watch this new house of dragon or whatever it is, right? You have to be watching something else with them so that when they come over, it's not like, oh, what are we going to watch? You have to have something that you're watching. And preferably something that has a nice long runway, right? So like, oh, we got to finish Downton Abbey first, you know, before getting into anything new. And then

[40:01]what, by the time that you could finish with Downton Abbey or Grey's Anatomy, that's a good one. There's like 19,000 West wing or something like that. Something like that. By the time they get done with all of that, I mean, it's going to be such old news that you can say, oh, I watched that like six months ago. So you can't when you got a new show lie to them. I mean, that's like a fancy way of saying I just lie. Watch a different show. Tell them no. Hold on, Rob. Can I grab my pen and jot that down? So man, you don't watch any shows. Oh yeah. A ton of them. Yeah. I mean like we just watched the best one we just watched was the bear. I don't know if you guys watch that one at all. It's about the chef. Yeah. Awesome show. Awesome show. No. Sarah and I watch shows. So how do you guys watch a show together? Do you have like a TV in the bedroom or you say like, oh, it's eight o'clock. We're going to go watch TV. Like I, well, you know, the kids go to bed and usually they're, you know, down by eight 39, something like that. And then just sit down and hang out and watch a show. So when Sarah went on her European walkabout, did you pause and key or did you stop watching for the week while she was

[41:01]out gallivanting around? I mean, there's other shows, you know, there's hard knocks and there's some other shows to watch and things like that. So, yeah, I mean, I watch way more TV than Sarah does. I can tell you that, but how about you, Aaron? What do you suggest? I mean, we all, yeah, like anything that she's interested in, we watch together. Definitely. I always wave, do that together. And then, yeah, same, same with Matt. Like if it's a night where I'm on my own, I'll watch. Well, that's when I watched RRR or something that she's definitely not going to be into. But yeah, always I always wait. I think Aaron has his TV on in the background. I can see what he was watching. What is this? Oh, I've never seen that angle. That's weird. Oh, I like these drums. I didn't even know a like would go up like that. Yes. You know, I like these drums. Are those figs? Here's a neighbor. There's a neighbor coming over. They've got some figs of their own. I heard you had some figs. I love when they slap the bass.

[42:00]Don't say that, Aaron. That's gross. I love the thumb slap. No, it just doesn't. I'm trying to think. There's only been like one. I'm trying to remember what the show was. But no, I mean, you have to check in, Russell. You have to check in. Yeah, there's no watching on your own without, yeah. There was one show that I started watching and I got in trouble for starting it early, but yeah. It was called How to Cheat on Your Wife. The PBS series. I was like, hey, you want to watch this together? Just me. It was the Tinder swindler that was taking all these notes. You can offer to like rewatch, but it doesn't. No, you can't do that. You got to just wait. I have another dating advice question. Can I run one more by you guys? Yeah, love it. So this came up a while back. Do you ever have where your wife might suggest like a super fun activity, but you've already got something else? That could be more fun planned for that day. And then do you ever trump her and say, hey, we should do this instead? Or do you always just take

[43:01]her idea? Is this where the cowboy song comes in? I mean, our house has to function with a joint calendar, right? And so we've got things planned out joint calendar. We've got things planned out for months. And, you know, part of that is some work stuff. And part of that's like, you know, kids sports and things like that. So rarely is there even like time to even come up with like a, oh, this is way more fun than we already got planned or something like that. So it's a little bit tougher, Russell. I would say that if she's, if Jenny has made plans, there's a 0% chance that I'm also going to make plans and try to trump her plans. Like, and I would also say if Jenny didn't make plans, there's a 0% chance that I have made plans that we're going to go do like, like Jenny is making all the plans. I would never come and out planner. That's insane. It's not about out planning, but let's say you didn't know it, Rob. Let's say she surprised you with something. Give us a hypothetical. Do we have any hypotheticals? Hypothetical would

[44:02]be, let's say Aaron's wife bought him concert tickets, but it was going to give them to him as a surprise. And he didn't know about it. Okay. So then a few weeks, you know, multiple months out before that concert, Aaron was like, hey, we should go to Vegas on these days. And then Aaron's wife looked at him and said, oh, I don't know. I got you these tickets as a surprise. Do you go to Vegas or do you go to the concert? You go to the concert. You take the tickets. You can go to Vegas the next week. Vegas isn't going anywhere. You take those tickets. Uh-oh. I got to start dating people again. I mean, I thought you were talking about like, are we going to go to dinner or go to watch a, you know, a movie we've all watched before. All right. Point point of clarification. Did she, did she block off like that weekend for you? Like, hey, I got something for us or was it supposed to be like, complete surprise. It wasn't even brought up until I suggested we go to Vegas a certain weekend. I mean, then you got it. Then you got to do the tickets. Yeah, no,

[45:00]you can't, you can't skip the, we might need to delete this part. Rob, maybe, maybe if you start dating one of those 21 year olds, you'll have to deal with this sort of problem with like they'll try to surprise you with like a new tick tock video and you'll be like, well, I was hoping to watch the Timberwolves that night. They're minus four against the Grizzlies. No, I think if I was dating somebody who's 21, I would simply become 21 and I would do things that cool 21 year olds do. Okay. I'd go to the hottest clubs. I'd be staying out late at night. Okay. I'd be getting jeans that make it look like I haven't taken a big shit in the back of my pants. I'd be wearing my shirts right side out, not inside out. Like, and then everyone's saying, oh, that's a normal thing for Rob to do because he's such a dumb shit. Do you think your, your, your luck younger lady that you would be courting would be impressed with your world record weightlifting accomplishments or would she see the old guys

[46:00]you're competing against and be like, well, that's pathetic. Listen, just because at the last meet there was somebody competing there in an age group similar to mine where they had to be helped up from the bench to make sure they didn't pass out when they stood up. That doesn't mean we're not doing a real sport. Okay. It's a real sport for sure. All right. Well, maybe you guys should let me out of the, out of the advice corner. We didn't go the way I was going to go to Vegas. I do love the idea that I would bring my 23 year old date to a powerlifting meet and she'd be like, wait, there's other weight classes guys that are just big fatties. All these guys are actually muscular and they're like talking about their nutrition. Some 209 pound brick shit house goes up there and lives as much as Robin and she's just looking at Rob like, wait, what? And what you can see everybody's dongs and their spandex. So she's going to know you know what I mean? She's going to know it's all there. Not hiding anything. Big Johnson spandex. There's something there.

[47:00]I feel like that's something rolling going. How's it going with you? So I got a friend went out to California. I thought he Russell right away. The friend says the friends. Rob, how many dishes did you leave in that kitchen right now? Like you can't ever do like you didn't do them all week or what? Listen, I'm telling her to wash these dishes as fast as she fucking can. Okay. She's taking her sweet time. So I will tell her that you guys not have a dishwasher in that fancy palatial estate of yours, New York City. Oh, no, there's a dishwasher that's not running while I'm also recording this, which is going to be, which is going to be great. No, no, don't turn it off. This is great. I love it. I love using a noise canceler plugin. See, see Rob, this is a great episode. It didn't matter that you didn't prepare anything. It's gonna be another one headphone out night, I think. So here's the deal. I have a friend who that's I can't get over the idea where you mentioned this on that episode a few weeks ago. I can't get over the idea of Jenny walking in in the morning being like I got hit in the head with a paint can and then Rob like sitting

[48:01]there like smiling, knowing that he had to set up that booby trap to keep her from catching him. I have a BB gun. So I have a friend who went out to visit a friend in California. So friend A went and visited friend B. Friend B said, listen, my kid's in a play. You got to come see it. So right away, I was like, Russell would hate this. This big Russell is so bad. This is kind of an Aaron scene. So Aaron, this is out in California. I'm wondering and she claims this. I'd rather stay here and go to that concert. She claims this play is a big deal and that the kid was honored to be part of it. And it's called Pageant of the Masters. Now, have you ever heard of this Pageant of the Masters? No. Sorry, I'm not familiar. So she went to this play that the kid was in. How old is the kid? The kid is like middle school, high school aged. It's below 23. Russell doesn't even want to hear about it. I don't know. And so what it is, is it's a play, but all they do is they have backgrounds that are painted

[49:01]like famous paintings, and then the actors stand in the paintings, like people in the paintings, and they stand there still for a minute, and then that's it. And the lights go down. They put in another background, and then they're paintings. Now, I got to say, it was impressive because they put body paint on the actors. So if it's like an impressionistic painting, it looks impressionistic. But my friend was like, yeah, this play was two hours long. I had to go to this and just watch people stand still like painting. And how much time did they spend in California? Because I think it really matters. Like, if they're out there for a week, I think you could spend one night going to do something you don't want to do just to like be supportive of a friend. But man, if that's like a three-day trip and you're spending one of your nights going to that, that's like end of friendship material, I think. Yeah, it's true. I'm going to tell you right now, it was too weak. Oh, see, then I think it, I still would not want to go. No, I would probably go and act like it was fun, but I wouldn't want to go. But I think that's different than if it's ruining a third of your vacation. But Russell, it's not a play. You're seeing a play where the actors

[50:01]are people standing still in a painting and sometimes it's not even the full actor. They'll stick their head like through a hole in the set. So the body's painted and the head is them. Did your friend enjoy it? No, she thought it was ridiculous. She thought it was one of the weirdest things she's ever seen in her whole life. And she's like, the kid was in two things. So she went, it's like a swim meet, right? You go there for like four hours. You see your kid swim for two minutes. That's what this play was like. You see your kid posing like two photos. I mean photos. So the friend who invited them, do you think they were aware like they were asking them to do something that they didn't want to do or not? No, this is the kind of friend who would just say, hey, come do this. And it would not be fun at all. And kind of like this podcast, but you've asked us to keep siding onto this every week and we just keep showing up, right? Yeah. This is way different, Russell. This is much nicer and more fun. I think it's a friend who thinks that

[51:00]everybody wants to know what their kid is up to. That's a bummer, right? We don't need that. Well, I mean, maybe I don't know. I mean, maybe it's just a friend who wants to share their life with their friend, you know? You know, that's, oh my God. I got turned on when I saw that. Aaron's wife just came in and rubbed the top of his head. Cocktail? Yeah, she brought me a whiskey. Damn. Wow. She brought, wow. How nice. Aaron's wife brought you a drink and rubbed your head. Man, that will never be topped in this podcast. Ever. I don't think you said it loud enough, right? You got to say it a little louder. Oh, wait, is this a YouTube podcast? Yeah. Well, I don't know. Technically, it sounds like no one has done any research on this album. I've listened to it nonstop for three days. And my wife knows it better than anybody I've ever met in my life. Get her on. Let's do the overview. Have her do the overview. She doesn't know three things about this album like I do. There's no way.

[52:00]Let's talk real quick. Let's see if she's still there. Let's see if we can get her to do the overview. Yeah, bring her in. Let's talk real quick about Fiona Apple, though. It's the music portion of the podcast. Yeah. I'm getting a no. I'm getting a no. That's a big no. She came back and took his drink. She is this fabulous pianist in real life if she's on the album. Just come in and say it. We definitely didn't hear that. We definitely couldn't hear her talking in the background. Has she heard of Big Johnson Pianos? Hey, Rob, I think she was just reading off Wikipedia, too. I think she's just copying Wikipedia. No, I collate this information. She's an excellent lyricist and excellent performer. Ask her if she got that off of Wikipedia. One of the greatest live in-person concerts at the College of St. Catharines in St. Paul, Minnesota. Wow. You guys get all that? Oh, we got all that. Repeat it, Aaron. What are the three things? Three things. She's as great of a pianist

[53:00]as she is a lyricist. She is a great lyricist. She's as good live as she is on record. And it was Anna's greatest live music experience at the College of St. Catharines watching Fiona Apple. I gotta go chase categories now. Do you think Fiona Apple started a brand of music? So we have Fiona Apple, right? Piano player, lyricist. I mean, Fiona Apple in 1999 when her first title came out in 96. Do you remember how big that album and Criminal was? Like, it was absolutely everywhere. It was crazy. And the video was everywhere. There was, I mean... You gotta say one of the things. Yeah. The last track on the album is, as you guys would say, a banger and one of the best songs ever written. Has got that. The last song is the banger. All right. Well, I mean, I always think of Tori Amos when I think of Fiona Apple. Like, I feel like Tori Amos was doing some of this stuff, but Fiona does it with more fire to me.

[54:00]Although I don't know Tori Amos' music as well as maybe I should. Well, because I think this, I mean, this started, like, to me, I listen to so much women piano music. Like, Regina Spector, I've seen her in concert like three times. Cannot get enough of her. And that's all I could think of when I heard this. Like, I have whole Pandora stations devoted to music just like this because I love it so much. Like, I... And I just don't know. It's kind of like Joni Mitchell. I don't... There wasn't... Was there really that beforehand? Like, the female piano singer-songwriter? But don't you guys think there was way more musical backing with this? There were strings on this. There was all sorts of musical... There were the... There were... I think there was a Wurlitzer. There were all sorts of keyboards. I thought there was a little more music on that. But I think that's why this album is where it's at, right? Right, absolutely. She kind of busted onto the scene and then this album put her in a different stratosphere from, like, a musicality standpoint. Yeah. Not just a popular music. It's lush. There's a lot happening. And you could... And then the lyrics. Like, she's singing these super long phrases. So when you think about...

[55:00]You know, it's like a rap record. Like, the sort of words per minute, if you were to measure, there's so much that she's throwing at every song. It's not just verse, chorus, verse, right? It's not the Beatles, although I think there's some Beatles influence on there. And that's why I used Criminal to do the parody song, too. Because, A, that album's not on the list. It's one of her only albums. She's on this list three times. So, title is not on here. Probably with Criminal. But it was also one of the few songs that had words that rhymed. I mean, otherwise, I felt like I was going to make a parody song that's just me talking about things on the show that's not even going to... Which, I was like, I could do it, but, well... I mean, it's there, right? Well, I mean, technically, you couldn't do it. Yeah, technically, maybe I edited in the song earlier because I ran out of time tonight. Once again, the podcast and Jenny's birthday seem to have an uneasy relationship that continues. They continue to battle each other. But, to me, this is just like... And I was not a Fiona Apples fan at the time because, honestly, her video kind of scared me. Right? Like, the Criminal video

[56:00]scared me. I mean, you know what I was doing with MTV. Well, maybe not in 90. We know. No, I feel the same. And, honestly, it's the same feeling I have about Beyonce where I felt like, is it okay? Like, would they want me to be a fan of this music? Like, they didn't really make it for me. Should I not listen? What do I do? As a man trying to listen to this music? And then, you know, I don't know. It's just great music. So, you put it on. I mean, Extraordinary Machine I've listened to a lot more than this one. Although, this week I've had it on repeat. But, it feels like that thing of like, well, am I not the right audience for this? And then, you just go like, well, if I'm going to just stream music in my home, I can listen to whatever I want and enjoy it. I mean, it's kind of everything, right? I mean, you're the most knowledgeable rap guy in the whole thing. You grew up in Iowa, right? Right. I mean, did they make rap albums for you? You like what you like. You know what I mean? You like what you like and you go with it and it's all good. So, I mean, here's the thing, right? As title comes out, smash hit. When The Pawn comes out,

[57:00]everybody's like, oh, this is her more mature album. Like, this was kind of the next step up. But, I don't think it won quite the awards that her first album did. Do you want to guess how many Grammys Fiona Apple has won, by the way? Five albums. Eleven. Eleven Grammys. Spanning. Wow. All the way from 1998 to 2021. I mean, guys, she's been winning Grammys for like 23 years. Wow. That's crazy. If I told you Fiona Apple won a Grammy in 2021, would you be like, oh, yeah, that makes sense for best rock song? Yeah, because that Fetch the Bolt Cutters album rocks. Have you guys listened to it? Fetch the Bolt Cutters. Is it good? Yeah, it's fucking great. All right. On the Bound. Now, I am going to say the album I did download for this had Paper Bag listed as Paper Bug. So, at this point, I don't trust any of these songs. So, let's do... Correct me if I'm wrong. On the Bound. I mean...

[58:02]This drum sound is familiar to me for a lot of her stuff. She does seem to have really percussive... And the piano's a percussion instrument. She has a really percussive approach to rhythm, I feel. Yeah, totally. Listen to that. That wails. The album is so interesting, right? Like, the piano playing is fascinating. The rhythms are fascinating. Her voice is fantastic. And then, you get to the lyrics. Like, you listen to this and you're like, I don't understand a word she's saying. I can't keep track of it. But the feeling of every song comes through crystal clear, I think. Like, it's... It's crazy. To Your Love. I'm taking along to the song that belongs to the shifting of gears. Please, forgive me for my distance. The pain has ever lumped in my essence. She kind of plays with tempo and pace in an interesting way, right? Where she kind of starts this beautiful singing and then all of a sudden she's kind of...

[59:00]It's not rap, I don't think, but she kind of starts clicking pretty fast. I just like the way she plays with pace. And I think there's some syncopation between her voice and the piano, too. Yeah, I agree with both of those. And I think that's the connection to Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan, and Willie Nelson, this kind of phrasing Sinatra, the people who can just really play with a phrase and mess with it and still stay in the pocket. I love that Willie Nelson comparison. I think that's so good. Here's one that Aaron said was the first dance at his wedding. Limp. You wanna make me sick You wanna lick my... And the lyrics here say, Limp sat alone on a bench in the park. He's limp. He's limp. He's limp. Is President of the United States out here? I cannot wait for that. But she does that incredible thing where she says, like, you wanna make me sick, you wanna lick my... And there's a long enough pause where you're like, what the fuck is she gonna say? And then she says, wounds. And you're like, oh, okay, well, it's poetic.

[60:00]I read this was about being fed up with a lover who is gaslighting you. Do you guys ever feel like your spouse is gaslighting you? No, but I think my parents are. I went home this summer and my parents would tell stories about me growing up to my kids and I'd be like, I don't remember any of what you're telling me. I think that is a made-up story. I think somebody else did that. Was one of them about when you ate the cake mix or whatever your dad accused you of doing? I never ate the cake mix. I didn't take the cake mix. And he knows it. He just doesn't debug me. Forget about it. How about you guys? You guys ever get gaslit by your family or anyone? Matt or Aaron? I don't think so. No. I know I ate all that cake. No, it was definitely. For sure. Just admit it. I just ate the cake mix with a spoon. I just put the egg right in there and ate up the cake mix. I'm sure that was me. Could it be Aaron? Was it you that ate all the figs? I ate the figs. I know I ate the figs. The proof is in my... No, I'm not going to go there.

[61:00]Do you think it'd be nice if somebody gaslit you into thinking something good? Like if Jenny was like, oh my God, you have such a big penis and you use it so well and I just love it so much. I'd be like, huh? Boy, I don't remember any of that, but I guess if she's saying it's true, like, you use it so well. Whatever would you say? Obviously, I don't know. You use it so well. Podcast her saying, oh man, Rob, you use that thing so well. And then the camera scans over and I'm just cleaning dishes with it. I mean, honestly, if you could clean dishes with it, that would be, that would be pretty impressive. Like, I mean, that's an actual skill. Oh boy, yeah. Hey, honey, this is a very small glass. I can't quite reach the bottom to clean it. Can you help me out? Love Ridden. I love this song.

[62:01]Yeah. This one, I think, had some strings on it. I like that. I like that. Piano's amazing on it too, don't you think? Yeah. It's lush, right? It's just like, you just want to like take a bath with this one. Yes. Yeah. And there is something about, like, we've talked about her playing with the tempo, her playing with the syncopation, but I think too, the dynamics of this. Like, obviously, her albums, I think, are produced crystal clear, but the volume changes are huge on this album and fascinating to listen to, I think. Just listen to this right here. Listen to this build. And it's just like, you think like, oh, she's going to start screaming and yelling and we're going to really get into a rock song. And right when you think that's going to happen, when was this recording? She kind of gasped. 99? 99. So, I don't know if we've talked a lot about this. Do you think it's just we were men, so we weren't listening to a lot of female performers when we were younger? Because I don't remember listening to this, but it's fantastic.

[63:00]I love listening to it now, but I just don't remember listening to it when I was 18, 19 years old. I think that's exactly it for me. Yes. For sure. I was hanging out with you guys. We were listening to fucking Rammstein and fucking The Offspring. Like some stupid shit off of somebody's Napster. We were never listening to this. It's almost like toxic masculinity was a huge part of our growing up. It's so weird. It limited what we listened to. It's so odd. It's unfortunate, but that's the truth. But yes, this never came on and there would have been maybe one of the girls we knew when we hung out in their room would have had this on CD and we might have been like, oh, that's nice. And then we would have left and gone back to playing NWA on Napster. Offspring. Damn Offspring. I hate The Offspring now. I never want to hear them again. Give it to me, baby. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Give it to me, baby. No, Aaron. Yeah. You like The Offspring. Is that how you gaslight people? You do kind of the Jedi mind trick? This is not The Offspring you're looking for.

[64:00]Next up, Paper Bag. Definitely not Bug. Paper Bag. This is my favorite song, I think. Stat Master here. That was so good. And this is where she does these long, long phrases where you're like, if you try to sing along, you're like, when am I going to take a breath? How am I going to keep up? Yeah, listen to this. I mean, how am I supposed to do a parody song for this? Honestly. Like, it's almost unfair, right? Right. This is awesome. It's so good. Super unique. It's like almost one of a kind, isn't it? If you like this stuff, Russell, you would love Regina Spector. Love. Yeah. Regina Spector. I just can't get enough. We've seen her. God dang, this is good. Yes. I just want to listen to it. I just, I can't get enough If there's anyone out there who thinks two Radiohead albums should be before this one, I've got a bag of figs I'll send you in the mail.

[65:00]You're right, Russell. You are right. Madeline Peru is another one I think takes a lot from this type of music. Russell, just bring them with you when we're in Vegas on January 14th, 2023. You can just hand them to me there when we're in Vegas. In Vegas on January 14th, 2023. Can you imagine we go to Vegas and Aaron shows up and he's got figs? Hey guys. He's just got so many figs. Kept them in my freezer for you guys for three months. Just waiting. All Christmas you were saying please bring me some figgy pudding and now I'm doing it. Here it is. Listen, now we have the song that Jenny picked for our first dance. It's A Mistake. Well, that's weird. I didn't realize that was the title. It was a tick And it's cold as fuck Full as a tick Isn't that great? Full as a tick God It's so good You know, Rob you mentioned the production here and I think this I think this song is as good as any to kind of branch off and talk about the production and I

[66:00]I want to say I put together a list tonight Oh I did I was thinking about this this album all day I listened to it for you know three days straight non-stop just this album It's It's It's time You're doing it? You're doing a list I interrupted I interrupted with a soundbite Aaron, tell us about your list We've heard this like a million times And I want to say I want to say to everyone out there who's a fan of Fiona Apple I am taking nothing away from Fiona I think she's Well, we all know what a musician she is I want to say something about her collaborator on this album John Bryan because I think John Bryan is a very talented producer He produced this album and has had a really interesting career So I'm going to take a quick sidebar and tell you about her into John Bryan's career He and Fiona worked together on this album They worked together on Extraordinary Machine and then a lot of the stuff that they did together on Extraordinary Machine did not get released but it seems that they're fine I did as much research as I could It seems like they're okay But John Bryan, producer on this album

[67:01]has worked in a lot of interesting places So I want to do a list about some interesting stuff that John Bryan has done He's famous for playing live shows at Largo in LA Did scores for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Punch Drug Love, etc. Magnolia But I'm going to start with what a lot of people feel is his first contribution to pop music which is Amy Mann's album from 1993, I think And this is I Should Have Known from Amy Mann Awesome Love Amy Mann Love Amy Mann Great voice You know Perfect pop songs John Bryan has a great ear for pop music So this is 93 Good start here to get into his sound His oeuvre My personal favorite of things that he's done because I happen to love this song and I live on the West Coast is the second album

[68:00]from the band Best Coast from 2012 And this is my favorite song off that album It's the opening track This is Best Coast The Only Place Ooh Sounds like the new Radicals I hear that I hear that Ooh, I like this This is just sugary pop Just beautiful Best Coast Best Coast Very cool And then you gotta hear the opening line This has got a little pickup to it I like it This guy has a sound he likes There's no doubt about that Born with sun in our teeth It's so nice And yeah, he just These folks wrote a song about loving the sun loving the mountains loving the ocean and he crafted a sound that was perfect for it The next one It feels like something they would play during like a 90s romantic comedy like while Rob's dating his 23-year-old girlfriend and they're like prancing through the park They're just like frolicking through

[69:00]Like we're holding hands on the subway and one of us steps in human shit It's just We go by and one of us accidentally steps on the head of a rat and it's just you hear Rob pulls a hand on his hamstring while he's frolicking Well it goes from that It starts with that kind of acoustic thing like Sixpence None the Richer right? And then it goes into the heavier like you know power pop stuff It's so nice So John Bryan famously worked with some hip-hop artists We're gonna get into some hip-hop artists here now He worked with Mac Miller quite a bit and when Mac Miller tragically passed Mac's family went to John and said we want you to produce his posthumous album and he said and John said cool I will do that They had worked together on a lot of these tracks and so the album Circles which came out after Mac Miller passed John Bryan did the work to produce that album and I've listened to that album twice through today It's fantastic I didn't know Mac Miller at all before today but

[70:00]this is the song Good News off of that album and it is beautiful Mac Miller was a Nap or not Napster what was that other he came up on the internet right? Yeah yeah SoundCloud He put music on on MySpace or whatever Yeah I think you're right Is that where he came from? Yeah Probably Aaron I'm telling you this sounds just like my Pandora station that I listen to all the time all these songs Isn't this fantastic? Aaron you're like my Pandora guy can I like pay you to just send me songs and a playlist Do you know I've been to the have I told you I've been to the Pandora corporate offices they were right next door to my office in downtown Oakland Hey Rob if Aaron was your Pandora guy would you pay for unlimited skips or not? No Thumbs down I would pay I would just do thumbs down just to break his heart like ask him for it then have him put all this time in picking songs just be like thumbs down thumbs down thumbs down So that was good news off of Mac Miller's posthumous album Circles I think everyone should listen to it I really enjoyed it today

[71:00]John Bryan worked a lot on Kanye's third album Late Registration from 2005 and this is the second track off the album although it's kind of the first real track and this is the Kanye slash Adam Levine from Maroon 5 track Heard Him Say and you'll hear kind of now hear the keys you can hear all the instruments and all these are just so the nines right what do you think it's like to produce so did he produce the Kanye album? He produced a lot of the tracks on this album you know what's interesting is I gotta give a shout out my brother helped me with this list he's a big John Bryan fan big Kanye fan we just we talked a lot about which track to choose but he's a little rosy I'm gonna stop you right there okay this big Kanye by the way who was it that had the best oh Beyonce had the best album thank you we talked a lot

[72:02]about which track to use off of Late Registration because the one that to him and to us sounded most like the John Bryan sound was the track Gone which samples Otis Redding but according to the credits John Bryan does not have a credit on that track he's got credits on a bunch of other tracks on the album not that one can you guys imagine being at this house on Thanksgiving like this is the fucking conversation that's going on around the dinner table and they're like thrilled with it they're like it's not on this track yeah like this is the one that sounds most like John Bryan but he doesn't have a credit on it why is that what's going on hey can you pass me the fig jam no no no fig preserve I'm sorry oh these fig this fig cake is so good oh it's so spicy if you were to go straight Leo I think the time where you'd have to dump the girlfriend was when she'd start talking about John Bryan produce songs you'd have to be like nope I think as soon as she was interested in my podcast I'd be like it's not gonna work out I don't want to be part of any club

[73:00]that would have me as a member that's why Jane and I are still together and the final the final track you guys might have read this I will have to admit I learned this on Wikipedia this week but John Bryan played guitar on one headlight by the wallflowers what this is him playing the guitar and he used we haven't heard the wallflowers on this podcast yet have we he used a screwdriver a screwdriver as the electric slide that's him playing guitar from 1995 honestly that is really cool honestly if my kids were like can you play a song that brings back vivid emotions from high school I'd be like yep here it is I'd be like this is the one right I bought this whole CD it all sucks except for this song you know how you know you're getting old is when you're driving and someone's headlights are out and it really starts to annoy you like this would have never annoyed me 10 years ago but now I'm like flashing my brights at people

[74:00]I'm like get that fixed and I'm stepping out in front of you at the airport saying what the fuck are you flashing your lights at Aaron hey Rob I actually sent you a link Aaron was talking about all these tracks that were produced by John Bryan but I think he might have missed one he specifically mentioned the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind yep I did and one of the songs on that was a song by Beck produced by John Bryan what the song is called everybody's gotta learn which is a cover by Beck aww that's so nice what a tune but Aaron mentioned the soundtrack I figured we had to give Beck a shout out it's been a while because I haven't been preparing for the pod and no one else ever gives Beck a shout out it's true it is so true I when I was doing the list I typed in like who do we do I typed in like old Beck

[75:00]and then nothing came up in the first five search terms I was like I've done that's enough work for me so I'd say I'd say when it comes to John Bryan produced songs on eternal sunshine of the spotless mind that Aaron does not reference on our list who did it better Beck did it better Aaron that was a sweet list great list Aaron thanks guys love it I loved all those songs what was the second what was the new Radicals band again Best Coast Best Coast that Best Coast album is a day maker put it on anytime nice a date maker is that what you said a day maker I don't mean it's a date maker I mean if it's your you've got a date dates good I should plant a couple date trees out in the living room and they say God I have so many dates I do love date shakes oh God fast as you can love it this is like she's just showing up

[76:00]she's just showing up dang that's cool too that feels a little criminal style the beat the tempo there that reminds me of criminal oh so so so good the way things are maybe this is just they're both female artists but do you guys get any Amy Winehouse vibe but do you feel any like similarities here or are they different to you very different to me I think they're very different yeah I see it though I can hear it in the voice a little bit kind of the sultry yeah you know she's not so much of a power singer like Amy was but I can hear that same kind of thing get gone I mean this is so nice the little just trippy snare but it's interesting to me

[77:00]Russell that you brought up Radiohead because that that actually now I'm hearing this is the best parallel and this is way more fun to listen to than Radiohead like this is so good this is so much more beautiful Matt's shaking his head Matt what's your thoughts on the album you haven't said much on this one yet you know it's just like I understand where this place is but you know this is one of Sarah's favorite artists too from the 90s right she's a huge Fiona Apple fan it's just not it's just again I don't they're not speaking to me right or Fiona not them Fiona's not speaking to me and not singing about things that I am a part of or doesn't resonate with me and therefore you know it's just kind of in one ear out the other and I get the music but it's pretty chappy and you know in my head you know like I'm not saying that it's not good by any means but it's you know up and down left and right and you know it's just it doesn't doesn't resonate I have to say too I like I like Fiona Apple

[78:00]but I have to also say I like music that relaxes me this music I get stressed listening to this this relaxes you see this does not no Fiona Apple stresses me out yeah it just it just does it feels like it feels like you're on edge it feels like you're you know I don't know I get what you're saying there it feels like an adventure it feels like you're being taken on a story it feels like there's something new around every corner it's like a choose your own adventure book and that's that's the difference to me between her and Amy Winehouse is that Amy Winehouse is in the groove you kind of know what to expect it sounds like nothing you know her voice sounds like nothing you've heard before but it's not so unexpected in this one you don't know what's around every corner it's like when the fucking Joker smashes the dude's eye on the pencil in Dark Knight Returns where you're like oh shit or not Dark Knight Returns in the Dark Knight where you're like oh anything could happen like that's what this album is the guy writing the paper about how Fiona Apple is like the Dark Knight Returns is at home just going yeah this world is finally somebody comes to me

[79:00]choose your own adventure Russell I used to just see a guy who's sending dates for things or whatever for a treat it was me I wrote the paper and I'm yes I know but I know I know is the song that Rosie's wife at gmail.com said was the best correct she loves that song right this is the one she liked more than any other one how about a little Nora Jones a little Nora Jones sounding here or no maybe it's just the piano folks you know what we've had fun talking about the album but sometimes what's even more fun is when we take art somebody made and we decide to rate it oh yes because that's important because they care don't say that Aaron the whole podcast is literally based around that idea rolling well toned is an album that deserves to be at one await okay you could say

[80:00]maybe it was like a party that you had at your apartment right when you're starting to do the podcast okay and it was just like a perfect time to have a party it was so great like we went out to a party we went up to the roof it was so nice that would be a rolling well toned okay then you have to leave the party early okay you had to get down and record a podcast and maybe prepare for it but then when you got down here you couldn't find all your microphone and stuff so you actually didn't have time to prepare for it at all and you kind of felt like you got rolling boned by doing that that would be if this album should be higher than 108 it shouldn't be this low it's a rolling bone much like me having to lead the party getting rolling boned or was it a rolling groan like when my wife was groaning from doing all those dishes back there earlier today well I was simply oh I don't know making my art my podcast I'm too busy to do the dishes or bake dinner or whatever that would be a rolling groan just like you can imagine being married to me is like when I'm like I need to leave your birthday party to go do my podcast

[81:00]Aaron's like I will not devote any non-family time to this podcast meanwhile I'm like my marriage is over but the podcast is getting two more downloads that's great okay Aaron what do you think rolling well toned rolling bone or rolling groan and marriage is going fine yeah that's great I mean this was this was actually the best album for my marriage maybe that we've done it was so fun to play this over and over and realize my wife knows every word every note it was really cool for me also this is an all day album I can just have it on repeat and it's a it's a rolling bone for me it needs to be higher on the list Matt what do you think rolling well toned rolling bone or rolling bone rolling groan Fiona Apple when the pawn I think it's rolling well toned I think the impact it had when it came out and then Fiona Apple's impact on the entire genre not just you know like female vocalist at a piano I mean kind of the whole call it 95

[82:01]through present you know her influence is definitely felt in this album I think definitely you know shows the world what she can produce and what she did produce and where she was and where she's going and so I think it's rolling well toned at 107 here 108 because if you remember 107 lived above James Bond okay so again best joke from two podcasts now best joke Russell what do you think rolling well toned rolling bone or rolling groan I thought the piano was great I loved all the musical layers with the strings and the different instruments involved she has a beautiful voice the lyrics were amazing there were tempo changes it was dynamic it just felt like an amazing adventure I thought it was fantastic I would definitely listen to this one again so much talent here I'm going to say it's rolling boned it should be higher on the list I would say almost way higher for me I really enjoyed it I'll definitely come back to this one this would be

[83:00]a for me guys unfortunately you're incorrect okay this for me would be a rolling www.pandora.com I think I'm going to go make a Fiona Apple channel right after this I'm going to listen to it it's going to be great it's just what I want this is so I just how I didn't know that this is what Fiona Apple is like I don't know I heard I'm serious I think criminal I think the song scared me so I never listened again I'm a coward am I a real coward that's why I have this Big Johnson big coward shirt stick your head in the sand with Big Johnson next up okay we've got an album that asks the question was Russell's problem with Velvet Underground everybody else but Lou Reed well we're going to find out it's Transformer by Lou Reed I think we're going to get a lot of downloads a lot of downloads tons we're going to love that one

[84:00]we need the all spark Autobots roll out this is Lou Reed as Optimus Prime alright Jimmy get me the computer that we need and also some Robo Heroin I love to eat Robo Heroin I am a Transformer was that the one where the guy was like eating bacon and pancakes from a Michael Imperioli novel that Aaron was reading yes exactly thanks for remembering we're going to hear more about Aaron's fanfic but you're just too lazy to look it up online if you want to hear from guys who chat and then they get off track Russell you know what he'd be if he played the oboe though what's that Lou Double Reed Beck did it I mean we got to do something with you you use it so well but I have never heard it so I don't think I can even relate use it so well anyone I don't know

[85:02]big big Johnson's water getter use it so well water getter I don't know I'm not prepared

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