Support for NPR and the following message come from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Investing in creative thinkers and problem solvers who help people, communities, and the planet flourish. More information is available at Hewlett.org. Hey guys, it's Peter. Once again in your weight weight feed, I am so pleased to present to you another episode of How to Do Everything by weight weight producers Ian and Mike. Now remember, you can only get these episodes of How to Do Everything in our feed for a short while. So if you love the kind of mysteries that Mike and Ian are revealing, make sure you subscribe to How to Do Everything at their own feed. Thanks. So I was playing the song Bye Bye Birdie for my kid, you know the song. From the musical Bye Bye Birdie. Yeah, I was playing the original cast recording with Ann Margaret. Okay. So my daughter, she got really into it. She wanted to hear it again and again. And then I heard her singing it to herself. And she was singing Bye Bye Bur-Hee. Okay. Okay. And I was like, why are you, it's Bye Bye Birdie. Why are you singing Bye Bye Bur-Hee? And she was like, that's what the song says. And so we listen back, listen to this. Right? Sure enough, she sings through the whole song. Right. The song called Bye Bye Birdie, she sings Bye Bye Bur-Hee for the whole song. How has that gotten unnoticed before? Is it, is it just the power of the title like overwhelms the sub, you're like, oh, I guess that, yeah, I hear it. That's right, Birdie. I don't, like, I don't get it. I feel like maybe it's like a thing where it's like easier to sing that way. So really, there's no choice but to call Ann Margaret, who sang the song 60 years ago. Hello. Hello, Ann Margaret. Yes, that's me. How are you? I feel great. What do you guys have to, your neck? That's right. That's about right. Well, Ann Margaret, we, we wanted to ask you, my daughter discovered that in Bye Bye Birdie, you sing Bye Bye Bur-Hee instead of Birdie. And I was just wondering, where does that come from? From me. That's interesting that she said she would get it. Yeah. So why, why that choice? It's, it's interesting. Was it, does it make it easier to sing or, or, or what? It's just my, my quirk. That's just the way I hear it. Oh, funny. Did anyone else ever ask you about it? No, never. After all these years. What a mystery we've got. We've uncovered and solved all in one conversation. I know. Birdie. Actually, I say the D, but I say it with heat. Birdie. We'll see you behind it. Ann, how? Ann Marie, you still got it. You still got it. We can hear it right there. Good. I'm so glad. This is How to Do Everything. I'm Ian. And I'm Mike. On today's show, how to shave your chest. But first, almost 60,000 people completed the New York City marathon last weekend. And online with us now is one of those runners, Jordan Litz. So Jordan, why don't you tell us what you did after the race? Well, I ran the New York City Marathon and then I proceeded to perform Euro and Wicked on Broadway twice. Twice? Yes. I finished the race about 12, 1250. And then our half hour call for the show was 130. So I did a little press at the finish line and then walked straight to the theater, got into my shower, tried to loosen up as best I could and then walked on and did Wicked. Wow. That is amazing. It was wild. I have run a marathon. And the thing I wanted to do after running a marathon is absolutely nothing. Like I couldn't imagine moving, let alone moving in front of people. And you were, I guess, you were dancing, right? Yeah. I mean, yes, Euro's title song is Dancing Through Life. So you're dancing around, you're leading the students and teaching them dance moves, climbing on statues, jumping off the statue. What was the point in the either performance where you were most aware of the marathon in your body? There are two pretty big moments for me where I become hyper aware of any residual effects from running or just how my body's feeling that day not from running. One is kneeling and singing as long as your mind for five, six minutes. Just for some reason, having the compression on your knees and your ankles and your quads for that long and then having to try and stand up after you've been kneeling for so long is always a gut check. That moment, I was like, okay, am I going to be able to be able to stand up? And fortunately, it was totally fine. I didn't even think about it. And then the other one was swinging in on the rope because that was the only super high impact moment of the show. There's a lot of dance steps. There's a lot of running up and downstairs. There's a lot of jumping and things like that. But that one was the one that I was thinking, if I'm going to get injured and I'm going to snap an Achilles tendon right now, it's going to be this moment. So I just tried to swing and land as gently as I could and absorb the landing. And I think even the guards were watching me come in and hoping and praying that I was going to be just fine. And fortunately, it worked out just fine. Is it possible, Jordan, that if you'd been kneeling for five minutes or whatever, and you couldn't get up, that you could have figured out how to make it make sense that your character just sits down on the ground from that point on? There's no way. There's absolutely no way because the rest of the scene is me trying to get Elphaba to safety. I'm telling her, you've got to go to my castle in Kiomiko. You'll be safe there. And then at the end of the scene, this cyclone comes and whips me up and it goes into a blackout. I can't even imagine how embarrassing that would be. I don't know what I would do. There's no way. I can imagine that it's hard to get excited for a Sunday where you're doing two shows. Like for a Sunday matinee, what's it like then for that second show after you've kind of come off the post marathon high, then you still have to do a whole nother run? Yeah. I mean, I've always said that Sunday matinee is my least favorite show of the week. You're just kind of, you're almost at the finish line, but you're not quite there and you're feeling really fatigued. It's the seventh show of the week. You just did a double the day before. So it's already a tough show anyway. And then you throw 26.2 miles on top of that. Yeah. And that just makes it really pretty grueling. But yeah, you're right. The adrenaline was had completely worn off at that point. My wife and daughter came to hang out with me in between shows and we just chilled in the dressing room. I played with my daughter, put my legs up on the wall, tried to drain the blood out of them to kind of reset the system. And then I think maybe because the adrenaline had worn off and I knew that it was the last show of the week and the last little hurdle that I had to get over, it was one of the best shows I've had in weeks, to be honest. Really? Yeah. I was free to just give whatever I had left in the tank. I finished dancing through life and I was like, that's a darn good performance. I'm so happy with that. So yeah, I mean, maybe I need to run a marathon before every two-show day. There you go, folks. Yeah. You got a PR and Wicked. Exactly. This message comes from WISE, the app for international people using money around the globe. You can send, spend, and receive an up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Be smart. Get WISE. Download the WISE app today or visit wis.com. T's and C's apply. Support for NPR and the following message come from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, investing in creative thinkers and problem solvers who help people, communities, and the planet flourish. More information is available at Hewlett.org. Hey, if you've got a question that we can help you get to the bottom of, get it to us at howtoatnpr.org. Maybe you encountered something that's 60 years old and no one has thought of in a very long time and you want us to delve into it, to look a little deeper. We're going to help you out, just send it to us at howtoatnpr.org. I feel like your tone there insulted my daughter's childlike curiosity and I don't like it. Not at all. Not at all. To you and your family, I have nothing but respect. Hey, Sarah and Jacob, what can we help you with? My question is, when I'm shaving my chest, I've got, I'm pretty hairy, I want to make sure I get everything, but then I just don't know really when to stop, right? You got abs and up through the pecs and stuff, but how far do I need to go over my shoulders? I'm not going to shave all the way down my arm. I mean, that was just something I was thinking about. Yeah, I guess if someone did have abs and pecs, that would be a concern. Yeah, so Jacob is very fit, he's very in shape and he works hard and I think I kind of tactfully suggested to him a few years ago that he might consider shaving his chest to just show off all his hard work and effort. Now it's a part of the routine, but he's just not sure where do you stop when shaving? Is there a proper protocol? I feel that this feels like a very personal question, but so are we, if you are, Jacob, unshaven, are we talking about a pretty thick coat from over the shoulders and down the back? Luckily for me, it's not all the way down the back, but definitely my entire front is a thick coat. Entire front? Do you have a beard? I don't maintain a beard. I try to shave my face and my stomach regularly, chest area. Okay, so if we visualize you now when you've shaved your chest, shoulders, abs, does it look like you're wearing a flesh-colored sweater? A sweater vest, a flesh sweater vest. That is not something that I ever imagined previously, but yeah, my arms are still hairy. There's also quite a process due for the hair cleanup, because you can't put it down a drain or a sink, so it has to like flop onto a towel on the floor and then get thrown out. It's the whole process. I just don't think we're doing it correctly. Yeah, it sounds like maybe a pet spa would be... Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, that's a great idea, like a dog groomer. Yeah, they have all the equipment. Hi, my name is Crystal Murray, Hyphenate class, and I am a professional dog handler, and so we go to dog shows every weekend, and we have the fortunate job of showing beautiful standard poodles. We showed a very exceptional standard poodle named Siba, and he won the very prestigious Westminster Kennel Club. And you groomed Siba for that win, for that performance? Absolutely, yep. What could you describe Siba what Siba looks like? Siba, she is... How do we just... Siba is a Siba, she is a black standard poodle female. And this is, for someone who doesn't, isn't maybe that versed in how showing dogs works. This is the sort of poodle that we imagine when we imagine kind of the fancy poodle with the kind of balls at the feet and the big kind of pompadour. Yep, so actually what I used to, what I like to tell people is so Germany kind of developed the breed, but then the French got them. That's why we have what we have today. How is that right? So wait, what did they look like before France got involved? A little saggy, a little less pretty, more working, less, you know, pampered pet kind of thing. Can I ask, actually, like I just said the little balls at their feet, what... What is the term for that when you actually know what you're talking about? Yeah, so actually I can give you a super quick rundown on it. Those little balls are called their bracelets. The ones that they have over their hips are called their hip rosettes. And then the tail is usually just a tail, pom-pom type thing. So they've got their four bracelets, the hip rosettes, the body we usually call a pack. And then they literally have a top knot. A top knot. Yeah, so like obviously back in the day, they would have just tied the hair on top of their head into a knot so it didn't get into their eyes. And now we do it with elastics and hairspray and it's quite a deal. So as you heard, we got this call from Sarah and Jacob. Jacob, I think, is to men what Siba is to poodles. He is, as we understand, a perfect specimen. But he is very hairy, so he's not able to fully show off the definition that he has worked so hard to achieve. Using your expertise from the world of poodle grooming, what would your advice for Jacob be? Well, there's a couple different things you can do. I mean, we, if you really want to see any of the sculpting, tisling contours kind of like that, you would want a really short blade. With the poodles, we can clipper them at different lengths. So you get that different effect there. So wait, if I understand, it could be possible to sort of not do a complete hair removal, but actually use some hair remaining to do a little contouring, maybe add some shadow to the abs and pecs and actually enhance what Jacob is working with their muscle-wise. Yes, absolutely. Oh, wait, does Siba have abs? Well, not really. She had a litter of puppies, so she's got a mom's body now. Good for her. So yeah, you can almost create kind of like some shadowing or whatever. Can I ask, so when you're at a competition, a show, are you like backstage doing it right before they go on or is it? Yep, yep, there's a whole grooming area for all the different competitors and their dogs. Are you nervous back there in that kind of final groom? Sometimes, I mean, the regular shows, it's just kind of a routine thing. For the show like Westminster that we did, I was a wreck. What's it, what's the vibe like back there? Is it pretty competitive? Like, do you see all the other dogs? It's, yeah, you can see all the other dogs. It's competitive because, you know, you're competing against people from really all over the world and it's nerve-wracking because if you screw up, it's like you have no one to blame but yourself, right? Yeah. So it's a lot. So, but do you see another dog back there and you're like, oh, that top knot is phenomenal. Oh, absolutely. Really? Yeah, we totally do that. Really? It's a, yeah. We're like, oh, did you see? We're like, oh, did you see? She must have been really nervous. She just trimmed all the hair off. Oh, no. Yeah. Okay. So you can tell like, oh, they're, you know, they're not going to make it. Yeah. Well, that does it for this week's show. What did you learn, Ian? It's weird how much Broadway we ended up with in today's show. Oh, yeah. I did. I had no intention of this happening, but we started with Ann Margaret and Bye Bye Birdie, one of the classics. Talked to Jordan from who's currently starring in Wicked on Broadway. And Jacob was super hairy, which is like the musical hair. I learned that maybe the best way to recover from a marathon is to dance for three hours, take a short break, and then dance for another three hours. Yeah. In front of people, not dance like no one's watching. Dance like people have paid hundreds of dollars to come see you dance. I will say, I think we got a satisfying result from the Bye Bye Birdie question, right? Like we went into it not knowing exactly what was going on. And talking to Ann Margaret, she basically confirmed that's how she did it. What if we listen back to all the great Broadway songs and it turns out every D is an H. If this is true, do you think Hamilton is actually Dammelton? How to Do Everything is produced by Skylar Swinson with Hina Shravastava. Technical direction from Lorna White. We did use music this week, I believe, from Moby Grattis. You can get us your questions at howto at npr.org. I'm Ian. And I'm Mike. Thanks. Support for NPR and the following message come from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Investing in creative thinkers and problem solvers who help people, communities, and the planet flourish. More information is available at Hewlett.org.
