121: Brains In Jars Go To The Minnesota State Fair

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's ten twenty three pm at the Minnesota State Fair
and you're listening Tonight Call, Hello, and welcome to Night Call,
a call in show for our dystopian reality. I am
Molly Lambert and with me our test Lynch and Emily Oshida.

(00:25):
And later this episode we are going to bring on
our guests Brandy Brown. She's a comedian from Minneapolis and
an expert on the Minnesota State Fair. It's a really
fun conversation. It'll make you wish you could go to
a state fair, So stay tuned for that. But first
we are going to jump into it with a Nightcall. Hi.
My name is Morgan in Chicago, second time caller. UM,

(00:46):
I have some evidence to add to the folder on
Instagram listening to us and or mining all of our thoughts. Um,
I'm pretty sure that Instagram can tell how long my
eye lands on a particular image as I'm scrolling through

(01:08):
the Explorer section of Instagram. Like if I'm scrolling through
and I see something new to my algorithm and my
eye lingers on it, it's a little bit I'm like,
oh that thoughts like I haven't seen I've seen those
coming up before, you know, like a new kind of
dog or something, and then I noticed them growing, like
more and more and more and more, where it's all
within the same hour of scrolling. I can see the

(01:30):
algorithm changing as I scroll through it, depending on like
where my gaze lingers the longest. I'm almost positive the
Instagram knows exactly where we're looking in for how many
of my fort seconds And it's freaking me out. Okay, bye,
I totally believe this as well, though I've had this
thought before, believe it also continue to believe that it's Uh,

(01:55):
the mic is on all the time, because last week
we talked about milk a bunch. We'll talk about milk
more later in the show, but I just started getting
all these ads for milk afterwards that were like, perhaps
you'd like some fresh milk. Milk. So weird. It never
stops being We've been talking about it the entire time
we've had a podcast. I think we started talking about

(02:16):
this maybe even on Girls and Hoodies. Yeah. I wrote
something about it like a few years ago for Night Gallery,
this art gallery in l A, where I talked about
just my first experience of like directly getting an ad
for something that my friend had said out loud, which
was mint chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches, which was so specific,
but I was like clearly and I wasn't like searching

(02:36):
for it before. Um, it feels like more people agree
with us now, Yeah, definitely, yeah, I was. I I've
talked about this before. I was. I was routinely mocked
for believing in this. When I worked at the Verge,
nobody thought that this was a thing, which is crazy
because it's like, we know they scrape our data for everything.

(02:56):
Why would we trust them to like not use these things? Right?
And you're carrying an object has a camera and a
front facing, a front facing and a back facing whatever
you call it camera and a microphone? What why would
it not be used at all times? And of course
it just makes me think of all the times that

(03:17):
I've just been likted Instagram all I'm on the toilet.
I also think that, like, do you ever have the
thought like when it comes to you know, because you
know a lot of people put the tape over there,
um their laptop and so that I don't know if
you're like undressing in front of the camera or something
to real see you, But I always feel like you
should like do as many mundane like unsightly things in

(03:38):
front of the camera in case anybody is buying on
you because it's annoying, just just just to be annoying.
I think I like all those memes that are like
given the FBI agent assigned to watch me like a
real show tonight, giving him a thrill. This call also
reminded me of um Elon musk company neural Link, which

(04:02):
is the brain computer interface that he founded in twenty sixteen,
and it's been mentioned in the news recently because um
they're supposed to be sharing an update in late August,
and the last time they gave an update, it was
to say that neural Link planned to use surgical robots
to implant teeny tiny wires in our brains that just
connect to an external computer processor because Elon Musk is

(04:25):
concerned that, like we're not efficient enough at competing with AI.
I guess. Um. But last year they said they they've
already been do like performing these tests on mice and apes,
which is very sad. UM. And then they said next
year we're gonna start testing on humans. Yes, basically, um,

(04:46):
it's I guess. Tech Crunch had reported on this recently
and they said that, um, the goal was originally to
use technology to help mitigate the effects that's to quote,
mitigate the effects of neurological disorders patients with severe impacts
to mobility and other daily functioning, which is great, but
then it's you know, real intent is to like make

(05:09):
humans two point oh yeah no thanks, yeah, no, thanks
at all, huge note, thanks, especially from Elon Musk. I know,
I gotta say that having Meredith Whittaker on last week though,
was very comforting in a way because she reassured us
that a lot of these things that they are marketing
as being possible are not in fact possible yet. Yeah,

(05:30):
and I think and I was thinking about this. We
didn't get a chance to touch on this when we
were talking to Meredith, But like, like Elon Musk and
and Peter Teal and a couple other of the big
tech dudes are kind of in this community of these thinkers.
I use like heavy scare quotes there, who um who

(05:51):
believe in like hostile AI, Like that's their number one concern. Um,
It's like all these tech guys have their number one concern,
whether it's like building like off worlds or combating the
hostile AI. Like what it's like their doomsday scenarios are
all um sadly different in stupid ways, and the hostile
AI thing is like a real camp of thought among

(06:12):
these guys. It's also very funny to me always that
they refer to themselves as futurists, because like futurism was
a movement of Italian fascism. Well yeah, just like when
they started being like we're futurists, I was like, maybe
call yourself something else, but then it's like, maybe that's
what you met. Actually, maybe it's on purpose, because the
original futurists are very obsessed with like machines and like

(06:35):
the future as being and speed and efficiency and stuff. Yeah.
I hear the word efficiency and my eyes are all
into my head, you know. Well yeah, but I mean
I think it's funny though, that that that Elon Musk
in particularly so haunted by this threat of the robots
turning on us, which, as Meredith explained, is like unlikely

(06:57):
that they're going to become sent to it because it's
all just a data collection. It's not there's not magic
going on there. Uh, but it just it does feel
kind of like a very classic like like Frankenstein type
thing where it's just like his anxiety about like and
his anxiety about like arming humans to be able to

(07:19):
come conbat this potential AI threat just feels like a
guilty conscience, like just just raging. I don't think he
has a guilty conscience though, Dude, dude. He Uh. In
the Werner Herzog documentary about the Internet that is not
very good but has some interesting parts in it, um

(07:40):
he entered, he interviews Musk at length and uh, and
he just talks about how he has like nightmares all
the time, and it's very interesting. It's like, really, I
want to know what Elant Musk's nightmare. So I want
to know why Elon Musk's nightmare. Isn't that when they
put wires in your brain and hook you up to
a computer that they could computer doesn't turn on you

(08:01):
now that there are wires. Now, it doesn't make any
It doesn't make sense, like you just made it easier
for the machine to destroy you because now it's got
like fingers in your brain, you know, yeah, my yeah.
I mean it's also like having just rewatched the Matrix.
I'm like, right, these are the people that want to
build the matrix. They want to like put humans are

(08:23):
the sentinels, like they're the squids coming to inslave us
and put us in fats and slime, like that they
want that for us. It does also feel like all
the trans humanists are so specifically motivated by making trans
humanism exists before they die. Well, I want to know
and a and a broader like, I know that this
is something that comes up a lot. How do you

(08:43):
guys feel right now about being a brain in a jar? Um?
I guess less good than I used to, right because
now I'm like, well, I guess it's like, if you
are the brain in the jar, are you having what
feel like real experiences? Yeah? Is the is the sense
needle being poked at you in a satisfactory We never
said the brain in the jar had to like stay

(09:05):
in a room. You know, someone could carry it around,
just like the man with two brains a little boat, right,
take it to the State Fair for sure. Not as
big a fan of the I mean, it's not that
I want to have a body either, though. I think
for me, part of the appeal of being a brain
in a jar wasn't just that like, you get some

(09:25):
alone time, but also that you didn't have to worry
about a body, and in a sense, I think being
um in the middle of a pandemic has made me
even more upset to have a body, you know, because
we're kind of like, we're online a lot. Obviously we
can't do anything without staring into a screen, and that
is not fun at all. Like I, I don't enjoy this.

(09:48):
But at the same time, if I were truly a
brain in a jar, then I couldn't get coronavirus, could
I because it couldn't permeate it's airborne. I'm in jelly right.
The brain in the jar has to be in fluid.
Why is the brain's going to dry out and get
all cracked and not work. So I'm surrounded by protective fluid,
I cannot be infected, Whereas now I have all the

(10:09):
terrible things about being a brain in a jar, but
I could get your vulnerable. Yeah, the worst of both worlds.
I remain anti brain in a jar. I've I've That's
been my position. Probody. I love. I love having a
freaking body, you guys, it rules freaking bad. The thing

(10:32):
that freaks me out the most, That is the most
Philip K. Dick, which is like another level of it
is when Instagram shows me something I was thinking about
but did not see or search for which happened. Oh,
that happens all the time. But it must be a
subliminal Well, it's like they probably know like, Okay, you've
looked up, um, you've looked up like you've been on

(10:54):
real self. You've been looking at uh energy drinks and
something else, and they can triangulate that and be like, therefore,
you're going to be interested in this fourth thing. And like, yeah,
if I'm thinking about Martha's If I'm like talking about
Martha Stewart and it shows me a picture of Martha Stewart,
that's one thing. But if I'm just like thinking about
it and then it shows me the picture, then I
go into this crazy mode where I'm like, it has

(11:15):
to just be a coincidence because it can't possibly like
no my thought patterns that well, can it? And then
I want to throw my phone in the O. That's
also like a chicken in the egg type of thing.
Why are you thinking about Martha? Right? Like, there had
to be steps there, and it can see the steps
even if that even if those steps are not obvious,
adds to the idea that humans are just collections of data.

(11:38):
We are just ai contrary to uh what Bree Larson says,
I don't believe in free will, that's true. Have you
guys seen that? No? Oh my god. You know how
Brie Larson like has dipped her toe into being a YouTuber.
A YouTuber so like she does her sign off on
her video, like at least on her first video O

(12:00):
and like where most people would say, you know, like
and subscribe, she says, like, I'm not going to tell
you to subscribe because I believe in free will. Well,
all right, it's the stupidest thing in the world. That's funny.
But we are very predictable people in a lot of ways.
I think, Well, because they're so we reveal ourselves so

(12:22):
much now, yeah, yeah, we we put so much of that.
So much of what goes on in our brains is
actually like collected now in some way. That's why I
love when an algorithm fails or doesn't actually know something
about me. My TV commercial algorithm for whatever reason, is
always like totally off in a way that's really funny.
But it's the thing. It's like you can set it
off to where you'll be, like, if you talk about parenting,

(12:43):
it will start serving you ads about parenting. It doesn't
know that you don't have kids. It just does it
anyway in case you do. That's when the algorithm is weak,
when it's just like looking at demographics and it's like, oh,
this person willst have a child. It serves me ads
in Spanah a lot, which I'm always really flattered by.
I get that a lot too. I get a lot

(13:04):
of Spanish ads. I'm always like, I wish algorithm only Well, guys,
should we take a little vacation? Via a night email
short guarding Key West? Um this we've been getting a
lot of anonymous calls and emails because, um, we've been
talking about a lot of sensitive topics. So this one
is also an anonymous email. Hello from Key West. I

(13:26):
feel weird for saying this because you guys are a
fan of this place. But it hasn't been great here
these past few months. Well, honestly, it hasn't been great
here the past year and a half that I've lived here,
but that's mostly on me. The big issue that we've
seen is with opening the island back up to tourists,
which happened way too soon, and now the mayor is
working with the city council to try and figure out
a way to regulate mask usage because of how prominent

(13:47):
restaurant and bar attendance is for the island. The mayoral
elections are next month and it seems to be very contentious,
with many signs for the main three candidates displayed all
over the island, mostly outside of people's homes. Multiple places,
such as Charlie Matt since Salsa Loca have closed for good,
the former having actually already been sold to an unknown end.
My question for you all is do you think that

(14:08):
Key West will survive all of this? Or rather, do
you think that an isolated island that relies heavily on
tourism and military for income should continue to thrive in
this economy when all of this is eventually settled. My
odds of leaving here anytime soon are slim, so I'm
really just wondering about my next move down here. What
do you guys think? Great? Great night, call night, you know,
thank you. I'm glad to know that we have um

(14:30):
at least day Listener and Key West. Yeah, I mean,
I think anybody in a tourist, a tourism reliant place
is in a total catch twenty two right now, where
you need the tourism to come back for economic reasons,
but you don't want it to come back because it's dangerous,
or you know, we could have just paid everybody to

(14:52):
stay home. They could have paid businesses to to not close.
The fact that they were like, we're going to force
a reopening and if you close, it's your fault. And
I've seen there's a lot of lobbying happening right now
to ensure that companies like don't have to be liable
if their workers get COVID and die from going back
to work. So it's very gross. Yeah, yeah, all the

(15:13):
concern isn't exactly the wrong place, and kind of at
the end of the day, it's hard. It's hard to
blame especially in places like Key West or like I
was just in Carolina Beach Share in North Carolina, UM
a couple of days ago for a few nights, and UM,
you know a lot of these places they're not they're
not like the reason people go there is not at

(15:35):
least four independent businesses is for independently owned restaurants and
little bars and stuff like that. So they're not it's
not like an Applebee's on the beach like, these are
independent businesses, and if they have one location and it
has to close, they're really, you know, kind of screwed.
And if they're not getting any kind of help. It's like,
as much as I cringe when I see people packing

(15:57):
into a beach bar um or not even sacking in
just go like going to one and one being open
for business is just like, well, like it's hard to
know what else they're supposed to do other than completely
you know, like get out of the entire game. One
thing I've seen suggested, I mean, I guess at least
in Florida and like in Louisiana, you can take drinks

(16:21):
away and take them to the beach. At least. I've
seen people in New York talking about how it's a
big issue for bars there and sort of encouraging them
to let have been doing that. They're let people carry
liquor around because they were temporarily letting people do it.
It's like same in l A. Right, they were, that was,
but it actually they don't seem to be very strict
about it in l A still um. But for a

(16:43):
while there was like a cart with cocktails roaming the streets,
and I really enjoyed. Just no, I didn't order anything,
but I was like, I like knowing that they're there.
But yeah, I mean having some flexibility here to support
businesses and ways that are safe seems pretty imperative. Yeah,
if you can make it safer to support those businesses
by you know, changing changing a law that is sort

(17:06):
of silly anyway, like open alcohol carrying laws. Um. But yeah,
I think the thing that's really a bummer is that
this is hitting restaurants and bars, and I think that
a lot of the places that aren't going to see
that much of a downturn, in places like qus in
in beach towns and tourist towns. Is real estate stuff.

(17:28):
Is people who have airbnbs? Is that kind of thing
because people are still going to these places and people
still have you know, rental houses and stuff, and or
they have, um, they have time shares or something. Although
oh this is something there's so many ads when I
was driving for um, like like lawyers that would get

(17:48):
you out of your time share because the resort that
it was at. I heard one in l A recently,
too specific. It's very Yeah, it was like this entire
cottage industry. And I guess because a lot of the
resort it's in places where people have time shares, like
the facilities of clothes, so like you know, if you
can't go to the pool at your timeshare or whatever,
then what's the point of having it. So people are

(18:09):
trying to get out of it. It's very interesting. It
was just like such a specific bit of world building
for our dystopia right now. Yeah, I mean, I think
that it's very disgusting, especially that the companies that have
been build out are these big companies that nobody's using
right now, like cruise ships. That's one of those things
where you're like, well, who knows even when the cruise

(18:31):
industry is going to come back, Like, wouldn't it make
more sense to give money to workers and people who
can't afford not to go back to work right now
so that they don't die. Because I also just don't
understand it from the business owner perspective. It's like you
don't want your workers to die, then you need to
hire more, and you're just assuming there's like an endlessly

(18:52):
replenishable well. Also, it's such a horrible association for a brand.
I mean, we just had in California to work deside
it I think a mission tortilla plant. Um, yeah, I
mean it's it's just endless and like it. You know,
it really makes you not feel great about supporting a
company that has created that problem, but so many of

(19:13):
them have, you know. It's also it's it's a similar
things with with landlords and evictions. It's like that same
kind of failure of logic. It's like, Okay, you're gonna
lose employees because they're either going to get very very
sick or die, uh, and then you're just going to
replace them, and you assume that people are going to
still want to the people are still going to be
able to work for you. Uh. In the same way,

(19:36):
it's like, Okay, I'm just gonna evict people because they
can't pay their rent because their entire livelihood has been destroyed,
and I'm going to assume that there's an unlimited supply
of people whose livelihoods haven't been destroyed that can take
over their lease or whatever who's moving in. It's such
a weird it's like, oh THEO, no, my my tenants

(19:57):
who couldn't pay rent. They were a special failure case.
Like right, I don't understand like not wanting poor people
to exist when your whole model is based on exploiting
them for labor. Yeah, it's just going back to Key West,
I have to say that. So the other day we
had a series of earthquakes in l a Um and

(20:18):
it just was also a reminder that every the things
that have been happening over the past uh year, ish,
who expected any of this? And then there are so
many other factors like earthquakes and fires, So it's also
just so hard to predict, like what cities will you know,
go under because of COVID related reasons and what cities

(20:40):
I mean, I guess everything is kind of entangled, so
everything could probably be COVID related. But I mean with
Key West, it's like and and other places too, You're
like you we just don't know. I mean, there's we're
so focused on the pandemic and as we should be,
but then there are also like all of these other
factors that are going to continue happening. I hope Key
West exists. I hope everyone's thinking about the way that

(21:01):
the way money is spent and who gets to spend
it and when you know, it's it's imaginary on some level.
So it does seem crazy to me when you hear
about like these big companies getting these like millions, you know,
millions of dollar bailouts, and then they say, like and
we have to stop unemployment because we can't you know,
afford to pay people anymore. It's like again that thing

(21:24):
of companies being treated more like people than people get treated.
I do think that there's one thing that having been
in a beach town recently and having also been in
Galveston a couple of weeks back, like and even though
there are like nightmares aspects to both of them, at
the end of the day, like you're going. I mean,

(21:45):
there are other reasons that are unique to every town,
but you're going to these places for their position in nature,
like their proximity to a peach or a park or
whatever the case may be, and that stuff remains available,
Like you can go to the beach. I mean, there
are you know I did. We did this thing where

(22:06):
we like went and walked out and I just wanted
to like scope out what it looked like. And it's
most crowded at like the high point. It's like, Okay,
we won't go. Then we'll go to like the dead
hours and you can go and it's fine. It's like
totally safe, and I think it's like if it's available
to you, it's something that you can do now, Like
whether or not that keeps a town afloat of all
you're doing is like going to the beach and not

(22:28):
going to their bars and their hangouts, and you know,
giving your money to local businesses, Like that's a whole
other thing. But like I think that if you're responsible
about it, it can be very good for your mental health. Eventually,
you just have to consider your mental health and like,
you know the fact that you're you're living your rare

(22:48):
and precious life. You know, you gotta do something with
your body. You're freaking body in your freaking body. But
that's the thing. Like I was, like swimming in the ocean.
I was like, God, damn, this is awesome. Like everything
in the world is so shitty right now, but like
I can be here right now, and like I know,
the shart's very woo woo and yoga, but like it's

(23:10):
anything that you can access, whether it's swimming in the
ocean or going on a walk in nature somewhere, like
I think is really important to do right now. Yeah,
I mean, even just like leaving your phone inside and
just going outside for a while is very relaxing, like
silly relaxing makes me realize how much having a phone

(23:32):
on me makes me like betense all the time. Even
if you just like go to the grocery store and
don't bring your phone, Like garden stores open and allow
you to like wander around with a bunch of plants outside.
I find that to be a great free brain vacation.

(23:52):
And then maybe you spend some money on plants as
I did, and support your local garden store. It's a
win wind. I have been so boarding my garden storeway
too much. The guys, it's it's getting crazy. Well, my
parents went to the garden store. That was like their
first trip really out of the house. Um was there
was like a senior hour where you can buy plants
in the morning, and they went and I could just

(24:14):
sense that it had like a huge effect on their
mental health to be out for the first time since
it started and see just you know, see nature. Yeah, well,
we're gonna take a quick break and when we come back,
we're going to bring on our guests, Brandy and go
on another little vacation to the Minnesota State Fair. Welcome back.

(24:44):
To Nightcall and welcome our very special guest, Brandy Brown.
Brandy is a comedian for Minneapolis. She co hosted the
podcast Bill Corbett's Fun House, and she regularly hosts at
the Acne Comedy Company in Minneapolis. Welcome Brandy, Hello, Hello, Hi.
Brandy is on Twitter as it's the Brandy Brandy with

(25:05):
an Eye and was one of my best Twitter follows
of all time. Thank you. I will say it. Brandy
is highly influential to the Night Called Twitter to somebody
who may or may not be behind good follow in general.
So we hear that you've been Uh, you're a big
fan of the Minnesota State Fair. I am am, And

(25:29):
they have they've they've gone ahead with the Minnesota State
Fair this way, but like in a very COVID specific way.
And I was just like, from meeting your tweets, I
was just like, how does a state fair even occur?
Right now? Just feels like such a vector. But I'm
sure that you have much first had experience, so well,
I mean they're not doing it, They're doing it a

(25:49):
pretty safe way, which I am not a fan of
doing it this way. I mean I'm not like I
just don't want to do it this way, But I'm
not saying it's a bad idea. It's a great idea.
Tickets one on sale today. UM, it's a drive through
State Fair kind of experience. And UM. The thing you
need to know about the State Fair rounds is that
they're pretty big. I should have looked up how big
they are. But it's square miles, um, and it's like

(26:12):
a normal street situation in there with buildings and stuff.
So what they're doing is they have I think twenty
vendors and including the two dollar all you can drink milk,
which I don't know how they're looking that, um, and
people they stagger. They charge you twenty dollars per car,
and then they stagger the you know entrance, so that's

(26:35):
not too backed up and people can basically do a
drive through. I didn't really look into it exaucep. I
was just like, I don't I drive everywhere in Minneapolis,
And so when I say I don't drive to the
State Fair, that's pretty significant because we have a pretty
robust park and ride situation normally. So I just leave
my car at this lot and then you pay five
bucks to get on a bus that'll take you straight

(26:56):
there and it's free to get back um and at
night you can just leave till up to midnight. So
I don't want to drive and also want to go
to stay Fair. I like to have beers and I
share my food with other people and so I can't
take anyone really, and so I'm just probably gonna skip
it this year. But I mean the fair grounds open,
I could just go have a picnic there, and they

(27:17):
also it's open. The fair girls are open for other
stuff there. They have car shows. They have another thing
that's going on I think now, which is like a
drive through dinosaur experience, which, yeah, it's the roller Derby.
One of the roller Derby are several roller dirty teams
play over there in the Colosseum. So it's a pretty

(27:38):
big little area. So they've mostly just done aside from
the dinosaurs, they've mostly just done a drive through for
the food stuff. This is the first year. That's all
I think they're doing. It's a drive through, um, so
I mean it's it's safe, it's just stay Fair traffic.
It's notoriously a nightmare. Yeah, so it's like, why would
I want to do that for funzies? Yeah, But mostly

(28:00):
the experiences walking around and sharing your food with people
and totally like it's you can't leisurely do that. I
mean it sounds cool if you have like a family,
it's actually great, but you're paying toy dollars to get
in for the car, so that's a flat fee, and
then you're paying for the individual food. And a lot
of these vendors are exist in the Twin Cities anyway,
I'll just get the food, however, So it's not like

(28:23):
where there's like the one people who make the turkey
drumstick that you can only have like that that one
time of the year. There's a place called Turkey to Go,
which they make really great sandwiches and stuff, and they're
in the Skyway system and they're they have like a
storefront or something, so I could just go there. There's
a giant egg roll um Vietnamese place. They have a store.

(28:45):
They're over northeast. I mean, they're all sorts of place.
All you can drink milk. I'm lactose intolerant. I'm not
trying to do that. You could drink milk is insane.
It sounds like punishment, like if you're if you do
something terrible, it's like, now, sit down, and drink milk
until you spew like smoke in the whole pack exactly.
We were just talking about milk last week in the
Midwest because Emily, Oh, yeah, because I was witnessing the

(29:08):
rapid expanse of Culver's. I don't know, if you're a
Culver's fan, maybe I am. Like my late grandmother would
often guilt me into going to Culver's for her like
a huge Culver's family here. Yeah, I was like, because
I'm from I lived in Iowa for a lot of
my childhood, and uh so it was a big there.

(29:28):
It was big, like Wisconsin thing, Minnesota thing. And then
I was shocked to see them in like Arizona when
I was driving. So Colver's is taking over the country.
It's funny that you both are cursed with lactose intolerant
and like the place with the most milk products. That
probably is what did it, though, I think if you're
like like, because I drank milkshakes and frozen custards and

(29:49):
everything all through my upbringing and then at some point
in college was just like, no, I know exactly what
it happened. It was. I remember it was in like
cafeteria and I used to have every day with lunch,
like chocolate milk, and it was like really thick, like
school chocolate milk. Um. But like one day I was like,
why am I farting so much? And then I was like, well,
maybe it's a chocolate milk which is very thick. So

(30:11):
I would cut it with like regular milk and that
didn't help, and I was like, oh, I gotta stop
doing this. And it's not super severe for me, but
it was like it kicked in when I was like seventeen,
and so I mean, I'll, you know, I'll eat ice
cream and stuff, but at the fair, but I can't
drink milk. Also, there was a big thing a few
years ago where they doubled the price. It used to

(30:32):
just be a dollar, and a Rudy Boschwitz who was
like a politician here. I think he was like I
don't forget what he was, but he was like the
Rudy bosh Witz like milkstand and now it's just you know,
the milkstand or whatever it's called. And they were like,
we have to double the price to two dollars and
I was like, yeah, it's fine, guys, no, But people
were kind of just sad because they were nostalgic for

(30:52):
the one dollar milk, but I think they had like
different flavors they used to. Strawberry might still be around,
but it's like plain chocolate straw berry if you can
never get sick of milk. So I take it they're
not doing the world famous butter cow as part of
the drive through. Oh that's Iowa. Iowa doesn't. Actually they are.

(31:14):
They are doing the Butter Sculpture. So what Minnesota has
is something called Princess K of the Milky Way, of
the Milky Way. It's a it's a pageant, but it's
agriculture and dairy stuff and it's actually really not hard
to get it, but you have to know your ship.
So the people who get into the finals are all
like you have m agg majors who I think the

(31:36):
cut off is like twenty three or something, and they
have to like know their dairy ship so to get
to be a finalist for that, they all all the
finalists get there, like you go into this one building.
There's the dairy building, and then there's the cattle building,
which is different, but the dairy building, Um, there's a
giant like I don't know, like glass case. The it's

(32:00):
refrigerated and the like the Milky the Milky Way finalists,
they wear their little crowns in their sash and they
wear like whatever heavy coats they do, and they get
they sit there and get carved in the blocks of butter.
The winner, Princess Kid of the Milky Way, who's the
number one, gets carved first, and it's like on down

(32:21):
the line, and it is a very very prestigious honor.
Like these people will save their butter bust un till
their wedding day. They'll put it in deep freeze and
it'll be a thing where I think, you know, I
think some there was like a big controversy years ago
where like someone's sibling like like destroyed the butter sculpture.
It's like it's a huge deal. And um, so what

(32:43):
they're doing this year is I think the person who
normally called carved the butter sculptures retired and handed over
to somewhere else. And what they're gonna do is they're
probably going to put the butter person in the cooler
and then put the Princess k person outside of the
cooler for social distancing. But they're gonna do it this year.
I mean they're gonna get those sculptures. So yeah, the

(33:06):
main butter artist in Minnesota is not the same lady
is in Iowa? Is it? Do you know y'all have
your own but Well. The other difference with the Iowa
butter cow is one Iowa recycles that butter on that
butter cow likes going to eat the seen a documentary, Well,

(33:26):
they eat the Princess K like they'll put it as
a centerpiece and just use it for because it's just
a giant block of butter that's brand new. It's very
quick question. How big are these? Is it like a
life size thing or I would say it's a pretty
standard size like bust Like they're pretty big. So we're
talking like punds of butter. Oh yeah, I mean I

(33:49):
don't know what your producers are doing. They can google
how big the butter cow bus, the butter the Princess
K bus. But the other thing about this bus is, um,
my ex boyfriend who I'm still friends with, thought maybe
it was like one of my friends we all go
to the fair, and he thought that they were just
carving over and over the same sculpture and I was like, no,
that's each of the women and if you. You can

(34:09):
see their pictures next to the thing, and they all
look different. I mean they all look very like Minnesotan
and like Scandinavian, but they have different you know, hair
and looks. But you have to kind of make their
hair a little longer because of their necks because if
you don't, their neck will like fall over. The breaking
news from Joel. Producer Joel chimes in, it's a ninety

(34:32):
pound block of butter. Yeah, I think I think butter
is um lighter than like human flesh, well pound of
butter sticks, and it's frozen too. It's pretty ya. But
the butter cow in Iowa, I think I saw a
documentary about it. So basically what happens there is that
there's a frame made um and then the butter is

(34:53):
applied and then like shaped onto them because there's no
way those skinny little cow legs holding up all that
that mass. This kind of relates to the Drive Through Dinosaurs.
I've seen the Dinosaurs Live show and it was a
little disappointing just because they had to hold up the
dinosaurs heads because the dinosaurs next couldn't support it because

(35:15):
it wasn't a real dinosaur. Yeah, you'd have to do
select kind of dinosaurs, Like you couldn't do a bronosaurs,
t sterotops, you could do probably it's all get into
butter carving. This sounds like the great Well I wanted
to say. Also, you introduced me to another hobby that
I knew nothing about, which is crop art. Yeah. I'm

(35:38):
actually going to be hosting a fundraiser for the Minnesota
State Auditor who's her name is Julie Blah. And I
don't have the exact details, but I couldn't like pass
them on you guys. But she is a crop artist herself,
and she's really awesome. She's to be a mass teacher,
just a really fun person. Um. She does crop art,
and she figured out that like if you enter your
crop art and it's not controversial, uh, they'll leave it

(36:01):
up for the duration of the fair, which is twelve days.
So what she did is she made her political sign
like you know, Julie Blaha vote for her or whatever
in crop art, and then she got free advertising for
a total of eight dollars. And I've ever seen but yeah,
behind me some of my crop art, my novice entry.
Uh it's a shady panda from Polar Bears. Cafe, my

(36:22):
favorite show. Oh my god. Yeah, and then um above
that is I can show you guys later is the
I entered the special Occasion category last year. Um, and
I did the thirtieth anniversary of the Game Boy and
then that pieces like sixty or twelve by like sixteen,
I think, baby, Um yeah, so the wait, so what

(36:44):
is it made of? Oh, it's made up a lot
of stuff. So typically in crop art. So I guess
I should back up the history of crop art. And
I don't don't quote me on this because I'm very
new to crop art. I'm in my like third year technically, well,
to have new blood in the crops, the nicest people like,
they're so talented and so nice. So crop arts started

(37:07):
about fifty five years. Fifty anniversary was actually gonna be
this year and I was gonna do crop art sneakers,
but that's a different story. Um. But basically, um, you know,
they they started the crop art they at the fair
where you basically just have to use Minnesota crops. They
have to grow in Minnesota. Doesn't have to be native

(37:27):
to Minnesota, just has to grow there. So there's someone
who is a um they're the woman who originally started
crop art. There's a book I was reading called Seed Queen.
She started that and then her daughter is now like
royalty literally in crop art where she doesn't even enter
anymore because like she destroyed everyone else, but she's still
like shows her art or she'll enter something like that.

(37:51):
So they have to grow in Minnesota, and so there's
some really super competitive people who will watch the University
of Minnesota UM experimental like agriculture thing and if they
grow a seed hybrid, that's a that's a legal seed
and you just ask you intend. Yeah, so what you
have to do is you basically there are different categories.
There's the novice category, which is just your first year UM.

(38:14):
There's wearable crop art, and there's the amateur division and
then the advanced and if you get a certain number
of blue ribbons you have to go to Advanced UM.
There's wearable crop art, there's flat floral arrangements where you
can use plant parts beyond the seeds. Uh. There are
UM crafts I think there you can make like dolls

(38:34):
of stuff. There's a scare crow category which is kind
of with the crop art but not the same thing.
And at the state Fair there's a whole creative arts
thing that's separate from this where people show their jams
and stuff. And then there's fine arts, which is just
the artist. But I think like crop art is showcase
in the agriculture and horticulture building. Um, and it's it's cool.

(38:58):
It's just like you basically have to turn in your
seed guide where you have little samples of all the
seeds you used so that you can you know, they
can check it against to make sure it's legal. So
my my panda here is the easiest one to see.
It's pretty small as crop art goes. But I used
flax um like regular flax. I think golden flax. Quene

(39:23):
wa staff flower grows in Minnesota. Uh yeah, somebody's grown it,
and somebody's grown it wild rice. Um. I think there's
some lentils. All the lentils are legal, even though they
technically shouldn't because like nobody in Minnesota really grows bloga lentel,
but somebody did. Um n yeah, sorghum and then uh

(39:47):
keenewa different kinds of quenua canola or rape seed. I
don't have a story about that. Um. And like I think, um,
a couple of like wild grasses and stuff for lines.
But like some of the seeds you can't use. You
can't use sesame seed, you can't use anything that's a weed.
You can't use um white rice. You can use wild rice.

(40:09):
But people get really creative, like I think somebody did
a few years ago they did Bob Marley and hemp
seed that's legal. Um. Somebody did a controversial one that
stayed up for like three days where they did Bill
Cosby and all canola seed um, which is also known
as rape seed, and god that one was taken down

(40:29):
that I think it's the same person who to the
hemp seed. Just like people, it's very political to people
tend to lean left in this, so there's a lot
of political statements um, and a lot of it's pretty competitive.
That the person who won Grand Champion two years ago
whose starts basically her next year's project in her projects
like thirty six inches by like twenty four inches, and

(40:51):
she uses like tiny time like poppy seeds, So there's
poppy seeds on that one too. Um. It was a
Dr Seuss thing and I can send you guys pictures,
but was gorgeous. It was about immigration, but it was
like making fun of like anti immigration people using dr
SEUs And in the prior year she did Swampy Town,
which was just busy Town but about Trump with a
busy town animals. But it was gorgeous and you could

(41:15):
sell these for like thousands. It should be in the
Fine Arts building. But yeah, well, we're going to take
a quick break and we will be right back with
another night email. We received a night call for Brandy

(41:39):
about crop art. Um not to take this in a
in a morbid direction, but I'm going to, uh, this
person did not sign their email, so we're gonna let
them be anonymous. I feel like when I watched Witness
starring Harrison Ford and learned about grain entrapment, it completely
changed my relationship to crop art. Imagine drowning in a
vat of paint or being rushed by crayons. I haven't

(42:03):
seen that, but I mean, yeah, you don't funk with silos.
I mean that's Midwestern, like I'm from the city, but
you yeah, you don't sunk around in those. Anything on
a farm can kill you. So that's just like crop art.
I just go to this farm and feed. I mean
the most dangerous part of crop art for me is
going a little too far outside the ninety four loop,
which is I ninety four and like all the connecting

(42:24):
things and going out to the farm and feed stores
to pick up some you know, like sorghum and stuff,
and they're just like, what are you doing? I was
like crop art and then everyone's super nice, what are
you doing? And then um, yeah, and I get a
lot of the edible seeds and stuff from just coops
and stuff like that. Did you guys see the story
this week about the mystery seeds three seeds? I would

(42:44):
love to talk about mystery seeds. What do you guys
think is going on? Something I heard someone say that
was actually like a scam to get ratings or something
from something else. Can somebody explain the mystery seeds? I
haven't seen this. People were getting mystery packages from companies
like Wish and Ali Baba I think from from and
there was just something going around being like, do not

(43:06):
open the mystery seeds from China. They are unmarked seeds
from China, unidentified And yeah, people were receiving them and
then the FDA said don't plant them and send them
to us so that we can figure out what they are. Um.
But yeah, like Brandy said, I think, you know, it's
it could be one of those things where it's sellers
trying to just send um send packages to people who

(43:27):
didn't order anything, and then they can use that address
to make it a verified purchase and give themselves good reviews.
But it seems kind of strange because there have been
multiple reports. Someone someone actually a mutual on Twitter said
that she got super high and saw that Wish had
a thing for trees, and so she bought trees and
she had forgotten she had done this while super high,
that she got the seeds and she's like, oh, that's

(43:50):
what it was. Like they were selling like trees and
people thought they were getting trees, which at the State Fair,
by the way, last year, I got a like an
actual seedling for a tree if I went the first day,
and like the Forest Service was like free trees, Like
there's so much stuff, like they give away yardsticks and
all sorts of great things. So, I mean people thought
they were getting seedlings and they were just getting seeds

(44:12):
seeds right, and two weeks ago people thought they were
going to get children in cabinets, So gotta keep up.
So going back to the crop art thing and like
kind of the political statements and some of the more
stunty crop art entries. That kind of made me curious
because I haven't been to a state fair, big fair
for a while. I did um go to the Iowa

(44:33):
State Fair bit um growing up, but I also went
to UM. It wasn't a state fair, but it basically
was a scale of a state fair in UM in Washington,
the Polut Fair, Um that one a lot too. Yeah,
but uh but I was sort of wondering, like, you know,
what is the political vibe of some of these different
Like is the is the crop art scene more political

(44:54):
than like say the quilty and scene or any of
the other cars. I would say, yeah, I would say
the crop arts se is more left leaning. And it's
a lot of city people. There's some from Outstates, which
is Outstates what we call its side of the metro area.
So uh so that's just you know, greater Minnesota outside
of the what we call seven county metro area, which
also includes like far far western Wisconsin. But um, mostly

(45:17):
like a lot of the people who win are like St.
Paul Minneapolis people, And yeah, I mean the quilting people
tend to just make gorgeous quilts and in the Creative
Arts building. Like I said, it's not as political because yeah,
it's just I mean the room for it. And the
whimsy is just generally like stuff that's like always gonna

(45:39):
be whimsical. But the crop art, you do new stuff
every year, so you're just like and you can enter
multiple categories if you want, so people are just kind
of you know, I have my theories on the pandering.
What would win with the judges who tend to skew
older and you kind of if you do something like
pandering to the state Fair in Minnesota, that would win
my I mean my tetrissing. It's good, but it rightfully

(46:02):
did not even place. I actually, um, I have an
ongoing thing where my croppart is accidentally in the background
of politicians taking pictures with other crop art. So two
years ago, my panda was right behind someone's entry, which
was a like a head a three D head of
ilhan Omar out of seeds and they just used a

(46:23):
base of like you know, styrofoam and then they made
it out of seeds. So she's leaning in front of it,
and then behind her is like the shady panda spying.
That's great. Yeah, then last year Julie. Uh, Julie Blaha
actually did a great She entered multiple things last year
she entered she did a piece for Peggy Flanagan, who
is our current lieutenant governor. Tom Weber was going to

(46:46):
propose to her who he was, he's a journalist here
and so she did a piece of crop art for
their engagement um and like, because you can do like
birthdays or themes or stuff with a special occasion category.
And she said, and everyone was like, well, what if
you know, they don't get engaged or he moves the
date And she's like, well, I waited and saved the date.

(47:07):
But also her anniversary was coming up anyway, She's like,
I could easily just make it me and my husband.
So it was fine, but it was a gorgeous piece
at one first place, but it was also right my
my tetrising was right below it. So I have a
picture of Julie Blah i was a state auditor with that,
I have a picture of Peggy flang and who's a
lieutenant governor with that, and then Tim Wallace who's a

(47:28):
governor with my pictures. So now it's just like an
ongoing thing where I try to I'm gonna try to
like get my crop art next to other politicians stuff,
or just to have them stop by. Next time you
have to put a secret message and that you can
only see from very far away. I mean, I'll just
put a blatant message, and like, I like there's like
all sorts of stuff. I might actually just make a

(47:49):
piece just to like make fun of amy Cloba Shar,
because there's also the amy Cloba Shar ongoing state at
fair feud um with me and her. Wait, what what happened?
What's the amy? So Amy Klobascher is very very diplomatic,
always like to the point where you're like comedically like
centrist on stuff. You don't want to upset people, and like,

(48:10):
so there was a news story before the state fair
because everyone's down in Iowa pandering down there in Iowa,
and of course you're in Iowa. You don't want to
say the Minnesota State Fair is better. So somebody said
which is better? And she, of course was very diplomatic
about it. Fine, she's a guest in Iowa, who cares.
But I saw that, and I'm just a huge state
fair stand I was like, I'm gonna ask her which

(48:31):
is better and make her say the Minnesota State Fair.
So my good friend Hayley and I go on the
first day and we were like you know what. We
went at like it opens the gates open at six am.
We were there at seven with like Hayley's mom drove
us and I'm just like all right, thanks, Like her
mom like picked me up. It was like high school
or something. And uh we went and we were like, Okay,

(48:52):
here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna go like run around.
We got these plans. We're gonna go see the Baby Rabbits.
We're gonna go to the three four h musical at
eleven or something to find Amy Cloba Shar at two
o'clock at the MPR stage where she's being interviewed and
we're gonna ask her this question. It was like we
totally weren't gonna do like it. It doesn't seem like
a gotcha. All you have to do is say the
mississ State Fair is better you're in Minnesota, but also

(49:12):
objectively it is a better fair anyway. But so we
were walking around and we were we here just yelling
and I'm like, that's Amy Klobashar's voice. It was from
the DFL like shack or like they're little like hut
that they have. And I was like, well, let's go
over there. And amy Clobshar is just like yelling, like
the the joke I have an amy Ckloba Schar, which

(49:34):
is not even a joke, It's true. It's that woman
has no indoor voice. She will always yell, so like
she's yelling, and so I was like, well, let's just
do it now. So we kind of sneake our away
to amy Kloba Shar after she's wrapping up her her
big like ra ra speech and she was gonna go
from the DFL booth to the MPR stage to be
interviewed by the news. So I kind of like upstream

(49:57):
salmon towards her. And I was a DFL R d
fell by the way, is our Democrats the Democratic farmer
labor thing, that's what it's called Minnesota. So I was
a delegate to the DFL party and eighteen at the
state convention, and I met amy Klobasher there. I walked
into the DFL after party that night and there was
a Prince Cover band playing, and I saw Amy Klobascher

(50:20):
dancing with the michaelob Golden and just like toasting the
the Prince Cover band in a in a skirt suit.
It was I'm so glad my friends were there. I'm
so glad. I'm like, holy sh it, this is the
great thing. So we take a picture with her, and
so I did meet her. So I walked up to
her and I was like Senator Klobischer. Her name is

(50:41):
Brandy Brown It she was kind of just gonna do
the oh nice and I go I was a delegate
in and she's like oh. And at that amount of
time I talked to her like it was enough to
slow her down. And then kind of people gathered around
and say, I have a question. It's a fun question
because I wasn't gonna do like a regular ambush because
it's just venue wise, wasn't the time and place you
couldn't really pull it off. And I go, uh, yeah,

(51:02):
So you were in Iowa and you said the Iowa
State Fair is better. And by the way, there's video
of this. I can said it to you. I tweeted
it and my friend Haley who was on the camera,
and she's like and I said, which state Fair is better?
And I'm by the way in this video because I
went to the horticulture building, and there's the beer, like
the craft brewers Guilty. You can get like a four

(51:22):
pack of like Samplers. So I'm holding a four pack
of like beer, and and I'm wearing my little buff
around my neck and I'm just like, my skin looks
amazing in this. But it's like the Blazing Sun. And
she's like Amy Clover Show. Everyone's like circling around, like
what is going on? Why did she stopped? Amy Clover Show.
Was like she wants to know which is better the
Minnesota State Fair the Iowa State Fair. I'm like, yeah,

(51:45):
so which is better? And she's like, well, they have
a butter cow and we have the butter Boss. And
I go, yeah, but which is better? And then she's like,
well we got to bring people together. I'm like, right,
but which is better? I just get like and over
again and then she like contestantly like pats me on
the shower, was like and then like and then it
cuts off on the video, but I have the full

(52:07):
video of me going, well, I guess it's war in
but like she didn't hear me, so it's just ongoing fude,
And like our all city pages published something uh like
called like um, because there's always a state Fair new
foods and like the state Fair new thing is Amy
Klobaschar's flip flop or something, and it's just like this

(52:29):
ongoing thing where people would just tweet and black which
is better? And I was on there's a local podcast
here called Wrong About Everything, and I'm friends with the
people on it, and they were doing a state Fair thing.
Wrong about Everything is two Democrats and two Republicans one
and they're all friends with each other and they're really cool.
Given the Republicans um and I hung out with them,

(52:49):
and you know, like Julie Blaha, the state auditor, was
on this and a couple of other DFL people were
on this live state Fair episode because radio records at
the state Fair. It's just everything shuts down and everyone
goes to State Fair. The news is all from there,
the radio stations are all there. So I'm on this
episode and I'm just sitting there, like I get to

(53:11):
talk about it. I'm just like I would ask every
politician I met, which is better? And of course the
answer is even if you're running, the diplomatic answer is, well,
they're both great, and they both have great things. But
obviously I gotta go with the hometown st Fair. That's
all you felt to your people. No one's gonna be
mad if you fail for the home team. I mean,
it's a like a state fair is one of the

(53:31):
most low stakes things that like it's it's like lower
stakes than sports. You can just be like, well that's
my team and people would be like okay, okay. But
she she she didn't. I don't know that. Wait, so
this was last year. They used last year, so she
was like still thought she had some kind of she won't.
I'm convinced she won't admit it until like she gets

(53:52):
in office, like her not winning this year or getting
even the nomination, not being VP, she won't ever admit
it until there's no chance she'll be president. So like
we've got twenty years of her not doing this. I
followed your journey last summer at the Minnesota State Fair
just like it was the highlight of my summer because

(54:15):
I've followed I've watched your your content for a couple
of years now about the Minnesota State Fair, and it
was just so funny because like you were posting, it
was like you're walking around and going to all the
different pavilions, and then sometimes you would pass stand and
be like, I'm coming back for you, Amy. My other
favorite thing is So there's a Minnesotan here. His name
is Tony Webster. His Twitter handle is Webster, and he's

(54:37):
a big foia guy. He's a journalist. He often sues
people to get public data. He's just excellent and like
definitely an important follow in general. But he's also like
takes photos of things a lot. So he went to
the state fair and Amy Kloba schars it's great because
all the politicians at the state level have their own
little booth and hers is like a little like house.

(54:59):
It looks like an nice little house. It's it's cute,
but it's also right in front of the my pillow
Guy like building where they're selling stuff it so the
thing has windows, and Tony Webster posted this picture where
he's like, it looks like because of the way it's
positioned that somebody in Amy Cloberhard's little like shack house

(55:19):
thing hung up a picture of the my pillow Guy
with a it's like the poster that says from crack
Addict to CEO. She hung that up and so they
took a picture of it, and I was like, this
is incredible, this is funny. But also several of my
friends have now broken this woman at the State fam.
We weren't like trying to be malicious, but you know,
whatever beyond your toes amy and uh. The next time

(55:43):
I was at State Fair, because I went multiple times
because I did some live podcasts there, I figure out
how I can write off the State Fair, so like
whatever people want to be for it's like your south
by Southwest or something totally is myself by self West,
thank you? Uh? I walk why was My friend was like,
holy sh it. They boarded up the windows and the
amy Culoba shar hut, So that can't be a thing anymore.

(56:05):
You can't because I was gonna walk by and like
hide behind it to like hold up a sign to
be like Minnesota State Fair is better, and I couldn't
do it. See this is like all making me so
so so nostalgic for going to state fairs, and like
it it makes me miss them and like, you know,
kind of more and that we can't really do them
right now in the same way because it is this

(56:26):
sort of absurdity where the entire world gets so shrunken
and there is like a little Amy. Amy Clobhar has
a little house in a park. The thing about the
State Fair, I was trying to figure out why I
love it so much of other people who hate it
because it's crowded and it's you know whatever. And that's fine.
If you don't like it, I don't care. I just
won't invite you to come along. That's it. Like, if
you don't want to go, like, I don't judge you.

(56:46):
There are a lot of things people like and don't like.
That's fine. But for me, I have a website that
I haven't updated in a while. I would only update
it when I was born. At work during the State Fair,
it was called Minnesota State Fair Cliches, and it was
just all the cliches of the state Fair. And people
were like, wait a minute, this is just everything of
the state Fair. And I'm like, exactly, it's all. It's

(57:08):
so comforting. You go there every year. It's the same thing.
I went there with my grandpa and I when I
was five. I remember being a little leash thing where
like wrap around veil crom on my wrist so I
could eat with both hands and my family could eat
with both hands and still keep track of me. And
there are just certain things you just go. I have
friends who would spend a forty hour work week there.

(57:29):
They'll just do different things because it's so big. You
can go see the animal shows. You can go see
the four age musical, which is I believe somebody called
it Haystack Glee. Um I'm beer. Imagine you can be
ship faced and go see a high school musical. It
is the best thing in the world. All the kids
are earnest um because four age kids, they're just like
too pure for this world. You really, Brandy, you should

(57:52):
be made uh Many Minnesota State Fair Ambassador, the queen
or whatever it's called. Princess came. I'm too old and
I'm not. I'm not on the dairy like expert, but hey,
it's never too late, you know. They need an outsider's
perspective on dairy sometimes, like somebody who can only appreciate

(58:13):
it by looking at it. Yeah, it's also just fun
because during certain political things you also see confused out
of state politicians, Like there's one picture I have a
Fred Thompson just being like, what the fund is happening here?
And you know, celebrities come by. You have the Grand State.
They have the free Stage, which last year or like
two years ago, like or last year, I know Tony
Tony Tony played uh invogued at the free stage, and

(58:38):
then in the grand Stand you might have like Taylor
Swift or something like that come through, or like I
saw Patti LaBelle at the grand Stand stage. And it's
just like I don't know, like it's there's just so
much to do it so you can you run into
people you don't normally see. And it's also all of
Minnesota is there. It's interesting because it's not like a

(58:59):
lot of state fairs, like the New York State Fair,
for example, is in Albany or no, it's in Syracuse,
and like that's gonna attract certain people. But it's in
Falcon Heights, Minnesota. Unfortunately, you might know where it is.
It's because that was just down the street from where
Philando cast Steele was shot. But um, it's a place
where you have all the city folk, but then also

(59:20):
all the outstate people come down and it's just like
a big melting pot of fuckory and I love it.
And it's just it's every year, you know, you have
your favorite food stands that you go to because your
parents went there. And then someone has to be like, yo,
that's not even the best cheese curd stand you have. Um,
you get like free stuff in a bag. You're like, oh.
Like you see adults be like, oh my god, free

(59:41):
paper pig hats. Oh I gotta do this. I'll just
wear like a pig hat all day. And you have
the Lama costume contest, like I mean that kind of stuff.
Like the four age kids are just like people thought
I was just making fun of them by going to
the musical every year. I'm like, no, I earnestly they
love it. It's I went to pay camp every year
for several years in high school, and they all like

(01:00:03):
move into these dorms and they're just like barracks. They
practiced to this show that's a musical and sometimes they're
not the best musicians and not the best singers, but
three times a day, for thirty minutes, they just do
a medley of music in this hotass building and I
am ship faced. And one year I was completely wasted
and I saw the theme was and the themes are

(01:00:24):
never anything complex. One time the theme was the kids
woke up in the jungle and they had no idea
how they got there. And then the opening scene was
a medley of like welcome to the Jungle, like it's
a jungle out there something else and like two years
ago or last year was something about a candy shop.
And of course they didn't do fifty cent because if
they did, I would have just completely lost it. But

(01:00:45):
it's I was just like stream. I was like, yeah,
and each year we pick our our all star musician.
Because you have the band up top, it's a really
elaborate set. So there's always like one kid who's like
too cool with their instruments. So there was a cool
viola player. Last year, there's a cool s best but
there's like the one kid and you're like, that's a
cool kid at the air camp. Yeah, there he is

(01:01:06):
right there. And so yeah, I mean I just I
could go on on you know, I should I should
do a State Fair podcast, but you totally should. We should,
we should do it? Wait, I want one on right now? There?
Did they go? All of them canceled, including Texas, but
Minnesota went forward. Oh no, not I mean Minnesota. Yeah,

(01:01:29):
but like I think the only one that did something
limited was like North Dakota or like Nebraska. I don't know,
but my friend Haley and I were going to do
a thing this year. She lives in l A now,
but she, you know, she comes back for the fair.
And I mean people do that, They come back to
visit their family, go to the fair. We were gonna
do a thirty five w because all the state best
state fairs are on thirty five, So we're gonna like

(01:01:50):
Minnesota is always it's twelve days. It ends on the
on Labor Day, the very last day, and I don't
like to be there Labor Day because it's like people
are tearing down moving. It's just sad I have to
go pick up the property. Um So I went last
year and there was shooting, so I was not cool.
But um and on the on the grounds, well not

(01:02:12):
on the ground. I mean there are the other thing
about the state fair where I'm actually seriously glad it's
not happening this year, is there are so many fucking
cops in the state affair. Like it's like all the
departments send their very like all over the states and
there you know cops stays and their horse cops. And um,
I have like a friend who's a I have a
friend who's a police officer. She's really really cool. But um,

(01:02:35):
like she was saying that, like that's not when you
want to really work the fair. Um, but it's you know,
all the outstate people get to you know, come down there.
And then there was outside the ground. When it ended
at ten o'clock, there was a shooting outside and I
showed up from I'd driven up to International Falls like
Canada basically to get my global entry card because it

(01:02:57):
was so backed up that you couldn't get it anywhere
in the city. So I just was like, well, I'll
drive up there, take a leisurely trip back, come back
to the State Fair because I couldn't get in until
for free until after a certain point. And when I
got there, I had no idea what was going on.
It was just chaos. But it was also raining, so
I thought people were running because of rain. But there
were a lot of sirens, so what I thought had
happened was either a stage collapse or lightning strike. Um,

(01:03:21):
I didn't know what was going on. So I finally
got into the grounds with my car, and I got
into the agriculture building and got my crop art just
in time, and I was really had to get it
because there's a fee if you don't pick it up
in time and they have to ship it um And
I ended up staying in that building toil like two am,
just hanging out with the like the operations staff for
the state fair, and they were just telling me all

(01:03:42):
their secrets, which I won't tell, but yeah, so, uh
it was like I guess there was just like a
beef and what happened. Someone was shooting someone else and
then like people were running and then somebody got hit
by a car running across a very busy street. And
I don't know what happened to the woman man who
got hit, but it was a whole thing and that sucked.

(01:04:04):
But um, Minnesota's is like the last state fair until
Texas is a little different because Texas runs like September October,
but it's also thirty days and it's also nobody like
wants to be outside in August and Texas right and
in Texas does stuff like they have their football game,
like I think Oklahoma ut as our football game at

(01:04:25):
the state fair, so that one doesn't really count in
the same way. But we're gonna do all of the
state fairs. We're gonna go to Iowa, We're gonna go
to Kansas. Missouri's is actually near Kansas City, so I
was pretty we can do Kansas and Missouri's, um, Oklahoma,
Texas and COVID like a lot of other people's dreams
ruined our dreams. So yeah, well, I appreciate you taking

(01:04:50):
us to the State Fair of the Mind for this episode.
I um, now, I'm like really really craving a turkey
leg and a deep fried Twinkie. Deep Fried twink was
a big thing at the Iowa one. I don't know
if that's Minnesota they have deep fried stuff, but I
think it's the you know the Minnesota has a corn
dog Pronto pop divide Um. One of them is made

(01:05:13):
with corn meal. I think the other ones made was
like wild rice, like well like honestly the Battle of
Gluten Free Dogs. They honestly like taste the same to me, Like,
I'll go to which everyone has a shorter line. I
love corn dogs, so I'm just like whichever horn dogs
are incredible. I'm very centrist on that. I'm so hungry
for everything out. This is awesome. Thank you so much

(01:05:36):
for your for coming on. I loved, Yeah, I love
I love to have you back again. And yeah, we
didn't even we didn't even talk about like the actual
serious things happening in Minneapolis. That's fine, Well we can
get back to that. You know, we'd love to have
you back. Definitely. I love this. I listen this is
one of my like mondays when all my favorite podcasts

(01:05:59):
like Monday and two Day Drop and yours is definitely
like yep, I listen to every one day. So I
love this the Bill Corpet Podcast, and we look forward
to your future podcasting efforts. And please follow Brandy. It's
the Brandy on Twitter for not just amazing State Fair content,
but also uh incredible close reads of newspaper comics. Yes, yes,

(01:06:25):
and my cat was in Kittie Corner. Yeah, paper Claudet
Cookie Lion, very famous cat. I'll ask you just one
last question. Has your cat Claudet Cookie Lion ever come
up when you were working on seed art and just
like knocked all the seasons. No, but she yes, she
comes up because there are um I use some like
grasses like um for hours called the terms of an

(01:06:48):
f but like she likes some of the grasses and
so she'll come up and like sniff them and like
try to like lick them like please don't know, Claudet,
and it don't mean I'm not doing the cat and
the cat just yelling at me and her are just
getting mad and then like pouting like eight feet away
and just staring and like so yeah, she she doesn't
knocked them over. She doesn't like climb on a lot

(01:07:08):
of stuff, and I do a lot of work on
like the bed sometimes, but she'll definitely like be like, oh,
this is kind of like a new strain of cat nip.
Like no, like my cat sees me doing something intricate,
like a puzzle that's their cute to like hump on
the table. Yeah, she doesn't climb on stuff unless it's
just like a thing she normally climbs on. But she
definitely like the grasses of it. Once I open up,

(01:07:29):
because I have like those you know, like the tool
box things for like people use like nuts and bolts.
I have a whole elaborate I have like maybe fifty
different grasses and seeds and like little canisters and stuff,
and uh so I keep those like small samples are
portable in totes, and then I have like my storage
bin of all of that stuff. And once I opened

(01:07:49):
that thing, you could just if you're smelling grasses and stuff.
You know, there you go, I was I was actually asking.
I asked the stayed arder because I'm doing this fundraiser
for her and just thing about, um, if what happens
if recreational marijuana becomes legal in Minnesota, because then you
can it has to be grown in Minnesota legally, so

(01:08:10):
hemp is fine. But I was like, well, do you
think that more people will use marijuana in their crop art?
And she's like no, because it's actually a terrible like
the plant itself is not great for crop art. It
crumbles too easily, it doesn't hold its shape um, and
crop art also has rules where only a certain percentage
can be like crushed or like ground seeds and stuff

(01:08:32):
like that. So yeah, marijuana leaves are actually terrible. But
if you can get like, you know, a little bit
of the dust, I would love for every cool kind
of folk art to like come come back, especially because
we're all going to the land. We're all, we're all. Yeah,
I do feel kind of terrible doing it sometimes. I

(01:08:53):
feel kind of because I have like bags and bags
of like lentils and beans and seeds, and I'm just
like the is so like I feel bad. People are hungry,
and I'm just like gluing this ship to a board
for fun zies. And I actually think about that a
little bit, and I'm just like, well, because there was
a shortage of like Lintel's briefly during the pandemic, and

(01:09:13):
I was like, well, if it goes down, I guess
I can just eat my storage of seeds. But that's
why I like, you just got to do everything with
feed corn or like whatever is just the completely like
whatever crop we have way too much of, Like corn
is the only ethical corn is terrible. For jeweled corn
is great, but like corn, it's an irregular, like weird
wedge shape. It's my favorite seed. I'll just tell people this.

(01:09:36):
My favorite tea right now was Pearl Barley. Oh yeah,
that's nice. Use it's a texture. Yeah, I'm currently working
on a piece where it's a polar Bear and Grizzly
from Polar Bears Cafe and also an angry goose from
the Untittled Goose Game. And it's a perfect it's like
an oval shape. White um kind of this is safflower,
which is a weirder wedge shape, but it's more uniform shape,

(01:09:59):
so we you have to take um if you can
take some pictures of your crop part and we'll still
share it on where. Yeah, that would be great. The
Tetris background behind the game Boy is something everybody has
to see them. Yes, there's layers to this ship. It's great. Well,
thank you so much, Brandy. This is awesome. Thank you

(01:10:21):
for having me. I'm so happy. Oh it feels nice
to be able to talk about the state Fair. I'm
not going, but it's always my favorite thing to like
dork out and introduce new people too. So yeah, it's
it's awesome. So someday we'll do a war of the
state Fairs, because I do unlike unlike Amy Klobucher, I
will commit to the Iowa State Fair, even though I
haven't been to the Minnesota State Fair before. Son, Like,

(01:10:45):
here's my true thing. Minnesota's objectively better and Islands have
told me that i Alas is just smaller because it's
a smaller stak and it's it used to be the biggest.
I was very dependent on the presidential campaign cycle and
Minnesota's will stand alone always like we're just like politicians.

(01:11:05):
Sure get in line, like Minnesota state fairs. Press really
like their their PR team. They don't grant any special
press passes. Like if you want to treat this like press,
we'll treat everyone the same. You can come in, pay
for a ticket and uh we might give you like
special parking or security stuff, but like you're you're treated
like just like a regular person at the State Fair.
So no v I P. Unless you're performing or something

(01:11:27):
you need to load in or out or something like
that and you're here in the club and that's why
it's called the State Fair and not the State Unfairy.
Well that does it for this week's Nightcall. Thank you
so much for listening. We will be back next week.
If you're enjoying the show, won't you please leave us
a review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts,
and don't forget to subscribe. Um. If you would like

(01:11:49):
to support us on Patreon, you can at patreon dot com,
forward slash Nightcall. You can also find us on social media.
We are Nightcall Podcast on Instagram and Facebook and called
pod on Twitter. Thanks again for listening and we'll see
you next week. M

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Molly Lambert

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}121: Brains In Jars Go To The Minnesota State Fair