SPEAKER_01 0:16

Welcome to Split the Corner. What can we get you? What is going on, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the Split the Corner podcast. My name is Kyle. Across the internet universe for me, it's my buddy Kaz. Kaz, how you feeling, bud?

SPEAKER_00 0:38

I'm feeling closer now. I didn't now that now that I'm a across the internet. I I was wondering where you were gonna go with that. I was I'm I'm not directly across from you, but digitally directly. I I guess. I don't know. It's gonna be a weird one.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

It's gonna be a weird day. We're here for it. And I want to get started, as we always do, with our celebration of today's national day. And Kaz, today's day is a little a little much, but we're gonna dive into it. It is National Yadig Day. Y A D I G Ya Dig.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Can you dig that? And that's what I thought, and and I was excited for the different avenues of like ways we've said you dig in in modern culture, and it was gonna take us to like pro wrestling promos and you know slang from you know bygone eras and all of this. And then I found out it's an acronym. It is an acronym.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

And as somebody who says can you dig it on a fairly regular basis, I kind of think that this day was misleading. I don't know when I started saying dig it or can you dig it or any of that. Might have been after I saw the what was it, Warriors? Is that the movie? Come out and play.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Anyway, yeah, that was that was Warriors. That's a good one. That's that's a good shout out.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

The phrase you dig is an acronym for you are destined in greatness, which is uh a day meant for self-affirmation, for feeling good about yourself, for uplifting others. And I gotta tell you, it feels a bit uh stretchy to me.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

Yeah, yeah, strong reach. First of all, I would prefer uh to be destined for greatness, yeah. Yeah, so so youfka, uh, or or you du for ga if we use the number. Um then it just starts sounding very Norse. Destined in greatness feels like I'm going to go someplace great, like you will find yourself in greatness, and we would be like, Oh my god, that's amazing, and then find out that like greatness is just outside of Topeka, Kansas. I was gonna say Wyoming, right? Welcome to Greatness, Wyoming, and everyone's like, Oh, it I it was a tourism brochure.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

You find out that it's like a cattle rustling town from the mid-19th century, right? Or spend time there, or the other option, you're just in a room full of people better than you. Uh I feel that way pretty much all the time. Right?

SPEAKER_00 3:44

And now I am destined to be in this greatness. Look at all this greatness around me. I'm in it, I'm really in it right now. What a reach, man. It could have just been a day about saying cool things and feeling cool saying them, you dig? But instead, we gotta have this stupid forest for the trees discussion about whether or not we're using the right format because we gotta make an acronym out of it and and get a hobby.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

I like that in today's day and age we have come to a point where uplifting others is a mainstay of everyday social culture. You know, people are calling themselves kings and queens, and that's a thing that I don't necessarily agree with at all because not everyone is a king or a queen. However, I'm here for uplifting and I'm here for uh treating others with respect and making sure that everybody knows that they are worth something and all of that. However, there comes a point where you're trying just a little too hard, and I think that is that is exemplified here in national you dig day. Can't we just call it national everyone be cool to each other day or national self-affirmation day? I don't know why we have to reach for this very like elementary level phrase. It just seems like somebody out there was like, oh, you know, you dig. I can turn that into some cool acronym. And you didn't you didn't turn it into a cool acronym, you turned it into an acronym that Kaz and I are gonna sit here and tell you it was a little much.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Yeah, a little much. And I like acronyms. I'm an acronym guy. I think it's a fun thing to do with with words and phrases, and it helps you remember things and it makes them catchy or or you know, more memorable. But uh but this just feels like the kind of thing you really have to over-explain, and that just makes it annoying. Like you put this on a t-shirt and you walk by, and I'm like, hey man, cool shirt. And now you're gonna stop and tell me about it. You know, like, oh, it's an acronym. It really, it's it's my mantra. Uh, and I'm out on all of that.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

That sounds terrible. I don't want to have that conversation with somebody. I really don't. Because I feel like that's going to lead to a conversation about granola or Brandon Boyd owning a quinoa farm.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

Like the moment they say mantra, I would just like to call an old-fashioned Zack Morris time out and then exit stage right.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Everything freezes.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Yes, you walk around him, you're a block away before you do on time. And I'm out. But alright, so so interesting segue because because those people do come into the bar. Those people do, and and I think more so than come into the bar, those are the people that will rent out your space for a private event. I I've I've been a part of these uh on on multiple levels, bartender, manager, promoter, uh all of the above, where I'm looking for people to, you know, please host an event on Thursday afternoon because we're not gonna make any money other than that. So we'll put out some light bites and you know, we do a limited open bar if you're willing to bring your people here. And those people are uh fairly insufferable. I I I'm not a huge fan of losing my bar to and maybe that's what I hate about brunch, is that I've I feel like the crowd that sits at the bar for brunch are not my people's. Maybe not yet. Maybe they become my people's later in the evening, but they gotta go home and change first and and figure it out. But we would work these events that that had these people come in or these organizations, and they all take up the bar, and and next thing you know, there's 14 old ladies in red hats asking you what your quiche of the day is, and it's just it's just out of my element.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Do you know what I'm saying? Absolutely. They're having very in-depth conversations about why the Sauvignon Blanc that you carry at the bar is not the Sauvignon Blanc you should be carrying at the bar.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Right, but they're not even name-dropping a better Sauvignon Blanc.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

No, they're not. Or why don't you have the rose that I like? Why don't you have that rose I had that one time on that cruise I took with all these other ladies in red hats?

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Yeah, the one that I like that I've always drank that has to be. I that's all right, let's have that conversation because I have a great aunt out there that religiously drinks gym beam and diet right. And diet right is a soda that you can only get in like four shopping malls left in this country, but it was big back in the day, and she stocks it in a cabinet in her kitchen, and that's her drink. So, I mean, you do get a lot of old lady shout outs for for classic cocktails, but what's the what's the weirdest thing an old person has ever ordered from you?

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Man, I've had one call out, I think, for a Harvey Wallbanger.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Yeah, see, that's exactly what I'm talking about. And there was this era of cocktails that just oof. Nobody knows how to make a Harvey Wallbanger. It's that long, tall bottle of Galeano that's sitting up on the top shelf that you've never touched ever. That's been there since the last guy that owned the bar. Yeah, right. Harvey Wallbanger dropped it off in himself.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Hey guys, I have this really disgusting liqueur I need to get rid of. Can you just name a drink after me?

SPEAKER_00 10:13

It doesn't fit on any shelf ever, and it looks like an upside-down baseball bat.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

It does. I have, I'll tell you this, I think the the most common thing for people of a certain age, uh, especially wine drinkers, is that they have a specific number of ice cubes that need to go into the wine. They'll be like, I'd like a glass of your finest Pinot Noir with three ice cubes. If there's four, I'll send it back. If there's two, I'll send it back. It has to be three. Or get me your butteriest Chardonnay with a side of ice. Like give me a rock's glass of ice on the side of your butteryest Chardonnay. It's so specific, and I don't understand why.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Well, and I appreciate I appreciate the side of ice. Um, because the the counting the number of ice cubes that are going to go into your anything at the bar based on what you drink at home is ridiculous. We don't use the same ice. Your home ice maker does not make bar ice. And I alright, maybe, but for the most part, 99% of you, if you're out there in listeners' world, the thing that you're pulling out of your freezer is not the same thing that I'm scooping out of my well. So if you use three cubes at home, that's math that's not gonna convert. You don't you're not gonna use three cubes at the bar. What happens if I got little pebble ice? How many of those do you want? What's the conversion rate there? So I like the ice on the side. My problem with the ice on the side is I can already see it in my head. I'm gonna put the ice on the side. You're gonna take a sip of your wine, and then you're gonna go knuckles deep into that ice glass, pull out four cubes and drop them in with your hand, and I'm gonna be a little grossed out. Yep, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

That is I can see it. Yep. I can like I'm visualizing it now, and it's gross. It's gross, dude. There is just we talked about it on this show before about specificity at the bar and how it can be a good thing and it can be an annoying thing, but it just seems to me that there is a specific age group that has these weird ice specific uh rules uh attached to their wines. But to go back just a bit, you had uh you had said something about renting out the bar on a on a Wednesday or a Thursday or something when there's not going to be any money. And I have one example specifically that I'd like to discuss because it's to this day the craziest thing that I think has ever happened at a bar that I've worked at. And it was myself and a good friend who were bartending together and the manager at the bar, and it was just a very small thing, and they rented it out, and they came in with the distinction that they were a running club, like they were a club of runners, and we've hosted runner parties before, and they're always very gamey. Like the room starts to smell like a bunch of runners when they come in. A lot of micelobe ultra. Yeah, so much micelobe ultra, but they're a very specific looking group of people, and then on this particular night, this quote unquote running club comes in, and it's a bunch of people that don't look like runners. And I'm not here to body shame anyone or or give anybody a hard time, but they were a rotund group of individuals. Turns out that this quote unquote running club was a BDSM club, and they all came in with their trench coats and their parkas. And when they took off these trench coats and parkas, all of them were wearing leather, and uh they proceeded to have a BDSM party at this bar. Somebody whipped out a cat of ninetales, there was some people in chaps, and one woman in particular, and I'll never forget this as long as I live, was talking to a guy next to her, and they're both in their leather, and she was a a a larger woman, and she was a busty larger woman, and at one point she just whipped open uh the straps of her little leather shirt and for lack of a better term, flopped these things onto the bar. Just whipped them right out, slapped them on the bar, and they just sat there. And about five minutes later, they were all asked to leave because this is not what we had signed up for. It was the craziest thing I think I've ever seen. Just like it was like nine people that showed up, and they all just were in leather and smacking each other with catanine tails and whipping out tits and all kinds of things. It was it was a wild evening.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

It's crazy to me that they tried to sneak that past the staff. Like, you gotta let somebody in on what's really going down. Like, managers will draw the curtains and put certain people on to, you know, to work the bar discreetly or whatever. But to try and sneak that past like like no one's gonna notice. My original take was gonna be well, why can't they also be a run club? You would think that if they're wearing all that leather, they would have to keep in some sort of shape, right? So we'll BDSM on our own time, but on Thursdays we'd jog. So, like, why why can't two things be true? But no, that's that's wild that they try to so many windows.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Oh my god. Well, you know what? This is an interesting segue into what it is that we wanted to talk about today. Uh a couple of weeks ago, we had a discussion on nerd culture, and we never got around to discussing things that we ourselves are into or were into that could be considered on the nerd spectrum. And we thought that we were doing ourselves a disservice by not at least throwing our hats in the ring for this conversation because I think we we pointed out things that other people were into, and I don't think we shamed anyone or we made fun of anyone, but you know, it might not be a bad idea to pull the curtain back a little bit on ourselves and let the listening audience know that we too are guilty of having nerdy, guilty pleasures. And what better place to do that than on a podcast that is going to live in the internet forever?

SPEAKER_00 17:29

You pull the curtain back. We're gonna we're gonna we're gonna tear the curtain down and wear it as a cloak as we journey to new frontiers. This is a well and I'll take all right, I'll take uh uh I'll I'll jump in feet first and I will take number one off the big family feud board. Um as a quick callback, uh you said Harvey Wahbanger, and I immediately knew exactly what you were talking about with the recipe and the Galliano bottle and that whole thing. So I my first and and potentially my biggest nerdiness is I am quite nerdy about my job. Um the the industry, the the backstories, the history, the just all of it. I'm fascinated by it, and I go down real interesting, well, they're interesting to me. The general public would probably be like, that's super nerdy. Um, but I go down rabbit hole after rabbit hole of historical facts and and flavor profiles, and so I I would say um I would say that I'm I'm not alone, right? There's a lot of people working in computers that are nerdy about their computer stuff, and people working in cars that get super nerdy with their car stuff, but you don't you don't have to. There's that there's that amount of knowledge that is necessary to be good at your job, and then there's the infinity that extends beyond that of like I will clock out from work, come home, and doom scroll bartending videos. Because I'm interested. I want to see what people are doing, I want to see what trends are coming around, I want to see what tactics they're using, and and is there a new um my feed has been lit up by this this uh two-part magnetic jigger, so it's interchangeable. You get like a one ounce and a half ounce and a one and a half and a two, and they're magnetic in the middle, so you can change them around. It looks absolutely unnecessary, but I'm fascinated by stuff like that. So I've that's my number one is I have a shelf full of bartender books, I've got copies of things from the late 1800s, I've got you know full uh um I want to call them epitomes, but they're like like research books of like everything you could possibly want to know about the history of certain spirits. So I that's gotta be number one. If I'm gonna if I'm gonna get bullied for being an anything nerd at this stage in my life, uh that's probably that's probably the head of the game.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

Yeah, and I I fall down that rabbit hole myself a little bit, especially when I was in liquor sales. Um, there would be brands that would be brought in where for whatever reason I would get hooked by the story of it. You know, like there's this uh there's this one particular bourbon when I was doing sales that was founded in the I think it was the the early 2000s, but it was because they had found this distillery that had used to put Pappy Van Winkle through and and and some other things, and they had re-like the the distillery had fallen into disrepair and they they redid it, and there's this whole thing about they found these five skeleton keys, and now that's part of the story, and you can find these different numbered keys on the bottle, and if you collect all five, you can mail them in and they'll send you some sort of keepsake or something, but then you get into the flavor profiles and all this, and like, yeah, dude, I'm I'm completely on board with all of that. And I don't know why I find it so fascinating, but I do, you know, like I like the the differences between different vodkas and why a certain vodka is being made with a certain grain or a certain fruit or whatever is going to have this flavor profile versus that. I mean, I know that vodka is supposed to be a neutral spirit, but if anybody has ever worked in the vodka world, you know that that is completely not true. Um, everything has a different profile, and it all is based on what it's made out of. Is it grapes? Is it wheat? Is it corn? Is it potato? And I find all that stuff fascinating. But I would be inclined to agree with you that the general drinking population does not nerd out as hard on that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Right. You you talk about the the five keys in the history of the bourbon distillery, and the vast majority of people go, who cares? What's it taste like? You know, so that's that's what we're talking about. We're we're talking about these things that that poke at you, that you are interested in beyond the level of of normal consumption, right? Whether you know, there are there are tons of people out there, and I meet them every day, that drink wines they don't understand. Right. You know, that that that don't go as shallow down the rabbit hole to know that like for the most part, the name of the wine is the grape variety used to make the wine. Right. You know, that that m merlot is made with Merlot grapes. Like you're not you you're skimming a real shallow surface, and still most people are like, I don't know, I like the red one. So so what else? What else uh I I think the question then becomes uh nerdiness becomes synonymous with like what else are you overly fascinated with? Right? I I think we could both put pro wrestling on there because we've both we've both spent excess amount of time in that world learning more than we need to know to be regular fans.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

Absolutely, and I can even take that to another level entirely. And in the late 90s and early 2000s, when I was really cutting my teeth on pro wrestling and really getting into it, I found something called e-feds. Are you familiar with what an e-fed is, Kaz?

SPEAKER_00 24:18

I would assume it's the people that show up to your house when you pirate online movies.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

Pretty pretty pretty close. But uh no. What an e-fed was was a fantasy wrestling federation, basically, where you would create your character, you would use a picture of like an actual wrestler as like your avatar, you would create your personality, you would create all of these things, and then you would type out promos against your opponent. And whoever was running that e-fed was then responsible for writing out matches, and you would win or lose based on how well you wrote your promos. And as a person in my early to mid-teens, and maybe even later into my teens than I'm comfortable admitting, I would spend hours coming up with these incredibly detailed promos. It was like Tolstoy meets Ric Flair, and I was absolutely obsessed with it for years. There were these websites that you would go to and like you would create your character and you'd have to wait and get emailed to see if that you were let in by these the the the the audition promo that you would type out. I mean, this was like a completely immersive thing, and it was nothing that I've ever admitted in public until right now. Because yeah, it was freaking nerdy.

SPEAKER_00 26:02

Well, and the wrestling fan in me wants to run with it. Like I I I want to ask questions like well, what happens to someone like the Ultimate Warrior who couldn't deliver promos and and probably could barely type, and i you know, it are you typing out that that we're gonna we're gonna take the we're gonna take the rockets and the rocket fuel and we're gonna take the rocket fuel to the outer space and like what do you how do you type out Steiner math?

unknown 26:37

Right?

SPEAKER_00 26:38

You just do it. Steiner math is uh for those that don't know, is a a famous wrestl uh infamous wrestling promo where Scott Steiner tries to explain the odds of defeating him in a match and ends up saying something to the effect of with uh that he has a hundred and forty-two percent chance of winning the championship or something like that. It's a long promo of ridiculousness. But it that's not even where we need to go with it, because we need to keep it in this this central world of your like double tapping nerd interests there because it's because it's both your wrestling nerdom and sort of the the technological you know, I don't actually wrestle, but I play a wrestler online. Yeah, dude. Kind of nerdiness.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

It was fanfiction wrestling, essentially. Like I had rivals. There were dudes that I disliked to my core because they were talking all kinds of shit on the wrestler that I had created in their promos. And like I was thinking to myself, I would knock this dude out. Given the opportunity in real life, I would put an elbow through his face because of some shit that he said about my fake online wrestler with his fake online wrestler. And my God, to say that out loud.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

Meanwhile, he's just as nerdy in some basement in West Virginia. And it's right.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

Oh, it's just, I mean, to be honest with you, no regrets. It was a lot of fun. I enjoyed doing it. I think that it absolutely helped me become a better writer because when I was seeing guys put out stuff that was better than what I was putting out, I was like, mm-mm, not today. And then I would force myself to go deeper and write better. And yeah, I don't know, dude. It like it's again, I've never admitted this in public before, but it is something that I spent copious amounts of time doing when I was younger.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

It does, it does sort of sound like something that a cool creative writing teacher could turn into a semester's project. But does it does it have a ceiling? Because if you get all the way to Shakespeare, it it's the best writing, but it's a shitty promo.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

That's right. Thou hast wronged me for the last time. That's not intimidating. That's not.

SPEAKER_00 29:20

Anyway. And Hamlet said to Mercutio that after backlash, the tag titles would finally be theirs. It's not, I don't even think those two are in the same play. They're not, but they don't have to be because you easily know more about wrestling than Shakespeare.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

It's the Shakespeare Wrestling Federation. It's just it's all characters from Shakespeare in a battle royal for the title. Come on, Iago, come get some. Forget you, Romeo.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

God, that's its own podcast. I'm writing that down. Yeah, we're gonna royal rumble some fictional scenarios and and figure out who would come out on top. I like that. Yeah, yeah. Write that down. That's actually not a bad side project.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

But all right, well, now that I've completely debased myself in front of our audience, give me something else, man. There's gotta be there's listen, and liquor, liquor aside, wine aside, I mean, beer aside, I mean, that's all something you can go super nerdy on. But uh there's gotta be something else for you.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

I I fall into a lot of the regular tropes. You know, I'm a Star Wars guy, I'm a Marvel guy, I'm a Lord of the Rings guy. Um, I I think the one that that sticks out a little differently for me is I am a huge uh Jim Henson fan. The the works of Jim Henson. So the the Muppets, the Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, Labyrinth, Dark Crystal, the the whole pantheon of everything that man touched. I I think his his creativity was was something we we rarely see. And I like I said, it's an it's an over exaggerated fascination. I just devour anything he he touched. You know, if it's a book about his life, if it's a if it's a documentary, if it's an interview, old footage, I'm I'm in everything Henson. I'm here for it.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

Kaz, would you like to tell the people at home how far you drove and what you spent money on in order to potentially follow in the footsteps of your hero Jim Henson?

SPEAKER_00 31:38

So I I went down, we're gonna accomplish a couple things here. I went down to a small town outside of Ashburn, Virginia, uh where I picked up used church puppets. That sounds so gross. It does, but not like used how, man. So there was a there was a guy whose mother was in charge of the church's puppet ministry, which sounds like you know, a bunch of kids that put pipe cleaners on socks and like, you know, sing the the weekly hymn or whatever, but instead is full forearm sized Henson style Muppet puppets. Um that I again, weird statement that I got a fantastic deal on um that are taking up space on two of the bookshelves in in my dining room, uh waiting for uh an opportunity and some creativity and probably a little bit of courage. Um because uh because like Jim Henson, it it was not my original plan to create a puppet empire. However, um sometimes we make the best of things and we do what comes our way, and and it feels like an interesting opportunity. So yeah, I've gone as far down the rabbit hole as as commissioning and seeking out my own puppets uh to do Henson style projects with. How many did you how many did you get? For those of you who can't see him, he's counting. 11 plus three that are Christmas specific. So 14 puppets. Um, and the Christmas ones are gonna get used as well. There's two gingerbreads and a talking tree um that I'm sure are gonna get to some sort of Instagram version of baby it's cold outside.

SPEAKER_01 33:59

Stay tuned for all of that. Well, speaking of Instagram, Kaz, I think you could you should throw up a picture on the official split the corner podcast Instagram of at least a couple of these puppets.

SPEAKER_00 34:11

Oh, absolutely. And I I think our Instagram in general, that that's something I'm not a nerd about. I am not a social media nerd, I am not a phone tech computer nerd. So, you know, a lot of this podcasting stuff we're sort of learning as we go. And and I think I'd I'd like to start seeing our Instagram be used more for like a look inside the episode. You know, here's here's something you didn't see because you can't see. So that's find us on Instagram. It's Split the Corner podcast on Instagram. We're we'll we'll be posting a lot of little little episode add-ins. But yeah, we'll go we'll get a picture of some puppets up. Specifically puppets. Maybe maybe split the corner needs a needs a puppet host or or uh who is the guy that did the the voice for Jeopardy for all those years. Yeah, yeah. He just the puppet introduces us, right? Exactly. Which just use the puppet voice, but it but it'll be real, trust us. Um so yeah, I'm a I'm a Muppet nerd. If if you sit down next to me at the bar and you don't want to talk about scotch and rum and the history of America as it's based in spirits, but you would love to talk about how Jim Henson was able to make Kermit ride a bike. Uh I'm I'm down for that conversation. I'd I would love to talk about the submarine that he spent hours in under the log to make Kermit play the banjo on the lake in the beginning of the Muppet movie. I did these are the rabbit holes that I've been down. A submarine? Yeah, he had a little pod because he had to be under the water with his arm coming out behind the log into Kermit. So in order to be under the log and still in the water, they built him this like glass bubble that he hangs out in. And that's a lot of uh the fascination is is the way he was able to solve problems and and being being pulled away so early, the the influences that he had on modern technology and CGI and you know the ability to cast a live action movie that doesn't actually have a human in it, uh these things are are things that he would he would probably be really interested in seeing the development of. So to be a Henson nerd also is to be a puppetry nerd, also is to be an applied sort of uh sort of applied sciences, right? He he figured out his own stitch so that you don't see any of the seams on any of the puppets. He figured out a way to stitch the felt so that you can fleece over it. So that's my that's my point, is in most of these nerddoms we find multiple facets, right? If you got into model trains, not only did you get into trains, because you're like, look at my little 1928 Lionel replica with the working thing things, but you also got into mild electrical engineering because you have to figure out how to make train work and you have to figure out how to make the switch work and you have to figure out how to so there are there are benefits to a lot of these things, but my I think my question for you is what about sports? How come sports fans aren't nerds? It should fit all the criteria. You know more about the Phillies than your average sports fan needs to know to be a Phillies fan. I know more about soccer than your average soccer fan needs to know to be a fan. So, how come I don't put soccer on my list of things that I am nerdy about?

SPEAKER_01 38:26

I think that's an excellent question, and I don't know if I have a definitive answer, but I think it probably boils down to the fact that for so much of modern human existence, sports has been put on a pedestal of herodom, you know. So when people talk about, oh, who are your heroes? You hear Demaggio, you hear Jim Brown, you hear Mario Lemieux, Wayne Gretzky, on and on, Michael Jordan, on and on down the list, it goes because these are your sports heroes. These are and it goes beyond sports. Not even they ask, who is your hero? It's not this is my sports hero, it's this is my hero. You know? And the fact is that it's just, I think, a socially acceptable thing to say that and to think that. Because if you were to go to somebody and say, who's your hero? And they were like, Gambit from X-Men, you'd be like, ah, fucking nerd. You know what I mean? I don't know why that is, but I think it's just more socially acceptable to be into sports than it is to be into something that came out of someone's brain. I mean, we touched on it a little bit in a previous episode where we were talking about uh uh fantasy football or fantasy baseball being akin to Dungeons and Dragons uh for medieval enthusiasts or medieval fantasy enthusiasts. Because it's I mean, it's really not that different if you think about it. You're essentially rolling the dice on whether or not that running back is going to get you 100 yards a game or not, and it it it breaks down to it being a is something that our society has found more acceptable than other things. And maybe because it's a huge business. I don't know. But the fact that I can probably tell you more about you know, baseball statistics or football statistics or something to that effect than I can about the literary importance of a Dickens or or something like that, probably says more about our society and our culture than it does about me personally.

SPEAKER_00 40:39

So the Dickens means a necessary shout out. Uh shout out to Laura, it was best times, it was worst times. Um But we are sports nerds. Yeah. We are, and I think the the connotation that comes with nerd is what what we and I think we're we're starting to embrace it. We're starting to love the nerdiness of people in society. We're starting to, you know, if you're a valuable member of of the bar trivia team, then then you have your you have your place in society, right? Like I show up on Tuesdays because no one knows more about pop culture than me. You know, like that's the that has its place. So I think that's what we need to do is we just need to set that as the hyperbole. Like, I'm not a sports fan, I am a basketball fan, I'm a soccer nerd. Right. You know, like I that's just the extension that it goes to. And and if I'm sitting at a bar and I'm rattling off uh, you know, European soccer teams that have contested for the Champions League and and why this tournament is crazy, and explaining to you how aggregate scoring works and blah blah blah, and you look at me and go, nerd, I need to just embrace that. I I need to just be like, yep, I'm a I'm a soccer nerd. Because it is, it's the level past fandom, right? I'm I'm a I'm a Marvel fan, I'm a Lord of the Rings nerd.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

Right. The distinction being how far down that rabbit hole you're willing to go, or maybe not even willing to go. I think it do you think that it goes beyond willing? Because it's at a certain point, it becomes not something that you're willing to do, it's something that you are just doing. You know what I mean? Like, let's take Fish and The Grateful Dead for uh an example. Like those people, my people, our people, it at some point it becomes not something that you do because you know you're necessarily invested, it's because you're unnecessarily invested in it. There is a there's a distinction that comes with knowing that in 1994, Fish did a four-night run between Rhode Island and Long Island, and it's known as the Island Tour, and it ribs. But like I know that I've listened to those shows, I have those shows somewhere, but it's not something that I set out when I started listening to Fish. I didn't set out to go and see them a hundred plus times. I didn't set out to know that they hadn't played this one song more than nine times, and I got to see it in 2010 in, you know, Camden, New Jersey or whatever. But the fact is, like I just know that stuff. It enveloped me. I didn't have a choice in it. It just it it caught me and it never let go. And I think that that's a good example of what nerddom in a certain facet really is. Is it's not that you are making a choice at some point, you know. I mean, it almost becomes a dictory. A dictory where you don't have a choice in how invested you become in these things. Like, did you set out to want to buy used church puppets gross? Probably not. It's just something that you did because of your. your quote unquote addiction to Jim Henson and all Jim Hensery things.

SPEAKER_00 44:08

So at this point I I need to post a picture because they're not they're not gross. I don't I don't want people thinking the term used church puppets that gets me. And that's that's the you know that's the heading that that didn't draw me to the post. Uh it was the pictures that got me there.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

The title of this episode is going to be used church puppets.

SPEAKER_00 44:30

It needs to be at this point. But I think that speaking of episodes, I think there's a whole nother episode there in in bands that lend themselves to nerdiness because I don't think a lot of them do. Like I think it's rare to find the bands that lend themselves to anything past fandom. Well I think it's a but there have been quite a few. I the the reason I say that is because when you look at a band specifically like the Grateful Dead you have to admit that their fans do exist in this place that we're defining as nerdiness. And I can say that as a fan I don't go full down the Grateful Dead rabbit hole. I like a lot of the songs I don't differentiate the performances the way the nerds do. And that reminds me of Fish and that reminds me of Dave Matthews. These people that you know yourself included because it's a phenomenally impressive thing but that have not only a favorite song but a favorite live performance of that song. And they do that for almost all the songs where it it's not enough to say yeah I like touch of gray they go oh you just just touch of gray not touch of gray from Monterey in 68 because that's that's the best touch of gray. And I somebody out there heard that and immediately went they didn't play Touch of Grey in Monterey in 68 and thank you for proving my point.

SPEAKER_01 46:04

Because it didn't come out till in the dark in the 80s but that's a whatever. And it was their only top 10 hit ever so there you go.

SPEAKER_00 46:12

And again point proven um that's not the world that I live in I live in ooh I like this song turn it up well see that but that's the differentiation between a band like Fish or a band like The Grateful Dead or any of those you know those jam bands.

SPEAKER_01 46:28

I mean it's in the name it's a jam band. They go out and they don't play the same set twice. They don't play the same song the same way twice. Like if you go see Weezer for example and I like Weezer but if you go see 10 Weezer shows and they are playing a relatively similar set but they're playing it relatively the same way every time whereas I've seen fish play Run Like an Antelope 27 28 times and it's never been the same version. So to your point about how many bands lend themselves to nerdiness I think that when we're talking about it in that regard like for example I would call myself a Beatles nerd but the Beatles or at least I was a Beatles nerd at one point in my life but it wasn't necessarily the Beatles music after a while because they only have a limited catalog of material. What started to fascinate me about the Beatles was that from 1963 on, these are the four most famous dudes on the planet they were 18 19 20 years old when they they started hitting rock popularity and they hit at a time where you can argue Elvis all you want, but the Beatles far outdid Elvis in terms of absolute fandom and and fame. So my fascination with the Beatles came from a place of what was their what were their lives like what were their experiences. So I read biographies and I read you know book after book after book about these guys because I just couldn't wrap my head around that level of fame. It's like the Pope and the Beatles you know what I mean at at that certain point in time. And thinking that they did it all without the the the the help of social media and without the help of the internet and were still able to elite to achieve a level of fame that no one before them outside of his holiness had achieved was fascinating to me. Whereas with the Grateful Dead and with Fish and with all those kinds of bands we are looking at it completely from a did you hear that version from 4899 versus that version from 121113 you know what I mean there's a big difference in that level of nerdm or at least in that facet of it for me.

SPEAKER_00 48:59

Well and I think this is exactly why it it needs its own episode because I also consider myself a Beatles nerd but but it does create some of that you know did you see their rooftop performance did you see them on the Ed Sullivan show did you see you know so maybe they didn't play you know I wanna hold your hand differently because you know they didn't let George Harrison shred for 12 minutes of it and you know Ringo doesn't have any crazy drum solos but they did still create these memorable moments for for the nerds and I I think to get back to your original point what it is that draws you down the rabbit hole is open to interpretation because it's different for each person and it's different for each rabbit hole and it's different for each you know we can both be Beatles nerds but have gotten to the bottom of the rabbit hole different ways.

SPEAKER_01 50:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00 50:02

You know Kiss was another one of those bands that lended itself to nerdom where you know some people got into the character behind the mask and some people got into the music and some people got into you know different aspects of following them on tour and yada yada yada. So I I do think music nerd is its own thing because because I'm sure Bruce Springsteen has nerds and Bon Jovi has nerds and Dolly Parton has nerds and I'm I'm sure all of those people you know I'm I'm I'm raising a little emo nerd upstairs who's learning everything that she could possibly know about my chemical romance and the life story of Gerard Way and his counterparts. So you know it it's whatever draws you down the rabbit hole I think that's the point is that you don't choose it. You know let's let's not even music let's say you're a plant nerd you know you're one of these people that walks through Home Depot and picks up the little clippings off the ground and puts them in your pocket and takes them home propagates them on the windowsill right you're you're a plant nerd you know more about what it takes to propagate succulents and make little leaves turn into other plants and what has to go in direct sunlight and what has to go in water and dry soil and sphagnum moss and all sorts of these fun words but like you didn't choose to become a plant nerd you're just drawn to that for some reason that's a very good point.

SPEAKER_01 51:40

And I wonder I wonder if it has something to do with like the makeup of the brain which is far deeper than I'm ever going to learn about it because the human brain while fascinating is well above my realm of understanding I wonder if certain people are hardwired to be more interested in subject matter than others like with sports you know like I know that for me my sports fandom comes strictly from my father because when I was a kid you know we watched a lot of sports together. My dad loves sports so he passed that on to me and and my brother and I'm passing that on to my sons but I also have a love of music that I got from my mother and I'm also passing that down to my children. You know and but I wonder if my brain is hardwired to to dive deeper into those subjects than maybe someone else's is I think it's a real interesting nature versus nurture argument.

SPEAKER_00 52:48

Oh yeah your desire to walk down those paths and your capacity to walk down those paths may or may not be connected right because yes there are the things that we're taught you know as as we grow up but but I think music is a is a fantastic uh metaphor for this that yes I grew up on my dad's music and I grew up on my mom's music but at some point in time I found my own music. Right. So what is the what is the nature versus nurture there because we all do find our own something maybe it's not sports maybe it's not you know maybe you're really into plants and Broadway shows and you can tell me all the Tony winners for the past 40 years. But but I do feel like and this this probably lands the plane a bit I do feel like as a bartender or as a as a bar conversationalist if you can find that thing in a person you will open them up completely right if you find that one subject that they can talk about ad nauseum whatever it may be and you can tap into that that's why we have to be so versatile because if you sit down at the bar and your thing is planes from the World War II era I have to find a way to get you there or if you open with that I got to find a way to keep up because that's what you want to talk about. And you came down to sit at the bar and that's what you want to talk about. So that's what we're gonna talk about and I'm gonna find a way to you know at the very least seem real interested and keep asking you questions.

SPEAKER_01 54:53

Yeah well that it's funny that you mentioned that because like in my as I've got gotten older I've gotten to be more of a history nerd and I listen to an abundance of history podcasts and I watch history documentaries and things but I wouldn't consider myself a buff like I like a world war two buff like if I if he sat down at the bar I'd be able to hold a conversation but that person would just you know eat my lunch for knowledge or a civil war buff. Like I know enough to keep up and I think that that's just an interest that I have but again it's one of those things where like I am actively pursuing more knowledge on those topics but at the same time I don't know why. I mean I've always talked about history you know when when people ask why do you listen to that kind of stuff I'm like because history is the greatest movie ever ever made. If you look at history like it's one long movie it's the most interesting and fucked up movie you're ever going to watch in your entire life but if you look at it from that point of view I mean there's nothing better.

SPEAKER_00 56:05

Do we call them World War II buffs and his and and civil war buffs because you can't be a fan of a war is that why we don't say I'm a World War II fan because like That's an outstanding point. Because I'm sitting here and I'm trying to figure out where buff fits into you know are you a fan and then a buff and then a nerd or or where does it go and I think buff and fan are interchangeable but I think we say buff when when things when it's uncomfortable to be a fan of that thing. Like you're not a fan of history.

SPEAKER_01 56:51

You're a history buff you're not a full on nerd because you know we would just say that like you're a history nerd I think buff and nerd are more interchangeable than buff and fan because I think a buff knows more than a fan even though you can't call yourself a Civil War fan. Like no I get oh man asking the hard questions here on Split the Corner.

SPEAKER_00 57:18

Absolutely I mean I gotta be honest with you how do you sit with your fandom or your buffdom see that's where you gotta say fandom because buffed them is ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01 57:35

I gotta tell you I never thought that I would be putting out e feds into the world or my affinity for them but I'm glad I did I feel as though a burden has been lifted my my load has been lightened as it were but if we could in involve our fans here our buffs uh uh our split the corner buffs we'd love to hear some of the nerdy things that you've been into are there things akin to e feds or used church puppets that you'd like to tell us about uh get a hold of us on Instagram at split the corner podcast our email address split the corner podcast at gmail.com we'd love to hear from you because we know that we're not the only ones I didn't even get into the fact that I was in the margin band in high school yeah I was a competitive ballroom dancer what yeah there's other episodes we're gonna need to deeper dive okay well part three of the nerd episodes is going to be nine hundred percent of Kaz talking about competitive ballroom dancing you salsa son of a bitch oh my god next round's on us cheers