MBMBaM 816: Ship of Vanilli

Forget all the haters, we're gonna throw the most kick-ass non-political concert you've ever seen. And we've got the best line-up, the acts are pouring in! We have Bart Simpson or maybe Cartman, location-neutral pizza, a baby raccoon, and Michelangelo the Ninja Turtle. Suggested talking points: Awesome Friends and Fans, DJ Hubris, Straight to Raccoon Jail, Grass with a Hat On, Justin's not a Joke Store, Betso Ross Lamda Legal: https://lambdalegal.org/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  The McElroy brothers are not experts and their advice should never be followed. Travis insists he's a sexpert, but if there's a degree on his wall, I haven't seen it. Also, this show isn't for kids, which I mention only so the babies out there will know how cool they are for listening. What's up, you cool baby?

• 0:20Speaker 01

  One, two, three, four. It's the start of something beautiful. A small acquaintance has blossomed, it's rapid into a precious friendship. I could have never seen what was coming for me. Hangs at the skate park, hangs by the beach. My life, it feels like. Life, ah, it's better, it's better with you. My life, ah, it's better, it's better with you. This is true, ah, it's better, it's better with you.

• 1:03Speaker 01

  My life, ah, it's better with you.

• 1:09Travis McElroy?

  Hello, everybody. Welcome. My brother, my brother, me, and advice show for the modern era. I'm your oldest brother, Justin McElroy.

• 1:16Griffin McElroy?

  Griffin. Hi, everybody. I'm so thrown, Trav, I can't fucking do it. I know I talked a big game last week.

• 1:22Travis McElroy?

  You, you pitched it!

• 1:23Griffin McElroy?

  I know, I don't think I can do it.

• 1:24Travis McElroy?

  What's up, Trav nation? I'm your melon, spoiler Travis, big dog, wolf, vroom, vroom, the heater, award-winning big dog, McElroy.

• 1:30Griffin McElroy?

  And I'm the denouement, Griffin McElroy.

• 1:32Travis McElroy?

  The denouement, that's good, Griffin.

• 1:35Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, that's good. I realized that was my place. I can't be the builder. Travis skips the builder of the like, set of three comedy sort of thing where he's just like, Justin does his thing, Travis blasts off. And then I'm like, and I'm here too, and I can't not be that guy. I can't.

• 1:53Travis McElroy?

  And I'm Justin.

• 1:54Griffin McElroy?

  Just for a reminder, guys, I was sad in mine. Oh, okay. Wait, oh, sorry, Juice, why are you so sad?

• 1:59Travis McElroy?

  Hey. And I'm sad, and I'm sad, and I'm Justin.

• 2:04Griffin McElroy?

  Hey, what's going on, man?

• 2:05Travis McElroy?

  What's wrong, little dog?

• 2:07Travis McElroy?

  Well, my concert's not going very good.

• 2:10Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, Juice, sir.

• 2:11Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 2:12Travis McElroy?

  Your concert?

• 2:13Travis McElroy?

  I try, I, yeah, I don't know if you guys knew this, but I was trying to throw America the most kick-ass concert they ever had.

• 2:20Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 2:21Travis McElroy?

  And everybody's quitting. And I'm getting like, and I, I busted my ass to get

• 2:31Travis McElroy?

  probably nine of the biggest names in talent. And I'm, and it's crumbling dudes. I, this is the biggest I've ever been in charge of. And it's fucking fall. Let me tell you the lie, cause like, I got the dream lineup.

• 2:45Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 2:45Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:46Travis McElroy?

  I got the.

• 2:46Griffin McElroy?

  And some of the, some of these dudes were off the fucking grid. Justin, Justin had to find their, uh, the, the address of their Alaskan remote cabins. So they could, you could fly to them in a helicopter.

• 2:58Travis McElroy?

  Yes, yes, I'm fully like stout Thor, rolling around, trying to scoop up whatever nineties Detroit is like a fine line around. But anyway, I had the dream team.

• 3:13Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 3:14Travis McElroy?

  Who'd you have?

• 3:14Travis McElroy?

  I had Martina McBride.

• 3:16Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:16Travis McElroy?

  I had Young MC. I had C and C music factory.

• 3:22Travis McElroy?

  This is, hey, can I tell you right now, Justin? So far eclectic is the word I think.

• 3:27Griffin McElroy?

  Well, I mean, Martina McBride and Young MC.

• 3:30Travis McElroy?

  Regatta, Charleston, West Virginia, literally any summer ever.

• 3:34Griffin McElroy?

  I am, I am glad that Martina McBride and Young MC were able to finally squash their beef and be on the same stage again.

• 3:40Travis McElroy?

  Well, cause the MC was in. They fought over who got the MC. Cause for a while, Young MC was like, just be Martina Bride. And she was like, no, you just be young. And like, they went back and forth and back and forth as to who had custody.

• 3:53Travis McElroy?

  I got CNC music factory. I got Vanilla Ice.

• 3:58Travis McElroy?

  Wow.

• 3:59Travis McElroy?

  I got, and this is the one that a lot of people were like, huh? I got Milli Vanilli.

• 4:05Griffin McElroy?

  This is the point, can I be honest?

• 4:07Travis McElroy?

  Thematically, can I say, I'm starting to pick up a bit of a latter half theme here of maybe some people who had some uh, legal trouble related to the music they were releasing.

• 4:18Griffin McElroy?

  Well, it's the 250th birthday of American Travis.

• 4:21Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 4:21Griffin McElroy?

  It's all about second chances.

• 4:23Travis McElroy?

  And Amnesty, apparently.

• 4:24Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 4:25Travis McElroy?

  Um, no, Amnesty will not be performing. We were gonna do a live recording at the concert where we just like.

• 4:30Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 4:31Travis McElroy?

  Couldn't get bad.

• 4:32Griffin McElroy?

  Martina McBride doing a live Taz.

• 4:34Travis McElroy?

  Yeah. Dad's asking price was too high.

• 4:37Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 4:39Travis McElroy?

  So, uh, who else did I have there? I had Martina McBride, I had Young MC, I had Mill Vanilli, I had the Commodores.

• 4:45Griffin McElroy?

  Mm hmm.

• 4:46Travis McElroy?

  You know how your parents love the Commodores? I had them. They were there.

• 4:48Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 4:49Travis McElroy?

  And I had more to stay in time.

• 4:50Griffin McElroy?

  I don't even know, Justin, if our parents love the Commodores. I think maybe our parents' parents love the Commodores.

• 4:56Travis McElroy?

  Well, to be fair, these aren't the Commodores. These are the Commodores' grandkids calling themselves the Commodores, probably.

• 5:01Griffin McElroy?

  Got it, got it, got it, yeah.

• 5:03Travis McElroy?

  And then we got more to stay in time.

• 5:03Griffin McElroy?

  Commodore 64s.

• 5:05Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 5:06Griffin McElroy?

  We got Flo Rida.

• 5:08Travis McElroy?

  And we got Brett Michaels.

• 5:08Griffin McElroy?

  Flo Rida, from what I understand, is still on board. Still ride or die.

• 5:14Travis McElroy?

  I'm trying to get clarity on the Flo Rida situation because this is evolving and honestly, Griffin, this thing's falling apart all around me. I'm on, I'm texting Flo Rida's people like constantly, like, please, Mr. Rida.

• 5:28Griffin McElroy?

  There's two ways to look at this if you're Flo Rida. And the first way is, uh oh, a majority, about 78% of the artists who signed on to perform at this event have dropped off. I don't, do I want to be left holding the bag? The other way to look at it is, more time for Flo Rida.

• 5:46Travis McElroy?

  That's true.

• 5:47Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 5:48Travis McElroy?

  He can do it.

• 5:48Griffin McElroy?

  For him to get into what he calls the flow flow state. If he's not in, dude, and that's the problem with Flo Rida concerts. His vision is the tickets are $500 and you're there all day.

• 6:00Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 6:00Griffin McElroy?

  Cause once he gets into the flow state.

• 6:02Travis McElroy?

  The flow flow state, please.

• 6:03Griffin McElroy?

  The flow flow state, it's really something, something to behold.

• 6:07Travis McElroy?

  And you know, sometimes it takes him two to three hours of sitting in silence before the flow flow state kicks in, you know?

• 6:15Griffin McElroy?

  And you gotta be there for it.

• 6:16Travis McElroy?

  And Brett Michaels.

• 6:18Griffin McElroy?

  Wow.

• 6:18Travis McElroy?

  And I had, and I had this great concert. It's gonna be on the National Mall, which I know has always been a disappointment to everybody because of the name. You always want it to be more fun than it is, but it's really just a long walk between big buildings, you know?

• 6:33Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 6:34Travis McElroy?

  But this can be cool. It's gonna be a concert.

• 6:36Griffin McElroy?

  But now the pool, now the National Mall, the pool does look like a, like a shit, like a piece of shit backyard, sort of, like midwestern, glistening sort of pool now. So it does, and you can also see the UFC ring from the mall, which is like, pretty, it's, it's way too on the nose, I feel like, the concert, the UFC fight, it's too far.

• 6:59Travis McElroy?

  What hurts, Trav, is the day that this lineup was announced, and you guys knew how involved I was in this.

• 7:04Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 7:05Travis McElroy?

  The day this lineup, and when Griffin saw the crop that I was bringing to his backyard, basically, he just texted like, and it was a video of him, "One dear, thank you." It's like that.

• 7:17Travis McElroy?

  Yeah. Can I speak on behalf of the American people?

• 7:20Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 7:21Griffin McElroy?

  I, I'm off the first.

• 7:23Travis McElroy?

  On behalf of Griffin.

• 7:24Travis McElroy?

  And here's the thing, Justin, me and all the American people were in one big group chat, and we were talking about how excited we were, because like, this is a huge deal, 250th, it only happens once, a quarter of a millennia, right? And National Mall, huge, like, budget, back thing, a lot of prestige, and you got, I would say, to match all of that, the biggest names in music.

• 7:54Griffin McElroy?

  And entertainment.

• 7:55Travis McElroy?

  Entertainment, right?

• 7:56Griffin McElroy?

  You think Bret Michaels is just, is just a musician? He's a multi-vertical entertainer, I would say.

• 8:03Travis McElroy?

  I mean, Rock of Love, hello?

• 8:04Griffin McElroy?

  Hello?

• 8:05Travis McElroy?

  He's a TV star, too. Changed the way we think about celebrity, like, 80s rock star dating shows.

• 8:13Griffin McElroy?

  If it, if the timeline was different, if we were in a different timeline, and we were trying to make up a long sort of joke about who this administration would put in a 250th birthday concert for America, if we came up with the list that was the actual list, we would be fairly derided as hack pieces of shit.

• 8:39Travis McElroy?

  Yes.

• 8:39Griffin McElroy?

  As talentless, unfunny, as talentless, unfunny hacks.

• 8:43Travis McElroy?

  Why are you doing this?

• 8:44Travis McElroy?

  Hey, Justin.

• 8:44Griffin McElroy?

  I'm not saying this bit, no, no, you misunderstand, Justin. I'm not saying that you are a talent, this is hack shit that you're doing right now. I'm saying that...

• 8:53Travis McElroy?

  Some more nuance, like someone who's like, oh, I forgot about that band. I did my best.

• 8:58Travis McElroy?

  Hey, Justin, why weren't you able to get Kid Rock and Ted Nugent?

• 9:02Travis McElroy?

  Like, I, what? Hold on, you got one, you, they basically have a musical jester, a national musical jester at this point in Mr. Rock. Who we did send a couple of our arm- He's a, he's a, he's a secretary of defense. So he doesn't have to anymore. He's a sergeant at arms for the second, yeah, it's like in charge of all the ships or whatever. So he's like, he's busy with war. He's doing stuff in Iran that he's like, anyway, I threw the best concert ever. And I announced his lineup and everybody's like, yes, thank you. Yes, we love it. And then people were like- Yeah. Mad because of the president. And I told people-

• 9:40Travis McElroy?

  That wasn't you. You didn't book him.

• 9:43Travis McElroy?

  No, what I did was, now Travis, here's, this is where I, if there is egg on my face. Yeah. It's this. Uh huh. Um, I told these performers that this would be a non-political event. Oh, okay. And, um, even though literally anybody with half of a fucking brain would definitely know that this is absolutely a political event and maybe they would just love to make some of the money. You know, they just wanted to have some of the money and maybe people wouldn't be so mad about it. Some of, let's be clear, our taxpayer money, right? Our tax dollars going to line Martina McBride's pockets. But no.

• 10:26Travis McElroy?

  Everyone you listed, Justin, I know to be all about the music, artists first, you know?

• 10:32Travis McElroy?

  And, and just because I tricked them with this perfect trick that any, like, it's-

• 10:40Travis McElroy?

  Air tight.

• 10:41Travis McElroy?

  It is like Riddler level genius. I told these people that a concert on the National Mall while Trump's president wouldn't be political. And they were like, absolutely, like, that makes perfect sense to me.

• 10:51Travis McElroy?

  Oh, that's a perfect trick.

• 10:52Travis McElroy?

  Is the money already there or do I get the money after?

• 10:56Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 10:57Travis McElroy?

  I would like to talk to you and clear the air. I will not be performing at the great American State Fair on June 25th, says Martina McBride.

• 11:07Griffin McElroy?

  They are, they are turning, they're making the right choice. I think we can all agree, but they did get tricked. I do think there's a certain amount of-

• 11:13Travis McElroy?

  Making the right choice for who, Griffin? Not for me? I'm an embarrassment. I asked lots of questions, Martina says, and I was assured this was a nonpartisan event on the National Mall in Washington DC.

• 11:28Griffin McElroy?

  250 feet as the crow flies from the UFC arena in the fucking West Lawn.

• 11:33Travis McElroy?

  Sidebar, I need to step out of the bit to say this. I've been trying to get mad about the UFC thing and I can't, I want to admit it's pretty funny. I mean, like, I want to be mad about it, but it is so tasteful in the milieu that it is-

• 11:52Griffin McElroy?

  Just everything that's going on, everything that's going on in that horror, yeah.

• 11:57Travis McElroy?

  It's like, I can't, you know what I mean? It's like aesthetically perfect.

• 12:01Travis McElroy?

  Can I tell you, we need to, everybody, we need to do a wellness check on Mike Judge.

• 12:07Travis McElroy?

  Because like-

• 12:07Griffin McElroy?

  I know, right?

• 12:08Travis McElroy?

  The prophetic-

• 12:10Travis McElroy?

  The UFC thing is so close to like the battle scene from Idiocracy- That Mike Judge has to feel like he's spiraling into a different dimension. Where he's like, I did this. I made this happen.

• 12:26Travis McElroy?

  Guys, I have so many people that have crapped out on me. I asked lots of questions and was assured this is a nonpartisan event that was meant to celebrate all 50 states. Martina's huge in Rhode Island. You should know. I've spent my entire career singing songs about real people with real issues. So she's out.

• 12:47Travis McElroy?

  Have you?

• 12:49Travis McElroy?

  So she's out. CNC Music Factory guy said, I don't know, I don't know Trump, I don't know that guy. And so he just kind of quit on me. He put up a seven minute Facebook video. He didn't even write it out, so I can't read it, but he quit. I didn't watch the whole thing because I was so mad.

• 13:04Travis McElroy?

  I'd like to think that's because CNC Music Factory is very pro-union. You know. They, yeah.

• 13:12Travis McElroy?

  I've been operating the CNC music. My grandfather opened the CNC Music Factory in 1910 in Hoboken, New Jersey.

• 13:22Travis McElroy?

  Uh, my grandfather was pulled into the gears of the CNC Music Factory. I'll never forget, one time. That's why the union started, my father. I was hanging out with friends.

• 13:34Travis McElroy?

  To CNC Music Factory.

• 13:36Travis McElroy?

  One time I was hanging out with friends and CNC Music Factory came up and someone said, whatever happened to CNC Music Factory? And I said, they got shut down by OSHA. And this other person there said, that's not funny. My friend's dad works for OSHA. And I think about that.

• 13:52Griffin McElroy?

  That's a great exchange.

• 13:53Travis McElroy?

  All the time.

• 13:54Travis McElroy?

  It's a good conversation. Morris Day in the Time quit.

• 13:58Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. Can you read, can you read the Brett, can you read the Bret Michaels quote?

• 14:02Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, I got the Bret Michaels one up. I actually, I want to treat you to Young MC first. I have informed my agents that I will not be performing at the Freedom 250 event. The artists were never told about any political involvement with the event on the National Mall of the United States. The artists were never told. And despite the claims by the organizers, Justin T. McRoy, chief among them, that the event is nonpartisan, Spin Magazine describes it as Trump backed. I hope to perform in DC the near future at an event that is not so politically charged. I feel like Young MC is like, this thing was cool. I think Spin Magazine might be the bad guy here, guys. Can we all agree? Spin did this.

• 14:48Travis McElroy?

  Uh, so Young MC's out. This reminds me of the time when someone reached out to us about doing a live show at the Republican National Convention. And we said, is it gonna be partisan? And they said, oh, no, no, no, no, no. Don't you worry about it. Boy, were we surprised.

• 15:06Griffin McElroy?

  Egg on our face.

• 15:07Travis McElroy?

  Hello to all my awesome friends and fans. I want to jump on here real quick and talk about the upcoming Freedom 250 event in Washington DC. When this opportunity was originally presented to my team by Justin. McElroy, it was described as a celebration of our country through music and a chance to honor our veterans, active military, first responders, teachers, and hardworking Americans from all walks of life.

• 15:31Griffin McElroy?

  Now Brett, now Brett, timeout Brett. Have we been doing a lot of teacher honoring in the last few years, would you say Brett?

• 15:40Travis McElroy?

  About to take a real zag and honor teachers.

• 15:43Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, for once, let's, yeah, no, this is.

• 15:46Travis McElroy?

  I thought they were blowing probably a billion dollars of taxpayer money that yes, could go to teachers.

• 15:53Griffin McElroy?

  Let's give it up.

• 15:55Travis McElroy?

  The concert I was gonna do to honor them instead.

• 15:58Travis McElroy?

  Uh, as many, oh, as a son of a veteran and coming from a family that has proudly served, that is something that I, and of course Brett Michaels himself was one of the most notorious bomber pilots.

• 16:10Griffin McElroy?

  Every time he flew against the red Baron.

• 16:13Travis McElroy?

  Oh, yeah.

• 16:14Griffin McElroy?

  They'd write stories about it.

• 16:15Travis McElroy?

  They called it the Baron of Biloxi. Uh, as many of you know, I spent my entire career bringing people together through music positivity and good vibes.

• 16:23Griffin McElroy?

  That's how I describe it.

• 16:25Travis McElroy?

  My shows have never been about politics. They're about giving, this is important. They're about giving people a place to come together, have a great time and forget about life stresses for a few hours. For a few hours Brett? Damn dude. How, how many hits you got there dude?

• 16:40Travis McElroy?

  He's, he's including the before and after tailgating.

• 16:43Travis McElroy?

  I'm hoping you're frigging, frigging in like a snack break for everybody to go use the head or get three hours? How long is every rose has its storm, man?

• 16:52Travis McElroy?

  They do like five different versions of it back to back, back to back. I love that Brett Michaels started his statement with, uh, my awesome friends and fans. And I'd like to think that he was getting a lot of concerned texts and emails from people he knows. And he was like, I'm just gonna address all of this at once.

• 17:11Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 17:12Travis McElroy?

  The greatest one though, is Milli Vanilli. And I have to, and this is the one that makes me so happy.

• 17:20Travis McElroy?

  So kids, Milli Vanilli, and I do feel like I do need to do this a little bit, right? Milli Vanilli was a pop group in the 90s and they had this hit called Blame It on the Rain. And they had one other hit, right? There's one of their Billy Vanilli hit, Blame It on the Rain was a big one. And it turned out that this group was basically two very handsome guys that they got to lip sync these other talented performers. And it was a real-

• 17:46Travis McElroy?

  And they were fairly good dancers, if I remember-

• 17:48Griffin McElroy?

  Good dancers, I mean, yeah, the energy was off the charts.

• 17:51Travis McElroy?

  Talented guys, but they, the singing wasn't real. And when this came out-

• 17:55Travis McElroy?

  And they won like an MTV or VH1 Music Award for like Best New Singer or something.

• 18:00Travis McElroy?

  It's a huge scandal when it happened. And then like basically, one of the members, I think actually passed away because, in part because of this harassment that took place. So Milli Vanilli is now a name that is used by the people that sang the Milli Vanilli songs.

• 18:18Griffin McElroy?

  Huh, yeah.

• 18:19Travis McElroy?

  Okay. Now, Milli Vanilli is that group, but um, one of the lead singers, Fab Moore Van, who was one of the guys who was pretending to be a Milli Vanilli, he was, who was signed at the concert. So they just went ahead and listed him as Milli Vanilli.

• 18:38Griffin McElroy?

  Oh my god.

• 18:39Travis McElroy?

  So the people who actually are singing and performing as Milli Vanilli and sang the songs of Milli Vanilli, right? That's Milli Vanilli. On the poster is the guy that pretended to be Milli Vanilli, Fab Moore Van. And he is performing at the concert and they went ahead and listed him as Milli. The only people that are still believing this are my staff, who filled out this poster and I begged them, please don't put Milli Vanilli on there. It's Fab Moore Van, people know Fab. Please don't list him as Milli Vanilli. And they did it anyway.

• 19:14Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 19:16Travis McElroy?

  And now people are like, is Milli Vanilli performing? And even I don't know that. No, that's become too complex. That's like a whole ship of Theseus question at this point, you know what I mean? I don't know. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't.

• 19:28Travis McElroy?

  I don't, yeah, I don't know.

• 19:29Travis McElroy?

  I want to say, I want to take a brief moment to say, thank you. If in all this hostility, there's still room for gratitude. There's still room for gratitude, guys. There's still room to say, thank you. Vanilla Ice is still playing the Great American State Fair. This is the quote from his representative to me and the Associated Press.

• 19:54Travis McElroy?

  And the picture.

• 19:55Travis McElroy?

  He's proud to help celebrate America's 250th anniversary. Everyone is welcome to attend and celebrate USA's birthday in our freedom.

• 20:06Travis McElroy?

  Justin, if I may, what I love here.

• 20:08Travis McElroy?

  For you guys.

• 20:09Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 20:09Travis McElroy?

  Thank you. This company's history.

• 20:11Travis McElroy?

  This quote, he's proud to celebrate America's 250th anniversary is attributed to his representative that told this to the Associated Press. And then the picture is Vanilla Ice with Michelangelo, which leads me to believe his representative is Michelangelo of the Ninja Turtles.

• 20:29Travis McElroy?

  That is, that is the, the obvious connect the dots that you make by looking at this image is that Michelangelo is really Vanilla Ice's representative and he's like, he's still proud to help celebrate America's 250th anniversary, dude.

• 20:41Travis McElroy?

  And he's saying this to a belligerent crowd.

• 20:44Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 20:44Travis McElroy?

  Like the picture is.

• 20:45Travis McElroy?

  Everyone's welcome to attend, man.

• 20:47Travis McElroy?

  Michelangelo just ran out on the stage while people are booing Vanilla Ice. And he's like, no, dude, no, no, everyone's welcome to attend. Cowabunga.

• 20:57Travis McElroy?

  My read on this situation is that Vanilla Ice is not aware of this situation. Rob does, Rob's not following the news. He's too busy partying with the Turtles. I think his representative is keeping him insulated, giving him a little bit of plausible deniability. So if he does roll up. Thank God for whatever he's doing, Griffin, because I am flailing right now to find worse people. Like I'm trying to find worse performers that people would still recognize the names.

• 21:24Travis McElroy?

  His representative, Michelangelo, told me that yes, Rob Van Winkle, AKA Vanilla Ice, has been crashing on the Turtles couch in the sewers for the last 20 years and they don't get cable down there. So like, yes, he has missed a lot of the news.

• 21:41Travis McElroy?

  Right. This is a fun game. Will you guys help me brainstorm? Worse people? Yeah, not worse people, just like other people that I might plausibly be able to book. And I'm like, don't, don't give me easy ones, right? Like I know that I could fill it out with like, your.

• 21:58Griffin McElroy?

  You know, some bad people.

• 22:00Travis McElroy?

  Quick, I don't want to do the bad ones. See, like, right, I want to hit you with this. Do you guys think I get the Bloodhound Gang?

• 22:07Griffin McElroy?

  I think that's an easy pipeline for Vanilla Ice, and I know.

• 22:10Travis McElroy?

  Some, like, not all of them. I know I'm not gonna get, like, Daddy Longlegs. But you're gonna get, like, some low-tier Bloodhound Gang members to perform as the Bloodhound Gang.

• 22:21Griffin McElroy?

  Um, yeah, I mean, names mean nothing in this sort of scenario. So, yeah, you could absolutely do that.

• 22:29Travis McElroy?

  Do you think I could possibly say it's Elvis? Yeah, I could say he's back.

• 22:35Travis McElroy?

  As long as you say Ann Elvis, I think you're okay.

• 22:38Travis McElroy?

  Ann Elvis is here.

• 22:40Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 22:40Travis McElroy?

  Juice, I think you could, hey, guys, legit, I think you could put Elvis on there. I think you could. I think you absolutely could do it.

• 22:48Travis McElroy?

  Gwar wouldn't do it. I'm gonna say Robin Thicke would be.

• 22:51Travis McElroy?

  Rob, Travis, Robin Thicke is so fucking prescient. That is actually extremely good. Robin Thicke on this list would have been like.

• 23:01Travis McElroy?

  Maybe Chris Brown. I should have called. I should have called. I was so proud. I said I'm gonna do this on my own.

• 23:06Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 23:07Travis McElroy?

  Chris Brown.

• 23:08Griffin McElroy?

  You could get Kelsey Grammer to come out and do the Frasier theme song to open up the, to open up the set.

• 23:13Travis McElroy?

  Off the stage?

• 23:15Griffin McElroy?

  A bit of a valediction, and then he falls off the fucking stage, and everyone is like, why was Frasier here?

• 23:22Travis McElroy?

  I need you guys to start doing jokes at my expense.

• 23:26Travis McElroy?

  I knew that my tragedy would become your humor. This isn't about politics. It's about staying true to what I've always believed in. Everyone is entitled to their opinions. That's one of the freedoms our veterans fought for, and I fought for as the butcher of Biloxi. One of the most notorious fighter pilots in history, the US Aviation military.

• 23:49Travis McElroy?

  I didn't bury, I didn't leave a bunch of caskets overseas. I didn't leave a bunch of caskets overseas so that my friends and family, I believe in our country, in the freedoms we're afforded and the idea that for over 250 years, we have gone through both highs and lows together and remained resilient. Music, he's still like, music is a universal language. Just like I did when I entertained a record breaking crowd of over 100,000 at the St. Louis Arch for an Independence Day celebration with people from across the country. What record?

• 24:22Travis McElroy?

  100,000 guys.

• 24:23Travis McElroy?

  Most, most people he's ever played for at the St. Louis Arch, Travis?

• 24:26Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 24:27Travis McElroy?

  He broke his own.

• 24:27Travis McElroy?

  Most people entertained by Bret Michaels.

• 24:32Travis McElroy?

  He's also, I appreciate this. Brett could have attached any picture to the post, but I do appreciate that Brett attached the picture of him playing at the Arch, just in case you think they're, you think he's fucking full of shit. Well, you're full of shit because there's a picture of him doing it, pal.

• 24:49Travis McElroy?

  And that's the Arch.

• 24:49Travis McElroy?

  He really did it. That's the Arch and that's me, Bret Michaels. I don't need, I don't need this.

• 24:55Travis McElroy?

  You're probably wondering how I got here. Well, it's a funny story.

• 24:59Griffin McElroy?

  Do you guys think, what's the half-life of the like intense?

• 25:06Travis McElroy?

  Just doing a band thing.

• 25:07Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, that's cool.

• 25:08Griffin McElroy?

  What is the, what is the half-life of the back channel group texts that have happened between the artists of this? Cause you know, Martina like probably reached out to Milli Vanilli saying like, hey, what's the fucking vibe on this?

• 25:23Travis McElroy?

  And Milli Vanilli said, hey, we're not playing. What are you talking about? This is the first we've heard about this.

• 25:29Travis McElroy?

  I mean, we would. Yeah, we would do it. Until people got mad at about it and then we'd quit. I wish I had done this. Absolutely, guys. This is best case scenario for these genius artists, right?

• 25:42Griffin McElroy?

  I'd love to celebrate America patriotism, veteran first responder teachers, but uh, gosh, I just don't feel like, I feel like it's divisive and that's not my thing.

• 25:52Travis McElroy?

  I'm thrust into the public spotlight again. Everybody's talking about me and now I get to have this moment where I'm like, no, no, no. I love America too much. Thank you.

• 26:01Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 26:02Travis McElroy?

  Young MC is in the conversation again, and he's one of the good guys.

• 26:07Griffin McElroy?

  And I guarantee to you, every single one of the people backing out is like, but you know what? I will play a concert in DC on my own terms.

• 26:17Travis McElroy?

  Travis, it's, you don't have to guess. It's just in there. It's just in there and you just read it and they say it with the words. Like they just like say it. Brett Michaels is like, I will definitely be playing a show in DC very soon.

• 26:29Griffin McElroy?

  I do appreciate how all of the like apology letters all have a tone of like, my whole thing? I don't have any feelings about this stuff and not like, yeah, he's a fucking wow, man. Holy shit. Shit's actually collapsing. But everyone's just like, hey, man, you won't catch me being on any position of this thing one way or to other.

• 26:53Travis McElroy?

  That's a great point, Griffin, because the counter argument all these people are making for like, hey, we didn't know was, no, no, no, no, guys. We're neutral on politics right now. We don't have an opinion on what's happening. We thought this whole thing was just gonna be neutral. You know, and we're neutral. Why are you mad?

• 27:13Griffin McElroy?

  Because if you're neutral, everyone likes you. Hey.

• 27:19Travis McElroy?

  I wanna, and you know, I'm not gonna judge anybody who, uh, cause I, I legitimately, I think some of these people maybe didn't know that their name would end up on the poster. That happened. There, there's at least two artists who are like, I don't fucking what? I didn't even know I was doing it. Morise Day.

• 27:36Travis McElroy?

  I guarantee you, most of these people have given carte blanche their agent of like, if an offer comes in, you say yes.

• 27:44Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 27:44Travis McElroy?

  I don't care if you can get a hold of me or not, Doug. You say yes.

• 27:49Travis McElroy?

  The time post. This is Morise Day's post.

• 27:51Griffin McElroy?

  Holy shit. Yeah. It's like a, it's on, it's like a Facebook gradient background, 128 point font on an image.

• 28:01Griffin McElroy?

  Can I read it?

• 28:02Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, please read it.

• 28:03Griffin McElroy?

  Contrary to rumor, Morris Day and the Time will not be performing at the Great American State Fair. I don't, is that what we're calling? And then a big cancel emoji.

• 28:13Travis McElroy?

  And then look at the little.

• 28:15Travis McElroy?

  It's a no for me sunglasses emojis.

• 28:17Travis McElroy?

  That's all Morris has to say. It's a no for me. Thank you.

• 28:20Griffin McElroy?

  Morris, just share the image. Just share the image.

• 28:22Travis McElroy?

  And the song they put with it, the sound is Jiggle O's Get Lonely 2, The Time.

• 28:30Travis McElroy?

  Uh, yeah, so that like, it really, oh, man.

• 28:34Griffin McElroy?

  Why would he put?

• 28:36Travis McElroy?

  Jiggle O's.

• 28:37Griffin McElroy?

  Why would he put that there?

• 28:39Travis McElroy?

  Why did?

• 28:39Griffin McElroy?

  On his image announcing his backing out of the Great American State Fair 250th American Birthday Celebration Concert. Why would he put a track up on there? Why would he do that, Morris? Cause he's got, cause it's the visibility of these, like. It's a no for me. It's a no for me.

• 28:58Griffin McElroy?

  You already said yes.

• 29:03Griffin McElroy?

  The Time said yes.

• 29:05Travis McElroy?

  I will say this.

• 29:06Griffin McElroy?

  The Time didn't ask me. The Time, if, the Time form a super majority vote, they can, they can over, they can veto, they have veto power over Morris.

• 29:15Travis McElroy?

  I will say this, I did do, and the eggs on my face, because I did do a perfect trick. I did do the perfect grift. I did do the perfect trick, but I do want to comment that I.

• 29:26Griffin McElroy?

  Did you have them sign anything? Like if you back out, if you back out or cancel, like you're fucked, you have to do this thing, you know backsies outies, or you have to pay us a billion dollars? Did you get them to sign anything?

• 29:36Travis McElroy?

  There's no, it was all like good faith handshake stuff, which, okay, again, shame on me.

• 29:41Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 29:42Travis McElroy?

  Um, I'll, you know, I'll know for next time. I will just say this about the nine people.

• 29:47Travis McElroy?

  So they, when they wake you up for cryogenic sleep to do the 500.

• 29:50Griffin McElroy?

  To the five, oh, man, that one's gonna be so good.

• 29:52Travis McElroy?

  I will say this about the nine acts that I managed to trick with my perfect trick. I did sure manage to trick the exact nine acts that you would think that I would trick. You know what I mean? It is funny how the exact nine people that'll be right on that line of plausibility were the nine that I managed to trick with my incredible grift.

• 30:12Griffin McElroy?

  We have this conversation five days ago. Oh, man, the tenor is completely different. Guys, I crush it. The most kick ass lineup, tricked to high heavens of all time, and none of them have backed out yet. It's just that they, it's just that you didn't get them to sign nothing and they just all kind of dip. Yeah.

• 30:29Travis McElroy?

  He quit too.

• 30:30Griffin McElroy?

  No.

• 30:31Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, DJ Hubris, you guys remember his hits from the 90s? He had a bunch of big ones, but DJ Hubris backed out. He was like, I thought I could do it, but honestly, I just got, I was too high on myself and I.

• 30:45Griffin McElroy?

  You remember his track, you remember his track? I'll never die.

• 30:51Griffin McElroy?

  I'm never wrong.

• 30:53Travis McElroy?

  I remember it, Griffin, it's my ringtone.

• 30:56Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, I am in a unique job where I have a.

• 30:59Griffin McElroy?

  Hey, we're 30 minutes in, dog. Are we really?

• 31:03Travis McElroy?

  Are we really? Okay, well, let's take a quick break.

• 31:06Griffin McElroy?

  We will do a question. I think we can commit to doing one question at some point.

• 31:10Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, we'll do a question, just first we're going, I, listen, I don't know if you heard, but I'm ruined. So if there's a podcast thing, does it like?

• 31:19Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 31:19Travis McElroy?

  You know, I'll, let me just get my, let me get my dumplings real quick.

• 31:33Griffin McElroy?

  I'm gonna blow my nose while you start doing the ad for Zocdoc. Maybe I should go to Zocdoc and find a doctor for the nose, uh, who can come in and help me get, who can help me out with that.

• 31:45Travis McElroy?

  Maybe they could help me.

• 31:46Griffin McElroy?

  This is me segueing, so I can blow my nose.

• 31:48Travis McElroy?

  I wanna talk about this because an ear, nose and throat doctor is so cool to me because there are very few, like there, I can't think of other doctors that both have specific focuses, but also took like three things all at once. And I know that ear, nose and throat, but you know, they had nose and throat and they're like, the nose and throat connects. And someone's like, okay, I wanna do ears. And they said, no, that's all external head stuff.

• 32:15Travis McElroy?

  You're probably thinking you shouldn't listen to us.

• 32:17Travis McElroy?

  I'm taking that one too.

• 32:18Travis McElroy?

  You're probably thinking you shouldn't listen to us about doctors and that's fair, but you should listen to Zocdoc and they'll help you find a good doctor.

• 32:25Travis McElroy?

  My ears aren't directly connected to my nose, right? Like I'm just.

• 32:28Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, they absolutely are. Dude, it's just all tunnels back there.

• 32:31Travis McElroy?

  It's all tunnels.

• 32:32Griffin McElroy?

  What? Yeah.

• 32:34Travis McElroy?

  It's all tubes.

• 32:34Griffin McElroy?

  Um, Zocdoc really is, uh, uh, I mean, I don't know if we've said what it is yet. But it's like a platform that you go to and you can find doctors in your area that take your insurance and make appointments right in the thing. And it's like, it's the way that this should work, finding healthcare should work. It is the only thing that is sort of making the healthcare process easier and more streamlined. So you don't have to deal with quite as much of the other bullshit going on around it.

• 33:00Travis McElroy?

  It has here in the suggested intro where like when something feels off, do you usually let up on vitamins and hope for the best? And I feel so called out because like I have a Ziploc bag full of vitamin bottles. That's the closest I have to like John Wick cracking open his cement floor and breaking out the big suitcase full of guns. Where it's like, I haven't been taking these regularly, but I look up feeling a little sick and I roll out to my big thing. And I'm like, time for a bunch of D's and C's and B's, baby.

• 33:31Travis McElroy?

  Do you guys think, do you guys think Zocdoc knows how to get in touch with Dr. Dre or maybe Dr. John? Cause I would love.

• 33:37Griffin McElroy?

  Entirely possible, yeah.

• 33:38Travis McElroy?

  If I could use Zocdoc to book them.

• 33:40Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 33:40Travis McElroy?

  Oh, Blues Traveler, Justin, get Blues Traveler.

• 33:43Griffin McElroy?

  Blues Traveler will absolutely do the 250th, dude. I don't know if Zocdoc wants us talking about. Yeah, absolutely.

• 33:50Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, let me, let me call Popper.

• 33:52Travis McElroy?

  But here's the problem, Justin, when you try to book them, they're gonna give you the runaround. Wait, no, my, they're gonna give you the runaround.

• 34:00Travis McElroy?

  Ah, that's a good one.

• 34:02Griffin McElroy?

  Zocdoc, I've used to find a, a whole suite of healthcare professionals for myself and my family here in Washington DC. It's tough to find doctors and make appointments.

• 34:13Griffin McElroy?

  Um, in a big city.

• 34:14Travis McElroy?

  Did you blow your nose yet?

• 34:16Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I did. I did it discreetly under the table. I know you wanted to hang a lantern on it, but um, I gotta charge for that. So Zocdoc is great and it's really an easy way to find doctors. So you can finally get that thing looked at. Zocdoc is a free app and website that helps you find and book high quality and network doctors. So you can find someone you love, stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to zocdoc.com slash my brother to find and instantly book a doctor you love today. That's Z O C D O C dot com slash my brother, zocdoc.com slash my brother. Thanks, Zocdoc for sponsoring this message.

• 34:49Travis McElroy?

  If you have a dream, you got a business you want to start, you got a concert you want to put up, whatever you want to do, the best place to start-

• 34:55Travis McElroy?

  Some refunds you have to offer.

• 34:57Travis McElroy?

  Some refunds you have to offer, some apologies you have to issue, some clarification websites you have to build on the fly, go to Squarespace.com. They're gonna help you build a slam dunk, totally rad website that looks like a professional made it, because they got professionals to make the templates, right? So you bring in your data, you bring in your photos, the stuff you want to sell, whatever you want to do with your website, and Squarespace will help you build it.

• 35:19Travis McElroy?

  That's true. And it says it right here, I'm looking at Squarespace.com, says right here, slam dunk, totally rad-

• 35:27Travis McElroy?

  Totally rad.

• 35:28Travis McElroy?

  Two wheeler, a Kalabanga website for the ages.

• 35:31Griffin McElroy?

  Dude, it says to do the whole thing in a Bart Simpson voice. You gotta start over. You gotta read the, guys, we gotta read these fucking copy points before we get into it.

• 35:39Travis McElroy?

  Don't eat shorts.

• 35:40Travis McElroy?

  See what I got there.

• 35:41Travis McElroy?

  I don't know if that, if it's ever been phrased that way.

• 35:46Griffin McElroy?

  Justin needs to cook.

• 35:47Travis McElroy?

  Head to Squarespace.com slash mybrother for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code MYBROTHER to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

• 35:55Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, you did still do that in your normal voice. It felt like you were about to do a bit there and then you didn't.

• 36:00Travis McElroy?

  I did, I lost my, you know what, Griffin, I was about to absolutely whiff a Bart Simpson impression for the entertainment of our audience, and I lost my nerve.

• 36:08Griffin McElroy?

  I was trying to get to Bart. Yeah, that's fine. It's scary, it's scary.

• 36:14Travis McElroy?

  I've been sort of struggling lately with accents where they'll just be one. Like, I'll open my mouth and I'll get it the first try, but if I don't get it the first try, I'm not gonna get it better. But sometimes there'll just be one there, right? So I'll just discover that Kingpin from Daredevil Born Again is in there. But I don't, but that's not useful to me. You know what I mean? I didn't work on that. And if I'd opened my mouth there as Bart Simpson, it would have sounded like Bart Simpson. Do you know what I'm saying?

• 36:45Griffin McElroy?

  Dude, no, people get on Jeff Dunham all the time, because it's like, your puppets are mad racist, dude.

• 36:51Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, and misogynistic and-

• 36:53Griffin McElroy?

  And misogynistic, but Jeff is like-

• 36:54Travis McElroy?

  Jeff Dunham!

• 36:56Travis McElroy?

  You could get Dunham.

• 36:57Griffin McElroy?

  You could get Jeff, get Jeff, call Jeff, call Jeff, call Jeff. Justin, Jeff, what are you doing?

• 37:01Travis McElroy?

  You know that new racism you've been looking for? Well, listen to this.

• 37:05Griffin McElroy?

  No, you guys are misunderstanding. He doesn't like doing that. Those are just the voices that are in him. Well, he do my content, though? He can do the, he'll do the, he'll do the-

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• 38:48Travis McElroy?

  How about a question? Actually. Yeah, let's end the intro. I'm in a unique job where I have a baby raccoon in my car much more often than most people. Sometimes when I have a baby raccoon with me, I drive through a fast food restaurant and I really want to show my baby raccoon to the people working the windows. I know if I was working in one of these establishments, I'd love to see a baby raccoon randomly on Tuesday afternoon, but I have no idea how to broach the subject. How can I ask the fast food worker if they'd like to see my baby raccoon without making it weird? That's from fine raccoon purveyor in none of your business. Seriously, don't get me fired.

• 39:24Travis McElroy?

  That does lead me to believe that the baby raccoon isn't supposed to be in your car.

• 39:28Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, it's probably not supposed to be in your car, huh?

• 39:30Travis McElroy?

  And you're just hanging out with them and you're like, if the boss finds out I'm taking this baby raccoon to get some burgers and fries, I'm going to be in so much trouble.

• 39:36Travis McElroy?

  You wouldn't get fired for thinking about showing your raccoon to people, friend. I don't know. It feels like you stole the raccoon making Groundhog Day.

• 39:44Griffin McElroy?

  I, I like to think of myself as a man of the world and of the people and of the workers. I can't even imagine what job would lead you to have a baby raccoon in your car some, sometimes. More often than most other people. Because there's not a ton of jobs where you're interfacing with baby raccoons in the first place. Let alone job, the jobs where if you're in, I don't know, pest control or animal control. I don't think you keep them around in the car like a sidekicks. I jewel thief and the baby raccoon is trained somehow?

• 40:18Travis McElroy?

  I can see that.

• 40:20Griffin McElroy?

  That's all I can think of.

• 40:21Travis McElroy?

  Or it's like you caught the baby raccoon. You are with pest control. You caught the baby raccoon and you're like, I know how to reward myself with a job well done. Before taking this raccoon to jail, maybe? I don't know exactly what they do.

• 40:35Griffin McElroy?

  The forest.

• 40:36Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, they stop for a Happy Meal on their way.

• 40:38Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 40:39Travis McElroy?

  I have somehow let myself become the stereotype of the dad who's like at war with some like natural annoyance. And for me, it's the raccoons that live outside.

• 40:50Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. It's an on gang, really, truly. Justin is engaged in a long-term sort of battle with, with these ring-tailed bastards.

• 41:00Travis McElroy?

  I have, they shape his, he has schedules based on like, I have to do this thing before the sun goes down.

• 41:07Griffin McElroy?

  Genuine Google calendar reminders thwart the raccoons.

• 41:11Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, I like to keep snacks out there for delivery people. And I get, cause like, I think it's nice to have some drinks in the summer. And these fucking dickheads used to at night.

• 41:26Travis McElroy?

  The raccoons would come at night if I left the snacks out and eat them, which like fair play. The night is your domain, raccoons. Still kind of an asshole, but like fair. That now they've gotten bold where at five in the fucking afternoon, these dickheads will be up there grabbing a snack for themselves. And here's what kills me. They'll drag the snack off, open it, enjoy it and leave the wrapper for me to clean up. I shit you not. So if I saw a raccoon in your car, I would judge you pretty bad. I think you're in league with them and I'd be real careful what I told you.

• 41:58Travis McElroy?

  How do your children feel about the raccoons? Cause I have a war with deer after they sharpen their antlers on the trees I was growing and killed my trees and they eat the flowers off the flowers I'm growing. So like I'm standing at the window with my cup of coffee in the morning, looking at these uh horned rats.

• 42:15Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 42:15Travis McElroy?

  Derogatory and my kids are like, oh deer, so and I'm like, ugh. I'm gonna go out there and yell at them till they leave.

• 42:24Griffin McElroy?

  I'm, I'm in the same boat. I got these big bunnies that hop around in my yard and they've never once let it, letted me pet them or my kids petted them, even though we try to give them strawberries. They don't want it and I feel like they're judgy and they wouldn't even let me pet them once.

• 42:43Travis McElroy?

  Not even once.

• 42:43Travis McElroy?

  I'm here in outside.

• 42:44Griffin McElroy?

  Not even one time.

• 42:45Travis McElroy?

  Inside, Kay Griffin, you're such an inside kid right now.

• 42:48Griffin McElroy?

  They're so big. They're so fucking big.

• 42:51Travis McElroy?

  I saw it last night, I, there was a raccoon coming through the.

• 42:53Griffin McElroy?

  Did you just say you didn't think I saw a bunny?

• 42:56Travis McElroy?

  No, I know you saw a bunny for sure. There, there was one who was coming to get my sacks and I went outside and he just looked at me like, and it was, it used to be human presence was instant, instant disappear.

• 43:07Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 43:07Travis McElroy?

  Now it's like looking at me like, but what have you got?

• 43:09Travis McElroy?

  Nothing is more debilitating. That happened once, I was camping by myself, raccoon started going through my trash and it was late time, I went outside my tent, waved my flash around, made myself big, ah, raccoon just looked at me. At that moment, I went, okay, and just went back in my tent, like that trash is, I have no other.

• 43:27Travis McElroy?

  If the raccoon charges, you're done. You're, you have no second step. Yeah, you're, you're out.

• 43:33Griffin McElroy?

  But I mean, if my situation is any indication, you could just walk forward and try to pet them and be a, be their friend and pick them up and love them and give them a straw, give them a big juicy strawberry, that raccoon will run right away. You scare away more flies with honey.

• 43:47Travis McElroy?

  Uh huh.

• 43:49Travis McElroy?

  There's scooters in town near me that I stop by sometimes. Whenever I go through their drive through, I can't help but look at that beautiful, healthy and giant clovers they have next to their shop.

• 44:00Travis McElroy?

  I want to rummage around for some big old

• 44:02Travis McElroy?

  That's a cool, you, that's a cool mind you have there and I'm genuinely mean that and I'm jealous of it.

• 44:09Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, I want to rummage around for some big old four leafers so bad. How'd I go about doing this? Do I just go for it unapologetically? Can I call ahead of time? Ask their manager? Do I have to buy something from them first? I'm Irish too. Can I demand that it's my right? Help me. First of all, Irish too, like the chain scooters? Is that what we're saying or is it all like the four leaf?

• 44:32Travis McElroy?

  No, they're just adding on. Yeah.

• 44:36Travis McElroy?

  Welcome to scooters.

• 44:41Travis McElroy?

  Welcome to old scooters.

• 44:45Travis McElroy?

  I think if you ask, they'll call the police on you, but you should just do it.

• 44:49Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, dude. I, without giving us like distance from it, if it's like between the drive through window and the like driveway, there's the patch of clovers, don't do that. Oh, what'd you get? Oh, some fries? Nice, me? Just looking for clovers. Don't mind me.

• 45:08Travis McElroy?

  If you're working in a drive through window, that area for like at least eight by eight is your office. So like if I have a drink that I need to dump out, I'm not going to dump it out there in that person's office. You know, I'll drive up to the trash can in front of their office.

• 45:25Travis McElroy?

  Oh, okay.

• 45:26Travis McElroy?

  So I think if you are rummaging around for clover outside this person's office, that would be very distracting. If you're down away from their office, you'll probably be okay. But I think that that view, you shouldn't have to make that person think about what you're doing. That would be my one request just from on a human level. Don't make the per, they're not going to say anything, but like, don't make them wonder why you are doing that for an hour. You know, just do it discreet. That would be my suggestion.

• 45:53Travis McElroy?

  What, you gotta walk up? You walk up to the counter and say, hey, did you see some kids throw an iPod Nano? Into that field of clover?

• 46:02Travis McElroy?

  God damn it, that's good.

• 46:04Travis McElroy?

  You're gonna walk around looking and occasionally like stand up and scratch your head and look around.

• 46:10Travis McElroy?

  My son Timmers is getting bullied at school and they stole his damn iPod Nano and they threw it out in the grass again outside scooters. And I, I'm just gonna have a little butchers around real quick and hey, just. Do you all have a clover policy? Or is it just sort of finders? If I'm out there.

• 46:27Travis McElroy?

  If I'm out there and I find a big old four leaver.

• 46:30Travis McElroy?

  I'm out there, I find a juicy four leaver. Is that just up for grabs or is there a raffle?

• 46:34Travis McElroy?

  Do you guys own it? Do we have to share the luck? Can anyone own a clover?

• 46:39Travis McElroy?

  I'm Irish if that helps. God's greatest miracle, clover.

• 46:42Travis McElroy?

  Grass with a hat on. Umbrella grass, they call it.

• 46:46Travis McElroy?

  Umbrella grass, we call it in our, in the old country.

• 46:49Travis McElroy?

  Two bow ties.

• 46:51Travis McElroy?

  What? I, I had two people this week that came up to me that know me fairly well. And told me that they had found a four leaf clover, adults. And like, you know, that I got a little sprinkle of the, of the, the, the touch. And I had a little touch. What do you want me to do with that conversation? I mean, honestly, what are you neurotypical people doing about clover discussions? If someone, if a normal adult comes up to you and is like, I found a four leaf clover. Yeah, I got social anxiety. What do you want me to say about that? In this social situation, you know what I mean? You found a clover. I don't know.

• 47:27Griffin McElroy?

  Can I hit you with just next time? Wow, someone's in for some good luck.

• 47:32Travis McElroy?

  The other option, Justin.

• 47:33Travis McElroy?

  You heard it, right? Does that not chill you to your fucking bone?

• 47:37Griffin McElroy?

  It does, but it will to them too. And then convo over, there's nothing else, there's no follow up to that.

• 47:42Travis McElroy?

  How do you recover from saying something like that out loud?

• 47:46Travis McElroy?

  You know, for the rest of the day?

• 47:48Travis McElroy?

  Some people worry about small talk, Justin, in a way that we don't. In a way of like, okay, there's no follow up. You can just look at them. Now, what I would suggest, Justin, is just show interest to a degree maybe they were not prepared for. Grab them by the lapels and say, where? Where? How?

• 48:09Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 48:10Travis McElroy?

  And then like, when they tell you, take off in that direction.

• 48:14Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, I guess that's fair. No, that's true. I need to come up with something better than staring at people blankly and saying, and?

• 48:22Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 48:22Travis McElroy?

  Something better than that.

• 48:23Griffin McElroy?

  What's that mean?

• 48:24Travis McElroy?

  I, I find.

• 48:24Griffin McElroy?

  Sounds like someone's in for some good luck.

• 48:25Travis McElroy?

  Nice, works a lot. My kids like to tell me random observations throughout the day that I don't know how to follow up with besides, oh, nice.

• 48:34Travis McElroy?

  The problem is because I'm always goofing and joking. I think that if I say something sincere like. What a beautiful thing. You know what I mean? You're like, ah, what a, one of nature's most delicate. One of nature's most delicate miracles. People look at me like, waiting for the punchline. And I'm like, I'm not a joke store. I'm a fully realized person. I'm a whole person. And I, I can't just say like, wow, delicate, you know?

• 49:04Travis McElroy?

  Yeah. I have such a hard time sounding sincere that I have the opposite problem. There's someone told me and I was like, ah, it's a little miracle. They'd be like, all right. And I'm like, no, you don't understand. And I would just keep going on and on.

• 49:14Griffin McElroy?

  Same problem.

• 49:16Travis McElroy?

  Trying to sound sincere.

• 49:17Griffin McElroy?

  It's not the opposite problem. It's the same problem.

• 49:20Travis McElroy?

  No, Justin's was sincere and not a joke. Mine, they would assume is a joke, but it's actually sincere.

• 49:26Travis McElroy?

  No, it's the exact same thing.

• 49:27Griffin McElroy?

  That's the same, exact same thing. You said the same thing.

• 49:29Travis McElroy?

  Listen, I was only half listening. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

• 49:34Griffin McElroy?

  It's the problem with us clowns.

• 49:37Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 49:38Griffin McElroy?

  No one wants, no one wants us, no one wants us to tell them all our thoughts on God. They just want the, they just want the jokes.

• 49:45Travis McElroy?

  The sad me, I went to see the therapist and the therapist like, there's this clown in town. And the guy was like, I don't fucking care about clowns, man. I'm trying to tell you my problems. And the therapist was like, I don't want to hear your problems. I got tickets to go to this clown show later.

• 49:59Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 50:00Travis McElroy?

  And you've been talking for what feels like two hours and I'm going to be late. And the guy was like, doctor, I just got here five minutes ago. And the clown show is not for another four hours.

• 50:10Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 50:10Travis McElroy?

  I know, cause I'm in it. I am the clown. And then the doctor shit himself.

• 50:15Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, he's so famous.

• 50:17Griffin McElroy?

  Scared.

• 50:18Travis McElroy?

  People always say the same thing too, but your job is so easy. And yeah, it is. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, okay.

• 50:26Griffin McElroy?

  We have to do a lot of it. I will say this. It's easy, but we have to do a lot of it. We do a lot of it. And so.

• 50:33Travis McElroy?

  I mean, not as much as a normal job. Yeah, not like a schedule that.

• 50:37Travis McElroy?

  Not like a 40 hour a week, like.

• 50:39Griffin McElroy?

  I make more podcasts than a, a normal job.

• 50:43Travis McElroy?

  Than a normal job would make podcasts?

• 50:46Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 50:46Travis McElroy?

  Yeah. Yeah, I guess that's true.

• 50:49Griffin McElroy?

  That's the only metric I have. That's the only metric that matters.

• 50:52Travis McElroy?

  That like at the end of the year, your average like bank teller has made less work podcasts than you have?

• 51:00Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 51:01Travis McElroy?

  Yeah, I think I'd get on board with that.

• 51:04Travis McElroy?

  Uh, I clean Airbnb as a side gig and sometimes the guest leaves what I call tips. They never leave money, but sometimes I'll find beer, frozen meals or other packaged items. I usually throw away everything that's already open. Today I saw a nondescript takeout box in the fridge. Being the nosy person I am, I open it, only find two slices of the most delicious looking pizza. I couldn't help myself. I know I shouldn't have eaten them brothers, but I did. And it was the most delicious pizza I've ever eaten. My question is, how do I find out where the guest got this pizza without letting them know? I'm a nasty boy who ate their left, without letting them know, I'm a nasty boy who ate their leftovers. The pizza was a standard meat lovers with sausage, bacon and pepperoni, which most pizza places in my area offer.

• 51:48Travis McElroy?

  So narrowing it down by topping is not a choice and that's from Airbnb animal in Arizona.

• 51:54Griffin McElroy?

  That's really, this is really, really good. Thank you. Thank you for sharing this with us.

• 52:00Travis McElroy?

  It might, it must be nice to live in an area with enough choice in pizza. There where you do not know every pizza on site. I could, I would identify.

• 52:10Griffin McElroy?

  There's like, yeah.

• 52:11Travis McElroy?

  Pizza in the tri-state area, a hundred percent of the time.

• 52:13Griffin McElroy?

  There's, there's five different pizza thicknesses. And based on which one you, and shapes, and based on which one you get, you can easily triangulate.

• 52:21Travis McElroy?

  You bring me a square cup with little dirty sausages on it? That's money's.

• 52:24Griffin McElroy?

  That's money's.

• 52:24Travis McElroy?

  Thank you. Yeah. I'll have it.

• 52:25Griffin McElroy?

  It's one of the things I.

• 52:26Travis McElroy?

  Twofer.

• 52:27Travis McElroy?

  Cincinnati has no specific pizza identity as a city like New York or Chicago or something away. And so when someone opens.

• 52:36Griffin McElroy?

  Specialized in pseudo foods.

• 52:38Travis McElroy?

  Well, so when Cincinnati opens a new pizza place, they're like, ah, but ours is like this. And it's amazing because it's like, to what level of slothful do you want to feel today? Like, were you planning on accomplishing anything? Okay. We've got thin crust over here. Are you napping for the next 16 hours? Great.

• 52:58Griffin McElroy?

  Try to stink boy.

• 52:59Travis McElroy?

  Here's my worry question asker.

• 53:03Travis McElroy?

  Is that sometimes our enjoyment of a thing is so uh, ephemeral and based on the context of the thing. Because right now it's feeling magical. You were hungry enough that you ate the pizza from the fridge. It looked amazing. It feels, dare I say, a little naughty. A little illicit.

• 53:23Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, you can be a little naughty.

• 53:25Travis McElroy?

  And I'm worried that even were you to find the source of this pizza.

• 53:31Griffin McElroy?

  Wouldn't be as good.

• 53:32Travis McElroy?

  It wouldn't live up to it again.

• 53:33Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, the sin makes it so much sweeter.

• 53:36Travis McElroy?

  This is a classic, my brother, my brother me solve. It's one of her best ones. It's called no bigs. Cause it's just like, what we do is we say like, you, you bring us the problem and we could solve it. Or we could just be like, hey.

• 53:48Griffin McElroy?

  No bigs.

• 53:49Travis McElroy?

  No bigs.

• 53:49Griffin McElroy?

  Not a problem.

• 53:50Travis McElroy?

  Not a problem. Do something else, worry about something else. Like it's not, no bigs.

• 53:55Travis McElroy?

  I'm just saying like.

• 53:56Travis McElroy?

  Travis is right. If you got the pizza, you'd eat it once, be like, that's this pizza. And then you'd, it wouldn't, it's like when little Pete found his special song. It was just for him, his favorite song. And then he couldn't find the band anymore. And then, you know, he had to recreate it. The specialness of it was the fact that it was lost. So like this pizza chase is, uh, let it fuel you.

• 54:19Travis McElroy?

  Living like living, let it, let it be special.

• 54:23Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 54:24Griffin McElroy?

  Do you know what a mystery is a project? And projects are the vehicles of, of true joy and satisfaction that we get in our lives. You're lucky to have this mystery and you should work on.

• 54:36Travis McElroy?

  That's so true because you could try to find a way to contact the people staying there. Or, or now you have the fun project of, I need to sample pizza. Like go to different places and try different pizzas from different restaurants until I can like match this pizza experience.

• 54:56Travis McElroy?

  I would, I would totally watch a TikTok series. It was like, hi, my name's Joshua and I'm trying every mediocre pizza in Arizona until I find the one that I liked. And then it would just be like.

• 55:06Griffin McElroy?

  Going around for different ones.

• 55:08Travis McElroy?

  I think that would be incredible.

• 55:10Griffin McElroy?

  You could be like that guy that goes around and reviews pizza restaurants that no one seems to really like very much. And sometimes he goes to the pizza restaurants and they kick him out.

• 55:18Travis McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 55:18Griffin McElroy?

  He's like, this fucking asshole's kicking me out. And it's like, well, you said-

• 55:21Travis McElroy?

  But I'm so wealthy. I'm so wealthy. That happened here in Cincinnati and I was very proud of my city.

• 55:27Griffin McElroy?

  You said their pizza tasted like gross dog shit yuck. You said the yuck factor was a million- Unappealing.

• 55:34Travis McElroy?

  What a, what a, what a sad commentary.

• 55:37Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 55:37Travis McElroy?

  Oh shit.

• 55:39Travis McElroy?

  I know. It's easy money, man. Just be as unappealing as possible.

• 55:42Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 55:43Travis McElroy?

  But I've been so likable this whole time.

• 55:46Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. To me, you're always likable, Trav. Thank you, Dusman.

• 55:50Travis McElroy?

  Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. We got three, we got three questions in there? Got three questions in there? There were people doing some strange like gambling where it's that thing of like, I, you know, I think this guy's gonna say this word. And when we hit that third question, somebody made bank. Also, don't do those things. They suck. Those left side suck.

• 56:11Griffin McElroy?

  But if you do, get in touch. If you play, if you play the, the polymarket-

• 56:15Travis McElroy?

  We can maybe work something out where maybe everybody's getting their beak a little wet.

• 56:19Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 56:21Travis McElroy?

  A little snoot in the tail.

• 56:22Griffin McElroy?

  By the way, this episode is brought to you by Betso. Use code brotherbetso50 off to get 50% off your next vote.

• 56:28Travis McElroy?

  Brought to you by Betso Ross.

• 56:33Travis McElroy?

  I, I sold my country's flag and I waved for gambling.

• 56:38Griffin McElroy?

  Right, so. Hey folks, are you struggling to make it stick?

• 56:43Travis McElroy?

  Forget me. This 250.

• 56:46Travis McElroy?

  I'll be performing alongside Kid Rock and Ted, Bruce Trussler, Robin Thicke.

• 56:54Travis McElroy?

  I got the Draft Kings, guys. I got the Draft Latin Kings. They were there gonna play my show.

• 57:03Travis McElroy?

  I got all Miami Sound Machine to perform. I got the engineer of the Miami Sound Machine.

• 57:11Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I do the, I work on the UX of the Miami machine. We've had some great innovations lately.

• 57:17Travis McElroy?

  Hey, guys, they got the guy that skanks from Money Money Ballstones. Just the one, the guy from Money Money Ballstones.

• 57:26Griffin McElroy?

  Blue Man Squad is performing.

• 57:28Travis McElroy?

  They got Josie. What?

• 57:30Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 57:30Travis McElroy?

  From Beyond?

• 57:31Griffin McElroy?

  Whoa.

• 57:32Travis McElroy?

  Um, thank you so much for listening to our podcast.

• 57:35Griffin McElroy?

  I'd love to talk about our merch. Can I do it?

• 57:37Travis McElroy?

  Do it.

• 57:38Griffin McElroy?

  We got sticky notes. Make it stick. Sticky notes designed by Evan Cruz up on the, up on the store. If you need, you know, reminders that, you know, you need to be pitching heaters. You need to be tossing them day and night. We also have a you're going to be amazing shirt designed by Sabrina Volante. It's incredible. It's one of my favorite designs we've had for a long time. Proceeds for that shirt go to Lambda Legal and 10% of all of our merch proceeds this month will also be donated to Lambda Legal, which is a national organization working to achieve full recognition of the civil rights of LGBTQ plus people and everyone living with HIV through impact litigation, education and public policy work. That stuff, again, over at macrowaymerch.com.

• 58:21Travis McElroy?

  Also, I want to say you can preorder The Adventure Zone Story and Song right now at theadventurzonecomic.com. Barnes and Noble and Books-A-Million both have exclusive editions available. Barnes and Noble includes four collectible trading cards and Books-A-Million includes a collectible poster. I also wanted to say I had a great time at Champions Grove last weekend. Everybody who came out for it, it was wonderful. Just thank you to everybody for making it a wonderful time.

• 58:47Griffin McElroy?

  Um, I want to thank Montane for the use of our theme song, My Life Is Better With You. It's a, it's a really good track and the vibes are so on point. It's Hard To Be A Fish is an album I keep returning to. They're, they're just so talented and I'm so, so glad we get to use that song. Looks like Travis has an exciting.

• 59:03Travis McElroy?

  I have a pointer that I think I can throw.

• 59:05Griffin McElroy?

  A really exciting pitchable. Can I ask what you're gonna?

• 59:08Travis McElroy?

  You could die from that. That could kill you. How? I'm throwing it away from myself.

• 59:13Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, but what are you throwing it at?

• 59:15Travis McElroy?

  The bounce back plunge through your heart.

• 59:16Griffin McElroy?

  Do you have a styrofoam thing? I want to see if you can get that stuck into something like a Javelin.

• 59:20Travis McElroy?

  Get it stuck into something? I don't think I have anything I can stick it into.

• 59:25Griffin McElroy?

  All right. Well, just, just eat it. Yeah.

• 59:34Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah dude, that was fucking cool.

• 59:36Travis McElroy?

  My name is Justin McElroy.

• 59:37Griffin McElroy?

  You hit the helmet like right on it, that was awesome.

• 59:40Travis McElroy?

  My name is Justin McElroy.

• 59:42Travis McElroy?

  I'm Travis McElroy.

• 59:43Griffin McElroy?

  I'm Griffin McElroy.

• 59:44Travis McElroy?

  This has been my brother, my brother me. Kiss your dad square on the lips.

• 1:00:19Speaker 07

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