Corinne Caputo Loves Houseplants!
Corinne Caputo (Pale Blue Pod) is here to prove that houseplants are more interesting than the movie musical Grease. You might not like the episode at first… but it will grow on you.
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Cast & Crew
- Hosts: Adal Rifai & Eric Silver
- Producer: Eric Silver
- Editor: Mischa Stanton
- Created by: Eric Silver & Mischa Stanton
- Theme Song: Arne Parrott
- Artwork: Shae McMullin
- Multitude: multitude.productions
About Us
Tell Me About It is a madcap game show about proving that the things you like are actually interesting and cool. Adal Rifai is an eccentric billionaire who forces someone new every episode to share, argue, and defend the thing they love the most. He’s wrangled his audio butler Eric to lead the contestant through a series of absurd challenges and games, all to gain points and get on the Most Interesting Thing High Score Board. Tell Me About It: the most fun podcast run by a multibillionaire. New episodes every other Thursday.
Transcript
[theme]
ADAL: Welcome to Tell Me About It, a game show about proving the things you love are actually interesting and fun. I am Adal Rifai, local eccentric multibillionaire and I am still looking, searching for someone to show me something that is better and more interesting than the movie Grease. Though I am not doing this by myself, please welcome my butler, who needs partial sunlight and water only once a week - pretty efficient - Eric Silver.
ERIC: Don't water me at midnight or then I'll freak out like a gremlin.
ADAL: Oh, yes. Well, uh, let's see. Before they're gremlins, they're called mogwais? No. Are they always gremlins and then become super gremlins?
ERIC: You only have to water me once a week. I don't know. My brain is not grown enough to remember any of this stuff.
ADAL: All I know is that one of the gremlins becomes very sexy. Uh, One of them—
ERIC: Honestly, the next thing I was gonna say was I know there's one lady sexy gremlin.
ADAL: Oh, you misunderstood. I'm talking about the gremlin made entirely out of electricity.
ERIC: Oh, you only care about what people think. You only care about smarts, you're sapiosexual.
ADAL: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
ERIC: Much like— so that's why you like Gizmo?
ADAL: Exactly. And it's— it's interesting that when I said sexy gremlin, you just assumed it would be the one in a leather red miniskirt and makeup.
ERIC: Yeah, that's my thing.
ADAL: Interesting. Interesting. You're projecting, huh?
ERIC: I look pretty in a red miniskirt and makeup, Adal.
ADAL: Thank you for wearing that today.
ERIC: Mr. Rifai. Sorry, I forget myself because, uh, because you know how I feel about— uh, how I look in miniskirts.
ADAL: Absolutely. Don't get you wet after midnight. And I do have to apologize, Eric, uh, you might have to pick up some of the burden because I— in case you can't hear it in my voice, I have a touch of influ-encer.
ERIC: Ooh.
ADAL: Of course, it's a flu that only affects people, uh, who have over two billion followers on Instagram. So please, excuse my voice and, uh, any nasally drippy sound.
ERIC: Yeah. You will need to do an ad for both kinds of weird tummy tea.
ADAL: Mm-hmm.
ERIC: We can't get out of that.
ADAL: Yes, absolutely. Well, Eric, who do we have on the dock today? And by the dock, I mean my yacht should have dropped off our guest. Can you go check on that?
ERIC: Okay. Yeah. All right. Hold on. She's standing on a sailboat. She's coming in.
ADAL: Otis Redding, get out of the way. Ugh. I never should have reanimated his corpse. Otis, stop sitting there. That's a puppet. Otis, that is not for sitting. Please move. Sorry about him.
ERIC: All right. Uh, Mr. Redding is finally out of the way. There's an octopus driving the sailboat, coming in. Now, it's holding on to the thing, doing a really nice knot. And the boat— my boat has come in. It is— [laughs] oh, I'm enjoying myself. We haven't recorded this in a while. Um, the—introducing writer and host of Pale Blue Pod, the best podcast about not being afraid of space. Right off of the boat— no, I'm not gonna say that. Right—
ADAL: Fresh off the boat.
ERIC: Yeah. Fresh off the boat. Um, stepping on— on dry land for the first time in seven days. It's Corinne Caputo.
CORINNE: It's me. Hi. Thank you so much for that long boat ride. That was wild.
ADAL: Yes. Thank you for agreeing to such a nautical journey. We're delighted to have you.
CORINNE: I love a cruise.
ADAL: Corinne Caputo, I have to say, one, it's just an absolute pleasure to meet you and, two, you have the best name for a Mafioso enforcer I've ever heard.
CORINNE: Oh, thank you. I agree. And I am from Staten Island, so—
ADAL: Oh.
CORINNE: —there— you know, there's probably some— some overlapping blood there.
ADAL: Okay, then. Uh, please forgive my joke. And, uh— uh, Eric, please, let's get her a drink or whatever you want, or some warm clothes. Um—
ERIC: Sorry, uh—
ADAL: My apologies for the joke. Uh—
ERIC: I got— I got confused. It wasn't a sailboat. It was the Staten Island Ferry, Corrine.
CORINNE: It was the Staten Island Ferry.
ERIC: It's mandatory—
ADAL: Oh.
ERIC: —for Corinne to be taking the Staten Island Ferry wherever she goes.
ADAL: Was it that one that Pete Davidson and Colin Jost bought?
CORINNE: So that one's actually in Florida right now, because they couldn't—
ADAL: Oh.
CORINNE: —find a place to park it, which is true. And, um, I did—
ADAL: New York City living, am I right?
CORINNE: I did get married on a Staten Island Ferry in October. Um, that's not a joke.
ADAL: Congratulations.
CORINNE: Thank you. It was a very fun flash mob type wedding.
ADAL: And I gotta say the Staten Island Ferry is my favorite character in Midsummer Night's Dream. Just— what— just— that ferry just kind of really introduces a lot of chaos to Puck—
CORINNE: Yeah.
ADAL: —and the whole gang.
CORINNE: Yeah.
ADAL: And I've also heard from several people, uh, I can't remember who told me this, but they said the way to— to test a true Long Islander is to see if they say ‘lawn’ as in Lon Chaney, lawn - or lawn care - ‘lawn guyland.’
CORINNE: Long Island.
ADAL: Lawn—
CORINNE: I think I say it— I think I say it as a non-New Yorker like—
ADAL: Okay.
CORINNE: I think that I've kind of subconsciously tried to lose my accent.
ERIC: So that you— they can't see you coming?
CORINNE: Yeah, exactly.
ERIC: Because you're already Corinne Caputo, so you lose it as soon as they know your name.
CORINNE: Exactly. They can't— they— there's only so much I want to give away about who I am.
ADAL: Yeah, absolutely. And Caputo, I do have to ask, Caputo - any relation to Naruto?
CORINNE: No.
ADAL: Okay. I had to ask.
CORINNE: No. You have to ask, though. I get that a lot.
ADAL: Yeah. Just seeing if there's some weird, uh, Ellis Island situation going on where they change it from—
CORINNE: I thought you were gonna say Theresa Caputo, the Long Island Medium.
ADAL: Ooh. Who's this now?
CORINNE: She had a TLC show. Not related to me, but I would love it if we had a medium in the family.
ADAL: Speaking of TLC, um, Eric, do you remember when I dated T-Boz?
ERIC: I do. Uh, my left eye hurt the entire time.
ADAL: Yes, absolutely. Uh, it was twitching, even. Um, anyway, Corinne, thank you so much for being here. We're so excited to have you. Um, tell us a little bit about what you'll be talking about today.
CORINNE: Okay. So I really racked my brain about what I find interesting, because it felt like both nothing and a lot of things. Um, and I famously stopped improvising— uh, or doing improv comedy because I would often need to look around the room to think of something.
ADAL: Famously, huh?
CORINNE: Yeah. My— um, yeah, my character names were like, you know, cabinet, or chair or like—
ADAL: Sure, Tony Mountain Dew, or—
CORINNE: Yeah, exactly. Um, so you— I was asked, like, what I find interesting, and I looked around the room, and I was like, ‘Of course, it's houseplants.’
ADAL: Hmm.
CORINNE: And I'm really curious to see what happens next here.
ADAL: Well, that's a different show. Uh, Andy Cohen is a dear cousin of mine. But we won't be seeing what happens next, but we will be putting you through your house plant paces. Now, Eric, I don't know if you remember this. When you were my lovely assistant, also in a tight red mini-dress - leather.
ERIC: I looked incredible and everyone said so, even you!
ADAL: Thank you.
ERIC: You said it!
ADAL: When you were my lovely assistant, when I was a magician, when I was the Astounding Asshole, I remember one time I was doing a trick and I had a houseplant, and I said, "Is anyone here, um, wanting to come up on stage?" And I had a houseplant, but it had died in the audience because I forgot to water it, and feed it. So that gentleman who I paid to, uh, pretend he didn't know me is now deceased and I owed his estate quite a lot of money. So I am a little— my hackles are up just a little bit talking about houseplants—
CORINNE: Yeah.
ADAL: —just because of my experience, but I am very excited to learn all about, uh, ficas… ficus? What are those?
CORINNE: Ficus. Yeah. A ficus. Ficus.
ADAL: Ficus. That's the only one I know, besides cacti or, uh, or bonsai, or succulents. I guess I know a few.
CORINNE: I will say succulents are not quite my expertise the way that some of the more vining houseplants tend to be
ADAL: Interesting.
ERIC: I feel like we're gonna get really into you shading other types of people who are just getting into the plant game now.
CORINNE: I might.
ERIC: And really fall for the millennial need to have a—
ADAL: Air plants.
ERIC: Yeah. To have—
CORINNE: Yeah.
ERIC: —a living thing that you don't have to have any responsibilities—
CORINNE: Yes.
ERIC: —for, which is the succulent.
CORINNE: Yeah. I think I have a lot of— um, where my OCD really flares is in, like, personifying things, so there's something that's been very troubling about my kind of commitment to these houseplants where I'm like, ‘This is a living thing—’
ADAL: Mm-hmm.
CORINNE: ‘—and if I fuck up, that's a bad— that's bad.’
ADAL: Absolutely. I've killed many a plant. Um—
ERIC: See, that's why we're having Theresa Caputo come on to talk to your dead plants and also the guy in the audience.
CORINNE: Yeah. And they're all like, ‘She put us in the garbage. She didn't even—’
ERIC: [Imitating Theresa Caputo] ‘All right. Hold on, hold on. I'm feeling a root in this— uh, in this area. Maybe in this area? I don't know. I'm going to Bagel Boss, who wants some?’
ADAL: Your roots are showing. Eric, why don't you go ahead and stay out of the sunlight, of course, and take us on over to round one?
ERIC: Absolutely. All right. Round one is called Just Tell Me About It.
CORINNE: Ahh!
ERIC: Corinne, I have 10 foundational points about houseplants here. Please give us an overview of your topic. Uh, I'm going to set five minutes on the clock. We're just gonna have a conversation—
CORINNE: Love it.
ERIC: —about houseplants. Uh, you get points for hitting each bullet, especially if you make them sound interesting and cool.
ADAL: Uh, Eric, um, just due to the joke I made earlier, could you say anything except for bullet?
ERIC: Yeah, absolutely. You get points for each knife, especially—
ADAL: Oh. Actually— ugh. I should have been more specific. Uh, any sort of non-lethal, um, like——don't say like, ‘for any cement shoes you hit’— you know, just something—
ERIC: Sure.
ADAL: —uh, more innocuous.
ERIC: All right. Corinne recording equipment, you get 10— you get a point for each taser, especially—
ADAL: Perfect.
ERIC: —if you make some sound interesting and cool.
CORINNE: Okay. Copy, copy. Okay. I'm gonna do my best here.
ERIC: Absolutely.
CORINNE: And I imagine these points are completely secret to me.
ERIC: They are completely secret to you.
CORINNE: Okay.
ERIC: I've organized them based off of Wikipedia and some houseplant care websites that I found.
CORINNE: Oh, okay.
ERIC: Uh, all right. Corinne, are you ready?
CORINNE: I'm ready.
ERIC: All right. Five minutes on the clock, starting now.
CORINNE: Okay. I got into houseplants, um, during COVID, which is kind of embarrassing, because I think everybody did. Um, but I was really interested in making a house feel, like, just more than just stuff. And, um, I started on Facebook marketplace by buying other people's plants, which was crazy, because I was liv— I moved to a new city, so I had spent almost no time in it before I moved. So that was— I also had no car, so it was just walking across the city—
ADAL: Oh.
CORINNE: —to somebody's house.
ERIC: That's what Facebook Marketplace is for.
CORINNE: Yes.
ERIC: For you to just show up at someone's house—
CORINNE: Yup.
ERIC: —and be like, ‘Thanks for this,’ and just walking out with it in your hands.
CORINNE: A hundred percent. And—
ADAL: And, Corinne, real quick for a bonus point. Um, true or false, Naughty by Nature's classic 1991 hit O.P.P. is about other people's plants?
CORINNE: True.
ADAL: Yes. Extra point.
ERIC: That's a point.
CORINNE: Um, yeah. I walked across—I'm in Portland, Maine, I walked across the Peninsula to pick up a plant from someone's porch. It was like this gorgeous, long vining pothos—golden pothos that needed, like, medium light and you can really water it once a week. It'll tell you when it needs water, and I was like—
ADAL: Long Island, medium light.
CORINNE: Exactly. And I felt a calling to it, walked across the city. This was pre-vaccine, so I was, like, pretty scared of seeing anybody, like—
ERIC: But you were fine with going over to random people's houses?
CORINNE: I'll go to someone's house, but I'm like, ‘You're gonna leave the plant on the porch and—’
ERIC: Got it. Okay.
CORINNE: ‘—and I'll wave you from the window.’ And then, um—
ADAL: Evan Hansen style.
CORINNE: —the walk there was easy-breezy, um, and the walk back was one of the most difficult walks I've ever done, because this plant was so heavy and big.
ADAL: Oh no.
CORINNE: And I didn't bring a bag or anything ‘cause like who really has a bag?
ADAL: No dolly for the plant?
CORINNE: No dolly. The laundry cart we left behind in New York. I had no— I had nothing with me. Finally made it home and I called my husband halfway home and I was like, ‘You have to meet me outside, uh, once I get to the apartment, like, I will not be able to make it upstairs with this plant.’ And he did, and we got upstairs. And the next day, our couch gets delivered and I have jelly arms. And I cannot get this couch upstairs that— uh, suddenly, this couch that I ordered, I, like, owned the project could not, um, participate it— in it at all. And I still have that plant. It's taller than me. Um—
ERIC: Hell yeah.
CORINNE: —I love it. I trim— I gave it — I got a haircut this week and I gave it a haircut, too.
ADAL: Oh, twins.
CORINNE: And— twins. And I— um, that was, like, my first plant, but I have so many more now. Um, I have made more mistakes walking plants home, but that was the first one.
ERIC: Corinne, this was an incredible story and I'm so glad you shared with— uh, that with us.
CORINNE: I'm sure I’ve touched on no points.
ERIC: You—you have used three minutes. You've touched so little points.
CORINNE: Okay.
ERIC: Corinne, tell us about taking care of the plants.
CORINNE: Here's why I love this.
ADAL: But we did— hold on. I do want to give her a bonus point because we did raise awareness for the medical issue that is jelly arms.
CORINNE: Jelly arms, I believe not enough people are talking about it.
ADAL: Now, dozens of people a year suffer from jelly arms by carrying heavy items by—
CORINNE: Uh-huh.
ADAL: —arm wrestling their friends, and it's not talked about enough.
CORINNE: And then we're—we're expecting them to go back to their day as normal.
ADAL: No. No, no, no, no, no.
CORINNE: You can’t. There's a recovery period.
ADAL: You can't. So thank you for that.
ERIC: That's why we're organizing that walk, and also very light lifting, for jelly arms.
CORINNE: Okay. Here's what else I like about plants. They grow. Um, they—
ERIC: Hell yeah.
CORINNE: —need light and water. There's soil. You can also grow them in water. They don't have to be in soil. You could use things like LECA or, um, like prop— you can propagate them and just, like, grow new roots. I love that I look at my plants and I'm like, ‘Some of the things that are on that plant did not exist in the universe before I was caring for it.’ Like, this piece grew. Like, this didn't exist. Um, so that's very cool. They're living. They— people think that they, like, keep your air fresher. The research I've read about it is like they— they're not making a significant impact. Um, but, yeah, you can say that. One thing I hate about them is, like, they might—
ADAL: Ohh.
CORINNE: —have bugs and pests.
ADAL: The STDs of plants.
CORINNE: Exactly. I've decided that can't happen to me, so I just assume that's not happening.
[laughter]
ADAL: Hey, if you don't want it to happen, it probably won't happen.
CORINNE: It probably won't happen.
ADAL: Murphy's—Murphy's Law. Murphy's in-law?
CORINNE: Yeah, that's the Occam's Razor of plants. It's actually easiest if this doesn't happen to me. Um—
ERIC: Occam—Occam's Razor is when you chop your plants up too—
CORINNE: Yes.
ERIC: —small and then they don’t grow anymore.
CORINNE: Um—
ADAL: The simplest plan is usually the right plan.
CORINNE: I have a lot of them. There are so many different kinds. They all have different needs. That is fun to take care of if you need stuff to occupy your brain of, like, who am I keeping track of today? Um, you can also propagate them. I love doing that. Just give them a little trim, and throw those cuttings in water, and you have a new plant. You can give those away. That's always fun.
ERIC: And time. Great job, Corinne.
CORINNE: Bingo.
ERIC: You— definitely told us some stuff.
ADAL: Oh, wait. You got bingo? Can you check her card, Eric?
ERIC: Oh, sorry. Okay, hold on. Um—
CORINNE: It's bingo.
ADAL: There's no way she got bingo.
ERIC: Theresa Caputo, jelly arms, the center was you talking about Otis Redding.
ADAL: Fuck me.
ERIC: Um, uh—
ADAL: She got it. Okay. All right.
ERIC: I know. There's all— all those are there.
CORINNE: That's all it takes.
ERIC: Yeah.
CORINNE: It's actually easy to get bingo. Occam's Razor.
ADAL: Give her the $150.
ADAL: Yeah. Yeah.
ERIC: All right.
ADAL: Again, Occam's Razor applies to anything— for whatever, uh, whatever situation you want.
CORINNE: Anything you decide.
ADAL: Yes, anything you decide.
ERIC: Yeah. All right, Corinne. [laughs] I mean— okay. You hit on the important stuff, which is houseplant—
ADAL: The story about moving plants.
ERIC: Yeah, which is— then awareness of jelly arms. Um, you definitely need to monitor their moisture levels, their light, and soil, and humidity.
CORINNE: Yeah.
ERIC: Um, you did do this stuff about purifying the air in your home. Um, and I like to think that boosting—you boost your immune system when you bring bugs and— and pests in your house.
CORINNE: Ooh.
ERIC: So that's pretty good.
CORINNE: Yeah.
ERIC: So I'll give you— I'll give you the point. We had some other stuff about, like, where houseplants came from, uh, how they usually thrive in terms of the temperature. Also, about, like, playing music for your plants.
CORINNE: Oh, yes.
ERIC: And also, uh, even fake plants make you feel good, which—
CORINNE: Oh, interesting.
ERIC: —is something that I— I found. Yeah. So you did—you did hit a few and also you said a lot of different types of plants.
ADAL: I once had a sunflower with glasses who would dance to music, and Coke can with glasses, I guess.
ERIC: You also had a fish that was mounted on the wall that would—that would dance to music.
ADAL: Oh, don't bring that up. We're fighting.
ERIC: You and Billy—you and Billy Bass?
ADAL: That big mouth piece of shit. Big mouth strikes again. Morrissey was right.
ERIC: All right. Um, Corinne, I will give you four out of 10 points.
CORINNE: All right. I disagree.
ERIC: However, you are up to six—
ADAL: Hold on. Hold on.
ERIC: Oh, wait. I guess we need to—
ADAL: I want to hear this out. Corinne, it sounds like you're applying Occam's Razor to this?
CORINNE: I am applying the Occam's Razor. Um, I think fake plants don't count.
ERIC: Okay. Great.
ADAL: Okay, extra point.
CORINNE: I think fake plants are— collect dust and they're odd.
ADAL: You got another extra point. Anything else—
CORINNE: And—
ERIC: Wow.
ADAL: Anything else you think?
CORINNE: Um, yeah. I actually get really angry when I see fake plants.
ADAL: Okay.
CORINNE: I don't know why.
ADAL: Extra point.
CORINNE: I'm just like, ‘Guys, that's not a plant. Don't act like you're doing what I'm doing.’
ADAL: Yeah.
ERIC: My best friend is a plant and he's alive. I love him. That's fair. All right. That— Corinne, that brings you up to seven points.
CORINNE: Amazing. That's what I wanted.
ADAL: Perfect.
CORINNE: I was going for seven.
ERIC: All right. That is seven plus two bonus points that you got and $150. So you have seven points and a bingo.
CORINNE: That's amazing.
ERIC: Woo.
ADAL: Corinne, before we mosey on over to round two, I do want to ask, have you— unless I missed it - have you named any of your plants?
CORINNE: I haven't done that.
ADAL: Would you mind—for an extra bonus point, would you mind naming your favorite plant right now?
CORINNE: Okay. My favorite plant—
ADAL: Looking around the room, looking around the room.
CORINNE: Looking at them from across the room, there's a few that I'm seeing— ooh, okay. I think Steve. Is that so boring?
ERIC: Sure.
ADAL: No, I love it.
CORINNE: It's like Steve's Leaves. That's a—
ADAL: Ooh.
CORINNE: —plant store.
ADAL: Yeah.
CORINNE: That's a plant store.
ADAL: Ooh. Love that.
CORINNE: But that's fine.
ERIC: Steve of Steve's Leaves, I think that's where he came from.
ADAL: And I'm going to introduce you to my favorite plant. It's interesting—we talked about gremlins earlier, because a la gremlins where there's a little, um, I guess, stand where a gremlin is sold and then the stand disappears, I believe. I once bought a plant during the total eclipse of the sun, um, and the store disappeared soon after. Uh, go ahead and wheel out Audrey 2, Eric.
ERIC: Okay, hold on. All right. Um, all right.
CORINNE: [gasps] Oh, my God.
ADAL: Okay. So this is named after, um, of course, Audrey from the Rocky movies. Uh, famously played by Francis Ford Coppola's sister, I want to say her name is Talia Shire?
ERIC: Yeah. [in accent] Adrian!
ADAL: Yeah. Perfect impression of Andrea— uh— uh, Talia Shire, Andrea Shire?
ERIC: I don't even know who we're talking about.
ADAL: Talia— Talia Shire.
ERIC: That was the plan— that was— that was Adrian 2, the plant that you just told me to roll out.
ADAL: Oh, Adrian 2. Not Audrey 2. I mixed them up. I have an Audrey 2 and I have an Adrian 2. Please bring out Adrian 2.
ERIC: Okay. So, that was Audrey 2.
CORINNE: Okay. Okay.
ADAL: Okay.
ERIC: And here is— here is— uh, here is Adrian 2.
ADAL: Cool. And, Eric, go ahead and box her.
[boxing bell]
ERIC: All right. Uh, ‘I— I know I can do it. And I definitely have the approval of all the people near me. All right!’
ADAL: Wow.
ERIC: [As Adrian 2] ‘Feed me!’ [As Eric] ‘Oh, God! Oh! Help me! I'm— uh, he's— he's taking out my insides. No! From the back and the front!’
CORINNE: This is so gruesome.
ERIC: ‘Why won't any—you're just standing there. Otis, help me! Otis!’
[Sparkle sound effect]
ADAL: And we'll pick up here. Corinne, thank you for coming back three years later. Eric was in a coma.
CORINNE: Of course.
ADAL: He's now out. Uh, I think we'll pick up where we left off. Do you remember three years ago doing this game show?
CORINNE: I do. It was a vague memory. I had— took a long boat, and this time I flew.
ADAL: Yeah. Oh, good. My— my plane came in. The old expression.
CORINNE: Yes. My plane came in and— and, boy, are my jelly arms tired. I remember talking
about that.
[laughter]
ADAL: ‘I was lifting the whole way.’ Corinne, let's go ahead— Eric, are you— do you feel sound of body and mind to continue to round two, buddy?
ERIC: Yeah. Uh, I'm Eric 2 and you can feed me. Absolutely.
ADAL: Perfect.
ERIC: All right. This is time for round two. I have written down, Corinne, you have seven points and a bingo. Round two is called the Perfect Thing. Corinne, what is the perfect encapsulation of houseplants?
CORINNE: Ooh.
ERIC: If someone asked you, ‘Well, what's an example of why you love houseplants so much?’ What would you say?
CORINNE: Okay. This is easy for me because what I love the most is kind of coming into the room, let's say, after a weekend away or something, and seeing a new leaf starting to peek out.
ERIC: Oh, hell yeah.
CORINNE: It— the thrill is indescribable. You're like, ‘Oh, my God. A new leaf is coming, everybody.’ And depending on the plant, it might, like, grow and, like, be furled up, and then it'll just keep getting longer. And then you get to watch it unfold, which is so exciting because you're like, ‘How big is it gonna be? Is it gonna have any, like, fenestrations inside? Are there gonna be any, like, variegations in color?’ That's a thrilling feeling.
ERIC: Honestly, do you know about Amanda, previous guest and also my wife? You know that, um, she frequently takes photos of these and calls it #leafwatch. Do you know about leaf watch?
CORINNE: No, but, uh, Brandon told me that I need to talk to Amanda about houseplants.
ERIC: Yeah. And Brandon—
CORINNE: So—
ERIC: —Brandon is my sub— uh—
CORINNE: Yup.
ERIC: Brandon is my sub-servant. He follows me around and I treat—
CORINNE: Yeah.
ERIC: —him as badly as Mr. Rifai does for me.
CORINNE: That's the cycle.
ADAL: [In timid accent] Did someone call my name?
ERIC: Brandon, get out of here!
ADAL: [As Brandon] Oh.
ERIC: You look terrible in that miniskirt!
ADAL: [As Brandon] Oh. Sorry.
ERIC: Go—go put on more makeup if you want to try that.
ADAL: [As Brandon] Yes, sir.
ERIC: Yeah, that's how I like it. I'm taking out the— the trauma that I deal with and I do it on someone else. That's—that's what responsible people do.
CORINNE: That's a natural cycle of life.
ADAL: Yeah, subservient people sub-serve people.
ERIC: Yeah, I read that on–
ADAL: Occam's Razor.
ERIC: Yeah, it's Occam's Razor.
CORINNE: That's Occam's Razor.
ERIC: So everyone, #leafwatch, tag us.
CORINNE: Leaf watch, that's perfect.
ERIC: Leaf watch.
CORINNE: That's exactly how—
ERIC: Yeah.
CORINNE: —I would describe it. And I also just got this weird goo that you can put on a plant to kind of, like, regrow a leaf where a leaf fell off maybe. Or, like, activate a node that might not be growing right now. I'll let you know if it works.
ERIC: Okay. That might actually be Audrey 2 shit. I'm concerned that you just have goo.
ADAL: Huh, I haven't heard the phrase ‘activate a node’ in a dog's age.
CORINNE: You— [laughs] you have to notch the plant, like cut it, and then rub the goo on.
ADAL: Huh. And what's the name of this goo, this mysterious ooze?
CORINNE: I think it's pronounced Keiki paste. It's K-E-I-K-I and it's for orchids.
ADAL: Okay.
ERIC: And when you went to Steve's Leaves, was Steve's Leaves gone as soon as you walked out the door?
CORINNE: It was this— I love the guy who works there. He's like hunched over, he has a huge cloak. You can only see the items from his jacket and—
ADAL: Oh, interesting. So I'm looking it up online, Corinne, it looks like— yeah, if anybody is interested in that item for their plants, you can just, uh, go to Keiki's delivery service, and they will— they will send you out that Keiki’s paste, uh, ASAP.
CORINNE: They're also very— they're very quick.
ADAL: Yeah. Very quick and—
CORINNE: A very quick app.
ADAL: —it seems like there's a cat on the broom. Interesting. Uh, well, Corinne, I'm going to go ahead and give you—let's see, you did say stimulate the— the node, I think was— to activate the node, which is, uh—
CORINNE: Activate.
ADAL: Yeah, which is my new favorite phrase, activate the node. Uh, Eric, please make me a crewneck sweatshirt that says that on it.
ERIC: Working on it.
ADAL: In fun font, activate the node. Um, and I do really like— you said unfurl, you said watch it unfold. It seems like the way you described it made me want to buy houseplants and it seemed almost like storytelling. So I'm gonna give you—
CORINNE: Yes.
ADAL: —a perfect 10 out of 10 for this round two.
CORINNE: Oh! Amazing.
ADAL: With the option for a bonus point. If you can make a case right now, why Poison Ivy is the best Batman villain.
CORINNE: Okay. Well, obviously, one of the hottest. Um, there's— there's nothing like red and green together that—
ADAL: Christmas.
CORINNE: Yeah. It's like—and you know what? She does it in a way that it— it never feels like the holidays. You're like—you can reclaim these colors. It's like when you wear red and yellow together and you're like, ‘Is this McDonald's?’ She figured out a way to— to do it.
ERIC: Sure.
ADAL: Yeah.
CORINNE: It's also one of the easiest costumes to do for Halloween, because you can kind of make it look bad and people will still know who you are.
ADAL: Yeah. You can just put, you know, leaves over your nipples and—
CORINNE: Yeah.
ADAL: —a fern down your back and just show up. It's— you can really phone it in with that and still look great.
CORINNE: Mm-hmm.
ADAL: Yeah. Yeah.
CORINNE: And it's all about the look because I have no idea what her powers were.
ADAL: I think she can kind of talk to and control plants.
CORINNE: Oh, was that it? Why did I think she’s poisoning men?
ERIC: And, like, seduce men with pheromones.
CORINNE: Yeah.
ERIC: Depending on what version it was. Yeah.
CORINNE: Yeah, yeah.
ADAL: And if you rub up against her, you have a sort of rash for seven to 10 days.
CORINNE: Yes, but unless you put dish soap on it right away and let it sit. I heard that's how you do it. I've never tried it.
ADAL: Or your partner pees on it, yes, absolutely.
ERIC: Yeah, I hate it when the clown prince of crime takes all the calamine lotion and then Batman—
ADAL: Don't talk about Ronald McDonald that way! Is this because I'm wearing yellow and gold?
ERIC: You're making it work.
ADAL: Yellow and gold?
ERIC: It's yours. It's yours.
CORINNE: You're wearing yellow and gold—
ADAL: Wait a minute. I'm sorry.
CORINNE: You look like Mayor McCheese.
ERIC: You're an American gladiator. You look great.
[theme]
ERIC: Hey, it's Eric and this is the butler's pantry, where I hide out and no one can tell me to do anything like eat their food for them because they heard that baby birding is the new nutritional trend. I'm not going to do it, and no one can ask me about it. So I'm just gonna be in here and can talk to you directly about the podcast. I don't know if you knew, but we have a Patreon which goes to me and not bajillionaire Adal, but maybe real-life artistic Adal and real-life artistic Eric, that's where the money goes, patreon.com/tmaipod, where you can become a Junior Audio Butler and get your own little broom hung up here in the pantry. We have a lot. We're still putting them up. We can always use more, maybe I got to expand, get a bigger pantry, uh, because I got to fit in a new broom for newest butler, Catherine Fraser. Thank you. We are an independent podcast run by artists here in 2023. We would love your support. We are going to do ad-free episodes soon, so you can skip all this mid-roll stuff in the first place. Uh, and you can always hop up to our billionaire status, uh, where you get to, you know, talk to Adal and I one-on-one. That must be really fun, for sure, patreon.com/tmaipod. We have more wonderful shows here at Multitude. You might like Spirits. Spirits is a history and comedy podcast focused on everything folklore, mythology, and the occult told through the lens of feminism, queerness, and modern adulthood. Every week, mythology buff Julia and her childhood best friend Amanda get together to learn about a different story from mythology and folklore over drinks. That’s everything, from the mythological origins of major franchises like Lord of the Rings and Wonder Woman, to modern urban legends, to round-up stories of were—about werewolves and many, many more things. Start listening with any of the 300 episodes they’ve released over the last six years. There's so much to enjoy. Whether you're here for analysis of mental health through mythology, or just some creepy modern ghost stories. I think you're gonna love the episodes with me on it. I talked about the golem, like, six years ago, and I recently came back to talk about a new, uh, Hallmark movie that revolves around a golem and if—if the guy in the movie is actually a golem or something else. Also, the newest episode of Spirits that's coming out has Janet Varney on it who you know from Tell Me About It, and also Hey Riddle Riddle, and also The JV Club and also being awesome, so you should go listen over there. Dive in at spiritspodcast.com or search for Spirits wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is sponsored by us, Tell Me About It. I think you should follow us on social media. You can follow us on Twitter, @twitter.com/tmaipod. You can follow us on Instagram @tmaipod. I feel like we don't talk about it enough, but like, you know, we still use social media to market and everything. You hop on, just message us, tell us if you like it. Look at the graphics that I make every single episode that comes out. And if you send us a screenshot, or give us a recounting of you recommending the show to someone else, if you do that through the social medias, and you follow us on that social media, we will publicly bequeath you a part of billionaire Adal Rifai's fortune, maybe a company he's not really doing anything with, maybe an island he just has some stuff stashed, but he doesn't really remember what's on it. We will give you that bequeathment and you'll become a kajillionaire as well. We promise, we're going to do it. We'll do it right on the social media. So please check us out on Twitter and Insta, follow us there T-M-A-I pod. And now, back to the show.
[theme song plays]
ADAL: Extra five points for describing why Poison Ivy - making a case, even - why Poison Ivy is the best villain. And now that you have those extra five points, why don't you go ahead and tally those up, Eric, and take us on over to round three?
ERIC: Absolutely. That—
ADAL: Sorry. I'm— I'm sorry. Uh, quick, um, quick note, we're going to be calling this round tree - is that fun?
CORINNE: Round tree!
ERIC: Uh, I'm gonna write that down, round tree. All right. You, uh, you had seven points and a bingo and we're adding 15 points, which brings you up to 22 points and a bingo.
CORINNE: That's amazing. That's also what I wanted.
ERIC: Incredible. All right.
ADAL: And I'll— a la— um, Supermarket Sweep, we’ll remove that bingo and find out what the total was underneath. I guess Wheel of Fortune would have been a better one-to-one, but I love Supermarket Sweep. Yeah.
CORINNE: I love Supermarket Sweep. It's one of the best.
ERIC: I—that is still how I go to the grocery store. I just go to the jelly aisle and just pull, pull all of them into my cart.
CORINNE: You run around the store.
ERIC: Yeah, and then I say ‘I'm a '90s kid!’ and they forgive me.
ADAL: I grab 10 to 12 frozen turkeys and bring it up to the front and everyone says, ‘Why aren't you just grabbing medicine or magazines? Those are the smallest, most expensive items.’
CORINNE: Oh, my God. I know. I always feel like I could be really good at that game.
ERIC: Yeah. There is a reboot. Leslie Jones, I think, is doing it. I think it was last year.
CORINNE: Yes. I didn't see the reboot. It did come out last year, I think.
ERIC: I didn't watch it.
CORINNE: I haven't seen it either.
ERIC: Yeah.
ADAL: I feel like that's a missed opportunity to cast Ralph Macchio in Supermarket Sweep the Leg. Anyway, Eric, takes us over to round tree.
ERIC: All right. It's round tree, the question and answer portion. We have some follow-up questions for you and they are the gotcha questions that no one asked any of the magical salesmen from the various movies that we've been quoting. Please answer as many as possible as Mr. Rifai asks them of you.
CORINNE: Okay.
ADAL: Thank you so much. Corinne, you're ready?
CORINNE: Copy.
ADAL: Sorry. Don't— don't copy what I do. Okay. Here we go. First question, why are you spending all your money on plants and avocado toast when you could buy a beautiful three-storey colonial house in Connecticut?
CORINNE: Okay. Amazing question. I actually turned down buying $1,000 plant a few weeks ago, so I think I'm making the right choices.
ERIC: How— what plant was $1,000?
CORINNE: A variegated Monstera.
ERIC: Did it do your taxes?
CORINNE: It was like a gorgeous Monstera that had white in the leaves. And you know what? They were charging way too much because now you can get cuttings for a few hundred dollars on Etsy.
ADAL: The only plant worth $1,000 is Chernobyl. And guess what? I bought it after I saw the HBO series, which was so good. And I'm so thankful that all the actors spoke in English because otherwise, I wouldn't be able to understand it.
CORINNE: You can't read?
ADAL: I'll— I can't read. Thank you.
CORINNE: There’s no subtitles?
ADAL: I— thank you so much.
[laughter]
ERIC: Wait— okay. Wait, so with the white leaves in the Monstera, is this like a shiny Pokemon situation?
CORINNE: So—
ERIC: Is this like a—what—what is this?
CORINNE: I'm pretty sure that it's a plant that can only be grown from cuttings of this mother plant.
ERIC: Sure.
CORINNE: So if you have one and it's growing extra leaves, you can cut the leaves off, propagate them, root them, and sell it for— to— to become a new plant. Um, so for a while, it was really hard to get and because it has white in the leaves, the green is kind of working overtime.
ERIC: Sure.
CORINNE: The whiter a leaf, the harder it is for that leaf to, like, do plant stuff and survive. Um, but now they have— they're— I mean, for years, this has been like a rare expensive plant to get, but enough people are getting them now and, like, trying to propagate and sell them themselves that they're becoming slightly easier to get. And, um, there's all different, like, versions of, like, variegated Monstera, so sometimes you can, like, randomly find one at Trader Joe's, like you'll check the stem and it'll have, like, a white stripe. And if you're lucky, it'll, like, continue to have that. Um, but my local plant store just got one in, and I went in to ask how much it cost, and they said $950.
ERIC: Jesus. So this is a shiny Pokemon situation.
CORINNE: Yeah.
ERIC: It sounds like Pokemon cards. Jesus Christ.
CORINNE: And you know what? It was kind of yellowing. I was like, ‘This doesn't even look like a healthy one. Why are you charging me $1,000?’
ADAL: Wait, is yellow—is yellow bad, is it— uh, let me take off this yellow cardigan. Okay.
ERIC: No, it's a gold cardigan. You're fine. You're fine.
ADAL: Oh, okay. Okay.
CORINNE: Yellow is in, but not in a plant. Yellow can signify like, ‘Okay. There— this plant has— is telling me something. It's getting over-watered or under-watered.’
ADAL: Mm-hmm.
CORINNE: ‘Not enough drainage, maybe not enough light. Something's up.’
ERIC: Hmm.
ADAL: $950 for a plant? Insanity. I'm a billionaire, and even I think that's insane.
CORINNE: I think you should buy me one.
ADAL: Well, we might— we might be doing that, depending on what's underneath your bingo, uh, sticker there.
ERIC: It's a mystery box. No one knows what's under the bingo.
ADAL: A mystery box.
ERIC: We're working on it.
ADAL: Uh, I think that's a solid answer, so you did— people out there, if you're ever faced with the opportunity to buy a $1,000 plant, don't do it. And that's good financial responsibility. You're being fiscally responsible by not buy— buying $1,000 plants. I say it all the time. Uh, let's go ahead and move on over to question number two. Why are there so many houseplants that are poisonous to dogs and cats?
CORINNE: Oh, my gosh.
ADAL: Is this a war on dogs and cats?
CORINNE: I think about this a lot, I don't have a pet and I really want one, and yet, I'm like, ‘I would have to give up some of these plants, right? Like, what do I do?’
ADAL: Yeah.
CORINNE: Do I have to train it to not eat it? Would it automatically eat it? I have to— I can't defend plants here. I think it's really screwed up.
ADAL: Thank you. Thank you.
ERIC: Uh, we respect someone who just says, ‘Yeah, you fucking got me with that one.’ That's awesome.
CORINNE: Yeah.
ADAL: APAB.
CORINNE: Yeah. All plans are poisonous.
ADAL: APAP. Yeah, I'm sorry. APAP.
ERIC: APAP.
ADAL: Which reminds me, Eric, please put on my calendar, I need my monthly APAP test. My A-pap smear.
ERIC: Yeah, that's when we shove plants in your nose and in your cervix? I—
ADAL: Thank you. Uh, okay. So you think all plants are bad. Um, do you— do you feel like the dogs and cats are responsible, take any responsibility at all?
CORINNE: Um, I think cats do and dogs don't.
ADAL: Interesting. Okay. I do immediately have to penalize you, since I have three cats. But then I do have to add points back on because having three cats, I realize and recognize that cats are the devils.
CORINNE: I think they're smarter than dogs.
ADAL: They're the Einsteins of pets. There's— they’re nature’s Einsteins.
CORINNE: Yes.
ERIC: I love dogs, and I do think it goes in terms of smartness: cats, plants, dogs.
CORINNE: Uh-hmm. Oh, yeah, plants are really smart. They really— they are so smart. They know where the sun is, they know, like, where to go, what direction to head.
ADAL: Well, I don't think— I don't call anybody a genius who knows where the sun is. Uh—
CORINNE: I do.
[laughter]
ADAL: Corinne, let's go ahead and get over to our third and final question for this round.
CORINNE: Ready
ADAL: Round— round tree, of course. Eric probably had Brandon Google, 'Why are houseplants bad?’ for me. And here are the headlines of the real articles that exist. “Are your houseplants bad for the environment?” from BBC News. “The dark side of the house plant boom?” from The Atlantic. [Corinne gasps] “Are your houseplants environmentally friendly?” from The Guardian. [Corinne gasps] “Your indoor plants are killing the environment and what can you do to reverse that? Part one.”
CORINNE: No!
ADAL: So with all those search results and articles, Corinne, I have to ask, why do you love these terrible things?
CORINNE: All right. Here's how I'm thinking about it. Everything's killing the environment - what isn't? Everything's bad, right? So why can't I have a little bit of joy in my house? Also, I just don't think— I think that's clickbait. I think we gotta be really careful about what we're reading on the internet and I think that—
[laughter]
ERIC: The BBC News - always out for the clips.
CORINNE: I'm not so sure about them. And— okay. Plants, they can be bad, and here's why. Pregnant people should not repot plants or work with soil in any form because there is some kind of, like, parasite or something that could be in the soil. And if you've never been exposed to it, it will be dangerous.
ADAL: Hmm.
CORINNE: So that is why plants are bad. That's their big flaw to me, is that if I were to ever be pregnant, I'd have to get help, I guess, in repotting these guys? Um, but we don't have to worry about that. So let's see, why else are they bad? You can't leave the house for two months. You'd have to have someone come in and care for it.
ADAL: Oh, terrible.
ERIC: Six weeks is fine, though. They're just chilling.
CORINNE: Six weeks will work. You could get—
ERIC: Yeah.
CORINNE: —away with six weeks. I got away with two. And that was kind of pushing it, but I think I could have— I think I could have done some kind of humidity thing and it would have been even better.
ADAL: Sure. And, Corrine, just to— just to kind of help you out and nudge you back on the track. The question was not, pile on to why these things are bad. The question was, why do you love these terrible things?
CORINNE: Oh, okay, because they're bad.
ERIC: Great. Nailed it.
ADAL: A 100 points for honesty.
ERIC: Incredible. That was the most 8 Mile B Rabid shit we've ever had—
ADAL: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
ERIC: —on this podcast. You're like, ‘Yeah, you know everything about me. Plants are bad. I fucking love them. They're good guys.’
ADAL: Corinne, for your outright honesty, I'm gonna go ahead and give you a perfect 10 out of 10. And also—
CORINNE: Oh, yes!
ADAL: —because Christopher Guest is waiting in my guest room, let's turn that up to 11, 11 out of 10.
CORINNE: Oh, my gosh.
ERIC: Incredible.
CORINNE: Wow. I'm getting all the— the angel numbers. 22,11.
ADAL: I'm sorry, what is this?
CORINNE: This is something I think my mother made up, which is that numbers are the same in a row.
ADAL: Uh-huh. Numbers that are the same are called Angel numbers?
CORINNE: You'll have to get her on the pod.
ADAL: Oh.
ERIC: [Imitating Theresa Caputo] ‘I'm having a feeling there's an angel number in this area and then this, and this out of the room.’ That was Theresa Caputo, your mom, is it?
CORINNE: Oh, yeah, that's my mom.
ADAL: Hmm.
ERIC: Okay.
CORINNE: She's a ghost.
[laughter]
ERIC: She's an angel. I love her. That's why it's angel numbers. Yeah.
CORINNE: She's an angel and I love her.
ADAL: Eric— sorry, Eric 2, uh, greenlight that script.
ERIC: Uh, okay, I'm on it.
ADAL: Ghost—Ghost—Ghost Mother.
ERIC: Okay. I'm on it. I'm on it. All right.
ADAL: And don't get the same cast as Ghost Dad.
ERIC: Corinne, you did incredible in that round going from 22 points and a bingo, all the way up to 133 points and a bingo.
ADAL: Wow.
CORINNE: That is amazing.
ADAL: A hundred and 33? 33, of course, being an angel number.
CORINNE: Yeah.
ADAL: And my personal favorite number. Well, let's go ahead and angel on over to round four, the Wheel of Extraordinary Challenges. I've instructed my manservant part two, Eric 2, to prepare a few wacky minigames here to test your intellectual and creative mettle. Eric 2, what do we have today?
ERIC: Uh, first, I would love it if you would [in deep voice] feed me.
ADAL: Of course. Here's a, uh, piece of an arm, a dentist's arm.
ERIC: Okay. Hold on one second. [Makes gulping sounds] All right. Here— and we're back. Mischa, just cut that out. All right. Uh, all right. Uh, Mr. Rifai, you can take a breather.
ADAL: Dr. Rifai, please.
CORINNE: In the last three years, he's become a doctor, while you were in the coma.
ADAL: Thank you.
ERIC: Oh, okay.
ADAL: Dr. Rifai, please.
ERIC: Sorry, Dr. Rifai, you can take a breather. It's been a long three months. Um—
ADAL: Sorry. Dr. Rifai, LLC.
ERIC: Oh, Dr. Rifai, LLC, please—
ADAL: Thank you.
ERIC: Esquire. Please sit down. Reverend Dr. Rifai, LLC. Please sit down, take a breather. This is a game just for Corinne. Corinne, I have a game for you called Plant or Fantasy Hero?
CORINNE: Oh my gosh.
ERIC: Corinne, this is a game I just made up, so I appreciate the kindness, but I did—uh, if you have not heard this bef— have you heard of this game before? Did I, like, dream it?
CORINNE: I've never heard of this game, but I'm really not sure how I'm gonna do here.
ERIC: No, you got it. Your mom came to me in a dream and told it me, so maybe that's why we're connected. Uh, all right. So is this name, a name of a plant that I found on thesill.com, which is one of the various millennial plant sites—
CORINNE: I know The Sill.
ERIC: —that you can order from. Or is this from fantasynamegenerators.com, where you can look up all different types of, uh, fantasy names and they'll just fucking give you a bunch. It's awesome.
CORINNE: That's really fun.
ERIC: Uh, you also can get some extra points if you come up with how they fit in a fantasy novel, uh, regardless of if they are plants or, um, from fantasynamegenerators.com. For example—here's an example, Monstera Deliciosa. Obviously, we talked about it, it's a plant, but it could also be a big spider woman who lives in the woods.
CORINNE: That is so true. And that is the energy mine gives.
ERIC: Yeah? That's good. That's good. All right. First one, Corinne, Maria Cordyline, is it a plant or a name from the fantasy name generator?
CORINNE: That is a fantasy name generator, and she is someone who can crawl through the walls to another house.
ERIC: She can just go through that wall and go through someone else's wall?
CORINNE: She can just go through the walls.
ERIC: Incredible. I appreciate you, but that is not a—
CORINNE: No!
ERIC: —fantasy name generator. That is a plant. Uh, I flipped the name on that and that is actually a Cordyline Maria. “If you're looking to add some color to your plant collection, may we suggest that Cordyline Maria? It's long, lance-shaped leaves grow into bright shades of pinks and reds, anywhere from an electric fuchsia to a deep maroon.” Thanks, thesill.com.
CORINNE: Thanks, The Sill.
ADAL: Eric 2, go ahead and make a note to build some structures to my neighbor's houses, just so I can crawl through the walls to their house.
CORINNE: Yup.
ERIC: Absolutely.
ADAL: I'm tired of going outside.
ERIC: Just go from one wall to another. Absolutely. All right. Uh, we are going to go to the next one, which is the Dracaena Warneckii.
CORINNE: That is a plant.
ERIC: That is 100% a plant.
CORINNE: But it could be a woman who knocks on doors in the middle of the night.
ERIC: I hate that—
CORINNE: This is— I am coming up with the strangest women.
ERIC: I hate that— I like how— this is how we fix the fantasy genre. Just weird women all the time.
CORINNE: Yup. Well, this is me— again, looking around my apartment, noticing that there's a door to the outside, and saying, ‘Okay, great. What can— what can a fantasy character do with that?’
ADAL: Have you read the new Brandon Sanderson? It's about a woman who knocks on your door.
[laughter]
ERIC: Incredible. Uh, I heard— I heard that uh, I heard that Maria Cordyline and Dracaena Warneckii is why the third Name of the Wind book is taking so long.
ADAL: Eric, make a note to email Brandon Sanderson about the idea: Way of Rings, about a woman who rings a doorbell.
CORINNE: Yes. Oh.
ERIC: Hmm. He'll like that. Yeah.
CORINNE: That's fantasy.
ERIC: That's good stuff. All right, third one. Olo Chub. Is that a fantasy name— from a fantasy name generator or is that a name of a plant?
CORINNE: I think it's a fantasy name.
ERIC: That is. That is from The Hobbit name generator.
CORINNE: Okay. I was like, ‘I've never heard of a plant with a chub.’
[laughter]
ADAL: Well, for $950, we can sell you one.
ERIC: Oh, that's why it's expensive.
CORINNE: Only if it's variegated. I'm here for the green and the white.
ERIC: Uh, all right. Next one. Fiddle-Leaf. Is Fiddle-Leaf the name of a plant?
CORINNE: Plant.
ERIC: It's a plant.
CORINNE: I killed one of those.
ADAL: Oh, no.
ERIC: Or was that the woman who knocks on doors, she killed it?
CORINNE: She came in in the middle of the night while I was away for six months and didn't water it.
ERIC: Hmm, that's fair. All right. I know— this one was pretty obvious. I know a lot of people have Fiddle-Leaf figs, but, man, uh, it sure does sound like a hobbit name, huh?
CORINNE: It really does.
ERIC: Like, Fiddle-Leaf is gonna have second breakfast-ees right now.
CORINNE: It really does.
ERIC: Right. That is another point for you. All right. Overde Luango, is that, uh, is that from a fantasy name generator or is that, uh, a plant?
CORINNE: This is tough. I think it's fantasy.
ERIC: That is— specifically is from the Heroic Horse name generator.
CORRINE: Oh, yes. Of course. That's a horse. Yeah, we love Overde. I love that guy. Uh, number six, the Marble Queen.
CORRINE: Um, plant.
ERIC: That is a plant.
CORINNE: Pothos.
ERIC: The Marble Queen is a type of pothos.
CORINNE: That's what I have.
ADAL: It's also— it's also an Abba B-side song.
ERIC: Oh, how does that go? I don't know that one.
ADAL: [sings to the tune of Dancing Queen] Marble Queen, old and hard. Only seventeen.
[laughter]
ERIC: Everyone loves it when it's old and hard.
ADAL: [Continues singing] You are cold. You are cold. Imported from Italy. Ooh, Marble Queen.
CORINNE: I think there's a deleted scene of—
ADAL: It’s hard to improvise songs.
CORINNE: —Meryl Streep did that in— in the bonus episodes of Mamma Mia.
ADAL: Exactly. But they cut it out because Pierce Brosnan's face was in it.
CORINNE: Yup. You have to.
ERIC: Incredible. All right. Uh, how about Valley Throne?
CORINNE: Valley Throne. Okay, I can picture that in the font that The Sill uses. So I want to say it's a plant.
ERIC: It is sans serif as hell. It has one cartoon style with, like, a woman in overalls—
CORINNE: Yeah.
ERIC: —holding the plant.
CORINNE: There's a clay pot. Yeah.
ERIC: Yeah. Uh, unfortunately, no. That is from the Fantasy Name—
CORINNE: Uh—
ERIC: —Generator. That's from the fey court generator.
CORINNE: Okay. Well, it does seem like a color The Sill is gonna, like, push next season or something.
ERIC: Valley Throne, it's like a—it's like a light purple.
CORINNE: Yeah.
ERIC: Yeah. Yeah. All right. Uh, number eight. How about Guy Montag?
CORINNE: That is a fantasy name.
ERIC: Um, well, it kind of goes both ways. One—
CORINNE: It's an IRL name.
ERIC: Well, it— it is a plant as in it's not from fantasy. It's from Fahrenheit 451.
CORINNE: Okay.
ERIC: So— so I— it's neither, but I did plant it in there to trip you up.
CORINNE: Uh-huh. Yeah, okay.
ERIC: So, I'll give you the point anyway, I think.
CORINNE: I appreciate that.
ADAL: Fahrenheit 451 must be a tropical plant.
ERIC: Hmm. It thrives best next to fires and overt metaphor.
ADAL: Hmm.
ERIC: Yeah. Oh, sorry. You said it was the Fantasy Name generator. Unfortunately, I cannot give you the—
CORINNE: Oh.
ERIC: —point because it is a plant.
CORINNE: I don't know…
ERIC: And—and in that order it was a trick, so I can't give you the point.
CORINNE: No.
ERIC: All right. This is the last one, Corinne. This is Tricolor Carnosa.
CORINNE: Plant.
ERIC: Yeah, that's a plant.
CORINNE: I know that one.
ERIC: I thought it sounded like a— I thought it sounded like a fantasy pirate.
CORINNE: Okay. I know that plant, that's why I know it's a plant, because you're completely right. It does sound completely made-up.
ERIC: Yeah. Like, he's on, like, a steampunk pirate ship—
CORINNE: Mm-hmm.
ERIC: —that flies through the sky.
CORINNE: Yup. I can picture him.
ERIC: Okay. What— what do you think Tri— what— what kind of woman is Tricolor Carnosa?
CORINNE: This is someone who knocks on windows.
ERIC: Ooh.
CORINNE: This is someone who's— who's coming in your dreams and, like, there's suddenly a face in the window. All these are horror women, by the way.
ERIC: No, I— I got that they were horror women, definitely. All right, Corinne. That— you did very well on this. You got seven out of nine points.
CORINNE: Oh, my gosh.
ERIC: And I'm gonna round that up to an eight out of 10. That's eight more points for you.
CORINNE: Eight out of eight would be angel.
ADAL: Eric. Eric 2, let's make it angel, please.
ERIC: All right, it's eight. All right. Let's erase— let's erase the Guy Montag question that I asked. That's an eight out of eight, baby. You nailed it.
CORINNE: Perfect.
ADAL: This is like anytime I go to Santa Fe and order eggs or something, I'm always like, ‘Make it, uh, Christmas style.’ You know, where they put the red sauce and the hatch green chili sauce?
CORINNE: Yes.
ERIC: Oh.
ADAL: From now on, anytime I order something, I'm gonna say, ‘And make it angel.’
[laughter]
ERIC: Is that when they give you eleven, or that it has, like, a hundred eyes and hands?
ADAL: Oh, either that or it could be spongy cake. Or it could be a—
CORINNE: That's when they round the price up to— to, like— they're gonna charge you $11.11 or whatever.
ADAL: $8.74? No, no. I'll be playing—uh, paying $11.11. It could also be a brooding goth vampire who is misunderstood.
CORINNE: Yes.
ERIC: When they're ringing up your stuff, they're levitating a foot above the ground, and they won't tell you how.
CORINNE: Mm-hmm.
ERIC: Oh, sorry, that's Criss Angel style.
ADAL: That's Criss Angel style.
ERIC: Really busy T-shirt. Just chains everywhere. There shouldn't be—
CORINNE: What is he up to?
ERIC: I don't want to know. I feel like when we say his name three times, he'll appear like Beetlejuice.
CORINNE: Yeah, I think you’re so right.
ADAL: I think he has a residency at a local Denny's maybe? He's— he's the resident Denny's magician from now on.
ERIC: I'm gonna make your trip— I'm gonna make your grand slam disappear. [makes chewing noises] Just eats it really fast.
ADAL: Looked it up, and Criss Angel is in Branson, Missouri.
ERIC: Oh, is it a residency in Branson, Missouri?
ADAL: I didn't look it up.
CORINNE: Could be.
ERIC: I—
ADAL: Do you think I would waste one iota of internetting power on Criss Angel?
ERIC: No.
ADAL: No, no, no, no.
ERIC: No, no. Absolutely not.
ADAL: Uh, Eric what is her current total?
ERIC: All right. We are at 141 points, plus the bingo. Whatever is underneath the bingo sticker. ADAL: All right, let's go ahead and remove that sticker. Ooh.
CORINNE: Oh, my gosh.
ADAL: Wow.
CORINNE: Can I tell you what I want it to be?
ADAL: Please.
CORINNE: Minus 30, and it's 111.
ADAL: Corrine, you must— as per your last namesake, you must have some sort of psychic ability, because just like you said, Occam's Razor style, it is -30. So you currently stand at 111— 1, which is—
CORINNE: Yup.
ADAL: Is— is that now a devil's number?
CORINNE: Uh, no. Not until you get to six.
ADAL: Oh.
ERIC: Yeah.
ADAL: Well, let's make it 666.
ERIC: Okay.
CORINNE: Okay. Let's invite that energy in.
ADAL: Well—
ERIC: I'm trying to turn it to 666 and my fingers won't do it. I can't do it.
ADAL: Well, we don't have to invite it in. I'm sure it'll knock first.
CORINNE: Oh, yeah. You get to say if it can come in or not.
ERIC: Oh, that was Criss Angel. That wasn't the devil. We saw him. He was there. He's in Branson. He's fine. It's fine.
ADAL: Um, so Corinne, you currently stand at 666. You're knocking at the front door of the number one spot, held by your friend and co-host, Dr. Moiya.
CORINNE: Mm-hmm. Dr. Moiya McTier, my co-host of Pale Blue Pod. It's true, and that makes me excited, but also totally fine. Because that means Pale Blue Pod is gonna dominate the top two.
ADAL: Absolutely. Well, uh, thank you so much for coming on. I think you're currently—
ERIC: Sorry, we have— we have one more— we have the thing that we have to—
ADAL: What's that Eric 2?
ERIC: [In deep voice] Feed me! One more— one more question.
ADAL: Oh, yes.
CORINNE: Oh, no.
ADAL: My fake eye just reminded me, one more thing. For a final bonus point, you will answer this random trivia question about the world's most perfect film - and name for a houseplant - Grease.
CORINNE: Oh, no.
ADAL: Oh, well, oh, well, oh, well. Uh, producer Allan Carr made a deal to feature Pepsi in the local diner at the Frosty Palace. But the prop manager didn't get the memo and put a Coca-Cola sign instead. What did the production team do to fix this, Corinne?
CORINNE: Did they say that Coca-Cola was out of order?
ADAL: Hmm, that's a good guess. I'll give you— uh, what's an angel number? I'll give you 10 more guesses to make it an even 11.
CORINNE: Okay. Well, here's what happened. I have mostly seen Grease in middle school. It was what the substitute teacher would play when the— when my chorus teacher was out. Um, but they would never, you know, say, ‘Hey, we watched the first 40 minutes of Grease. Next time we're out, we should watch the— the next few minutes, like pick up at the minute 40.’
ADAL: Hmm.
CORINNE: So I'm very familiar with the first 40 minutes of Grease and I—
ADAL: Sure.
CORINNE: —can't tell you what the end of Grease is.
ADAL: Well, the end of Grease is, of course, uh, Sandy, um, and Danny get into a car and fly off into the sky, thus—
CORINNE: [gasps]
ADAL: —showing the audience that they did actually drown on the beach in the intro of the movie, and the whole interstitial, uh, 90 minutes has been a dream.
ERIC: I actually have some research on this that I really wanted to show. While we were looking up this particular factoid - which we still don't have the answer for. Um, this was from a USA Today article, and some— uh, someone asked John Travolta about that, if he thought that Sandy was dead the whole time, and he said, [in a bad Travolta accent] ‘I love it. Imaginations are awesome. These things are bound to happen to something timeless like this. It's so fun.’
ADAL: Sylvester Stallone, get out of here. We're trying to get John Travolta to talk.
ERIC: [in bad accent] Adrian! Sorry.
ADAL: So Corinne, I'll give you one more guess because one guess—
CORINNE: Okay.
ADAL: —plus another guess equals 11, technically. So one more guess to what the production team did to fix the mistake about featuring Coca-Cola instead of Pepsi.
CORINNE: Okay. If I was the production team, and we're not going to put an out of order sign, maybe—
ADAL: Hmm.
CORINNE: —it's a sign that says, ‘This is gross. This one's gross.’
ERIC: Honestly, so much better than what they did. So much better.
ADAL: Eric, Eric 2, please print me a T-shirt that says, ‘This one's gross,’ with an arrow pointing to you. That is fantastic merchandising. I want to see it in every Spencers across America. Corinne—
ERIC: Uh, I'm gonna start mocking up right now. Absolutely.
ADAL: Corinne, I'm so sorry. The answer was they blurred it with 1978 technology and it looked so bad.
CORINNE: Of course. Of course, they did.
ADAL: Corinne, I do want to— since it sounds like you're a real Grease head or at least for the first 40 minutes, I do want to give you an opportunity to say, do you know what Kenickie orders in the Frosty Palace?
CORINNE: Um, probably a Pepsi.
ADAL: He orders an Eskimo pie.
CORINNE: Ugh. Why?
ERIC: Hmm.
ADAL: Do you know what Kenickie offers, which is like a Hallmark card? He cares to send the very best.
CORINNE: Um, a—
ADAL: It's a— it's a— it's a first base kind of move.
CORINNE: Okay.
ERIC: It rhyme— it rhymes with his name.
ADAL: And it rhymes with his name.
CORINNE: Hickey?
ADAL: Yes, from?
ERIC: Yeah.
ADAL: The character I just said.
CORINNE: Hmm… Raz?
ADAL: No.
[laughter]
ADAL: Okay. I guess that's a slight rhyme. Uh, it's a hickey from Kenickie. We're gonna give you partial points.
CORINNE: Thank you.
ADAL: We're gonna give you— we're gonna— uh, we'll give you half a point, and what we're going to do with half a point is we're going to cut 666 in half to make it 333—
CORINNE: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
ADAL: —of— a much more heavenly palatable number.
CORINNE: Yes.
ADAL: If you believe in such things.
CORINNE: That is the good number.
ADAL: Uh, Eric, do you have a little more information about that blurring of the Coca-Cola sign?
ERIC: I do. So, uh, when I was looking it up where they had the interview, uh, with John Travolta, they also said that they wanted to fix this. This was so bad that they did it in 1978, that for the 40th anniversary update, they actually digitally painted over it. "We've been wanting to fix the Coke sign since the day Grease was released. It drove us crazy," said Andrea Kalas, Vice president of Paramount Pictures archives, who oversaw the year-long restoration. “Now, we have the technology to do it seamlessly.” Instead of, like, smudging the frame with—
ADAL: Yeah.
ERIC: —someone's thumb like they did. It was ridiculous.
ADAL: And now if only they could digitally remove Lorenzo Lamas. Well, Corinne, thank you so much. You stand at 333 points, which I believe is second place. Eric, go ahead and take us to the leaderboard.
ERIC: Absolutely. All right. Get out of the way Adrian 2, Audrey 2. We got to look at the big board.
ADAL: [As Adrian 2] Sorry, doctor. [As Audrey 2] Sorry, doctor.
ERIC: All right, Corinne. You are rocketing up our high scoreboard. We are dropping Matt Young, who had 72 points with toy collecting, from our first episode. Get out of here, Matt Young! Uh, we're— now, you can see now in fifth place with 73.666 repeating that is Janet Varney, who talked about Miniatures. Tied for third at 76 points is Amanda McLoughlin, talking about retirement plans, and Jeffrey Cranor, talking about the Dallas Cowboys. Corinne, you are slotting in to number two, uh, with 333 points, talking about houseplants, of course. And number one still, Dr. Moiya McTier with 5,075 points talking about exoplanets.
CORINNE: Oh, my gosh. Wow. Okay, so I was never gonna get there. Congratulations to Moiya.
ADAL: And I'll tell you what got you there, the first step, that story about getting houseplants during the pandemic.
CORINNE: You got— yeah, of course, it did. What if—
ADAL: It was like a George Saunders novella, um, beautiful stuff. Uh, hopefully, you did it on the 10th of December. Corinne, before we get you back on that plane, this time flown by an octopus—
CORINNE: Mm-hmm.
ADAL: —do you have anything you want to plug?
CORINNE: Yes. My podcast Pale Blue Pod is out and it comes out weekly every Monday. Um, it's the best part of Mondays, and it is about space. Moiya— Dr. Moiya McTier is an astrophysicist and explains scary space concepts to me. And it's so cozy. It's a really cozy show.
ADAL: Outstanding. I look forward to listening to it. Uh, Eric 2, do you have anything you want to plug?
ERIC: Uh, hey, now it's fine to water me after midnight. Don't worry about it. Just don't. It's all fine.
ADAL: Interesting. I'm not sure if I believe you. We’ll have to call Natasha Lyonne in to see if you're telling the truth. Well, that's all for this episode of Tell Me About It. Tune in next week for more Steve's Leaves, activating the node, and angel numbers. Say goodbye, Eric 2.
ERIC: Goodbye, Eric 2.
[theme]
Transcriptionist: DH
Editor: KM
Proofreader: SR