Ep. 101: "Where All the Lilypads Are"
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
Merlin: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: How's it going?
John: Good, how are you?
Merlin: I'm doing pretty well.
John: Wow, you sound good.
Merlin: My voice is a little high.
John: I haven't eaten.
John: You're using your Scott Simpson voice.
John: Hey, motor.
John: Oh, that's exciting.
John: I'm glad that we found a way to talk to each other today.
John: Yes.
Merlin: Yes, I am too.
Merlin: You've been busy.
Merlin: You had your big show.
John: I put on a show.
John: I hear good things.
John: I put on a show every time I walk out the door.
John: Jingle stick or no.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: Feathered headdress.
Merlin: The world is just a big presenium that you just enter and exit at your leisure.
John: Yep.
John: I stand out at the front, arms spread wide in a Jesus Christ pose, and I say, I am a golden god.
Merlin: I heard he does that in an homage to you.
Merlin: So you had your show at the rendezvous.
John: How'd it go?
John: I had the rendezvous show.
John: Well, it was a learning experience for me, a growing experience.
John: Learning and growing.
John: What I need to learn.
John: Here's what I don't know.
John: I do not know how to use 3x5 cards.
John: Hmm.
John: And I know that might sound strange to you, given how well you utilize 3x5 cards.
John: I hear them there.
John: But I never learned to use them.
John: I remember in... What would it have been?
Merlin: In junior high... Maybe fifth grade is where they first say, now you're going to make a topic statement and then an outline.
John: Yep, yep.
John: And in junior high, they really, really focused on it.
John: And I remember sitting on the floor...
John: surrounded by three by five cards and i had i'd done everything i could to number them and order them and and they just always got mixed up you know i'd start flipping through them and pretty soon they're all mixed up in the in crazy order and it never made any sense to me my mom was a three by five card user or at least she knew how to do it but three by five cards have always baffled me i've never learned how to employ them
John: the things that I end up writing on three by five cards are always just random and useless.
John: When I'm standing in front of a crowd, I looked at, you don't know what it means later.
John: Yeah.
John: I look at it.
John: It's just like, it says ballpoint pen.
John: And it's like, that's that.
John: I I'm not referring to that in my speech.
John: I don't know what I'm talking.
John: Why did I write that down?
John: And now you're off your game.
John: Cause you're thinking about pens.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, so, so that's the problem.
John: I, I, I,
John: I needed some notes.
John: I wrote some notes.
John: And then the notes were a constant distraction to me.
John: Because periodically I would look over to the lectern at my list of notes.
John: And it was just like I couldn't read my own handwriting.
John: And also I didn't know what I meant by the things I'd written down.
John: So that's something I need to learn how to do.
John: I need to learn how to bullet point notes.
John: a presentation and then use those bullet points to effectively jog the speech in my mind.
Merlin: Can we circle back to index cards?
Merlin: I want to hear about your show, but I actually, I think you just described a phenomenon that is really damaging to a lot of people who could be very creative.
Merlin: And I'd like to circle back to that, because I don't want to take you off the game with your show, but I got a lot to say about what you're describing here.
John: Yeah, well, see, I'm hoping to get your insight and your wisdom, because I know that you do.
John: I know that you... See, this is the thing.
John: To get up and give an hour-long presentation where you have no... There is no, like... You're not a guest on somebody else's show.
John: You are not...
John: hiding behind your guitar.
John: You are not the, you are not an opener for something.
John: You are not, there is no context other than I am here doing a show.
John: I'm walking out on stage.
John: I'm going to give an hour long show.
John: This is something I know you've done.
John: And for me, I've always had a guitar or have been part of a larger production.
John: And to get up and say, like, I am going to entertain you with nothing else other than my own thoughts for an hour.
John: It requires a little bit of organization.
Merlin: But like, do you make a set list for the band?
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: I think a set list is a terrific example of – I'm going to re-uncircle back because I think this is worth talking about and jump in any point with the show.
Merlin: So right tool for the job is what it comes down to.
Merlin: There's a bigger pattern here, but the little pattern is that you discover which tools work for you, I think.
Merlin: So a set list has been –
Merlin: for years has been a classic for a simple reason.
Merlin: I mean, it's really, everybody understands what it's for.
Merlin: They understand what order the songs are in, unless you're the drummer and you might need some special explanations sometimes.
Merlin: You need little stars and numbers by the song.
Merlin: Hey John, these are all names of our songs.
John: I know.
John: See the little number by that?
John: That means you use sticks on this one.
Merlin: That's your name, dude.
Merlin: So I think that that's a really good example because what do you really need to know?
Merlin: So you know how your songs go.
Merlin: You know how they start and end.
Merlin: The thing that you need is the...
Merlin: like, like my dad, the job that my dad used to have in radio was called traffic and which is not how cars are moving.
Merlin: It was basically how you fill time.
Merlin: And so my dad, like a lot of people in broadcasting had the very unsexy job of sitting there with a stopwatch and figuring out exactly how many seconds each thing took.
Merlin: And did they read the announcements at this time?
Merlin: And all that kind of stuff.
Merlin: Like,
Merlin: David Letterman used to be a booth announcer at a TV station.
Merlin: Same job.
Merlin: Super boring.
Merlin: But it's really – it's kind of about transitions in some ways.
Merlin: And I think in some ways you could think of a set list as that.
Merlin: Yeah, it's a list of the songs that we're going to play.
Merlin: That's what people want to take home and put on their dorm wall and stuff.
Merlin: But to you, it's a cue of what the next thing is.
Merlin: And then you don't have to think about it again until that song is just about over and you look out of the corner of your eye and you don't even have to write the full name of the song down.
Merlin: Because you know how – if you just wrote down –
Merlin: medicine like you'd know what song that is right do you see what i'm saying though like i think you may be a quote-unquote index card person already it's just that you have been probably poisoned by the same system that i was poisoned by which is you know
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I think there are some people who think in very different ways.
Merlin: There are many books about this.
Merlin: Some people are analysts.
Merlin: Some people are synthesists.
Merlin: And some people can do both.
Merlin: There are some people, though, who like to see the whole problem finished and know what it looks like.
Merlin: And are able to like make a thing without having to analyze it.
Merlin: Like they know what the whole thing is.
Merlin: So I was really embarrassed at the time, fifth, sixth, seventh grade.
Merlin: Well, really just in general.
Merlin: But I was really embarrassed because I thought I was the only person in the world who wrote the essay first and then made an outline after they wrote an essay and then reverse engineered the index cards.
Merlin: from the outline because that's what you had to hand in.
Merlin: They wanted to see you show your work, right?
Merlin: I think that's really stifling to some people.
Merlin: If somebody can write an essay, let them write a goddamn essay.
Merlin: You could get so obsessed with teaching that person this one little unit on how to use index cards to write a report that you really end up scotching their creativity by not letting them make things the way they don't even realize they already know how to make it.
Merlin: So now you make them think that they're a dumbass because they don't know how to use index cards.
Merlin: I think that happens a lot in schools.
John: I completely forgot why they even made us use index cards.
John: And now you've just reminded me, yes, of course, they were trying to get us to use index cards to organize our thoughts to write a paper.
John: Yeah.
John: And I was exactly like you.
John: Of course I know what I want to say.
John: I'm just going to write it.
John: It's not rocket science.
Merlin: You just write it.
John: Sit down and write an essay.
John: I didn't have to organize my thoughts on index cards.
John: And then I had to like dummy up, I had to gin up these index cards to pretend like I had used them.
John: You had to like cook the books.
John: Yeah.
John: But that's actually what, so this is what, so this is my preparation for my show was I sat down and I wrote a 2,500 word humorous essay.
Okay.
John: And then I read it, and I liked it.
John: It's been a quiet week in Lake Seattle.
John: That's exactly right.
John: 2,500 word humor.
John: That's a woebegone.
John: And the theme of it was, two kinds of people in this world.
John: Winners, losers.
Don't, don't, ticka, ticka, don't, don't, ticka, ticka.
John: And so then I read it and I liked it and I honed it as I do until I really liked it.
John: And then I read it and I was like, oh, but I can't memorize this 2,500 word essay.
John: Like if I was coming up with a show that I was going to do like a rock band set list where I was going to do it
John: 30 times, I was going to take this show on the road and I was going to do it 30 times.
John: Then, yeah, I would sit and spend three weeks memorizing my presentation.
John: And then I would go out and the first couple of nights would be a little bit rough and I'd be looking at my cue cards.
John: But then I would get my show and then I would do it 30 times.
John: But what I am trying to do is do a show a week.
John: And memorizing an essay isn't my forte.
John: And so then I was like, hmm, maybe the show should be that I just sit on a stool and read my dramatic essay.
John: And I thought about that, and I read it out loud a couple of times, and I was like, well, no.
John: First of all, I'm bad at reading essays aloud.
John: It's not fun.
John: I don't like it.
John: And also, I don't think that's entertaining.
John: Watch a guy sit on a stool and read his essay.
John: It's a little bit PBS.
John: So I was like, no, no, no.
John: I wrote the essay to get my thoughts going, and now I'm just going to get up on stage.
John: I'm going to extemporize based on having written this essay.
John: And I thought about that for another day or two.
John: And then I sat down and I wrote a second 2,500-word essay.
John: Because when I read the first one aloud, it only lasted 15 minutes.
John: And I was like, oh, I guess I need 5,000 words.
John: So I wrote a second essay, which I also liked, which I also did not intend to memorize.
John: And then when I got up on stage...
John: I basically got up there and spent an hour trying to recall the two essays I'd written.
John: And, you know, so I'd be, I'd be talking along.
John: I'd be like, and then, and then in my mind, a voice would say, you had a really, really funny way of putting this in your essay.
John: And I'm talking, I'm still telling the story, but half of my attention is devoted to trying to recall the funny way that I had of saying the next thing I'm about to say.
John: Which, of course, I could not recall.
John: I couldn't lay my hands on the funny turn of phrase.
John: So when I got to the place in the story where I was trying to recall the funny turn of phrase, I bumbled through it like a guy trying to walk up a muddy road.
John: Right.
John: Like, you know, I jump over onto this rock and then I see like, oh, there's a rock over there and I jump but I miss or it's not a rock, it's a puddle.
John: And so the whole show, I'm feeling this state of handicapitude where I have on my computer sitting feet away from me
John: in a bag, two very humorous essays.
Merlin: It's like you have a headache and you're just holding two aspirin against your head and nothing's happening.
John: And now I'm trying to basically impart the gist of these two humorous essays to a room full of people who have paid to watch me entertain them.
John: And so when I walked off the stage, I was like, okay, good learning experience.
John: First lesson, you cannot recall
John: your essays when you're on stage and knowing that you've written them and having them in the briefcase next to you there is no osmosis that gets the the funniness of them to you and also they're just a distraction like i'm up there if i had if i'd been standing on the stage totally cold and your voice from the back of the room had said
John: Bananas.
Merlin: Oh, I know.
Merlin: You could have done three hours.
John: Yeah.
John: Oh, I've got a funny story about bananas.
John: And then I would have had no... There would have been no effort.
John: But instead, I had prepared just enough to hobble myself.
John: Because part of me, part of my brain was tied to the idea that I had already done this better somewhere.
Merlin: That's entertaining to watch.
John: Well...
John: And I don't think the crowd, I don't think the audience would have noticed or, I mean, you know, my mom was like, at one point I could see you visibly trying to recall something on stage.
John: And I was like, now that's entertainment.
John: I had a slice of pie once.
John: What sort of pie was it?
John: Let me just stand up here and try and recall a funny anecdote.
Merlin: Was that Uncle Morris or Uncle Wesley Morris?
Merlin: Oh, no, I want to get it right.
John: And I feel like after a little bit of a rough start, I did surrender to the idea that I was just going to try and recapture the fun of telling these stories in real time.
John: I mean, I don't think I traumatized the audience.
John: And in fact, the great hack of this show...
John: There are a few hacks.
John: First hack is the room has a 75 person capacity.
John: So it's an intimate environment.
John: Although when I walked out on stage, it was not as intimate as I thought.
Merlin: How much distance is there?
Merlin: Well, first of all, how high is the stage and how far is it from the first row of seats?
John: The stage is three feet high and it is one and a half feet from the first row.
John: seat that's intimate so but there were 80 people in the room right and so that is just beyond the you know the the people toward the middle of the of the hall start to fade into the mist like there are there are enough people here that i can't just i can't just look down and address everybody by name
John: But the double hack of this was an idea that I cribbed from Hodgman, which is at the end of the night I said, I'm going to read out the URL.
John: I'm going to do a dramatic reading of the URL right now.
John: B-I-T dot L-Y slash.
John: And I read out the URL for the ticket link for the next show.
John: And I said, for the next 24 hours, this link is only open to people in this room.
John: Here's the code word.
John: Here's the password.
John: And so for 24 hours, only people here have the ability to buy tickets to the next show.
John: Wow.
John: You get grandfathered in.
John: That's right.
John: So if you were here at the first show and you want to keep going to the, to the shows, then you are, you know, you have first right of refusal.
Merlin: John, that's psychology.
John: Isn't that nice?
John: It's, it creates a sense of false scarcity.
John: That's so important today.
John: It really is.
John: People like a little bit of scarcity, even if they know it's false, but I gotta go.
John: I gotta get, I gotta get it.
John: I gotta get the fucking ticket.
Yeah.
John: But I woke up the next morning and the show had sold out.
John: The next show is already sold out.
John: It sold out before the tickets went on sale.
John: God bless John Hodgman.
John: Isn't that a nice idea?
John: That's a good trick.
John: It's a very good trick.
John: And so this mention of it here on the podcast is the last time I will ever credit John Hodgman for the idea.
Merlin: He gets a lot of credit for things as it is John.
John: He really does.
John: And he probably stole it from somebody.
John: I don't know.
John: Maybe he thought it up.
John: He was a pretty smart guy.
John: But I'm not crediting him anymore.
John: And I hope when the Wikipedia entry written in 2025 – For reading Bitly links aloud.
John: For dramatic Bitly readings will credit me with innovation.
John: John Roderick's primary contribution to Western culture is this idea that he stole from somebody whose name is lost to history.
Merlin: This brilliant innovation notwithstanding, John would frequently just repeat one word as the chorus for a song.
Merlin: he's known for more than one culture additive.
John: You know what we do?
John: We get in our own way.
John: That's the thing.
John: Yes, I was in my own way.
John: It was like I was on stage and I kept standing in front of me and then there was a third me that was trying to move me and the other me around.
Merlin: Interrupting people on stage is, let's be honest, a John Hodgman innovation.
Merlin: He's very good at that.
Merlin: You're getting an email because you dinged him just now.
Merlin: Oh no, he doesn't listen to our podcast.
John: Good.
Merlin: No, I think he does actually.
Merlin: That's all right.
John: Um, uh, but you know, but I'm sorry, go ahead.
John: Well, so, so, so as I thought about the show, I was like, the thing is I like writing the 2,500 word essay.
John: I, I enjoy that.
John: And not only do I enjoy it, but when I'm done, I have a 2,500 word essay that I wrote, which gives me a feeling of accomplishment.
John: And so I write it and I enjoy the process of like, what, that, that word isn't quite funny enough.
John: Like, how do I, how do I punch that up?
John: Oh, right.
John: And then I find the funnier way of like, I like that.
John: But there's not enough time every week to memorize all the funny turns of phrase.
John: And having written it out and made it funny, I have kind of removed it from the realm of...
Merlin: like extemporaneous story that i'm just coming up with and you're a very colorful speaker just listening to you talking about your experience with united airlines at ctec i've listened to that episode that especially that first episode of uh thank you for calling i've listened to that twice just for how articulate you are at telling this particular miserable story and your terms of phrase are fantastic you didn't write that out well you might have written it out i don't know but
Merlin: But you're awfully good at that.
Merlin: It's one reason people, I think, enjoy this program is you are a wonderful extemporaneous storyteller.
Merlin: And anything that would get between you and getting to the point where you're speaking comfortably, you know, I mean, this is what I want to learn.
John: And this is the learning and growing part.
John: Like, I know that I can get up in front of a room of people and say, and basically, you know, say, give me an animal.
John: A cat!
John: Give me a city!
John: St.
John: Louis!
John: Alright, let me tell you a story about a cat in St.
John: Louis.
John: You know, I know I... I just need to decide which one.
John: But, yeah, exactly.
John: How many cat stories from St.
John: Louis do I have?
John: Let's see.
John: Let's just limit it to the 80s.
John: But what I want to do is I want to develop my... I want to develop into... Like, the whole point of doing this show is to develop a new skill.
John: And what I would – what I want that skill to be, what my goal is, is that I do some preparation, period.
John: I do some preparation and I know what I'm doing.
John: I go into it with a little bit of preparation.
John: And so –
Merlin: So you want to get in your own way a little bit.
Merlin: And in order to grow, you have to do something more.
Merlin: And it's something that everybody falls into.
Merlin: Like, you know, God bless Bob Dylan.
Merlin: If he hadn't started annoying Pete Seeger with electric music, we would have had a real different idea of rock and roll.
Merlin: Boy, you're good.
Merlin: See, extemporaneous.
Merlin: But you want to get in your way just enough to be able to – you're trying to put a little sand in to generate a little pearl, right?
Merlin: Something new.
John: Exactly.
John: Well, a couple of years ago, Paul F. Tompkins – I saw a couple of Paul F. Tompkins shows.
John: We may have talked about this before.
Mm-mm.
John: I saw a couple of Paul F. Tompkins shows where he was evolving his act away from straight stand-up, and he was going into this long-form storytelling where he started off, and he did an hour-long show, and the entire show was basically the story of his job history before he became a comic.
John: Like...
John: all of the shit jobs that he had when he was a teenager and in his early twenties.
John: And so that is like,
John: basically any Roderick on the line episode and any night at a cocktail party with either you or me, right?
John: Like, Oh, you, you want to, you want an hour long, like disquisition.
John: Uh, you might want to get a couple drinks and grab a seat because let me tell you about my first five jobs or whatever, but what somebody say bus boy.
John: Oh, I know from bus boy.
John: Yeah.
John: How many people in the room have ever worked at a goal?
John: But watching Paul do his show, it was evident that his 20 years of stand-up comedy was greatly informing his storytelling.
John: His comic timing...
John: was you know not just impeccable but also the laugh lines of the stories were not what you they it wasn't built around like here comes the story here comes the story and it's coming up to the end and the end is going to be funny and then there's the the end it was much more like he's telling the story and then there would be a little detail and
John: And it would be the biggest laugh line of the night.
John: But it wasn't, the laugh lines were all kind of like these polyps.
John: And the thread of the story continued underneath.
John: And, you know, the end of the story, and like you were saying, the transitions between this story and the next story were these seamless kind of, you know, he didn't, it wasn't a case where he just said, well, and then two years later, I got another job.
John: Like, it all wove together.
John: That's so much harder to do than it looks.
John: incredibly hard to do.
John: And so I'm sitting in the audience at these shows, I'm watching him work and I'm like, okay, he has gone full circle from years and years of standing up and saying, you know, what's the deal with rutabagas and like doing standup.
John: He's evolved and found this long form storytelling that is amazing.
John: that's really like a thing that I've, that I do and have been doing my whole life.
John: Long form humorous storytelling, taking over a corner of a, of a party and, you know, and going on these sort of long humorous digressions.
John: But he has, but all of the work he's done in, in comedy and all his stage time.
John: And obviously the preparation that's gone into making this one show, like,
John: It allows him to have the appearance of just extemporaneously telling a story, but he knows every note of it.
John: And so he still allows for the opportunity of chance, right?
John: He can still respond to somebody in the crowd.
John: He can still go off on a tangent.
John: But he knows where all the lily pads are.
Mm-hmm.
John: And so watching it, more than anything, I was like, that is so outside of my skill.
John: That is so above my skill level, what he's doing.
John: But I recognized the framework.
John: And I mean, this is the danger that people have when they watch a stand-up comic.
John: They're like, I could do that.
John: But I could see the architecture of it.
John: And I saw how far I had to go, how much I had to learn.
John: And so for the last year, I've tried, I've had multiple opportunities to get up and do extemporaneous storytelling.
John: And I've, I have probably done it now a dozen times where I've gotten up and told a half hour story that I was making up off the top of my head.
John: Not the, not the stories.
John: Of course, they're all 100% true.
John: Yes.
John: But the storytelling.
Yes.
John: And now I want to switch gears, Merlin, and I want to get better at a thing where I'm crafting a thing, but I don't know how.
John: I don't know what to do next.
John: And when you try and ask Paul F. Tompkins about it, it's like, you know, it's like asking a magician to show you how to cut a lady in half.
Merlin: He's like, ha ha ha, yes, storytelling is funny anyway.
Merlin: I bet it's something, well, first of all, I mean, it's, I think it's,
Merlin: High time.
Merlin: You did this.
Merlin: I'm glad you're doing this.
Merlin: It's – I've been an advocate for a long time for you realizing how talented and potentially gifted, as horrible as a human being as you are, that you are really so awfully talented at these things.
Merlin: It's nice to see you giving yourself the chance to do that and it's nice to see –
Merlin: When you appear on stage by yourself, if you're up there with a band and rocking out, if one is up there with a band and rocking out, that's one thing.
Merlin: And you could modulate your performance for how the sound in the room is, but you're not really...
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I feel like when I've done music performances, I'm not changing that much based on how people's faces look, on how they're responding.
Merlin: There's not that much that I even can change that much.
Merlin: But it so much changes when you're looking at that audience.
Merlin: When we did our show, we were talking about this.
Merlin: We did those two shows.
Merlin: And just the chance to do this with you in front of people, I immediately realized stuff we had to change the second night.
Merlin: Not in a bad way, but like, oh, duh, there's a bunch of people in the audience.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And like they're part of the bit.
Merlin: Yeah, no good pretending they're not there.
Merlin: We can't – no.
Merlin: No, they won't go away.
Merlin: They're still here.
Merlin: But that's – I mean that sounds so silly but it takes a certain amount of empathy and the ability to open yourself up.
Merlin: And eventually, I guess you open yourself up in very selective ways when you get really good, once you get good at that craft.
Merlin: But it does take – it's certainly a very different skill.
Merlin: To call it just the same kind of performing is really missing the point.
Merlin: It's a very different kind of much more personal thing to be up there by yourself having to carry the whole room.
John: Well, and what was funny is about halfway through the show, I recognized that I was adopting a kind of Todd Berry-like deadpan.
John: Just to take Todd Berry and Paul F. Tompkins as two examples, Todd uses this super low affect as a great sort of comedic wedge.
John: And he becomes, I think what I was seeing is that every comedian I know, every performer that gets up and does a one person show, like they find a way to make their character sympathetic, make the person on stage a person that everyone in the audience can empathize with.
John: And so somehow Todd Berry makes this like,
John: really low affect, disagreeable, you know, a status conscious character that he presents.
John: Like, you're on his side, right?
John: And Paul F. Tompkins is very animated and friendly.
John: He appears to be a guy that you would want to know and be friends with.
John: You're on stage.
Merlin: You want to put him on a keychain.
Merlin: He's so cute.
John: He is cute.
John: You're on stage thing when you give your presentations at, uh, you know, uh, your, your, uh, inbox zero presentations, or, I mean, you're, when you get up on stage and do your thing, you know, you, your character is like the guy that everybody in the room, you know, wishes would come into their office and, and be there with them for an hour.
John: You know, like you are the one, you're the guy that they all want to be.
John: Right.
Right.
John: And my thing standing on stage with the rock band...
John: Like I, the guitar and the song was, was so active.
John: And so there was so much life in the music that then I could be this kind of wry voice in between songs where I would just, you know, I kind of talked to the audience like this in this voice and just say, Oh, you think that was good?
John: Well, fuck you.
John: Why don't you fucking shut up for a second?
Okay.
John: And then go back into the song where it's like, yeah!
John: And the tension and the contrast was exciting and it's part of why that character worked.
John: But as I was doing this hour, I heard myself and was conscious of this persona where I'm kind of talking to the audience like this for an hour.
John: And
John: And it raised all these questions of like, well, who is this guy?
John: Like, this isn't how I talk to my three-year-old.
John: And if I'm standing somewhere and trying to get a bunch of people's attention, like, I can tell a very animated story.
John: But because I have everyone's attention already in this room and it's a quiet room and nobody's talking but me, I'm, you know, I'm all the way down here at this sort of like, and then, so then anyway, and then I said this and then I said that and I was like, oh, do I need to, do I need to turn the, turn the energy up a little bit on me?
John: Like be a little bit more excited about my own story?
John: I don't know.
John: That's another thing I need to... The thing is I cannot bear to listen or watch myself perform.
John: I should be reviewing game day tapes.
Merlin: I should be watching these shows and saying like, oh... That's the one thing of mine I really...
Merlin: I can listen to podcasts I've been on.
Merlin: I can even listen to music I've done, but I don't like watching myself alone on stage doing a thing.
Merlin: It's not embarrassing to me, but it does – it makes me self-conscious in a way that I'm not sure is good.
Merlin: I mean to me it's how it feels in the room.
Merlin: It needs to feel a certain way in the room, which means, yes, it means that I need to feel a certain way in the room.
Merlin: But I think especially in comedy, quote-unquote comedy, one of the problems is that –
Merlin: I don't know how to describe this.
Merlin: It's almost like people think that they can win the room over by controlling the temperature of the room and making it hotter and colder.
Merlin: But you kind of also have to have these much more subtle and ineffable qualities of controlling the humidity and the barometric pressure.
Merlin: There's this ability to like, it's like kegling or something.
Merlin: You discover this muscle you didn't even know you had.
John: I tried kegling and I discovered I didn't have that muscle.
Merlin: I think you have to act like you're stopping peeing or you can get a little barbell.
Merlin: I do that all the time.
John: Stop peeing?
John: No, I just act like I'm stopping peeing.
John: I keep peeing.
Merlin: You sure you're not a Buddhist?
Merlin: I control the humidity there.
John: What I do is I go into men's rooms and I act like I'm stopping peeing of all the guys around me.
Merlin: You're carrying a ladder and a bell.
John: I just stand in the back and I'm like, stop peeing, stop peeing.
Merlin: But it's super interesting to me how – it's what makes me want to do lots more live stuff because I think I know what you're saying is that you discover this person emerging through these little minute trial and error things.
Merlin: And I can only imagine how much more I would learn if I did that every week or every two weeks or whatever, where I feel like by the time I'm ready to get off stage at some kind of a live performance, I feel like I'm just barely starting to understand.
Merlin: I'm loosening up.
Merlin: warming up and i'm getting out of my own way and i'm letting silence float when it needs to float i'm knowing when to run out and do something goofy but i i but suddenly it takes a while for me because i don't do it all the time whereas somebody like paul thomkins or whomever can just walk out and you know immediately they the energy in the room changes when they come out because they're a presence they know they are empathetic i don't know how another better word than that empathetic
Merlin: They can see themselves in the audience watching it and knowing what they should be doing.
Merlin: And part of it is probably that you can't explain that to somebody.
Merlin: You've just got to go and do it a lot.
Merlin: It's like that one Saturday morning when you wake up and can suddenly play bar chords.
Merlin: You can tell somebody, put your fingers here, and then they can do it a whole bunch, and eventually it gets less hard.
Merlin: But honestly, one day I could do a bar chord.
Merlin: The day before, I couldn't.
Merlin: I don't know why, but it was just – I don't know why it was that Saturday rather than the one before or the one after, but that was the difference.
Merlin: You know what it was?
Merlin: The Greys.
Merlin: Oh, the guys with the alien guys?
John: Yeah, the Greys came into your room.
Merlin: They said he's ready.
John: And they said, let's, you know, let's upload the Matrix program for bar chords.
John: Whoa, I know bar chords.
John: Whoa.
John: Right.
John: Well, and so like Kurt Braunahler, do you know this comedian?
John: He's a very funny comedian.
Yeah.
John: Uh, I did a couple of shows with him, uh, in the fall where he got up in like cold in front of a room that was, it was one of these shows where it was like, ah, there's 10 guys.
John: It was the Wesley Stace, uh, cabinet of wonders.
John: Right.
John: It's like, all right, a British guy is going to get up and play two folk songs.
John: And then there's going to be, uh, you know, a guy who's playing wine glasses and then there's going to be the juggler.
John: And then the comedian gets five minutes.
John: And he walks out and he, you know, he's in this incredible position of trying to present to the room like this casual comedian affect.
John: where right away you're going to be on board listening to him tell his story.
John: And he also was doing this, what I can only think is like a new movement in comedy, which is like, a funny thing happened to me on the way over here.
John: And told a story, you know, a 10-minute long story that was, that again, had all these elements of joke-making that showed
John: Ten years in the comedy trenches or longer of kind of knowing where jokes, knowing how jokes live.
John: But the framework of it was just the anecdotal storytelling.
John: And so...
John: There's all this work that's obviously gone into this art form that they've done the work so now they can forget it.
John: And I have done a lot of that work.
John: But it's a patchwork quilt.
John: And so these shows, this last show that I did and my goal for the shows for the next six months is to get up there and really, you know, like a lot of people congratulated me after the show.
John: Everybody was very happy.
John: Obviously, everybody that was there bought a ticket to the next one.
John: or or they they called their friends and said i can't go but you should or whatever like it's like selling tickets isn't isn't something i'm worried about at least for now so i have the opportunity to get up there and fail but my god getting up and failing is not fun even if you know everybody in the room is like doesn't matter to us go for it hey that was um that was that was good
Merlin: Like when you get that, you ever get that?
Merlin: Well, that was, uh, that was good.
John: That was good.
John: I mean, you know, there were a couple of like, yeah, that, uh, that story went a little long, but you know, it was really good.
John: I was like, fuck you.
John: But, but, but I expected it, you know, and even, even the guy from the guy from the rendezvous who runs the AV, the, the, the dude up, I mean, there's one microphone, right?
John: So he's up there.
John: He's just got his hand on the fader through the whole show.
Yeah.
John: one fader, but like he came back right afterwards.
John: I'm sitting in the backstage area and he came back to, I don't know, sharpen his pencil or something.
John: And, and I'm looking at this guy for some kind of validation.
John: Like, well, well, you know, I don't know your name, but tell me how I did.
John: And he's just, he's just one around back there.
John: Like need anything.
John: Right.
John: Yeah.
John: Need anything.
John: And I'm like, no, I'm good.
John: And he's like, okay.
John: And he walks out.
John: I'm like,
Merlin: Fuck.
Merlin: No thumbs up.
Merlin: No, nothing.
Merlin: Fuck.
Merlin: I didn't win that guy.
Merlin: I didn't like, I didn't change his life.
Merlin: That's so funny to me that you would feel that way.
Merlin: That's so funny.
John: You know, it's terrible, but, but, but also I'm, I'm, I'm also, I'm also monitoring myself, uh, uh, through the whole process where I'm like, okay, calm, calm down now.
John: Uh, Richard Pryor, like you just did one show.
John: Right.
John: And the AV guy didn't put a Hawaiian lay around your neck.
John: You're fine.
John: Just, just,
Merlin: I've gotten so philosophical about this.
Merlin: I mean, your daughter walks, right?
Merlin: Does she walk around?
John: Oh, she likes to walk.
Merlin: So, yeah.
Merlin: Actually, I've seen video of her walking around.
Merlin: She goes from here to there.
Merlin: But, you know, the first time that a child – this is the ultimate obvious on-the-nose analogy because that's not even an analogy.
Merlin: But the first time a kid tries to walk for a really long time and falls down and you applaud them for trying to walk.
Merlin: And eventually one day – I never did.
Merlin: I was like, get up!
Merlin: You are weak.
Merlin: Get up!
Merlin: Look at this chart.
Merlin: You know where you don't want to live, buddy?
Merlin: 48th percentile.
Merlin: That is no place to live.
John: My mom wrote down the day that I first walked, and you are 2% behind already.
Merlin: But eventually one day the kid walks for a while and you freak because you're like, oh my god, this is great.
Merlin: It's great.
Merlin: It's great.
Merlin: And then for a long time, the kid doesn't walk very well, but the kid walks.
Merlin: And then eventually the kid walks and so on and so forth.
Merlin: And that's kind of how I feel about a live performance where I used to really – I don't know.
Merlin: It's not even superstition.
Merlin: I kind of don't like talking to people about what I just did.
Merlin: It feels undignified.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I like it when people come up and say they like it.
Merlin: It makes me feel good.
Merlin: But I don't even want to parse it.
Merlin: It's done.
Merlin: It's done now.
Merlin: And for me, it's just a matter of doing that over and over and over.
Merlin: And I got to a point where I didn't worry about what the sound guy thought when doing talks and stuff.
Merlin: And it made me a happier person.
Merlin: It also made me, I think, a little bit better at kind of –
Merlin: I'm not trying to – I mean obviously you're way more of a performer than I'll ever be.
Merlin: But at the same time, like there's something nice about getting to the point where you go, thanks.
Merlin: I'm glad you enjoyed it and then you go on to the next thing.
Merlin: But for me, like I kind of felt like that person who can – I can walk and I can walk pretty well and it can walk a little bit fancy sometimes.
Merlin: But it's just a matter of doing the walking every day.
Merlin: Just doing that every, every, every, every day.
Merlin: And eventually, like, I'll know when I'm good.
Merlin: It won't matter.
Merlin: I mean, I'm glad you like it, but what matters is whether I think it's good.
Merlin: And when I know it's good, it won't matter if you didn't like it.
Merlin: That's – to me, that's kind of – that's the good place to be.
Merlin: Not to be arrogant, but, you know, again, we're back to the whole check your privilege thing.
Merlin: Like, if you actually are good at something, it's –
Merlin: it's like Harrison Bergeron, you know, like nobody's allowed to be good at anything anymore.
Merlin: And you certainly aren't aware.
Merlin: You sure aren't allowed to be aware if you're good.
Merlin: But if you get to a point where you like don't need to glance across everybody in the room to find out whether you're happy with how you did, well, you do it because it's what you do and you just keep going out and doing it.
Merlin: It makes me really want to do that stuff more to get to where it really is about the craft.
Merlin: And there's always going to be another one.
Merlin: That's the thing.
Merlin: You're always going to do more of these.
John: Right.
John: Well, and this was the thing that, I mean, watching Paul F. Tompkins do his show a couple of years ago, I was very, very conscious that the apparent ease and effortlessness of his work
John: Surely every night invites five to ten people to come up to him in the bar afterwards and talk to him about their storytelling talents.
John: You know what I mean?
John: Like it seems so easy.
John: And so.
John: So people are duped.
John: into thinking it's easy.
John: And so I was very careful not to... And the problem was it's impossible because I'm standing there with Paul afterwards and I want to tell him about how I like to tell stories and how inspirational this was.
John: I recognize that he hears it all the time.
John: And unlike guitar playing and rock banding, you get off the stage at a rock concert, yeah, there are going to be five or six guys that come up and talk to you about their band.
John: But there are so many things you have to do before your band is headlining a show that you can listen to a guy talk about his band and his guitar playing and all of the things that all his aspirations.
John: And then at the end, you can kind of just, you know, pat him on the shoulder and go, well, good luck, buddy.
John: I hope good things happen to your band.
John: But with storytelling.
Merlin: Thank you in that Eugene Merman anecdote.
Merlin: About, you know, that was really good.
Merlin: Now go do it for 10 years.
John: Yeah, exactly.
John: Go do it for 10 years.
John: And the thing about it is the burden of entry to get up in front of a crowd and hold a microphone in your hand, there is none.
John: Like, anybody can do it.
John: Anybody can take that first step onto the stage holding a microphone.
John: And the question is, does the audience leave an hour later entertained?
John: So when I walked off the stage the other night,
John: And people wanted to talk to me about it.
John: as much as I, as much as I, you know, wanted feedback, I didn't need any.
John: And what I kept playing in my own head, what I kept going back to, because, you know, I want to, I want to criticize my own show and turn it into a pile of wet ashes.
John: That's my instinct.
John: Like to go through each moment of the show and be like, uh, wet ashes, wet ashes, wet ashes.
Um,
John: What I kept saying to myself as I'm sitting backstage was, a year ago...
John: You were, you know, like massively depressed.
John: You were 40 pounds overweight.
John: And the prospect of actually getting up on stage, actually booking a show and following through on it was like an insurmountable obstacle.
John: You couldn't imagine doing it.
John: And...
John: four months ago you said you set some uh some goal and in a way like the first time i ever first time in a very long time i actually wrote a goal down on a piece of paper and it was a little handful of of goals that all uh that all dovetailed with each other like find an assistant rent an office space book a weekly show and
John: and in the in the tension and the anxiety leading up to this first show it was very difficult to to take pride in having taken any of those steps because it seemed like oh sure you got an office but the but they put some chemical sealant on the floor and you can't be in there because it gives you allergies and you know yeah you said about trying to find an assistant but now now you have four assistants and it's and uh
John: And three times the anxiety.
John: And oh, you booked a show, sure.
John: But between now and when the show starts, maybe your pants are going to catch on fire.
John: Or maybe the world is going to come to an end.
John: And sitting backstage, what I was allowing myself was...
John: In fact, you have accomplished the goals that you set out to do.
Merlin: You gave yourself that.
Merlin: You allowed yourself that.
John: In that moment, I was like, do not turn this show that you just did into wet ashes.
John: Now is the time to reflect on the fact that you have an office.
John: You have an assistant.
John: In fact, you have two assistants.
John: You still have two assistants?
John: Maybe more.
John: I may have four assistants.
John: Two of the assistants I haven't met yet.
John: I've definitely met two of my assistants.
John: And most importantly, you have you have you booked a weekly show and you have now done the first one.
John: So no matter what happened, if I if you know.
John: And the fact is, like, not only did the show, but like succeeded at it.
John: If I'd gotten up there and just stuttered for an hour.
John: I could be proud of having taken all those steps.
John: And in fact, I got up and I entertained the crowd and everybody laughed.
John: And so sold out to the next one.
John: Well, and so, and that was before I knew that.
John: Right.
John: And so I was sitting there and I was like, listen, maybe you're going to sell 20 tickets to the next show in advance.
John: And then you're going to have to promote it and get, you know, put 50 more people in there, but that's not going to be hard to do.
John: And over time, this will build.
John: And maybe, uh,
John: At some point, there will be a lull five months from now, and nobody will come, but you just keep doing this.
John: This is the trail.
John: And a year from now, you will know.
John: A year from now, something will have revealed itself.
John: And so I allowed myself that, and every time the voice came into my head that was like, you know that you butchered the show last night, and everyone in the room that used to be a fan of yours now realizes that you are a charlatan.
John: Every time that voice speaks with a Welsh accent.
John: Welcome to 3 a.m.
John: at my house every day.
John: It's very hard for me to describe that character because he speaks Welsh, but...
John: Yeah, right.
John: Every time that voice came into my head, I just repeated that little... A year ago, we had Bob Hope and Steve Jobs and Johnny Cash, and now we have basically a group of assistants, an unusable office space, but you have done this show.
Merlin: Well, you used a goal – first of all, congratulations.
Merlin: I don't want to make a big deal about it, but congratulations.
Merlin: But also the thing about a goal is – and the reason goals are stupid is that most times people let the goal become the goal.
Merlin: The goal is this thing that they basically carve in stone, sometimes having absolutely no reason and no credibility to make that goal.
Merlin: That's the problem with most people, I think, is people are all into these goals and they think they're real productive if they got a goal.
Merlin: My goal is to corner the silver market.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, within three months.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: But it's the same – but like I'm just biting my lip to not go and to put on my Merlin hat because there's so much about this that is why people beat up on themselves and end up not – not even not succeeding, not even trying.
Merlin: Like thinking it's easy?
Merlin: Well, yeah.
Merlin: It's just the only people who think something is easy are people who haven't done it yet.
Merlin: Anybody who's actually done anything knows that nothing is easy.
Merlin: It's only easy after it stopped being hard.
Merlin: And it's not – and the thing is nobody's ever –
Merlin: Absolutely.
Merlin: There will be five new things that are hard.
Merlin: That's called growth.
Merlin: And the thing is sitting in a bar and talking about this thing that's easy.
Merlin: Dude, you've been doing that for 15 years.
Merlin: Not you, but I mean like somebody who sits there, oh, this is easy.
Merlin: This is easy.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Then why are you sitting around a bar talking about how easy it is?
Merlin: Like what have you done?
Merlin: And so the problem with all of those things is this horrible disconnect between where you think you should be, where you actually are, and where you can reasonably expect to be in some amount of time.
Merlin: So having a goal is so – I think it's so valuable if it's a goal that you're also allowing to have a little air to it.
Merlin: So I mean first of all, congratulations that you got this because that's pretty lofty given where you have been.
Merlin: That's pretty amazing with you and the troll that you could get that far.
Merlin: But also it's important to just always remember that a goal is useful in as much as it keeps you moving forward.
Merlin: If the goal ever stops making you move forward, you've missed the point of the goal.
Merlin: The goal is to make you show up every day and to work really hard and do the right thing.
Merlin: It doesn't mean that you become some dumbass who stops taking in new information or stops realizing that you're trying to corner a non-existent silver market.
Merlin: That's the beauty part.
Merlin: You talk about a hack.
Merlin: That's the thing that gets you off your ass and makes you go out there and do it every day until you understand it enough to have a reasonable goal.
Merlin: That's why people don't get anywhere, I think, is they sit there.
Merlin: They sit there in their little pile of shit and talk about how easy this should be and never do anything to try and reconcile all of these impossibilities they've introduced into their life.
Merlin: And they think the way out of that is to come up with more impossibilities and then be mad at everybody because they didn't work out.
John: Right.
John: Well, and reflecting back on how difficult it was...
John: Like my process since we started talking about this not very many months ago.
John: I don't remember when the debut of the idea that I needed an assistant was, but it wasn't that long ago.
Merlin: No, it couldn't be much earlier than like the holidays, probably less than four months.
John: Right.
John: And the idea of asking for help was an incredible obstacle to overcome.
Right.
John: Like, I didn't know even who to ask for help.
John: I didn't know how to ask for help.
John: And having asked for it, and then getting a response from people, and in fact, you know, I don't know if I told you the way the assistant saga played out.
Merlin: I heard about your, you had like a meta assistant for a while, right?
Merlin: Well, what happened was...
Merlin: So that's why I said I phrased it poorly, but you had an assistant manager, meaning you had someone who wanted to be a manager of people who might be your assistant.
John: Right.
John: Well, so so so I the first thing I did was I called my and your good friend Adam Pranica.
John: who has been working... He's a model of task completion.
John: He's been working on the Long Winters documentary for 15 years now.
John: I said, Adam, you know a lot of people who are fans of the Long Winters.
John: He is one...
John: dimension kind of a way he's one dimension away from me because he's not me and he knows a lot of people and i said who you know i need some help finding an assistant can you think of anybody and he recommended a couple of people and i was thinking about like how do i how do i call these people that i know not very well and ask if they want to work for me
Merlin: It's like you can't find the number to call the optometrist because you don't have glasses.
John: Exactly.
John: And so I called another friend of mine and of Adam's, Victoria.
John: Victoria Van Brunesey, who is an office manager for a nonprofit, a very, very capable, active sort of person and a go-getter, like a get-things-done kind of person.
John: She's the one...
John: She's a photographer, but she also kind of put together a house show that I played here that Adam filmed that's online.
John: Victoria is somebody where she gets an idea.
Merlin: Is that the one where you tell a little story and then sing the song?
John: Exactly.
Merlin: That was really good.
John: Yeah, and that was Victoria's kind of brainchild, and it happened at her house.
John: And so I called Victoria and I was like, Adam gave me the names of a couple of people that I think should be my assistant.
John: What do you think of these people?
John: And Victoria said, well, that girl would be good except she's really busy.
John: And that other person, I don't think that they would be very good because of some reason.
John: And I was like, oh, okay, bummer.
Merlin: She's going to Dick Cheney you.
John: She said...
John: He said, I'll find your vice president.
John: I'll find you a vice president is what she said.
John: And so she started to do the thing that I, that I always desperately need the thing that my dad's executive secretary used to do, which is she would call me or send me an email or text me and say, um, well, why don't you just tell me the five things that you need?
John: And so I would kind of, I would reply and it took me sometimes two weeks to reply.
John: Um,
John: But she never got impatient.
John: She just said, yeah, I'm just reminding you, you need to tell me the five things that you need.
John: And through this process, she came up with an ad.
John: I talked about it on the podcast.
John: A dozen or more people applied for the job of my assistant.
John: Victoria vetted all the applications.
John: She hopefully communicated with all dozen people, maybe multiple times.
John: And then after a two-month-long process, she said, I think the best candidate is me.
John: She literally Dick Cheney'd it.
John: And I said, oh, all right.
John: You have an office job.
John: You already have too much to do.
John: And she said, well, this is the thing.
John: I think the best candidate is me to find you a better candidate one day.
John: Or maybe to evolve this job into a job that enables me to one day do this job.
John: So what she is saying is I am your assistant until I am either your assistant or until I have grown an assistant from mud that I take from the beach of life.
John: Or until I am your, I don't know.
John: And the thing is, at every step of the way, my instinct to micromanage the process, I resisted.
Merlin: Good for you.
Merlin: That's the whole point.
Merlin: You know what that is?
Merlin: Step one.
Merlin: Step one.
Merlin: You're moving up the Buddhist assistant ladder.
John: Because Victoria was doing a lot of great stuff.
John: And so I was just like, I am going to be quiet now, and I am not going to jump in here.
John: I'm not going to tell Victoria that she can't do the thing that she's trying to do.
John: I am going to allow her to find her own course here.
John: And so she found, so she, of all the assistants that she had interviewed, there was one who lived in Denver whose name was Bailey McCann.
John: And Bailey McCann managed a chain of coffee shops in Denver, but did not want to do that anymore and wanted to live in Seattle.
John: And she and Victoria struck up a friendship online.
John: And I was like, this is an unusual interview process because it seems like you guys are staying up all night talking on the phone and giggling.
John: But again, I am stepping out.
John: I am stepping away, not out, just stepping back.
John: Now, Bailey has moved to Seattle.
John: She has quit her job.
John: Jobs in Denver has moved here and is sleeping on Victoria's couch.
John: And the two of them.
John: This sounds like something on cable TV.
John: Well, as I said the other day, worst porn ever.
John: It's called a little assistance.
John: Yeah, assistantsearch.org.
John: But let me just say...
John: this show that I did last week, I could not have done without Victoria.
John: And then the Bailey hit the ground running.
John: She's here.
John: And she was like, seriously taking care of business.
John: I had a, not just taking care of like all the business where I was like, Hmm, I need a paperclip.
John: Boom.
John: There's a paperclip.
John: Hmm.
John: I need a three by five card.
John: I don't know how to use.
John: She was like, boom, here's a three by five card.
John: And here's the thing I downloaded from the internet about how to use them.
John: I was like, huh.
John: Not only that, but she showed up to a meeting I had with the owner of the rendezvous, and she brought two coffees.
John: One for me and one for her.
John: And I was like, hmm, wow.
Merlin: See, that's a French service.
Merlin: Like, knowing what you need before you know you need it.
John: Right.
John: So, I'm standing backstage, and I'm also saying...
John: At a lot of different ways along the path to here, I could have jumped into this Victoria Bailey love triangle.
John: I could have made myself the third poed.
John: But instead, I did what I basically was asking them to allow me to do, which is just think about what I'm trying to do.
John: And in fact, they both did all of the stuff that I everything I could have asked for and more.
John: And so I was like, this is working.
John: This is the Jonathan Colton kung fu of just not stepping on other people's toes, not getting in the way of people who are trying to help you.
John: And so that is an ongoing mystery and lesson to me that the best thing I can do is shut up and accept other people's work.
John: Once again, not as easy as it sounds.
John: So hard for me because I want to send, especially at 3 o'clock in the morning, I want to send everybody a five-page email.
John: 2,500-word essay.
John: Yeah, telling them all what's wrong with that, what they're doing.
John: And in this case, just letting it go, letting it be, has produced tremendous results.
John: So that is the story of my assistant search.
John: And it has, you know, we're in, we basically like we have a little professional organization now.
John: Victoria and Bailey are calling themselves the Roderick Group.
John: Come on.
John: Wow.
John: Get out of here.
John: Right?
John: Is that cute?
John: I feel like making business cards for everybody.
Merlin: This is amazing.
John: Yeah.
John: So now...
John: I just have to do it again and again.
John: And this is... Oh, so when we heard the following day that the show sold out, the upcoming show sold out, you would be amazed at how quickly...
John: my think tank and i don't mean victoria and bailey but like my mom my friend ben london like i've got a little constellation of of people who are all you got a blue ribbon panel a blue ribbon panel and everybody was everybody's instinct and my own instinct too
John: was like, well, we need to find a bigger venue.
John: We need to start charging more for tickets.
John: We need to get ready to scale this up to the... I disagree.
John: We need to start... Do you remember that video where Cher is on an aircraft carrier?
John: That's what we need to be thinking.
John: Think chaps.
John: How do we get you in assless pants?
Merlin: Yeah, they're crushing the bunny.
Merlin: Don't let them crush the bunny.
John: Well, that's the thing.
John: And I don't think any of them were pushing that too hard.
John: It was just the first instinct.
John: And it was my own first question.
Merlin: Of course it is.
Merlin: I somehow managed to stand up without falling down.
Merlin: I guess it's time to pole vault.
John: Yeah, exactly.
John: It's time now to launch a rocket into space.
Merlin: Now is the time to do six months at that – I'm sorry.
Merlin: I'm giving you career advice.
Merlin: Do six months at that place.
Merlin: Get fucking awesome at it and then think about that.
Merlin: Think about adding another show, maybe a different show where you can grow some more, but you're building your platform.
John: Yep.
John: So it only – and I think credit to everybody in this organization, like it only took –
John: 20 minutes for everybody to come to that understanding themselves like wait a minute wait a minute maybe maybe instead of six dollars we charge seven but that is the that's the extent of how much we should push this this is a this is an incubator it is uh yeah it's a it's a little world the real
John: The real benefit of this is going to be in a year when I understand what I'm trying to make.
John: The benefit of it is not that I made $400 and I need to make $700.
John: And so...
John: So anyway, I believe in this little team of people and I believe in this little operation and I believe that I can, well, that I can try again next week and try and do it better.
Yeah.
Merlin: My biggest concern right now is that you're becoming sane, and I don't want you to fuck up this show.
Merlin: Don't get too okay.
Merlin: I need you a little bit off balance.
Merlin: I don't want you to become too like, well, that seems like a question with a very simple answer, Merlin.
Merlin: Here's my three-point plan in 2,500 words.
John: uh, well, I think what will keep me crazy is that you and I'd start doing live Roderick on the lines.
John: That will be completely unpredictable, unscriptable, unschedulable.
Merlin: What if we do it in a five person venue and charge $5,000, uh,
Merlin: Let's do it in a van.
Merlin: I'm listening.
John: So we fly to a different city in America.
John: With a van.
John: We do a live ride on the line in a van.
John: And only five people can attend, but tickets are $500.
John: $5,000.
John: $5,000.
Merlin: You kidding with the make and text and tech and mix?
Merlin: We get like three fans from Square, and we don't have to work for 20 years.
Merlin: See.
Merlin: Now, who thought of that?
Merlin: Who thought of that, Paul F. Tompkins?
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: In your face, mustache boy.
John: That's right.
John: All you comedians are going to be like, you know, my whole life was transformed after John and Merlin pioneered the new start.
Merlin: I wonder if I should make a shirt.
Merlin: I wonder if I should charge $650.
Merlin: Oh, you know what?
Merlin: Here's an idea.
Merlin: Charge $5,000.
Merlin: Comedians in vans getting coffee.
Merlin: But think about it.
Merlin: What if it was like a really nice van or maybe even like a limo?
Merlin: What if we got like a white kid's going to the prom limo?
Merlin: We got five or six people with a catered meal.
Merlin: Escalade limo.
Merlin: Yeah, like super comfy.
Merlin: They can maybe walk around, maybe have a chemical toilet in it, like a nice one.
Merlin: And then we go around.
Merlin: We do our show.
Merlin: We drive around somewhere that's not too interesting where they would be distracted, but drive them maybe around the park a few times.
Merlin: Yeah, go around the park.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Go around the park again, Jeeves.
Merlin: You give them a gyro.
Merlin: and maybe some lemonade or something, and they each give us $5,000.
John: Yeah, everybody gets a bell at the end of the show.
John: Everybody gets a bell.
John: They get to take their bell home.
John: We sign your bell.
John: That's right.
John: So they get in the van.
John: The first thing they get is a bell.
John: We make it seem like they just get to hold the bell.
Merlin: Oh, it's a lanyard.
Merlin: It's a little something extra at the end.
John: Exactly.
John: So you get the bell and like, listen, don't ring it a bunch, but you're welcome to ring it if you feel like it's an occasion that the bell should ring.
Merlin: You get a bell.
Merlin: You get a bell.
Merlin: You get a bell.
Merlin: Get out of my fucking limo.
Merlin: And we're done.
Merlin: That's great.