Ep. 84: "Pedagogical Sex Father"
Hello.
Hey, John.
Hi, Merlin.
How's it going?
Good.
It's good here, too.
I've been recording podcasts.
I'm a little bit winded.
You are a podcast recorder.
It's all happening right here.
I hear from a lot of people about your podcasts.
I don't like using that word.
Nobody's found a better one.
Does it sound ugly?
It kind of sounds like poop.
I tried to, for a while, coin, you may recall, when we first started doing this, I tried to separate it and make it into two words, podcast.
And I got some angry letters from Germany.
Oh, is it a term of art there?
Well, I don't know what their problem was.
I never know what the Germans' problem is.
But these guys were like...
No.
Nine.
Nicked.
I guess.
I'm sorry.
I think maybe they didn't like the affectation.
I don't know.
We kid.
We kid about our listeners, but I want to stipulate to the people of Germany.
There's nobody who's more tolerant of the crap, of the scheisse that we give them than the Germans.
That's true.
They're very resilient, John.
You know, a funny thing is, did you know
You probably did know this, but did you know that Germans are far and away the disproportionately largest group of immigrants in America?
I would not have guessed that, but that does make sense.
Yeah.
It's like you take the numbers of all the people that have immigrated to the Americas over the years or this America, the North America.
And the Germans are like overwhelmingly the largest population.
And they came over and they just stayed quiet.
They kept moving.
They got out of the way.
They got some farmland out there in Minnetonka.
And they started making schnitzel.
And then they integrated into the local population because they look just like English.
If you, if pressed, I would have guessed Irish, which is probably an availability heuristic on my part.
But, you know, Irish used to be very discriminated against.
Are you aware of this?
No blacks, dogs, or Irish.
Is that a real sign?
That was a real sign.
No blacks, dogs, or Irish.
Irish are at the bottom of that list.
Actually, I seem to remember, I think Eddie Van Halen had a Charvel with a picture of a leprechaun with a buster on it.
Remember his No Fat Chicks?
You know, you used to be able to get away with that, but now that's very unpopular.
Cut all this out.
My last name is German.
I come from German stock.
Also, I'll bet you the Germans come in, they work hard, they didn't cause a lot of trouble, and they weren't controversial in the way.
I don't know anything about history, John, but I think they weren't controversial compared to a lot.
As you say, they blended in.
they blended in they you know what i mean well yeah and they were uh you know the germans i think i think the irish and the italians both emigrated to america typically because their countries were having food crises and they were kind of coming over here because it was a last ditch effort or like they put their they went down to the docks and they put their kids on the boat and they said ciao
Go find food in America.
Really, like self-preservation.
Yeah, like we are not making it here.
There are too many of us in Italy and there's a potato famine here and we are gone.
Whereas the Germans, I think, maybe moved, immigrated to America with a little bit more resources and maybe were able to get on a wagon train and get out to Minnesota and North Dakota and claim their land and
They knew how to use guns so they could defend their land.
Against the Irish.
Against the Irish who were coming a little bit later.
Get out of my cobbages.
But yeah, it's a strange statistic.
And, you know, the Germans are the silent majority.
I really like that scene.
I like that Godfather, those Godfather movies, the first couple.
And there's that great scene at the beginning of Godfather 2 when Vito arrives at Ellis Island and there's that long – I have no way to know if this is anywhere near real, but I love that long panning shot.
where they're going across all the people waiting to be processed through Ellis Island.
I thought that was just so wonderfully done.
It really looks like it's from whatever, 1900 or whatever.
But it also just gives you a feel.
Can you imagine how monkey balls it must have been in Manhattan at that time to be cheek to jowl with all those different people when really a lot of folks from Europe
They're coming from a more homogenous background.
It must have been so strange to be living right next to people from a different continent that you could talk to.
Totally crazy, particularly given that the Irish and Italians and, frankly, a lot of the Germans and a lot of the people all shared a religion.
I mean, they were all cat lickers.
I've never heard it pronounced like that.
Did you coin that, John?
No.
My father grew up up here in Seattle on Capitol Hill.
And there were there were cat lickers who went to Catholic school and there were publicers who went to public school.
So you either licked a pup or you licked a cat.
It's like a white guy rhyming slang.
Yeah, and then there were the Jews.
And the Jews kind of were like in the middle.
And of course, the Japanese bringing up the rear.
Or actually, you know, heading the basketball team.
So my dad's Seattle was fairly cosmopolitan, but also the main groups were Japanese, Jewish, Italian...
italian irish and then whatever episcopalian or whatever the rest of the people were interesting little world when i look at my mom's high school yearbook she graduated in 1954 first of all everybody looks 50 like 45 to 50 years of age isn't that strange i i there's a kid in my in my daughter's preschool
I won't name him because he's two.
I bet it's Ian.
But he looks 50.
And I'm like, oh, you're one of these kids that I see in old photographs of the Bowery.
You're like a shoeshine boy.
Oh, like smoking a butt with a Donegal cap?
Yeah, he is just a couple of leather boots and knee-high pants away from being a street ruffian down in the Five Points.
It is strange.
I always think of – I was going to say about my mom's yearbook is it is – it was an interesting mix for 1956.
It was an interesting mix of like there were a lot of Jewish people, a lot of, as you say, like different kinds of – not so many black people, but they were there.
It was more integrated in the aggregate than I would have expected.
Yeah, I think that in Seattle in particular, like the great migration of African-Americans came during the war.
And before that, there was a vibrant, a small but vibrant community of blacks.
The second big arrival.
A couple, 300 years earlier, we had some show up.
But here in the Northwest.
Oh, I see.
Cut to do manufacturing.
Well, yeah, they came from the South to work in the Boeing airplane factory.
But before that, there was a tight-knit and vibrant black community in Seattle.
And they were such a minority that there was...
There was not really much racism against them.
The threat that white people perceived were the Chinese out here.
Oh, because of their numbers.
Yeah, right.
I mean, the Chinese were flooding the city, and there were anti-Chinese riots here, and there were...
The Chinese were the terrifying influx, and the blacks were like a middle-class community.
There was a prominent guy who owned a waterfront hotel, who built a large house at the top of Capitol Hill, and his family all kind of came up to join him, and they kind of built a neighborhood.
So before the war...
uh from all accounts there was not a lot of prejudice against blacks here it was all directed at the at the wrong kind of asian and then after the war of course then it was like all bets were off there were there were still red line laws here in seattle meaning like black families couldn't live north of a certain street uh all the way just like wouldn't get a mortgage
Oh, yeah, they wouldn't get a – not only would they not get a mortgage, they would like – yeah, you weren't – they weren't really even encouraged to walk around after dark north of a certain street.
And that persisted here until the early 70s.
Yeah, my mom – I don't know why I remember this, but from the time when my mom was taking real estate classes, she had to get a license in Ohio and then a license later in Florida.
And in both cases, she had to take classes.
And how – they called it at the time.
They called it steering.
I've heard it called redlining too back in the day.
When they really did, when banks – you know where that comes from.
Banks would actually take a map and with a red – whatever they used for markers would draw red lines for where if you were in this area, you didn't get a mortgage.
They just hold up the map and talk loud because they didn't understand English.
They'll shake a map at them with red lines on it.
Can you imagine being treated like that?
Well, my mom and dad bought a house in 64, let's say, within the Red Line neighborhood, in a neighborhood that was... Historically Chinese.
Well, no, that they were deciding already was going to be the ghetto.
Oh.
And the banks, you know, my dad, of course, was, my dad knew his banker, as he did at the time, if you were a prominent white guy.
And his banker was like, Dave, come on, you can't buy down in that neighborhood.
It's, you know, like, basically saying, we are conspiring to turn that neighborhood into a shithole.
Like, what are you thinking?
Yeah.
Have you been not coming to the meetings?
And my dad... That's probably shittable.
My dad was like, nah, no, that's the house we want.
And had to kind of twist...
his banker's arm to, to, to agree, you know, to even, I'm going to say this, even my dad couldn't easily get a mortgage in that neighborhood because it was like a citywide plan.
Oh, it was risky.
It was like risky.
Let's turn this neighborhood into a, a, a bog, you know, like, well,
Who says government doesn't work?
Let's stop fixing up this neighborhood.
I think we can all agree on redlining the ghetto.
Well, they called it steering with mom's time because it really was – I don't think it – it could almost really – I think what they meant was don't gently put your hand on the black family's shoulders and like move them over to Clifton.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
But I mean really literally steering the wheel, like to take you to where houses would be.
It wasn't legal.
I mean it wasn't a legal thing, but it was very much a cultural thing where if somebody wanted to go to Indian Hill or something, you go, no, no, no, no, no.
You don't want to go over there.
You want to go over here.
You'll be more comfortable here.
Yeah, it's like the scene in Animal House, like, Ahmed, I'd like you to meet Jugdish and Muhammad.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm very surprised to learn from you in this conversation that there were any classes in Florida pertaining to real estate licensing.
I think it was mostly – it was a nominal sort of ritualistic thing.
It was like a game of lawn darts, right?
They drew a circle and if you could get a dart in the circle, you were lieutenant governor.
It was education by jarts.
I love jarts.
Well, I have just recently found in the greater Seattle area, in the Seattle bedroom community of Burien, a place called Hans's Sausage and Delicatessen, owned by Hans and Marianne Stewin.
I'm holding their business card.
And, uh, it is a, it is a German deli.
I went in there the other day, was driving by and I was like, Hmm, that building looks like, uh, that, that building is like a big Edelweiss.
You know, it looked like a, it looked like the, um, the Eagle's Nest, but it was in between two auto shops.
And I went in and there are all these Germans in there and they're all, uh, you know, talking their German talk.
And I walk over to the deli counter, and there's 80 different versts.
Oh, my God.
And I said, well, what do you got going on here?
What's the story?
And the guy was like, you got a verst sampler?
He was like, you want a sample of verst?
And I got like two pounds of...
verse sampler where he just went along and did they make it there oh yeah whoa and he went along and he cut cut you know three slices of every verse they had he came to the he came to the tongue first and he held it up and he was like you want the tongue some people don't want the tongue and i stood there and i said
I'm going to be in the, I'm going to be in the don't want the tongue camp.
And he was, he nodded and was like, so he left the tongue out, but every other kind of worst.
And I've been working through it here every day.
Like is it, is all marked.
So, you know, which is, which worst is worst.
No, it, um, it wasn't.
It's like, guess, guess the verse is the game.
So I'll pull three slices out and I'm like, Whoa, you know, you smell it.
And it's like, what is this?
This is crazy.
Um,
So I highly recommend that you find the German deli in your neighborhood and go in and get the Verst sampler because it's truly a journey in meat.
Have you been happy with the results so far?
I have been happy.
I mean, you know, anytime I see a pimento loaf or a bologna that has pistachios in it,
I'm a little wary.
But this stuff is... It's all either made there or he's got some connection back in Heidelberg.
First of all, that sounds fantastic, but this is so awful.
The first thing that comes to my head is I can't believe it hasn't been co-opted by hipsters.
It seems like exactly the kind of place where hipsters would sweep in and ruin it.
Well, this is why it's in Burien.
It's perfectly outside of...
orbit of hipsters.
They haven't found it.
You know what I mean?
And it's legitimately like you walk in there, there's a shelf with 24 kinds of mustard
And I asked the little house frow to come over and talk to me about the mustard.
And she walked over and she was like, you know, she kind of tapped on one that was mustard that had been packaged in a little beer sign.
And she's like, that's the hot stuff.
And I was like sold.
And then she, you know, hit another one and she was like, that stuff's really good too.
And I grabbed that and I was, you know, loading up on mustard while I was there.
It's pretty hot.
I think it's fantastic.
I love finding stuff like that.
Here's the funny thing, though, when you're talking about tongue.
I might have gone for the tongue because I like the lingua or whatever they call it on tacos.
That's good.
It's real good.
But when I see something like – the thing is a lot of stuff has been really bastardized and dumbed down.
When we think of stuff like bologna, I mean it's still going to be whatever, snouts and butts or whatever.
But you can get a pretty good version of that.
I draw the line at head cheese.
I can't even look at head cheese.
It looks like it's mocking you.
It's mocking you with how much weird shit is in it.
If you order a hot dog, you're probably eating plenty of tongue.
But this was rough chopped and formed into a sausage that was six inches across.
So it looked like ground bark.
I would say that for the second visit.
I think you did the right thing.
Yeah, I'm easing into it.
I mean, I like a little bit of...
I'll eat liverwurst all day, but the rough chopped to the extent that there were plenty of taste buds visible in your giant log of tongues that had been cut out of these beasts and put into what I can only guess was like a lawnmower and then fed into a sewer pipe.
And then served on a manhole cover.
There might be some canary traps in there.
You never know.
There might be some joke foods in there that you can tell, you know, somebody's a poser if they order the wrong thing.
Yeah, this seemed like pro level.
But I'm going to keep going back to this place.
I'm going to go back until my whole house is decorated in like barren Munchen.
flax bear in munich i i yell you mean like an old-timey an old-timey uh butcher shop where you got the the sausages hanging from the ceiling well oh oh that was the that was the the best part as i'm walking out i turn around and i go back to the butcher counter i've got this big bag of meat and i'm like and i look at the guy and he was very friendly and i said did i miss anything what am i missing
Like, giving him the kind of squinty-eyed, like, you tell me what I'm missing.
And he nods, turns around, and goes and grabs a big string of Laund Jaeger off the wall, which are those little dried, like, jerky sausages.
And, you know, they're tied together in a string of sausages.
But, you know, they're like German... It's like a pepperoni kind of thing?
Yeah.
You can keep it at room temperature.
It's dried, and yeah, you pull it out of your pocket, and you bite off a hunk and put it back in your pocket.
That's right in your wheelhouse, John.
Well, the thing is, I've seen these Lawn Yeagers...
uh in my travels in germany like if you get out into the country everybody's got one in his shirt pocket they're just they're just like they keep them around because who doesn't want a bite of delicious german pepperoni throughout it looks it looks kind of like a an upscale slim jim exactly and so this and he and i say am i missing anything he turns around and is like land jaeger and he brings me like a string of them
And, and I, and I, I purchased like a, a fairly long string, but when I got home and started like just carrying one around and kind of chewing on it, I realized that I had under ordered by a thousand percent.
And next time that I go, I'm going to get, I'm going to, that my whole house, it's my Christmas tree is going to be decorated with strings of lawn Yeager because it's the ultimate, it's, it's, it's totally, it's the perfect, it's the perfect meat food.
It looks, it's almost like it would be almost like smoking, like, or you could like get a, like a, like a three cigar holder and like, it's the size and shape of a chair root.
Oh my God.
This is making me hungry.
It looks really good.
I just, I just had a, uh, speaking of the other end of the spectrum, I just had a, uh, I had a dirty South.
I was in a hurry.
So I went and got a dirty South.
I told you about the dirty South, right?
Tell me again about the dirty South.
It's a hot dog with chili and coleslaw and barbecue sauce.
Whoa.
Am I right?
Eek.
And I had to eat it kind of fast.
Yeah, I know.
I know.
There's no way to – you don't want to savor one of those.
You want to put it in you.
Yeah, but it's real wide because it kind of spreads out the bun.
It's definitely like an Eve with a fork thing, but now I kind of hate myself.
Spreads out the bun.
Mm-hmm.
I went to a cocktail party last night for a... It was a political fundraiser.
Because as I've described, I'm trying to get more and more involved in local politics.
And the more involved I get, the more that I realize even Seattle and Washington state politics are a completely gnarly realm of like...
Blood oath and vendetta.
Like half the people I met at this cocktail party last night were in the olive oil business.
Oh, it's, it is, it's just, and, and you make allegiances and, uh,
and alliances with people, and then later on you regret them.
This is down at the left end of the spectrum.
You still get a lot of olive oil industry.
That's the thing.
It's all left up here.
Certainly in the circles I travel in, it's just like progressives against progressives.
But my God, they go for the jugular.
Anyway, I'm at this party last night, and there's like a buffet.
I walk over and I can't eat any of the starchy stuff.
But there are these delicious, look like cream cheese filled green peppers.
And so I gobble a handful of them.
And like two peppers in, I realize they are cream cheese filled jalapenos.
That have not been completely divested of their jalapeno seeds.
And so I plow through a baker's dozen of these things before I realize that they are spice grenades.
I can't believe they're serving these at an event full of normal people.
This is the kind of hot where you can take a bite and go, ooh, that's spicy, but then it may not really hit you for a little while.
And then it's like... Anyway, so talk about may not hit you for a while.
It's really hitting me today.
Oh, no.
Do you need to go?
No, no, no.
I've mostly covered all those bases, but I'm sitting here.
I'm sitting here like I am sitting on a porcupine.
Okay.
Which is good.
It's part of growing old.
Yeah, it's very centering.
It's really keeping me in the moment.
It's keeping me focused on the now.
It's easy to overlook when you're just merely getting older.
It's easy to overlook how quickly everything escalates.
It isn't really just the thing of suddenly there's this thing that's a little different.
You don't even have time to keep up with how many things are changing.
I can't see.
I can't eat.
I can't drink coffee after 9 in the morning.
I can't climb stairs.
I feel like walking out on an iceberg or an ice flow and just setting sail.
But then I realize, no, I've got 40 more years of this.
If you're lucky, you will have another 40 years of decline.
Or more.
You might just want to sit on the iceberg for a while today.
Since I have stopped eating sugar,
And pasta and rice.
I have experienced a total transformation.
And I am really enjoying it.
I'm enjoying every aspect of it.
But there's this nagging feeling that I have become one of those middle-aged men who is about to say...
I've never been in such good shape in my life.
I've never felt so young.
And, you know, like, and I don't, I do not want to, I do not want to go into my middle age with a kayak on my roof rack.
You know what I mean?
I see you in some Patagonia zipped all the way up.
This morning I woke up and I was inspired to put on some wide whale corduroys.
That's okay.
That's within your sartorial wheelhouse.
I've been wearing thin whale cords for the last 20 years, and to transition to wide whale cords, it just feels like... I don't know.
I'm starting to feel like a sitcom father.
Yeah.
I'm starting to feel like I should be the father in a sitcom where a UFO alien is trying to pass as a normal high school kid.
And he's living with a family.
And he's a handsome kid and he's got a couple of good catchphrases.
But he gets into a lot of trouble because he's a UFO.
Yeah.
So you're like, you're like a character actor from some late seventies, early eighties, like comedies.
And you've got your first or second gig on like an ABC show.
Yeah, exactly.
This is like, this is like, it's like third rock or, uh, what was, or Alf or, uh, what was the one where the, the, uh, Bigfoot lived with them?
Is that Harry and the Hendersons?
Harry and the Hendersons.
Well, that was a movie, right?
Yeah.
But I mean, but you, would you be kind of John Lithgow ask?
Do you think?
You know, I have, for 25 years, I've been kind of afraid of ending up like John Lithgow in The World According to Garp.
Really?
Yeah.
This creeping feeling.
I'm hesitant to pull this thread.
Is that the one where he becomes a lady?
No.
I remember watching that movie and feeling like, of all the actors in this movie, the one that resembles me physically the most is John Lithgow.
And I don't want to end up being John Lithgow.
I do not want to be Michael Caine in Hannah and Her Sisters.
Oh, you don't want to become like the neutered old guy.
Yeah.
The older guy with the weird haircut.
Who looks a little bit like a lesbian.
Whose glasses are too big.
But you know what I mean?
You lose that.
You lose any kind of, you know, there's that look certain guys get in their 50s where they start looking a little bit shiny and kind of like a lady.
I don't want to.
You know, the last time I saw the psychedelic furs, I was like, he looks like someone's grandmother.
Yeah.
He used to be so scary and cool, and now he really looks like a grandma.
No, I bet that's really not... Richard Butler?
I bet that's really not what he was shooting for.
No, I don't think any straight man, and probably not even any gay men, are trying to look like grandmothers.
And so... But also, I'm terrified that as I try and take better care of myself...
Like already in the last several weeks, the number of conversations I've had about my food and my health have skyrocketed.
It's 50% of what I talk about to people now, even as I stand there saying, I apologize that I'm talking about my health and my food right now.
And people are like, no, no, no, I'm very interested.
And I'm like, you can't be interested.
I have overheard a million of these conversations.
I'm embarrassed for myself, but I really have nothing else to say.
I have nothing.
I have no other interests right now except in my food intake and the energy that my body is turning that food into.
And I'm so embarrassed.
I'm embarrassed for myself.
I used to talk about so many things.
The world domination, striking fear into the hearts of villagers.
And now I'm just like, quinoa.
Hmm.
Maybe this is your – maybe you're having a latent period.
Maybe you're just taking a little bit of time off from affairs of the day.
Yeah.
OK.
Yeah, I agree.
It is super boring to hear.
I hear myself talking about – the other day I realized I always wear the same thing and I went to pick up my daughter at school and it kind of went through my head that I probably should have worn something else.
But I showed up at school, and I looked so silly.
You looked like a five-year-old boy?
I looked like a five-year-old boy who was 50.
Really, give that a minute.
That's the Russell Simmons act, right?
He kind of looks like a lady a little bit.
No, but I had – I really need a haircut.
I hadn't shaved in a couple days.
Since then, I've cleaned some of this stuff up.
But I still need a haircut.
But I showed up.
My hair was – I think I had taken a nap.
And I woke up and I had to scurry and I pulled on a pair of 3430s that really had the full effect.
They had blown out knees, blown out right pocket to where my plaid underwear was sticking out.
And for some reason, I guess I wiped my left hand.
I wiped my right hand on my leg a lot because that's a pattern now.
There's like a roan kind of patch of former hand dander on my pants.
And I think I had the presence of mind.
I didn't put on the purple high top tennis shoes.
I think I put on – oh, you remember the dad shoes I got?
Remember those keen walking shoes everybody made fun of?
Oh my god.
I was wearing the dad shoes with blown out blue jeans, plaid underwear, and what I'm wearing right now, Fantastic Four shirt number one, the old one.
And I show up there with a backpack and – And a rattle.
Hey, look at this.
I got a handheld video game.
And I'm like, what are you doing?
You're almost 47.
Like that's – and I don't like to overthink this stuff.
And so the next day when I went to pick her up, I wore khaki pants.
And I wore khaki pants and I wore, I think I wore, um, uh, uh, what are those called?
The, uh, the desert shoes that you wear.
Oh, Chuckers.
Yeah.
Clarks.
I have a pair of those dark, dark brown Clarks.
And I was like, yeah, what do you think?
Huh?
She's like, yeah.
It doesn't look like you.
It was like appearance in court clothes.
Well, I'm finding like, I went to Bumbershoot and I was wearing my white linen shirt.
uh, like my, my coolest white linen pains to this event, because I was, I was going to be interviewed on stage a couple of times and I, you know, and I, and it was a very hot day and I wanted to like represent some white linen, uh, on the fairgrounds.
Cause everybody in Seattle is going to be wearing the exact same, you know, the exact same outfit of Levi's five 35 jeans or whatever the hell.
Um,
And so they take some pictures of me and they post it on the Brooklyn Vegan website.
And the first comment, like Brooklyn Vegan always treats me really well.
They're a great website of indie rock fans.
But they have the shittiest New York-based commenters.
And the first comment is, nice dockers, dude.
Thanks for taking the time.
And I'm like...
At the time, what I... Dockers, linen dockers.
My takeaway was that it no longer matters what I wear to a 26-year-old, they look like dockers.
Like a 26-year-old from now until eternity is going to be able to slay me by just saying nice dockers, dude.
Yeah.
Yeah, you arguing back is going to be like, no, that wasn't on NBC.
It was on the Dumont Network.
They're going to be like, nice distinction, dude.
There's no arguing.
There's no saying like, get a life.
You've made fun of my pants.
Nice Dockers, dude, is the end of the story.
It was the first comment.
And as much as I want to, while that guy is sleeping, find out where he lives, show up at his miserable studio apartment in Williamsburg that he's sharing with four people, kick down the door in the middle of the night, tell his three screaming roommates to shut up and sit in the corner while I flamethrow him.
With a World War II era flamethrower.
And as he's sitting there screaming and burning, just be like, nice dockers, dude.
As much as I want to do that, of course, that is a waste of my resources.
Save your miles.
But I do not want to go the rest of my life and increasingly be trying to
Wear purple nylon parachute pants just to avoid the nice stalker's dude comment and then still be completely vulnerable to it.
I could be wearing Harlequin pants, Pagliacci pants.
And some, you know, 27-year-old could be like, hmm, nice stalkers, dude.
And it's just the, it's over.
Because that is the, like, that is shorthand for, you are too old to be here.
It is.
You are too old to be on Brooklyn Vegan.
We're both facing something that we only ever saw before from a remove, which is when men and women reach an age where they become noncombatants in the game of youth.
And so I think one reason that middle-aged guys, especially libidinous middle-aged guys, get so fucking weird is it suddenly dawns on them that young girls are not thinking about them.
Not even thinking about them.
Not looking at anything.
And that if they do...
It's not – believe me, they're not thinking about that.
They're not – unless it is some kind of like one of those freaky gold digger type situations where it's a creepy old guy and a gal who wants a place to live or something.
Like cool girls are not looking at us.
And I think for a lot of guys, that is extremely hard to accept.
Yeah.
I'm not saying that's true with you here, but we really are.
We have fallen off the radar screen.
And what worries me talk about the purple Pagliacci parachute pants.
I think about when I was young and I would see we can see this in movies.
You go and watch, you know, actors and especially actresses who were once considered very beautiful.
And maybe that was their primary thing where they've obviously lost track of what they actually look like now.
Yeah, yeah.
And there's something – you know, your vision changes over time.
You actually see things more sepia as you get older because of the cataract.
Like what happens to your eyes?
You see things more brightly when you're young.
It's true.
And so their lipstick starts looking more orange and everything's clashy and they got those veiny feet sticking out of their fancy shoes.
Oh, veiny feet.
Well, you know what I'm talking about though.
Yeah, I do.
Good for you.
A for effort.
But, you know –
It's okay if you wear something more age appropriate.
And that's, I started to think more about age appropriate.
Not that I'm doing anything about it, but.
Well, that's, that's, that's what, that's what's going on with these wide well corduroys.
See, I refuse, I refuse to allow because there is a, there's a, there's a strange component in women.
Yeah, I hear that.
Yes, there is.
And it is that older men are inexplicably attractive to younger women.
Because they have some set of qualities, some ineffable set of father-like talents that young women admire.
So I do not allow that they are not continuing to look at me.
But they are looking at me in a different way.
Mm-hmm.
And honestly, when I was 24, they looked at me only with contempt and derision.
So in some ways, this is my... This has always been a complicated matter for you.
Yeah, now I'm finally blooming into the sort of pedagogical sex father role that I have...
You've been training a whole life for this.
My early 20s, they were like... I was forever alone.
But...
But my own vanity is so much... I mean, it was always complicated, but it's so much more complicated now that I am conscious of... This is the thing.
I think there are a lot of older guys that are like, well, you know...
I am sexually attractive to younger women, and I'm going to exploit that fact and be creepy.
Not creepy, but be predatory.
And I still want... You know, this is the amazing thing about getting older.
You do not feel...
you still feel you still feel young and i mean i remember my dad saying i feel entitled to be young yeah well when my dad was 87 he was like the terrible thing about it is that you get old and you still feel young and i was like oh that's really pathetic be old and he was like fuck you
But now I'm standing in the doorway of it.
And I'm like, oh, right.
Like, I do not want to be predatory.
I want to be appreciated.
And I want to also be age-appropriate.
And I want those... If I'm going to have...
If I'm going to have pedagogical relationships, I want them to be appropriate.
I want them to be, I want everybody to agree.
Like, yes, I am sexually appealing.
I am a middle-aged man who knows some things.
John, I don't know why, but a lot of women are attracted to you.
It's very strange.
I've seen it.
I've seen people talk about it.
It's fantastic.
Some people like others.
There's one lady I follow on Tumblr who likes your beard.
Yeah, see?
She's a beardie.
It's so soft.
And the thing was that, you know, I have described myself as a young person being more or less like an uncooked scallop that was left in the sun.
And those were hard times.
Those were dues-paying times.
Because inside I knew that I was...
I was a swashbuckler and that all of these like young, dark, uh, intense guys were, you know, were just empty shells or whatever.
They were, you know, they were peanuts in the mixed nut can of life.
And I was a filbert or better.
But, uh, but I, but, but now I'm, you know, I'm confronting all because, because socially there are all these kind of,
A middle-aged guy who is appealing to younger women is also appealing to older women.
And everybody's mad.
Everybody's mad at me already for other reasons.
But then you add this component in and everybody gets extra mad.
Like other guys are mad.
Everybody's mad all the time.
Because of your pedagogy.
Yeah, because... The pedagogy that you exude.
Because the Silver Fox is a caricature, and a lot of guys that grow into their looks and grow into their appeal...
are uh are not very interesting ultimately or you know what i mean like they are they're kind of they're it's a it is an exploitative well they get i think a lot of guys i i don't know i can't follow all this i think a lot of guys just get a different kind of shtick
And, you know, maybe you become like, it's just almost everything that deviates from the norm starts to read as creepy.
You know, like, you know, thumb rings, you know.
Oh, come on.
Why do people do that?
Why did you even say that?
I know, I know, I know.
Now I'm sitting on a porcupine again, but for different reasons.
Thumb ringing a foot tattoo.
But this is the thing.
This is my challenge.
I want to enjoy being appreciated.
Let's say that.
You want to enjoy being appreciated.
I want to enjoy being appreciated.
That works for everyone.
It just says it right on there.
I don't want to say... Because I spend a lot of time saying, Oh, Miss...
i i don't think you i don't think you're really in love with me i think that you have unresolved you know and she's like uh-huh and walks across the room and goes home with the guy with a motorcycle while i'm sitting there trying to explain to her like what her what her real what a real problem is and now i'm like okay yeah sure i i accept i accept your i accept your gaze
That's really good of you.
You've really grown.
You're not a scallop anymore.
But then I look across the room and there's like a 37-year-old woman staring at me with a kind of like, uh-huh, uh-huh look on her face.
Yeah, exactly.
And I'm like, what?
What?
I'm just talking to my friend.
She's like, mm-hmm.
And then the other guys are giving me the same.
And it's just like, listen, these silver fox medals
We're hard won.
Gosh, I had no idea that you were dealing with this much.
It's a lot of... You've been a real gentleman about not bringing it up.
You've got to carry this around with you all the time.
You go to the store, you go to the sausage factory.
Wherever you go, you're encountering people who are seeing the pedagogical silver fox.
But you want to be able to enjoy them enjoying it.
Well, and this is the thing.
A lot of people want to learn.
Right?
And I want to teach.
And it's like I'm a free radical.
And I'm going around and I'm connecting with people's neurons.
And there's an open space.
And I'm clicking in.
I'm just imagining you explaining this to someone in a very loud bar.
You're a free what?
Free radical.
Radical.
You should teach seminars.
Think about how many guys a little bit of money could learn from you.
I know.
Show up in your white... But I don't feel like it is transferable knowledge.
I feel like some of this... Oh, it's got to be... You got to put the hours in, right?
Yeah.
We got to put the hours in and you also have to have that that ineffable like like some people grow out of out of their looks like you were describing people who are famous for being beautiful when they're young and then they forget what they look like and they turn into these like handbags as they get older.
They turn into lawn Yeagers.
And then there are people like me who grow into their looks as they get older and go from looking like an uncooked scallop to looking like a mighty fur.
Standing on the top of a... As you sit here today, have you been aware how much thought you've put into this?
I'm mostly putting the thought into it right now.
Well, it's coming out great.
Yeah.
You don't want to look, you want to grow into your sausage and out of your scalp.
That's right.
Yeah, you grow out of your scalp and you become interesting.
And to whatever degree, and this is the problem with, this is one of the stereotypical gender problems, which is that older, fascinating women who have grown into their looks are not...
Like, widely attractive to young, callow men.
But there is a certain component or a certain kind of aspect to sex roles where, like, fascinating older men are attractive to young women because, I mean, young women are kind of more...
Interestingly, young men.
Well, in this world, who wants to learn more than young women?
And who has more to teach than old men?
It's true.
You see those young receptacles just waiting to be filled with information.
It's terrible, but I am in it.
This is the subject of so many angry editorials in Ms.
Magazine.
It's the subject of a lot of late 20th century novels.
It is, I mean, it's a trope.
It is a, it is a, it's something that people are mad at films about.
Why does, why George Clooney is 69 years old.
Why is his leading lady always 26?
Well, that can be real creepy.
It's terrible.
Harrison Ford and Sean Connery is 90.
Yeah.
And, and they pair him with, with whatever that Welsh lady who's living with, what's his name?
Michael Douglas.
Thank you.
Yeah, but I mean, that's their actual relationship.
I mean, they are in a relationship together and there's an age... I think you must see more of those than I do.
I don't know.
More of the angry editorials or more of the films?
Yeah, I guess.
More of the relationships.
Just want to avoid the whole thing.
See, this is why we haven't talked about it, because I know that it makes you uncomfortable.
No, no, I'm learning a lot.
I hadn't thought of myself as a silver fox.
Yes.
Well, because you are happily married, and so when you get the approving looks, I'm sure you deflect them, or you unconsciously deflect them.
There's like five things wrong with that.
I don't get those.
Really?
No, I think I'm much more attractive to men in their late 20s.
Oh, right.
Okay.
Yeah.
No, no, no.
Not, not that way.
No, no.
I know what you mean though.
I know what you mean.
I mean, I'm like, I'm like the Marilyn Monroe of nerds in some ways.
Yeah.
They, they all, yeah.
That's fine.
I mean, that's, that's great.
That's really, that's, that, that's awesome.
I mean, boy, I'm, I couldn't ask for more.
I, uh, yeah, I just can't take that much libido in my life.
I, I, I'm so grateful.
Yeah, it's a pain in the ass.
I don't know how you do it.
It's just always there, right?
It's something where like going to the bathroom, like you're always going to have to go again.
And the libido just builds right back up like a great roiling cyst.
Yeah, well, part of it is that I walk around like...
mid-period john wayne you know i kind of like hold my arms out a little bit in in case you run into a wall or in case i need to draw my my uh oh i was thinking more like i was thinking more like he's really really drunk in a dim room there's a little bit of that at this cocktail party last night i i went all the way to the end and i'm with a i'm with this crowd of like
Like local, liberal, activist, engaged, rich, mafioso, mafiosi.
And everybody is shit-faced.
And they're not just shit-faced on liquor.
They're like shit-faced on pills and liquor.
And we're sitting around a table.
Sounds like a Jacqueline Suzanne book.
It's fucking terrible.
We're sitting around a table in there, and it's all really, really expensive liquor, too.
All these bottles that have, like, handmade labels.
Wow.
Where it's like, oh, this is one of a hundred bottles of this...
um, this cask.
And when it's gone, it's gone.
Did you say it was a fundraiser?
Or was it like a strategic meeting?
It was more like having fun, hanging out and make a little money for the cause.
Well, it's a fundraiser, but it's very early in the game.
And so it, it was a strategic meeting at this, uh, the, the, uh, the candidate who, who was at this party went around and pointed out all the other elected officials that were in the room.
Uh,
And it was probably 70% of the 70 people there were elected officials in Washington state, including like high mucky mucks, like prosecutors and big, big wheels.
And then there were, you know, 20 of us who were local police,
People local local normals or local taste and and money developer people.
And so the candidates all bail or the you know, the politicians have to get out of there.
They made their appearance.
And then the rest of us are sitting around and it's like, oh, you're the guy that runs that?
Oh, you're the guy that runs that?
We're sitting around and everybody's fucked up.
And little by little, they peel off until there's just this group around the table.
And it is, at this point, like a planning session, except everybody's so fucking loaded.
And I'm sitting there at the table.
I'm the only one that's sober.
But if you panned the camera back, my body language...
And I became conscious of this.
I kind of zoomed out.
And I was like, you look like the most fucked up of all of them.
Like I was slouching in my chair, leaning on the table and half on my hand with one foot up on a potted plant.
My eyes half closed.
slurring my words almost in a in partly in a in like sympathetic imitation of everybody else you had a contact speech impediment right but also i'm i'm i'm most comfortable with
Where everybody's inhibitions are so far in the rearview mirror that we are seconds away from just tumbling into bed with each other.
I'm kind of lying on this table like, listen, here's what you fuckers need to understand about Metro and how it interacts with the sewer system.
And I'm like, why am I, why am I, what is that?
I sound like John Wayne at that commencement, the 1968 commencement.
Who is against Vietnam?
I don't understand it.
How could you be against America?
I'm not saying this for clapping.
And I realized, like, this is what you get to that point, and that's kind of who I really am.
The rest of the time, my clearer speech and my clearer...
Maine.
It's all just drag.
It's like straight world drag.
Really?
What I would really rather be doing is have one hand down the front of my pants and be yelling at somebody about the school district.
That's when you're in your element.
Yeah.
Yelling at some state legislator about earmarks with my pants off.
That's where I belong.
I can never tell.
But sometimes don't you get a little weary of being around two intoxicated people?
Doesn't that kind of get on your nerves after a while?
I get that feeling.
99% of the time it does because 99% of the time people get shit-faced and all they have to talk about is their record collections.
You know?
But this group... As opposed to millage?
This group of guys, they are...
You know, they're talking about millions of dollars and realms of influence.
And the more fucked up they get, they just want to talk more and more about the world that they live in.
Which is this world of like, the guys from Bellagio want to come up and make an investment in this bridge project.
And it's like, wait a minute, what did you just say?
The guys from Bellagio?
Why do they want to make an investment in this bridge project?
Oh, because there's a lot of money in these big construction projects.
And I'm like, oh, right, of course there is.
So the more drunk these guys get and fucked up they get, the more interesting the conversation gets in a way.
Because their guard drops and then you're talking about some like crazy, crazy shit that, you know, it's never going to make it into the newspaper unless it's the topic of a federal indictment.
So setting aside the chili peppers, when you get home from an event like that, do you feel like it was a night well spent?
I can't tell.
Because this is what I've been experiencing the last year of getting more and more involved in local politics is that I feel at a certain point out of my depth.
And I'm not used to feeling out of my depth.
And growing up with politicians all around, I got used to...
I got used to interacting at a surface level with this kind of business and feeling and I guess made the mistake of feeling like if you can talk the talk and if you are chummy with everybody, then all these deals just kind of get made and everybody wins.
Yeah.
Even looking at my dad's life and my uncle's life and the people that I know who felt like they had been misdealt time and time again, my dad always complained about not being ruthless enough and
It wasn't a thing.
He didn't want to be more ruthless.
He just was continually surprised that at the moment when the deal was done and everybody was shaking hands, there was always somebody there with a knife in the gut.
And in the end, the thing gets taken away or the percentage gets reduced or the, you know, it's like, oh, I'm glad we signed this.
But right before I sign, I just want to, I just wanted to insert one really minor little thing that is going to change the nature of this deal and take everybody for a ride.
You know, like that aspect of it, my dad rude it.
And so here I am now like dipping my toes in the water in my mid forties.
After years of working in a scummy business, the music business, but also feeling like time and time again, not that I got, not that I was rooked, but that my nature is such that when somebody says, all right, great, there it is.
There's the deal.
i i relax too soon i go great all right we've got a deal shake on it and then you then i'm not watching out when two weeks later an invoice comes for all this you know like oh well there was setup charges and then we had to pay the oh this is like like your burglar alarm exactly and
And in, in, as I get deep, as I dip into local politics, I realized that what, what has seemed to me in 30 years of reading the daily newspaper as like, well, that's a simple matter.
You just get the guys from the waterfront down there and you get the guys from the shipping companies and you, you put them all in a room and you strike a deal.
It's like, yeah, except the guys from Bellagio, right?
have an interest in the project.
And all of a sudden, there's a guy from the Army Corps of Engineers here, and what the hell is he doing here?
And nobody's acknowledging him.
But...
But, like, the chairman looks over at him and he imperceptibly nods.
And then the chairman calls a recess.
You know, like, all this type of stuff where you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
I thought we were all... I thought we had a deal.
And so I feel out of my depth.
And people now are starting to say things to me like, there's something in this for you.
If you...
back this project and i don't yeah and i don't know to what degree this is the thing when i look at my own voice and my own influence in seattle i have a pretty clear eyed understanding that i have no influence in seattle
beyond like or at least my own perception of it is like oh yeah that guy he's this yeah people have heard his name or whatever but people on the other side of this this door are starting to appeal to my vanity and say listen if you come out in public and endorse this candidate or this idea then there will be a seat at the table for you
When we start to talk about it or, you know, if, if this candidate gets elected and you are at the table, then there will be, there's a, there's opportunity for you to have your, to have input.
You're going to get patronage.
Right.
Yeah.
Well, I will see, I'm not seeking that kind of patronage.
Like I don't want a government job.
But I have been identified by people now as somebody who is seeking influence or somebody who wields a certain amount of influence.
And everybody that plays this game at a high level knows that people that want to wield influence don't ever get enough.
The really great politicians could be making...
a fortune if any one of them just went and got a job at a major law firm.
You know what I mean?
All the big government guys here in Washington State, they could go down to Bogle and Gates and be making $350,000 a year walking in the door.
And instead, they're working for $110,000 a year as a government guy.
Because when they walk in the room, they're a rock star everywhere they go.
And that is the pay.
They are powerful people.
And when you get identified as somebody, and unfortunately, I am one of these people who would sacrifice money in order to have influence.
And it's really what I have done my whole life.
I want the power and I want the recognition.
And the guys who are like, yeah, you take the power and the recognition and I will take 10% off the top of everything that gets built in this county.
Those are the guys that take a helicopter everywhere.
Right.
Because they're wetting their beak in all these different places.
Right.
And so anyway, having been... So now I'm starting to feel this like guys coming up to me and saying, hey, we're really glad that you're here and I'm glad that we can count on your voice in this.
Yeah.
And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on.
Like, I came to this because I am interested, but I haven't, you know, I haven't endorsed anything.
That seems like such a bozo thing to say to somebody.
Unless you knew, I mean, like, it's almost like you would just assume, like you're trying to find another, it's almost like they're trying to find another swinger.
Like, just walking around going, so you... Well, yeah, but then they lean in a little closer and they're like, yeah, well, your endorsement...
you know, your endorsement matters.
And if we get it, then you have this, you are invited, you are invited to the, to a more inner room.
Yeah.
And I go, oh, I want to be in that room.
You're smarter than that, John, because what there, it's, well, just in the sense that you might be able to get a better deal.
You never know.
But also it's like when you join the mob or a gang and the first thing you got to do is kill somebody.
So they got something on you.
They may be able to offer you the idea, the prospect of something that sounds really good, and yeah, maybe that'll eventually pay off, but now you owe them.
And that's the thing.
So I'm confronting the fact that I'm very comfortable being in charge, and I'm entering a world where I am not in charge.
And it's not a corporate structure where the rules are clear and where you play by certain rules and there's a certain amount of intrigue, but there's also redress.
Like this is a world where you are not in charge.
The rules are obtuse and there is no redress of any kind.
Like if you get 99% of the way into a deal and you get boxed out of it,
you're like, you're going to sue them.
No, because there's, because they've, they thought of that already.
First of all.
And second of all, like there were aspects of the deal that, that,
It's all happening on a handshake, and there's no, you know, what are you going to say?
Like, oh, hey, I was in on that, and then they kicked me out, and they're like, we never heard of this guy.
That's like every heist movie.
It's absolutely every heist movie, and it's how politics are played.
And in a way, it's an aspect of the way cities are run.
And so...
so I feel out of my depth.
I really do.
I'm in these, I'm in these situations.
I'm looking around at these guys and I'm like, some of these guys are tougher than me.
And it's not that it's not, I mean, they're tougher than me in the sense that if we went out into the parking lot, I would be, they, they, they do have pinky rings and those pinky rings are meant to cut you.
But, but also like they are tougher than me.
Like they have, they have bodies buried all over the County and I'm,
I'm fresh blood.
I'm a new guy that's sniffing around like, hey, I'd like to be involved in this local government.
I'd sure like to make the world better for the citizens of my county, and I'd like to be engaged in the process.
And these guys are like, yeah, man, come on in, have a, you know, have a seat at the table.
And there's like, there's the smell of blood is in the room.
It's just like, oh, whoa.
So what's that make you want to do?
Well, it makes me want to figure it out.
But I reflect on my father's life as a politician and one that... And I've watched young politicians that I know personally become middle-aged politicians around here and watched their gaze get flintier and their smile get...
more um like there's an element of rigor mortis that comes in to their face and it's like oh wow some something is hard about them and then when you look at the national politicians you really look at them those candid photographs you see every once in a while of like a u.s senator that's been there for 25 years and you just see the like the death that's on them and the
Like the capacity for evil, it's right behind their eyes.
And you go, fuck, like those guys, even the gentlest, even the friendly ones are terrifying wild animals.
Like they've held the ring for too long.
Yeah.
You get that, what, Ted Kennedy, Tip O'Neill, Dick Cheney, name anybody in the Democratic Party or really in politics has been around for a long time.
They get that –
flabby, too much cortisol stress thing, plus the gin blossoms.
And it's just like, oh, that's the corpse you leave behind.
It looks like stress is what I see.
Like their body and their mind and their life has been stressed and then repeatedly stressed so many times.
Stressed so that it becomes a kind of hardened steel.
Like it just gets... Except for the flabbiness.
The tensile strength is...
Oh, yeah.
I feel like even the gentle ones like Barney Frank or Maria Cantwell.
You remember that picture of Ted Bundy that was taken in the courtroom where he made that ferocious screaming face?
And he had to be doing it with the knowledge that he was being photographed.
And it's like this terrible moment where...
Serial killers never really let their guard down that way.
And he was performing this kind of, what does evil look like?
on his face but it really is a it really is a terrible picture and and i see that i see that same kind of scream just on the placid faces of of ceos and high-ranking government people where it's just like
Because these are the people that say, well, 10,000 soldiers are going to die during this invasion, but that's the price of establishing this beachhead.
And you just go, right.
I am not at the point where I could consign 10,000 people to die and feel confident that it was necessary.
Right.
And without that, you can't be in that room.
It's not that they won't invite you in that room, but you are just food.
Yeah, I bet they can smell it.
They absolutely do.
And I think they smell it on me right now here in local politics.
Like, I am food, and they don't know how much food I am or how good I am, like how tasty I am.
I bet part of being a politician is being able to quickly size up what it is somebody wants, is likely to want, and what the minimum amount of it that you could speculatively give to them to bring them over to your side.
Right.
That's exactly right.
Whether that's a stop sign or, again, a change in millage or whatever it is.
You could really size somebody up and then be very warm in how you – warm or appropriately warm in the way that you present it to them so that they walk away feeling like they got the best deal in the world.
Yeah, and I feel... And they trust you.
That's exactly right.
And I think that when they look at me, their first... Their perception is he doesn't want...
a concession of any kind.
He's not trying to get a speed bump put in on his street.
He's not trying to get his neighborhood school, uh, to have, uh, staggered opening terms or whatever.
Like this guy is here because he wants to be a player and they, and those politicians have to have a different, uh,
way of dealing with people who want to be players than dealing with the with their constituents or or people who are coming trying to get a deal for their union you know and that that is why i'm that's why i'm nervous or that's why i'm afraid because i feel like showing up at these events wanting to be a player is like showing up at a hobo campfire and saying hey what about us hobos right right guys
but just a bunch of hobos here.
Like you're not a player.
If you were a player, you would not be, you wouldn't be showing up here looking to be a player.
You know, they'd be coming to you.
But, but you know, this is, I'm just thinking about this.
I think most politicians want to win over every person that they meet, maybe compulsively, not, not to make friends, but because it's what they do for a living in the same way that somebody who is a, an evangelist for something they believe in,
whether that's Apple or L. Ron Hubbard wants to constantly introduce people or Ayn Rand wants to constantly introduce people to that.
They really believe it's going to make things better and it's going to get more people on their side.
But that's a condition of life for a politician is that they need to minimize the number of people who get onto the other guy's side.
And the hobo, the thing is you never know when you're going to need that hobo.
It sure would help to have that guy more in your camp than somebody else's.
Did I ever tell you the time I was sitting at a table with my dad and his friend, Judge Jack Tanner?
His frenemy.
His best frenemy, Jack Tanner.
His frenemesis.
And in the room walks San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.
And this is a dinner party.
It's a dinner to celebrate the life and career of Jack Tanner.
And Willie Brown is, at the time, the mayor of San Francisco.
And he has flown up to this dinner to pay his respects to the judge.
And...
He swooshes into the room and his $1,500 loafers aren't even across the threshold of the carpet before he is shaking people's hands and kissing women on the cheek and slapping people on the back.
And he makes his way across this room, which is full of federal judges and senators and government officials.
And big business people, you know, and he's walking across the room and he touches every single person in the room, making his way across the room to say hello to the judge.
And, you know, this is another one of these moments where I'm just agog, like...
Wow.
He really exudes charisma.
Look at him.
He's beautiful.
You can tell.
You can feel it.
I've been in a room when Willie Brown walks in and you can feel it.
Oh, he's beautiful.
And my dad is like, oh, holy shit.
And my dad's been watching politicians.
You know, my dad worked for Kennedy, right?
So my dad's just like, wow.
And Tanner, with like a smirk on his face, he goes, yeah, I'd look pretty good too in a $7,000 suit.
Wow.
And, you know, my dad and I both look over at him and he is just furious, furious.
How Willie Brown is working his room.
Okay.
and but also like he's here to he's here like he's tanner is furious but also proud because he's here he's here for him he's a celebrity yeah and but he touches every single he touched he touches 200 people in this room walking across it because everybody wants to everybody's leaning forward just put their hands on it and uh
What would that be like to live like that all the time and never be able to put your sunglasses down and never put a hoodie up and run from the backstage door to the limo?
He wants it.
And he's not even in California.
Willie Brown's in Seattle or Tacoma, not even Seattle.
He's in Tacoma doing this.
And it's just like he's going to shake hands all the way to the door of the White House.
It's astonishing.
It's astonishing to see it.
And then to search your own, like, this is what I guess I'm doing.
I've always seen that and said, yeah, that could be me.
That's me.
I'm just not doing that right now because I'm too cool and because I'm just, you know, like, I'm really into Radiohead right now.
But I could be the mayor of San Francisco.
And what I'm experiencing now is my thrift store loafers are over the threshold of the carpet.
And I'm standing there, like,
And saying to myself, do I really want to go in this room with these people?
Is this, I mean, is this the next thing for me?
Or do I go to the library right now and brush the crumbs off of my Widewell corduroys and just sink into my easy chair?
Make the occasional cheese dip.
You know, like, yeah, have some people over, watch some episodic television.
You're basically choosing between Willie Brown and Ignatius Reilly.
That's right.
Your loafers are on a precipice.
I'm right up the middle because my thrift store loafers are actually very expensive loafers that I found, but it's a very good deal.
They have a patina already.
But I'm a 45-year-old amateur in an arena where people have been sharpening their swords and battling with each other, real battles.
All the years that I was like signing t-shirts...
But part of it, the prospect of becoming a little Willie Brown is appealing to you, if you could pull it off.
Am I hearing that correctly?
Well, it is because when I get back out of the ego realm and the vanity realm, and I think about why am I here on Earth?
When I think about why are human beings here on Earth?
All I come to is science, space travel.
Figure stuff out.
Send out probes.
Go to other planets.
Like, make big signals.
Sweep the sky.
You know, it's that and a combination of, like, and do the best we can to colonize the earth in a way that is aesthetic and sustainable.
And I don't mean sustainable with all of the hippie baggage, but, like, duh, sustainable, right?
Like, don't drown in your own shit, right?
So colonize the planet and make it a super train it.
Gaia bomb it.
Make it as perfect a thing as you can.
Make it as perfect a base as you can.
And then probe the universe.
And when I get out of my ego world personally...
I say, what am I here to do if not to do that here?
To make my corner of this ball better?
And how to do that...
How to do that without having hundreds of millions of dollars of resources.
How to do that with your primary resources being your personality, your intellect, and your industry.
Like government is certainly one of a handful of viable ways to make a profound difference.
And so I'm drawn to it.
I'm drawn to it.
The power aspect of it is my weakness, but it's also power that I would hope to use to Gaia bomb this little corner of it that I could affect.
It is the
the altruistic core of what I think life is, why I think life has value for my life.
So how to do it without having the ring destroy you.
Yeah.
And it's, and watching it, watching it destroy people that I recognize are even stronger than I am.
That's going to be tough.
It is going to be tough.
That's what that racket does.
It is what it does.
And yet you can look at people and say, wow, that person really made a difference.
There wouldn't be.
There wouldn't be.
I mean, there are so many things that were that were the product of someone's imagination and someone's industry and and dealing, you know, the dealing and the.
Someone needs to stride ahead and say, follow me.
And to whatever degree, our contemporary idea of what democracy looks like is suspicious of the person that says, follow me.
I believe in that model.
I believe that there are people that, I mean, I follow people all the time.
And I think everybody wants to.
And I'd like to, you know, I was thinking the other day about what it would take.
It is not outside of my capabilities to put together a team of people who develop a prototype of a refrigerator-sized appliance.
That sits next to your refrigerator in everyone's home.
And it is like a home super train.
And you just... You feed your... You feed your garbage into this box.
And it produces...
It refines it in your home.
That's a whole different vertical though, John.
You'd have to really be wheeling and dealing.
You're dealing with the utilities.
You've got the mineral rights people.
You've certainly got that recycling racket you've got to deal with.
I mean that's a lot.
If you put that in front of the train, that's going to be – you're going to have to – talk about politics, my friend.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
I'm watching it happen now with the Uber car service here in Seattle.
Well, they got everybody scared.
Everybody's scared.
And the taxi and limo commissions of every major city in the United States of America, they're a very powerful lobby.
Talk about being in the olive oil business.
Those are some tough guys.
And they've been paying some usurious taxes lately.
And insurance.
The insurance is crazy.
And all those little medallions that they have to staple on that whole system.
Like it's what?
Hundred two thousand bucks to get a medallion.
It's like a liquor license lottery.
Yeah.
And now Uber comes along and they're like, hey, we've got a good idea.
What about if we everybody just did this from their smartphones?
I can't believe they ever got away.
Do you have the pink mustache cars there?
Yeah.
What the hell are those?
It's a ride sharing.
Oh my God.
I hate those things.
I hate them too.
Yeah.
It's like Mary Kay cars or something.
If I was, I would not join that service because of those, but those little had a beard.
Nope.
Nope.
Do not do, do not put fake facial hair on your car.
Yeah.
I mean, cars already, cars already are a little bit like we already kind of give them too much, too much humanity.
Do not start dressing them like they're little dogs.
Yeah.
But do you guys have car-to-go's?
I don't know.
We definitely got Uber.
Seattle has this car-to-go system, which is like some company bought 10,000 of those little smart cars, painted them blue and white, and parked them all over the city.
Oh, like a Dutch bike situation?
Yeah.
And if you join this car-to-go system, you're just walking along and you're like, I think I want to drive a car.
So it's even more informal than Zip.
Yeah, you go on your phone and you're like, oh, there's one around the corner.
You go over, you get in it and you drive it somewhere and you get out and you leave it.
That's so interesting.
All the most revolutionary ideas, whether it's shooting people in tubes or having moving sidewalks, all are based on this idea that you have to change the infrastructure.
It's interesting that the most disruptive technologies are how to game the legal system, really, or you know what I mean, or the licensing system, however you want to think of it, as opposed to changing the infrastructure that you ride on.
Yeah, right.
I mean, nobody is saying like, let's build maglev cars.
They're just like, you can drive this car whenever you want and you just leave it.
And this is the great thing about it.
It's like, probably there will be another one when you want to get in a car later.
It'd be great for Robin Banks.
Oh, it'd be amazing.
Well, Jason Finn and I were thinking one of these days we should just get like 80 people and we should all just drive all the car to goes out to the very edge of the county and like have a 15 passenger van that drives us all back into town and then does it again and does it three or four times until there's like 150 of these cars all parked out on a farm somewhere.
That would be disturbing.
That would be hilarious, but come on.
If you're going to get 80 people together on a project, why happen?
You're a busy politician.
You can't be fucking around in a car.
But I watched this Uber situation, and I'm like, right, I see the taxi and limo people and the city government struggling to...
And being violently opposed to this interloper.
But on the other hand, I watch my friends use Uber, and it's like, oh, it's a genius evolution of the concept.
And every taxi in the country should be summonable by cell phone.
That's the obvious answer is to get – I mean like at least where I live, I call Uber and pay twice as much because it will come.
It will show up.
And with taxis, calling for a taxi around here doesn't mean a lot because if they get – it's a central dispatch place.
They have no skin in the game to actually show up.
And whoever gets called out, if they find a fare along the way, it's way cheaper and more efficient for them to just grab that fare than drag their ass out to my neighborhood.
Yeah, it's like calling for a taxi out your window.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But you know, if you, if, if, if they would just get their shit together with, you know, having an actual taxi, I would use taxis more.
I don't like paying for a taxi, but I really hate paying for a taxi an hour and a half after it was supposed to be there.
Yeah.
That's the, that's the difference.
it's disruptive right now i'm so i've been looking for a car for like i don't know eight years is that it and here's it seems like you're in a perpetual quest for a car i am here's what i have open in tabs across the top of my computer i have a 1987 four-wheel drive gmc rally one-ton van
$6,700 in rent.
It's a four-wheel drive van.
I have a 1967 Chevy Suburban.
Price unlisted.
The guy has an Alaska phone number.
And his name is Shane.
I have a 1965 Plymouth Fury 3 four-door.
And this is one where he spells the word original Oregonal.
All I know is it's all Oregonal.
Won't be disappointed.
Won't last long.
What are you leaning toward?
Well, I'm not done yet.
A 1965 Corvair four-door.
Isn't that unsafe at any speed?
That's right, but it appeals to me.
This one is like 48 years old or something.
I mean, I feel like it survived this long.
a 1967 Volvo Amazon Wagon, 122S, and a 1980 Cadillac Brougham, red with a white vinyl top and white leather interior.
Those are the cars that today I am considering.
And honestly, oh wait, there's one more.
1967 Cadillac Fleetwood 60 Special.
$5,500.
$5,500?
Yeah.
Now, which of these cars should I zero in on?
The four-wheel drive van is pretty sweet.
All of those selling there are going to be pretty terrible with gas.
Well, yeah.
Okay.
As long as you're okay with that.
I'm going to be burning gas.
I'm going to be putting gas in these things with a pail.
uh the uh the turbo creepiness of a giant white van is kind of appealing four-wheel drive that'll be handy four-wheel drive van that's the absolutely one of the coolest zombie apocalypse cars i've ever seen like uh it has a it has like a like a welded steel roof rack it's a real i mean you can put a 50 caliber machine gun on top of it no problem
But then that 65 Plymouth is like the kind of car that if there was an impact on the outskirts of town and people were kind of gathering around it and there were a couple of National Guardsmen there and there was like a half-buried glowing meteor and then a little door opened on the top.
Right about that moment...
four guys in black suits driving the 65 plymouth would drive up all wearing sunglasses and then uh no one there would remember anything having happened okay i got it talk to some of your rich political buddies you get a little bit of funding you buy them all you buy them all and you're gonna have a cool car service where you can have a cool car and pick it up around town
Put a pink mustache on it.
It's like cool car.
Cool car around town.
Yeah, Hitler mustache.
A pink Hitler mustache.
Heil, Heil.
It's the taxi you can finally Heil.