Ep. 125: "All the Great Shows!"
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Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hey, John.
Merlin: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: How's it going?
Merlin: Good.
Merlin: You should have been listening to Born Slippy.
Merlin: I'm totally pumped now.
Merlin: Are you pumped?
Merlin: Is this helping at all?
Merlin: Does that help?
John: I did my usual warm-up routine.
John: Yeah, what was that?
John: Which is that I listened to Elliot Smith's Waltz No.
John: 3 on the way in.
John: And was, again...
John: Reduced to tears.
Merlin: Waltz number three.
Merlin: I know waltz number two, including the chords.
John: Oh, right.
John: Waltz number two.
John: Sorry, waltz number two.
John: Oh, no, no.
Merlin: He has lots of waltzes.
John: But I keep upgrading it to the third waltz because I feel like it's really two waltzes.
Merlin: You're talking about Never Gonna Know You Now?
John: That's right.
Merlin: We've talked about this song many times.
John: I don't know why that song levels me.
John: I keep plumbing its depths.
John: So what happened was I borrowed a car from a friend several years ago, which I'm still driving.
John: And in the car was a mixtape CD that she made many years before that.
John: And I never figured out where the CD changer was.
John: So I just have this one mixtape in there.
Merlin: It's been in there the whole time?
John: It's been in there the whole time.
John: Wow.
John: About four years that I've had the car.
John: And the second song on the mixtape is terrible.
John: And you could, the first song on the mixtape is Waltz number two.
John: And then you could, you could tell that she wanted to like get, you know, get back in a happy mood or something like the second song on the tape is like, and now we're going to like pop it up.
John: But the second song is I won't even mention it.
John: It's so terrible that I have never listened to any of the rest of the mixtape.
John: I get in the car.
John: I turn on the stereo.
John: I listen to Waltz number two.
John: Sometimes I listen to it again.
John: And then I turn the stereo back off.
John: I've been doing that for four years.
Yeah.
Merlin: You've never been curious to see what or how to accidentally go on?
John: You've never found yourself plumbing the rest of the tape?
John: Because the second song is so bad.
John: As soon as the opening, sometimes I'll get so lost in a reverie about Waltz No.
John: 2 that I will forget what's coming.
John: And then the opening chords of the next song, like the chords offend me before the vocals even come in.
John: Because I'm in such a state of waltz number two that I hear that next guitar and I'm just like, die a thousand deaths.
John: And I lunge for the thing.
John: So I have no idea.
John: Maybe the rest of the mixtape is amazing.
John: Maybe there are other songs to discover and plumb their depths, but I'll never know.
John: Because I also am, even though I've had this card for four years, I'm unfamiliar enough with the stereo that I don't know how to skip to the next song.
John: But so I've spent all this time inside of this one song, interpreting it and living it.
John: And you know, my sense of this song is that he's writing to his stepfather and mother.
John: Yeah, that's what I get.
John: And it's also kind of a suicide note.
John: You know, the bridge is...
John: here today here today expected to stay on and on and on and i'm tired i'm tired so tired and it's just like uh looking out on a substitute scene oh god but the problem is that i get in the car in the morning and i head out into the world like all right don't chat chat here we go i got a lot of shit to do today
John: And then I listen to this one three and a half minute long song.
John: And then I'm kind of useless, maybe for the rest of the day.
John: Is there a way to change the tape?
John: Well, because I feel I see.
John: I don't know.
John: I don't know.
Merlin: How long have you had the car borrowed now?
Merlin: About four years.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: All right.
John: And also, this is not how you listen to music.
John: No, no, no, no.
John: But additionally, the problem is that I feel like as I've spent all this time with this one song, I feel like it is a perfect work.
John: Like he has accomplished in this song a kind of perfection in making a thing.
John: And so it also sends me out when I get to my eventual destination, I park the car and I go, what's the point of anything?
John: That's how you know it's working.
John: He really made a thing there.
Merlin: It's like a perfect definition of weariness.
Merlin: Even when it starts out with the waltziest waltz.
Merlin: It's the waltziest waltz you've ever heard.
Merlin: And then it sighs its way into those strummed chords.
John: Ga-ding, ga-ding, ga-ding, ga-ding.
John: And it all comes in, and then the goddamn cellos at the very end, he's got what you can only presume, if you imagine songs are recorded, if you imagine as I do, that the band that makes the song is all in a room a la Pet Sounds.
John: And they're sitting there the whole time waiting.
Merlin: Yeah, there's like six cellists just sitting.
Merlin: And they really want to pack in the whole performance in that, like it just soars.
Merlin: Through the whole tune, they're just sitting there.
Merlin: And then...
Merlin: Wow.
John: God damn it.
John: No, that was, man, I think that's a pretty perfect song.
John: I really do.
John: But so that's, I mean, I got to get a new routine.
John: I mean, you know, some people get up, they get on the Stairmaster, or they get up and they design some apps in the morning, or I don't know what people do to get going.
John: They call it a workflow.
John: They get a workflow.
John: And my workflow is just like...
John: Wake up, get in a borrowed car, listen to the most depressing, perfect song, and then try and make my way to the end of the day.
Merlin: See, now you're going to send me down an Elliott Smith hole, because I can't even tell you what my favorite Elliott Smith song is, because it's one of those things where it's almost like the Beatles.
Merlin: um which of which he was obviously a fan where like i find myself going oh no no uh you know um say yes oh oh no uh you know high on amphetamines the moon's a light bulb i mean like oh my god how did how'd the guy do it and that little line at that it's just a it's a little underplayed and like it's so low-key um
Merlin: You know that?
Merlin: Yeah, that sets the tone, though.
Merlin: If you really want to get up and make an app, you might need something.
Merlin: You might put on maybe Amity, one of my least favorite Elliot Smith songs.
John: Oh, I see.
Merlin: And that'll make you mad.
Merlin: Get up and make an app.
Merlin: I got apps to make.
Merlin: Sometimes you've got to get mad at Elliot.
Merlin: It says, you know what it was, though?
Merlin: If I heard Amity on a jukebox in a bar, it would be okay.
Merlin: It's just, it's such, I don't even remember which record that's on.
Merlin: I think it's on that record.
Merlin: And it's like, it's such a sore thumb on that record.
Merlin: It's that record so, you know, it just, it comes, Amity, oh!
Merlin: It comes blaring out, and it always would throw me off when I was listening to it.
John: He's probably, it was experiencing the same thing that the gal that made this mixtape was experiencing, which is like, well, I wrote the perfect, I've got the perfect song on here already.
John: The rest of this mixtape should just be this song over and over.
John: I can't do that.
John: The rest of this album should just be this one song that is the perfect expression of growing up in a household with a detached mother and an abusive stepfather.
John: So instead, I should make a song that gets everybody excited.
Merlin: I used to do something kind of peculiar, which is if I would record a record onto a tape and I had room at the end.
Merlin: Sometimes I'd do a little mix to take up the space.
Merlin: But toward the end of the cassette era, I would just take whatever my favorite song was and play it on repeat on the CD player to play out.
Merlin: So I would listen to minor threats out of step, like 11 times in a row.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I wouldn't get sick of it.
Merlin: It's just like a perfect blast of a song.
John: Yeah, there are like 20-second snippets of My Bloody Valentine that I could just listen to that 20 seconds on repeat for eternity.
John: But I wouldn't get anything done.
John: Because you'd just disappear into the music.
John: Yeah, I'd just be out there swelling around.
Merlin: If you're ever going to push out your Starbolt album, you're going to really need to get back in the shed.
Merlin: Starbolt!
Merlin: Starbolt.
Merlin: Starbolt County.
Merlin: Starbolt County.
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John: Yeah, I've been feeling recently that all of the musical stylings of the 70s, like the 70s folk scene, have really been explored enough now.
John: I don't want to hear it anymore.
John: I keep turning on the radio or hearing ambient music in stores, and it's just exploring that weird little 70s folk thing that I feel like we kind of had enough of even then.
John: We rejected at the time, and I'm just done.
John: I don't want to hear another acoustic guitar.
John: Maybe not for the rest of my life.
Mm-hmm.
Merlin: I've had that feeling.
Merlin: But then sometimes something will come on and it will really buoy me.
Merlin: I flew out of Boston a few days ago and wanted to get some food before I got on the plane because, you know, what kind of animal eats on a plane?
Merlin: And so I went into the legal seafood bar, which also serves food, which is great.
Merlin: You know, they got a hell of a lobster roll there.
Merlin: It's like $75.
Merlin: And as I walked in, they were playing September Girls by Big Star.
Merlin: Hmm.
Merlin: And I felt so fucking old.
Merlin: Because that song was old when I got into it.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: But somebody knows to play that over some satellite station in the 8.30 a.m.
Merlin: mix at an airport.
Merlin: But then Jackie Blue came on, which I hadn't heard in a really long time.
Merlin: That's a good tune.
Merlin: song's got a weird it's got a weird space to it it's like it's like those 70s cocaine songs that create this really strange environment that i can't quite put my finger on i don't understand it either you can't go back and recapture it people have been trying for decades like brother louis like there's these certain songs from the 70s that like have such a weird space and it's all it's all sound it's sonically weird and like
John: Both comfortable and enveloping and also like kind of emotionally cold, but in a way that feels like home.
John: I don't understand.
John: I mean, you know, obviously Baker Street being the ultimate...
Merlin: I was going to say, I'm going to toss in Baker Street, and it's Psychic Partner, I'm going to say, Year of the Cat, or possibly Time Passages, both of those.
Merlin: And I'm going to throw in one of the cocaineiest cocaineers of all time.
Merlin: I'm going to throw in Sentimental Lady by Bob Welch.
Merlin: Great tune.
Merlin: From the same album as the cocaineiest cocaine song of all time, Ebony Eyes.
Merlin: Do you remember that one?
Merlin: The video with Valerie Bertinelli?
Merlin: You know what else?
John: devil woman oh oh yes he's just a devil woman oh my god how did they do it do you think it was the cocaine shit it's got it's got to be cocaine it's got to be cocaine and tube tube tube amplifiers but they were like they were they were chasing
John: I mean, a combination of, like, AM radio songwriting chops and all the time in the world with the best equipment and... I mean, but honestly, if I knew, I would be trying to approximate it and everybody else would, too.
John: And, you know, I mean, of course, like, we haven't even said, like, all of that Fleetwood Mac weird shit.
John: And Fleetwood Mac actually took that into the 80s.
John: I feel like...
John: We've argued about Christine McVie before.
Merlin: You know, I just want to have a different point of view, but I enjoy her contribution to other people's songs a super lot.
John: Yeah, but I feel like the Christine McVie hits on the early 80s Fleetwood Mac stuff is an evolution of the 70s cocaine coldness.
John: But, like, you know what I mean?
John: Like, it's music that never breaks a sweat.
John: No one in any of those tunes is sweating at all.
John: They're just, like, so cool.
John: I don't... I mean, and I feel like maybe Cat Stevens got the...
John: ball rolling a little bit on that there's something like you know it's um who's the pink moon guy what's that guy's name yeah that's oh what's his name old uh bob bob uh frank bob moon yeah pink pink uh old old bob pink yeah the volkswagen song
John: Yeah, Volkswagen guy.
Merlin: Yeah, that guy.
Merlin: Nick Drake.
Merlin: Bob Volkswagen.
Merlin: Bob Drakesman.
Merlin: It's funny.
Merlin: Part of this must just be because I was a little kid and I was a lonely kid and I listened to non-stop AM radio.
Merlin: When I wasn't watching TV or reading Encyclopedia Brown, I was listening to AM radio like all the time.
Merlin: Snoopy and the Red Baron.
Yeah.
Merlin: After the turn of the century.
Merlin: I had a 45 of that.
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: In the clear blue sky.
Merlin: And that probably got our early interest in the German war efforts.
John: Yeah, sure.
John: Right.
John: I mean, that's how I got into World War I was the Ballad of Snoopy and the Red Baron.
John: I was like, I got to know more about this story.
Merlin: Tell me more about Snoopy.
Merlin: This is interesting.
Merlin: There's all kinds of songs like that.
Merlin: To this day, I have such a specific recollection of standing in a certain place, being exactly a certain age.
Merlin: I know what season it was.
Merlin: I know what month that was when that came out.
Merlin: And I don't know.
Merlin: Some of them are just really fixed in time.
Merlin: A Scrat Love.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: All that Captain and Tennille stuff.
John: I feel like when I hear Captain and Tennille...
John: That was the dawn of my sexual awakening.
Merlin: Oh, like the proto-sexual awakening.
Merlin: Yeah, listening to Tennille.
Merlin: You just knew you wanted something.
Merlin: There was something there.
John: I didn't know what it was.
John: I didn't know what lady parts looked like even, but I knew that Tennille was expressing a thing that I wanted to, you know, in a way that Abba...
John: was too polished and there were too many people there to kneel and you know and the captain had that hat and the dark glasses you weren't sure what he was doing can i just say that if my name were daryl dragon i would not call myself captain you'd at least call yourself captain dragon that's a no-brainer my god fucking dragon but he's like no captain
Merlin: Just call me Captain.
John: Because I got a hat.
Merlin: I got a Captain.
Merlin: Mr. Dragon's my father.
Merlin: yeah yeah i don't know i don't know it's you're right though i mean how do you recreate that that sound in that environment and you know maybe part of it was there was maybe a little more money around like you say to spend a little more time in the studio yeah but i but but there's there's something lots of cocaine on the board and i think i think you've hit it which is that there is an emptiness to those tracks
John: Where you listen to it and you can hear every element.
John: It doesn't feel empty.
John: It feels impossibly full.
John: But there's space.
John: There's space between the things.
John: Things come in.
John: It's a little bit of a holdover from the restrictions of the four track.
John: where there's still... There's a lot of spookiness in the room.
John: Yeah, and still like, okay, the chorus... Okay, here, the guitar part is coming in, and we're going to put this guitar part on the lead vocal channel because we don't want to waste the tape space or something.
John: It doesn't have the excess of later where it's just like, well, we got 24 tracks, so let's just have 24 instruments all playing at once.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: There's still a little bit of that like, okay, and then the acoustic guitar comes in, but then when it goes away, it goes away.
John: And it isn't replaced by something.
John: It's just like everything does a little bit of work and then goes.
John: I don't know.
John: I admire it so much.
John: It is so evocative.
Merlin: What's the one on Rumors?
Merlin: The never going back again.
Merlin: You know the song I mean?
Yep.
Merlin: like that's that's just like it's a it's a great creepy a lot of the songs are are a little creepy yeah close harmonies uh lindsey buckingham is intrinsically creepy you know but he and uh brady's bits uh he and christine mcvee are playing on sentimental lady did you know that you hear that impeccable guitar sound here all i need is that's christine mcvee
Merlin: Because, you know, he used to be, when he was doing even more cocaine, I think.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I think his cocaine usage just went up and up and up.
Merlin: But he used to be in Fleetwood Mac for, I think, a couple years.
Merlin: Who did?
Merlin: Oh, I'm sorry.
Merlin: Bob Welch.
Merlin: Oh, oh, I see.
Merlin: I see.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: He was in Fleetwood Mac in the interregnum?
Merlin: He was in the transitional Fleetwood Mac.
Merlin: He might have maybe, God, I used to know this by heart.
Merlin: I think he's not on Google.
Merlin: Yeah, I'm trying not to do that.
Merlin: He wasn't on Rumors, but I think he might have been on the rebooted Fleetwood Mac record.
Merlin: Let's go look.
Merlin: Let's look at our friend Wikipedia.
Merlin: Boy, he's a real creepy guy, smoking that big cigar in those videos.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You know, he died.
John: Well, you know, that happens.
John: Yeah.
John: A lot of people have died.
John: When you put it that way.
John: You know what I mean?
John: John Lennon died.
John: Yeah.
John: That's a guy that died.
John: Right?
John: Trotsky, ice pick.
John: Ice pick.
John: To the head.
Merlin: Yep, right in the eye.
Merlin: Boom.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Wow.
Merlin: Welch, he's 71, invited to join.
Merlin: There was friction in the band.
Merlin: Believe it or not, there was friction in Fleetwood Mac.
Merlin: I don't know if you were aware of that.
John: Even before, there weren't even any girls in the band and already friction in the band.
Merlin: Maybe he didn't have anyone to diddle on the side.
John: Maybe he was diddling John McVie.
John: That's why Christine got involved.
John: She was like, I'm joining this band now.
Merlin: What a terrible idea.
Merlin: Can you imagine that?
Merlin: Like having sex with other people in your band who are married to other people in your band.
Merlin: What a terrible idea.
John: It's a pretty terrible idea.
John: I have been in bands with gals that I have found attractive even.
John: That Stephanie is a very handsome woman.
John: Yeah, I've always drawn the line.
John: I just feel like it's bad business.
John: Well, it's work.
John: Yeah, it's business.
John: It's work.
John: What a terrible idea.
John: Although there are all kinds of situations where it's like, I don't like that guitar part that you're playing.
John: I don't think... And then the other person says, it's my guitar part, it's not your place to say.
John: And if you could just say, let's fuck.
John: Oh, dear.
John: A lot of times, resolve the issue.
Merlin: If you could have done that with Mike Squires, just think how much tension you could have released.
John: Just blown off the tension.
John: And then it's just like, you know what?
John: It turns out I love your guitar part.
John: Oh, thanks.
Merlin: I'm learning here.
Merlin: Let's see.
Merlin: In 1972, six months after the release of Future Games, the band released, Fleetwood Mac released Bear Trees, which featured Walsh's song Sentimental Lady, an original version of Sentimental Lady.
John: What?
John: On a Fleetwood Mac record?
John: See, this is why you dig into the deep cuts.
John: Yeah.
John: Boy, what a decade.
John: Although, I just am listening to this one song over and over for five years.
John: I mean, I was thinking about it.
John: It kind of goes against my whole, like, I'm not a fan of things premise.
John: You better stop doing it then.
John: But then it goes all the way through to the other side of the I'm not a fan of things premise to like, oh, sure, I'm a fan of things sometimes.
John: This is why I'm not a fan of things.
John: Because if I really like something, I'll just enjoy it alone for five years.
John: That's not the way to really absorb a lot of culture.
John: You know, I met Dan Harmon the other day.
Merlin: Oh, wait, I know this.
Merlin: Dan Harmon is the guy from the TV show.
John: That's right.
John: And I made the classic... I've only done this a few times in my life, but whenever I do it, it blows up in my face.
John: There were some guys that were like, you got to meet Dan Harmon.
John: I was like, I don't really care to meet Dan Harmon.
John: I don't know anything about Dan Harmon.
Merlin: What are you going to say?
John: Well, so let me tell you what I said.
John: They're like, no, no, no, you guys got to meet each other.
John: This is really important.
John: And I'm like, all right, okay, so fine.
John: I'll meet Dan Harmon.
John: So I walk in, and Dan Harmon's in there, and he's kind of pacing the room.
John: He obviously gives up the energy of being like a lion, right?
John: He's in charge of the room.
John: He's the reason that the room was built to house Dan Harmon for this short amount of time.
John: And I like that energy.
John: I appreciate that energy.
John: Here's like a...
John: Here's a gray beard who kind of feels like every room in the world was built to house him.
John: Every room he ever enters.
John: And, you know, my interlocutors take me over and say, like, John Roderick, Dan Harmon.
John: Dan Harmon, John Roderick.
John: And I put out my hand and I say, are you ready for this?
John: Oh, God.
John: I say, hi, nice to meet you.
John: Big fan.
Oh.
John: because because i don't know why i had a i had a have you ever seen his program no okay see that's that's what i was worried about yeah i have one time jonathan colton said you really got to see this episode of community which is like the christmas episode and they do it as a musical and he showed it to me and i thought it was very charming
John: But that is the only one of any of his things I have seen.
John: You're not technically, in the usual sense of the phrase, a big fan.
John: Not really.
John: Somebody made you watch a show once.
John: I could have said that.
John: Hi, John Roderick, somebody made me watch one of your shows one time.
John: He's kind of famous.
John: I don't know why.
John: The hilarious one, one time 10, 15 years ago, Sean Nelson and I were standing there and a guy comes up.
John: and says hi at a bar, and I mistook him for someone else, and I was like, oh, hey, man, great to see you.
John: Hey, great show the other night.
John: And the guy looked at me and was like, what show?
John: And in the moment that he... And he was a guitar player and an entertainer, but it was just a different guy than I thought.
John: And in the moment that he's saying that, I'm realizing that I had it wrong.
John: And he's like, what show?
John: And I said, oh, all the great shows.
John: Oh, no.
John: All the great shows that you have played.
John: Big fan.
John: And so Sean's still like...
John: will every once in a while, you know, say to me like, all the great shows as a kind of like...
John: As a bit of a shutdown.
John: But anyway, so I say to Dan Harmon, hey, hi, nice to meet you, big fan.
John: And I'm thinking that he's at this thing and that everybody's a big fan of his and that this is just going to be some social lubricant where I go, hi, big fan, and he's going to go, hi, thanks a lot, and it's going to be all over.
Merlin: You know, the thing is, you didn't go wrong in the sense that that is a really good generic thing to say to somebody where you know it's going to be a 15-second interaction because it takes a lot of the pressure off.
John: Except...
John: That he shakes my hand, looks at me, and goes, oh, yeah?
John: Fan of what?
John: And I went, uh, um, you know, some of your old shows.
John: And I don't get out.
John: I'm like, some of your old shows.
John: And she says...
John: which one oh god and i and he's i don't know whether he senses that he's got me on the ropes i mean he does he's gonna watch you swing he's trying to kill me now i mean i've just i walked into the lion's den covered in fucking hamburger and i'm like uh uh and then i'm i don't even remember the name of his show that i did see one episode of and i'm i'm like uh um uh uh community
John: And he goes, oh, you mean the one that's back on the air now?
John: He's not going to let you off.
John: He's not letting me go.
John: And everybody in the room is like watching a lion take apart a lamb.
John: And I'm sitting there like still clinging to the little taillights on the train of Big Fan.
John: that i see disappearing into the mist there goes the train big fan the big fan train and i'm standing there and i you know and i and part of me wants to be like you got me i've never seen anything you've done i've heard your name i guess i read it in wired once people talk about you like you are important and matter and i just wanted to be part of that for a second
John: Really just time to go for me now.
John: And he and he just he presses the he presses in.
John: And so I'm trying to convert.
John: And, you know, Joel McHale is a Long Winters fan.
John: Oh, that's cool.
Merlin: That's the star of the community.
John: And he and I have had many, many good times.
John: He's come to many long winter shows.
John: We ran into each other once at Legoland in San Diego.
John: So did you decide to pivot to Joel?
John: Joel McHale and I have a lot of good history.
John: And so I decide to try and pivot to Joel McHale.
Merlin: This is not going to be good.
Merlin: Except as I'm pivoting.
John: It's like you brought in a different coupon from a different store.
John: As I'm pivoting, like, well, actually, I know a couple of people on your show.
John: As I'm doing it, I can't remember Joel McHale's name.
John: You're so screwed.
John: Because Joel McHale has a name kind of like Nick Drake.
Merlin: He's got one of those, my friend Marco calls it the Snap to Grid name, where it sounds like lots of other names.
Merlin: Where you could go, oh, you know, that guy Joel Gray.
John: What's his name?
John: John McRae.
Merlin: John McRae, that great guy with the hair.
John: Joe McHale.
John: and you're such an idiot so so i'm like you know big and he's like oh yeah what and oh the show the back on the air and i'm like oh well yeah i mean i'm kind of pretty good friends with a couple of people on the show and he's like who oh god and i can't remember his name and i'm like and then and so gillian jacobs
John: And I've met her a couple of times in L.A., and I fell immediately in love with her.
John: Did I ever tell you that story?
John: No.
John: We were at the Chateau Marmont, and at first glance, I felt like, oh, here's a little blonde actress.
John: Like, I'm not predisposed to be interested in her.
John: But we're standing and looking out over the balcony at L.A.,
John: And she says, see that building over there?
John: And I was like, yeah.
John: Kind of distracted, not even paying much attention.
John: And she says, that building was built by the guy who built the original Garden of Allah.
John: Which is where Groucho Marx met Joan Didion.
John: And I was just like, I kind of slow take, look over at her like, you are blowing my mind right now.
John: And then she starts talking about the tile in the bathroom.
John: of this building that was torn down many years ago, and over the course of 20 minutes, she reveals that she knows all of the architecture, all of the historical architecture of L.A., that it's just one of the many...
John: fascinating um little elements aspects of her of her uh like expansive intelligence that's no fair and i was like so i'm sitting there and all of a sudden i'm like well i i i'm in love with you are you do you have a
John: Are you a famous actress of some kind?
John: You know, and because I had never seen her show, I was not aware that she... I didn't know that she was, like, famous.
John: I was just like, you are extraordinary.
John: Did you study architecture?
John: Can we talk more about architecture?
John: I would like to hear more about L.A.
John: Through Your Eyes.
John: Little guide.
John: Little guide to the world for me.
John: And she just, you know, she's...
John: So she became kind of this light in the sky for me, like, oh, my God, there are people like Gillian Jacobs out there in the world that are like comedic actresses on popular television shows and also interested in esoteric architecture stories.
Yeah.
John: So I'm a little late in life to learn that.
John: That's pretty painful.
John: It's it was excruciating.
John: And I'm sure that she's dating some guy that has expensive sunglasses.
John: You know, it's just like L.A.
John: Like you go to L.A.
John: and you're like, but in any case, I'm looking at Dan Harmon and I'm like, I know two people on your show.
John: that I have lots of stories about that we can talk about, and I can't remember either one of their names.
John: But I didn't remember to not say that I know some people on his show.
John: And so he's like, who?
John: And I'm like, some actors that are on your show.
John: You can smell the diesel oil burning out of my ears.
John: And he, there are other people in the room he could be talking to.
John: He's chosen you, though.
John: I think you're going to be the sacrificial lamb, literally.
John: He has.
John: He plants both feet, leans in, and is just like, tell me more about the actors on my shows that you know.
John: And I'm like, and I'm not nervous.
John: I don't care about Dan Harmon in the sense of like, oh my God, I'm talking to my hero.
John: I'm nervous because I am just fucking shoving feet in my mouth.
John: I'm shoving like actor's feet that I've met a couple of times in my mouth.
John: And eventually we arrive at a place where Dan Harmon just stops talking and I stopped talking and we stand there and he's looking at me and I'm looking at him.
John: And then I remember Joel McHale's name and I go,
John: Joel!
Merlin: Joel McHale!
Merlin: As if to prove now, you've finally proven that you know him because you remember the name of a TV star.
Merlin: Joel McHale is the guy that I know.
Merlin: And it probably ended right there, right?
John: Well, he just...
John: just stood, and I stood, we stared, and I finally, I mean, and this whole thing only lasted, I can only imagine it was not very long, but it seemed like a thousand years, and I finally was just like, okay, all right, nice meeting you, you know, just sort of like...
John: turn and go and it was instructive that um it was instructive for me that the the that i i do a lot of that social lubricant of like all the great shows big fan hi great to see you and i'm not a big fan it's not great to see them
John: And I don't know.
John: I picked up those habits from my dad probably as a way of just like moving through a crowd and meeting a lot of people and not remembering their names, you know, like counselor.
John: It's a version of all of that.
John: But, boy, every once in a while, it's just like stepping in a bear trap.
John: When you encounter someone who is prepared to turn around and go, oh, you're a big fan?
John: Why don't you tell me more about that?
John: And I don't know how he smelled it.
John: Or if he didn't.
John: If he just, like... I mean, maybe initially he really wanted to hear me praise one of his shows.
John: I doubt it.
John: I don't know.
Merlin: Pretty gross.
Merlin: You accidentally became pretty L.A.
Merlin: I did.
Merlin: I did.
Merlin: I did.
Merlin: Because isn't that, I mean, that's pretty acceptable there, right?
Merlin: To go like, oh, I love you when you did the thing and the thing.
John: Yeah, it's totally like showbiz manager greaseball kind of talk.
John: Like, I was basically cosplaying a lawyer.
LAUGHTER
John: Big fan.
John: I worked with a couple of people on your show.
John: It's like, I handled the divorce of one of your gardeners or whatever.
Merlin: I like – I'm no Dan Harmon, but I sometimes just, you know, for a little bit of a diversion sometimes, I like to fuck with PR people.
Merlin: Oh, I know you do.
Merlin: Who do a similar thing where they're like, hey, you know, I represent the CEO of Blasticon.
Merlin: And I thought you'd be really interested.
Merlin: Big, big, big fan of your work from way back.
Merlin: I'd love for you to have a chance to have an interview with the CEO tomorrow.
Merlin: You get those kinds of things a lot.
Merlin: And I usually just hit exclamation point in Google and market as spam.
Merlin: But sometimes I'll respond and I'll say, wow, that sounds awesome.
Merlin: What's your second favorite thing I've ever done?
Merlin: Let's talk a little bit about all the great stuff I do.
Merlin: Oh, my God, the way you help people with your website.
Merlin: You haven't updated it in four years.
Merlin: Oh, my God, that's amazing.
Merlin: The way you help people.
Merlin: Yeah, that's one of the ways.
Merlin: I've had things like that happen, and it's never gotten anything like that poorly.
Merlin: That guy, that man's a predator.
John: Oh, he's absolutely a predator, and he was picking his teeth with my shin bones after that.
John: And, you know, unfortunately for me, it didn't happen on stage.
John: We were just in a green room somewhere, and there were like three or four people standing around, all of whom, you know, went over to see if there were any strawberries on the craft services table because they couldn't handle the fucking smell of blood in the air.
John: As I'm standing there like, hey, you know what?
John: I got a lot of words.
John: But we're not talking about anything right now that I can use those words.
John: Because I don't know what I'm... I don't remember words.
John: I should have held out my hand and gone, hi, nice to meet you.
John: And then gone and looked for some strawberries myself.
Merlin: Well, you know, I bet life is hard for him, though, because, I mean, if we are a little more charitable about it, maybe it's that he really doesn't – obviously, he doesn't like that kind of phony baloney thing.
Merlin: Maybe he's not just naturally – not that he's, like, an asshole or something, but, like, can you imagine, like, trying to keep yourself –
Merlin: in an environment like that where you actually are like you're like you or like me you're somebody who doesn't like having conversations like that and only does it in the same way like you say oh like when you meet the queen or when you make sure you say your majesty versus your highness or whatever you got to learn the right way to do it so you don't piss anybody off but like it's not fun to live like that it's not fun to act like that's a basis for relationships or business so i mean you know i wonder if he has a reputation for being like hard to work with or something
John: Who knows?
John: I mean, everybody seems to admire him, and I certainly admire the way that he dispatched me.
John: But not enough that I'm going to ever go watch a television show.
John: That'll show him.
John: Not his, not anybody's.
John: But that was another one of all the great shows moments where I feel like...
John: I'm going to be a little bit more careful about showbiz.
John: You know, it is akin to showbiz, but really it's like regional politics.
John: You know what I mean?
John: It's really a way of making your way through a fundraiser.
Merlin: I think of it as being a little bit like...
Merlin: Maybe not a magic trick, but an illusion.
Merlin: For example, if you're one of those phony baloney psychics and you learn how to do cold readings.
Merlin: And the thing is, a lot of people would be amazed what somebody who's good at cold readings can pull off.
Merlin: Especially if you believe...
Merlin: in the cold reading.
Merlin: But somebody who's good at cold reading can read you really quickly and then pull out certain factors that you're very likely to agree with early on.
Merlin: They end up giving more information to you, and then pretty soon it seems like they know your whole life.
Merlin: And I think in some ways when you're trying to survive in regional politics, that's kind of what it is.
Merlin: If you say something that you know most people that this person looks like agree with, you're already on the right track.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Where you can lead the conversation to something where they're going to give you enough information that you can pay them a compliment before going and refreshing your drink.
John: Yeah.
John: I'm pretty good at that.
John: Normally, if that situation was reversed, if Dan Harmon had come up to me and said, oh, hey, big fan, I might have said, oh, really?
John: Of what?
Yeah.
John: I do that same thing when I feel like I'm being showbiz.
Merlin: I mean, but you can also do it, and I do it hopefully in a non-dick way of going, if I get that somebody's actually saying something really nice, I'll go, oh, which thing?
Merlin: Is it this thing or that thing?
Merlin: Oh, thanks.
Merlin: That's a conversation you can have.
Merlin: For sure.
Merlin: But he's making a guessing game.
John: Well, and the thing is, if I had said, I mean, I have Dan Harmon's Wikipedia page here.
John: If I had said, oh, I'm... You'll be ready for next time.
John: I was a big fan of your animated, Adult Swim animated television series, Rick and Morty, with Justin Rolline, Dan.
John: And Rob Schraub, he would have been like, oh, Rick and Morty.
Merlin: Weren't you born on January 3rd?
Merlin: What was it?
Merlin: 1973, right?
John: Super big fan of the way you have a beard sometimes and just a scruff other times.
Merlin: I might be thinking of a different Dan Harmon.
Merlin: Are you the one who co-founded the Television Network slash Website Channel 101?
Merlin: Was that you?
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Were you Emmy-nominated part of a thing?
Merlin: I listened to an eponymous podcast called Harmontown.
Merlin: Is that you?
Merlin: If only had Google Glass, you could have been doing that in real time.
John: If I had had Google Glass.
John: If I had only had Google fucking Glass.
John: Anyway, that's my little... Oh, you know, in addition to Dan Harmon, I also met a guy, another Dan.
Merlin: Oh, yeah, I saw a photo of that.
John: Yeah, I met Dan Benjamin.
John: Yeah, how did that go?
John: A guy, you know, I wasn't really familiar with his work.
John: You're not a big podcast listener.
John: But I really liked him.
John: What a nice guy.
John: Everybody said that he was a kitten killer and a Holocaust denier, but he's a really nice guy.
John: He's very tidy.
John: He's very clean.
John: He's a clean old man.
Okay.
Merlin: I'm glad you got to meet him.
Merlin: That seems like one of those Elvis and Nixon kind of things.
John: It was really great.
John: Despite his famous tidiness, he hugged me multiple times.
John: Wow.
John: And I am famously untidy.
John: You're very huggable, though.
John: Who knows what he picked up from me?
John: It was basically like licking a hotel room remote.
Ha ha ha ha!
John: To hug me in the middle of the day.
Merlin: I'm glad you got to do it.
Merlin: That was a really nice picture.
Merlin: And you can see your finger splint in the picture?
John: Yeah, finger splint.
Merlin: Can I ask how the event was?
Merlin: It sounds like church for a lot of people.
Merlin: They love this XOXO event.
John: uh xoxo is a great event you know i go to a lot of things now that are somewhat similar to this i guess i had an expectation uh that it would be the new genre of the unconference yeah right it's like oh a conference right okay an unconference conference it's like uh full of people uh
John: who make computer maths and they're talking about it to each other.
John: Okay, I'll go to this, sure.
John: But when I got there and went to the events and met the people that attend the conference, I was...
John: Like, extremely pleasantly surprised.
John: Smart people.
John: It's an example of a thing where some people put together an event where all of the... It felt like a room full of people that live all around the world and all know each other on the internet better than they know the people that...
John: Better than they know their actual friends and people that live in their town.
John: And this was the one of a couple times a year where they all got to be together and really express in meat space the family that they feel like they are.
John: And it was great.
John: It was a place where everybody got it.
John: So I was very pleased.
John: Very pleased to meet all those people and have those exchanges.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: There's something special about that, getting to be around people.
Merlin: And I think it's a very intentional conference.
Merlin: I mean, I think they somewhat famously have a system for trying to get to even come there.
Merlin: I mean, the heart of it is you've got to really want it.
John: Yeah.
John: It was like an amazingly douchebag-free tech conference.
Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, I think it's hard.
Merlin: Not that they won't be able to do this, but it's hard to maintain that because it's expensive to do.
Merlin: I mean, I'm trying to avoid talking about South by Southwest, but everybody's been to things where you go and then you go four years later and you're like, wow, there's a lot of girls with almost no clothes giving away cups of energy drinks here.
Merlin: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Merlin: And then, you know, so it was funny that while you were describing the Dan Harmon affair, by the way, he did the co-created, the television pilot for Heat Vision and Jack, which I recommend you see if you haven't seen it.
John: Is that right?
John: Heat Vision and Jack?
John: I feel like this encounter with Dan Harmon is all the Dan Harmon I can take for a while.
John: I don't know if I'm going to... I'm totally sympathetic.
John: If I go watch one of his shows now and I'm like, this is incredible, then I'm really going to be bummed that I actually am a fan of his and...
John: Yeah.
John: So I'm going to take a year.
John: I'm going to take a year off from Dan Harmon.
John: I think it's a good idea.
John: Harmon sabbatical.
John: Yeah, a harmatical bull.
Merlin: The thing that I don't know, I don't run into this as much as I used to because I try to avoid things where this is SOP.
Merlin: But the thing I hate is the kind of – so you got the interaction with Dan Harmon.
Merlin: That was awkward.
Merlin: But what's the alternative?
Merlin: Is you go and you have this –
Merlin: This discussion with somebody who's trying to suss out whether you're worth their time.
Merlin: And they're trying to roughly estimate how much money you make.
Merlin: I think is what it comes down to for a lot of douchebags.
John: But the thing about Dan Harmon is I had just gotten off the stage and given a presentation that I was proud of.
John: And he was the next presenter.
John: Oh.
John: But it was clear as I was being introduced to him that he had not seen my presentation.
John: And so what would have been an effect, what would have been a good introduction was that the people say, hey, Dan Harmon, this is John Roderick.
John: And Dan Harmon goes, oh, hey, man, I really liked your talk that you just gave.
John: But I was I was, I think, thrown a little off balance because that would have been nice.
John: But instead, he gave me like shark eyes like he had just entered the building.
John: So then it was kind of like whatever would have introduced me.
John: There wouldn't have been a better introduction than that you just saw my presentation.
Merlin: Right.
John: And since he... And he was looking at me definitely like, well, I have not heard your name, nor have I seen your name on credits of things that I like.
John: So it's on you, buddy.
John: And that was... Yeah.
John: I'm not going to revisit this Dan Harmon issue anymore.
John: Enough said.
John: But...
John: I did feel very much like I had actually at this conference a tremendous sympathy for you because at the XOXO conference, if you had attended, you are a god to those people.
John: And everybody there, with the exception of Dan Harmon, knew me.
John: And they knew me because of this podcast.
John: But they knew me because I was a person proximate to Merlin Mann.
John: And Merlin Mann is the center of all things.
John: And it was very interesting because as I walked around the conference, there was a lot of strange sort of fight club energy where I was unaware that I was sometimes Brad Pitt.
John: Because I was just walking around and people would walk past a group of total strangers and they would all nod in unison and go, good afternoon, sir.
John: Oh, they didn't want to get on your bad side?
John: Or they just wanted to acknowledge, hello, we know you.
John: If you want clean food, I suggest you not get the clam chowder, sir.
John: There was like a little sense of like, we know to stay away, but we also want to show our respect.
John: Like people would give me little salutes and stuff.
John: That's nice.
John: It was very nice.
John: But what I realized, and someone pointed this out and gave me like a great kind of insight into my...
John: my place in these situations through these scenarios which was that merlin man is the god of all things and merlin man is occasionally deferential to you john roderick so if merlin defers to you sometimes
John: It means that you have, there's a transference where, you know, like the king.
John: So I'm a kingmaker.
John: Yeah, the king occasionally takes your counsel, and so you must be like a real Mandarin.
Okay.
John: And that was very insightful of this person to point out, but also very true.
John: And if you had been at the XOXO conference, so this is where the sympathy for you comes from.
John: If you had been there, you would have had to have stood next to an exit, possibly an elevator shaft.
John: With an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys where you could make your escape at any moment.
John: Because if you stopped moving for a second, you would have been mobbed.
John: That's very nice of you to say.
John: But exactly the kind of people you want.
John: Super smart people who are actually making things in their own worlds.
John: You know, not mobbed by dummies.
John: Mobbed by people who really know you and love you.
John: But mobbed nonetheless.
Yeah.
Merlin: Thanks for saying that.
Merlin: How can I say this without sounding like a dork?
Merlin: I enjoy that.
Merlin: I mean, I like meeting people.
Merlin: I like going places.
Merlin: You said something in one of our very early episodes, I Laugh, when you said that you were an introvert.
Merlin: I laughed and laughed.
Merlin: And then you described an introvert...
Merlin: Deciding whether you're an introvert or an extrovert or whatever based on how much energy you get from being around other people.
Merlin: And I've realized that I'm extremely extroverted up to a point, and then I kind of flip at a certain point, and I get a little like, okay, I need to just go watch some Cartoon Network now.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Burning gas.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: But you and I share a similar branding challenge, which on the face of it is – well, I hear people say this about both of us, and I can't decide how I feel about it.
Merlin: Because on the one hand, it's nice.
Merlin: On the one hand, it's kind of portentous.
Merlin: But they say, you were so much nicer than I expected.
Merlin: Right.
John: Oh, yeah, I hear that a lot.
Merlin: People say that about you all the time, and I've heard people say that about me.
Merlin: It's like, what did you imagine?
Merlin: Did you think that I was going to sit there and make jokes about your mom?
John: What did you expect?
John: My favorite thing that I get from people who listen to this podcast are the ones that come up and they're like, they want to indicate to me that they know that a lot of what we talk about, a lot of what I say on the podcast isn't true.
Yeah.
Merlin: Or, you know, I think it's hard sometimes, the way I would put it, I think it's hard to tell sometimes what we're exaggerating about and how much.
John: Right.
John: Especially given that I never exaggerate.
John: Absolutely.
John: And that everything I say is 100% true.
John: Write that down.
John: Did I pee in a Mickey's Big Mouth bottle and give it to a sailor in a strip club where a girl named Lola was dancing?
John: Yes.
Yes.
John: Could I have made that up?
John: Would I?
John: No.
John: Everything you say by definition.
John: Do I go out in my yard in the middle of the night in a bathrobe with a sword and talk to raccoons?
John: Yes.
John: What part of the podcast seems untrue to you people is what I want to say to people who come up to me at conferences and say like, wink, wink.
John: When I first started listening to your podcast, I thought you were pulling our leg or something.
John: I'm like, uh-huh.
John: You are big fanning me right now, but you're saying the wrong thing to me.
John: The right thing to say is, I thought that everything you said on the podcast was true, and now that I meet you, I see that it's only scratching the surface.
Merlin: Yeah, the thing that I encounter, and this is a really weird topic to talk about, but the thing that I encounter that I have a funny relationship with is...
Merlin: and you must get this in spades because of this program, is people who, on the one hand, you're already almost kind of like friends with.
Merlin: You maybe even have had conversations with them on Twitter or something.
Merlin: You kind of know them.
Merlin: But they also want to address you in particular, I'm guessing, kind of in character.
Merlin: They want to come up and say, I got a small bag packed or something like that.
Merlin: And sometimes it's hard to...
Merlin: It's hard to square that.
Merlin: I like that.
Merlin: That's a high five.
John: You're just like, yeah, Supertrain.
John: Supertrain, yeah.
John: They get in, they get out.
John: If they want to sit and talk about Supertrain, that's a different matter.
Merlin: Well...
Merlin: I mean, it's one of those things you can only really say so much about it.
Merlin: It's not going to change your destiny.
Merlin: That's something that you're just going to have to deal with when it comes.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: Don't think you're going to sweet talk your way into this.
Merlin: You can talk and talk and talk.
Merlin: Like the thing you did, all the shows.
Merlin: The claw does what the claw will do.
Merlin: Yeah, you know, I think I just... This is probably just... No, it's not just.
Merlin: It's hugely a part of having, you know, family stuff to do.
Merlin: But I just don't get away for things like that as much as I used to.
Merlin: It's expensive and you have to fly.
Merlin: And I guess I've just gotten... It's not that I don't like being around people.
Merlin: I really do.
Merlin: It's just that if it's not paid for...
Merlin: you know, and to where I can sort of defend it as a work thing.
Merlin: I just, it's hard for me to make it to a lot of fun stuff like that.
Merlin: Cause the whole time I feel I have kind of a guilty conscience about being there, about spending the money, about being away from home and things like that.
Merlin: But, uh, I mean, I still really enjoy things like that.
Merlin: I just, I just, like I said, I just did a talk in Boston.
Merlin: It was fantastic.
Merlin: I mean, it was, it was great to go and meet people and have two people in the audience get, get a joke and stuff like that.
Merlin: It's a, it's a really nice feeling.
Merlin: And yeah,
Merlin: Wait, two whole people in the audience got a joke?
Merlin: Sometimes it's hard to tell.
Merlin: You know, when you do a talk, I've just learned to really lower my expectations about what anybody in the audience will do.
Merlin: It's best to assume that they have no idea what you do, I think.
John: You know, I often make the opposite assumption, which is that everyone in the room knows everything that I've ever done and was going to get every single... But you reference that?
Merlin: Do you reference that in what you're saying?
John: I mean, you know, I don't...
John: I think that there are probably every show I do where I walk out on stage and go, all right, listen up, dickholes.
John: There's a few rules before I do another thing.
John: And one of them is shut up.
John: I'm sure there are people in the back of the room who are like, who the fuck is this guy?
John: But I don't care.
John: My assumption is when I walk on the stage that I'm on the stage, not you.
John: And I have to own the room completely.
John: to whatever to the best of my ability and to walk up on stage and be like hi um for those of you who don't know me um i'm a i'm this guy the most deadly line of all time let me tell you a little bit about myself yeah like you know my i have to approach walking on stage like hi for those of you who don't know me um fuck you you're living under a rock uh how did you even get in here
John: Because I feel like your weight is already on the wrong part of your foot if you walk on stage and are like, let me explain a little bit about how I got here.
John: I did give a talk at the XOXO Festival to a room full of people where it was, I mean, I definitely felt like 30% of the room knew exactly who I was and 30% of the room didn't have any idea who I was.
John: And 40% of the room was on a spectrum of sort of like, oh yeah, I think I've heard of that guy or whatever, all the way to like, yeah, I know exactly who he is and I don't like him or whatever.
Yeah.
John: But I can't do my style of presentation unless I assume that...
John: I guess I assume that everybody's going to like me.
Merlin: No, I see.
Merlin: Now, I think that's... Well, I don't want to interrupt you, but I think that is something most people are reluctant to believe and to put into effect because it seems self-involved, but it's critical.
Merlin: I mean, whenever anybody I'm with is nervous about doing something, going out, getting on stage, which is understandable.
Merlin: Everybody gets the jitters, but I was like, you just got to remember a few things.
Merlin: One is that people...
Merlin: whether it was by accident or on purpose, have decided to be here.
Merlin: They've decided to not do other stuff in order to be here.
Merlin: They want to be entertained, and they want to be entertained by you.
Merlin: And the thing is, they want you to succeed.
Merlin: They want you to be entertaining.
Merlin: If they don't want you to be entertaining, you can't save it.
Merlin: Write those people off.
Merlin: But I think it always helps to remember that you do have an advantage when you come out, which is that people would like to like what you're doing.
Merlin: And if you start from that point of view, that's not self-involved.
Merlin: That's just trying to be entertaining.
Merlin: If you start by feeling like, oh, I've got to be defensive or I've got to show my bona fides, well, that makes you seem kind of like you say, like you're on the wrong foot.
John: Yeah, yeah.
John: And particularly at a tech conference where there are people... You know, when you came up and we did that presentation with our silly-ass friends at the Seattle Interactive Conference...
John: Where we met the digital prophet?
John: Yeah, where we met the digital prophet.
John: That was a silly-ass presentation that was somewhat derailed and maybe completely derailed.
John: Somewhat derailed.
John: Somewhat derailed by one of our good friends.
Merlin: One of the participants...
Merlin: Went a little bit rogue.
Merlin: I don't know if it was technically a mutiny.
Merlin: I think any maritime court would probably find him guilty of mutiny.
John: Yeah, I think it was a mutiny, and I think it was partly nervousness and partly love of the microphone or whatever.
John: But so you and I definitely were on the stage.
John: I was scrambling to salvage the event, and you were visibly discomforted.
John: Was I?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: I wanted to help people.
Merlin: I was trying to figure out something useful to say.
John: Yeah.
John: There were a couple of times when I looked over at you and you looked at me and grimaced like you had just bitten into an onion.
Merlin: There's always the chance that you're going to punch somebody in the face, and I did not want that to happen on stage.
Merlin: That could have hurt ticket sales.
John: But in any case, after the fact, I was on the internet, and
John: And I was scrolling through Seattle Interactive Conference comments.
John: And there was a comment from someone who was a social media webinar expert.
John: And she said, I went to see this group of people talk about social networking or whatever the premise of our talk was.
Merlin: The premise as stated originally was something like, hey, you guys are wackadoodle pseudo-celebrities.
Merlin: How are you dealing?
Merlin: How are you using social media to try and do your work?
Merlin: Right, right, right.
John: And so this woman online said that was a total waste of time.
John: It was just five or six guys up there who liked to hear the sound of their own voices.
John: And they were just wasting my time.
John: I agree with all of that except the part about how it was a waste of time.
John: And I...
John: ill-advisedly perhaps commented to her and was like, your time must be extremely valuable for it to feel so wasted by that hour of completely harmless hijinks.
John: But the sense that she had that she had come to this interactive conference to really learn, to have some takeaways that she could take back to her social media business and convert that knowledge into more business or something.
John: I don't know.
John: I had a sense when I got up at the XOXO conference that there might be people in the room who are really looking for new thought technologies that can help them be better app makers.
Yeah.
John: And that I was not going to be providing any of that.
John: I was going to be doing infotainment of a different sort.
John: But it turned out that the XOXO conference did not have a bunch of social media managers.
John: It had people who were looking for new thought technologies of a different kind, the kind that I have.
Merlin: I'm kind of – not kind of.
Merlin: I'm an obsessive about walking the room.
Merlin: What?
Merlin: Me and obsessive?
John: You just did me.
John: I feel like starting a sentence by saying I'm kind of and then taking the word kind of back and replacing it with obsessive.
John: It's like, huh, there's a lot of room in between kind of and obsessive.
Merlin: If allowed to do things the way I like to do them, I have a very specific way I like to do them about which I will be obsessive.
Merlin: And if I learn I can't do that, I throw it all out and do something else.
Merlin: So I'm really into – I try to get there.
Merlin: Like in the case of this talk – and it was kind of a weird, random, manic talk that I did.
Merlin: But I did – made it manic because I thought that's what would work.
Merlin: So I like to go up and – maybe it's superstition.
Merlin: I don't think it is.
Merlin: I like to go up and see where I'm going to be standing before people get there and walk around and see what it would be like to be watching this from the audience.
Merlin: I watch other people in the same room.
Merlin: I look at stuff like the equipment and what I can expect out of the equipment.
Merlin: And in this case, I learned – this was an amazing setup.
Merlin: They just built this whole new facility at this company with this incredible presentation system.
Merlin: This amazing presentation system where you wear this thing around your neck and it's got an infrared signal so the camera can follow you automatically.
Merlin: So you can walk around.
Merlin: You don't have to stand in one place.
Merlin: It's got a built-in mic.
Merlin: But it was new technology.
Merlin: And I learned, for example – this is kind of boring, maybe relevant.
Merlin: But I learned, for example, that when people saw this on a monitor –
Merlin: my once again, the slides would be the main thing on the screen.
Merlin: And I would be a picture in picture, like, like a sixth of the size of the slide.
Merlin: Oh, right.
Merlin: So the thing is like, does any of that matter?
Merlin: Probably not.
Merlin: Like for most people, it wouldn't matter because you got your presentation.
Merlin: You're going to do in a certain way and you just go up there and you power through it.
Merlin: And I,
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I try to adapt what I'm going to say and how I'm going to say it, depending on all of those dumb factors, realizing there's a pillar, a load-bearing pillar right here where 15 people aren't going to be able to see me.
Merlin: So they're going to feel left out if I'm not moving around.
Merlin: It's going to seem kind of weird, knowing that these slides... So I had to make a lot of game-time decisions.
Merlin: This is not heroic, but...
John: How did you change?
John: How did you alter your presentation?
Merlin: Initially, I decided, as I do about 50% of the time, I initially thought I'm just going to throw out the slides and not do slides at all.
Merlin: I knew that the technology was new, and although these guys were very, very competent at it, I still knew that they had only been kind of testing it for a couple weeks.
Merlin: So I went into it knowing that...
Merlin: a lot of things could change even while I was speaking.
Merlin: And that makes a really big difference to know that.
Merlin: And why does that matter?
Merlin: Well, it matters because if you have a slide deck that you've put together where you haven't rehearsed it a lot, or let's say you even have rehearsed it a lot, but you're still relying on seeing the slides to know what the next thing you're going to say is, and you're doing that awful thing of reading off of your slides, well, you know, the problem is if you go somewhere and don't do slides, you look like a dope because everybody expects slides.
Merlin: But the slides can be such a distraction...
Merlin: For a million different reasons.
Merlin: So anyway, even if I end up doing it 95% the way that I planned, I still have the somewhat obsessive walkthrough of knowing – dumb stuff, more dumb stuff, like dumb stand-up comic stuff, like trying to learn a little bit.
Merlin: Like I've said to people before, like notice, like when you arrived at that venue, was it hard – this is a tip.
Merlin: This is not the talk.
Merlin: But like notice, was it hard to find a parking space?
Merlin: Well, guess what?
Merlin: I bet you almost everybody else in the audience also had trouble finding a parking space.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Did you have to go through crazy security?
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: You already have something to bring into the room that everybody can share with you.
Merlin: That's a great jumping off point to whatever it is you want to say.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: More than anything, no matter who you are, you want to establish what this is about and which things we're on the same page about.
John: Have you taken two hits of mescaline?
John: Probably.
Merlin: Some people in the audience have taken two hits of mescaline.
Merlin: The pivot here, like I just watched this documentary about Robin Williams and they were talking about how he did his stand-up.
Merlin: I'm not about to compare myself to Robin Williams, but very inspirational for me as a kid.
Merlin: I mean, God, I wanted to be Robin Williams.
Merlin: And talking about like how – again, who knows?
Merlin: This could be like eBay started because of Pez dispensers.
Merlin: Not true.
Merlin: But supposedly one time he went out and the mic didn't work.
Merlin: And that's one of the things that got him started on his whole like roaming into the audience approach that became a real temple of his standup was that he really blossomed.
Merlin: Like a lot of great improv people, he blossomed when things went tits up.
Merlin: That's when he thrived, when things went wrong.
Merlin: When the mic broke, that's when he learned that he could walk into the audience and be maybe twice as funny as he was doing a gay hairdresser on stage.
Merlin: He'd go out and interact with people in the moment.
Merlin: And when that went bad, it got even funnier.
Merlin: If he met a drunk, he'd bring them up on stage.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And direct them in a film, you know?
Merlin: So I don't know.
Merlin: I always feel like it's, you know, part of what makes people so anxious about going to those things and about putting on a show like that is the feeling that, like, something's going to go wrong.
Merlin: And I feel like there's, like, this certain set of things that you can do that will help you be at ease, which will help put the audience at ease.
Merlin: And then, you know, you don't have to go up there and read your resume to make people think that you're worth listening to.
John: Well, and what I have discovered in the last year is that the thing that makes me happiest is to do no preparation of any kind.
John: Oh, I hear that.
John: And it makes me happy right up until 10 minutes before I go on stage.
John: And then that last 10 minutes before I go on stage, I say, idiot, what kind of person does no preparation for?
John: And I spend 10 minutes kind of, you know, fighting with myself where the other voice is saying, this is what you do.
John: You do no preparation.
John: This is your thing.
John: And then I walk up on stage and I'm so glad I did no preparation.
Right.
John: But I cannot vouch for the person in the room who is the most predisposed to be suspicious of me or dislike my show.
John: I can't say how they receive it.
John: But over time, I've realized you can't win them all.
John: And the best shows that I do from a standpoint of where I just feel comfortable right up until doing it, and then I feel a rush of excitement, and then I feel glad after I'm done, are shows where I do no... I have no notes.
John: I have only the thinnest kind of sense of...
John: narrative arc and I just walk up and introduce myself and I generally do a thing where I say I don't like where the chairs are you know I walk up and I'm just like I don't like where these chairs are right you go in and kind of assert yourself in the room yeah like who put this vase here this vase doesn't go here and in that moment I'm trying to say like this stage belongs to me now and and I'm also like
John: Now on the stage, and so the light can descend, right?
John: The energy can start going.
John: And until I walk out there, I can't uncage it or whatever.
John: I can't unleash a thing.
John: But as soon as I walk out, if I say something like, you know, this isn't where this goes...
John: You know, who chose these curtains?
John: You know, some kind of thing like that.
John: It's like uncorking the relationship, the ability to talk to people in the audience like there's just four of us there.
John: right and i don't know i mean honestly in the next year i think i'll i think i'll have a much better sense of whether that is genuinely a thing because i've been doing these shows at the rendezvous and i know that i have 80 people a week that that keep coming in some combination to see this but this xoxo talk was the first really the first time that i i got up and did a uh
John: did like an hour long thing.
John: Right.
John: For a room more or less of strangers.
Merlin: Well, a room full of people who, for whom it's, it would be a lot to assume the reason they came to the conference was to see you that, you know, they came to that day because they were interested, but it's not like 80 people who paid to see you in a small theater.
John: Yeah.
John: Right.
John: I am.
John: I'm one of several, uh, presentations, every one of which is sort of better, uh,
John: Some of them totally prepared.
John: And even the least prepared is more structured.
John: But I don't think I could get up at a Seahawks game and give an hour-long talk about my feelings and thoughts and keep 50,000 football fans on the edge of their seat.
John: Maybe.
John: Maybe that's something to aspire to.
John: But I felt like at least at this conference, knowing also not to search too deeply on the internet, but like a quick read of the internet in the aftermath of the show, there wasn't anybody on there saying, this was a total waste of my time.
John: I can't believe that I came to this thing.
Merlin: I always think about when there's going to be a big swimming race and you'll see those swimmers that before the gun goes off, they'll jump in the water.
Merlin: I guess that's an old trick.
Merlin: You know what I'm talking about?
Merlin: So you're on the blocks and you're ready and they'll intentionally do a false start for which you will not be penalized.
Merlin: But there's something about being able to jump in the water and get wet before it's officially started that helps them then be able to feel acclimated
Merlin: You could consider – I don't know if you call it a competitive advantage, but that analogy works perfectly for me.
Merlin: I completely get why somebody who's a swimmer would want to jump in the water and get that shock off and then go, oh, that's what it feels like to go in the water.
Merlin: I can start swimming the second I go in, even a pro, right?
Merlin: So, I mean, for me, like having something that – this is complicated because I don't consider myself like a great consistent –
Merlin: presenter or performer.
Merlin: And I mean, there's a part of me that would really like to be, and part of it is I'm too lazy to get good at the conventional way of doing those things.
Merlin: I think I'm capable of that.
Merlin: It's just that it doesn't really interest me to do that thing in the way people expect.
John: I have to feel, I have to interject and say, lazy is this word that you use, that I use to describe ourselves as
John: And yet, you know, you work your ass off, I work my ass off.
John: And so it's... And I feel this... I use the exact same word to say, like, I am too lazy to put together an hour-long presentation.
John: Except what I really feel like is that to achieve an hour-long presentation that is better than what I would do by my method, I would have to work...
John: I would have to work for a month.
Merlin: I totally get what you're saying, and that's actually where I was going to go with this.
Merlin: Well, first of all, I've got dumb throwaways.
Merlin: There's a throwaway that I've used maybe three or four times, where in this case, I knew a lot of the people in this audience.
Merlin: I got introduced, I come out, and I didn't have a joke about the venue to start, and so I have the dumbest joke in the world that always kills, which I come out, I look like a douchebag about to give a talk, and I say, Is everybody ready to get rich?
Merlin: And a couple people laugh, and I go, shut up!
Merlin: And for some reason, that sets the tone that I want for the room.
Merlin: I want them to know that's me jumping in the water.
Merlin: That's me jumping in the water and going, okay, maybe this isn't going to be what you expected.
John: Shut up!
Merlin: This might get a little silly.
Merlin: Because I feel like a dick up here.
Merlin: I know I look like a dick up here.
Merlin: Let's have a little fun with that.
Merlin: To your point, it's so difficult to talk about.
Merlin: Lazy, you're right.
Merlin: Lazy is a tough one because lazy has a negative connotation of meaning that you're shiftless and you want to get away with stuff by not doing work.
Merlin: I think lazy sometimes can be a way of us saying there's a different way to do this.
Merlin: And so on this podcast I like a lot that I'm on sometimes, The Incomparable, John Syracuse, Jason Snell, a lot of people use this phrase when they're talking about movies or they're talking about TV.
Merlin: And it's a phrase from athletics but applies a lot to storytelling.
Merlin: And they'll say, well, you know, the thing is what this person is doing here had a high degree of difficulty.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: So it may not be the most perfectly executed thing you've ever seen, but it was pretty interesting because they tried something a little bit different.
Merlin: And sometimes you give people a little more credit, something like in a more fantastic way of storytelling.
Merlin: You give people a little more credit if they're trying something that is not what the expected thing was.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: But the middle level of difficulty is to have a completely polished, 100% bulletproof show that never goes wrong with beautiful graphics, fantastic presentation.
Merlin: And, man, I'll tell you, if we could all aspire to doing that.
Merlin: to having a show that went flawlessly and you got the 100% entertainment experience.
Merlin: It's just that the thing is, if you don't put yourself into a position where you could fail by trying something different, a lot of the excitement kind of drains out of the room.
Merlin: It's really nice to watch someone shoo a horse.
Merlin: who really knows how to do it, and you sure hope they don't kill the fucking horse.
Merlin: But at the same time, there's something nice about knowing there's no net here.
Merlin: It's what makes improv so interesting to me is that, like, on the one hand, okay, again, I could never do stand-up, I don't think, because I don't have the brain for it, and I'm terrified at the idea of having to go through a stand-up routine.
Merlin: The idea of improv is incredibly exhilarating to me.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: So maybe it's a little cheat.
Merlin: It's a little bit, but I think it's also that that's, that's how I want to be entertaining.
Merlin: I want to be entertaining by going out there and going like this.
Merlin: And you just can't even know how I tear my hair out for the three weeks before I do any talk.
Merlin: Like I'm a nervous wreck.
Merlin: I've done it a lot and I'm still incredibly nervous about it because I want it to be something that is, I want to be in that room.
Merlin: I want it to be something you kind of had to be in the room for as it happened.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: If you watch it on video later, you might go, oh, that was okay.
Merlin: That was kind of funny or that was weird.
Merlin: Why did he do that?
Merlin: But in the room, I want it to be as exhilarating for them, for the people who can like it in the way I want to do it.
Merlin: And to me, that's what independent entertainment is, is figuring out how to do something the best way you know how to do it in front of people who are prepared to enjoy it that way and will appreciate the level of difficulty in trying something they never expected that day.
John: Yeah, and I have to keep... I have to not just keep reminding myself of that, but keep walking back to that initial premise, which is that whatever it is I'm trying to do... Because I couldn't be a stand-up either.
John: I don't even understand how it works.
John: Like, you sit and think of a funny joke, and then you...
Merlin: You try out 10 versions of it over 8 weeks on the record?
John: Yeah, you try and make it funnier, and then you try and work it up so that it seems like you're just thinking about it for the first time when you're on stage, and you do that every night.
John: Like, I couldn't do it.
John: I don't even know how to do it.
John: Because what I think is great about being funnier about jokes is like, oh, that just popped up.
John: Like, the best jokes I've ever heard are ones that just popped up.
Merlin: Last week when I said in a meta way, let's move on, and you thought I was telling you that we should move on on the show when I was actually talking about the guy you got in a fight with.
Merlin: To me, that was a very funny moment because it was not what we expected, and we both misunderstood each other, and that made it funny.
Merlin: You can't plan that.
John: No, and Sean Nelson is amazing at that kind of humor, and you are amazing at that kind of humor, where it's just like, pow.
John: And that's what I like.
John: But I keep thinking, you know, I keep judging my attempts at doing these improvisational talks, or extemporaneous talks, rather, by like, well, is this as good as a TED Talk?
John: Is this as good as...
John: Is this as good as Tony Robbins?
John: Is this motivational?
John: Will people profit from this?
John: And I have to keep walking back to this idea like, this is what I am doing and I am just trying to find a place to do it where people appreciate the difficulty.
John: Appreciate the...
John: Well, as Syracuse says, like the degree of difficulty, you know, like this is difficult.
John: The degree of difficulty for me getting up and extemporizing for an hour is less than it might be for a lot of people because that's a thing like swimming or running that I can do.
John: But it is still like...
John: It's extremely challenging.
John: And if you're judging it, like I'm sure I told you we played the independent in San Francisco one time.
John: You might have been at the show or it might have been during that phase when you weren't coming to long winter shows because...
John: The sexual tension between you and I had gotten so high.
John: But I don't know if you remember this, but I walked out on stage.
John: We started to play the first song, and I tripped over my amplifier and fell backwards and broke the guitar that was behind the amplifier and ended up feet in the air just on top of the smash remnants of the guitar.
John: This is four minutes into the set.
John: And I bounced back up and was like, hello.
John: Ta-da.
John: And I read later a review from a woman where she was just like, the Long Winters took the stage.
John: I'm a huge fan of theirs, but this is the first time I've ever seen them live.
John: Took the stage and they were drunk.
John: And completely unprofessional.
John: They didn't play any of the songs in a way that sounded like they were on the record.
John: Oh, gosh.
John: Oh, boy.
John: And I just wish that they would take their job seriously and put on a professional show.
Yeah.
John: And, you know, it hurt, but I also felt like I couldn't, I couldn't put it on the kind of professional show that she's expecting.
John: I couldn't do it.
John: And so I can't ever judge myself according to that standard because it would, it's just like, it's, it's like judging yourself against, uh,
Merlin: Against this anonymous profile photo, like this blank picture, the little egg on Twitter.
Merlin: It's like you're evaluating yourself against a completely anonymous and unknown world and then wondering how any of whatever 7 or 8 billion people could conceivably not love what you did, which is completely bananas.
John: Yeah, it's bananas.
John: But it's so maximum rock and roll.
John: It's so this band could be your life.
John: to constantly remind yourself, and it's absolutely necessary to constantly remind myself that what I'm doing, what I'm trying to do has a small audience and that is not an indictment of it.
John: And the fact that it has a small audience and will not ever produce massive wealth and Dan Harmon is never going to recognize me
John: And my face is not going to be my calling card with Gillian Jacobs.
John: I'm going to just be a guy who's doing a thing, and it's small and weird, but the people who want to be there really want to be there.
John: And that's such a complex idea to keep in the front of your mind.
Merlin: And it seems illogical.
John: It does, because everywhere we go, everything we look at in our culture now is trying to be as big as possible, except for my friends and your friends that are doing things that are actually good that I like.
Merlin: That's what you're nailing is that there is – to me, there's an inherent paradox.
Merlin: Whenever you – whenever anyone hears me moaning about the mobs that are out there on the internet one way or another, what I'm partly moaning about is that there's the paradox, which on the one hand, the upside, the great side of the paradox is it's probably never been easier.
Merlin: If you have the interest – I'm not even going to say the talent.
Merlin: If you have –
Merlin: If you want to get something out there in front of other people, I would defy you to pull up a time when you would have a better chance of economically putting what it is you like to do in front of other people.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Absolutely.
Merlin: I think, especially when you have moments of self-doubt like we all have, you're wondering if you're able to do anything good, is that you start listening a lot more to the people who are telling you what you need to be that's different from who you are.
Merlin: And I'm not talking about, you know, just morally, ethically, anything.
Merlin: It could just be that they want you to play your songs like on the record.
Merlin: And the thing is, that's the voices that you're most likely to hear.
Merlin: It's difficult to hear the voices of the people who are essentially like, I still enjoy the thing you do.
Merlin: I'm anxious to hear the next thing that you would like to do.
Merlin: which I think certainly that can become a recipe for self-absorption, but it's really important to remember that nobody out there is looking for the most average version of a given genre.
Merlin: Nobody wants the algorithm or the heuristic that's going to create the most lovable band in the world.
Merlin: That would be terrible.
Merlin: They've done this with pop music.
Merlin: I've heard these things where they take what are the elements that make a great pop song and try to algorithmically figure that out, and it's gross.
John: Bay City Rollers.
Merlin: Well, that was...
Merlin: Let's not go crazy.
Merlin: But I don't know.
Merlin: It sounds like inspirational or something.
Merlin: But I think it's important to remember that you – maybe – I'm not saying that you should go out and necessarily love everything you've ever made.
Merlin: But you should remember that the people who came along with you so far were there because they found something interesting about what you were doing.
Merlin: Maybe they didn't love everything.
Merlin: every song maybe they didn't love every blog post maybe they didn't love every video or podcast but they were there because there's something about you that they found interesting and i think just about the worst thing you can do is to allow yourself to become less interesting in the service of pleasing uh a completely anonymous group of people because those anonymous group of people they're never going to love you right like all you can do is try to become a better version of whatever your fucked up self is in front of other people and there's never been a better time to try and do that
John: See, this is what we should have done at that talk.
John: If Hodgman would have shut up, we could have said this to people.
John: I love that guy.
John: I feel like more and more, all I'm trying to do is to make Matt Howie happy.
Merlin: That's a great goal.
John: And if I'm making him happy, I feel like I'm in the ballpark of what I should be doing.
John: That is so fucking funny that you should say that.
John: And the other day, I was sitting on a street corner playing threes.
John: The diabolical cell phone game that you bought for me.
John: And I'm sitting there playing threes.
John: And over the course of the weekend at the XOXO Festival, I was playing threes quite a bit because it's now all that my brain wants to do.
John: And it's keeping you off the internet.
John: Multiple people walked by and did a thing, I guess, which is now acceptable, which is to look at someone else's phone to see what they're doing.
John: And then they would tap me on the shoulder and give me two thumbs up and be like, threes, am I right?
John: And I was like, oh my God.
John: But I'm sitting, I'm playing threes on the side, like outside of a venue at one o'clock in the morning, sitting against a wall, crouched on the sidewalk playing threes.
John: And Matt Howey walks over and he's like, you're playing threes.
John: And I said, yeah.
John: I didn't look up.
John: I just said, yeah.
John: And he's like, that makes me so happy.
John: And I was like, I'm doing the right thing then.
John: I'm making Matt Howey happy.
Merlin: oh god I will cut this out after I say it I used to be I'm not this is not going to make it into the show I used to be on a really popular podcast and you know let's just say that I felt like there were good weeks and bad weeks but there was a part of me that was like I'm not sure that I'm the right person to do this anymore and I'm just going to say it at one point Matt said he couldn't listen to the show anymore and it had a huge effect on me deciding not to do it anymore and what was his reason what did he not like about it oh you know it wasn't for him
Merlin: I don't want to get into it, but all I'm trying to say is how fucking funny is that?
Merlin: It was exactly Matt Howey saying, you know, yeah, I haven't been able to listen for a while.
Merlin: And I was like, okay, thanks.
John: That's all I needed.
John: That was the confirmation that I needed.
Merlin: You're my canary in the Matt Cole mine.
Merlin: So if I tried, you know, I didn't even really try to describe threes to you because I knew it's one of those things like trying to, you know, describe the Hallelujah Chorus or something.
Merlin: Like if I said, oh, there's little, these little cards you move around and you try and make threes out of them and you'd be like, oh, okay, that sounds really interesting.
Merlin: But what do you think?
Merlin: What's your review?
John: You know, it took me, it took me, it took me three hours.
John: Like, you know, you get it, you get, you get it right away kind of.
John: And then it takes you about three hours to sort of go like,
John: oh, I see the bigger picture.
John: And then after about three hours, it's like, right, all right, we're cooking here.
John: And I scored 8,000 or something.
John: What?
Merlin: Fuck you.
Merlin: Are you serious?
Merlin: You know, the top scores are like a million.
Merlin: My friend Serenity got like 64,000.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I can't get over like 8,000 ever, ever, ever.
Merlin: And I've been playing like a lot.
John: Yeah, right.
John: Well, 8,000 is hard to get to.
John: And so then as I got to know it better, you know, by like the second day, I couldn't get anywhere close to 8,000 because I was overthinking it.
John: And I was like over here.
John: I was over there.
John: You got to clean up those twos and ones.
John: I think that's a huge key.
John: Yeah.
Yeah.
John: And so now I've settled into kind of a comfortable, like, you know, sort of 7,000, 8,000 game.
John: Oh, God, I'm so fucking angry.
John: And Howie was angry, too.
John: He was like, you've been playing this for how long?
John: And I was like, I don't know, three days, four days?
John: And he was like, fuck you.
John: But what's crazy is that I have never gotten...
John: What is the next one for me?
Merlin: I think I've... I meant like the 256 one, or I might have gotten the whatever that next big one is.
John: Yeah, five whatever.
John: I've gotten the five whatevers, but I haven't gotten the 1,000 or whatever.
John: I love it when it says... That's what I know I'm cooking when I get the... I'm going to get the 192.
John: But I really feel like now I need to understand something else that I don't understand about it.
John: Like I have to dig deeper into the theory.
John: You're going to become a fan.
John: I play it a lot.
John: I really like it.
John: I mean, it's only been three or four days since I put it on my phone.
Merlin: I think the corners are a big strategy.
Merlin: So I'll point you to an article Serenity wrote about this.
Merlin: But I think one of them is you got to work the corners.
Merlin: Work the corners, you're saying.
John: Yeah, does that help?
John: Okay.
John: All right.
John: Work the corners.
John: Right.
John: I just learned yesterday that you can kind of preview a move and not let go.
Merlin: That's huge.
Merlin: And watch for that little notation, the plus, that a big one's coming.
John: A big one.
John: I like the big ones.
John: Anyway, fun game.
John: You were right not to describe it to me because I had the fun of...
Merlin: of discovery I hear it in my sleep I think we helped a lot of people this week you think so?
Merlin: yeah
Merlin: Let's take the rest of the day off.
John: All right.
John: I agree.
John: High five.
Merlin: I filled three coffee cups with pee.
Merlin: While we were doing the show?
Merlin: Yeah, I just added a mute button.
Merlin: It's pretty cool.
Merlin: Very nice.
Merlin: And there's the real end.
Merlin: Oh.