184 - Banned Games

Where are we going? To my, one of my favorite places. You're not gonna tell me what it is so we get there. I mean, it's pretty obvious you're gonna figure it out, but so I grew up right there.

That house, that was it? Is that the red bone confrontation house? It is, there's steps right there. Really?

Yes. How old were you when you moved? We got there when I was like five. I remember waking up and going downstairs and the TV wasn't in the correct position and I cut on Saturday morning cartoons.

I remember where the TV was sitting when I cut it on. That's my first memory in that house. Well, that's not true. I remember when my parents looked at the house and I ran through the back screen door.

I ran through it. Did you break it? I did it not, did ever, because I had no concept of what a house. No, I had no concept of what a screen door was and I turned right through it.

Huh? Yep. What's your last memory at that house? Huh.

I do remember a wedding shower there. The family and friends through a wedding shower for me. There, that's good. All right.

That's where that happened? Yeah. So you were off and doing life before your parents moved out of there then? Correct.

So you don't get that finalized? What did you help them move out? I did. Have you been back in since?

Did I help them move out? I don't know. I'm thinking about that. I don't know that I did.

When you go to your parents home now, does it feel like you're going home or does it feel like you're going to your parents home? Going to my parents home. Yeah. Absolutely.

Is there anything that feels like going back when you go to it, any relatives home or anything that you still have? That's what we're doing right now. Oh, really? Yeah.

Okay. Well, we are in the very, very deep woods it feels like to me. We were on the wildlife refuge. Oh.

And we're going to the Tennessee River. Oh. And the Tennessee River feels like home. Yeah.

But do we sit and record the Welcome to the Gun Show episode out here? I think so. I think it was loud. We need some more quiet to sit.

Yup. See these lily pads? This can do. Wait, is this where you saw the alligator?

Yeah. Right back there. I put it on the kayak right there. We thought those were alligators, but they were actually beaver.

But they were slapping the water. We did see an alligator right out there. Not far from where that guy's fishing. This looks like alligator water.

It does, isn't it? Absolutely. It does. People didn't believe they were alligators here for a long time.

But they were alligators here. That has since been solidly confirmed? Oh, a thousand percent, yes. Like if I go to the Denver Zoo and they put in a new alligator display and it shows their habitat range, it should peak up to here.

Yeah. Or it's wrong. That's a spirit. Yeah.

Yeah. This is a fact. Do you know other people have seen them? Yeah, we've got photos of it.

Out on the arsenal, for example, where there's not as much human activity. Yeah. There was one for years, his name was Big Owl. I would drive up and down this one road.

And I was one of a handful of people that were authorized to be on that road. But I would see Big Owl often. This feels like home. That's beautiful.

Coming around this bend in the road through the thick forest evening. Everything's green and alive. I would come around this one bend. And I know this is a river, but it looks like a lake or an inlet or a sound or something on the ocean.

Yeah. The water's pretty clear. Yeah. So there's people fishing pretty much all around.

I was thinking we could walk through that gate right there. Sure. Walk down the road a little bit. Don't you want to throw the frisbee?

What are we talking about out here? Band games. I was guessing our feelings. Nope.

No, I don't do that. None of that. No, I won't even bring them up. Back up to this gate here.

This specific spot at the river, there used to be a lot of muscles. And the way they would catch the muscles back in the day was a major source of protein for the Native Americans in the area. I actually found pottery shards over here on the bank of the river. Did you really?

I found it with my own hands. Yeah. And so, but one of the things they would do is they would take, imagine a wire, like a clothesline, and then you take other pieces of wire and you wrap it around, you wrap the tail around the ones that you have a clothesline. And then you take an acetylene torch.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, you wrap the tail. So I've got a clothesline. Yes.

That's long. Sure. So whether you do it like bailing wire, you would wrap just a little coil around and you would let the three inches of wire hang down. Okay.

Yeah. So it's like almost like a curtain that's only three inches tall. Yes. And it's a bunch of dangly wires.

Well, if you take an acetylene torch and you go along the bottom of all of those wires and you melt the metal steel, you'll make a little bubble of molten steel. You got it? Sure. Okay.

Okay. So what they used to do here, at this specific spot, is they would get two boats and they would separate them by, I don't know, however many yards. How long goes this? 60 years.

Okay. So that clothesline on the bottom of the Tennessee River with those wires dangling off with those little bubbles of molten steel. Okay. That's solidified, obviously.

So what would happen is they would drag it along the bottom, these muscles, that's a big fish. Did you see that jump? Yeah, I did. You're acting like that's normal.

Yeah, it is. So as you drag those wires along the bottom of the river, what happens is those muscles are sitting there and they're open. As you drag the wire and it touches the muscle itself, it looks like a clam kind of. Yeah.

It will close on that wire and that little bubble of steel, by nature of it, closing, it will clamp on to that little steel bubble. It can't let go. It can't let go because it's in the defense mechanism. It's trying to close and hide inside its shell.

But by doing that, it attaches itself to that dangly piece of wire and then they just haul the net. So they just drag, it's almost like trolling. They just drag those little wires on the bottom of the river and as they grab on, then they would just haul it up and then shake them off in the boat and then they do it over and over again. And then he, what, you have butter and some garlic in a pan and cook them up?

What do you do with a muscle? What the Native Americans did is they would boil it out or whatever and they'd get the muscle and that was protein. However, in the 50s and 60s, here, they would do the same thing. They would steam that out, but they would just throw away the meat.

What they were really after were the shells. Okay. And so have you ever heard of mother of pearl? I have.

So back, back before plastics and polymers to make buttons for shirts and stuff, they would take these muscles out of this river and they would use a hole saw. They would put these muscle shells in like the carton fowls and like they would ship them to Japan. And in Japan, they would make them into mother of pearl buttons. How about that?

For some reason, this spot, and that's why the name of it is Muscle Camp. They used to camp out here and they would do this. Which is upriver from muscle shells. Yeah, exactly.

And so this specific area, so like right now, if you're looking at a map, the Tennessee River goes south and I've told you this before. And the moment the Tennessee River figures out it's in Alabama, it's like, oh, we gotta get out of here. It turns back north. Okay.

That's where we're at. Alright. And so this is the retreat point. This is it.

And so it's like if you were to set the derivative equal to zero, we're at the bottom most inflection point basically. You're not quite the bottom, but we're in that area. So long story short, this is where they used to get muscles. So we were looking for a quiet place and I was like, this would be fun place to go.

Excellent. Yeah. But that's not what I was planning on talking about. I just thought you'd find that interesting.

Mother of Pearl thing is interesting though because I still have shirts that imitate the mother of Pearl book. I'm like my cowboy Pearl button snaps. So I call this a Pearl button. Yeah.

Any of my sort of pretend to be a cowboy when I go to Western events shirts that I own. Have what I think is fake mother of Pearl. I think that's all plastic now. It is.

But I remember stuff that my grandad had that was actual mother of Pearl. And I remember him giving me a much more stilted explanation of that than what you just gave me. I was like swords to me. That's adorable man.

Yeah. A field full of green and flowers with perfectly distributed light and kids playing swords. Yeah. I'm going to totally take a film photo of that.

I'm going to get a film camera. It's a good idea. I think that's kind of... Where do you want to play?

Let's walk out a little bit. Frisbee? Yeah. Sure.

In fairness, this is a golf disc. This is not frisbee. Yeah. It's a putter.

It's catchable because it's got a round edge. Man. Look at that. I'm going to take a picture of that.

That's what you should. That's beautiful. That is worthy of being painted. When was that thing manufactured?

That was in the 90s. Cool. All right. I'm going to get a digital one too.

Except I don't have my phone. Neither. I left it intentionally. It is not with me on the journey at all.

I didn't leave my intentionally. It's going to happen that way. All right. Is this a good place?

Yeah. That's right. You sure I don't want to put you in the flowers so that you can get more columns? Oh my goodness.

Dude, I fall on attack a minute ago. So it appears we're in a corn field that has got a bunch of bitey ants. I'm going to move down here. I'll get out of the sun for you.

I'm good. All right. Here we go. It's made by MVP.

Oh. Yeah. It's a disco. So this is an MVP Eclipse.

Yeah. And it's also branded for the Eclipse. The Eclipse. Yeah, I get it now.

I should have had that earlier. So I'm going to one. What are we going to do? Now you're counting.

A billion. Okay. So I want to talk about you asked me to come up with the topic. I've got it.

Yeah. And it was mentioned there was going to be something about games. Band games. Band games.

And I thought that seems like a great topic to play a game while we talk about. Well, you're going to have to count because I can't talk and count. All right. I won't count.

All right. So let us know how we did. Who banned them? That's passive voice.

Who did the banning? Well, it was mutually decided that they would be banned. Oh. And all agreed.

Oh. The first game is a lovely game. I may have told you about this one, but it's called the Pillow Monster. Nope.

I haven't told you about the Pillow Monster. Well, let's see if it rings a bell. It doesn't immediately. Okay.

So we used to have game night at our house and I dropped it. I'm sorry. That was a bad one. You're good.

All right. Third chair. Start over. I'm throwing.

We used to have game night at my house. A lot of people would come over and this is when we had young kids and then we would all play. and when we would play. I dropped it.

It wasn't the best. We'd all play. The kids would go play in the back room and then they would come in every once in a while for adult interaction. You know, just to be like, hey, we're still here.

You still haven't forgot us. You know how it is. We're still here. So one of the games they would play.

That was a catch. Oh. One of the games we would play is called Pillow Monster. And the way Pillow Monster worked is the kids would go get one of those square pillows either off the couch or in their beds.

You know, not like the pillows you sleep on, but the decorative ones? Yes. So they would get a square pillow and the game was daddy's playing with his friends at the table. I would run in and I would throw this pillow at daddy and I tried to get out of the room as quickly as I can before daddy can grab that pillow.

So what I would do is I would just grab it and I would look at him and I would let him start running. And as they would start running, I would flick it. Not unlike how you throw a disc like that right there. You're going a little bit, a little bit overhand.

A little bit overhand. You're rolling it out from 12 to 6. Correct. Yeah.

Okay. And so if it hit the ground, it would roll at them. Oh, yes. The pillow would continue to roll and then hit their feet and they would fall and they would be squealing the whole time.

We're talking my kids were five and three. Perfect. You know? It's the pillow monster.

Oh, then I would grab this thing and I go, just like that. Oh, dang. Dude, that was I know, right? You got a Warner brother.

I'm sorry. It comes out. You're going to the Copperhead nest and get it. It's not the pillow friend.

It's the pillow monster. Okay. It's fair. Long throw.

This is you're really far away. I'm going to notify people when I release this throw and then they'll hear you catch it and go. It's a long ways. Nice catch.

The pillow monster was great. Yeah. But I do this thing kind of in life where I will start something kind of, I don't know, like, I just mediocre. I'll do the thing.

You know, it's like, oh, this is interesting. I will gently accelerate and I become a fanatic about it. Until everything you love is destroyed. Yes.

Okay. Perfect. No, seriously. That happened.

So we're playing pillow monster. Okay. And it's fun. And then, I'm going to take one more picture of you.

All right. Because that sun looks really cool. So we're playing pillow monster. Wait, can you tell me how it went wrong?

Let me tell you why I think it was going right. Ready? Tell me when. I'll tell you what.

See if you can get this thing coming right at that lens. All right. Ready? Here's the throw.

Oh, didn't work. I'm going to try. I'll get it right this time. I'll wait.

No, either. Here's why the game works. Yeah. Because everybody likes to be chased.

It's the same reason horror movies work. Because that idea of, oh, it's on now and someone is after me. But if I can make it to here, I'm safe. That is some primal lizard brain stuff right there.

It's the reason that I always like the game of provoke my siblings until they chase me. That's my fault on that drop. Yeah. And then run to the only door in our house that has a lock which is the bathroom and lock it seconds, milliseconds before they get to me.

And then giggle hysterically at having escaped them. Yeah. And then I still giggle just as I skip onto the curb after crossing a busy street, I shouldn't have crossed. People like being chased.

So they liked it and it was fun. It was a good game. It was great. So now I'm wrong.

And then one day we're playing Pillow Monster and I keep winning. Meaning the Pillow Monster continues to hit the kids. Good. And then I decide I'm going to let them get farther and farther away because they need to feel like they have a chance at winning, right?

Yes, of course. And so my son comes in probably the fourth or fifth time that night and he has a pretty big pillow. Good catch, man. He's like a ballerina.

Pretty big pillow. It was red, I think, if I recall. Is it red or yellow? It was red.

It was red. It was red. And I took that thing and I let him get it exceptionally far away. And then I just reared back and I did my little flick thing and it didn't hit the ground before it hit him.

But he was so far away I had to throw it much harder to get to him. And he was three and it hit him in the small of the back and it lifted him off the ground. You threw it hard, dude. Hard.

I was trying to get him out from shortstop. It was hard. Were you standing when you threw this or were you still at the table playing games with the dogs? I was at the table but I wound up from my seat and kind of stepped forward.

Was there a collective inhale at the velocity you put on it from the moms at the table? No. That was made so quickly. It made contact with the small of his back.

The first thing that hit the ground from his body was his forehead. Oh my. I threw it hard, dude. And he was just so small and the pillow was like it was very heavy and he hit the ground.

And as soon as it happened, Tara, who's at the opposite end of the game, were playing, she goes, this is Santa and she stands up. And I go, oh no. And I stand up and we start going towards my son. And when we get there, he's out.

What? I knocked him out. Right? And so I looked.

You think you know a guy. We roll him over. I don't know. He's knocked out.

We roll him over and he looks at us and goes, and his eyes, I'm kidding you not. His eyes rolled to the back of his head. And in my head, I just killed my son. The pillow monster had killed myself.

No, it wasn't the pillow monster. You're the pillow monster. It's you. No, that was the pillow monster that did that, man.

I got to sleep at night. The pillow monster took control. Throw it. So I'm familiar with how many kids you have.

Yes. So it seems like this one worked out. Yeah, he doesn't. This is a really morbid way to tell me.

I know, right? So long story short, in that instant, we sat there and like there's people at our house at our table. That's awkward. It is.

She's yelling about her baby. Oh, no. That's Tara's yelling about her baby. Yeah.

Who's unconscious. Yeah. And it's not like she's yelling at people. It's like a mother despair.

It's totally justified. Yes. One of the only times I've ever heard her get this loud and then I'm like, oh man. And then he slowly wakes up.

Took him about like less than 10 seconds. He comes back to the eyes rolled back and he's laughing. Okay. That's good.

Right? Did that immediately make Tara feel better? Well, I'm sorry. I just missed that because I was trying to replay this.

No. Nor did it make me feel better. Keep in mind we're dealing. I'm not doing well with this.

You're a good person with a good heart. You're telling a troubling story. You were close. We were working this out real time.

We had a lot of stuff happening and we still have people at the kitchen table. You're hosting. I'm hosting. Like I don't know what we had that night.

Maybe pizza on the table or whatever. And we're sitting there and she's like, you will never throw a pillow at him again. And I was like, you're right. The pillow monster is banned from this house.

And like we are both railing against the pillow monster in that moment. Again, I want to make sure I'm understanding the story though. The pillow monster is not a separate entity who came into the house. Of course I'm the pillow monster.

So it's you. Yes, Matt. I'm the pillow monster. Okay.

But... Hey, there's a deer track, by the way. Squirrel. What's going on?

So yeah, I'm the pillow monster. But I had to make a declaration. I had to kill the pillow monster right then and there. Yeah, I think goodness there was a character.

Yeah, exactly. It's not me, Matt. Of course it's me. Also.

Your language was confusing at times. It's the... It's not the Trinity kind of thing. It's more like the Dinity.

But anyway, long story short. Very moment. We banned the game, the pillow monster. It was banned from that moment forward.

All right. Hey, super quick. This episode of Notum Questions is brought to you by the patrons, the people who support this thing because they want to because nobody has to because it's just free internet that some of you are like, we should just support this podcast to make it happen. And we're really, really grateful for that.

Absolutely. Yeah. We are super stoked that people would even consider supporting us doing this silly little podcast. We love it though.

I mean, I just absolutely love getting on here and talking to you. But if you are interested in supporting what we do, you can do that at patreon.com slash NoDum Questions or if you're a little iffy on doing the patreon.com slash NoDum Questions thing, then I have an alternative way to get into the whole patreon thing. Would you let me remind you of this man? It's been a while.

Oh, yeah. That'd be super. What do you mean? The 5050.

You remember the 5050? Oh, no. I remember it. There's a reason we quit emphasizing it or...

We did. Sure. So I went out to... I was eating dinner with my oldest son and one of his friends the other day and we mentioned the 5050.

And the guy at the table was like, wait, wait, wait. You just kind of glossed up. What was the 5050? I was like, oh, you just wouldn't.

Don't worry about it. And I explained the 5050 and the guy was like, well, now I want to play. And I was like, you don't want to do that. You seriously hit that guy with the Scar and Simba elephant graveyard tease and it worked?

It was amazing. So yeah, long story short, the5050.com is a way to experience the opportunity to support at patreon.com slash NoDum Questions. But the way the 5050 works, it's a blood oath covenant. You go to the website, the5050.com and there's literally two buttons.

You pick one of the buttons. If you just read the text, it tells you what happens. And so you can also not. Yeah, but you don't...

You're just gonna stop. You're making it sound like it's this casual thing that just in your internet errands for a given day, you just swing by the5050.com and click a button. It's literally a blood oath covenant. It's literally a blood oath covenant.

It's a blood oath covenant. You can't make it sound so flippant. So let's just say don't do it again. No, let me take a run at it.

Think very hard about this before you go to the5050.com and choose to play. Most things on the internet, you can just hit refresh or click away or close the window. This isn't like this. Something happens to you depending on which button you push.

And either way, it's not the kind of thing you just walk away from. You are bound by this. It will change you. Do not take my friend's light-hearted tone to heart.

There is more to this than he is letting on and I'm sorry. The5050.com. Thank you very much. Have a good one.

Have you ever banned a game from your family? One, yes, two. Follow up questions. Okay.

How did the kids feel about the end of the game? Bathrope. Great catch. Thank you.

Appreciate that. I had to tell them. I had to tell them. I had to tell them.

I had to tell them. I had to tell them. Like a dog bringing a stick. Like a pup bringing you the ball.

Throw it. And I just had to look at it and say, sorry, we don't play Pilla Monster anymore. You're the Pilla Monster. I haven't gone by that name in a long time.

So I'm like, sorry. It's banned. We can't play the Pilla Monster anymore. We just don't do it.

And of course, they were sad. But I don't think they have any memory of the Pilla Monster. What would it take to get that back out now that they're probably old enough to handle it? Could you do it now?

I haven't even thought of that. Why don't you get that in before? I killed that version of myself. Maybe it's time to reconnect with that version of yourself.

Maybe there's something that was good about you that died that day. Everything aside, what it was is I am so competitive. Like my goal was to tag him with that pillow before he got into the hallway door and into safety. Were you trying to defeat him or defeat the game?

Yes. That's the competitor's answer. You know what I mean? I wasn't trying to destroy him, but like he was my competitor.

And he was trying to get away. And I was trying to not let him get away. Here's your prey. Yes.

We're getting better at throwing this disc. We are. I'm figuring it out a little bit. I'm just throwing strikes right now.

So what is the game that you banned? Got a few. A few. Yeah, I got a few.

Do you only have one? No, I have one more. A big exercise ball. Like one of those big, big exercise balls.

I think I know where this is going. And my two daughters loved grabbing the exercise ball and running into each other. Like a big, they each had barrel chested sumo wrestler kind of thing. No, we only had one.

And they'd run into each other. And it would knock the other one over and they just loved it. The floor in there was squishy for kids and everything. It was pretty little kitted up for safety.

So they asked me to come in and do it. Well, it was weird to get down there low enough to run them over with it. But what we figured out was just a two handed basketball push pass worked way better. And they made no attempt to catch it.

My little girls would just line up with their hands by their hips and let me just pop them with this ball and knock them over into a bean pack. They loved it. Loved it. So of course, if something is fun at two out of ten speed.

Oh yeah. Well, what should you do next? I just go to ten. Go to ten.

Yeah, that's right. So I worked my way up to ten. Is it starting to rain? Yeah, it feels amazing.

Bring it. It wasn't even my idea. It was their idea. They wanted me to kick the ball into them while they just held their arms out and took it because they loved getting launched.

I set up a camera and we're filming this. And I just start going harder and harder and harder like I did with that hamster and that sheet. And that's a band game. No more hamster flip.

No more hamster parachute. No. I did. I liked it.

And so eventually I was like, all right, harder daddy, harder, harder. Okay kiddo. So finally I did the full NFL kickoff. The video is me lining it up like this in this posture like it's kick off time.

One. And I just squared it up way better than I would have liked to squared it up. Boo, boo. Just launched my younger daughter into this giant bean bag.

And she was fine, but when I went and watched the slow motion video, you know, you got the shutter delay and all of that stuff in play. There's one frame where her whole body is over here. And her neck looks like a giraffe. And her little head is clear over here.

Rolling shutter. You're rolling shutter. You just look like I separated her into two parts. And then fortunately somehow she just came back together.

That's great. And that photograph resulted in a band game. Get a band game. That's a good job.

That's funny. Yeah. Alright, you're up. Band game.

Alright, the other game that is banned for other reasons in our house is Monopoly. This one I can see better. I don't understand Monopoly. We played it, but we played it by the rules that you get $200 for passing.

You know you're supposed to, if you land on something, you either buy it or they auction it. Yes. We wouldn't auction it. That's a house rule.

Right? Yeah. And so we just played Monopoly in 100% of the time the game would end with somebody being upset. And so we had game night and this actually almost destroyed our game night.

So we had to move on to Settlers of Catan. Catan, however you say it. But we turned Monopoly off. Who melted down?

Nobody melted down. It was a collective decision by my friends Cliff and Steven and Steve O and me and Tara. Oh, you weren't playing with your family. You were playing with adults who were emotionally mature?

Yes. Oh, no, that's different. We were all playing. And then we got to the point where like, well, if the point is to win, then no, you have to pay me rent.

Of course you have to pay me rent. You landed on New York Avenue, which I strategically bought because it's the highest return on investment spot in the whole game. That's the New York Avenue. Yeah.

I put, yes, there's a hotel there because I did that because I knew what I was doing. You can have boardwalk. I want my investment back. What's that?

And I want my investment back. Yeah, exactly. But dude, the reason they got out of control is because we would make alliances. Yeah, dude.

I'd say, hey, dude, I'll tell you what, I'll pay you future rent right now. I'll give you $200 right now because I know you need it to pay them off. I'll go ahead and pay you so that the next two times I land on your stuff, I get immunity. Oh, dear.

Oh, that's not a good throw. Yeah, we were very sophisticated with how we do that. I love that. That's smart.

That's understanding the market. But somebody gets dealt out of that and you're all friends. I could turn ugly. Like the strategy completely changed.

In the early part of the game, you would do anything in your power to not be in jail. In the late part of the game, you would do anything in your power to go to jail. Well, isn't that kind of how the game always works out though? And you always want to be in jail.

The reason being in jail was good is because you didn't have the chance of landing on people's stuff. You're in jail. You're in jail. Clearly.

We made it not fun because we were competitive. Brady. You know Brady. Heron?

Yeah. Yeah. He won't play board games with people at times because he's like, I'm too competitive. I don't want to do that.

People want me to play tennis with him. That makes me even more afraid now because of his talent and competitiveness. People want you to play tennis with Brady? Yeah, I've heard people mentioning that Brady likes tennis and therefore because internet, we should play tennis someday.

But I'm kind of afraid of him. I'm just going to go ahead and say it. You would smoke him. Are you serious?

You're a good athlete. Dude, he's a good athlete. Watch this. You caught that.

Yes, I caught that. He intentionally put it in the weeds literally. And you spread it. That was lizard brain dude.

Was it not? You threw the thing in the air. The goal is to catch it. I knew how far I could throw it.

That was a good throw. And you could make it versus not. If that was the objective, you nailed it. So you're a good athlete.