CuzWords

John Giddens

5.0 (1)
Comedy

On CuzWords, two cousins dig into the things that matter and the things that absolutely don’t. From serious takes to pointless tangents, it’s a mix of honest opinions, good-natured jabs, and that one argument that never really ended. Think of it as your weekly dose of cousinly chaos.

3d ago

The Government Knows Something We Don't

Apparently, the world might be preparing for something big. Unfortunately, Madison and Michael are preparing for two very different things. Episode 53 kicks off with Madison discovering that Michael may have accidentally destroyed their best-performing YouTube episode by blasting an ear-piercing air horn directly into the ears of unsuspecting viewers. The algorithm finally noticed CuzWords… and Michael scared everyone away. Then things get serious. Michael brings up reports of governments around the world encouraging emergency preparedness, including claims about military installations becoming self-sufficient for extended periods. Naturally, this leads to the cousins planning for the collapse of modern civilization. Madison has protein powder, toilet paper, and a family survival strategy. Michael has questions about the psychology of doomsday preppers, a wife and child to worry about, and absolutely no interest in becoming a full-time survivalist. And apparently, toilet paper will become the most valuable currency on Earth. But the apocalypse isn't the only danger this week. Madison recounts accidentally shooting his girlfriend in the lip with a modern Nerf gun, only for her to retaliate with a perfect shot directly between his eyes. Finally, Michael describes his adventure trying goat curry at an Indian restaurant while an overly friendly elderly couple provides unsolicited commentary on every bite. Government conspiracies, emergency supplies, Nerf gun warfare, spicy curry, and an air horn that may have single-handedly defeated the YouTube algorithm. Just another week of CuzWords.
Oct 26

My Cousin Is a Professional Conspiracy Theorist

One year of CuzWords. Fifty-two episodes. And Michael may have finally eaten himself into a different dimension. Episode 52 starts unusually late because Michael has spent his Sunday doing what he does best: eating absolutely everything in sight. After a church potluck, two chili dogs, and SEVEN full slices of pie, Michael arrives at the studio looking like he's about to enter a medically induced food coma. Meanwhile, Madison has just finished a five-day fast and celebrated by demolishing an entire order of wings and a pizza. Clearly, moderation runs in the family. Once Michael regains enough consciousness to speak, the cousins dive into Halo's Project Reclaimer, a fan-made multiplayer experience that might finally deliver what Halo fans have been begging for. Could modders actually save the franchise? And should Microsoft hire the people making better Halo games in their spare time? Then Michael reveals his greatest achievement of the week: winning a conspiracy-theory trivia competition while wearing a tin foil hat. From Denver International Airport and Skull and Bones to Hollow Earth, secret societies, and the Pentagon, Michael proves that spending countless hours watching conspiracy videos can occasionally pay off. Finally, the cousins venture into internet influencer controversies, podcast drama, and an unbelievable story involving professional Call of Duty commentators. By the end, Madison realizes that all it took to bring Michael back from his sugar-induced stupor was a little Halo. One year down. The questionable conversations continue.
Oct 19

Tesla Made a Car That Does Barrel Rolls

What happens when artificial intelligence makes humans immortal? Apparently, we become house cats, college football players demand 1,000 years of eligibility, and your grandfather might end up younger than you. Madison and Michael kick off Episode 51 celebrating Auburn's shocking victory over Georgia before diving headfirst into the future of AI, reversing aging, and whether the first person to live 1,000 years might already be walking among us. Then Michael shares one of the wildest gym stories yet: a guy agrees to help move a lawnmower, gets his vehicle backed into, and suddenly hears the words nobody wants to hear in that situation: "I got a gun." But we're not finished. The cousins debate Tesla's alleged flying Roadster demonstrations, whether jumping over traffic counts as practical transportation, and the possibility of another massive volcanic eruption. Naturally, this leads to a brilliant new climate-change strategy: just blow up a few volcanoes. Finally, they invent an entire Spider-Man movie without seeing it, debate whether Marvel has become impossible to keep up with, and discuss censorship on modern social media. It's college football, immortality, questionable gym acquaintances, flying cars, volcanoes, and completely fictional movie spoilers. Just another week on CuzWords.
Oct 12

Fifty Episodes of Questionable Decisions

CuzWords has officially reached Episode 50, and Madison and Michael are celebrating the only way they know how: by revisiting some of the worst decisions they've ever made. Things start with a hurricane that apparently forgot how to be a hurricane and Michael attempting to explain meteorology despite admitting he's no James Spann. Then Madison shares how his girlfriend's cooking accidentally summoned the fire department—which promptly showed up at the wrong house. At least dinner was good. But the real disaster begins when Michael revisits his single days and the time he accidentally invited TWO Bumble matches on the same date. His brilliant solution? Bring Madison along as a backup date. Somehow, that wasn't even the worst decision Michael made that night. The cousins then revisit their college drinking stories, including Michael fighting a tree, a speaker, and apparently his own better judgment, while Madison recalls a Super Smash Bros. drinking tournament that left him with bruises he couldn't explain. Eventually, the conversation returns to its natural habitat: Halo. Madison and Michael discuss 128-player Halo 3 multiplayer, Project Reclaimer, battle royale in New Mombasa, the future of independent game development, and whether the people who actually love Halo should be the ones making it. They even try naming a hypothetical new Halo development studio, with suggestions ranging from Project Scarab to the unforgettable I Would've Been Your Daddy Studios. Fifty episodes in, the conversations haven't gotten any more organized. And at this point, why would they? Welcome to Podcast.
Oct 5

Spot Me… No, Push Down!

Episode 49 starts with Madison and Michael doing something CuzWords has somehow avoided for 48 episodes: eating directly into the microphones. The plan was an Oreo taste test, but rural Alabama had other ideas. Instead, the cousins crack open Chips Ahoy’s mystery-flavor cookies for a chance at $25,000—and immediately discover that “accept all cookies” means something very different when you’re literally eating the cookies. After conducting an extremely scientific taste test, the conversation moves from questionable snack decisions into an even stranger environment: the gym. Madison and Michael have encountered some characters over the years, but one particular gym regular may be in a category of his own. He turns off the fans because the gym apparently needs to function as a sauna, ignores the signs telling him to keep his shirt on, kicks an industrial fan into the wall—and asks Michael for some of the strangest workout “spots” imaginable. Including a leg extension where “spot me” apparently means: No, don't help me lift it. PUSH DOWN. HARDER. From there, the cousins get into gym etiquette, people who spend more time talking than exercising, Michael's inability to escape conversations, and the dreaded social vampire—the person who can see you're trying to leave but somehow finds another 15 minutes of conversation hidden inside you anyway. Eventually they make their way to Michael's upcoming performance of Murder on the Orient Express, which Madison immediately confuses with The Polar Express, complete with Tom Hanks, the North Pole, and Santa's bell. It's mystery cookies, gym psychopaths, social vampires, theater nerds, and two guys discovering that an entire package of Chips Ahoy apparently doesn't last very long when you put it between them. Spot me. Actually… No. Push down.
Sep 28

Can Activision Save Halo?

CuzWords Episode 48 starts exactly where you’d expect a serious gaming discussion to start: cheesecake, Waffle House orders, pizza buffets, and Michael completely destroying his diet with three plates of food, a salad, and two desserts. Then things get serious. Madison and Michael travel back to the glory days of Halo vs. Call of Duty, when choosing the wrong game could legitimately determine whether a friendship was worth pursuing. Now, after years of questionable decisions surrounding Halo, the unthinkable has happened: the Call of Duty side may be getting the keys to Halo. And the former Halo kids have some feelings about it. The cousins break down what went wrong after Bungie, whether Activision can revive the franchise, which developer they’d trust with the next game, and the horrifying possibility that Halo could simply become Call of Duty in space. Then Madison starts designing his own absurdly ambitious Halo game involving massive multiplayer battles, military hierarchies, real-time strategy, promotions, and one poor player somehow commanding everyone else. It’s nostalgia, gaming tribalism, questionable food decisions, and two millennials trying to process the fact that one of the biggest rivalries of their childhood has somehow come full circle.
Sep 21

Master Halo Wishes Me a Happy Birthday

Episode 47 starts peacefully enough with Madison and Michael watching the sunset—two color-impaired cousins trying to determine what color it actually is. Naturally, that turns into rainbows, Sunday school, Pokémon, “Master Halo,” fake Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and the realization that there are now more than 1,000 Pokémon. From there, things escalate. The cousins get into AI, fuel prices, diesel trucks, nuclear power, local data centers, putting data centers in space, colonizing Mars, and the apparently simple requirement for seeing the future: just stay alive for five more years. Then Madison declares war on sugar, explains why “just one bite” can turn into a multi-week sugar bender, and admits that if science offered a high-protein IV that eliminated the need to eat, he’d seriously consider it. But the centerpiece comes when Madison shares an early birthday present from his girlfriend: a personalized message from Steve Downes, the voice of Master Chief, wishing him a happy 33rd birthday. This immediately leads to two grown men discovering just how unimpressive their voices sound when compared with Master Chief. The episode wraps with old birthday presents, Michael’s childhood habit of “testing” Madison’s gifts before giving them to him, Auburn football misery, and the theory that future generations may eventually make fun of millennials simply for watching sports.
Sep 14

Please & Thank You, AI Overlords

Episode 46 of CuzWords starts with Antarctica, television, and changing technology before turning into one of Madison and Michael's longest conversations yet about artificial intelligence and what the next several decades could look like. After revisiting the Thwaites Glacier and debating the wisdom of camping on a piece of ice that could eventually break away, Michael talks about his upcoming role in Murder on the Orient Express. That leads into Law & Order, television longevity, actors aging with their characters, and the increasingly difficult job of keeping decades-old shows relevant to younger audiences. Then the conversation shifts toward AI. Madison and Michael discuss fears surrounding increasingly capable artificial intelligence, the potential displacement of existing careers, the global race to develop more advanced systems, and what might happen if AI eventually becomes substantially more capable than the humans who created it. But the conversation isn't entirely pessimistic. Madison argues that we're living through an extraordinary turning point in history. Rather than assuming the future inevitably resembles Terminator or The Matrix, he considers the possibility that AI could accelerate scientific discovery, space exploration, medicine, technology, and entirely new industries that are difficult to imagine today. They also debate a stranger question: if an artificial intelligence eventually displays self-preservation and characteristics we associate with living things, should humans begin treating it differently? The final portion of the episode puts AI's current abilities to a much less serious test as Madison and Michael use it to generate rounds of real-or-fake trivia involving UFOs, the stock market, Halo, and bizarre scientific research. Somehow this produces everything from meme stocks and Pentagon UFO reports to cyborg cockroaches, goldfish playing Grand Theft Auto, soil-testing underwear, and the entirely fictional possibility of Master Chief fighting a giant space shark. The future may be uncertain. But apparently it's going to be entertaining.

On CuzWords, two cousins dig into the things that matter and the things that absolutely don’t. From serious takes to pointless tangents, it’s a mix of honest opinions, good-natured jabs, and that one argument that never really ended. Think of it as your weekly dose of cousinly chaos.

Creator

John Giddens
Years Active

2025 - 2026
Episodes

55
Rating

Clean
Copyright

© John Giddens
Show Website

CuzWords