Ep. 10: "They Usually Come in the Mornings"
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hi John, how are you?
Merlin: Hi Merlin.
Merlin: How's it going?
John: It's going pretty well.
John: I haven't been getting a ton of sleep.
John: No, really?
John: Yeah.
John: Have you been eating?
Merlin: Cake.
Merlin: I've been eating cake.
Merlin: Is there a certain kind you stocked up on?
John: Well, it's pumpkin pie season, so I have a pumpkin pie, but I also have a chocolate cake, too.
John: Or what's left of a chocolate cake.
John: I've worked my way through it pretty fast.
John: How's cake get into your house?
John: Well, in this case, I made it.
John: I made a chocolate cake.
John: I sat down knowingly and produced...
John: 15,000 calories of chocolate cake for myself.
John: Actually, it was a birthday cake I made for a friend that then I just kept the majority of.
Merlin: I have so many questions.
John: I mean, I did cut a portion of it out and put it in a Tupperware container and give it to her, and I said happy birthday, but most of the cake I kept.
Merlin: Was it clearly cut from a larger cake?
Merlin: Did you give somebody a partial birthday cake?
John: She was standing there and said, that's my birthday cake, right?
John: Are you going to give that to me?
John: It's not yours yet.
John: To take?
John: And I said, I'll give you some.
John: And I cut her off a healthy portion.
John: Not the majority of it.
Merlin: My first thought, and I'm sorry to use two alcohol references, my first thought was being the guy who arrives with a 12-pack of Bush Light that has two beers left in it.
Merlin: But then I was reminded of, as you know, one of the great films, Vacation, when Randy Quaid says to Chevy Chase, I bet you could use a cool one.
Merlin: And then he hands him the beer that he's been drinking.
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: Now, I'm not saying it's the same thing.
Merlin: I know you're not a drinker, but was the cake cut when she arrived?
John: I did walk through a party the other day and address the room and say, anybody want a cup of coffee?
John: I got coffee.
John: I was making a pot in the other room and a bunch of people turned to me and then I noticed I was just holding a Starbucks cup.
John: They all looked down at me, and I was like, I mean, I got the last little bit here.
John: If anybody wants some, no takers.
Merlin: The kind of parties you go to, they're not a lot.
Merlin: I mean, I know you live in specifically a city that is obsessed with coffee, but the parties that you walk through making announcements now, are most people there having a cocktail?
Merlin: They're not having coffee drinks at the party.
John: No, they were having cocktails.
John: But, you know, even when I was a drinker, if someone walked through the party and said, I just made a pot of coffee, does anybody want one?
John: Nobody says no to that.
John: I would have said, hell yes, this is the best party I've ever been to.
Merlin: Yeah, coffee Mustangs and handjobs.
Merlin: Like, who says no?
Merlin: Yes, of course I'll have coffee.
Merlin: I learned this when my lady was pregnant.
Merlin: We had a class, and there were a couple things I took away that were actually really useful in a life way.
Merlin: And one of the things that this woman said that was really smart, I was like, you know, your wife's going to be dealing with a lot of stuff while she's pregnant and stuff.
Merlin: Never ask if you should wash the dishes.
Merlin: Like...
Merlin: Can you imagine a scenario in which the person you live with says, no, please save them for me?
Merlin: Never ask someone if they want a glass of water because everybody always wants a glass of water.
Merlin: Worst case scenario, you have a glass with water in it that you've got to throw out and you've still got a clean glass.
Merlin: That's all I'm saying.
John: This is a thing.
John: Is it?
John: Should I get a card?
John: This is a thing.
John: It really is.
John: Because this is an ongoing thing.
John: First of all, that's true of your woman when she's pregnant, but it's also true of any woman any time.
John: Oh, boy.
John: But my pet peeve is when someone comes, when you're making dinner and someone says, would you like something to drink?
John: Like, I'll be making thinner, right?
John: And my lady friend will say, would you like something to drink with thinner?
John: Well, of course the answer is always the same.
John: Yes, I would.
Merlin: You mean a kind of beverage to have in a container while you're consuming the meal?
Merlin: Not as in, like, a Mickey's Big Mouth, but as in, like, do you want a liquid to have with your meal?
John: Would you like some liquid?
Merlin: Only in China.
Merlin: Only in China do they not do that, and that's a humorous issue.
John: Yeah.
John: Oh, well, and I would suggest that the Chinese are, you know, they're doing a different thing.
John: Let's circle back to that.
John: Um, they're doing a different thing because they are, they're, they consider broth a cocktail.
Merlin: Hmm.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: So, so your lady, your lady asks you if you want something to drink.
John: Would you like something to drink?
John: And then, and then the followup question is always, I'm going to have some lemonade.
John: Would you like, would you like some lemonade?
John: Yeah.
John: And it's an ongoing thing now where I have to say each time, I will have what you are having.
John: Every time, I will have what you are having.
John: Don't ever ask me if I want something separate.
Merlin: Have you ever asked for something different?
Merlin: Does she have a reason to fear you?
Merlin: I mean, apart from the, well, you know.
John: She has a reason to fear me.
Merlin: Okay, sorry.
Merlin: She's chained under the sink.
Merlin: Well, I mean, it's nice and cool down there.
Merlin: Good ventilation.
Merlin: But has there ever been a time where you said, for fuck's sake, of course I don't want your fucking piss-ass lemonade.
John: What's interesting about what's happening to me right now, you can hear me, you can hear my brain actually working as I'm trying to describe this because I had a conversation just a few days ago where she said, when you're doing your podcast, do you ever think that what you're saying is...
John: that I'm going to hear it, that it's about me, that I'm going to hear what you say in your podcast.
John: Never, never think that.
John: Don't let it happen.
John: And I said at the time, no, of course not.
John: Why would I make it harder on myself?
John: Why would I make a podcast harder on myself?
John: Because I was thinking...
John: about how you were going to receive something I said through the internets.
John: And now you can hear me sitting here.
John: Having said that, now I'm thinking about... See, you opened that door.
John: I did, or somehow the door got opened, and now I'm sitting here thinking about how to...
John: phrase this in a way that she's not going to... She doesn't listen to this, though, does she?
John: Oh, she's going to listen to it.
Merlin: Now she will.
John: Well, no, she does it every time, and then she comes to me and she goes, oh, that's interesting what you said about the... Can I offer you a reframe on that, John Roderick?
Merlin: Yeah, please do.
Merlin: I'd like to start over, frankly.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Yeah, well, can I just say I got a little cake follow-up here, but we'll get back to that.
Merlin: Um...
Merlin: I think it's important for everyone, including you, to understand that you are here to help people.
Merlin: And I think the ways that you help people can be, what, legion, myriad, multitudinous?
Merlin: I think there are many ways.
John: A myriad legion.
Merlin: Just your being there, above, beneath the sink, wherever you are, offering her something, perhaps in a metal bowl, wipes clean with a damp cloth.
Merlin: You're offering her help on levels that both of you may not even know about.
Merlin: she in particular needs I think the kind of help that you give her with pillow talk with wiping off the seat with whatever quarterly brushing your teeth or whatever it is you do you're obviously helping her in those certain ways in the same sense that you would not take the pillow talk and put it into an RSS feed that's a technical term I think what you're offering here is you're giving her a kind of reframe you're giving her a grace note a sotto voce you're giving her an ex libris something that she will be able to take away that would not have come up while she was licking her bowl and
Merlin: Do you understand?
Merlin: Here's the thing.
Merlin: I don't want you to self-edit because I worry that if you self-edit, if you start indeed thinking in an audible way, it could potentially cut very deeply into the penetration of what you have to metaphor with people.
John: It's so terrible.
Merlin: Have you thought about that?
Merlin: I don't want to hear your brain move, but have you really thought about the sake of the people you're trying to reach?
John: I can't.
John: As soon as I start to think, I become garbled and I start to stutter.
Merlin: I can hear it right now.
Merlin: I'm reading a book about this.
Merlin: I'm reading a book about this right now.
John: You're hearing me stutter?
John: This happens to me in my writing, too.
John: As soon as I sit down and try and write about, particularly about...
John: politics.
John: As soon as I start to write about politics, all the humor goes out of me.
Merlin: Kind of like now.
Merlin: Just like a big, pinching a big turd right in the punch bowl.
John: It's terrible.
John: I just write this really pedantic and...
John: pedagogical blah-de-blah.
Merlin: Lots of Greek words that are adjectives.
John: But I can throw down 25 pages of this stuff, and then I read it back and I'm just like, my own eyes are glazing over at the first reread.
John: And it's because I'm thinking, oh, this is really going to...
John: this is going to flip the pancake, you know?
John: But also, part of the reason that I'm stuttering and I sound garbled is that I... You've been eating a lot of cake.
John: I've been eating a lot of cake, but I haven't been sleeping the last four nights.
John: I've gotten like three hours of sleep a night.
Merlin: I've got to come back to this.
Merlin: I want to come back to the eating and the sleeping, because I have to tell you, John, I have an extremely strong position on both eating and sleeping.
Merlin: I know you do.
John: Those are your twin totems.
Merlin: Okay, but the thing is, it's like masturbation or saving money.
Merlin: You can do too much.
Merlin: So there's a balance to be struck here.
Merlin: Are you sleeping the right amount?
Merlin: Are you eating the right amount?
Merlin: Don't answer that.
Merlin: I agree with you on the politics.
Merlin: First of all, I just want to mention this in passing.
Merlin: I'm reading a book right now called Thinking, Fast and Slow.
Merlin: I've read maybe five pages of it.
John: Sounds like a TED Talk.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: It's like that, but good.
Merlin: And so it's this guy who's been around, I don't know, for the last 40 years.
Merlin: He's been doing a lot of, like, you ever heard the term availability heuristic?
John: An availability heuristic?
John: Have you ever heard that term?
Merlin: It rains every time you wash your car.
Merlin: Oh, sure.
Merlin: People tend to get divorced.
Merlin: I might be getting that slightly wrong.
John: The sun comes up in the east.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I'm not sure what kind of site you could go to to Google that, but you could probably find out the precise meaning.
Merlin: But he's the guy with his...
Merlin: scholarship partner came up with that term he's come up with a lot of these ideas about how intuition uh basically about how there's two levels of thinking that we do i won't go into this because as you know i'm i'm not a cognitive psychologist but it's a super interesting idea and i think what's happening john right there i think it's what you in the music uh business call feedback
Merlin: I think what's happening is you're hearing yourself thinking and you're thinking about thinking and you're not really being John.
Merlin: You're being meta-John.
Merlin: Oh, I hate meta-John.
Merlin: Well, he's not as interesting as John Prime.
John: He's really not.
John: I don't like meta-John.
John: He comes around and he's... You should think fast.
Merlin: When you think slow is when you get fucked up.
Merlin: I don't know if that's a kick problem or a sink problem.
Merlin: I just know that when you think, you're in big fucking trouble.
Merlin: You're a smart guy and you shouldn't have to think.
John: I'm in trouble when I think.
John: It's absolutely true.
Merlin: There's plenty of fish.
Merlin: There's plenty of fish without buying extra net, John.
John: Thinking has never solved any problems for me.
John: It's never gotten me out of trouble.
John: Thinking is always the thing in between sleeping and doing.
Merlin: Tar baby.
John: Big tar baby.
John: Now, wait a minute.
John: We've been accused of racism a lot in this podcast.
Merlin: Probably just by blacks.
Merlin: My concern is the politics thing.
Merlin: And I want to tell you, I think I've told you this before, but I went to like all... You hate politics.
Merlin: I ended up going to what is regarded, at least in public colleges, as a pretty good school.
Merlin: Like a way better school than I could have ever gotten into.
John: It was like the Florida Technical Academy for...
Merlin: Right, sure.
Merlin: It's like the Florida version of anything.
Merlin: It's like jumbo shrimp, right?
Merlin: Military intelligence.
Merlin: The Florida version of fashion, a good fashion, the Florida version of... I've noticed that anything that has fashion in the name is necessarily not fashionable.
Merlin: I was in line waiting for a prescription at the Walgreens like I am so many days, and I was standing there waiting, and I looked, and hanging on one of those little things by the checkout, it was fashion contact lens case.
John: Oh, sure.
John: And you get a bonus one.
John: Like a fashion LED flashlight for your keychain.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: I think that's one of those words.
Merlin: It just means that it's the opposite of what's there.
John: Well, except fashionistas who are genuinely fashionable.
John: Oh, God.
John: And also revolutionary.
Merlin: Do you use ISTA much?
Merlin: I mean, do you suffix that a lot?
Merlin: You don't do that a lot, do you?
John: I don't.
John: I don't use ISTA.
Merlin: Can I tell you who probably does that a lot?
Merlin: I don't even need to tell you this.
Merlin: You know who probably adds ISTA to a lot of words?
Who?
Merlin: Gloria Estefan.
Merlin: Close.
Merlin: Bruce Falanch.
Merlin: Moving on.
Merlin: Can you hear him saying that?
Merlin: The latest movie, Easter.
John: No, no, no.
John: Out of respect for the Sandinista movement, I don't squander the Easter suffix.
Merlin: You just literally gave me the greatest segue in the history of the world.
Merlin: Literally.
Merlin: Because when I was trying to get into this school, I applied to really three schools.
Merlin: I applied to the public university that was in Tampa, which is kind of like a high school with ashtrays.
Merlin: And then I applied to this really – University of South Florida.
Merlin: No offense.
Merlin: Don't worry.
Merlin: These guys, they don't have computers.
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: Then I applied to a school called Rollins in Orlando, which is like a fancy lad school where they've got lots of theater and stuff.
Merlin: And then I applied to the school that I got into.
Merlin: Could never afford to go to the one in Orlando, even though they gave me a big grant.
Merlin: The essay that I wrote for them that I cannot even believe ended up getting me accepted.
Merlin: Are you ready for this?
Merlin: It was on why the U.S.
Merlin: should not be in Nicaragua.
Merlin: Oh, I was I was cute.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: It was.
Merlin: And you know what?
Merlin: I almost use that.
Merlin: So, so interested was I in my own opinions about these things.
Merlin: I almost use that as my essay to get into the good school.
Merlin: And for some reason, on the fast thinking level, I could never in a million years tell you why I did this.
Merlin: I sat down at my manual typewriter because I thought I was Tom Waits.
Merlin: And I wrote a three-page essay called Plum Knuckles that was a slightly humorous essay about how my family wanted me to quit cracking my knuckles.
Merlin: And I wrote a, what would you call it?
Merlin: What's that word John Hodgman uses?
Merlin: Confabulist.
Merlin: I made a kind of fantastic version of what would happen to me if I kept cracking my knuckles.
Merlin: It was marginally funny.
Merlin: It wouldn't be funny by my today's standards.
John: But it got you into the good school.
Merlin: And for the love of Christ, and you know what they said?
Merlin: They said, well, first of all, you're a five percenter.
Merlin: You're one of those helmet kids we're pretty sure is going to have to leave, but we're going to give you a shot.
Merlin: And you know why?
Merlin: Essay.
Merlin: Dude, I failed two classes when I was a senior.
Merlin: I failed ocean science and music theory.
Merlin: I told you this.
Merlin: All I'm trying to say to you, John Roderick, I'm sorry to be talking so much.
Merlin: I just had a burrito, so I'm sorry.
Merlin: All I'm trying to say is that the essay, let's go back to the Sunset Magazine school, you know?
Merlin: I mean, the essay matters.
Merlin: In your case, the essay is maybe what saved you from even getting into some kind of a reform school.
Merlin: You knew to write a bad essay, and that helped you, right?
John: I'm just wondering why it didn't occur to you to apply to a school outside of Florida.
Merlin: Dough.
Merlin: Doe Ramey.
Merlin: School I went to, I'm from a modest background.
Merlin: The school I went to out the door, including food and the bunk, the whole nine exclusive books.
Merlin: 600 bucks a year.
Merlin: 600.
Merlin: And that's in Confederate script.
Merlin: So nothing wrong with that.
Merlin: It was about five or six grand a year.
John: You had oceanography classes in high school?
John: I had ocean science.
John: Ocean science.
Merlin: Talked by a very, very small man.
Merlin: A very small man that I had a lot of problems with.
Merlin: I refuse to succeed.
John: I'm impressed that that was a high school level course at your school, although I guess that's one of the advantages of being from Florida.
Merlin: I think we studied salinity for 14 weeks.
Merlin: Oh, boring.
Merlin: Because people kept answering false to salt.
John: I found out yesterday that cocaine is a salt.
Merlin: Are you kidding me?
Merlin: It's got a CL in it?
John: Yeah.
John: Well, there's a version of it which is a salt, and then there's another version which isn't.
Merlin: Don't they add a lot of HCLs, like the ephedrine of previous note?
Merlin: That's an HCL.
Merlin: What does HCL do?
Merlin: Is that kind of like putting in one of those little packets to keep it dry?
Merlin: What does HCL do?
Merlin: Does that stabilize it?
Merlin: You study chemistry.
John: You know, it's the hydrochloride.
Merlin: Slow thinking, slow thinking.
Merlin: It makes your... You should have just said it makes your nose all fucked up.
Merlin: I have no idea.
John: Cocaine is a blood vessel inhibitor.
John: I don't know why there's some that are salts and some that aren't.
John: I just know that way if you're freebasing it, the basic version of it is not a salt.
John: As opposed to the acidic version.
Merlin: I'm just guessing, John, in the day, we don't have time to go into this in detail, we've got a lot of things to cover here, but I'm guessing when you went to parties in the day when you really went the fuck to parties, you were not asking about the acidity or baseness of a given thing on a plate that was in lines, maybe on a Frampton record.
Merlin: Did you guys have mirrors?
Merlin: What did you use when you were, was this grunge era cocaine?
John: No, you know, I came late to cocaine.
John: The glory days of cocaine, the less than zero days were already passed.
John: And by the grunge time, at least in my world, I mean, I know there's definitely lots of people who were still living the dream.
Merlin: I think that's the way cocaine works is you tend to use it for a while.
John: Well, yeah, but the way you use it changes.
John: By the time I got into the more serious drugs, it was the crack era, at least at the low level of life that I was living.
John: So most of my cocaine and methamphetamine intake was freebasing.
Merlin: Oh, John Roderick, really?
John: Well, I mean, I wasn't fancy.
John: I wasn't living a fancy life where I was doing rails of pure cocaine off of... You're a very practical man.
Merlin: You've swung a hatchet.
John: I've swung a hatchet.
Merlin: I want to hear the story about how you hit your head.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: We shouldn't get into this.
Merlin: Now, was this a Betty Crocker cake or was this a from scratch cake?
Merlin: No, it was Duncan Hines.
John: It was Duncan Hines.
Merlin: Ah, nice.
John: Just because it was bumping around the closet.
John: Now I'm saying bumping around.
John: Now everything sounds like a cocaine reference.
Merlin: I thought it sounded like a dance song.
John: No, my problem is, and this is why my brain is shrinking, because I haven't been sleeping.
Merlin: Do you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep?
John: I don't have trouble staying asleep.
John: I have trouble falling asleep.
John: I've never been able to go to sleep.
John: but it's very you've always been a late a late go to sleeper i'm a very late go to sleeper but but but lately i that lateness has just been prolonged to the point of then it's day we do the wraparound again and yeah and it's and the phone starts ringing and people are pounding on the door and i can't uh i have to get up i have to have to join the world
Merlin: Man, nobody comes to my door, and I'm so glad.
John: Well, your door is up a flight of stairs.
John: It's hard to see from the street.
John: But people come to my door because they're always on suicide watch.
John: There's always somebody coming by going, Hello?
John: Still in there?
John: Are you still in there?
John: I haven't heard from you in a while.
John: They have a name for that.
Merlin: Don't they have a name for that with the cops?
Merlin: There's a name for that.
Merlin: What do they call that?
John: A service patrol.
Merlin: Somebody with the yellow, you get the yellow flight.
Merlin: You don't get the red flashing light anymore.
Merlin: It's like a guy in a vest.
John: It's a guy in a minivan.
Merlin: So now he just stops flying and goes, mank, mank.
Merlin: And you give him the high sign.
Merlin: Let me see both hands, John.
Merlin: Both hands.
John: Through the curtains.
John: Still here.
John: The community service patrol actually did come check up on me one time.
John: Years and years ago, 1992 or something like that, the people in my life had not heard from me in weeks, and they sent the community service patrol.
Merlin: What do you call for that?
Merlin: Is it like a 5-1-1 kind of thing, a 3-1-1?
John: It's, you know, having never called them on somebody else, I have no way of knowing how you do it.
Merlin: Can I take a guess?
Merlin: County Extension.
Merlin: Same people you call to get a skink out of your house.
John: I bet at the front of the yellow pages, in those blue pages at the front or whatever, I bet the number's in there.
Merlin: Call before digging.
Merlin: Yeah, exactly.
Merlin: Skink removal.
Merlin: Call before digging.
Merlin: Call before digging.
Merlin: And in Florida, I used to be, call Candy.
Merlin: You'd say, I gotta call Candy.
Merlin: I don't know why it was Candy.
Merlin: But if Candy left, they'd have to change a lot of fucking vans.
John: Well... Candy was probably an anachronism.
LAUGHTER
John: An anachronism?
John: Probably an anachronism.
John: Wow, a skink, you know.
Merlin: Welfare check.
Merlin: That's what they call it.
Merlin: I think it's called a welfare check.
Merlin: That's when they bring the prowler over.
Merlin: They bring the prowler over.
Merlin: They leave it running.
Merlin: They come by.
Merlin: Everybody in there okay?
Merlin: It's like one guy's hanging back.
Merlin: He's got his hand on his head.
John: Yeah.
John: No, no, no.
John: It's usually, it's usually that they're, they're unarmed.
John: You know, they come, the guy, the guy doesn't have a hand on his hip.
John: He's got a, he's carrying a giant net in most cases, you know, like a huge, like a huge net that you would use to, to catch skinks or whatever.
Merlin: You ever seen a skink?
John: No, because I'm from the north.
John: We don't have skinks in the north.
John: We have shrews.
John: Shrews, I think, fill the same level on the food chain.
Merlin: I'm not touching that with a 10-foot pole.
John: You wouldn't touch a skink with a 10-foot pole.
John: It has a blue tongue, the skink.
Merlin: Right around the time I was getting divorced, my wife had moved out.
Merlin: I went out to the mailbox, and this is just probably about a week before I moved to California.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: No, that's not accurate.
Merlin: But it was in my head.
Merlin: I know I was listening to Elliot Smith, so it must have been 1999.
Merlin: And I – there was like a skink.
Merlin: In my memory, it was severed.
Merlin: Like he had lost his tail.
Merlin: But it's kind of like just – if you imagine like a pointy snake with little arms, kind of like – Yeah, it's a snake with arms.
Merlin: But it's really – I'm pretty sure it's a skink.
Merlin: I'm going to have to –
Merlin: But it was real weird looking, and it felt very like Marquez.
Merlin: It felt like the skink was telling me something.
Merlin: Oh, that's a skink.
Merlin: I'm pretty sure it's a skink.
Merlin: It was telling you something?
Merlin: If you went out to your mailbox right after you and your lady broke up and you saw a fucking broken skink by the mailbox, literally by the mailbox, you wouldn't take that harbinger or an omen or...
John: i i'm not sure that i i'm not sure i would make that direct connection well i do i do there are crows there are crows that come around that i definitely take as harbingers of crows are pretty big right like bigger than you think
Merlin: crows are bigger than you think ravens are much much we've got some giant fucking birds in our park that are freaking me out and i thought for a while i thought they were crows but now i've been wondering if they're ravens because they're kind of a the color of superman's hair that kind of blue black color they're scary as shit and those beady little older i get john the more i am freaked out by birds little eyes i hate the little eyes on birds
John: Well, a raven will have a very different profile than a crow.
John: A raven has a Roman nose, and they're big and black, and also they can open doors.
Merlin: You mean like introduce you to producers?
John: That and also, I mean, you'll find one in your bathroom.
Merlin: John Flansburg.
Merlin: Is John Flansburg a crow?
Merlin: He opens a lot of doors, right?
Merlin: He's a raven.
Merlin: He's a very polite guy.
John: John Flansburg is pretty polite.
John: Yeah.
John: I wouldn't say very polite.
Merlin: I feel like I should be deferential.
Merlin: He was very nice to me.
John: No, no, no.
John: He's extremely polite.
John: What happens when he gets mad?
John: When you say very polite, it implies that politeness is one of his main traits.
John: And I would say politeness is a sub-trait.
John: Right.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: And so basically you're saying that in the music business there's ravens and there's crows.
Merlin: And then there's probably gulls and pelicans.
Merlin: You could write an animal farm.
Merlin: John, can I just say if you quit overthinking this bullshit, you could sit down and literally write the next animal farm, except that it might be about the music industry vis-a-vis birds.
John: I think most people in the music industry are blue jays or finches.
John: Oh, finches are cute.
John: Or, you know, the most prominent bird represented in the music industry is the, oh my God, see what I'm up against today?
Merlin: Yeah, I think you've got to start thinking a lot faster.
John: I'm not having any luck thinking.
John: Because of the lack of sleep.
John: And it isn't a question of tiredness.
John: It's a question of brain shrinkage.
John: See, here's the problem.
John: A few nights ago, this happens to me periodically, and it's going to sound crazy.
John: But I get it into my head about UFOs.
John: Now, bear with me.
John: It's not.
John: This sounds crazy.
John: But it's not.
John: I get it into my... Oh, I hope it's not.
John: I get it into my head about UFOs.
John: Most of the time I go through life, I don't think about UFOs.
John: And it's the same problem as I have with ghosts.
John: I don't believe in ghosts.
John: But if I'm staying for a long weekend in a house in Vermont that was built in 1760...
Merlin: Or the Confederates that came and got you when you were here.
Merlin: Not Confederates, but the soldiers.
John: The Confederate soldiers that came marching across the park in San Francisco where, of course, there were no Confederate soldiers at any time.
John: There are times when ghosts present themselves and then I have to confront or I have to acknowledge that the ghosts are there whether I believe in them or not.
John: This is the problem.
John: I don't believe in them, but there are some times when they're there and you just have to acknowledge that they're there.
John: irrespective of whether you believe in them or not.
John: And this is the same problem I have with UFOs.
John: Well, you can't prove a negative, right?
John: Well, you can't prove a negative.
John: But more importantly, if I'm not thinking about UFOs, then UFOs are not a problem.
John: But as soon as I start to think about UFOs, as soon as something plants that seed in my head, then all of a sudden I'm seeing things out of the corner of my eye
John: That could be aliens who have come to probe me.
Merlin: Like an interview?
Merlin: You're talking about the basement.
Merlin: You're talking about routing the basement.
John: Yeah, not probe me physically, but probe me to see if I am perhaps a good candidate to be the human...
John: interlocutor between the alien uh super race and the the earthlings john roderick of mars oh yeah or just sort of like the what would you call it the prime minister of the new colony the earth okay you could be like the the venusian chamberlain exactly so they're just they're just learning they're just learning about me they're just really we're just talking at this point john
Merlin: We're just aliens talking at this point.
John: It's just an interview process.
John: They go through my stuff.
John: They look at my glasses.
John: They kind of get a sense of my aesthetic.
Merlin: They're probably checking to see if you notice things out of the corner of your eye, because when you're the Venusian Prime Minister, there are a lot of times, you know, yes, exactly.
John: This is the thing.
John: They're not going to come right out and say it.
John: We're not going to sit down across a table from one another, and they're going to present me with a series of questions like... They might not have mouths.
Merlin: They might not have mouths in a conventional sense.
John: Well, but they could even do this telepathically or psionically.
John: They could say...
John: If one of your co-workers was stealing paperclips and you knew about it, would you A, report it, B, tell them not to, or C, do nothing?
John: They could be doing all this.
John: Do they have a conventional Roman alphabet?
John: The aliens?
Merlin: See, I don't know.
John: They haven't revealed anything about themselves, really, except that they... There's a lot of layers to this.
Merlin: They move fast?
Merlin: Well, absolutely.
Merlin: They're probably very slender.
John: One of the things they do is they rattle my windows when it's windy.
John: You know, like you could say it's just windy and the windows are rattling.
Merlin: They might think that's your resume and they're just trying to get a copy.
Merlin: They don't know.
Merlin: They're literally from Venus.
Merlin: And they're figuring out our world even as they're trying to find your place in it, whether you would be the appropriate person to lead an uninhabitable planet.
John: See, I think they may be figuring out our world through me by watching me respond to stimuli.
Merlin: Would you do that remotely?
Merlin: Would you be leading mostly over the phone?
Merlin: Or was it something where you'd have to have a lot of face time with the Venusians?
Merlin: Like if you accepted the position, if it were offered to you, you checked it out, you know, you could get, I don't even know if they have anything like salary.
Merlin: Is that something you would do mostly via conference calls?
John: This is one of the things about dealing with these people or these beings is that you don't even know what you're looking at.
John: They could be ectoplasm who are just taking the form of a little green man.
John: in order to make you feel more secure, like that scene in Contact, where Jodie Foster is talking to her dad.
Merlin: Is that the one where she's on the jukebox?
Merlin: No, it's a pinball machine?
John: No, I think it was... Matthew McConaughey was in it, which is the only reason I know.
Merlin: This is the Carl Sagan.
John: I hate Matthew McConaughey.
John: Yeah, it's Carl Sagan, but this movie was cast... It was cast by monkeys, and Matthew McConaughey was in it, playing a religious person, and Matthew McConaughey...
John: to me represents the most callow human male in the cosmos.
John: And every time I see him in a film where he's playing anything other than a surfer douchebag, I'm like, how did he get cast in this movie?
John: But anyway, that's all neither here nor there.
John: What happened was a few nights ago, I was in the bathtub, as you do, and I heard this repetitive sort of slamming.
John: It wasn't rhythmic.
John: It was kind of like off time, like...
John: You know, slam, slam, slam.
Merlin: Syncopated.
John: Sort of syncopated.
John: And it sounded like somebody was kicking my front door.
John: And I'm sitting in the bathtub and I'm like, this isn't a sound that I want in the middle of the night during a rainstorm.
Merlin: It's not the usual way the community service people knock.
John: They usually come in the mornings.
Yeah.
John: And frankly, if somebody's kicking your front door, they're probably going to do it more rhythmically.
John: It's going to be in time, right?
John: They're going to go bam, bam, bam.
Merlin: But it wasn't like a Night of the Long Knives kind of like we're trying to knock this down.
Merlin: It was more like they were testing the panels.
John: Somewhere in between.
John: If you want to kick in somebody's front door, you don't need to take more than about three swings at it.
John: I don't care how many deadbolts it has.
John: Got to warm up.
John: But it didn't sound like somebody was trying to kick the door in, but it did sound like the door was going... Somebody was pounding on the door.
John: So I get out of the bathtub.
John: It's the middle of the night.
John: It's 3 o'clock in the morning.
John: And I put my robe on.
John: And I lay my hands on the nearest sort of anti-human weapon device that I have closest to me.
John: Sword, probably?
John: Let's call it a sword.
John: And I go down the stairs, and in the back of my house I have French doors, which a gust of wind...
John: It was a big storm, and this gust of wind had gusted so strongly that it had pushed open the French doors even though they were deadbolted because the French doors are... Because it's a shoddy concept, the French doors.
John: Terrible idea.
John: It's a French concept, and it's a bad idea.
Merlin: They're super easy to get through.
John: Yeah, you should have... Anytime you have French doors, you should also have another set of doors...
Merlin: You should eventually convince the American doors to help out.
John: You should have... Yeah, that's right.
John: The French doors should open into a vestibule and then there should be one American door to get out of that containment area.
John: But anyway, so the rain is pouring in and the doors are slamming in the wind...
John: And I'm standing there soaking wet in a bathrobe, heavily armed, all alone in the house.
John: And my first thought is, well, of course, the UFOs.
John: The UFOs have come.
John: This is how it always happens.
John: The person comes down out of the bathtub.
John: They close the doors.
John: And then they do a security check of their home.
John: But the aliens are in.
John: They're in somehow now.
John: They're hiding in the oven or they're... I don't know where they go.
Merlin: With your girlfriend under the sink.
John: Yeah.
John: So for the last four days, I haven't been able to sleep.
John: I've been walking around all night, looking in drawers.
John: And...
Merlin: But do you feel that there might be some kind... I'm saying, like, setting aside that if they are ectoplasm, they didn't really need to open the doors except as some kind of a way of helping you understand in the plane that you exist on that they are there.
John: Yep, you're with me.
Merlin: Right, so you could essentially be in the waiting room, you know, for some kind of an interview.
Merlin: But setting that aside... It's not hostile, necessarily.
Merlin: They didn't break the doors.
John: But it isn't friendly, either.
Merlin: What would you, if you were, for the sake of argument, being approached by probably non-existent UFOs, what do you think would be a friendly... bring a cake?
Merlin: Like a space cake?
John: No, you know, a friendly thing would be kind of in a community service patrol mode during the day to come by...
John: And say either, you know, and I know that they can't come by during the day because people would see them and take pictures of them, but they could come into my mind and say things other than the voices that are in my head already telling me.
Merlin: A distinct, a distinct, a distinct, a distinct, a distinct, a new voice.
Merlin: A new voice.
Merlin: A clarion call that would rise above the call for cake.
John: Bake another cake or have another pot of coffee, crazy person.
John: It would be a new voice that came in and said, hello, earthling.
John: Hello.
Merlin: But to be friendly, let's say they've taken the extra steps.
Merlin: They're meeting you at 51%.
Merlin: And they have decided, see, now I'm assuming that you wouldn't mind somebody human being at your door.
Merlin: But let's just, for the sake of argument, let's say you don't mind people at your house.
John: I don't want any humans coming by my house.
Merlin: I understand that.
Merlin: Well, okay, then let's take it and turn it.
Merlin: In order for them to come to you in a way that would be presentable to maybe give you some kind of a Venusian job offer, I don't want to just limit this to Venus or Uranus.
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: Or how do you say that?
Merlin: How do you say it?
John: Uranus.
Merlin: You really do?
Merlin: Sure.
John: I just didn't feel... Uranus?
John: Uranus is how you describe something that smells like peach.
Merlin: I'm still stinging about the Pluto.
Merlin: It smells Uranus.
Merlin: I'm still stinging about the Pluto thing.
Merlin: I've read my daughter a book and there's no Pluto and it fucking pissed me off.
John: Just as you said that, I looked over at the bookshelf here at a book that I have that says in big letters, Plato.
John: Plato.
John: And you said Pluto.
John: And I have this book called Plato.
John: It's Plato, totalitarian or democrat.
Yeah.
John: by a guy named Thorson.
Merlin: Totalitarian, Democrat, or False Dilemma.
John: I know that Thorson is a name that's close to your heart.
Merlin: It is.
Merlin: Thorson, Denson, Finn, Lanson.
Merlin: It's one of my favorites.
John: And Thorson wrote this False Dichotomy book.
Merlin: Totalitarian or Democrat?
Merlin: Plato!
Merlin: That, see now, if you were in a state of mind where you were literally listening, listening to cake talk and the desire for coffee and baths, if you were listening to that voice in your head, isn't there some part of you that would go Plato, dialogues, Pluto, two people talking and find some kind of a connection in what just happened?
Merlin: You're not that superstitious.
Merlin: You're not that magical in your thinking.
John: I'm not.
John: I typically am not.
Merlin: But now you're slow thinking about it.
John: I'm slow thinking and it's not helping me.
John: I'm looking around and I'm going, well, sure.
John: How do I know that anything is anything?
John: Yeah.
John: How do I know that this isn't all just some kind of Jodie Foster?
Merlin: That's addressed.
Merlin: That's addressed in one of the dialogues.
Merlin: I forget.
Merlin: Probably something Eshelist or something.
Merlin: It is.
Merlin: Ontology.
John: Ontology.
John: It's the myth of the cave or whatever.
John: Plato's cave.
Merlin: No, no, no.
Merlin: It's the Republic.
Merlin: It's a whole other deal.
Merlin: That's a whole other deal.
Merlin: That's the teleological argument.
Merlin: John, I'm trying to put you at ease, and I don't know if I can put you at anything.
Merlin: I'm just trying to say that if aliens were coming to— It feels like an availability heuristic.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: I think what would happen is they understand that in order to get you to even kind of pick up the phone, the Venusian phone, they would have to come to you in a form that you understand.
Merlin: So the question I'm asking you— They're priming the pump.
Merlin: okay so here's the thing those french doors did not open themselves they were they were literally dead bolted so assuming let's just say for the sake of argument in your home right now where they can hear you might be the people who are keeping you awake at night and getting you in that tub what do you say to them as you sit here right now to make this easier on both of you if someone were going to come and try to present themselves as i think you called it planting a seed a ufo seed if they were coming in what would be the best way to approach you should they write a letter
John: Well, no, I would say, if they were listening right now, I would say, listen... They're probably listening right now, if they're in your home.
Merlin: If they can make it through a French door, they can overhear up.
John: Right, but they could be fans of this podcast, too.
John: I mean, they could be listening at a lot of... That could be why they're coming by.
John: They could be coming by your house.
Merlin: That would account for the second listener, your lady and... Do you think they listen in the van?
John: Yeah, on their way down.
John: How would you be receptive to that?
John: I would say, listen, if this is a job interview, I'm willing to consider any offers...
John: But we have to talk about compensation and we have to talk about, you know, like I don't want to be just a mouthpiece.
John: I want a little bit of I want the opportunity to be individualistic in my work.
John: I'm not I'm not I'm not a company guy.
John: You know what I mean?
John: Like if they want me to be the prime minister of Venus or or whatever, I mean, I have to have a certain amount of autonomy and it can't be false autonomy that I think I have.
Merlin: Would it be a republic?
Merlin: Would it be a kind of republican monarchy, do you think?
Merlin: Do you think that you'd be serving alongside somebody like Queen Elizabeth, Venusian Queen Elizabeth II?
Merlin: Because, you know, the prime minister is the one who's really holding the keys, as I understand it.
John: Yeah, but I feel like there should be kind of a slightly...
John: I mean, there should be a parliament where people from all over the world come and sit in a giant sort of concert hall-shaped place.
Merlin: Like the last two Star Wars movies.
Merlin: It would be like lots of puppet meetings.
John: I never saw that, but I have to assume that, yeah.
John: As I understood it, those movies were just...
John: a lot of um exposition right there was no nothing happening just a lot of people expository seriously two words puppet meetings it's lots of meetings puppet meetings but okay now here's the other thing but wait sorry please go ahead it could it could it could be that it's not a job interview it could be something else how are they going to get to you john you're you're not sleeping much they don't have a way to get into your dreams uh they i mean that's that's how impenetrable too
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Well, that's how in Native America, that is how a lot of job offers were tendered.
Merlin: It was either through either a keg beer or some kind of visitation, sometimes involving mushrooms, sometimes a mesa or a butte.
John: See, I don't take the mushrooms anymore either.
Merlin: Exactly.
Merlin: I want to circle back to this.
Merlin: I want to talk about whether we think we're fucked up from drugs.
John: The normal channels of accessing me through dreams.
John: LinkedIn.
Merlin: Are you even on LinkedIn?
Merlin: I don't even accept LinkedIn invitations.
Merlin: I did it and I regret it.
Merlin: I don't know what the fuck I was thinking to be on LinkedIn.
John: So they're trying to reach me by normal channels and they can't.
John: So they're coming through the door in the middle of the night.
John: That's...
John: That makes sense to me.
Merlin: Well, imagine, imagine like you got those creepy girls that like your band, like they're not going to come right up to you probably and say like, I want to, I want to lock of your hair or, you know, touch your scrotum or whatever.
Merlin: They're kind of, do they do that?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I figured they just would rattle your doors a little bit.
Merlin: Just kind of go, I'm here.
John: They don't say touch your, they won't touch your scrotum because most girls nowadays, at least who are fans of bands want to pretend that sex has nothing to do with their being a fan.
Merlin: That's why they got the Facebook.
Merlin: Is that why they have the Facebook?
Merlin: Facebook is the new version of cupping balls gently.
Merlin: I think.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I deactivated my account.
John: There are so many people on Facebook that I don't want to ever cup my balls gently or otherwise.
Merlin: You should deactivate your account.
Merlin: That's part of your problem.
John: I've thought about it.
Merlin: I've thought about it, but... You're afraid there'll be a doppelganger John representing your wall?
John: Well, no.
John: It's just the effect it's going to have on my clout score.
Merlin: Oh, is that with a K?
Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: I was being facetious.
Merlin: I think you're maybe – I don't want to tell you how to run your life, John.
Merlin: I'm just thinking you might not be thinking both big enough and small enough.
Merlin: B, I think you should think big enough that if you were being offered a Venusian position of some kind, you know what?
Merlin: If I were a Venusian coming to John and rattling his fucking French doors, I would be saying, you know what, John?
Merlin: Could we have your wisdom by proxy to come in and literally invent an entire Weltanschauung that might involve a parliament?
Merlin: Right.
John: I've got it all planned out.
Merlin: I'm not even worried about that, John.
Merlin: My concern is, how are they going to get to you?
Merlin: Maybe you should offer a hand to them.
John: I'm available, and I think part of the reason that I'm talking about this openly, at risk of sounding like a crazy person, is I want them to know that I know
John: And that I'm here, I'm not too rattled by it.
John: I mean, I think going a few sleepless nights on the scale of what potential human reactions to having aliens come kick down their door in the middle of the night, I think that's pretty mellow, right?
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: I think that shows that... We're talking about running an entire fucking planet, John.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah, so I wander around the house in a bathrobe with, you know, bristling with guns and swords.
John: But it's not like every time I round a corner, I'm like swishing the air with a sword or something.
John: I'm going to just carry it in case.
John: That won't happen until like probably February.
John: I'm hoping that it doesn't last that long.
John: I'm hoping that they either tender a job offer or they move on.
John: But I don't want to be sharing this house.
Merlin: They're not paying rent.
Merlin: No, you don't sound needy about it, which I love.
Merlin: I think that reads so well.
Merlin: Did you ever see that movie Full Metal Jacket, the Stanley Kubrick movie?
Merlin: One of the best parts of that movie, I think, apart from the first half, mostly just the first half, is... You're born again hard!
Merlin: Are you talking about Arlie Ermey, the man who played the sergeant?
John: Arlie Ermey really, really, really squandered my... He squandered the authority that he had earned.
John: Oh, cable TV?
John: Yeah, because of that stupid television show where he's blowing up watermelons with homemade cannons and stuff.
Merlin: I think you're thinking of Gallagher or his brother who was impersonating him.
Merlin: Gallagher's brother impersonated him for a while.
John: I did know that, and I read an interesting... Oh, you know what it was?
John: I read an interesting live tweet review of a Gallagher show.
Merlin: Ken Marino?
Merlin: That sounds like a Ken Marino.
John: That really made me... It really... It absolved me from ever needing to see a Gallagher show.
Merlin: Can you imagine being Gallagher and like how much that would suck and then find out you're not – like now you're having to compete with this doppelganger version of yourself.
John: But you know the story of modern Gallagher, right, which is that he's a xenophobe, like he's a racist xenophobe.
Merlin: I heard he's a little stony is what I heard.
Merlin: I heard he smokes a lot of the weed.
Merlin: I don't know if that's accurate.
John: No, he's like a crazy tea party.
Merlin: Oh, boy.
John: Here we go.
John: Like hates the Mexicans.
John: Crazy.
Merlin: Who do you think?
Merlin: Who do you think picks those fucking watermelons?
Merlin: You think it's white guys with mustaches and big hammers?
John: Now you've brought it full circle.
Merlin: Tea party.
Merlin: Here's what I want to take you back before cable TV even existed.
Merlin: I want to take you back to 1987.
Merlin: Here's what happened.
John: Cable TV existed in 1987.
Merlin: I don't think that's accurate.
Merlin: Stanley Kubrick was going to make this movie.
Merlin: And so, you know, such an interesting guy.
Merlin: I mean, I'm so fascinated by Stanley Kubrick in general.
Merlin: Very intimidating guy.
Merlin: Much like you.
Merlin: Maybe heard voices.
John: He looked like John Bonham.
Merlin: I think he looks like my friend Adam.
John: Well, he looks a little like Adam, but they both look a little like John Bonham.
Merlin: I think John Bonham passed.
John: Late period John Bonham.
Merlin: They don't look like John Bonham now, right?
Merlin: I'd have to see him laying down.
John: Yeah.
He's thinner.
Merlin: And so he knew that to get all of this stuff – by the way, Parris Island, I think it's for ladies now.
Merlin: I think Parris Island is for ladies.
Merlin: I don't think they have dudes at Parris Island anymore.
Merlin: They put them somewhere else for something.
Merlin: So he knew that he needed somebody who understood what the circa, what, 67, 68 Parris Island experience would be like.
Merlin: So he brought in this consultant.
Merlin: Arlie Ermey.
Merlin: Arlie Ermey.
Merlin: He brought in a consultant, and the consultant's job was to make sure that everything was up to snow.
Merlin: Now, the story goes, there's two interesting parts to this story, I think.
Merlin: The first interesting part is he was brought in, and the actor, the talent, if you like, that Kubrick had picked, it was bugging Arlie Ermey.
Merlin: He felt like he was not getting it right.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And so do you know the story?
John: No.
Merlin: He goes to Stanley Kubrick.
John: Does he call him Maggot?
Merlin: Well, he went up to him as a consultant.
Merlin: You know, he's on the... Hey, Maggot!
Merlin: Well, remember, this is probably happening in England.
Merlin: So he's out of his element.
Merlin: He's probably got to wear, you know... Oh, Maggot!
Merlin: He's got to wear Mufti, we call it.
Merlin: That's when you're in, you know, civilian clothes.
Merlin: Mufti?
John: Hmm?
John: Mufti, I thought that was a grain, like a North African grain.
Merlin: I think you think of that other Kubrick movie, Strangelove, President...
Merlin: So anyway, he goes to Stanley Kubrick and he says, look, Mr. Kubrick, this is not working out.
Merlin: This guy, nobody who's ever been in the Marines would see this guy and say, and Stanley's like, thank you very much.
Merlin: Please give your notes to my assistant.
Merlin: And Arlie Ermey fucking goes into full on Arlie Ermey mode in Stanley Kubrick's face.
Merlin: Scares the living shit out of Stanley Kubrick by doing basically what he's saying perfectly.
Merlin: this actor is not doing.
Merlin: And Kubrick is blown away by it.
Merlin: I think that's a very interesting story, but here's where it gets great.
Merlin: And Cooper goes, okay.
John: Wait, wait, wait.
John: Let me just interject.
John: This is absolutely the approach I'm going to take if the aliens address me.
Merlin: This is why I bring it up.
Merlin: This is why I bring it up.
John: All right, go ahead.
John: The next part of the story.
Merlin: Well, we're going to come straight back to this.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: Can I just be honest with you?
Merlin: I'm literally tearing up cake in REM.
Merlin: Take the band?
Merlin: Jesus Christ.
Merlin: It's like, you know, Rex Harrison meets Hey Man, Nice Shot.
Merlin: He's not even singing.
Merlin: What a horrible era.
Merlin: Except for that Steal My Sunshine song.
Merlin: It's got that Evelyn Champagne King.
Merlin: Now, who is that?
Merlin: What's that sample?
John: They have the number one record in the country this year.
Merlin: Len?
Merlin: Are you talking about Len?
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: Or Fastball?
Merlin: Cake.
John: Cake?
John: Cake had a number one record right before the Decembrists had their number one record.
John: Hmm.
Merlin: He said, look, R, may I call you R, Sergeant R?
Merlin: Here's the thing.
Merlin: I'll give you a shot at this.
Merlin: The thing you just did now for 15 seconds that made me literally shit my actually American pants was awesome, but here's the thing.
Merlin: I will let you do this role, but you have to do what you just did for 15 minutes without stopping and without repeating yourself.
Merlin: While people throw tennis balls at you.
Merlin: And although the video has supposedly never been found, released, whatever, he fucking did it.
Merlin: Now you try that.
Merlin: Ha ha, maggot, I'm going to call you.
Merlin: I can't even do it now for five seconds.
Merlin: He did it for 15 fucking minutes while people threw tennis balls at him.
Merlin: Wow.
Merlin: Okay, that is how you make a case, right?
Merlin: I'm just saying, now I've talked about this in some of my other programs.
Merlin: You don't just go somewhere and like, you know, print out your resume and like throw it on the fucking internet.
Merlin: You get in there and you say, you're going to hire me, jackass.
Merlin: If you want to get this Venus shit straightened out, you're going to come here and you're going to find a way to reach me in the tub where I'm literally eating cake, not the band.
Merlin: And I'm going to set you straight.
Merlin: I'm going to grab you by the ectoplasmic version of your lapels.
Merlin: I'm going to fucking shake your Venusian ass until you understand that I'm the man you're hiring.
Merlin: Your thoughts, John Arnold?
John: Well, I had a very long conversation with my 87-year-old uncle yesterday about this very topic.
Merlin: My 87-year-old uncle.
Merlin: I'm sorry, John.
Merlin: This very topic.
Merlin: If I called him today on whatever, would he be able to tell me what that very topic was?
John: Yeah, absolutely.
John: He was saying, grab your alien overlords by their ectoplasmic lapels and shake them.
John: No, he was saying this is a problem that he has experienced in his own life, which is that he...
John: he went to Yale college and his, and two of his classmates and people he knew fairly well were George Herbert Walker Bush and, um, um, uh, uh,