Ep. 72: "Diddling is the MacGuffin"
John: Hello.
John: Hi, John.
John: Hi, Merlin.
John: I know it's you because I was just talking to you on the phone.
John: Are you sure?
Merlin: Yeah, pretty sure.
Merlin: I was helping you do some troubleshooting on your computer.
John: Yeah, you were.
John: See, I had to reboot my USB because my FireWire had forgotten that it was a friend.
John: Oh.
John: And you told me that I should unplug everything and then plug it all back in.
Merlin: To be honest with you, I think I mostly understand what you're saying, but I'm not really a technologist.
Merlin: Could you give that to me again in pigs and bunnies?
Merlin: So what happened was – You heard that term?
Merlin: Pigs and bunnies.
Merlin: I used to work with a guy.
Merlin: My boss was way smarter than me in every conceivable way.
Merlin: And I would go into him – you know how I get, right?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, I do.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: So I would go into his office and go, who's this?
Merlin: And I would misuse.
John: Did you just say JavaScript?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: But like, you know me, like I will go in and in my premedicated days, especially, I would give him this, you know, emesis of half understood data.
Merlin: And Richard would lean back in his chair and he paused for a minute and he'd go, can you give that to me again in pigs and bunnies?
Merlin: And I say, you know what?
Merlin: I'm kind of dumb, aren't I?
Merlin: I don't know what I'm talking about.
Merlin: Because you're fine.
Merlin: Just explain it.
Merlin: Just explain it.
Merlin: I'll figure out the technical stuff.
Merlin: Tell me what you want the web page to do.
John: Well, as you have said over and over and over, turn your computer off and then turn it back on.
John: Isn't that... It's just like, oh, all right.
John: And in this case, I needed to actually unplug all the devices and plug them back in.
John: But it's the same thing.
Merlin: Well, I get the sense that you're – you know what?
Merlin: Fuck it.
Merlin: You're kind of – I know you're like this, and I'm definitely like this, where I'm like, fuck!
Merlin: And you get so – one, get so mad about how fucking stupid your fucking computer is.
Merlin: I'm sorry to curse, John.
Merlin: But like last night, you were using your headphones at 2 a.m., and everything was copacetic.
Merlin: You get up today.
Merlin: It's Alex Van Halen's 60th birthday, and you can't even make your computer work, and that's crazy frustrating.
Merlin: And in my experience, that's when I go off the rails.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: That's when I start doing all kinds of crazy.
Merlin: I don't want to be ping pong.
Merlin: Lots of crazy voodoo shit.
Merlin: I start taking things apart.
John: The voodoo, the Haitian voodoo priests that listen to our podcast are so mad right now that you are besmirching the name of their religion.
Merlin: They're going to get together with the Scientologists and the Santeria practitioners.
Merlin: And we're going to get a fucking low tone chicken in the mail.
John: Low tone chicken.
John: Take it to China, Chinese.
John: You know, the thing that makes me mad right now is I've got this Bluetooth keyboard that you recommended that I get.
John: It's a wonderful thing.
John: I really like everything about it.
John: Except every time I sit down at my computer, it says the Bluetooth setup assistant shows up and says, I cannot find your Bluetooth keyboard.
John: And then the keyboard, then it does find the keyboard.
John: But there is this, there's this like interlocution for, for 30 seconds where I'm sitting at the thing and I have to look at this, I have to look at this box pop up that I know is wrong.
John: And the fact that the box is, that's the problem.
John: The fact that the box is wrong and that there's no way to say, there's no way to type into the machine or say into the microphone, listen, computer, figure it out.
John: It's going to be the same every day.
John: Every day this thing is there and every day you're going to find it.
Merlin: And every day you're fucking wrong.
Merlin: Sorry, I'm cursing a lot.
Merlin: Every day you're wrong.
Merlin: Let me ask you a question.
Merlin: Has this happened more than once?
John: Happens every time.
Merlin: Okay, give me just a second here.
John: Hang on.
John: All right.
John: Are you going to fix something?
John: Are you going to tell me to... I can't unplug it because it's Bluetooth.
John: Wait a minute.
John: Where are you?
Merlin: Hang on.
Merlin: I'm sorry.
Merlin: Let me get my binder.
John: You're not going to the potty, are you?
Merlin: Hang on.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Is your computer Mac or PC?
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Merlin: It's a Dell.
Merlin: Dude, I got a Dell.
Merlin: Have you run recent software updates to ensure Mac or PC is up to date?
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: I even hot plugged my USB.
Merlin: Could you give that to me again in pigs and bunnies?
No.
Merlin: I know exactly what you mean.
Merlin: And I used to feel that software has in large part gotten so much better over the years.
Merlin: It's gotten more standardized, especially on a Mac.
Merlin: But it used to drive me crazy.
Merlin: It used to drive me crazy when I would get a dialog box and I didn't like any of the options.
Merlin: It would make me mad.
John: It makes me so mad.
John: It's the problem with the internet…
John: The internet helpmate.
John: What's that called?
John: The ombudsman.
John: Robert Reich?
John: Yeah, Robert Reich in your computer.
John: The one that says, I am trying to solve your internet connectivity problems.
Merlin: Oh, the little dingus, yeah.
John: It has no usefulness at all.
John: It just tells you what you already know.
John: It makes you jump through like seven different hoops and then it's like, you can't connect to the internet.
Merlin: You know, part of the problem, John, is part of the problem is we've both been to college.
John: Yes.
Merlin: And we've done stuff.
Merlin: And we don't like being told stupid shit without having a chance to defend ourselves.
Merlin: Thank you.
Merlin: Don't you think?
John: I don't like being told stupid shit.
John: Full stop.
Merlin: I'll tell you what drives me crazy right now, buddy.
Merlin: You go to one of those stupid goddamn web pages where you just want to go look at the stupid goddamn article and you get a – pardon my saying – a JavaScript pop-up window that says, would you like to get our iPhone app with subscription for free fitness magazine?
Merlin: And you have to search.
Merlin: Everything is like blacked out behind and you can't read anything.
Merlin: And then you have to search.
Merlin: Search for the X. Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And here's what the X says.
Merlin: It says it says something like incredibly passive aggressive, like, yes, I'm ready to be a valued consumer or no, thank you.
Merlin: No, thank you.
Merlin: I'd like to be reminded about this later.
John: Yes, I do not.
John: I am not thanking you.
John: I do not want that to be an option.
John: I'm thanking you for nothing.
John: I want the third option to be, no, fuck you.
John: Fuck you in the eye, JavaScript.
John: Go the fuck away.
Merlin: It's so frustrating.
Merlin: I don't like, you know what it is?
Merlin: I get, I'm kind of paraphrasing my friend Scott Simpson here, but I get blamed for enough things in my life as it is.
Merlin: There are so many things that I have screwed up.
John: I blame you for a lot of things.
Merlin: Sorry?
Merlin: I blame you for a lot of things.
Merlin: Well, you should.
Merlin: I'm a mess.
Merlin: But, you know, because I screw up so many things, I'm a little bit sensitive about somebody, including a computer pop-up window, telling me that the settings aren't right when I know it's not my fault.
John: Well, now, here, let me just run this by you.
John: So I have not updated Adobe Flash, whatchamacallit.com.
John: And every time I go on to – I go to websites that deal with – As part of your research.
John: As part of my research.
Merlin: As the Pete Townsend of our generation.
John: As part of my Pete Townsend research, I go to websites that employ Flash.
John: And for months, every time I go to these websites, I get this Adobe window that says you haven't updated Flash and you need to.
John: And I think about it, and I'm like, the only reason I would need to update Flash to look at this website is so that the animated ads on the side of the screen can annoy me with their Tourette's-like flashing.
John: And so I can't think of another reason that I employ Flash, so I have not updated it.
John: Well, today, after I did my latest software update, this is fascinating radio, by the way.
Merlin: Oh, no, this is important materials.
Merlin: We're getting at something much deeper than a pop-up.
John: Today, I get a different kind of window that pops up and says, you have not updated Adobe Flash for so long now that we are just blocking Flash content from your computer.
John: And on the side of the websites that I visit, all of the places which are advertisements are now just like broken link sign.
John: And I could not be happier.
John: It feels like a hack.
John: Like, is that all it took?
John: Just disable Flash?
John: And now I can just look at websites and they're not screaming at me?
John: Right.
John: Like, thank God, why do I not have that on everything?
John: Why have I not disabled it on my phone so that when I click through on Twitter to a link to read an article...
John: I'm not asked to download their iPhone.
Merlin: There's a video of somebody talking about incontinence that pops up.
John: I don't want it.
John: And now I have successfully broken Flash.
John: John, it's a war of attrition.
John: I guess that means if I go to some 2002 Indie Rocker's unupdated website, I'm not going to see the animation of a little clown with some balloons.
John: Skip intro.
What?
Merlin: I always thought if I were the president of Adobe, I would want to be named Skip Intro.
John: Skip Intro would be such a good punk rock name.
Merlin: You know what's great about that also?
Merlin: It's exactly that kind of guy that you would meet who goes, and I'm sure you've encountered this guy.
Merlin: This guy goes, well, thank you for taking the time to come on down here and chat.
Merlin: Let me tell you a little bit about what I've been up to.
Merlin: Skip Intro.
John: It just sounds like every person I meet at Comic-Con.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: That is – boy, Comic-Con.
Merlin: There's a variety of reasons I'm looking at Comic-Con.
Merlin: Remember me razzing you about Comic-Con?
John: What?
John: You're telling me that you're thinking of going to Comic-Con?
John: Well, you know, it's a big –
John: Conner.
John: Conner.
Merlin: Conner.
Merlin: Conner.
Merlin: Conner.
Merlin: Conner.
Merlin: Conner.
Merlin: Conner.
Merlin: Conner.
Merlin: Conner.
Merlin: Conner.
Merlin: Conner.
Merlin: Conner.
Merlin: Conner.
Merlin: Conner.
Merlin: Conner.
Merlin: Conner.
Merlin: Conner.
Merlin: Conner.
Merlin: Conner.
Merlin: Conner.
Merlin: Conner.
John: Conner.
John: Conner.
John: Conner.
Merlin: Conner.
Merlin: Conner.
Merlin: Oh, wow.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, man.
Merlin: Can I tell you how much this is a derail?
Merlin: But can I tell you how much I love my kids school and I'm going to miss it?
Merlin: I dropped her off this morning and this awesome little boy, you know, who's very, very boyish boy, but he's got long hair.
Merlin: He shows up today.
Merlin: He's wearing blue jeans and a rugby shirt and a fuchsia.
Merlin: giant flower headband in his hair.
Merlin: And I walk up and I go, name of kid, you look awesome.
Merlin: And of course my daughter is dressed as a boy because she's a unicorn prince.
Merlin: And I say, yeah, you know, Ellie's a unicorn prince today.
Merlin: And I said, God, you look awesome.
Merlin: And his mom turns to me and goes, he wanted to be pretty today.
Merlin: And I'm like, you know, they're going to be in kindergarten and people are going to like...
John: throw paste at them for wearing stuff in their hair and that's that's i don't know it's the modern day you know in 2003 i'm talking about 10 years ago yeah i was on tour with death cab for cutie and we played in burlington vermont one night and it was uh it was cold it was cold and i went down to the to the main street of burlington and
John: which is like a gypsy bazaar.
Merlin: It's like a... It's a little bit ping pong.
Merlin: They're not bazaar, they're Roma.
John: I'm sorry, gypsy people, Roma people.
John: They won't be here for long, don't worry.
John: I am an old-fashioned person and I still refer to you as gypsies and I know it's offensive.
Merlin: Real gypsies walk single file to disguise their numbers.
John: Interesting.
John: They put their shoe print in the shoe of the person.
Merlin: Those blasters are too precise for a gypsy.
John: So I'm downtown and it's one of these places where you can get homemade almond butter and you can get hemp underwear.
John: And there's a little kiosk that's selling scarves.
John: And I needed a scarf.
John: And I bought a scarf.
John: And I bought the pink scarf because it was the one that appealed to me.
John: And I come back to the venue.
John: And on the way back, you know, and this is Burlington, Vermont.
John: This isn't like, this isn't Oklahoma City.
Merlin: That's deep fleece in NPR country.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: And I'm walking back to the venue.
John: And then so on the trip to the venue and then at the venue, you know, no fewer than six people comment kind of with the that I'm wearing a pink scarf.
John: So that's how it is in his band.
John: And it had not occurred to me.
John: When I bought it, that that would be any kind of signal or that it would in any way be too confusing for people that I had chosen the pink one simply because the pink one was the handsomest of the scarves.
Merlin: These are strangers we're talking about.
John: These are people on the street.
John: And then when I arrive at the venue, they are people I'm interacting with in the course of the work that I am doing about to put on a rock show.
John: And everybody's like, nice pink scarf.
John: And I was like,
John: Thank you.
John: It is a nice pink scarf.
John: And what's amazing to me, Merlin, and maybe it's something about the color of pink that this pink scarf is because it's very pink.
John: But I still wear the scarf and I still get comments from people like, nice pink scarf.
John: And I think, is pink really?
John: Is it such an off-limits color for an adult man that you cannot have one item of pink flair that it doesn't freak people out?
Merlin: I've seen you wear like a pink polo shirt, I think.
John: I wear pink all up and down because pink is a handsome color.
John: It's a very handsome color.
Merlin: If you have the right skin tone, especially a big fellow like you, I think it's a nice way to soften your look.
Merlin: What troubles me, though, and I don't know, I was thinking about semiotics.
John: Although I feel like soften...
John: There's a little bit of a gender normative.
John: Oh, it's like saying somebody's fat.
Merlin: Yeah, you don't say soft.
Merlin: Pink is softig.
John: I said somebody was a Nancy the other day.
John: Oh, dear.
John: And I got a bunch of raised eyebrows.
John: Nancy.
Merlin: I wish we could pick our listeners.
Merlin: Come on, Nancy.
Merlin: Can I say Nancy?
Merlin: John, sometime we're going to have to have a program where we really, really boil it down and have a discussion about the word.
John: No, I think we would just sit and be racist and sexist all – we would do that for an hour and everybody would hate us forever.
Merlin: On purpose, we would deliberately try to oppress people.
Merlin: Now, I unintentionally thought about semiotics this morning and I had to set it aside.
Merlin: I said leave it.
Merlin: But now I'm thinking what troubles me – Now you're in a safe space.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: It signifies a safe space.
Merlin: That's the difference.
Merlin: But I – as I sit here now, what troubles me about that is, yes, obviously there is this whole like you're a giant fag thing.
Merlin: But what also troubles me is – no, that's what they're saying, right?
Merlin: But what troubles me about it is that whole like – and this is what I don't want my daughter and her friend with the fuchsia hair to have to face, fuchsia hair thing.
Merlin: is uh is this whole like oh and you drop this thing you don't even say you look like a homosexual and that's bad they're not even saying what they're really thinking they're they're leaving something in the air and i i think i feel pretty sure that this drives you nuts when something is left in the air unaddressed i don't like the left in the air unaddressed now you should feel bad about something that i don't have the stones to actually tell you you should feel bad about
John: Well, you know, that's why I carry a tennis racket everywhere I go.
Merlin: Does it have weights on it?
John: It doesn't.
John: You know, I train with weights at home.
John: Is it pink?
John: It is pink.
John: It's a pink graphite tennis racket.
John: Oh, those are nice.
John: I just give them a bonk right in the sweet spot.
John: And it makes that satisfying poom poom.
Merlin: And if you need to, you can always turn it sideways and really give him a serious brainer.
John: Well, this came up the other day because of the new movement.
John: I guess it's not a new... Well, it's a relatively new movement, which is the polyamorous...
John: Oh, God.
John: That polyamorous people, and that is a word that I object to.
John: I do not believe that, first of all, polyamorous is a word at all.
John: But second of all, it's a terrible way of describing this class of people.
John: But the polyamorous...
John: are greek that's probably greek right well it's like it's a it's a combination of greek and latin and that is what makes it yeah i mean strunk and white chapter one come on can we come up with something can we just call it wife swapping is that you can't do that anymore is that normative well no but this is the thing it isn't swapping pa the the uh the polyphiliacs no no uh no no take backs no indian giving well they want to be in multiple relationships simultaneously
John: It's not that they want to be.
John: This is the thing.
John: It's not a choice.
John: Say that they're born this way.
John: Say polyphiliacs.
John: Polyphiliacs, yeah, because polyamory is like too – it's wrong.
Merlin: Yeah, then you're saying it's a choice.
Merlin: This is how I am.
Merlin: Let it begin with me.
Mm-hmm.
John: They came for the polyphiliacs and I said nothing because I did not have polyphilia.
Merlin: They came for the people in bathrobes and I said nothing.
Merlin: And so what rights are being scotched for the polyphilics?
John: Here's what happened.
John: went online at some point recently and said, in response to people writing him, he said, I don't think that, I hate the word, but I don't think polyamory is a thing that you are born with.
John: I think it is a choice that you're making.
John: Dan Savage said that?
John: Dan Savage said this.
John: Wow.
John: I bet he got some notes.
John: Because people were writing him and saying, in response to advice he was giving people, they were saying, I'm born this way and polyamorous rights are equivalent and our struggle for recognition and for acceptance is equivalent to the gay rights struggle.
Merlin: Which is equivalent to the civil rights struggle.
John: Which is equivalent to the civil rights struggle.
John: So everyone has been a slave, basically.
John: Everyone has been living in slavery and now we are, there's this cascading.
John: We are in the middle of the Niagara of recognition that people are born as they are and everybody should be
Merlin: Everybody should be entitled to the same sort of – It's literally a 200 – no, it's a 400-year legacy of forced labor and having your children taken away.
Merlin: It's 400 years people have suffered because of their – those cultures built in, inability to allow them to love various persons.
Merlin: Right.
John: And so where's my parade?
John: So Dan.
John: So Dan has been, you know, wrestling with this because he does because he's he is kind of the locus point in America, at least for people for this kind of conversation.
John: You know, Dan is like always at the forefront of gay rights.
Merlin: Well, I mean this is one case where that word I think works very well.
Merlin: When you say he's sort of a thought leader in the whole queer movement, the whole – before we add another word to LGBTQXYZ, but queer in general.
Merlin: People who are – I mean am I using that incorrectly?
Merlin: I think that's – No, no, no.
John: Well, that is – That's parlance, right?
John: That's the way that we were taught.
John: I don't know if queer is still acceptable because – Oh, I think it's re-acceptable.
John: I feel like the kids –
John: Well, no, but I feel like it was re-acceptable in 96, and the kids now are rewriting the rules every day.
John: It's reverse, reverse racism.
John: About what language is acceptable.
John: You know what I mean?
John: Like, there are 21-year-olds out there who are dictating what language is and is not acceptable, and I'm afraid that... That'll work out great.
John: I'm afraid that I am not on all of the RSS feeds.
Merlin: You read the trades, but you got stuff to do.
John: I do.
John: There's...
John: There's this great guy in England who publishes an e-zine called Worldwide Words, where every week he does a deep etymology of a few different words.
John: I love that stuff.
John: I think he might have a website, but this just shows up in my email.
John: He just sends out an email blast once a week where he's like, the derivation of the word...
John: And he really will, he'll get all the way into all, like, he'll find the earliest citation of the earliest use of a word and kind of walk us all the way back to where it came from.
John: But anyway, so the struggles of the polyamorous...
John: I've been turning it over and over in my mind, both because I feel like we are fast arriving at the singularity of rights, where...
Merlin: It's like identity politics gray goo.
John: Yeah.
John: If we are abandoning the idea of nurture and all like trending toward this born this way, born this way, born this way.
John: I mean, I definitely feel like a lot of my problems in life, in interacting with other people, are the result of traits that I was born with.
John: You know what I mean?
John: Like, my nature is such that I look at my grandfather and his life and my mother and her life.
John: I look back in my family and I see these traits expressed in a way that I do not feel.
John: I was taught, but rather that I came equipped with this kind of personality even.
John: And that personality has definitely affected the way I have interacted with other people, the success I've had in the world.
John: And although I don't want to parade, I do feel like over the course of the last 20 years, I have felt increasingly less like a freak and more like a type, right?
John: And that has given me a certain freedom because I say, listen, I am this type.
John: I am introverted.
John: I am...
John: I'm a loner, but I'm also a social introvert, so that's why it's confusing to you, why I want to come home with you, but I don't want to stay the night.
John: Do you understand?
Merlin: You're a type.
John: I can see why this is confusing to you, and you're saying, like, you came home with me, now stay the night, and I'm like, gotta go, but it's not your fault.
John: Where are the rights for the monoamorous, for the nanoamorous?
John: I'm a type.
John: Do you understand?
John: And there are a lot of people, I think, on the Internet...
John: Who self-identify as asexual.
John: Oh, like Morrissey.
John: Like Morrissey, who are similarly liberated by the recognition that they have a group, that they are a type.
John: They're not a freak.
John: They're just, they trend toward asexual on the great, like, globular graph of human types.
Mm-hmm.
John: But so I feel the polyamorous out there.
John: I really feel them.
John: It's part of your research.
John: With my long tongue.
John: Oh, Christ.
John: And there they are.
John: They're living in a world where monogamy is the mass, right?
John: Monogamy is unquestionably.
John: Yeah, monogamy is the man.
John: Is the man.
John: And monogamy is not just a socially determined man.
John: Monogamy is the type and the choice of the majority.
John: And yet here these people are, and I think probably legitimately say, I never ever felt a different way than that I want to have two wives.
John: Or that I want to be in simultaneous marriage.
John: Uh, simultaneously caring, loving relationships with multiple people.
John: And now I want my, now I want my civil rights and my human rights.
Merlin: But what – OK.
Merlin: I just want to stipulate.
Merlin: This is your topic, not mine.
Merlin: And I don't want to get involved.
Merlin: I don't want to have to argue with that lady that always wants to argue with us.
Merlin: You will have to take care of that for us.
John: Who wants to argue with me?
John: I must have blocked them all.
Merlin: I'm moving on.
Merlin: I just want to – OK.
Merlin: First of all, I would like you to the extent possible to help me understand what rights are being denied these people.
Merlin: But I would also like to say –
Merlin: Yes, I am the problem because I'm the man.
Merlin: Literally, it's my name.
Merlin: But it also – it's interesting to me.
Merlin: Like I've said this to you before, but I always wish there were a word besides – I wish there were a distinction between, for example, an atheist and an antitheist.
Merlin: Or – you know what I mean?
Merlin: Like I think that's – it's problematic that –
Merlin: an atheist is used for somebody like a Richard Dawkins character.
Merlin: I don't think he's an atheist.
Merlin: I think he's an anti-theist.
Merlin: He's an anti-theist.
Merlin: Agreed.
Merlin: And an atheist, to me, should be somebody – it would be the equivalent of saying, like, I'm an A-Strawberian.
Merlin: Like, you know what?
Merlin: I don't eat strawberries.
Merlin: Like, they're out there, maybe, but I don't – you know what I mean?
Merlin: You are ambivalent to God.
Merlin: Anytime you identify by what you are not –
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: For myself.
John: For myself as the man.
Merlin: Agreed.
Merlin: When you determine your politics and rights based on what you are not, I think you're not on the road to empowerment.
John: Agreed.
Merlin: I think you're on the road to systematically –
John: mindfully marginalizing yourself go merlin go it's your topic it's your topic no no i like it and that but i think it's a i think it's a condition of our modern times we are we are and i think i tried to get into this with you once and god and the talk about sex grossed you out oh no and you and you closed your ears and then and then you started talking i'm not i'm not sex negative i'm talking about your fucking sex negative
Merlin: I don't want to hear about all your make-believe orgasms on Twitter and all of your eating ice cream and playing with your Hitachi.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: Keep it in your pants, Johnny.
Merlin: You know, that's my feeling.
John: Kamiguchi.
Merlin: Is that one of those little pets you got to have?
John: It's a little fuck pet.
Merlin: You got to catch them all, right?
Merlin: Is that Pogs?
John: Is that related to Pogs?
John: I'm not sure.
John: I think it's a Pikachu.
John: Bless you.
John: No, living in the downtown, as I have done for many years, living in the downtown of a Western city.
John: And I don't want to derail this, but I was just in Ohio.
John: And boy, Ohio is different than Seattle.
John: Which part?
John: I was in the Akron, Canton, Cleveland axis.
John: The Cuyahoga River Valley.
John: And...
John: A lot of riding lawnmowers, a lot of leaf blowers, a lot of women, like middle-aged women with wedge haircuts.
John: You know what a wedge haircut is?
John: Sure, I know a wedge.
John: But anyway, so living here in the West, for many years I have interacted with people who were self-identifying as freaky or that they were not interested in vanilla, if you know what I'm saying.
John: They were not interested in a vanilla lifestyle, they were interested in a freaky lifestyle.
John: And interacting with some of these people, as I do, as a researcher and as a rock musician, sometimes I would find myself, as part of my research, back in their lair, in their cave...
Merlin: So anthropologically, you could observe them in their natural environment.
John: Yeah, just there as a researcher and there to see because, you know, freaky people are freaky are people, too.
John: And as a self-identified queer or freak positive person, I was there, you know, as a. I agree with everything you've decided you are not.
John: Sort of like a UN observer in supremacy.
Merlin: Oh, you got like a blue helmet and you're like Jimmy Carter at the Central American election.
John: Yeah, in a way I did have a blue helmet.
Merlin: Hi-oh!
John: Pete Townsend.
John: Anyway, but you get into those situations and you get engaged with these people in their multifarious ways.
John: And in most cases I discovered that the freakiness was not...
John: was not superior to vanilla.
John: It was not... Like, being anti-vanilla, being not vanilla, was not the same as being... Like, somehow having an evolved sexuality or an evolved...
John: set of tastes it was simply like it was it was largely defined by what it wasn't and this was you know this is i complain about punk rock too but i'm not going to talk about punk rock anymore anymore
John: And I did feel like people were getting into smaller and smaller groups.
John: It's like when we were in high school, if you liked metal, you were a metalhead.
John: And now I imagine if you went to high school today, there would be...
John: Like 40 different splinter metal groups, social groups, and the death metal kids and the, you know, and the classic British heavy metal kids.
Merlin: Swedish or Norwegian.
John: Exactly.
John: And nobody can... Melodic death metal.
John: It's very, very different.
John: Around the core campfire of metal.
Merlin: Isn't that a goddamn shame?
Merlin: You just can't sit there and listen to some Iron Maiden like a gentleman.
John: And I have this problem.
John: I listen to certain threads of new metal and I'm like... And I don't mean Neumetal.
Merlin: The German band, right?
John: And I think, this isn't metal.
John: This is just...
John: This is metal sounds and metal parts.
Merlin: You could hook up a Volkswagen to a boss pedal and listen to it turn over and it would sound basically the same.
John: I like that idea.
John: Could you hook up a Volkswagen to a boss pedal?
John: You'd need a microphone in between.
Merlin: I need a firewire probably.
Merlin: Can I point out one thing?
Merlin: And this is – boy, are you ever going to get mail about this.
Merlin: But here's something.
Merlin: When we talk about – and I know it is – I've heard it is extremely frustrating to African-American people.
Merlin: And I'm using that term very lightly because I think they're actually pretty fucking pissed when people say things are like the civil rights movement.
Merlin: Because, yes, in one sense they are.
Merlin: If you learned about the civil rights movement when you were a kid in the 90s, it can seem very similar because you say, well, we're being treated poorly.
Merlin: People are discriminating against us, and there are willful – in some cases, willful systematic attempts to keep us from being part of the culture.
Merlin: And whether that's Montgomery or Kristallnacht, yeah, that was a real thing.
Merlin: But here's something I've noticed, and I'm curious if you've noticed this.
Merlin: I've noticed that somebody who's black when they're 21 is also black when they're 70.
Merlin: I'm noticing that there are a lot fewer people who are freaky when they're 21 that are still freaky when they're middle-aged.
Merlin: And you know what?
Merlin: The ones who are freaky.
Merlin: when they're middle-aged don't fucking care what you think and don't need you to like their rights they're just doing their thing and i see that around here and i think it's super cool and they don't need a fucking parade they're just going out and diddling whatever they want and they don't need to be fucking rosa parks and i really respect that if you ever came on the jonathan colton cruise i would never come on anything on a cruise do you know how filthy those things are
John: There are a lot of middle-aged freaky people, but as you say, they find their place and they are less – But they know who they are and they – I mean except, of course, this is San Francisco, which is an outlier.
Merlin: But I really respect people who don't need a label.
Merlin: And the ones that I end up respecting – and I have to admit, maybe this is because I'm getting a little bit more into nerdy culture, which I know is a controversial topic.
Merlin: But one reason I'm gaining more and more respect for LARPers and cosplayers is they're positive.
Merlin: Positive in the sense of saying like, you know what?
Merlin: I like dressing up like Captain Marvel or I am a paladin.
Merlin: I can't use a vorpal blade, but I can sure have fun on the weekends.
Merlin: And I like that.
Merlin: To me, showing up and going like I'm a non-non-LARPer is not much of an identity.
Merlin: That just makes you 13.
John: Right now, the libertarian priest, he's loving this conversation.
John: You think so?
John: The bro?
John: Because he knows all about the powers of Paladin.
John: That was one of the first.
John: He's the D&D priest.
John: You knew that, right?
John: Are you talking about the bro?
John: Yeah, the bro.
Merlin: I totally did not know that.
John: The bro, D&D priest.
Merlin: I learned something that I'd forgotten, which is that you can change your alignment, but did you know you lose experience points when you change your alignment?
John: You do, that's right.
Merlin: You can't just... Do you think that's true in life, John?
Hmm.
Merlin: Like, let's say you are – like, I personally – like, I was watching this Hunger Games movie the other night, which is actually about 100 times better than I expected.
Merlin: And I was thinking about how she's kind of a ranger.
Merlin: And you know what I mean?
Merlin: I don't.
John: Because I've never seen that show.
Merlin: Well, you know a ranger.
Merlin: What is a ranger?
Merlin: It's high dexterity.
Merlin: You've got to have pretty good strength.
Merlin: I think you've got to have some charisma.
Merlin: Monks need lots of charisma, right?
John: Yeah, you need a hooded cloak.
Merlin: You need a cloak.
Merlin: You need – who gets the vibrating hand?
Merlin: That's the –
Merlin: That's the freaky monk, right?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: You can rappel down walls.
Merlin: But anyway, so I always have thought of myself as a youngster as being chaotic good.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Which I think is what most teenagers like to think that they are.
John: Sure.
Merlin: I think if you thought that you were lawful good or lawful neutral, you would think that you were such a pussy.
John: Right.
Merlin: Chaotic good.
Merlin: It's like, hey, you know what, dude?
Merlin: I'm a good guy, but I'm a little bit of a wild card.
John: Yeah.
John: Lawful good is a townsperson, a farmer, a merchant.
Merlin: It's one of those pesky non-player characters.
Merlin: It's always trying to get into your shit, get your gold in your high, hard boots.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You know, that's the non-player characters are the ones you got to watch.
Merlin: Anyway, you know what?
Merlin: I don't have a point to this.
John: But no, as you get further along in life.
John: I think a lot of people need to confront the idea that they are not chaotic good and that they are more or less lawful good.
John: Yeah, lawful good, really.
John: I think the majority of people are lawful good.
Merlin: Or they're just disoriented normal.
John: But isn't that lawful good, disoriented normal?
Merlin: I think of, I mean, alignment obviously is reductive.
Merlin: It has to be, right?
John: You feel like your alignment has changed as you've grown older?
Merlin: I mean, I guess, but I don't think I'm good anymore because – You feel lawful neutral?
Merlin: Okay, so here's the difference.
Merlin: A paladin has to be lawful good, which means not simply that you honor the law and are a good person.
Merlin: It means that you must act in pursuit of lawful things and you must make things good.
Merlin: I think that's a big difference.
Merlin: And this is the problem with all these fucking teenagers running around in their goddamn bathrobes is that you're not fighting in the service of anything except your own identity at that time.
Merlin: And you know what?
Merlin: Why don't you get back in the oven and bake for five more years and then come back and tell me about what words I'm allowed to use?
Merlin: With all due respect.
John: I do agree that the civil rights movement in America is not analogous to – is not directly analogous to the proliferation of rights movements.
John: Your grandparents weren't slaves, Bathrobe Boy.
John: Yeah.
John: But I feel like leaving that aside, leaving the fact that everybody is trying to connect their small struggle to the large struggle, we are now living in a world where we have to reckon with all of these small struggles, you know?
John: And I'm afraid people aren't thinking it all the way through, thinking the born this way all the way through.
John: Because if born this way... It ends up being kind of restrictive.
John: Well, it's not just that.
John: I'm not worried about the restrictiveness of it.
John: It is that born this way is precisely the argument that NAMBLA members use.
Merlin: You just did the White Van Kiddiddler version of Godwin's Law.
Merlin: If we make gay marriage possible, people are going to marry their cats.
John: That's the problem.
John: And this is why people that get mad at me argue that I am some kind of crazy... I've gone across the radical spectrum and I'm on the other side now.
John: Back to reactionary.
John: But...
John: But if you follow, and again, as part of my Pete Townsend research, I have listened to the voices.
Merlin: You've peered into a lot of dark corners.
John: I have.
John: I've listened to the voices of the oppressed men who love children.
John: And I've listened to their lamentations, the lamentations of themselves.
John: What is good?
John: And they say, and a lot of them, you can't help but have sympathy for them as they stand before a judge and beg to be castrated.
John: Talk about being born this way.
John: And say, like, I cannot help these urges.
John: I've had them since I can remember.
John: I know it is criminal.
John: I know it's wrong.
John: I want to be castrated.
John: Please send me to jail.
John: Please execute me.
John: There are people pleading with us as a culture to...
John: to help them solve this problem that has, that has plagued them their whole lives.
John: And they're in prison and they are, you know, like, and every time a child molester goes to prison, we're all like, ha ha ha.
John: I hope he gets raped a thousand times.
John: But it's like, you know, a lot of these guys have been, have been fighting this their whole lives and, and believe me, they feel like they were born that way.
John: And so I'm not equating polyamory or LARPing with child molestation.
John: Like that's going to save you.
John: Or bronyism.
John: Let me just stipulate.
John: I don't think they go hand in hand and glove.
Merlin: You probably misunderstood a lot of what I'm saying, but now I'm going to put the thought in your head that this is something I have to deny.
John: But if you...
John: If you go down the rabbit hole of born this way, there's a lot down deeper in the hole that you don't want to look at.
John: And so where do you draw the line?
John: Where do you say like, all right, here, this is unconscionable to us or that we cannot allow it past this point.
John: But up on this side of it, up the hole, we're going to say, yes, goddammit, bronies have rights.
Merlin: So, I mean, if I understand, and this is your topic, but if I understand, I think what you're saying, it's that when you go down the road to born this way, then if your basic thesis is that born this way has to be acceptable because anyone who is born a certain way
Merlin: has the inalienable right to be respected and found lawful for what it is.
Merlin: In other words, we should not penalize people for being born this way, whether that is, oh, God, why are we doing this?
Merlin: But it's kind of what you're saying, right?
Merlin: If your basic premise is born this way has primacy, then you open the door to all the things that you're going to get email about.
John: Right, right.
John: I'm going to get a lot of email.
John: But the thing is that human beings are animals, right?
John: First and foremost.
John: And born this way is a naturalistic argument.
John: It is an argument that our natures are predetermined.
John: It's deterministic.
John: By our animal selves, right?
John: But across the great spectrum of human beings, there are a lot of us that are born in a way that as soon as that way is identified, we should probably put that person to death immediately.
John: Like there are people who are born in a way that they, I mean, if you, if you read about Jeffrey Dahmer, he, he fought his whole life to control his urges to rape and, and eat his victims or whatever, you know, like they, he is also born that way.
John: And so we, you're going to need a new email address.
John: Right.
John: Right.
John: People are going to be, people are going to, are, are all going to be wrestling with this.
John: I don't mean to interrupt you.
John: I totally get what you're saying.
John: Yeah.
John: But, but, but,
John: And this is by no means an argument against the progress that we have made.
John: Your furry hand, your furry glove in my chain-mailed hand.
John: But...
John: let's make this a night with a k to remember but i worry about this all the time because as i walk through life i support people's desire to be free but at a certain point all of civilization all of law is designed to constrain people's freedom for the for the benefit of the mass for the good of the main and
John: And what we're doing is we are extending the borders of what we consider to be the mainstream, right?
John: I mean, homosexuality now is completely mainstreamed in America, and I think America has gained for it.
John: But as we extend those borders, we're all going to have to reckon with just exactly where we want to draw the new line, right?
John: Because there has to be... You cannot extend the franchise all the way out to everybody because there are freaky people out there.
John: There are people who are born in a way that gives us pause.
John: And...
John: But we're not talking about that.
Merlin: Each new struggle, each new group—
Merlin: But how do you – well, here's one thing that really actively troubles me and that I struggle with because as much as we crack wise on here or whatever we do on here, like I would genuinely like for people to live the life that they would like to lead in as much as it doesn't harm other people.
Merlin: And I really do believe that people should be allowed to be called whatever the fuck they want to be called and with respect.
Merlin: But –
Merlin: This is a struggle and I'm going to own this.
Merlin: But like my problem is I – which remember I made that crack about how like if you mention like crack in the South, people think you do crack.
Merlin: I don't like – I don't like it when people think that just because I'm disagreeing with you about the name and entitlement of something doesn't mean I think you shouldn't get to do what you want.
Merlin: Do you know what I mean?
Merlin: I think you can end up having an extremely loud and long argument about two different things without ever distinguishing what they are.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Which is that like, yeah, well, like why are we arguing?
Merlin: Everybody should be able to do the thing that they want to do.
Merlin: You know, your rights stop at the end of my nose kind of thing.
Merlin: But I don't like being constantly tutored by people on how I need to realign my thinking and vocabulary to comport with what they're feeling this week.
John: I know you hate being tutored by people on the internet.
Merlin: I don't like being tutored.
Merlin: And what it reminds me of in some ways, as long as we're going to escalate this, what it reminds me of is they say that it is said that one reason – They say that it is said.
Merlin: They say that it is said that one reason, for example, that Republicans, conservatives but Republicans in particular have had so much success over the years.
Merlin: is organization um and things like being able to rally people to say like and send out an email you know astroturfing send out this email to go okay here's a link go to this cnn poll and vote this way right and you come to nuremberg and we will have a big bonfire
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And so, for example, you could have a Campbell's Soup recipe competition and the winner would be something called Ron Paul Revolution.
Merlin: And you go, what does that even mean?
Merlin: Well, I guess we're making a difference.
Merlin: So you can rally people to do just about anything.
Merlin: Now, the other thing that they're great at, and I think this is pretty well documented, is being able to control the vocabulary and end up framing what the actual thing we're talking about is just by a choice of words.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Pro-life, precisely.
Merlin: Or again, we're back to don't think of an elephant.
Merlin: But I think there are actually – this is a thing that everybody does now, which is messaging, which is you let everybody in your camp know, yes, here's what the messaging is.
Merlin: This is the point we need to make in every interview, but these are the words.
Merlin: We need to use in order to do this.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And it could be something like very coded.
Merlin: You know, it could be like, you know, problems.
Merlin: Urban has a very coded meaning.
Merlin: And so in some ways I feel like the newsletter that we're all being forced to subscribe to.
Merlin: That we dare not fall behind on is the newsletter that lets us know what's hot and what's not in terms of what noun to use to keep somebody from being a goddamn slave.
Merlin: And I think that puts such a lie to some really important shit that's gone down in the last 400 years that it makes me furious.
Merlin: It's like you were not in Auschwitz.
Merlin: Relax.
John: Relax.
John: What interests me about the conversation is, as always, first principles, right?
John: I don't think it's very effective to talk about, for instance, drone attacks in Afghanistan or to talk about Guantanamo or to talk about...
John: the extension of civil rights to each successive group.
John: It isn't very useful to,
John: Unless there's some part of the population that is talking about it in terms of first principles.
John: Because every time a new group kind of rises up out of the mist and says, we are another group of people who demand our civil rights.
Merlin: And to be acknowledged that we are a group.
John: To be acknowledged as a group and to be accepted into what is essentially the mainstream.
John: We want to come out of the darkness.
John: And now we want, you know, we want, for instance, polyamory, which more or less hurts nobody.
John: But we want to be mainstreamed.
John: We want to be accepted.
John: We want to be able to say to our coworkers, we are polyamorous.
John: And so I'm going to bring two people to our employee picnic.
Merlin: And they're essentially not allowed to smirk at your pink scarf.
John: Yeah, or in a lot of cases, and we want insurance and benefits.
John: Oh, I see.
Merlin: That's the rights.
John: Yeah, but we want to be mainstreamed is part of it.
John: And also, drone attacks and Guantanamo, where we are pushing...
John: We are pushing in specific cases what we what we universally agree are the limits.
John: Like we are sending drones now and without any human without any oversight.
John: I mean, and obviously there's there are people in in tractor trailers in the Nevada desert who are watching on video cameras and saying.
John: Yeah, I think that guy... I don't like the look of his turban.
John: I think that guy's bad.
John: Send in an air-to-ground missile.
John: Boom!
John: And then, you know, oh, shit!
John: After the missile was launched, four kids came running out of the door kicking a soccer ball, and now we're just going to sit here and watch them...
John: There's like eight seconds until the missile lands, and we're just going to sit here in our trailer and watch them vaporize, and then we're going to go home and have a Stouffer's dinner.
John: But we're trying to figure out what the new limits are without looking at it.
John: From from from on high, like there's no counsel of elders, really, because the media has largely abdicated this role.
John: Nobody writes about it anymore from this standpoint, because nobody likes to get letters.
John: And also that there's been a tremendous decline in the in the national dialogue.
John: But when it comes to pederasty, God.
John: Like, there needs to be a conversation about it in our culture that no one wants to initiate, right?
John: Who wants to be the one that comes out and says, let's take a hard look at this conversation.
John: And, you know, is it when a 22 year old has sex with a 16 year old and in some state or a 15 year old and in some states he goes to jail for that?
John: Is that really equivalent to a 75 year old molesting a six year old?
John: You know, like there are there are laws, but there's also there's a tremendous amount of like crinkled up noses in our culture where it's like, oh, that's gross.
John: Like Hugh Hefner just married a 26 year old.
John: That's gross.
John: He's 87.
John: But.
John: We, but it's gross, but we kind of also, I mean, half the population kind of high five.
Merlin: Doesn't it seem like he's getting married to somebody 20 like every few months?
Merlin: Is it just me?
Merlin: Am I getting old?
John: My feeling is that Hugh Hefner's taste in women has become more and more cartoony as he's gotten old.
John: Maybe it's his eyesight.
John: I think it is.
John: And I think what he really... I think what they should do is they should wheel in like a giant boob.
John: And just wheel it in to his room every night at 11.
John: And then he can grope it and paw at it.
John: And then they just wheel the boob out.
John: And he's laying in bed like all covered in perspiration and like...
John: Oh, honey.
Merlin: But you know, he's a pretty wealthy guy.
Merlin: So maybe they could have different boobs.
Merlin: So he could have, he could be polyamorous with his fake boobs.
Merlin: So he could have different ones come in.
Merlin: Maybe he could have, you know, maybe a B cup tonight.
Merlin: Well, and by B, I mean, of course, would it be like the size of a, of a, of a Hasek or, or like a foreign car?
John: Like how, how, how big would it be?
John: I think it would be, I think it would be like one of those fuckable feet.
John: Do you remember the monster in the queen alien in Starship Troopers?
John: I don't think I do, but I can look it up.
John: Do you remember Starship Troopers?
Merlin: Was that with that girl with the eyebrows?
John: Maybe.
John: It's the one where Doogie Howser puts his hand on the thing and he says, it's afraid.
John: It's a big bug.
John: I think that's about the size of the boob that Hugh Hefner is.
John: should, should maybe ride to Val.
Merlin: This is the problem with porn.
Merlin: And it's really one of the only problems with porn is, is that, is that I think a couple of things happen.
Merlin: I think, I think one thing is that familiarity breeds porn contempt, which is that you, that first of all, like once, no matter how much porn you've got, you always want more.
Merlin: And then in time you want it to get more fucked up.
Merlin: And so the thing is like he might start out, for example, with like, hey, look at me.
Merlin: I'm Hugh Hefner.
Merlin: I have a built to scale like what?
Merlin: Like one to eight, one colon eight sized boobie.
Merlin: But then maybe sometimes he wants like a one to eight man boobie.
Merlin: whoa or something i'm just saying i'm just saying this is the problem and i don't want to get into the dead rubber girl thing but you know i i bet once you got one rubber girl you want to get two and then you want to get four so you can have a tea party oh right imagine if you spent all that money on a dead rubber girl and then you got bored of her well exactly and you were like oh this rubber girl is just doesn't do it for me anymore i've spent money on some very costly things that i got bored with very quickly
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: But that's a big investment.
John: I have a whole drawer of digital cameras that I don't use anymore.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: And that's a terrific example.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Like the first digital camera I bought was in 1999 and it was a sub – I think it was less than one megapixel.
Merlin: I mean –
Merlin: I look at them now.
Merlin: I thought, I thought it was revolutionary at the time.
Merlin: You put your little card in, you put the batteries in and you're taking pictures and you put it onto your PC.
Merlin: Wow.
Merlin: This is really amazing, but it was very costly for the time.
Merlin: And now those pictures look ridiculous.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: They're so like, they're so noisy and like, and streaky looking.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: It's noisy streaks.
Merlin: Each time one of these new dingai come out, like you think it's going to be a revolution and it kind of is for a while.
Merlin: It's from the Latin.
Ooh.
John: I don't know.
John: Well, you know, Hugh Hefner has a son.
John: Hugh Hefner has a lot of kids, I guess, as you would expect.
John: A lot fewer kids than you might think.
Merlin: I have this feeling that he just has never had a lot of sex.
Merlin: He seems like he's overcompensating on such another level.
John: Yeah, I think I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Hugh Hefner's had a lot of sex, but that none of it, I don't think, qualifies as good sex as I see it.
Merlin: You don't think he could pleasure a lady?
John: I do not think.
John: I don't think so either.
John: I think that he exists to be pleasured, and that's probably been true since the start.
John: I mean, look at him.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: And imagine being a lady.
Yeah.
John: And imagine here comes even a young Hugh Hefner.
John: Here he comes.
John: He's coming in.
John: Got a pipe.
John: And you are a lady.
John: Pretty lady.
John: Here comes Hugh.
John: Yeah.
John: He's skinny and he's... He's gawky.
Merlin: He's got that weird hair and... There's a little... Something unsaid about him.
Merlin: He's eating pussy like he's finishing some flan.
Merlin: I don't like it.
Merlin: Don't you think?
John: But he's got this kid.
John: He's got this young kid who's his heir apparent.
John: His son...
John: The Playboy Prince.
John: He is the Playboy Prince.
John: This kid is named Cooper Hefner.
Merlin: That's a terrible name.
John: And he was born...
John: in like uh i don't i don't even know i i don't want to look it up on the internet but he was born recently he's like 20 he's like in his early 20s and he's hugh hefner's son now he and his father is grooming him uh as he has groomed so many ladies to take over the playboy enterprise well
John: Now you picture this kid at 22 years old.
John: The first question you had.
John: 1991 he was born.
John: He was born in 91.
John: So how old does that make him?
John: I think you're right.
John: Yeah, he's 22.
John: When did Cooper Hefner, when and how did Cooper Hefner lose his virginity?
John: It was probably not.
John: It was probably not in the backseat of a Corvair parked at lookout point.
John: It was probably not.
John: What are you, an American graffiti?
John: It was probably not a girl.
John: It was probably not with a girl behind the bandstand with a girl that he goes to high school with.
John: Probably not at the World's Fair.
John: It was probably not under the boardwalk.
John: Out by the sea?
John: It was undoubtedly at some point.
John: On like a round bed.
John: Or in a grotto.
John: And he was initiated into this world.
John: in some kind of grotesquerie where a half a dozen you know playmates were sort of like tee hee hee
Merlin: Oh, you think his father might have dispatched them for some kind of initial, in the true sense of the word, an ordeal, like a sexual ordeal.
Merlin: It was a trial by vaginal fire.
John: Absolutely.
John: I cannot imagine it happened any other way.
Merlin: I bet he was surprised, too.
Merlin: Maybe they put a bathrobe over his head and dragged him into a limo.
John: He was probably in a bed shaped like a car, like a racing car.
John: Inside of a grotto.
John: He was probably 10 years old.
John: I cannot imagine that it happened to him at an age that was not premature.
John: Because because I think that, you know, like you're Hugh Hefner's son.
John: Like, when is this going to and your mother is a playmate?
John: When is this going to go down?
Merlin: It's like the poet says, all fallen leaves should curse their branches.
Merlin: So he's got to go out there, and it's just like your buddy having to drive around with the fucking Clydesdales to go to the prom.
Merlin: He didn't pick the Clydesdales.
Merlin: It was his Anheuser-Busch dad, not to work ping pong, that makes him get behind some clompy horses and go to the prom.
Merlin: This guy did not get to pick to be this Cooper fella, probably did not get to pick the way he wanted his fallen leaf to fall.
John: Right.
Merlin: Or whether he wanted to fall at all.
John: He's 22 years old.
John: I'm a fan.
John: How many sexes has he had with playmates probably exclusively?
Merlin: Doesn't that seem unprofessional?
Merlin: Well, here's the thing.
John: You couldn't do that.
Merlin: Like, OK, here's the thing.
Merlin: I think we get blinded by Playboy.
Merlin: I think – and I'm not being anti-porn.
Merlin: I'm all about the porn.
Merlin: I'm just saying that like in any other industry, like just because you had a Xerox copier dealership doesn't mean your son would have to fuck on a piece of glass, right?
Merlin: But in this case – and you certainly wouldn't have the lady who answers the phones come over and diddle his copy.
Merlin: In this case though, you're saying – so it seems to me that you're saying that this is a depraved –
John: underworld of of forced sexual sexuality and you might you might end up putting your son in a grotto whether he's into it or not and now how many times since i cannot imagine that hugh hefner has not rationalized his position in life to such an extent that he believes that that uh sex with multiple beautiful girls is
John: is not his son's birthright where's his parade and that and that at a certain point probably pretty early on he was like let's get let's get this show on the road let's get this let's get this happening because i told you the story of my dad coming back from his trip to china and
John: and saying i uh one of the people on the trip to china one of the people on the trip to china was a madam and i you know and i was looking down at my looking down at my book pretending not to hear and he's like and she runs a a massage parlor
John: And I was like, mm-hmm.
John: Flip the page.
John: He said, anytime you want to go over there, she said, I should just bring you over.
Merlin: He really said that?
John: Yeah.
John: And I was 15, 16.
John: And now I'm really staring at my book.
John: But the thing is, my dad, born in 1921, he doesn't know how to do this.
John: He doesn't know how to teach your kid about...
John: about sex.
John: But he also doesn't know how to do it right, the Hugh Hefner way, which is to be like, let's go to the hardware store.
John: And then we pull into the parking lot of a place called, you know, Sally's Oriental Massage.
John: And I'm like, what are we doing here?
John: And you know, my dad and I went to a lot stranger places than that together.
John: If he had pulled into the gravel driveway of this place and said, yeah, come with me.
John: And we'd gone inside.
John: We're going to Portland to get a thing.
John: And there's like, you know, 11 girls in lacy undergarments.
John: And he would, you know, and then some madam who I assume is wearing like a silk Chinese, one of those.
John: She's wearing a chinoiserie chemise.
John: Right.
John: A chinoiserie chemise.
John: And he would just be like, all right, kid, go get them.
John: And I would have been like, what?
John: No.
John: And the door would slam and it would be like a scene out of a movie.
John: But no, my dad, his version of it was, well, anytime you want to go by there, just let me know.
Merlin: He's just leaving it out there.
John: Just leaving it out there.
Merlin: It's like sending your kid to Kumon.
Merlin: I could try to teach you the new math, but I'd rather send you somewhere else where somebody in a chemise could teach you maybe some kind of violin method or something.
Merlin: It's easier for him and it's more pleasurable for you is what he's thinking.
John: But Anchorage is not that big of a town, and every time we drove by this place for the next 10 years, I was studying my fingernails, you know?
John: I'm like, oh, Jesus, don't bring it up.
John: You're like a dog driving by the vet's office.
John: Don't bring it up, for the love of Christ.
John: Don't bring it up.
John: And, you know, and he would every once in a while, oh, there's that place with that gal.
John: And it's like, no, ineffective.
John: I would rather have been...
John: Dragged out of my little racing car shaped bed at the age of 10 and thrown into a snake pit of playmates.
John: I mean, at least then it would be done.
John: It's like the tooth in the doorknob.
John: It's like the tooth in the doorknob.
Merlin: Oh, you know when you got a loose tooth.
Merlin: This never happened to me.
Merlin: I lived in fear of this.
John: Somebody did a tooth in a doorknob on you?
John: They tied my loose tooth to a doorknob.
John: What the fuck is going on with your family, John?
John: I'm telling you, I was basically raised by Victorians.
Merlin: I bet it was your mom.
Merlin: She has no teeth fear.
John: No, it was my mom.
John: Oh!
John: it was my mom she tied my tooth to a doorknob oh doctor yeah that must have hurt like hell and the fear of the anxiety oh you know there was a lot there was a lot of you know and the thing is now that the more i think about it i do want a fucking parade
John: Goddamn parade.
Merlin: Let me ask you this.
Merlin: I think we're good there.
Merlin: But let me ask you this.
Merlin: Was Cooper Hefner barn that way?
Merlin: If he turned out to be a fucking desperate, creepy horndog – and I'm looking right now – I almost said Stan Lee.
Merlin: I'm looking at Hugh Hefner's Wikipedia picture, which is extremely detailed, and he's wearing a captain's hat.
Merlin: I don't think he can even say captain.
Merlin: It's one of those – you're not really the captain of the boat.
John: You just got a hat with a – Yeah, it's like a Thurston Howell III hat.
Merlin: Exactly.
Merlin: It's baseless insignia.
Merlin: What do you call it?
Merlin: Scrambled eggs?
Merlin: Scrambled eggs.
John: No, that's not scrambled eggs.
John: Just insignia.
John: That's like two anchors, two crossed anchors and a life preserver.
Merlin: That's exactly it.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Okay, so is Cooper born that way?
Merlin: If he goes out and he says, the parade that I want is on a round bed in a grotto with a lot of girls who've had surgery, do we get to go boo Cooper?
Yeah.
John: Well, I mean, this is... He's born that way, John.
Merlin: He came by it honestly, if you know what I mean.
John: This is the question.
John: And the problem with the argument...
John: The problem with the conversation that we're having is that it is too close to that Republican argument that if you allow gay marriage, then people are going to be having sex with their dogs.
Merlin: I've had that conversation.
Merlin: I've had that actual conversation with a grown woman.
John: Yeah, and people want... People on that side of the equation are not smart enough to phrase their argument better than that.
John: And people on our side of the equation are so conditioned to hearing that kind of talk that any...
John: that any suggestion that we say, now, wait a minute, let's talk about this.
John: Let's talk about what this really means.
John: It smacks to them of, of, of this kind of bigotry.
John: Uh, but you know, the, the reality is what keeps horn dogs, what keeps creeps from saying I was born this way.
John: I, I, I am a, I am a person who gropes girls at rock concerts.
Uh,
Merlin: They are – I own a restaurant and I like – I have a camera that takes photos of women pooping.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: They call it Barryism.
Merlin: Chuck Barryism.
Merlin: Chuck Barry.
Merlin: You have to admire Chuck Barry.
Merlin: First of all, because I think he did a lot with the 12-bar blues that was really revolutionary.
Merlin: He invented a certain kind of bend on the fifth that changed everything.
Merlin: And I think he has gotten freaky in more different fucked up ways than a lot of people have.
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: How could you – you go to jail for little kids, but then you're also into poop?
Merlin: Boy, talk about a polyamorous polymath.
John: Well, and the thing is that somebody – it's very clear where we draw the line on something like that.
John: It's okay if Chuck Berry is into poop, but it's not okay to take pictures of people without their consent.
John: Like that is a clear line.
John: It's a privacy issue.
John: Yeah, that's a line in the law where it's like without consent, you cannot – it's illegal.
John: If you want to go – if Chuck Berry wants to spend his money to hire people to pretend to be pooping in a toilet without – and take pictures of them, that's fine.
John: There is a place in Las Vegas you can do that.
John: Poop your lacrums.
John: Yes, a poopulacrum.
John: But you can't just go take pictures of people without their consent.
John: But, you know, this is, again, the age of consent question, where there are some people... That's a Bronski beat record.
John: It really is, the age of consent.
John: And the whole, you know, the back cover of that album was... If you go look at... Is that a pink triangle?
John: No, well, there may be, but... Sheriff's Badge?
John: On the cover of that Bronski Beat album is the legal age of consent for sex in every country of the world.
John: Like written on the back of the album.
John: Who's got the lowest one?
John: I mean, just for Pete Townsend reasons.
John: I imagine there are some that have no lowest age of consent.
John: Because culturally, if you are marrying an 8-year-old girl to a 35-year-old man, to make the distinction that, but listen, below 8 years old, it's really terrible.
John: I'm not a monster.
John: Yeah, 7 years old?
John: Come on!
Merlin: You're basically saying Gary Glitter just booked the wrong flight.
Merlin: He could have gone somewhere where that would have been like the Super Bowl.
John: Well, potentially, although those marriages are all bound up in like, you know, arranged marriages where they're paying off debts to people.
John: Like they marry their eight-year-old to the landlord in order to forgive their mortgage payment or whatever.
John: The landlord was born that way, John.
John: But the fact that even in the 50 United States, there are major variations.
John: There's a tremendous gulf between the lowest stage of consent and the highest stage of consent in American states suggests that we don't have a clear picture what consent looks like enough that people are going to prison immediately.
John: God, you listen to the poor, poor defenseless pederasts who really characterize themselves as like victims in the whole affair.
John: And like, oh, this temptress, this 12-year-old temptress.
John: Lolita.
John: She was the Lolita.
John: Lolita.
John: Dolores.
John: That book is one of the great American novels.
Merlin: Because it's only really kind of, you know, diddling is the MacGuffin.
Merlin: That's about a lot more than a young girl.
John: Diddling is the MacGuffin.
John: You can feel them with your tongue.
John: Don't even get me started on eugenics.
John: Ah!
John: Eugenics.