Ep. 74: "The Omnibus of Wilburforce"
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
Merlin: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: How's it going?
John: Good.
John: Yeah.
John: Goldfinger.
John: What made you think of that?
John: Just sitting here being Goldfinger.
John: Sounds a little dirty in retrospect.
John: Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, right?
John: How would a normal guy like me get to be Goldfinger?
John: There's no good option unless you think, like, peanut butter is gold.
Merlin: I think the same way you get to Carnegie Hall.
John: Carnegie.
John: Practice, practice, practice.
John: Isn't it Dale Carnegie?
John: Yeah, Dale Carnegie.
John: How to win friends and make it to my hall.
Merlin: I pronounced that wrong, didn't I?
John: I don't know.
John: But Dale Carnegie.
John: He's the steel magnet, right?
John: No, those are different Carnegie's.
John: But he's a magnet.
John: He is a magnet.
John: Do you pronounce this differently?
John: Magnate?
John: You say magnate, like potentate.
John: I say magnate, yeah.
John: But I've been recently...
John: I've been kind of called out on the pronunciation of the word dearth.
John: Because I pronounce it Darth.
John: I always have.
John: There's a Darth of available gals at this party.
Merlin: Yeah, I think we have – I think we actually have a program, an episode of our visits called Darth of Options.
John: Oh, so we've covered this all.
Merlin: No, no, no, no, no, no.
Merlin: Because I never – can I be honest?
Merlin: I never used to worry about how I pronounce things and now I'm becoming a little self-conscious about it if it isn't obvious.
John: Some of the ways that you pronounce things are spectacular.
John: I have to say, it's one of the great things about you.
John: Clitoris?
John: Your special pronunciations.
John: Oh, no, I think clitoris is... That's within the... Clitoris?
John: That's within the realm.
John: Clitoris, clitoris.
John: That's tomato, tomato.
John: But...
John: But yeah, Carnegie Hall.
Merlin: We should probably start over.
Merlin: I think you know me.
Merlin: I don't like to stress too much about these things, but I worry that it hurts my credibility.
John: You're afraid that people don't take you seriously because you mispronounce words?
Merlin: I think there's plenty of reasons to not take me seriously.
Merlin: Right.
John: But your mispronunciation of words is so intentional.
John: Do you think so?
John: It's largely intentional, yes.
Merlin: Yeah, but maybe I'm just throwing those in to kind of... Oh, yeah, that makes sense.
John: But I mean, you know, I feel that being book-learned, being self-educated...
John: Being self-educated via books is nothing to be ashamed of.
John: And when people like swoop in and get all like get their panties riding high because you mispronounce something when you're using the word properly.
John: It's just that you learned it from a book like that.
John: There's no shame in that.
Merlin: I think it's a huge problem.
Merlin: Now, I've talked to a bunch of people about this.
Merlin: God, I'm so reluctant to bring this up.
Merlin: There's been a start.
John: We cut all this out.
Merlin: We'll cut all this out.
Merlin: Well, for example, and I don't actually let's avoid saying the word, but there is a certain graphical file format that has for years been pronounced very different.
John: GIF.
John: It's a GIF.
Merlin: But I think it goes back to the same root problem, which today, even for people as aged as us, so much of what I've learned in the last – I'm hesitant to use that word.
Merlin: So much of what I've gleaned in the last – so much of what I've almost – Gleaned.
Merlin: Gleaned.
Merlin: I'm going to start pronouncing everything in a Shakespearean way.
Merlin: Oh, that Shakespearean rag.
John: Oh, yeah, like my communications professor.
Merlin: See, I can quote T.S.
Merlin: Eliot, but I don't know how to say Carnegie Hall.
John: My communications professor at the University of Washington 20 years ago said, when a word, the definition of a word is the sound of the word, that's called onomatopoeia.
John: Onomatopoeia.
John: Oh, from the Greek.
John: From the Greek.
John: And I, of course, raised my hand and was like, I've heard that a lot as onomatopoeia.
John: And he leapt up on his desk and he was like, exactly wrong.
John: Everyone pronounces that word wrong.
John: It's onomatopoeia.
John: So I've been pronouncing it that way for 20 years.
John: Just – Oh, sometimes you just want to – Just an homage of this guy.
Merlin: Yeah, let's be honest.
Merlin: I mean Artisanal has roots in this.
Merlin: I mean the – OK.
Merlin: So here's the problem is that much of what I have almost finished reading –
Merlin: In the last 10 to 15 years has come from the internet or internet, as you say.
Merlin: And I've talked about this with so many of my friends.
Merlin: I've heard people on podcasts saying, I don't really know how to say this word.
Merlin: I've read this word.
Merlin: dozens, or in many cases, maybe even hundreds of times.
Merlin: I know so much about this topic, but I, or this person's name, like I've been reading the, reading what this person says for so long, but this is so embarrassing, but I don't know how you've encountered that.
Merlin: Like you, you read something over and over.
Merlin: And then the first time you find yourself vocalizing the word, you have no idea how to actually say it.
John: Yeah, that happens to me constantly, but I feel like the most embarrassing example of this was when I was about 10 years old.
John: I was with my dad somewhere, and it was like a Rotary Club meeting.
John: It wasn't a restaurant or something.
John: It was a Rotary Club meeting where there were lots of guys in bolo ties.
John: There were men around.
John: And I was standing there talking to my dad and somebody said something, you know, he he he replied to some some conversational gambit in a way that seemed to my 10 year old mind, you know, slightly dubious.
John: And I went, oh, Pshaw.
John: and it was like the stylus across a record like he might as well have said oh my stars and garters well 10 fully grown adult men looked down at me like aghast and my dad said did you just tell me to piss off
John: What?
John: And I was like, huh?
John: No.
John: Pshaw.
John: Pshaw.
John: Pshaw.
John: P-S-H-A-W.
Merlin: Pshaw.
Merlin: Because I had been reading.
Merlin: I think that's an onomatopoietic.
John: But it isn't.
John: Pshaw.
John: This is the funny thing.
John: Pshaw is a comic book rendering of Pshaw.
Merlin: Oh, it's like Bressa Fressa Snaggle Bressa?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: It's like a fake cursing?
John: It's not a word.
John: It's just a sound that you would only think was a word because you had read it in comic books or in novels.
John: Are you kidding me?
John: No, it's not a word.
Merlin: I thought it was like a Scarlett O'Hara thing.
Merlin: I thought it was something the ladies said when they were saying, oh, I'm discounting what you said.
John: No, it's just a sound that, it is, yeah, onomatopoeia, or it is the expression of a sound of air escaping in frustration.
John: And my dad, he laughed.
John: but it was a hard laugh and he was laughing at you and he said that's not a word that is a you are you are you know he explained it to me and i mean i was tomato red because all these you know these guys 1980 in alaska some of these guys had had you know killed a moose with their bare hands or whatever and they
John: And they, they, they turned so fast, you know, they heard piss off from me and turned so fast.
John: It was like the room got ice cold and I'm standing there trying to explain like, no, it's like in Mad Magazine when somebody says, you know, snorkel frass or whatever.
John: And they're like, not having it, not having it.
Merlin: Was it more that you were, was it more that you were sounding insulting or that you were saying something nonsensical?
John: No, once they understood that it was just a case of me, it's an example of precociousness.
John: You have read more than you know.
John: You have read more than you can support.
Merlin: I wouldn't know anything about that.
John: I think it was Foucault that first discussed that.
John: They were disposed more kindly to me when they realized that I wasn't like...
John: Actually saying piss off, which was a thing I was about to get hit for.
Merlin: I've never heard that.
John: But I realized then that there were tons and tons of words that I was saying very confidently.
John: And when I really looked at them in books, I realized that I had transposed the vowels or I had left out a key syllable.
Merlin: Oh, like you've seen it so much, you've started chunking it incorrectly.
John: Right.
John: Or a lot of times I'd added an extra syllable to words just because it seemed like that was a much better word than the actual word.
Merlin: More syllables definitely helps.
Merlin: I mean, it makes you sound a little fancier if you can come up with a longer Latinate word.
Merlin: Latinate, is that right?
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: The word physiognomy
John: Oh, physiognomy.
John: For a long time, I pronounced it physiognomy.
John: Oh.
John: Physiognomy.
John: And at a certain point, I pronounced it wrong and then couldn't figure out the correct pronunciation.
John: And now I just mostly leave it out of conversation because I can't.
John: Like physiognomy?
John: Physiognomy?
Merlin: You may be operating at too high a level.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: I think that's true in writing.
Merlin: I mean I really – I finally bought our household an actual big Webster's Dictionary because I used to – like you, I used to love reading reference books.
Merlin: Encyclopedia.
Merlin: Encyclopedia.
John: It's like with Paedia.
Merlin: I'm going to start using more diphthongs and ligatures.
Merlin: That's a great guide by Voices EP.
Merlin: And again, I will find myself looking at pronunciations and stuff.
Merlin: But it's funny because I used to think if you're not – a lot of people think it's lazy to look things up in a thesaurus.
Merlin: Well, I mean if you're using a thesaurus to try to come up with a 75-cent word.
Merlin: Oh, I see what you mean.
Merlin: That is – like if you want to try and sound fancier, I think that's – I wouldn't roundly criticize that.
Merlin: It's not the smartest thing to do.
Merlin: But I mean if you read the actual real Roger's thesaurus, which I think the first entry is existence.
Merlin: It starts – most of us are used to the dictionary style.
Merlin: I'm probably going to get this wrong.
Merlin: It looks so stupid.
Merlin: But the dictionary style thesaurus that we're used to is very closer to like a rhyming dictionary almost.
Merlin: You say antonyms and synonyms for blah, blah, blah.
Merlin: But the actual Roger's thesaurus is almost philosophical in some ways.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: So you can read it like – I mean for a long time I kept one in the bathroom and would just – when I was in there for an extended period, I would just like read it, browse it.
John: Because it's full of so many beautiful... It's like on style.
John: Right.
John: On writing well.
Oh, God, I love that book.
Merlin: I forget that book at my peril all the time.
John: Yeah, you should leave it in the bathroom.
Merlin: I have a book on the Unix operating system and a book on writing next to the toilet.
John: And let's be honest.
John: Penthouse.
John: I was going to say the omnibus of Wilberforce or whatever.
John: What's his name?
John: The guy with the swords that come out of his hand.
John: Wilberforce.
Merlin: Snicked.
Merlin: Whatever.
Merlin: Wilberforce.
Merlin: Oh, God.
Merlin: I could talk about that stuff all.
Merlin: Not that, but the word stuff.
Merlin: But I think one good reason to – I mean I think – OK.
Merlin: On the one hand, this sounds contradictory.
Merlin: Contradictory.
Merlin: If you're about to use a word and you don't know what it means, it pays to look it up.
John: Favorite episode already.
John: This is my favorite episode.
John: I'm so sorry.
John: Contradictory.
Merlin: We're going to cut all this out.
Merlin: I'm going to start telling you about the musicians I don't like in a minute.
Merlin: But one good thing about a thesaurus is that – well, first of all, you can look up a word and see if they're – well, a dictionary will tell you where the word came from.
Merlin: And so you might discover that there might be – especially if you're writing something like a verse.
Merlin: You might discover that there's –
Merlin: An implication to the use of that word that you might not know.
John: Exactly.
John: A tone to it, a temperature to the word.
Merlin: Absolutely.
Merlin: I mean I'll each make every word count or whatever they said.
Merlin: But also in a thesaurus, you have the opportunity to see is there a better word, ideally maybe even a shorter word or a more precise word that will let you remove other words.
Merlin: This is incredibly boring.
Merlin: But I think if you do that, if you get into the habit of doing that –
Merlin: you not only build your vocabulary, I think you become a slightly better thinker because you realize that there might be a better way to put this and that's how you, as they say, learn.
John: Yeah, well, and that is the, I mean, the reason there are synonyms, every single one of them, I mean, a synonym is even maybe a misnomer.
John: Every single one of those words has a different,
John: has a different temperature that it conveys and that's encoded in its root and encoded in the way it's been used and popularized.
John: When we were talking about Worldwide Words the other day, did I mention to you that he contacted me?
John: Are you kidding me?
John: No, he wrote me a letter and he was like...
John: hello is this the john roderick from roderick on the line yes i'm the man from worldwide words and i just wanted to say that i got a lot of new subscribers from you my i just lost my i had a high accent you moved you moved to somewhere south of london maybe yeah i was all of a sudden in brompton
John: I was in Bromley when I had started in Avon.
John: But anyway, he was like, I got a bunch of new subscribers from your program and I wanted to thank you.
John: That's lovely.
John: And it was nice.
John: The more etymologists, the better.
Merlin: Oh man, you could do worse.
Merlin: And you know, it's, it's funny.
Merlin: It's like, you know, funny, it's funny to me that like some of those people, like I really enjoy, uh, was it Jeffrey number, the guy, the guy on fresh air.
Merlin: I love that stuff.
Merlin: I started following after you'd mentioned that I started, uh, I think if word Nick is the one that I looked at, uh,
Merlin: And it reminds – it's funny because you're saying Pasha.
Merlin: It reminds me of – they had a thing on cursing.
Merlin: I think that's where I read this.
Merlin: But there was a thing about cursing and of course I think it was Jeffrey Nunberg that wrote this book called The History of the Word Asshole and stuff like that.
Merlin: But I think apparently it was an interview with somebody about cursing.
Merlin: But – and there's so – you must know this.
Merlin: But so many of the funny phrases like Jiminy Cricket.
Merlin: Or cheese and crackers.
Merlin: Or like there's all these ways that you could avoid saying Jesus Christ.
John: Right.
John: Jiminy Christmas.
Merlin: Exactly.
Merlin: But, you know, they asked this person, for example, and I think that's so interesting.
Merlin: Like you learned Pasha, right?
Merlin: But also asking what it is that's a commonality and how these things have changed over time.
Merlin: And like one of the very few ones that's been there all along has been, let's just say, a reverence about God.
Right.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: That's one.
Merlin: Schatology.
Merlin: And I think the sexuality of people in your family comes up a lot in cursing.
John: Right.
Merlin: And it tells you something about the culture, though.
Merlin: Like the God ones have become – people are much more permissive about a goddamn or Jesus Christ or whatever.
John: Well, because gosh darn became so – I mean there was a time when you legitimately said gosh darn and then it became so opie.
John: that you might as well say goddamn.
Merlin: Yeah, you see somebody putting their thumbs under their suspenders or something like that.
John: But as a devoted reader of Mad Magazine...
John: uh throughout my whole childhood i started probably reading mad when i was i'm i have to say like five maybe wow um and read it until read it until really until the quality of mad declined i mean i would i would still be reading it if it hadn't kind of gone in the shitter um
John: But like Don Martin in particular.
Merlin: Is that the guy with the floppy feet and the onomatopoetics?
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Like his sort of like zizzlewap.
John: Cosplotin.
John: Flapasy boops.
John: You know, his kind of, his way of writing out sounds and, I mean, it was so key to his storytelling.
Yeah.
John: And I think for many years, I had a whole separate lexicon of sound effects.
John: And I find that I... And I don't know if you do this, and I don't know if the majority of our listeners do too, but I punctuate my day with audible sound effects.
John: You know, like if I'm alone and I'm walking through my house, it's like... Like everything I'm doing, if I push a button, if I turn a...
John: If I turn a knob, it's like boink, clink, zing.
John: I'm punctuating it with these noises because I think my experience was so touched by...
John: by reading mad and i do it with my little girl you know i'm walking around with the two-year-old and everything we do i just i add a little exclamation point to like pow and i mean she i'm she's going to grow up thinking the world is a very different place than it actually is and it's i mean i have to give her something to hate me for
Merlin: Yeah, you'll come up with something.
Merlin: I do it just – two things.
Merlin: And the thing is I'm so unselfaware that if I'm aware of it, I must do it even more than I think.
Merlin: I have so many of those that long before – my daughter became like a –
Merlin: You know, a handy way to blame my sound effects and my various fully things that I do.
John: Fully noises, right?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: But there's certain repeating ones.
Merlin: Bonk would be a big one.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Bonk can be used for lots of things.
Merlin: I use bonk 50 times a day.
Merlin: Oh, I use bonk constantly.
Merlin: Like, you know, you bump into something and go bonk, you know, or something.
Merlin: Or lots of game show sounds.
Merlin: Yeah, lots of this.
Merlin: But the other thing I do, I was – I mean it's so funny.
Merlin: There are so many different ways to talk to yourself, for example.
Merlin: Like there are some people – I think when we think of somebody talking to themselves, I think there's like a spectrum.
Merlin: On the one hand, there's like somebody – I told you that story a long time ago about –
Merlin: About that lady at the library where it sounded like she was having a very heated conversation and I turned around the corner.
Merlin: You don't talk to me like that.
Merlin: I told her I said – and she was speaking in this whispering voice.
Merlin: She said – and I told her that's not – you're not going to treat me like that.
Merlin: And she said – and I looked around and she was very, very heatedly talking to no one at all.
Merlin: She was talking to the drinking phone.
Merlin: That's – she was talking to Dewey Decimal.
Merlin: That's one end of the continuum.
Merlin: But all along the way, there's stuff like thinking –
Merlin: To yourself so much that you might as well be talking to yourself.
Merlin: There are some people who just kind of have this little monologue where they might even like be moving their mouth a little bit while they're talking.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
John: But my constant companion is the Welsh troll.
John: I walk around the house and I go, oh, good job.
John: Nicely done.
John: Oh, this is a spill that will be easy to clean up.
John: Oh, you know, we're awarding gold ribbons today.
John: It really is that real, that present.
John: Yeah, for the guy who can't load the dishwasher.
Merlin: Wow, he sounds really sarcastic.
John: You are the number one contestant.
John: You are in the finalist round.
John: And I'm saying all this out loud.
John: I don't do it when anybody's around.
John: But, you know, it's what I do instead of listen to the radio.
John: I listen to whoever that other person is in my head just constantly berate me like the wickedest stepmother that ever was.
John: Wow.
John: Yeah.
John: So it's a blast because, you know, everyone's, everyone's lonely.
John: Everyone's well.
John: I will, you know, rise up and be like, you know what?
John: Shut the fuck up for once.
John: Why don't you?
John: We have, we have such fun.
John: We laugh.
Merlin: I hate hearing that.
Merlin: I used to think, oh, I don't talk to myself or – but the thing is I don't think it's that difficult.
Merlin: I think if you're really honest with yourself, a lot of us, you would realize that there are various ways you talk to yourself.
Merlin: That because you're not that lady at the Leon County Library literally talking to herself or talking to someone who's not there –
Merlin: Because my other thing I do is I have little, I don't know if it's the right phrase, like traveling music.
Merlin: I have little hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm.
Merlin: And there's a little song I always hum that when I put my daughter on my shoulders and we sing it together.
Merlin: Now we go hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm.
Merlin: I don't know why we do it, but we do.
Merlin: Or I might make a little hmm, hmm, hmm.
John: So it's triumphal like horn music that you would play when the king enters the room.
Merlin: Yeah, like a trumpet voluntary or something, you know?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I think so.
Merlin: But you know what's funny about both of those is they're so – even the game show stuff I think is based on this.
Merlin: They're so heavily based in comics and cartoons.
John: Right.
Merlin: If you think about it, where you have to express and overexpress something in a way that can be conveyed to the reader or the – you know what I mean?
Merlin: Does that make sense?
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: So, I mean, I don't know.
Merlin: I guess in some ways that counts as talking to yourself.
Merlin: I think nobody wants to admit it.
Merlin: It does seem so crazy.
Merlin: But, I mean, what is that phrase?
Merlin: Interior monologue or interior dialogue or interior study session.
John: Interior parliamentary procedure.
John: The classic example of this, I probably told you, was the woman I was walking past on the street on Broadway one day.
John: And, you know, she was like a little, kind of a little old lady, maybe 65 years old.
John: She had a sweatshirt on, which she had appliqued on.
John: With like, you know, flowers and sequins and colorful paint.
John: And she had very carefully stitched in big letters across the front of her sweatshirt, don't yell at me.
John: The Don't Yell at Me sweatshirt.
John: And I saw this woman and she was just out for a day by herself kind of standing on the corner of Broadway and John holding her purse in her Don't Yell at Me sweatshirt.
John: And I was like, who is that message for?
John: Like either that is a sweatshirt that she made for her husband's benefit and she wears around the house and somehow she got out of the house wearing it.
John: Or that's a sweatshirt that she made just as a general announcement.
John: She prefers not to be yelled at.
John: And she wants to get ahead of the horse cart.
John: Or whether she's sending that message to forces that the rest of us can't see or comprehend.
Merlin: It must be working.
Merlin: You know, you wouldn't wear it more than once, but here's the thing.
Merlin: Well, yeah, but I mean, the, um, clearly it was homemade.
Merlin: So, so it looks like probably she made it.
Merlin: Maybe it was a gift, but even still she's wearing it, right?
John: A gift.
Merlin: She might have a friend who was senile or something.
John: That's a wrinkle.
John: Well, so you remember I incorporated that motto in one of the very earliest Long Winters t-shirts, which was based on the White Castle hamburger logo.
John: And then right in the center of the White Castle hamburger castle, it says in small letters, don't yell at me.
Merlin: Well, and now that you've alienated enough of your friends, colleagues, and associates, I think we can also say that you would often refer – if I remember correctly, you would refer to the – you called Barsouk the Don't Yell At Me label.
Merlin: You called it Don't Yell At Me music.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Very gentle, very intimate.
John: All of baby rock at that time was Don't Yell At Me music.
Merlin: Right.
John: We're not going to yell.
John: Please don't yell.
Merlin: Looking back at that, if you unpack that today, what does that mean as you look back at it?
John: What did that movement represent?
Merlin: Well, I mean, hearing you say that at the time, I would think of, to be honest, like maybe half a dozen bands that were amongst my absolute favorite bands.
Merlin: But I felt like I knew exactly what you meant.
Merlin: When you said that, but they don't, not, not to, you know, take this apart too much, but you're kind of, don't yell at me has this implication of like, on the one hand, like it's going to be gentle, gentle music, but it's also going to be, maybe it's kind of intimate.
Merlin: Like I'm telling you things about myself.
Merlin: I'm disclosing these, these intimate things about myself.
Merlin: But, but I don't know.
Merlin: There's something also to it.
Merlin: There's this like deeper sensitivity there.
John: I don't know.
John: I feel like from 1980 to 1994, no matter what genre of music you chose to be a fan of or chose to pursue, everybody was...
John: Everybody was going for full bombast all the time.
John: Like pop music, rock music, metal music, country music.
John: Every genre was getting bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger.
John: Right?
John: Punk rock music, loud, screamy.
John: Heavy rock music, loud, screamy.
John: Heavy metal music, loud, screamy.
John: Duran Duran...
John: There were no moments in a Duran Duran song where they got real, right?
John: I mean, the cure... You're right.
Merlin: It's a very general statement, but I agree.
Merlin: Things got more bombastic.
Merlin: To quote my friend Richard, it's all overture.
Merlin: There wasn't much development a lot of the time.
Merlin: It was all chorus.
John: Huge, huge, huge.
John: And grunge was huge, huge, huge.
John: And by 94, I mean...
John: There was a whole generation of musicians for whom the idea of making music that sounded like seals and crofts
John: was radical, revolutionary, a complete overturning of the old guard.
John: And that conscientious removal of distortion, the removal of not just yelling, but even masculine singing,
John: And replacing it with breathy acoustic quietness and quietude of thought.
John: I mean, all the way back to like going back to Pink Moon and imagining that Pink Moon was the foundation argument of a whole movement that at the time didn't happen.
John: And just starting at Pink Moon as if it was contemporary and making music in that vein, trying to exercise what was 20 years of really like swinging cock music.
John: I mean, think about David Lee Roth.
John: And then Elliot Smith and contrast the two.
John: And they're both like guys in their 20s trying to impress the world with their...
John: with their inner life.
John: And it's like they are different species, you know?
John: I mean, David Lee Roth, we'll never see his like again, but I mean, I mean, well, the first time I heard Elliot Smith, it, it, uh, it scared me.
John: It was so spooky.
John: And so that, that concept, and I mean, I was making records at the time and coming, coming out of a whole lifetime of being raised, uh,
John: to uh or raising myself or being being indoctrinated to think that that as a musician i was supposed to convey sexual power i was supposed to convey total confidence and sexual power and total confidence that i didn't i didn't personally like feel i had or understand
John: And then all of a sudden, as an adult, I mean, I was 30 years old before this really became the language of pop music.
John: But all of a sudden, all around me were young guys, 23-year-old guys, who were singing in a whisper about music.
John: their teddy bears and and you know and making their guitars sound as plinky and whispery as they could and people were you know like guys were playing the glockenspiel not as a joke but as their primary instrument like i play the vibes man that's my boom
Merlin: Like a band that would have a dedicated, unironic accordion player, for example.
John: Right.
John: Or, I mean, American Analog set, you would go to their shows and, you know, that was that era of bands where you'd go to their shows and just the noise of the bartender working would, like, overshadow the music.
Merlin: Low would be a big example of that.
John: Right, right.
John: Where you're in the room and so much of the tension of the show is this tension that you're carrying like, please don't let some drunk girl start talking.
John: Please don't let that guy next to me...
John: You know, like if he says one more thing, I'm going to say something to him.
John: And then the guy says one more thing and you're like, oh, God, if he says one more thing, I am going to confront him, you know, and and all this kind of like energy at rock shows.
John: Yeah.
John: I mean, I was at the knitting factory one time watching Jason Molina and his and songs, Ohio.
John: When they were in their quiet phase.
John: And he was making super quiet music.
John: And I turned to some guy at the show and was like, hey man, if you want to talk, why don't you go walk around the block?
John: And the guy was like, it's a rock show.
John: And I said, it's clearly not.
John: It's not a rock show.
John: It's a guy that's making quiet music.
John: We can all hear you.
John: I mean, how many of those conversations did we have?
John: And, you know, and at the time, like, I was...
John: I saw iron and wine their first time at South by Southwest in a room full of people talking on their phones.
John: And he's up there like, you know, whispering into the microphone in a way that felt, and this was my reaction to it at the time, like this is aggressively quiet.
John: You are, you are making quiet music in a room full of monsters and it is a, it is a form of attack.
Yeah.
John: You know, nobody's enjoying it.
Merlin: It's almost subversive.
John: Yeah, you're not enjoying it.
John: We're not enjoying it.
John: It is as angry and as ugly as if you were standing up there flinging shit at the audience.
John: You know, it was that form of corporate power gamesmanship where you talk really quietly and it makes people lean in.
John: And it just felt like that in music.
John: But among the people that were making it, there was no conscious or at least there was no overt acknowledgement that this was a power game or that this was an aesthetic choice that was born out of anger and frustration and desire to overthrow the old guard.
John: It was presented even in the innerest of inner sanctum.
John: it was presented as like, no man, this is my thing.
John: And I love your thing too, man.
John: This is just amazing.
John: It's so beautiful.
John: I mean, I'm standing there in my David Lee Roth pants and I'm like, Oh yeah.
Merlin: I made my daughter watch the video for a Unchained the other day.
John: We were watching videos of... Right, which to her would be like if your dad sat you down and played you a Bix... Listen to this part.
John: Listen to this part.
Merlin: Well, we were – it started out where we were – there was a video going around in the last week or so of this really detached-looking 14-year-old girl playing Eruption really, really well.
Merlin: Sometimes you'll see these like – I didn't click on it.
Merlin: Yeah, but I mean you'll see these like musical savant videos going around and I was like, oh, well, let me play the real thing.
Merlin: And of course if you go to try and find any video of Eruption, first of all, they're like –
Merlin: The solo alone is like somewhere between like eight to 45 minutes long.
Merlin: It's different every time.
Merlin: And to be honest, when I say the varying quality, I guess I mean that in a kind of a complimentary way because he doesn't – he's got his bag of tricks.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Certainly.
Merlin: Edward's got the bag of tricks.
Merlin: But I mean he brings something – it feels like he brings something different to it.
Merlin: Every night.
Merlin: But of course, then that led me like, Whoa, let me take a step back.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Oakland, 1981.
Merlin: There are only three videos that exist of this.
Merlin: And I'm going to show you what might be the greatest Van Halen song.
Merlin: She's five.
Merlin: And I'm showing her, I'm making her watch when he jumps off and he does the kick off.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: And you know what?
Merlin: It's the canonical Mike Anthony douche thing where he's hitting the A with just his right hand and pointing at the audience.
Merlin: He's in an open A while he points at the audience and pumps his Jack Daniels hand.
Merlin: But I think about – I'm not going to name names, but some of the folks on the label, I mean I –
Merlin: Everybody likes to name-check Pixies, which is one of my all-time favorite bands.
Merlin: Partly, I think, because they were able to bring – like, for example, I think the thing of their – the video of their tour, the DVD or whatever you call it, of their tour was called Loud, Quiet, Loud, which is kind of the joke about Pixies.
Merlin: Because they were alongside that Albini production that I thought was just a perfect match for them.
Merlin: And another one, Silkworm, same thing.
Merlin: This ability to be so –
Merlin: Like, boy, you think stuff in the 80s was in your face?
Merlin: Like, welcome to serious in-your-face music.
Merlin: But then it would just drop something like Gigantic, which could be so anthemic, but then also so creepily quiet, like inside the same song.
John: Yeah.
John: But in the quietness, you still – in Gigantic, in anything in Pixies, you still felt –
Merlin: The anger and very, very unsettled and like just a simmering like something disturbing was always just right on the surface or very near the surface.
John: Yeah.
John: And I think that that is what makes Elliot Smith compelling.
John: But a lot of that generation of indie rock that I came up in, the menace is not present.
Merlin: Yeah, so that's what I was going to say.
Merlin: I mean, a lot of that post-rock, I always felt post-rock, you know, which is such a weird, like, what does that mean?
Merlin: Post-punk, oddly enough, is very meaningful to me because I think there is something in common of bands like Mission of Burma or whatever.
Merlin: But a lot of that post-rock, I felt like it was a prank.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: It really felt like – I mean I don't mean this in the – well, I guess I do mean it this way.
Merlin: It's like in The Emperor Has No Clothes or The Emperor's New Clothes where you have this sense of like it's – it would be really – I would sound like such a dumbass to go like I just don't understand Tortoise.
Merlin: All of my friends are name-checking this one record with whatever this 15-minute Glockenspiel song on it.
Merlin: I don't understand it.
Merlin: Godspeed you, Black Emperor.
Merlin: I get.
Merlin: I get big time because it sounds like I would listen to that on the subway.
Merlin: I would listen to that on the subway and honestly feel like everything literally in the entire world was about to collapse in ashes.
Merlin: And they were great at the dynamics.
Merlin: But a lot of the post-rock, it was so precious.
Merlin: It was so... You know what I mean?
John: I was sharing the stage with a lot of those bands and getting...
John: getting a lot of rolled eyes at my theatrics.
John: I mean, I told you the first time that I ever met Josh Rosenfeld for in his capacity as a record label owner, he sat down with me in a pizza restaurant and said, yeah, your band's not really my thing.
John: And I was like, Oh, well, why are we here then?
John: Why did we come to this restaurant to meet?
Um,
John: And he said, my wife really likes you.
John: And I was like, well, that's good.
John: This is great.
John: I hope you're picking up the tap.
John: He said, yeah, but for my taste, like too many distortion boxes.
John: And I was like, I just have the one.
John: And he was like, yeah.
Yeah.
John: Like, exactly.
John: One is too many.
Merlin: His band was very quirky.
Merlin: Yeah, but they were, I mean, his band... I don't mean that in an insulting way, but it's challenging.
Merlin: Their music was, I think, pretty challenging in some ways.
John: My band before the Western State Hurricanes, the Bunn Family Players, was exactly in the family of This Busy Monster, where every song had not just five different time signatures, but also four different genres.
John: like the verses were like country swing.
John: And then there was a ska that, you know, it went into double time ska and then it went into three quarter time, you know, uh, like oompa waltz chorus and then hardcore thrash bridge.
John: And you'd get to the, you know, and then it was about, the song was about Bernoulli's principle and you get to the end and it was 11 minutes long.
John: And, and, you know, and the audience feels like T-shirts and CDs in the back.
John: yeah the audience feels like they just took a like a intensive summer course slow class you're just like thank you thank you all right were you being like deliberately eclectic well yeah that was of course that was that was our reaction to grunge was a grunge was so self-serious and along with allowing along with the loud bombast
John: through the 80s and 90s, was also tremendous self-seriousness.
John: I mean, as soon as David Lee Roth went away,
John: even the spandex metal dudes became like, they forgot that they were, that they were clowns.
John: You know, the guy by the late eighties, those guys, those guys in Nelson or whatever, seriously, she's actually my cherry pie.
Merlin: Literally.
John: Like they really, yeah, they really thought they were legitimate artists.
John: And it's like, Hey, you guys are a joke on a joke.
Merlin: Let me say it again.
Merlin: Cause you might not have heard my words.
Merlin: Listen, every rose has its thorn.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: You're wearing your mom's makeup.
John: Like you're legitimately wearing.
John: Do you remember when Motley Crue seemed really dangerous?
John: They never did to me.
John: I swear to you, that first Motley Crue record.
Merlin: It didn't have a pentagram on it?
John: It did have a pentagram, but they were wearing, they were wearing like roach clip feathers.
John: And Adam and the Ants make up.
John: Yeah, and Adam and the Ants felt dangerous to me because, yeah, desperate but not serious.
John: Oh, man.
Merlin: That Kings of the Wild Frontier album still is so odd.
Merlin: That was my favorite band, and it gets odder and odder to me every year.
John: He was mugging for the camera, but he was dangerously bisexual-seeming, but also so beautiful that you felt like, well, yeah.
Merlin: And you got the crazy Burundi drumming.
Merlin: Two drummers.
Merlin: Yeah, playing that, I guess, I'm not sure exactly.
Merlin: Am I using the right word?
Merlin: I mean, it was menacing.
John: And then you got Marco.
Merlin: Yeah, exactly.
John: He sounds like almost rockabilly in some ways.
John: So that, you know, that was like gender bendery and, and, but, but you know, Adam Ant didn't take himself seriously.
John: He was clowning around like a, like, like fee way bill.
Merlin: But he, and he also understood like each album was, I mean, each record was like a different version of himself for the first like four records, you know?
Merlin: And yeah, he was wearing makeup or whatever, but you know, the, the going from like, like pirate guy to,
Merlin: So like, you know, foppy Prince Charming, like it was, he was, man, maybe it's probably, he was, he was playing to the, to the last row, but, and it was, it was willfully theatrical, but I mean, I've always felt like so much of the stuff in popular music, you know, this is whatever, typical teenager thing.
Merlin: But by the time I was a senior, everything on the charts was just so rough.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: God damn it.
Merlin: I wish you'd been there.
Merlin: I visited with some friends last night.
Merlin: We should talk about this.
Merlin: I was saying such complimentary things about Phil Collins.
Merlin: You should have been there.
John: Well, you know, Phil Collins really stands up.
John: He stands up to the test of time in a way that I do not think you can say Glenn Frey does.
John: Phil Collins, that stuff, those gated snares sound killer.
Merlin: Okay, and I had to explain to Jason Finn what I mean when I talk about, and you know what everybody forgets?
Merlin: Can I say two words?
Merlin: Invisible touch.
Merlin: That's what everybody forgets.
Merlin: And I told him that I told him in scoots literally every Sunday morning.
Merlin: I'm in the shower as long as it takes to listen to turn it on again five times.
John: Great tune.
Merlin: And we sat down and looked at Wikipedia and listened to it on our phones and we came up with what the time signature is.
Merlin: It's totally bananas.
Merlin: What is the time signature?
Merlin: Oh, depending on how you count it.
Merlin: I think it's like – it could be 13.6 or – anyway.
Merlin: I'm going to have to go listen to it.
Merlin: But here's the thing.
John: But Jason isn't the pro.
John: I mean Jason is obviously a pro.
John: He's a pro drummer.
John: He's tight, man.
John: He is tight.
John: But this is the thing about drummers.
John: They're all like these pro timekeepers.
John: But no.
John: No, they're not.
John: They get in their boxes just like anybody else.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Nothing against Jason.
John: He's great.
John: I think he should be on our ad hoc board.
John: I've worked with some of the best drummers in the business.
John: Let me tell you.
John: I got to tell you.
John: And a lot of them, they get in their way of playing.
John: And then it's very hard for them to like, you know, and even the ones that are like, I studied Afro-Cuban for two years.
John: Do you think that's really so different from guitar players, though?
John: Well, no, that's the thing.
John: It's exactly the same.
John: But drummers, you know, this is their province.
John: This is their one job.
Merlin: I bet they're, you know, I'm not going to say anything.
Merlin: I'm not going to say anything.
Merlin: I'm not going to say anything.
John: Oh, they're so mad.
Merlin: I'm just going to say it's hard to talk.
Merlin: It's hard to give a note to a drummer sometimes.
Merlin: Jesus.
Merlin: You're playing a little loud.
Merlin: You're playing a little fast.
John: That's why I kept the fire extinguisher right next to my mom.
John: When I needed to give a note to the drummer, I would just hit him with the fire extinguisher first, and then as the shock wore off, then I would say, hey, maybe ratchet down the hi-hat a little bit.
John: And then we're back into the tune, and it's like...
John: A big post-traumatic problem.
Merlin: People want us to start a music show.
Merlin: Well, you know, it is kind of a music show.
Merlin: Maybe we could split it into food, Hitler, music.
Merlin: I think mental illness, probably.
John: Mental illness.
John: I want to talk more about Johnny Carson.
John: I don't think we talk about Carson.
John: We talk so much about Hitler, we hardly ever talk about Carson.
Merlin: Well, I think he was complicit.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, you know, Carson was, you know, in a way the Hitler of late night.
Merlin: He's he's a very he's a very like his his televisual progeny, David Letterman.
Merlin: He's a tough nut to crack.
John: He breaks my heart in a way that David Letterman.
Merlin: I think he was a very I don't know if you know what they always say, you know, like if you're sitting in a bar, it's OK to look never look lonely.
Merlin: It's OK to look lonesome, but never look lonely.
Merlin: I think I think Johnny Carson was a little lonesome.
John: Well, I think he was desperately lonely.
John: I mean, if you think about all those guys, Jack Parr, Steve Allen, you know, and Letterman, too, like none of them.
John: None of them did you feel like went home at night and just.
John: Like, like sat.
John: And stared at the floor in the way that you feel like Carson, he was so beautiful on TV.
John: And you just get the feeling from everything you know about him that he got in his car and he drove home and he went into his room and he just sat in a chair and stared at the floor and waited for sleep.
John: I'm a little bit obsessed with him right now.
John: Did you see that?
John: There's a good PBS documentary about him.
John: Yeah, I know.
John: It's like one of these Hitler documentaries where you see inside the man and you're like, oh, geez.
John: Oh, geez.
John: If I could go back in time and tell him not to invade the Soviet Union, I don't think that would be the right thing to do historically because you would be helping Hitler.
Merlin: I think this is what Wonderbane would say is you have to go back and kill Hitler's father.
Merlin: Is that his name?
John: What's his name?
Merlin: Wonderbane?
Merlin: What did you call him?
John: Wonderbane.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
Merlin: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
Merlin: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfenstein.
John: Wolfen
John: Yeah, I'm super down on his mom.
John: I feel like she's, you know, you go through history and you make a catalog of all the great war criminals.
John: And, you know, they're all dudes.
Merlin: We're not going to talk about Johnny Carson, are we?
John: They're all dudes with mustaches.
John: Huh.
John: But... What about Mussolini?
Merlin: He's kind of ineffectual.
John: Well, yeah, you're right.
Merlin: He was sort of a hanger-on, don't you think?
John: Well, you know, no.
John: Mussolini was in power a long time before Hitler or Stalin.
Merlin: Mussolini was the – But he's kind of like the – he's sort of like the Canada of dictators or the Oakland of dictators.
Merlin: Like if he had been off on his own or like a Franco, if you had just that guy in obscurity, you'd go, wow, that guy is a real asshole.
Merlin: But next to Tojo and Hitler and Stalin, he doesn't really stand up, does he?
John: But, well, in terms of, like, atrocity, probably not.
John: But, I mean... Let's go to the big board.
John: 20 million... You also have to think, you know, Italy and Spain, like the standard of a cheap... Oh, you think we should adjust for the size of the country?
Merlin: Now, Stalin doesn't seem so bad, then.
John: Not just the size.
John: I mean, those people are...
John: are easily distracted by a nice dinner and a nice bottle of wine.
John: You know, they get started on an atrocity, and then it's like somebody rings the dinner bell.
Merlin: Or in Italy, your car breaks down.
John: You've got the Chinese guy over here.
John: We've got no soup.
John: We'll get started on that tomorrow, and then they forget.
John: I'm a society.
John: Hey, that's a lot of mozzarella.
Merlin: All I know is when I was a kid, I remember hearing that he and his mistress had been hung up with piano wire, and I never really tracked that down.
Merlin: But it haunted me in my memories that he was hung up in a public square with piano wire.
John: Oh, you've never seen the pictures?
John: Oh, no, those photos?
John: Oh, yeah, that's terrible.
John: It's terrible.
John: It's not a nice thing.
John: And, you know, they kind of did the same thing to Ceausescu in Romania, however many years later.
John: Because, of course, as you know, we've talked before, the Romanians...
John: Very close to the Italians in a lot of ways.
Merlin: I'm going to write all these down.
Merlin: Another show about geography, I think.
Merlin: Has John ever told you the story about the time that he was in Nebraska?
Merlin: He saw where Johnny Carson was born.
John: Oh, but so the Bunn family players definitely were a reaction to the self-seriousness of Winger.
John: And also of, you know, Soundgarden.
John: And in a way, I mean, part of the mythology of Seattle is that Mudhoney and a lot of the early grungers were like so take the piss and so fun, you know, like that they were fun.
John: This was the Everett True version.
Merlin: Mudhoney was so silly.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: In a good way.
Merlin: Keep it out of my face!
Merlin: I mean, that stuff was fun.
John: It was fun, but it was the kind of... I don't know.
John: Being in the middle of it did not feel fun at all.
Merlin: Even before the big explosion?
John: No, because it was so...
John: It was so fuck you that the fuck you was like a fire hose of fuck you.
John: It didn't feel to me like we are saying fuck you to them.
John: It felt to me like they were saying fuck you to everybody.
John: And there's something less fun about that.
John: Certainly not as fun as you imagine...
John: being at the first Red Hot Chili Peppers shows.
John: You know what I mean?
John: Or whatever.
John: The Southern California version of Punk Rock Fun, which was like...
Merlin: Versus the Seattle version of Punk Rock Fun, which was like... Oh, like seeing the Buzzcocks in the early days or something.
John: Would have been hilarious and fun.
John: And up here, it was so attended to that whole we're losers, we suck thing that at least for me, and maybe that it is that at 21 years old, I was a massive downer and I failed to see the kind of fratty humor of it.
John: But it felt real like...
John: like kind of college radio superior it it felt it felt in all its fun like it was almost like but it was trying to appear unselfconscious which may but when in fact it was deeply self-conscious well just just the fact that it was so reverent of the stooges you know just just the idea that it that there was there was a kind of reverence in its irreverence
John: that was exclusionary of most like it was like it was woohoo but you but also you don't get it and the thing about the chili peppers you imagine those early shows where they're just like we're white guys playing funk music and we're playing it fast and the one guy can't sing like there's no there's no subtext there's barely a text it's just like let's take acid and dance
John: And with the grunge thing, it was much more like, what do you know these records?
Merlin: Let's have some cough syrup and scowl.
John: A little bit.
John: And like, oh, if you don't have the following records, then you're not going to get what this is about.
John: And so you're already out.
John: You're already outside.
John: You can't be inside it.
John: because the only guys that are inside it are the two guys that have decided what the canonical records are.
John: And that was my take on it.
John: And so a lot of those bands in the middle period of Seattle before Indy came out, we were spasmodically reacting to grunge.
John: Grunge was so oppressive.
John: And particularly the heroin element.
John: I mean, there's nothing less fun than...
John: You take all those guys and then you make them junkies.
John: Like, there's nothing less fun than that.
John: It's not fun at all.
John: And so, you know, the Bunn family players were like, let's play every kind of music at the same time and we'll call ourselves the Bunn family players so no one can possibly like us.
John: You could not sell a single t-shirt for a band called the Bunn Family Players.
John: There's nothing cool about it.
John: And this busy monster was the same.
John: So uncool.
John: And of course, we were hoping...
John: That that hyper uncoolness would be cool because following the inextricable logic of punk, as you plummet into profound uncoolness, you get closer to the source of truth.
John: And that isn't the case.
John: We were just deeply uncool and impossible to listen to and enjoy.
Merlin: Well, you know, one thing about – I'm steering you away from punk rock.
Merlin: Super.
Merlin: One thing you – we need this to go out.
Merlin: We – you know what?
Merlin: I think about the bands that I'm –
Merlin: That we've talked about that we both really enjoy, but especially the ones that you've mentioned as being very influential on your taste and your style and your so forth.
Merlin: I just started a couple down here.
Merlin: You got ZZ Top, ACDC, Def Leppard.
John: I sound like such a tool.
Merlin: I sound like a guy who puts his clippers on his balls.
Merlin: Don't blame the index card, Sean.
Merlin: No, no, but also like Judas Priest.
Merlin: I mean, you know, or for me, I mean, I'm sorry.
Merlin: I guess they're considered punk work.
Merlin: For me, like maybe like the Ramones or, you know, certain – you know what though?
Merlin: I mean one thing that all those bands have in common, you could – I mean like certainly Def Leppard had their ridiculously pretentious moments.
Merlin: But there's a –
Merlin: Simple is the wrong word.
Merlin: Maybe instead of simplicity, maybe I want to say directness.
Merlin: There's certainly a lot of directness with ACDC.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: But I guess what I'm saying is like that's – all of that is so – even when Rob Halford is singing about Grindr looking for meat.
Merlin: Like to me, listening to that stuff, there's still such a directness to it.
Merlin: It's why the first Ramones record to me is still –
Merlin: It's goofy and stuff, but those three chords or four chords on some songs.
Merlin: I mean that's overstated.
Merlin: But you know what I mean?
Merlin: There's a certain directness.
John: To say there are four chords on that record is to overstate it.
Merlin: Well, I think that's a minor.
Merlin: But you know what all those have in common is they have a directness.
Merlin: And if you take out the part where you add this layer of outsiderness –
Merlin: Or that you choose – that over time you cling to that outsiderness and let's not get started on that.
Merlin: But I think sometimes people are a little embarrassed to like things that are direct.
Merlin: Just as some people are embarrassed to like something that's a little Byzantine.
Merlin: Like some people don't want to – like last night we were at a bar, our second bar last night.
John: Nobody likes Steely Dan except everybody likes Steely Dan.
Merlin: Well, I mean I think about 49 percent of the population likes Steely Dan.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I've met women who claim to like Steely Dan.
John: Your friend Allison Agosti.
Merlin: What?
Merlin: She likes Steely Dan?
John: I don't know.
John: I could swear that she likes Steely Dan.
John: Am I pronouncing it right?
Merlin: See, that's a perfect example.
John: Agosti?
Merlin: Agosti.
Merlin: Agostino.
Merlin: Agostino.
John: Oh, so she's like a lobster.
Merlin: Yeah, langosti.
Merlin: That's a little bit ping pong.
Merlin: I was listening to... Hey!
Merlin: When you leave, fuck you.
John: Hey, your friend Bambino came by and said, fuck you.
Merlin: Hospitaliano.
John: I was listening to the first Black Sabbath record the other day.
John: Not the, you know, not this, not Paranoid, but Black Sabbath eponymous.
Merlin: The one with the creepy, like, Hieronymus, Bosh-looking cover?
Merlin: Is that one I'm thinking of?
John: Yeah.
John: I'm going to look it up.
John: Well, yeah.
John: Sorry, anyway, go ahead.
John: I'll look it up.
John: That's Black Sabbath on it.
John: And, um...
John: There are a lot of great tracks on there, but there's also some embarrassing moments on it where you get the sense that Ozzy is trying to be scary.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: He understands.
John: They all understand that they're making a new kind of music and that it is scary-sounding, scary music.
John: And Ozzy is riffing on...
John: And he's kind of like, oh, no, no, don't kill me.
John: No.
John: And he's like trying to sound like he's being tortured by the devil.
John: And and maybe in 1969, you'd hear that.
John: And and, you know, for a lot of people, it'd be genuinely frightening.
Right.
John: but you would have to be about 10 years old i mean i understand why why sabbath was kind of panned by the critics initially because we listen to it now and it just sounds like sabbath that's how that's how it's meant to sound and in the context of the later sabbath records you get you get its place and you understand what ozzy's doing but if you heard it
John: if you heard it like for the first time you would say like oh it's some guys trying to make halloween music they're they're they're trying too hard to be spooky and it and it just sounds dumb and and yet like they are one of the they're one of my favorite bands certainly like a massive influence on me personally in terms of like
John: who I worship in terms of like God versus the devil.
John: Um, do I think fairies wear boots?
John: I, yes, I do.
John: I mean, you gotta believe me now.
John: I have it on good authority.
John: Um, but you know, but yeah, going back to that record and trying to listen to it, trying to listen to that record and trying to listen to Zeppelin one with fresh ears as though you had not only never heard those records, but never heard those bands.
John: And you're, and you're a guy who's just like, uh,
John: buying records in 1968 and like oh let's check out these new bands and you know it's not that hard to imagine why music critics were like what this is really like we've gone too far now and the blues and heavy rock is being made for kids now this is for kids
John: And it's only later, it's only because I guess we were kids when we heard it first, but also like what those bands became.
John: We can go back to those records and say like, yeah, that's tough.
John: But they're pretty, I mean, you know, not to overuse the term clown act, but in contrast to like how serious that, how serious the blues were being taken in 1966.
John: Yeah.
John: That music's pretty funny, really.
Merlin: Well, I'm looking at the cover.
Merlin: It's not the one I was thinking of, but it's funny because it looks like there's this one Norwegian black metal band that has the most ridiculous video I've ever seen in my life.
Merlin: I've linked to it numerous times.
Merlin: And it's this band that's created their own mythology about how they're kind of like druids protecting a kingdom of their own design.
John: These are the guys that swing their beards, right?
John: Are they swinging their...
Merlin: No, no.
Merlin: In the video, they're standing like knee deep in a Czech creek.
Merlin: They're like in brackish water with their guitars not plugged in, hiding behind piles of leaves and kind of being druids.
John: Sounds like the first Keene video.
Merlin: Communion with bushes, if you know what I mean.
Merlin: Anyway, it is weird though.
Merlin: I don't know why I keep thinking of this.
Merlin: I think we talked about this before.
Merlin: But like it is funny like what feels dangerous to people at a certain time.
Merlin: And in retrospect, I mean – god, I think we've talked about this too much probably.
Merlin: But like Judas Priest and the whole like the lawsuit –
Merlin: You know, that they had to go through.
John: Suicide, do it.
Merlin: And like when I was, I mean, I, I, everybody remembers backmasking.
Merlin: Everybody of our age remembers hearing about backmasking and you play your records backwards.
Merlin: And sometimes it was deliberate, but my grandma who was, she was not yet Pentecostal.
Merlin: She was on the slide to Pentecostal, but you know, she would, you know, buy cassette tapes from TV ministers and she, you know, would share one with me about like what, what all of this music actually meant and,
Merlin: And at the time, it felt so booga booga, like in the same way as Dungeons and Dragons felt really booga booga at the time.
Merlin: And you go, oh my god, in retrospect, can you imagine in retrospect – setting you aside, someone who actually literally would play in a sewer.
Merlin: But for most of us, we were sitting around with dozens of dice and books.
Merlin: And like casting spells.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I mean, we weren't like, you know, throwing people in the back of a van.
Merlin: It was, it could hardly have been more nerdy.
John: And now, I mean, when you go back and listen to some of the stuff, all the stuff that seems so dangerous, like at a certain time, I mean, you know, you can also understand like somebody, your grandmother's generation, all of a sudden it is the, it is all the rage among teenagers to be practicing witchcraft.
John: Basically.
John: Uh, you can see where it freaked him out.
John: I mean, there isn't anything comparable now.
John: Culturally, except that the internet is like a blanket there be dragons for old people.
John: They don't know what the kids are doing on there sending Snapchat pictures of their cooters to each other.
John: But, but you think about, I mean, I remember walking home from school.
John: Can I capture that?
John: Cooter snaps.
John: Cooter snaps.
John: Oh my God.
John: That's our app.
John: There's no A in it.
Merlin: It's SNPS.
John: Oh, we just made a billion dollars.
John: Get Marco on the phone.
John: Cooter snaps.
John: Cooter snaps.
John: We'll sell it to... We'll sell it to Favorite.
John: We'll sell it to Favorite, whoever bought them.
John: We'll sell it to MySpace, and it'll be worth a million dollars.
John: Billion dollars.
John: Anyway, I remember walking home from school during the Dungeons & Dragons hysteria.
John: Hysteria.
Merlin: Hysterical, I think is what you're thinking of.
Merlin: That's the one after he lost the arm?
John: Yeah.
John: And I was walking home, you know, seventh grade or something like that, and really, really, really focusing all of my psionic ability to test...
John: whether or not I actually did have some kind of magic.
John: Oh, really?
John: I'm walking home by myself.
John: It's 40 degrees below zero.
John: There's no one on the streets, not even cars, because no one's crazy enough to go out.
John: And I walked home from school every day, and it was a couple of miles.
John: And on these really, really cold days, it was like I was in...
Merlin: another world i was in another the environment was so because when it's that cold like the the air freezes kind of in front of you and you're in this and like there's there's such a it must be so uh there's something less than monochromatic like right like it's just it must be purely like like white out and so cold that you i mean i've been so cold sometimes that i get confused and you must be practically hallucinate right
John: Yeah, and on this particular day, I got home, and unusually, my sister was home.
John: She was never home after school.
John: I don't know whether she was homesick or what it was, but I got home, and my sister was there.
John: Normally, I would have been arriving home by myself, and my extremities were numb, and I was completely...
John: And like you're saying, groggy, not sure what, you know, kind of confused.
John: And I was struggling to get the key in the lock and she opened the door and she was like, my God, what are you doing outside?
John: And she rushes me in and she put me in the bathtub.
John: And, you know, my sister was...
John: what I was 12 or something.
John: So she was nine and she didn't usually take control, take command of, of me that way.
John: Take command of the situation.
John: She got me in, got me undressed, got me in a hot bathtub and,
John: And was just like, what?
John: Are you crazy?
John: What were you doing outside?
John: And the reality was I was out there walking home pretty slowly, like, focusing my attention on making magic.
John: If I could just, you know, like, it was a version of that, show me a sign, God.
John: If you are real, show me a sign.
John: But I was, you know, I was like, conjure an orb.
John: Yeah.
John: Just conjure.
John: If you can just conjure one orb, then that will be the beginning.
John: I conjure a glowing orb.
John: And, you know, I'm really, really working hard because I imagined that magic might be the solution to my girl problems.
John: It might be a solution to, I think that's so much more common than anyone wants to admit to dealing with girl with dealing with bullies.
John: You know, this was at the time in my life when I was kind of the most bullied and the most, it was, it was because I started kindergarten when I was four.
John: It's right at that puberty corner of,
Merlin: That's where you really start to notice the six or eight months difference.
John: You notice those guys that are a full year older than you in the same grade, and they're like, they have deep voices now, and they're growing mustaches.
John: They look like teamsters.
John: And I'm out walking in the cold trying to conjure an orb.
Merlin: LAUGHTER
John: But I really, I mean, I'm not just some dumb kid that gets swept up in a fad.
John: I was like this proximity to magic and to this realm of dice and everybody talking about magic like it's serious business.
John: And people talking about it in Time magazine and like adults concerned about kids toying with dark earth.
Merlin: Yeah, you might see like a local news thing or a 2020 thing about mainly – I think mainly the satanic quote-unquote aspects of it.
John: But all of that convinced me, if the adults are so scared of it, that there's something to it.
John: And I believed about myself my whole life.
John: If there was anyone who was born with magic, it had to be me.
John: For the love of God, it had to be me.
John: If there were really mutants...
John: And there had been some other kid at my school who had a legitimate mutation where he had laser beams shoot out of his eyes or touch you and make you cold and have a cool white stripe in your bangs or control metal, make metal fly through the air.
John: I'm getting kind of a boner, John.
John: If there were really kids that had those skills and I had not been one of them, I was a normal, I would have.
John: Oh, you would have been heartbroken.
John: Not only would I have been heartbroken, Merlin, but I would have gone to war against me.
Merlin: I think everybody does this.
Merlin: I think everybody does this.
Merlin: I tried to explain Dungeons and Dragons to my daughter today.
Merlin: We were out playing and that's, you know, whatever.
Merlin: But like it's been for the last week or so, she's Captain America and I'm Iron Man.
Merlin: And then I told her that if it's okay with her, I wanted to make a switch because I'm kind of getting more into Doctor Strange.
Merlin: And I was explaining why that's weird for me.
Merlin: She's fine.
Merlin: But I was trying to explain how like in Dungeons and Dragons, this actually is kind of on topic weirdly in two ways.
Merlin: On the one hand, I think everybody does like to think that they can do magic.
Merlin: And I think everybody in their teen years, they would never call it that.
Merlin: Like you might not call it that.
Merlin: But the ability – like for example, she is convinced that she can know the future.
Merlin: Like she knows that things are going to happen and she's constantly wrong.
Merlin: But she throws out those and remembers where she did predict the future.
Merlin: But like –
Merlin: I think – and I've talked to lots of people about this, whether that's like hypnotizing – figuring out how to hypnotize girls or figuring out how to like make a bully have diarrhea.
Merlin: Like everybody's – it's a time when your life is so confused and full of like dark gray magic that like you might as well piss on a spark plug because you never know what might work.
Merlin: And you concentrate on so few things other than things that make you want to masturbate, for example.
Merlin: Like that's the closest thing you get to meditation when you're 13 is getting into the spot where you want to produce an orb.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Or stop time.
Merlin: Stop time and eat all the cookies.
Merlin: I was convinced I could do these things.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I used to sit and look and I would try to – the colors of cars had a big bearing on my life because I used to try and make decisions and see signs of God.
Merlin: But I would also use it to test whether or not I could predict the future.
John: You would say the next car that comes around the corner is going to be yellow and that means that I'm going to take a left instead of a right and go play video games?
Merlin: Well, or I will call her or more subtly, she will call me.
John: Right.
John: Yellow VW.
Merlin: That's what I'm looking for.
John: Slug bug, slug bug.
Merlin: Punch buggy.
Merlin: I had to also explain to her though, like, why do I do this, John?
Merlin: I need to get an older brother, not a younger child.
Merlin: But I was explaining classes to her and how like you can have different kinds of fighters.
Merlin: But I was saying it's – explain to her.
John: Right now I am looking at my Dungeons & Dragons dice.
John: I'm pulling them out.
Merlin: I've been feeling so much more drawn.
Merlin: Between Adventure Time and Doctor Strange, I've been feeling more and more drawn back into it.
John: I feel like we need to get Will Wheaton on this podcast.
Merlin: That's not going to happen.
Merlin: I'm going to roll.
Merlin: You're going to conjure Paul and Storm if you're not careful.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: Save versus permanent virginity.
John: I forgot that I have a green 20-sided die in addition to all my Christmas.
Merlin: I predicted that.
Merlin: I knew that.
Merlin: I knew that.
Merlin: But I was telling you, it's funny that I've been reading this thing called Infinity Gauntlet, which is just full of...
Merlin: crystals and magic and dr strange making the fruity hand thing and like and but and here's the funny thing like when we we played the most boneheaded ramones version of dnd that you could play there's so much we didn't do we didn't do psionics right we didn't follow turns oh sure sure we played
John: We just didn't decide on it.
John: You didn't even really roll for anything other than damage.
Merlin: No!
Merlin: Like, nobody wanted to be a cleric.
Merlin: God, nobody wanted to be an illusionist.
Merlin: Who wanted to be a cleric?
Merlin: It was a universal joke.
Merlin: Like, you might as well be a second-level fern.
John: Imagine those DMs that were actually rolling to determine what their characters did next.
John: Like, characters in the... Do the ghosts attack?
Merlin: What do they call it?
Merlin: A game-playing...
Merlin: DM or something like that?
Merlin: Wasn't there like a weird term which would be like being God and Job at the same time?
John: Yeah, instead of being a DM who's like, well, the ghosts put on a crown of might and they turn your bones to jelly.
Merlin: Here's the beauty part is you could also play by yourself.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: It's the D&D version of talking to yourself.
Merlin: You could make your own dungeon.
Merlin: Some people play chess with themselves, right?
John: Yes.
Merlin: I mean, do they take on a persona?
Merlin: Do they roll for that?
John: Yeah, well, there was... What was the most recent...
John: Didn't I see a movie where the bad guy was playing chess with himself?
Merlin: Oh, I think – I got to tell you.
Merlin: I mean I think if you're looking to be some kind of a Bond villain, chess should figure heavily.
Merlin: I don't think nice people choose to play chess.
Merlin: I think they're challenged to chess.
Merlin: Chess to me is one of those things.
Merlin: Do you know what I mean?
John: They're called to it like the ministry?
Merlin: To me, chess is like wearing a narrow jacket.
Merlin: It's one of those things where like you're a Bond villain.
Merlin: Like if you have your own island or a narrow jacket –
Merlin: or like you stroke a cat, certainly these are great indicators that you're probably a Bond villain.
John: I really wanted to be a chess kid.
Merlin: I wanted to be a high IQ kid.
John: Being a chess kid is like being a high IQ kid.
John: You get to wear a dark turtle neck.
John: You get interviewed?
John: Yeah, right.
John: You can have crazy Bob Dylan Einstein hair, and everybody's like, it's like having magic.
John: You're the chess kid.
Merlin: You get to hang out with grown-ups.
John: Yeah, exactly.
John: You are immune to the vagaries of childhood.
John: You can go right to grown-up status and skip all the in-between.
John: But chess was just like... I've never won a game of chess in my entire life.
John: All that thinking ahead and then thinking ahead ahead.
John: And then you still get your ass handed to you by just like just a random 30 year old who's not even trying.
John: And you're like, fuck, I don't have this.
John: I don't have this gift.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Now this, this gets back to magic.
Merlin: Like there are some people who think like being able to come up with a witty remark seems like magic.
Merlin: There are some people who think being able to play drums and not be stupid is magic.
Merlin: And like to me – Never seen it.
Merlin: But to me like seeing people who not only understand and remember the rules of chess but can do it –
Merlin: It completely boggles my mind.
Merlin: They might as well be teleporting to me.
Merlin: Do you know what I mean?
Merlin: It's in the same way that somebody – like if you've seen one of those videos of Pablo Picasso even way after his prime drawing or painting and you just watch him make a few lines, turn into something – even if it's shitty Picasso, it's still like mind-blowing.
Merlin: That's how I feel about watching people play chess.
Merlin: I don't understand how they – you have to have a different brain to do that.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah, that was not the way.
John: That was not the way for us to escape childhood.
John: And in fact, neither of us did.
John: We had to endure every painful moment of it.
Merlin: Here's the other thing.
Merlin: Think about, and I'm sorry we haven't talked about Johnny Carson, but if you think about like all the bugbears, if you like, of the 1970s and 80s, and you look at stuff like D&D, okay, like heavy asthmatic kids with dice.
Merlin: You look at Motley Crue.
Merlin: I mean like fifth-generation glam with temporary tattoo Satanism.
Merlin: You look at all that stuff and then think about who the real fucking maniacs are.
Merlin: A guy who's in the Rotary Club that dresses up like a clown.
Merlin: john wayne gacy did not have pentagrams no he did not and he did not you know what i'm saying you think about and so you see these guys in the dusters wearing pancake makeup and going oh spooky but it's the it's the it's the banality of these evil here we go you can set your watch by it
John: Yes, the banality or banality.
Merlin: Oh, do you say horse vessel?
Merlin: You don't say horse vessel lied.
Merlin: Is that right?
Merlin: Leidenstrom?
John: Liebenstrom?
John: Liebenstrom?
John: Liebenstrom?
John: Yeah.
John: I do not.
John: I don't.
John: All I'm saying is that the really evil ones.
Merlin: No, you're not going to acknowledge it.
Merlin: Are you allowed to talk about horse vessel in Germany today?
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: But you can't sell stuff on eBay.
Merlin: You couldn't sell like a horse vessel 45 or something.
John: Well, you know, I don't know what those rules are.
John: I think you can talk about Nazism.
John: It's all they talk about in Der Spiegel.
John: But you just can't talk admiringly about it.
John: I think you could probably... Boy, that's subtle.
John: Yeah, it is.
John: I think you could probably sell that stuff if you were selling it to a museum of history.
Merlin: It's educational or cultural and not for its prurient value.
John: Right, right.
John: But again, I don't know all of that.
John: I mean, I was thinking today, Merlin, that maybe what I'm going to do
John: Here's my plan.
John: It's a little bit water world.
Merlin: Is this one of your new thought technologies?
John: This is a new thought technology.
John: What if I get an old oil tanker
John: Like I'm talking about a ship, a giant ship.
John: And I construct an arena on it.
John: An open arena that seats, let's say, 15,000 people on the deck of a giant oil tanker.
John: And then I park it in international waters.
John: And I hold tournaments where teams representing various religions stick fight to the death.
Merlin: And we – It's a secular – no, wait.
Merlin: It's a non-secular neighborhood stick fight.
John: That's right.
John: So for instance, like park it somewhere.
John: And then the first question I had was, are there international waters in the Mediterranean or is the Mediterranean so small that all of the – There's a lot of stick fighting Catholics there.
Merlin: I've got to guess.
John: Well, so that's what I'm saying.
Merlin: Oh, you're in between.
Merlin: You got the Arabians.
Merlin: You got the Papists.
Merlin: It's all right there, right to itself.
John: Park the ship somewhere off of Crete.
John: And you say, okay, you know, because the Internet is international, you don't have to go on any national television.
John: You just say on the Internet, okay, we are accepting applications for teams from Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Syria.
John: orthodox Greece.
Merlin: It's almost like the opposite of the Olympics.
Merlin: It's not to create brotherhood.
Merlin: It's to settle old scores.
John: That's right.
John: Settle old scores.
John: And there are no restrictions.
John: Put together a team of five.
John: You can make it all of the best mixed martial artists in your country.
John: Or all of the most ruthless criminals or whatever.
John: There are no limitations.
John: And we're just going to settle some stuff.
John: I'm not saying that we're not actually, like, we're not settling anything.
Merlin: You're not resolving anything forever because it's probably going to be an annual event.
Merlin: You're going to have to amortize the purchase of the ship.
John: Yeah, we're not settling anything in law.
John: We're just culturally settling grievances.
John: Like, let's get the Palestinian team and the Israeli team in here.
Merlin: You get the Irish.
Merlin: You get the, right?
Merlin: Oh, you couldn't keep the Irish away.
John: They love to fight.
John: They'll fight everybody.
John: They're mad about everything.
John: The Norwegians, you know, the course.
Merlin: John, you dig a little bit into that and you start going to those countries that got smacked onto Germany, the pre-World War I tribes.
Merlin: You bring them out, have them to bring their regional Czech sticks.
John: that's right here's the thing everybody and the listener is thinking how are you going to make money off of this if it's only five people no because they're going to bring their fans they're going to be wearing their scarves from palestine or uh manchester united or whatever we're simulcasting this around the world pay-per-view because of the internet that's right because the internet there's 50 and you we'd probably design an app you know uh that you could watch it on your phone or on your other uh your beer i bet you marco's looking for projects
John: And so – and what I'm saying is then you come out and your uniform is just – you're all wearing T-shirts with the emblem of your religion on the shirt.
John: So you either get a – you've got the Star of David's against the crescent moons and you get the Catholic cross versus the Orthodox cross.
John: And, you know, everybody is just out there like, you know, exactly what, who the teams are.
John: And they're just, they're just stick fighting the shit out of each other on this, on this water world and super tanker simulcasting around the world.
Merlin: And this is not something where we're going to sit and have summits about a border dispute that's been going on for 45 years.
Merlin: No.
Merlin: No.
John: It's going to fight that shit out.
John: It's going to be hitting people with a fucking stick.
John: the the the most militant people of every culture the people who are most agitating for violence in their respective cultures would gradually not not immediately they would immediately you would see that this was just a that this was just a publicity or that this was just some some like gross uh oh like a sensationalistic way for john uh for super train to make a buck
John: Right.
John: It's just a sensationalist American super train based, you know, like fake problem solver.
John: But over time, if we kept at it, gradually the most militant parts of every culture would start directing their energy toward fight boat.
Merlin: As you said, John, if you bring neighborhood stick fights back, we're going to spend less time at the mall buying football jerseys.
Merlin: And it's going to be somewhere between the Hunger Games, Logan's Run, and either of the two world wars.
Merlin: But it's going to be something with an end, right?
Merlin: I mean for that year or maybe for that season, if you like.
John: Sure.
John: I mean it's contained on the boat and the winner wins.
Merlin: Will there be tanker seasons or will it be a rolling season?
Merlin: How would that work?
John: Well, because it's a boat, we can go, you know, like in the northern winter, we can go down to the Falkland Islands.
John: We can go over to, I mean, think about all the different stick fighting you could do in the Indian Ocean.
Merlin: I could see some Protestants signing on for a pretty long cruise just to watch their folks fight.
John: Just going around the Gulf of Mexico, just the people in Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Mississippi, Texas, just park off the coast of Galveston and people would be settling Texas grievances for an entire year.
Merlin: Oh, my God, John.
Merlin: It extends on so many levels.
Merlin: And plus, everybody likes cruises.
Merlin: So you could get on there and this could – the thing is I almost wish you'd seen that Hunger Games movie because it's kind of similar like where basically you get people from all of these, as they say, districts and they come in and they're compelled to fight each other to death.
John: But I think in this case – It's like a sacrifice situation, right?
Merlin: It is.
Merlin: It is.
Merlin: It's a dystopia unlike Super Train.
Merlin: And in this case, maybe it's something like, yeah, maybe you might get some better food, but you're definitely going to get a boat ride out of it and somebody is going to get their ass kicked.
John: And this is – it's all completely voluntary because what we're trying to do is attract the people who have this in their blood, who want to settle their grievances this way.
John: We're giving them a venue for that.
John: Score settlers.
John: Score settlers.
John: So think about all the guys from Finland, not to mention the people of central Germany who traditionally went and fought other people's battles.
John: I mean, now that's a good question.
John: Could we, should there be ringers?
John: I don't know.
Merlin: Oh, like in the Civil War, you could have a guy go fight for you.
John: Yeah, I don't think there should.
John: I think there should be like a test of faith in addition.
Merlin: Should it measure people's noses or something like that?
John: Yeah, I think so.
John: You take a look at their Johnsons.
John: It would be open to women, of course.
Merlin: Maybe you could have them wear clothing that's tight-fitting enough to see if the women or the men have been circumcised.
John: Right.
John: Just so you know where you stand.
Merlin: Plus, let's be honest, it adds a sexual component to it that I think people would really enjoy.
John: Oh, hello.
John: T-shirts with the religious emblems.
John: Yes.
John: And no pants.
Merlin: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Merlin: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.