Ep. 07: "The Compulsive Sherry Algorithm"
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
Merlin: How are you?
Merlin: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: Are you well?
Merlin: Merlin, man.
Merlin: What was my song for you?
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: Do you want to ride on my John Roderick?
Merlin: I got to update that.
Merlin: If you like it, then you should put John.
Merlin: I got nothing.
John: We should have somebody record versions of those songs.
John: And in fact, I think given what I've discovered from having a podcast with you, all I need to do is suggest that.
John: And by the time tomorrow rolls around, there will be two studio recordings of those songs.
Merlin: So you think it's the power of podcasts and social media writ large?
John: Social media.
John: That's exactly right.
John: Social media.
John: Social media.
John: Yeah, I have become very enamored with social media.
John: Because I understand now something about it that I didn't use to.
John: Do you remember when I called you on the phone?
John: This is back when I used the phone.
John: And I said, Merlin, can you tell me why the Long Winters would need a website?
John: And you laughed and laughed.
John: You laughed like you're laughing now.
Merlin: That's like Ben Franklin, trying to tell Ben Franklin why he might want an iPhone 4S instead of an iPhone 4.
Merlin: There's a lot of technological dependencies that we would have to unpack.
Merlin: And I'm imagining you're reading off a card.
Merlin: You've got reading glasses on the end of your nose.
Merlin: Why would I need a website?
John: Am I pronouncing that correctly?
John: But you did.
John: You unpacked it for me over the course of many, many, many long hours of scheduling meetings to talk about it.
John: But then we would have to reschedule.
John: But eventually you did explain why we needed a website.
John: And now fast forward several years and here I am, a maven of social media.
John: And did I use maven right?
John: I'm not sure.
John: I don't have my dictionary.
John: You gave me that book, that tipping point book, and I use those terms, but I don't understand.
Merlin: Oh, that kind of maven.
Merlin: Yes, yes.
John: I'm not sure if I use them properly.
Merlin: Yes, you're a style maker.
Merlin: You're like that big black gay guy at Vogue.
Merlin: You're like Andre, the guy that used to be on the show with Cindy Crawford.
John: Exactly, like the big black gay guy at Vogue.
Merlin: You're the big black gay guy.
John: We're two minutes into this podcast, and you've already said big black gay guy.
Merlin: Well, I usually can constrain myself.
Merlin: Now, a couple things about that.
Merlin: Second, you don't even need that site so much anymore, which makes me sad.
Merlin: I mean, it's a bummer because now all the stuff that's happening is happening on all these other social media sites.
John: Correct me if I'm wrong, but nobody needs a website anymore.
John: Haven't we moved beyond websites?
John: Are we in a post-website world?
Merlin: That brings me to part one in some ways, which is I don't remember talking to you about that because I say so many things.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: I remember I helped you make a website.
Merlin: You know, I used to.
Merlin: I just can't now.
Merlin: I can't.
Merlin: I can't.
Merlin: Like right now I'm sick.
Merlin: I've got a virus, I think.
Merlin: Oh, I'm sorry.
Merlin: No, thank you.
Merlin: But I mean, I think what marijuana does not make me interesting and it just shreds my immune system so quickly.
Merlin: I'm just saying.
Merlin: Like nobody likes a paranoid guy who's coughing a lot.
John: See how I got us onto the tea party already?
Merlin: See how I'm taking this back?
Merlin: Now, here's the thing.
Merlin: I learned this when I used to have jobs.
Merlin: And if you want to do something and you think it's a good idea, obviously one of the things you must do is basically offer to do it yourself.
Merlin: But if you've got some bonehead that you've got to convince of something, you've got to make them think it's their idea.
John: Wait, who's the bonehead in this?
John: It's completely hypothetical, John.
John: I see.
John: Okay.
Merlin: And so that's why I said to you that... No, I think the two parts is that you got to show them... You got to make it seem like their idea.
Merlin: But you also, I think, with you, I think it's useful to show how something on the continuum...
Merlin: Potentially, theoretically, makes you more rather than less powerful.
Merlin: And I suspect that the pitch that made you want to do this was control.
Merlin: You would control the message.
Merlin: You could decide what you wanted to look like.
Merlin: You wrote wonderful things for the site.
Merlin: I suspect that's what it was.
Merlin: And that's why I say, I think it's kind of...
Merlin: this is such a boring, let's, let's limit this to a few minutes.
Merlin: Cause I got a lot to say about this, but like, this is why, this is why like the Facebook thing like bothers me or the Twitter thing.
Merlin: Like you, it's so ephemeral and there's really not that much incentive, um, to try hard.
Merlin: And then it kind of just goes away.
Merlin: So yeah, you get to control your messaging and like whatever, you know, be a big douche in front of people, but you don't really own it in the way you do with your own site.
Merlin: So yeah,
John: So when you say, but you're still using the royal you, you're not talking about me.
Merlin: Oh, no.
Merlin: I'm always talking about you, John.
Merlin: I would just assume that whenever you hear anything positive, I'm either I'm talking about you or I am implicitly thanking you.
John: Because I don't like to be the douche in that analogy.
John: But, you know, whenever I say anything about social media, you know that I'm being facetious.
John: Do I?
John: I hope you do.
John: Yeah.
John: You're sick and it's making you a little impenetrable.
John: Hmm?
Merlin: No, I'm not that sick.
Merlin: I only could eat like half my hot dog.
Merlin: I'm having a Mexican Coke, and I'm having some water.
Merlin: I'm trying to recover.
Merlin: I'm just trying to sleep.
John: I had a peanut butter sandwich, but I tried to do it before I got on the phone call with you.
Merlin: Let's circle back to that.
Merlin: I want to talk about peanut butter.
Merlin: Peanut butter has become a very complicated topic, and I have a lot to ask you about that.
John: It's huge around here, but I don't want to get into that right now.
Merlin: Because you will literally kill people now with the peanut butter.
Merlin: You know that?
Merlin: They will literally die.
John: Oh, from people that don't, that have peanut allergies.
John: That's just one of the things.
John: That's like one bullet.
John: All right.
John: Well, let's, let's go back to the peanut butter.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Well, and so the website thing though, is that, uh, the social media thing is that, uh, you know, I like social media.
Merlin: I like the idea of this thing where you can talk to people, but like, it should be in an environment that's conducive to talking people, talking to people, like talking to people on Twitter is weird.
Merlin: It's, it's, you know, I mean, regardless of
Merlin: i mean if you have a relatively like modest number of followers and people you follow and you really are just there to talk to each other well i mean like i don't know why you wouldn't use aim or irc or something for that but you know if you want to have a public conversation with somebody okay fine but but you know you have postal service that's right that's right it's like that that the guy with the zoe deschanel uh husband she did a nice job with the singing by the way did you hear that
Merlin: Oh, on the sports?
Merlin: She sang at the sports?
John: No, I didn't see it.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: I'm not crazy about the way that she sings, but she did great.
Merlin: And you know, she wasn't goofy.
Merlin: She didn't like Christina Aguilera.
Merlin: She didn't do the actor thing.
Merlin: Like, she didn't do any of that bullshit.
Merlin: Like, she sang the fucking song, and it was pretty.
Merlin: And I would just like to say to America, if you're going to sing the fucking song, make it pretty.
Merlin: Don't dick around.
Merlin: Don't dick around with that.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: Go shuck and jive.
Merlin: Go cover Paid in Full.
Merlin: Go have some fun.
Merlin: That's a great song.
Merlin: But in this case, you know what?
Merlin: I think we should start doing Paid in Full before a sports event.
John: Wow.
Merlin: That is a really great idea.
John: The Christina Aguilarification of the national anthem.
Merlin: It started with Mariah Carey.
Merlin: She's the one who ruined everything.
John: You're right.
John: And it has spoiled the start of sporting events for me, which used to be a time of contemplation.
Merlin: It's one of the few times you can enjoy a sporting event.
John: It's when it hasn't started.
John: You make a little steeple with your hands, and you think, aha, yes, sports.
John: And then you put your hand over your heart, or you take your hat off.
John: And then now...
John: somebody is like strangling a bag of cats.
Merlin: And they think they're fucking Aretha Franklin.
John: Yeah, they're not.
Merlin: Stop doing that.
Merlin: That's wrong.
John: I'm glad to hear that Zoe didn't mangle it, but you know, she's a classy lady.
John: She knows.
John: I know.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: I'm just saying.
Merlin: I just do, you know.
Merlin: I think she's cute as a bug's ear, but, you know, sometimes... Anyway.
John: Here's the problem with social media for me.
John: I feel it is ruining my brain.
John: I can actually feel my brain being ruined, and one of the complications is that I'm an old man now, so my brain is being ruined...
John: by every additional day that it's on the Earth, right?
John: It's being bombarded with photons, and I'm losing my grip anyway.
Merlin: But... That's a Twitter thing, the losing it.
John: Well, it's certainly a Twitter thing, but it's also...
John: You know, if you're communicating just in text-based applications, email, texting, tweets, Facebook updates, which I prefer to do, I actually prefer it to speaking to somebody.
John: But the problem with that is that I get into all these, I'm in a half a dozen crazy feuds with people.
John: Are you still steaming?
John: Oh, I'm just feuding with everybody.
John: I'm feuding with everybody.
Merlin: I can't believe you let yourself be provoked into those things.
John: Well, that's the thing.
John: I'm not even provoked into them.
John: Most of the people I'm feuding with have no idea.
John: I'm like Tom Sharpling.
John: I'm feuding with half the world and they don't even know that it's happening.
John: I'm so mad.
John: But it's some kind of reciprocal thing where I send out a text and I have some expectation of what the kind of text I want to get in return is.
John: And when I get a different kind of text, when somebody writes back and goes, fine, or they say, see there, and what I was expecting was some kind of something different, then it plants the seed.
John: It plants the seed.
Merlin: That's the source of the steam, the photons?
John: Well, it's the beginning of the photon steam is that.
Merlin: That's a problem of physics, right?
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: Photon steam?
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: You can take classes about water and science.
Merlin: I think that's part of it.
Merlin: Can I just say another word?
Merlin: Plasticity.
Merlin: As you get old and you're young, you know everything.
Merlin: I'm turning into some... I don't know.
Merlin: If Irma Bombeck and Andy Rooney just got all fucked up and then had a kid, that's me, but sick.
Merlin: I'm turning into Irma Bombeck.
Merlin: I fucking hate it.
Merlin: That's not so bad.
Merlin: She died, man.
Merlin: She passed a while back.
John: She did.
John: A lot of people die.
John: That doesn't mean you're going to die, Merlin.
Merlin: I learned about that from Malcolm Gladwell.
John: From Malcolm Gladwell or from Uncle Gladwell?
John: I didn't... Through your nose, I didn't hear.
Merlin: Oh, I'm sorry.
Merlin: I apologize.
Merlin: No, Malcolm Gladwell, the Canadian hairfic here.
Merlin: He... Yeah, I know, you know, Houston, Canada, you know, over 40% of everyone in Canada will die.
Merlin: What?
Merlin: Yes, and apparently... I have friends in Canada.
Merlin: I know, and it potentially could be going up all the time.
Merlin: Man.
Merlin: There's some people in Canada I wouldn't miss.
Merlin: Photons, sports...
Merlin: I like most of the people I've met from Canada.
John: I went into a restaurant in Canada one time.
John: Bad idea.
John: Well, first of all, you're absolutely right.
John: There's seven kinds of bacon in Canada.
John: But it was a Mexican restaurant and staffed entirely by Anglo-Saxon Canadians.
Merlin: Oh, come on.
Merlin: They got it backwards from our thing?
John: It's weird.
Merlin: No, right?
Merlin: We talked about this.
Merlin: You got the Chinese food done by the Mexican people.
Merlin: You go up there, you're telling me you go into a quote-unquote Mexican restaurant in Canada, and it's populated by like... In certain parts of Canada, it's absolutely true.
John: That's appalling.
John: That's appalling.
John: Even in Washington State here, as you move over the mountains, as you go into the more rural parts of the state, you don't have to go that far before...
John: All of a sudden, all of the jobs that in the city... In the city, these jobs have been held by immigrant populations for so long that you just... When you see a white teenage kid...
John: working at one of these jobs, it's a shock to the mind because you haven't seen it.
Merlin: Yeah, I totally know what you mean.
Merlin: It's kind of like we talked about last time with the old waiter we had, the dignified steak waiter.
Merlin: It's a disappearing tradition.
John: It's an old man and he's a waiter.
John: It's amazing.
Merlin: And he knows he's a waiter.
John: It used to be not amazing.
John: And it used to be not amazing that a white kid would be pushing a broom in a restaurant.
John: But living in Seattle or San Francisco, the last time you saw a white teenager pushing a broom was the 70s.
Merlin: Yeah, because his dad was hitting him.
Merlin: I was in a hotel a few days ago, and the housekeeper was 100% like a Caucasian.
John: Oh, yeah, but she was from Romania, I bet, or Ukraine.
Merlin: Oh, that would be hot.
Merlin: I assumed it was like an air marshal thing.
Merlin: I figured there was some version of air marshals for hotels where she was kind of wink-wink undercover.
John: She was watching you?
Merlin: I hope so.
Merlin: I danced like she was watching.
John: Wait a minute.
John: Did you sing like no one could hear?
Merlin: I can never remember how that goes.
Merlin: Who said that?
Merlin: Somebody who played baseball or jazz.
Merlin: I can never remember.
John: I was in a hotel in Romania one time and the maid, the housekeeper, came in to change the sheets and she was wearing fishnet stockings and as she was changing the sheets, so I'm sitting in the chair and
John: And she's changing the sheets on the bed and she's bending over at the waist to change the sheets on the bed.
John: And her fishnet stockings, there's a portion of them in the upper back area where the stocking part is ripped.
John: Ripped to the point of being missing entirely.
John: And I began to suspect, using my powers of divination, that she was a multi-purpose housekeeper.
Merlin: Oh, I see.
John: But I was very busy at that time with a very busy, I was very busy with a project of my own.
John: And so I shooed her away.
John: Shoo!
John: Shoo, shoo!
Merlin: Also, I mean, you know, if that's something that's not bothering her, I would guess, I would guess that a lot of guests have been in that particular piece of Romania.
Merlin: So I'd be super careful about that.
John: Right, well, this was a very off-the-beaten-path part of Romania, and I think most of her normal guests were either other Romanians or German sex tourists.
John: Ugh, boys, I hate every word of that.
John: And people mistake me for a German sex tourist when I'm overseas.
Merlin: Especially when you go to Thailand with rolls of quarters.
John: Well, I just, I look like one for some reason.
John: And when actual German sex tourists see me in foreign countries, they always like beeline for me.
John: They sidle up to me and they're like, so, how are you doing?
John: I don't know why I'm talking like a weird...
John: Count Chocula.
John: I was talking.
John: All of a sudden, my normally great hilarious German accent.
John: I turned into a Transylvanian pimp.
John: But no, they sidle up and I'm not even going to try a German accent.
John: It's too early.
Merlin: German sex tour is sidling.
Merlin: We'll just stop it right there.
John: It's crazy.
John: It's crazy.
Merlin: You know, I don't, I, I, you accidentally find German porn sometimes.
Merlin: I don't understand how babies ever get made.
Merlin: Cause from what I can tell, they hit each other and poop.
John: And that's the entire thing.
Merlin: There's so much, there's so much poop.
Merlin: And it's like, you know, I, I don't want to see that.
Merlin: And, uh, I,
Merlin: I've tried to put things in place where I'll see less of that, but you just got to get comfortable with the fact that you're just going to see a lot of cocks.
Merlin: And you know what?
Merlin: I'm fine with that.
Merlin: Big old beaver when I'm trying to find a record by the kinks, fine.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: I don't want to see a Bavarian poop face.
Merlin: I can't even see that.
John: There's a lot of, you know, that phrase, I can't unsee that.
John: I used to hear that and wonder what the hell people were talking about.
John: Like, what are you talking about?
John: I've been on the planet for 40 years.
John: There's nothing I want to unsee because I've never been witness to a genocide or anything.
John: But the last six months, I have started actually searching the internet, not searching the internet, but trolling the internet in a way that I never used to do.
Merlin: Trolling or trawling?
Merlin: Do you have some kind of a gill net thing you're doing?
Merlin: Or are you literally walking around going, your ass is fat, Justin Bieber, Ron Paul Nation?
John: I'm not trolling it.
John: But I used to just go to Wikipedia and read it all night.
John: And then I'd put on some slippers and take a bath.
John: And now I'm actually going further out.
John: Oh, boy.
Merlin: And you keep bringing up 4chan.
Merlin: I think 4chan is a big unsee it kind of place, right?
John: And that's the problem.
Merlin: Why are you looking at 4chan, John?
Merlin: It doesn't make a lick of sense.
Merlin: Well, it does because... You might have a virus.
Merlin: You might have a virus.
Merlin: You should check.
Merlin: I have a virus right now.
John: I have a Mac, and they're impenetrable.
Merlin: No, no.
Merlin: I mean in your brain.
John: Oh, I do have a brain virus.
Merlin: I want to come back to that because I think you've got steamy photons and a lack of plasticity.
Merlin: And I want to talk about magical thinking, so help me get back to that.
Merlin: Anyway, so you're on 4chan.
Merlin: Everybody's being silly.
John: That follows, you know, you go from there out into this other, this darker world.
John: And there are terrible things on the internet.
John: Just terrible.
John: Where I think to myself, I do wish I could unsee that now.
John: I wish I could unthink that idea because it is not... It's an idea.
John: You can sit and think about stuff.
John: You can think about the silence of the lambs and say, oh...
John: it puts the it puts the lotion on the skin but when you see people uh out in the world who are acting out these fantasies or you see even even if the videos are fake and i saw a video the other day of a guy some one of these mexican gangsters cutting a guy's head off with a chainsaw and the guy was still alive well i don't want to see that what makes you click the button on that john
John: Because there's a part of me that does... Here's why I go... You're testing your boundaries.
Merlin: Is that what you're doing?
John: It's not that.
John: It's that the idea of anonymous...
John: is very appealing to me because I feel like everything everybody's doing on the internet now is a form of look at me, look at me.
John: There are so many concentric circles of famous, and everybody, I mean, literally everybody I encounter on the internet is trying to expand their circle of famous to the next larger circle of famous.
Merlin: I think you tooted that to John Hodgman and his wife 60 times.
Merlin: That's why I remember hearing that.
John: It's the whole premise of just like, follow me, look at me, look at what I did, look what I did.
John: So the idea of anonymous, which is that people are doing something and there's no possible way for them to accrue fame to themselves.
John: It appeals to me because I think maybe there is some genuine...
John: Maybe there's some genuine material being created that anonymity wipes away some of the uselessness of what people are saying.
John: Even when I read something that's really good now...
John: I have to contextualize it within the framework of this person said that in order to direct attention to their Tumblr page, which eventually they're going to try and sell ads on or something.
Merlin: Yeah, no, I completely disagree about the first part, and I almost totally agree on the second part.
Merlin: I think you're totally right.
John: What was the first part again?
Merlin: I don't remember.
Merlin: It's totally exhausting.
Merlin: And, like, I have some friends who really are, I assume, unironically into all of this social whatever it is.
Merlin: You know, whatever.
Merlin: I'm not that old a guy.
Merlin: I get...
Merlin: like what a lot of this is and it's fun and I'm kind of good at parts of it but like the whole like checking into Foursquare thing and then you check into Foursquare and then that goes on to the Facebook and the Facebook goes on and it's like it's it's you know it's bullshit all the way down and it's like pretty soon it's like where does you know it's just you're constantly um
Merlin: I was about to quote myself from Twitter, but I'm not going to.
Merlin: But, you know, you're constantly trying to find some way that, like, I mean, everybody in some ways, you know, you want to be noticed and you want to be liked and you want to be admired.
Merlin: I just want to be feared.
John: I don't want to be liked or admired.
John: I just want to be feared.
Merlin: You should cut off some dude's head.
John: With a chainsaw.
Merlin: That's been done.
Merlin: Yeah, instead of a myth, you could have decency busters.
Merlin: You could have a show where you just do all kinds of appalling stuff.
John: Decency busters.
Merlin: Yeah, and you could... I'll wear a beret.
Merlin: And be anonymous.
John: Right?
Merlin: Hello, I am Otto, the German sex tourist of anonymity.
John: Mmm, so chocolatey.
John: Mmm.
Merlin: Watch this woman fall down and be forced to eat poop.
John: Yeah, there's poop all over her and now I'm going to kill her.
Merlin: Now I have put a picture of a cat on her.
John: Now we sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Merlin: My accents have completely gone to shit.
John: Mine have too.
John: I used to be so good at that.
John: But here's two things that have filled me with fear in recent days.
John: One is somebody posted a thing on my Facebook page and I replied to it and they didn't send me a message, right?
John: They had to post it on my page.
John: And I got a phone call 20 minutes later from somebody pissed off about some piece of information, some unconfirmed piece of information that was posted by a relative stranger on my Facebook page.
John: And I was like, oh, right, this compulsive Sherry algorithm that Facebook uses.
Merlin: It said, just for my card, S-H-A-R-E-Y.
Merlin: Yeah, I would put a dash.
Merlin: Because compulsive Sherry algorithm sounds like... Yeah, I think that's one of those Elephant 6 records.
Merlin: Mmm, I loved those guys.
John: You hated that shit, didn't you?
John: Before they all went to live under a porch somewhere.
Merlin: I don't think Olivia Tremor Control found a porch.
Merlin: No, those guys all live under a porch.
Merlin: They changed their name and got a theremin, I think.
John: That was the thing about Elephant 6.
John: After two records, you had to go live under a porch.
John: Is that right?
John: Yeah, and then all tomorrow's parties would call you back up and you'd be the greatest thing that ever happened.
Merlin: And you say you're not Bruce Valanche.
Merlin: I think you might be the Bruce Valanche of your vertical space.
John: If another person says Bruce Valanche around me, I'm going to come through the radio waves and pop him in the nose.
Merlin: God damn it, I need more cards.
Merlin: I want to come back to so many things.
Merlin: Can we make sure we close the thread on Bruce Valanche?
Merlin: Because I have a lot of questions.
Merlin: I want to talk about magical thinking.
Merlin: I don't want to talk about 4chan or the tea party, but I feel like I need to write more things down.
Merlin: I don't want to interrupt you, John.
Merlin: Your flow is important.
Merlin: I understand you want to be fearful, but right now two things scare you.
Merlin: I'm fearful, feared.
John: I don't want to be fearful.
Merlin: You're scared about two things this week, and you want to be fearless.
Merlin: Somebody released information on your Facebook page, and then you got a call.
John: I got a phone call, an angry phone call from somebody who's close enough to me to have my phone number, saying, I read this thing that came up in my Facebook feed.
John: And I was like, Christ!
John: So I went on my Facebook page immediately and changed all the settings so that it doesn't share anything with anybody.
John: Basically, my Facebook page now is a completely closed system where only I can see it.
John: And I just am going to go in there and run around naked, I guess, throwing my poop in the air.
John: The other thing that scares me, and this is back to 4chan, I've watched those freaking kids on 4chan ruin people's lives.
Merlin: That's what the whole idea is.
Merlin: This is why we must stop talking about it right now.
Merlin: All right.
John: You're right.
John: You're not supposed to talk about it.
Merlin: Well, you know, it's one of those nuclear war type things.
John: Oh, I know what I was talking about.
John: The fact that your phone and everything puts a little GPS code on every picture you take, there are people out there who will come to your house.
Merlin: Yeah, I mean, there was somebody put out a really creepy app that would basically, but fascinating proof of concept.
Merlin: I mean, that's part of the problem with a lot of this stuff is that a lot of people our age don't get, or in my case, don't love, is that there's some extremely interesting technology that's really just showing you something.
Merlin: It's not hacking or cracking anything.
Merlin: It's just showing you what you've done.
Merlin: like in public.
Merlin: And so it was really super creepy, but like this, this somebody put out, well, one person put out a thing that basically has a little regular expression thing that like sweeps Twitter for indications that they aren't at home.
Merlin: And it was just a webpage where you could find out who's not at their house.
John: Are you putting this metadata up on our little metadata box, or are you not doing that anymore?
John: Oh, you're not doing that anymore.
John: What do you mean, right now?
John: Yeah.
John: Remember in the early days of this podcast, you would put a little metadata?
John: Oh, no, no.
John: Click more.
John: Click more.
John: Click more.
John: Where do I click more?
Merlin: Go to a detail page.
Merlin: Sorry, John.
Merlin: Go to the website.
Merlin: Which website?
Merlin: Oh, I'm so angry right now.
Merlin: Here's the thing.
Merlin: Yes, they get the EXIF data, you get the location data and all that stuff.
Merlin: It's just, you know, sometimes I think it's a shame that we can't divorce the awfulness of what people are doing with some of this stuff from the fact that there's stuff we can learn from it.
Merlin: Like, for example, and this is really boring, so I don't know what we're talking about.
John: Well, no, but this is an educational podcast.
John: I've been reading the reviews.
Merlin: I worry, my concern is that in as...
Merlin: In as much as you would like to help everybody, or perhaps that you demand everybody be helped, to put it slightly differently.
Merlin: My concern for you, John, is I don't want the plasticity of your photons to become too watered down.
Merlin: And my concern is that if you help people who truly, it's not that they don't need help, but they can't be helped in a way that scales.
Merlin: My concern is a lot of people are going to miss out on being set straight by you, and I think that we can't afford that.
Merlin: We can't afford that.
Merlin: You get too wrapped up, you go into something, you start wrestling some fucking tar baby, and you are not going to be able to go set people straight that are causing a lot of problems for me in particular.
John: That's my concern.
John: This happens to me.
John: You're absolutely right.
John: You've seen this before.
Merlin: I've seen the tar baby.
John: Yeah, I do.
John: I get tangled up.
Merlin: You're Bray Roderick.
John: I'm Bray Roderick.
John: Is that an Uncle Remus thing?
Merlin: What's that called?
Merlin: Tales of the South?
Merlin: Southern racism?
Merlin: What's that called?
John: Songs of the South.
Merlin: Song of the South, right?
John: And I got into an interesting conversation about it the other day.
Merlin: Facebook?
Merlin: We on Facebook?
John: We're not on Facebook.
John: This actually happened in a cafe.
John: I wrote an article for the Seattle Weekly.
John: Is this your Reverb?
Merlin: This is the Reverb, yeah.
Merlin: I've sent my Instapaper.
Merlin: I haven't read it yet.
Merlin: I always enjoy when you do that.
Merlin: Please go ahead.
John: So I quoted somebody that I had a Twitter exchange with.
John: And...
John: And she was like a, she made some point about Feminesium that women somehow are, yeah, you know, second class citizens or something.
Merlin: Is that like an essential oil or a mineral?
John: Feminesium.
John: Don't you remember there was that great cover of like Bust magazine where they said, it's been, you know, it's the 30th anniversary of Feminesium.
John: And they misspelled feminism.
John: No way.
John: I was working at a magazine.
John: It's like broad burning meets magnesium.
John: Yeah.
John: It was so great.
John: Feminesium?
John: What?
John: On the cover?
John: I actually, yeah, I actually kept a copy of it because I don't know what it said.
John: It's not, I wasn't trying to prove the point that people that put out feminist magazines don't know how to spell feminism.
John: That's not the point I was trying to prove.
John: It was just a nice thing.
John: It was like my Braille Playboys.
John: It was something that I like to keep around.
John: But anyway, so I made some, I was talking, I was sitting in a cafe and I was talking.
John: Braille Playboys?
John: Braille Playboys?
John: Braille Playboys, yeah.
John: Go ahead.
John: I was talking to some rock musicians and I said, oh, I got into this, this gal was angry at me for misquoting her in this article I wrote about a Twitter exchange that we had where I called her a fake feminist.
John: And the rock musicians I was talking to said, oh, is it girl so-and-so?
John: And it was.
John: They called her out.
John: She's like a feminist critic, music critic.
John: And, uh, I have nothing against her personally, uh, or against her feminisium, but, um, uh, Oh, uh, now I've lost completely lost.
Merlin: Oh, so, uh, but the thing was, uh, you wrote in your reverb and, uh, you're talking to musicians, uh, and, uh, is something going to happen?
Merlin: I'm trying to guess what the story is.
Merlin: She, she finds out that you were talking about her.
John: Oh, she was mad.
John: Yeah.
John: Right.
John: Oh, my God.
John: The photons are pouring out of my ears right now.
Merlin: That's why I want to get back to magical thinking.
John: It's like a photon fall.
Merlin: You know what you need?
Merlin: I'm going to send you some index cards.
John: Oh, wow.
John: I haven't had index cards in years.
John: Not since I did my book report on the life of a cell.
Merlin: Haven't I ever given you index cards at all?
Merlin: That harms me.
Merlin: I feel like I've given you a lot of index cards.
Merlin: I think I've given Eric index cards.
John: You gave Eric index cards, and I think I might... I'm embarrassed to say this.
John: I might have given Eric my index cards that you gave me.
Merlin: That's fine.
Merlin: That's fine.
Merlin: It's fine, especially in the sense that now you're struggling, and now who's the mad genius now?
Merlin: That's what I'm saying.
John: I wish I had index cards, you're right.
Merlin: I'm capturing all of this in a taxonomized, when I say taxonomized, they're on different cards.
Merlin: And so the Feminesian, you say that's Bust Magazine?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: That's a lady magazine, and it's ironic, or was it satirical or ironic?
Merlin: What kind of name is that?
John: Bust?
John: Oh, I think that that would be ironic.
John: Okay.
John: Yeah.
John: And I'm not even sure if bust is still in print, which would add a further level of irony to the name bust, because they may have gone bust.
Merlin: Oh, I see.
Merlin: You took an eternity.
Merlin: Now, what about Grand Guignol?
Merlin: Are there any Grand Guignol magazines?
John: Well, there was Grand Royal.
Merlin: Oh, I love Grand Royal.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: I love Grand Royal.
Merlin: I love Ben is dead.
Merlin: Grand Royal was, did you ever see the one where Mike D put on the mullet wig and went to GIT?
John: That was awesome.
Merlin: It was, I think that's the Sleep Scratch Perry issue.
Merlin: I still have it.
Merlin: And it's just, it's so fucking great.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: And the might, you know, the guy, the guy that wants kids to write in the mission did the might magazine.
Merlin: Do you remember might?
John: I was a massive fan of Mike.
John: I love Mike magazine.
Merlin: I look forward to it.
Merlin: I drive to the store and buy Mike magazine.
John: Yeah, Mike pretended... Who was the kid from 8 is Enough?
John: They pretended that he died.
Merlin: Oh, sure.
John: Yeah, yeah.
John: Adam Rich.
John: Adam Rich.
John: And it was before... It was just at the beginning of the internet.
Merlin: Not really.
Merlin: To make your point even better, this is not a heavy internet period.
Merlin: It was before you would have these, you know, this is more in the tradition of spider eggs and bubble yum, Mikey and Pop Rocks kind of shit.
John: Right, right, right.
John: It was certainly before the internet existed for me, but it was in advance of what became a kind of internet-based pranking.
John: But this was real, in-the-flesh pranking.
John: In a magazine.
John: So not in the flesh.
John: It was real in the magazine pranking.
Merlin: And it wasn't oniony.
Merlin: It wasn't something, well, and especially in the sense that the headlines were funny and the stories weren't.
Merlin: It was, like, it seemed plausible.
Merlin: Like, they talked to people.
Merlin: And there was not that kind of, like, overly winking.
Merlin: I mean, I guess there was, if you really stood back and looked at it.
John: If you stepped one foot back from Might Magazine and realized that everything in it was a gag.
Merlin: Yeah, but didn't they have a theme?
Merlin: Did they have themes?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: It seems like they had themes.
Merlin: They did.
John: I feel so bad.
John: I feel so stupid.
John: It's not bad.
John: It's stupid.
John: Stupid isn't bad.
John: But I feel stupid because I had every original Dave Eggers publication in my hands at the time.
John: First edition, McSweeney's issue number one, all that stuff that's now worth...
John: I mean, I could probably buy a small economy car with all that stuff if I had the presence of mind to just keep it.
Merlin: Or a couple of boys.
John: Instead of giving it away.
John: Or buy a couple of boys?
Merlin: You'd have to talk to your German friends, but my sense is... Sex tourism.
Merlin: They probably have Das Amazon, Das Prime for that.
John: My thing with boys... There was a while there where I tried to be attracted to boys...
Merlin: Like in a Thomas Mann kind of way?
John: Well, yeah, sort of in a... Oh, is that Death in Venice?
John: In a Greek gymnasium kind of way.
Merlin: Oh, yeah, sure, sure.
John: But it just didn't take.
John: And I feel in some ways that I can't really be a public intellectual unless there's a part of me that wants to educate young boys in the ways...
Merlin: You go and look at a lot of those guys, and yeah, sure, some go for the older, some for the younger.
Merlin: I think you might be onto something, but I think part of the concern is, though, that you have a very quick mind, and you're very impatient with children.
Merlin: So, and not good children like ours, but like all the other children, which are not good.
Merlin: And my concern is, like, you'd be sitting around, and you would start talking about British steel, and they'd say, do you want me to fillet you?
Merlin: And you'd say, no, listen, I want to talk about this.
John: Well, I don't think a young man can come to adulthood.
John: They wouldn't say for late.
Merlin: They'd say make candy penis bang bang or something.
Merlin: Would it be broken English or how would that work?
John: I remember being a teenage boy and I don't remember ever asking an adult if they would like me to do anything.
John: You didn't even do your homework, right?
John: I think that's another example of adult fantasy world where kids are like, may I fillet you, sir?
John: But in fact, they're playing their PlayStation 2s and the adult has to come in and actually whack them on the head with the penis and say, now.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, exactly like if you if you want to play Galaga You're gonna have to you know get it.
John: That's right Don't fear the Reaper, but none of that interests me what I but I think what these kids need is to learn more about Judas Priest and the 30 years war you said this to me John Roderick You said you said that I needed that strong male figure not in a pulling down the sweatpants kind of way wacky on the head with his penis
Merlin: Well, this is the thing.
Merlin: I'm the student.
Merlin: I don't feel like I'm in a position to say, oh, I don't want to learn that kind of math.
Merlin: Oh, you know, science is more important than history, so why bother?
Merlin: Could you please stop hitting me literally with your penis?
Merlin: I feel like I am not the one who gets to pick the syllabus for that.
Merlin: I may not like the reserve reading, but on some level, you know, I may have to, sometimes you have to kneel to rise.
John: If you're in my charge, and I decide the lesson plan for today is a little bit of penis...
Merlin: penis related material then that's got it you're right you don't get to you don't get to choose you don't get to choose which parts of military school you like and which parts are fun and which parts you want to take a pass on i was on the drill team in military school that doesn't mean it's not the girls with the big thighs who spin the batons i i marched in close order with a gun so so here's the other thing john i i just want to be clear hmm
Merlin: Like Taps.
Merlin: I watched, you know what?
Merlin: You do not want to show a bunch of boys in military school, a movie set in a military school.
John: You saw Taps when you were in military school?
Merlin: No, I was a little bit older than that.
Merlin: But like, what was the one?
Merlin: Damien Omen 2.
Merlin: Oh, Omen.
Merlin: Involved military school.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: I think up the Academy, the Mad Magazine movie, there are a lot of movies involving.
Merlin: And it's like that bit on Letterman in the first season of Letterman where Letterman, I don't know if this is an ongoing bit, but I have such a clear recollection.
John: Where he threw watermelons off a three-story building?
Merlin: That's pretty funny.
Merlin: That was later on.
Merlin: Now, he would do movie reviews.
Merlin: The one I remember is he had a movie review of Flashdance by a professional welder.
Merlin: And he brought the guy on, and he just showed... And he wasn't over the top.
Merlin: It wasn't a bit.
Merlin: He was just like, I don't know, man.
Merlin: I went on a job with long, flowing black hair coming out of the hill.
Merlin: That's no way to like that.
Merlin: That's the wrong temperature for that kind of metal.
Merlin: The thing is, the point being, if you go and ask...
Merlin: You know, if you go to the people who understand what's on the screen, like, they're going to tell you whether that makes any sense or not, you know?
Merlin: They're going to go, oh, no, that guy's got an SS thing on when he's actually in this, you know, Luftwaffe thing or whatever.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: That would be me.
Merlin: Right, exactly.
Merlin: You know a German uniform.
Merlin: But here's the thing.
Merlin: There's also a lot of posers out there who are just going to get away with it, right?
Merlin: Now, me, I know, I would watch a military school movie.
Merlin: I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but I'm going to assume it's somewhere.
Merlin: And I would go, you know what, that is bullshit.
John: Right, that wouldn't happen that way.
Merlin: It's wrong in every way.
Merlin: Like, you guys were not dressed right.
Merlin: I mean, dressed as in dressed right.
Merlin: You were not in line.
Merlin: Like, there was no pattern to what they were doing.
Merlin: They were just actors fucking walking around in pants.
Merlin: That's not marching, right?
Merlin: So here's the thing.
Merlin: I think a lot of pederasty in literature and culture is a little bit fake, right?
Merlin: Oh, it's absolutely fake.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I think it's one of those things where like, um, how was that great Tom Wolf essay?
Merlin: Um, something, something, the mouse, but it was the one where they had, uh, Leonard Bernstein had the black Panther benefit.
Merlin: Did you read that?
Merlin: It's really, it's really great.
Merlin: And it's a total indictment of what, you know, the kind of the fleece people nowadays, but the rich, you know, he got in a lot of trouble for that because he talked about it because it wasn't true.
John: Well, no, just because of it.
John: Because the tone of it.
John: You don't fuck with Leonard Bernstein.
John: You know what I mean?
John: Yeah, well, but he was in hot water.
John: Is that right?
John: Yeah.
John: The thing about this pederasty thing that's interesting is that neither you nor I were a gay teenager.
John: No.
John: And so it's entirely possible that... For practical purposes, I was almost asexual.
Merlin: I was like... You know what?
Merlin: Not even non-sexual.
Merlin: There shouldn't have been a word sex in it.
Merlin: I was just... You know?
Merlin: I mean, even the masturbation that I was doing was so depraved that it was not even on a sexuality level.
Merlin: It was certainly not procreative.
John: You were just performing frottage on a hollowed out tree.
Merlin: Yeah, I mean, let's just be honest.
Merlin: There may be a lot of 25-year-old towels running around in Florida that I'm responsible for.
Merlin: And I haven't paid for school.
Merlin: I haven't done any of that.
Merlin: Oh, you bastard.
Merlin: You deadbeat dad.
Merlin: Pederasty and the fake pederasty.
Merlin: I want to come back.
Merlin: I don't want to interrupt you, though, because it sounds like you're going somewhere here.
Merlin: All I'm trying to say is there's a rich history of this, right?
Merlin: There's a rich history of you've got to go.
Merlin: Could be that you're taking snuff.
Merlin: It could be that... Not like a snuff movie, although I want to talk about that too.
Merlin: I want to talk about this movie I just heard about.
Merlin: To come back to the Grand Guignol.
Merlin: I don't want to lose that.
John: As far as you were saying about the military outfits being inconsistent, I've noticed lately I've been pausing movies.
John: I'm watching movies at home.
John: I've been pausing them and saying...
John: That's a hollow core door.
John: Whoever built the set of this movie didn't get a solid wood door, and they didn't have hollow core doors at this era.
John: And then I'd push play again, watch it for a little while, and then I'd say, push pause again and say, that type of countertop hadn't been invented when this was supposedly filmed.
John: Then I'd push play again.
John: And I'm driving myself nuts.
John: I'm like, I don't know what that is.
John: I don't even know what that is.
Merlin: Oh, gosh.
Merlin: Well, this is a whole season to talk about this.
Merlin: Well, there's a whole thing with the oopses, you know, on like IMDb.
John: Oopses, yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, I mean, like...
Merlin: i don't know why i even look at that because it always makes me angry it makes me angry because i hate when people do that and it makes me even angry because i do it yeah i do it and there's all kinds of movies that i loved as a kid that have continuity like go back and try to watch stripes again it's a fun movie but the continent the continuity is complete bullshit oh you know but even like they were so high when they were making that movie you think so even harold ramus so high what about pj souls
John: high high deeply deeply high that's nobody on that movie that wasn't super duper high is that right i'm pretty sure i mean what about what about night shift what about night shift with uh with michael keaton very high although henry winkler seems like kind of a square maybe he never got high yeah did you ever see the razor's edge with bill murray
John: I didn't.
John: That's the mom.
John: Oh, my God.
Merlin: The Somerset mom deal, right?
John: It's Somerset mom and it's so bad.
John: They are so on cocaine.
John: Oh, really?
Merlin: Every time I see a shot or a scene of that, I just see him looking like Carl in Caddyshack, not on purpose.
Merlin: He has a permanent smirk.
John: Because the cocaine is screwing with his smile muscles and it's making him grimace and smirk.
John: he can't even help it they try and play it totally straight but it's like it's like watching a cast of 200 people dressed as flappers all gritting their teeth all grinding their teeth down to the stubs because they're gacked out on like 70s coke it's it's unbearable to watch you would think this movie it's a wartime wartime movie right
John: Well, no, it's a Roaring Twenties movie.
John: Oh, no, wait.
John: No, it is a wartime movie.
John: I'm sorry.
John: I was thinking about The Great Gatsby, which is another... Which my mother-in-law is in.
John: Your mother-in-law is in The Great Gatsby?
Merlin: In the film, yeah.
Merlin: There's two spots where you can see her dancing.
Merlin: They shot it in Providence.
Merlin: Sorry.
Merlin: Razor's Edge's mom.
Merlin: This is one of the books I claimed I've read and I haven't.
John: It's a great book, but you would think that this movie was one of the, if it was even remotely good, it would be something that somebody's seen, but nobody's seen it.
John: It's like We're the Buffalo Realm.
Merlin: Oh, I love that movie.
Merlin: Do you hate it?
John: Well, no, I don't hate it, but it's not.
Merlin: Oh, man.
Merlin: The Johnny Depp version is pretty great.
John: Don't you love the soundtrack, the Neil Young soundtrack, though?
John: There are a lot of things about that movie I like, but the Johnny Depp one, the Johnny Depp movie... So well done.
John: It actually captured, for me at least, as a sober person watching it, it conjured up the exact feeling of being on drugs.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, so many times in the movie.
Merlin: Oh, the good, the, the, the, the, the, well, the bad and the worst, but some of the good, but just that sense of complete menace.
Merlin: Like when he's in the bar, not even just like the hallucinating monster stuff, but just the fact that everybody's a little bit distorted.
Merlin: And that's what I love about his writing too.
Merlin: I said this a million different places, but what I love about his writing is he is, you know, and seriously fucking go back and read the Kentucky Derby is decadent and depraved.
Merlin: It's still amazing.
Merlin: fucking amazing and and he just sounds he sounds like he is completely menaced and everything around him is a potential threat that might need to be maced even in the curse of lano which is past his that's past his prime there's a section there's a there's a section where he is driving
John: I think in Hawaii, he's driving a car down a sort of a windy road, and it is the perfect evocation of speeding out of control on a dark road in a car that's too fast for you.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: I've got to check that out.
Merlin: I've got it on my information phone, but I haven't read it yet.
John: Watching that movie and being transported into that feeling of paranoia and terror of being really, really, really high in a hotel bar.
John: Most of the time when you see a drug sequence in a film, they, you know, oh, it gets all weird.
John: It's like, ooh, it's a dream sequence.
John: Oh, no.
John: And it's so unlikely.
John: or it's like it's like something from like where ed sullivan would have girls in go-go boots while there's bubbles or something like like that kind of that kind of like circa 1967 zombies it's fun it's sexy you're on drugs right but uh yeah but that um that fear and loathing movie i don't i i if you have never done drugs and you want to know what it's like i would watch that movie in a dark room i think it's maybe take some drugs just to like amplify the effect
Merlin: There's a site I like a lot called Letters of Note, and I really highly recommend it.
Merlin: I'll put it in the thing.
Merlin: And it's every day they post some piece of correspondence.
Merlin: Oh, I've seen this.
Merlin: Yeah, maybe something historical, but just usually something interesting or whatever.
Merlin: And there's like four or five really good ones from Hunter S. Thompson.
Merlin: I'm trying to find this exact – because there's one quote where –
Merlin: Well, I was just was trying to get at was with Johnny Depp.
Merlin: I mean, I know he'd been acquainted with Hunter S. Thompson and he just seemed to I've seen a bunch of interviews and I've got I found, let's say I let's say I bought a bunch of the old cassettes because he would just talk to himself on cassettes.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: That's what Hunter Thompson would do.
Merlin: He would just he would just sell them.
Merlin: Well, no, that's like how he would think out loud.
Merlin: How did you get them?
Merlin: Now they're out there.
Merlin: but there and there you know it's a lot to listen to but it does johnny depp really captures that weird combination of relaxed swagger and complete paranoia yeah you know and the shifting eyes and everything he's a good actor he i you know he is a good actor i feel like he's made some terrible movies but that on the whole i i have no complaints
Merlin: I'm sorry, I don't mean to seem distracted by the internet.
Merlin: He would just fire off these faxes to people.
Merlin: This is one to Rolling Stone.
John: You've read the book where Father Guido Sarducci sends letters.
Merlin: Yes, very funny.
Merlin: You worthless acid-sucking piece of illegitimate shit.
Merlin: Don't ever send this kind of brain damage swill in here again.
Merlin: If I had the time, I'd come out there and drive a fucking wooden stake into your forehead.
Merlin: Why don't you get a job, germ?
Merlin: Maybe delivering advertising handouts door-to-door or taking tickets for a wax museum.
Merlin: You drab South Bend cocksuckers are all the same.
Merlin: Like those dope-addled dingbats at the Rolling Stone office.
Merlin: I'd like to kill those bastards for sending me your piece as soon as I kill you, too.
Merlin: Jam this morbid drivel up your ass where your readership will better appreciate it.
Merlin: Sincerely.
Merlin: He's so great at that.
John: This makes me think of something I was thinking.
John: I was sitting in the bathtub the other day, as I do, and I was thinking about my own career.
John: And what a total wreckage I have made of it.
John: What a crater.
Merlin: You mean like as of today?
John: Yeah, in place of the career arc that would be the ideal one where I built on everything that I made and added a new level to it and then was...
Merlin: Or were you driven your enemies before you and heard the limitations of their women?
John: Yeah, exactly.
John: That was the plan, right?
John: That was the plan.
John: And instead, you know, I spent so much time in the garden and so much time muttering to myself.
Merlin: You did a lot of fence work in the last... You seem like you've done a lot of things with fences.
John: I did a lot of fence work, but also at a certain point, I rejected Gore-Tex and went back to Wool, and that was a watershed moment for me.
John: Was that time-consuming?
Merlin: Was that time-consuming?
Merlin: Is that who?
Merlin: Literally watershed, because it would shed water.
John: That's right.
Merlin: That's good.
Merlin: But there are a lot of people... Are you sure you're not a pederast?
Merlin: That was pretty clever.
Merlin: Thank you.
John: Well, I have six 14-year-old boys sitting Indian-style around me in a semicircle here, and they're all playing PlayStation 2s.
John: None of them are listening to me at all.
John: You bastards!
John: But anyway, there are a lot of people up here in the Northwest who shun wool and they're in a completely Gore-Tex universe and they think that that's Northwestern attire.
John: And I'm in this.
John: I'm back to wool.
John: Back to wool.
John: Back to analog.
John: Back to mono.
Merlin: I bought Gore-Tex shoes and they don't breathe.
John: They don't breathe.
Merlin: Thank you.
Merlin: I feel like I'm not a really stinky, stinky foot person.
Merlin: I have a lot of problems, but that's not one of them.
Merlin: But still, it's brutal.
Merlin: I sand my shoe trees.
Merlin: I always sand my shoe trees.
Merlin: That's how you bring your shoe tree back to life with sanding.
Merlin: I sand the shoe trees.
Merlin: I put them into these shoes.
Merlin: I stick them into a sealed bag with baking soda.
Merlin: And I still feel like I'm only taking off maybe 20% of the problem.
John: They don't breathe.
John: You should just throw your shoes away and buy some nice old leather shoes.
John: I guess.
John: But anyway, I was sitting in the bathtub.
John: I was thinking about what a... Oh, yeah.
Merlin: So you ruined your career.
John: Okay.
John: I've ruined my... It's not just my career.
John: My whole life.
John: I've done a terrible job managing it.
John: And I thought, you know, maybe I should just go in this direction that Hunter Thompson is doing where I just am...
John: I just let it go.
John: I just give everybody both barrels all the time and descend into a kind of lonely madness, but really leave a legacy of truth.
John: A legacy of truth is what I... I'd say it's kind of late for you to start having a legacy of truth.
Merlin: No, listen, I'm not... Here's the thing.
Merlin: You can always hit the reset button.
Merlin: I'm just saying that... I don't know.
Merlin: It's not like one day Picasso decided to become a director.
Merlin: He would have had to say, hey, look, act like I didn't do all that other stuff.
Merlin: I'm saying that you've caused a lot of fucking problems for people.
Merlin: And see, here's where it gets complicated, John, because your version of the truth is so penetrating that I think for a lot of people...
Merlin: Do you know what I'm saying?
John: All these 14-year-old boys just sat up straight and looked at me right in the eyes when you said penetrating.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Well, you know, you can threaten to unplug that game anytime.
John: I'm going to unplug the game and I'm going to plug something else.
Merlin: You just lost some points.
Merlin: You kind of lost a couple points.
Merlin: I was going to put you – talked about Wilde and Bosie, the Marcus of Queensbury son that he was – whose thigh he was fucking.
Merlin: I think that – now, for him, that was real.
Merlin: He wanted that thigh, you know?
Merlin: And I still say to this day, the whole reason that he started that trouble with the Marcus of Queensbury is because he misspelled sodomite.
Merlin: And I just – do you know the story, right?
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, sure.
Merlin: okay so a great biography the richard elman biography great biography and and i think it all started because of the spelling error yes he wanted to fuck the guy's son in his like maybe in his knee i think he had like a leg fucking thing yeah i don't understand all the different angles on on uh on the different kinds of the gay but like i think he was a leg he was a leg and leverage man and the marcus of queensberry yeah it's a kind of uh is it for taj
John: Well, it depends.
Merlin: Like fried-edged cheese?
Merlin: It's like fried-edged cheese.
Merlin: Yeah, like when you're trying to have a low-fat diet.
Merlin: I'm not telling you, John Roderick, because life is fucking complicated.
Merlin: Oscar Wilde, he was an essayist.
Merlin: He was a playwright.
Merlin: He was a knee-fucker, and he didn't like spelling errors.
Merlin: And this is the 1800s.
Merlin: He was a stickler.
Merlin: Certainly, he stickled with rent boys, they call it.
Merlin: That was, by the way, one of my favorite Smithy piece, Stickling the Rent Boys.
Merlin: Anyway, I'm just saying, first of all, I admire the fact that you're owning your mismanagement.
Merlin: I mean, I think the first thing that a manager does is own the things they've mismanaged.
Merlin: I don't know if you're owning it so much as just rehashing it.
Merlin: I'd love to see you take a direction...
Merlin: Now, if I could ask, I have not had the pleasure of visiting your home, but it strikes me that somebody like Hunter S. Thompson, you need a compound.
Merlin: Does the place where you live have any potential to become a compound?
John: it is already a compound you have multiple buildings right there are multiple buildings here it is it is a there's a there's an empty swimming pool oh that's good there's an untended orchard uh but it's within the city limits um my neighbors are all like uh of the whatever you're doing over there we don't want to know quality that's like working working class african-american people
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: But when I first moved in here, I had hair down to the middle of my back and I was missing one of my front teeth.
John: And that established a certain tone with my neighbors where they were like, he's friendly and that's fine.
John: So let's just wave to him.
John: and don't go on his property and hopefully he'll stay off of our property and it's established a great we have a great dynamic here we say hi to each other at the mailbox we we actually talk over the fence but um but there is like all the all the teenage kids running around this neighborhood cause causing trouble they all go to the other side of the street when they walk past my house you keep their ball
John: No, I always throw their ball back to them, but I do walk around the yard.
Merlin: First you lick it, I bet.
John: I do walk around the yard with a sword in a bathrobe.
Merlin: You're in the bathrobe, but the sword's in your hand, right?
John: I'm in the bathrobe.
Merlin: The sword doesn't have its own bathrobe.
John: I'm just absentmindedly...
Merlin: Come on, swordy.
Merlin: Let's take a walk.
John: Just swinging the sword as I walk around thinking deep thoughts.
John: And I think the kids in my neighborhood see that and say, there are other better places to go play than around this guy's house.
Merlin: You got to be careful, though, because you're a big guy, like a tall guy, and you got the tall guy problem, though, of just like I've got the smart-ass guy problem, right?
John: Everybody wants to take on the tall guy.
Merlin: Everybody wants to take on the tall guy, right?
Merlin: And so I wonder on some level if carrying a sword is also an invitation to bring that on, to cross the fence, if you like.
John: Well, here's a thing that I learned many, many years ago, and that is that all kinds of people want to—all kinds of men—
John: try and put on the loco eyes to get out of fights or get out of trouble.
John: They'll give somebody the loco eyes, and that is supposed to communicate like, don't mess with me, I'm loco.
John: But the problem with loco eyes is that all it takes is to have your bluff called one time.
John: And loco eyes turn to fear eyes very fast if the loco eyes don't have anything behind them.
Merlin: If that guy was really tough, you wouldn't need loco eyes.
John: Well, there are actual local eyes, and I'm sure you've seen them, where nobody's putting them on, where the person genuinely has... But that's like the Chekhov thing.
Merlin: Don't put local eyes in the first act because somebody's not going to get shot by the end.
Merlin: If you got local eyes, you're just going to see them long enough, like right before somebody gets you.
Merlin: You know, it's not like something you want to be one of those like Appalachian characters just walking around in some fucking crazy Snuffy Smith mode.
Merlin: Like, oh, I'm going to get you.
Merlin: Like, I don't think that's compelling.
Merlin: And I think people, yeah, I think people, people really want to hit you if you do that.
Merlin: I don't care if you got a sword or a robe or anything like that.
John: The thing about a person with, with truly local eyes is that they don't care if you, if you stick a pen in their eye, you know, they're nuts.
John: And so all by way of saying, I stopped a long time ago putting any kind of local eyes on my face.
John: My face, when I look at somebody on the street and they are giving me some kind of confrontational energy, my face communicates exactly what I am capable of doing.
John: And I find that that... Which is writing about it later.
John: That genuinely is enough.
John: Writing an angry tweet about it later.
John: No, I mean, I don't misrepresent the distance in a fight I'm willing to go with someone on the street.
John: And that distance is not no distance, if you get what I'm saying.
Merlin: Boy, that sounds really menacing after you explain it that way.
Merlin: I have...
Merlin: I have a lot to lose.
Merlin: My dedication to fisticuffs with you has a non-zero value in the sense of not being defined.
Merlin: Do you even know the difference between zero and null?
Merlin: Because I will explain it to you.
Merlin: That's all the difference in the world.
Merlin: You don't understand?
Merlin: And so at this point, the person's probably confused.
Merlin: They're feeling bad that they hadn't taken more math or learned Pearl.
Merlin: I think at that point, it's the equivalent of one of those wrestlers throwing sand in your eyes because now he's on the wrong foot.
Merlin: And he's wondering, does this guy have a robe and a sword?
Merlin: And what is Pearl?
John: It's like that scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids.
John: It's a great scene.
John: Where Paul Newman says, let's get the rules.
John: And the other guy says, rules and a knife fight?
Yeah.
Merlin: He kicks him in the balls.
Merlin: Somebody say one, two, three.
Merlin: One, two, three.
Merlin: Oh, man.
Merlin: Shit.
Merlin: Let's see.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Oh, fuck.
Merlin: So you want to circle back?
Merlin: I'm never going to get back to magical thinking.
Merlin: I had a thing on plasticity.
Merlin: I'm very interested in the compound thing, though, because it seems to me that I want to tell you why.
Merlin: I think what you're describing here is really disturbing and extremely diluted, and I think that's a good direction for you.
Merlin: I see you committing.
Merlin: What's the word you use?
Merlin: You're inhabiting the voice?
John: Is that it?
John: I like that, inhabiting the voice, yeah.
Merlin: Right, well, I mean, I think you also need to lead with your strengths, right?
John: See, I'm wondering whether I went down the wrong road and what I should be doing, like the guy in Shazam, I should be driving across America in a Winnebago,
John: But instead of using the power of ISIS to solve crimes, I should be robbing diamond couriers.
John: You know, all across America, there are guys... That's so anti-Semitic, John.
John: No, but that's a... Here's the brilliant thing.
John: Only...
John: Goyish diamond couriers, right?
John: It's an Asian market.
John: You leave the Jews alone, and by doing so, you earn their respect, and you only knock over the German diamond couriers, of which I'm sure it's a small group, but I'm sure there are some.
Merlin: If I were going to be a German sex tourist, I would want to have, what, like Liberia, right?
Merlin: I would have a flag of convenience.
Merlin: Is that what it's called?
Merlin: Yeah, right.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Okay, that's not homophobic to say that, right?
Merlin: Flag of convenience.
Merlin: Okay, all right, good.
John: That's what happens if you put a red handkerchief in your back left pocket.
John: Okay.
John: It's a flag of convenience.
John: But, you know, they're so South Africans and German sex tourists.
Merlin: They're walking around with diamonds, especially the South Africans.
Merlin: They got a shit ton of diamonds down there, John.
John: And I'm the guy in the Winnebago.
John: I'm super unassuming.
John: I'm parking every night in a Walmart parking lot.
John: I'm part of that community.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: By day.
Merlin: But the community of superheroes in Winnebago who occasionally go into a cave to turn into a cartoon and get wisdom.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Who every night... Doesn't that happen?
Merlin: Isn't he a cartoon?
Merlin: Isn't he a cartoon sometimes when he talks to Neptune?
Merlin: Or am I thinking of Isis?
John: Wasn't that Mork?
John: No, Mork was never a cartoon.
John: Boy, that would have made Mork for Mork even cooler if when he went in to talk to Orson, he was a cartoon.
Merlin: Yeah, I don't think they put a lot of budget in that.
Merlin: I think he mostly stands there.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Did Billy... Billy Batty?
Merlin: Billy Barty?
Merlin: Billy Batson?
Merlin: Billy Batson?
Merlin: What's his name?
Merlin: Billy?
John: Billy Barty?
Merlin: Okay, Billy Barty.
Merlin: Billy Batson.
Merlin: When Billy Batson...
Merlin: when he goes into the cave doesn't he turn into a cartoon and he talks to neptune
Merlin: That sounds familiar.
Merlin: You know, the last time I saw... You remembered the Winnebago, so clearly this is something that is... I think... Can I just say that I think the Winnebago, there is room for the Winnebago in this whole thing.
Merlin: I've got a list here of things that I think you should consider.
Merlin: You do not have to agree to any of these, but may I just go through a couple things?
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, please do.
Merlin: We should clarify the cartoon thing.
Merlin: We'll come back to that.
John: If I could turn it into a cartoon for like 15 minutes every day... Who would you talk to?
Merlin: Who would you seek wisdom from?
John: Otto von Bismarck.
John: It's a shame people don't remember him.
John: Wouldn't that be great if you turned into a cartoon every day for 15 minutes and could ask Otto von Bismarck anything?
Merlin: What if you went into a cave, you turned into a cartoon, and a cartoon version of Hunter S. Thompson was in there?
John: That seems scary.
Merlin: Well, here's the thing.
Merlin: He's not going to fucking talk to you because you're a cock-sucking piece of shit.
Merlin: But you're learning.
Merlin: When he says that, and he says, get the fuck out of you, and he literally throws a piece of dynamite at you.
Merlin: Maybe an M-80.
John: He has a crossbow that shoots dynamite like the Dukes of Hesse.
Merlin: Funny you should say that because this is on my list.
Merlin: I was going to recommend, if I may, I'm not against swords.
Merlin: I think having a sword is good.
Merlin: I think an arsenal, maybe a hidden arsenal, is not a bad idea.
Merlin: I'm just saying that when you walk around the perimeter of your property in a bathrobe, I would think about a crossbow and not a small crossbow, not like one of those jokey ones, not one of those thieves guild kind of things.
Merlin: I'm talking like a fucking big ass, maybe like giant novelty size crossbow.
Merlin: No.
John: now that i have a child like a trebuchet like a trebuchet yeah now that i you know that was my punk rock name trebuchet but nobody ever got it it's it's not funny on so many levels it's so great i was like people were like oh my name's fucking peter out and i was like i'm trebuchet and i and then they would go to the other side of the punk rock i like uh amos b haven
John: See, these aren't good punk rock names.
John: These are like... I don't know.
Merlin: Is it still a picket fence?
Merlin: Is it made of pickets?
Merlin: It's a white picket fence.
John: A white picket fence.
John: It's a kind of... It's like a kind of... It's like a force field.
John: A white picket fence makes your house look like it's... Like a...
John: It isn't actually there, right?
Merlin: There's not going to be a lot of Ray Charles records inside.
John: It becomes a diorama.
John: It becomes like a... A shoebox simulator.
John: Yeah, exactly.
John: It just fades into this sort of Norman Rockwell two-dimensionality, and nobody thinks, oh, right, there's actually a weird guy living in there with an arsenal of...
Merlin: How tall are your pickets?
Merlin: Because you're describing to me talking over the fence to these poor bastards who live next to you.
Merlin: I thought I saw in one of your videos that I made of you, I thought you had fairly small pickets.
Merlin: And if you've got a two-foot picket fence, that's weird to talk over that.
Merlin: Now, are your pickets four?
Merlin: Do you have a four-foot picket?
John: The pickets are about four feet tall.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: And I mean, are they reinforced the chicken wire or anything like that?
Merlin: Or are they literally just wooden pickets?
John: They're wooden pickets, but I made them out of pallets, like old shipping pallets.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Get a splinter real bad out of those.
John: Yeah.
John: They're not like little pickets that you buy from some picket store.
John: Okay.
John: They're reinforced pickets.
John: They would stop a car.
Merlin: All right, but there's nothing tricky about it, right?
Merlin: It isn't like you've dipped it in poison or reinforced it with rebar.
Merlin: There's nothing about it.
John: The fence is just a fence, but on either side of the fence, front and back, I have planted ornamental bushes, which are also prickly vines of death.
John: If you try and get through this hedge, you're going to get shredded.
Merlin: i mean if you're if you're on foot and don't mind being a little inconvenienced i just i don't think for somebody who's building a fucking compound i just i mean you could go through the gate okay and you're what i'm asking you is like is a large isn't a large bin laden style wall is that going to be a problem for zoning for ventilation like is there a reason that you don't have a big fucking godfather style compound
John: As the hedges grow, they will become an impenetrable wall of hedge that you won't be able to see through.
Merlin: I'm trying to sound like the scariest organic gardener in the world.
John: I'm just saying.
John: That's what I'd like my business card to say.
Merlin: There's not a lot of fellatio at that convention, even with the boys.
John: Are you kidding me?
John: There's so much fellatio at a gardening conference?
John: Scary organic gardening conferences.
John: The problem is that all those people have so much body hair.
Merlin: It's because of the permaculture, that's why.
John: Yeah, yeah, they're not grooming themselves.
John: They consider grooming an act of colonialism.
Merlin: Oh, absolutely.
Merlin: And what's more philocentric than hoeing your own hair?
Merlin: That's, you know, I mean, that's a form of self-abuse that Gaia looks down upon.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Or whoever.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: So I'm just saying the Kennedys, you got the Godfather.
Merlin: You do need some, if you're going to go, and I'm not saying go on full on fucking John Wayne Gacy.
Merlin: I'm saying, but I am saying that like, you should dig out the basement and put 29 children in it.
John: Sprinkle lie down there to dress like a clown.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And slowly turn a wire around their neck while you read the verses from the Bible.
John: But here's the problem.
John: I do have an arsenal of weaponry throughout the ages.
John: Does that include your rosebush?
John: In my house, which includes my rosebush and my untrimmed garden, if you will.
John: And now I have a child.
Merlin: All the more reason to have walls.
John: She's too young to have found my various caches of weapons.
John: But there will come a time when she'll say, you know, Daddy, what's behind that steel reinforced door?
Merlin: And I'm going to have to say... All your friends from school.