Ep. 87: "I Speak Sea Plane"
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
Merlin: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: How are you?
Merlin: It's early.
Merlin: I wrote that on a card.
Merlin: I was going to ask you how you're adjusting to these increasingly early recording times.
John: I like them as I get older and older.
John: It's nice to get up a little early.
Merlin: I like to have the evenings free to move my bowels.
John: I had a very interesting experience today.
John: I went to my taco bus where I normally go.
John: But usually at night you go to the taco bus and it's just all Volvos lined up out front.
John: It's just people in little software designer glasses.
John: With fleece pants, and they're all lined up to get tacos.
John: But during the day, you go at lunchtime, and it's all guys covered in sheetrock dust.
John: Wow.
John: Everybody in there is Hispanic.
John: The TV is playing, or I guess Latino is the preferred nomenclature.
John: The TV is playing some novellas.
John: And it's a real downtown scene during the day.
John: Well, I walk on the bus and I'm carrying my daughter.
John: And I have never felt like such a rock star in my life.
John: Because usually you get on a bus and there's like 15 middle-aged Mexican guys on there.
John: Maybe you're going to nod to a couple of guys as you walk through.
John: But for the most part, it's going to be a pretty neutral scene.
John: But I walked on the bus carrying this little two-year-old, and every man on the bus smiled at me with the most genuine smile of friendship and brotherhood.
John: And I was like completely bowled over.
John: You know, you hear stories that in Mexican culture and Latino culture that the role of the father, the idea of the family is very strong.
John: I had never experienced it so profoundly as I did today, carrying my little girl.
John: I felt like I was walking through a receiving line.
John: I almost high-fived everybody.
John: with your free hand and it was so then and the thing is they weren't like looking at her like oh what a cute girl like a lot of like you know kind of the volvo set would they glanced at her and then they looked at me and were like hey man how's it going dad and i just i felt like yeah i'm a dad hey what's up i'm a dad and that is a that is a that's a nice thing that's i'm a member of the community i'm a
Merlin: And those are guys that, you know, in a neutral way never would have given you a second look before.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: We would have all just kind of been like, what's up?
John: If that, you know, if that, if they would have looked up from their food.
John: But the fact that I had this little girl, like they turned one after the other, turned from their food and gave me like a really human, genuine, like greeting of happy face.
John: And I was like, wow.
Merlin: It's like you're part of a fraternity now.
John: It's like I'm a fully grown adult.
John: It took me all these years.
John: But now I'm initiated into... It's like when you first grow a mustache and go to Turkey...
John: you realize, oh, outside of America, every grown man in the world is wearing a mustache.
John: Basically from Bucharest all the way to China,
John: Every single man in that area has a mustache.
John: And then in China, again, we go back to a mustache-less world.
John: Right.
John: But from Bucharest to, say, Islamabad...
John: It's it's all mustaches all the way down.
John: And you feel like, you know, when you go to those places, you're like, oh, shit.
John: Right.
John: You get you can grow a mustache and you do.
John: That's they probably invented the mustache.
John: Yeah, I'm sure they did.
Merlin: And you think about how cultures work in places where you can grow corn.
Merlin: You're likely to discover corn and then make stuff out of corn.
Merlin: And then you become like, you know, the corn place.
Merlin: And this place, those from the age of like six, most of those guys can grow mustaches.
John: And some of the ladies, probably.
John: Their older brothers have mustaches and their grandfathers have big, flourishing white mustaches.
John: So I felt a little bit like that.
John: I felt like I had a mustache in the form of a baby.
Merlin: We had a very strange thing happen when my wife got pregnant where – let's speak in code.
Merlin: You know my neighborhood.
Merlin: I couldn't get the guy who runs – It's full of Civil War ghosts.
Merlin: That's true.
Merlin: You've seen them.
Merlin: But I have not – in the almost –
Merlin: 14 years I've lived here now, I just got used to the fact that nobody looks at you, nobody pays attention to you, and the people in my neighborhood just have a completely different sense of how to operate in public than I'm accustomed to.
John: Right.
John: Well, not just the ethnic component, but also it's San Francisco, and if you look at somebody, they may throw feces at you.
Merlin: Well, it's a pretty friendly town, but I live in what is categorically the most conservative district in all of San Francisco.
Merlin: And it is mostly people from China.
Merlin: Some people from – it's mostly people, first, second generation people from China.
Merlin: Some racist firemen.
Merlin: And first and second generation people from Ireland, oddly enough.
Merlin: But the funny thing happened.
Merlin: Like I told you, I used to go to this Chinese place three times a week and the guy would not say anything to me.
Merlin: He would not suggest anything off the menu.
Merlin: Nothing.
Merlin: Nobody looks at you.
Merlin: Everybody on public transit just closes their eyes.
Merlin: It's a completely insular world.
Merlin: By and large, I like all of that.
Merlin: Crazy thing happened.
Merlin: My wife got pregnant.
Merlin: And we would go on public transit and everybody's face, like especially the old Chinese ladies, their eyes would just light up.
Merlin: And these people who'd never spoken a word to either of us in years were suddenly not only like smiling at us, not only walking up to us.
Merlin: Can I just say old Chinese guy thing to do?
Merlin: Touch a lady's tummy without asking.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: They just walk up.
Merlin: They just walk.
Merlin: If you're a pregnant lady, you're basically open source.
Merlin: You're open source woman.
Merlin: People just walk up and start touching.
Merlin: And the same is true today.
Merlin: Like if we go to the zoo, take the muni out, the very small amount of town that's left to the west of where I am, all along the way, people are smiling and just asking questions like, how old are you?
John: They were asking you how old you were?
Merlin: Yes, I'm a big boy.
John: I'm strong.
Yeah.
John: Well, you know, that's very similar to the experience.
John: That's very similar to the experience of having a successful band for the first time.
Merlin: I really look forward to that.
John: For many years here in Seattle, I had a couple of bands.
John: The Bunn Family Players, most notably.
John: Three Hour Shower.
John: Four Out of Five Dentists.
John: Yeah.
John: The Transrational Z28s.
John: I had a lot of bands here.
John: And none of those bands were very popular.
Merlin: Wasn't Bun Family Players deliberately difficult in every conceivable way?
John: Yeah, the Bun Family Players was trying to be so smart that no one could like it.
Merlin: Like unfannable.
John: Yeah, right.
John: And yet, we did develop a fan base of people that were broken inside.
Yeah.
John: But during that time, of course, I was crossing paths with some of the same characters over and over.
John: Right.
John: Ken Stringfellow being one of them.
John: Our good friend Jason Finn, another.
John: And both of those guys were were popular musicians that were in popular, successful bands.
Merlin: Categorically like major label popular bands, Posies and Presidents of the USA.
Right.
John: That's right.
John: And Jason, before he was in the Presidents, he was in Love Battery, which was a not very good, but still popular grunge band.
John: Grunge era band, I should say.
John: They weren't actually very grungy, but...
John: So, anyway, I would routinely see these guys.
John: I would see Jason Finn every single day, and I would see Ken Stringfellow, you know, all the time.
John: Late at night.
John: Late at night, he would come out.
John: He would come out and touch us and make us very cold.
John: But neither one of those guys ever acknowledged my existence.
John: And I've had this conversation with both of them many times, and they both deny or try and rationalize or justify why it was that they never, ever, ever, like Jason Finn would sit down at the same table I was sitting at.
John: And he would like move my beer glass so that it was out of his line of sight or whatever.
John: Hey, you just touched my glass.
John: And he would just kind of turn face the other way and talk to the girl that I had brought there as my date.
John: And Ken would actually like draw blood from the girl that I was sitting next to and make her one of the undead and never look at me once.
John: And then one day I had a band that people liked, the Western State Hurricanes, and we played our second or third show.
John: And I swear to you, Ken Stringfellow, just like a little Chinese man, he came up and touched my tummy.
John: He came up and handed me his business card that was A, black, and B, freezing cold.
John: And he said, hello, like, you should give me a call.
John: Let's hang out sometime.
John: As though we knew each other, and I just hadn't had his recent business card or whatever.
John: And Jason Finn, even better, came up, put his arm around me, and was like, John Roderick, my...
John: Good buddy, my old pal.
Merlin: Like he knew who I was.
Merlin: That actually sounded alarmingly like Jason.
Merlin: That was really good.
Merlin: Thank you.
Merlin: I've been practicing that.
Merlin: But Ken didn't – Ken's a really, really vampiric tendencies.
Merlin: He's an extremely smart guy.
Merlin: But he thought he could play it off legit like this was your first meeting.
John: Oh, he and Jason are both incredible.
Merlin: No, I didn't mean to say Jason's not smart.
Merlin: But I mean, the fact that you could walk up to somebody you've seen for months or years and hand them a business card like it was the first time you'd met.
John: Well, the thing is, in a way, it was the first time we met.
John: I've come to understand over the years that, in fact, before I had a successful band, I did not exist.
John: There was no reason to know me.
John: And...
John: Then there was a reason to know me, and I did.
John: It was like I materialized out of the, like, what's the ghost army of betrayer souls that live under the mountain in The Return of the King?
John: the uh well whoever they are chitauri yeah the uh the ungawa who live under the mountain um they uh you know they materialize and then uh and then uh they become well and actually they stay dead but that's an imperfect metaphor but i didn't stay dead
John: But it was like I was undead and then became alive.
Merlin: I think I know what you mean though because I have a similar problem in that I do not – I may be clever but I am not smart and my retention for things is terrible.
Merlin: I've tried desperately over the years.
John: Your anal retention was fantastic.
Merlin: You wouldn't know it looking at this desk, buddy.
Merlin: I haven't dusted my spider woman in months.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: But no, but the problem is like – you know how they say that old thing they used to say in advertising?
Merlin: I have no way of knowing if this is true.
Merlin: It turns out that you have to hear an advertising message 13 times before it registers, whatever that old saw is.
John: Five impressions.
Merlin: Five major impressions.
Merlin: I have to meet somebody several times.
Merlin: I mean, and it's getting worse and worse and worse.
Merlin: It takes more impressions.
Merlin: And it isn't because I'm trying to be fancy.
Merlin: It doesn't matter.
Merlin: What I remember is I remember the face.
Merlin: I know I've said this before.
Merlin: I remember the face of an extraordinary number of people.
Merlin: Servers for one time.
Merlin: Somebody at a gas station.
Merlin: Somebody who was sitting next to me in a waiting room.
Merlin: I will remember for years.
Merlin: But there are people who I have online intercourse with that I talk to frequently.
Merlin: All I know is their fake Twitter name.
Merlin: And then I meet them and they go, I'm Joe Bob.
Merlin: And I'm like, hi.
Merlin: Hi.
Merlin: And like, no, I'm insipid Cupid Galactus 65.
Merlin: I go, oh, you have the icon of that cartoon thing, right?
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: But, you know, I really, when I meet people, I want them to have like a hello my name is with their stupid icon and their fake internet name.
Merlin: Because it does take a long time.
Merlin: And even in a place as relatively small and densely packed with talent as Seattle, it must be hard.
Merlin: I mean, you know, in fairness to somebody like Ken, there's probably a lot of people
Merlin: Who have come up to him over the years and said hi, expecting them to remember.
John: Well, I mean, key to this story is that I never once went up to him and said hi in all that time.
John: I was standing there waiting for him to recognize me, of course, and he never did until that day.
Merlin: How did you feel?
Merlin: Did you feel...
Merlin: If you can take yourself back to those Halcyon days, what, 98, 99.
Merlin: What did that feel like?
Merlin: Were you pleased?
Merlin: Well, I had a brief moment.
Merlin: Were you even angrier?
John: A little bit.
John: There was the moment I was sitting at the bar at the Crocodile and the old booking agent of the Crocodile, whose name was Christine, who for years had required me to submit another cassette tape.
John: Every time I wanted to book a show, even though we had just played there a week and a half before.
John: Propping up tables.
John: Yeah, she was like, well, you better send in a demo.
John: And I was like, you have four of my demos.
John: And she was like, yeah, better send in another one.
John: And you could just tell that she was taping over all the demos she got and putting built-to-spill records on them or whatever and probably selling them at garage sales.
John: Yeah.
John: And so this gal like comes up to me, sits down on the barstool next to me at the bar and she goes, John, you know, like very familiar.
John: Let's talk about making the Western state hurricanes, the house band at the crocodile where you don't play any other clubs in town.
John: You just play the croc.
John: And we make a thing where it's like the Western state and the crocodile together and
John: Forever.
John: And I was just like, wow.
John: Really?
John: Seriously?
John: Eight months ago.
John: Eight months ago, I would call you on the phone and you would... You told me to send you another tape.
John: After three years of sending you tapes.
John: And now you want me to pledge allegiance to this bar.
John: And I was mad.
John: I was mad.
John: Until...
John: A little bit of time passed, and I realized, like, no, actually, okay.
John: Like, this is how... It's how it works.
John: It's how it works, and I'm grateful that I made it through the door to look back and see...
John: How that how it works and for a while then I then I was like trying to bring my friends with me through the door and I realized after a while you kind of couldn't do that either.
John: You know, like everybody has to make it through the door.
Merlin: That's a really that's a good way to put it.
Merlin: It's – I think I have this – you know me.
Merlin: I have this personal loathing of people who are overtly trying to network or trying to affect familiarity that isn't really there or often at the same time trying to give you the equivalent of a casual resume of all the amazing things that they've done, none of which are particularly amazing.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: You are so hilarious when someone comes up to you at an event.
Merlin: I think I'm nice.
John: And affects an over-familiarity.
Merlin: Okay, now those people I'm not as nice.
Merlin: You are so hilarious.
Merlin: You're not going to meet many nicer people.
Merlin: When you meet them, you're not going to meet... I'm just going to say for myself, I say this twice a year, I'm a lot nicer than people would think.
Merlin: Oh, no, you're extremely nice, but...
Merlin: You're I think they're the one they're the person who comes up to me and says, hey, I like that thing you do.
Merlin: They're going to be the one that's going to be like moving backwards toward the door after three hours.
Merlin: They're going to have to wipe spooge off their face the whole time.
Merlin: Don't worry.
Merlin: We'll find something to talk about.
John: But you suffer fools, maybe less than anyone I know.
John: Is that a compliment?
John: It really is.
John: I mean, in the sense that... Let me just say this.
John: You are one of the rare people where when you go after somebody that has come up to you and played their...
John: wrong card someone has been found wanting when you go after somebody like you are one of the rare people that can actually make me uncomfortable as a bystander oh come on i mean because i am laughing you're just saying that to be nice i'm laughing inside and my and i'm i'm squirming in my chair like a little boy like all of a sudden my chair gets big and my feet don't touch the floor anymore and i'm like oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god as you proceed to because what you do is you you continue to lead them down the primrose path that they have paved
John: a little ways like you often you often go oh hello and you affect a kind of like tell me more about your startup and you get them you get them a little bit out on the pier before you take the pilings away but i think the reason people do thank you so much that's the hugest compliment i've gotten all year um that's if i'm going to be venal that's that's one i'm okay with
Merlin: So good.
Merlin: Thank you.
John: Everybody should see it once.
John: Everybody in the world should see you.
Merlin: I like going places with you.
Merlin: It's always really fun.
Merlin: Take someone out at the knees.
Merlin: Now maybe that could be my reality show.
John: I really want to go.
John: Now I want to go to a tech conference with you.
Merlin: Oh, no, you don't, my friend.
John: And just wear a disguise.
Merlin: I heard – I've learned – I think it was on Word, Nick.
Merlin: I forget where, but I learned a new word, wantrepreneur.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: It's like a very Bay Area thing, like somebody who really – who kind of considers themselves an entrepreneur even though they haven't really done anything.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: But the only reason I say that is, first of all, thank you, but also that I think when you see that networking thing, you see people who have maybe read books or people who have tried to reverse engineer the process that you and I are –
Merlin: Sadly, admitting to be, as we say, how things are.
Merlin: And the how things are is that you have to be out there and people have to see you and people have to go, oh, that's that one guy who either A, knows this friend of mine that's kind of famous or B, does this thing I've heard of, whether I like it or not or have you actually experienced it, I've heard of it.
Merlin: And I think people try really, really hard to do that.
Merlin: And the thing is, the irony is that's not at all hard to pull off once you've actually done that or once you actually know people.
Merlin: You want to hopefully not be a dick about it, but it's brutally painful to watch when it's not working.
Merlin: But people keep doing it.
Merlin: And I guess if you do it long enough, you get kind of famous with somebody, not necessarily somebody very interesting, but it's a terrible way to try and have an actual human connection with somebody.
Merlin: It's a miserable way to try and make a friend.
John: Well, and I think what happens is people develop these alternate universe cultures where they are populated with people who have not actually done the work to get through the door on their own.
John: And you get, I mean, you go to parties all the time where everybody there is in the music business if you ask them what they do.
John: And then as you, you know, as you circulate through the room, you realize like, oh, no one here is in the music business.
John: Everybody here is every, there are some people who are being funded by their parents.
John: There are some people who are, who are incredible networkers.
John: There are people here who have filled out a lot of online forms to win songwriting contests.
Yeah.
John: You know, like there's a whole constellation of ways to join the music business and build up a whole Wikipedia entry of all the songwriting contests you've won.
John: And none of it is really the music business and none of it is the work that you need to do to get through the door.
John: And I think the wantrepreneur scene is probably a thousand times – that's true of it a thousand times more.
John: Because you can write a book about entrepreneurship.
John: You can start 25 businesses that all –
Merlin: Uh, that all fail or you can have a blog and a podcast about, I mean, I've certainly done it.
Merlin: You can create, you create this meta work in that case about like, you know, bridging the gap, how to go from being a entrepreneur to a been there preneur.
John: I, I had, I was lucky enough to have dinner with Paul F. Tompkins the other night here in Seattle.
John: And I had a similar conversation where I was, where I caught myself being the yo-yo.
John: Because, you know, I admire Paul.
Merlin: Is this the make sure he recognizes who I am thing?
John: No, it was.
John: And this is a conversation I've had with Paul F. Tompkins before, and I forgot that I had done it already and I did it again.
John: But Paul, after 30 years of doing stand-up since he was 12 years old...
John: has, over the last several years, transitioned his stand-up comedy into a more storytelling, long-form kind of format that I really identify with.
John: I love to tell stories.
John: I have told stories for a long time.
John: And as comedy in general, I see this more and more, this format of long-form stories that are humorous and have punchlines, but it's not a string of jokes.
John: It's like stories from life that are meant to be both thought-provoking and also very funny.
Yeah.
John: And so I identify it with this style of comedy.
John: And I watch people like Paul do it.
John: And I think I make the classic.
John: I mean, the primary error of saying, well, I can do that.
John: And then I make the secondary error of saying I already do that.
John: Like the 20 years that I've spent or 25 years I've spent on stage.
Merlin: Same way people used to do this with stand-up where you go, I consider myself a funny person and all my brothers at Phi Kappa Date Rape think I'm funny.
Merlin: Therefore, I'm probably already a stand-up.
Merlin: I just need to get some bookings.
John: Right.
Merlin: Not necessarily you, but I mean, I think that's a classic comedy pattern for people who have no idea how hard that business is.
John: And that's exactly the mistake I was making.
John: And I'm talking to Paul and I'm like, you know, I just feel like I need to do the work.
John: I need to put in some work in crafting my stories so that I am able to really get up and do this, do storytelling as a performance form.
John: And Paul said, well, did you like comedy as a kid?
John: And I was like, I loved it.
John: I mean, that was all I did.
John: I stay up late and watch the Carson show and I identified with comedians more than musicians.
John: And Paul said, yeah, me too.
John: In fact, it's all I ever wanted to do.
John: And from the time I was 13, I have done nothing else.
John: And I was like, right.
John: Well, I did a lot of other things.
John: And he was like, uh-huh, tell me more.
John: And I was like, well, yeah, I mean, I did a lot of things that weren't that.
John: And he's like, exactly.
Exactly.
John: And he wasn't hammering that point home.
Merlin: It sounds like he left enough air in the room for you to kind of breathe that in on your own.
John: Yeah, that was my right, exactly right.
John: And the thing is, I feel this way about my music career, too.
John: There were guys that from 12 years old, all they wanted to do was play guitar, and that's all they've done.
John: And they are better guitar players than I am by far.
John: And it's easy to see the work that they've done.
Merlin: Yeah, but maybe they didn't get in the van that many times.
John: They need to get in the van too, right.
John: But all by way of saying, I can still fall into that trap of feeling like, here's a guy who's doing a thing that I admire.
John: I also feel like I have a native gift for this.
John: And so therefore, it's just some indeterminate amount of work
John: that we can talk about later that I need to do between here and there.
John: And then I'll be right there and I'll be in the winner's circle.
John: And it's like, hmm.
Merlin: I do it all the time.
Merlin: It's something I know is stupid.
Merlin: I hate it when other people do it.
Merlin: But I find myself doing it.
Merlin: When I talk to comic people, that's how I am because I'm new to comics.
Merlin: I've never wanted intensely to write a comic.
Merlin: I've never wanted intensely to get good at writing.
Merlin: But now as I get older, I appreciate the medium so much more than when I'm talking to one of my comic writing heroes.
Merlin: I'll say something like, well, you know, I've kind of been thinking to write a comic.
John: I've got an idea for a superhero.
Yeah.
Merlin: I know it's even worse.
Merlin: No, I wish.
Merlin: I wish I could go like I had this idea, you know, shaking a bottle of Coke, man, or something.
Merlin: I don't even have anything.
John: Zero, man.
Merlin: I hate you so much.
Merlin: But, you know, that is the funny part.
Merlin: I mean, when you meet somebody, it almost becomes an unconscious kind of weird.
Merlin: I'll speak for myself.
Merlin: It can become a strange combination.
Merlin: of trying to impress somebody combined with like trying to show how familiar you are with their work without sounding creepy, combining with hoping for some kind of encouragement and then basically turning into career counseling in a bar where you're essentially asking them for the tips and tricks on how to become Paul F. Tompkins.
Merlin: Well, you know what?
Merlin: Go be on an HBO show that almost got canceled a bunch of times.
Yeah.
John: Well, and I've heard many comics do this to other people who kind of come up and say like, Oh, they're the worst.
Merlin: The comics, comics are the, the wannabe comics, the worst, the worst.
John: And, and, and, and I've heard this over and over enough to know that this is like, this is comic shorthand and they've, and it's, it's kind of brilliant because all comics have, have shared this line with each other where they look at the person and they go, Oh,
John: Hey, sounds like things are going good for you.
John: Now you just need to do it for 10 years.
John: And then they like...
John: you know go cheers with their beer bottle and they turn back and rejoin their conversation and it's a it's a relatively polite but chilly enough way to say we're not having a serious conversation here are we right and and talking to the comics that i know every one of them really does believe like at 10 years of doing stand-up
John: Every night for 10 years, and that's not 10 years from the time you first did stand-up in high school and the present, but 10 straight years of doing stand-up, you can come up to me and we'll talk about stand-up comedy and...
John: And in that case, I will probably already know who you are.
John: Right.
John: So it won't have to be like you telling me all the stand-up things.
Merlin: Having the same conversation that I find myself stuck in six times a month.
Merlin: Well, I have this subset in my other fake career as a productivity self-help retired productivity guru.
Merlin: I'm obsessed with that idea of expertise and why it is that the 70- or 80-year-old butcher knows this weighs a pound, this roast beef, but he can't tell you why.
Merlin: I'm very interested in that idea.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And I think the same thing happens.
Merlin: I mean, so people, not necessarily you, but most of us, I think nothing of walking up to Matt Fraction and going, how'd you get so great at comics?
Merlin: I was like, well, I've been obsessed with them since I was a child and I work incredibly hard.
Merlin: You would never walk up to an oncologist and go like, man, pretty sweet gig.
Merlin: What's the trick?
Merlin: How'd you get into oncology?
Merlin: No, I know.
Merlin: You're really smart.
Merlin: You went to medical school.
Merlin: I know you studied.
Merlin: Everybody else went on to fun.
Merlin: You studied your biology stuff in high school, whatever.
Merlin: What's the trick?
Merlin: What's the trick to being an oncologist?
Merlin: What do I have to do?
John: I feel like I know this stuff already.
John: I read a couple of...
Merlin: of, uh, medical, uh, thrillers.
Merlin: Seriously.
Merlin: Seriously.
Merlin: Let me just tell you, man, like I had like, just, just like really seriously, my mom had fucking cancer.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: So like, I feel like I'm already really close to this and it's something I'm just really passionate about.
Merlin: So I used to love Dr. Quinn medicine woman.
Yeah.
Merlin: And she did a lot of amazing medicine.
Merlin: And you realize you, you actually like corsets more than medicine.
Merlin: That's, that's what you should be studying is corsets.
John: Well, and so curiously for me now, here's the, this is, and this is partly a problem of being a generalist, right?
John: Because when somebody says to me, I've been, I love to do this and I've been doing nothing but this since I was 13 years old.
John: And I go, right.
Right.
John: And what have I been doing since I was 13 years old?
Merlin: I have been... There we go.
John: You know, I've been doing a lot of... Well, I did a lot of pot smoking.
Merlin: John, I know this story.
Merlin: I've heard this story.
Merlin: I'm glad you did all of those things because I'm glad you're who you are, you special little motherfucker.
Merlin: I'm glad you're here and I'm glad you're your fucked up you and that's all I'm going to say about that.
John: But so the other day, I'm at another party, right?
John: Yeah.
John: It's one of these parties that I find myself going to more and more.
John: Oh, so I didn't tell you this, but I got roped in to an imbroglio.
John: The music and nightlife community in Seattle, by which I mean the local club owners and bar owners, a group of them got together and held a press conference where they endorsed the challenger in the mayoral race.
John: And my phone rang.
John: I was sitting here at my computer making a song for Joseph Scrimshaw.
John: Long story.
John: My phone rings, and I made the classic error of answering it because I'm remortgaging my house, and there was a lot going on that day, and the phone rang, and it was a number I didn't recognize, and I was like, oh, oh, shit.
John: Okay, I'll answer it, and I answered it, and it was someone from the mayor's office, and they said...
John: The club owners, the downtown rock club owners are having a press conference right now and they're endorsing the opponent.
John: And I was like, oh, geez.
John: And they said, we need you to have a press conference.
Merlin: What?
John: And I said, what?
John: Me?
John: I'm super busy today.
John: And they were like, yeah, we need you to have a press conference right now.
John: Where are you?
John: You're shitting me.
John: And I was like, I'm at my house, but I'm going to, I'm going downtown in a minute.
John: And they were like, great.
John: Tell us where you are in a half an hour.
John: And so I was downtown and they called me again and they were like, where are you?
John: And I said, I'm standing in front of this bar.
John: And they were like, stay there.
John: And five minutes later, a news van drives up.
John: And I'm standing there like going, what is WTF?
John: News van drives up a local ABC affiliate.
John: Yeah, right.
John: It was the KWTF.
John: It was Cairo.
John: And, uh, and a guy jumps out in a suit and tie and a cameraman and they have a big puffy microphone and they get some B roll of, of, of the reporter and me walking up and down the sidewalk a few times, like engaged in conversation.
John: And then they interview me about like, how do you feel about this group of club owners and music business people endorsing the opponent?
Yeah.
John: And I'm like, I feel like the mayor is doing a great job.
John: And I gave a kind of like, there are no losers in this election.
John: Both candidates are amazing.
John: And I think the mayor has been great for the local music community.
John: And I like him personally.
John: I think he's a good dude.
John: So the club owners don't speak for all of us.
John: And they were like, thanks.
John: And they jumped in the van.
John: And 45 minutes later, it was on the evening news.
John: so was it how was it how was it framed i mean at least in my experience when you interview they're waiting for you to say one particular line that they can yeah use to underscore something they made up yeah and that's what it was it was like it was like a bunch of uh a bunch of music industry people endorsed the opponent today and they they flipped to this panel of 20 people that i know who are all sitting around the the challenger whose name is ed murray
John: And they're like, we just don't think the mayor's doing a good enough job.
John: And it kind of, the camera pans around and they talk about it for a minute or so.
John: And then the voiceover says, but not everybody in the music community feels like the mayor's doing a bad job.
John: And then it cuts to me walking down the sidewalk, having a pretend conversation with the reporter.
Merlin: We found local unemployed man, John Roderick, standing in front of a bar.
John: Yeah.
John: They said, local homeless person lookalike rock musician from The Long Winters, John Roderick, says the mayor's doing a fine job.
John: And then I say, I think the mayor's doing a fine job.
John: Back to you, Tom.
John: Back to you, Tom.
John: Right.
John: And so the following night, I'm at a party.
John: And the mayor is there and a lot of his, uh, campaign people are there and we're having a lot of the, you know, the mayor and I have a little 10 minute long, like little huddle where we're talking about, talking about the day and talking about, you know, his, his feelings are hurt that the, that the music business is endorsing his opponent.
John: And I think rightfully so, um,
John: And he's, you know, he's also like, he's campaigning hard right now.
John: He's behind in the polls.
John: But then his staff starts, you know, kind of coming around.
John: And I have a couple of conversations with people where they're patting me on the back.
John: Like, thank you for that.
John: Thank you for having that press conference.
John: And then on two separate occasions, the person leaned in, you know, and this is like the mayor's chief of staff and then his head, his campaign head.
John: They lean in and they go...
John: When are we going to get you on the city council?
Merlin: Oh, God.
Merlin: Yeah, you got to get away, John.
Merlin: You got to get away from that.
Merlin: And I was like, wow, the city council.
Merlin: Wow.
John: Wow.
John: And all afternoon and all evening and all the next day and actually all the day after that.
John: you're imagining what's going to be painted in gold on your door i walked around conducting my campaign in my imaginarium uh you know like like just generally like looking at the arc of the of the campaign maybe some you know some brochures with some pictures of me walking through a park with my family uh my out of wood luck child and my
John: and uh you know and then pictured myself kind of going door to door in my neighborhood and uh shots fired and saying you know hi how are you i'm i live in this neighborhood with you i'm that guy who cut your tree down and i'm running for office you might have seen me in in your yard uh in a bathrobe with a sword uh at some time recently chasing the neighbor's dog but now i'm running for the city council
John: And I feel like together we can rid the neighborhood of stray dogs and loud stereos.
John: We can improve all of the guard towers that I have been erecting in the forests.
John: That's exciting, John.
John: So, but, but, but so again, I'm drawn to this question.
John: Like there are people in public office in city government and in nonprofits who have done nothing else since they were, you know, these are the people that were like Reese Witherspoon in, in election in high school and,
John: And they've just Reese Witherspoon to themselves all the way until they get elected to something.
John: And then pretty soon they make it to Washington.
John: And then pretty soon they are Condoleezza Rice.
John: And again, I am the consummate generalist.
John: And I'm standing in this situation sort of like, hey, when are we going to get you on the city council?
John: And I'm thinking, yes, let's get me on the city council in the same way that when my frat brothers say, you should be a stand-up.
John: I'm like, yes, I should be a stand-up.
John: Are you kidding?
John: But in fact, I don't know if I would be good at that at all.
John: I don't know anything about that world.
John: I imagine there are a lot of PowerPoint demonstrations.
Merlin: I imagine there are a lot of meetings where you could potentially despise every single person in the room, including you.
John: Yeah, right.
John: Where I'm sitting behind a desk and I'm listening to somebody.
Merlin: You're sitting at a microphone.
Merlin: It's being shot for local cable TV.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: And somebody's on there talking about how the shade of their mailbox should be acceptable.
John: Right.
John: Or somebody's yelling at me about who gets the rights to the geoducks in the tidal waters around their boat dock.
John: And that's a, that's a Northwest reference.
John: I don't expect you to know.
Merlin: That sounds like one.
Merlin: I don't even, I don't know what any of that means, but I have to guess that would be easily one of the most interesting conversations you would ever have at one of those meetings.
John: Yeah, you're absolutely right.
John: You're absolutely right.
John: It was, it is more, it is more a question of somebody yelling at me because the taco bus that I go to does not have a wheelchair access.
Merlin: I was just going to say I was going to guess that it could be stuff like like here is a big dust up about food trucks and where they could be in the restaurant owners associations, whatever, got together to try.
Merlin: That's the kind of thing is and that's that's I don't want to derail you because I'm much more interested in this particular thread.
Merlin: But could you if you can, if you choose to, could you briefly say what it is that the bar owners and club owners are theoretically so unhappy with?
Merlin: This sounds like a jam up, John.
John: It's a little bit of a jam up.
John: I mean, both candidates for a Seattle city mayor are incredibly progressive liberal candidates.
John: And like there are no losers here.
John: The difference is that one that the Ed Murray, I think, is a liberal candidate.
John: in the kind of classic Northwest mode, he knows how to get things done by putting a group of people together in a room and reaching a solution together.
John: And he knows how to come out and announce the solution where he gives the credit to everybody that was on the panel and everybody feels good and they go do their part of the solution or they presumably go do their part of the solution.
John: feeling validated and the mayor quite honestly is somebody that sometimes struggles to get a group of people to agree where everybody leaves the meeting feeling really good about themselves the mayor is more of he's a little bit more imperial and a little bit has a tendency to say
John: Here's how it's going to go.
John: Here's the right course of action.
John: Either get in line or go fuck yourself.
John: And by Seattle standards, it's a little bit, it's a little tough, you know, it's a little bit tough love.
John: And, and there have been a couple of pretty, there have been a couple of instances where a thing failed because the mayor couldn't get people to, he couldn't, he didn't draw enough happy faces on it.
John: Right.
John: Like the thing was clearly what needed to happen and everybody just needed to shut up and do it.
John: But yeah,
John: In the end, a key person withheld their vote.
John: And if you talk to them about it in private, they would say, yeah, I withheld my vote.
John: You know why?
John: Because fuck that guy.
John: And it's like, oh, right.
John: Oof.
John: The imperial method does not work in Seattle, especially because we have a strong city council and a weak mayorality.
Right.
John: So the city council, you know, you really have to like grease those guys and gals.
John: It's less popular to grease the gals, but you have to, you know, you have to like be a coalition builder.
John: Right.
John: And so the, but, but honestly, I feel like the music, the music crowd that threw their weight behind the challenger was more doing it because the,
John: 20 years ago, nobody gave a fuck about the club owners and the music business.
Merlin: I would say, in fact, that the city of Seattle was actually so hostile to the rock scene for so many years.
Merlin: It was the worst.
Merlin: To finally have a mayor in office that comes to rock shows and that knows musicians by name.
Merlin: The temperature of the city has changed under the McGinn administration, says John Roderick.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Merlin: I can't find the video.
Merlin: I guess the video is here in this.
Merlin: Also, look at that.
Merlin: Scarlett Johansson is the sexiest woman alive.
Merlin: I'm learning so much from CairoTV.com.
John: But I feel like what happened was these music business people finally got a mayor that treated them with respect.
John: And they started to feel like as a group together, they actually had political power.
John: For the first time, people were listening to them, and the challenger was courting their affections.
John: They have become, and partly this is that all of the people involved have grown up, and they're all now 48 years old, and they own respectable businesses, and they've built a little cabal, right?
John: So...
John: How much political power is that if they continue to work with this mayor that they kind of came up with versus what if they take their ball and go play with the other guy?
John: And as a group, I think they can move to the other candidate and appear to have more power, more authority in the movement.
Merlin: I'm a dummy.
Merlin: What are the nightclubs of Seattle not getting from their mayor these days?
John: Right.
John: Precisely.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Absolutely.
John: There will be no difference.
John: Between the two candidates, there's no difference.
Merlin: But they've probably got nothing to lose if it's a tight-ish race and somebody offers them something on the strength.
Merlin: Worst case scenario, if that guy loses, they've still got what they had before.
Merlin: But with this, they could be promised whatever.
John: Yeah, or they can feel like, okay, now, as their group gets tighter and acts as a...
John: acts as another conscience in the city government right they become another group of concerned business owners and and typically that typically rock and roll people are pretty progressive in their politics so it's another group of people that have a that have a nice combination of they're cool right they look cool and they do cool things and
John: And they are also very progressive and very thoughtful.
John: So normally when there's a press conference and it's like some downtown business owners have a problem with the mayor.
John: It turns out that they are angry about taxes or they're angry about parking or they're angry about zoning.
John: You know, they're angry about some not-in-my-backyard business owner bullshit, right?
John: But this group of club owners and rock people is actually kind of making a play to be conscientious and say, like, we're concerned about...
John: The way the city does business.
John: We're concerned about the way the mayor treats the kids, the way the police department enforces the laws.
John: This group is actually trying to have a wide-ranging effect.
John: It's actually astonishing and cool.
John: Um, but I, but I feel like it's, um, you know, my mom once told me a story about her life in corporate America and she said, I had to, I had to confront the fact that over time I realized when I walked into a meeting, my feeling was either that I was going to lead the meeting or I was going to be the gadfly.
John: And those were the only two roles for me in a meeting.
John: I was never, ever going to just sit and be one of 20 people in a meeting.
John: I was either going to try and take the meeting over, or if I couldn't, then I was going to be the one that kept bringing up the problems, kept bringing up a problem with the plan.
John: And she was like, I, I, I recognized that meetings were a bad, that were kind of a bad place for me.
John: And as she was telling me this story, I kind of, I recognized that in myself, like either I'm going to lead the meeting or I'm going to be the one with his feet up on the desk, chewing bubble gum and saying, that's never going to work.
John: And it's a kind of – it's maybe a personality flaw, right?
John: To not be – if you do not end up leading the meeting but cannot just sit and be a part of the meeting, that's a tendency.
Merlin: Well, you would have to have that if you got this city council gig.
John: I feel like my role on the city council... Have you ever watched the videos, John?
John: Oh, my God.
John: It's so boring.
John: But I feel like... Some of that is the static camera angle.
John: You know, if they had more dynamic filming... Yeah, like a three-camera setup or some cinema verite.
John: Like a roaming guy with a steadicam.
John: Better effects.
John: And better lighting, too.
John: Those city council meetings are lit so bad.
John: Oh, everyone looks like they have hepatitis.
John: But I feel like I would be elected...
John: On a platform of, like, on a cool dad platform.
John: Oh.
John: Right?
John: Like rock and roll dad platform.
John: And so every city council meeting, right, needs one council member whose tie is a little bit askew, whose hair is a little bit musted.
John: Who leans forward every once in a while and says, are we really talking about this still?
John: You'd be like Scalia.
John: Yeah, I'd be Scalia.
Merlin: You would, in fact, be the gadfly is what I'm saying.
Merlin: Yeah, I'd be Booger.
Merlin: I'd be Booger.
John: Who's Booger?
John: Booger from Revenge of the Nerds.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: Did you not see Revenge of the Nerds?
Merlin: Never seen it.
John: What?
John: No.
John: Come on.
John: I got the old cruise control set on 35, son.
Merlin: Okay, I'm going to add it to the list.
Merlin: I like the cool dad platform because I think you could rock that shit.
Merlin: Right?
John: Yes.
John: Right?
John: And then I'm like city council member at large.
Merlin: You never wear a suit, but you also – you never wear a standard, like a Brooks Brothers suit, but you also never wear Patagonia.
John: No, right.
John: See, I'm somewhere – I'm like thrift store dad.
John: I've got a Pendleton jacket that was in a free pile.
John: You've got a Lacoste and white tennis shoes.
John: Yeah, I've got some Filson jeans.
John: You've got pink pants with whales.
John: Yeah, and then a tie that is like somebody's club tie or my dad's quiet berthman tires.
John: John Roderick celebrates his fifth term on the city council.
John: Are we really doing this?
Merlin: That's it.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: That's a freebie.
Merlin: That's your slogan.
Merlin: John Roderick for city council.
Merlin: Are we really doing this?
Merlin: Are we really doing this?
John: And so basically, although I would be elected initially to represent one neighborhood, as time went on, all cool dads throughout the town would realize that I was their representative.
Merlin: Well, and you're going to have keys to stuff and you're going to know the phone numbers of people.
Merlin: You're going to be able – the thing is you could get in there and be kind of like a Trojan horse, a Trojan John.
Merlin: You get in there and you would be able to insinuate yourself in small ways, do political favors for people, maybe mow their lawn.
Merlin: But something where like they would owe you, that's the key.
Merlin: You need people to owe you.
Merlin: That's why people do favors.
Merlin: People do favors because they want people to owe them.
John: I'd be the master of ceremonies at Slovakia Days.
John: I would be the... Who does that these days?
John: Is it usually a Slovak?
John: Nobody from the city council is even aware that there are Slovak Days celebrations.
John: John Roderick, now more than ever.
John: That's right.
John: Are we really doing this?
John: I'm already all over the city.
John: I would just be all over the city as a city councilman.
John: Kissing babies, kissing babies' moms.
Merlin: Letting them kiss your baby.
Merlin: I saw a video of myself today that I hadn't seen in a while.
Merlin: I was on a panel.
Merlin: And I look like such an asshole.
Merlin: The entire time I make faces, the entire time I'm on this panel, I don't realize that I'm doing this.
Merlin: But I apparently make absolutely no attempt to cover up what I think about what other people are saying.
Merlin: And I don't have any filter.
Merlin: I screw up my face and then start scribbling in a notebook.
Merlin: And I'm just thinking something like that.
Merlin: Maybe write down your campaign poster.
Merlin: Are we really doing this face?
Merlin: Like from the very beginning, you're loosening your time.
Merlin: Maybe it's an animated GIF.
John: One eyebrow raised.
John: Oh, come on.
John: Leaning way, way back in my city councilman's chair.
John: Are we really doing this?
John: Like grabbing my microphone off the table and holding it on my belly.
Merlin: Are we really doing this?
John: I feel like there's a lot – and winter I would switch to an all-tweed sort of costume.
Merlin: Oh, man.
Merlin: Think about all those characters from when we were kids, all those politicians that were so colorful and so well-known.
Merlin: You got your Tip O'Neills.
Merlin: You got your – That's exactly right.
Merlin: Your Bella Abzug or whatever.
Merlin: You could be like the Bella Abzug of the city council.
Merlin: I would be the –
Merlin: Seattle's Bella Abzug.
Merlin: We know that you've got the skills to get in there and say, are we really doing this?
Merlin: But it would help if during your first, let's say, 90 days, your first 100 days, if you were able to institute something that was really massive that nobody even realized the city needed and you got it done regardless of who you had to take out to get there.
Merlin: I don't know what that would be.
John: Oh, I know what it would be.
Merlin: What?
John: Zip lines.
John: Seattle is built on hills.
John: Are we really doing this?
John: Let me cut you off there.
John: Can I say one word?
John: There are hills all over the city.
John: How many zip lines are there?
Merlin: No zip lines.
John: I'm talking about public zip lines as a form of public transit.
John: Zip lines cost almost nothing to install, John.
John: That's right.
John: Now picture a zip line from Capitol Hill to Pike Place Market.
John: It would be the most popular form of public transit.
John: In an hour.
Merlin: It'd be huge and people would be taking pictures, people buying shirts, throwing fish at people as they came down.
John: So in Seattle, if you're on Capitol Hill and you want to go to Ballard, which is on the opposite side of the town.
John: And there's a lake in the way.
John: And all the roads are like bottlenecks and clusterfucks.
John: I'm preaching to the choir because San Francisco is like this too.
John: You got to go from point A to point B. There is no way to do it.
John: There's no straight line.
John: It's just like from Capitol Hill to Ballard as the crow flies is not that far.
John: But trying to get there is just like...
John: It's like one of those games where you can tilt the surface of the maze and the little ball.
Merlin: But you're hacking the system.
Merlin: This is your Kobayashi Maru.
Merlin: You're saying Capitol Hill to Pike Place in three high-flying minutes.
Merlin: Let's be Jet City again, but the Jets are tourists.
John: And on areas that are too far, because the zipline obviously requires a certain amount of upper body strength.
John: There are people that aren't going to be able to use the zipline.
John: You can hang him in a basket.
John: Well, okay, there should be baskets and pommelifts, but gondolas, right?
John: Why is there no Capitol Hill to Ballard gondola?
John: If you can make a gondola that goes all the way up to Zermatt, Switzerland, or whatever, if you can go up the Zookspitz...
John: And up to the Matterhorn or whatever with a gondola.
John: Why can you not go from Capitol Hill to Ballard?
Merlin: You know who would love this?
Merlin: The children of cool rock and roll dads.
Merlin: Exactly.
Merlin: And cool dads throughout the city.
Merlin: And all those doofuses in Patagonia.
Merlin: They would love it.
Merlin: They would eventually say that it's touristy and it used to be better.
Merlin: But they would be there on day one with their fleece and their lattes.
John: Yeah, if I said, all right, here's what we're going to do.
John: We're going to build two huge towers, one on top of Capitol Hill and one in Fremont, and it's going to be a gondola ride all the way across Lake Union.
John: The only people that would complain are the people that currently run the seaplane operation out of Lake Union because the gondola would interfere with their seaplaning.
Merlin: You've never been scared of special interest groups.
John: Well, and the thing is I speak seaplane, right?
John: I can talk to those guys about their beaters and their otters.
John: And, you know, like I know the entire de Havilland range of aircraft.
John: We can reach some kind of agreement.
John: We'll just change the flight traffic.
John: But so anyway, zip lines, poma lifts.
John: And gondolas all over the city.
John: Crisscrossing Seattle.
John: And all of a sudden, your crosstown traffic problems are solved.
John: Right?
John: Are we still talking about this?
Merlin: Are we still talking about this?
Merlin: Mr. Roderick, I had a couple questions about the zoning ram.
Merlin: Are we still talking about this?
Merlin: Let me ask you a question.
Merlin: You know who loves zip lines?
Merlin: Everybody.
Merlin: Are we still talking about this?
John: You know who doesn't love zip lines?
John: Communists.
John: And I would have, I'd have my little, I'd have my little orange bell right there on my city council desk.
John: Right.
John: And people would be like, but I have a question about, is there going to be universal access to the palm lift?
John: Ding!
John: Are we still talking about this?
John: Are we still talking about this?
John: Where's my fucking bell?
Merlin: I was trying to give you an opening there.
Merlin: The, the, the hundred days thing, that was Roosevelt, right?
Merlin: Wasn't Roosevelt, FDR, the hundred days?
Merlin: Mal?
Mal?
Mal?
Merlin: That's a different bell.
Merlin: Mao had the first 100 days?
John: Yeah, well, Mao had... Well, I guess it was Stalin had five-year plans, and Mao had... What were they?
John: Seven-year plans?
John: Yeah, yeah, right.
John: I think a city councilman should have a bigger bell.
John: I think that's the one.
Merlin: You need a name like that, though, like the Great Leap Forward.
Merlin: You need something... You need a name like that, the Great... You know what?
John: No one's leaving... No one's using...
John: great leap forward right now it's a great name and think about it in connection with with zip lines and the weight loss people would have great leap forward great the great leap forward into a zip line from broadway you know what you have plenty are we still talking are we really talking about this no i know are we yes what is it what is it are we really doing this
Merlin: Are we still talking about this?
Merlin: We should probably workshop these a little bit.
Merlin: Yeah, you're right.
Merlin: Let's get to the really awkward part.
Merlin: Are you still going to be able to do our program when you're on the city council?
John: I don't see any reason why not.
John: The thing is that most of our listeners are in the UK and New Zealand.
Merlin: Do you know that for a fact?
John: No, no, I feel like we have we have a considerable listenership in like Iowa, California.
John: We got a lot of Germans, John.
John: A lot of Germans.
John: That's true.
John: That's true.
John: And I don't think any of those people are really going to.
John: I doubt very much that anybody's going to send a concerned letter to the Seattle city government.
John: Do you realize who's running for the Seattle City Council?
John: Have you listened to his podcast?
John: And the people of Seattle that listen to this podcast are going to benefit so much from my councilship.
John: Oh, absolutely.
John: I couldn't get any worse.
John: Most of them were on probation.
John: That's right.
John: They're not going to out me.
John: Who's going to out me?
John: It's only going to be one of these angry undergraduates from the university.
Merlin: Are we really doing this?
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: Does Seattle have a sister city or similar?
John: Yeah, I think maybe Bergen, Norway.
John: You know, I think Reykjavik is one of our sister cities, although I doubt that Reykjavik actually exists.
Merlin: Sister cities for the city of Seattle.
Merlin: Oh, boy, you got Bergen?
Merlin: Oh, beer.
Merlin: I'm probably pronouncing this wrong.
Merlin: I apologize in advance.
Merlin: Beer Shiva, Israel.
Merlin: Oh, that's nice.
Merlin: Perugia, Italy.
Merlin: Chongqing, China.
Merlin: Uh-huh.
Merlin: Chongqing.
Merlin: Seattle has 21 extant sister cities.
Merlin: I'm just saying it's become a very international economy.
Merlin: There's an international flavor.
Merlin: We call it I-18N.
Merlin: It's a very hot topic right now.
Merlin: You might want to reach out, and you might be able to even get support from your sisters.
Merlin: I'm just saying.
John: Did you know that my neighborhood is the most diverse zip code in America?
John: That's mind-boggling.
Merlin: It's astonishing considering that Seattle— And it's not in the way—the way you described it to me was it's not in the way it seems.
Merlin: It isn't like, oh, there's an equal mix of black people and white people.
Merlin: It's more like, no, no, no, you've got a sampling.
Merlin: You've got the ultimate existential buffet humanity-wise.
John: Right, right.
John: There are just as many people here from Vladivostok as there are from, let's say, Uruguay.
Merlin: So if this happens and the mayor gets in, stays in on, I assume, November, whatever, this first Tuesday in November, and then what?
Merlin: There'd be a city council election in probably what?
Merlin: Two years.
John: Two years.
John: That's right.
John: So I have two years to plan my campaign.
John: That's more than enough time, John.
John: And I feel like I feel like a lot of this is the thing.
John: A lot of the cost of running a campaign is the is publicity and name recognition.
John: Right.
John: But I already have name recognition and there's going to be a lot of free publicity associated with me running for city council.
John: Because everybody will want to write about it.
Merlin: Well, let's be honest.
Merlin: Some people are going to come out of the woodwork.
Merlin: All those people who you can't remember whether you're arguing with them or not, whether you're 24 fighting friends, you're going to know pretty quick.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: Everybody is going to have something to say about it.
John: I mean, I would have to run on a platform of everything that I like.
John: I do not disavow anything that I've ever said.
John: I stand behind everything I've ever said, because if you run on a platform like that, given the sheer amount of crackpot shit that I have said over the years, like in print and in public.
John: No one's going to be able to say, like, well, the candidate had a drinking problem or whatever.
John: The candidate is a known womanizer.
John: Because you could also say, like, well, the candidate has called for a reevaluation of Hitler's legacy.
Right.
John: Read the rest of it.
John: It's not what it sounds like.
John: The candidate believes that all teenagers should be put on work farms.
John: My record is very substantive.
John: But it's so far out that no one's going to be able to nail me on it.
Merlin: Absolutely.
Merlin: And by not – the thing is as soon as you say, no, I didn't say that, you open a door.
Merlin: Oh, then you're screwed.
Merlin: There's so much nonsense you've said and it's so contradictory that it would be difficult to even have a presentable piece that you could put in the paper.
John: Yeah, exactly.
John: It would sound made up.
John: What I would say is, are we still talking about this?
John: Listen, I put on arguments like other people put on jackets.
John: And I like the look of myself in all these different arguments.
John: I think I'm very handsome in them.
John: Next question.
Merlin: Galway, Ireland.
Merlin: Kobe, Japan.
John: See, Kobe.
John: That's what I meant.
John: Kobe, that's where the beef comes from.
Merlin: They have a good beef.
John: Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
John: Yeah, Tashkent.
John: That's a big town in Uzbekistan.
John: Seattle's not...
John: The biggest town in America.
John: I think it's the 15th biggest town in America, something like that.
Merlin: It may not be the biggest, but it certainly is the ziplining-est.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: Well, now think about that.
John: Think about the sister cities of Seattle all around the world.
John: How quickly are those sister cities going to adopt a zipline-based public transit system once Seattle paves the way?
Merlin: Oh, 100%.
Merlin: You go to Mombasa, Kenya, I think they're going to want to look at zip lines.
John: Yeah.
John: Tashkent, six months after I am elected to the city council, Tashkent is going to be the zip line capital of Uzbekistan.
Merlin: Hello, this is Haiphong, Vietnam.
John: We would like zip lines, please.
John: Zip lines.
John: And Seattle is going to be, by that point, we will have pioneered like...
John: aggressive zipline technology it's like how they can make the iphone 5 cheap now you got all the component parts right if you got everything you need if you make smart and you know what you get locally sourced ziplines we have an abundance of engineers that are you got cables you got boeing right there there's got to be cables laying around yeah and and boeing keeps uh driving them their themselves and their commercial aircraft business into the fucking ground so all of these people that will one day be out of work uh will be newly employed in my zipline gondola business
Merlin: So if I understand this correctly, you're telling me this is a town that used to literally be known as Jet City because Boeing, the largest aircraft manufacturer in the world, was based there.
Merlin: They had factories and hangars.
Merlin: You could probably pick some of those up pretty cheap and convert them to zipline factories.
John: That's right.
John: Pretty cheap.
John: Right here in my own neighborhood.
John: Jobs, John.
John: Jobs.
John: Big, big.
John: Now think about all the ziplines you could make in a former 747 hangar.
John: You could have an entire zipline industry.
Merlin: They're a lot smaller.
Merlin: They're a lot less costly.
Merlin: You can ship more of them on a train.
John: I think right now the Swiss or the Germans might have the gondola industry pretty well nailed down.
John: Right.
John: But I don't know if you knew this.
John: Spokane, Washington, headquarters of the Riblet Company.
John: And riblets are the poles that support ski lifts.
Merlin: Oh, my goodness.
Merlin: This is going to be good for all of the Pacific Northwest.
John: The entire state of Washington is going to benefit, which is what I'm going to say when I run for Congress.
Merlin: I think it should help everyone but Portland, and I think that's going to keep you in office.
Merlin: I think that... Could you antagonize... Can antagonizing Portland be part of your platform?
John: I think if I were elected to the city council, that by itself would antagonize Portland because Colin Malloy would be so mad that it would reverberate through the whole town.
John: Everybody would just be like, why does I feel a disturbance in the forest?
John: Like millions of souls crying out at once.
John: And it would just be Colin Malloy sitting at his new farm and fuming that I was elected to the Seattle City Council.
John: And playing an accordion on a toadstool.
John: It would just be so mad.
John: But then when I inaugurate the Portland to Seattle gondola, which admittedly would be a pretty long gondola ride.
John: You could have movies.
John: You'd be on there for six to eight hours.
Yeah.
John: But think about the view the whole way.
John: The thing is, this town doesn't have enough visionaries.
Yeah.
John: And I really feel like this is... So anyway, having already kind of mastered the city council and run the city until it's like a finely honed top, I'm really now planning my Senate run.
John: Because I feel like this is my backdoor into the United States Senate.
John: I didn't go to Yale like I should have.
John: I didn't start doing stand-up comedy when I was 12.
John: I didn't even really graduate from college, technically, on a technicality.
John: And I was never a Navy SEAL, nor have I been, as far as anyone knows, a spook or a member of an intelligence organization.
John: How am I going to get into the U.S.
John: Senate?
John: And I think the way to do it is through the Seattle city council, right down to zip line, you're going to zip line your way into the Senate.
John: That's right.
John: I'm going to be Mr. Zipline.
John: That's how they're going to, that's how they're going to know me.
John: And then I get into the Senate and then, then Elon Musk and I are going to make us a high speed underground super train that runs on angel tiers.
John: And, uh, and we'll all be living in paradise.
John: We're going to mine the garbage dumps from underground.
Merlin: Oh, that is innovation.
John: And we'll protect the parks that are up above by means of a kind of a superstructure manufactured by the Riblet Company.
Yeah.
John: Creating jobs.
John: Creating jobs and also recycling.
Merlin: But you're bringing – also you're bringing back big ideas.
Merlin: This is a city that loves a big idea.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You know?
Merlin: And obviously it's a country that in the fullness of time will have to put up with a lot of big ideas.
John: Well, that's right.
John: That's right.
Merlin: I mean – You should vet Elon Musk.
Merlin: I think you're giving him a pass these days.
Merlin: You should find out more about that guy because he might be a nemesis.
John: I feel like Elon Musk – Elon Musk has – I don't know anything about Elon Musk except his name is Elon Musk and he makes these cars that catch on fire.
Merlin: That's exactly what I know.
Merlin: I know about the tube.
Merlin: I know all of his cars catch on fire.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: His cars catch on fire.
Merlin: They've all caught on fire.
John: Didn't he make the spaceship that looks like it's made out of bubbles?
John: He made a bubble spaceship?
Merlin: I think it might be Michael York.
Merlin: But I think he invented Microsoft, and he's got – yeah, and his cars blow up, and he wants to make a tube, a totally implausible tube to shoot people through.
John: Right, implausible tube.
Merlin: Implausible tube.
John: Well, see, an implausible tube –
Merlin: Yeah.
John: I really like Implausible Tube.
Merlin: Those guys were great.
Merlin: I like the first record.
Merlin: I think he's going to be approaching you.
Merlin: He's going to see this.
Merlin: I don't want to beat the zipline thing to death.
Merlin: We got a zipline in our yard and I love it.
Merlin: It's a lot of fun.
Merlin: See, see, see.
Merlin: It's really, it's a buoyant feeling.
John: Here's the problem with ziplines.
John: They're all too short.
John: Because zip lines now are regarded as something to put in a child's play structure.
John: But when I was a kid, when I was in the Civil Air Patrol and I went to Civil Air Patrol encampment on Eielson Air Force Base, they trained us on a zip line that was like you hooked a carabiner onto a rope and they pushed you off a cliff and you zip lined over a river.
Merlin: Do you have any photos of that?
John: I do think about that for a minute.
Merlin: Think about a photo of, of a very young John Roderick in uniform, in serve, in the service of his country going down a zip line.
Merlin: That's going to look, that's going to look real good on Cairo TV.
John: Oh my God.
John: That's right.
John: That's going to, well, you know what?
John: That's going to be like the cover of my, my little brochure that I hand out to people when I go on my door to door campaign here in the legacy of service.
John: Ding dong.
John: Hi.
John: Are you interested in zip lines?
John: Don't say no.
John: I don't think you've thought about it.
Merlin: Are we really doing this?
John: I feel like in the old days, they put you on a zipline that was an actual risk, like a threat to your life.
John: And that was a big part of what made me a man.
Merlin: Well, to quote a panel from a comic I like, you don't fly a rocket, you ride it.
Merlin: That's the thing about a zipline.
Merlin: You get on that thing and your only chance is to A, hold on, and then B, get off at the right time.
Merlin: Exactly.
Merlin: No brakes on a zipline.
Merlin: But you can introduce science.
Merlin: There are no stops on a zipline.
Merlin: I was wondering about that for your Seattle program.
Merlin: I don't want to screw things up, but is there a way that you could maybe have like a way station where you go part of the way?
Merlin: Because the amount of velocity between Capitol Hill and Pike Place, it seems like we should calculate that because that could probably get pretty – we should ask our friend Dr. Drang, the engineer, to calculate this because I have a feeling you'd be moving pretty quickly by the time you got to the fish.
John: Yeah, you would.
John: But I think you could put some areas where there was more friction in the line so that it kind of slowed your tempo a little bit.
John: Oh, like the way the streetcars work here, right?
John: Exactly.
John: A little friction.
John: But listen, Seattle is famous for total boondoggle projects like this.
John: Didn't you guys have a monorail thing going at one point?
John: We have a monorail.
John: In fact, I rode the monorail yesterday.
John: As unlikely as that sounds.
John: And we got to the Seattle Center.
John: The monorail goes from the Westlake Center, which is the mall downtown, to the Seattle Center, which is basically the Space Needle and the EMP.
John: And we got off the train, and there was a man there with his family.
John: And it was a white guy who had married a woman from Taiwan.
John: And so it was...
John: Him, her, and then her mother, and I think maybe her grandmother, and their little boy.
John: So it was kind of a big crowd.
John: And he was from Australia.
John: And we get off the train and he says, excuse me.
John: He wants to talk to me and I turn because that's what I do when someone hails me.
John: And he said, we got on the train going the wrong way and we wanted to go to the Pike Place Market.
John: Where do we catch the train to the Pike Place Market?
John: And I said, funny thing.
John: This train only goes two places.
John: You got on at stop A and you went to stop B. The only thing to do now is get back on and go back to stop A and then walk to the Pike Place Market.
John: And he was like, huh.
John: And the whole family kind of went, huh.
Merlin: John, did that story make him happy?
Yeah.
Merlin: It made me very unhappy.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: And that man and his family, that immigrant, that hardworking immigrant who came to America only discovered that this only goes to two places and you've been to both.
Merlin: Did he seem happy?
Merlin: Was his impression of Seattle higher after learning that there's a two-point monorail?
Merlin: No.
John: He said to himself, and it was in his face, you people are ding-a-lings.
Ha!
Merlin: I'm saying, John, this is exactly the kind of story that you should be telling when you're on the stump.
John: And so we decided at some point, we initially decided this 50 years ago, that Seattle needed a subway, even though Seattle doesn't need a subway.
John: Well, Seattle 60 years ago took all of our trolleys and cable cars out.
John: Yeah.
John: But, you know, I was too young at the time to make that case.
John: Anyway, we're building a subway right now.
John: A huge... That is so expensive.
John: A huge boondoggle.
John: It is billions of dollars.
John: And it's basically like the BART system in San Francisco when it originally opened.
John: Like, the BART system had, what, three stops?
John: It was one tube, and it went from point A to point B to point C. This is going to be that.
John: You can get on in the university district...
John: It has one stop on Capitol Hill and then it goes to downtown and connects to the light rail that goes out to the airport or whatever.
John: But between those, like the majority of the people in the city live between downtown and the university district.
John: And there is one stop between those two places.
John: One stop that is served by a high-speed elevator because at that point the train is going to be so deep underground.
Wow.
John: that you cannot access it except by getting on an elevator with other creeps and plummeting like my my mom said when she read this plan in the newspaper she was like i will never get on that fucking thing are you kidding i'm not even a claustrophobic person and the whole idea of that sounds so inconvenient yeah and claustrophobic that i would just lose my mind even trying to get on
John: Yeah, it's 2,000 feet underground, and the only way to get there is to get on an elevator, a high-speed elevator.
John: Like, okay, picture yourself.
John: It's 1130 at night, and you're waiting for an elevator on a public street to take you to the center of the earth to get on the street.
John: To go almost half a mile underground?
John: To go one stop.
John: And this is the plan, and there are billions being spent on this.
John: They are basically grinding up the bones of poor people to pay for this.
John: And I'm, I am like, so Seattle has a long, long history of public transit projects that only go one stop.
John: And I feel like the zip line fits right in with that.
John: It's like, it's like a Northwest mode.
John: Get on here.
John: And it's like an insane ride, but at least you can breathe the air and there's no one else on the – like you don't have to share your zip line.
Merlin: But it's going to cost like $200 to make.
Merlin: It's going to cost $200 to make a zip line versus probably $5 billion to have a tube that's half a mile under.
Merlin: That sounds like something – you know what?
Merlin: I bet it's a Paul Allen thing.
Merlin: That sounds like a supervillain thing, John, where you would get the city to make a high-speed elevator that goes half a mile underground to a tube.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: So he'll pick it up in a couple of years for like 20 bucks.
John: So here, here I am waiting for the elevator 1130 at night.
John: Here comes here.
John: Okay.
John: Shuffles up next to me.
John: A guy, six foot seven, who's carrying 14 garbage bags full of laundry.
John: And he's wearing a jacket that he has not taken off since 1970.
John: And he and I are going to get on this elevator together, and I'm going to feel safe and secure as we plummet down into Paul Allen's secret underground rocket base.
John: And we're going to go to the University District one-stop, which would be a five-minute zipline ride.
LAUGHTER
John: Five-minute, like, totally killer ass-kicking zipline ride.
John: Those people that travel around the world to go to crazy roller coasters, they would be – the Seattle – tourism would go up by half just from those people coming.
Merlin: And the thing is once you've spent $200 to $600 on this zip line, people are going to be so excited.
Merlin: They're going to realize the possibilities.
Merlin: I think you're going to see a grassroots campaign all over the city, the entire metropolitan area for local zip lines just to get you that one little – like that last mile from this to that.
John: Yeah, if there was a zipline and a Poma lift from my house to the grocery store, my neighborhood would be perfect.
John: I'd pay $200 for that.
John: Right?
John: Right?
John: Yeah.
John: And the thing about a Poma lift is, come on, there's hardly anything to it.
John: I mean, you might have to rent people rollerblades.
Yeah.
John: Because I don't remember whether... Yeah, a pommel lift requires that your feet be on the ground.
John: Uh-huh.
John: So you would... Basically, you would get... You'd rent people rollerblades at the bottom of the hill, get them on the pommel lift.
John: It would pull them up...
John: Up the hill on rollerblades.
John: And then they could zip line back down.
Merlin: I see.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Like the little line.
Merlin: You're talking about one of those lines you hold on the Donald Duck Hill.
Merlin: Like takes you up the hill.
John: One of those little ski lines.
John: Right.
John: On the Donald Duck Hill.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: It's like, it's called a, some people would call it a platter lift.
John: Although those people are, are, are yo-yos.
Merlin: So now all you have to do is, you know, get that guy reelected.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Well, I feel like... We probably shouldn't have talked about any of this, John.
Merlin: Is this going to endanger his chances, you having revealed so much of what the corridors of power are saying?
John: No, no, no.
John: I feel like the mayor has a good shot at it.
John: I feel like if the challenger, Ed Murray, gets elected, that's also fine for Seattle, and it's good.
John: He's a nice man.
John: And the thing about... And I like the mayor personally, and I think that he is a good mayor also...
John: But the reality is as they have – as the different factions have tried to cultivate my endorsement, it has – well, it has caused me to realize that I don't need anybody, right?
John: Like I don't need anybody.
John: My job consists of me sitting at this desk and playing Tetris.
John: So whoever is the mayor of Seattle, like like it could be Leon Trotsky and I would be fine because I don't I'm not I'm not trying to make I'm not trying to make like a coalition with anybody right now.
John: Because I haven't revealed my plan.
John: But if Ed Murray gets elected mayor, I don't think it imperils my chances to run for the city council at all.
John: In fact, I think a lot of these people who used to be working for the mayor are going to be looking for a new guy to get behind.
John: And if the mayor gets elected, reelected, then, you know, I've got like an entree to the corridors of power.
John: And I can start putting my plan into action.
John: I mean, and let me just say the zip lines and the palm lifts are just the beginning.
Merlin: I can only imagine.
Merlin: I think, but the thing is that would be, that would be a hit.
Merlin: The kids would love it.
Merlin: The rock and roll dads would like it.
Merlin: Uh, every, everybody would appreciate what it's doing for the city and it would really soften them up.
John: Oh my God, it would be so amazing.
Merlin: It would cost less than like, you know, a one day of light bulbs at city hall.
John: I'm trying to, I'm trying to figure out how much it costs to actually build a Poma lift.
John: And I don't think it's that much.
John: Um, and even if you count the roller blade rentals.
John: Yeah.
Yeah.
John: It's... Oh, my God.
John: Look at this.
John: Look at this.
John: Look at this pommelift company.
John: They have... They also make... Giant wheels.
John: Giant... What?
John: Giant... Whatchamacallits?
John: Ferris wheels.
John: Oh, are you kidding me?
John: They make pommelifts and ferris wheels and gondolas.
John: You need to start taking some meetings, my friend.
John: And...
John: What's the, uh, and, uh, uh, fluber, uh, Gostens, um, zipper zoinks.
John: They make, uh, fluber Gostens and zipper zoinks.
John: They make, um...
John: What is the train on an inclined track?
John: Why am I forgetting this name?
Merlin: Oh, like a European uphill train.
John: An uphill train.
John: It's got a great name.
John: And it's somebody, many, many people who are listening to this podcast are yelling the name at us right now.
Merlin: Are we really doing this?
John: And...
John: are we still talking about this uh and it is uh it is very annoying to me when i get to be so old that i cannot remember the name of the funicular oh so mad funicular so this company that makes poma lifts and merry-go-rounds and roller coasters and zippy zoinks also makes funiculars
Merlin: I think you should get behind any mode of transit that has a funny name.
Merlin: Subway.
Merlin: Subway is not a fun name.
John: No, but is there a funnier name than a funicular?
Merlin: No, no.
John: No, and Seattle, why Seattle doesn't have funiculars all over the place?
John: There's a funicular in Lisbon.
John: there's a there are many oh these are handsome john look at that oh yeah this is very old world it's there they're all over the place i have ridden many many funiculars around the world why does seattle not have a fucking funicular it's frankly it's embarrassing we should have dozens of funiculars you've got you've got soundgarden's van in a building somewhere yeah right soundgarden's van and chris baloo's shoes
John: spray painted gold are in a museum and we don't have a funicular not a funicular in sight it's it is it's a travesty and when i'm elected to the city council it's all going to change it starts with a little train i'm going to have an open door policy and i'm going to have an open trench coat policy
John: Your bell was across the room.
Merlin: No, no.