Ep. 45: "The Conditions of Love"
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
Merlin: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: Hi, how are you?
Merlin: I'm fine.
John: Merlin, man.
Merlin: John.
John: Merlin, man.
Merlin: Ooh, that sounded like a meditation thing.
John: I'm just sitting here meditating.
John: Meditating on how great life is and how good I have it.
John: Did you have a bad morning?
John: Every minute of a day is just a blessing.
John: I'm dressed already.
John: I'm not naked for this podcast.
John: I've had coffee.
John: I just feel so blessed.
Merlin: You know, life is a present that we give ourselves.
John: life as a president that we give ourselves andrew johnson doesn't get the credit he deserves if you know what i mean i feel like you know my my my general feeling that the world is going to hell and that it is largely a product of the fact that we have made it unfashionable to punch people in the nose it's it's just not accurate and what i really need to feel is that every day is a blessing
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: That is really refreshing.
Merlin: Wow.
Merlin: Are you familiar with the work of Susan Paula Schultz?
Merlin: Hmm.
Merlin: Does she Paula Schultzes?
Merlin: No, no, John.
Merlin: She doesn't.
Merlin: She writes... I think she had quite a run in the 70s and 80s writing those greeting cards with watercolors on the front.
John: Oh, I received a great many of those.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: You know, my mom is someone who expresses herself through greeting cards.
John: That is so hard to believe.
John: So it is.
John: It's very out of character, but I have a greeting card from her.
John: Not a greeting card, but a birthday card from her for every year of my life.
Merlin: She wasn't precisely greeting you.
John: Not greeting me, except like greeting each new day with an aphorism.
John: But, you know, there would be a card with a sunset on it.
John: And there would usually be some kind of onion paper in front of the paper of the card, right?
John: So that at first you look at the card and it's like kind of through a gauze.
John: And then you open the onion paper and there's the sentiment written in cursive.
Merlin: As though it had to be protected from a caustic world.
John: Yeah, or that it is an excerpt, an apocrypha from the Bible.
John: Some kind of middle portion of the Bible that got...
John: taken out like somebody with white cotton gloves has to take it out of a hermetically sealed take it out of each Bible each Bible which is the unerring word of God and then there's this thing that says you're the best son a mom could ever want to have
John: And then you open it up inside and then it's also another.
John: It says psych.
John: No, inside it furthers that thought with a poem.
John: And then my mom would sign it.
John: And sometimes she would echo the sentiment by saying, you're a good son.
John: Wow.
John: Do you think she really believed that?
John: I think she did.
John: Moms have certain blinders where they think that their terrible child, who's a force of pure destruction in the world, is actually a nice boy.
Merlin: I don't want to open an old womb, but it's a lot like the pit bull problem.
Merlin: They may just be remembering the days that she didn't tear a child apart.
Merlin: Not that they do that.
John: She thanked me on my 30th birthday for having survived.
Merlin: oh no see now that's really sweet but it was inside it was a very emotional moment actually thanks thanks well no she said you know from the time you were 15 until now i every time the phone rang at night i was sure that they were calling to say that you were dead oh my gosh that's a that's a real uh mixed uh kind of feeling huh so anyway now that you're 30 i can't believe it and congratulations and i'm really glad
John: And I was like, Oh God, I'm, I'm, I'm sorry that I made you feel that 15 years.
Merlin: That's, I guess you wouldn't say quite passive aggressive.
Merlin: Cause that doesn't seem like your mom's style, but no, no, no, not at all.
John: No, she was sincere.
John: She's being sincere.
John: she was explaining to me a very, a very like, not just sincere, but like a massive truth that, that continues to settle on my shoulders, which is that in order for her, in order to survive herself, she had to inure herself against the possibility that I might die at any time.
John: Oh God.
John: And that psychologically, that was a lot of work and a lot of heartbreak to, to say, I think what she said was, um,
John: I loved the years I had with you.
John: So knowing that you were certain to die, I had to be happy with the great times that we had.
John: Oh my gosh.
John: She was trying to make it through those years where I was...
John: where I was having all those high adventures that people think make me such an interesting person.
Merlin: I wouldn't say that, but you're definitely a handful, right?
Merlin: You're a handful for a while.
John: In fact, no, not a handful.
John: A handful is what you say about a puppy that pees on the rug.
John: I was a... A pistol?
John: No, a pistol is what you say about a little old lady who wears red cowboy boots.
John: Were you quite a ballplayer?
John: I was a homicidal maniac.
John: Which is not something that you would say about a puppy.
John: That's not something that you would say about an old lady.
John: Unless, of course, she was a homicidal maniac.
Merlin: But somehow I made it.
Merlin: Somehow I made it out.
Merlin: Well, let me – I'm so glad you did.
Merlin: It is a blessing, and it's a present that you put under your own tree.
Merlin: I'm going to read you something.
Merlin: I don't know if this is covered by fair use, but I'd like to read you one of the works of Susan Paula Schultz, if you don't mind.
John: This is going to be some situation where we get accused of plagiarism and then we have to explain that no.
Merlin: I am attributing it.
Merlin: I am attributing it to Susan.
John: In fact, we put lipstick on that picture and so it's now a new word.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: I think I might be seeing her name wrong.
Merlin: It's Schutz, which I think might be German for something.
Merlin: Schutz is German for sit.
Merlin: So Susan Paul is sit.
Merlin: That sounds like a command to a doggy.
Merlin: No, shoot.
Merlin: Schutz is shoot.
Merlin: Shush.
Merlin: As in the Schutzenfest in Scheisse?
John: It's a Schutzen Scheisse.
John: What is it?
John: Oh, no.
John: Sit.
John: Actually, sit in German is sits.
Merlin: How do you say Sith, like Darth Vader?
Merlin: How do you say that?
Merlin: Sithin slash Isis?
John: Sith is written – Sith is part of an international intergalactic space language, and it's translated the same as the Earth language.
Merlin: You know, I had a professor in college who after years later – That's a good place to have a professor if you're going to have one.
Merlin: Became one of the – perhaps the preeminent scholar of the Klingon language.
John: My esteem for your university education just went through the roof.
Merlin: I took his mnemonics class.
Merlin: Here's the thing.
Merlin: It's very difficult to teach people things.
Merlin: I think it's very difficult to teach people poetry.
John: It's very difficult to teach people things now that we can't use branding iron.
Merlin: That was a muted bell.
Merlin: I don't want to go nuts.
Merlin: Let me just finish this.
Merlin: Cough button.
Merlin: Let me finish this.
Merlin: Here's the thing.
Merlin: It's difficult.
Merlin: Sometimes you have to teach people something based on teaching them what it is not or should not be.
Merlin: That's how I teach young girls what safe touch is.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: So anyway, you can read Richard Hugo has a wonderful book on verse.
John: I know you love Richard Hugo.
Merlin: No, I know.
Merlin: But I mean his book on verse is actually – what is it?
Merlin: Real West Marginal Way.
Merlin: That's his biography.
Merlin: I forget the name of the – You're not going to start talking about bird by bird, are you?
Oh.
Merlin: There was one person – I don't think it was my professor.
Merlin: I think he was quoting someone.
Merlin: But for example, this is a great piece of advice for anybody.
Merlin: You're not a – you should just avoid the word love.
Merlin: And I think there's one rule.
Merlin: I'm trying to remember exactly what the rule is.
Merlin: But it's something along the lines of you're not allowed to use love as a transitive verb for the first nine years.
Merlin: You're right home.
Merlin: Something like that.
John: You know what?
John: I've been saying that to every girl I've dated since 1986.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: You know what you are?
Merlin: You're a poetry teacher.
Merlin: I really am.
Merlin: This is some verse from Susan Paula Schutz called I Love You So Much.
Merlin: It's the kind of thing I've been trying to find a way to say to you.
Merlin: I love you so much.
Merlin: I'm so glad you've made it to 40-something, and I'm really glad.
Merlin: So I'd like to read you a short bit of verse called I Love You So Much.
Merlin: Are you ready?
Merlin: And by the way, I am going to draw you something.
Merlin: I'm going to paint you something in watercolors and send this to you with tissue on it.
Merlin: Are you going to pronounce the word love with a W instead of an L?
Merlin: It's also very important to have what's called metaphysical distance, which is you can't be too matchy matchy.
Merlin: You can't be too close with things like the title, right?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I think you and I have a lot of metaphysical distance working here right now.
Merlin: I think this is something Richard Hugo talks about.
Merlin: It's called I Love You So Much.
Merlin: Since I met you, I've been so happy, except that I find myself worrying all the time.
Merlin: Uh-oh.
Merlin: Worrying that I might disappoint you.
Merlin: Worrying that our relationship might end.
Merlin: Worrying that you might not be happy.
Merlin: Worrying that something might happen to you.
Merlin: Jesus.
Merlin: I have fallen in love with you, and I guess I worry so much because I – You're a psycho.
Merlin: Because I care so much about you.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: Fan.
Merlin: Oh, fuck you.
Merlin: I love you so much.
Merlin: Susan polishes.
Merlin: Oh, that's the most fucked up poem I ever heard.
Merlin: But it surprised you to learn that she has a lot of fees?
John: I love you so much.
John: I watch you breathe while you're sleeping.
Merlin: And I think maybe about smothering you.
Merlin: Sometimes when I think about how much I love you, I watch you sleep and you look like a baby.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Would it surprise you to learn that she has a lot of these?
Merlin: It would not surprise me at all.
Merlin: Let me just, if you don't mind, I think this is covered by fair use.
Merlin: If you don't mind, I would like to read you a short piece of verse by Susan Paula Schutzt called Thoughts of You.
John: It would not surprise me to learn that she had...
John: That she had a lot of dead rubber dolls around her house.
Merlin: Let's circle back to this.
Merlin: John, I've been waiting for years.
Merlin: I'm so glad you made it to something 40.
Merlin: So I want to send this.
Merlin: And this is by Susan Paula Schutz.
Merlin: It's not by me.
Merlin: It's called Thoughts of You.
Merlin: In the morning, when the sun is just starting to light the day, I'm awakened.
Yeah.
Merlin: My first thoughts are of you.
Merlin: At night, I stare at the dark trees silhouetted against the quiet stars.
Merlin: I am entranced into a complete peacefulness.
Merlin: And my last thoughts are of you.
Merlin: Now, here's the thing.
Merlin: If you imagine this being a 50-year-old woman who's drinking tea, it's really super sweet.
Merlin: Like, especially if it's her husband who's sick or something, right?
Merlin: This would be so sweet.
Merlin: Imagine this being a 32-year-old man who's cleaning a gun.
Merlin: Thoughts of you in the morning.
John: Even a 50-year-old woman who is drinking gin.
John: Yeah.
John: And really even a 50-year-old woman who's drinking tea.
John: I don't want anyone to think of me as their last thought of the day and then their first thought of the next day.
John: That's true.
Merlin: John, I got to tell you something, buddy.
Merlin: I think that – I think if you're 16, if you're 14, that is completely understandable because you're still 11 years from having the middle part of your brain finish forming.
John: Right, but do you remember how painful that was?
Merlin: It was brutally painful, and it's totally understandable.
Merlin: And if you wrote this when you were 14, if you wrote this when you were a 32-year-old lone gunman, or you wrote this when you were out buying a used white van – I'm just telling you this is not right.
John: But if you wrote that when you were a 26-year-old girl who is beautiful in a flower dress and riding a vintage bicycle with flowers in the basket... I would love to get a poem from that girl.
John: If you wrote that, even as that girl, there is still something wrong with you.
John: There is no time after you are about 14 years old that that amount of obsession about another person is healthy or good.
Merlin: Okay, let's stipulate.
Merlin: This is a little bit like going after Rob McKeown.
Merlin: We are shooting fish in a lovely flowered barrel here.
Merlin: But it is super creepy.
John: But also, I recognize that there are people who fall in love with one another and they call each other four times a day for the rest of their lives.
John: And they are happy and the rest of the world is just a backdrop to the play that they are writing for and about one another.
John: But I cannot identify with that personally.
Merlin: What do you think of Hume Cronin and Jessica Tandy?
John: I doubt that they called each other four times a day.
John: No, they had jobs.
John: Yeah.
John: I bet you that they high fived on their way out the door in the morning.
John: Yeah.
John: And then at night they sat around and he played the piano and she told ribald stories.
John: And there were four or five, you know, Cary Grant was there.
Merlin: And they had like maybe like martinis or something.
John: Four or five friends.
John: They had martinis.
John: And then, you know, they went off to sleep in separate bedrooms because that's what people did then.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: There's this phrase you use, and I want to get the exact quote, screaming in your head, the screaming in one's head.
Merlin: There's a part of me that I don't want to sound cynical, John.
Merlin: As you know, I never want to come off cynical.
Merlin: I know, and you certainly don't.
Merlin: Thank you.
Merlin: There's a part of me that thinks if you're calling anybody four times a day, it might be because you don't want to hear the screaming in your head.
John: That's exactly right.
John: And the devil dogs are nipping at your heels.
John: Yeah.
John: rather than keep running for that 10 minutes, you need to call somebody and say, how's your day?
John: How's it going over there?
John: Oh, good.
John: Oh, I'm just sitting here just thinking of you.
John: I mean, when I felt that way about somebody, I felt that way about Lori Basler in 1980.
John: That's a crushable name.
John: And, uh, I bought her a, uh, I went to the store at Valentine's day, uh, because we were required then, even then we were required to buy Valentine's for all of our classmates.
John: Oh, you, in retrospect, that must drive you crazy.
John: Oh, it was, it was awful.
John: There were some of my classmates who did not deserve a Valentine from me.
John: And I did not want one from them.
Merlin: If they deserved anything, it was not a Valentine.
Merlin: It was an un-Valentine.
John: A strongly worded note from your mom.
John: What they deserved from me was an empty space where a Valentine would be.
Merlin: A willful empty space.
Merlin: This is a deliberately blank, intentionally blank Valentine.
John: This space is intentionally blank.
John: I went to the store and I bought the one gross of cheap Valentines for all my classmates that I was going to sit and go like, Happy Valentine's Day, John.
John: Happy Valentine's Day, John.
John: Happy Valentine's, John.
John: But I was so crazy about Lori Basler that I spent what was at the time a large portion of my pile of quarters that I used to sit and pour over my head in my bed with the door closed.
Yeah.
John: I took a lot of the quarters that I keep in jars, kept in jars, and I bought Lori Basler a huge box of chocolates, a giant red heart-shaped box of chocolates.
John: And I took it to school on Valentine's Day, and everybody exchanged their little paper valentines.
John: And I got a little paper valentine from Lori Basler that said, Happy Valentine's Day, Lori.
Wow.
John: And I was ashamed.
John: And I did not give her the box of chocolates.
John: And every day from February 14th until the last day of school on June 20th, I opened my locker and there was that big red box of chocolates.
John: And I looked at it and I said, today's the day I'm going to give the box of chocolates to Lori Basler.
John: And I never did.
John: And on the last day of school, my dad came to help me clean out my locker.
John: And he said, he opened the locker and he was like, oh, look at that, a big box of chocolates.
John: And he grabbed it and he ate it.
Merlin: Problem solved.
Merlin: Oh, my gosh.
Merlin: I'm very close to tears.
Merlin: That's horrible.
Merlin: Did you get a heart?
Merlin: Did you get a heart on the eye?
John: Did I what?
Merlin: Is it Lori?
Merlin: Lori?
Merlin: L-O-R-I?
Merlin: Lori's the kind of name where you put a heart on the eye.
Merlin: L-A-U-R-I-E.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: That's a cute name.
John: Lori Basler.
John: Did you tell him what he was eating?
John: No, I was covered in shame.
John: He was like, why do you have this big box of chocolates in here?
John: That's a great thing.
John: What a happy day.
John: They put it on the seat in the front.
John: He put it on the front seat of our Chrysler Newport Imperial.
John: And we drove home from school with all my papers in a plastic bag on the back seat.
John: And he was sitting and eating all the good chocolates out of it and saying like, oh, this summer is going to be great.
John: You're going to go to tennis camp.
Yeah.
Merlin: John Dunwell, that's a good fucking love poem right there.
John: Well, and then to make matters worse, then she died of leukemia.
Merlin: No way.
John: I'm afraid so.
Merlin: You're in a TV movie.
Merlin: I'm afraid she did.
Merlin: You're fucking Robbie Benson.
Merlin: Oh, shit, John.
Merlin: That's the worst.
John: That's right.
John: Champ.
John: Wake up, Champ.
John: Wake up, Champ.
Merlin: Old Yeller.
Merlin: The guy taking him out back.
Merlin: He's foamy.
Merlin: Oh, that's all.
Merlin: John, I'm so sorry.
Merlin: That's not funny.
Merlin: Well, no, it's not.
John: But I mean, it was many years later, but I never did ever, ever tell Lori Basler how I felt about her.
John: And how I felt about her was that I woke up every morning and was thinking about her and I went to bed every night and was thinking about her.
Merlin: It's so weird.
Merlin: In retrospect then, when it all was said and done, it's probably just as well that you did not give her a Susan Paula Schutt's poem called Be My Valentine, which ends thusly.
Merlin: Are you going to read that?
Merlin: No!
Merlin: Well, I mean, I committed it to memory, so I think it's covered by fair use.
Merlin: Yeah, sure.
Merlin: Let me see if I remember.
Merlin: Let's do the scanning.
Merlin: Let's see if I remember.
Merlin: Oh, yeah, okay.
Merlin: So it ends like this.
Merlin: Have fun with me in whatever we do.
Merlin: Work with me towards common goals.
Merlin: Dance with me to the rhythm of our love.
Merlin: Walk with me throughout life.
Merlin: Let us hug each other at every step in our journey forever in love.
Merlin: Do you know how sad it would have been if you gave that to her on some candy?
Merlin: Well, dance with me to the rhythm of our love.
Yeah.
John: Sounds suspiciously like a Rod Stewart lyric followed by, I was listening to Rod Stewart last night and he has a lyric in his song where he says, spread your wings and take me in.
John: And I think he's talking about vaginal wings.
John: Vaginal wings.
John: I think he's talking about labia.
John: Labia?
John: Labia.
John: Labia.
Merlin: Labiata.
Merlin: Pasta labiata.
John: Dance with me to the rhythm of our love.
John: When you say it, it sounds good.
John: You know, that's a thing that I might say to a stand-up bass.
John: That's something I might, as I'm wrapping my arms around a large bass guitar or bass violin, I might say, dance with me to the rhythm of our love.
Merlin: I don't want to make it too weird, but when you think of the rhythm of your love, I mean, is there anything that isn't potentially...
Merlin: This is another thing I learned in poetry class is to be careful about saying something that could be interpreted more than one way.
John: No, no, no.
John: Wrong, wrong, wrong.
John: You want to say everything in a poem wants to be interpreted multiple ways.
Merlin: Yes, but it has to have a concrete image.
Merlin: There has to be something concrete about it.
Merlin: And if it's open interpretation, I think that's okay.
Merlin: But you don't want to write a whole thing of ellipses.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, right.
Merlin: So is she talking about fucking?
Yeah.
John: Yeah, she's got to be.
John: The Rhythm of Our Love, what the hell is that?
John: Your heart going thump, thump, thump, and my heart going thump, thump?
Merlin: I don't want to beat this in the ground, John, but once again, what if you got that on a card from that 32-year-old guy?
John: I know.
John: Dance with me to the Rhythm of Our Love.
Merlin: What if it was a Travis Bickle-type situation, and you were taking time off from the campaign, and you gone out on a date, he took you to a dirty movie theater, and then he gave you a poem like that?
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Well, it's just like the scene in The Graduate.
John: Why did he take her to that strip bar?
Merlin: Holy shit.
Merlin: He wanted to dance with her to the rhythm of his love.
Merlin: Holy shit.
Merlin: Do you remember Travis Bickle?
Merlin: Love greeting cards.
Merlin: Do you remember that?
John: You know, one time I was sitting in the bath in a house that I lived in with some people who had lots of piercings and those giant earplugs that they make out of sink stoppers.
John: This was a long time ago when that was still very transgressive.
John: and I was sitting in the, I was sitting in the bathtub and somebody was doing a load of laundry and the washing machine was going in the other room.
John: I could hear it through the floor.
John: I was sitting in the bathtub and I might've been, I might've been very stoned, but so the bathtub was going and then overhead, there's a, there's a jet airplane and the jet airplane is like,
John: Because the jet engine noise is a chord, right?
John: There's multiple sounds and it makes a chord.
John: The jet is flying over and all of a sudden the chord that the jet is making syncs up with the thump, the thump, the thump of the washing machine and makes this fantastic music.
John: And I'm right in between them, not right in between them, I'm closer to the washing machine than I am to the jet.
John: But I am the only organism, the only thing in the world, except for maybe a termite, that perceives this moment of natural music being made.
John: And I'm lying there in the bathtub and I'm like, I am the meat of this sandwich.
John: I am the receptor.
Merlin: Yeah, you were like the only one there to hear it.
John: A tree fell in the forest and I was the only one there.
John: And I felt like, in a sense, that was...
John: dancing with the rhythm of the world's love.
John: Because that's happening right now to somebody.
John: You know what I mean?
John: Somewhere in the world right now in Indonesia, there's a guy sitting in a room and it's like in the movie Delicatessen.
John: There's somebody fucking on a bed next door and somebody else is sharpening a knife over here and he hears the song.
John: He hears the music.
John: No one else hears the music.
John: That's what we're talking about.
Merlin: You would be so much better at this, John.
Merlin: I don't know what you're doing for money these days, but I think maybe it's not a greeting card, but I think you should definitely send some anonymous notes to people.
Merlin: Susan Schutzenfest understands this music in a way that the rest of us can only... You think she might be hearing a jet that isn't even flying over our heads right now.
Merlin: Is that correct?
John: I'm guessing, listening to a little bit of the prose that you've recited, that she is operating at a level of acuity.
John: She's in tune.
John: And she's going to tune right in on you.
John: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: I do.
Merlin: I do.
Merlin: The car overheated.
Merlin: I called up and pleaded.
Merlin: There's help on the way.
Merlin: I called you.
Merlin: Collect you.
Merlin: Didn't accept.
Merlin: You had nothing to say.
Merlin: Some guys have all the luck.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Some guys have all the breaks.
Merlin: All the breaks.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Then wear the gold hat if that moves, sir.
John: If you can bounce high, bounce for her, too, until she cries lover.
John: Gold hat it.
John: High bouncing lover.
Merlin: i must have you it's late september and i really should be back at school i think that i shall never see a poem lovely as a tree now that the morning sun really shows your age isn't that the morning sun when it's in your face really shows your age that don't worry me not in my in my eyes you're everything yeah that's sweet that would be really sweet to say to somebody you look old in the morning
John: You know what?
John: In the 60s and early 70s, I think you could still say that to your Mrs. Robinson.
John: Your Mrs. Robinson.
John: It's like talking about the Holocaust.
John: You get it out of the way.
John: Well, you know, but back then, like a woman in her 40s felt like she was in her 40s.
John: You know what I mean?
John: Like the morning sun, when it's in your face, it really shows your age.
John: And she's like, I know.
John: I'm just glad somebody sees my face in the morning.
John: But that don't matter.
John: That don't bother me.
Merlin: Don't worry me.
John: Don't worry me.
John: In my eyes are everything.
John: You know, that's a turnaround.
John: Whereas now a woman in her 40s, in my experience at least, refuses to admit she's in her 40s for the most part.
John: And if you make any comment about her face in the morning sun, she's way ahead of you.
John: You know what I mean?
John: Like, oh, your face in the morning.
John: And she's like, stop right there.
John: That's another conversation you just can't have.
John: That's right.
John: And you go, what?
John: I was going to say that in my eyes you're everything.
John: And she's like, no, no, no.
John: That's not what you were going to say.
John: Shut up.
Merlin: This is another one of those things where there's words.
Merlin: There's bad words, right?
Merlin: It's off the table.
John: That's right.
Merlin: Bad words.
Merlin: Man.
John: You don't say your face.
John: Basically, you don't say your face and morning sun to a woman who's older than 26.
Merlin: Yeah, it sounds like you're playing her one-on-one.
Merlin: And you go, sun, sun in your face.
John: Yeah, you just don't say your face in the sun.
Merlin: Oh, it sounds like she's got damaged skin.
John: Right.
John: Or, you know, like, I can see your... No, she doesn't want to hear it.
John: I can see every cigarette you ever smoked.
John: God, don't...
John: Talk to me.
John: I found a time.
John: Don't talk to me first thing in the morning.
John: I wake up and I say, the first thought I had this morning was you, your face in the morning sun.
John: And I found a dime in a crack made by all the cigarettes you smoke.
John: Shut up.
Merlin: Yeah, I don't want to.
Merlin: I'm sorry to seem obsessed with this.
Merlin: It's just that like I keep turning this over in my head.
Merlin: I keep turning it over, turning it over.
Merlin: And I just I can't really land on anywhere where I'm super comfortable about it.
Yeah.
Merlin: But I don't know if you remember this, John.
Merlin: She had a whole section, the Schutz and Scheisse poems.
Merlin: She had her own section.
Merlin: How would I remember that?
Merlin: You didn't go to greeting card stores as a kid.
John: I went to greeting card stores.
John: being pulled by a team of horses and I managed to stop myself at the front door.
John: No, I didn't go to greeting card stores.
John: I never looked at a single self-help book my entire life.
John: There were whole sections of the bookstore that I stayed away from.
Merlin: You just stayed over in military history.
John: Not just military history, but all kinds of history.
John: But also, no, all the exciting... There are so many exciting parts of a bookstore.
John: Why would you go to a section where people were trying to tell you that they were thinking about you?
Merlin: You never wanted to learn how to make intercourse?
Merlin: You never go over the intercourse section?
John: I was very embarrassed...
John: To read about how to have sex.
Merlin: You wouldn't just take it and carry it over to the TSR book section and put it inside of a Dungeon Master's Guide?
John: I felt like a lot of things, and this is part of the problem of being a romantic, being a born romantic, is that I felt, and this is a problem in the arts too, where you feel like if you're going to be good at something, you should just discover it.
John: hmm you should not you should not pollute your experience by by learning about something before you're actually trying to do it you know what i mean like to go read about how to have sex after you've tried to have sex a few times that makes sense to me like okay i've done this now a few times and i want to figure out what doctors don't subscribe to that
John: Well, no, but you know, every doctor that I know knew when they were 14 years old that they wanted to be a doctor.
John: That's because they're psychotic.
John: Well, exactly.
John: Now, when I was 14 years old.
John: At a terrible age, they decided you want to help people.
John: I didn't even know what I wanted to do that afternoon.
John: And all of my friends that ended up being doctors were already like, I'm going to be a doctor.
John: Well, you got to start taking the classes.
John: You got to take biology.
John: Oh, I know.
John: And that terrifies me.
John: Every time I go see a doctor, I look at them and I realize you've been doing this since you were 14.
John: You have no other experience of the world than this.
John: You are terrifying me now.
Merlin: If you're going to hire a really good soldier of fortune, you're going to go in, you're going to hire that guy.
Merlin: You know that if that person is really good at their job, they've seen some shit.
John: Oh, they've been in the shit.
Merlin: They've made some decisions.
Merlin: They've definitely been in the shit.
Merlin: They made some decisions early on about where they're going to focus their attention, which is down the sights of a rifle probably.
John: When I was a young man, I spent a lot of time in hospitals being treated by student doctors because I didn't have any insurance.
Merlin: As a hobby?
John: No, I didn't have the money to get treated by a regular doctor.
John: And so I would go to the university hospital and they would say, yeah, sure, we'll take a look at your problem.
John: But there's going to be nine of us and every one of the students who's incidentally your age, each one of them is going to take a...
John: take a turn poking your liver and that's how you that's how you get free medical care you shouldn't have john if i could say if this is the time i think you shouldn't have anybody poking your liver nine times in a day well so i'm lying on a gurney and in they file and they're the medical students and each one of them takes it takes a turn poking at me with a you know with their forceps
John: And I would sit there and try and make light of the situation.
John: Hey, here we all are.
John: Only one of us is covered in blood, though.
John: And then they would give me some non-effective treatment.
John: And I would limp out of there.
John: But I saw a lot of young doctors, a lot of student doctors in that time with their wide, dewy eyes and their...
John: Their sense that they were going to one day have a jet ski.
John: That's in their faces, you know what I mean?
John: You look at them, they're thinking Porsche.
John: Porsche with a personalized license plate.
Merlin: Sounds like you're talking about residents.
Merlin: You know what kind of hours they work on purpose?
Merlin: It's like being with Arlie Ermey.
Merlin: They deliberately, it's part of the hazing that affects all of our health care, that they have to work ridiculous numbers of hours.
John: Yeah, to weed out the weak.
John: To weed out the ones that don't deserve a Porsche with a personalized license plate.
Merlin: To weed out the ones who would take one step back and go, this is not good for people.
Merlin: I need that portion.
John: Or to weed out the ones that are like, is there something else I should be doing, like swimming in the Mediterranean right now?
John: Or, I don't know, maybe like this guy lying on the Gertie.
John: Maybe I should be drinking myself insensible every night and getting in fistfights.
Right.
John: But no, instead I'm reading about the anterior cruciate ligament.
John: I'm dreaming of that Porsche that's going to make this all make sense to me.
Merlin: Can you imagine the guy who did the first Tommy John surgery?
Merlin: Can you imagine how much that guy made?
Merlin: Who did the first Tommy Bahama surgery?
Merlin: Isn't that the ACL?
Merlin: You're talking about the... Yeah, remember Tommy John, the pitcher?
Merlin: He was the first buddy... They started calling it Tommy John surgery because it's something that everybody, all the baseball players started getting.
Merlin: I didn't read Batman comics when I was a kid.
Merlin: Not at all.
Merlin: I just didn't even open it at all.
John: No, no.
John: I didn't like him.
Merlin: Yeah, you know Tommy John's a baseball player, though.
John: Yes, I agree.
John: He's not the one that took acid and pitched a perfect game.
John: No, no, I think that's Rod Stewart.
Merlin: He played soccer, right?
Merlin: I have heard about this.
Merlin: The guy was tripping balls and nobody got on base.
Merlin: Tripping balls, that'd be a great name for his memoir.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: That would be a great name for his memoir.
Merlin: Ripping balls.
Merlin: You should be writing people anonymous letters about improvement opportunities, and I should be coming up with the name of sports memoirs.
John: Now, as an aside, Merlin, I'm hearing a lot of digital artifacts.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Do you have, for example, Dropbox on?
Merlin: I know I say that probably.
Merlin: You ask me that every time, and I don't.
Merlin: I'm getting total robot voice from you, too, and I'm having no packet loss from mine.
John: I'm noticing now that I did not plug my DSL in, and we are doing this over wireless.
John: Wireless.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: Why don't you let's do this.
Merlin: If you get a sec, could you go ahead and DSL?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And I'll and I'll pour it in.
Merlin: What does that mean?
Merlin: Pour it in.
Merlin: Plug in your fucking thing and I'll restart.
John: OK.
John: All right.
John: Give me give me two minutes.
John: OK.
John: Tommy John.
Merlin: All right.
Bye.
John: So much better.
Merlin: Is it better?
John: I think it's better.
Merlin: Should we leave all this in?
Merlin: I think we should.
Merlin: Owing to the professionalism.
Merlin: There's so much I cut out every week, John.
Merlin: I don't know if you ever listen to the show, but I cut out.
Merlin: We record generally, let's be honest, we record for 6 to 11 hours and argue about religion for 4 hours, and then I cut out down to the best 90 minutes every time.
John: But you leave in everything, all the stuff I've been saying about Charlemagne and Napoleon, right?
Merlin: Oh, gosh, yeah, you had that whole three-episode arc just about Charlemagne.
Merlin: Good.
Merlin: I'm glad somebody heard that.
Merlin: Is he French?
Merlin: Is that right?
John: Uh, well, Charlemagne was a, was a, was a Frank.
John: He was a German, really.
John: Let's, let's be honest.
Merlin: He, he spoke German, but that was before it used to always be so clear cut though.
Merlin: Right?
John: Yeah.
John: There were, there was before there was a really like clear division.
John: His, his, uh, his favorite town, the headquarters of his empire was Aachen, which is now in Germany, but it was, you know, it was, it's right on the border.
John: It's the Western most town in Germany.
John: Aachen.
Merlin: Hmm.
Merlin: I'm glad I left all that in, because... Yeah, yeah, that's good stuff.
Merlin: That's good follow-up, yeah.
Merlin: Sarlo Manon stuff.
John: But I think it's important that people realize, Merlin, that you and I are human beings.
John: We're not just two guys with an encyclopedic knowledge of everything, with all of human... We're certainly not just that, to be sure.
John: We're not just that.
John: We are sometimes guys who forget to plug in their DSL cables.
John: We are guys who...
John: Can't lay their hands on their bell.
John: Oh, wait, wait.
John: I got my bell.
John: Here it is.
John: I was so impressed that so many people knew that my bell was from an old Parker Brothers game.
Merlin: It's called Pit.
John: Pit.
John: I had not seen that game since I took the bell out of it.
Merlin: John, I will be completely honest with you.
Merlin: I do promise you that I will laugh and cry with you.
Merlin: I do promise you that I will help you achieve all your goals.
Merlin: But most of all, I do promise you that I love you.
Merlin: That's from a poem called I Love You.
John: That's a hell of a promise.
John: I promise you that I love you.
John: I think that's covered by fair use.
John: I just read the last few lines.
John: You know what?
John: She doesn't say, I promise you that I will love you.
John: She promises you that she loves you.
John: Hmm.
John: Scary.
Merlin: Is that something you really want assurance on?
Merlin: Do you really want someone that feels like they – what did they say in the godfather?
Merlin: Do we really need to assure each other like lawyers?
John: The thing is people have this idea that unconditional love is the standard.
John: Below which they will not accept any other kind of love.
John: And somehow this idea that any of us deserve to be loved unconditionally or that such a thing is even possible has become a thing that we tell each other and tell ourselves back and forth.
Merlin: Until it seems normal.
John: Until it seems normal.
John: Until there are people of my own personal acquaintance who I know to be unlovable sacks of shit who believe that they deserve not just love, not just love,
John: Not just the love of like their mother, but unconditional love from a partner.
John: And I look at them and I go, you are unlovable.
John: You are a disgusting person.
John: How do you feel like you deserve unconditional love?
Merlin: So if I understand what you're saying, you're saying that really for their own, for practical purposes, they should at least be open to conditions.
John: Here's what I'm saying, that all of us can only love conditionally and only warrant being loved conditionally ourselves.
Merlin: That's like contract law.
Merlin: We should come up with what you can fucking put up with.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: Is that fair to say?
John: When you say to a kid, like, I love you, but go clean up your room, what you're saying is, I love you, but if you don't clean up your room, I will stop loving you.
Merlin: But they understand that's a condition.
John: Yeah, and they understand that that's a temporary love stoppage.
John: until your room is clean.
Merlin: Like a union would do?
Merlin: Like a love slowdown?
Merlin: That's right.
John: Yeah, it's a love slowdown.
John: It's like the love is going to pile up on the sidewalks.
John: It's going to start to smell bad in the sun until you get the room cleaned.
John: And in our relationships with one another, you see this happen all the time.
John: Like, oh yeah, I mean, I love you, I love you, I love you, but...
John: You really screwed me up.
John: You really screwed the pooch last night on the whole like washing the dishes after dinner thing.
John: So I'm going to be kind of pouty and respond monosyllabically for an hour or two.
John: It's all conditional love.
John: Conditions, conditions, conditions.
Merlin: Your feelings for Lori.
Merlin: Did you have conditions in mind when you didn't give her chocolates?
Merlin: Let me put it this way.
Merlin: If you had had a chance to talk to her and she had given you anything more than, let's be honest, a completely perfunctory fucking Valentine.
Merlin: If you had had a meeting of the minds with her, as Judge Wapner would say, what kind of contract would you both accept and offer to a Lori?
Merlin: God rest her soul.
John: Well, here's the thing.
John: Lori, by all appearances, had a crush on Brian Namany.
Merlin: Fucking Brian Namany.
John: And Brian Namany, first of all, he was... What a horrible name.
John: He was a little teeny...
John: elf-like boy who was the same size as the girls.
John: And he was pretty like the girls.
Merlin: Like non-threatening.
John: He had blonde feathered hair.
John: And it's not that he was particularly suave.
John: He was like Nick Rhodes.
John: You know what I mean?
John: He was pretty.
John: I didn't even dislike him.
John: I liked Brian Namany.
John: He was completely inoffensive.
John: But why Lori Basler should love Brian Namany
John: Or not even love him, but just like she gave him a lot of attention.
Merlin: Do you think she was aware of your feelings?
Merlin: I mean, she never got the heart.
John: She had to have been aware of them.
John: But then that is a mistake I've made my whole life.
John: Assuming that they know the conditions.
John: Assuming that the person knows how I feel, even though all of my outward actions are to...
John: look away when they are there.
John: And I mean, if we had inkwells, I would have dipped her pigtails in the inkwells.
Merlin: She didn't even have pigtails.
Merlin: Oh my God, that's such a great way to show that you love somebody.
John: She had blonde hair and she had a Dorothy Hamill haircut because that was the fashion at the time because of Dorothy Hamill.
Merlin: Oh, you were awfully young, so you're like eight.
John: eight or nine yeah eight to ten to twelve I mean it was she was my first she was my first and really awful really the last time I ever felt that way but the last time I let myself ever feel that way about somebody
John: Because who can take the heartache?
John: Did I want to be 24 years old and have my dad eating that box of chocolate, that self-same box of chocolates?
John: You don't need that shit.
John: Yeah.
John: Did I want my dad opening up the box with the engagement ring in it and being like, oh, look at this, look at this, free ring.
Yeah.
Merlin: I'm sorry that I can't get away from the idea of the conditions.
Merlin: But you hear that phrase so much.
Merlin: It's one of those things like – Unconditional love.
Merlin: We hear people say things like incipient, but you never hear them say incipient.
Merlin: Like you hear unconditional love.
Merlin: You never hear people talk about the obvious fucking elephant in the room, which is what should be the conditions of love.
Merlin: Conditional love.
Merlin: That would be – the conditions of love would be a terrific Susan Paulus Schutzenfest.
John: The number one condition that most people put on love – What did I say?
John: What did I say?
John: The conditions of love?
John: The conditions of love.
John: That's good.
John: Wasn't that a Peter Gabriel record?
Merlin: I think it's a Raymond Carver story.
Merlin: It's a Raymond Carver story.
John: But the number one condition that people put on love is that the other person must love them unconditionally first.
John: You know what I mean?
John: That's the number one thing.
Merlin: I'm hitting it with a pencil because I so agree with you.
Merlin: You're absolutely fucking right.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I don't want to hit love unconditionally.
John: That's my number one condition.
Merlin: That's good.
Merlin: Here's the first – you know what it is?
Merlin: It's like asking the genie for more wishes.
Merlin: You go in and you say here's the condition is you have no conditions.
John: My first wish is I want five more wishes.
Merlin: Fuck you.
Merlin: Shut up.
Merlin: It's all over for you.
Merlin: You're on fire.
Merlin: OK, but here's the thing, John.
Merlin: John, you are a scientist.
Merlin: You are a rationalist.
Merlin: You're a Hobbesian.
Merlin: You are a man who is not afraid to argue with John Vanderslice about the price of a trailer that was not going to be bought.
Merlin: I'm still arguing with him.
Merlin: Harrowing.
Merlin: Harrowing moment in my life.
Merlin: I've seen you argue with people about things that did not need to be argued about until I realized after hearing you argue about it, it sure as shit needed to be argued about.
Merlin: So here's what I'm saying to you.
Merlin: You're a man who's not afraid.
Merlin: John, are you a man who's afraid to discuss a condition?
Merlin: Absolutely not.
John: We should establish what the conditions are.
Merlin: That's the primary directive.
Merlin: This is not what I signed up for.
Merlin: These nacho chips and this 14-year-old girl in my dressing room is not anything that's going to put gas in my van, correct?
John: Exactly.
John: Exactly.
John: Don't try and pay me with Dasani water.
John: I want American dollars.
Merlin: That's fucking raccoon aqua, my friend.
Merlin: So here's the thing.
Merlin: You have – it seems to me you have not only have no compunction.
Merlin: You have the opposite of compunction.
Merlin: You have in compunction about going to people and fucking throwing down some conditions, right?
Merlin: You say bring the genie to me.
John: Here's the first thing I say is what are your conditions?
Merlin: Oh, make them come up with a price first.
Merlin: Yeah, I'm not the guy who's like, here are my conditions.
Merlin: This is part of the problem with the Vanderslice trailer.
Merlin: We're going to have to cut this whole thing out.
Merlin: That was something you had not even completely negotiated.
Merlin: The part you had negotiated had been reneged upon vis-a-vis a third party that you had no litigious control over.
Merlin: Correct.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: I've never been to law school, but it seems to me that that was the problem was that there was a loophole in the condition.
John: The whole business of like agreeing with somebody over the telephone about how something's going to go.
John: And then when you see them next, they're like, well, I didn't agree to that.
John: That is a real... Oh, boy.
Merlin: That's got to really stick in your legal craw.
Merlin: It gets me going.
Merlin: It really does.
Merlin: How do you open the post-negotiation settlement on something like that?
Merlin: Do you point out that you said something different on the phone?
Merlin: Do you push fucking reality into their face?
Merlin: You have to do it once.
Merlin: Make them smell it.
Merlin: You did this.
John: You did this.
John: But if they say, like, I have no recollection...
John: Then it's just like, well, I mean, then you have to retreat back to what's at stake here?
John: Like, am I prepared to take this thing in this instance, in this hypothetical instance, this large van trailer?
Merlin: A hypothetical trailer that was going to cost you gas time and parking.
John: Am I prepared to drive this trailer back to Washington from California just on principle?
Pfft.
John: Just on principle, am I prepared to take this trailer back to Washington?
John: So many people would say no.
John: The answer is yes.
John: Absolutely yes.
John: On principle, I will take this trailer away from you.
John: I will burn this trailer in the desert rather than give it to you for one...
John: thinning less than we agreed to on the phone right and uh it's like it's existentially usurious for you to be put in that situation yeah you don't know you're the asshole i don't think so you don't do the you don't do the thing where you're like oh yeah we'll figure that out when you get down here and then be like oh i thought we had it all figured out which was that you were going to take it in the shorts yeah
Merlin: Here's something just to think about.
Merlin: I mean if you – I don't actually read to the end of contracts a lot of the time.
Merlin: But it seems to me that a contract is where you both agree that something is going to happen by a certain date and perhaps importantly what the terms of that are.
Merlin: I think very importantly, what happens if the conditions of this are not met?
Merlin: It seems to me that that's part of the clarity of a contract, right?
John: Well, and this is the problem because there was a time until very recently –
John: Where in a situation like that, you could avail yourself of the option of punching them in the nose.
Merlin: But we have convinced ourselves that civilization requires – You think that's a legal – that's a mode of legal recourse up until recently?
John: It's certainly – I think President Andrew Jackson punched a lot of guys in the nose.
Merlin: It's in the Magna Carta.
Merlin: They said either your signature or your brains are going on that thing, John.
John: That's right.
John: And Charlemagne would take him out to the river and he would say convert to Christianity or try and breathe underwater.
Merlin: Is that right?
Merlin: And that's how we know that you were a true believer, our bad.
Yeah.
Merlin: It's like a ducking stool.
John: Well, or just like either we're going to have a Christian world or we're going to have a lot of dead people in this river.
John: Hard or easy.
John: That's right.
John: Hard way or the easy way.
John: So it was until very recently that we could still say, like, a punch in the nose is on the table here as one of a potential list of rewards and consequences as part of this negotiation.
Merlin: It's implicit.
Merlin: It's one of those things like don't show up naked.
Merlin: It's one of those things where I shouldn't have to tell you this.
Merlin: Yeah, that's right.
Merlin: I will hold as a motive recourse fucking punching you in the face, and I don't even need to say that.
John: Right.
John: But we have decided as a culture, as a civilization, that punching people in the nose is barbaric and that it is no longer an option.
John: Yet, the behavior...
John: Yeah.
John: So you get these situations where someone is being a douche.
John: You can't punch them in the nose because that's uncivilized.
John: And so you are at an impasse.
John: You can't respond to a douche in any other way.
John: You can't argue with them.
John: You can't convince them.
John: There's nothing you can hold over their head.
John: So they're just dancing in a field of flowers, just douching it up, and they know there are no consequences because if you – The punch in the nose has been taken off the table.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: If you even make a fist, you have become part of the – You know, that's assault.
John: That counts as assault.
John: That's right.
John: The threat of a punch in the nose is now considered assault.
Merlin: A lot of people don't understand the difference between assault and battery.
John: And here's the thing.
Mm-hmm.
John: I'm like anybody.
John: I don't want to get punched in the nose.
John: I agree that punching people in the nose is barbaric.
John: I've been punched in the nose, unlike a lot of my contemporaries.
John: I have good reason to not want to be punched in the nose.
John: And let me tell you,
John: The fear or the threat of being punched in the nose, actually, it actually changed my behavior at a certain point.
John: I was getting punched in the nose with surprising regularity and I wanted it to stop.
Merlin: So you started holding up your side of the bargain because you knew it was on the table.
John: Well, either this is a vast conspiracy or I'm getting punched in the nose because of something I'm doing.
John: And then I started to say, maybe I should stop being such a flaming asshole to people who are bigger than me or have violent eyes.
John: And I became a more moderated person.
John: And unfortunately, I do not like to be the one who delivers punches in the nose either.
John: But there are those certain situations in life when someone at the supermarket does not keep moving, does not get out of the way.
John: And when you ask them to either keep moving or get out of the way, preferably both.
Merlin: You got to do it.
John: Let's keep moving and get out of the way.
Merlin: That's what people don't understand.
John: They turn to you and they give you some horseshit entitlement lecture.
Merlin: Like you're stepping on their obscure religion.
John: Yeah.
John: And you look at them and you go –
John: The threat of a punch in the nose is the only thing I have here now.
John: The situation warrants it, first of all, but also it's my only recourse.
John: And yet, if I do it, this person is going to literally call the police.
John: And then I'm going to be the guy... You probably lose your place in line, too.
John: You know, you lose your place in the big line, which is the line up to the head of the class where people start listening to your podcast.
John: You know what I mean?
John: Like, you don't... You lose your... You lose...
Merlin: You don't want it splashed across the headlines.
Merlin: John Roderick punches old lady in the face because of the conditions, John.
John: I had a situation like this a few years ago.
John: Where I was at an event and some guy, some drunk guy was shouting in my face.
John: And it was a hectic situation.
John: A lot of people, there was kind of a brawl.
John: A lot of people were falling down.
John: Other people were in trouble.
John: People were shouting my name, like, come help me.
John: And this guy's in my face, and he's shouting in my face.
John: And he's getting spit on me.
John: And I told him a couple of times, like, you need to please, like, step away from me.
John: Please back up.
John: Please do not shout in my face.
John: And he's drunk, right?
John: So he's not...
John: And he believes that that excuses him or at least, you know, he believes that he is funnier than he is.
John: He believes he's smarter than he is and he's quicker witted and that he has faster reflexes than he does.
John: And he's right there in my face and he says something about how there are going to be consequences.
John: And he's talking about a friend of mine that's across the room that's calling my name.
John: He's in between me and this guy.
John: There are going to be consequences, blah, blah, blah.
John: Well, I don't even remember how it happened.
John: But I was like, there are going to be consequences.
John: Pow!
John: And I punched him right in the nose.
John: And unfortunately, it was a well-landed punch in the nose.
John: And he began to bleed all over the place.
John: And I have to say that it did not, that me punching this guy in the nose did not de-escalate the situation.
John: Worldwide.
John: Like in the room, spilling out onto the sidewalk.
John: Now it was a free-for-all.
John: And he was screaming and the aid car came.
John: What's the aid car?
John: The ambulance.
Merlin: Oh, I thought it was one of those yellow light things.
Merlin: It's not quite the police.
John: No, no, no, no.
John: Community service people that pull bums out of dumpsters.
John: And they weren't there for him.
John: They were there for some other person who had gotten hurt in some other aspect of this brawl.
John: But here I was.
John: I punched this guy in the nose.
John: I felt like such a ding dong.
John: And then he then after I mean, he certainly retreated.
John: But then when he was surrounded by people who were like petting his hair and telling him it was going to be OK, he got bold again.
John: And then with blood on his shirt, he stands up and confronts me again, screaming.
John: And now now he's getting blood on me.
John: And I punched him in the nose again.
John: Oh, no.
John: I'm really not proud of it.
John: But the problem was that the following day, he took it to Facebook.
Merlin: Oh, this is as recently as Facebook?
John: Yeah, this is very recently.
John: I'm not proud of this story, but he took it to Facebook and was accusing me.
John: And it turns out he was gay.
Merlin: Oh, so it was a hate crime.
John: So it was a hate crime.
John: And he turned it into a thing where I had...
John: Gay bashed him.
Merlin: Oh, come on.
Merlin: But he was, he was like crazy drunk guy.
Merlin: And his friends were not like grabbing him and pulling him away.
John: Well, his friends were all drunk too.
John: And they were just, they were, it was one of those things where they had, they were living in a world where they believed they were post punch in the nose.
John: Right.
John: And so you can get up in somebody's face in a bar.
John: You can get up in us in the one sober guy in the bar's face, drunken spittle on him.
John: screaming at him about bullshit and telling him there are going to be consequences and all this stuff, and you believe you're living in a post-punch-in-the-nose reality.
John: And...
John: And then you get punched in the nose.
John: And you realize you are not in a post-punch-in-the-nose reality.
Merlin: That must be, if I may say, rather sobering.
John: Well, but then when he sobered up and when he weighed the situation, he, again, believed he was living in a post-punch-in-the-nose reality because he began to threaten legal action.
John: He began to call it a hate crime.
John: He did all these things, all these kind of like...
John: Shaming tactics and operating on the assumption that a punch in the nose above all else, like to resort to physical violence in a scenario where you are being, let us say, emotionally violent.
Merlin: Wasn't this guy tacitly threatening violence against you?
Merlin: He's talking about consequences and stuff.
John: That's the thing.
John: People who are living in a post-punch-in-the-nose world, they believe they can get up in your face and talk about there are going to be consequences and be physically threatening.
John: But since a punch in the nose is impossible...
John: then they aren't actually being physically threatening.
John: They don't, they, they don't perceive themselves as threatening violence, even though everything they're doing is suggesting that.
Merlin: But what do they think?
Merlin: It's like two pro wrestlers on the phone.
Merlin: I mean, like nothing's going to happen.
John: They think it is a giant costume drama or they think that it's something that they've seen on television where people get up in each other's face and that that happens in a vacuum and that it isn't a hundred thousand year old tradition of escalating a situation until somebody punches someone else in the nose.
John: And it's really, I confess to being a little bit prehistoric in this regard, that there are some situations where, particularly if you're standing on my shoes and spitting in my face.
Merlin: It does not matter what your sexual orientation is, and nothing could be more paternalistic or more, I don't want to say homophobic, but nothing could be more paternalistic than going, you are such a flaming asshole who is threatening me with violence, and now I'm going to sit here and parse your sexuality.
Merlin: I don't think that's how it works.
John: Well, that was the least of my concerns because he was also a university person and he was threatening all the different levels of which this was bodily assault.
Merlin: A university person?
John: By which I mean he was a graduate student.
Merlin: Oh, dear me.
Merlin: So he had all of the language.
Merlin: So he could write a dissertation about you.
John: He could.
John: He could write a very – he could write a series of very long – Strongly worded thesis.
John: Very long series of Facebook posts.
John: But, of course, what he didn't know is that I'm also an amateur lawyer.
John: So I knew –
John: I knew that he didn't know what he was talking about.
John: And I just, I just blocked him.
Merlin: I'm blocking you counselor.
John: I was like, tell you what, go ahead and get, get all your friends all real upset about it.
John: But what, but the whole point of this was that I became conscious at that point of being a public figure.
John: And the sense was not that I was a guy in a bar who had punched an asshole in the nose, but it was that I was a person whose whose name was recognizable and who was a recognizable character.
John: And so this guy had, you know, it's the it's the I spilled McDonald's coffee in my lap and I'm suing them for a billion dollars.
John: His reaction was not commensurate with with the with the incident.
Merlin: You know that coffee actually was too hot.
John: I know it was.
John: Okay.
John: I know.
John: The coffee's too hot.
John: The hot tub's too hot.
John: I flew all the way down here.
Merlin: Yeah, we got to put out all this wicker just for you.
John: We got the small chair just for you, and you're never happy.
Merlin: It's not funny.
John: It's too hot.
John: It's not funny.
John: It's too hot.
John: I still watch that once a month.
John: But he then was, you know, he was blowing his injury out of proportion.
John: I mean, really, he posted a picture of himself.
John: He did look terrible.
John: Ha ha.
John: Oh, you had black eyes.
John: But I mean, I know that there are people who are listening to this who are saying to themselves, I don't want to be punched in the nose.
Merlin: Nobody wants to be punched in the nose.
Merlin: That's why we have it.
Merlin: That's why it's there.
John: I don't think punching someone in the nose is an appropriate reaction.
John: I don't think it should be on the list of consequences that we have in civilized society.
John: And I'm afraid that I agree with you.
John: I don't like to be punched in the nose either.
John: I don't like punching someone in the nose.
Merlin: But this is the point.
Merlin: This is the point of the whole thing.
Merlin: And this is where the conditions come back in.
John: If you don't want to be punched in the nose, don't drunkenly stand on somebody's shoe tops.
Merlin: No, it's absolutely true.
Merlin: Here's my only thought.
John: That should be on the front page.
John: It should be on the title page of the owner's manual for being an adult.
Merlin: If you were the TA for whatever he was writing on Facebook, your note in the margin would be you need to go spend a little more time on the history of what it used to be like in pre-punch-in-the-nose culture.
John: That's right.
Merlin: You need to be ready.
Merlin: The fact there's going to be traditionalists.
Merlin: There's going to be people who still like the shakers, like the friends.
Merlin: There are people who still cling to these values.
Merlin: Just because they don't own a car doesn't mean they can't run you over with something.
Merlin: You know?
John: That's true.
John: I think a lot of people think that they are smaller than they are.
John: Like, they inhabit their own body and their own soul, and they think that they are smaller and less significant than they appear to be to other people.
John: You know?
John: So, this guy, his perception of himself was probably that he was an elfin, delicate flower.
John: And that was obvious to everyone.
John: And he does not realize that he is a 5'11",
John: screaming monster of an alcoholic.
John: And so his reaction to being punched in the nose is somewhat based on his self-perception of being like this defenseless victim that he's, that he's felt like he's been his whole life.
John: And in actual fact, most people who feel like victims, I mean, most of the people who are like cutting you off in traffic, who are being total cocks to you in the, in the supermarket are,
John: If you really get to the bottom of their problem, it is that they feel like a victim all the time.
John: They feel like everybody's stepping on them.
John: And that's why they're justified in being a shithead all day.
Merlin: Well, as somebody who really is a giant pussy, I'm not qualified to really address this.
Merlin: I mean, like you, I am an amateur lawyer as well.
Merlin: It just seems to me, though, that there actually was an opportunity for both of you here to learn.
Merlin: I mean, I'm not saying that you taught him a lesson, quote unquote.
Merlin: The real lesson would have been talking to him after about why you fucking punched him in
Merlin: the nose and said, Hey, look, I used to be that guy.
Merlin: I've been punched in the nose a lot.
Merlin: I've been you.
John: Well, here's the problem with alcoholism.
John: It is that it clouds your thinking and it makes you not interesting to talk to.
John: I mean, what I learned in that was that, uh, even though I had not punched somebody in the nose in many years, I still, I still was able to do it and walk and walk away, you know, feeling pretty good about myself.
John: Not good about myself.
John: I mean, I felt ashamed because, believe me, I've had more than a few cups of the Kool-Aid that says that violence is not a solution.
John: So I did not feel good about it.
John: But when I replayed the events, I absolutely arrived at that punch in the nose moment and each time punched him in the nose anew.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: You replay it in your head.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: I replay all these podcasts in my head.
John: I don't listen to them.
John: No.
John: But I replay them and I think, hmm, should I have punched Merlin in the nose at that point?
John: No, I shouldn't have.
Merlin: He's a long way away.
Merlin: I hope I've never gotten completely to that point.
John: The major progress that I've made in life has been gradually coming to an understanding that I am not a victim of anything, of anyone.
John: You're taking power in your life.
John: Well, it isn't even that.
John: It's just eliminating the sulky option of feeling like other people are inflicting life on me.
Merlin: That everything bad that happens... This is something Susan Paula Schutz has addressed.
Merlin: She says, this life is yours.
Merlin: Take the power to choose what you want to do and do it well.
Merlin: Take the power to control your own life.
Merlin: No one else can do it for you.
Merlin: Take the power to make your life happy.
Merlin: Susan Paula Schutz.
Merlin: She didn't use the word love once in that poem.
Merlin: I didn't read the whole thing.
John: Oh.
John: Take the power.
John: So she's... Take this life is yours.
John: She's getting a little Anne Randi there.
John: Mmm...
John: Yeah, take the power.
John: Build the railroad.
John: I think take the power asshole would be more Ayn Rand.
John: Right.
John: Oh, I see.
John: Way to correct my pronunciation.
Merlin: Oh, sorry.
John: Rond.
Merlin: Sorry.
Merlin: Ayn Rond.
Merlin: Ayn Rond.
John: Lobby.
John: It's a Moog synthesizer.
John: It's not a Moog.
John: It's a Moog.
John: Man, was she sick for a long time, Laurie?
Yeah.
John: You know, we went to different high schools.
John: And so, in one sense, I only saw her one more time, which was at a cross-country running meet my junior year in high school.
John: And this was right in that moment where it was after I decided, it was after really that my dad decided that I was going to be a cross-country runner.
Yeah.
John: But before we all realized that cross-country running was not going to, that was not the way I was going to get into the Olympics.
John: My first cross-country running meet, the other kids on the team, I'd never run cross-country and the other kids on the team were like, what you have to do is, you know, we all start in a big group of people and you have to get out in front.
John: You have to get out in front of everybody.
John: Because otherwise you get back in the pack and you can't move.
John: And I was like, okay, right, get out in front of everybody.
John: And the gun went off and I sprinted.
John: And by the time we got to the half mile mark of this 10K race, I was 200 yards in front of the next closest runner.
John: And I said to myself, I am the king of this sport.
John: Why has no one ever done this before?
John: I am the greatest cross country runner in the world.
John: I'm not even tired.
John: And I am.
John: They can't even see me.
John: I'm so far ahead.
John: And people were cheering.
John: They were like, he's a genius.
John: And we rounded that first turn and we headed up that first hill.
John: And about halfway up that first hill, my heart turned to stone.
John: And I could not get enough air in my lungs no matter how hard I tried to breathe.
John: And one by one, every runner from every high school in the state of Alaska ran past me as I gasped for breath.
John: And the cheering died down?
John: The cheering died down.
John: And at the two-kilometer mark, I was limping like a flogged mule.
John: LAUGHTER
John: And I had to continue to run that race just like, I mean, like a war veteran.
John: I came in so far.
Merlin: You mean like with crippled legs but proud resolve?
John: Yeah, like turkey legs.
John: And when I crossed the finish line, all the other runners from all the other schools were already on the bus in their sweats.
Yeah.
John: And I dragged my ass across that thing, and I lay on the grass gasping, and no one really had anything nice to say.
John: Everybody was just kind of like, yeah, good effort, or whatever.
John: I think my dad was in the car listening to 8-track tapes.
John: At home, they bore you shoulders high.
John: Pennsylvania 6-5000.
John: That's pretty good.