Hi there, I'm Jason Gots, and you're listening to Think Again, a Big Think podcast.

Thelma and Louise, Poncha and John, Pancho and Lefty, Quixote and Sancho Panza,

marks and angles, marks and chast, history and literature full of magical buddy stories. Every now and then, for reasons

no one can explain, two people come together and produce something greater, or at least very

different from the sum of their parts. I'm here today with one such team, the writer-cartoonist

duo of Patricia Marks and Raz Chast. They're both longtime contributors to the New Yorker and fearsome

humorists in their own rights, but together they form a third fearsome thing, a thing which

has created books such as, Why Don't You Write My Eulogy Now So I Can Correct It, a Mother's

Suggestions, and their latest, You Can Only Yell at Me for One Thing at a Time, Rules for

couples. There are also the shadowy figures behind yet a fourth thing, the legendary ukulele band,

Nuclear Meltdown.

Welcome to think again.

Thank you.

So let us hear the legend of nuclear meltdown.

Well, we started in the 60s, of course.

We told Bob Dylan to go nasal.

We told Joan Baez to grow her hair.

We were at Woodstock, but we weren't facing.

We were facing the wrong way.

Were you high or are you allowed to talk about that?

I heard that Santana was on a lot of acid.

I was on a lot of artificial sweetener. Yes. Yes. And I was on a lot of Advil. I had such a habit. So together that creates a kind of magical alchemy of music. Oh, absolutely. It was our own magic bus. Our breakout album really was something called... Duck and Cover.

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