Ep. 02: "White Leather Carpet"
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
Merlin: How are you?
Merlin: I'm all Merlin.
Merlin: How are you?
Merlin: I'm doing pretty well.
Merlin: I just had some food.
Merlin: I had a chili dog.
Merlin: No, really?
Merlin: I had limited time.
Merlin: I had limited time and I had to go through.
Merlin: I had to approach that fork in the road.
Merlin: Do I go in hungry or do I go in chili?
John: You approached the fork in the chili dog.
John: Yeah.
John: I love a chili dog.
Merlin: Well, I'm glad you mentioned that.
John: It was you that mentioned it, but I'm confirming.
John: Which one are you?
Merlin: Which one are you again?
Merlin: You're the star and I'm the sidekick, right?
John: Let me go back to how much I love a chili dog.
Merlin: You're Merv Griffin.
Merlin: I'm Arthur Treacher.
Merlin: You don't even get that.
Merlin: You're not even old enough to know who that is, Arthur Treacher.
Merlin: He's fish and chips to you, right?
John: No, you're right.
John: I don't know him.
John: But I know who Merv Griffin is.
John: You kidding me?
John: I think I just didn't rip Moran's bit.
John: Merv Griffin is a lesser Johnny Carson.
Merlin: Merv Griffin's a rich man.
Merlin: Do you know how rich he is?
Merlin: He's rich like Jesus he's rich.
John: He started the dating game.
John: Hang on.
Merlin: No, no, he produced the dating game.
Merlin: Jeopardy.
Merlin: I think you're thinking of Jeopardy.
Merlin: No, that's Chuck Barris.
Merlin: Well, Chuck Barris.
Merlin: Which one was in the CIA?
Merlin: That's Merv Griffin, right?
John: No, Chuck Beres was in the CIA, but I think Merv Griffin was the, I think Merv Griffin was Chuck Beres' mentor.
John: I mean, all of this conjecture can be dismissed with one click of the internet.
Merlin: I don't think that's accurate.
Merlin: I think it's like in England, you got the shadow cabinet.
Merlin: I think Merv Griffin is the shadow cabinet.
John: Right.
John: That's what I'm saying.
John: Merv Griffin controls 70s television.
Merlin: Then I agree.
Merlin: I am the one who brought up Chili Dogs.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: I try not to prepare for these things apart from eating, but while I was eating my chili dog, I wrote down...
Merlin: I wrote down some ideas for things I wanted to talk to you about.
Merlin: Now, may I read some of them to you?
Merlin: Yeah, let's hear them.
Merlin: Okay, well, here's the thing.
Merlin: First of all, step zero, I don't want you to feel the need to respond to any of these.
Merlin: These are things I'm throwing out there.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Put them in the air.
Merlin: You can choose to answer any of these any way you want.
Merlin: You could just say, check or no check.
Okay.
Merlin: You know, I think we have plenty to talk about without picking topics, but it's really more for my personal interest and my personal files.
John: No, I know how this goes.
John: I mean, over the years, I've gotten many, many phone calls from you where you had something very important to say.
Merlin: I don't think you could always tell that.
John: You couldn't tell that.
John: About the Beatles album Revolver, and you needed to talk to somebody about it.
John: Right.
John: And you had used up all your other friends.
Merlin: Why didn't they put paperback writer on there?
Merlin: Okay, that's number five.
Merlin: I'm going to cross that one.
Hang on.
Okay.
Okay.
John: All right.
Merlin: Let's hear the list.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: These are potential topics, and I don't want you to feel any inclination because I know you're not really – you're going to feel inclined like you do.
Merlin: That's one of the problems.
John: I'm already feeling less inclined.
John: Okay.
Merlin: Then I'll – topic one, chili.
John: God, I'm a huge fan.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: See?
Merlin: I think I know you – okay.
Merlin: So that's – I'm going to put a check next to that as a potential topic.
John: Wait a minute.
John: Do you make your own chili?
John: Because I know you make a lot of your own foods.
Merlin: I think chili is a lot like barbecue for white people.
Merlin: I think it differs a lot from place to place, and people are very territorial about it, like sports teams and sexual intercourse.
Merlin: They have different ideas.
Merlin: Do you use cinnamon?
Merlin: Is there mustard?
Merlin: Beans?
Merlin: No beans.
John: I think chili... I use cinnamon, mustard, and beans in sexual intercourse.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: That's five shows right there.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Hang on.
Merlin: So we could go right into chili or you could hear some of my other ideas.
Merlin: And I just, I literally want to just check these off just for future.
John: Oh, I see.
John: Okay.
John: So this is lightning round.
John: All right, let's go.
John: I don't know that.
John: At least there's partly sunny.
John: We'll go back to chili because that's, now you've introduced the topic.
John: Okay.
John: I'm vibrating with excitement about the chili lunch I'm going to have.
Merlin: I think we should circle back to chili.
John: Okay.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Unless there's other ones.
Merlin: No, no, no.
Merlin: Let's hear the rest.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Pedestrians.
Merlin: That is not a value judgment.
Merlin: It is simply a plural noun.
Merlin: Are you interested at some point in talking about pedestrians?
John: Well, for many, many, many, many years, I was a pedestrian.
John: That's not really an answer.
John: Oh, I'm ready to talk about it.
John: I'm ready to talk about having been a pedestrian and my relationship to them now that I'm not a pedestrian.
Merlin: I don't want to steer this boat too hard because it's your boat.
Merlin: It's your wheel.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Fitzcarraldo, I call it.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: We got to get it up the mountain.
Merlin: There's a German.
Merlin: And everybody's sad.
Merlin: I'm loco.
Merlin: No, Rutger Hauer's not in it.
Merlin: That's the other guy.
Merlin: Klaus Kinski's in it, right?
John: Klaus Kinski, yeah.
Merlin: Boy, if Rutger Hauer was in Fitzcarraldo.
Merlin: Okay, I'm going to write this down.
Merlin: Fitzcarraldo.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: That's the guy who did that other movie with Klaus Kinski.
Merlin: What's that guy's name?
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: That's the guy.
Merlin: No, the guy where the guy plays a flute, and he's got a helmet.
Merlin: That's...
Merlin: Werner Herzog.
Merlin: Werner Herzog.
Merlin: And I'm thinking of Aguirre, Wrath of God.
Merlin: But I'm going to write Fitzcarraldo.
Merlin: It's about a steamboat, I think.
Merlin: Okay, number... I didn't see that one.
John: Is that the one where a bottle falls on a guy and he clicks at it for a while and takes it back to his tribe?
Merlin: Oh, the one where it's a little bit fast in parts.
Merlin: I think that's the gods must be crazy part one.
Merlin: Oh, okay.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: I have a lot of questions about the gods must be crazy.
Merlin: And I think with the metaphysical distance that we have from that movie, now we need to talk about the gods must be crazy.
John: Oh, I thought you were talking about the metaphysical distance between you and I. No, no, no.
John: No, I don't want to talk about that.
Merlin: Our connection is molecular.
Merlin: I think we've established that.
Merlin: Third topic, I just need a check or a no check, Alaska.
Merlin: I'll always talk about Alaska.
Merlin: Okay, I'm going to put a check next to that.
Merlin: This is taking too long.
Merlin: Fourth one, the problem with public restrooms.
Merlin: You'll notice that has problem, the problem in front of it.
Merlin: So you can tell me if you just want to do problem.
Merlin: Does that interest you at all?
John: I went to a guitar show yesterday.
Merlin: That's not really an answer.
John: I went to like a vintage guitar show, and the public restroom's there.
Merlin: Oh, you know what?
Merlin: I'm going to exercise my Robert's Rules of Order, and I'm going to go ahead and put a check next to that.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: Okay, I had some other ones.
Merlin: I'm just going to table these.
Merlin: I had Guitars, Women, Tattoos, People Who Wear Hats, R.E.M., and whether other bands take a dump before a show.
Merlin: I think we could table – I think many of those, Guitars, Women, Tattoos, People Who Wear Hats, R.E.M., and pre-shows.
Merlin: Potential, could we table this potentially for future discussion?
John: I'll happily talk about all those topics.
Merlin: Which one did you jump out?
Merlin: Guitars, Women, Tattoos, People Who Wear Hats, R.E.M., and pre-shows.
God.
John: I have super strong feelings about every one of those topics.
Merlin: Well, and how many women, right?
Merlin: Get this.
Merlin: How many women do you know who wear hats, have tattoos, play guitar, and probably take a dump for a show?
Merlin: I'm thinking you just in the PNW, literally dozens.
John: Well, I personally know more than a few.
John: The thing about women in hats that's nice is if you go to an event in a hat,
John: you personally, with a woman, and you realize once you get to the event that you shouldn't have worn a hat, that wearing a hat is stupid, you can give the hat to the woman and then the woman's wearing a hat.
John: It's so cute when they do that.
John: It's super cute, right?
John: And so then she feels cute and you don't look like a dink in a hat at an event where no other guy is wearing a hat.
Merlin: I think you know me well enough to know I do not make sweeping generalizations, but I'm just going to say never wear the hat.
Merlin: Don't wear a hat to the show.
Merlin: I mean, unless you, because now you're wearing a hat guy.
John: Yeah, I know.
John: Except here's the problem.
John: If you have a collection of old Stetsons.
John: which someone on this podcast does, then what do you do?
John: I mean, I face this conundrum every day.
John: I wake up, I walk past my hat rack, which is covered like a fruit tree with vintage Stetson hats, some of them quite beautiful hats.
John: And I think my first thought is, I want to put on a hat.
John: And my second thought is, you look like an asshole in a hat.
John: And this happens to me 30 times a day.
John: I walk past the thing.
John: I go, ooh, ooh, hat, hat.
John: And then I go, don't walk out of the house in a hat.
Merlin: If you were 20 or 30, you would have made a different set of decisions about every step of that.
Merlin: You might have said, I don't even need these hats.
Merlin: I certainly don't need more than one.
Merlin: And then when you did have them, you would have said, well, I got these hats.
Merlin: I got to wear them to a show.
Merlin: I don't think you even go to that many shows these days, I'm guessing, because you're very busy.
Merlin: But I imagine now when you do that, you bring that level of circumspection to any...
Merlin: really any of the fruit trees in your house, whether that is the elephant boots or the costly hats.
Merlin: Or on some level, you can't wear too many Ralph Lauren shirts, right?
Merlin: I mean, you're bringing to this a circumspection is all I'm saying.
John: You can't wear more than three Ralph Lauren shirts at a time.
John: Because it starts to, you start to look muscle bound.
John: You get a kind of like young Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Merlin: Oh, like you've been taking prednisone, a little puffy.
John: Yeah, and that's not appealing, I don't think.
Merlin: People used to wear it too.
Merlin: I mentioned this in a previous visit.
Merlin: I remember what people would wear too with the collar up.
Merlin: I don't want to get into that.
Merlin: That's not one of the topics.
John: Yeah, I don't want to talk about that either.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: But anyway, I see kids in hats all the time.
Merlin: I'm sorry.
Merlin: Let me just jump in here.
Merlin: Are we going to go straight into people with hats?
Merlin: No, let's go back.
Merlin: You're right.
Merlin: No, no, no.
Merlin: Listen, I'm not here to derail.
Merlin: It's your rail.
Merlin: It's your train.
Merlin: I'm just riding the caboose.
Merlin: I'm happy to talk about hats.
John: You're riding my caboose?
Merlin: You feel mostly like those topics are good, though.
Merlin: Can I put this in my personal file?
Merlin: It's all great.
John: It's all gold.
John: I'll talk about all that stuff.
John: But I don't want to talk about hats.
Merlin: Well, I do feel strongly about it.
Merlin: I think the whole thing where women wear your clothes, I mean, come on.
John: That's great, but that's a different topic.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: The last time I went to South by Southwest, every single person in the city was wearing some kind of snap brim fedora that they bought in an airport.
John: And I wanted to have a lightsaber so that I could go around and just take the top three inches of everyone's head off.
John: And then, of course, I went home.
Merlin: That should be a whole service industry.
Merlin: There should be armies of people who are not unemployed but partially employed.
Merlin: You give them a wrist rocket and a handful of pebbles, and you literally do nothing but knock hats off of Where's the Hat Guy's head all day long.
Merlin: Then you pick them up, and you say, you know what?
Merlin: That's one.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: Maybe think a little harder, Austin.
Merlin: You know what?
John: I'm already designing the uniforms for those guys with the wrist rockets.
John: I have a really good idea.
John: I think like unitard, but bell-bottom.
John: White bell-bottom unitard.
John: Sounds like the DeFranco family.
John: Or maybe like the Bay City, I don't know.
Merlin: You know, I would never say that.
John: There's a Bay City Rulers thing about it.
John: Yeah, and camel toe is a big part of the world.
John: For the men.
John: For the men, yeah.
John: Which is called something else, right?
John: It's not camel toe if it's a guy.
John: I literally just made this upset crack.
John: Ugh.
John: No.
John: It's so unappealing, no matter how you look at it.
John: You sent me that Eddie Van Halen interview that he did backstage at the Stoner Fest.
John: Yeah, I didn't mention that it had photos, did I?
John: And the photos of him in his jeans.
John: The thing is, those 70s jeans, like from the knee down,
John: They hung like curtains.
John: They weren't tight.
John: But, boy, they tailored them somehow so that they were the tightest just right in that area right around where you pee.
Merlin: I don't know why I think this, and I don't know why I think it, but I have a feeling that David Lee Roth had some serious lumber going on.
Merlin: I think he could have killed some spotted owls with that thing.
John: He's a Jewish guy.
John: Is that right?
John: And you know what they are with the penises.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: I'm sympathetic to that.
John: To the fact that the Jews have big penises?
No.
John: I mean, I don't like to indulge in stereotypes.
Merlin: Well, first of all, A, the Jews have had a hard time.
Merlin: If anybody deserves a giant cock, it's a Jew.
Merlin: Don't you think?
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: I think that it's their time.
Merlin: Now is their time.
Merlin: I was thinking more of the little World War I helmet effect.
Merlin: I'm very sympathetic to that.
Merlin: Is it World War I?
Merlin: No, I guess maybe like a German, like a stormtrooper hat.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: This is getting way far afield.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You know, I think your whole conception of penises has a lot to do with what you're sporting.
Merlin: The first time you see the opposite of the kind of penis you have, I think you know what I'm talking about.
Merlin: The first time you see the opposite of that.
John: It's curved to the left, and you see one that curves to the right.
Merlin: I...
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I'm not pro or anti-circumcision, but I am pro-circumcision.
Merlin: Not because of the pain, not because of the cutting, but just because I think everyone should look like me to the extent possible.
John: Well, yeah, it's a cultural thing, and you are a member of a very distinct culture.
John: Me.
John: Which is you, yeah.
Merlin: I think the first time you see that, though, buddy, I'm not going to get into that because it's not on the list.
Merlin: You know, here's the thing.
Merlin: I would never go up...
Merlin: I despise tattoos.
Merlin: I just, as a thing, I just despise tattoos.
Merlin: Now, I love a lot of people who have tattoos.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: Well, it's like religion.
John: I love a lot of religious people, but I'm not a super fan of religion.
Merlin: I think that's a terrific example.
Merlin: And I have to say, especially with some of the ladies, it's a matter of taste, and some of them have some really, really beautiful tattoos.
Merlin: Almost never on the foot or the back, I will note.
Merlin: On the foot.
Merlin: The foot tattoo.
Merlin: And then you've got to go by sandals so people can see.
John: I'm wearing a sleeveless blouse.
John: It's a shortcut to looking like a juggalette.
John: If you have a foot tattoo, you're right on the way to being a juggalette.
John: But here's the problem, right, Merlin?
John: Now, I get into this all the time.
John: If you start talking shit about tattoos, so many people in my culture now have tattoos, that to start talking shit about it is to start... I mean, I can sit and talk about religion all day, and I know I'm offending people, but there are people outside... It's abstract.
John: To them, that's abstract.
Merlin: It's like talking about how they feel about chess.
Merlin: Well, they go, you know, I kind of like chess, but they're not going to like punching the nose.
John: And the people that really care about chess, they're out there somewhere, but I'm not concerned.
Merlin: And you could probably lick them if you had to in a fight.
John: I could lick them in a fight and other ways.
John: Yes.
John: Well, it is partly religious, though.
Merlin: They're committed and they can't go back.
Merlin: They can't take that foot off.
John: That's going to have to be lasers.
John: And if I make some sweeping statement like any tattoo in your bikini area is gross, no matter what it is a picture of.
John: I don't care if it's a beautiful flower.
John: I don't care if it is a picture of Ronald McDonald.
John: That is grosser.
John: Ronald McDonald is grosser than a flower.
John: Would it be full-sized?
John: A life-size Ronald McDonald where his nose is your clitoris.
Merlin: No, I'm thinking his nose is your nose.
Merlin: It's a literally life-size tattoo of Ronald McDonald.
Merlin: Just the front.
Merlin: Save the back for Grimace.
Merlin: I'm still saving it for Grimace.
John: Boy, you would – seriously, the juggalos would welcome you with open arms.
Merlin: I'm not putting this on the official list.
Merlin: I have a third card where I'm going to put juggalos because I want to learn more about juggalos.
John: I read about them.
John: The bikini area thing is one of those like, oh, my God, this girl is beautiful.
John: Oh, here we go.
John: Oh, she's so – oh, I'm now off with the bikini and oh.
John: Yeah.
John: It's like opening up – There's a scar down here.
Merlin: It's like opening up the leftover Chinese food.
Merlin: Somebody ate all the shrimp out and they put a dead bird in there.
Merlin: That's not food anymore.
Merlin: Why would you mess up such a nice area?
John: That's not a metaphor I want to associate with a bikini area.
John: Chinese food.
John: You ate the shrimp out and there's a dead bird.
Merlin: The problem is it's literally not a metaphor.
Merlin: It could be a blue bird and a missing shrimp.
John: That's my next tattoo.
John: A container of Chinese food where clearly there's shrimp shaped areas that are empty and a dead bird.
Merlin: Can I give you an economical solution to that?
Merlin: One word, kanji.
Merlin: There is probably a symbol for this is a tattoo.
John: A single kanji symbol.
Merlin: This is a single kanji.
Merlin: I don't even know what that means, what kanji is.
Merlin: I think it's a language thing.
Merlin: You go in.
Merlin: I think you say to them, I would like the kanji symbol for this is a tattoo of probably a blue bird and some missing shrimp.
Merlin: And can I just say, I think seven out of ten tattoo quote unquote artists will say no problem.
John: Yeah, that's why Japanese is so hard to learn.
Merlin: You just put some lines on there and you go, that's awesome, this is kanji.
John: Yeah, well, but you know what it is?
John: People who get tattoos, they really like Sanskrit.
John: That's the language they really want their tattoo in.
Merlin: That's like on your arms and your back, right?
Merlin: Is that what Angelina Jolie has?
John: I'm sure she does.
John: Oh, my God.
John: I'm so irritated at Angelina Jolie right now just thinking of her tattoos.
John: Going right under Juggalos.
John: Right under Juggalos.
John: There it goes.
John: I don't even know what her tattoos are.
John: I'm sure she has some that are pissing me off right now.
Merlin: We're going to need a second and probably fifth podcast just for Angelina Jolie.
Merlin: But I understand this problem.
Merlin: I run into it, too, because I have dear friends.
Merlin: Now, here's the problem with Twitter is I say, you know, that makes you look a little bit filthy.
Merlin: And when you get old, it's not going to be pretty.
Merlin: And my friends think I'm addressing them directly.
Merlin: I have friends that have tattoos that are very meaningful to them about very meaningful things.
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: Or some of them are awesome.
Merlin: I have a friend.
Merlin: I had a friend in college who looked a lot like Sherman from from Bullwinkle.
Merlin: And so he got a Sherman tattoo that was beautiful.
Merlin: And I thought that was funny.
Merlin: I had another friend.
Merlin: I had a friend who got a question mark and the word doubt under it.
Merlin: I thought that was nice.
John: That's nice.
John: I have a lot of friends that are tattooed from the bottoms of their earlobes to the ends of their fucking toes.
John: And I dated a couple of girls that had tattoos all over their bodies.
John: And I was able, for that period, to enjoy those people's tattoos as a part of them, the enjoyment of them.
John: But I cannot say that I would not have preferred that they did not have all those tattoos.
Merlin: I think in the aggregate what that says is, yes, I will work at the coffee shop.
Merlin: But B, you probably shouldn't trust me with the keys.
John: Oh, all the tattoos.
Merlin: Well, to me it becomes, you know, see, we should move on.
John: Here's the problem for me.
John: I can't talk about tattoos.
John: I can't talk about tattoos on girls anymore because there are enough people watching my Twitter feed who are going to send me a text that says, when did you see a girl's bikini area?
John: Question mark, question mark.
John: And then I'm like, oh, I was just thinking about...
Merlin: in the abstract and then I get another text oh really you were just thinking about tattoos this is the other problem with Twitter which is when you or I try to help people by saying something abstract
Merlin: People who feel that that is about them will respond personally.
Merlin: That's the second problem with Twitter.
Merlin: I'm not talking about you.
John: I'm not talking about you.
Merlin: I wasn't talking to you at all.
Merlin: I'm not accepting as much I am talking about you.
Merlin: I'm not talking about you.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: No, I was absolutely talking about you.
Merlin: Yeah, no question.
Merlin: But not you.
Merlin: But now you're talking about me.
Merlin: You know?
Merlin: And that's different.
Merlin: That's totally different.
Merlin: That's the second problem with Twitter.
Merlin: But here's the thing.
Merlin: I've been to your area.
John: Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Merlin: I've been to your bikini area.
Merlin: I think I've been to Jet City, as I like to call it.
Merlin: Do you prefer that or Emerald City?
Merlin: Is that like saying Frisco?
Merlin: Is that like a tourist thing to say Jet City?
Merlin: You got it in a song.
Merlin: You got it in a song.
John: Here's the thing about Jet City in the 50s and 60s.
John: Jet City was the first.
John: That was Seattle's nickname.
John: That was Seattle's like.
John: Because of the Boeing.
John: Because of the Boeing, because we were making jets before anybody else.
Merlin: I love it.
Merlin: I think it's fantastic.
Merlin: It's got a Tomorrowland quality in it.
Merlin: It's muscular.
John: Right.
John: Well, exactly.
John: Thank you.
John: That's exactly right.
John: And we were Jet City all the way up until some magical point in the late 70s when some...
John: The cabal of city fathers decided they were going to rebrand Seattle as the Emerald City, which is like a land of little of dwarves, like magical little green Emerald City.
John: What is that?
John: That's like a Dorothy and Oz Wonderland.
Merlin: It's a place with a lot of poppies that's run by a fraud.
John: Yeah, that's no nickname.
John: Nobody wanted that.
John: Nobody asked for that.
Merlin: What is it that's Emerald about the city?
John: Well, it's very green here.
John: You mean verdant?
John: It's bucolic.
John: It's both bucolic and verdant.
John: Is it phlegmatic?
John: It's not phlegmatic.
John: No.
John: A phlegmatic city would be Kansas City, Missouri.
Merlin: Seattle, the city that knows how to hock it.
John: No, that's not Seattle.
John: Seattle is bucolic and verdant.
John: Like, for instance, San Francisco...
John: In one's mind's eye, one thinks, oh, San Francisco, bucolic.
John: But in fact, it's neither of those things.
John: It's a parched desert.
Merlin: Same thing happened here in the late 70s.
Merlin: You know, same kind of bunch of people were hungover, came to a meeting.
Merlin: Nobody had the good sense to say no to Emerald City.
Merlin: 19, I think it was 19, no, I guess it was probably 1980.
Merlin: San Francisco, that's not funny.
Merlin: And they said, that's not even a nickname.
Merlin: That's just a statement.
Merlin: And they said, no, seriously, that's not funny.
Merlin: No matter what you're saying, San Francisco, somebody's going to say, you know what?
Merlin: That's not funny.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: That went on the license plates.
Merlin: It's not a question.
Merlin: License plates.
Merlin: Oh, you mean like on cars?
Merlin: Uh-huh.
Merlin: Oh, okay.
Merlin: Here's an idea.
Merlin: Why don't you take all your dot-com money and go pour gas right into the bay?
Merlin: That's how funny that is.
Merlin: License plates.
Merlin: Here's your custom license plate.
Merlin: That's not funny.
Merlin: Hate crime.
Merlin: That's yours.
Merlin: H8 crime.
John: Here's my question to you.
John: Why is Frisco so bad for you people?
John: I mean, Frisco, it's like you say Frisco to a San Francisco and they wilt like an orchid in a microwave.
Merlin: Well, B, we're very touchy.
Merlin: I don't know if you've realized that.
Merlin: We're very touchy.
Merlin: You are.
Merlin: Not touchy-feely, just touchy.
Merlin: That's not funny.
Merlin: But A, you know, what if people started calling you the Winties?
Merlin: Oh, I'm going out tonight to see the Winties.
John: But Frisco has a long and glorious career.
John: They called it Frisco back in 1859.
Merlin: Yeah, and they also used to think there was spider eggs and bubble yum.
Merlin: It doesn't make it right.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: There's two things I heard.
Merlin: You never call it Frisco, and for the love of Christ, never call it San Fran.
Merlin: When I moved here, my wife educated me on many things.
Merlin: She told me we were never going to Rollerblade in Golden Gate Park, so I crossed that off my list.
Merlin: She said we're never going to buy a big can of coffee in a red can.
Merlin: That's never happening again.
John: Well, she's right there.
Merlin: She was right, and I think we can blame Emerald City for that because of all the coffee now.
John: That's right.
John: We changed the world.
Merlin: But she schooled me on that.
Merlin: I think I had heard or read in books that you don't call it San Fran, you don't call it Frisco.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I mean, you know what they call it, and this is really not funny, but they call it the city.
John: Yeah, right.
John: The city by the bay.
John: The city that rocks.
John: The city that never stops.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: The city that was built on rock and roll and an overinflated mining industry.
Merlin: You know, back then, it used to cost $5 for a gallon of milk.
Merlin: During the gold rush days?
Merlin: This is the thing.
Merlin: When you have a big boom, it's not the suckers to get rich.
John: I have a big boom, and it is the suckers, let me tell you.
Merlin: It's right in your bikini area.
Merlin: The people who get rich, it's like the lawyer thing.
Merlin: The people who get rich.
John: Yeah, it's the milk producers that get rich every time.
Merlin: John, if you wanted to sleep literally on a wooden bench, it was $10 a night.
Merlin: And that's in $1849.
Merlin: I'd have to look up what that is.
Merlin: But I think that's a lot of money.
John: It is a lot of money.
John: I'll find out.
John: I wouldn't pay $10 to sleep on a wooden bench right now.
John: You can always stay at my place.
John: I know.
John: On your mattress that's shaped like a taco?
John: Your taco mattress?
John: Is that the one where it loses air and you've got to pump it up every night?
John: The John Roderick Memorial Taco Mattress?
Merlin: I don't want to get off topic, but I've always enjoyed how you made someone sleep in the van.
Merlin: I always thought that was about way more than protecting the equipment.
Merlin: We live literally three...
Merlin: Not three.
Merlin: Cut that out.
Merlin: We live close to a police station.
Merlin: You live next to a police station.
Merlin: That's fine.
Merlin: And it's a very pastoral, phlegmatic area, much like R.E.M.
Merlin: 's Reckoning.
Merlin: And so, you know, you're mostly going to be okay in our neighborhood, but you would always make someone sleep.
Merlin: I think Michael.
Merlin: You made Michael sleep in the van a lot just for spite.
John: Michael liked to sleep in the van because Michael's a compulsive masturbator.
John: And I think he's a loud masturbator.
John: So he's not comfortable sleeping around other people.
John: He likes to be in an enclosed area where he can steam up the windows.
John: But I slept in the van in front of your house one time.
John: Yeah, I was bummed about that.
John: And I had a terrifying experience.
John: I think I told you about this the next morning.
John: I was asleep in the van next to the park, right, where I backed in, so I'm looking out at the park.
John: I'm sleeping in the van, and in the middle of the night, I wake up with a start to a vision of like an army of dead soldiers marching across the park toward me.
John: I look out of the window, and I see an army of ghostly dead
John: Coming at the van.
John: And I'm, you know, I sleep in the, I sleep au naturel.
John: And so I shoot out of the back bunk in the van, shoot across four bench seats in the van into the driver's seat.
John: Turn on the van and put it in gear and peel out.
John: This is 4 o'clock in the morning.
John: Peel out of this parking space and don't stop for like four blocks.
John: Bare ass naked driving in a panic away from this army of dead soldiers coming at me.
John: And I pulled over to the side of the road panting.
Merlin: Coming out of the park at you?
John: Yeah.
John: Walking across the park toward the van surrounding the van.
John: At four in the morning.
Merlin: That's horrific.
John: It was terrible.
John: And then I didn't sleep the rest of the night.
John: I couldn't park next to the park of dead soldiers.
Merlin: No.
Merlin: What era?
Merlin: Like, do you remember what war?
Merlin: Like Crimean?
John: No, they weren't Crimean.
John: You know, I think they were in Western garb, quite frankly.
Merlin: That's horrifying.
Merlin: Do you have a lot of visions like that?
Merlin: What about stigmata?
Merlin: You ever get stigmata?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: Not anywhere.
John: I have never gotten a stigmata, but I do have periodically, very rarely, I'll be sleeping in a strange house.
John: I was sleeping in a house in Vermont one time.
John: I turned off the light and immediately felt like there was someone terrible in the room with me and I
John: sat up turned on the light and spent the entire night sitting up like reading old readers digests because the second that i the second that i was not vigilant there was a terrible terrible malevolent presence there and in the morning i limped down to the breakfast and the my hosts are sitting there and they said how did you sleep and i said well
John: Not very well, actually, because there's a really, really evil ghoul that lives in the room that you put me in.
John: And they went, oh, we were wondering if you would notice.
John: What?
John: That's why we put you in there.
John: We thought, you know, we just wanted to see if you would notice.
Merlin: What?
John: And I was like, what?
Merlin: That's a terrible thing.
Merlin: What, like a...
Merlin: Like a renter or like a ghost?
John: No, this house was built in 1740 or something like that.
Merlin: Oh, like somebody in a tricorn hat going, ooh.
John: Yeah, they had a bad ghost.
John: And of all the people, you know, there were like four or five of us staying over.
John: And of all of the people, they were like, let's put Roderick in there.
John: If anybody's going to see the terrible ghost, it's John.
Merlin: You can't put it.
Merlin: I would never.
Merlin: You know, I love Eric.
Merlin: I would never put Eric in with the ghost.
John: Well, Eric would make common cause with the ghost, and they'd have a hip-hop side project by morning.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Just busting some tracks.
Merlin: I think of you as, despite the extreme irrationality of most aspects of your personality, I think of you as a rational person.
Merlin: I think of you as a post-enlightenment kind of character.
John: I don't believe in ghosts, if that's what you're getting at.
Merlin: I'm not sure what I'm getting at, but you don't seem like somebody.
Merlin: I could see you getting up and thinking there's a ghost for a while, maybe up to the point you've made it through your vegan breakfast, which I assume is all they serve in Vermont.
John: That's right.
John: To foodie breakfast.
Merlin: But it seems like at some point you would.
Merlin: It sounds to me, though, like as you sit here today, you still think something was going on there.
John: Well, this is the problem with these emotional experiences that you have in the middle of the night.
John: if you are too rigorous in the light of day about debunking those things, I think you do yourself a disservice.
John: I think if you are woken up in the middle of the night by an army of ghouls walking across a park and you are scared enough that you jump out naked and drive away,
John: It doesn't serve you.
John: It doesn't serve the magical aspects of the world to the following day
John: pish posh yourself and say oh that must have just been a especially if you're not getting it all the time if you're getting that all the time you need to talk to somebody but that's the thing right is if it happens once every four years yeah i just i you have to give some credence to it and if you were to sit down next to me now and say well or if you were for instance to call me on the phone and talk to me on a podcast and say do you believe that there was an army of ghouls well do you believe in an army of ghouls i would say no
Merlin: If you saw somebody on Oprah who was talking about this, because I know how much you enjoy watching your reruns of Oprah, you would say if somebody came on and it was a whole show about people who've seen armies of things, ghoulish soldiers, you would say, I'm not so sure about that, right?
John: I'm not so sure, right.
John: But in my own experience, I just simply can't discount it.
John: Like, for instance, one time we were on tour and our van caught on fire in Death Valley.
John: And there was no reason for us to be in Death Valley except that we had a day off and I suggested that instead of going to Las Vegas, we would go to drive across Death Valley instead.
John: And everybody in the van, I'm not sure whether they agreed or whether they acquiesced.
John: I'm not sure it matters.
John: It's very hard for me sometimes to tell the difference between them agreeing and acquiescing.
John: They're probably struggling for breath as it was.
John: They looked up from their interactive devices long enough to give me what I took as a nod.
John: So we're driving across Death Valley and sadly...
John: The brakes failed.
John: And Death Valley is a very... The brakes failed while your van was on fire?
John: Well, no, that's how the van was on fire.
John: The brakes failed, and Death Valley is very mountainous.
John: The way that it ends up being so far below sea level is not that it just sort of tapers down.
John: You go up a really big mountain and then you go really far down a mountain, even further down than the place where you started.
John: And then you're 100 feet below sea level or something like that.
John: Anyway, the brakes fail.
Merlin: Concave.
Merlin: Concave.
John: Right.
John: Yes.
John: It's like a contact lens in the earth.
John: And so the thing catches on fire because I burned through the brakes and then burned through, I just burned through it all.
John: And so the van is burning and we jump out and we throw our bottles of water on it and we throw our bottles of pee that every band has in their van.
John: We throw that on the burning brakes.
John: And then we're sitting in the middle of the night.
John: Did I mention it was the middle of the night?
John: We were sitting in the middle of the night in Death Valley.
Merlin: Were the brakes hot because you got an automatic, right?
Merlin: You're not going to be clutching your way with hills.
Merlin: It's because you've just been overusing the brakes and they got overheated?
John: Well, the brakes were gone, and yeah, they got overheated.
John: It was metal on metal for a while.
John: And it's late at night.
John: It's late at night.
John: We're standing on the side of the road in Death Valley.
John: There's not another living soul.
John: for miles in any direction, clear night, and we're standing there looking at the van going, what are we going to do?
John: We're stuck here.
John: We're going to die here.
John: And I look over, and what had, in my peripheral vision, what had appeared to be like a giant radio transmission tower that had some red lights on it,
John: I realized kind of at the same moment that I saw it move, I realized there were no radio, there were no high tension power lines out here.
John: This is Death Valley.
John: We're in the middle of nowhere.
John: And I look over and this high tension power line tower is moving across the sky at the pace, at a walking pace.
John: And it's also rotating.
John: so that and it's and this is happening and it's moving behind a mountain as i see it and i look over and i go what the hell is that and we all look except eric eric was eric had walked away from the van and was out in the desert with a flashlight turning over rocks looking for snakes and scorpions and so i say look at that and everybody looks and we all go
John: And Eric is like he's night blind because he has this flashlight.
John: And by the time Eric looks up and gets his night vision, the thing has moved behind the mountain.
John: But the rest of us all saw this thing, this crazy thing.
Merlin: Who's your drummer at this point?
Merlin: Nabil, Michael, or Michael?
John: Well, actually, now that I think about it, Nabil had flown to some other show.
John: What I'm looking for is who else saw this besides you?
John: It was just Jonathan, actually.
John: It was just me and Jonathan.
John: But we both saw it, and neither of us was able to describe it in a way that sounded like the thing that the other person was describing.
John: And he didn't see it just because he wanted to agree with you.
John: No, no, no.
John: He was like, whoa.
John: And then he started talking about it like it was some kind of trapezoid.
John: Cool, cool.
John: And I was like, yeah, cool, cool.
John: And I said, it wasn't a trapezoid.
John: It was a triangular.
John: And he was like, no, no, no.
John: It was a quadrilateral.
John: And so we couldn't agree.
John: But anyway, if people say to me, would you believe in UFOs?
John: I say, ah, well, it could be.
John: Sure.
Merlin: But you might believe in that UFO.
John: But I saw that UFO, and maybe it was a government experiment.
John: Maybe it was a radio tower that had come unrooted.
Merlin: Was it more like an at-at or more like a Zeppelin?
Merlin: I mean, you said it was walking, right?
John: Well, let's say it was a Zeppelin that had no skin on it that was tumbling end over end.
Merlin: Whoa.
Merlin: Like hurtling like a poorly kicked football?
John: Yeah, except really slow.
Merlin: And your van's on fire.
Merlin: And the van's on fire.
Merlin: This sounds like some kind of rejected David Lynch thing.
John: It was a hell of a night, let me tell you.
Merlin: What'd you do?
Merlin: Do you do the AAA?
John: Well, no, no.
John: There was no cell phone service because we're in the middle of Death Valley.
Merlin: Also, you don't like other people driving?
John: Oh, hell no.
John: Nobody else is going to drive my van.
John: Not one captain's in charge.
John: Not one captain burn up the brakes is in charge.
John: So what I did, I swear to you, I put it in gear, low gear, and drove without touching the brakes for 60 miles.
Merlin: You're kidding.
John: And sometimes we were going really fast.
John: And sometimes we were going really slow.
John: But I just said, you know what we're going to do?
John: We're just going to hurtle down this mountain and hope and pray that there are no hairpin turns.
John: And there were none.
John: So we just hurtled down the mountain and out into the desert.
John: And we rolled through the flat desert.
John: for many, many miles until we arrived in a town and we pulled into the town, still without having touched the brakes, pulled into the parking lot of a Ford dealership, which was right next to a motel.
John: So we pulled into the Ford dealership and went and got a room at the motel.
John: And in the morning I went over, told them to fix the brakes.
John: They spent all day doing it because the brake fire had also burned some other important parts.
John: But they had it done by 3 in the afternoon.
John: We were in L.A.
John: by 5 in time for sound check.
Merlin: This is so improbable in so many ways.
John: Well, that's rock and roll, Merlin.
John: That's how rock and roll plays out.
John: Was it a benefit?
John: No, no.
John: We got paid for that show.
Merlin: Largo?
Merlin: Where do you play?
Merlin: Space Place?
John: That might have been Space Place.
John: That was during the era when...
John: So it was our tour, and who was the British guy in L.A.
John: that had the taste-making indie rock radio show?
Merlin: Rodney on the Rock?
No.
Merlin: Oh, oh, oh, oh, Nick, Nick, yeah, Morning Becomes Eclectic.
John: Yeah, Morning Becomes Eclectic with Nick What's-His-Butt.
John: Yep.
Merlin: That's his married name.
John: For years, he took his wife's name.
John: What's her butt?
John: She's from Wales.
John: For years, he was, you know, that's one of those shows where if you're an indie rock band, you go play Morning Becomes Eclectic.
John: And we had been saying for a long time, hey, why don't you have us down there?
John: And they would say, oh, we love you guys.
John: We play your stuff all the time.
John: But this tour that you just booked, we don't have any opening slots because Mogwai is coming in and et cetera, et cetera.
John: And so this was one of those tours where we were somewhere in the Midwest and our people were saying, hey, why don't you have the Long Winters on Morning Becomes Eclectic?
John: And they were like, oh, absolutely.
John: You know, that sounds like a great idea.
John: Let's check the schedule.
John: And then right before we got there, they're like, oh, sorry, we can't.
John: You know, something came up and we have to pull your slot or something like that.
John: And we were like, oh, again, you know, we don't get to go on Morning Becomes Eclectic.
John: And so all of the L.A.
John: indie rockers that get their music from here are not going to hear about us and we're never going to be famous.
John: And then we get a phone call from the openers on our tour, a band called What Made Milwaukee Famous.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: And they were calling us to say, oh, we just got offered Morning Becomes Eclectic.
John: And so we have to like, we have to drive all through the night to go do it.
John: Isn't that exciting?
John: And I was like, did you?
John: And that was, as you know about me, you know, I. You're very dignified.
John: Oh, there are some things I don't, I don't bear.
John: With equanimity.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Some insults I cannot bear.
John: Oh, perfidiousness.
John: Some perfidiousness I will not bear.
Merlin: The perfidy?
Merlin: Duplicitousness.
Merlin: Duplicitousness.
Merlin: Another thing I won't bear.
Merlin: Nick Har Harwood or whatever his name is.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: That's fucked up, John.
John: And so this was one of those moments when I said, I know that to adopt this attitude is to only do a disservice to myself because Morning Becomes Eclectic does not care, really, if the Longwinters ever play on their show.
John: Because they are a media juggernaut, and they will gobble up bands and spew them out.
John: They have their pick of needy men.
John: Right.
John: It's a buyer's market.
John: It is a buyer's market, and they lord that over.
John: bands, and I said, I will not play this show now.
John: I do not care if they come to me on bended knee.
John: They have insulted me, and I will not ever appear on this stupid, taste-making radio show that is a career maker.
John: I will not go.
John: Je refuse.
John: And, I mean, it's not like we turned down a bunch of offers from them subsequently.
Merlin: How did you present that?
Merlin: Was that in, like, did you nail theses to a tree?
John: My internal tribunal
John: just steaming i have i actually have a sort of uh i have a legislature in my head and different characters get up you have a you have a cognitive deliberative body i have a deliberative body that's right and and different personalities get up and make very impassioned speeches and the other uh legislators some of them you know herm herm herm raspberry rhubarb rhubarb
John: And others, you know, try and shout me down.
John: I have a quorum.
Merlin: Wait, are you, wait, hang on a second.
Merlin: Are you the, are you the room or are you the body or are you the decision in this?
Merlin: Exactly.
Merlin: That's part of the, that's part of the deliberation.
John: I am the room.
John: I am the body and I am the decision.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: That is the, that's the trinity.
Merlin: In the beginning was the word and the word was John.
John: And then it's turtles all the way down.
Merlin: $10 in 1849, the equivalent would be $298.28 in today's dollars.
Merlin: That's to sleep on a board.
John: Well, I've stayed in some hotels that cost more than that, that were a little more than a board.
Merlin: Am I right?
John: No.
Merlin: Have you ever been to New York City?
Merlin: I stayed on somebody else's dime, I'm happy to say.
Merlin: I stayed, we were in Times Square because it was near where we had to do a thing, and it was literally $500 a night.
Merlin: And they didn't mention that they were shutting off the water at 7 in the morning.
Merlin: I guess they mentioned it.
Merlin: It was on a piece of paper somewhere on a desk.
Merlin: For what?
Merlin: By the way, your $500 a night hotel room will not have water.
Merlin: Renovations.
Merlin: Everything in New York is constantly being renovated.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: I mean, it's like what?
Merlin: You know, like painting the Golden Gate Bridge.
Merlin: They're always painting the Golden Gate Bridge.
Merlin: You go and you start over.
Merlin: It's already time to repaint the bridge.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: It's like you've always been at war, you know what I mean, with Oceania or whatever.
John: I had one of those in Chicago.
John: I stayed in, again, not on my dime, but a very nice hotel there on the lake, on the Gold Coast.
John: And at 7 o'clock in the morning, I woke up to the sound of some guys who were standing right outside my window, although it was on the 24th floor, because they were standing on a giant crane that was at 7 o'clock in the morning proceeding to, like, swing a wrecking ball at the building next door.
John: And I felt the same way.
John: Like, this hotel, I mean, you could feed...
John: a Romanian village for a year with what this hotel room cost.
John: And I feel like I'm in a 50-gallon drum with bowling balls going over the Niagara Falls.
Merlin: Which you probably have done at one point or another.
Merlin: I think it's very frustrating.
Merlin: And, you know, the way they try to do this now is they got, like, the fakie boutique hotels.
Merlin: I blame a lot of this on the W. I like a W. I've stayed at the W there in your city.
Merlin: It's a nice place.
Merlin: I think, though, the whole thing of going in and getting a urine-soaked hobo hotel and then charging $300 a night because you got black carpeting,
Merlin: I don't love this pattern, and I think a lot of people are doing it more poorly.
Merlin: They make the room smaller, and then there's disco all night.
Merlin: All night long, there's disco.
Merlin: I stayed at a place in New York.
Merlin: It was very costly.
Merlin: John, they had a white noise machine built into the room because so deafening was the disco.
Merlin: And I think it was like Italian disco, which is worse than regular disco.
Merlin: And it just goes on all night.
Merlin: And the thing is you're, you're basically, you're inside of like a big costly toilet paper tube.
Merlin: It's just, I don't know a lot about physics, but the, the booming of the Italian disco flies up this chimney of pain that you're sleeping in.
Merlin: You're on the perimeter of the chimney of pain and it's just, it's coming straight up all night long.
John: Yeah.
John: It's like trying to sleep in the, in the bathroom of a Virgin America flight.
Merlin: That's a nice, they got nice flights.
Merlin: You want to stick the fucking apples in your ear.
Merlin: It's ridiculous.
Yeah.
John: That one in Seattle is nice.
John: Well, this boutique hotel thing is sweeping the nation.
John: The Ace Hotel does it.
John: I love the Ace.
John: Does it really well.
Merlin: Have you stayed at the Ace?
John: You don't need to.
John: You live there.
John: Well, I've stayed at all the Aces.
Merlin: Did you come up and see the room I was in that time?
John: I did.
Merlin: And the manager was just the best.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: The Ace in Seattle is— I forget his name, but I think he's from Boston, and he's the best.
Merlin: If you ever need to sleep in Seattle and your mom's house is full, go to the Ace.
Merlin: I was very impressed with the Ace, I have to say.
John: The thing about the Ace, though, is that it is an old flop house.
John: The walls are a little thin.
John: You can hear people having sex in the room next door.
Merlin: I did.
Merlin: I told you this.
John: Yeah, yeah.
John: Well, no, it's a common experience because it's a place to go have sex.
Merlin: But it was like they were in a high school play and it said, now have sex for six hours.
Merlin: It was like two people yelling for no... You went to a different high school than I did.
Merlin: It was like two people yelling for... Well, it's a Samuel French thing.
Merlin: It's very costly to license.
Merlin: And they mostly were just yelling for a few hours.
Merlin: And the lady's kind of going, ah, ah, like she's got something stuck in a zipper.
Yeah.
John: Yeah, this is a common thing with young people.
John: I think that they have seen so much porn.
John: Yes.
John: That they have no concept of how to have sex where they aren't performing for an invisible camera.
Merlin: Oh, I totally agree.
John: And they're making fake noises.
John: They're making fake faces.
John: Have you ever had, well, you've been married for a long time.
Merlin: No, but I had sex twice before I got married.
Merlin: And I can't remember.
Merlin: It might be more.
Merlin: But it was – no.
Merlin: But listen, here's the thing.
Merlin: You and I were raised properly.
Merlin: We were raised – we masturbated in magazines.
Merlin: We understood there was a certain level of artful artifice to this.
Merlin: We understood that.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: But you know what?
Merlin: Sometimes you wash off the fucking grease paint and you get off the goddamn stage.
Merlin: And you just go downtown, you get the business done, and then you go to sleep, maybe watch a movie.
Merlin: But, you know, I think these kids, they get the porn very early, and plus you got Christina Aguilera.
John: It's not just the kids.
John: It's all the people that are, like, watching porn compulsively.
John: Correct.
Merlin: Christina Aguilera, she's very shiny.
Merlin: And I just pray to God that that's Purell.
Merlin: Because I think she's like a doorknob.
John: It's due.
John: It's due.
John: I don't think it's due.
John: Well, it was originally it was due.
John: Now it's plasticine.
Merlin: It's like entertainment bukkake.
Merlin: I don't know what's going on.
Merlin: Somebody needs to get a fucking squeegee and a hose on that lady.
Merlin: And she's just getting shinier and shinier.
Merlin: And I think that's what you're facing nowadays.
Merlin: You got the YouTube, right?
Merlin: And then people are just yelling.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: There's a lot of yelling.
John: There's a lot of face making, like, you know, bass face when you look up at a band and the bass player's making that bass face.
Merlin: I have guitar face, I've been told.
John: Yeah, guitar face.
Merlin: You don't have that.
John: There's this sex face that you see now where people are like, you know, where you kind of, you pull back and you go,
John: Why are you making that face?
Merlin: Where do you see that, John?
Merlin: Nobody's watching.
Merlin: Is that on YouTube, or where do you see that?
John: Where do you see sex face?
John: As someone who isn't married, I've encountered not a tremendous cross-section of sex faces, but I've seen a few sex faces.
John: A natural one is one, at a certain point in the act of sex, one hopes that one loses sex.
John: The sense of self-awareness one loses if one is doing it correctly.
John: A truly ecstatic state, if you like.
John: Where you are no longer aware of how you appear.
Merlin: If you're doing sex right, if you're making intercourse the correct way, I hope you'll agree with this, you should look pretty stupid.
John: You're going to look stupid.
Merlin: You should both look stupid.
Merlin: You're going to look terrible.
Merlin: If you don't look stupid, you're doing it wrong.
John: Yeah.
John: Oh, no, you're going to look terrible.
John: You're going to look like somebody just ran you through an oil pipeline.
Merlin: Well, or like, I don't know, as I get older, more and more things to me look like someone trying to have a BM.
Merlin: Like when people have intercourse.
Merlin: Because that's your benchmark.
Merlin: That's your benchmark.
Merlin: Is this a successful BM?
Merlin: You don't get to pick your problems in life, John.
Merlin: They pick you.
Merlin: Just like thug life, I assume.
John: But here's the thing.
John: I am enjoying this sex act so much.
John: It's like one of my best BMs.
Merlin: I said this recently on a social media site that I think that's what happens, especially with teenagers in my neighborhood, the mathletes, the rapid Chinese kids spitting through their teeth.
Merlin: I think their idea of looking tough looks a lot like they're trying to decide whether they're having a BM.
Merlin: It's not even a turtle.
Merlin: They're sitting there going, I am not sure what this is, but this is the way I look.
John: You know what that is?
John: That's the 21 Jump Street gangster face.
John: That's like a 20-year-old reference, John.
Merlin: Isn't that an old show?
Merlin: Isn't that from when we were in college?
John: 21 Jump Street, yeah.
John: That was the show where at the time it was really street, or at least it was perceived as being really street.
Merlin: Is that where they swapped out Johnny Depp for Richard Grieco?
Merlin: Was that that show?
John: I think Johnny Depp was in it for the whole time.
Merlin: Who's Richard Grieco?
Merlin: Was he in Footloose?
Merlin: Who is he?
John: I have no idea.
John: Is he related to James Franco?
John: All those people with ethnic names, I feel like they're all the same.
Merlin: I have mixed feelings about James Franco.
Merlin: I'm very interested in James Franco, but I have kind of mixed feelings.
Merlin: He looks too bored for me.
Merlin: I think he's spreading himself a little thin.
John: I see him and I think, I look at his resume and I go, oh, right, this is the resume.
John: When I was in high school, this is the resume that I thought I would have.
John: Like seven Ivy League degrees being attained simultaneously.
Merlin: He's like going to multiple Ivy League schools, plus he's doing award shows and eating his arm.
Merlin: Is he the one who eats his arm in the movie?
John: He eats his arm.
John: He's on a soap opera, and people think it's an art installation.
John: He goes to an art installation.
John: People think it's a sports opera.
Merlin: Rick Springfield did that a long time ago.
Merlin: But nobody thought he was an artist.
Merlin: Well, he's from Australia.
Merlin: I think.
Merlin: Rick Springfield?
Merlin: I'll have to check that.
Merlin: The working class dog?
Merlin: Can I just say, I can feel like I can summon James Franco's face, and at least in my head, with my filing system I have, it's kind of, he's a little bit James Dean via the smirky guy from 90210, 90125, which was the show with Trevor Rabin?
Merlin: Trevor Rabin.
Merlin: John Anderson, that's 90125, right?
Merlin: John Anderson from Yes and Trevor Rabin from The Bugles.
Merlin: And that was produced by Trevor Horn.
Merlin: I think 90210 is the TV show.
Merlin: 90125 is a Yes record.
Merlin: That's a great Yes record.
Merlin: Do you think it's aged well?
John: It's impossible to tell.
John: It's like those Don Henley records.
John: I can't separate them from my teenage... What is it, the Fairlight?
Merlin: What are they using on that?
Merlin: It's a lot of Fairlight.
Merlin: And it wasn't like an early...
John: the stab juno 60 or something or the uh the yeah i don't the yamaha dx7 is the dx7 is like paneling in the 80s basement that cannot be removed it's all that one stupid what's love got to do with it like flutey harmonica e thing yeah it's on everything i was watching something the other day a television show maybe or a
John: Or a movie?
John: Probably YouTube.
Merlin: A lot of people watch YouTube now.
John: It was some kind of moving pictures with sound.
John: And the soundtrack was, they hadn't even moved the faders on their DX7 sound.
John: The wave pattern had not been altered.
John: It was just some guy playing some chords on a DX7, and I wanted to throw the entire, whatever device it was I was watching it on, even if that was a movie theater, I wanted to throw it in the ocean.
John: Because it wasn't intended to be funny.
John: It was just like whoever the music supervisor was, that person was related to the director.
John: They had to be because there was no other way they could have gotten that job.
Merlin: Don't you think every...
Merlin: Not every era, but it just seems like there are certain sounds that are never going to escape that era.
Merlin: I would say for at least the mid-'80s, it was the DX7 and the fucking Phil Collins over-gated snares.
John: Yeah, but I can't—I'm not going to go on record being against gated snares.
John: Oh, come on.
John: I lived through those anti-gated snare wars where every time you'd walk into a studio, there'd be somebody—
John: Looking at you all smug like, oh, buh, buh, buh.
Merlin: This is because you're friends with Chris Walla and he likes Bowie.
Merlin: This is your problem.
Merlin: This is your problem.
Merlin: Not your problem.
Merlin: Chris Walla's problem.
John: I came of age during this time when you were not supposed to use reverb on things and you were not supposed to gate your snares.
John: And my feeling then as now is if you do it and it works.
Merlin: Well, we're just going to have to agree that you're wrong.
Merlin: Do you have a copy of David Bowie's Low?
Merlin: Oh, no.
John: You've heard it, right?
John: I've heard it, yeah.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Now that, you're allowed to use gate.
Merlin: That's 1977.
Merlin: And I think a lot of the Wallet... I'm not that super familiar with Chris Wallet's exact production things, but I think he's an acolyte or a follower of that, like, let's put another mic over here and gate it idea, right?
Merlin: So you get this weird... I think Vanderslice does this too, but you get kind of a snappy echo that only comes in after a certain amount of trigger, right?
Yeah.
John: So Walla would use that, but he doesn't overuse anything.
John: Sparing.
John: His principle is if you have something like that, like a trick, you use it once on a record.
John: This is the John Vanderslicization of indie rock.
Merlin: Well, now Vanderslice... You coined that.
Merlin: You coined that.
John: That's a – Vanderslice is a different – that's a different can of wax.
John: Vanderslice is then going to run it.
John: He's going to print it to tape.
John: He's going to hand it to an intern, and he's going to buy that intern a one-way ticket to Istanbul, and the kid's going to run – Just stamp on it.
Merlin: Just stamp on it.
John: He's going to go to Istanbul, and he's going to give it to –
Merlin: He's going to have 50 people lay hands on it and then bring it back.
Merlin: They call it the Turkish stomp, and then you bring it back, you run it through something, you get a bit crusher on it.
John: Yeah, a bit crusher, exactly.
Merlin: You run it through a sands.
Merlin: And a rat, and then you literally throw it out because you realize it's too much.
Merlin: And then you realize that's too much.
John: No, I'm not above that.
John: We had a track on our first record where we had Scott McCoy from the Young Fresh Fellows come in and stand in the room.
John: We couldn't think of anything for him to do to the track because there was...
John: There was too much music on it already.
John: So we just put a microphone, pointed it at Scott McCoy, and had him stand there for three minutes.
John: And then as we were mixing it, we just brought up the sound of Scott McCoy in the room into the track.
John: So he's on there.
Merlin: Can I get a little more McCoy in my headphones?
John: It's just the sound of him perspiring.
John: And it's on the track.
Merlin: That must have taken a lot of restraint for him.
Merlin: He seems like an energetic guy.
John: Well, I think he was reading or something.
Merlin: And then your second album, he played harmonica, but you sampled it?
Merlin: Didn't you do something weird?
John: Oh, I didn't sample it.
John: So we're running the track by, and he's out in the room.
John: He has this boomerang pedal, which is a kind of little sampler looper device.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: And he starts playing the harmonica into this thing.
John: He's not paying attention to us at all.
John: He's listening to the track go by, playing harmonica into this, and starts looping it, and then he's playing the looper.
John: And this is not computer.
John: This is a foot pedal.
John: He's playing his harmonica part, and we just tracked it as he did it.
John: I mean, we didn't do any...
John: We didn't monkey with it at all.
John: He just laid that track down.
John: He's an enormously creative individual.
Merlin: That's Pride and Bridal, right?
John: Correct.
Merlin: I don't know that song.
Merlin: Boy, you know what I like?
Merlin: I like that song, Still There's Hope.
Merlin: Were you ever a Young Fresh Fellows fan?
John: Oh, the massive Young Fresh Fellows.
John: You couldn't be from the Northwest during that era and not know every one of those songs.
Merlin: Man, that one song, I can and do listen to it over and over.
John: Have you seen the Young Fresh Fellows recently?
Merlin: First, no.
Merlin: Semicolon.
Merlin: The first show I saw when I moved to Tallahassee, 1991, was Young Fresh Fellows.
Merlin: It was on the, this one's for the ladies, I want to say.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Which that song is on, I believe.
John: Well, Young Fresh Fellows still are able to come together and put on an amazing rock show.
John: I'm going to be playing a show with them tomorrow.
Merlin: Oh, man.
Merlin: Can I guess why two words?
John: Let's hear it.
Merlin: I'm going to guess.
Merlin: I'm just going to guess.
John: Let's hear it.
Merlin: Kurt Block.
Merlin: That guy brings the ruckus.
Merlin: He really does, but... He jumps.
Merlin: He still jumps.
Merlin: He still jumps, right?
John: He jumps around.
John: The whole band is amazing.
John: They all jump.
John: They are.
John: And they really have it all.
John: But the reason for the show tomorrow is there's just one word you need to say.
John: Benefit.
John: Benefit.
John: It is a benefit.
John: But it's a benefit for a good cause.
Merlin: It's the second kind of benefit, right?
Merlin: It's a benefit for your friend.
Merlin: Is that it?
Merlin: That's right.
John: That's exactly right.
John: It's the good kind of benefit, which is the one where you know the person and you care about them.
John: You should write about this.
John: Yeah.
John: I wrote about it.
John: I wrote about the wrong kind of benefit, the kind where somebody cold calls you and says, hey, I've got a thing that I've got to...
John: I've got an event that I want you to donate your time and effort to that will really do nothing for anybody.
Merlin: You'd probably have a friend who suffers from ass polyps.
Merlin: We're going to be at the Crocodile, and it would be awesome.
John: Yeah, if you could come and headline it.
John: I got an email from a kid on Facebook the other day who said, I'm putting together some benefit shows to benefit my charity, and my charity is called Charities for Benefits.
Merlin: It's like a Ponzi scheme.
John: I see this all the time.
John: Young people, they think, oh, I want to do something good.
John: I want to help other people.
John: Get a job.
John: Exactly.
John: Habitat for Humanity.
John: We don't need another charity.
Merlin: Lose the hat, cover the tattoos, and fucking grab a broom.
John: Yeah, go donate some time to a charity.
Merlin: Do something.
Merlin: Go wash a car.
Merlin: Pick up an old person off the ground.
John: These kids are too important.
John: Yeah, there are old people lying on the ground all around.
Merlin: They want to do it all through the Facebook.
Merlin: Facebook is not a job.
John: It's an affliction.
John: They think they're too fucking important to go work for somebody else's charity.
John: Way too important.
John: Because they went to college for two years.
John: And so they're going to start a new charity.
John: And this new charity is going to really, this is going to be the thing that really helps people.
John: And the way this charity is going to earn money is they're going to ask their favorite bands to play for free.
John: And because everybody knows that bands make millions and millions of dollars.
John: And so they can just give, you know, so you're going to have a show and it's going to earn $1 million.
John: And the band isn't going to miss it because they'll just go play another show and make another million dollars.
Merlin: Do you have any idea what kind of exposure you get out of something like that, John?
Merlin: You get a lot of exposure.
Merlin: A lot of exposure.
John: You know, the payment is the exposure.
John: The rest is just gravy.
John: Because you love to play music.
John: That's why.
Merlin: You get to do that, and a lot of people don't get to do that because they have jobs.
Merlin: This is very much the sex face hat types.
Merlin: They just think they can sit around with their Facebook and go make up a charity.
Merlin: And a hardworking man like you, a man from Alaska and Washington, is going to show up.
Merlin: I've swung a hammer.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Is that right?
John: Oh, yeah, I've swung a hammer.
John: I've swung a hatchet.
John: In fact, I swung a hatchet and it fell off a ladder and hit me on the head.
John: But I don't want to recapitulate all my angry tirades against the young asshat.
Merlin: Save it.
Merlin: We're going to need a lot.
Merlin: If we keep doing this, we're going to need to probably come back around to that at some point.
John: Well, I'm glad that you're taking notes in advance because, I mean, at first I thought that was going to inhibit us.
Merlin: I would never do anything knowledgeably, knowingly to inhibit us.
Merlin: But I know you like to make notes.
Merlin: I...
Merlin: I have some index cards.
Merlin: Here's the problem, John.
Merlin: This is the problem, and I do the stuff where I talk about things, and this is the problem.
Merlin: People say to me, oh, you're being fancy.
Merlin: You're being fancy by wanting to know why I want to have an hour and a half long meeting with you.
Merlin: Can't we just schedule a phone call?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: And it could be we're going to talk about life.
Merlin: And it could be I'm just going to fart.
Merlin: It could just be I'm going to tell you, I'm going to pitch you about my new enterprise solution.
Merlin: It's like, you know what?
Merlin: Fucking write down what you want.
Merlin: You want an hour and a half of my life?
Merlin: Like fucking write down what you want to talk about.
Merlin: Is that so complicated?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: And here's the problem is that that does not make me fancy.
Merlin: It makes you stupid.
John: Right.
John: Not me, but you.
Merlin: No, no, no.
Merlin: Clearly, the other people.
Merlin: That's the problem.
Merlin: That's the real problem.
Merlin: That's the problem.
Merlin: This is literally the ad-ad behind the mountain.
Merlin: The bigger problem that Eric can't see because he's fucking around with scorpions in a flashlight.
Merlin: My concern is that I am not being fancy.
Merlin: You are not taking it seriously.
Merlin: If you, not being you, being literally everyone else, if you are that upset about me wanting to know why you want a fucking hour and a half of my time, the problem is you, my friend.
Merlin: You need to think about your priorities, if you like.
Merlin: You need to think about that.
Merlin: Because if you're not taking that time seriously, why would anyone else?
Merlin: And I think that's the problem.
Merlin: You're in a band.
Merlin: You do this for a living.
Merlin: You're not doing this.
Merlin: You don't get laid anymore.
Merlin: Look at you.
John: I know.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: This is what you do.
John: And if you're going to play a show a month...
John: It's not even.
John: Which era?
Merlin: Which era?
Merlin: Like Apocalypse Now?
Merlin: Not Marlon Brando.
Merlin: Martin Brando.
Merlin: Oh, right, right.
Merlin: He's literally had the heart attack in Apocalypse Now.
Merlin: Different guy.
Merlin: Different guy.
Merlin: I want to come back to this.
John: I want to come back to that.
John: This is something that you taught me, which is that most of what passes as corporate business time, most of what is happening in business is people just improvising ways to kill hours of the day between when they have to be at work and when they get to go home.
Mm-hmm.
John: And so they only have an hour and a half worth of work to do, but they have to be there.
John: Quote, unquote, work.
John: Quote, unquote, work.
John: So six and a half hours of the day, they're sending emails back and forth to each other and having meetings with each other and walking from cubicle to cubicle, generating kinetic energy, generating static electricity, basically, as a way of looking like they're working.
John: And you, if you're going to generate six hours of static electricity, it's going to be because you're humping your couch or whatever.
John: Like me, if I'm going to spend that six hours, I want to spend it in the bathtub.
John: I don't want to spend it sitting...
John: Leaning on a water cooler.
Merlin: But the problem is now you're the dick or I'm the dick.
Merlin: When somebody says we're the dick, this is the problem is that somebody comes to you and out of nowhere, you know, they just, uh, it's not a problem of like, like I'm sure you play benefits for things you care about.
Merlin: Like when your pals house burns down or whatever, you go happily play a benefit cause the benefit tomorrow, but somebody thinks it through, they do a thing and they say, here's the thing, you know, that one guy, he's got a problem.
Merlin: So come play it to benefit.
Merlin: I think that's a very long way from I'm a guy with a hat who figured out how to get something on Facebook, and now that's a charity somehow.
Merlin: I think that's problematic.
Merlin: I think there should be a way to vet this.
Merlin: And I think that the last thing that they need is to have some kind of a charity about their charity.
Merlin: And really, an hour and a half is a very long time for a phone call.
Merlin: In any case, but this is the way these people work.
Merlin: There's an essay somebody wrote a few years ago that I thought was very interesting about the difference between the hammer swinging developers and the managers.
Merlin: The managers are used to slicing up their day into one-hour blocks of literal bullshit.
Merlin: figuratively literal bullshit.
John: Literal blocks of bullshit.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: That's why I left Oklahoma and never went back.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: Oh, if you've ever been a literal bullshit farmer, you know that those are hard times.
Merlin: You know, the Dust Bowl was very hard on that.
Merlin: I think Steinbeck had a book about that.
Merlin: The shit cutters.
Merlin: He did.
Merlin: The shit cutters.
Merlin: Shit blockers.
Merlin: But anyway.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: Every time somebody cuts a block of shit, I'll be there.
Merlin: Every time.
John: I was looking up Bismarck.
John: The city or the guy?
John: No, the former chancellor of Germany.
John: And I put Bismarck into Google.
John: The first name that came up was Bismarcky.
Hmm.
John: That's a 20-year-old reference.
Merlin: That's a failure on a lot of levels, John.
John: I don't know what to do.
John: Nobody cares about Bismarck anymore.
Merlin: I want to come back to hats.
Merlin: I want to come back to tattoos.
Merlin: I've added girls to the list.
Merlin: So we've got women and girls.
John: We should do a whole thing on girls.
Merlin: I want to talk more about the ghouls.
Merlin: And so what I'll do is I'll capture all of this and share it with you.
Merlin: I guess I could tell Exit to you or something so you could look at it.
Merlin: I don't want to know about it in advance.
Merlin: Okay, Juggalos and Angelina Jolie.
John: You just, you know, you just, as the moment, as the moment strikes you, because I'm sure between now and the next time we talk, you're going to have another three by five card filled up with ideas.
Merlin: A juggalo knows he's crazy and that's kind of his deal.
Merlin: I don't think Angelina Jolie really knows that she's crazy.
Merlin: She has to.
Merlin: But like on what level?
Merlin: Like on a, Ooh, ha ha.
Merlin: I'm silly.
Merlin: I'm going to sing karaoke level or like, like I'm going to keep human blood in a necklace level.
John: I think Angelina Jolie has to live in one of the craziest bubbles in the universe.
John: And inside the bubble...
John: What makes it crazy is that it's relentlessly sane.
Merlin: It's a balmy fucking 72 degrees where you just pick up kids like free newspapers.
Merlin: You just get them.
Merlin: You collect them.
Merlin: It's got to be a weird bubble.
John: But she's in there buttering toast.
John: She's in there with some lightly melted butter.
John: She's just buttering perfectly toasted bread.
Merlin: Thinking this is all totally normal.
John: I am a normal person.
Merlin: If I could find out, not in a creepy way, but I would find out where she lives and go nowhere near whatever playground she has access to.
Merlin: Because I think kids probably disappear.
Merlin: I don't think she can control it anymore.
Merlin: I think it's like shoplifting or getting a tattoo, which she has many of.
Merlin: You can't control it anymore.
John: This is the thing.
John: When you have unlimited money and unlimited power.
John: like how that manifests itself.
John: If, if my feeling is that if you use unlimited money and unlimited power and your, and your instinct is to help kids, you are a creep.
John: Hmm.
John: You know what I mean?
Merlin: Like that's creepy.
Merlin: Not really.
Merlin: How would you, what's a, what would be a better use to that?
Merlin: Something more, more self-involved.
John: Absolutely.
John: You should be living in a castle and,
John: And you should have eight Moroccan boys peeling grapes for you.
Merlin: Or like lasers and elevators and large TVs.
John: You should be like a mad scientist in a Jonathan Colton song.
John: You should not be metaphorical.
John: No, literally.
John: Okay.
John: You should live in a Jonathan Colton song.
John: You should not be living in an Upper West Side apartment and be married to Woody Allen.
Merlin: Like walking around with a stroller and coffee and act like that's fucking normal.
John: It's not normal.
John: It's not normal.
Merlin: That doesn't even make sense.
Merlin: If you had that kind of dough and you were not spending it on something completely insane, that is a form of insanity.
John: You should have a Maserati...
John: With white leather carpet, white leather floors.
Merlin: White leather carpeting?
Merlin: See, you know what?
Merlin: Right there.
Merlin: This is why.
Merlin: There should be a charity for you.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: Get Hat Boy to go start a charity for you because I think if you're functioning on a level, and I have to say this is a very different level than a lot of people are functioning on, laterally and hierarchically, if you can come up with something like white leather carpeting, there's no fucking reason that you should be living in that farmhouse you're in.
Merlin: You should be somewhere much more interesting and potentially terrifying.
John: Think about if James Franco and I switched places and I had James Franco's power, I had his art credibility and his ability to walk into a room blasé and stoned and had everybody in the room think that he's the coolest person.
John: Permanent, permanent sex face.
John: If I had permanent sex face and was living and was like commuting between New Haven and New York city and LA and fucking Budapest or whatever James Franco is doing this week.
John: If I had that power, you think I wouldn't have a white leather carpet?
John: I fucking would.
John: And you know, he's probably living in a loft space where he had some, some friend of his come spray paint a mural and
John: You know, spray paint a mural that has like, that has ASICs in it or something.
John: And he's like, oh, edgy.
John: Whoa.
John: You know, he's got a refrigerator and all that's in there is Cristal champagne and Pabst Blue Ribbon.
John: He could have white leather carpet.
Merlin: There's not even a question about it.
Merlin: The thing is, I want to go to a much higher level than that.
Merlin: I would love to get to the white leather carpeting level.
Merlin: And if I did, I would be an unholy combination of like Robert Evans and Cthulhu.
Merlin: I would be causing so many problems for so many people.
Merlin: The line between Robert Evans and Cthulhu is not really that thick.
Merlin: I think Robert Evans has more phones.
Merlin: I heard he's always on the phone.
John: Oh my God, that would be so... You just gave me a vision.
Merlin: Am I a horrific mythical character with white leather carpeting?
Merlin: White leather carpeting.
John: You bet your ass I am.
John: And 30 phones on the desk.
John: 30 phones, all of them just ringing all the time.
John: Programmed to ring.
John: They're not even phone calls.
John: It's like that scene in Boogie Nights where the kid is throwing firecrackers in the house.
John: Oh, God, I love that scene.
John: Except all over my house, they're just old-fashioned phones constantly ringing.
Merlin: Everybody knows there's nobody there.
John: And not ringing like ring, ring, ring, but like ringing randomly, random patterns.
Merlin: Somewhere in your head, even though he has literally been dead for years, you're thinking it could be Charlie Boothorn.
John: Maybe it's him.
John: Pick up the phone.
John: For God's sake, pick up the phone.
Merlin: Was Frank Sinatra a fan of me?
Merlin: He was not.
Merlin: All right, well, I want to come back to the Juggalos.
John: Frank Sinatra.
Merlin: Frank Sinatra.
John: Frank Sinatra on this very bar took a shit on my wife's chest, and it was a fucking honor.
Merlin: Took a shit right on... If you have not taken a shit on Ally McGraw, you have not lived.
Merlin: She is the most beautiful woman I've ever met.
Merlin: Charlie Boudon.
Merlin: We got to go.
Merlin: We got to go.
Merlin: We got to get this Angelina Jolie thing figured out.
Merlin: And I...
Merlin: For a variety of reasons, we have to come back to tattoos, but we should follow up on that later.
John: That can be a running... Oh, Jesus fucking Christ, the chili.
John: We've got to get to... Well, here's my problem.
John: I have six different kinds of canned chili downstairs, and I don't want any of them.
John: Didn't Travis Morrison eat your chili one time?
John: Travis Morrison tried to eat my chili, and I stood athwart his... I stood athwart the pantry door and said, stop!
John: But his band of...
John: His band of Asperger's indie rock ding-dongs ended up doing an end run and ate all my pasta.
Merlin: Here's your new dismemberment plan.
Merlin: You touch my fucking chili, you lose a hand.
John: That's your new dismemberment plan.
John: That's your dismemberment plan.
Merlin: Hi-ya!
Merlin: Here's the problem with the canned chili.
John: Okay.
Merlin: Is it like Hormel or do you get like artisanal chili?
John: Well, that's the problem.
John: I'm always trying to find the perfect canned chili, and I realize you can't put chili in a can.
John: I mean, you can, but that's not the chili that I want.
John: I want super good homemade chili because there are too many things that can go wrong between a cow in a field and a can of chili.
John: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: Where do you begin?
John: Like here's a cow in a field.
John: He's eating grass.
John: It's a sunny day.
John: And then there's something happens.
John: A lot of those beans are not getting treated like the Hope Diamond either.
John: I would not count on those to be.
John: I'm a bean.
John: I'm on a bean plant.
John: I'm in a field.
John: It's a sunny day.
John: And then something happens.
John: And boom, I'm in a can of chili.
John: Whatever that something is in between, it can't be good.
John: And, you know, I like to eat cows, but I want to eat a cow that was having a nice day and then somebody was like, hey, cow, come here.
John: Hey, buddy, come here.
John: I want to show you something.
John: And then that was the last thing the cow ever saw.
John: And then those people were like, oh, this cow, he gave his life for this meat and we should cherish it.
John: We should treat it like the sacrament that it is and put it into this handcrafted chili that is so sacred.
John: and delicious, that the cow is proud to have been a part of this chili.
John: In retrospect.
John: If the cow could see this chili, the cow would have been proud.
John: But I don't think that's what happens.
John: I think that they walk, they take some cows, and they shock them with electricity until they run into a fan blade, and then they have push brooms, and they push all the stuff on the floor into like a chili canner,
John: And that's not what I want.
Merlin: That is at once Byzantine and extremely simplified, which is pretty much what I would expect the process of making chili to be.
Merlin: Except I put cinnamon in it.
John: Sure, there's going to be a little cinnamon in it and a little mustard.
Merlin: That's South Carolina, I think.
Merlin: That's South Carolina barbecue.
Merlin: They put mustard in it.
John: So they run the cow into a fan blade, and then they throw a jar of Hellman's in there, and they throw a can of cinnamon in there.
Merlin: Nothing ruins the quality of a chili, quite like a little bit of mayonnaise.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: If you had a really hot chili, I could see a little mayonnaise on top or maybe some yogurt.
Merlin: I could see that being really nice.
John: See?
John: See?
John: Now that's the sacrament I'm talking about.
John: That's the chili a cow would be proud to be part of.
Merlin: If you're going to make a chili, you're going to have to break some cows.
Merlin: And I think the foodie's called a pairing.
Merlin: If you were to take something like a cool, soothing dairy product and put that alongside a chili.
Merlin: Right.
John: Oh, sure.
John: Sure.
John: Like a yogurt.
John: Like a Greek yogurt.
Merlin: I guess so.
Merlin: I mean, it would have to be something.
John: No, I see what you mean.
John: I went to the local.
John: I don't want to be this guy, but I went to the local butcher shop here.
John: instead of going to the supermarket butcher, I went to Bob's Butcher Shop the other day, and I talked to the weird Jeffrey Dahmer-like son of the butcher, and he talked my ear off about the meat past the point where I cared anymore to know about all the stuff that he knew about the meat.
John: But I brought the meat home, and I was glad that he...
John: He, this guy that I was talking to that was selling me this meat, he'd actually walked.
John: This sounds like an episode of Portlandia.
John: I know, but he had actually walked on the field where the cows lived and he was here to attest that it was a nice field.
John: And that's all I ask.
John: How would you know if that's true?
John: I mean, this guy seemed incapable of lying.
John: First of all, because he's a butcher.
John: He's simple.
John: I mean, it's not that he's simple.
John: It's just that I don't think of the butchering life as one with a lot of duplicity in it.
John: It seems like... I have to tell the cow that.
John: Well, they have to mislead the cow.
John: That's not funny.
John: They have to...
Merlin: That's good.