Transcriber: Cy @vlasdygoth
JACK: Hello listeners to the Clapcast! Now—
JANINE: There it is.
JACK: Oh, actually, we've, we've been saved this time by people forgetting to hit record!
ART: I did just hit record— oh, I am too strong! [cross] Why did that happen?
AUSTIN: [cross] Spiked!
JACK: [cross] Whoa, yeah, you're way overblown.
JANINE: Oh, buddy.
JACK: Oh my god, Austin.
ART: Is this too low? No?
JACK: [cross] No, you sound good.
AUSTIN: [cross] No, you sound— still loud, actually.
JACK: Oh, really?
ART: What's happening to me?
AUSTIN: No, you sound good, that's good, that's good. That's where you should be.
ART: [cross] Yeah, this should—
JANINE: For some reason I had Art at 200 percent, so I also…
AUSTIN: 'Cause he's quiet, often. He's a quiet— he can be—
JANINE: [cross] Yeah, that's true.
JACK: [cross] I have Art at 33 percent?
AUSTIN: And I have him at 96. Just right.
ART: [cross] That's probably too particular.
JANINE: [cross] Oh, my waveform is really teeny tiny.
AUSTIN: Um. Uh. Yeah.
JANINE: Teeny tiny, that's probably there. Maybe?
ART: PDF Exchange Viewer is just free.
AUSTIN: Good, go get that one, that one's probably good. I have no idea. I haven't used it. But, y'know.
ART: But now that we're recording, I just wanna say we should never admit to crimes on a recording.
JANINE: Well…
AUSTIN: Wait, never?
JACK: [laughs] Never?
ART: Never.
JANINE: What if we're bragging?
JACK: Yeah, what if we're—
AUSTIN: [cross] Well, what if I— what if we did a really cool crime?
JACK: Yeah!
ART: Oh, if it's a really cool crime.
JACK: Okay.
AUSTIN: What's the— what's the coolest crime?
JACK: [laughs] It would be…
ART: [cross] Um.
JANINE: Stealing someone else's um… animal that they don't care a lot about but you care a lot about.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Good.
JACK: Yeah. [cross] I think it's stealing something from an awful person.
AUSTIN: [cross] Wait, wait, wait, is that just the— Is that just the first Fiasco game we did?
JACK: Yeah, pretty much! No, they cared a lot about that bird, didn't they? Well…
AUSTIN: Mmm…
JANINE: Well, in the wrong way.
JACK: No, they were using it as a kind of a weird— they had it in like a vault, right?
AUSTIN: Yeah, "cared"-- we have to really get into—
JACK: [cross] That's not really a place to…
AUSTIN: Yeah, what do we mean by "care"? Y'know.
JACK: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, what's the, what's the owner of… what's that mob boss called, what's his name?
AUSTIN: Uh, Veranda.
JANINE: Tony Pepperoni.
AUSTIN: No, it's, that's racist.
JACK: [cross] No, that's not— no!
JANINE: Is— [laughs] It's just the first thing that came to mind, I wanted a rhyme!
[laughter]
JACK: [cross] You picked a racist one.
AUSTIN: [cross] I guess Tony Pepperoni happened to rhyme! That's true!
JANINE: They do rhyme!
AUSTIN: Anyways, not like Sonny Veranda, which is not racist in any way!
JANINE: No!
AUSTIN: Which mob boss?
JACK: Oh, the one who owns the, who owns Rupert. It's, it's Sonny's dad, right?
AUSTIN: The Veranda family. Sonny's dad, yeah. Whose name we never got? I have a list of names.
JANINE: I thought we got it. Oh, we had—
JACK: Yeah.
JANINE: We had the like, uncle, though. The other guy.
AUSTIN: We had Vinny, uncle Vinny, yeah.
JANINE: Yeah.
AUSTIN: I don't know that we ever got—
JACK: Is the uncle the one who ends up chasing down Sonny on the beach?
AUSTIN: Yes. Yes.
JACK: God, that Fiasco game was great.
AUSTIN: Oh, it's such a good game, we should do another one of those soon.
JACK: I should relisten to that game.
AUSTIN: Yeah, that, that's a— you know what? I'm just gonna say is I know some things you don't. Buckle up.
JACK: Oh, okay! Cool.
ART: I just assume that nothing we ever do in Bluff City will ever come back around to bite us in the ass.
[Jack laughs]
AUSTIN: Art, last episode we had to roll dice in a different system 'cause of— what?
JACK: Wait, what?
ART: I just assumed that that was, that was always gonna happen.
AUSTIN: Okay. In World Wrestling— Worldwide Wrestling RPG, we dipped back into Inspectres.
JACK: Oh, damn!
AUSTIN: Like, the last roll of the game was, was an Inspectres— If you scroll up a little bit, you'll see that the last roll is Sylvia[1] rolling 3d6 which, let me tell you, not a thing in WWW RPG! Because Sid, Sid, Ruiz? Is that what Sid's last name was? I forget. I believe that's right. Sid had to see if uh, yeah, Sid, whether or not a person was a supernatural thing.
JACK: Wow.
AUSTIN: How supernatural of a thing he was. And that's how it turned out.
ART: [cross] It helped a lot that we coincidentally had all of the same players on that game.
JACK: Oh!
AUSTIN: We, didn't we have one difference? Dre was there. Dre was there and Dre—
ART: Dre was there, but we had all three Inspectres.
AUSTIN: [cross] Yes, yeah, Ali goes, does the Alexa like, pulls back Alexa Baker from Inspectres like at the fuckin' drop of a hat, it was so good!
JACK: [cross] That's so cool!
AUSTIN: I'm super excited for that episode to come out.
JACK: I just started listening to um, the first episode of… the, the baseball game? The like first actual play episode?
AUSTIN: [cross] Oh, that's very good. We have to get back to that, god.
JACK: And it is so funny. Also, please let me play the evil alien captain.
AUSTIN: Oh, of course, of course. Of course!
JACK: The like, the one who wants to destroy the Earth.
AUSTIN: Yes.
JACK: Thinks Chez is a great guy.
AUSTIN: God.
ART: You don't also wanna play your namesake, though?
AUSTIN: Oh my god…
JACK: Which namesake? Oh my god, am I in the game?
ART: There's a Jack.
AUSTIN: There is a Jack, there is Jack T'hell, jacked to hell, Jack T. Hell?
JACK: Oh, I thought about— no, Jack T'hell, all I've heard from Jack T'hell so far is him like, angry saying seven, eight, eight, seven, eight runs.
AUSTIN: [laughs] I forgot about that, that's a good bit!
JACK: So, I didn't know if I could do him justice, honestly. Also, Ross and the boss? They're called Ross and the boss?
AUSTIN: Ross and, Ross and the boss! Ross Rossie and, and fuck, what's the boss's name? Uh…
JACK: Bill Bossman… something or other.
AUSTIN: Boss— Burke Boss— sorry, Bossman Burkebridges.
JACK: Oh, god, WBRK.
AUSTIN: That's it. Keep that in mind, because one of your questions is about a media thing, so you might need to—
JACK: Oh, damn, yeah!
AUSTIN: You might, might be WBRK, could be the media thing. I'm gonna ping Keith, I'm gonna ping Keith just in case he's asl— oh, he said almost home, okay.
JACK: I've um, fallen in love with Los Angeles' terrible KAMP radio.
AUSTIN: What was that one? K-AMP?
JACK: Yeah, KAMP.
AUSTIN: That's a bad name. KAMP?
JANINE: Camp radio.
ART: Are you listening to Los Angeles radio?
JACK: Only when I'm in Los Angeles, we drive everywhere.
ART: Oh, you're not like…
JACK: No, but that would be very…
ART: Streaming it at home?
AUSTIN: What was that website where you could do that? Wasn't there a website?
JACK: Oh, it's called radio, Radio Garden? Let's see if I can get KAMP right now. KAMP advertises their commercial free Mondays all days of the week.
AUSTIN: Okay, okay. Yeah, here we go, I got it, Radio Garden. Sprouting live radio streams. God, that's a really good piece, you wrote, Jack. I wish—
JACK: [cross] Thank you, I reread, I reread it when—
AUSTIN: Go ahead.
JACK: I reread it when Dia linked it, and I was like oh, that was actually a good one.
AUSTIN: Yeah. I wish we still ran stuff like that?
JACK: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Oh, I found something that's just jamming!
JACK: What did you find?
AUSTIN: I have to find out what it is, it's like uh— one second. I gotta find out what this song is, oh did it just end, did I miss it? Fuck. The only lyric I understood was "come on, girls!" And that's not gonna do it for me.
JACK: That's not searchable!
ART: No, that is not something you should type into your Google machine.
AUSTIN: KSFS Radio…
ART: KF— that's too many letters.
AUSTIN: KSFS. It's a San Francisco radio station, but it's not telling me what it was! It was a jam though. Anyway, I'm gonna go down to LA. I mean, what's playing now is also a jam. Sixties chicks radio!
[Art laughs]
JACK: So— 97.1 AMP radio.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: Is the, is the one. And KAMP is the unlicensed college radio.
AUSTIN: Oh.
JACK: Which is very cool. I'm gonna listen to some, to some radio.
ART: Is this just a top 40 station?
JACK: I think so, yeah. I mean, well, how many of the top 40 are God's Plan? Because if the answer is all 40 and they play them constantly, then yes.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
ART: My dad at one point like, knew the top 40 formula? Like this is how often you hear the number one song, and this is how often you hear— yeah.
JACK: [cross] Really?
AUSTIN: [cross] Wow! That's cool.
JACK: Is the answer like, very slightly too many times?
ART: Well, the number one song is like a slightly lower rate because that's the song they think you wanna hear, so by playing it less often they can get you to listen a little bit longer?
AUSTIN: Ohh!
JACK: Oh…
ART: It's like a, It's almost a bell curve, but like a very severe bell curve.
JACK: The real treat is when they throw up a song that you've never heard before and it's either incredible or just the worst. That's always a treat because you're like, what is happening in my ears now? What's the, what's the New York lady called, Delilah?
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: That's, that's a national thing, thank you very much.
JACK: Oh, really?
ART: Yeah, Delilah is a nationally syndicated...
AUSTIN: Yeah, that show gets syndicated across the country.
JACK: But is she a New Yorker?
AUSTIN: No.
ART: I think her home station is in New York.
JACK: [cross] Why do I associate her with New York? Is it just because I've been in New York when you told me, and?
AUSTIN: [cross] 'Cause we listened to her— yes, yeah. She seems to be from— she was born in Oregon, the, the place. The state. Where does she live now? I don't know. Where's it recorded, how about that?
JACK: What's her show called?
AUSTIN: Delilah.
ART: [cross] Began her career at KDUN in Reedsport in, that's in the Pacific Northwest.
AUSTIN: Yeah, that's where she is, she's, she's in Seattle. "Seattle soft AC station, KSWD announced that Delilah would host weekday mornings and afternoons in the station, beginning January 29th, 2018."
ART: There's a Christian version of Delilah?
JACK: Oh my god.
AUSTIN: Wait.
ART: Which is just Delilah, but instead of playing the music she plays—
AUSTIN: Oh yes.
ART: She just plays— there's just like.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
ART: She just plays different songs with the same schtick?
AUSTIN: You've skipped the better one, though.
JACK: Is it the, the Christmas one?
AUSTIN: Yeah, it's the one that's just this, but it's always Christmas.
ART: [cross] No, it says it's only produced between November 1st and…
JACK: [cross] No, it's produced between November the 1st.
AUSTIN: Oh, that's not as good. That's not as good.
JACK: Look, Austin, you can listen to Christmas radio whenever you want! And the only thing that'll happen is that the Krampus comes for you.
AUSTIN: [cross] That's— Fuckin' sign me up, honestly. Krampus, what's the Calgon thing?
JACK: [laughs] What?
AUSTIN: Calgon take me away, Kramps take me away? You know, Calgon, everyone's favorite thing that still exists? That's a reference that— [sighs] Okay.
JACK: [cross] No? What is? No?
JANINE: The guy from that movie.
AUSTIN: Calgon is a water softener, and it's like a, bath product brand and they were very big in the midcentury and they had a— it's.. Hm. It meant, it was a, abbreviation, a portmanteau of calcium gone? And in the 50s the commercial for the bath and beauty products was this woman and she had like a robe on and there were like a— her like, entire house was in chaos, her kids are running around and screaming, her husband was late and like every— and she just went, "Calgon, take me away!" Anyway. That's…
JACK: [cross] Oh. Well, I misheard you.
AUSTIN: Because like, the bath, she would take a bath.
JACK: I misheard you and searched "cow gone," as in c-o-w g-o-n-e?
AUSTIN: Not as good. Not as good! Not as good.
JACK: Hey Keith!
AUSTIN: Oh, Keith is here.
KEITH: Hm. Hello.
JANINE: Hey.
AUSTIN: Keith, take me away.
KEITH: Oh, you're gone. Whoo, whisk, I've whisked you!
AUSTIN: You've whisked me, I've been whisked. Whiskèd.
JACK: Yeah, that word has an accent in.
AUSTIN: Uh huh!
KEITH: What's goin' on? What's, I feel like I came into the middle of something where someone might need to be whisked away.
AUSTIN: Oh, Krampus is coming for me, 'cause I wanna listen to Delilah just play Christmas music.
KEITH: Wait, so am I— In this situation am I Krampus?
AUSTIN: You've become Krampus.
KEITH: [cross] Oh boy.
ART: [cross] Has anyone seen that movie? I have.
KEITH: [cross] No.
JACK: [cross] I haven't.
ART: [cross] Have any of y'all seen it? That Krampus movie is one of the worst movies I've ever seen.
KEITH: Yeah. A long time ago I made— A long time ago I made a vow not to see any movie based on a meme that appeared on the League.
JACK: Is that the one that…
AUSTIN: Wait, Krampus is real, right?
KEITH: Kramp— Krampus is real.
ART:[cross] Not real.
KEITH: But it, it— it became a—
AUSTIN: Wait.
KEITH: I mean sorry, the— Krampus is a—
JACK: [cross] Austin, what do you think Krampus is?
KEITH: Krampus is a thing that people say.
AUSTIN: And is real.
KEITH: And it is really a thing that people…
AUSTIN: [cross] Unlike Santa, who is completely bullshit, obviously— sorry for our listeners for spoiling this, there's no Santa.
JACK: [cross] Oh, right.
AUSTIN: But Krampus is…
JACK: But the malevolent, awful winter spirit?
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Yeah. AKA Krampus.
JACK: [cross] He is. He is real.
KEITH: AKA Krampus, yeah. Or the Miser.
AUSTIN: Could also be called the Miser.
JACK: [laughs] Wait, what?
KEITH: I don't, I don't, that's not, that's not part of it. But anyways, so when, back when uh—
AUSTIN: AKA the Christmas Devil. [laughs]
KEITH: Back about two years before—
AUSTIN: That's a good one!
KEITH: Back about two years before the Krampus movie came out, it was like a meme to be like, haha the Krampus? And that meme showed up on very middling sitcom the League, so.
JACK: Oh.
AUSTIN: Gotcha.
JACK: Well. Is the—
KEITH: So it always just seemed like it's like, it always just seemed like this weird movie based on a meme and a recurring joke in the League.
AUSTIN: Gotcha.
ART: All the League had going for it was that they had Nick Kroll like, two minutes before he kinda blew up.
AUSTIN: Mhm.
KEITH: Yeah, yeah, I also like uh… the other guy.
AUSTIN: Nick Kroll?
KEITH: The one that makes better, that makes movies and it's the— it's all of the worst thing that they do except for Taco, and everything he does is bad. Every— but everybody else is in that show, it's the worst thing that they do.
AUSTIN: Mark Duplass?
KEITH: Mark Duplass, yeah, yeah.
AUSTIN: Duplass? Duplass?
KEITH: Yeah.
ART: Well, and then there's the guy in that show who like, lied about 9/11?
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: [cross] What? Oh, I don't know about that. Or does this go—
ART: [cross] Like, lied about not being in 9/11? Or he like was, yeah.
KEITH: Does the League go deeper than I thought? Is this now a truther?
AUSTIN: Wait, now I have a question, what do you mean he lied about 9/11?
JACK: [cross] Oh, he—
ART: [cross] He was like, I was supposed to be on a 9/11 flight and I didn't go. And then it turns out that that was just not true!
AUSTIN: [cross] Oh my god!
KEITH: [cross] Oh, I remember that now, yeah!
AUSTIN: Oh, what a nightmare. I just wanna—
KEITH: Oh, boy. Oh, wait, I thought it was that he lied about being— oh, no, no, okay that doesn't make any sense. Okay.
AUSTIN: I just wanna note that the, the opening to the Wikipedia "Krampus in popular culture" page has more fuckin' uh, uh, quotation marks and asides than I've ever seen in anything on Wikipedia.
KEITH: [cross] Yeah, it's a fuckin—
AUSTIN: [reading] Krampus, the quote "Christmas Devil" of Austrian and Bavarian folklore has entered popular culture of North America. Christian Jacobs notes that quote, "Thanks to the internet and YouTube, Krampus is now very much on America's Christmas radar." Tanya Basu interprets that part of a quote "growing movement of anti-Christmas celebrations": a quote, "bah humbug" rejection of— or novel alternative to— mainstream festivities. Brian Joines of Image Comics suspects the reason Krampus, parentheses (specifically, as well as dark aspects of Christmas in general) has not been historically popularized in America is a social artifact resulting from the quote "nature of how we view Christmas in this country, both as a big day for kids and a bit— as the birth of a big religious figurehead."
JACK: [cross] What… is this—?
KEITH: [cross] By the way, I, I do want to back up my thesis by pointing out that in the live action section of Krampus in popular culture, the League is the earliest example.
AUSTIN: Right, but the G4 TV commercial predates it by like, nine years.
KEITH: That, well, okay, but the, yeah. So we've got, we've got segments and we've got references, but the, the first big one, live action, the League.
ART: Well, and the Office sort of did it. They did a different one, but like, it's all the same shit.
KEITH: Oh, yeah, they did, well what was the one that they did?
ART: Some, some, I'm, for all I know it's fake. For all I know it's just like, they made it up.
KEITH: They just didn't do the research to find Krampus?
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Art, you got quiet again? Did you move away, what happened?
ART: Yeah, I, I wasn't, I wasn't doing my full…
AUSTIN: Okay
JACK: Also—
AUSTIN: Yes.
JACK: Austin might be clipping a little for me? I don't know if that's…
AUSTIN: That's possible. I'll bring myself down. I, I had to boost myself earlier 'cause my throat was hurting more? While I was doing Waypoint Radio, so. [clears his throat] Now I should not be clipping, besides that hemming of my throat.
KEITH: Nice, nice, you sound, you sound good.
JACK: Yeah, you sound great. [cross] You sound sick as hell.
KEITH: [cross] You sound excellent.
AUSTIN: Thank you. They, these are fake, right? No, they're not, Belsnickel?
JACK: What?
AUSTIN: Belsnickel.
ART: [cross] That sounds fake, I wanna tell you that sounds fake.
AUSTIN: [cross] Is the Dwight, is the Office one. Is it… it's, he's related to other companions of St. Nicholas and the folklore of German-speaking Europe.
KEITH: Oh, he's got, oh no, he doesn't have…
JACK: Europe gets… Europe gets pretty wild as far as folklore goes.
AUSTIN: [cross] Yeah.
JACK: So I wouldn't be surprised.
AUSTIN: The, people should go listen to the very good um… episode of Idle— or no, of Important if True, where they go through all of the… the… Christmas Gnomes?
KEITH: Oh, the Christmas Gnomes.
JACK: [cross] [laughs] Oh, yes!
JANINE: Oh yeah! I have a—
JACK: I've heard of these guys.
JANINE: I have an infographic of all the Christmas Gnomes in my, in my… uh, FatT master folder.
AUSTIN: [cross] Or whatever they're called. Good. Thank you!
JANINE: Just in case we ever need it, I don't know.
JACK: They live there!
JANINE: I just put— [laughs]
JACK: That's where they live!
AUSTIN: Gnomes is the wrong word, right? More like gremlins?
KEITH: [cross] It's— it's—
JANINE: I think gnomes is the right word. Unless we're thinking of different gnomes.
JACK: [cross] No, yeah.
AUSTIN: How— what did yours do?
KEITH: A ne— a nisse? A nisse? "A mythological creature from Nordic folklore today typically associated with the winter solstice and Christmas season."
JACK: I think so, how's that spelled?
KEITH: "Generally described as—" N-i-s-s-e.
AUSTIN: Okay no, I, I was thinking—
KEITH: Or a tomte is the other spelling.
JACK: Oh, a tomte.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: [cross] No, I'm, mine—
JANINE: A tomteen, right.
AUSTIN: A tomteen, right, exactly, thank you! It's when—
KEITH: Oh, this is a bet where like, the last gnome gets all of their money.
AUSTIN: Gets all the money, yes. The Yule Lads, the Yuletide Lads or Yulemen? Good.
JANINE: [cross] Yes! Yeah, yeah, yeah, I just— I just found the picture, the Icelandic Yule Lads, and now I've gotta…
AUSTIN: Yes, a hundred percent.
ART: [cross] This sounds like the worst show on the BBC.
KEITH: [cross] Oh, I remember this now.
AUSTIN: Everyone should listen— it's episode 20 of Important if True. They're terrifying, they are…
[Jack laughs]
KEITH: I have absolutely listened to a podcast talk about this, but it definitely wasn't Important if True, because I don't know that I've heard that one.
AUSTIN: It's Idle Thumbs, it's the Idle Thumbs people? It's good.
JACK: [cross] I'm reading this and it's complete...
KEITH: Oh, you know what, it's possible that one of you sent me this, sent me it as a clip.
AUSTIN: Almost certainly.
KEITH: Yeah, okay, I have—
AUSTIN: It's a very good clip.
KEITH: Yeah, yeah yeah, I have— that's exactly what it, how I heard it.
AUSTIN: Art, is this the first time you're seeing these?
ART: Yeah, this is, this new information for me.
AUSTIN: Can you give me a read of just, whichever ones jump to your mind.
ART: Okay. Um, oh, I need to get it a little bigger, hold on, the, Discord isn't helping me right now.
KEITH: I like the ones with the least amount of information, 'cause there's not much there?
AUSTIN: Uh huh!
KEITH: Like Meat-Hook. Uses a hook to steal meat! [laughs]
ART: Uh, I like…
KEITH: [cross] It's like a lesser pokemon.
ART: [cross] Pottasleikir, or Pot-licker.
AUSTIN: Wait, what was that one? Yeah, okay.
ART: Pottasleikir, or Pot-licker, steals leftovers from pots, and he has this like—
JACK: A classic.
ART: Really terrible look on his face? But like, he's just gotta eat!
AUSTIN: No, I, yeah, that's a lot of them, actually, if you take a look.
KEITH: [cross] Yeah, they've just gotta eat. Yeah, stealing meat, licking pots…
AUSTIN: [cross] A lot of them are just stealing food.
ART: Like Bjúgnakrækir.
KEITH: [cross] Spoonlicker…
ART: Or Sausage-Swiper would hide in the rafters and snatch sausages that were being smoked!
JACK: I love that—
KEITH: Now see now, here's a guy that sounds intimidating, but he actually does a lot less crime than the other ones— Window-Peeper!
AUSTIN: [cross] No.
KEITH: A snoop who looks through windows in search of things to steal!
AUSTIN: Uhhh… Hm.
KEITH: But all the other ones are actively stealing, this guy is just like, hmm this looks like a—
AUSTIN: Yeah, but how do you think they know where the sausages are? 'Cause this motherfucker.
ART: [cross] I would appreciate it if everyone else tried the Icelandic.
AUSTIN: Yeah, sorry, do you mean Gluggagægir? Window-Peeper, thank you?
KEITH: [cross] Oh. Oh, yeah, sorry. That's exactly it, I meant Gluggagægir.
JACK: I also feel that um—
AUSTIN: [cross] That's not right. We're bad.
KEITH: [cross] Or, Gluggagægir.
AUSTIN: [cross] That's right.
JACK: Kertasníkir, the Candle-Stealer, initially leads you to believe that it's not about food, but he does want to eat the candles. [laughter] So it kind of wraps back around.
JANINE: Do you think Stubby feels ripped off?
AUSTIN: Wait, what's Stubby do?
JACK: Because of the name?
JANINE: 'Cause his name's just Stubby? His thing is that he's short and then he eats crust left in your pans.
JACK: [cross] Abnormally short… that's a bit rude.
ART: [cross] How—
JANINE: They just call him Stubby, everyone else has like, really active names, like… like, Sheep-Cote Clod, and Bowl-Licker, and Door-Slammer and all— he's just Stubby.
ART: How do I pronounce this letter that is both a b and a p on Doorway-Sniffer?
AUSTIN: I hate it!
KEITH: Doorway-Sniffer, wait is Doorway-Sniffer different than Door-Slammer?
ART: [cross] Yeah.
AUSTIN: [cross] Yes.
JACK: [cross] Why is the— Doorway-Sniffer… why is the, why is he sniffing doors?
AUSTIN: Uh, g— guess. Just guess, don't look! Just guess. What could it be? [Janine laughs] What do the rest of these weird Yule Lad gnomes want?
JACK: He wants his dinner!
AUSTIN: He wants his dinner! So…
KEITH: He wants his dinner.
AUSTIN: Has an abnormally large nose, and an acute sense of smell!
KEITH: [cross] And I'm sure you can guess exactly what kind of food they want!
JACK: [laughing] Is it sausages?
AUSTIN: It's not! It's not, this time.
KEITH: No, it's laufabrauð.
JANINE: Austin, keep reading what you were reading.
AUSTIN: It's an acute sense of smell, which he uses to locate laufabrauð, laufabrauð! Laufabrauð?
KEITH: Laufabrauð.
AUSTIN: Laufabrauð? Laufabauð?
ART: [cross] It's probably Laufabrauð. It's a bread that you can also scrub yourself with.
KEITH: [cross] Braud, I think it's braud? Laufa…
AUSTIN: I feel so bad for people who are smarter than us and know multiple languages and like, are making fun of me?
KEITH: Well hold on, also just, people from Iceland. [laughs] I'm sure they're the ones— they're, the majority of people that speak Icelandic? Probably from Iceland.
AUSTIN: Oh, I thought you were gonna say you felt bad for them because all their spoons were being licked!
[laughter]
KEITH: No, no, just, just that, you don't have to speak multiple languages to know Iceland, you just have to be born in Iceland.
AUSTIN: I do love that there's just this like, list of, what is it, like twelve of these like, thirteen of these Yule Lads?
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: And they're all just like, we're just a bunch of tricksters! We're just doin' pranks! And then it's like, this one's a witch who steals children. And then here's her husband, who's not that evil, but that motherfucker's lazy.
[Janine laughs]
KEITH: I just feel like Iceland's gone really downhill since the rise of Yule Lad culture.
[Austin laughs]
JACK: Most to least frightening, I mean, who is the most frightening? Is it… it think it's the spoon-licker.
ART: By, by act, or by appearance?
JACK: By appearance.
ART: I don't know, Sausage-Swiper's got a real mug on him.
AUSTIN: Um, I don't like the expression that, that Giljagaur, Giljagaur, the Gully Gawk, who hides in gullies, waiting for an opportunity to sneak into the cowshed and steal milk? He looks, like I know he's being caught red-handed and that's why he has that look, but he looks like he knows something also, and I don't like it.
JACK: Hmm, yeah. Yeah. Stekkjarstaur, who harasses sheep— [laughs] okay, um.
AUSTIN: Uh huh.
JACK: He looks pretty bad.
AUSTIN: A lot of them look bad!
KEITH: A lot of them look bad. They're all—
JANINE: [cross] I have a question.
KEITH: They're all criminals.
AUSTIN: Yeah?
JANINE: So, they all have an arrival date? Is that also their departure date, or is their departure date a separate date? Like, do they all…
AUSTIN: [cross] No, I think—
JANINE: Stick around and then hang out together for a bit, or is that just like, that's the night they show up.
KEITH: [cross] I think that they're arriving for the Yule, I think that they're all waiting for the Yule party, and some of them are just a little bit earlier. So it's like, we're here for the season, but we showed up early and then we—
AUSTIN: [cross] Oh, nope, I looked— I've looked on Wikipedia, and good, good, good luck for everyone in Iceland, because they stay around for thirteen days.
JANINE: But it's okay because Gryla doesn't.
KEITH: [cross] Thirteen days each?
JACK: [cross] Oh…
JANINE: Gryla has no arrival date.
AUSTIN: Right, well—
JACK: That's the bad thing!
JANINE: She just stays home. Or comes whenever she wants, right?
AUSTIN: [cross] Well if she's just around— she comes whenever children are bad, presumably, right?
JANINE: That's convenient.
AUSTIN: [laughs] I mean, that's what this is the, this is what— we're just lifting this bit at this point? But. Uh, that is what I think Chris Remo or Jake Rodkin over on Important if True suggested was like, hey, don't all of these just fuckin' sound like ways that like, some super annoyed mom like, convinced the rest of the household to do their fucking chores? You better fuckin' smoke that sausage, 'cause if you don't, one of the Yule Lads is gonna come and steal it. Hey, stop slamming doors, that's, you're being, you're being a little bit of a Hurdaskellir right now, okay!
KEITH: I— [laughs] I figured out which Yule Lad I am. I'm the Yule lad that comes in and steals the sausages after they've been smoked, because I want the smoked sausage, not the pre-smoked sausage.
AUSTIN: Wait, is there, is there a different one? Did we miss that one?
KEITH: No, no, I just did what—
ART: [cross] Keith making his Icelandic Yule Lad OC.
AUSTIN: Gotcha.
KEITH: Yeah. [laughs]
JACK: Um. Real quick, we should, we should probably record the podcast, but before we, before we do—
AUSTIN: [cross] Yeah, mhm, it's been a bit.
JACK: Can we quickly address the Yule Cat, which has become associated with the housepet of Gryla and her sons, the Yule Lads. The Yule Cat is a huge and vicious cat said to lurk about the snowy countryside during Christmastime, and—
AUSTIN: I got you, I got you—
JACK: Eat people who have not received any new clothes to wear before Christmas Eve.
AUSTIN: Which is the opposite. Which is the kids going like, you better give us, gimme some new fucking clothes.
JANINE: [cross] I have a better picture.
AUSTIN: Okay, please send me your picture.
JANINE: Why does it say seasonal makeover? What does that have to do with…
[laughter]
JACK: Let's see what we have.
AUSTIN: [cross] Oh my god!
JACK: Oh my god!
AUSTIN: I don't like this.
JANINE: The Yule Cat, a seasonal makeover! Why is it called that?
KEITH: [cross] That's—
AUSTIN: Brian Pilkingtons…
KEITH: Oh, wait, 'cause it, is it, is it 'cause you have to make someone over so they don't get taken by the Yule Cat.
JACK: Well…
AUSTIN: [cross] Right.Yes.
KEITH: If, if they don't get a makeover, they can get taken. Or whatever the Yule Cat does.
JANINE: Oh, this is what that new season of Queer Eye is about!
[laughter]
AUSTIN: That explains a lot! Yeah.
JANINE: Yeah…
KEITH: Oh, yeah, that's, at the end when they watch to see if they get things right, if you don't get everything right, they do take you. They will—
AUSTIN: I can't believe the Yule Lads—
JANINE: [cross] I… I am enamored with these pictures.
AUSTIN: Of this cat?
JANINE: Yes, there are so…
AUSTIN: Some of them are rough.
JANINE: There are so many that are… just tremendous.
AUSTIN: That's the one! That's the one, that's the one that I was about to link, except mine's different?
JANINE: Tremendous.
AUSTIN: Wait a second. Mine is just different. Mine is the same one as yours, but it's colored different, and that makes me think that it's at a different point in its life where it dyed its hair.
JANINE: That one's a warrior cat.
AUSTIN: Oh, okay.
JANINE: That one's someone's warrior cat OC.
JACK: So, uh. Bjork sang a song about the Yule Cat that is based on a… old poem about the Yule Cat by uh…
KEITH: Oh, was it by Kotlum?
JACK: Yes, it was! By Johannes ur Kotlum.
KEITH: Nailed it! I'll never explain how I guessed that.
AUSTIN: Is it 'cause he's the one person from Iceland you know the name of?
KEITH: No! No! He was just— he was just on the— okay. He was just on one of these pages we were looking at, at the bottom under notable people?
AUSTIN: Uh huh?
KEITH: And I— And, and at one of them was another like, Christmas monster, and I was, and I clicked on it, and then I was like, oh who's this Kotlum monster, and I clicked on it, I was like, this is a parliament member from Iceland who wrote a poem. Uh…
[laughter]
JACK: I won't read the whole poem, but I will read some little bits, 'cause it's great.
AUSTIN: Thank you.
JACK: "Some might get an apron, some shoes or other stuff, as long as they got something, that would be enough! Because kitty couldn't eat them if they had new clothes to put on, he'd hiss and howl horribly, and then he would be gone." And then we have a very frightening verse.
AUSTIN: Uh huh.
JACK: "Whether he's about still, I really couldn't tell. But if everyone gets gifts for Yule, then all may yet be well." And then there's a very happy verse: "Maybe if you can help those who need a little cheer, it would bring you a good Yule and a happy new year." So. So we've learned a lot.
KEITH: [cross] What!
JANINE: I understand what the purpose of this cat is, the purpose of this cat is to make children not complain when they get clothes for Christmas.
AUSTIN: Oh, right. Yeah.
JACK: Ohhh.
KEITH: [cross] What is Yule?
JANINE: If we don't give you clothes, then you're gonna get eaten by the Yule cat! You need those socks to live.
KEITH: [cross] What is Yule and what does it mean that—
AUSTIN: [cross] I don't know, what is Yule with you! Ay!
[Janine groans]
KEITH: [laughs] Is that my answer?
AUSTIN: Uhh…
KEITH: Yes!
AUSTIN: Yeah. Uh huh!
JACK: Should we time.is?
AUSTIN: Yeah, we should. It's like—
KEITH: My mom said that no one knows what Yule is.
AUSTIN: It's like, the spirit of Christmastime, right?
JACK: Yeah, Yule!
KEITH: I, well, these lads have—- taught me there's maybe something more to Yule than I thought there was!
AUSTIN: Yule is Chris—
JANINE: I have one— I have one last good picture, it's not of the cat.
AUSTIN: Yule— okay, Yule is— aw. Is that the, that's the sausage— [laughter] He hates that sausage so much!
JANINE: He hates it! They smoked it already and he doesn't like it that way!
KEITH: [cross] Oh, they, is that why they all eat it's cause they, they hate food!
AUSTIN: Do y'all know the Ghost in the Darkness?
KEITH: No.
JACK: What?
AUSTIN: That's the villain from season five of Friends— no, the Ghost in the Darkness is uh, is a movie about, I think I've brought this up before, Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas are Americans who go to Kenya to kill these evil lions? Who are, who they kill for sport, they kill because they hate people! They don't kill for food, they kill because they hate people.
JACK: Oh, the lions kill?
AUSTIN: The lions kill. And so they're there to hunt the Ghost in the Darkness, the two of them. Anyway, this dude is looking at that sausage the way the Ghost in the Darkness look at people! He wants to eat that sausage 'cause he hates it!
[laughter]
KEITH: What's the premise of that movie? Right, do those lions just kill for fun?
JANINE: I think that's based on a true story.
AUSTIN: I think it's also, well—
JACK: [cross] Wait, really?
AUSTIN: Well, okay, it's based on a true story, in the sense that some white people did this thing.
KEITH: Like Krampus is also based on a true story.
JANINE: No, I've definitely read about, I think it was like a pair of lionesses who were just like murdering people in an Indian village I wanna say, or something?
AUSTIN: So there is this, there is a book, the Man-eaters of Tsva— Tsa—?
JANINE: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Tsavo. Which is in Kenya. What would become Kenya, near a railroad bridge that was being—
JANINE: [cross] Maybe I'm thinking of a tiger.
AUSTIN: Being constructed. But like, my point is, the person who wrote that book is John Henry Patterson? So. Y'know.
JANINE: Yeah, no, I'm not, I'm not discounting that, I'm just saying I've definitely heard about some sort of murder cat exploits.
AUSTIN: Right. Yeah. And also, to be clear, there have been some murder cats, I'm not sayin'-- these murder, I haven't read this book.
JACK: Well, the Yule Cat, the Yule Cat! The Yule Cat.
AUSTIN: A murder cat, we know that, that's a fact.
JACK: It'll do it!
KEITH: Yeah. Well, Yule, I think part of Yule is murder. I think.
AUSTIN: Um, do you know the Wild Hunt?
JACK: Yeah.
AUSTIN: That's connected to Yule, and Odin?
KEITH: Wow.
AUSTIN: And all that shit? Yule is like, pre-Christmas Christmas.
KEITH: Yeah, it's literally just— this says archaic term for Christmas, and it probably is not true.
AUSTIN: [cross] That's not— that's not— that's what Hadrian, the fucking paladin would say!
KEITH: That's right, yeah, exactly! Yeah, yeah yeah.
AUSTIN: Oh yeah, that's just, that's a Samothes thing? That's all that is, don't even worry!
[Keith laughs]
JANINE: I just… Speaking of man versus lion, I'm in my Bluff City folder, 'cause it's obviously where I was putting character inspiration for today, uh, and I just was scrolling around and just found this?
AUSTIN: Wow! How— why do you have— hm.
JANINE: [laughing] I don't…
AUSTIN: Why— why do you have?
JACK: Talk us through this, Janine?
[Keith laughs]
AUSTIN: Yeah, this is all you Janine, you, you catch me up on what I'm lookin' at.
KEITH: What does this have to do with— fix-a-dent?
AUSTIN: Hey, question, why does it say hashtag saving Aslan here?
JANINE: I don't! I think, maybe, I wanna say this is maybe like a social media campaign where there was like a lion who was losing his teeth and fix-a-dent was like, making lion dentures or something and they made like an infographic that was like?
JACK: What are we looking at?
JANINE: Man versus lion impactive tooth loss, physical impact for man is weight loss, older facial appearance, decreased gum tissue. For a lion, it's starvation, lack of defenses, and shortened lifespan. Emotional for both man and lion, isolation, depression, loss of confidence. Fix-a-dent.
AUSTIN: Damn.
JACK: Ohh…
KEITH: I've heard that about lions.
AUSTIN: Thanks fix-a-dent.
JANINE: This must've been something.
KEITH: I, I do have one last note about Yule. It does go from December 21st to January 1st, and I really think we should start instituting like, a ten to fifteen day holiday for all major holidays.
AUSTIN: Yeah, word, absolutely, just all of them. Honestly?
KEITH: All of them.
AUSTIN: What if we— hey, how 'bout this, what if we stopped working?
KEITH: Oh boy! That sounds nice.
[Janine laughs]
AUSTIN: That sounds good.
KEITH: That— every time I'm working, I'm like, man, what if I wasn't—
AUSTIN: Couldn't be me! Alright, let's do a podcast. Let's work.
JACK: [laughs] Time to get to work!
JANINE: What time we wanna clap at?
JACK: Top—
AUSTIN: Uh, top.
KEITH: We clap in four minutes.
AUSTIN: No, we can't clap— what? Five seconds after.
KEITH: Hold on, — Okay.
[claps]
JACK: Oh.
JANINE: Hm.
KEITH: I wasn't there yet, that's why I said four minutes, as part of a joke, but we can do ten.
[clap]
AUSTIN: We'll do— we're doing ten. Sorry, Ali.
[claps]
AUSTIN: I was early. Let's do fifteen!
[laughter]
[clap]
AUSTIN: Okay.
ART: Yikes.
JANINE: What if the secret of claps is doing four of them five seconds apart?
[laughter]
AUSTIN: Alright. [clears his throat] Where am I? Where was I at? How do I see my bookmarks? Show me my bookmarks, please. Nope. Bookmarks.
KEITH: Wait, do you have a voice command bookmarks?
AUSTIN: Computer, bookmarks? Please? Computer. Show me my bookmarks.
KEITH: I, by the way, do love to be polite to the robots that do voice commands for me.
AUSTIN: Do you? Do you say like—
KEITH: I do say please and thank you.
AUSTIN: Thanks, Siri!
JANINE: I don't— yeah, I don't like that Siri doesn't acknowledge it when I say thanks.
KEITH: Yeah, that's annoying.
ART: You have to prompt her again
KEITH: Yeah, you have to be like—
JANINE: I know, and that's just, that just feels like I'm bugging her again.
ART: Hm.
KEITH: I um. I don't wanna talk about my Google Home, I take it back. Let's do anything else.
AUSTIN: Hey Siri, what is Friends at the Table?
SIRI: Here's what I found on the web for what is Friend of the Table.
AUSTIN: That's not what I asked!
JANINE: Don't be an insurance link, don't be—
AUSTIN: [loudly enunciating] What is Friends at the Table?
SIRI: Here's what I found on the web for what is Friends at the Table.
AUSTIN: That's not… Hey, it's us! Thanks, Siri.
SIRI: You're most certainly welcome.
JANINE: What?
AUSTIN: I hit the button again.
JANINE: Oh.
AUSTIN: You have to hit the— I had to hit the button again. Alright.
JANINE: I'm never— I'm never holding my phone! I would just look it up myself if I was, I'm like across the room.
AUSTIN: That's fair. Alright.
KEITH: I dropped my phone so many times that it stops responding to ok, Google unless I press the button? Oh, come on, shut off, stop.
[laughter]
ART: Remember when we caught Keith lying?
KEITH: No, it's different, that wasn't my phone, it was the Google Home.
AUSTIN: Didn't we say no crimes on the recording, jeez!
JACK: No recording crimes!
AUSTIN: Alright.
KEITH: Wait, did we agree to that? I didn't agree to that.
AUSTIN: You weren't on the call yet, so it doesn't count for your.
ART: You weren't on the call, yeah.
AUSTIN: People should get into the Bluff City thing on roll20?
ART: Oh, I have so many things open right now.
AUSTIN: Wait a second. Oh, okay. Okay, but this is the one we're doing!
KEITH: I kind of only just remembered that this was Bluff.
ART: [cross] Well, I have notes for this. Or rather, I have a—
AUSTIN: [cross] Yes, this is Bluff, that's what I'm sayin'.
ART: I have a Genius page open.
AUSTIN: Okay. Good.
ART: I'm gonna have the first name ever rejected by Austin Walker.
AUSTIN: Oh my god.
KEITH: That's not true, I don't know, I don't think that's true.
AUSTIN: That can't be true.
JACK: Austin rejected Duckberg.
AUSTIN: I did.
KEITH: Yeah, that was right away.
JANINE: That wasn't a character.
KEITH: Oh, it would've been. It would've been the fifth character of, of Hieron.
ART: You know there are more than five of us, right?
AUSTIN: I'm not sure.
KEITH: There weren't at the time!
ART: Yes there were.
KEITH: Were there?
JANINE: Yeah, I thought there…
KEITH: There's like…
AUSTIN: No, there were not.
KEITH: Okay, it was me, you, Austin, Jack—
AUSTIN: I'm not a character!
KEITH: A— you are a character on the podcast.
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: Ali and Nick, so that's six, so, Austin you're right, you're not a character, five.
JANINE: Convenient.
ART: Dre? Did you forget about Dre?
AUSTIN: Dre was not in— Dre was not there.
KEITH: Dre was not in the worldbuilding game.
ART: But he was, he was going to be?
AUSTIN: Right.
JANINE: He joined on in COUNTER/weight though?
AUSTIN: Well, no. He joined in in Hieron, he just wasn't there in the first, he was not there for the Duckberg.
KEITH: [cross] He joined in the— he missed the first two sessions.
JANINE: Oh right, right.
AUSTIN: Yes, yes, yes.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Anyway. We, this is all ephemera— or not ephemera, this is all marginalia.
KEITH: Ephemera where I was right!
AUSTIN: Boom, okay. Moves, one sec, I'm gonna bring our moves— I mean, we don't need this shit. I'm just gonna start the show. Ready?
KEITH: Okay.
ART: No, you're still not right!
AUSTIN: What?
ART: It's still not the fifth character, there's still five of us! The four members of the chime plus Nick is five already.
KEITH: It's tied. Me and the city are tied. For five.
[transition music]
[34:56]
AUSTIN: Yo. How's it going? You know what, I'm just gonna restart Discord real quick, one second. Hey, one sec.
ART: Austin is restarting Discord, he declared his intention to do that. … That's okay. I almost never get pulled over. Um… they, they were like, it was just like crowded? And then at one point they announced like, the line isn't moving.
AUSTIN: They announced that?
ART: Yeah, they announced like, as of right now—
AUSTIN: [cross] Wow.
ART: And for the foreseeable future, the line will not move.
AUSTIN: Fuck.
ART: And I waited… thirty minutes after that and was like, oh they weren't kidding.
AUSTIN: That's… wow.
ART: And it's ninety five degrees out, so I was like, this is not good.
AUSTIN: Wait, you're outside?
ART: Oh, I was, I had not reached the building yet.
AUSTIN: Oh my god!
ART: Yeah. Yeah.
AUSTIN: That's… the worst.
ART: I think it would've cleared if they'd been moving it? Like, the line was getting shorter, I don't know if through despair or what?
AUSTIN: Right.
[Jack laughs]
ART: Um, I also had a bit of a bad night, 'cause of the fireworks?
AUSTIN: [cross] Right.
ART: The fireworks were going from like, six pm until three in the morning? And at three in the morning, Mabel had what the internet is calling a… a high anxiety reaction?
JACK: Oh….
ART: Where she inadvertently woke up, I woke her up, but I, I'm not taking the blame for this, I didn't set off any fireworks. And she like, got up and started walking around the bed, and would like, get to the edge and look like she was gonna jump off and then like, would back away and just like, kept doing that?
AUSTIN: [cross] Buddy…
ART: She like, went all over and we were, we were like, I woke up, it woke up Jess—
AUSTIN: Right. Sure.
ART: We were like, what the heck do you think she wants? And like we were like, well what if you pick her up and put her off the bed and see if she wants to like, go out and pee or something, and picking her up was like, she's just like shaking the whole time.
AUSTIN: Right.
JACK: Ohh, Mabel…
AUSTIN: That's really a lot.
ART: And it turns out the solution to that is um… you make her into like a little burrito, we got a blanket and just wrapped her all up in it, put her in between us and just like, that like immobilizing a dog will make them feel better.
AUSTIN: Right.
JACK: Oh! And, and that, and she seemed to enjoy that?
ART: Yeah, she, she certainly stopped.
JACK: Aw, well send her our love.
ART: I will.
JACK: What does she do when you're recording? Does she just hang out in another room? She's frightened of your microphone, isn't she?
ART: She will— yeah, she will not be nearby during recording, so it's uh…
JACK: Huh. Do you think it makes a sound?
ART: I, I don't, I don't think that anymore? I used to.
AUSTIN: Hm.
ART: Because she, she won't do it when Jessica is in here, even if Jessica's on the, I mean… yeah, I don't think it's the microphone, I think it's, I talk at the computer? And most of the time we're hanging out, I'm not talking at all.
AUSTIN: Right, sure.
JACK: Hm.
ART: And it just might be like, too much for her.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: Austin, I'm hearing like, a background sta— is that what you were trying to fix by restarting Discord?
AUSTIN: No, I, there's gonna be background noise today, and it's…
JACK: Is it just your fan?
AUSTIN: My fan on my legs, which is not being picked up by—
JACK: Oh, god.
AUSTIN: I'm just double-checking, yeah, Audacity is fine, the noise you're hearing is it's a weekday? And it's like a weekday, which means that there's construction happening.
JACK: Cool…
AUSTIN: Because I'm next to where there's a big construction site, so every once in a while, there's just a hammer that makes noise, so I'll be pausing when that happens, or not talking like, I will make it so that it's removable? By not talking over it, but they should also be done in like, 20 minutes 'cause it's almost six? And most construction sites near me, at least, shut down around then. So hopefully it'll be fine!
JACK: Fingers crossed.
AUSTIN: We'll see. Uh… I just need to make two more quick notes on this thing in front of me… so that's where that'll be and then um… Okay.
ART: This is gonna be a fun one, huh?
AUSTIN: Oh, you don't, you don't even know half of it! [Jack laughs] Honestly? Honestly?
JACK: It's gonna go great, we'll be fine.
AUSTIN: [cross] Mhm! Mhm.
ART: I was thinking, earlier, um. That I'm not sure I've fired my gun?
AUSTIN: You have.
ART: Yeah, I have…
AUSTIN: But.
ART: But is the only— have I only done it once? And was it only at Waltz Tango Cache?
AUSTIN: No, it was at the robot.
ART: Oh.
AUSTIN: The spider-face robot.
JACK: Oh yeah! Those things are— did we ever find out what the deal with those was?
AUSTIN: They were… spider face robots.
JACK: Okay. I haven't fired my gun.
AUSTIN: Do you have a gun— oh yeah, you do have a— well not— we'll get there. We should start recording.
JACK: Oh god!
AUSTIN: Uh huh! Let's time— let's time.is. Uh huh!
ART: Welcome to Friends at the— Friends at the Table, where shit is about to get real.
AUSTIN: It truly is! You don't even— again, you truly don't even know yet!
JACK: Just, the Marielda theme starts.
AUSTIN: Alright! Yeah. Honestly? Um… I mean the name of this episode is going to be the Restitution of All Things Part One, so. [Jack laughs] Uh, twenty?
ART: How often do you know the title before we start? Twenty's fine.
AUSTIN: This arc— twenty's fine? Okay.
[claps]
AUSTIN: The name of the ship is the Restitution of All Things, so.
ART: Hm, got it.
AUSTIN: It makes that easier.
ART: You're not just cheating.
AUSTIN: I'm not just cheating!
JACK: The death of the god-king Samothes.
AUSTIN: I mean I've done that, you know?
JACK: Yeah, exactly!
AUSTIN: Uh… oh, didn't mean to move that. Art, do you wanna hop on roll20?
ART: Oh, are we, are we rolling dice?
AUSTIN: Today? Yeah.
ART: Today?
AUSTIN: Yeah. Uh huh! Yeah, there might be a couple!
ART: Um…
JACK: [laughs] This fuckin' map of Connecticut with all these arrows around…
AUSTIN: [cross] Oh, are y'all still on— y'all are still on that, that was a fun one.
JACK: It's so good!
AUSTIN: That was a real fun one.
JACK: Just these arrows out of context is the best!
AUSTIN: That's the, that's the direction people went!
JACK: Sure! It seems to be!
ART: To Connecticut?
AUSTIN: That was the, that's the Wandering Sea, which is a ocean in space the size of the state of Connecticut? Which is very big, but still would be the smallest sea on Earth.
JACK: Oh, yeah! What is the smallest sea on Earth? The, the—
AUSTIN: I looked— we looked this up and we found out that it was bigger than Connecticut.
JACK: Oh, okay. Alright.
AUSTIN: I think it was like… the Baltic Sea. The Baltic Sea? Nope, that's the fourth smallest sea on Earth.
ART: But if Connecticut flooded, you'd be like holy shit that's a lot of water!
JACK: [cross] Yeah!
AUSTIN: You'd be like, holy shit that's a— especially if you count like, up/down, right? Like, it's still deep, too. I think we decided it was as deep as like, the… like, just before the final dropoff in the sea, do you know what I mean? You know how the sea has like that dropoff?
JACK:[cross] Oh, yeah yeah yeah, the shelf.
AUSTIN: So it's not all the way down on the shelf, right, exactly, okay, the Sea of Marmara is the smallest one, I think. Something like that. Anyway, we should play this game. I wanna move you to a new, a new page. Move you over here. To this, this very shoddy map of this—
JACK: [cross] Oh my god! [laughs]
AUSTIN: Of this part of, of the fleet, of the NEH fleet. Alright. Ready?
JACK: Mhm.
ART: As I'll ever be.
[transition music]
[42:26]
JANINE: Happy like, I think Signet like… I—
KEITH: Speechless, sounds like.
AUSTIN: Does sound like speechless, Janine?
JANINE: Am I, am I not?
AUSTIN: Oh, her sound cut out.
JANINE: [cross] I, no, it should be back.
AUSTIN: Her sound cut out?
ALI: Oh…
JANINE: [cross] Are you not hearing me?
AUSTIN: She said she was good…
ALI: Yeah… Uh oh.
JANINE: It's recording!
AUSTIN: If you're talking, we are not hearing it.
JACK: [cross] We've got Janine— Have we got Janine back yet?
AUSTIN: No, she, she says "uhhh, my recording is fine." [Janine groans] Maybe try leaving Discord and rejoining?
DRE: Yeah…
AUSTIN: Yeah, that's what she's doing.
JACK: [cross] Oh, goodbye Janine!
AUSTIN: She's doing that, bye!
[Ali sighs]
AUSTIN: Nothing. Not a thing from you yet, Janine.
JANINE: [cross] It's authenticating… authenticating… authenticating...
KEITH: [cross] Your, your Discord settings just might've defaulted, defaulted back to something broken, so maybe just switch that?
ALI: Yeah.
AUSTIN: [cross] Or restart Discord?
ART: [cross] Sixty percent of the time I'm having Discord problems is because Discord reset my microphone for no reason.
KEITH: Yeah.
ALI: Oh…
DRE: Been there.
KEITH: Discord is Skype now.
[Janine sighs]
ART: Sixty percent.
ALI: Stop saying that!
AUSTIN: Don't say it, it'll make it true. Also, you know it isn't, 'cause if we had to go to Skype right now, it would be hell.
DRE: Yep.
[Keith laughs]
JACK: We've had to do that before in the past, right? And it's just the worst thing.
ART: Well, we spent twenty minutes looking at that turtle.
AUSTIN: That is true.
JACK: He's great!
KEITH: [cross] Yeah, that turtle's great! Sorry, this is sounding like a really good idea!
[Austin sings a short song, Keith laughs]
AUSTIN: You know what? I'm gonna just get us that turtle.
KEITH: I miss the music!
AUSTIN: Turtle… um… what were they called? They're called something special.
ART: Skypemojis.
KEITH: Moji.
ART: Smojis.
ALI: Mojis, yeah.
AUSTIN: They're just called Mojis, yeah.
JANINE: [cross] Am I back? No? Yes?
JACK: [cross] They're called like, love self moji or something.
KEITH: No, no, no, not just— just Moji, m-o-j-i. Moji.
AUSTIN: Gotcha.
SYLVIA: [cross] They're called Solo and Lovin' It.
AUSTIN: Thank you!
ALI: Mhm, yes.
KEITH: Oh, that, oh that turtle specifically, yeah.
SYLVIA: And I have a video of it. And there you go.
JANINE: Oh, god.
AUSTIN: Thank you.
JACK: Thanks, Sylvia!
[Keith laughs]
SYLVIA: It's okay.
AUSTIN: I have a different video of it, which is why…
ALI: Happy anniversary, everyone.
JACK: Oh!
[Austin sings the same song again]
KEITH: Can you believe they got Paul McCartney to do this? What?
ALI: What is he doing? What's he doing?
AUSTIN: I wonder if he's done more?
ALI: I bet he had a great time! You saw that making of video, he was, he was having a gag!
DRE: [cross] He was getting paid plenty fine to be happy.
KEITH: [cross] But like, that's the part of the paycheck.
ART: [cross] Having a gag?
KEITH: Part of the paycheck is— [laughter] Part of the paycheck is to be, to be having a blast making a turtle hugging on himself.
DRE: [cross] Yeah.
[Austin sings the song again]
JACK: Look, Mello, if you're listening? [Austin laughs] Can you just put something great over this, please?
AUSTIN: [Sings again, then stops] Still no Janine?
ALI: I'm releasing this episode unedited.
ART: Don't you threaten me!
[laughter]
JACK: Have you restarted your computer, Janine?
AUSTIN: Oh, she's not even in the call right now.
ALI: Yeah…
DRE: Yeah.
JACK: I was just sort of putting that out into the world in the hope that it would reach her?
AUSTIN: Yeah…
ALI: Do we wanna put the camera on someone else until she gets back, or?
JANINE: [cross] [mumbling] Sound check… everything sounds fine...
AUSTIN: Sure.
JACK: Oh, actually, um—
KEITH: Oh, I thought we just want to watch this whole video of Solo and Lovin' It.
[Austin sings the song again]
SYLVIA: It's a minute long.
ALI: We don't have to.
JANINE: [cross] Test the microphone, that's also still working…
JACK: I was gonna say, could I just run to the loo really quickly or am I— let's take a little break.
AUSTIN: [cross] Yeah, yeah yeah, let's take five.
ALI: [cross] Yeah.
JANINE: [cross] What the F…
DRE: [cross] That's a good plan.
KEITH: Oh that sounds like a, yeah, I'll be right back.
JACK: Bye!
JANINE: Is this fucking Discord, sorry Ali, I'm just talking into my recording. You can edit.
[Austin sings the song again, Art joins him.]
ALI: I had to— so it was like, as soon as we started recording and you were um… saying all the party stuff?
AUSTIN: Yeah.
ALI: My cat came in here and grabbed a piece of plastic and started eating it, and then—
AUSTIN: [cross] Hell yeah. Hell yeah, that's a party.
ALI: Walked to right outside my door and started eating it.
AUSTIN: Perfect!
ALI: I had to throw a water bottle at her, so.
[Austin laughs]
ALI: Janine?
AUSTIN: Still nothing, Janine.
JANINE: [exasperated] What the fuck?
AUSTIN: Make sure— she's not, we didn't just like mute her, right?
ALI: No. Her like, her face is glowing— not the face, you know what I mean.
JANINE: [cross] It is for me!
AUSTIN: Janine, make sure you didn't mute you? Right click yourself in the chat? Or not in the chat, but like.
JANINE: I'm not muted, my thing is— like, I see?
ALI: Oh, Janine!
AUSTIN: Oh, buddy!
ALI: Is— hm. Hmmm.
AUSTIN: I'm gonna mute and unmute her from the server.
JANINE: [cross] I don't think that's gonna do fucking shit at all. Nothing is gonna happen.
AUSTIN: Say something, Janine?
JANINE: I'm saying so much shit.
AUSTIN: Nothin'.
DRE: Oh, jeez.
ALI: Wh— I'm gonna, I'm gonna test something real quick.
JANINE: Hey?
AUSTIN: Janine?
JANINE: Cool.
AUSTIN: Nothing still, I tried leaving and coming back.
JANINE: Fuckin… What if I switched to… some bullshit… and then switched back? Oh. It's authenticating…
ALI: Hi! Hey?
JANINE: Authenticating…
ALI: Wait, now this… hm.
JANINE: Authenticating.
ALI: Janine?
JANINE: Still authenticating. I don't know why I'm narrating this. That again…
ALI: Didn't work.
AUSTIN: Oh… kay.
ALI: So.
AUSTIN: Well.
JANINE: Start it up again…
AUSTIN: This has been Friends at the Table? We're just done now. We just, that's it. For us, I guess. Oh hey, we're on Spotify now.
DRE: Are we?
ALI: Oh, we are, yeah.
ART: Oh yeah?
AUSTIN: Yeah, I submitted us yesterday via a new thing and it just went, it worked?
JANINE: [cross] I don't know…
AUSTIN: Except, as someone pointed out, we get two— we got, someone who tweeted us twice in a row was like, hey, why aren't you on Stitcher? Hey, why is COUNTER/weight not on Spotify? And I was like, oh shit we're on Spotify?
[Ali laughs]
ART: Isn't Stitcher bad?
AUSTIN: Yes.
ALI: Yeah…
AUSTIN: That's why we're not on Stitcher.
DRE: Yeah.
ART: Fuck Stitcher!
ALI: Should we all restart Discord? No…
AUSTIN: Yeah, prob—
ART: That doesn't sound like it would work.
AUSTIN: [cross] It doesn't sound like it would work. You tried a different call with her in a different thing.
JANINE: [cross] This is still just gonna, this is useless 'cause I fucking…
ALI: [cross] Yeah…
DRE: Her recording is still fine, right? So like?
[Janine sighs]
AUSTIN: Let's all leave the call. Let's all leave the call.
DRE: Okay.
ALI: Okay.
JANINE: Hey? Oh my god, did that work?
ALI: Hi!!
AUSTIN: Hey!
DRE: Heeey!
AUSTIN: It worked! [Ali laughs] It worked.
ALI: US East banned Janine Hawkins.
AUSTIN: [claps] US East! US East!
ALI: Well, we're US Central now.
AUSTIN: Oh! Interesting.
ALI: The east, yeah, Janine's not allowed in the east.
JANINE: That's cool, I wonder for how long that was happening, because I was definitely saying a bunch of stuff for a while and no one was responding?
ALI: Oh no!!
JANINE: So… that's fun.
AUSTIN: Oh no! Were you? Oh no, real quick, I'm gonna clap so that if changing servers changes the, like it could—
JACK: Hi.
AUSTIN: We should all do a second clap.
JACK: Okay.
ALI: Okay.
JACK: Oh. Yeah, okay.
AUSTIN: Because none of us—
KEITH: [cross] Hello.
AUSTIN: Stopped recordings but we changed servers, which means there could be a— millisecond of drift here? And I want a second, post-server change thing, are we all back?
KEITH: I'm back!
SYLVIA: I'm back.
JACK: We got Art?
ART: Yep.
AUSTIN: Alright.
DRE: Alright.
AUSTIN: Art is quieter on this server, weird, alright, let's clap at—
JANINE: [cross] Further away, that's why.
KEITH: [cross] Art is quieter on this server.
AUSTIN: Let's clap at forty? Hm, true. It's actually closer to Art. Forty. Seconds. Forty seconds, we're already at forty minutes, forty seconds.
[claps, one later than the rest]
AUSTIN: That felt— hmm! That felt like a better clap for the most part.
ALI: I think I clapped at forty one, I'm gonna be honest.
AUSTIN: Okay, I appreciate the honesty!
[transition music]
[49:27]
JANINE: Is garlic weed?
JACK: I guess, I don't know?
ALI: [cross] Oh, yeah like, a cousin?
JACK: [cross] Hey, is garlic is weed?
KEITH: [cross] Hello.
JACK: Hey.
ALI: Garlic could be weed.
JACK: Garlic might be weed…
JANINE: Can you smark— can you smark garlic?
[laughter]
KEITH: Is— hold on. I don't think—
ART: [cross] I wasn't recording, so is garlic weed might be a… lost one.
JANINE: That didn't stop us last week, apparently! Did not stop us in the last clapcast at all!
[Ali laughs]
KEITH: Is it— weed or a, a weed?
JANINE: [cross] Weed.
JACK: [cross] Weed.
KEITH: A wheat? A wheat?
JANINE: It's called like, something sativa. A weed.
JACK: [cross] Sativum.
ART: Capital W Weed.
JANINE: [cross] Pot.
KEITH: Oh, okay.
JANINE: [cross] The doob.
JACK: [cross] I, I got it wrong. I got— sorry, Janine, please keep going! [laughter] Did someone leave— oh, hi Sylvia!
ALI: Oh, hey!
DRE: Oh, hi!
KEITH: Hello.
JACK: Hi! We're gradually assembling.
JANINE: Hi! We're talking about weed and garlic.
ALI: Wait, what?
JANINE: Hey, is garlic weed, guys?
ALI: I mean… It might be.
KEITH: I mean, it's dank, right?
JACK: It is dank.
KEITH: [cross] It is dank!
ART: [cross] Are edibles garlic bread?
JACK: Is garlic bread an edible?
ALI: Maybe…
[Janine laughs]
JACK: I mean, it is edible.
KEITH: I mean— and every time I eat it I feel weird for six hours.
[laughter]
ART: Then you're getting bad edibles. That's not long enough.
ALI: How do you spell— oh.
ART: I had edibles like two months ago and I still think I feel weird.
[Keith laughs]
ALI: Aw!
JANINE: How do you spell what?
ALI: I was gonna say luggage, but it wasn't as good as that joke.
JACK: [laughs] Oh, okay.
JANINE: Uh, when we went to Amsterdam— I went to Amsterdam with my parents once, which is… I would say maybe not the best way to go to Amsterdam, honestly? I love my, I love my parents, um. But. Uh. It was… I think this has changed, I think they like, changed the laws dramatically since then, but at the time, you could not— you could not look in any direction without seeing some kind of advertisement for space brownies.
[Keith laughs]
ALI: Yeah…
JANINE: Specifically space brownies is the thing… they are, they were everywhere. And I was there with my parents.
[Ali laughs]
KEITH: What did space brownies advertise that they would do to you?
JANINE: I, you know, I don't think when you're selling something like space brownies you need to advertise its effects that much.
ALI: Well…
KEITH: Oh, you just go like, it's space brownie.
JANINE: I think there's like a degree of understanding and um.
KEITH: [cross] Yeah.
JANINE: Mutual… curiosity in the pitch and name alone.
JACK: Oh, it's like space mountain! It's the same thing.
KEITH: Yeah, it's a Disney brownie.
[laughter]
JACK: A Disney brownie.
KEITH: I— that reminds me of those— you ever go to a gas station and they go like, it's like, ZZZ Brownies! And it's just brownies with melatonin in it? You ever see those?
DRE: [cross] N— No?
ALI: No? No.
KEITH: It's like, sleepy brownies! Yeah, those are at like, gas stations, or at least they used to be.
JACK: [cross] Oh my god. Why would you--
KEITH: [cross] Why would those—
JANINE: [cross] Those shouldn't be at a driving stop?
JACK: That's what I was gonna say, why would you sell something that makes you sleepy at a place where you… where you?
ALI: [cross] If you're in the back seat!
JANINE: Maybe… if it's like just a truck stop. That would maybe be, 'cause people would then like sleep in the truck?
KEITH: [cross] If you— okay.
ALI: You know.
JANINE: But, like at a gas station, that seems…
ALI: Well.
JANINE: I mean I guess it's also melatonin.
ALI: Yeah.
JANINE: And there's sugar in there and stuff, so like?
JACK: You can't get melatonin in the UK.
ALI: [cross] Oh really?
JANINE: [cross] Really, can you not?
KEITH: I just—
JACK: No.
KEITH: I, so, I have never taken melatonin, but my sister and my mother do? And I, and I know that it's not a super strong thing—
DRE: No, no.
KEITH: Just because, because they take it and then are fine, and it doesn't really even seem to help that much, but if you google melatonin brownies recipe… they are they are really claiming these things will knock you out!
[laughter]
JANINE: [cross] Well, you know.
KEITH: "Not your average brownie recipe! It'll make you very very sleepy, these cute brownies will literally knock you unconscious! Kush Cakes, the premium relaxation brownie!"
JANINE: [cross] Oh my god.
[Ali laughs]
KEITH: That's actually, that's actually the brand that I've seen at gas stations is Kush Cakes.
ALI: Kush Cakes…
JANINE: Yeah… I…
KEITH: Yeah, but it's melatonin!
JANINE: I mean, Keith, the thing I'm gonna say to you is you should look up some claims of homeopathic medicine if you think that's wild, 'cause they're just selling water and they're saying it does all kinds of shit!
ALI: [laughs] Oh, yeah.
KEITH: Well, hey no that's not fair there's a drop of venom in there!
JANINE: Sorry, yeah, it's water with the ghost of something in it. Like?
[Keith laughs]
ALI: Janine, remember that bottle that I—
JANINE: It's haunted water, and they're saying it does stuff it doesn't!
[laughter]
JACK: What's that, Ali?
ALI: I sent Janine once— I get this email— I get these emails from this company for rich people that wanna sell me things and it's great.
JACK: [cross] [laughs] Okay!
KEITH: What are the— wait, what kind of company? What kinda things?
ALI: It's like, here's stuff that you can buy, like this glass waterbottle with crystals in it, 'cause the crystals make you better!
JANINE: [cross] Oh, god.
JACK: Just generally?
ALI: Yeah! They're just in there, and you know—
JACK: Rad.
ALI: The antioxidants from the crystals…
KEITH: Yeah…
ALI: And the energy.
JANINE: I have a gif that is specifically relevant to this.
ALI: It oxidizes…
JANINE: To this, to this theory of health.
ALI: [laughs] But I, I… there was one thing and it was just like rose-scented water?
JACK: Hm.
ALI: And it was like, two paragraphs of it just being like, well it'll help your wellness, and not like, a single promise of like, actual help? It was just like, oh you drink it, and then, you know. You'll feel satisfied.
JANINE: [cross] Actual rosewater is good for your skin.
ALI: Yeah…
JANINE: But that's not actual rosewater, that's like… that could be fucking anything, honestly.
KEITH: Ali, did this rose-scented water say that it might be good for your skin?
ALI: You know, it might've!
KEITH: Optional, add crystals!
[laughter]
ALI: Is that just like a cold brew recipe?
KEITH: What is that liquid?
JANINE: No! This recipe was for like, galaxy water or something? Like it was basically water with—
ALI: Galaxy water…
JANINE: A spirulina algae powder in it? So that when you—
KEITH: It looks like ferrofluid, it looks like the magnet water?
JANINE: It looks like shit. But when you pour it into a bottle, it's like this nice kind of blue-ish pinkish? Color? It's just water with fuckin' algae in it, but this…
KEITH: Oh, I'll drink an algae.
JANINE: No… I mean… no.
JACK: [cross] I like how they put the crystals in one spoon, rather than just putting the crystals in one by one with their hand.
KEITH: Now, this is only relevant because it is about algae—
JANINE: [cross] And tap the spoon.
KEITH: And I think that there's, I think there's a through line between crystals and people thinking that their dreams matter for something? But—
JANINE: Whoa! [laughs]
KEITH: [laughs] But I feel very—
ALI: [cross] Crystals are fine, come on!
JACK: [cross] Crystals are good!
KEITH: I— [laughs] I didn't, I didn't say it was wrong, I just said that there's a through line! But I did have a dream recently where there was a big crystalline structure in my kitchen that was giving off a bioluminescence 'cause it was filled with algae, and I was just like, well, I'll just let the algae grow because it's like a really nice lamp. So I had that dream. And what does that mean?
JANINE: I dreamed there was gonna be a Will and Grace MMO.
[laughter]
ART: What was it like?
KEITH: Yeah. Was it an action MMO, or like a WoW, was it a WoW?
JANINE: No, it was about like, getting a job? The bulk of that dream was me explaining to Austin how that show was really like, two-faced and unfair in the way it portrayed the two main characters' sexualities?
KEITH: You're talking about Will and Grace?
JANINE: Yeah.
ART: The MMO or the show?
ALI: Wait…
JANINE: The show, it was like, I was explaining to him how it was weird how they like, sort of kept Will's relationships at arm's length compared to Grace's. Which, I don't actually know that that's true, I think it's true of the early seasons, but I… It's been a very long time.
KEITH: I've never seen it, I actually didn't, I didn't know who the main characters of that show were 'cause…
ART: Will and Grace, it's right there.
[laughter]
KEITH: Well, I didn't know what they looked like, and I assumed it was the other guy and then also um…
JANINE: The other lady?
KEITH: Megan Mullally.
JANINE: Yeah.
KEITH: And that's what I thought were the— and I was like oh, I was very surprised when I learned that the main characters were the two people that I didn't even know were in the show.
JANINE: It's actually a show about like, Christianity.
KEITH: Is it?
JANINE: No. But like, Will and Grace…
KEITH: Oh. Well, I don't know!
JANINE: Will and Grace are also just like, concepts! You know!
KEITH: Yeah.
JANINE: They don't have to be people.
JACK: I dreamt recently that Austin and I planned out a whole Bluff City arc, in which we were old-timey superheroes in World War Two, rescuing people from Colditz Castle. That was pretty—
JANINE: From what?
JACK: Colditz Castle? The German prisoner of war camp for officers?
JANINE: Oh.
KEITH: Oh, I don't know, I don't know that one.
JANINE: Why was that in Bluff City?
JACK: Because we were like, American superheroes who went back in time to rescue—
JANINE: [cross] Oh, okay.
JACK: We were like, Atlantic City superheroes.
JANINE: [cross] I thought you meant the German prison was in Bluff City.
KEITH: [cross] It's American superheroes in London, it's the sequel to the hit song.
JACK: It's in— [laughs]
JANINE: Fuckin' Wolfenstein shit.
JACK: It is some Wolfenstein shit! I don't think—
JANINE: [cross] Bluff City AU.
JACK: Yeah, we've never done a— well, I mean. I might be wrong here, but I believe Germany exists in the world of Bluff City.
JANINE: Probably. Are we sure Bluff City's not just like, Dark City where it's just Bluff City and then you get to the edge and it's just like, fuckin' space.
JACK: [cross] Just Bluff City!
ALI: Jesus.
JACK: I need to rewatch Dark City.
KEITH: [cross] Yeah, Jack, there's holes in your story, I don't, I'm not buying that this happened!
JACK: [laughs] There are holes in my story about the dream that I had! Hi Austin.
AUSTIN: Hi. Bluff City is not quite Dark City, I promise space is— hm.
ART: Well, we've established that New York and Connecticut and Trenton exist.
JACK: And London!
JANINE: [cross] Does Germany exist?
AUSTIN: [cross] No we haven't, that's not true at all, that's not true at all! You've never been there.
JANINE: See! See?! This is what I'm saying!
[Dre laughs]
AUSTIN: Yeah, I, like, full stop you've never—
JACK: [cross] I'm from London in Bluff City. Or would've been.
AUSTIN: No you're not, you're in Bluff City. We've never been to Bluff— we, Bluff City's camera has never been outside of Bluff City.
JACK: Oh, but I've seen London. My character.
AUSTIN: No you— your chara— yeah, but like, Deckard saw a little— you know what I mean?
KEITH: [cross] Yeah, yeah.
AUSTIN: Like, your character believes they saw London! It's not Dark City, but it's….
JACK: [cross] Deckard's source sentence trails off…
KEITH: [cross] Well hold on, if— If—
AUSTIN: We are getting very close, here's what I will say, we are getting very close to figuring out what exactly the fuck is up with Bluff City. I promise you, in three months you will all know.
KEITH: If Bluff City is Dark City, then it's Blough City is Dark City, not Bluff City. That's my guess.
SYLVIA: I hate… what?
AUSTIN: Uh huh!
DRE: Yeah…
JACK: My guess is that Bluff City is Dark City, and Blough City is darker city.
AUSTIN: Gotcha.
KEITH: Oh, okay. Where's darkest city?
SYLVIA: I know there's another Bluff City, but it is very hard to follow when it's not written out!
AUSTIN: We can just call it Blough City? You can just call it—
SYLVIA: [cross] I'm having flashbacks to listening to that episode.
AUSTIN: Blough City, it's fine.
[Ali laughs, Sylvia sighs]
KEITH: I pronounce it Blough.
ALI: Oh!
AUSTIN: Great. Great.
JACK: I'm watching Kermit the Frog perform Once in a Lifetime.
SYLVIA: Yes… yeah. That's pretty good.
JACK: He's wearing the foam suit and everything, it's great.
AUSTIN: Nice! Good for him. How's he doing these days?
JACK: Kermit?
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: I think he's having a good time, you know, like, I think that the Muppet, the recent Muppets movies haven't been super great, but he's a, he's a committed performer, he works hard, he gets paid.
AUSTIN: [cross] Right. He knows, he knows the score.
JACK: He knows the score, yeah!
JANINE: He's got those memes. He's got a meme. He's got multiple memes.
JACK: He's got a meme!
AUSTIN: You know what? He does have memes. I bet he doesn't get a cut.
JACK: [cross] Yeah!
KEITH: [cross] He does have the memes.
ALI: [cross] True...
DRE: He's got that really good vine.
JACK: Tea frog.
KEITH: What else from the Talking Heads catalog has Kermit the Frog covered?
JACK: He's— I think he's just covered Once in a Lifetime.
KEITH: Okay, he hasn't done the Psycho Killer? Because that's…
AUSTIN: [cross] I bet we could find that.
JACK: [cross] I mean, I'm googling now Kermit the Frog Psycho Killer, which is.
[Keith laughs]
JANINE: Has Kermit the Frog ever said the word 'killer'? He must've right? Was there like a detective Muppet thing?
KEITH: Yeah, well there is—
AUSTIN: Probably.
KEITH: There was a, there was Muppet Treasure Island, he might've called like Long John Silver a killer.
ALI: [cross] Yeah...
AUSTIN: [cross] What if he's done it as like a compliment? Like, hey Fozzie—
JACK: [cross] Killer!
ALI: [cross] Yes!
AUSTIN: That, that jacket you have on is really killer!
JACK: Austin, that was a terrible Kermit the Frog.
KEITH: [cross] That set— that tight five was killer.
AUSTIN: I wasn't trying to do a Kermit, I don't know that I have a Kermit.
KEITH: Everyone has a Kermit! It can be a bad one.
AUSTIN: I have a Jordan Peterson, I don't have a Kermit, so.
JACK: Wait. Is there a through line there?
AUSTIN: Oh, have you ever heard Jordan Peterson talk?
KEITH: It's a, yeah, it's a voice family.
JACK: Oh, does Jordan Peterson sound like Kermit? I've never heard Jordan Peterson talk!
AUSTIN: [cross] Oh, you've never heard… it's incredible.
JACK: I only saw him talk— I only saw what he looked like recently, does he sound like Kermit? Oh my god, I have to listen to this guy now.
AUSTIN: I'm gonna link—
JACK: [cross] Link me something where he's not being—
KEITH: [cross] Wait, hold on, don't listen to that guy!
[laughter]
JACK: Oh, right, yes. Yeah, that's true.
JANINE: Oh, god.
KEITH: You can ma— maybe try hearing him but don't listen.
JACK: Link— link me to something where he's saying something minimally reprehensible, if you can.
AUSTIN: I don't know that that's possible.
JANINE: His— no, I was gonna say his name, but.
KEITH: [laughs] Oh god, that's good!
AUSTIN: It's pretty good. Wait, okay, here we go. This one. This new one.
JACK: Wait— okay, alright, fine. So this is actually Jordan Peterson talking.
KEITH: [cross] There's a whole collection of these!
AUSTIN: Yes. Yes.
KEITH: I didn't know there were videos of this.
AUSTIN: Oh yeah. He's just Kermit the Frog— he's like, a less charismatic Kermit the Frog.
JANINE: [cross] Oh my god…
KEITH: Here— here's the thing, and he's true to the original Kermit voice!
AUSTIN: Right.
KEITH: He doesn't do any of the subsequent Jim Henson Kermits that go over the top with it.
AUSTIN: There's no hand waving.
KEITH: No, it's just a frog that talks.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
ART: Henson did the hand waving, that was part of the Muppet Show.
KEITH: No no, not literal handwaving, figurative handwaving.
ART: Oh. Not like, he waves his hands around, yeah.
KEITH: Not like— [yells] Aaaaah! Not that kind of handwaving.
ART: [high pitched] It's the Muppet Show, yaaay!
KEITH: [Kermit voice] Yaaay!
AUSTIN: So y'all have good, y'all have good Kermits.
JACK: Wait. Art. Is your Kermit just hastily screaming "it's the Muppet Show?" 'Cause that's very much in character.
[laughter]
ART: I don't, I mean I don't have like, another thing. [Kermit voice] Why are there so many songs about rainbows, aaaaah!
[more laughter]
AUSTIN: That's it! That's him! That's Kermit!
KEITH: That's Kermit getting further away, which has a nice dynamic ring to it.
JACK: [cross] Well no, Art's Kermit is just being beaten up my Miss Piggy.
AUSTIN: All the time.
JACK: As he speaks.
AUSTIN: About anything!
JACK: Really about anything, even welcoming people to the Muppet Show.
AUSTIN: We are— we are getting dangerously closer to Jordan Peterson again, so we should do a Clapcast.
JACK: Oh boy. No, we should do a clap.
AUSTIN: Oh right, sorry.
KEITH: Listen, all I'm saying is have you seen how clean Kermit the Frog keeps his room.
AUSTIN: [laughs] Alright.
JACK: Kermit the Frog is a beautiful influence and I will not sully his name by comparing it to Jordan Peterson.
AUSTIN: I one hundred percent thought you just said influencer, and was furious.
[laughter]
JANINE: I mean, also that! Memes! They're right there.
AUSTIN: Oh…
DRE: Thanks, I hate it.
AUSTIN: Alright, let's clap at uh… five after?
JACK: Okay.
ART: I am hammering on the dislike button.
[clap]
AUSTIN: It was like a wave, but they were all pretty tight together, you know?
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: They were all pretty close together. You feel confident about that one, Ali? Okay. Alright! Ready?
[outro music]
[1] The name in the audio recording is no longer in use, hence the audio/transcript discrepancy.