#338: Fiddler On the Dune! w/ Elliott Kalan

Summary

Podcast Summary: Hey Riddle Riddle #338: Fiddler On the Dune! w/ Elliott Kalan

Episode Information

• Title: Fiddler On the Dune! w/ Elliott Kalan
• Release Date: January 8, 2025
• Host/Authors: Adal Rifai, Erin Keif, and John Patrick Coan
• Guest: Elliott Kalan, Emmy Award-winning writer and podcaster

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1. Introduction of Elliott Kalan

The episode kicks off with the hosts warmly welcoming Elliott Kalan, highlighting his impressive résumé as an Emmy Award winner, former head writer for The Daily Show, and creator of the Flophouse podcast.

Notable Quote:

• [01:52] Adol: "Please welcome the wickedly talented, the one and only Elliott Kalan."

2. Discussing Names and Pronunciations

A significant portion of the early conversation delves into the complexities of Elliott’s last name, discussing its unique spelling and pronunciation. Elliott explains the historical reasons behind his family's name alteration to avoid anti-Semitism, emphasizing the pride in maintaining a distinctive identity.

Notable Quotes:

• [03:28] Elliott Kalan: "My name is spelled with two L's and two T's. My dad's name is Mark, spelled with a C at the end of it."
• [04:38] Adol: "It is like being part of a... I kind of have the opposite problem because my last name is Cohen, but it's C O, A N and I'm not Jewish."

3. Elliott’s Relationship with Riddles and Puzzles

Elliott shares his nuanced relationship with riddles and puzzles, expressing a love for logical word riddles and traditional brain-teasers while admitting a discomfort with physically interactive puzzles like escape rooms. He also introduces his new project, the puzzle podcast Smartless Presents Clueless, where he collaborates with Sean Hayes.

Notable Quote:

• [06:38] Elliott Kalan: "I have a son who loves games and puzzles of all kinds. He has a persona that we invented a couple years ago named P.J. PuzzleWiz, who is just like the master of puzzles."

4. Engaging with Riddles

The hosts present Elliott with several riddles, creating an interactive and entertaining segment. The first riddle asks, "What is the main cause of dry skin?" After some deliberation, Elliott correctly identifies the answer as "a towel."

Notable Quote:

• [11:26] Elliott Kalan: "It is a towel. The main cause of dry skin is a towel."

5. Improvisational Scenes with Riddles

The trio engages in improvisational scenes, blending riddles with humorous skits. One such scene involves playing football players on the sidelines, with Adol acting as a riddle-demanding towel boy named Riddleburn. These segments showcase the hosts' and Elliott's improvisational skills, adding a layer of humor and creativity to the episode.

Notable Quote:

• [14:38] Adol: "Riddleburn. That's the kind of riddle goblin."

6. Exploring New Jersey Culture and Anecdotes

Elliott delves into his experiences in New Jersey, discussing its dense forests, gas station culture, and the myth of the Jersey Devil. The conversation highlights the state's unique blend of urban and rural environments and Elliott's personal connections to its cultural icons.

Notable Quotes:

• [24:05] Elliott Kalan: "New Jersey is bigger on the inside than on the outside. So if you look in the map, it looks like a small state, but when you're there, it's a massive."
• [25:47] Adol: "Aaron, Nice. New Jersey's so beautiful. And great seafood. Underrated seafood."

7. Fiddler on the Roof Meets Dune: A Creative Blend

The podcast takes an inventive turn as Elliott discusses his creative endeavor of merging Fiddler on the Roof with Frank Herbert’s Dune. He narrates the development of "Fiddler on the Dune," a play that reimagines the classic musical within the Dune universe. Elliott shares snippets of the lyrics and the conceptual challenges involved in blending these two distinct worlds.

Notable Quotes:

• [40:54] Elliott Kalan: "The name of the play is A Baliset Player on the Sietch. You can also call it Fiddler on the Dune."
• [41:12] Elliott Kalan: "Because we're Fremen. We're Fremen. We're Fremen."

8. Reflections on Journalism and Storytelling

Elliott reflects on his tenure as a head writer, discussing the delicate balance between creative storytelling and factual journalism. He shares insights into his character development on The Flophouse podcast, particularly his portrayal of a die-hard Dune fan named Tom Brokaw.

Notable Quote:

• [38:14] JPC: "I want to see your version at the La Jolla Playhouse or something soon."
• [44:28] Elliott Kalan: "The main female character, who's like, she's always poisoning people left and right so that her son can become Roman emperor. She's so amazing in it."

9. Interactive Riddling and Playful Banter

Throughout the episode, the hosts and Elliott engage in playful banter, tackling various riddles and expanding on each other’s answers. They explore themes ranging from Roman history to modern-day puzzles, maintaining an engaging and humorous dynamic.

Notable Quotes:

• [49:40] JPC: "What letter comes next in the sequence? D, R, M, F, SLT and then blank."
• [56:28] Adol: "When is L larger than XL?"

10. Promotions and Future Projects

As the episode nears its end, the hosts and Elliott take time to promote their respective projects. Elliott highlights his involvement in writing for DC Comics' Harley Quinn and his upcoming children's book, Sadie Mouse Wrecks the House. The hosts also promote their live shows and Patreon offerings, encouraging listeners to support their creative endeavors.

Notable Quotes:

• [64:14] Elliott Kalan: "I host Smartless Presents Clueless. It's a new puzzle podcast. Sean Hayes is the contestant every single episode with a special guest."
• [65:00] Adol: "World News tonight, Saturday nights at the IO Theater in Chicago."

Conclusion

Episode #338 of Hey Riddle Riddle offers a rich tapestry of humor, creativity, and intellectual stimulation. With Elliott Kalan as a guest, listeners are treated to insightful discussions on names, a deep dive into riddle-solving, improvisational skits blending classic musicals with sci-fi lore, and engaging anecdotes about New Jersey. The episode effectively balances structured content with spontaneous banter, making it both entertaining and enlightening for fans new and old.

Final Notable Quote:

• [68:22] Adol: "This podcast is brought to you by eHarmony, the dating app to find someone you can be yourself with."

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Key Takeaways:

• Elliott Kalan brings a wealth of experience from comedy writing and podcasting to the table, enriching the episode with his unique perspectives.
• The hosts maintain a dynamic and humorous environment, encouraging creative problem-solving and entertaining interactions.
• The episode seamlessly integrates riddles and improvisational performances, showcasing the collaborative spirit of the Hey Riddle Riddle team.

For more engaging episodes and bonus content, listeners are encouraged to join the Clue Crew on Patreon.

Transcript

[Aaron]

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[Elliot Kaelin]

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[Aaron]

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[Elliot Kaelin]

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[Elliot Kaelin]

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[Aaron]

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[Elliot Kaelin]

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[Aaron]

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[Elliot Kaelin]

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[Adol]

Most of them were goldfish.

[Elliot Kaelin]

It was the cannon of an airplane he stabbed him with an ice away.

[Adol]

And the horses came Friday.

[Aaron]

Should rose acquainted be forgot his.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Please welcome the wickedly talented, the one and only.

[Aaron]

Happy New Year, Everybody. Welcome to 2025. You didn't think we'd live this long, did you? Did you?

[Adol]

Welcome to 2025. You didn't think we'd live this long, did you?

[JPC]

Oh, Aaron, are you okay?

[Adol]

God, Aaron, are you okay?

[Aaron]

Yeah. This is just on the soundboard now. This is just on the sound.

[JPC]

You hit your head so hard on the microphone.

[Aaron]

Oh, and this is also on the soundboard. Now head over to our Patreon if you want to know why those noises are playing.

[Adol]

2025. It's a brand new year and a brand new crew. Not the same old stuff. It's going to be all new stuff of my own piss. Okay, well, same old stuff.

[Aaron]

That's jpc, that's Adol over there. Adel, wave. There he is. He's really waving. That's really sweet. And I'm Aaron.

[Adol]

And who's this gorgeous 10 out of 10 knockout blonde?

[JPC]

Oh, that's me. I dyed my hair. But we do have a guest. Our guest today is Emmy award. This might be our first Emmy award winner. Emmy award winner, former head writer of the Daily show, head writer of the show Mystery Science Theater 3000, creator of Delightful comic and also spooky maniac of New York and one of the co hosts of the Flophouse podcast. Please welcome Elliot. Is it Kalan? I never know how to say your last name.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Kaelyn. That's a Kaelyn.

[JPC]

I always want to say Kalan.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Nobody knows Kaelin. It was Kaplan until 1951, and then my grandfather changed it right before my dad was born. So this is a name that proudly goes back three generations now, including my own children. And everyone thinks it's Kalan or Kalan, but it's pronounced Kalin because my family is dedicated to finding the least common, least accessible ways to spell and pronounce things. My name is spelled with two L's and two T's. My dad's name is Mark, spelled with a C at the end of it. Wow.

[Aaron]

Your family has a mess of consonants.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Yes. Yes.

[Adol]

Do you think at any point down the road in the whole. In the family lineage, do you think you'll ever add the P back? Or is the P gone for good reason?

[Elliot Kaelin]

That's a good. I mean, it's not good gone for good reason. It's gone for a bad reason, which is anti Semitism, but, you know, and the desire to avoid it. But the.

[Adol]

Oh, okay, good. Oh, my God.

[Elliot Kaelin]

We were too worried people would think that we were Jews when we're not. No. But at this point, we're so obviously Jewish that we might as well replace it. But I like the way it sounds. Kaplan is like, yeah, it's like a dime a dozen name. But Kalin, it's so exclusive, nobody even knows how to pronounce it. That's how beautiful it is. Yes, that's.

[Adol]

It is like being part of a. I kind of have the opposite problem because my last name is Cohen, but it's C O, A N and I'm not Jewish. So it's like I'm kind of reclaiming some of that anti Semitism for myself. I'm taking it off of the shoulders of the Jewish people and proudly displaying.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Thank you for absorbing some of that. Really appreciate it. I guess.

[Adol]

An ally. That's a good word. I've never really heard it put that way before.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Kind of an inadvertent ally. Yeah.

[Aaron]

I have a very similar thing with my last name. It's K E I, F, which grammatically makes no sense. It's Keith, but it's. Cause my grandfather, great grandfather had such bad handwriting. And on the census, they couldn't read the K E, E, F E. And so they had to change it to K E I F. And that's the sort of Irish in me.

[Adol]

Yeah, they couldn't read it. They were just like, too Irish. Something else.

[JPC]

And I have just the boring old Missouri standard. Adol Shoki.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Rafael, you must be so tired of people not asking you how to spell or pronounce or where it's from your name.

[Aaron]

Yeah, he loves when people call him Adam. He loves it.

[JPC]

My favorite is when I'll be talking to someone and someone will be like, what's your name? And I'm like, adel. And they'll go, abdul. And I'm like, you heard it. Like, it's not like you read it. You heard it.

[Elliot Kaelin]

No. Well, that's. It's like I'll write my name on, like, a medical form, and I'll get the printed form back, and it'll say Kaplan on it, and it's like, I know my own name. Just do it the way I wrote it. I didn't make a mistake.

[Aaron]

Yeah, I thought you were gonna say too many L's and too many T's.

[Elliot Kaelin]

They. Yeah, well, they do say that sometimes. Every time I get into the country, I have to spell my name with one T and smuggle the other T in.

[JPC]

A delightful last name. A nightmare of a wheel of fortune puzzle. Elliot, we know all about your name now. What we want to know now is what is your history? What is your relationship with riddles, puzzles, lateral thinking problems, even something like escape rooms?

[Elliot Kaelin]

Well, I have a. Not an interesting relationship with him, but a checkered or at least complicated relationship, because there's certain types of riddles I love. I love logical word riddles. I love your old fashioned kind of what a goblin would tell you if you're trying to cross a bridge type riddle. Like, I love those. I'm not necessarily good at them, but I love them. Whereas something like an escape room, like a physical thing, is something I find so incredibly threatening. There's almost nothing worse I can imagine than the idea of, like, deliberately putting myself in a room I cannot leave. Like, I need to know there's an. I don't even like. Like, I don't like sleeping in the side of the bed that's too far from a door, you know, because I want to be able to get out. But I.

[Aaron]

This is true. You're recording in a space where it looks like there are a dozen doors behind you.

[Elliot Kaelin]

There's many doors and cabinets in this room.

[Aaron]

This is.

[Elliot Kaelin]

It's called I live in the Riddleverse. It's a door. You see what you find behind it. But I'm also. I'm now newly the host of a puzzle podcast myself on the Smartless network called Smartless Presents Clueless, where I host and Sean Hayes, along with a guest of his choosing, usually his husband or one of his friends are the contestants every single time. So Sean is always the contestant, I'm always the host. And it's a little bit like that's the kind of thing that you would find in a play about a torturer and a captive, where they spend years together and they come to know each other intimately. It's not quite like that, but it's more fun than that. It's kind of like that, but more fun. So I feel like I'm steeped in puzzles and riddles now more than I used to be. And I have a son who loves games and puzzles of all kinds. He has a Persona that we invented a couple years ago named P.J. puzzlewiz, who is just like the master of puzzles. And so when he'll. If we're going to do a puzzle or like either one of those logic puzzles where you mark off squares or even just like a jigsaw puzzle or something like that, he'll just turn into go, mmm, PJ Puzzle Wiz is here. You know, so that's.

[Adol]

We might have to come back to the archives to see if we invented PJ PuzzleWiz first, because that. That sounds like something. That sounds like something.

[Elliot Kaelin]

It's possible, but so now I. So I grew up always liking riddles, but now I feel like I'm in the puzzle world much more than I once was.

[JPC]

That's fantastic. The name of that show again is Smartless Presents Clueless.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Smartless presents Clueless. It's available on wherever podcasts are. Go to the Smartlist presents Clueless feed somewhere and you'll find it.

[JPC]

Fellow Illinois State University theater grad Sean Hayes.

[Elliot Kaelin]

He's done great things with that degree. He's got an Emmy. He's got a Tony. As I said in a recent episode, that will be coming out in a little while. He's got an Emmy, a Tony, and a Scotty. Scotty is his husband. But, yeah, he's been great to. He's a great. He loves puzzles. I mean, he lives for puzzles. And he's a great contestant on it because he's really good at it. But also sometimes he gets really stuck because he's thinking in a specific type of puzzle logic way and not necessarily in the way that it works. And I like it when we can catch him, when we can trip him up every now and then.

[Aaron]

Well, send him our way. And we'll really break his heart.

[Adol]

Yeah, we'll really trip him up, put.

[JPC]

The screws to him. Well, Elliot, let's get into some of these riddles that you may Enjoy. You may loathe. We'll have to see your reaction, but here's our first one. This will be sort of a warmup, and I say it's a warmup just to make you feel bad if you don't get it right.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Okay, thank you.

[JPC]

This is posited to all three of you. What is the main cause of dry skin?

[Adol]

Okay. Maine is spelled M, A, I, N, E, so obviously lobster, Pacific, Northeast. Lobster. Lobster. I said it first. What is the main cause?

[JPC]

Main.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Swamps. Bogs.

[Adol]

Dry skin. Yeah. They have cranberry bogs. Huh. Up in Maine.

[Aaron]

Are all the words spelled like we would expect them to be spelled at all?

[JPC]

Yeah, I believe so. I hope so. Yeah.

[Elliot Kaelin]

So wait, so does that mean. So it is the. Well, let's see if. If Maine is spelled M, A, I, N, E, the main cause of dry skin would be flames from a boiler explosion on the USS Main.

[Adol]

Remember the Main Adult. Remember?

[Elliot Kaelin]

Do we have the Spanish American War on the board?

[JPC]

We do not.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Oh, I'm so sorry. Oh, never mind.

[Aaron]

The board explodes.

[Adol]

Boy. What is the main cause of dry skin? That's the question, huh?

[JPC]

Yeah.

[Adol]

Is this going to be like a pun? Is this one of these, like, pun answers?

[JPC]

It's not. No, it's not really a pun. I think it's like.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Is the answer, like towels?

[Aaron]

Oh, my God.

[JPC]

My God. There must be some PJ Puzzler in you, I think. Is that the name PJ Puzzle?

[Elliot Kaelin]

PJ Puzzle Wiz.

[Aaron]

Puzzle Wiz.

[JPC]

RJ grunts. There must be some PJ Puzzle Wiz in you because it is a towel. The main cause of dry skin is a towel.

[Adol]

Yep. Okay, that makes sense.

[Elliot Kaelin]

See, that's the kind of riddle that I liked that I fit with is the one where it's like, oh, this is not as complicated as it sounds. Like, you know the joke of, like, why did the chicken cross the road? To get the other side. You know, you hear that when you're a kid and you're like, that's boring. And then eventually there came a point where I was like, this is a good joke. You expect there to be a reason? Yes, and there's no reason. This chicken just needs to get over there.

[Adol]

I do want to see a quick scene. So Erin and Elliot, you guys are going to be like football players on the sidelines. And adol. You are the towel boy, and you're going to be like, delivering them towels, except you're also kind of like a little goblin, and you want to make them do riddles before you give them towels.

[JPC]

Huh. Okay, so I have to burn some of my riddles in this scene.

[Adol]

Yeah, I guess so. Well, then I made the right guy. I made the right guy. The little riddle goblin.

[Elliot Kaelin]

I guess that's a good name for a goblin. Riddle burn.

[Aaron]

Riddle burn. Ooh, it is unseasonably warm. I'm dying out there.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Yeah. This is the hottest Thanksgiving game we've ever played.

[Aaron]

This is bleak. I am. Excuse me. Can I grab a towel from you really quick?

[JPC]

No, but I can hand you a towel.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Never grab, always hand.

[JPC]

Good game, good game, good game.

[Elliot Kaelin]

But before you receive this towel, you.

[JPC]

Must answer me these questions.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Was vowel Poland Val? Yeah, right.

[Aaron]

Yeah, checks out Riddleburn. I really. I really don't have the time for this. I gotta go back out there and play defense.

[JPC]

What is on all fours, then on twos, then back to fours?

[Aaron]

A goat.

[Elliot Kaelin]

It's not.

[JPC]

It's not a goat. Carl, did you have a guess?

[Elliot Kaelin]

I, I. It's just so hot. I'm so sweaty. It's hard for me to. It's hard for me. Hard. Can you. Can you repeat it? Yes.

[JPC]

What is on all fours, then on twos, then back to fours?

[Elliot Kaelin]

If I asked you for a smaller.

[JPC]

Towel, then you'd get a smaller riddle.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Yeah. Could I get an easier one?

[JPC]

Okay. One plus one.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Two.

[JPC]

Yeah. Here you go.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Oh, thank you.

[Aaron]

That didn't end with a question mark in your voice inflection.

[Elliot Kaelin]

This is a very small towel, but I can dab away with it. That's good. Oh, that's like a half my father.

[Aaron]

Maybe if you gave me the towel first, then I could answer your riddle.

[JPC]

No. Many a player has tried to trick.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Me in that regard.

[JPC]

What is on all fours, then twos, then back to fours?

[Aaron]

A human.

[JPC]

Yes, but what type of human?

[Elliot Kaelin]

A human.

[JPC]

Doing what?

[Aaron]

Burpees.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Yeah. I mean, yeah, that works.

[Adol]

The hell is going on over here? I told you guys to get on the field like, two minutes ago.

[Aaron]

It's your son, Riddleburn. He won't give us the towel.

[Adol]

Riddleburn.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Father.

[JPC]

I'll leave them alone if you answer me these questions on a phone.

[Adol]

God damn it. God alone.

[Aaron]

Checks out scene.

[JPC]

Aaron, the answer to your riddle was the offensive line.

[Aaron]

Oh, it was a football riddle.

[Elliot Kaelin]

I had the same problem with that riddle that I have at the scene, which I don't know anything about football, so I was just. Just groping for terminology.

[Adol]

You know, it happens on Thanksgiving. That was a really good short.

[Elliot Kaelin]

I know what other people in my house are doing on Thanksgiving. That is annoying me, because I'm not interested.

[JPC]

I know. There's the goddamn lions. Can't throw for shit, boy. Yeah, Elliot, we're already getting emails about you referencing a tiny towel. Those don't exist in football. So this is.

[Elliot Kaelin]

The people are so big.

[Aaron]

That's so true. All the towels are tiny.

[JPC]

Let's go.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Normal towel is like a handkerchief to them.

[JPC]

Our next riddle here. What is higher than a king or queen? What is higher than a king or queen?

[Aaron]

An ace.

[JPC]

Aaron. Great guess. That's not the answer I have in front of me. That is an answer, but that's not the answer.

[Elliot Kaelin]

That's a good answer.

[Adol]

That's a really good answer.

[JPC]

That's a good answer.

[Aaron]

Thanks.

[Adol]

Is it a joker?

[JPC]

It's not a joker. That's also a very good answer.

[Adol]

Okay, okay.

[JPC]

What is higher than a king or queen?

[Aaron]

That's a feeling.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Yeah, that's a good one.

[JPC]

Now you overshot it, but this is a good guess.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Oh, see, I would have undershot it. Then I would say in monarchical mythology would be God. But my guess is that this is a riddle and you're not a genuine question about how divine monarchy works so.

[JPC]

Well, the king and queen is a vessel for God, so they embody it, actually.

[Elliot Kaelin]

So then God would be lower than this thing because it's higher than.

[Aaron]

Where's the Pope in this?

[JPC]

The Varavingian family.

[Adol]

Oh, the Pope makes me think. Crown. Is it Crown?

[JPC]

Jpc. Bingo bango. Ha ta ta. It is a crown or the crown, Aaron.

[Adol]

Saying Pope made me think of that big hat. I said, oh, the big hat. That's basically what's on top of a king or a queen.

[JPC]

Now, Elliot, I feel like you would know this just because you're a very learned, well read man. What is the name of the.

[Elliot Kaelin]

In certain things. Yeah. Not football, but you know, how many.

[JPC]

Yards did Walter Payton. What is the name of the Pope's hat?

[Elliot Kaelin]

It's a miter. Right? Miter.

[Aaron]

I didn't know it had a name.

[Adol]

It's the miter touch.

[Elliot Kaelin]

That's the jingle for that.

[JPC]

That's where his carburetor is.

[Adol]

Yes.

[Aaron]

Remember when the Pope hit that woman? I think about it every day.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Huh?

[Aaron]

Hit her hand. Remember he hit her hand?

[Adol]

Oh, okay. Yes.

[Elliot Kaelin]

But she was trying to steal his hat. That was the thing.

[Aaron]

Yeah, his miter.

[Elliot Kaelin]

His miter. Yeah.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[JPC]

Because gas is so expensive.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Yeah. And he said, I'm not going to pay a lot for this miter.

[Adol]

He said, the Pope is muddier than the hat thief. Slap.

[Aaron]

I'd like to see a Seed. Elliot, you are a king in GPC and adol. You are people in the kingdom who are, like, coming to him with problems to solve.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Hear ye, hear ye. I'm the king. Problems welcome. Promising nothing.

[JPC]

Your grace, I humbly throw myself onto your marble tiles. Too big of you. Please. The kingdom has ruled against me having two dogs. Might I please have two dogs?

[Elliot Kaelin]

May I ask. And yes, I may. I'm the king and do whatever, but I'm trying to be polite.

[JPC]

Rhetorical. Rhetorical. Rhetorical.

[Elliot Kaelin]

How big are the dogs?

[JPC]

Uh, one dog is half the size of the other.

[Elliot Kaelin]

I'm gonna say no. I'm worried you're going to try to insert one dog into the other dog the way you answered that question.

[Aaron]

Hey, Wood.

[Adol]

Hey, Wood. We've seen him do it.

[Aaron]

Such a wise king he is.

[JPC]

They're doing it in Russia. They're called Russian nesting dogs. All right, thank you. Thank you, your grace.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Next question, next question. One dog. You choose which one you want.

[Adol]

I have a dispute with this woman here. Both of us were on our way home from the mines when we stumbled upon a baby. Now, I said, I will raise this child as my own. She said, I will raise this child as my own. We're not together anymore. And neither one of us, you know, owns, quote, unquote, this baby. Who should keep the baby?

[Elliot Kaelin]

I have two questions to start with. One.

[Adol]

Who.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Which one of you stumbled across the baby?

[Aaron]

We did it at the same time.

[Adol]

We were coming from separate minds, and both of our feet kind of hit.

[Elliot Kaelin]

I see it doesn't.

[Adol]

I want it made clear either one of us kicked a baby.

[Elliot Kaelin]

This is what I was getting at. I would immediately disqualify whoever literally tripped over a baby with their foot. This is my second question. My second question. Does the baby show a preference to either one of you or to neither of you?

[JPC]

Not the guy. Not the guy.

[Adol]

Now, we don't know. We don't know that that's me.

[Elliot Kaelin]

That's true. The baby could be using guy in a sort of New Jersey sense, unisex way.

[Adol]

It does seem like it could be a New Jersey baby.

[JPC]

Speaking of. Speaking of King A. Hey, Angelo Dantonio. Listen, King, listen.

[Aaron]

He cut in line.

[Elliot Kaelin]

As the ambassador from New Jersey, he has the ability to do so.

[JPC]

Thank you, King. Grab my crown right fucking here. I got your crown right here, lady.

[Elliot Kaelin]

This is a show of respect where he's from.

[JPC]

Hey. The 48 merges onto the 92 in such a way that I can't get my fucking caravan into the right hand Lane, is there anything we can do about that construction wise?

[Elliot Kaelin]

Well, what exit are you trying to get to on the turnpike?

[JPC]

I guess I want to get to the 22 if possible.

[Elliot Kaelin]

I think we can do something about that. Returning to the baby, I will award the baby to whichever dog the man does not choose to keep.

[Adol]

That's fair.

[Aaron]

That's fair. What a fair king.

[Adol]

Okay, good cake, Good cake.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Question time is over. I have to take a very long bath now.

[JPC]

The king was a child.

[Adol]

Now Adol, how did you get all those New Jersey specifics in there?

[JPC]

Listen, I've been to New Jersey once. So I thought back to my one visit and I said I think there was a 48 onto the 92.

[Elliot Kaelin]

As a native New Jersey, I lived there for the first 17 years of my life. I found the numbers you were choosing to be delightfully imaginative.

[Adol]

I think I've also only been to New Jersey once and I think that the thing that my impression of New Jersey. Well, there was two things. They pump your gas for you in New Jersey?

[Elliot Kaelin]

Yes. In New Jersey it is illegal to have a self service gas station, which is very frustrating.

[Aaron]

Why is that?

[Elliot Kaelin]

Lobbying by the gas station attendance union or something like that. It's all just a business giveaway. Otherwise it's a great state. Great state.

[Adol]

I was an adult when I was there. Conceptually I think I knew that they did that, but what I wasn't prepared for was that it would just be some guy. I thought someone would be like an official uniform, but it was like a guy in a T shirt and he just started pumping the gas and I was like this. Everything from, from my life experience felt like scam, like next he's going to be like hey, sorry we can't do cards, it's only cash. Oh, you gave me a 20, I gave you a 10. And then the five bag and I'm like that. That part was very throwing.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Yeah, you have to have a lot of trust in New Jersey. We trust each other a lot. That's the thing because. Yeah, it's not, it's not like the old days. You drive up to a Texaco, the man in the Texas uniform comes out. Oh, hello. Good day sir. How's you hear about the war? Oh, we'll get those, we'll. Those Jerry's, you know, and then a.

[Adol]

Dipstick on his arm like showing it to you like it's a wine bottle.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Yeah, exactly. Let me, let's. Shall I check the air pressure? How you doing? Okay. Some selections from the store? No, it's just Literally, just a guy doesn't even talk to you. Just walks up to the pump and puts into the car. They want to talk to you as little as possible. We want to talk to them as little as possible. But it's. But then when. It means I live in California now, and when I go driving with my family and we use my wife's car, which has a gas pump in it, mine does not. Mine is entirely electrical because I care about the planet. But the when, when she will stop somewhere and I'll just sit there and let her get out and bump it, because I never can do it quite right. Like, I just can't. It's been years and I still can't. Every time I try to pump gas, it stops early. And I don't know what I'm doing wrong, and I just can't. I don't know how to do it.

[JPC]

To me, that's adorable. To your wife, that must be maddening.

[Elliot Kaelin]

I think it's very annoying. Yeah, very annoying.

[Adol]

When you, as a guy, like, walk up to a urinal and you think, what happened here? Did someone just not understand how this thing works? Surely someone got the concept and they just failed at the execution. Right.

[JPC]

I went to reunions at Princeton with my wife, and Princeton was delightful. And then I was like, I want to go to. My favorite Sopranos episode is the Pine Barrens.

[Elliot Kaelin]

And I was like, I want to go to episode.

[JPC]

Yeah, it's so good. I want to go to the. I think it's like a little forest called the Pine Barrens. And my wife was like, I think the Pine Barrens takes up like a third of the state or something.

[Aaron]

Is that true?

[JPC]

Yeah, it's massive.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Here's what people don't know about New Jersey. New Jersey is bigger on the inside than on the outside. So if you look in the map, it looks like a small state, but when you're there, it's a massive. And so much of it is woodland. The north, that's your city, part of New Jersey. The south, that's your woodland and farm part of New Jersey. I grew up in the north, near New York City. The, like, sophisticated half. And it's like New Jersey is like a little microcosm of the entire United States. Because you go to South Jersey and it's like, well, yeah, this is where the forest people live and the bog farmers. And you go up north and everyone says they live in New York City, you know?

[Aaron]

Yeah, smart.

[Adol]

I was kind of blown away. That was the second thing about New Jersey. Just driving through and being like there are so many trees here, I thought by the year 2024, I thought these would all be gone. I thought we would have taken these down by like 1826. Like it's crazy that they're still there.

[Elliot Kaelin]

What my mom always used to tell me was, she said there was more trees per square mile in New Jersey than any other state and that it was the most densely populated state with. And I was always like, even as a kid, like, that can't be both true. We have the most people per mile and the most trees per mile. Are we double counting? Are we counting people's trees and trees.

[Adol]

As people trees with like faces and mustaches? And it's like, I think that's a person. Let him vote three times for Democrats.

[Aaron]

Trees that look like the cats of the Jersey shore.

[JPC]

Now, Elliot, we.

[Elliot Kaelin]

The apps on those trees are amazing. Yeah, sorry. At all you're saying, Elliot, we ask.

[JPC]

All of our guests, have you ever ran into the Jersey Devil?

[Elliot Kaelin]

I've never ran into the Jersey. I mean I've been around the garden when the New Jersey Devils are playing the Rangers there, but it's. Yeah, I've never seen the Jersey Devil, but I certainly grew up wanting to wondering. I heard all the stories. It's a baby that was malformed and flew off into the night. It's a kangaroo that escaped from a sideshow. I've heard all the stories and I've come to the conclusion that it's not real.

[Aaron]

Say it's not there.

[Elliot Kaelin]

No. When I was a kid, I wanted to believe in every made up thing. So like the Loch Ness monster and Bigfoot and aliens, things like that. And it was a sad moment when I was probably about 26, when I was like, you know what? I can't fake it anymore. I just don't. I don't really believe these things are around.

[JPC]

Held on longer than I would have thought.

[Aaron]

When the story started, my cousin texted me like a week ago and her son finally asked about Santa and was like, hey, is Santa real? And she was like, no. And then he was going down the line of like Tooth Fairy, Easter bunny. And then he look out the window and saw the mailman and went, is he real? Like it completely gave him an existential crisis.

[Elliot Kaelin]

What can I take for granted anymore? Am I real? Am I just a story my parents tell me?

[Adol]

Adol. When you were talking about the Jersey Devil, you were talking about, let's see, Google some famous people from New Jersey.

[JPC]

Nathan Light, Meryl Streep. I'm pretty sure she's from New Jersey.

[Adol]

Let me look. I don't know.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Probably there wasn't the town next to where I grew up. There was a diner there. And they shot a scene for the movie One True Thing with Meryl Streep there. And for many years, there was a post it note on the wall above the booth that they shot it in that just said One true thing booth. They never bothered to make a sign. It was just a post it note. It was up there for years. And then one day I was there and it was not there anymore. And I don't know if it fell down or what, but they cared enough to mention it but not enough to memorialize it. You know, that's outstanding.

[Aaron]

I'm not really a person who wants to steal something, but I would steal that so quickly.

[Elliot Kaelin]

That post it note.

[Aaron]

That post it note. I'm like, this is hilarious. Mine. Now I'm putting this in my purse.

[Elliot Kaelin]

That was at the Maple Leaf Diner in Maple Leaf, New Jersey.

[Adol]

No, I don't see Meryl Streep. I do see Martha Stewart from New Jersey, Elliot's old boss, Jon Stewart.

[Elliot Kaelin]

I mean, it was a huge. People ask me, I've been asked many times, do you ever feel like you had kind of entitlements or a leg up? Do you have an unfair advantage in your career? And they usually want me to say as a white person, which is true, but it's like, yeah, well, I. I spent a lot of years working for a Jewish guy from New Jersey, and I'm also a Jewish guy from New Jersey. And for a while, my other boss on that show was a Jewish guy from the same town over in New Jersey where the Maple Leaf Diner is.

[Aaron]

Oh, he's from that booth.

[Elliot Kaelin]

He was born in that booth. Yeah, that was the old post it note. But it was a. So I really. Yeah, he's from New Jersey. And it really helped me a lot because when he would speak like a New Jersey person, which is to say without using proper words for things and instead just saying, like this or the thing or that thing, I could understand what he was talking about.

[JPC]

Now, Elliot, here's a riddle just for you. Jon Stewart was your boss.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Yes.

[JPC]

Both from New Jersey.

[Elliot Kaelin]

If you're from New Jersey, if this is to write, if this is derogatory to him, I will not accept it. He did a lot for me, and I owe him much.

[Adol]

It changes what I was gonna say.

[JPC]

Who on the fly. On the fly.

[Elliot Kaelin]

No, wait. So he's from New Jersey.

[JPC]

Jon Stewart was your boss. But to see if you're truly from New Jersey, who is both your boss and Jon Stewart's boss?

[Elliot Kaelin]

Well, there's really only the one boss in New Jersey. The boss. Bon Jovi.

[Aaron]

No, Jon Bon Jovi.

[Elliot Kaelin]

No, Jon Jovi is more like a commercial manager.

[JPC]

I think I heard Bruce Springsteen in there.

[Aaron]

I heard Jon Bon Jovi.

[JPC]

Why don't we take a quick break? We're going to listen to Slippery When Wet, and we'll be right back with more. Hey, riddle, Riddle. Okay. Looking for clues. Looking for clues. Sorry, jpc. Can I just lift up your foot here? Okay. Nothing there.

[Adol]

Oh, yeah. I've got a little captain in me. You know, that's what I do when people lift up one of my feet.

[JPC]

Yeah, very. I like your pirate outfit, Aaron. Let me look in your ear with this magnifying glass now. Sorry, I'm just looking for, like, hidden fees. Well, not empty, Aaron.

[Adol]

Not empty.

[JPC]

A gorgeous brain in there.

[Aaron]

Thank you.

[JPC]

I'm looking for clues for, like, where my money's going. Like, I just feel like a lot of my money is just sort of disappearing.

[Aaron]

Oh, yeah, you'll, like, sign up for a subscription service and you'll forget about it, and then all of a sudden, you're $300 down the drain.

[JPC]

Exactly. So you know about this, Adolf.

[Adol]

You're looking for where your money's going. Don't look at Aaron's head unless you're paying for her haircuts. Because am I right, guys? I mean, it's like a different haircut every time I see her with this woman. You should get Rocket Money, which is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings.

[JPC]

Yeah. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of 500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when using all of the app's premium features, which is about what I'm losing.

[Adol]

Mm.

[Aaron]

And Rocket Money will even try to negotiate lower bills for you. They automatically scan your bills to find you opportunities to save. Then you can ask them to negotiate for you. They'll deal with customer so you don't have to. It's like having a little assistant in your pocket.

[JPC]

Ooh, speaking of little assistant, Aaron, you do have a bug in your brain that seems to have a little typewriter.

[Aaron]

Oh, yeah, that's Maureen. She's fine.

[Adol]

I didn't know Maureen had left my brain. Hold on. Going into my brain, seeing a note from Maureen. Okay, gonna read this. Gonna Try not to cry during an ad read. Impossible.

[JPC]

I hope I'm asleep.

[Aaron]

Guys, it can't be canon that we all had the same bug living in our brain anyways. You can get alerts if bills increase in price, if there's unusual spending activity, or if you're close to going over budget.

[Adol]

Rocket Money is the best choice if you are looking for a way to budget your money. For most people, the only thing that would be a better choice, and it's not available for everybody, is if you get a little bug with a typewriter to live in your brain. But apparently, we can't hold onto those bugs.

[JPC]

That's right, sweethearts. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney.com Riddle today. That's RocketMoney.com Riddle RocketMoney.com Riddle but take.

[Adol]

It from me, Maureen the Tango Maureen. Do we have the rights to that? Do we have the rights to that?

[Aaron]

Can't believe we all had the same bug living in our brain at different times.

[Adol]

Yeah, we like her. She's nice. This podcast is brought to you by eHarmony, the dating app to find someone.

[Aaron]

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[Adol]

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[Aaron]

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[Adol]

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[Aaron]

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[Adol]

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[Aaron]

Where's Jon Bon Jovi from?

[Elliot Kaelin]

I think he's from Jersey.

[Aaron]

Also. Jersey.

[JPC]

I think Bruce is like the. The.

[Elliot Kaelin]

But Bruce is. Bruce is the. I mean, he's the. He's the eternal poet laureate of the state. Yeah, him and Walt Whitman, basically.

[Aaron]

I was gonna say mascot, but poet laureate is much more elegant.

[Adol]

All right, but speaking of. Bruce is from New Jersey. Bruce Willis, also from New Jersey. So maybe you could give the Boss a run for his money.

[Elliot Kaelin]

No, but I mean, if he is.

[Adol]

A Bruce on harmonica.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Well, now you're talking about Bruno, Bruce's alter ego.

[JPC]

What is that? House of Blues?

[Adol]

Yeah.

[Elliot Kaelin]

No, it's so funny, because when you asked who's the boss of New Jersey, who's the real boss, it was like, it didn't even occur to me to have to name him. I was just like, well, the Boss. That's who it is. It's tough. My family is a big Bruce Springsteen. I'm actually the least Bruce Springsteen in my family. And my dad is a huge Springsteen fan. My brother is a huge. My brother has flown to Iceland to see Bruce Springsteen, someone he's seen multiple times in concert before in New Jersey. So they'll go all out for Bruce Springsteen.

[JPC]

He did a Broadway show, maybe like, 2018 or something.

[Elliot Kaelin]

My brother saw that. Yeah.

[JPC]

It was so, so good.

[Elliot Kaelin]

I heard it was amazing.

[JPC]

Do you. I can't remember the name of it, but I saw it with. What was it?

[Elliot Kaelin]

The Phantom.

[Aaron]

The Phantom, yes, the Phantom. I would pay $700 for the tickets to do that.

[Adol]

Yeah. He.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Phantom of the Opera is in my.

[JPC]

Mind at night he runs to me.

[Aaron]

Baby, take all my money Take all of my money.

[Adol]

That's not a bad idea. Like, why not do that? Like, sure, yeah, let him do. Just like, let him do like, a.

[JPC]

Week of Let him be Elphaba.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Oh, he could be a great Elphaba. Every single one of those shows would see the best sales. I mean, every. They're all. You just sell at the theater. But, yeah, you could. He could. I'm overcoming gravity, Defying gravity. What's the song?

[Aaron]

T shirt, fully green skin instead of on a broom.

[Adol]

Can you do the Alphabet sound? Aaron, can you do the Alphabet sound as Bruce Springsteen.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Now. Now all I want to do is Broadway shows as Bruce Springsteen. River was a river cat. So clever, you know?

[Aaron]

Okay, you. I've. I've never. My heart just exploded in my chest. You went right to Cats. You went right to Cats.

[Elliot Kaelin]

How does a bastard open? Son of a.

[Adol]

Model of a major general.

[Aaron]

Tomorrow, tomorrow.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Him Is it Turn the tail. Sweeney tongue. Now Ellie sings slower.

[JPC]

We will. Afterwards, we'll have you stick around for six to 12 hours, and we'll record Patreon. Spring scene sings Broadway.

[Elliot Kaelin]

So, on my other podcast, the Flophouse, I did do an entire episode, a mini episode, where I was playing a character I routinely play on that show, which is Tom Brokaw, world's greatest Dune fan. Who. This is a character I've been doing for years and years now, long before the movie that Tom Brokaw is just. All he cares about is Dune. And we did one where he's pitching his adaptation of Fiddler on the Roof, but it's all Dune themed. And I wrote a bunch of Fiddler on the Roof songs about Dune. And I remember one night I was sitting with my wife preparing for this, and I couldn't stop thinking of them. I kept running over to my computer to write them down, and I was like, it writes itself. And my wife was like, I don't think it does. I really don't think it does write itself.

[Adol]

How deep into Dune lore were you going with this character? Are we going into the. Where his kids started writing the books and you're doing X.

[Elliot Kaelin]

So Tom Brokaw, he believed. This is my version of Tom Brokaw. Again, not the real Tom Broka. Or maybe it is. He loves those original Frank Herbert books. He's read them so much at times. He's spoken on the podcast about how hosting the nightly news was kind of the anchor that kept him from just losing himself in that world of Arrakis and just making that the real world for him that he lived in. The books that his son wrote. He doesn't consider those completely canon. You know, they conflict with his headcanon a little bit. But his knowledge of Dune is much greater than my knowledge of Dune. As someone who has read the first couple books, Read the first book probably six times. I love it. But each time I try to push forward through the rest of the series, I lose a lot of steam. Even in the second book, you know.

[Adol]

There'S a reason for that. They say, and it's that the other ones aren't very good. That's just the working theory. That's the working theory among, like, the kind of the proletariat who.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Yeah. I once heard it described as. With each book, he had less to say and he spent more time saying it.

[Aaron]

Yes.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Now, Aaron's book is so amazing. It's so rife for Fiddler on the Roof musical finishing the hat.

[Aaron]

Aaron.

[JPC]

Can we hear Bruce Springsteen? Can we hear Bruce Springsteen doing the Dune sound?

[Aaron]

I want to know what some of your Fiddler on the Roof dude songs were. Do you remember anything?

[Elliot Kaelin]

I'll have to look up the lyrics. The. I'm trying the. The.

[JPC]

If I were a spice man.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Well, it was. If I were a. You know what? I'm gonna look up the lyrics while we're talking, please.

[Aaron]

Thank you so much.

[Elliot Kaelin]

But before I do that, I'm also gonna. I'm gonna say there's one more Bruce Springsteen musical song. There's another hundred people just got off the train company.

[JPC]

Sounds like a producing album. Yeah. Nebraska Company. It sounds like they could be cousins.

[Adol]

After Adol did a Dune one and I did a Dune one. I think that your wife actually might be wrong. I think they do kind of write themselves. I think that you were onto something with this, I think. Keep working at it.

[JPC]

Oh. Very quickly, I want to say. So I went and saw this spring Scene on Broadway and.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Oh, right, that's what you're talking about.

[JPC]

At one point he mentioned New Jersey. It's like the first time in the show he mentions New Jersey and it's maybe 20 minutes in and as soon as he mentions Jersey, you know, it's a house.

[Elliot Kaelin]

They must go nuts.

[JPC]

1200 people. We'll say 800 people, like scream and go, woo. And yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. And then Springsteen goes, you know, I invented that shit. And people are kind of laughing. He goes, I'm serious. He goes, before when you mentioned Jersey, people would boo or hiss. He goes, I made Jersey cool. And then everyone screamed and yelled and I'm like, I think he really did. I think he brought like a Jersey Pride where before it was. Maybe Frankie Valli had something to do with it.

[Elliot Kaelin]

I think there's. There's a. I mean, there's. There's a New Jersey was always. Has always been a punchline. New Jersey is kind of like, it's up there with the Bronx in some ways. Where in the 40s. If you have a joke and you mention one of those two things, people are like, I know that that's funny. That's a ridiculous place. But he did make it cool. The weird thing is, so he made it cool. This is something that John Stewart would talk about. He made it cool by romanticizing the things that are terrible about it. How the dead end life of a certain kind of person living in New Jersey, making that feel special, you know, so there's something really beautiful about that. Anyway, I found these Dune lyrics really quick.

[Aaron]

I remember as I grew up in Massachusetts and I remember as a kid growing up, the joke that people would tell was New Jersey welcoming you with open legs. And I was like, are we calling a state slutty?

[Elliot Kaelin]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Are we implying that New Jersey is slutty? I've never understood that joke.

[Elliot Kaelin]

That's like, there's. That's like the. Is it. Where is it? Is it Newark? I can't remember where. There's the bridge that just says across it. Newark makes the world takes. And I feel like that was like the. I think it's. No, no, maybe it's Hoboken. I can't remember. It's that they actually revoke my New Jersey card. But like this idea that, like, that's the feeling in New Jersey is like, we do lots of stuff and no one likes us. Take our stuff.

[Aaron]

That's so funny. I'm so excited for these Dune.

[Elliot Kaelin]

We're always like, you know, Buzz Altrin is from here you know, there's important people here.

[Adol]

He wanted out so bad, he went.

[Elliot Kaelin]

To space, went to the moon to.

[Aaron]

Go away, tried to get as far away as possible.

[Elliot Kaelin]

These are all so dumb. Let's see.

[Adol]

Reading over something that you've written and being like, oh, wait a second. I've made a horrible mistake.

[Elliot Kaelin]

At the time, I love them. At the time, I love them. But out of context, not as the. So here's the thing. I also performed these to annoy my co hosts. I don't want to annoy you, you nice people. But this is. I'll do the beginning of this part here. This is just the beginning of the play.

[Aaron]

So excited.

[Elliot Kaelin]

So the name of the play is A Baliset Player on the Sietch. You can also call it Fiddler on the Dune. I'm not going to do it in my Tom Brokaw voice because I'm getting over a flu and I can't do it anymore.

[Aaron]

Okay.

[Elliot Kaelin]

So. But I'll do it as if I'm Javier Bardem being Stilgar, being Tevye.

[Adol]

Yes, please.

[JPC]

Yes, please.

[Adol]

Yeah. The easier route. Go.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Easier, less work. A baliset player on the Siege. Sounds crazy. No. But you could say that each of us in our city of Arrakeen is a baliset player on the sietch trying to eke out a simple rendition of the prophecy without being swallowed by the maw of Shai Hulud. Why do we stay here? We stay because after a lifetime on Arrakis, we are addicted to air that contains the spice melange. But how do we keep our balance? That I can answer in one word. Because we're Fremen. We're Fremen. We're Fremen. That goes on for. Then there's more spoken word stuff. We'll skip that. Although, actually, no, actually, I'll say this part now. You've gotten me. And there's no way. I'm not stopping. Our knowledge that the Kwisetz Haderach is coming has allowed us to keep our balance for many years. Because of the prophecy, we always know how to do everything. How to walk on sand. How to suck water out of the bodies of our enemies. How to wear clothes. For instance, we always wear our steel suits. This shows our constant devotion to not wasting our urine. You may ask, when is the Cuiset's Haderach coming? I'll tell you. I don't know. But the Bene Gesserit tell us he is and that we better be ready for him who day and night must ride on all the sand worms calibrate. The thumpers say his daily prayers. And who has the right as master of the sietch to speak at the Southern Council? The Stilgar. The Stilgar. There's a. Then there's a verse about the Bene Gesseritserit. I'll go through at the end of this one. Hold on. I'll go through the end of this one.

[Aaron]

Please.

[Elliot Kaelin]

At the end. This song is not. There's no. Who must know the way to spread a prophecy for centuries. We Bene Gees who must use the voice to silence blasphemy. So Paul is free to be the Haderach. Bump, bump, bump. Reverend Mother. The mother at three. I lived on Caledon as a teen. I came to Dune. I hear I'll spark a bloody jihad. I hope I don't. Maldives.

[Aaron]

I have a demographic for this.

[Adol]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And then this is right in the pocket for me.

[Adol]

Thank you.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Good. The Instagram goes the ways of the Fremen. Without them, we'd be as shaky as. As. As a baliset player on the sietch. And then if this was the movie, it would immediately pan to the fiddler on the roof, silhouetted, and he would go. And the credits will go on for about seven minutes. And that's why we always fast forward through the credits to get to the rest of the movie. This is a movie we watch. Thank you. This is a movie. I mean, I grew up on the Original cast recording. 0 Mustang. Bea Arthur as Yenta the matchmaker. But my wife grew up on the film cast recording with Topal, and we watched the movie multiple times a year. But we always watch the first half at Rosh Hashanah, the happy half. And then, right as I know, there's the exact moment when you see the close up of the rabbi dancing at the wedding. You got to stop it right there. So you don't see any of the Cossacks coming. And then you save that second half for Yom Kippur. And that's when you watch the sad half.

[Aaron]

Oh, that's perfect.

[Elliot Kaelin]

That's when they sing the sad songs. Yeah.

[Aaron]

What's your favorite song from the show?

[Elliot Kaelin]

My favorite song from the. I mean, it's so hard. There's so many good songs. It's such an amazing show. There's so many good songs, but I think there's a. The song that I think is my personal favorite because it's the one you don't hear as much, but it's so beautiful. Is far from the home I love.

[Aaron]

I was gonna Say that to Life.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Is an amazing song. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. It's a. What did I do? I didn't do. Let's see now. Let's see if I did one for which ones I did for either of those. Oh, to fight. So on mine, in Dune, it's to fight. To fight. Sardaukar. Sardaukar. Sardaukar. Oh, so wait, I gotta do. Okay, hold on a second. I'm eating up all of our time. I apologize.

[Aaron]

I'm telling you, this is exactly what the show has been leading towards.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Okay, good. Far from the home I love. That was for the scene where he's tested by the Reverend Mother at the very beginning of the book. And I just read that book aloud, that singing aloud to my older son not too long ago, and I was very excited about. He goes, so this is my version of it. How can I hope to make you understand? Don't you move your right hand. Keep it in that small box or I will land on your neck with my gom ja bar.

[Aaron]

Yes.

[Elliot Kaelin]

It goes on like that for a little bit, but, yeah, it's so funny. It's one of the. It's such a great show. Like, it's such a great. The actual fiddler, not my dumbbell.

[JPC]

Well, I think we need to see your version at the La Jolla Playhouse or something soon.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Oh, I would love it if you can book me at the Loyal Playhouse. Dude. By one man. Tom Broca sings Fiddler on the Dune for One Night Only.

[Aaron]

I would be in the front row.

[Adol]

I think the thing that I like most about Fiddler on the Roof being combined with Dune is if you got deep enough into Frank Herbert's Dune books, which I don't advise that you do. He does eventually bring, like, Jews into his books.

[Elliot Kaelin]

This is why I've always been kind of trying to chase to finish the series, because I know they show up, and I want to see how he handles Jews in the future, you know? No. That was a no.

[Adol]

You don't. You don't. You don't need to. I think his portrait, his portrayal of how he handles Jews in the Dune books is like, if he watched Fiddler on the Dune and was like, this is Jews. I get Jews.

[Elliot Kaelin]

I mean, there's a lot of American Jews where they watch. They watch Fiddler on the Roof and they're like, that's pretty much it, right? That's how it happens. That's what's going on. As long as he handles Jews better than JK Rowling handles them where she makes them goblins that run a magic bank.

[Aaron]

Oh, geez.

[JPC]

But, Elliot, you have to admit, she handles the Chinese very well.

[Aaron]

Everything else, she's really, really careful.

[Elliot Kaelin]

She handles it all pretty badly.

[Adol]

Yeah. I think. I don't know. I mean, I think J.K. rowling has a pretty great track record with pretty much every minority group. I can't really think of one that she's.

[Aaron]

Oh. JPC hasn't been on the Internet since 2014. Just.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Oh, that's why.

[Adol]

That's. I logged off the Internet when I Googled Frank Herbert Jews. And then I said, oh, I gotta get the fuck out of here. This isn't good.

[JPC]

New Jersey's own Frank Herbert.

[Aaron]

Shall we dive back into some more riddles?

[Adol]

Yes, Riddles.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Oh, sure, sure. Yeah.

[JPC]

At some point, Elliot, I realized when I was on the flophouse, you. I want to say you sang as Randy Newman for 20 minutes, and I'm.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Like, I know about 20 minutes, but for a while.

[JPC]

Yeah, but it was amazing. But I'm like, I think I've heard Elliot sing more than I've heard him talk.

[Elliot Kaelin]

It's possible. I mean, I love to sing, but just like that old song from a cartoon. I love the moona and the juna and the springa. But the. Yeah. Cause Randy Newman's easy because he just sounds like he's swallowing his own tongue the entire. Like, he's kind of like Bruce Springsteen. Bruce Springsteen was kind of jaunty.

[Aaron]

You know, I looked up the. I like to sing a song during COVID because I, like. It was stuck in my head and I couldn't remember what it was. And I looked it up on YouTube and I remember one of the comments being like, wow, this guy really likes to sing a. And it made me laugh for like, three weeks.

[JPC]

I'm gonna read the next riddle just very, very quickly, just for Elliot. As a tip of the hat to Elliot, I do have to say, hey, little girl, is your daddy home? Of course. Randy Newman singing.

[Aaron]

Yay, little girl, is your daddy home?

[JPC]

What does a dog do that a man wears?

[Elliot Kaelin]

Pants.

[JPC]

It is.

[Adol]

Pants, pants, pants.

[JPC]

Okay, let's talk about musical.

[Aaron]

Let's dive back in.

[Elliot Kaelin]

I'm just saying women can wear what a dog does also, you know.

[JPC]

Yes.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Not just. It's like when I was a kid, I was born just long ago enough that I could still enjoy the the doctor was a woman riddle. That was still something that shocked people, and now it's not. It doesn't work anymore.

[Aaron]

Well, our theme song is a bunch of It's A list of all of those common riddles. And the first one is the Doctor was the mother.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Yeah. It's one that I remember. That was a real. It was a real surpriser. But now it's now that. Now that women have overtaken men rightfully in professional intelligence, it's no longer now. It no longer seems strange.

[JPC]

What? Aaron, is that true?

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Sorry. But men could be doctors, too. That's okay.

[Adol]

Don't say that, Aaron. That makes me feel bad that I didn't make it as a doctor.

[JPC]

Dr. J. The rest. What letter comes next in this sequence? D, R, M, F, SLT and then blank.

[Adol]

Slt. What are we talking about? New Jersey.

[Aaron]

Nice.

[JPC]

Salt Lake.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Taylor.

[JPC]

DRL State's a slut.

[Aaron]

No, it's lovely. New Jersey's so beautiful. And great seafood. Underrated seafood.

[Adol]

Okay, Aaron, Slows. Beautiful.

[Elliot Kaelin]

What? The valuable place to winter your revolutionary soldiers if you need to. You know.

[Aaron]

Yes, that's true. That's true.

[JPC]

Grounds for sculpture. Beautiful place.

[Aaron]

Can you read that again? Adol. I'm so sorry. Just the letters.

[JPC]

What letter comes next in the sequence? D, R, M, F, SLT and then blank. And I will say the reason I'm reading this riddle is because it pertains perhaps, or tethers to something we were doing not too long ago.

[Aaron]

Bruce Springsteen. Impressions.

[Adol]

Cocaine. But didn't you say. Don't talk about that.

[JPC]

Yeah, don't talk about it. D, R, M, F, S, L, T. And this last one, I believe, completes it. So we were singing.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Oh, yeah.

[JPC]

I'll say this does relate to singing.

[Aaron]

Jo, re, mi, fa. So, la ti, D. D is next.

[Adol]

D as in do.

[JPC]

Yes. The letters represent notes on a musical scale. The last one is I could not shake.

[Elliot Kaelin]

D for drive, R for reverse. No matter how much I told my head. There's no M. There's no F on any of those.

[JPC]

I do want to see a scene. Aaron and Elliot, you are a married couple that teaches driver's ed. Jpc. You are the one student who's enrolled in this class. And you two teach driver's ed through song. To whatever degree you're comfortable.

[Aaron]

Buckle your seat belt, look in the mirror. Make sure you can see all the mirrors.

[Adol]

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

[Aaron]

We just got into a really big fight before we got in the car. Just give us one sec.

[Elliot Kaelin]

We can be professional. We can be professional about this.

[Aaron]

I can.

[Elliot Kaelin]

We can be professional about this. Let's review the gear change order.

[Adol]

Oh, what will I need? Will I need that? Because this is. Is it. Isn't this an automatic or you never.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Know what you're gonna draw. I'm sorry. No, I'm. Now I'm just singing everything, and I can't. No, we can't. Okay? We're. I was fine, and then you mentioned what happened before, and then. And then I wasn't fine.

[Adol]

I'm sorry.

[Aaron]

I'm sorry. Take off your wedding ring. Leave it on the nightstand. Then your co worker won't know you're married. Sorry.

[Adol]

Sorry.

[Aaron]

I'm just taking what's in my head.

[Adol]

You're gripping my hand really, really hard.

[Aaron]

Am I?

[Adol]

Your.

[JPC]

Your.

[Adol]

Your nails are kind of clawing into the back of my hand.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Why don't we let. Why don't we. Why don't we change. Why don't I. You get in, honey. You get in the back seat. I'll get in the. I'll get in the front seat.

[Aaron]

Okay. So call me honey, I guess. That's nice. That's nice. Okay.

[Elliot Kaelin]

You make one mistake multiple times over the course of years, and it's. And no, no, someone can't let go here.

[Adol]

I can pull over. You guys don't have to do this.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Keep driving.

[Adol]

Oh, I really just don't feel comfortable.

[Elliot Kaelin]

If we reach a curve. Just don't. Just don't turn. Just go straight. Just go straight.

[Adol]

Okay. Just keep going straight.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Just keep going straight. I will outrun this. We'll outrun something. You know, I'll be able to outrun something in my life. Just keep going. Just keep going.

[Aaron]

No.

[Adol]

Yeah. Okay.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Yeah.

[Adol]

Okay.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Honey, you can get out of this car if this is. This is. Let's pretend this car is our marriage. You can get out anytime you want to. But I'm not slowing down.

[Aaron]

I'll get hurt. We're going, like, 60 miles per hour.

[Elliot Kaelin]

That's exactly because.

[Adol]

Are we. Sorry. I have no idea. Is this too much?

[Elliot Kaelin]

No, keep going. Keep going. Faster.

[Aaron]

Put your power on when you change lanes. Oh, my God.

[Adol]

Lanes.

[Elliot Kaelin]

You're allowed to go a little bit above the limit.

[JPC]

See, I was jammed with broken heroes and a Les Fence family.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Randy. Randy. Come on.

[Aaron]

Every driver's ed teacher I had in Boston was the most cartoonish Boston person ever. They all had, like, the thickest Boston accents and were, like, drinking iced Dunkin Donuts coffee in the middle of winter. Just so mad at me the whole time.

[JPC]

Now Aaron does a Bostonian driver's ed teacher. Do they avoid saying the word park or park the car because they don't want to get laughed at?

[Aaron]

No, they lean in.

[Adol]

Okay.

[Elliot Kaelin]

They only make you practice in Harvard Yard. It's the only place.

[Aaron]

Exactly.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Adol.

[Adol]

That last riddle reminded me. I just got back from seeing my wife's family for the holidays and we were hanging out with my brother in law and he was telling us about how he had invented. I think he used the word invented, which is not the word I would have used a new way to order the Alphabet because he didn't think that the Alphabet made sense in the order that it was in, which is a thing. To be fair, I've never thought about.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Other people have tried that.

[Adol]

And he showed us his reordering of the Alphabet and he began to say what his reasoning was. And his reasoning collapsed 10 letters into the Alphabet. But it started with. He was doing it by strokes, like how many strokes it took to write letters. So it was like, it starts with I and then it goes to L and then it goes to T and then it goes to J. And we were. From there it just became untenable. But we were singing for the whole weekend. We were singing Now I know my ilts. And now that's all. That's all. When you were like listing letters off, I was like, now I know my ilts.

[Elliot Kaelin]

I love it when it feels like that's a. That's a deep human need to take an arbitrary system that everyone's agreed on and to be like, this needs to be done more scientifically and then come up with a different arbitrary way to do it. It's like with anytime someone's tried to create a universal language where they're like, the great thing about this language is anyone can learn it and it's easy to use. And it's like, well, I mean, you could say that really about any language time into it, like, it's. You still have to learn it.

[Aaron]

There are real problems we could be solving with that brain power. What are we doing?

[Adol]

I do appreciate the impulse though, to see something that is arbitrary and think like, well, that's arbitrary. Like, that's that. Because that is the thing that does channel us to like, solving societal problems, but it's also the thing that channels us into like, nonsense. Like, you've done. You've wasted a day. You've made nothing. This is nothing.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Sorry. It turns out my shelf didn't need to be organized by the color of the spine of the book. All right, that was a day wasted. Yeah.

[Adol]

Someone could apply that to like gun violence and be like, okay, you actually did a really good job. You did somehow fix this, but this is just a fucked up Alphabet. This is nothing.

[Aaron]

This is Just a fucked up Alphabet.

[JPC]

Speaking of a fucked up Alphabet. Oh, one is. When is L larger than xl?

[Adol]

When is L larger than xl?

[JPC]

I just say Alphabet because those are all letters in the Alphabet.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Is this.

[Aaron]

Can you read it again?

[Adol]

I know X and L are both for, like, Roman numerals, but is L a higher Roman numeral than L would.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Be more than XL. Yeah, you're right.

[JPC]

50 and XL is 40.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Yeah. XL would be L minus 10. Yeah.

[Adol]

Yes.

[Aaron]

This is super bowl football stuff. So I don't know anything about this.

[Elliot Kaelin]

I like how you stumbled into the answer that I never was going to get, but then I could back it up and explain it. I feel like that's. You were the genius that has an insight, and then I'm the mediocre mind that comes later. That is like, here's the math that proves that Einstein's right.

[Adol]

I feel like I can get, like, X, I, and V, Roman numerals easy. But when you start working with L, I'm like, okay. There were that many Romans? I think not.

[Elliot Kaelin]

When the Super Bowls had to start using L, it did make it seem less classy. Like, it was very classy when it was Roman numerals. And then once the L came in, it was like, oh, this. Now it looks silly.

[JPC]

Yeah. For the Heathens, it is funny that they're like, football is the most, like, grunting, male smash beer me, fight. Like, it's the most animalistic thing in our society is, like, professional football. And then they're like, let's use Roman numerals to quantify our Super Bowls. Because I guarantee you, no male watching the super bowl knows Roman numerals.

[Adol]

It's also one of those things that's like, hey, this is a solved problem.

[JPC]

Yeah.

[Adol]

We just had. We are. By the time we were playing football, we had 50.

[JPC]

We could just say, start there now. Very good job, jvc. Elliot, I'm a little disappointed because I believe you hosted a podcast called I, Claudius.

[Elliot Kaelin]

I hosted a podcast called iPodius. That was about the show. That's true. No, you're right. I should have. And I did a lot of research about ancient Rome at the time and everything. Ugh, what a show. I said Filler on the Roof was the greatest show. It's the greatest Broadway musical. Hi, Claudius. Great miniseries. Wonderful miniseries. I did that. Yeah. John Hodgman and I, we watched every episode and then talked about them.

[JPC]

Which one is Iclaudius?

[Adol]

Is that the HBO one?

[Elliot Kaelin]

He lives in Maine. A lot of time. I, Claudius was. No, I. Claudius was a BBC miniseries from the 70s. And it is. The sets and the costumes look so cheap at times it feels like you are watching just like filmed community theater. Except for the fact that the writing and the acting is some of the greatest that television has ever had. The writing is amazing. The first episode is a little clunky because there's a lot of history that they have to get out.

[Adol]

Sure.

[Elliot Kaelin]

But there is a scene in, I think, the fourth episode where a character dies. I don't want to spoil it. Even though it's all based on real Roman history, so it's easy to look up what happened. I mean, it's based on the books by Robert Graves, which are based on the most scandalous take on Roman history, where a character is dying and he's on camera the whole time was listening to a monologue from another character who is speaking to him about why they have killed. They're revealing, this is why I killed you. And. And his face is almost still the whole time. And at the same time, you know, everything he's feeling. And you can pinpoint the moment he dies. Like, the actor somehow is able to make the light go out of his eyes and he dies in that moment. And like Sean Phillips, who plays Livia, the main female character, who's like the. She's always poisoning people left and right so that her son can become Roman emperor. She's so amazing in it. You know, it's an amazing movie. And just have to sit through the fact that it takes place in, like, three different rooms that have been rearranged slightly.

[Adol]

You know, I do hate to do this because I hate to burst anyone's bubble. Cause obviously it seems like you like the show, but in the 1970s, they didn't have the same laws, so they would just kill a lot of the actors.

[Elliot Kaelin]

What? What?

[JPC]

I do want to see a scene based off this. I do want to see a scene. What all three of you. Jpc, Aaron and Elliot. The three of you are Romans, and this is like, evening time. The three of you are at some sort of watering hole, public gathering, whatever it might be, and you've just heard news that Brutus has murdered Caesar and you're just sort of unpacking this information.

[Adol]

Oh, yikes.

[Aaron]

Yikes. It is unseasonably hot.

[Elliot Kaelin]

I could get a towel.

[Adol]

A towel. We're a good. We're good.

[Aaron]

We're good. We're good.

[Adol]

That's a Palladius. What's Palladius's kid? Pleas the younger. He is not doing well.

[Elliot Kaelin]

I don't think Anybody is right now.

[Aaron]

Wait, sorry, I feel like I'm just processing the news. What did that little kid that was coming up and said, hear you. Hear you say. What did he say?

[Adol]

I. Are we talking about Palladius?

[Aaron]

No, no, before that. Right?

[Elliot Kaelin]

No, no, the new. The news kid. Nuis.

[Adol]

Nuis Nuz. That's right. Oh, yeah. I mean, he said, brutus killed Caesar.

[Aaron]

That can't be right.

[Adol]

He may have said that Caesar died brutally. Honestly, I feel like the headlines, they're going. Going for too much Zaz, and it loses the message, you know?

[Aaron]

That's so true. That's so true. But that couldn't possibly happen because we checked for knives when we greet each other with our arms.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Yeah. That's why we. That's why we grab each other's arms and shake it so forcefully. But I get. I don't. I mean, they were so close. They were so close that maybe he didn't check. But at the same time, why would he do it? They were so close.

[Adol]

You know what I think we need to do? I think we need a better system to check for knives. I think we need to do, like.

[JPC]

Oh, totally, totally.

[Adol]

Like, we all have towels. We're all good.

[Aaron]

We're all good.

[Adol]

Yeah.

[JPC]

I had to try.

[Adol]

I was talking to my friend Tsadius, and he was saying that if we take the back of our hands and run it down the front of the legs and then across the crotch.

[Aaron]

TS Aidias is a real pervert, and he loves to yell at people real early in the morning.

[Adol]

Oh, that's clicky for me.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Now he says he wasn't keeping those scrolls real. He drew what people looked like under their clothes.

[Aaron]

You know, he was keeping those girls.

[Adol]

Idiots. Yeah.

[Elliot Kaelin]

You're never going to keep knives out of. People want knives bad enough, they're going to bring knives. There's no way to do it, you know, it shouldn't even try. Not even worth bothering, you know?

[Adol]

I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. You know what? Caesar's dead now, so what does it matter, right? Like, he's. That was the one guy we didn't want.

[Elliot Kaelin]

It's so crazy. The thing is, like, I want it. Every day I get up and I'm like, can't someone just kill Caesar already? Like, can't they just. But now that happened. Like, it feels weird, you know? It feels like the. It feels like the. The. The. The world got pulled out from beneath me. Which can happen since it's not round.

[Aaron]

Yes, exactly.

[Adol]

We're also saying the Same thing about, like, kill Caesar, like, because I was secretly kind of like, on the download, like, God, I wish somebody would kill Caesar.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Yeah, I think we were all. I mean, we. You couldn't say it out loud, but you could think. I mean, you never want to wish death on anybody.

[Aaron]

But of course, if you got, like.

[Adol]

Really sick, well, maybe Palladius.

[Aaron]

Yeah, maybe Palladius. Oh, hi, Palladius.

[Adol]

Hey, Palladius.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Hey, guys. Anybody want to.

[Aaron]

No. Still no.

[Adol]

No, we're all good. They're sopping wet. Palladius. Those are the wettest tales we've ever seen.

[JPC]

Did you hear about Caesar?

[Aaron]

Yeah, we just heard.

[Adol]

We did?

[Elliot Kaelin]

Yeah.

[JPC]

He beat Brutus in a game of battleship.

[Adol]

Yeah.

[JPC]

Oh, E2 brute.

[Aaron]

Okay.

[JPC]

Sonnka's battleship.

[Adol]

Very good, Palladius.

[Aaron]

C C Adol. No, no.

[JPC]

Adolescent little old me was sitting here being like, oh, I have a joke. But the scene. And then you guys called me in. I was like, you fuckers messed up.

[Elliot Kaelin]

You're like, now it's gonna happen. Half my brain was on the scene and half my brain was trying to come up with. What is the unhelpful New York Times headline about Brutus? It's like, at the Roman Senate, a surprise and greeting or something like that. Differing expectations for Caesar's appearance at the Senate, neither borne out. You know, like some kind of vague thing. We were like, what are you even telling me?

[JPC]

How do I parse through this? Elliot, thank you so much for coming on our riddle show. Let us know again about your riddle show and anything else you want to plug or promote.

[Elliot Kaelin]

You got it. This is great plugging time. I really appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me. This is so much fun. Thanks for being excited to do it. And it was, let's see. So I'd love to plug Smartless presents Clueless. It's a new puzzle podcast. I host it. It. Sean Hayes is the contestant every single episode with a special guest of his, a friend or a family member. The first episode, it's him and the other two smartless guys, Jason Bateman and Will Arnett. And it should be a really fun, funny show. And the episodes are like 10 to 12 minutes long. They're super short, so it's something you can eat. It's a popcorn sized snack of a podcast. I've got my main podcast, the Flophouse Podcast, where we talk about bad movies. I've been doing that for almost 17 years now. And I'm gonna keep doing it, I think, till I die. It's just gonna. I'm just gonna do it for a long time. So. And other things, though.

[Adol]

Maybe the movies will get better.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Oh, no, they only get. It's kind of like this in days and confused when Megani is like, I get older and the girls stay the same age. We keep doing it and the movies stay bad movies and just a few other small things. I'm writing the monthly Harley Quinn comic book from DC Comics, so pick that up. It comes out once a month on Wednesdays, and I'll be writing that for a little bit while I have a children's picture book coming out next year called Sadie Mouse Wrecks the House. I had a couple other children's picture books out, but this is a new one. And I actually have some other stuff coming out later next year, but it's so far in the future. No one will remember by the time they listen to this. But sometime maybe I can come back sometime and promote some more stuff.

[JPC]

Yes, please. And of course you'll be also on our Springsteen on Broadway Patreon, which we're recording in a little bit here.

[Elliot Kaelin]

So we got to do it. Definitely. We got to do it.

[JPC]

For sure.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Yeah.

[Adol]

Okay. Adol. Anything to plug?

[JPC]

Actually, yes. In fact, I do have something to plug, which is the three of us. And our fourth host, Janet Varney will be at SketchFest Saturday, January 18th from 4pm to 5:30pm at Gateway Theater in San Francisco. So if you're in the area, please see us. Heywood Live with Jannavarni Saturday, January 18, 4pm Gateway Theater. Aaron Keefe, do you have anything to plug or promote?

[Aaron]

Yeah, I host a monthly show in Los Angeles at the Lyric Theater called Quality Time. So if you want to go follow that on Instagram or message me to get maybe a comp ticket to come see us. It's a true variety show. We've had a high school history teacher come in and teach us a quick lesson. We're having Carol, we had carolers last month in our Christmas show. So like just come and enjoy.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Oh, come and enjoy that show.

[Aaron]

I'm really proud of it. Jpc, Anything to plug?

[Adol]

Yeah, I got something to plug. Speaking of shows that you can come watch, you can come watch World News tonight, Saturday nights at the IO Theater in Chicago. News start time. We're now starting at 7:30. We're 7:30 in the new Year's, so it's. God, I have so many years of me saying that the show is at 8:00. Ugh. Casey, would it be too much if you go back to all the previous episodes where I said that the show was at 8 o'clock and let people know that the show is at 7:30. Thank. Thank you, Casey.

[JPC]

Thank you. Thank you, Casey.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Thank you, Casey.

[Adol]

No, well, anyway, that's all I have to plug.

[JPC]

Of course, Bruce Springsteen from New Jersey, but famously was hatched from an egg that was shot here from another planet.

[Aaron]

Is that true?

[JPC]

Yeah, that's what I'm seeing on Wikipedia. Oh, sorry.

[Adol]

That's what I'm seeing. Yeah.

[JPC]

This is Psychopedia.

[Aaron]

Jpc, Congratulations. Your website got off the ground, Jupiter.

[Adol]

And we need money. So please, if you ever consider donating Encyclopedia. We can't do it without you. And it doesn't even have to be money. You can send us a potato. You can send us a lemon with a hole drilled into it. You can send us a thought that you've had. Like if you had a crazy fucking thought that you don't think it's safe to tell anybody, send it to us. It could be something for us. We could put on Psychopedia.

[Elliot Kaelin]

Edited by Emily Cardamus and Emily Namoris.

[Adol]

Hey there Batmans and Banes. If you like that, you are gonna love this week's Patreon. It's improv from Gotham City. You can listen to that plus our entire back [e-mail] heyroidalvirtle by joining the clue crew for $5 a month. Or start your seven day free trial or the review crew for $8 a month. Plus get those ad free episodes. See you there.

[Elliot Kaelin]

That was a Headgum podcast.