Ep. 52: "The Choad Building"
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hey, John.
Merlin: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: How's it going?
Merlin: Merlin, man.
Merlin: Oh, you brought it back.
John: For some reason, my headphones are a lot louder today.
John: You sound louder.
John: I can't hear myself in my headphones, so I don't sound any different.
John: Well, we should redo it.
John: I don't know.
John: No, no.
John: I like it.
John: It's bold.
John: It's bold as love.
Merlin: Hmm.
Merlin: I can modulate my voice a little more.
John: No, no, no.
John: God, don't do that.
Merlin: Okay.
John: You sound like Twiggy from the original Buck Rogers.
John: Bidi, bidi, bidi.
Merlin: Speaking of penises, I just a minute ago saw Jimi Hendrix's penis as a plaster cast.
John: No!
John: Yeah.
John: Do you know Cynthia Plastercaster?
John: Are you familiar with her work?
Merlin: I just visited her entirely Flash-based site and looked at it.
Merlin: It's really quite a thing.
John: I have not seen it myself, but my understanding is that Jimmy's penis curves to the side or something?
Merlin: Well, flash technology notwithstanding, it was just a straight-on side shot.
Merlin: Oh, I see.
Merlin: I don't want to use this word incorrectly, but I think it might be regarded as a chode.
Merlin: A chode.
Merlin: Isn't that the technical term?
Merlin: Not a fireplug, because it's considerable.
Merlin: It's a long-scale penis, but it's real big around.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: It might have been the plaster they could get at the time.
John: My impression is that a chode is shaped like a safety cone.
John: Oh, really?
John: It tapers.
John: But, you know, I've used that word to refer to so many things in my short life.
John: Maybe its original meaning is lost.
Merlin: That's a terrific word.
Merlin: The way that it was explained to me at a time when these words were achieving a lot of cultural cachet...
Merlin: uh and i'm just gonna tell you what i was told because there's there's a lot of these kinds of things you hear and it sticks in your head even though it doesn't make sense i was told that it's a penis that's bigger around than it is long oh right okay i see what you're saying which which sounds like a child's block
Merlin: Or something.
Merlin: I mean, you know, cylindrical, I guess.
John: Yeah, like a wheel of cheese.
Merlin: Like a Japanese man.
Merlin: Can you have a Japanese chode?
Merlin: That's a good word.
Merlin: There's a lot of words like that that I'm not sure that I'm using correctly.
Merlin: That's a great word, though.
Merlin: It sounds great.
John: Yeah, although it's not a word.
John: I mean, a chode is not a word that you would say use when you were meeting your local candidate for lieutenant governor.
Yeah.
John: You know what I mean?
John: You wouldn't shake somebody's hand and then find a way to slip chode into the conversation.
Merlin: Do you think he'd be familiar with the term?
Merlin: It depends.
Merlin: It depends on what state, probably, right?
John: I bet he would.
John: I bet he would.
Merlin: I think the problem is that somebody in the room would out you.
Merlin: I bet you'd get a lot of snickers in the room.
John: Either that or the guy that's standing right behind the lieutenant governor whose job it is to move him from conversation to conversation.
John: Oh, right.
Merlin: His handler.
John: His handler.
John: His handler would lean forward and say, that's not what chode means, sir.
John: And then you wouldn't have a chance to correct yourself because the lieutenant gubernatorial candidate would already be talking to three old ladies.
John: This press conference is over.
Merlin: I could really benefit from having a handler.
John: Oh, my God.
John: Oh, I sink into my chair in frustrated exhaustion at the thought that I don't have a handler.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I've sought out handlers.
Merlin: It sounds like you have on some level sought out handlers, but I haven't found anybody who can handle me.
John: Well, you know, my feeling about you and some of my friends who have been successful enough to attempt to hire someone to help them,
John: is that I have never heard a story about that that didn't sound scary, where the person did not get what it took to handle you.
John: The person, whomever of all my friends...
John: Whomever they hire to handle them, they end up having to handle the person that they hired to handle them.
John: Handling the handler.
John: You're handling the handler, and the handler is just passing that handling through back to you with all the good parts filtered out.
John: Oh, God, yes.
John: And you're just like, this isn't – I'm handling – now I'm handling myself more poorly, and I'm also having to handle this jerk.
Merlin: This is a big series of topics.
Merlin: But yes, I totally agree.
Merlin: I have –
Merlin: I have attempted to find handlers professionally and personally, and it's just been very hard for the reason you described, which is, first of all, you have to want to be handled, and you have to be open to the changes required to make a handler effective.
Merlin: And even if you've got all the money in the world, if you don't want to be handled, you're not going to have a good handler.
Merlin: Unless you're like a Roger Waters, like Pink Floyd situation.
Merlin: Well, you know, like the titular Pink.
Merlin: And you are such a basket case.
Merlin: Don't you think Shane McGowan probably has a handler?
John: Yeah, but Shane McGowan's handler has a fire hose and a... A series of very large tongs.
John: Yeah, and a tiger whip.
John: And he wakes him up with the hose and then just whips him into the shower.
John: Yesterday, I...
John: I decided, I don't know why, and I honestly don't know why I haven't done this in the last four years.
John: I started looking online at office space for myself away from my home.
John: And I was going through all the different neighborhoods of the city and imagining myself getting up in the morning and commuting over to this other neighborhood where I would...
John: go sit in a, in a room with a window and the, and the whole point of me being there would be that I would write.
John: And I was trying to, trying to picture like, okay, do I want to be in a space where it's a kind of creative office space where there are other creative people like painters and, and, you know, and dance artists.
John: choreographers and have a space in a place like that where I can come out and stand kind of leaning in the doorway of my office with a cup of coffee in my hand.
John: waiting for somebody with clay on their shirt to walk past.
Merlin: Sort of like the school in fame, where you would poke your head out the door and there'd be a lady stretching in a leotard, and there'd be someone in a beret painting.
John: And I would say, what's a metaphor for, or what's the word for when a penis is wider around than it is long?
John: And then the lady stretching would look up and go, chode.
John: And I'd go, chode, thank you.
John: And then go back to writing.
John: Do I want a space like that?
John: Or do I want a space where I'm like up in a garret and nobody can get to me?
John: But like somewhere underneath me, there are people using saws.
John: So there's that sound of like, boop, boop, boop, boop.
John: But kind of, you know, like out the window.
John: Or do I want to actually go downtown where literal chodes are working in the insurance and mortgage industry and rent an office space in a chode building?
John: In the chode building?
Yeah.
John: Where I walk, you know, where in the morning I'm like crowding through the front door with guys who have like... Guys in overcoats that are holding folded up newspapers and rushing.
John: Guys that have suspenders on under their suit jacket, but they call them braces.
Merlin: And like there's a lady at a desk and maybe security guard and they say, good morning, Mr. Chode.
Merlin: Yeah, security guard.
Merlin: Good morning, Mr. Chode.
John: Good morning, Mr. Chode.
John: And then I take the elevator up to the seventh floor.
John: Thank you, Willis, and good morning to you.
John: Shall we make our usual wager?
John: One dollar.
John: Ninth floor, Mr. Roderick?
John: Mr. Valentine, set the price.
John: And then go and be like the secret guy working in one of those cubicles that is actually writing articles about...
John: Whatever it is that I do.
John: Whatever writing it is I think I'm going to do.
John: So I was toying with all these ideas and I honestly couldn't decide.
John: There was a part of me that, as antisocial as I am, the whole reason I'd be doing this is to be putting myself out...
John: into the actual world like i don't need it's not that i just need some physical distance from this room here full of uh this room full of real dolls that i have here in my upstairs but i actually kind of need to be out in the world where i'm getting coffee and there are other people there and
Merlin: I'm so glad you brought this up.
Merlin: This is a huge challenge.
Merlin: I've faced this many, many times with many different things.
Merlin: And it sounds like you're on the horns of a dilemma because just by the very – yeah, you don't want to be – get off those horns.
Merlin: Leave it.
Merlin: You've got – on the one hand, you're – I'm going to get to a bigger point here, but I think what you're saying in some ways is do I want – obviously what you're looking for here is a second place.
Merlin: You need a place that's not the room with the red leather chair.
Merlin: It doesn't mean that you can't bring the chair with you, although I would just – personally, I would just have it removed permanently.
Merlin: But on the one hand, you realize you need a change.
Merlin: You need someplace else to get your work done, the work that you do.
Merlin: And so the question becomes – and think about those different things that you're describing.
Merlin: On the one hand, you're saying, do I want to be surrounded with these creative people?
Merlin: That are probably a little fruity, and that will drive my creativity.
Merlin: Do I want to go somewhere that is more in keeping with my theoretically blue-collar background?
Merlin: Somewhere where you would be around people throwing fish or doing magic tricks or standing very still and looking like a statue.
John: I imagine that scene in the Billy Joel music video Allentown where there are guys moving big wrenches.
John: Yeah.
John: And then you pan up and there's an office manager up above on a railing.
John: He's wearing a tie and his pants are pulled up kind of pretty high.
John: I would have the office next to that guy.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: But again, in the first scenario, you would be surrounded by the sort of creative people who probably aren't, let's be honest, probably aren't making very much.
John: Flash dance people.
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: That's not a real welder.
Merlin: And then on the other hand, you're saying, do I want to be somewhere where I'm really doing capital W work because I'm surrounded by people who are going to think I'm a fruit if I'm not writing responses to people from Aerosmith?
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And then on the other hand, you're saying, do I want to be somewhere where I can do my work in peace, maybe something somewhere with a clawfoot bathtub?
Right.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: No, see, I don't know if that's part of the problem or part of the solution.
John: Holy moly.
John: You just added a whole new wrinkle.
John: All right.
Merlin: Well, because here's the thing.
Merlin: The big point is what is it that you're running away from or running toward?
Merlin: What is the barrier you're trying?
Merlin: This is what I do for a living.
Merlin: And which of these barriers do you want to get rid of?
Merlin: Because you might just need a bathroom somewhere.
Merlin: If you're not going to record, I mean, you get a nice kind of, you know, natural reverb in a room like that.
Merlin: But you might just want to have a big bathroom in someone's house.
Merlin: Or not in their house.
Merlin: You could bathroom sit for somebody.
John: So I'm wondering, though, how I would put that into Craigslist.
John: Wanted.
John: I want to rent your bathroom all day.
John: Wanted.
John: I want to rent your bathroom all day.
John: I want to rent your bathroom large bathroom all day.
John: Clothfoot bathtub.
John: Clothwood bathtub.
John: You need to be cool with strange sounds coming from the bathroom all day.
Merlin: And they can't use it, right?
Merlin: That's part of it is it's your space.
Merlin: You're in there at the crack of noon and you need that space for however long it takes to finish your work.
John: Well, the thing is it would be helpful if that bathroom also had a little kitchenette in it.
Merlin: Oh, you should do what I do.
Merlin: I just sent you that link to the coffee dingus that I use here at my office.
Merlin: My office is kind of like a dorm, and I'm not by any means saying that you should do anything like the literal personal holocaust that is my office.
Merlin: But I've got a little hot water maker here, a really nice little – makes hot water very quickly.
Merlin: I've got my soda string machine.
Merlin: I've got a microwave from Target, and I've got a pretty good-sized dorm fridge, no freezer.
Merlin: And that's pretty much everything I need to do basic stuff.
Merlin: I think at the point when I bring in a hot plate, I need to hang it up.
Merlin: But that's what you need.
Merlin: You need space for that.
Merlin: You need a master bath, maybe.
John: So my ideal situation is a master bathroom with a kitchenette situated over a Philly cheesesteak sandwich company.
Mm-hmm.
John: In an industrial area.
John: Right.
John: That's very, that has been kind of colonized by artists.
Merlin: But maybe it's still a little transitional, right?
John: It's a little transitional.
Merlin: You've got shortlist men with wrenches and ladies stretching.
John: Yeah, so there are ladies stretching over here.
John: There are guys stripping and repainting furniture over here.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: And then across the street, there is the furniture they're stripping.
Merlin: Is that correct?
John: They are stripping.
John: She's, she is stretching.
John: Okay.
John: She, and that, you know, just because a woman stretches doesn't mean that she's going to dance on a pole.
John: No.
John: And then they are stripping furniture.
John: They are not personally stripping.
Merlin: And then there's a coffee shop across the street where – Well, obviously, you've got to have the tools at hand to do the kind of work that you do.
Merlin: You have to have a place to put your tools.
Merlin: You have to have a workspace, and you have to be surrounded by things that inspire you.
Merlin: Maybe a window.
Merlin: Would you like a window, do you think?
John: I would like a window.
John: I need a window.
John: I need light because I have a – Because you can really – you can put a curtain on a bathroom.
John: You're going to want a window.
John: Well, but the problem is, and I think we hit on this earlier, I don't know what I do.
John: I said this to somebody the other day.
John: Your situation is not such that you need to quit your present job in order to pursue your fantasy job.
John: Because you don't even know what your fantasy job is.
John: You need to start doing your fantasy job until you're having so much fun and success at it that you have to quit your real job because your fantasy job has taken over.
Merlin: Well, now I'm going to do two podcasts instead of three because you've pretty much summed it up.
John: But my problem is I'm trying to get myself out of the house to get myself into a workspace so that I can begin to work for the first time in many years.
John: And I honestly, part of me both thrills and also despairs at the prospect of sitting down at a desk in a new space that I'm now paying money for and staring out this window that I...
Merlin: that we have just we've agreed i need and saying now what now what do i do now you have to now i turn the computer on there's a certain amount of pressure on you at that point because you have to figure out what your work is you are paying money that's good that might drive you in some ways but you might even need a transitional
Merlin: pre-space to go to figure out what it is that you do.
Merlin: And that could be something where you could have a home.
Merlin: Maybe you could do something in your barn.
Merlin: You could have a transitional space where you go and you set up a fridge and maybe have some ladies come out and stretch, but you could have an area where you, you know what I'm saying?
Merlin: Before you walk across Europe, you might want to buy a map.
John: Yeah, but that's the thing.
John: When I walked across Europe, I did not buy a map first.
John: That's true.
John: I'm going to write that down.
John: Okay.
Merlin: The walk turned out okay.
Merlin: I mean, bag notwithstanding, that turned out pretty okay.
John: Yeah, it was the bag and the boots both were wrong.
John: I should have thought more.
John: I should have thought long and hard about both of those things.
Merlin: Would you do it differently now?
Merlin: I mean, if you were the John of today, you could talk to the John of then and give him some tips on materiel.
John: I would say change the bag, change the boots.
John: You know, I got off the airplane in London, and I walked over to the little news agent there at Heathrow, and I started looking through his rack of roadmaps
John: Trying to figure out what route I was going to spend the next six months walking.
John: And basically picked the roadmap that was cheapest.
John: And walked out of his news agent shop.
John: Walked out the pneumatic doors.
John: across the parking lot and then continued to walk in the same direction for six months and bought maps along the way by that same method.
John: Just like I would arrive at the end of the map I was on and I would walk until I found a new map.
John: You just walk until you run out of map?
John: I'd walk until I ran out of map, and then I'd walk into the nearest place that sold maps and buy the cheapest map and keep going.
John: And that part of it, I honestly, if I had to do over again, I wouldn't tell my...
John: I wouldn't tell my young self to do it any differently because I don't know how else it would go.
Merlin: So obviously, though, when you're thrust into a situation, you're the same person.
Merlin: Obviously, if you've changed, grown, matured, you've learned more about your work since then.
Merlin: But you sound like the kind of person who, when, and I've seen this, when you yelled at me to call 911 about that guy's busted-ass sports car, you're someone who, and we're not going to talk about that, but when you get thrust, it's what it's for.
Merlin: When you get thrust, when you are thrust into a situation, you thrive.
Merlin: You really are.
Merlin: You're like that Marine who has all of those skills.
Merlin: You're like that CIA operative who has those skills just waiting all the time.
Merlin: And it's when you're not in the shit that your mind starts really going.
John: Well, part of what inspired this is I have a friend who works in a corporate office.
John: And she is now in a position where her boss has just quit.
Yeah.
John: Is this your baby mama?
John: This is a lady I know.
John: And her boss has just quit.
John: And her boss was one of these guys who had worked there for 15 years and had weaseled his way into a vice presidency at this company.
John: But really, he was just a frat boy.
John: And I think they gave him the vice presidency kind of out of a feeling of obligation after he'd been there so long.
John: So he quit and went to work somewhere else at a pet grooming place.
John: And now there is a vacancy in the corporate structure of this company.
John: There is no vice president of marketing.
John: And my friend...
John: is, I think, ideally positioned within the company to assume this job.
John: And it isn't maybe that she will be promoted to the vice president of marketing, but she certainly can be the director of marketing.
Merlin: There's a power vacuum.
John: There's a power vacuum, and...
John: Although she is incredibly talented, she does not think of herself as someone who is ambitious in a corporate way.
John: When she wakes up in the morning, she doesn't start sharpening her fingernails to go gash the necks of her competitors.
John: That's not how she imagines herself, although I think she has the competitive skills to succeed in that world.
John: She just needs to unleash it.
John: But in sitting and talking to her about her work situation, her job situation, I get very excited because I don't have... I do not have the opportunity to exercise those traits that would succeed in a corporate life.
John: And I have them.
John: I would love to be in a boardroom situation where other guys were competing...
John: to have their plans implemented, and I was using all that I know about Machiavelli and the art of war and all this shit that I read over the years and thought about, not with any intention of ever becoming a corporate person, but just because I wanted to understand how they thought, and I like to read other people's books.
John: You know, I like to read books that are
John: that are part of the canon of, like, special areas, right?
John: Where it's like, oh, you're not going to be interested in this book.
John: This is a book for hydrologic engineers.
John: And I'm like, that's actually the kind of book I'm very interested in.
John: What are you guys saying to each other that you don't want other people to know?
John: Anyway, so I'm sitting and talking to her about her corporate life, and I'm getting all excited.
John: I'm like, listen, I felt like that scene in The Godfather where I was like,
John: Listen, the person that invites you to that meeting, that's the one that wants your head.
John: What you need to be on the lookout for is the person that agrees with you and then doesn't come to the first meeting that you schedule because they were too busy.
John: That's the person who's going to be trying to thwart your progress.
John: Tattaglia is a pimp.
Merlin: He should have known that it was Barzini all along.
Merlin: It was Barzini all along.
Merlin: And did she take that counsel and understand what that could mean for her?
Merlin: I mean, she would not have the sharp claws yet, but boy, just even knowing that.
John: Yeah, yeah.
John: I think it excites her.
John: You know, I think the challenge of a lot of people our age is that we taught ourselves...
John: We said to ourselves over and over, as a culture, Generation X did this, said to ourselves, oh, the real things in life that matter to us are our friends and music and these things.
John: We convinced ourselves that our jobs were just these dumb things that we did that didn't matter because we were the ones that really enjoyed life.
Merlin: Oh, we're not going to be duped by that system that tells us to leave these things behind and become this kind of person.
John: Yeah, I just have to go to my job eight hours a day, but I really come alive when it's Miller time.
John: And then when we become 40-year-olds and we realize, wait a minute, whether or not I was duped, I'm still spending 40 hours a week in this place.
John: And if I don't take the job that I'm doing seriously and if I don't understand the actual culture, not the fantasy culture of work, but the actual culture of work, then I'm going to top out and then I'm going to be the 50-year-old or 60-year-old that's doing a job that 26-year-olds are doing better at.
John: and you know and i didn't i didn't plan for this you know i didn't suddenly you wake up and you're living up to your potential yeah exactly and so so i could see the light in her eyes like yeah actually i'm gonna go in and i'm gonna start i'm gonna start making a list of my enemies and i'm gonna start keeping a bucket where i put the hearts of my foes when they come into my office and try every executive lady needs a faux bucket
John: You know what?
John: You just have a bucket next to your decks, and every once in a while your foe comes in and tries to thwart you, and you just rip their heart out and stick it in the bucket.
Merlin: And the thing is, to be a really – it seems – I've never finished the book, but it seems to me that if you're going to be the prince, you have to not – and again, with The Art of War, right?
Merlin: And The Art of War summarized is don't do what you think they're – what they think you're going to do in a lot of ways.
Merlin: I mean that's a –
Merlin: wall street level summary of it but uh in all of these though the part of the beauty part of somebody who is a smart intelligent lady who's obviously not got sharp nails is that's that is the perfect person to to get into the power vacuum exactly and people they will not never know it's coming yeah would you would you have expected a spoiler alert hey vegoda last person i would have considered
Merlin: A Vigoda.
Merlin: A Vigoda seemed like a million years.
John: He was always the smart one.
John: Yeah.
John: He was always the smart one.
John: For all time's sake.
John: Well, the thing is, and I think the instinct that a lot of people have in that situation is there's a power vacuum.
John: I should go to my higher-ups and ask them if it's cool if I fill in this power vacuum.
John: And, you know, what I said to my friend is, listen, if you do something like that,
John: then that's not your power that you will be... You will not be using your power or growing your power.
John: You will be using their power and you're just a proxy.
John: That's like getting somebody to sign a form that you climbed a mountain.
John: Yeah.
John: You need to walk into that power vacuum and fill it.
John: And by the time the higher-ups notice...
John: You're already doing the job.
John: And then they're like, oh, well, we could go search for somebody to fill this role or we could just… Well, this is a big part of being a weasel.
Merlin: And I think the Machiavellian thing, it's a lot about how to become a weasel.
Merlin: And a good part about being a weasel, I've learned as a weasel, is to make things seem like someone else's idea.
Merlin: And this has been – this is when I've been effective, which is pretty much never.
Merlin: It's this has worked great because what you have to do is – You do have kind of a silky, almost greasy pelt.
Merlin: Thank you, John.
Merlin: I enjoy visiting with you.
Merlin: I value our friendship.
Merlin: But this is the thing.
Merlin: Now, when she goes in there, first of all, she could be asleep herself.
Merlin: Nobody's ever suspected that she would come in and want the pet grooming guy's office.
John: That's right.
John: She's the nice girl.
John: She did not seem like the one that was going to start kicking doors down.
Merlin: Exactly.
Merlin: Now, if you want to fill a power vacuum, you have to do things or cause things to happen that make you seem like not only the right person to stick into that Dyson, but you've got to appear like the only person in the whole world who could do that thing.
Merlin: And then you've got to make those chodes at the top think that it was their idea in the first place.
John: Right.
John: Mind bullets help.
John: I think the big challenge in a situation like that is the chodes that are at your level that can't do that job but also don't want you to succeed at it.
John: And so they just become petulant about taking orders from you or about taking even suggestions.
John: Especially if you're a lady.
John: And those are the ones that I was advising her that she needs to start scheduling these meetings that are above her pay grade.
John: that are her meetings, and then she needs to go around and make a coalition throughout the office, like stop at every one of these guys' desks and say, hey, I'm really looking forward to this meeting on Monday, and I really hope that you'll be there because I think your ideas in this are invaluable, and we really need to hear from you before we move forward because you're kind of the gatekeeper for this segment or whatever.
John: And just do that thing.
John: Just sit and, like, you're just stroking them with one hand and they feel the pressure of your knife point under their ribs, but they're not exactly sure whether it's a knife or you're just trying to give them a strong hug.
John: And they just think to themselves, like, you give them the out where they're like, yeah, I got to go to that meeting because if I don't, then they're not going to... You give them that, but at the same time, they feel a little bit...
John: They feel a little in danger.
John: I'd better go to that movie.
Merlin: John, if I could say, this is the most excited I've heard you sound about anything in the last 10 years.
Merlin: This sounds like this could be your duck.
Merlin: It seems to me that you didn't know this was your duck.
John: I think I would be, and this is a silly-ass thing on the surface of it, but I think I would be a great corporate boardroom person because ultimately a company operates according to a dynamic, a business dynamic, but it's a human dynamic.
John: And I see through those things.
John: I have x-ray vision about interpersonal stuff like that.
Merlin: And also – Also, you're an outsider.
Merlin: All those guys are mired in that particular kind of malignant culture.
Merlin: You come in from the outside, and not only are you not going to take any of that bullshit, you're not even going to acknowledge the bullshit is there.
Merlin: You just drive right past it.
John: Well, and I like to fertilize a garden and watch it grow.
John: I also don't mind wallowing in a bucket of blood.
John: And somewhere between fertilizing a garden and watching it grow and sitting in a bathtub gnawing on the shin bones of my enemies, that's basically a CEO.
John: That's what a CEO does.
John: And I don't know what I keep waiting for.
John: There's a tech startup that is being run by a bunch of college monkeys who don't know how to talk to each other and have never looked another human in the eye, except while they were searching their mother's face that she would put her boob in their mouth.
John: And these guys, for whatever reason, they get in contact with me or they get put in contact with me like, hey, we need somebody to go talk to other people for us because we're here busy making this 3D digital printer.
John: that specializes in reproducing Cynthia Plaster Caster's Jimi Hendrix penis.
Merlin: Which, let's be honest, they're practitioners.
Merlin: Their core competency might be penis plaster.
Merlin: But let's look at it this way.
Merlin: You're one of those college monkeys, and you've somehow fallen ass backwards into a bunch of venture capital money.
Merlin: Well, those venture capital guys want to see their 10x, right?
John: Yes, they do.
Merlin: It's a gamble.
Merlin: I'm thinking maybe you aren't contacted by the monkeys.
Merlin: You're contacted by the zoo master.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: I think the VC guys pick up a red phone.
Merlin: It rings in your bathtub.
Merlin: You pick it up and they say, John, we need you.
Merlin: You say, I know.
Merlin: I've already known.
Merlin: Right, right, right.
John: We need you to go in there.
Merlin: They fly you in on a private corporate jet.
Merlin: They bring it literally out by your house right next to the airport.
Merlin: You step inside.
Merlin: They say, would you like a pina colada?
Merlin: You say, no, thanks.
Merlin: And then you land somewhere and you walk in.
Merlin: And let's be honest, you're going to be dressed really differently from them.
Merlin: You're going to look very different from them.
Merlin: And they're going to know that things are changing.
Merlin: And maybe it seems a little like you're their pal at first.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: But you're empowered.
Merlin: You don't need to be empowered.
Merlin: You don't need a contract.
Merlin: You don't need a mission statement.
John: Well, no, because I have a scimitar.
John: I have a scimitar tucked into my exceptionally wide leather belt that is part of my corporate car.
Merlin: Are you wearing a robe?
No.
John: Maybe.
John: I'm not going to give away all my secrets.
John: It depends on the dress code.
John: But, you know, they're like, this guy seems like a friend.
John: This guy seems like our dad.
John: But he has a scimitar.
John: He seems like a real straight shooter.
Merlin: And then he opens his briefcase and there's a blunderbussin'.
Merlin: Can you imagine the eyes around the table?
Merlin: They have what we in the business call an all-hands meeting.
Merlin: They bring everybody into the big room, and they got craft services there.
Merlin: They got fucking artisanal coffee.
Merlin: And you get a man, a middle-aged man in a bathrobe, walks in with a large leather belt with a scimitar and a surprisingly costly briefcase that rattles when he walks.
Merlin: He's missing a front tooth.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Let me introduce you to John.
John: John's going to be running the company from here on out.
John: Any questions?
Merlin: But this is the thing.
Merlin: I mean, you got your Forrest Gump.
Merlin: You got your bigs.
Merlin: You got other Tom Hanks movies.
Merlin: You got the being there thing where you've got this person who's wandering around.
Merlin: And everybody is guessing all of these things about what they're doing, right?
Merlin: You're guessing that Big, right?
Merlin: You're guessing that Tom Hanks, who's a child inside of a grown-up body, is trying to undermine everybody.
Merlin: They're guessing – you know what I mean?
Merlin: They're guessing that Chance the Gardener is – wants to be president when all he wants to do is watch TV.
Merlin: I think it's the same thing here exactly except in reverse, which is you come in.
Merlin: You look a little bit –
Merlin: Like you had a rough patch.
Merlin: And they don't know if that scimitar is real, but they're sure as fuck going to find out.
Merlin: Right.
John: And then it turns out... They might underestimate you, John.
John: I actually have a head for business that no one could have foreseen.
Merlin: John, I think your work is presenting itself.
Merlin: I mean you can still dick around and make things on Twitter and do – I hope you'll still consider doing the show after you've got that office or maybe after you're at the top of the Chode building.
Merlin: You might be the head Chode.
John: Well, the thing is I'm going to – first thing I'm going to do is move the company out of the Chode building.
Yeah.
Merlin: Do you have a list?
Merlin: After you've done this a couple times, you know, you get a couple under your belt.
Merlin: You can come in with a list that you've written, like maybe on a subway wrapper.
Merlin: You come in and you've got John's...
Merlin: Not 11, 14.
Merlin: How many points would be in your plan?
John: Yeah, I think 14 points.
John: That's appropriate.
Merlin: That's a 14-point plan.
Merlin: The scimitar agenda.
Merlin: And you come in, you spread it out, you kind of, with your finger, you flick off a little bit of green pepper, and you show them how it's going to go.
John: Yeah, listen, first thing, we're out of the chode building.
John: We're spending too much money here, and we're surrounded by chodes.
Merlin: So you pull in operations.
Merlin: You tell them we've got to move some of these deck chairs around.
Merlin: Things are going to change.
Merlin: Now, when you come in in that situation, I think obviously if you're introduced – here's the thing.
Merlin: When I was a project manager and I'm a pussy, you have something called a project mandate, which is when somebody powerful signs off on a project and says, you see this homemade pussy over here?
Merlin: This guy is allowed to speak for me.
Merlin: Oh, yeah, right.
John: This is the power I'm talking about.
John: It's the proxy power.
Merlin: Well, I mean it has its uses, but it's not the piece of paper that makes it useful.
Merlin: It's the powerful person who not just is in a position to fire you but could potentially ruin you.
Merlin: When that person they've only seen pictures of in the lobby of the building comes in and says, this is fucking John.
Merlin: Sit down like a gentleman and listen.
Merlin: It's the threat of the scimitar coming down on their exposed knuckles.
Merlin: Because he saw you walk in with that, and he was fine with it.
Merlin: You're not allowed to eat a burrito at your desk, but a man literally in a bathrobe with a scimitar came in, introduced you.
Merlin: He didn't even say your last name.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: All you need to know is this is John.
Merlin: Shut the fuck up.
Merlin: Now, when you come in, are you going to be – so a lot of people, when you have these cultural – I have, as you know, I have some friends that work – they make in techs and tech in makes.
Merlin: And sometimes as the company grows, this happens.
Merlin: What you're describing here happens.
John: I love it.
Merlin: This is just as an outsider, I see this catastrophic thing happen where they go, oh, the culture is all fucked up.
Merlin: Let's bring in some fucktard from somewhere else and they'll fix the culture.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: Which is –
Merlin: I guess it's some sense of fighting fire with fire, but it never works.
Merlin: You need somebody who's an agent of change and isn't just going to come in there and hand out copies of the Starbucks book.
Merlin: And that literally happened.
John: Oh, believe me.
John: I know.
John: And I've read enough of those things where I just go.
John: Uh, you're doing it wrong.
Merlin: Those are the shitty ones.
Merlin: The middling, the middling ones at least pretend to listen for a week.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: But the really great ones, I think on day one, you know, the things it's like fucking George Patton walking in.
Merlin: You, he's not going to sit around and go, well, I'm just here to listen.
Merlin: So do you go in under the radar or do you walk in with the CEO that they've never met?
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: Actually, you could bring in someone who looks like the CEO.
Merlin: I think it would be equally effective.
Merlin: But when you get into that room – Bring in an actor.
John: Bring in an actor and I've got a scimitar just in the center of his back.
John: Isn't that that guy from Saved by the Bell?
John: Shut up.
John: No, you know, the obvious thing about business is that these people started a business and got it to the point where their incompetence now is the only thing in their way.
Merlin: Their incompetence is the only blood that runs through those veins anymore.
Merlin: They have no fucking idea how they make money anymore.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: Maybe that's the problem with these monkeys.
Merlin: They've probably never made money.
Merlin: They've gotten checks from their mom, and now they've got checks from somebody on Sand Hill Road, and they've never had somebody come in, say, get that titty out of your mouth, sit down, and make a fucking 3D printer.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: And so they're dicking around, they're riding on slides, they're throwing balls around, they're eating craft services.
John: But you know, I've been dealing with those people in another form for 25 years, which is that is rock and roll.
John: I mean, I've been dealing with people that can't look another human being in the eye.
John: John, you're ready on day one.
John: My whole life.
John: And dealing with people where it's just like, okay, there's seven people in the room with seven different agendas, and everybody is acting like we all agree.
John: And the second there's a power vacuum, it's going to turn into Lord of the Flies.
John: And really, there's only one person in the room that matters.
John: There's only one person in the room that anybody should be paying any attention to, and that's the guy with the idea.
John: The scimitar.
John: Well, no, in those situations, it's not the guy with the scimitar.
John: There's usually a guy that has the song.
Merlin: There's the guy that had the idea.
Merlin: Oh, like you said in the studio, this is the guy who says, okay, why don't you take another hour to get your solo where you want it to be, and then we're done with that.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: And the fact that the drummer is the loudest guy in the room, or the drummer is the guy with all the opinions...
John: You know, somebody needs to take the drummer for a walk.
John: Somebody needs to say, hey, you know what?
John: I'm thinking about having my car detailed.
John: Do you want to come out and take a look at it?
John: You ever heard of a faux bag?
John: Do you want to see?
John: Let me show you my office.
John: Let me show you my office.
John: It's a nice place, right?
John: And suddenly the problems resolve themselves.
John: Hey, look what I have in my briefcase.
John: Oh, it's a blunderbuck.
Merlin: And you know what?
Merlin: A lot of people in modern forensics, you know, they're used to dealing with all of the various kinds of munitions that you see on the street today.
John: Right, well, splatter patterns.
John: If you had a sawed-off blunderbuss.
John: They wouldn't know.
John: You know, the thing is you can make a blender bus with stuff you buy at a plumbing supply store.
Merlin: This is exactly the kind of thing that people need to learn.
Merlin: I did not know that.
Merlin: But think about this.
Merlin: You think about back in school.
Merlin: You're in a public school and you walk into class and there's a sub.
John: And there's usually two kinds of substitute teachers.
John: Just as soon as you said that, I got excited.
John: It was like, oh, substitute today.
John: Oh, forget about it.
Merlin: Forget about it.
Merlin: You come in there and it's, in my experience, some of the time, it will be someone extremely old who mostly reads a magazine.
John: Or a really young, like a young teacher that is super dumb and wants to stick to the lesson plan.
John: She's got the lesson plan.
John: She's read some books.
John: But then think about the time that you walked in and the substitute teacher was a 40-year-old got a crew cut and a mustache.
Merlin: That was a different day, right?
Merlin: I was thinking of – I've been in so many situations where I'm whatever the opposite of a handful is.
Merlin: I was always happy to not cause trouble by and large, at least for the first 10 years.
Merlin: But the thing is the class gets a little out of control.
Merlin: That lady with the handbook –
Merlin: And she's been watching some Betamax tapes about how to become a teacher.
Merlin: And she comes in there, and it's immediately Lord of the Flies.
Merlin: Everything's totally out of control.
Merlin: But you know what happens?
Merlin: It gets so bad, she picks up the black phone, and in walks Frank Kufel.
John: Oh, Kufel.
Merlin: In walks the principal, the vice principal, the dean of boys.
Merlin: In walks somebody who is a known hard-ass, maybe somebody who puts weights on a tennis racket and swings it in a cafeteria.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying, though?
John: Oh, do I...
John: Because the first thing that that guy does when he walks in is he grabs me and says, come on, we're going down to the office.
John: Let's go for a walk.
John: Let me show you what's in my briefcase.
Merlin: Well, you know, if you cut off the head, you know what I'm saying?
Merlin: But all I'm saying is like, you know what?
Merlin: If you didn't even need the principal in that instance, if you walked in and there was a man with a scimitar standing there and he's already – he's already –
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: Are you mad?
Merlin: Are you disappointed?
Merlin: Or are you just – when you're the substitute teacher, all I was going to say was the principal comes in and suddenly everybody stands erect because they know that this is not someone to trifle with.
Merlin: This is not a substitute principal.
John: This is the guy who holds your heart in his hand.
John: In every classroom, when you walk in the door – and I know this for many years of going to school.
John: You walk in the door of a classroom on the first day of school and you scan those chairs and you think, which chair is mine?
John: And there are a lot of kids that grab that first row of chairs because they're do-gooders and they want to sit up front.
John: And then there are the guys with the mullets and the baseball hats on backwards that are grabbing that last row of chairs because they're the guys that are in the back.
John: Then there are all the people that just fill in, just take a chair, doesn't matter.
John: Even though this is a decision, you're going to be sitting in this chair for the whole school year.
John: People just walk in and grab a chair, whatever.
John: Don't even think about it.
John: But I was always looking for the power desk.
John: And the power desk is toward the back.
John: But not all the way in the back.
John: And it is basically... It's close to the windows.
John: And it is in a position... You're in a position where you can control the temperature of the classroom.
John: It is basically the opposite pole from the teacher's desk.
John: You need to find the desk in the classroom that is the opposite pole of the teacher's desk.
John: And it doesn't mean it's on the exact opposite side of the room because it could be on the teacher's side of the room.
Merlin: It's going to vary heavily by classroom and by setup.
John: It is the power pole that I would try and find because my goal in every classroom was to be the opposite pole of the teacher.
Right.
John: To be the negative terminal.
John: To their positive terminal.
John: You're like the Sith student.
John: And I would find that desk and I would sit there and the first few days of school I would just be so quiet and calm.
John: Because I wanted everyone in the class to just get into a groove.
John: Start to develop relationships with the teacher.
John: I was just so patient because I knew that my time would come.
John: And when it did, then...
John: No one ever sees it.
John: And a lot of kids that came up in school with me knew wherever I sat.
John: There would be people that immediately chose the seats kind of in that vicinity because they wanted to be part of the fun.
John: And kids that sat as far away as they could because they didn't even want to get in reflected trouble.
Merlin: In Shamu's splash zone?
John: Yeah, they didn't even want the smashinator or whatever the hell that Gallagher hammer is.
John: They didn't want any water mount on them.
John: And as a substitute teacher, if I were to be a substitute teacher in a high school, I would walk into that class and I would scan that room as the students were sitting down and I was looking, you know, and they were still kind of making noise and talking to each other and looking at me with sidelong glances.
John: I would be sitting up at the blackboard trying to identify that person.
John: opposite pole because you can see it take shape in a classroom of kids as they come in and sit down.
John: You can see where that power pole is by who the kids are and how they seat themselves and how they look at you, how they look at each other.
John: And I would try and zoom in on where that power pole was because that's the only chair that matters in a classroom that you are trying to teach for one day.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: Are you in some ways looking for the younger and less experienced version of yourself?
Merlin: Well, but – You've been in that poll.
Merlin: You know what that seat is.
Merlin: You've been in that seat.
John: Yeah, but the opposite – the teacher's opposite in every classroom kind of differs.
John: It's not always the comedian or the shit disturber.
John: There are –
John: There can be a lot of variations on this.
John: There can be the disgruntled girl that nothing's ever right.
John: That can be your opposite.
John: It just depends.
John: And you can feel it.
John: It's a matter of feeling the room.
John: And if you walk into a boardroom, if you walk into any kind of room where there are 25 people...
John: Where the 25 people know each other and you are new, you look for that pole.
John: You look for the center of gravity that exists in the room.
John: And that's kind of the axis that you have to focus on.
John: You can't just start talking to the front row.
John: Because if you start giving your presentation, you're like, hey, everybody, how's it going?
John: Love to see all your bright and smiling faces.
Yeah.
John: and you're talking to the front row, you're going to hear a sound from the back of the room that you don't like.
John: There's going to be like a... And then you've lost it.
John: The room is, you know, it's over.
John: So anyway, as a substitute teacher, as a guy walking into a corporate boardroom, as I do every time I walk into a room where it's unfamiliar, you know, I'm scanning people as they walk in and watching, you know, who is my...
John: Who's my opposite pole here?
John: Who's the one who thinks the room belongs to them?
Merlin: And you're way ahead of me because it seems to me that those skills that you've accrued from being such a problem make you uniquely capable at going into a situation like that.
Merlin: And it just seems to me that given that you are empowered by that guy from Saved by the Bell, you could potentially come in and cut off someone's left hand.
Merlin: If you find the pole, if you come into the corporate boardroom and you find one guy who looks like he's a little bit full of beans, maybe just a finger.
Merlin: Maybe you take off a pinky.
Merlin: It's like Al Capone with the baseball bat, right?
Yeah.
John: Just walk over and go, hey, great to see you.
John: I couldn't help but notice that you made a fart sound a second ago, and whack!
John: Oh!
John: That's one finger.
John: You've got nine left.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: Well, I mean, that time, you could always take more than that off.
John: Business is going to get done.
Merlin: I think there's not enough capriciousness in leadership.
Merlin: There should be – I mean the whole idea of decimation, I think a lot of people don't understand what that word means, and you can correct me if I'm wrong as ever.
Merlin: But my understanding of decimation was the Romans would come in and say, okay, who tried to put feces in the soldiers well?
Merlin: And they would say, not me.
Merlin: And so they'd kill one out of every ten people and say, let me ask you that question again.
Merlin: My understanding of decimation was we make an example out of one of you and then one-tenth of you, and then we just keep winnowing that down until somebody is willing to tell us what we want to know.
John: Yeah, there's always, you can always take one-tenth away and get ever closer to zero.
John: One-tenth is not that much.
John: You can never get there.
John: No, although if you're talking about an army of 100,000 men, there's a lot of blood in the river.
Merlin: Yeah, well, nobody said it wasn't going to be time-consuming.
Merlin: I mean, Rome wasn't, anyway.
John: You know, everybody is so scared about getting sued now.
John: People are scared about getting sued.
John: So hire an actor who's a lawyer.
John: That's right.
John: Bye.
John: Hire an actor.
John: Let them sue him.
John: People are afraid of getting sued who are never in their lives ever, ever, ever going to get sued.
John: You know, I was backing into a parking spot not very long ago in front of a hair salon, a hair and nail salon.
John: And it was a tight parking spot.
John: And as I was backing into the parking spot, the...
John: I did not make it all the way in, and this is embarrassing for me to say.
John: It was an awkward spot, awkwardly situated.
John: It was not a parking concept problem.
John: But I had to pull out and start again.
John: And in the course of doing this, the people in the salon, both the customers and the salon people, the worker people, the salonistas,
John: They took an interest in this and they got up out of their chairs and all came out onto the sidewalk because the car in the back belonged to one of the people at the salon.
John: And as I'm backing into this spot a second time, one of the people says, if you hit my car,
John: I'm going to sue you.
John: And this is... I mean, I'm talking about like a... If I had touched it, it would have been like a little bump.
John: I mean, a little bumper bump.
John: And it was a fascinating study for me in the way that people think the world works.
John: And after I got out of the car and they were kind of still standing there on the sidewalk watching now my car be parked...
John: I said, I would like you to call the police now so that we can begin this lawsuit process.
John: And, of course, you know, there was a lot of shit talking back and forth between me and these 11 girls.
John: Because that's how it does.
John: That's how it do sometimes.
John: But this idea that...
John: That the threat of a lawsuit has filtered down in our culture to the point that this person, and this car that I was about to bump into was a 1994 Ford, like...
John: S10 pickup or whatever.
John: It was not a thing.
John: It was not a thing.
John: Like, I felt like opening my wallet and throwing the money that the truck was worth at her and demanding the key.
John: Right.
John: But this idea that, you know, and she did it like it was straight-faced.
John: Like, that threat of a lawsuit has become...
John: Is the new I'm going to call the police.
John: Yeah, I'm going to call my mom.
John: And you scale that up to a world where lawsuits actually do happen in companies where people actually do sue for discrimination or they do sue for wrongful termination or they do sue for sexual harassment.
John: Yeah.
John: And you apply the fact that the threat is more real, but that we all carry around in the back of our minds the possibility that a lawsuit is a thing that we could be hit with at any moment.
John: And it creates this inhibiting fear, I think, nationwide and maybe even now around the world, an inhibiting fear of just doing what needs to get done and being who you are.
John: And the reality about a lawsuit is that, fuck you, really?
John: You're going to, you know, like the number of lawsuits that...
John: It is a rare occasion when you can get an actual lawsuit off the ground and roll one.
John: You know what I mean?
John: Especially without spending like $50,000.
John: You got to have the money.
John: You got to have a case that makes sense to everybody.
John: You have to have a real burr in your saddle.
John: And yet...
John: I talk to people all the time where they're like, well, yeah, I'd love to do that, but, you know, we'd probably get sued.
John: It's like, you know what?
John: You got to take the risk sometime.
John: Sometimes that, yeah, it is conceivable that you, like, that you might get sued, but...
John: But that is a risk you need to take sometimes.
John: You need to take the risk that you're going to get sued.
Merlin: Well, it reminds me a little bit of the altercation you had with the fellow at the bar who was not aware that punching in the nose was something that really could happen.
John: It's exactly right.
Merlin: The kind of person who threatens to say, what did he say to you?
Merlin: This is – there are consequences, right?
Merlin: I mean it strikes me that I have friends who are lawyers and friends who are not acquaintances.
Merlin: It seems to me that by and large, the people who I never hear threatening to sue someone is a lawyer because they understand what it means.
Merlin: And on the one hand, it's sort of like threatening to go to medical school.
Merlin: It's like if you hit my car, I'm going to go to medical school.
Merlin: I'm going to go spend a lot of time and money for something that might work out okay, and I'm going to stop everything.
Merlin: But if you've ever been sued or have actually sued somebody, it seems like about the most draining process in the world.
Merlin: So that's the thing.
Merlin: As with people who threaten make-believe violence, as with people who accuse other people of being hypocrites, and as with people who are constantly suing lawsuits, I think they are mainly scared of the thing that they're threatening you with –
Merlin: And assume that that will work on you.
John: Yeah, and it so often does.
John: I mean, how many business situations do you know where everybody in the company knows, like, this one person is the problem?
John: Oh, God, yes.
John: There's one person in this situation who's just a problem.
John: This person needs to go.
Merlin: And yet.
Merlin: That should be like point number three.
Merlin: John, that is so huge.
Merlin: There's so many people.
Merlin: You go in and you talk to these places.
Merlin: There is one person that is just killing the place.
John: Yeah, this guy needs to go.
John: But we can't get rid of him.
John: Why can't you get rid of him?
John: Well, because he might sue.
John: He's got diabetes.
John: He might sue us.
John: Discrimination.
John: Discrimination.
John: Or he just might sue.
John: Or we just don't have enough.
Merlin: Oh, he doesn't even need a reason.
Merlin: Just the whole idea that we might – this guy who obviously is a nut job and that's why we need to get rid of him.
Merlin: It's this very nut jobbiness that makes us think that he's just the kind of nut job that might sue us.
John: Right.
John: And we have in our corporate boilerplate –
John: All the reasons that you need to amass in order to properly fire somebody.
John: And so we have to, even though this is our internal policy, we have to follow it to the letter.
John: And my mom talks about this 30 years ago.
John: There's one guy in the place that needs to go.
John: But we ended up paying him for another year until we could come around to his performance review again.
John: Where we had documented his, you know, because he would always improve, right, before... It's like trying to catch a dog that's shitting on the rug.
Merlin: It's like you have to spend all of your time, like, walking on eggshells and saying, I hope we finally catch this guy doing the thing that we know is actionable.
John: Yeah, right.
John: And in some cases, you know, you just have to fire the guy.
John: And...
John: And, you know, he's not going to sue.
John: Or if he does, he's going to lose.
Merlin: But you're saying – it sounds like what you're saying is like, yes, suing will happen.
Merlin: And if you're at the Chode Corporation, they probably have the resources to deal with that kind of thing.
Merlin: You certainly don't want to invite things like nuisance lawsuits, obviously.
Merlin: But at the same time, you're saying that that leads to a certain kind of what?
Merlin: Cultural apprehensiveness that makes us less effective.
Merlin: We become pussies, certainly.
John: What happens in a company or in any organization is you stop believing in yourself.
John: You stop believing that you're doing the Lord's work because you see every day how you're being hamstrung by someone who is intentionally disruptive.
John: And you need to get the can thrown out.
John: And as my dad used to say, that's what lawyers are for.
John: Would you say get the can thrown out?
John: Get the cancer out.
John: Oh.
John: I had lunch with Ken Jennings, the Jeopardy champion.
John: Oh, I saw that.
John: You guys are dressed up like doctors.
John: Yeah, we have a good time.
John: We go around and knock on people's doors dressed as doctors.
John: Hey, aren't you?
John: I already give them exams.
John: Aren't you that guy from my board meeting?
John: But as we were doing it, we were having a good time, and I realized we had this brilliant idea, which was a company that hires celebrities
John: To deliver subpoenas.
Ha!
John: You get celebrities on the level of Ken Jennings, where a lot of people have seen Ken Jennings.
John: They know who he is.
John: Ken Jennings comes to your office.
John: He goes, hey, is Mark Miller here?
John: And the secretary's like, aren't you Ken Jennings?
John: And he's like, that's right, here to see Mark Miller.
John: And she's like, let me get him.
John: She's like, Mark Miller, Ken Jennings is here.
John: The guy comes running out.
John: He's like, oh, my God, Ken Jennings.
John: And Ken Jennings hands him the little blue folder.
John: Slap, you've been served.
John: You're served.
John: Ha!
John: Booyah!
Phew.
John: No one's ever going to see that coming.
John: Celebrity process servers.
Merlin: Huh.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: Yeah, you become part of the problem.
Merlin: That's not a bad idea.
Merlin: I mean, that seems like that could be a short afternoon of work.
Merlin: And, you know, I mean, you just go up, you do a thing, and you're done.
Merlin: And you could sign some autographs, you know, while you're there.
John: And celebs have a lot of downtime.
John: Between projects.
John: And I think what happens with a lot of celebrities is that they start to feel like, what's their place in the world?
John: What's the point?
Yeah.
John: Like, are they doing good?
John: Are they part of the world anymore?
John: Are they just living in their solid gold bathtub?
John: I'm projecting now about what it must be like to be a celebrity.
John: But, you know, if they were out there in the world meeting people, serving subpoenas, I think it would frame their life in a good way.
John: Anyway.
Merlin: That seems like the kind of thing that you could probably put together.
Merlin: You know a lot of people who are down on their luck that people would recognize.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: A lot of recognizable people who are between projects.
Merlin: Hey, weren't you in that one band?
Merlin: Slap!
Merlin: I love presidents of the USA.
Merlin: Are you the presidents of the USA?
John: Slap!
John: You've been finned.
John: Hey, didn't you used to host a late night talk show?
Merlin: Slap.
Merlin: Are you the guy from that commercial?
John: You've been served.
John: I really think that somewhere out there, there is a corporate job.
John: Because, you know, my uncle...
John: My uncle... Is this Uncle Jack?
John: No, this isn't Uncle Jack.
John: This is Uncle Cal.
John: Uncle Cal was... He started working... He was a lawyer, and he started... He grew up here in Washington, and his father was a guy that...
John: They would drive around and buy strawberry fields and put together this empire of kind of agricultural empire.
John: And my Uncle Cal started working in the lumber business in the 50s and 60s when in the Northwest, cutting down trees was still seen as environmental work.
John: It's environmental work of a kind.
John: You're in an environment.
John: The process of turning my dad into an environmentalist was, and this is a thing that people our generation have a hard time grasping, was that my dad's generation believed that
John: To be an environmentalist meant that you went out in the forest, breathing deep of the mountain air, and chopped the fuck down some trees.
John: Because that was the hardy, kind of outdoorsy man...
John: that made America strong.
John: The idea of conserving trees or of not chopping down a tree had never occurred to them.
John: Chopping down a tree was the thing that a true woodsman did.
John: And Uncle Cal started in the lumber business in Washington State, and he ended up being vice president of Weyerhaeuser,
John: At a time when the president of Weyerhaeuser was George Weyerhaeuser.
John: And this is during the era when companies did not have a CEO.
John: They had a president.
John: They had one vice president.
John: and then everyone else.
John: That seems like Halcyon days now.
John: Doesn't that seem to make sense?
Merlin: You've got a president, you've got one vice president.
Merlin: President, one vice president, and then the directors, managers.
John: Now you look at a company, it's like CEO, CFO, COO, CPO,
John: chief petty officer and then executive vice president executive vice president and then 17 vice president get executives you got seniors you got vice you got junior it's like who are these people they are you're you are a senior vice president and you have five people working for you it's like a way to archive humanity like what are those people doing
John: So annoying.
Merlin: But anyway, so Uncle Cal... Yeah, Weyerhaeuser, Weyerhaeuser.
John: Uncle Cal was vice president of Weyerhaeuser, and then he became president of Macmillan Bloedel, Canada's largest timber company.
Hmm.
John: And he was president of Macmillan Bloedel for many, many years.
John: And then he entered this world, which is the world that I aspire to be a member of and ultimately king of, which is this world of people who used to be generals of the army, people who are retired senators and
John: The president of Princeton University, former head of the CIA.
John: Professor Emeritus.
John: Professor Emeritus.
John: My Uncle Cal became a guy who was on the board of directors.
John: And first he was on the board of directors of C-First Bank, and then he was on the board of directors of Bank of America, and then he was on the board of directors of... And it just... And it went...
John: It became like a spore situation where all of a sudden, what my Uncle Cal did was be on the board of directors of companies.
Merlin: You would be so good at that.
John: Of 20 companies.
John: And every one of them, you know, I don't know how much a person on a board of directors gets paid now.
John: But back in the 80s and 90s, he was getting paid a lot of money.
John: You get paid a lot more than the people who actually work there.
John: That's right.
John: And he would describe it.
John: And the thing is, he was a Republican and a person who believed in business.
John: And he would tell these stories, and he would not realize...
John: how ironic they were because he was living in a world where this seemed perfectly legitimate.
John: But he would wake up in the morning, he would drive down to the airport, he would get on a Learjet where he was the only passenger, and he would fly to California where they would... And then a car would pick him up at the airport and take him to this board meeting where they would spend an hour and a half...
John: debating whether or not to raise the minimum wage at their company from $4.25 an hour to $4.40 an hour, and they would decide that they couldn't afford it.
John: And that if they raised the minimum wage from $4.25 to $4.40, it would jeopardize the company's bottom line.
John: And so they would vote it down.
John: And then an hour later, he would be driven back to the airport to a Learjet where he was the only passenger and flown home so that he could have dinner at home.
John: And the irony never...
Merlin: occurred to him and when and when i pointed it out that that that just to make it obvious because i'm just realized that that perhaps for example if he taken a train or a personal car instead of a one-man learjet they might be able to bump it up 10 or 15 cents well that the that basically the cost of that uh wage increase
John: was born completely.
John: By the decision to not do it.
John: Yeah, it was contained in the aviation gasoline costs of all the Learjets of the board members that came to that meeting.
Merlin: It's like a Preston Sturgis movie.
Merlin: It's amazing that that would not occur to him.
John: They squandered that pay raise and a thousand more like it
John: Just in the nuts and bolts process of doing business that way, American business.
John: And the fact is that that is a board meeting that they could have had over speakerphone.
John: That is a board meeting.
John: that they could have had via registered letter.
John: There was no reason that those people all had to be in the room together to debate and make that decision because basically they had all made up their minds before they arrived.
John: Yeah, it seems like a foregone conclusion.
John: And to have a Learjet standing by to take somebody or to fly, I mean, that Learjet probably either was standing by or had to fly up to get him.
John: And Avgas is not a cheap thing.
John: Anyway, when I pointed it out to him,
John: His reaction was the same as every time, basically, I pointed anything out to him, which was just like, well, that's how business is done.
John: And you don't understand that it is necessary to...
John: Wow, that's such a typical reaction.
John: And basically it all works out in the wash because that gasoline in that fight was tax deductible.
John: So ultimately we don't pay for it because it's free because we deduct it from our taxes and that's free because, of course, taxes are terrible.
John: And, you know, as a 23-year-old idealist sitting in his admittedly palatial living room, which I enjoyed being in very much and enjoyed the fact that there was usually someone in a white shirt...
John: Handing me some food on a tray.
John: I was, you know, I was loathe to look too deep.
Merlin: Gosh, you're inside the machine.
John: But, you know, it resonated in my head and has my whole life that that is where the pay raise goes.
John: It goes right up the smokestack.
Merlin: of the cost of doing business oh my god can you imagine how many companies could benefit from really really really hearing that right now you know i'm not you know the maybe part of the problem also is so you're telling me he's on like the not the board of advisors but like the uh the board of directors board of directors board of directors and so he's not the only one that flew in for that meeting no they're between
Merlin: That's a lot of phony baloney jobs, to quote Mel Brooks.
Merlin: Here's the thing.
Merlin: What if, let's just say for the sake of argument, what if instead there is a company in the Pacific Northwest that is tired of spending all of that money to bring 15 people in for a foregone conclusion?
Merlin: What if instead you can hire one man who will literally, literally walk to the office in a bathrobe to come in?
John: And make that call.
John: I'm going to – you know what?
John: We can video conference.
John: Yeah.
John: I'm going to walk in.
John: I'm going to lay the scimitar down.
John: I'm going to open the briefcase.
John: Yes.
Merlin: I'm going to say, here's the call.
Merlin: See, this is the thing, though, and this is why I say you might – to start out, you might want to restrict yourself to things that you could walk to because – or at least take a hoopty to because, yes, first of all, you're immediately a profit center rather than a cost center.
Merlin: And that's exactly the kind of logic you're going to have to bring to these people.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Maybe in a way that is not going to be comfortable at first.
Merlin: I think doing it over a conference call might make you look a little weird.
Merlin: But if you come in, if you're in the room, if you're in the room with them with the scimitar, I think people are going to sit up in their seat a little bit.
John: What if it was a 3D projection of me, though?
John: that you had some college monkeys build for you i'm saying i'm saying what if an actor or ken jennings walks walks in to a boardroom sets down a small like the size of a box of crackers a small device everybody looks up and he said yeah he sets down a little black box
John: Size of a box of crackers.
John: And he says, lights, please.
John: And then, wow.
John: Wow.
John: I appear in a robe with a Simitar.
Merlin: Slightly larger than life-size.
Merlin: Slightly larger than life-size.
Merlin: Yeah, you're looking at a 1 to 1.2 scale.
John: And I walk around the room, and I start looking everybody in the eyes.
Merlin: So, wait a minute.
Merlin: It's not just something they're projecting like Princess Leia.
Merlin: You're moving around the room.
John: Moving around the room.
John: And I'm looking everybody in the eyes, but they can't quite look into my eyes.
John: Because your eyes aren't there.
John: Because my eyes are black.
John: Just black orbs.
Merlin: so they get the 3d stuff could also enhance not only do you get to have the convenience of working from your home or new office but but there are enhancements to the 3d yeah i look like wes borland from i have i have totally black eyeballs and it amplifies the message and it amplifies my voice so that it's coming out of there are speakers in the bottom of everyone's seat drops and have a register
John: Whoa.
John: Listen.
John: Raise the minimum wage.
John: 20 cents.
John: Meaning over.
John: And then Ken Jennings just puts the cracker box out of the room.
John: Puts it back in his briefcase.
John: Thank you, gentlemen.
John: You've been served.
Yeah.
Merlin: I think you're going to help a lot.
Merlin: Here's the thing.
Merlin: Okay, so this might bring you right back to fixing this whole what is your work, where is your office situation because there may be a problem inside of the problem.
Merlin: I've been telling you for a long time.
Merlin: I think you should keep doing the music stuff.
Merlin: If you enjoy it and it makes you some money, that's terrific.
Merlin: But I like to think that these conversations can hopefully help you realize what you're capable of.
Merlin: And what I'm saying here is not only would you – you might want to go get an office or a transitional office, a transitional bathroom to get you moving in the right direction.
Merlin: But here's the thing.
Merlin: Yes, maybe just to get some practice and get a few hearts under your belt, you might want to help your friend who sounds like – let's be honest.
Merlin: You two together could be a super team inside of that company.
Merlin: right?
Merlin: Especially if you're in there, maybe you're hiding under her desk, feeding her lines.
Merlin: But at first, you're going to learn more about that corporate culture because now you have new black eyes to bring into there and see that happening.
Merlin: So maybe the real endgame here is not for you to go in and help a company, but to start a company that whether they like it or not helps other companies.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: So I'm just saying, and now Ken Jennings sounds like he's got time to kill.
Merlin: So he made a lot of dough off that Jeopardy, is that right?
John: Well, but it's one of those things where you make a lot of dough at something.
John: He didn't make like a quit your game show job kind of dough.
John: No, what he made was now, he made the dough that enables him now to write books for a living.
John: What kind of books?
John: What kind of books?
John: Did he write like crossword puzzle books?
John: Well, so he wrote a book about crazy people who are really into quiz shows.
Merlin: Oh, I like the twist.
Merlin: So it wasn't just a book about being the guy who was on Jeopardy.
Merlin: He took it and he turned it.
John: No, it was like that book about Scrabble people except about quiz show people.
John: Wow.
John: And now his most recent book is about maps and geography.
John: which is, as you may recall, that is one of my secrets.
Merlin: That is maybe even a wall inside your wheelhouse.
John: It really is.
John: It's like the opposite of a safe word.
John: He started writing this book about maps, and I was like, danger, danger, danger.
John: Might start talking for hours about maps.
Merlin: But he's probably got enough – I've just seen photos of him.
Merlin: I remember seeing him on television.
Merlin: But I saw that photo you put up a day or two ago.
Merlin: And he looks – first of all, you do kind of recognize him from something.
Merlin: He's got a name that is, let's be honest, a little bit forgettable.
Merlin: But he looks really, really friendly.
John: He is an enormously... He is what you would call a gentleman.
John: He's like a classic... Could he be like your conciliary?
John: Could he be your Tom Hagen?
John: Well, this is the thing.
John: Ken and I are just getting to know each other.
John: Go slow.
Merlin: That map thing might make you sweat a little bit.
John: I see in him the possibility.
John: He's very friendly to the point of... Not friendly is the wrong word.
John: He's very nice to the point of...
John: A little bit on the Mayberry side.
John: God, you could really use that.
John: Yeah, right?
John: Personally.
John: Personally.
John: Oh, howdy, Opie.
John: Well, say.
Merlin: I'm going to go over here and get my daily haircut from the stuttering man.
Merlin: Well, you know, as I was having my fingernails waxed.
Merlin: He surrounded himself with friendly but incompetent people, and he turned out great.
John: He did.
John: Well, it was, you know, he had the advantage of living in the South, which I do not have.
John: That's true.
John: But, Ken, I see in him...
John: This is the thing.
John: I'm always looking at people and seeing the darkness in them because that's primarily what I'm looking for.
John: And I see in Ken the potential that he could be a consigliere.
John: But that's the thing.
John: Tom Hayden was not a wartime consigliere.
John: And I don't know if Ken is or not.
John: I don't know if he is prepared.
John: I don't know if he wants that much blood on his smock.
Merlin: Yeah, but the thing is there's no Jennings in team.
Merlin: The whole point of this is you're going to be surrounded by people who are going to either amplify or squelch or ameliorate the various parts of your black-eyed personality.
Merlin: True, true.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: You're going to need – I think.
Merlin: I mean certainly.
Merlin: Let's look at it this way.
Merlin: The people who are in operations, the people who are in accounts receivable and payable, the people who are throwing a fucking ball while they're making 3D machines, they don't all have the same job.
Merlin: They certainly don't all have the same personality, right?
Merlin: The person who works in the – what do they call it?
Merlin: The KP, the PX?
Merlin: The person who works at the – At the KP.
Merlin: Where do you work at the KP?
Merlin: I work over at the KP.
Merlin: It's not something I'm happy about.
Merlin: But that's different from the general.
John: And the thing is, Ken is going to make – Ken is an – I think he would be an extraordinary general.
John: He would – but he may want to – well, tell you what.
John: He and I will talk about this as the work progresses.
John: And at first, I might just ask him as a favor to serve some people with some papers and also maybe show up at a couple of board meetings.
Merlin: Oh, so do a little bit of – do a little spec work that you both enjoy.
John: Just a little spec work.
John: Just see how it goes.
John: Just see how it goes.
John: See how he likes it.
John: See how it went over.
John: And it's like, was that fun for you?
John: You're not getting married.
John: You're not getting married.
John: You're just checking it out.
John: That was fun for me.
John: It was fun for you.
John: All right.
John: Well, let's do it again.
John: And then, you know, like 15 years from now, Ken Jennings walks into a boardroom.
John: Everybody hits the dirt.
John: Everybody's crawling under the table.
Merlin: Not me!
Merlin: Not me!
Merlin: He's got the box!
John: Not me!
John: Not me!
John: And Ken doesn't even have to have the box anymore.
John: He just walks in.
John: It's a transitional box.
John: Then pretty soon, you got Rob Delaney walking in to a boardroom, puts a box on the table, and Ken Jennings in 3D shows.
John: Carrying a briefcase.