Ep. 148: "Can't Find the Starch"
Merlin: This episode of Roderick on the Line is sponsored by Cards Against Humanity.
Merlin: This month, they asked Marion Call to help me say hi to John.
Merlin: It's Roderick, Roderick, Roderick time, John Roderick time!
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
Merlin: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: How's it going?
Good.
Merlin: It's Roderick, Roderick, Roderick time.
Merlin: John Roderick time.
Merlin: Wow, what a good theme.
Merlin: That's a cover.
Merlin: Is that salt and pepper?
Merlin: Kind of.
Merlin: It's Marion Call.
Merlin: Hi, Marion Call.
Merlin: I'm getting inside the looking glass here.
Merlin: That's the segment.
Merlin: She greets you this week with that.
Merlin: You don't know that yet because this episode doesn't exist yet.
Merlin: Do you want to hear it again?
Merlin: Yeah, do it again.
Merlin: I can't do the harmonies.
Merlin: It's Roderick, Roderick, Roderick time.
Merlin: John Roderick time.
Merlin: Wow!
Merlin: It's five seconds long.
John: Marion Call.
Merlin: Marion Call.
Merlin: We've had some good ones.
Merlin: I know you don't listen to the program, but one of our sponsors commissioned someone to greet you on the episodes.
Merlin: This is a show you do with me.
Merlin: Is that so?
Merlin: We met in San Francisco a few years ago.
Merlin: Hi.
John: How many of these have there been?
Merlin: More than one?
Merlin: Yeah, we had Seth Boyer.
Merlin: We've had the DoubleClicks.
Merlin: We've had many popular artists.
Merlin: We had Molly Lewis did the first one.
Merlin: She did a bang-up job.
Merlin: You're kidding.
Merlin: Yeah, your computer's made by Apple.
John: Wow.
John: I'd love to get all of these on like a CD or something.
John: You want me to make a USB drive, John?
Merlin: You know, could you put it on a cassette?
Merlin: I can Bitcoin that to your cassette.
Merlin: Yeah, sure.
Merlin: You would use the clued for that.
John: The clued.
Merlin: Not the clued.
John: I don't want it.
John: I don't want it.
John: I just hooked up my thermostat and my garage door opener to the cloud.
John: And now every time it gets below 84 degrees in my kitchen, my garage door opener goes off.
Merlin: Your garage plays the beat from In the Name of Love by the Thompson Twins.
Merlin: Wow.
John: I've been listening to the Thompson Twins a lot lately on vinyl.
John: And I don't know.
John: A lot of that is really inexcusable.
Merlin: I was a fan.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: I was a fan, too.
John: And M still.
John: But there's some inexcusable drum machines in particular.
John: There are some inexcusable drum machines.
Merlin: Yeah, and I think they really needed to give Alana something to do sometimes.
Merlin: So they gave her – she had that Davy Jones problem, you know, where they had to give her something to – not that she wasn't contributing.
John: Well, they gave her that hat to wear.
Merlin: Yes, and she had the funny haircut.
John: Yeah, that was like two people's job.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, that's a good point.
Merlin: And then there was the other guy.
Merlin: You've got the other guy.
Merlin: He played keyboards.
Merlin: We've got the main guy.
Merlin: You've got Alana, and then you've got the other guy.
John: Right.
John: The main guy went out with Jane Wheatland, right?
Merlin: Is that right?
Merlin: What's his name?
Merlin: Tom Baker?
Merlin: Was he Doctor Who?
Merlin: What was that guy's name?
Merlin: Tom Boston.
Merlin: Tom Poston.
Merlin: Tom Bombadil.
Merlin: Babbitt Postage Bombadil.
Merlin: You made a Hobbit joke.
Merlin: caught um yeah i think didn't they write uh our lips are sealed together oh i know that was originally a fun boy three song yeah which is a good version as well uh well it's the same guy right uh see yeah now i gotta go to the internet
John: our lips are sealed that is a really good i had the fun boy 3 version on a uh my darling it wasn't originally a fun boy 3 version they they wrote that song together and it was they were they came out simultaneously right or they were they were uh they wrote it you know i wasn't there so it's uh written by jane weedlin
Merlin: of whom we are both fans, I believe.
Merlin: And the special... The guy from the specials!
Merlin: Oh, I always get that confused.
John: Terry Hall.
John: He's the white fellow, right?
John: Yeah.
John: The Fun Boy 3 guy was in the specials, not the Fun Boy 3 guy was in the Thompson Twins.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: And I always... I had that problem even then.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: It's hard to keep up if you're not reading NME every week.
Merlin: Do you ever read NME?
John: When I worked at Steve's Broadway News, I would read NME and – And the other one.
John: There's two of them, right?
Merlin: There's NME and then what's the other big one?
John: Melody Maker.
Merlin: And like it was a perfect example of how the UK exists in a mirror universe because I would read it and I would know the names of the artists but I couldn't understand a word anyone was saying or I didn't understand the sense of humor especially.
Merlin: It was very different from US magazines.
John: Yeah, so different and so willing to, I mean, so excited when they were excited, and then two weeks later, so dismissive when they're dismissive.
Merlin: I remember, in particular, I remember buying a copy around the time that I was getting into U2 more.
Merlin: Like, you know, 1984, I guess 84, 83, 84.
Merlin: Anyway, but the Waterboys were opening up for them, and they loved the Waterboys, but they just did not have enough terrible things to say about U2.
John: Poor U2.
John: Yeah.
John: You know, when they came out with Boy, nobody had a bad thing to say about him.
John: Everybody loved him.
John: It's a rock and roll album.
John: But then it went straight down.
John: Once he started waving flags.
Merlin: I think he shouldn't take his shirt off at Red Rocks.
Merlin: I think that was problematic, as they say.
Merlin: He should or shouldn't have.
Merlin: See, I would leave the shirt on.
Merlin: He had a handsome U2, if memory serves, he had a war tour T-shirt.
John: He's a guy not afraid to wear his own shirt on stage.
Merlin: You know, I've been wearing Roderick on the Line hoodie a lot.
Merlin: Have you?
Merlin: I've been so that guy for two weeks.
Merlin: It's very comfy.
Merlin: I like it.
Merlin: By the way, we sold shirts a while back, just so you know.
Merlin: I don't have one.
John: Was I supposed to get one?
John: Yeah, you could have paid for it with money like a gentleman.
John: Oh, I see.
John: You know, I've been living in a schwag economy for so long.
Merlin: You just wear NPR tote bags.
Merlin: I don't even remember.
Merlin: Decembrous mandolins as hats.
John: Oh.
John: I don't remember what it was like to go buy a thing.
John: Oh, is that right?
John: Yeah, I just walk around and it's like people run up to me and hand me gift bags.
Merlin: Yeah, I've gotten stuff like that.
John: Can't last forever.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: I still, well, it's not important, but it can be very frustrating.
Merlin: That's a good song.
John: I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I'm trying to get a picture, a mental picture of Bono, a young Bono with his shirt off at Red Rocks.
Merlin: I might be misremembering.
Merlin: I seem to remember the video for New Year's Day was the one that got a lot of play.
Merlin: I was a bigger fan of... What song is that?
John: Sunday Bloody Sunday.
John: The desk drums.
John: The one with the desk drums.
John: Didn't Sunday Bloody Sunday... What was the one where... Yeah, Sunday Bloody Sunday got a lot of play, didn't it?
Merlin: Yeah, but the video from Red Rocks that I remember getting played I think was New Year's Day.
Merlin: I think he might be shirtless.
Merlin: I think he climbed something.
John: Yeah, yeah, there was a lot of that.
Merlin: I'm going to go ahead and risk a lot here by saying I'm going to Google for Bono shirtless.
John: Oh, my God.
John: You're going to go right into like a fanfic parallel universe?
John: Talking about parallel universes.
John: Oh, my goodness.
John: Oh, my goodness me.
John: What?
Merlin: Well, in some of them, yeah.
John: Is there a picture of him like from six months ago in a Russian bath?
Yeah.
Merlin: There's some shots of him kind of milling around in some Dick Nixon shorts, like hanging out at the beach.
John: As you do.
Merlin: You ever been photographed at the beach, John, by paparazzi?
Merlin: You ever had that happen?
John: Let's see.
John: There's one time I was photographed by paparazzi.
John: I was staying at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles, California.
John: And we were making a pilot of a television show.
John: And one of our guests was a French chanteuse who was a woman in her early 20s from France.
John: She was French.
John: And a great singer-songwriter.
John: And it was one of those things.
John: You're making a television show, a lot of people, TV cameras, people with the headset microphones walking around.
Yeah.
John: And she and I sat down on the couch sort of after her segment.
John: We started talking.
John: And we became fast friends.
John: We had an immediate rapport, if you will.
Merlin: Oh, I want to see.
John: A rapport.
Merlin: A rapprochement.
John: And so we had a rapprochement, although we had never had a denoupprochement.
John: We never had a gare.
John: We never had a gare.
John: So there was no need for a rapprochement.
Right.
John: But so the evening wore on and then it was late and she was like, I am afraid I must bid you adieu.
John: And I said, oh, alas.
John: I will walk you to the car.
John: And she was like, I have a car coming.
John: And so we went down together in the elevator, and we walked out of the front of the Chateau Marmont, and it's kind of a strange... The ingress and egress of that hotel is very strange.
John: They changed it at some point, and now you kind of leave through a basement driveway kind of thing.
John: And we walked down together...
John: And I'm putting her in a town car, and we get to the end of the drive, and she says, it has been such a pleasure to get to know you, this little bit.
John: And I was like, the pleasure has been all mine, mademoiselle.
John: And she presents herself for a Euro style, you know, the kiss and then the other kiss and then the third kiss, right?
John: The boom, boom, boom, the three kisses.
Merlin: La trois.
John: La trois, as they say.
John: And I lean in and give her the first of what will be three kisses.
John: And all of a sudden, it's like the psalm.
John: oh it's just lit up pow pow pow pow pow pow pow pow flash bulbs from everywhere and i had i had a second before been convinced that we were alone oh that's so creepy right we were just standing there the car was there it was like oh you know fair and we were talking to each other kind of softly like farewell this has been one of those meetings one of those meetings in life where you just encounter someone in the afternoon and by the end by the end of the day
John: You know that you have really lived.
John: Do you know?
John: Do you know?
John: You have really lived.
John: My God, that's charming.
John: For only these few hours, we have really lived.
John: And then pow, pow, pow, pow, pow.
John: And we both are like startled and terrified and we turn and the bushes are full of photographers.
John: Because I think the Olsen twins were in the chateau or maybe it was I think the Olsen twins were there.
John: But I think there might also have been another like there was probably a rat king of celebrities because it was a Saturday night or something.
John: There was a rat king of celebrities.
John: That's the new collective.
John: In the lobby where they were, you know, they were all like doing cocaine and playing piano and so forth.
John: And so these photographers had no idea who we were, but because we looked chic,
John: And because we were behaving in a chic fashion, and they may have overheard her French accent, they were like, these people must be, we'd better get this for safety, right?
Merlin: Hey, you're there.
Merlin: I mean, get the coverage.
John: And I was, I mean, I went into like a combat crouch.
John: Because of your training.
John: Because of my training.
John: I pulled out my Marine Corps survival knife.
John: I hustled her into the car.
John: Used her as a human shield.
John: No.
John: No, I stood between her and the gunfire.
John: Hustled her into the car.
John: Pounded on the trunk.
John: Go!
John: Go!
John: man and then i collected four scalps but it was it was i had a sense uh just a momentary sense of what a nightmare it must be to try to just be uh just leave the rat king for a second as a celebrity and walk outside for a a cigarette b to put a french girl in a car uh c to run across the street for a pack of cigarettes i mean i guess they have people for that
John: But it was, whew, boy.
John: Holy cats.
John: I would not want it.
John: No way.
John: No, that would intrude on something about you that you do not want intruded upon.
Merlin: I think you're probably right.
Merlin: Yeah, well, we've covered this.
Merlin: I'm a very sociable person.
Merlin: But I wouldn't want to be flashbulb popped at the Marmont.
John: No, no.
John: All those shots of celebrities where they're winding up to punch a photographer and the photographer gets that classic shot of Sean Penn with his shirt off and his fist up in the air.
John: The celebs in question never look good in those shots.
No.
John: But you can kind of empathize with it.
Merlin: Well, it helps when you see video of that because when you see how – there's no other word – how aggressive multiple people are being.
Merlin: They are in your face.
Merlin: They are following you.
Merlin: They are running after you.
Merlin: They are provoking the subject.
Merlin: And I mean it's – the bigger you get, the more you're supposed to just think that that's okay, I guess.
Merlin: I'm totally sympathetic to –
Merlin: Punching some of those guys.
Merlin: It is a provocation.
Merlin: November 2000, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen released a film called Our Lips Are Sealed.
John: Turns out.
John: It's all connected.
John: There it is.
John: It is all connected.
John: I sat in the lobby of that hotel one time when Mary Kate and Ashley were there.
John: And boy, it was a real eye opener, particularly an eye opener to the effect of how boring it is to be a young celebrity.
Merlin: But anytime you're the bigger celebrity you become, the more you just spend a lot of your time waiting to do something.
John: Yeah, yeah.
John: Or in this case, it was the old thing.
John: You know, they're still young people, right?
John: And so instead of sitting in the basement, in the non-alcohol serving basement of a college house,
John: Like the non-alcohol serving basement club in a college dorm trying to pretend that they're having a really good time.
John: They were in an extremely glamorous hotel and people were giving them every single kind of intoxicant that they could possibly want.
John: And yet they were still just young people pretending that they're having a really good time.
John: Because they know people are watching them and they don't want to seem like they're not having fun.
John: So there's all that like...
John: Just the normal stuff, the forced laughter, the young men that are around them.
Merlin: It's impossible for them to have anything like a normal conversation with anybody that's their age or younger in particular.
John: Right.
Merlin: I mean, they could talk to somebody who's 60 and might not know who they are.
Merlin: You know, they're 27 now, according to Wikipedia.
John: Can that be true?
Merlin: It must be.
Merlin: They were born in 1987.
Merlin: They could be my kids.
John: Wow.
John: But the socks I have on right now are 27.
Merlin: That's how you get the good ones.
Merlin: You got to go vintage.
Merlin: The thing about socks is some of them, some of them blow out right away.
John: Yep.
John: Some of them are there for the duration.
Merlin: I only buy one kind of sock and then I just keep replenishing them.
Merlin: And when they get dirty, I throw them out.
Merlin: But I only wear one kind of sock.
John: Tell me what it is.
Merlin: I don't get too personal, but I wear the white crew gold toes.
Merlin: I wear a gold toe and I'll get the gold toes.
Merlin: I've given you socks before, I think.
John: No, you have.
John: I have a couple of pairs of your gold toes.
Merlin: I usually have a pretty good supply on hand.
Merlin: And when they've all been washed after a purchase, it's pretty creepy because it fills an entire drawer.
Merlin: But, you know, again, this is the kind of thing I don't want to have to think about.
John: But Jesse Thorne is going to ask – I'm going to do a stand-in here for Jesse Thorne.
John: Jesse Thorne is going to – and I don't do a good Jesse Thorne impression.
John: But if you can just picture me, I'm wearing like a country gentleman outfit.
John: I have jodhpurs on.
John: For some reason, I picture him dressed as the blue boy from the painting.
LAUGHTER
John: All right, let's go that direction.
John: So I'm dressed as the blue boy, right?
John: I have a hand jauntily a cock.
John: You have your cravat.
John: You have your cravat holder, your cravat holder case.
John: There might be a couple of Irish wolfhounds standing behind me.
John: And I'm going to say, do you really only have white socks?
Merlin: See, the thing is, Jesse's got kids now.
Merlin: So, I mean, you know, this is – does your child ever wear – I don't want to say too much.
Merlin: Does your child ever wear socks?
Yeah.
Merlin: yes okay so you know we've done the fun thing and bought her different pairs of socks but i have officially reached the end of my fucking rope with the socks because we literally have one of like 14 different pairs of socks and i said to my wife the other day we need to get this kid on the gold toe program we need to get her something like a generic you know low not not like a not like a ped like not like the little little ones because they're annoying you can't run around they dig into your shoe but we need to get her one kind of sock and just once a month have amazon just give us like six new pairs of socks uh
John: like but like one pink hello kitty one blue captain america like we got all these great single socks and that's all we've got do you run into this well so we have back in uh back when we were just beginning uh our child rearing a journey the journey we call it yeah the journey um we were we were very strongly influenced by my friend dave bazan and his wife um
John: who have a very excellent parenting style that Brooks know baloney from the youngsters, right?
John: And as it happens, Dad only wears one thing.
John: Well, and Dad, that's right.
John: Dad has one outfit, right?
John: His red sweatshirt, red hoodie sweatshirt, black t-shirt, jeans.
John: And he solved that problem for himself many years ago.
John: But...
John: his wife had this this whole policy of like one of the big problems with with raising kids is that at a certain point they want to start dressing themselves and then every morning you sit around for 45 minutes while the kid rejects 25 different outfits and it always descends into a screaming nightmare match yeah so her plan which I thought was a genius plan was at the on Sunday night
John: They go and they put together a whole week's worth of outfits.
John: Oh, my God.
John: That's so smart.
John: Shirt, pants, socks, all the stuff.
John: And they put together five different outfits.
John: Oh, my God.
John: Why don't I do that?
John: Then they put those outfits, each one in a Ziploc bag, a big Ziploc bag.
Merlin: Oh, life hack.
Merlin: This is going to change everything for me.
John: And now wait.
John: Here's the genius part.
John: Every morning, the kid gets to pick the outfit.
John: The illusion of choice.
John: Thank you.
Merlin: Brilliant.
John: Boom.
Merlin: Boom.
Merlin: And the kid, oh my, and it's already in there.
Merlin: It's in the bag.
Merlin: You're not sitting there at 7.42 in the morning.
Merlin: I'm not going to name any names, but you're not sitting there at 7.42 in the morning and go, please literally pick something to wear.
Merlin: That's right.
John: That's right.
John: Because the child has already...
John: participated in the picking oh my god uh sometime before so if they if they suddenly have a problem with it you're like you picked this boom you cannot argue this is the bag you pick and so pick whatever bag right this is the bag this is the bag and you open the bag and that's what you get and don't be upset
John: But here's the thing about the socks.
John: So we have just entered into a new realm with our daughter, and I know that on our last program I mentioned her name several times.
Merlin: I would like to thank everyone who was concerned about the privacy issues of you saying your daughter's name four times and then mention it on the internet.
Merlin: Thank you for that.
John: Thank you to everyone for pointing that out.
John: I got 200 concerned letters, and I do appreciate it.
John: I tried for a long time not to do it, and what was funny about that conversation... I don't know how I spaced it.
John: Well, and the thing was,
John: halfway through that podcast i said to myself have i accidentally said her name at some point and the answer was no and so i was like oh good and i relaxed my vigilance and then proceeded to say her name four times yeah anyway i'll cut all this out here's the here's the thing about uh our current situation our daughter is uh is starting to pick her own clothes but she has decided she prefers mismatched socks and
John: Mine does too.
John: Yeah.
John: So she wears – She better learn to prefer it.
John: She wears one of each kind and it's this little – and she gets to like let her freak flag fly in her shoes.
John: And like I am a person that likes to combine multiple patterns that are supposedly – John, you defy genres in a lot of what you do.
John: Yeah.
John: And I think that that's in her too.
John: But her mother is much more like, wait a minute.
John: You can't go out of the house like that.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: But the mismatched socks.
Merlin: Attractive people are like that.
Merlin: Attractive people are always trying to change where the bar is.
Merlin: It's such a thing they get away with.
Merlin: Super frustrating.
John: But the baby can have whatever socks she wants inside of her little boots.
John: So one of a Hello Kitty sock, one sock that has balloons and cupcakes on it, everybody's happy.
John: But I do feel like that outfit in a bag thing, that could be a hack for grownups.
Merlin: Oh, that starts tomorrow.
Merlin: No, there's no question.
Merlin: I'm going to text my wife right after this and say, here's the plan.
Merlin: This morning, my daughter, we had a nice morning.
Merlin: My wife's finally feeling, here's a report on my own family.
Merlin: My wife is finally over the flu.
Merlin: After her two weeks with the flu, she's feeling better.
Merlin: She's getting ready for school.
Merlin: Today, my daughter, my wife directed the first part of the outfit.
Merlin: She directed the...
Merlin: here's a cool dress that you like.
Merlin: Like, it's a good dress.
Merlin: She can move around in it.
Merlin: To that, we're at it.
Merlin: So I think it was kind of a pinky dress, but it was, you know, it's a cool kid dress.
Merlin: She can run around in it.
Merlin: To that, we add some leggings that were a completely different color.
Merlin: I think possibly striped.
Merlin: She has a new set of vans, lace-up vans that have a galaxy on them.
Merlin: Blue galaxy with stars, like a Milky Way.
Merlin: And to that, she came in with one of my belts,
Merlin: And decided she was going to wear that.
Merlin: So she's wearing like a man with a 34-inch waist belt.
Merlin: And I punched a hole in it for her so she could actually wear it to school.
Merlin: And it looks like she has a sword.
Merlin: It looks really cool.
Merlin: Oh, so she didn't wrap it around herself twice.
Merlin: It's just... Well, my wife spoiled it by tucking it in a little bit at the end.
Merlin: But it was a sharp look with those shoes, buddy.
Merlin: Galaxy shoes.
Merlin: And her dad's belt.
Merlin: Are you kidding me?
Merlin: This kid is way ahead.
Merlin: It's the stone soup of fashion.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Geez, the bag thing is going to change a lot for me.
John: You know, the thing is that we have never actually employed it.
Merlin: We buy lots of those gallon-sized Ziploc bags.
John: It would be perfect for that.
John: That's what it's for, right?
John: And it's just – it's one of several examples of how the Bazan family has really – they've pioneered a lot of thought technologies.
John: that we have employed in the raising of our own child.
Merlin: Well, if and when, I'll cut this out, but if and when we do that special other project we're talking about doing, he's got to be involved.
Merlin: I think he has a lot to share with people.
John: He really does.
John: He's got a lot of thought technologies that people don't even – because the thing is he's a songwriter, right?
John: So he still believes in the power of song, unlike some of us who have abandoned the ship.
Yeah.
John: You still like songs, but don't say their power?
John: I'm just like, songs?
John: Dave still believes that he can say everything he needs to say in his music, but he has a lot to share.
John: That he would be able to share with his words if we can just get him to use his words.
Merlin: See, here's part of the problem is most of the people who have a lot think they have a lot to share don't actually have that much to share.
Merlin: And in fact, run out of ideas pretty quickly.
Merlin: We need to start tapping into the people who don't know how much they know.
Merlin: And we need to drain that shit, man.
Merlin: We need to get the knowledge from the people who don't think they're thought leaders.
Merlin: That's where the real knowledge resides.
John: Do you know Hutch Harris of the Thermals?
John: I know the band, yeah.
John: He's a young man from Portland, Oregon.
John: I feel like he has a lot to share.
John: Actually, Hutch and Kathy together, it's like beans and rice.
John: They have a full protein.
John: Forms a whole protein, yeah.
John: Ted Leo has a lot of information.
John: I'm still thinking about Ted Leo.
John: Yeah, they could help people.
Merlin: I got Ted Leo on my mind, man.
Merlin: Ted Leo on my mind.
Merlin: Ted Leo.
Merlin: I knew that guy would be smart.
Merlin: I had no idea how smart he would be.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Yeah, he has a lot of back catalog.
Merlin: Did you notice, I don't want to get back on the gravy thing, but did you notice how, I don't want to, you know, again, this is private celebrity stuff.
John: You want to talk about gravy, I'll talk about gravy.
Merlin: Well, I think there's support there for gravy talk.
Merlin: But all I want to say is, I was amazed.
Merlin: First of all, he's a very slender man.
Merlin: He always wears nice shoes.
Merlin: And he showed remarkable restraint at the Windjammer.
Merlin: Did you ever notice how he would eat like a lady meal?
Merlin: He would eat like a normal human being would eat instead of gorging everything with sauces and gravies.
John: Do you know why?
John: 30 years of vegan 30 years of vegan 30 years of vegan whoa so whatever whatever is there anything in the wind jammer he could eat yeah carrots i think the fruit had pork in it john i mean yeah you're right at a certain point they put hollandaise sauce on the carrots but if you got in there before they put the sauce on
John: He basically makes one of those – when he shows up backstage at a show and they have one of those hospitality trays that's just celery and – Crudité, they call it.
John: And hummus.
John: And the rest of us go, aw.
John: Ted Leo goes, yay, because that's as good as it's going to get.
John: Man.
Merlin: What a world.
Merlin: What a world.
Merlin: Can you imagine going places and not being able to even have any animal in it?
Merlin: That must be so challenging.
John: Well, obviously, I feel like sugar is poison.
John: I've said that a lot of times.
John: But I also feel a compulsion to go toward the sugar in every case.
John: And I emceed a fundraising event the other night.
John: And there were 400 desserts at this thing.
John: And I just was like, I can't be in this room and not have a cookie.
John: And I have to be in this room, so I have to have a cookie.
Merlin: It wouldn't be charitable, John.
Merlin: You should show a little bit of gratitude by having some of their cookies.
John: Well, so I had some cookies, and then the next day, I've gone four months with no voluntary sugar intake.
John: The next day, I was like, well, I should have a hot fudge sundae.
John: And then having had a hot fudge sundae at 2 o'clock in the morning, I was like, isn't there a candied apple around here somewhere?
Yeah.
John: You know, it's just like, what happened?
John: I feel like there's a candied apple here somewhere.
John: Is there a candied apple in this house somewhere?
John: I'm like going through the dirty clothes hamper.
John: I know there's a candied apple in this house somewhere.
John: So I have to just just the worst.
John: And, you know, and I look at Ted Leo and it's not like he it's not like he walks along and it's just like, you know what?
John: I'm at this.
John: I'm playing this benefit for the bacon council and I should just have a bacon just because, you know, just I'm here.
John: Yeah.
John: Show a little esprit de corps.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: And and then he has a bacon.
John: And then the next day he's he's ordering the like five meat platter at Jack's barbecue.
Yeah.
John: No, he just is like – he has – you know, it's basically like Dave Bazan's outfit.
John: Ted Leo has solved the food problem.
John: Oh, that's so smart.
John: Because there's only seven foods.
Merlin: I got two quickies for you.
Merlin: One very quickie.
Merlin: I found myself, as one does, I found myself on the website for Soylent.
Merlin: And I paused.
Merlin: I hovered.
Merlin: I hovered over the Try It Out $85 version.
Merlin: I hovered over it.
Merlin: Because there's a part of me that thinks if I could get this dicked, I could get a lot of stuff done.
Merlin: But I just couldn't do it.
Merlin: I couldn't pull the trigger.
John: I'm with you.
John: And I have a friend.
Merlin: Doesn't it have an appeal, though?
John: I have a friend that ordered it.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: I got friends who swear by it.
Merlin: Like smart friends.
Merlin: Brett Terpstra, the guy whose birthday is always showing up on your Skype.
Merlin: I think he's a Soylent guy.
John: My pal said that what happened was he ordered it.
John: And then the rule is if you're already on the Soylent train,
John: then the Soylent just is flowing, right?
John: Like Spice.
John: Then the Spice is flowing.
John: That's right.
John: But if you're new to the Soylent train, you got to wait in the station.
John: And they send you emails like, your Soylent's coming, but it's going to be five more weeks.
John: Is it a supply and demand problem?
Merlin: Yeah, they're scaling up.
Merlin: I heard this new 1.4 or whatever.
Merlin: There's a new version.
Merlin: They have version numbers on their food.
Merlin: So 1.4?
Merlin: Yeah, and Brett's very excited about the new one.
Merlin: I think you don't have to add like oil to it anymore.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: That sounds tasty.
Merlin: But like there's a part of me that thinks, you know, what I should do is get the 400 and something dollar version so I don't have money anymore and I have to eat it.
Merlin: I think I should force myself to eat it for a month.
Yeah.
Merlin: This sounds like something you would try, John.
Merlin: Just as a thought technology, I could see you saying, I'm going to do this for a month, and that's just going to be a thing I do.
John: Oh, I'm very curious about it.
Merlin: I mean, let's be honest.
Merlin: It sounds miserable.
Merlin: It sounds like punishment, but it's like going on some kind of a diet or a purge or a cruise, like something you'd really regret.
Merlin: But you've got to really go all balls in.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
John: Well, the thing about punishment is that I derive a lot of pleasure from punishment.
Merlin: And if you're on record, John, suffering is not punishment.
John: That's right.
John: And so all these deprivation diets where it's like, all right, for the next three days, all you get to drink is hot lemon juice.
John: And then you get to put a little agave in your hot lemon juice for three.
John: It's like, no.
John: You level up.
John: It's driving me crazy.
John: Like, I don't like it.
John: But if the diet was every day you drink one mug of cement mix and
John: And then in the afternoon, another mug of cement mix.
John: And then a sensible dinner.
John: You know, where your stomach was just full of this, you know, of basically like concrete made of nuts or whatever that stuff is.
John: I mean, basically, they go to a laboratory store and buy magnesium, potassium, aluminum flakes, and put some oil in it, right?
John: That's what soil it is.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: It is a little bit like edible concrete.
Merlin: But here's my problem.
Merlin: And again, this is a little personal, but I'm the eater in the family.
Merlin: I am the one, of the three of us who live in our household, I am the one that likes to have a meal on a plate with parts.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And I want two or three parts.
Merlin: Even if it's just like a steak and noodles, that still counts as a meal.
Merlin: But I want to serve it at the same time.
Merlin: I want it on a plate.
Merlin: I want it to be hot.
Merlin: And I want to use a fork.
Merlin: I want to be seated.
Merlin: I don't want to be eating it over the sink.
Merlin: I will sit and watch TV while I eat.
Merlin: I'm not an animal.
Merlin: But I am the only one in the house that cares one iota, one wit about that.
Merlin: My daughter would be fine.
Merlin: As soon as the rice is done, as soon as the noodles are done, she's ready for dinner.
Merlin: And I'm like, no, it's not food yet.
Merlin: That's just one constituent.
Merlin: But I'm learning.
Merlin: I am the only person who cares about that.
Merlin: So I'm the one who's going to have to make that happen because they're both perfectly happy.
Merlin: I can give my daughter noodles, carrots, and cucumbers, and that's almost a meal.
Merlin: She's happy with that.
John: Is there a window of time during which dinner has to happen for you?
No.
Merlin: No, not really.
Merlin: I mean, the only thing to that point is that I tend to forget to eat.
Merlin: Like right now, my stomach is audibly rumbling because I forgot to eat today.
Merlin: I do that a lot.
Merlin: But no, no.
Merlin: What about you?
John: No, no.
John: I mean sometimes dinner happens at 9 p.m.
John: Sometimes dinner happens at 4 in the afternoon.
John: Sometimes dinner happens at 1 a.m.
Merlin: Well, your kid's now at an age where I think you can appreciate the importance of the cascade where anything could potentially happen anytime, but it really could fuck everything up.
Merlin: So there's a certain order to things, right?
Merlin: This is not, this is not numb.
Merlin: This is bowling, right?
Merlin: So you got to, the thing is, if you want to have story enough time for stories at bedtime, you got to get the bath by a certain time to have the bath by a certain time.
Merlin: We need to have, you know, homework done and food and all that.
Merlin: So the thing is, if you do have dinner at seven o'clock, that kind of screws up everything.
John: It does.
John: And this is what happened last night.
John: I was, uh, I had tucked my daughter into bed.
John: I had sort of laid down on her bed, uh,
John: to say goodnight to her and I sang Frere Jacques to her and then after you sing Frere Jacques she wants you to sing it in English.
John: She's not satisfied if you just sing it in English.
John: She wants it in French first and then in English.
John: She's like a tiny little Quebec.
John: That's right.
John: Angry at everyone.
John: Sacre bleu.
John: Sacre bleu.
John: So and then I'm lying there and
John: And I say, as I do at the end of every day with her, I say, do you have any other questions?
Merlin: Do you have any questions?
John: Does she ever have other questions?
John: Oh, she always does.
John: So she's a little bit of a thumb sucker and she knows that daddy will not answer a question that is asked.
John: past a thumb right if you're going to ask a question of a grown-up you have to take your thumb out of your mouth one of the basic rules a lot of millennials could learn that john you know what i apply that to every i you know i said it to a cop the other day listen i'm not going to answer your question sir unless you get your thumb out of your mouth but so she takes her thumb out of her mouth she she you know she looks at me seriously and she says daddy what is beauty um
John: And I'm like, this is last night.
John: And I'm like, oh, what is beauty?
John: Jesus.
John: And so I go, you know, I give a basic sort of careful...
John: Once over through beauty.
Merlin: Boy, there's so many little sand traps in that.
John: A lot of sand traps and a lot of stuff that you have to be careful of your language and then your meta language and your pre-language.
John: But you also have to watch how long you pause to think about it.
John: That's right.
John: You have to just get an answer out because there it is.
Merlin: It makes it – I think the longer – I feel like the longer I wait to compose a good answer, the more it's going to feel like bullshit.
John: Right.
John: Well, and the other thing is I feel like kids, even young kids, have enough intrinsic logic to know that an answer along the lines of, well, beauty is what you make it or beauty is different for everybody is also kind of a lie.
John: Right.
John: I mean, that is true, and you need to communicate that concept that beauty is relative.
John: But it's like all that stuff that people say, like, oh, it's different for everybody, and oh, it's just blah, blah, blah.
John: That's not an answer.
John: It's like, if that were true, then we wouldn't talk about it all the time, and there wouldn't be a word for it, right?
John: So anyway, I give an answer, and she's got a couple of follow-up questions.
John: And at some point, she says, like,
John: Because I said like some people think that a bunch of sailboats on a lake on a sunny day is very beautiful to see the sailboats all together on the lake.
John: Other people don't have, they don't feel that emotion when they see a bunch of sailboats.
John: They just see boats.
John: They don't see the beauty.
John: And she said, my eyes are beautiful.
John: Because everybody says that to her.
John: And so she's trying to fit that in.
John: With the sailboats.
John: Yeah, like, what am I supposed to do with this?
John: Basically, she's asking me, what is beauty?
John: Because she's saying, what am I supposed to do with this when everybody says my eyes are beautiful?
John: What does that mean?
John: And what are they saying?
John: And what do I do with it?
John: What's my takeaway?
John: And I was like, I don't think that there's anybody that would disagree that your eyes are beautiful.
John: But I'm sure I could find somebody who's like bleh.
John: Fail.
John: But so she finally has some food for thought.
John: I was like, do you remember the James Bond movie where Roger Moore gets on a circus train?
John: Yeah.
John: That's universally regarded as not beautiful by everybody.
John: When an aging Roger Moore is dressed as a clown?
John: And she's like, right, right, right.
John: Yeah, I agree.
John: I know what you mean now.
John: But I get out of her room.
John: I close the door.
John: I say, good night, sweetheart.
John: Close the door.
John: I look up at the clock.
John: It's 10 o'clock.
John: Oh, no.
John: And I'm like, how did this happen?
John: How did I get to 10 o'clock here?
John: I did not.
John: There was dinner and there was some storytelling and then there was pajamas got on and it's 10 o'clock?
Merlin: Jesus.
Merlin: I say this to my wife twice a week, but every night at a different time, I don't know when it happens, but at some point between usually about 4.15 and 6.45, an hour disappears.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: There's an hour I cannot account for every night.
Merlin: And I'm like, what the fuck?
Merlin: How is it 630?
John: Yeah, those hours are going somewhere.
John: Well, they're going back to 1997.
John: They're trying to rebuild the missing 1997.
Merlin: Oh, that totally makes sense.
Merlin: They're collecting people in a Brazilian dump.
Merlin: They're trying to get some milk cartons and make a year out of it.
John: That's right, exactly.
Merlin: That explains a lot, Sean.
John: Well, I feel like this is the thing about multiverses, and I feel it's the thing about what happens if you go into the black hole and you are in the room of all the times, and you start knocking books off a shelf, pretty soon you're going to make a year somewhere, or you're going to take a year away.
John: That makes sense because of the differences in gravity.
John: You know what?
John: We need to get Neil deGrasse Tyson on here.
John: Okay.
John: He's going to have his whole blah, blah, blah theories about it.
John: And then we'll get Ted Cruz, and he can give us his theories.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: I'm going to jump in here.
Merlin: The other thing that I did related to food, part two, I tried some different Salisbury steaks.
John: Say what?
John: You did a Salisbury steak comparison test?
Merlin: Yeah, apparently.
Merlin: One night.
Merlin: Apparently, a few nights ago, I cooked two different brands of Salisbury steak to do a side-by-side test.
John: Are you saying that this happened during a blackout or some kind of memory loss event?
Merlin: um because it's just it's just easier it's a cleaner environment less talk of beauty um so i cooked it up and i i knew the winner going into it you can tell the winner just by looking at the ingredients yeah but i did uh i could not find the boiling bag i think that's an artifact at this point that breaks my heart unless we go to ebay i don't think we're going to find boiling bag salisbury steak but i did get a nicely paired stouffer's salisbury steak with macaroni and cheese and
Merlin: And then I got some kind of like weird off-brand cafeteria food one to compare it with.
Merlin: And the Stouffer's was much, much better.
Merlin: It was, you know, it was good.
Merlin: The other one was categorically not good.
Merlin: The other one had that kind of like cafeteria, like elementary school cafeteria hamburger feel to it.
John: Yeah, well, when you look at the ingredients, if like the second or third ingredient is dog food, you know that's the one to leave behind.
Merlin: Yeah, well, you know, it's funny because, I mean, the first ingredient is gravy.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: It's gravy and Salisbury steak because by weight.
Merlin: But, you know, the store first is pretty good, and I'm going to stick with it.
Merlin: I'm going to go through all the ones that got at the store.
Merlin: I'm going to try them all.
Merlin: I'm not going to write it up.
Merlin: I'm not a blogger, not an animal, but I will try all of them.
Merlin: But it was pretty damn good.
John: Here's my – I mean my hack, of course, is you always make a little pot of egg noodles.
John: I'm going to know that for next time.
John: That doubles the – it just doubles the experience, right?
John: Because then the gravy has got somewhere to go and you got a little bit of – you got a little noodle with every bite.
Merlin: I took a note from you though.
Merlin: I believe your advice is always make the whole thing.
Merlin: Always make it all.
Merlin: So if you get the package of wide egg noodles from the grocery store, you always cook the whole thing.
John: Make the whole thing.
Merlin: I do that now, and then I have the leftovers I put in a Ziploc bag, and then I can have, in Lord of the Rings, I think they call it second dinner.
Merlin: Voila.
Merlin: That night I can have second dinner.
John: Voila.
Merlin: After everyone's gone to bed and I'm done with my science.
John: Now, here's the problem, and this is a problem for me, but not for you.
John: Because of my gluten relationship...
John: My number one favorite food of all foods, which is yesterday's egg noodles and butter in a Ziploc bag.
John: Oh, man.
John: I can no longer indulge in those.
John: And I do not want to eat corn pasta or rice pasta.
Oh.
John: So I have to forego what basically had formerly been the junk, let's call it, I mean, and I'm talking about a Chinese junk.
John: Oh, okay.
John: Right?
John: The junk that ferried me across the sea was basically a boat made out of egg noodles.
Okay.
John: That's how I came to be.
John: When they took me down to the Nile and they put me in a raft made of reeds.
John: Like Moses?
John: That raft was made of noodles.
Merlin: If I'm ever involved, I don't know if I'm in your will at all, but if you want to have a Viking funeral, I would find a way to put you on a boat made of egg noodles and fucking set it on fire.
Merlin: I would do that for you.
John: Thank you, Merlin, and that's why we are friends.
Merlin: I am kind of confused, though.
Merlin: So I thought you were like officially, I thought you'd given up.
Merlin: Are you kind of back on avoiding the glutens?
John: The thing is I have to because they are poisons.
John: I gave them up, and then I was sad.
John: And now I cannot be sad.
John: It is not a state that I prefer.
John: And now I've seen the other side.
John: I've been to the edge.
John: I stood and looked down.
Merlin: Up and down and still somehow.
John: That's right.
Merlin: Slight solutions you could call.
John: The noodles aren't so good after all.
John: And I do not want them, Sam, I am.
John: And so what I used to do was make an entire bag of noodles, and then you've got the leftover noodles in the fridge, and you can throw a handful of already cooked noodles into pretty much anything.
John: Like you've got some chili, throw a little handful of yesterday's noodles on there.
John: You got some Salisbury steak.
John: I mean, there's almost nothing.
John: I mean, if you have a bean burrito, maybe don't throw a handful of noodles on it, but maybe do, right?
John: But I can't do that anymore.
John: And so now I look in my refrigerator and I think there's some voice in my head that's like, find the starch.
John: But there is no starch.
John: And your Terminator heads-up display flips on.
John: It's just like, fuck you, asshole.
John: So I can't find the starch.
John: And so I just go to have my miserable little cheese wad.
John: You take one of those...
John: Take one of those things of lettuce and you put a cheese in it and you're like, this is nothing.
Merlin: This is something.
Merlin: Well, let me give you one thought, technology.
Merlin: I mentioned this on another program.
Merlin: I don't think I told you about this.
Merlin: Do you know about the Costco boiled, peeled eggs?
Merlin: I do.
Merlin: And here's – Because here's the deal.
Merlin: For like $11, you get 24 boiled eggs.
Merlin: Peeled.
Merlin: Peeled.
Merlin: Eggs in little packages.
Merlin: You have eggs anytime you want.
Merlin: You just open one up and eat an egg.
Merlin: If you don't know what to do, eat a fucking egg.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Have you tried it?
Merlin: I swear, I've done it three times now.
Merlin: I've had three of them.
Merlin: I'm killing a lot of chickens.
Merlin: They're really good and super convenient.
John: So I have a very complicated relationship with hard-boiled eggs.
John: Hard-boiled eggs, as you know, smell like feet.
John: And they are both...
John: kind of spongy, slimy, and also chalky, mealy, right?
John: So you bite through the spongy, slimy part to get to the chalky, mealy part.
John: And for years, I didn't want anything to do with the hard-boiled egg.
John: I didn't want anything to do with it.
John: But then when I was walking across Europe,
John: You get to that point – so you're in England, right?
John: And you get the deluxe English breakfast, which is like 15 different kinds of food all – Is it like an Irish breakfast?
Merlin: I had an Irish breakfast yesterday.
John: Yeah, it's like an Irish breakfast.
Merlin: You get the black and white pudding.
Merlin: You get the blood sausage.
Merlin: You get beans.
Merlin: You always get beans.
John: In my experience, an Irish breakfast is sort of a uniform brown.
John: They're shooting for a brown, kind of like a tweedy brown.
John: Uniformly golden brown, yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: An English breakfast really wants the entire breakfast ultimately to be the color of the hull of a ship.
John: It's trying to get a kind of steely gray color.
John: It's grim and dignified.
John: It's really grim.
John: And I think we've talked about this before.
John: Well, the English, the United Kingdom people who eat these breakfasts, they eat a little bit of this and then they move over and eat a little bit of that and then eat a little bit of that.
John: And if you are an American and you look at this plate of beans and tomatoes and so forth and you're just like, great, and you stir it all up together in one kind of like soupy mush, boy, it really affects them.
John: It makes them recoil in horror.
John: They have a lot of – you know what I mean.
John: They like to wait in lines.
Merlin: The English people have a lot of – They definitely – they like things a certain way.
John: Yeah.
John: And they do not think you should mix your English.
Merlin: And they've survived for thousands of years with a certain kind of order.
John: Right.
John: But then you cross the channel and then you are in the land of black bread and hard-boiled eggs.
Yeah.
John: And every day you go someplace for breakfast and they're like, here's some black bread.
John: Here is some pimento loaf.
John: This is more Germany kind of thing?
John: Yeah, Dutchie German land.
John: Munster land, let's call it.
John: And they love that pimento loaf, right?
John: Salami with little bits in it.
John: Yeah, like little bits of...
John: olive and pistachios and you know what i'm talking about yeah no i i do i do and then i tend i tend to skip over those things well sure as you do right but if you're sitting if you're starving to death as i was literally to death and you and you have opportunity to avail yourself of a breakfast there is a house frow who is presenting you with a breakfast
Merlin: Oh, and they're maybe going to watch you eat it.
John: Absolutely going to watch you eat it.
John: And there's some kind of bread that is the color of like raw, raw crude oil.
John: And then there is a pimento loaf and then maybe a second pimento loaf and then a hard boiled egg.
John: You're like, Jesus, at least I know what the egg is, right?
John: At least I recognize the egg.
John: So I started to eat these eggs and I realized that Harpold eggs are amazing.
John: Now I'm in my 30s at this point.
John: I never really enjoyed an egg.
John: Now I was really enjoying an egg.
John: But when I got back to America and I was in a land of plenty again where I had a refrigerator full of yesterday's noodles and
John: boil in a bag of Salisbury steaks on the hoof, it was very difficult for me to go back to this privation diet where I once upon a time had enjoyed hard-boiled eggs.
John: And I've never been able to put it back into gear.
John: Because I never am confronted with pimento loaf.
John: So hard-boiled egg has fallen back to the bottom of the list of things.
Merlin: I get it.
Merlin: That happened to my dad.
Merlin: I think my dad, my late father in a more enlightened age, would probably have been diagnosed with PTSD from being in Korea.
Merlin: I mean, it was really rough.
Merlin: I mean, he was an infantryman.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: He couldn't be around fireworks.
Merlin: And then another one was that he just chicken and rice.
Merlin: He just did not ever want to see it again because you walk around Korea and you kill a bunch of fucking chickens and eat some rice.
Merlin: And that's what they did all the time while they were miserable.
Merlin: And, you know, even for a man in his 20s, I think that has enough of you kind of imprint on chicken as bad news in that case.
Merlin: And in your case, once you're away from the probation of the of the brown bread and the and the eggs.
Merlin: Once you're back to the Salisbury on the Hoof, why would you go back?
John: Well, I have an egg.
John: But as you're saying, an egg is a perfect little dollop.
John: It's a perfect little thing.
John: You can go to Costco and buy 25 of them in a bag already peeled.
Merlin: Well, you're living in the future, dude.
Merlin: If you've got some frozen bacon and a couple eggs, you've got breakfast on the go, my friend.
John: Wow.
John: It's such a thought hack.
John: But I just can't.
John: You know what it is?
John: I'm afraid that I'm going to open up that bag of 25 eggs and...
John: and that smell of feet is going to come out of there, and I'm going to have to go into an isolation tank.
Merlin: You can always whip them at people.
Merlin: You can throw them at Gary.
John: Oh, my God.
John: I saw Skeeter the other day.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: He does not look well.
Merlin: Oh, no.
Merlin: Skeeter.
John: Skeeter is in trouble.
John: And they were yelling at Gary.
John: And Gary was yelling.
John: It was like things are coming to a head over there.
Merlin: Oh, no.
John: They were yelling at Gary.
John: And he was like, what can I do?
John: And they were like, do something.
John: Whoa, what do you think it means?
John: Well, I don't know.
John: I mean, who knows?
John: But then I had kind of a long conversation with Skeeter, and he's like, oh, yeah, they don't have my medication right.
John: And he was like, ugh, looked bad.
John: And I said, Skeeter, you look bad.
John: And he was like, yeah, I know.
John: We just need to figure out the...
John: figure out the cocktail oh that's miserable i don't think you need to figure out a cocktail friend uh yeah it's it's uh it's it's pretty rough over there but um but you know i am my brother's keeper in a way yeah and so you know i help out when i can yeah yeah you know anything set on fire that's for sure no i don't and i don't
John: Frankly, I don't want Gary living in the front yard anymore, but Gary might be the only thing that's holding that whole thing down.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: It's like a human game of Jenga.
Merlin: You don't want to move the van.
John: That's right.
John: You move the van.
John: Well, the thing is, this is what's crazy.
John: I came out the other day.
John: The van had moved.
John: It had just moved to a different place.
Merlin: And you stipulated it doesn't run.
John: Well, it must have.
John: It must have run enough to pull out of where it was and repark itself.
John: And what I feel like is that they had a big fight.
John: They were like, you're out of here.
John: And he went out and spent what probably was two and a half hours getting the van started.
John: Then he got it into gear.
John: He pulled it around as though he was going to load up his extension cord and he needed to find his...
John: weed whacker or something you know like he was like there's you know i'm gonna park it here while i go in and get the stuff my stuff i gotta go get my stuff out of the kitchen or something oh so you think maybe the the lady that who runs the house might have said it's time to go something there was some kind of experience there was something i don't think he would have started that van for any other reason other than if he could have over the last whatever year or two he would have
Merlin: I mean, if I were living in a van, I'd also be driving in a van if I could.
John: See?
John: Wouldn't you think?
John: Wouldn't you think?
John: Yeah.
John: So he started the van, he reparked it, went inside to get his spatula, and then they had a rapprochement.
John: Or, you know, it was kind of like when I was a teenager, right, my mom said, you're a bad kid and go live with your father.
John: And so I went to live with my dad, and when I came back over to visit, my mom had turned my bedroom into a guest room.
John: I've told you this story.
John: That's subtle.
Merlin: You've been replaced by whoever shows up.
John: Yeah, and this with the full knowledge that she has never had a guest spend the night.
John: Yeah, she's not a guesty type, is she?
John: No.
John: So she has a guest room, and it's for Elijah, basically.
John: Right?
John: No one's ever going to stay there.
John: The space unintentionally black.
Yeah.
John: It was just that she took all of my stuff and all of my paintings and stuff down off the wall and put a flowered bedspread on the bed and was like, now it's the guest room.
John: And so for a couple of months, I lived with my dad, which I found just basically intolerable just because my dad was a busybody.
John: And it just felt like, you know, it felt like staying with mom was a prize that I had to earn.
John: I had to re-earn.
John: And I was going to do that immediately, right?
John: You can't give me a red ribbon.
John: And put the blue ribbon up on a shelf, right?
John: I'm going to go for the blue ribbon.
John: So I started going over to my mom's house and then, you know, I'd sneak in and I'd end up spending the night in the guest room.
John: But it was like a – it was a little bit of a – I never fully re –
John: I never fully rejoined that room or that house for like three more years.
John: I never really put my paintings back up on the wall.
John: I never really... It was still a little bit of the guest room until I graduated from high school and moved out.
John: And for the first time, Merlin...
John: Right this moment, I have no idea how I got on that topic.
Merlin: In all of our time together, I never lose the thread.
Merlin: You're pivoting from Gary in the van.
Merlin: Oh, right.
Merlin: But you and your mom, I mean, you know, you stayed close.
John: You helped her fix up her house.
John: But this is what I'm saying.
John: I feel like Gary moved the van.
John: The van is in a new position now, but it is in a position that is sort of pointed out the driveway.
Yeah.
John: instead of tucked safely behind the hedge.
John: And so even if Gary lives there for two more years...
John: He's going to show up there.
John: He's going to see the van positioned in its new position, and he's never going to feel 100% secure.
John: Oh, his paintings were off the wall.
John: His paintings are off the wall.
John: The van is closer, potentially closer to moving than it was before.
John: Right.
John: And so he's changed his superposition to one of motion.
Yeah.
Merlin: I got a prediction on what's going to happen.
Merlin: I think about when I used to pick my daughter up from her preschool, we would walk the same route every day to walk from her school to the train to go home.
Merlin: Every day.
Merlin: Every day.
Merlin: You go.
Merlin: You walk.
Merlin: And we started noticing – you know how you kind of can't help but notice?
Merlin: It's January.
Merlin: Some people, you start seeing trees on the street.
Merlin: It's February.
Merlin: Sometimes you see a tree or two on the street.
Merlin: There was one house that we passed every day and it became a running joke.
Merlin: I thought it was funnier than she did.
Merlin: But every day into March, into April, I would say, do you think the tree is going to be there today?
Merlin: And she would say –
Merlin: usually yeah i think it'll still be there and uh and then one day the tree was gone and we never find out found out why it was there until springtime whoa that's what's gonna happen with the van well that see that's the thing though this is the thing about uh inertia the thing about you know momentum the the inertia is on the side of gary's van until it moves and then i i think it's gonna disappear you're never gonna know why unless you ask i think it's gonna be i think it's meant to be a mystery
John: Well, so one day I was talking to Gary, and one of the amazing things about Gary, of course, is that you can have multiple conversations with him, and he has no recollection of ever having met you before.
John: I mean, he's been living across the street from me now for a couple of years at least.
John: No recollection.
John: Introduces himself to me every time.
Merlin: Are you serious?
Merlin: Is that really true?
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Oh, my God.
John: Comes over, introduces himself to me, and starts to tell me his story.
John: Like, hey, man, I'm just staying over here for a little while.
John: And I'm like, Gary, I fucking know who you are.
John: We've talked like 15 times.
John: Oh, sorry, man.
John: Sorry.
John: Anyway, in one of those conversations, I learned that Gary grew up
John: in that neighborhood.
John: Grew up three blocks away.
John: He's a native son.
John: So when I found that out, I was dismayed because it can only mean that Gary may never go away.
John: Gary may move his van around that front yard for 20 more years because, yeah, he remembers that neighborhood from the 70s.
John: god that's depressing john yeah it is it is depressing but i but you know um there's there are a lot of things that could happen you know what there's a million stories in the naked city yeah that's true yeah the other day i was at a uh i was at a thrift store as i do as i still do even despite having talked many times about how i need to stop going to thrift it always sounds like you're gonna stop it sounds like you've had your fill that the the every thrift store has jumped the thrift shark but there you are you're back there you're looking for bargains
John: And back there, I'm looking for bargains.
John: That's exactly right.
John: And I'm in there, and I don't know what I, you know, you'd never know what you're looking for, right?
John: Go in, you're looking around, just looking and looking.
Merlin: The wand finds the wizard, Harry.
John: Well, and this is what happened.
John: So I'm like, you know what I hardly ever look at?
John: Belts.
John: I'm going to go look at belts.
John: I walk over and there's this total fucking, it looks like the cabling at a server farm.
John: right except it's belts human belts a human belt rat king a human belt rat king and i'm standing there and i'm like flipping through these belts and i'm like this is all garbage and like you know a belt says boy toy and and belts with little sailboats on them and you know like
Merlin: I'd love to see you in a belt that's a boy toy.
John: Boy toy.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I'm guessing you'd have to transport the buckle to a slightly more voluminous belt.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, you know, a lot of those belts, the style was to do as your daughter was wearing it, you know, sort of tucked in, right?
John: Extra long belt.
John: Oh, like an 80s belt.
John: Yeah, sort of tucked around.
John: So maybe I might even be able to wear one of those boy toy belts.
Yeah.
John: But anyway, I'm flipping through, I'm flipping through and then I find a belt and I'm like, you know, you just, you get used to in thrift stores, you kind of get that, the tips of your fingers kind of can feel when something is of a different grade.
John: Like you flip through the shirts and you're like garbage, garbage, garbage.
John: And then you touch up fabric and you're like, oh, that's a nice fabric.
John: And that's kind of when I pull
John: the shirt a little bit to look at look at it more closely like i don't want to i don't want to wear a shirt that i don't like the feel of it so a lot of a lot of times i just i just running my fingers over stuff like yuck yuck yuck yuck and then you find something oh so i'm flipping through these belts
John: there's probably 300 belts, you know, and I touch something.
John: I'm like, that's a different feel.
John: And I pull this belt out and I'm like, Oh, it's, you know, it's kind of soft.
John: And then I look at it and it's like, uh, the front of the belt is alligator.
John: I'm like, that's an interesting thing.
John: So I pulled the thing off and I, and I put it on and it fits me.
John: I'm like, all right.
John: So I like the feel.
John: It fits me.
John: It's kind of, I've never, I've never owned an alligator belt.
John: because my standard for belts has always been like hippie big buckle, right?
John: Like rock and roll belt.
John: I got a lot of rock and roll belts.
John: Now I want a nice belt all of a sudden.
John: I never had a nice belt.
John: So I look at this thing.
John: I turn the belt over.
John: It's got all these different stamps and impressions on the back that tell all this information about it.
John: which seems promising, right?
John: The more information that an item has on it, the more you are able to research it.
John: So I take out my phone and I start putting in all this data from the back of this belt.
John: Turns out it's an $800 alligator belt.
John: Wow.
John: And are there notes on the sourcing?
Yeah.
John: Well, it's like the name of, so a lot of belts, you just, you look at them, they have no information on them.
John: And then the first piece of information that you'll find on a belt is the size.
John: So a lot of belts just have the size stamped on it.
Mm-hmm.
John: And then you'll have – if a company is making a belt and they think highly enough of themselves that they'll put their name on the belt, then that's a step up and you'll get those belts that are like, I don't know, Dolce & Gabbana or something.
John: They put their name on it.
John: But this was a belt that had like –
John: like a cursive stamp that said handmade in America.
John: And then it had, you know, the name of the alligator and had all this stuff.
John: And it was all, it wasn't ink.
John: It was all like embossed.
John: So I was like, well, let's, let's research this.
John: So I, so I find out it's this very expensive belt.
John: Now,
John: I've already been through the process of deciding that I like the feel of it, figuring out it fits.
John: So now I'm realizing that it is a very expensive belt, which ignites the... It basically ignites the bonfire chain on top of the mountains that signal the riders of Rohan to ride to the cash register.
John: And so...
John: But I'm thinking to myself, is an alligator belt really where I'm headed in life?
John: Is that my direction?
John: Can I ask, would it nominally fit you?
John: It fits great.
John: You're kidding.
John: That's the second thing I do, right?
John: I pulled it off and I put it around me and I was like- That sounds talismanic.
Merlin: John, it sounds like this belt was intended for you.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Like a sword in the stone type situation.
John: Right.
John: The wand finds you, Harry.
Merlin: That's right, Harry.
John: Yes.
John: So here I have this alligator belt, which communicates... I mean, an alligator belt, to me, communicates that you are either the worst kind of lawyer...
John: Or someone who lives on a boat.
John: Or someone who hates alligators.
John: Or, right, it could be an alligator hunter.
John: But I would think that that alligator belt would be like something that you had made.
John: But that's a new kind of statement belt for you.
John: So I get this belt.
John: And I take it home.
John: I wear it.
John: I wear it the next day.
John: And I feel that weird thing that you feel when you are a thrift shopper and you have found a little treasure.
John: You wear it around and it's like our daughters with their mismatched socks.
John: It's that little bit of like, I have a secret.
John: My belt cost $800.
John: Wow.
John: My belt...
John: My belt formerly cost $800 that someone else paid for it one time, and now it's mine for $3.99.
John: So the next day, I'm driving around town in my alligator belt.
John: I'm feeling strong, and I start to feel that Vegas thing.
John: Like, how many of these alligator belts are out there?
John: I wasn't even aware.
Merlin: Oh, I get it.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: And so I head to a thrift store.
Merlin: You got the itch.
John: I got the itch.
John: I walk over to the belts.
John: I start flipping through the belts at a different thrift store.
John: The next day, I'm wearing my alligator belt.
John: I find another alligator belt by the same maker at a different thrift store.
John: Wow.
John: What?
John: And it also fit me.
John: What are the chances?
John: I don't know.
John: Now I got two alligator belts.
Merlin: This is the Bader Meinhof syndrome.
Merlin: Like you didn't know alligator belts existed.
Merlin: Now you see them all the time.
John: Yeah, now I got two of them.
John: Whoa.
John: And I'm walking around like, what else is going to happen right now?
John: These alligator belts are like, these are very expensive items.
John: They communicate to somebody.
John: They communicate, this is what's crazy.
John: Whatever it is that these alligator belts communicate, they only communicate that thing to people I will never meet or that I hardly ever meet.
Merlin: Oh, it's almost like a challenge coin.
Merlin: Yeah, right.
Merlin: I mean, to really get the significance of it, you've got to get the significance of it.
Merlin: But do you know what it is you're telegraphing with that?
John: I have no idea.
John: It's like a hanky code.
John: Yeah, right.
John: It's a hanky code I don't know, or it's like a black box pinging on the bottom of the South Pacific that no one will ever hear.
John: I'm walking around sending off these powerful, like this belt message, this belt boner.
John: And it's falling on deaf ears.
John: Everyone around me is deaf to the fact that you could even communicate something like this with a belt.
Merlin: I'm going to guess that the first one of the well, who knows, like what order these things go in.
Merlin: But I bet one of the first things is once you slip one of these on, you suddenly start seeing more of this kind of belt.
John: Okay.
John: So you need a belt to see the belt.
John: It's like when you're playing Slugbug and all of a sudden there are Volkswagen bugs everywhere.
Merlin: Yeah, exactly right.
Merlin: It's like an availability heuristic with belts.
John: So I need the belt to see the belt.
John: And now I'm going to start seeing the belt, and then what do I do?
Merlin: But now you're in a multiverse now, my friend.
Merlin: Where did that come from?
Merlin: What was the prime moving belt?
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: How is it you got that belt?
John: How did I get the belt enough that now I found a second belt?
John: So my third question is, now that I'm aware of this, and I start in my thrift store experiences, of course, now I'm going to go right to the belts every time I walk in.
John: I think it's your obligation at this point.
John: Well, what happens if I find a third one?
John: Does it, A, mean that alligator belts are thick on the ground and that there are so many of these?
John: But that doesn't make sense.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: It might be a Brigadoon type situation where like maybe once a year one of these belts makes itself apparent.
Merlin: I'm going to say – I don't know because I don't have one of these.
Merlin: But maybe your job now is to help the right people find one of these belts too.
Merlin: I don't know how you find out who that is.
Merlin: To be like a belt guide.
Merlin: Yeah, like a belt, like a spirit guide.
John: I mean, they're very, very pleasing, these belts.
John: They're very soft.
John: I mean, I feel bad that an alligator had to die, but if something's going to have to die, like an alligator might be – an alligator is pretty close to the top rank of things that I don't care whether it dies or not.
John: I got no feelings about them.
Merlin: Well, this is probably bigger than alligators though, John.
Merlin: I mean, I don't think this happens by accident.
Merlin: This, well, I don't want to say it on the air, but this might be, well, this might be the UFOs.
Merlin: You think?
Merlin: Well, I don't know.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: But like, how would you know when they were reaching out to you?
Merlin: Maybe they, maybe they, they give you an offering.
John: Okay.
Merlin: Now this is, and now you've got two offerings and now you're asking questions and now you're open to the idea that that great thing might be somebody you need to talk to.
John: So last night I'm driving home.
John: I'm wearing my second alligator belt.
Yeah.
John: And I'm driving past the airport, and because of a trick of the perspective, like a big sort of military jet has taken off from Boeing Field, but it appears to kind of be hovering there because it's so big that it's not disappearing very fast, and it's nighttime, so I can only kind of see its lights, and it's hovering over the road as I'm driving.
John: And I was reminded that, of course, if the UFOs were here on a regular basis, that's how they would disguise themselves.
John: They would disguise themselves as military jets.
Mm-hmm.
John: And this thing is just hovering there over the road and I'm driving along.
John: I've got my alligator belt on.
John: I'm watching this airplane and I'm thinking, is this it?
Merlin: Are they, is this the moment when all of a sudden, like, they might've tried lots of times and the conditions just weren't right.
Merlin: Or maybe you weren't right.
Merlin: Like maybe you weren't where you needed to be to be looking for the right kind of thing.
Merlin: Cause it's not, it's not going to just be an obvious thing.
Merlin: People aren't just going to like show up with, with a, with a cake.
John: I need the belt to see the belt.
John: You need the belt to see the belt.
John: We're going to cut all of that out.
John: You need the belt to see the belt.