Ep. 00: "Suit of Vomit"
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: How are you?
Merlin: Well, how are you?
Merlin: I'm pretty good.
Merlin: I'm sorry I'm late.
John: Oh, no, it's okay.
John: I was early.
Merlin: Do you remember that time we went out and got a steak when I was in Seattle?
Merlin: We went to a pretty nice, not the really, really nice place, but we sat outside and we had a steak.
Merlin: Do you remember that?
Merlin: We gossiped.
Merlin: We gossiped about our friends.
John: Yeah, I mean, we have gotten a lot of steaks.
Merlin: We should cover that.
John: But yeah, I do remember this one particular time.
Merlin: Let's circle back.
Merlin: I want to talk more about steaks.
Merlin: But I think that's the first time I ever heard somebody order an Arnold Palmer.
Merlin: Is it possible that that was the first time I heard that and that it was you that did that?
John: It was almost certainly me.
John: And I guess it's possible it was the first time.
John: Arnold Palmers have really exploded in popularity lately.
Merlin: This is the reason I'm late.
John: Oh, you were having a morning Arnold Palmer?
Merlin: I got into a terrible habit.
Merlin: You know how it can be with abusing any substance.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: It starts out simple enough.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: I started out the gateway drug for me was the Snapple, the lemon tea Snapple.
John: Which is terrible stuff.
John: Those people are like abortion clinic bombers.
Merlin: Yes, very much.
Merlin: Like Nazi abortion.
Merlin: First, they build the abortion clinic.
Merlin: They let the abortions happen.
Merlin: Then they bomb the clinic.
Merlin: You get them going both ways, east and west.
John: Yeah.
John: 9-11 was a conspiracy.
John: Yeah.
John: It was faked.
John: Let's circle back to that.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: I started the gateway drug for me.
Merlin: This is quick.
Merlin: The first thing was the, I don't know why I did it.
Merlin: I looked at the back.
Merlin: I'm trying to avoid the HFCS.
John: Which is high fructose corn syrup.
Merlin: I think it's bad for you.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: I don't think sugar is good for you, but I'm trying.
Merlin: I don't know why.
Merlin: I'm on board with that particular trend.
John: I suspect that might be liberal health food store overprotective mom portion.
Merlin: Do you really?
Merlin: You know, I'm very suspicious of all of those.
Merlin: You think that's one of those fakie things.
John: I don't know.
John: I mean, after it's been processed so much that all that's left in it is like...
John: hydrocarbons, right?
John: So if you believe that processing is inherently bad, but that seems like a spiritual argument, right?
John: The thing itself isn't
John: isn't any worse for you than sugar cane.
John: The molecules aren't any worse.
John: Are you sure about that?
John: I don't know, but it just seems like it.
John: You know, it seems like it's one of those things where it's just, the argument is that it's been processed so much that, like, the healthful spirits have been taken out of it.
John: The natural sprites, the natural elves of health...
John: have been chased out and all that's left is some Hitler crystal that sends you marching into battle.
Merlin: The elves are gone and nothing's left but elf poo and very old hustlers.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: They moved out.
Merlin: It's all gone.
John: Although, let me tell you, if I was to find a stockpile of very old hustlers... Or elf hustlers.
John: I would certainly...
John: Definitely elf hustlers.
Merlin: Remember that guy?
Merlin: He'd be on PBS.
Merlin: Some people hustle cards.
Merlin: I hustle elves.
Merlin: Then he'd walk up the rainbow.
Merlin: Did you ever watch that Star Hustler?
Merlin: You remember Star Hustler?
Merlin: He had a members-only jacket zipped all the way up, and he was very excited about the sky.
Merlin: Maybe you didn't get that.
John: In Florida, I think you had different PBS than we did.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: We had different everything.
Merlin: Now, the problem is, I don't know if it's the high, the fructose, the corn, or the syrup.
Merlin: I don't even know where the problem is.
John: Did you just call it fructose?
Merlin: Let me hear you do that.
Merlin: High fucktose corn syrup?
Merlin: Made from the best stuff on earth.
Merlin: I thought I was in the clear, but here's the thing.
Merlin: I went there today.
Merlin: I don't know why.
Merlin: I tried to get a coffee.
Merlin: I didn't have time to get a coffee.
Merlin: I wanted to have something to pump me up so I could keep up with you.
Merlin: And I went in.
Merlin: They were out of the lemon tea.
Merlin: So I thought of you, and I picked up.
Merlin: Now, this is the funny part.
Merlin: You ready for this?
Merlin: It's Arnold Palmer Light, half and half.
Merlin: Arnold Palmer Brand Light.
Merlin: light in big red with white letters on it, half and half, I steal them, and it's light.
Merlin: They didn't have anything but the light.
Merlin: It's like the CFLs where they, we're saving 10% by making it a 90-watt bulb.
John: A 90-watt bulb that needs to be disposed of in a hazmat container because it's full of mercury.
John: So you're telling me that Arnold Palmer Drink now is branded Arnold Palmer Drink, and it's in a can?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: This is a 20-ounce bottle.
Merlin: It's slender and tall.
Merlin: It's kind of almost like a smart water form factor.
Merlin: And it's got a kind of, not a tripartite, what would you call it, a triptych of him on the front.
Merlin: I got him as a young guy.
Merlin: Oh, and there's a bunch of other snapshots on here, too, to prove that this is Arnold Palmer, I guess.
John: To sell this product to a generation of kids who have never heard of Arnold Palmer.
Merlin: If you encounter an Arnold Palmer product that only has four pictures of Arnold Palmer on it, turn it away.
Merlin: It's literally Hitler poison.
Merlin: Six pictures.
Merlin: Six pictures of golfing legend Arnold Palm.
Merlin: But the one they chose for the main one of the triptych is him looking a little... Like, he can't decide whether he's confused or mad.
Merlin: Like, he looks a little bit altsy.
Merlin: He's just staring off in one direction.
Merlin: But, you know, this young... It says here, great buy, $1.
Merlin: But...
Merlin: You don't worry that much about what you put in your body.
John: No, that's not true.
John: I do.
John: And in fact, Arnold Palmer's have always, for me, been an opportunity to craft a drink out of a mixed set of ingredients.
John: For me, an Arnold Palmer is an entry-level fruity pleaser.
Merlin: Did you make up that phrase?
John: Fruity Pleaser?
Merlin: Yeah, you use it a lot.
Merlin: You use it on tour.
Merlin: You had mentioned a lot.
Merlin: I think you used it.
Merlin: I didn't mean to interrupt.
Merlin: Did you invent that term just out of curiosity?
John: Well, no, but it was invented for me by my longtime bartender, whose name is Jeff Sparks, who now owns his own bar here in Seattle called the Dexter and Hayes.
John: And I went into his bar after I quit drinking.
John: And I sat down at the bar and I was like, well, I quit drinking.
John: Now what?
John: Yeah.
John: And he said that that bodes ill for my business.
John: And I said, yeah, well, cherry juice and soda.
John: I'm spreading the suffering around, you know, like I have to quit drinking.
John: So fuck you.
John: And and he said, well, let's see.
John: We need to make you a drink.
John: And he you know, he made what what would be what what would be a suicide or a graveyard except out of.
John: mixed fruit juice instead of out of pop.
John: So cranberry, orange, grapefruit, a little bit of the maraschino cherry water.
Merlin: You know, like... You guys opened for them once, I think.
John: Maraschino cherry water?
John: Yeah.
John: They were amazing.
John: And they were ahead of this whole twee rock thing.
John: Yes.
John: But anyway, so he called it a fruity pleaser.
Yeah.
John: And it's been Fruity Pleaser ever since.
John: And I think in most of the bars in Seattle now, if you say Fruity Pleaser to the bartender, they know what you're talking about.
Merlin: I think you just—first of all, well, second of all, I like the fact that you have introduced some entropy to this.
Merlin: It's going to be a different drink every time, and I like that.
Merlin: But first of all, I think you found your version of the Arnold Palmer.
Merlin: I think you need to brand this.
Merlin: I don't know how you get past the FDA in putting that out, but I'm just saying— Good idea.
John: Fruity Pleaser.
Merlin: Right, and it's different every time.
Merlin: We don't know.
Merlin: It might be good.
Merlin: It might be bad.
Merlin: That orange juice might be from concentrate.
Merlin: That's the nature of the Fruity Pleaser.
John: And that's the thing.
John: Sometimes you go into a nice bar, you order a Fruity Pleaser—
John: And the fruit juice has that kind of vaguely moldy taste, like it's been sitting in the gun or sitting in the freezer for too long.
John: You know what I mean?
John: Like you go into a bar, sometimes you order a fruit.
Merlin: Well, it's always in those ways.
Merlin: You've worked in bars more than me, but I think I would be in those white plastic containers that nobody really rinses very well.
Merlin: And it's a mixer.
Merlin: Let's be honest.
Merlin: It's a mixer that's going to go with usually bar or...
Merlin: Well, well, well brands.
Merlin: Somebody's going to get a something, something whiskey and Coke or something.
John: Right.
Merlin: The Coke comes out of the shooter.
Merlin: You call it a gun?
Merlin: Is that what you call that?
Merlin: You call that a gun, yeah.
Merlin: You call it the gun.
Merlin: But I don't think a lot of care, by and large, your typical Seattle bar, I don't want to project.
Merlin: I don't think there's a lot of care going into rinsing those.
John: Well, you go into a lot of bars.
Merlin: Built-in fruity pleaser in some ways.
John: The juice actually, like orange juice, cranberry juice is also coming out of the gun.
John: So it's going past some moldy Coca-Cola.
John: molecules on its way, not to make this all about molecules, but it's going past these molecules.
Merlin: This is all about Hitler.
John: But the thing is, in Seattle and Portland and other super irritating American communities, you can, I mean, now sometimes I go into a bar and I order a fruity pleaser and the bartender sits and hand squeezes
John: five limes, two grapefruits, a pineapple, a watermelon.
John: Like he makes me a drink that by all rights should cost $25 because of the care that's gone into it.
John: And some of those fruity pleasers are the best drinks I ever had.
John: So I think of an Arnold Palmer as in that class of like, this is something that somebody's going to make for you out of what they have at the bar.
John: Not something in a can, but I love this fruity pleaser in a can idea.
Merlin: That's a... Everyone is different.
Merlin: Well, this is the thing.
Merlin: I mean, you're getting older.
Merlin: I assume you're getting heavier.
Merlin: It's going to get harder and harder for you to move.
Merlin: Ugh!
John: I'm like Barland Brando Lying on the back seat of a car Being driven by Michael Jackson And Elizabeth Taylor Is sitting in the passenger seat And I'm yelling
John: Stop it, Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Merlin: Michael's just in tears.
Merlin: I don't want to go to the Jack in the Box again.
Merlin: Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Merlin: But it's going to get hard to move is what I'm saying.
Merlin: So you're going to need to extend your brand in wholesome ways and ways that scale well.
Merlin: You know, you want an enterprise class beverage that you can put your name.
Merlin: Somebody like you, you have a lot of, what's the word?
Putz bar?
Merlin: Infamy is the wrong word.
Merlin: Famous, certainly the wrong word.
Merlin: But people have heard of you.
Merlin: They might be annoyed, but they're probably thirsty.
Merlin: Notoriety.
Merlin: John, do you go into stores?
Merlin: Do you realize how many drinks there are in stores now?
Merlin: There's so many drinks in stores.
John: I can't stand it.
John: I can't stand it.
John: I walk down those drink aisles, and I just feel like it's just one more way I'm being assaulted.
John: I'm being sodomized by America.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I agree.
John: Last night, yeah, okay, sorry.
John: You remember going, I don't mean to keep interrupting you.
John: No, that's the only way to get in.
John: It's the only way to get in.
Merlin: You know that.
John: But you remember going to the grocery store to get beer back in the old days when, at least when I drank beer.
John: There were seven kinds of beer.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Now there's 750 kinds of beer.
John: And I don't know.
Merlin: You got artisanal ones.
Merlin: You got Mexican ones with tomatoes in it.
Merlin: They're all different sizes now.
Merlin: Artisanal?
Merlin: Artisanal beers.
Merlin: I know those are big in Portland.
Merlin: Artisanal bread, artisanal beer.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You guys make all kinds of, you know, small, small, small cask, small cask artisanal beers.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: You go in there, who's buying that?
Merlin: You know, I don't know.
John: I think the canonical pronunciation of that word is artisanal, but artisanal, I don't know.
John: It resonates with me.
Merlin: I think it's pronounced canonical, just for that word.
Merlin: Setting aside that I have no idea who needs that much selection, I mean, let's be honest.
Merlin: Here's the corn problem.
Merlin: The corn problem is there's a lot of fucking corn, much of which has been subsidized by the fucking government.
Merlin: There's all kinds of corn.
Merlin: There's a whole documentary about the corn.
Merlin: There's corn.
Merlin: There are children in the corn.
Merlin: Sure, sure.
Merlin: But here's the thing.
Merlin: It's like the whole economy falling apart thing.
Merlin: $3 trillion had to find a home, and so it went into a lot of bullshit, and they didn't check people's credit, and so nobody paid it back, and now that's why nobody gets to have a house anymore.
Merlin: And that's the thing.
Merlin: There's all that corn.
Merlin: It's got to land somewhere.
Merlin: And I've got to imagine that that is a big part of the HFCU.
Merlin: Last night, I went to the Safeway.
Merlin: I got to get milk for my daughter.
Merlin: We're out of milk.
Merlin: I got to go.
Merlin: I go to the Safeway.
Merlin: There are probably seven or eight of those big, wide milk doors, basically.
Merlin: There's like six doors of milk.
Merlin: It's completely baffling.
Merlin: There's soy chocolate.
Merlin: There's lactose-free.
Merlin: But you know what?
Merlin: They did not have any... They had two things of 2% milk in the entire thing.
Merlin: I think that's a failure.
Merlin: I think if you've got that much chocolate soy milk and you cannot have a gallon of 2% milk for a beautiful little girl, something is wrong.
John: Oh, my God.
John: You see what I'm saying, though?
John: Did I?
John: Well, the thing is, I feel like most of that milk is adulterated milk somehow.
John: The molecules have been adulterated.
Merlin: Big chunks of Hitler.
John: Throughout all the freezer cases.
Merlin: A lot of that Hitler is subsidized by the government.
Merlin: The Vichy government still is propping up the amount of Hitler we have.
John: Bring the French into it because I know they are your favorite topic, the French.
Merlin: Oh, the French.
John: I get mad.
John: As a bachelor, for many years, I ate almost exclusively in restaurants and almost exclusively in restaurants where I knew at least one girl who was a waitress.
Merlin: That is elegant.
John: And so I didn't know where my food came from.
John: My food came from pretty girls is what I thought.
John: And in that sense, I'm like my daughter, my five, six-month-old daughter who also thinks that food comes from pretty girls.
John: But now that I have now that I have a little girl, I have mouths to feed.
John: I'm going to supermarkets.
John: I'm going to grocery stores, which is a thing I never used to.
John: I never used to do.
John: I think I probably I was like George Herbert Walker Bush.
John: I had not been in a grocery store since before World War Two.
John: What's the zebra thing?
John: How much is a gallon of milk?
John: I don't know.
John: Fifteen cents.
John: Fifty dollars.
John: I don't know.
John: Now I'm going to grocery stores all the time.
John: I'm looking at these walls of products.
John: I'm trying to sort through them in order to find enough nutrition to keep my family going and also enough just raw carbohydrates to fill me with self-loathing.
John: Those are the two things I look for.
John: Here's some food for my family, and then I need 8,000 calories of carbohydrates mixed with cheese.
Merlin: The foodies call that a pairing.
John: A pairing.
John: Yeah, right.
Merlin: You get a whole flight of shame.
John: You plate them together.
Merlin: That's how you got to have a plating.
John: You plate them.
John: And so I'm actually very concerned about like buying things that are nutritious and not adulterated because I'm trying to feed people that I care about.
John: And I look at these products and I spend, I'm not joking, I spend hours standing in the aisles.
John: I'm that guy with the shopping cart blocking the aisle.
John: reading the ingredients on the back of some can of Malta mix and wondering what the hell it is and how it's going to interact with me.
John: And yet the farmer's market model where I would actually either A, grow my own food or B, go somewhere where some hippies are selling food that they grew, that's just so much trouble.
Merlin: Because you've got to go a lot.
John: You go a lot, and then you get all this kale.
Merlin: Oh, you're talking about the hippies.
Merlin: Oh, no.
Merlin: That's exhausting.
John: I don't want to eat that stuff.
John: I don't want to cook.
John: I don't want to have kale.
Merlin: I think if you need to buy plants, you might as well pick up some salmon.
Merlin: But I'm not going to drive to the mall.
Merlin: Up there where you live, you've probably got freestanding hippie courts.
John: Oh, there are hippies all over.
John: I have to shoo them out of my garden.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You have to put copper down.
Merlin: That keeps them from coming into the house.
Merlin: You put on some copper tape.
John: Oh, copper.
Merlin: Laboric acid.
John: That's a good idea.
John: I've been playing Slayer.
Merlin: Or a job.
Merlin: You could put up a job.
Merlin: That'll keep them away, huh?
John: Or like, yeah, help wanted sign.
John: Exactly.
Merlin: Am I right?
Merlin: It's hippie kryptonite.
Merlin: We're never going to solve this problem, and it's just going to keep making me angry.
Merlin: But what you're saying is so setting aside the like this may be your only chance for two minutes to yourself today to go to the store.
Merlin: Like there is a genuine component of like you're just going to the store a lot.
John: I'm going to the store a lot.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: I mean, for us, it was like the, we could, you could, you could get diapers from, you know, amazon.com and stuff like that.
Merlin: But like, you're just always buying something and then it could get sick and you got to get something for that.
Merlin: And then, you know what I mean?
Merlin: It just feels like there's always, and the clothes, clothes.
Merlin: Do you, do you clothe your child?
John: I'm a proponent of the naked baby philosophy of when my child comes in the door, it's usually dressed in some kind of pink outfit.
John: And the child was dressed in this pink outfit by unscrupulous others, people, usually women.
Merlin: I got a cute girl with taste.
John: that the baby has encountered in the course of her day.
John: Like she passes through the hands of many women.
John: And I think in every time a woman touches her, she also changes her clothes.
Merlin: For each woman that touches her, a little pink is added.
John: Something happens, a hat goes on or some socks.
John: So the baby comes in the door, and the first thing I do is strip off all of this accoutrement that she's acquired in the course of the day and reduce her down to her natural state, which is baby in diaper.
John: And then there's a little bit of time where she and I just, because that's how I sit around the house most of the day, just baby and diaper.
John: That's my preferred clothing also.
Merlin: Makes it easier on you.
John: Yeah.
John: So then there's the two of us, and we share a wet wipe, and then we reset.
Merlin: That's a big part of attachment parenting, wipe sharing.
John: Oh, attachment parenting.
John: That's right.
John: I read about that.
Merlin: We did a version of that.
Merlin: I mean, we weren't extreme.
Merlin: I mean, I have a pal, a good pal, and he and his lady did the thing where you don't even set the kid down for like 90 days.
Merlin: You just keep passing it.
Merlin: It's like hot potato or something.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I don't know if I can get like a hammock or a net, some kind of a hook, but I think the nature of it is that the child is not allowed to touch the ground.
Merlin: Wow.
Merlin: Otherwise, it'll just be broken emotionally.
Merlin: It needs to trust that it will always be hanging somewhere.
John: We might have done something like that, but it was accidental.
John: We never put the baby down because how can you put a cute little baby down?
John: Look at that.
Merlin: There's so many ways, gratefully, so many ways, gratefully, that my daughter is way more like Madeline than me.
Merlin: But one way we got a lot in common is the pants thing.
Merlin: The pants come off.
John: Neither one of you wants pants on.
Merlin: Pants are a problem.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: And I cannot keep the kid in pants.
Merlin: She's a little bit of a homebody.
Merlin: She likes hanging out at home.
Merlin: She likes playing make police stuff at home.
Merlin: I mean, she runs around a lot because, you know, she goes to school and she does tons of running around like throughout the morning.
Merlin: But like when I'm hanging out with her, it's very much hardcore.
Merlin: Like we're pretending that we're in a Pixar movie or several Pixar movies.
Merlin: And that's that's like what we do.
Merlin: But it's very often mutually pantsless.
John: You know, I've watched a couple of those Pixar movies, and I know some of the people that work there, and I have to say, I think they have a lot of pants on their characters.
John: Yeah.
John: They're mandated by the Hollywood blue laws.
Merlin: this is a very, very old joke slash bit, but they kind of are owned now by the Disney, and people have talked for years about why some cartoon, I don't want to do this as a bit, but it's true.
Merlin: Why do some cartoon characters have pants and not others?
Merlin: Why does Goofy have pants, but Pluto doesn't have pants?
Merlin: Why is it that hardly any... Donald Duck, no pants.
Merlin: Donald Duck, no pants.
Merlin: He's got a shirt and a hat, but he's got no pants.
Merlin: A lot of pigs don't have pants, and I think that's a practical thing.
Merlin: I think pants are hard to draw, and the curly tail is cute.
Merlin: But I don't know if that's not even registering for my daughter.
Merlin: She's covered.
Merlin: She spends her whole day surrounded by people in pants who are pushing a pants agenda.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And when she comes home, you know, it's a lot of like the homeschooling thing where you try to make them crazy with the Bible.
Merlin: I think when she comes home, she needs to have a comfortable place where pants are not only optional, they're really frowned upon.
John: Right.
John: Here, here.
John: I'm behind you 100 percent.
Merlin: Let it begin with me.
Merlin: Let it begin with me.
Merlin: That's how I feel.
John: I've met your little girl, and I'm sad to say I have not met her enough times.
John: But the time I've spent with her, she's a magical creature.
John: And why you would imprison that child in pants, I can't begin to understand why somebody would do that.
Merlin: You want to know who liked to cover up magic with pants?
Merlin: Hitler.
Merlin: How many times have you seen a bottomless Nazi?
John: And big pants, too.
John: Jodhapers.
Merlin: Jodhapers.
John: Well, you know, what the baby has done for me, I'm an inveterate thrift shop visitor, as you know.
John: You and I have been to many thrift shops in San Francisco together.
Merlin: I would describe you as a serious thrift shop connoisseur.
Merlin: Like, no, I mean, it's more than that.
Merlin: You might as well have a store.
Merlin: You take it so seriously.
John: Yeah, and that's terrible because people come over to the house and they're like, oh, you should open a store.
John: And I say...
John: Why the fuck would I want to open a store?
John: And I say this to my friends, too, who always are thinking.
John: I'm sorry to keep swearing because I know you.
John: No, no, no.
Merlin: This is a different thing.
Merlin: We can curse all we want.
John: Oh, good, good.
Merlin: Excellent.
Merlin: We won't get featured on the iTunes store.
Merlin: Oh, well, then let's beep it.
Merlin: No.
John: I want to get featured.
Merlin: I want my thumb.
Merlin: I'm not going to edit this, John.
Merlin: I just don't have the cycles.
Merlin: I don't have the cycles, and I want to keep it real, as you guys say.
John: But anyway, I have a lot of friends.
Merlin: When I got with you, like, it's a full-on.
Merlin: Just the one thought is, like, when we've gone together, I really have thought the entire time, when the fuck are we going to leave here?
Merlin: Because you really do seem to look at anything that might fit you, like lamps.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: I'm wearing a lamp right now.
Merlin: A vintage lamp.
Merlin: It's a Western lamp.
Merlin: It's got a yoke.
John: But the child has introduced this whole new universe of shopping for things for the child at thrift stores.
John: And I have a hard time with buying children's clothes.
John: Full stop.
John: Thrift stores are not.
John: It seems to me that you could wrap a child in burlap for the times that the child needs to be outside and protected from the elements.
John: And really the rest of the time, just why are we dressing this baby?
Merlin: On so many levels.
Merlin: There's so many reasons not to dress a child that it's ridiculous.
John: Yeah.
John: And I'm in the decided minority because as you are, as you do, I live in a world of women where I look out from my ivory tower and all I see is a sea of women stretching to the horizon.
John: And then somewhere in the very far distance, there's like some guys in a band.
Yeah.
John: And the women, they dress this child compulsively.
John: The kid is in six different outfits every day.
John: So I go to the thrift stores, and I can't look for little sailor costumes or whatever, but I am now...
John: Finding, I'm on this whole trip where I'm like buying old broken toys for the child.
Merlin: I like the broken part.
John: I like the broken part.
John: It dovetails with so many of my interests.
John: Fixing broken toys is one of my interests.
John: Old toys, old broken things.
Merlin: And internal appreciation for disappointment.
John: Right.
John: The kid learns from a very young age that her toys don't work.
John: And so not to get ahead of herself in like, I want this, I want, you know, here's what you have.
John: You have a broken Christmas morning.
Merlin: You literally break every toy in front of her.
Merlin: There you go.
John: You have a wood toy that other children have played with to death.
John: And now you get to, you get to caress its worn surfaces and try not to get cut.
Merlin: Here's your gift, reality.
John: And you know what that is?
John: That's daddy's life.
John: That's daddy's life condensed.
Merlin: There's a big difference between a thrift store and, like, the consignment thing, though.
Merlin: I was very opposed to anything used when people were very kindly offering us, like, stuff.
Merlin: Because, you know, we should come back to this.
Merlin: But one reason you don't dress a kid is because they just got shit all over them all the time.
Merlin: Not literal poop, but, like, just stuff.
Merlin: They're just covered with junk all the time.
John: Because they're basically mops.
Merlin: They're basically mops.
Merlin: Literal poop, dust bunnies, small electronics.
Merlin: It's going to all eventually be something you're going to need to clean out of some kind of a cotton, like a blend maybe.
Merlin: But I was resistant to that because I thought, oh, this is my special little kid.
Merlin: I don't want to give him a bunch of junk.
Merlin: Now, of course, we do that with other people.
Merlin: I'm like, well, no, seriously, please take this toy.
Merlin: Don't spend $60 on this.
Merlin: Please take this.
Merlin: But now we've looked into some.
Merlin: I mean, we've gotten some hand-me-downs, and I couldn't be happier.
John: Most of the things that our daughter owns and wears are hand-me-downs.
John: We did have to go through a two-stage process.
John: First, eliminating the things that were like visibly covered in barf.
John: And then going through that set so that we called that group of stuff.
John: And then went through the hand-me-downs a second time to try and detect the invisible barf.
Merlin: You got out like an infrared or like a black light?
John: Yeah, you have to hold it up and feel it with your fingers and go, is this garment just held together with dried barf?
John: Or is this mostly clean?
John: Because as you know, a lot of kids' clothes, the kid only wears it once or twice and then they've outgrown it.
John: So a lot of kids' clothes are fairly pristine.
John: Other things are just, it's just a suit of vomit.
John: So we went through and we called all that out.
John: And then we had some pretty nice stuff that was all either free or pennies on the dollar.
John: But that's true of everything I own.
John: I went through a phase about nine months ago where I had never owned a Ralph Lauren garment in my life.
John: When I was in high school and Ralph Lauren garments were first fashionable among my peers, my mom refused to buy me a Ralph Lauren anything.
John: Because she said, that shirt cost $65.
John: At Sears, I could buy six shirts.
John: So I never had a Ralph Lauren.
Merlin: You're talking about the polo shirt, the very popular polo shirt, often worn two at a time.
John: No, I never had one of those.
John: Right.
John: And then, I don't know, nine months ago, a year ago, I was in a thrift store and I bought a shirt.
John: It was a day where I'd left the house thinking it was going to be a warm day.
John: And then it turned into a cold day.
John: I know being from San Francisco, you have no idea what I'm talking about right now.
Merlin: It's just all pops and buzzes from here.
John: Yeah.
John: So I went into a thrift store and I bought this shirt.
John: And it was a pretty nice shirt.
John: And it was a Ralph Lauren shirt.
John: So I thought, I'm a grown-up now.
John: I'm not going to spend the rest of my life wearing, you know, Creeper Lagoon t-shirts.
John: I'm going to, I can buy some shirts, some nice shirts.
Merlin: Do you have a Creeper Lagoon t-shirt?
John: Oh, yeah.
John: Really?
John: Creeper Lagoon and Fiverr and all the greats.
Merlin: Wow, I'd love to have a Creeper Logan t-shirt.
John: In fact, I think right now I'm wearing a shirt that you gave me.
John: It says San Francisco Transit t-shirt commemorating the trolley cars or something.
John: I can't see it.
John: It's on me.
Merlin: You pop for now.
Merlin: Did you get the polo shirt?
Merlin: Did you get a long sleeve shirt?
John: So I started going to thrift stores, and instead of looking for the stuff that I usually look for,
John: I didn't substitute, but I added a new section that I was willing to peruse, which was the button-down shirt section.
John: And I started buying Ralph Lauren shirts that I found that were in good condition that were cheap.
John: And I kind of set like a $2 to $5 maximum on what I was willing to pay.
Merlin: You can still pay that for a shirt at your thrift stores?
John: And a lot of these shirts, they're expensive shirts.
John: They were purchased originally by rich people, probably by rich wives or girlfriends, and given to men who did not have an interest in the shirt.
John: Who died.
John: Who then died.
John: Or who got divorced and gave away all their shirts and are sitting somewhere right now with their hand down the front of their jeans, their dad jeans, watching sports on a big TV.
Right.
John: So the thrift stores are full of these clothes that really haven't been worn, that were very expensive initially.
John: And you can buy them for next to nothing.
John: So I decided, oh, now I'm going to have shirts with the little horsey on them.
John: And I swear to you, in the past year, I probably have bought 20 of these things.
John: Now I'm like Mr. Horsey Shirt Guy.
Merlin: That's your thing.
John: It's my present thing.
Merlin: You often have a thing.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: You got to have a thing.
Merlin: Well, that's the thing that strikes me is like you, I can think of at least two examples of things that I associate, three things that I associate with you.
Merlin: Oh gosh, there's many more.
Merlin: But like there's the, was it Clark?
Merlin: The Clarks?
Merlin: Oh, Clarks, yeah.
Merlin: There's the Clarks shoes, there's the Lacoste shirts, Stan Smith sneakers.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Yes, definitely.
Merlin: Setting aside the chick magnet trucker cap for a minute.
Merlin: But you wear them at the wrong time.
Merlin: You didn't wear the Stan Smith shoes when they were hot, like in the 80s or whatever.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Ditto for the IZOD Lacoste shirts.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: But you bring it back.
Merlin: You take it and you turn it.
Merlin: Is that right?
John: Is it something like that?
John: I mean, I get fascinated by a thing, and it's kind of outside of –
John: I don't know why I get fascinated by these things, but, but I do.
John: And then, uh, then it's like a, it's like a, it, it, it demarcates the passage of time in a way like, right.
John: I was wearing Izod shirts for a while, a couple of years ago.
John: And, uh, that it, it wasn't in reaction to, or even participating in other people's fashion.
John: It was just a thing that I got interested in and, and, um,
John: And then I got, now I'm over it, and I don't wear IZOD shirts anymore, and I've sent them back into the stream.
John: The IZOD shirts are into the river of life, and someone else has them now.
John: But I remember at one point coming through your town when we were, I had developed a vintage cowboy boot fascination.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: And then it kind of spread to everybody in my band, and for a while there we were all wearing cowboy boots.
Merlin: That's right, Eric and Michael.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: All stomping around the house in these pointy boots.
Merlin: I remember that.
John: Yeah, and we would go to these little junk shops on the side of the road in Arkansas, and there'd be all these cowboy boots, you know, these Tony Llamas from the 50s.
John: just covered with cobwebs and you go in there and buy a pair for 20 bucks.
John: And so anyway, that became a thing for me for a while.
John: And I've, I've got 25 pairs of vintage elephant skin powder, blue cowboy boots here in the house that, that, uh, I don't wear that much, but I, but I ha I did buy a shelving unit and now they're kind of a, they're an art display.
Hmm.
Merlin: I think you're a lot like Einstein.
Merlin: Not in a good way.
Merlin: But I think you're a lot like Einstein.
Merlin: Supposedly, Einstein, if this is true, this is one of the stories you hear, was like a cartoon character.
Merlin: He just wore the same thing every day.
Merlin: And so he made it easy.
Merlin: You just go into the closet, you grab the same clothes.
Merlin: It just seems like you have a very busy mind.
Merlin: You have a lot of things going on, a lot of people you need to talk to.
Merlin: And it seems to me you want to keep it simple.
Merlin: So you know, you probably order the same fruity pleaser when you go into the bar.
Merlin: You get the same burger when you go to the burger place.
Merlin: I'm thinking.
Merlin: And is that right?
Merlin: Because you can get the clothes.
Merlin: You can just go in and you know what you're in for.
John: There are some people, like my friend Dave Bazan from the band Pedro the Lion, who now travels under his own name, Dave Bazan.
Merlin: Ex-Christian, I believe.
John: Well, yeah, formerly a devout Christian, now a questioning man in the world.
John: Driving on a suspended license.
John: He's now, he's now, well, I think he may have gotten his license renewed, but he's now, he's now, you know, he's one of the, he's one of the seekers.
John: And Dave Bazan does not want to have to think about his clothes.
John: So he wears the same black t-shirt and Levi's jeans every day.
John: And Chris Walla of Death Cab for Cutie, very similar mentality to what you're saying.
John: When, when, um,
John: When Converse decided they were going to stop making shoes in America and start making shoes in China, Chris Walla went out and bought, I'm pretty sure, 25 pairs of low-top, cream-colored, American-made Converse, which he still is working his way through.
John: He has them, this was 10 years ago at least, and he has them stacked somewhere, and when he wears a pair out, he goes into the vault and brings out a new pair of Converse and breaks them in.
John: So I'm not like that.
John: And actually, Walla once said to me, I showed up at the studio one day, and he said, from day to day, I don't know whether you're going to walk in that door looking like a tenured professor of literature or like a space cowboy from the planet Zoltan.
John: He said, I don't get it.
John: Every day, it's like you come in and you're not exactly in costume, but you're in an outfit that doesn't have any relationship to the outfit you wore yesterday or the outfit you're going to wear tomorrow.
John: And I hadn't even noticed, honestly, until he pointed it out, that that was true.
John: And I don't know what it represents.
John: Curiosity about identity.
John: That's what it is.
John: It's curiosity about identity.
Merlin: I'm glad you wear clothes, though.
John: I do wear clothes, at least out of the house.
John: I'm not wearing clothes right now.
Merlin: I don't mean all the time, but I think it's a good direction for you.
John: Yeah, I think so, too.
Merlin: I like the way you dress.
Merlin: I think you have an interesting way of dressing.
John: That's sweet.
Merlin: Thank you.
Merlin: I do.
Merlin: I see the appeal.
Merlin: I have referred to it before as the cartoon character approach.
Merlin: You don't see Donald Duck show up in a Def Leppard shirt.
Merlin: He's always got the little sailor deal going on.
John: It's iconographic.
John: Just like your hair.
John: If you were to show up at an event and your hair was
John: Professionally styled.
John: Yes.
John: People would say, when does Merlin Mann arrive?
Merlin: It's gotten flat, though.
Merlin: It's not the hair it used to be.
Merlin: It's gotten flat.
Merlin: I need a haircut.
Merlin: I got to go see Joey.
John: I believe in your hair, though.
John: I believe it will.
John: I believe it'll surge.
Merlin: You think it'll get a second wind?
John: I think it will.
John: Because you've got a head of hair.
John: You're in your 40s now, and your hair's not going anywhere.
Merlin: So far.
Merlin: I mean, it's getting gray now, which my lady likes, which I think is cool.
Merlin: At least she says she likes.
Merlin: It's easy enough to say that.
Merlin: But I feel lucky in that sense.
Merlin: I feel glad.
Merlin: I mean, I'm insecure about so many things that I'm glad I don't have to also be insecure about being a cliche of a man losing his hair.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah, I don't appear to be losing my hair.
Merlin: No, you seem like you've got a real good head of hair.
John: Yeah, I do.
John: I'm losing everything else, but not my hair.
John: I'm losing my hearing.
John: Can you believe that?
Merlin: I'm a mess on the hearing front.
John: Yeah.
John: I went to a birthday party where the birthday party was that we're shooting AK-47s.
John: And in between clips.
Merlin: Typical hippie party.
John: In between clips, I took my headphones off, my earphones.
John: And then somebody fired around, and I didn't have my earphones on.
John: And I swear to you, 20 years of playing rock music, I did less damage to my hearing than that one bullet fired right next to me with my earphone off my ear.
John: It just was like an ice pick to the head.
John: Yeah.
John: And now I got a ringing.
John: I got a ringing.
Merlin: You got the tinnitus, the tinnitus, whatever it's called?
John: I got a ringing.
Merlin: Oh, God, that sucks.
John: Yeah, it's not good.
Merlin: Oh, my goodness.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: Oh, that's awful.
Merlin: Do you listen to noise at night?
John: No, no, no.
John: It's not tinnitus like where I'm clawing at the side of my head in madness.
John: It's just... No more than usual.
John: Yeah, right.
John: Not any more than I do to get the earwigs that live in there out.
Merlin: Get the bad thoughts out.
John: But, you know, it is a sound.
John: I can duplicate the pitch of the sound.
John: So I am hearing it.
John: And I remember my dad...
John: I mean, my dad's favorite word for the last 30 years of his life was, what?
John: Which makes everybody around you lose their mind after that.
John: And I hear myself doing it.
John: I'm already like, what?
John: What?
John: And I don't know why I'm saying it like an old Jewish man.
John: But I can see myself as I get older.
John: I'm going to be 75.
John: Like, what?
Merlin: What?
Merlin: You're going to be one of those, like, could you repeat the salad dressing kind of guys.
Merlin: Speak up.
Merlin: And, like, you know, the nice part is, like, I think a lot about my senility because I know it's going to happen.
Merlin: I think it's probably kind of underway already.
Merlin: And I like to think a lot about how all of my numerous –
Merlin: All of my numerous drawbacks as a human being are going to really coalesce nicely together.
Merlin: I think being a guy who doesn't listen very well, talks a lot, isn't very smart, doesn't think a lot about what he says, and is sometimes a little bit nervous and paranoid, it's going to come together very, very nicely.
John: Yeah, it's a great combo.
Merlin: If I mishear the dressing, I'm going to be pretty sure people are out to get me.
Merlin: I can already tell.
John: But, you know, I've noticed, I mean, there was a while there where your paranoia, I was concerned.
John: What?
John: I was like, Merlin's getting more and more paranoid all the time.
Merlin: I don't know why people worry about me.
Merlin: Sometimes I just go through a thing.
Merlin: I'm always still the same awful person.
John: Well, but that's the thing.
John: I think your paranoia, it ballooned and you've ratcheted it back or something.
Merlin: Oh, please.
John: You seem a lot less paranoid than you did a year ago.
Merlin: How long have you been saying that?
John: There was a window.
John: There was a few months there.
Merlin: I don't want to talk about it.
Merlin: I disagree.
Merlin: I disagree.
Merlin: I don't like people being worried about me.
Merlin: It really concerns me when people are worried about me.
John: So you're worried about people being worried about you?
Merlin: No, I'm just saying that if the lady says $1,000 undressing, I don't understand.
Merlin: I might stab her because I'm all fucked up and think there's something else going on.
Merlin: Why wouldn't you speak more clearly, miss?
Merlin: And then I'd talk for 25 minutes.
Merlin: People would be gone, and I wouldn't even realize it.
John: You have a very good, you have a tight-knit group of friends who care about you very much.
Merlin: You're saying I don't have a lot of friends is what you're saying.
John: No, no, you have a very tight-knit group of friends.
John: I'm not saying that that means it's a small group of friends.
John: It's just tight-knit.
Merlin: Okay.
John: It's people spread across America, too.
John: People all over America care about Merlin Mann.
John: Yeah, think about, and not just care, think about Merlin Mann.
Merlin: Hmm.
Merlin: Day-to-day, like in an ongoing way.
John: Yeah, just sort of like, hmm, Merlin Mann.
Merlin: That totally freaks me out to think that.
John: Does that really?
Merlin: Oh, it's an awful thought.
John: No.
Merlin: Oh, my gosh.
Merlin: I wish I just... I'd like to just know that I disappear when I'm not with somebody.
Merlin: It starts right back up.
Merlin: It's a horrible thought.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
John: I've told you about being on tour and people come up to me in bars or, you know, at shows and I see them coming kind of with outstretched hand and...
Merlin: You reach for your piece.
John: And I'm ready.
John: Yeah, I reach for my piece, and I put two right between their eyes.
John: Stop right there, Arcade Fire.
John: I'm ready to say, hello.
John: Oh, you like my records.
John: Why, thank you.
John: And they walk up, and they go, you know Merlin Mann.
Merlin: I can't hear you.
Merlin: I can't hear you.
Merlin: I can't hear you.
Merlin: I can't hear you.
Merlin: I find that very, very hard to believe.
Merlin: First of all, it's very hard to get to you because of the phalanx of security that you have around here.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: You're frequently a little fast and loose with the bathing.
Merlin: And, uh, well.
John: I like to bathe.
John: I just don't use soap.
Merlin: Well, that's a religious issue.
John: I take four baths a day, but I don't believe in soap.
Merlin: No buttons and no soap.
Merlin: They're both vain.
Merlin: They're vain conceits of the English, we call them.
Merlin: I have so much to talk to you about.
Merlin: I think we should stop pretty soon, though, because this is good enough.
Merlin: And then I still want to talk to you about glasses.
Merlin: I want to talk to you about Hitler.
Merlin: I want to come back to stakes.
Merlin: What was that place we went?
Merlin: What was that place, the last place, the fancy place where it was like $1,000?
Merlin: How much was that?
Merlin: It was good.
Merlin: What was that place?
John: Was this where we sat outside, or was this a different place?
Merlin: Didn't we go to a place?
Merlin: Remember that?
Merlin: Well...
John: Was this a place where we smoked cigars after dinner?
John: I don't smoke.
Merlin: It was that dark place where they were really nice to us, even though we were goofy.
John: I think it was El Gaucho.
Merlin: It was El Gaucho, unquestionably.
Merlin: That was a good-ass steak.
John: Yeah, we had a good time there.
John: But you started this conversation talking about a time where we gossiped about our friends at an outdoor steak restaurant.
John: It was near water.
John: And what were we?
John: Oh, that we were at the Edgewater Hotel.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: It seemed like a place where there was a lot of outdoor seating.
Merlin: It looked like it might be the kind of place that served bad fish to tourists, but it was a little bit fancy.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And I think we had water and a clear glass.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And we gossiped.
Merlin: I think we had chairs, and we gossiped about some of your former bandmates for like four hours.
John: Was Scott Simpson there?
John: I'm not familiar with his work.
Merlin: No, he wasn't.
Merlin: This was a pretty long time ago.
John: Oh.
Merlin: This is when you still thought about people who had quit your band.
Yeah.
Merlin: Which I'm given to believe you don't really worry about so much anymore.
John: Well, there are so many people now, I'd spend all my time just thinking about all the people that have been in the long winters.
Merlin: Do you think the Fastbacks sit around and think about drummers all day?
John: No.
Merlin: You know they're coming here.
Merlin: I already bought tickets.
Merlin: I'm so there.
John: Half of the Fastbacks just are watching moths float around in their room and thinking, pretty!
John: And the other half of the Fastbacks are just, you know, they're regular Americans.
Merlin: Wondering when the moth will bring them more to drink.
John: So the Fastbacks are coming to San Francisco.
Merlin: With that band that kind of ripped them off, the Muffs.
Merlin: The Muffs are opening for them.
Merlin: Not ripped them off.
Merlin: Ripped them off is an ugly word.
Merlin: I think the Muffs, it feels to me, got a lot of their shtick from the Fastbacks.
Merlin: That's just me.
John: The Fastbacks are as great as they ever were.
Merlin: You introduced me to that guy in a barn.
Merlin: It made my fucking year.
John: Yeah, Kurt Block.
Merlin: It's the best.
Merlin: Oh, my God, I love that guy.
John: In fact, this Saturday, I'm starring in a music video for a local band here called Stag.
John: And Kurt Block is also going to be in that music video.
John: Oh, so great.
John: I'm playing a dejected heart song.
John: I'm wearing a giant heart costume.
John: And Kurt Block, I think, is going to be Santa Claus.
Merlin: Naturally.
John: Yeah.
John: He's really, he's a great guy.
Merlin: That's going to be fun.
Merlin: I wish you would do more work as talent.
Merlin: I think that, you know, acting talent.
Merlin: I think that'd be fun.
Merlin: You're great in that Decembrist video with the big-ass beard.
John: Yeah, I don't, somehow I thought that appearing in a Decembrist video was really going to send my career through the roof.
John: But I think the beard, most people don't recognize it as me.
Merlin: I think most people only remember the barrowsmith and the blacksmithy.
John: Yeah.
John: You know, I'm actually a character, uh, Colin and his wife, uh, just released a, um, uh, a book for preteens or I guess teens, early teens, um, where, uh, uh, Colin wrote the story and, Carson wrote the, um,
John: Or did the drawings.
Merlin: Oh, nice.
John: And one of the characters in the book is called Jock Roderick.
John: And he's a vagabond.
Merlin: Does he TP anybody's house?
John: He doesn't.
John: I don't think in the book he does any toilet papering, but he is... What an honor.
John: Yeah.
John: So now I've been immortalized in cartoon form.
John: Well...
John: Again.
John: Again.
John: Immortalized again in cartoon form.
Merlin: I want to talk about steak.
Merlin: I want to talk about the eyeglasses.
John: Are you listing what we're going to talk about the next time we talk?
John: Next time.
John: Next time.
Merlin: This is a perfect link.
Merlin: This is a perfect link.
Merlin: We've already talked too long.
Merlin: This is perfect.
Merlin: No.
Merlin: You know, we literally could talk forever, and so I'm thinking once a week we should do this, and we always got one in the chamber.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
John: Absolutely.
John: Well, I want to talk about the tea party.
Merlin: Oh, Jesus.
John: I want to talk about it.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: It's politics?
Merlin: I want to talk about the Tea Party.
Merlin: You want to talk about the Tea Party?
Merlin: Do you have an angle on it?
Merlin: Yeah, I got an angle.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: Can we do it next time?
Merlin: Yeah, let's do it next time.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: I don't really have a way to end this, do you?
John: Oh, we're looking, we're searching for an ending?
Merlin: No, no.
John: Well, I mean, we should, we should, somebody, I, oh, you know what?
John: I was talking to Jonathan Colton and I said, Merlin and I are going to do this talk on the phone once a week.
John: And Jonathan Colton said, you got to have an angle.
John: I said, I don't know if we have an angle.
John: And he said, no, no, no, you got to have an angle.
Merlin: He's been spending too much time with Flansburg.
John: That's right.
Merlin: He's always got a note now.
John: That's exactly right.
John: Because that's Flansburg 100%.
John: What's your angle?
John: You got to have an angle.
Merlin: You know, you should do a show about puppets.
Merlin: People love puppets.
Merlin: Let me get this guy on the phone.
Merlin: I know a guy that's got puppets.
John: But I don't know what our angle is.
John: And Colton said what we should do.
John: Here was his idea.
John: I forgot to say this, so I should have said this at the beginning.
John: Colton said we should play 20 seconds of a song, any song,
John: And then that'll be our launching pad.
John: Play 20 seconds of a song, and then we'll start talking about the song, and then we'll... Because that's what we do.
Merlin: I would do that.
Merlin: That's what we normally do.
Merlin: That'd be a good feature.
Merlin: My feeling is that these things find their own through line.
Merlin: I consider this a pilot.
Merlin: I don't know if we'll ever do it again.
Merlin: I don't know if anyone will listen to it.
Merlin: I don't really care.
Merlin: I'm going to go put these on a website, and we'll keep doing this.
Merlin: I'll do whatever you want to do.
Merlin: I just like the idea of Roderick on the line.
Merlin: It just makes me happy.
John: Yeah, I don't know if we need that.
John: I said to Jonathan, what you and I should do is just play the first 20 seconds of Tax Man.
John: And every week we'd talk about it for half an hour in a totally different way.
Merlin: Listen to that bass line.
Merlin: Listen to that.
Merlin: It's astounding.
Merlin: It's astounding.
Merlin: You know what we should do, though?
Merlin: We need music.
Merlin: I should use that song that you don't like that I like.
Merlin: I don't know why you never put it out.
John: Oh, you're going to use sugar from sand?
Merlin: Why don't you do anything with sugar and sand?
Merlin: Do you still not like it?
Merlin: No, I haven't listened to it in four years.
Merlin: I can't find it.
Merlin: It's on my other computer.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: It's got that nice... You know what?
Merlin: It would work.
Merlin: I could fade it out at the beginning and it goes right in.
John: Use it as the theme.
John: I think that's a great idea.
Merlin: Do you have a copy you can put your hand to right now?
John: No, like I say, I haven't thought about it in a... You can sit around and listen to your own music.
John: You know, I am one of those artists that not only does not, but can hardly bear to.
John: If I'm in a store or a bar and my music comes on the stereo, my reaction is always the same.
John: At first I go, hmm, what's that?
John: How do I know that?
John: And then I go, that's pretty good.
John: What is that?
John: That's so weird.
John: I know that.
John: And then I go, oh.
John: I have to get out of here.
John: Happens the same way every time.
John: And the only saving grace is that I always go through a two-second period where I'm like, oh, I like this.
John: That song's cool.
Merlin: That's awkward.
John: The only thing that would be worse is if I went, oh, what is that?
John: That sucks.
Merlin: It's a little bit like accidentally masturbating about yourself.
Merlin: Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Merlin: Back it up.
Merlin: Because now you don't even trust your own taste.
John: That's never happened to me.
Merlin: Called The Stranger.
John: But I tried to listen to the podcast that you and I did last week, and I actually caught myself laughing a couple of times in the first 10 minutes of it.
Merlin: Welcome to the problem.
John: And then the second time I caught myself laughing, I just turned it off because I was like, what are you laughing at?
Merlin: That's restraint.
Merlin: That's good.
Merlin: That's not funny.
Merlin: Turn that off.
Merlin: What are you laughing at?
Merlin: What's all that Hitler talk?
Merlin: Enough with the Hitler talk.
Merlin: My goodness.
John: All right.
Merlin: Let's stop it there.
Merlin: I'll talk to you next week.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: Talk to you.
Merlin: So Thursdays.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: Let's try it.
John: What do you think?
John: I mean, why not?
John: You know what I need in my life?
John: I need structure.
John: I need a pattern.
John: Clean clothes.
John: I need one thing that happens every week.
John: All right.
John: I can do that for you.
John: Will that be you?
John: Will that be you, Berlin man?
Merlin: I can be that suit of vomit for you.
John: Thank you.
John: You're welcome.