Ep. 132: "You Cannot Lie to Your Pants"
Merlin: This episode of Roderick on the Line is sponsored by Threes.
Merlin: Threes is a tiny puzzle that grows on you.
Merlin: You can play it forever, and it'll always be in your pocket.
Merlin: Learn more about Threes by searching your app store for Threes, or by visiting threesgame.com.
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
Merlin: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: How's it going?
Merlin: Jim Dandy.
Merlin: That's sweet.
Merlin: This is going to be the upbeat episode.
Merlin: Savior of the universe.
John: I am wearing my wool pants today.
John: Nice.
John: And it is nice, except, you know, that first day that you put on the wool pants.
John: You really have to get used to feeling scratchy down there.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: It's not a blend.
John: No, these are old and they're just wool is all get out.
John: They just took a sheep basically and gave it a zipper and took the insides out.
John: Yeah, right.
Merlin: Make condoms and pants.
John: Damn.
John: Yeah, it feels good.
John: It feels good for winter to be here and for it to be like time to get down to the nitty gritty.
Merlin: I wore some different pants today, too, just to mix it up a little bit.
John: Hmm.
John: Different pair of Levi's, you mean?
Merlin: Well, yeah, different pair of Levi's 501s.
Merlin: This is the second rattiest pair that I own, and I wear them probably once a quarter because if I see somebody from my child's school on the street, it leaves an impression.
John: Oh, I see.
Merlin: Now, the rattiest ones, my ding-dong falls out, so I can't wear those.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: But these are – I know you know the wear patterns.
Merlin: Every man has different wear patterns on his Levi's 501s that are weirdly consistent.
Merlin: Have you noticed this?
John: Yeah, but you have very distinctive wear patterns on your pants.
Merlin: Well, I know the one you're thinking of.
Merlin: Go ahead.
Merlin: Because of the phone.
John: Well, the phone, but also you carry, or at least you used to carry your space pen in your front pocket.
John: Oh, you remember that.
John: And the space pen leaves, you know, over time,
John: You have like a worn space pen shadow in your jean front.
Merlin: Yeah, that's mostly from – yes, you are 100% correct.
Merlin: My wear patterns are – that's a classic.
Merlin: I now carry a different kind of pen when I carry a pen, so it doesn't leave the same little – but you're right.
Merlin: Exactly the shape.
Merlin: of the space pen in my right pocket and then of course that starts out just leaving a shape then it leaves a white shadow then of course you get the wear so right then it's like it starts to fray right you get you okay here's if there's one thing to take away from this episode today is this you cannot lie to your pants
Merlin: Your pants know the truth about you.
John: Boy, that is the truth.
Merlin: In so many ways.
Merlin: Today, now, I have a very, very clear outline of an iPhone 5S.
Merlin: Oh, I see.
Merlin: In my left pocket.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: Yep, yep.
Merlin: But, you know, we won't even get into the more unsavory ways that your jeans tell a story, but they tell a story.
Merlin: Did you ever chew tobacco?
Merlin: Back in the day, sure.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: And did you ever have a chew can ring?
Merlin: Oh, you mean like a – oh, gosh, yes.
Merlin: I mean I think that you could actually probably go to County Seat and buy a kind of a fake skull can that you could wash in your laundry just to get the ring to have the cred for the skull.
John: I remember, you know, I'm not proud of it, but at a certain point, I was very opposed to chewing tobacco when I was in my young teens because a lot of my friends chewed in school.
John: You're talking about snuff.
John: I'm talking about, yeah, Copenhagen snuff.
Merlin: As opposed to the Red Man.
John: They weren't chewing Red Man, no.
John: And I mean, there was a pretty, at the time, pretty clear divide between guys that chewed skull who were like... Pussies.
John: Yeah, candy asses.
John: And guys that chewed Cope
John: who were like normals or tough regard.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: You know, who were toughs.
John: And this was before the advent of all the other kinds of, of snuff.
John: There was no Kodiak at the time.
Merlin: Now they got, you can get something called a snoo.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I've seen that Swedish.
John: Well, I guess there was, it was called, some people actually called it snoo.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: That was probably a grassroots thing.
Merlin: I'm not trying to derail you.
Merlin: I taught this in Florida.
Merlin: This was a thing.
Merlin: It was a very, very real thing.
John: Well, and it was very real in Alaska, too.
John: So I was opposed to chewing.
John: And I was kind of like a, you know, if you can believe this, I would Hector my friends and lecture them about what they were doing wrong.
Merlin: Oh, you were just crossing over from being a kid who wanted to make women be chaste into a grown man who had no idea what he was doing.
Merlin: And in between, you had wisdom.
John: That's right.
John: And so I was like, you guys, chewing tobacco is terrible.
John: I disapprove of you sitting in the back of class and spitting chew into a Coke can.
John: And I had enough...
John: leverage with them, not leverage, but just like, you know, they would try and conceal their chewing from me, but you can't conceal that from your friend.
John: But I really envied the chew can ring in the back pockets of their jeans.
John: It just had such a nice, it just said so much.
John: You know what I mean?
John: It said a lot about a guy.
Merlin: It had a signification.
John: And so I started carrying a chew can.
John: Hmm.
John: as a little wallet, as a little, like, dime bag.
Merlin: You had a life hack.
John: Yeah, I would put shit in an old chew can that my friend Kevin gave me.
John: I washed it out, and then I'd fold up my money and notes or whatever.
John: I mean, you couldn't use it as a wallet because you couldn't put an ID in it, but I did.
John: For a while, I carried it around as a little pouch.
Yeah.
John: And then I just started chewing tobacco and the rest was history.
Merlin: I got, you know, we talked before about the kind of wallet that I carry because people care.
Merlin: It's one of those little taxi driver wallets, which is not a super thin wallet, but it really works for me.
Merlin: It folds in half.
Merlin: It's like a billfold and it's got a little clasp where you can put coins or cards inside.
Merlin: Very, very clear outline, including down to where you can see the snap, where the snap is.
John: I carry a taxi wallet, too, that I originally... Is this the one I gave to your mom and your mom gave to you?
John: Yeah, so you gave it to mom.
John: She gave it to me.
John: I wore it out.
John: I don't know why I did that.
John: I don't know either.
John: But she was like, I don't know why Merlin gave me a man's wallet, but would you like it?
John: And I was like, yeah, sure.
John: And I wore it until it came apart.
John: And then I was at the thrift store and I found a completely unused one.
John: Wow.
John: An identical one to the one I had, I was, I was, you know, I was fixing it with tape by that point.
John: And I found one, I was just like, and I actually had to fight a Chinese lady for it.
Merlin: Oh man.
John: She was like, she kind of was standing there at the same time and I picked it up and I was like, check it out.
John: And she was like, I was just about to pick that up.
John: I was like, really?
John: You were about to pick it up.
John: If Frog had wings, he wouldn't bump his ass a hopping.
John: I don't know about that.
John: About to pick it up.
John: And we sat and talked about it for a while.
John: I don't think there's any precedent legally for that, John.
John: She was like, I want you to have it.
John: And I was like, are you sure?
Merlin: Here's what I want to get to.
Merlin: And so there's all the stuff that goes on in the belt area that we're not going to get into.
Merlin: But this is the thing that's so strange to me is the wear patterns.
Merlin: And you see this on shoes, I think.
Merlin: You see this in pants.
Merlin: I guess if you wear it long enough, you see this in a jacket.
Merlin: But two very distinct asymmetrical wear patterns.
Merlin: Hmm.
Merlin: So, I mean, I guess maybe it's kind of obvious you'd have this with shoes because we all like whatever pronate or we've got some kind of imbalance.
Merlin: I'm sure a chiropractor could give you some kind of massage for this.
Merlin: But you notice your two shoes.
Merlin: You go grab four or five pairs of your shoes that you only have had for a few years.
Merlin: Flip them over and it's remarkable the wear patterns on the bottom.
Merlin: Now, for me, that's the knees on the jeans.
Merlin: I don't know why.
Merlin: If I thought about it, maybe I'd figure it out.
Merlin: But it's so strange to me that jeans that I've had for three, four, five more years, one knee always starts to wear before the other, and the other knee then consequently blows out before the other and gets a bigger hole before the other.
Merlin: Do you know what I'm talking about?
Merlin: I do, I do.
Merlin: You'll notice this on cuffs.
Merlin: You'll notice this on elbows.
Merlin: It's really interesting.
Merlin: And Sherlock Holmes could probably say, oh, well, obviously you're a scrivener.
Merlin: Yeah, right.
Merlin: Or maybe you're genuflecting.
Merlin: I don't genuflect that I'm aware of.
John: You're a mincer.
John: You mince around.
John: You mean?
John: Well, maybe not you, but a certain type of person minces around.
Merlin: You know, I think I do.
Merlin: I think I mince.
Merlin: I think I do it in a very masculine way.
John: Yeah, it's a masculine mincing, but it still wears your jeans differently.
John: Yeah.
John: I sometimes will...
John: As I'm walking around... I was in a mall the other day, which is not... That's not where I want to be.
John: But as I had to go from one end of the mall to the other, it's a long trip across the mall.
John: And so as I was walking, I was consciously trying to change my gait.
John: I was... Oh, you're doing the spy thing?
John: Well, I was point... You know, I think I walk a little splayed.
John: And I was...
John: I don't know if you ever tried this, but without looking at your feet, particularly if you walk splayed, you point your toes in and imagine that you are walking sort of...
John: pigeon-toed, and then you look down at your feet, and they're not even pointing straight, right?
John: I mean, it's so unfamiliar to walk with your feet pointing straight, and it changes everything up and down.
John: Like, your hips feel different, your whole body feels different.
John: And when I was walking across Europe, I would do that for days at a time, just be very conscious of, like, I am just pointing my toes in the direction that I'm traveling, and
John: And I still do it sometimes as a way of, you know, a similar type of thing.
John: You look at the bottoms of your shoes and you're like, wow, I'm wearing these shoes in such a weird fashion.
Merlin: Yeah, what could I be doing?
Merlin: It feels like I'm taking a step and another step and everything's equal and normal.
Merlin: I'm not, you know, averaging out over so many years, you wouldn't say I'm taking this many more right turns than left turns.
Merlin: It seems really strange.
Right.
John: And yet, you know, there you are because we are all just flopping around, I guess.
Merlin: No, we're asymmetrical.
Merlin: I don't want to beat it to death.
Merlin: It's the lack of symmetry.
Merlin: Speaking of malls, I just sent you something in the robot.
Merlin: Can you see that?
John: Let me see.
John: Let me see.
Merlin: I'm curious to get your thoughts on this as somebody who follows the trends in technology and apps and where things are going.
John: App trends.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Let's see.
John: I see.
John: So app trends here.
John: Oh, wait.
John: There should be a blue thing in the dingus.
John: Yeah.
John: The dingus.
John: Okay.
John: And it's a link to Kung Fu Grippy.
Merlin: Yep.
Merlin: So my daughter and I went to see a movie the other day and went to the big mall downtown.
Merlin: And, you know, it's actually kind of a fancy.
Merlin: It's the fancy mall downtown.
Merlin: Dynamic new destination.
Merlin: So fancy.
Merlin: Hang on.
Merlin: Hang on.
Merlin: Save it.
Merlin: Go ahead and read it.
Merlin: Save it.
Mm-hmm.
Merlin: Yeah, so it's so fancy that you can get off the subway at Powell Street and actually walk into the food court.
John: Oh, you don't even have to go outside.
Merlin: Yeah, Westfield Center.
Merlin: And so that's one of my favorite places to see movies.
Merlin: They've got good seats.
Merlin: They've got great food.
Merlin: It's a great food court.
Merlin: And it's a great daddy-daughter day place to go.
Merlin: And one of our stops has always been this thing that, of course, used to be a Barnes & Noble.
Merlin: Then after it wasn't a Barnes & Noble, like all places, it became a remainder bookstore.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: That's that's the destiny.
Merlin: That's the destiny.
Merlin: Every Barnes and Noble will, ironically enough, become a remainder bookstore.
Merlin: Then they started adding toys to it.
Merlin: So it was this great place where you can go and get like two dollar books, puzzles, Doctor Who figures.
Merlin: It was really a fun place to go.
Merlin: Well, long story short, we show up.
Merlin: Not anymore.
Merlin: Nope.
Merlin: Guess what?
Merlin: Something new.
Merlin: is moving in.
Merlin: It used to be a Barnes & Noble.
Merlin: Then it was a no-name remainder book and toy store.
Merlin: Now, John, something new, and there's a new thought technology at Westfield Center.
Merlin: I took a photo of this.
Merlin: It's one of those things that you see in front of the window where something is going to be built.
Merlin: Is this something you'd be interested in talking about?
John: Yeah, so, you know, where you block off the store as it's being developed, but instead of just saying, like, coming soon... Yeah, coming soon, casual corner.
John: Right.
John: Now it's sort of a branding opportunity, a newer branding opportunity.
Merlin: So this goes across a whole bunch of storefront.
Merlin: You know how big a Barnes & Noble is, right?
Merlin: Yeah.
John: And they've chosen a kind of gunmetal gray, battleship gray, which indicates sleekness and also forwardness.
John: That was the color of my Audi 5000S gunmetal gray.
Merlin: Oh, God, I'm so envious.
Yeah.
Merlin: And here's what it says.
Merlin: If you don't mind, I'd like your reading of the paragraph.
Merlin: But what it says is bespoke.
Merlin: Bespoke.
Merlin: And in a very fancy-looking sans serif font, it says bespoke with, for some reason, an underline under the B in bespoke.
Merlin: And then in italics, there's a paragraph describing what bespoke is or will be.
Merlin: Would you mind sharing that with our listeners?
John: Well, I was wondering about why they underline just one letter of bespoke.
John: See –
John: And I feel like without the underline, it's possible that you might look at that and say bespokey.
Merlin: Oh, bespoke.
John: Yeah, right.
John: Bespokey or bespoke.
John: I mean, bespoke would have a little accent grave or whatever over the E. Sorry, accent goo over the E. But with no underlining or accent, you could look at it and say bespokey.
John: If you were an Okie from Muskogee, you would say bespokey.
John: Naturally.
John: Okie dokie.
John: But with the underline under the B, it makes you say B, B. You look at it and you go B, B. And then what are you going to do?
Merlin: If you're watching war games or you're watching some kind of 80s, 90s computer thriller, you would think that that's a prompt.
Merlin: Sometimes you would use the blinking underline to indicate a prompt, but why would you have a prompt under the first letter unless you were about to edit it?
John: Right, you were about to delete it, right?
John: Exactly.
John: Change it to Peace Pokey.
John: Yeah.
John: But then underneath, now what font is it?
John: The underneath written, it's sort of an italic that looks kind of like... It's like a fancy Georgia.
John: Yeah, okay.
John: And it says...
John: Nestled within the retail epicenter of San Francisco, sits a dynamic new destination, colon.
John: A community where digital innovators collide.
John: With the world's greatest brands.
John: Hyphen.
John: Em dash.
John: Em dash.
John: For work and for play.
John: And then under that, there's a graphic.
John: And it's a sort of a flow chart, right?
John: Or how would you describe that?
Merlin: It's three icons inside of circles on a horizontal axis, and the three circles are connected for no apparent reason by a line.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: So, co-working.
Merlin: And that's what looks like a PC with a mouse.
John: No, I think that that's a Mac Classic, an Apple Mac Classic.
Merlin: Oh, maybe a Color Classic.
Merlin: Or maybe a Lisa.
John: It could be.
John: I think it's a Mac Lisa.
Yeah.
Merlin: John, in addition to co-working, are there any other kinds of things to do at bespoke?
John: So co-working and then a line over to just a microphone, an unplugged microphone.
Merlin: But with a cord.
John: So it's a mic.
John: It's like one of those mics that you get from Radio Shack that comes with a hardwired cord.
John: Yeah, like a Bob Pollard mic.
John: Yeah, and it says, events.
John: Events.
John: Events.
Merlin: And then another line over to... Some kind of a game controller that... PlayStation?
Merlin: Yeah, see, I don't even play games, and I can just tell from looking at that.
Merlin: It's a game with some kind of cord that connects to something that I don't think you would have had on most gaming systems in even the last three to five years.
John: It looks like some kind of Epson printer jack.
Merlin: Oh, yeah, sure.
Merlin: And what does that indicate, John?
Merlin: Tech demos.
Merlin: Tech demos.
Merlin: So you got co-working, events, and tech demos.
John: Co-working, events, and tech demos at Bespoke.
John: And the URL is at Bespoke underscore SF.
John: Well, that was a freebie for them.
John: Oh, sorry.
John: Shit.
John: We should retroactively charge.
John: No, I want people to go and look at this and scoff at it.
John: I want them to say like, wow, we're getting a lot of traffic today.
John: Hey, our numbers are really going up and it's just people around the world scoffing at them.
Merlin: Well, don't think I didn't go.
Merlin: As soon as we got home, I went and checked out the toots from Bespoke SF.
Merlin: And I think it's pretty inscrutable.
Merlin: A lot of tech demos?
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: See, we're shooting fish in a barrel, but it's kind of hilarious that it used to be at Barnes & Noble.
Merlin: And I don't know about you, but back in the, let's say, by the mid-'90s, how about this?
Merlin: When we got to Barnes & Noble at the Tallahassee Mall,
Merlin: in circa 1992 or 3, whatever it was, that Barnes & Noble was expanding really quickly.
Merlin: That was the first Starbucks I ever went to, was a Starbucks inside of a Barnes & Noble.
Merlin: I mean, that's how classy Barnes & Noble was.
Merlin: Barnes & Noble, alongside, I guess, Borders, was a juggernaut.
Merlin: You know, Walden Books has been on the way down for a while, but this was probably like 50,000 square feet of store, Barnes & Noble.
John: Barnes & Noble is huge.
John: Don't you remember?
John: They were driving out all the little children's bookstores on the Upper West Side.
Merlin: I think sometimes they took over something like maybe it was like an old grocery store, like that big, like a Pantry Pride type situation when the mall got refurbished.
Merlin: You get a Barnes & Noble.
Merlin: You can go in there, you can buy all kinds of, you can buy playing cards, you can get coffee, you can get a Danish.
Merlin: They have a giant periodical section.
Merlin: Barnes & Noble down at our Tanfran Mall, two stories, including a giant toy section.
John: Right, and children's books and records they were selling.
Merlin: They were selling records for a while.
Merlin: Now there is not a single big box bookstore in downtown San Francisco.
John: The thing is, I used to go into those places and I didn't know what, I didn't know, they weren't for me, right?
John: They were not for me.
John: They were not built for me.
John: I would walk around and I would end up, I would go upstairs, I would go downstairs, I would walk around, I'd walk around and eventually I would buy a paperback copy of Plato's Republic just to give myself something to do.
John: And then I would, you know, go give that to a homeless guy because I feel that that is the, it starts, the path to recovery starts with Plato.
Yeah.
Merlin: I'll give you these mashed potatoes, but first I want to talk about a cave.
Merlin: Are you listening?
Merlin: Do I have your attention?
John: Then I would go away and I wouldn't go back.
John: Or every once in a while I would buy one of those artist's models, the little wood articulated men that sit on the tables.
John: Yeah, that's for creative people who are being creative.
John: Yeah, sit on the end tables in the homes of interesting people.
John: I would buy one of those and then give it as a gift.
John: That's what it is.
Merlin: See, I've always loved just spending two hours in a store like that.
Merlin: But what I will say, no matter who you are, it's great for Christmas gifts.
Merlin: It's a nice place for gifts.
Merlin: If you don't care that much about who you're buying it for, especially, you can find something for anybody there.
John: But listen, the other day...
John: I was on a website called Instagram.
Merlin: A website called Instagram.
John: Okay.
John: And I don't know if you are familiar with Jessica Cousin.
John: I may be.
John: Who works for Squarespace, our once and future sponsor.
Mm-hmm.
John: And she sent me a message on Squarespace.
Merlin: Instagram?
John: I'm sorry.
John: On Instagram, the Instagram website, saying there's a guy who is taking tintype photographs and
John: In your town today, he's an itinerant tintyper traveling the world with his giant camera doing real tintype photos.
John: And he's looking for people.
John: He's looking for talent.
John: He's looking for talent.
John: People that look old timey.
John: And so I contacted this guy.
John: I was like, I want a tintype photograph.
John: And he was like, come on down to Seattle's Pioneer Square.
John: And I got down there.
John: I expected him to be wearing a bowler hat and a mustache, but he was wearing neither.
John: And he was taking tintype photographs with this camera that he'd kind of built himself.
John: And he was using an alcove in a space that, as I looked around, turned out to be one of these co-working spaces.
John: Right?
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Have you ever been to one of these?
Merlin: Oh, I got a lot to say about co-working.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: It's a co-working space.
Merlin: It's like a floor of a building, and people are there doing stuff on laptops.
John: Yeah, and so, and there's a woman there who represents the co-working place, and she started, and I was like, tell me about your co-working space, and she started giving me the spiel.
John: And this co-working space had some, there was some angle, right, where it was like, where they were...
John: Certainly telling me, but I think also telling themselves that it was some aspect of their co-working space was in the public good.
John: There was a public interest angle where they were nonprofits or... Oh, I see.
John: They were trying to...
John: Trying to make the world a better place.
Merlin: Doing their part.
John: Yeah, right.
John: But I toured the space, and it was full of people.
John: I mean, every seat was taken...
John: And they were all people on their laptops.
John: And I looked at their laptops and they all appeared to be using Windows 95.
John: And they were all... I didn't see any public interest work.
John: It all just seemed like people trying to polish their resumes.
John: I'm not sure what kind of work was going on in there.
John: But I was astonished that in the middle of the afternoon that people would choose to pay to be in this environment...
John: And I came out of that experience both with a tintype photograph of myself and also a new curiosity about this co-working movement.
John: That was my first exposure to it.
John: Oh, really?
John: Well, I don't have – I mean, I don't work or interact with people who work.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Well, it's just in the kind of – I guess I want to say in the tech world.
Merlin: It's something that's really taken off over the years where, you know, for obvious economic reasons.
Merlin: I mean, let's look at what is it really?
Merlin: It's like having an office combined with having roommates.
Merlin: Like you don't really need to go lease your own floor of an office.
Merlin: You don't have to go through a lease and all that kind of stuff.
Merlin: All you really need is a desk somewhere.
John: There's a bunch of places.
John: But wouldn't you just go to a cafe, I guess, is my question.
Merlin: I think that's a very good question, and that's why to jump to the – cut to the chase.
Merlin: To me, that's not how I would ever work.
Merlin: I would not get any work done in a place like that.
Merlin: I mean, to me, having an office is good and bad because I have a place to put all my shit.
Merlin: I like having all my shit.
Merlin: That's good.
Merlin: But even if you just bring a laptop, I cannot imagine a more purpose-built environment –
Merlin: for distraction and unnecessary noise and movement, just in my head.
Merlin: Like to me, the point of having a place to work, and this is, again, just goes to show how old I am, is I've had opportunities to co-work at places in town where I've gotten offers from really nice places where I was like, hey, can I rent a desk here?
Merlin: Twitter at one point, I almost had a place at Twitter.
Merlin: So I was like, oh, this is great.
Merlin: I'll go to South Park every day.
Merlin: This is before I got an office, so like five years ago, six years ago.
Merlin: I went and I think I saw like Jason Goldman there.
Merlin: I was like, he's like, hey, yeah, we can set you up here.
Merlin: And I was like, this is really nice, but boy, is it ever loud.
Merlin: You know, like $1,100 a month or something.
Merlin: No, it wasn't that much.
Merlin: No, it wasn't that much.
Merlin: But it was, you know, they were going to cut me a break or something.
Merlin: But anyway, it would be really cool to work alongside all these cool people.
Merlin: But that to me, people were throwing a ball.
Merlin: There's music going on.
Merlin: To a place, they're all like seem uniquely inappropriate for a large number of people to be doing something quiet in.
Merlin: Have you noticed that?
Merlin: They're echoey a lot of the time.
John: I feel like if I were in an environment like that, it would be a personal challenge for me to try and distract everyone else as much as I could.
John: I would just go from desk to desk and be like, hey, what are you working on?
John: So, how long have you been in Seattle?
John: And I just couldn't... I wouldn't be there to work.
John: I would be there to...
John: and to meet these people and find interesting things about them.
John: And if you're going to work, I would think you would want to be in a...
John: In seclusion.
John: But then that's my method.
Merlin: That's the funny part.
Merlin: It's true both ways.
Merlin: I would be equal – maybe not equal parts, but depending on the day, I would on the one hand be probably pretty annoyed with how much movement, activity, and noise there was because that's what it is.
Merlin: It's a bunch of people in a room doing stuff.
Merlin: While on the other hand, I could just also see myself walking up and standing by somebody's desk and talking to them for two hours.
Merlin: So it would be the worst of both worlds.
Merlin: I guess it works.
Merlin: I guess it works for some people.
Merlin: But I'm with you.
Merlin: I can see needing to get out of the house, wanting to get out of the house.
Merlin: But I'm not sure I understand how much more that offers than a cafe.
Merlin: And I have friends who've tried to do podcasts inside a place like that.
Merlin: Wow.
Merlin: Which is like trying to do it in the CNN newsroom or something.
John: I was thinking about this the other day.
John: When I was first starting out in music in Seattle, the biggest challenge, as I perceived it at the time, was to find a space.
John: Like a practice, like a shed.
John: That was the biggest challenge.
John: The biggest obstacle... And I had a friend named Reese Lamb who was a painter.
John: And Reese was really good at...
John: He knew all the people in underground Seattle.
John: And I don't mean where you go on the tour of underground Seattle.
John: But he knew all the people living in the holes.
John: And Reese always had a place to paint.
John: Because every time you'd run into him, he'd be like, oh, yeah, man, I'm painting in this garage down in the Central District.
John: I met a guy who repairs old refrigerators.
John: Or I met a guy that makes rubber bands, and he's got this space in the corner of his plan.
John: You'd go down there, and it would be an uninsulated room.
John: corner of a steel frame building and Reese would be in there painting and time and time again I would say hey you know Reese like can you think of any place in your network of spaces that would you know that I could convert into a band practice space and he would get all suspicious and be like well man I mean bands are so loud and he was afraid that if he hooked me up
John: with some space and i turned it into a band practice space it was just going to attract attention to the whole underground economy then somebody's gonna be like what's that making all that noise over there and then you're like just a couple clicks south of a meth lab yeah it's not good for the environment to attract attention
John: Oh, rock band.
John: And then the cops come around and then they're like, well, we're just going to start busting all these old buildings.
John: And then the rubber band guy's out of work.
John: The refrigerator guy's out of work.
John: It's all because of me.
John: That rubber band man is such a good song.
John: God.
Merlin: That's a great song.
Merlin: Crazy good.
John: So then there was...
John: You know, and there were always, like, shared band practice spaces.
John: But it was like, you know, you had to know somebody.
John: They were always full to overflowing.
John: I couldn't find a space.
John: And then my friend Peter took a job as a custodian at a theater company that was occupying an old funeral home.
John: Oh, wow.
John: And Peter was their custodian.
John: In exchange for them letting him live in one of the outbuildings, which was the garage where they kept the hearses.
John: And it was an uninsulated hearse garage.
Merlin: Let me understand this.
Merlin: So he's got a place to do his stuff and a place to live?
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: Can you imagine being in your early 20s and coming into something like that?
John: Well, I can't imagine.
Merlin: It's like in an 80s movie where you get to have an entire loft to yourself for $50 a month.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
John: I was standing right next to Peter when it happened, and I was like, hey, this is incredible.
John: Let me help you fix this place up.
John: So Peter was pretty handy, and we took the garage door off, or we took all the hardware off the garage door and built it so that it was just a wall.
John: It still looked like a garage door, but it was a wall.
John: It didn't open anymore.
John: That wouldn't have been my choice, but that was Peter's idea.
John: And then we cut a door in the side and we found one of those old sort of patchwork metal doors from an industrial... It was kind of leaning against the side of a building.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: It looks like a refrigerated area door.
John: Yeah, right.
John: We found one of those and hung it in the side of this building.
John: And then we went and got a bunch of futons and...
John: drilled holes in the futons and put bolts and washers and then we could hang the futons over the windows and we found a bunch of insulation somewhere and and borrowed a ladder and got up and insulated this whole building and it was like this amazing space and i worked on it with peter and
John: For several months making it into like the ultimate bachelor pad practice space.
John: And it was a huge garage.
John: Found some couches, some carpets.
John: He was living there.
John: And he was kind of a tidy guy.
John: He would wake up in the morning and make his bed and put some throw pillows on it so it looked like a couch.
John: I don't know what he thought he was doing.
John: He never entertained anybody.
John: Just dignity.
John: But he had a personal dignity.
John: That's right.
John: He was German and his parent, he had like eight brothers and sisters and he just, he made his bed in the morning.
John: But so then he put a band, he had a band, I had a band and we started practicing in this space and right away,
John: The relationship started to sour.
Merlin: Oh, no.
John: And Peter was like, you know, this is my house.
John: This is my home.
John: You guys are practicing it and leaving your chew spit cans lying around and your marijuana reefers.
John: And I was like, what do you mean this is your house?
John: This is the fantasy we've always had.
John: It's like a clubhouse.
Merlin: Yeah, why would you introduce ownership into something so cool?
John: Yeah, and he's like, it's not your clubhouse.
John: It's my clubhouse.
John: And I was like, you're getting this place for free for not even being a janitor over at the theater company.
John: Anyway, it got very contentious.
John: And reflecting back on it, I realized that I was taken over.
John: I was taken over his private little space.
John: And so I went over to the theater company, and I was like, listen, I'm not going to be your janitor, but you got a couple of outbuildings here.
John: So you got a couple additional outbuildings.
John: Let me have one.
John: And they were like, you know, we do it.
John: We have this space over here that we were going to rent to a guy who was a motorcycle repair guy.
John: But if you're a band, if you're artists, like we're a theater company.
John: We are premised on helping people make art.
John: And so they gave me this cinder block thing.
John: garage that you know was moldy and covered with oil and i and my band having just helped peter fix up his we spent three four months fixing up this garage and we actually took the garage door out and built a cinder block wall
Merlin: Is this the one by the Richard Hugo House?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, wow.
Merlin: That's so cool.
John: So the theater company then sold itself to the Richard Hugo House.
John: And I continued a relationship with them.
John: I was sort of grandfathered in.
John: And they were like, we'd much rather use that space to make literary arts.
John: But I suppose since you've been here and you did all this work, you can continue to be a rock band there.
Merlin: Oh my god, this is a different century.
John: Yeah, and it is still a rock band space to this day.
John: It was handed down from us to a series of bands at one point
Merlin: Was there somebody, wasn't that Thermals, Raw Raw Riots?
Merlin: There was somebody kind of pseudo-famous there for a while, right?
John: Yeah, there were famoses there, I think, various bands that went in and out of that space that were all connected by sort of a family relationship to me 20 years before.
Yeah.
John: um and i don't know your bastard rock children yeah i don't know who's in there now but the richard hugo house just announced that they sold the entire quarter of a block all of the outbuildings and the funeral home and everything um to some developers who are going to put in a tower condo tower oh really oh
John: It's all going to go away.
John: All of the history, all the blood and sweat and songs and... Marijuana reefers?
John: Reefers and Peter's... Peter's throw pillows?
John: Peter's lost youth and my lost youth and the first performance ever of Unsalted Butter and it's all just going to get backhoeed into the basement of some kind of condo.
Merlin: Fucking tears in rain.
John: Yeah, that's right.
Merlin: Oh, John!
Merlin: Well, you know, I guess good for Richard Hugo House.
Merlin: I mean, their margins are probably pretty thin.
Merlin: They probably don't get a lot of people pounding in there like, show me the trout.
Merlin: Well, you know the story of the Richard Hugo House was... I don't know, but you know he's my second favorite American poet.
Merlin: I do know that, and... Like all healthy boys, I have a list.
John: Well, and like all good American friends, you and I both have shared with one another our top four or five American poets.
Mm-hmm.
John: but uh it's not weird it's not weird it's something every boy does absolutely not you show each other and then uh you know it's not yeah you were like different you're like hey i'm visiting seattle can we go by the literary arts center that celebrates the work of my second favorite american poet and i was like
John: Hey, I happen to have some friends there.
John: I can get us in.
Merlin: Let's go.
John: Hey, I'm curious.
John: But the Richard Hugo House was funded by some rich people.
John: One of the first generation of Microsoft and Amazon multimillionaires in this town back when...
John: They were millionaires already, but the town was still pretty shabby and real estate was cheap.
Merlin: Right, right, right.
Merlin: You've talked about this.
Merlin: I mean, we can't assume everybody's heard every episode of this show.
Merlin: I mean, you know, it sounds like in a similar way to San Francisco, obviously in its own way, but Seattle has in your lifetime seen some massive changes.
Merlin: Is it fair to say?
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, and not even in my lifetime.
John: I mean, what makes it a tragedy is that the changes started after I was already aware of real estate.
John: Right.
John: I mean, I remember standing on a tragedy.
Merlin: You didn't get in on it.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: In a way.
Merlin: I remember standing on your mom.
Merlin: Your mom did pretty well with that.
John: Well, no, not really, not considering what we could have done, right?
John: I mean, there was a time in 1995 or 6 when you could still buy, like, a lot, right?
John: An undeveloped lot.
John: Within 10 minutes of walking distance from downtown, you could buy like a quarter acre abandoned lot for $20,000.
John: I don't want to do this.
John: And they were kind of all over the place.
John: And the reason was that from 19...
Merlin: That's like four or five months rent for people who are new to San Francisco.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
John: And nobody saw it coming, even though I did see it.
John: But it was very hard to convince people because from 1970 to 1995, that lot didn't change in value.
Right.
Merlin: And it probably was costly to maintain, keep the insurance on, clean up the needles.
Merlin: It was probably more cost than benefits.
John: You got to pay the taxes, if nothing else.
John: And so it's like, oh, well, that lot was $20,000, and the one across the street was $12,000, and that lot up there, that whole corner lot was $24,000.
John: And for $150,000, you could have bought what would ultimately be $20 million in real estate now.
Yeah.
John: Because they are – the developers now are going through that neighborhood and tearing down three-story brick apartment buildings in order to build – you know, they're tearing down a $5 million building in order to build a $15 million building.
John: Old growth beams?
John: Yeah.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: They just go – it's right in the dumpster.
John: But – and I did see it coming because I could – I looked around and I was like, well, wait a minute.
Yeah.
John: You can buy a house in the center of Seattle for $50,000, and yet the world's richest man lives here.
John: And not only that, but this will one day soon be the last livable place.
John: I've been to Los Angeles.
John: I know what's going on down there.
John: You know, this was all evident 15 years ago.
John: But I didn't have any resources and I didn't have any, I didn't have the moxie.
John: And you have, it's the wisdom of retrospect.
John: I can look back now and say, like, I knew it then and I should have devoted all my energy to it.
John: But in fact, I was trying to write songs and be in a band.
John: I didn't want to be a real estate developer.
Merlin: But sometimes, even if it's something in plain sight, there's nothing that ever gets you to do something about it.
Merlin: It's hard to explain.
Merlin: As I'm fond of saying, it's difficult for me to try to explain to people why I didn't do something.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
Merlin: It's what Richard Hugo calls the triggering town.
John: Please continue.
John: Yeah.
John: You can't prove a negative.
John: But anyway, the Richard Hugo House, these people were newly minted millionaires.
John: And they went into Capitol Hill's ritzy neighborhood.
John: And there is a particular house right across the street from the Cornish College of the Arts that is a massive and beautiful, gracious home.
John: But it's...
John: right on a busy street and it's one of those beautiful homes that when it was built and every once in a while a guy would would putter by in a one-cylinder car and go beep beep uh you know it was like oh that's charming right we we have put our our big home on the main street because like where marty mcfly's family lived in 1955 lion estates or whatever um
John: Because the guy who was bringing the milk on the horse-drawn cart, that kind of busyness of the street did not... It didn't impact your enjoyment of your home.
John: The streetcar went by.
John: Somebody rode by on a giant bicycle, a penny farthing or whatever.
John: But there was no...
John: Being on a busy street was not disadvantageous, and now there's this big, beautiful, gracious home, but all day long it's just vroom, vroom, vroom, buses and cars, and it's just not, it doesn't have enough seclusion, right?
John: So there's this beautiful home, but it's such a big pile of luxurious finishes that even though it's on a busy street, you couldn't
John: afford to live there unless you were a rich person and if you were a rich person why would you want to live there so the richard hugo house people initially went to that neighborhood and they were like we're gonna buy this house and it made perfect sense it was like it was this fantastic place it had a big entry hall a staircase that you could take a team of horses up
John: And it just screamed Literary Arts Center.
John: And then in an early example of sort of Seattle NIMBY, the old rich people who lived in the gracious homes right around there were all like, well, we don't want, where are all these literary arts people going to park?
John: Are you kidding?
John: We don't want some kind of literary arts.
Merlin: I can't imagine a better neighbor.
John: That's going to invite people that wear feathers for jewelry.
John: That literary arts, you're going to hear those pencils scratching.
John: And the neighborhood ganged up together and kept the Hugo House from being able to buy it.
John: It wasn't just a grassroots campaign.
John: They actually went to the city and said, this neighborhood is not zoned for this kind of questionable, commercial, artistic use.
John: And so...
John: So they chased Richard Hugo out, and the Hugo House bought that funeral home kind of like it was pretty far down on their fourth choice or whatever.
John: By the time they were able to get that place, they were like, listen, we just need to buy a place.
John: And I think, if I recall correctly, they bought that entire lot and funeral home and everything for a million bucks.
John: And I'm absolutely sure that it's a $10 million piece of real estate now or more.
John: Oh, my goodness.
John: $15 million.
John: So they didn't do too badly.
Yeah.
John: But I still drive past that big, beautiful home across from the Cornish College of the Arts and think, I mean, one day this will be a literary arts center if I have my way.
John: When I am an old man, I will come here and I will turn this into a literary arts center just to spite the ghosts of those people.
Yeah.
John: Because when that house was built, someone presciently probably wrote Literary Arts Center in chalk on a beam.
John: It was meant for that.
John: So mad.
Merlin: It's funny also because, you know, you wouldn't want to pin the guy down, but so much of what he wrote about that's so memorable.
Merlin: He had a real eye for just all kinds of stuff in the Pacific Northwest.
John: That's one of the things that makes him a good poet.
John: Eye for a lot of different kinds of stuff.
Merlin: Well, I mean, you know, he's famous.
Merlin: He first became famous for like his fish poems or whatever.
Merlin: But like the stuff of his that I enjoy and remember the most are stuff about like tumble down Western towns.
Merlin: Just kind of, you know, kind of analogies for life falling apart that you go and visit.
Merlin: It's kind of funny, though, that like that to me is what he also wrote a wonderful book on writing that I can highly recommend called The Triggering Town.
Merlin: Your love of Richard Hugo is one of my favorite loves.
Merlin: There's so many things in my life I don't talk about, John, because it bores other people.
Merlin: It bores people when I talk about what poets I like.
John: It makes me so excited.
John: You know, he's really the rich man's, by which I mean poor man's, but Carver, you know what I mean?
John: Like, he's the poet, but...
John: But without so much... Rich man's Raymond Carver.
John: He's the rich man's poor man's Raymond Carver.
Merlin: Huh.
Merlin: That's my favorite big black album.
Merlin: This episode of Roderick on the Line is sponsored by a game called Threes.
Merlin: Threes is a tiny puzzle that grows on you.
Merlin: You can play it forever, and it'll always be in your pocket.
Merlin: Sean and I are big fans of Threes.
Merlin: You can learn more about Threes by searching your app store or by visiting threesgame.com.
Merlin: Okay, that's the part they wanted us to say, but here's the real truth.
Merlin: Threes has ruined our lives.
Merlin: John and I are mere husks of men at this time.
Merlin: We play it constantly.
Merlin: Our lives are upside down.
Merlin: Our children are starving.
Merlin: John and I wanted to get to the bottom of this diabolical game, so we did a very long interview with Asher Vollmer, who's the twisted genius behind this menace.
Merlin: Here's an excerpt from the interview.
Merlin: It would be fun to throw in something like a tip.
Merlin: What do you think, John?
John: Yeah, well, a tip or even an argument.
Merlin: You've never had a two-minute argument in your entire fucking life.
John: I feel like if we started talking about threes, we would develop a narrative pretty quickly around the idea that it is diabolical.
John: Oh, I like this.
John: And that it will affect your self-esteem if you are not a strong person.
John: you know, we'll just cover the truth about threes, basically.
Merlin: So, if I understand what you're saying, we're definitely saying that we're going to help you by letting you know we're going to tear the veil away from this monstrosity.
Merlin: But it's also, if I'm getting you right, it's a little bit like Lex Luthor in the Superman movie where he's saying some people can read a candy wrapper and understand the secrets of the universe.
Merlin: Right, exactly.
John: I feel like we need to unmask certain aspects of threes so that it isn't, you know, I wouldn't give threes, say, to
Merlin: A vulnerable person.
Merlin: To hear the rest of the interview and find out Asher's plans for harnessing your gameplay for free electric power, please visit show notes for this episode at roderickontheline.com.
Merlin: You can download the full interview for free there.
Merlin: Listen to it.
Merlin: It's a lot of fun.
Merlin: And like we said, you can learn how to grab your own copy of Threes by visiting threesgame.com or by visiting the App Store on your mobile device.
Merlin: And real talk, guys, thanks a million to Asher for making our all-time favorite video game, for taking the time to talk to us, and for supporting Roderick on the Line.
John: I was listening to Buffalo Tom on the way in today.
Merlin: Oh, bird brains.
Merlin: I follow that guy on the Twitter.
Merlin: Yeah, he's good.
Merlin: Bird brains.
John: They used to sound a lot like Dinosaur.
John: Well, yeah, and The Replacements, like all those bands from the late 80s in America all sounded like Dinosaur Jr.
John: and The Replacements, and the recordings don't sound very good, and there's a lot of kind of, I guess, jangle strumming, but through overdriven amps.
Merlin: It's also weird how – I mean even – I think this kind of happened even with Dump Truck.
Merlin: But like there's that cluster of bands from around that time where like they were these crusty post-Minneapolis – not exactly hardcore bands, but like – I don't even want to say pop punk.
Merlin: But you know what I mean.
Merlin: Bands like Lemonheads, bands like Soul Asylum that were very – I think very much had their roots.
Merlin: Not to disparage, but very much had their roots.
John: The Buck Pets.
John: Did you ever hear of the Buck Pets?
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: Yeah, but I mean it's funny.
Merlin: You go back and listen to Lemonheads back when the other guy wrote songs too.
Merlin: They sound a lot like Husker Du at points.
Merlin: Yes, yes.
Merlin: And obviously Soul Asylum, the stuff before Hang Time, sounds so much like The Replacements.
Merlin: It's kind of funny.
Merlin: Clam Dip and Other Delights.
Merlin: Yeah, oh God, that's such a great record.
Merlin: And who's the guys with the frosted hair?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You know, the guys that became really popular.
Merlin: Cheap Trick?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: Oh, no, no.
Merlin: Come on.
Merlin: You know the band.
Merlin: No, I know.
Merlin: Yeah, the... The Goo Goo Dolls.
Merlin: Runaway train never coming back.
Merlin: No, that's all.
Merlin: Now I'm thinking of Goo Goo Dolls.
Merlin: Goo Goo Dolls used to sound even more like... They sounded a lot like... But isn't it funny?
Merlin: All of those bands that you can go back and listen to their late 80s output.
Merlin: And I'll stand by hang time.
Merlin: It's glossy, but it's a good album.
Merlin: It's like replacements meets cheap trick.
Merlin: It's great.
John: But then a couple of those, but I couldn't, I never got into the Google dolls.
Merlin: I could never get, but they were like, if it's what's funny in retrospect, though, is if you do go back and listen to those records, you so clearly hear them going, Oh my God, I really want to, I, you know, like kind of like me and REM at one time, we're like, Oh my gosh, I would love to recreate this certain sound.
Merlin: And then it's funny.
Merlin: Cause then they all like to a band got famous for some jangly power ballad or six.
Yeah.
Merlin: so yeah you got the runaway train i really have to take these wool pants off excuse me oh no please go ahead i'll keep talking while you're taking them off so hot so you got then the lemon heads they started to kind of turn it down you know starting with the um it's a shame about ray stuff yep that's right then they got all i think he actually dated winona rider like everybody and who else you got there you got i never did i never dated buffalo tom they had the headlight song that was kind of a power ballad
John: Do you remember, I remember early 90s, all the way after grunge had already crested,
John: Paul Westerberg still was voted America's number one songwriter in some Rolling Stone poll.
John: And I remember... That's like the Academy Awards, though, John.
Merlin: That's like him getting credit for something he did earlier.
John: It felt like Tim Conway getting an Emmy Award for his appearance on 30 Rock.
Merlin: If it's a temporary low, I'm going to pour right out of my skull.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: That's better than unsatisfied?
John: I'm telling you.
John: And the thing is that REM, I don't know whether it is just that at a certain age you drink the Kool-Aid and then that's the Kool-Aid that you drank.
Merlin: You drink the Kool-Aid that was given in your time, I think.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: So if Monster was the first R.E.M.
Merlin: album you heard, we're going to have some very awkward conversations.
Merlin: Yeah, I guess that's true.
John: But the first three R.E.M.
John: records, they are absolutely bulletproof, and there's not a single... Even the wrong notes are right.
John: And yet, you know, I'll put on the replacements, and I know I've heard it all a thousand times, and I saw them back in the day, and I have sat on a dirty couch with two other guys in horn-rimmed glasses and baseball hats from feed and seed companies, and we have argued about this.
John: For 25 years, I've been arguing about this, but I put on those replacements records, and I just go, eh.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: is a way better finished product than Tim.
Merlin: I think the production on Tim is incredibly dated.
Merlin: Even Jim Dickinson's stuff on Pleased to Meet Me, I mean, my God, I'm not going to bring up the gated problem, but there's a lot of gated reverb on there that makes it sound like they're playing in half a toilet with the lid falling down.
John: But I mean, there is no worse record
John: in terms of production, than Eye Against Eye by the Bad Brains.
John: Really?
John: And yet, I love that record.
Merlin: There's an SST record.
Merlin: Well, I guess that is an SST record, isn't it?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: That spot guy ruined a lot of really good albums.
John: It really did.
John: And I mean, I think that is a fantastic album.
John: I can hear it.
John: I can listen to it and love it through the production.
John: I do not care.
Merlin: Is it pretty reverby?
Merlin: Am I remembering right?
Merlin: It's pretty reverby.
John: Oh, my God.
John: Who knows?
John: It sounds like they put a microphone down a manhole cover and the band was playing in a truck that was driving by.
John: We're not sure which truck.
John: There's no – they were playing in like a – I'm pretty sure that's bad brains.
John: Like not – it just sounds terrible.
John: And when you listen to it, you can't help but say like, oh, God, if you could just have also been recording this record when this record was recorded.
John: Like if there was another guy there who was actually recording.
Merlin: This is back to your theory about being a producer is more than standing behind the faders.
Merlin: It's having an editorial voice to make sure that you've got the skills to make it sound good.
Merlin: And then you make sure it sounds good.
John: Yeah.
John: Right.
John: I mean, you just, I mean, I'm sure that recording a band was really difficult and just personality wise, like HR came in and, you know, and just started calling you a Nazi or whatever it was or a Jew or whatever it was.
John: His, his, his trip was that hour.
John: But yeah,
John: But, you know, my God, those performances, that moment in time, right?
John: You can't go back and re-record that record because nobody could do it.
John: Nobody could play that record now.
John: They were touched by angels, right?
Merlin: You're saying that as an oeuvre, the replacements hasn't moved you as much as it's moved a lot of people.
John: Songwriting.
John: I mean, the sounds of those records notwithstanding, the songwriting.
Merlin: You don't like the songwriting.
John: It's not that I don't like it.
John: I just go like, yeah, this is for other people.
John: This is for guys in Feed and Seed hats, or this is for the Goo Goo Dolls.
John: This is the...
John: I felt that way about Dylan the first time I heard him, but then I grew to understand and love Dylan, and Dylan moves me now.
John: But I've gone back to the replacements well a hundred times, and I always just come out of it feeling like, yeah, those were the guys that lived in the house across the street from the house that I lived in, and we were friendly but not friends.
Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, I mean, I can't argue with that.
Merlin: I mean, you know, at the time that something becomes a sensation, whether it's any of these bands or any of my other favorite bands that I learned about because they became sensations, you know, a lot of it has to do with the time and the timing and some of that stuff does age better than others.
Merlin: Some of it was never really that great to begin with.
John: Well, and Buffalo Tom is an example of a band that I saw in 1990 or 91, and the show just blew me away.
John: And so I can't hear a bad word about them.
John: You know what I mean?
John: I'll always love them because I remember...
John: The feeling of being at their show and feeling like, this is doable.
John: Like, this is doable.
John: These guys are doing this, and I could do this.
John: This is doable.
John: And this is amazing.
John: And this show, there are a lot of people at this show, and they're all... It was that first time...
John: Because I'd always gone to punk shows, right?
John: Right.
John: Those were the only shows that you went to.
Merlin: Like hardcore shows where a lot of it was about the mechanics and volume.
John: Yeah, right.
John: I mean, I couldn't afford to go see The Cure or something.
John: Starship.
John: Right.
John: I wasn't going to go to those shows.
John: I was going to the $5 show at the rec center or the $3 show at the rec center.
John: And those bands were all hardcore bands.
John: And so I would be at the show and I would look around and everybody was rocking their punk band.
John: thing and i loved i loved to slam dance it was one of my favorite things to do but i was i did not walk out of that show and feel like you know what i'm gonna shave my head and i'm gonna um start you know uh i'm gonna go vegan and i'm gonna start like living and working at a soup kitchen
John: Like I did not, I was not transformed into the life.
Merlin: Right, right, right.
John: No, no, no.
John: But at that Buffalo Tom show, I looked around and I was like, whoa, like everybody here is my age and they're all wearing Carhartt jackets and there are girls here and most of these guys are wearing glasses.
John: Like these are my people.
John: It was really kind of – it was freaky.
Merlin: Well, yeah, and now you're making me think – because that was some of the early shows I went to, and it was just – they were electric.
Merlin: I mean, just so – such an adrenaline shot to go to a show like that.
Merlin: But what's funny is like sometimes I would end up seeing – I'm thinking especially of bands that were opening for somebody else that I had heard the name of, I might be a little bit familiar with.
Merlin: but bands were like that's some of the bands that really ended up sticking with me like yellow tango and the feelies and these bands where you would go and like if you just heard their record first you might you might not get it but urge overkill big example of that oh man they were boy they were good they were real glossy but they were they were amazing they were fun and funny
Merlin: but like yeah but i mean yellow tango to me like i think their songwriting is fantastic i think the evolution of them over time is great i think they seem like interesting people or you know again with the feelies the feelies are like as close as i will ever get to something like the grateful dead like where you go and i'm just intently watching the way this song is unfolding because it's it is it is very rock and roll you know but just very very intense but it's also kind of nerdy
Merlin: Like Yola Tango, there's something basically nerdy about it, but it just happens to rock.
Merlin: So it caught me that night.
Merlin: And then that leads me down the rabbit hole of going and looking for all the records from those guys.
Merlin: That's stuff that is really, like you and Buffalo Tom, that's stuff that really stuck with me.
John: And I don't think it's defensible.
John: I don't think you could stand on an overturned crate outside of Hyde Park and say, I like Buffalo Tom and don't like the replacements.
John: I don't think that that is artistically defensible.
John: That would not be a good use to your time.
John: I'm going to get a ticket to London and I'm going to make that case.
Merlin: Ladies and gentlemen, a moment of your time, please.
Merlin: Gather round, gather round.
Merlin: Enjoy Buffalo Tom, but I don't care for the replacements.
Merlin: What?
Merlin: What, sir?
John: Fire on you.
John: But there it is.
John: Somebody throws a coffee cup of pee at you.
Merlin: Kids don't follow what you're saying.
Merlin: I'll take your pee.
Merlin: You there.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: People don't listen to music the same way anymore, though, John.
Merlin: It's just not the same anymore.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: The thing is, we came from the ashes.
Merlin: I guess I don't care.
John: I don't care.
John: I was listening to the radio and they were playing some old music, by which I mean music from my youth, like, you know, punk and grunge.
John: And I was struck again by how bad most of it was.
John: And I realized that you could not sit a young person down and explain what it meant to
John: You couldn't sit them down and say like, it used to be hard to hear music.
John: It used to be hard to even find it.
Merlin: First you had to get the Rosetta Stone that told you which bands to even know the name of.
Merlin: Then you had to find out what their music was like.
Merlin: You had to read extensive reviews.
Merlin: There was like five steps before you ever even went and spent your fucking money on it for this thing and not that thing.
John: But to be 22 years old,
John: in my case, and go to a rock show where it was your first exposure to the audience...
John: To an audience that looked like you.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Like, kind of first time ever, right?
John: Because the more I think about it, like, I'd been to heavy metal stadium concerts.
John: And I'd been to a thousand punk rock shows in youth centers.
John: But I had never been to a show in a club where the other people, where the audience had taken some college classes.
Mm-hmm.
John: Because those bands didn't come to Anchorage, right?
John: REM never played in Anchorage when I was growing up.
John: And to be 22 years old and have it be the first time that you ever were standing in a room where you were like, I believe that this room of people is a mirror.
John: I am seeing myself for the first time.
John: How would you explain that to someone who is 22 years old now?
John: Right.
John: Because presumably they have...
John: Certainly, they are aware that there are rooms full of people who resemble them, even if they've never been in one.
Merlin: There's certainly a lot fewer things that are, just strictly speaking, a black box.
Merlin: There are a lot fewer things where you actually have no idea what this is going to be like.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Or it's just not possible to find out what it's going to be like until you do it.
John: Until you do it, right.
John: I could not have had an advance.
John: I guess somebody...
John: I guess somebody could have said, like, you should go to this show because you seem like you would be a fan of them.
John: Right.
John: That would be the closest approximation of, like, here's where you belong.
John: And it turned out I didn't belong there either, right?
John: I walked around and I was like, hi, hi, nice to meet you.
John: Hi.
John: And everybody was like, you know, we don't really just walk up and say hi to each other.
Merlin: That's kind of not the way this works.
Merlin: That's not how we do it.
Merlin: And I was like, oh, right, right, right.
Merlin: Okay, okay, okay.
John: Don't belong here.
John: I was thinking about that the other day.
John: I was walking down the street and I was taught, I don't know about you, but I was taught that when you're walking down the street,
John: You make eye contact with people and nod and smile.
John: Like, you make eye contact with people that you pass on the street.
John: Have we talked about this?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: You're worrying me a little, though.
Merlin: And now... Remember what we talked about, John?
Merlin: It's getting to be an hour.
Merlin: Okay, that's right.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: Kids don't follow.
Ha ha ha!
Merlin: Bespoke.
Merlin: Oh, got out of there.
Merlin: Saved it.