Ep. 151: "Mrs. Horning's Pepsi"
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Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
Merlin: Merlin, ma'am.
Merlin: John, John.
Merlin: John, John, John, John.
Merlin: John is in front.
Merlin: It's put on.
Merlin: You remember that music video?
John: Do I?
Merlin: And they were playing it live, and Daltrey had a guitar.
John: That was during Pete Townsend's black Telecaster phase.
John: Had a Schechter.
John: Very confusing.
John: The Schechters, yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: It was also when, if I could borrow a phrase, it's also kind of when he was transitioning with his hair.
Yeah.
John: Oh, yes.
Merlin: He was at that stage, that last stage where he's like, yeah, I can pull this off.
Merlin: His hair looked like it was made by an intern at Boeing.
Merlin: Remember, it was slightly be-winged.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: He did.
John: He had some wings, didn't he?
John: He did.
John: It was almost like Pauly from The Sopranos.
Merlin: Yes!
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Like a kind of almost like a little earmuff thing, but a little higher up.
Merlin: Kind of a little bit of a flock of seagulls.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah, well, you know, that was their new wave record, right?
John: That was their new wave moment.
Merlin: I had...
Merlin: It was a different time.
Merlin: Nobody cares.
Merlin: I had a poster in my bedroom for three or four years that I got probably at a liquor store or a pony keg.
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: It said, Schlitz rocks America with The Who.
Merlin: And then there was a graphic of them playing music.
Merlin: Do you remember when those kids died at The Who concert?
Merlin: I was, yes, that was, I think I was living in Cincinnati then, yeah.
John: And that was like such a massive.
Merlin: My cousins were there.
Merlin: They were at the show?
Merlin: Yeah, my cousin that's five years older and cousin that's 10 years older, and they were at the show.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
John: Yeah, yeah.
John: It was like it rocked the country.
Merlin: Yeah, it did.
John: It changed the whole deal in a way.
Merlin: Yeah, I have to tell you to this day, I've explained this to my daughter.
Merlin: I was like, you know, have you ever noticed how pretty much every door on a public building opens out?
Merlin: Like, can you guess why that is?
Merlin: And she doesn't guess.
Merlin: She's seven.
Merlin: But seriously, every time it's so weird.
Merlin: I mean, this sounds really crazy, but I notice when a door on a public building does not open out.
Merlin: Mm hmm.
Merlin: Because, I mean, for our younger listeners, welcome.
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: I don't know the exact story.
Merlin: I think it was maybe Rolling Stone years later had a big piece about this.
Merlin: But basically, there was a Who concert in Cincinnati, 1979.
Merlin: I think it was Face Dances tour.
Merlin: And to get a long story short, there had been a rush to the stage.
Merlin: And then there was this idea that...
Merlin: There was this door over here, I think, where if you got through that door, you could get to the stage faster.
Merlin: Was that what happened?
John: Something happened.
Merlin: All you need to know is that there was a massive rush of people all heading toward the same door at the same time.
Merlin: Maybe it was a door to get out of the riot or whatever, but the point is it opened in.
Merlin: And like when I remember first hearing that this is so depressing, but I remember first hearing that and like it really sunk in what it meant to have a door open in when several hundred people are trying to get through that door at the same time.
Merlin: It's a bad scene.
Merlin: People were trampled.
Merlin: People were crushed.
Merlin: Crushed.
Merlin: And yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And it was it was really bad news.
John: Now, in contrast, almost, well, I think every front door of a house does open in.
John: Because hinges.
John: Because hinges?
Merlin: In a residential door setup, you wouldn't want to have exposed hinges that you can take off.
John: Hinges on the outside, right.
John: I always thought growing up in Alaska that the doors opened in in case there was a really big snowfall and you wouldn't be able to get your door.
Merlin: Oh, this is good.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: I'm not going to use the internet.
Merlin: I'm just going to postulate.
Merlin: That's good, John.
Merlin: I like that.
John: Because if there was a lot of snow, you couldn't – there's all kinds of – it happens all the time where you open your front door and there's like four feet of snow there.
Merlin: All the time.
Merlin: All the time.
Merlin: A lot of work by the door-to-door sales lobby, I think, involved.
Merlin: To keep the doors opening in.
John: Yeah, because put your foot into a door that opens out.
John: Wasn't that their slogan for a while?
John: Keep the doors opening in.
John: A lot of reasons why you would want your front door of your house to open in, and I think that was probably the logic when they built this stadium door setup.
John: And then it was like, oh, but in a case where there are 4,000 people trampling one another.
John: Oh, my God.
John: So brutal.
John: The doors open out.
John: I always remember it being turnstiles, but maybe I'm getting that wrong.
John: Maybe turnstiles were a different rock trampling.
Yeah.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: It's a very interesting idea, though.
Merlin: I mean, just not super interesting, but I think it's kind of interesting to think about.
Merlin: If you have a door there, it's there for a reason.
Merlin: And for a door, a priori, as you know, we're a philosophy podcast, so I could say a priori.
Merlin: You do.
Merlin: A priori, if you have a door.
Merlin: Blank slate.
Merlin: Blank slate.
Merlin: Tabula rasa.
Merlin: There you go.
Merlin: Good job.
Merlin: The monad of my idea is that if you have a door, it's there for a reason, and it has to be secure enough.
Merlin: Otherwise, why have a door?
John: Well, thank you.
John: Yes, why have a door?
John: Although there are decorative doors, lots of them.
John: Oh, sure.
John: You got the slighty Japanese doors.
John: Well, you got those, and then you have these foam core doors that are so popular now, which are popular only because they're cheap.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: It used to be when I was a kid, you could take a finger off in a slamming door.
John: Oh, my God.
John: You slam a door, you really emphasized your point.
Merlin: A child could not pick up a door were it on the ground.
Merlin: And now today you get the hollow core doors.
Merlin: Get out of here.
Merlin: You know, you punch one of those, you go right through it.
John: In the 1970s, when someone in the neighborhood slammed a door, you knew it.
John: Yeah.
John: Right?
John: Somebody down the block, got mad, slammed a door.
John: Gas prices, disco.
John: Come on.
John: People were transitioning their furnaces from coal to oil.
John: Oh, God.
John: Catalytic converters.
John: Don't get me started.
John: You know what?
John: So I know a little thing or two about catalytic converters.
John: And did you know?
John: That certain catalytic converters early, let's say early version one catalytic converters beta.
John: They have a lot of platinum in them.
John: And they're worth a lot of money.
John: No kidding.
John: A dead old, greasy old catalytic converter out of certain kinds of cars has a scrap value of several hundred dollars because of the precious metals.
Merlin: That's insane.
Merlin: Well, I know copper, maybe it's just on the wire, but I know steel and copper pipe is a big thing.
John: Well, yeah, that's for a long time.
John: You read Jesus' Son, right?
Mm-mm.
John: Oh, well, steel and copper pipe – steel and copper wire and copper pipe out of old houses is a major plot point.
Merlin: I remember in Florida, maybe concomitant with the rise of crack, people would break into houses under construction.
Merlin: They would watch houses under construction and see at the point when they got wiring and pipes.
Merlin: And go in and take it the next.
Merlin: Can you imagine that?
Merlin: Just show up one day and you're like, oh, shit.
John: Well, in fact, there was an epidemic –
John: I don't know how widespread the epidemic was, but it did qualify as an epidemic by the Centers for Disease Control standard of epidemic, where people were actually sawing down those giant aluminum...
John: Like interstate light poles, those giant light poles that go up and illuminate an entire Walmart parking lot.
John: They were cutting them down with power saws because there was so much aluminum in them that the scrap value was worth the effort.
Merlin: That's so crazy.
Merlin: Now, today, aluminum is like it has nothing, right?
Merlin: Oh, they're giving it away.
Merlin: I hear it turns out there's been lots of changes in the quote-unquote recycling quote-unquote industry.
Merlin: I heard it's a real different game nowadays.
Merlin: You have to really bargain.
Merlin: The margins are thin, and you have to really watch what the values are to figure out what's even worth.
Merlin: Of course, I heard this on NPR.
Merlin: So you could end up being the guy who goes and collects all the recycling.
Merlin: And then basically going like, well, green bottles are so out of demand right now that I'm just going to take them to the dump.
Merlin: That's your recycling.
John: Yeah, I went through a phase, brief phase, where I thought maybe I would be a sort of a Sanford and Son style scrap metal person.
John: I'm glad that passed.
John: You can resume your life of tidiness.
John: I spent a couple – no, no, no, not my own personal scrap.
John: No, no, professional scrap collecting.
John: Professional scrap collecting where I was like – somebody would say, hey, go clean out this lot for me.
John: And I'd go take all the rusty scrap and put it in a truck and take it to the recycling place.
John: And, you know, they pay different amounts.
John: And at the time, they really wanted aluminum.
John: But they give you money for steel.
John: And a couple of times, roll in there with the entire back of a F-250 just piled to the, you know, just the truck couldn't carry any more garbage.
John: And you drive in there and they wheel that big magnet.
Merlin: Oh, and it would just grab everything that's steel?
John: Just grab everything that's steel right out of the back of your truck.
John: Position the magnet right over your truck and you're sitting kind of... You can stay in the truck.
John: Stay in the truck and it's sitting way down on its shocks because it's all full of metal.
John: And then they turn on the power and...
John: Like however many hundreds of pounds of garbage just is relieved from the truck instantly.
John: Just like.
John: Without picking up the truck.
John: Doesn't pick.
John: It's not that, you know, they calibrate it so that it.
John: That's smart.
John: And yeah, that's right.
John: Right.
John: But the first time they tried that, they had unexpected consequences.
John: That's why they put a knob instead of a switch.
John: And the first time they did it, they just put a switch in there and they're like, no!
John: What do you guys see?
John: 1.1.
John: It's great.
John: They put a knob in.
John: Wow, that must be really dramatic to see.
John: Well, it's great.
John: It's not just to see because the truck then is all of a sudden, they're 900 pounds lighter and it bounces.
John: The truck bounces up on its shock absorbers.
John: It's a very cool experience.
John: And then you go into the office and they give you like four and a half dollars.
Merlin: Oh, really?
John: And you're like, oh, come on.
John: I mean, no.
John: I think we did a run one time where we made enough money that the two of us could get some Mexican food and split a six-pack of beer.
John: So it's not a thing that you get rich doing hauling scrap.
Okay.
Merlin: I have a recollection.
Merlin: It's so funny today because now – I mean, is it everywhere?
Merlin: I get the feeling that it's just progressive cities like ours, but we've got three cans.
Merlin: We've got a black can for landfill.
Merlin: We've got a – God, I hate that.
Merlin: Every time I see landfill, I just throw everything in there because it makes me so furious.
Merlin: Ooh.
Merlin: We got landfill is black.
Merlin: Compost is green.
Merlin: I know that's a little unconventional some places.
Merlin: Green is for the recycling, but our recycling is blue.
Merlin: Green is diesel.
Merlin: Green is diesel.
John: Yeah, you put diesel in.
Merlin: See, they should really codify this, John.
Merlin: That's super confusing.
Merlin: But back in the day, I remember when recycling first became a thing that I was aware of probably about eighth grade, probably not too far from the time of Schlitz rocking America with the Who.
Merlin: And I'd like to return to that.
Merlin: But I drank a metric shit ton of Coke in cans.
Merlin: I drank an unconscionable amount of Coke for most of my life.
Merlin: It is amazing that you got as far as you did.
Merlin: I mean, when I was in college, it was not unusual at all.
Merlin: And I'm going to make a gender division here because Diet Coke was all the rage then.
Merlin: Guys would drink a 12-pack of Coke a day.
Merlin: And a lot of the ladies, my lady friend would easily drink a 12-pack of Diet Coke a day.
John: Oh, just hearing this is like dissolving the pennies in the pocket of my pants.
John: A Spartame would be a pretty name for a girl.
John: A Spartame.
Yeah.
Merlin: Aspartame!
Merlin: Aspartame!
Merlin: Aspartame!
Merlin: It's time for your Mandarin lessons.
Merlin: But what we do is, and this is so gross, but again, back in Florida, Suncoast, as you say, we would have big hefty bags and put the cans in there and save them up.
Merlin: And I might be remembering this wrong, but circa 1981, I feel like I remember getting, I want to say, 45 cents a pound.
Merlin: for aluminum they were they were aluminum at that point yeah they had gone from steel to aluminum but i mean i don't think it's does that sound even possible that seems ridiculously high i remember walking away with like seven bucks sometimes
John: Well, you know, you may be, there may have been a deposit involved also.
John: Not in Florida, buddy.
John: No?
John: Okay.
Merlin: Not here.
Merlin: No, what do we got?
Merlin: You know, I should do something.
John: Is there a deposit on cans in California?
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: We're no Massachusetts, but let me see what it says here on the, I'm looking at my seltzer can.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: One cent, two cent, red cent, blue cent.
Merlin: I bet it's a nickel.
Merlin: I bet it's a nickel at least.
Merlin: That is an awful lot.
Merlin: That's.
Merlin: We used to buy our Coke in those big 16-ounce bottles because that was way easily the most economic way.
Merlin: And weren't you a generic pop family?
Merlin: Well...
Merlin: No, Shasta.
Merlin: Oh, okay.
Merlin: Shasta is not a generic cop.
Merlin: There's three kinds of families.
Merlin: There's the families that always only got Coke.
Merlin: There's the families that always only got Pepsi.
Merlin: And then there were the families like my poor dear friend, John, whose mom always bought whatever was on sale on the end cap.
Merlin: So he had down some serious RC back in the day.
John: So RC, I consider a top shelf cola or at least a mid shelf cola.
John: It's better than Pepsi for sure.
John: What?
John: How can you say that about Pepsi?
John: Oh, come on, really?
John: Now, the Hornings had an interesting arrangement, which was that I think they had generally lots of different kinds of pop, but the Pepsi was for Mrs. Horning only.
Merlin: This isn't the lady in the NPR wooden house, is it?
John: No, no, no.
John: You could go into the Hornings house and you could get a Hires, you can get a 7-Up, you get Dr. Pepper, but do not touch the Pepsi.
John: That's only from Mrs. Horning.
John: That's Mrs. Horning's Pepsi.
John: Now, Adolphus, my good friend Adolphus Bush Orthwine III.
John: Who was driven to his prom led by Clydesdales.
John: He, because he's from Atlanta and because his middle name is Bush, he drank a liter of Coke every day I knew him.
John: And he preferred it warm and flat.
John: Now me, I'm pop agnostic, right?
John: I'll drink any kind of pop except diet.
John: I won't drink a diet pop.
John: But anymore, I don't drink pop because of the – Reasons.
John: Because of so many reasons.
John: But in the 70s, I'm going to say that we drank a lot of Shasta.
Merlin: Shasta.
Merlin: I think of Shasta as making a root beer.
Merlin: But Shasta also – does Shasta make a variety of carbonated soft drinks?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: Oh, and they had like a lemon line.
Merlin: They had their own off-brand Sprite, right?
John: You keep saying off-brand.
John: You keep saying off-brand like Shasta is some kind of grocery store soda.
Merlin: God, John, I feel like I still have so much to learn.
Merlin: I still have so much to grow as a person.
Merlin: I'm still using so many of the old words.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I know it's offensive.
Merlin: I know it's offensive to call Shasta off-brand, but I just can't get used to it.
Merlin: It's...
Merlin: It's not a decision.
John: Right.
John: I know.
John: I know.
John: It's something you have to think about, Merlin.
John: You just have to get ahead of your – you just have to – I don't know what you have to do.
Merlin: These kids today, John, they're not aware of how much variety there was in on-brand drinks back then.
John: Thank you.
John: Yes, there were a lot.
Merlin: You had RC.
Merlin: You had – but there were a whole bunch of them.
Merlin: And then once the generics came along, forget about it.
Merlin: I mean it was crazy.
Merlin: There was so much variety.
John: Now, growing up in Ohio, did you have some regional pops like Moon River or Knee High or whatever those things were?
Merlin: Daddy's lynching.
Merlin: No, we had lots of local beers.
Merlin: There was Hutipole.
Merlin: which they called hudie and there was what was the other one um we had those i don't remember having regional i think maybe this is just a john hodgman thing but i think of new york and new england as being like where you get some serious off-brand sodas yeah sorry different differently branded sodas and also well some of those i would qualify as off-brand what's the one he's always going on about moxie oxy yeah i've never had a moxie
John: Well, there's a lot of those things, little hush pies and monkey brains and whatever.
John: There's just all those desserts that – little pies and cakes and stuff that are – Totally regional.
John: Just completely regional and not anything I'm interested in.
John: And then when you look at it, you realize, oh, that's just a hostess cupcake, but you're calling it something else.
John: Right.
John: That's just – you know what that is?
John: That's just normal mayonnaise, but somehow you are calling it Hellman's mayonnaise.
Right.
John: Right.
John: Heilman's mayonnaise.
John: It's some kind of west of the Mississippi, east of the Mississippi.
John: There's Heilman's and best.
John: Best Foods.
Merlin: What's the one with the fast food place?
Merlin: You get Carl's Jr.
Merlin: versus Hardee's, I believe.
Merlin: Is that right?
Merlin: Are you saying that those two things are equivalent?
Merlin: I know Hardee's is the same as another place.
Merlin: Carl's Jr.
Merlin: or what's the other one?
Merlin: What's the one with the fucking clown?
Merlin: What's that one?
Merlin: Is that Jack in the Box?
John: All of them.
John: They all have a clown.
John: That's true.
John: There used to be a lot more clowns in food.
John: The Burger King guy is a clown.
John: Ronald McDonald is a clown.
John: Jack in the Box thing is a little clown.
Merlin: How do we still have – how are clowns still a thing?
Merlin: Clowns sell hamburgers.
Merlin: I am coming up on 50 years old, John.
Merlin: I have never – I have liked maybe three clowns.
Merlin: What about Bob's Big Boy?
Merlin: He was kind of a clown.
Merlin: Well, I think he was like a diabetes clown.
Merlin: He had – but with that hair, that super – Okay, here you go.
John: Here you go.
Merlin: In Cincinnati, we didn't call it Bob's.
Merlin: We had Frisch's.
Merlin: Frisch's Big Boy.
Merlin: Frisch's, Big Boy?
Merlin: I would go places and people would say, Bob's Big Boy, and I'm like, you mean Frisch's?
Merlin: That's where Big Boy is.
John: So what happened is a lot of those East Coast brands, as they moved West, people were like, those names are too ethnic.
John: We don't want to sell any Heilmann's mayonnaise out here.
John: We'll just call it Best Foods.
John: The German names floated, though.
John: They went pretty well, the German names.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: I mean, Cincinnati.
Merlin: Cincinnati is a pretty German town.
Merlin: Schlechters?
Merlin: What was it called?
Merlin: The Guitars?
Merlin: No.
John: Yeah.
John: No, the big boys.
John: Oh.
John: Frisches.
Merlin: Like as in fresh.
John: Frisch.
John: Oh, frisch.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Das Tisch ist frisch.
John: Das Hamburger.
John: We had a thing out here where the –
John: Now, what was it called?
John: It was called... Oh, it was called Black Angus.
John: The Black Angus restaurant.
Merlin: I'm sorry.
Merlin: I immediately think of Patton Oswalt's bit on that.
Merlin: Does Patton Oswalt have a Black Angus bit?
Merlin: He has a great bit on the aggressiveness, not to do other people's jokes, but the aggressiveness of the ads.
Merlin: And this ridiculous amount of food that they bring to you.
Merlin: Is that part of their thing?
John: Well, see, now, this is the problem with black Angus, which is a common enough phrase that I think there are multiple black Angi out there.
John: And a California black Angus probably has no relationship to the old chain in Washington.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: I get it.
Merlin: I get it.
Merlin: I get it.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: Like, for example, I bet in an earlier time there were probably a whole bunch of different Burger Kings that didn't even know the other ones existed.
Merlin: Exactamundo.
Merlin: Before Don Draper got the account, there were just a whole bunch of places and you just call it Burger King or Burger Queen or Burger Who Cares.
John: Thank you.
John: Burger King.
John: There was a Burger King in every town and I'm sure there was a Black Angus in every town.
John: But there was a guy here in Washington named Stuart Anderson.
John: And he had a big cattle ranch over by Ellensburg.
John: And he opened up all these restaurants.
John: Stuart Anderson's Cattle Company.
Merlin: Oh, yeah, you mentioned this in the last episode.
Merlin: What?
Merlin: Yeah, you made a joke about an indie rock band playing there.
Merlin: And then people on Twitter started lighting up.
Merlin: So it's like some beloved steakhouse, right?
John: Well, yeah, except the cattle companies were what he had to start calling his restaurants because some other place named Black Angus sued him.
Merlin: I think Black Angus, John, I think that's like champagne.
Merlin: I think that's one of those terms that means something.
John: It is.
John: It's a kind of cow.
John: Yeah.
John: So anyway, did I really mention this on the last episode?
John: I'm having some kind of cattle company fugue state.
Merlin: You're having what Locke and Barclay call tabula rasa, which is a kind of monad where you're able to start fresh every week.
John: We have such a good dialectic.
Merlin: We have a good dialectic.
Merlin: We got the thesis.
Merlin: We got the antithesis.
John: Antithesis.
Merlin: You got the synesthesia, which I think is what Foucault had when he made his pendulum.
John: Couldn't decide.
Merlin: Thesis, antithesis.
John: Have you ever seen a Foucault's pendulum?
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: They're incredible.
Merlin: I think it was in, I want to say, Seattle.
Yeah.
Merlin: I went somewhere where they had a big-ass pendulum, and I kind of couldn't stop watching it.
John: Did we go together?
John: Was that one of those late-night things where we went and – Yeah, I think so.
Merlin: It was at night, and it was in a giant room, and there was a pendulum, and a bunch of people were sitting around looking kind of bewildered.
Merlin: I'll find out.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: I'm not looking at the internet today, but I'll find out where Foucault's pendulum is.
Merlin: Black Angus.
Merlin: Sorry.
Merlin: I took you off Black Angus.
John: No, no, no.
John: I'm so far gone off of Black Angus.
John: Okay.
John: Right now I'm looking at a picture of people cosplaying Kiss that just appeared on my – Oh, little kids?
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah, isn't that great?
John: Some of them were full-grown adults.
John: But let me get back to the question of you not looking at the internet today.
John: Is that a thing that you just decided to do while we were talking or is that a thing that you woke up this morning and said, I'm not looking at the internet today?
Merlin: Do you really want an answer?
John: Yes.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: I go into every episode with this idea in mind.
Merlin: I am here to engage in mental intercourse with John.
Merlin: It's not my job to be right.
Merlin: It's not my job to be complete.
Merlin: It's my job to be engaged.
Merlin: And then I try to say, and you'll hear me sometimes exhale.
Merlin: I go like this.
Merlin: I go...
Merlin: Because I realized I got to go look at the internet.
Merlin: And then what happens?
Merlin: Like last week, I looked at the internet and I still got almost everything I said wrong.
Merlin: Because I'm reading, I'm scanning an article while I'm trying to have mental intercourse with you.
Merlin: That's like checking your watch.
Merlin: So this is like the Dow of Merlin.
Merlin: Yeah, it is.
Merlin: 10,000 steps begins with me.
Merlin: See, I could go check, but you know, then you're going to go, you forgot this.
John: You're using the voice of the internet pedant.
John: That's Professor Actually.
John: I've gone back.
John: I've fallen off the wagon.
John: Which one?
John: The eBay wagon.
John: Oh, no.
John: I'm back on eBay again.
John: I decided at a certain point that... Browsing or closing the deal?
John: I've closed some deals recently.
John: So what happened was... What had happened was...
John: So I had all these shirts that were French cuff shirts.
John: They required cufflinks.
John: And at a certain point, I was like, you know what?
John: That is a dumb thing.
John: It's a dumb affectation.
John: And I'm going to take all these cufflinks shirts.
Merlin: It's like the Polaroid of shirts.
Merlin: All these French cuff shirts.
Merlin: You get the shirt.
Merlin: Now you got to go out and keep buying fucking cufflinks for it.
John: It's so much more work to get in and out of this shirt.
John: So I'm like, I'm done.
John: I'm done with the shirts, the French cuff shirts.
John: I packed them all up and I put them in a bag.
John: And I was like, I'm taking them to the thrift store.
John: Some very affected young man is going to find – he's going to be a big guy, right?
John: A very affected, large-sized young man is going to find these shirts at the thrift store.
John: He's going to be thrilled.
John: He's going to make his day.
John: But then I never made it to the thrift store.
John: And the bag of shirts got kicked around and finally got kicked under the bed.
John: And I forgot about it.
John: And then I started needing to dress up a little bit more or rather I started to have an excuse to think that I needed to dress up a little bit more.
John: Because in Seattle, if you go and look at the pictures of the people that are running for city council, most of them are trying to communicate through their clothes that they're just regular people.
John: Yeah.
John: And I'm trying to communicate through my clothes that I am not a regular people.
John: I'm a very fancy people.
John: We have plenty of regular people.
John: Hey, listen.
John: If you want regular people on the Seattle city council, you got a lot of people to vote for.
John: Just go to the fish throwing place.
John: But if you want fancy people, I'm your people.
Yeah.
John: And so I'm wandering around, and I'm like, I want to get fancier.
John: Oh, wait a minute.
John: What is fancier than French cuff shirts?
John: And then I thought, oh, no, I gave those shirts away like a dummy.
John: I gave the shirts away just a few months before I realized that I desperately needed the shirts.
John: So the other day, I'm flipping my mattresses because it's spring.
John: I flip my mattress up.
John: Lo and behold, right there under the bed is this bag of French cuffed shirts that I kicked around.
Merlin: It's like sartorial manna.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: It's just like, whoa, hello.
Merlin: Thank you, God.
Merlin: Remain calm.
John: You recognize that.
John: Oh, my God.
John: It's like leaving cigarettes above the door frame.
John: And then when you're out of cigarettes, you wander around for a while and you're like, I'm out of cigarettes, damn it.
John: And then you realize, oh, wait a minute.
John: No, I left cigarettes sitting on top of the door frames of every window and every door in this house.
John: There's cigarettes everywhere here.
John: I mean, it's very equivalent.
John: You had actually really just forgotten about them.
John: That's the thing.
John: When you get a fresh pack of cigarettes, what do you have?
John: You have 20 brand new cigarettes.
John: And when you have 20 brand new cigarettes, you feel like you got all the cigarettes for the rest of your life.
John: You never think that you're ever going to run out of these 20 cigarettes.
Merlin: That's so life right there.
John: And so you take four out of the pack –
John: Because you can spare them.
John: Because you've got a million.
John: And you put one above your bedroom door.
John: One above the bathroom door.
John: One on your respirator.
John: One above the window to the outside.
John: You hide one in the kitchen.
John: And then you smoke the cigarettes.
John: Like you're starting that pack.
John: Four cigarettes in.
John: And then probably when you get to the end of that pack of cigarettes, you'll be out at a store.
John: You'll get another pack.
John: You'll be three or four packs later before you're back at your house and out of cigarettes.
John: Wow.
John: And so you've forgotten about the four until that little voice in the back of your head says, thank you, past me.
John: Thank you, past me, for thinking of me, present me.
John: and putting those cigarettes around.
John: Well, so this is what happened with my French cuff shirts.
John: And then I realized, if I'm going to be a fancy guy, two things need to happen.
John: One, I need to figure out how to...
John: How to patronize a dry cleaner because I've never done that.
John: Oh, really?
John: No.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: That's right.
John: You did this on principle, right?
John: On principle, never used a dry cleaner.
John: Whoa.
John: And never used an iron on principle.
Merlin: Do you put it in the shower?
John: Well, no.
John: I just wear it wrinkled because I have a rumpled style.
John: You're authentic.
John: But I showed up to a couple of things and other people were like, did you put those clothes on wet and then go to bed?
John: And I was like, what are you talking about?
Merlin: Looking through their opera glasses.
John: Yeah, they were like, and I said, what are you talking about?
John: This is my rumpled style.
John: And then they showed me a photograph of me standing in a line with like six other people, some of them trying to look like regular people, but everybody's ironed their shirts.
John: And I did.
John: I looked like a pile of dirty clothes.
John: So I, A, need to figure out how to use a dry cleaner, and B, I needed new cufflinks.
John: So I started going on eBay.
John: And after I was on there for a while, I decided that I wanted my cufflinks all to have Stars of David on them because that was a kind of fashion of Judaica after the war to have your little blue cufflinks with the Star of David.
John: I don't know why they appealed to me.
John: So then I was like, I had to buy the ones that I saw.
John: I don't know what I'm going to be communicating.
John: That is really unconventional.
John: To people, but I really like the little – I like what it – I don't know.
John: I like the picture.
John: It's certainly going to give people a certain vibe.
John: Yeah, but the thing – this is the thing about cufflinks.
John: Nobody ever looks at them.
John: The only way that people look at them is if you lift up your cufflink and wag it in their face.
Merlin: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: You know, people talk about that with the Apple Watch, that, you know, it's something for people like me who don't wear a watch, we don't think about it and go, gosh, that's silly, but watch people notice watches.
Merlin: So cufflink people are going to notice cufflinks.
Merlin: Right, but how many cufflink people are there?
John: Right, right.
John: Not very many.
John: I'm with you.
John: I'm with you.
John: So, and I figure the very few, the tiny minority of cufflink people that will actually ever see my cufflinks and then have a giant, like, question mark appear above their head.
Mm-hmm.
John: I will be able to take the time in 85% of those cases to sit and talk to them and explain that I don't know why I'm wearing Star of David cufflinks.
Merlin: John, the Star of David part I think is going to be the most frequently asked question about your cufflinks.
John: Yep, I think that's true.
John: So I have a lot of them and some of them are real nice antiques.
John: They're very beautiful.
John: and I'm not sure what explanation I can offer.
Merlin: I think you should come up with something very inspiring.
Merlin: That they appealed to me.
Merlin: Well, I'm glad you asked me about my cufflinks.
Merlin: Let me tell you.
Merlin: As you know, my father David served.
John: And unfortunately for my family, we have no, there is absolutely no connection to the tribes of Israel.
John: Is that right?
John: There's not a single, even tangential connection.
John: Um, and so I'm, I'm completely out in the, I'm out in the weeds and I guess I could just say like, I really liked the little star, but I, I'm not sure that's gonna, you know, of, of the, of the 15% of people that,
John: I'm not going to have a chance to adequately explain.
John: I'm not sure what percentage of those people are going to accept that.
John: Right.
John: I liked it.
Merlin: So did you go to eBay in search of these things?
John: I went to eBay in search of Cufflinks.
John: And then once I got there, I discovered that Star of David Cufflinks were a thing.
John: And I said, why should...
John: these beautiful things only be available to rabbis like who else is going to wear these things sharp looking rabbis sharp looking rabbis why should they have why should they like get these and no one else can so then I then I decided then I it wasn't a decision exactly I just bought a pair and then I was like
John: If I get two, then I have a collection.
John: And pretty soon, you know, pretty soon I was like, not exactly scouring, but I had to take a break.
John: What gives me a focus?
John: Yeah, right.
John: You don't want to just be on the internet looking at... There's 20,000 cufflinks on there.
John: And they are like accordions.
John: There was a time... There was a time... Ladies and gentlemen, I just want to let you know.
Merlin: I've been thinking a lot about this election.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: A cufflink is a lot like an accordion.
Yeah.
Merlin: Most people don't know how to play it, and they wouldn't know what to play if they did.
John: That's exactly right.
John: There was a time when accordions were very fashionable.
John: There was an accordion in every well-appointed house.
John: Accordions everywhere.
John: That would be so hard to check.
John: But you're not looking at the internet right now, so there's no way for you to know.
John: You have to accept it.
John: I'm going to take your word.
John: Listen, Weird Al Yankovic is a perfect example of a young man who learned to play accordion during the era when accordion playing was very fashionable.
John: I had accordion lessons as a kid.
John: You're kidding.
John: No.
John: You did?
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Could you still play an accordion, do you think?
Merlin: No, I mean, I could do those Wolverine chords with my hand, but that's about it.
Merlin: No, no, I don't derail you, but no, it was during Saturday mornings, right at the beginning of the new season of TV.
Merlin: It was super frustrating.
John: Oh, right.
Merlin: It was a brand new Batman franchise, and I was there playing like Little Brown Jug at 10 in the morning.
John: Well, anyway, so now there is what we in the business call a glut of accordions.
John: Right.
John: There are a lot more.
John: Really?
Merlin: I bet they're hard to fix.
Merlin: I bet that's part of it.
Merlin: I bet once it doesn't work exactly right, you just get rid of it and it goes into disuse and goes away.
John: Yeah, they are impossible to fix.
John: And there are very few accordion fixers left.
John: But everybody who has an accordion recognizes that it is kind of a miraculous instrument and they all think that accordions are worth a lot of money.
John: Their broken ass, rusty old, you know, blown out accordion is like a cash cow is what they imagine.
John: But the problem is that for every person who can play the accordion, there are 50 accordions.
John: That's why there are so many pianos.
John: This is like the world's worst morning edition story.
John: It turns out.
John: And cufflinks are the same way.
John: The hipsters have not decided that cufflinks are their new thing.
John: They're all busy wearing monocles.
John: And so the only people that – and like old people are dying seriously by the tens of thousands every day.
Merlin: How many accordions would you estimate in America become available every day?
Merlin: I'll bet you 58 accordions are liberated from this mortal coil every day.
John: I would say that was even conservative.
John: I would say it was something more like 63 new accordions on the hoof, set loose as the dying wish of their owner.
John: I free you, sir.
John: Like musical nutria.
John: Just go.
John: Run.
John: Go.
John: Go.
John: Make a living for yourself out there.
John: And cufflinks are, I think you'd have to add two zeros to that.
John: I think there are 6,300 fresh pairs of cufflinks reentering the stream every day and nobody knows what to do with them or where they should go.
Yeah.
John: So I'm culling the ones from the herd that appeal to me.
John: For a while, I was getting ones that had little trains on them.
John: But then I realized that the train ones are, I think that the railroads gave them out as like, I mean, not to kids and stuff.
John: It wasn't like airplane.
Merlin: But like a service award.
John: Exactly.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Or like the salesman would come through.
John: He's trying to sell you.
John: I don't know what train salesman tried to sell you, but trying to, you know, buying and selling, right?
John: America.
John: And the cufflinks were one of the, that was a kind of a party favor.
Yeah.
Merlin: Now, hmm, it's not strictly a Polaroid model, because in the Polaroid model, like the Gillette model, you get the Dingus for very cheap or free, and then you have costly refills for it.
Merlin: You've kind of got a two-way connection here, though, because now if you're going to start doing that, you're going to need more shirts as well, right?
John: Well, so this is the big question that I have to ask myself every day.
John: Other people, I presume...
John: make do with a limited supply of things.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Right?
Merlin: Right, right, right.
Merlin: There's a high, maybe not possibly financial, but I would say a high existential cost of maintenance to having clean clothes, for example.
Mm-hmm.
John: Right?
John: It takes effort.
John: But I think traditionally you had, what, five dress shirts?
Merlin: I bet you had one pretty good hat and one pretty good jacket and you wore it most days.
John: And then you had the shirts and you did the laundry every weekend.
John: And then you went back through your shirts.
John: I don't think you had like a lot of extra shirts or extra shoes.
John: And because of my lifestyle choices, because of my – let's just call it what it is because of my lifestyle.
John: I have a lot of –
John: shirts and so do i need more shirts i don't i have to say i have to wake up every morning and quell that feeling that that that wake it really wakes me up i don't have enough shirts and then i wake up and i'm like you've got a lot of shirts guy just you don't need any more shirts and then that the other voice is a little bit more high-pitched and it's like
John: I need more shirts.
Merlin: But you're not committed.
Merlin: Just to clarify, because I think I might have gotten this wrong.
Merlin: You're not committed to going French cuffs only.
John: No.
John: No, no, no, no.
Merlin: French cuffs, I mean, like every affectation.
Merlin: It's not like going to be your Paul Simon bow tie thing.
Merlin: A man walks down the street wearing a bow tie.
Merlin: I thought you meant Paul Simon.
John: The other Paul Simon.
John: Who also wore a bow tie.
Merlin: A man wonders how am I up at night on eBay looking for cufflinks.
John: No, I don't think.
John: I think in the 50s or in the 40s, in the 40s, my dad decided that he was going to be a bow tie guy.
John: He was going to be a bow tie guy and a tweed jacket guy.
John: Wow.
John: And so at the beginning of his career, this is the beginning of his career.
John: He was a veteran, but he was a vet.
John: He was a he was a University of Washington law school.
John: And he was going to wear a tweed jacket and a bow tie everywhere he went.
John: And so if you can think back to like what was fashionable for other people to wear in the 50s, it was not a tweed jacket and a bow tie.
John: But he stuck to it.
John: He stuck to that look all the way until he met my mother.
John: And my mother thought at the time, 1958 or 59, like the beginning of the Mad Men era.
John: Right.
John: She said, you look like...
John: A pile of dirty clothes, not coincidentally.
Merlin: That kind of look, it's really cool, but it would probably be a little bit fuddy-duddy against the four more popular fitted suits of the time, yeah?
John: Fuddy and duddy.
Merlin: You got your lady friend in her Chanel-like new look or her Dior-like new look.
Merlin: She's got her hands tucked in a little muff.
Merlin: And you're running around looking like half of a humanities professor.
John: Yeah, you look like Orville Redenbacher.
Yeah.
John: so my mom said you gotta you gotta ditch it you gotta ditch this look and my dad went kicking and screaming but then she bought him a lot of slick suits and all of a sudden he felt like a pretty pretty smooth operator um so i don't want to make that mistake i don't want to continue that mistake through subsequent generations right sure where i decide oh i'm french cups bow tie guy
John: All I need now is a pocket watch and some of those colored wingtips.
John: And you just put me out to pasture.
John: You just put me on the cover of Real Simple Magazine.
John: The answer will surprise you.
John: That's not where I want to live.
John: That's not it at all.
John: So I don't know this French cuff thing.
John: I mean, it's really, in a lot of ways, it's reprehensible.
John: But, you know, there I am staring at myself in the mirror asking that perennial question, who are you, dude?
John: Yeah.
John: Right.
John: Who among us doesn't look ourselves in the mirror and say, who are you, dude?
Merlin: That actually there's a question I've been wondering if I could interject.
John: Absolutely.
Merlin: I mean, I don't know.
Merlin: I don't I think it's probably reflected, so to speak, in my apparel in my carriage that I don't spend a lot of time looking in the mirror.
John: Who are you, dude?
Merlin: No, not as much as I should.
Merlin: I don't think about it that much.
Merlin: I mean, obviously, I'm racked with self-doubt and fear, but I don't actually think that much about how I look until I see how I look.
Merlin: And then I go, wow, that's how your body's shaped?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: like that's a different thing you know i mean i'm i am i think getting to that stage where just congenitally you start looking like an old guy i mean yeah sure hair getting gray getting wrinkly and stuff like that but just you know getting a little bit like didn't i used to have like a little bit of a chest this is kind of weird and like and now i'm getting those like old man calves and stuff like that and that's kind of weird but again
Merlin: Now, because of how my life is, I don't have to think about it that much.
Merlin: My wife is super nice about not saying anything.
John: She's very chic.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: She's pretty sharp.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: But you now have to go – I know you always go places, and I know you're a sharp dresser.
Merlin: But at the same time, don't – do you have to see – I've seen more new photos of you in the last three weeks than in probably the last couple years before that, maybe.
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: And you always look good, but is it weird to you and your self-image to see a photo of yourself?
Merlin: Has that changed at all now that you are going to see more of what you look like to the world?
John: Well, there's no question that I am rocking a serious dad vibe now.
John: There's no pretending.
John: For instance, if I put on some skinny jeans and some checkerboard vans,
John: I look like a dad in skinny jeans and checkerboard vans.
John: Nobody's going to mistake me for a skater.
John: Hello, fellow students.
John: But, you know, this is the question about fashion.
John: What is it, right?
John: What is it?
John: And the people that don't care about it are legitimate.
John: I mean, they are completely right to not care about it.
John: But then there are...
John: Then there are people for whom fashion is their entire lives.
John: It's their career.
John: It's their art.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Just to clarify, though, here's what I'm talking about.
Merlin: I'll give you an example in addition to the examples of accidentally seeing myself in a mirror and making a little screamy noise.
Merlin: It's been a big week with the Star Wars trailer coming out, and it coincided.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Did you watch it?
John: Well, yeah, of course.
John: Oh, my God.
John: How can you not watch it?
John: Oh, my God.
John: But here's my question to you.
John: Yeah.
John: Chewie and Han Solo have different homes.
John: They do not come back to one place and say, we're home.
Merlin: But see, a lot of people are guessing that means they've been away for a long time.
Merlin: I think it could be that they were on some kind of a mission right before this happened.
John: But where's Han Solo's home?
John: It was never established.
Merlin: He's Corellian, but I think he travels a lot.
John: So are they arriving at Corellia?
John: So here's the thing.
John: Chewie lives on planet Chewbacca.
John: Kashyyyk.
John: Kashyyyk.
John: With three Ys.
John: Yeah, that just seemed, I don't know.
John: And I studied the video.
John: Could you see Han Solo's earring?
Merlin: I didn't notice the earring.
Merlin: Was he wearing one?
John: I'm not sure.
Merlin: I couldn't see through the tears.
Merlin: I looked for his earring.
Merlin: I felt 10 years old again, John.
Merlin: You hear a phrase like that, but I was transported.
John: Let me give you a side-by-side comparison.
John: Ready?
John: On the one hand, Chewie, get us out of here!
John: On the other hand,
John: Chewie, we're home.
John: Come on.
John: Chewie, get us out of here.
Merlin: It's a teaser.
Merlin: It's a teaser.
Merlin: It's a teaser.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: I'm going to say one thing about this.
Merlin: I just hope he's still – we rewatched many of the Star Wars movies in the last couple weeks, which is what makes this timing kind of interesting.
Merlin: Did you go back and watch negative three, negative two, and negative one?
Merlin: I have special versions of those that we do watch.
Merlin: I have so much to talk about.
Merlin: Yes, you don't care about Star Wars, but there are – I do care about special versions of things.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Can I put a pin in that for just a second?
Merlin: Because here's all I want to say, because this is why I'm asking you this question.
Merlin: It's important to your candidacy.
Merlin: So my kid has seen – we didn't watch Empire Strikes Back, but we've watched New Hope.
Merlin: aka star wars we watched a uh a special version of return of the jedi um and we've recently watched as i mentioned last week we've watched uh episode negative one right that's that's three yeah uh a couple times recently
Merlin: So anyway, so the trailer came out.
Merlin: She was not as excited as I am, but she was pretty excited.
Merlin: So I'd watched it like six times that day.
Merlin: I'm talking on Twitter about how I cried and everything.
Merlin: And she comes home from school.
Merlin: I told her when I picked her up at school, I'm like, there's a trailer for the new Star Wars movie.
Merlin: You gotta come watch this.
Merlin: She watched it.
Merlin: She was so excited.
Merlin: And a lot of her reaction was similar to mine, where it's like, oh, what's happening there?
Merlin: Oh my gosh, who is that?
Merlin: And we talked a little bit about our reckons about that.
Merlin: Then you see the Millennium Falcon, and she got kind of excited.
Merlin: And I was excited too, because I was like, just wait, just wait, just wait.
Merlin: And it goes black.
Merlin: It comes back up.
Merlin: You're chewy.
Merlin: It comes back up.
Merlin: We're home.
Merlin: I'm crying.
Merlin: And she goes, he's so old.
Merlin: And I was like, yeah, yeah, but isn't that great?
Merlin: They're still together.
Merlin: And it's in that same pose.
Merlin: She's like, oh, my gosh.
Merlin: Let's watch it again.
Merlin: We watched it again.
Merlin: Same reaction.
Merlin: He's so old.
Merlin: Now, all I'm saying is, then, of course, we continue.
Merlin: We pick up the iPad.
Merlin: We do a Google search on Star Wars then and now.
Merlin: And she had exactly the same remark about every single person.
Merlin: And I'm like – and each time, the same thing happened like nine times where she goes like, oh my god.
Merlin: I almost said Billy Barty.
Merlin: Kenny Baker is so old.
Merlin: I go, yeah, but he looks pretty good.
Merlin: And here's the guy who plays C-3PO.
Merlin: And I was like, he looks awesome.
Merlin: He looks really fit.
Merlin: She goes, he looks so old.
Merlin: And that's all she could say to every one of these.
Merlin: which makes total sense because she's used to seeing these people 38 years ago.
Merlin: Yeah, they are.
Merlin: Whereas I look at them and go, wow, they look pretty good.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Do you, my question to you is, do you ever have a John Roderick then and now moment?
Merlin: Do you ever see yourself and go, wow, you look good.
Merlin: You look good, but do you have like a white, a grayish beard?
Merlin: Is it grayish?
John: No, it's gray.
John: This is the thing I have aged by, I have aged very quickly, I think.
John: Because when I was 38, I had a little bit of gray coming into my beard that looked kind of blonde.
John: When I was 40, it looked like that.
John: When I was 42, it looked like that.
Merlin: It's kind of like the Steve Martin hack.
Merlin: Well, Steve Martin went gray.
Merlin: He went prematurely gray.
Merlin: So he was in his 20s or 30s.
Merlin: He's going gray.
Merlin: And so now we see him when he's like 60 or 70.
Merlin: You're like, wow, he looks pretty good because the delta is not there.
Merlin: He doesn't look that different.
John: But I do look different to myself when I see a picture now because the gray came in, I think, really fast, like in the last three years, four years.
Yeah.
John: And now I'm legitimately like gray beard guy.
John: And it's one of those things where you see somebody from a distance and you're like, oh, here comes some 65-year-old guy.
John: And then when they get up closer, you're like, oh, he's actually just a gray 46-year-old guy.
John: Right, right.
John: But there is a little bit of a shocker to me.
John: Not just when I see a picture of myself taken candidly and I go, oh, still fat.
John: But like also now like and gray.
John: Like still fat and gray.
John: But what can you do about that?
John: Like I've been…
Merlin: I honestly did not mean it as like getting you to say, oh, I look old.
Merlin: I didn't mean it that way at all.
Merlin: I just meant it must be unusual now that that's going to be kind of part of what you do.
Merlin: Like when you're on a stage with other people, like, you know, the natural human impulse all the time is to like try to suss out what somebody is up to with how they look and how they carry themselves and then how that compares to the other people on stage.
Merlin: Does that ever seem strange to see yourself in that situation?
Yeah.
John: yeah it does just because well for instance like now that I'm now that I have thrown my hat into the ring as a as a political person in Seattle and I and I recognize that the other people in the ring are all people who have been practicing this style of dance more or less their whole adult lives and I am a dancer and
John: I am a good dancer, but I am a dancer in a different style of dance.
John: I've probably had my picture taken more than everyone on stage combined, but in a very different context.
John: And so I'm sitting up on a dais with a bunch of other candidates, listening to them talk, watching them interact with one another and the people.
John: And even that, when I interact with a
John: with a crowd i interact with them like an audience and a p a group of people at a political event
John: are not exactly an audience or they're not an audience in the same way.
John: You know, they are the polity or whatever.
Merlin: Yeah, no, that's a good distinction.
John: Yeah, so I sit up there and then I see a photograph of the group and, well, for instance, right, like my collar is wrinkled and no one else's collar is wrinkled.
John: Now in the last 25 years, I've never looked at a picture of myself and thought, my collar is wrinkled.
John: Right.
John: But now it stands out.
John: So I'm learning a new style of dance.
John: And part of that is like learning to look at myself in pictures a different way.
John: And I'm still cutting my own hair.
John: So I'm not going to be too...
John: uh slick just by just by uh by virtue of like the inherent problems in cutting your hair with with scissors scissors that you got out of the junk drawer uh but yeah i'm i'm what what i'm curious about is now that i have gone gray in my beard
John: Will I have another sort of 15 years where I kind of don't appear to age very much, right?
John: Like I'm gray now and when I'm 60, I'll be gray and am I just going to be just increasingly sort of gray on the same tempo?
John: Did it all happen?
John: Is it like those guys that like they have a full head of hair when they're 17 and then by the time they're 21, they've just gone completely bald?
Merlin: Right, right, right.
Merlin: Those testosterone guys who can grow a mustache when they're like 11.
John: Well, and this is the thing about standing next to John Hodgman.
John: One of the things that people don't know about Hodgman is that he is actually of Italian ancestry.
John: So he has this kind of sandy hair that makes you think that he's just part of the American Yankee hair people.
Yeah.
John: But when he grows that black mustache.
Merlin: I figured his parents were the Paris Review.
John: Right.
John: You would think.
John: But in fact, they are Italian.
John: And so he has this mustache that looks like he's just dumping Grecian formula.
Merlin: Oh, I get it.
John: But it's not.
John: It's his natural.
John: He's got the black mustache.
Yeah.
John: And so he won't go – his mustache will be black, I think, for many, many, many, many years before it starts to get salt and pepper in it.
John: I only hope.
John: I wish that for him.
John: Jonathan Colton, he appears to not age because of science.
John: He's using science.
John: But me, I'm just – I think it waited in the wings, aging.
John: It was lurking there behind the curtain.
John: Right.
John: And then it just leapt on me.
Merlin: I think age is what I ended up kind of unintentionally glomming onto.
Merlin: And I'm not asking you for more information necessarily.
Merlin: I meant it more in the sense of like, it must be strange to just know that people are looking at you and taking your photograph.
Merlin: And like, it must be strange to see yourself and go like, you know, that's how I look like to other people.
Merlin: Not just age.
Merlin: It just seems weird.
Merlin: Maybe it's just me.
Merlin: That's always been true.
Merlin: I might have that Michael Jackson disease.
Merlin: Alopecia?
Merlin: What's the one where you think you – with the body dysmorphia, dysphoria?
John: Oh, dysmorphia, yeah.
Merlin: Where you think your nose is too big or something?
John: I think you're seeing pictures of me more because you weren't looking for pictures of me before.
John: But people are always taking pictures of me.
John: And putting them online.
John: And I have a fantastic timeline of like, well, I was fatter then than I am now.
John: That's good.
John: Oh, boy, those pictures are some thinner than I am now.
John: Like, you know, you can always look online and find a picture that will either make you feel like you're doing good or that you're not quite doing good.
Merlin: Oh, brother, do I know it.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: I got a robot scale that when you step on it, it records it to a little internet thing so you can see a graph over time.
Merlin: What?
Merlin: Oh, torture.
Merlin: It's private.
Merlin: It's private.
Merlin: But it's very, very interesting.
John: Very interesting.
John: I do not have a scale.
John: I would not step on a scale.
Merlin: Well, and that's the other thing is that like maybe that matters.
Merlin: Maybe your weight in particular, one's weight tracks more directly to your bodily appearance when you're in your 30s where you go, I gained 10 pounds.
Merlin: But it doesn't matter.
Merlin: When you get older, you just start looking all fucked up.
John: Well, here's a crazy thing that I cannot account for.
John: I am able to wear the same pants that I was able to wear 15 years ago.
John: Just buckle them around your knees.
John: No.
John: They fit the same.
John: The pants are the same and they fit the same.
John: Right.
John: And yet I clearly weigh...
John: 30 pounds more.
John: Now, where is that 30 pounds?
John: Is it in bone density?
John: Am I carrying it in my – did my ears calcify?
John: I know what you're saying.
Merlin: It is very, very weird.
Merlin: I remember when I started doing the Atkins diet, one of the few things that actually seem sensible and continues to seem sensible is – We just crossed the old man Rubicon.
Merlin: When you're – why are jars so hard to open?
Merlin: Does –
Merlin: That would help everybody.
Merlin: The idea, and I've heard this in other places, and I think this is really sensible, is don't weigh yourself every day, unless you're doing that diet where you weigh yourself every day.
Merlin: But if you're trying to lose weight, eat better, exercise more, and when your clothes start feeling different, when your clothes start fitting differently, that's when you know...
Merlin: Something is changing.
Merlin: So don't even worry about it.
Merlin: Just do your best and really stick with it as many days as you can if one wants to, in this case, lose weight.
Merlin: And when your clothes fit different, that's when you'll know.
Merlin: But then, I mean, once I had that stupid thing happen last summer where I was really stressed out with kind of a health thing in the family.
Merlin: And I lost like 10 pounds in a week and a half.
Merlin: And I suddenly plummeted and all my clothes were like hanging off of me.
Merlin: And it kind of stuck for a little while.
Merlin: But then just came right back.
Merlin: Everything fit just fine.
Merlin: We were talking about Star Wars.
John: I took you off of Star Wars.
John: Well, no, you got the hell away from Star Wars because you didn't want to tell me about all your secret episodes.
Merlin: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: I'll tell you a little about this.
Merlin: So here's the thing.
Merlin: You know, people – I was about to say George Lucas has frustrated people.
Merlin: I'm not going to say that.
Merlin: I'm going to say people have found themselves frustrated.
Merlin: by certain aspects of Star Wars movies.
Merlin: And so there's these, just writ large, is this interesting?
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: Okay, so you got the original trilogy of movies, 4, 5, and 6, that most people think are pretty good.
Merlin: The Ewoks may be a little bit over the top.
Merlin: And then you got the prequels, Episodes 1, 2, and 3.
Merlin: And there are these groups of people, well, there are these people, that go in and I would say when it comes mostly to the newer movies, the prequels,
Merlin: They do what are called fan edits, where they will go in and – Say what?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And there's fan edits.
Merlin: There's some that are just for preservation.
Merlin: There's some that are for changing the plot.
Merlin: And there's some that are just trying to, as much as possible, try to find the movie that wanted to be the original movie.
John: Is this the Riff Trax guys that are doing this?
Merlin: Go to fanedit.org.
Merlin: I'm not going on the internet.
John: Not for this.
No.
Merlin: This episode of Roderick Online is sponsored by Slack, the messaging app for teams.
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Merlin: Point is, you need to get on this today by signing up at slack.com slash super train.
Merlin: Many thanks to Slack for taking some of the pain out of staying connected and for supporting Roderick online.
Merlin: Anyway, they go and re-edit the movies.
Merlin: And depending on your taste, you can theoretically find one of these movies to watch that does things like reduces Jar Jar Binks to having a total of four lines of dialogue in the entire trilogy.
John: Oh, I see.
John: Oh, so the fans are jumping in and making the movies better on behalf of George Lucas.
Merlin: They're making them – well, they're making it different on behalf of themselves.
John: I see.
Merlin: Okay, okay.
Merlin: So then the other thing – and this is the one that I think might interest you more because you should mostly try to avoid those unless your daughter finds out about them and then you're screwed.
Merlin: But for four, five, and six, here's the hard part.
Merlin: It's hard to find a really good copy of – a high-quality copy of the original theatrical release of any of those movies.
John: You have to have a Laserdisc player.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: That's the last known full good copy.
Merlin: And so you're stuck with like the special edition one or the Riri special edition one where everything's pink and like there's all these different things.
Merlin: So there's been this effort to go through and try to make a copy of Star Wars.
Merlin: And the irony in all this is, and there's a whole dust up about this, is George Lucas, I think essentially at this point he's claiming that there's not a good copy anymore.
Merlin: Sorry about that.
Merlin: I can't put out the 1977 Star Wars.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I lost it.
Merlin: It's here somewhere.
Merlin: It's in the couch or something.
Merlin: So what people have done is taking an original copy of Star Wars of whatever quality, knowing what each shot is, how it's color graded and everything, going through and basically finding the highest quality available version of every shot and music and whatever that matches the original.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: So it's not an edit in the usual sense.
Merlin: And I'm not saying this is perfect.
Merlin: I'm not saying it's right.
Merlin: I'm not saying it's anything.
Merlin: It's super interesting though.
Merlin: And those are called the despecialized editions.
Merlin: So people go in and you get, if there's parts on the Blu-ray that exactly match what was in the original, that's the copy they use.
Merlin: If there's a DVD thing, that's the highest quality of version.
John: Oh, I see.
John: So they go to the contemporary source that is the highest quality.
John: And then fall back to the LaserDisc where necessary.
John: But it's actually pretty seamless.
John: Yeah.
John: And so right now in the world, we have like water is a big sort of crisis.
John: Oh, doctor.
John: And it's very difficult.
John: We're trying to scale up water desalination technology.
Merlin: Currently very costly.
John: It's very costly.
John: We need to do a lot of real brain cranking on these technologies.
John: Also, energy generation through tidal action –
John: Big, you know, it's like we're kind of on the cusp.
Merlin: You mean suing people?
John: We're kind of on the cusp of like a big, taking a giant leap in technology.
John: But I'm glad that we are trying to recreate the original Star Wars.
John: Here we go.
Merlin: With our minds and time.
Merlin: Congratulations.
Merlin: Now candidate that guy.
Merlin: Oh, you brought presents to a birthday party when people are starving in the Sudan?
John: Yeah.
John: Boom!
John: Zap!
John: In your face, housewarming.
John: Has anybody taken episodes negative three, negative two, negative one and reduced them to one watchable episode that makes sense?
Merlin: Are you actually asking me that question?
John: Yes.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: They have!
Merlin: Somebody took one, two, and three.
Merlin: No, no, what do you hear?
Merlin: Do you know what's in from one?
Merlin: Pretty much the sword fight with Darth Maul.
Merlin: That's it.
Merlin: There's a little bit at the beginning of landing on the planet, but nope, there's no Jar Jar running around.
Merlin: A guy who has become a friend of mine over the years was one of the legendary first people to do this.
Merlin: The guy who has become known as the Phantom Editor, this guy Mike Nichols.
John: I've heard of this guy.
John: I think I was sat down in a hotel room at some point several years ago and forced to watch his –
Merlin: Yeah, so his Phantom Edit, I think other ones since then have taken the mantle.
Merlin: He's not involved in that stuff anymore, and other people are more enthused.
Merlin: But especially what he does with the second one, because the second one's pretty bad.
John: Which is the one where they talk at great length about trade negotiations?
Merlin: Is that all of them?
Merlin: Yeah, you've been waiting for Star Wars for years, the crawl comes up, and you learn that there's some problems with trade negotiations.
Merlin: Ha ha ha ha!
Merlin: And Yoda has his own little CGI chair he sits in.
Merlin: But yeah, like for example, in his version of episode two, and he has a wonderful commentary track that's very much worth watching.
Merlin: He explains how what he had to go through in this one scene to try and make it seem like Amidala would ever have Jar Jar Binks take over in the Senate for her.
Merlin: Like, why would you make him a senator?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And so he does everything he can not to just cut the guy out, but to make him take out enough of his limes that he seems like a plausible enough non-idiot that she now doesn't seem like a dumbass.
Merlin: Stuff like that.
Merlin: I have never seen Jar Jar Binks.
Merlin: Wow.
Merlin: You mean you've never, like, seen those movies?
Merlin: Consequently, you've never seen Jar Jar Binks.
John: Right.
John: I have never seen – so I saw the last one of the newest movies, Negative 3.
John: Right, the one from, like, 2005.
John: Yeah, I saw that one because it was hyped.
John: Because that was the one where everybody was like, it's finally good.
John: It's bad in a different way that's acceptable.
Yeah.
John: And so I was like, all right, I'll go see it.
John: None of it made any sense.
John: It was all gibberish.
John: A lot of people announcing what's happening.
John: But there was no Jar Jar Binks.
John: I'm sad.
John: Right?
John: Or was there Jar Jar Binks in that?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: He is very much diminished.
Merlin: He's much more of like a background.
Merlin: He's just standing there looking very noble in his robes.
Merlin: He doesn't talk much.
John: Right.
John: That's right.
John: He walks through a scene or something.
Merlin: When they land on Coruscant, I think it's on – yeah.
Merlin: And when they land, he's in that big party with the blue-faced people.
John: Yeah, right.
John: Okay, so I have seen him, but I have no firsthand knowledge of him like shucking and jiving.
John: Oh, man, you really missed out.
John: And I know it's in my future.
John: I know one day I will watch it.
John: Right.
John: But I've managed to put it off this long.
John: I remember when the people were camped out in front of the Cinerama here.
John: Yeah.
John: Like some of them camped out for seven days, 10 days, or maybe a month.
John: There were like three kids that started in tents outside of the theater like weeks ahead of time.
John: Yeah.
John: And then I remember like the lamentations –
John: The ululating of the fans.
John: Those were dark days.
Merlin: My friend Dan Morin, who's a good deal younger than me, he saw Phantom Menace.
Merlin: I think he saw it...
Merlin: At least twice the first day, maybe three times the day it came out.
Merlin: And still, you know, you get that kind of, I'm sure there's not Stockholm syndrome, but you get that kind of thing where you're like, this is good, right?
Merlin: I was really excited about this.
Merlin: This is good.
Merlin: Like when you go on vacation, you're like, oh, my God, what have we done?
Merlin: Why do we book this place?
Merlin: And you go, this is fun, right?
Merlin: They've got a buffet.
Merlin: This is good.
Merlin: This is really good.
Merlin: Yeah, it's a weird phenomenon.
John: So when you are in a situation with something, like for instance, I was talking to a good friend the other day.
John: And I said, I was talking about the movie The Natural.
Merlin: Oh yeah, yeah, Wonder Boy, right?
John: You were talking about this on the internet.
John: Yeah, Wonder Boy.
John: And she said...
John: you know, how do you remember that?
John: I was like, what do you mean?
John: She said, well, I mean, didn't that movie come out in the 80s?
John: I saw it when it came out.
Merlin: I was like, you have no idea what a horrible thing that is to say to you.
Merlin: You've never seen The Natural?
Merlin: Didn't that come out in the 80s?
John: Since it came out?
John: I was like, wasn't he Secretary of State under Grant?
John: I was like, you know, you can see The Natural other places than in the movie theater.
Yeah.
John: And she was like, you've seen The Natural more than once?
John: And I was like, yeah, of course I have seen The Natural more than once.
John: I've seen The Godfather 170 times.
John: I've seen Blade Runner more than once.
John: I mean, you see these movies more than once.
John: They are more than once movies.
John: And she was like, huh, not me.
John: And I said, how many times have you seen Harry Met Sally?
John: She was like, oh, well, that.
John: And I was like, yeah, exactly.
John: Harry Met Sally is one of those movies I've seen.
John: I saw it the first time kind of under duress.
John: The second time I was like, huh, nothing else is on.
John: And then the third time I was like, that's a pretty good movie.
John: And then the fourth through 14th time I was like.
Merlin: If you localize it to a certain time.
Merlin: I'll never find love.
Merlin: I'm going to die alone, me and Wonder Boy.
Merlin: But you're thinking about people like – no, I'm guessing.
Merlin: I was talking to somebody the other day about how they're showing their kid an Ace Ventura movie and I was like, oh my god.
Merlin: Well, yeah, exactly.
Merlin: But remember, people would have said that about Caddyshack probably back then.
John: That is such a dumb – Oh, Caddyshack is like seven movies that – it's like seven unrelated movies.
John: Yeah.
John: you know what that's a really good point i mean i think this is not interesting all the bill murray stuff all the bill murray stuff was kind of a bolt-on they even brought him back because they're like this is the only like consistently funny part of this entire movie that movie is that movie is like uh if if you made like two fletch movies uh if you and and like you had a couple of like late 70s bill murray movies had some leftover animal house yeah you cut a bunch of scenes out of those movies and then all those scenes were on the floor of some room somewhere and they were like let's put these together and make a movie
John: Like the first Rodney Dangerfield movie.
Merlin: Yeah, no, that's a weird experience.
Merlin: And because, you know, nerd stuff, not nerd stuff, but anything where you're a fan of something, it's very difficult to translate, especially increasingly, like generationally, where, you know, there are points when I, yeah, sometimes I'm just being a deliberate dumbass acting like I don't know who Kim Kardashian is or whatever.
Merlin: But I honestly don't.
Merlin: I think she had a sex tape.
Merlin: And I think she's had TV shows.
Merlin: I know she's famous and successful and has an app and stuff.
Merlin: But that's just one example.
Merlin: There's so many things where, like, I can't identify Imagine Dragons.
Merlin: I can't.
Merlin: There's just so many things where, like, and I'm not saying that from a point of pride.
Merlin: I think somebody goes, oh, that's Hozier.
Merlin: And I go, oh, so that's Hozier.
Merlin: I've heard of Hozier.
Merlin: Or what have you.
Merlin: Or I go, what's that Fantasy Island band?
Merlin: Imagine Islands or whatever.
Merlin: Like, you hear a band and then, but see, I...
Merlin: I'm not, that's just so not the circle that I'm in.
Merlin: I don't begrudge people who do like it, but they're saying, I rolling over me going like, I don't, I don't really know anything about a man.
Merlin: I don't know what country they're from.
Merlin: Um, is the same way in some similar, in some ways to us going like, what you've, you've, you're telling me you've never seen stripes.
Merlin: Like, why would I have seen stripes?
Merlin: I was like, I saw stripes six times in a month.
Merlin: Why would you not have seen it?
Merlin: Well, I mean, for them, that might be an Adam Sandler movie is what I'm saying.
John: So I was sitting with my, uh, with my campaign manager, uh,
John: the other day and and Duff McKagan called
John: And I was like, oh, look, Duff is calling.
John: I talked to Duff for a little bit.
John: He left a message before where we're talking about ways that Duff can get involved in the campaign.
John: And I get off the phone and my campaign manager, who's like 26 years old, is like, all right, well, let's get back to these pieces of paper.
John: And I saw something on his face and I was like, do you know who Duff McKagan is?
John: And he was like, no, should I?
John: I was like, hmm, do you know who Chris Novoselic is?
John: He was like, no.
Merlin: Really?
John: Should I?
Merlin: In Seattle.
John: Yeah.
John: And I was like, yes, you should know who these people are.
John: He was like, okay.
John: So he Googles them.
John: And he's like, oh.
John: guns and roses like says it like are they still around well no just like like i would have said herb albert the left bank but but what trini lopez trini lopez what a weird guitar but i had this i had this amazing experience uh sort of sort of like um
John: corollary which is that i showed my daughter her first movie this weekend wow she had never seen a movie before you did you pulled the trigger you pulled the trigger and i was like you know what let's watch a movie she was like i don't know she was pretty nervous about it because the movies that she had seen portions of she was pretty unsure about
John: I was like, it's going to be okay.
John: We'll watch this movie.
John: It'll be fine.
John: If there's anything about it you don't like, we don't have to watch it.
John: She was like, all right.
John: So we watched Mary Poppins.
John: And this is the thing.
John: I don't remember what it was like to be four, but during the part where the kids get lost in London because they run away from the evil bankers, the scene lasts 45 seconds.
Wow.
John: But they are lost for a minute.
John: And there is a clamor of people.
John: And she was like, I don't like this movie.
John: This is an hour and a half into a two and a half hour long movie.
Merlin: She made it that far.
Merlin: It's a really long movie.
John: It's really long.
John: And I said, okay, we can stop.
John: And she's like, no, it's okay.
John: I can watch it.
John: And she watched it all the way to the end.
John: And after she went to bed, I was thinking about Mary Poppins.
John: And Mary Poppins is referencing a time 100 years ago, like more than 100 years ago, right?
John: It takes place in 1910.
John: It was made in the early 60s.
John: So it was made before I was born.
John: So Mary Poppins has been there my entire life.
John: When I watched it for the first time,
John: There were still people in my own family who had been alive in 1910.
John: Oh, man.
John: Yes.
John: Right?
John: Yes, I get it.
John: I get it.
John: My great uncle and great aunt were...
John: were like 14, 15 years old.
John: Really?
John: In 1910.
Merlin: I had two grandparents alive then.
Merlin: That were alive in 1910.
Merlin: Yeah, 1901, I think, and 1903.
John: Yeah, I mean, my grandmother was born in 1890.
John: My step-grandfather was born in 1885.
Merlin: See?
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Well, so...
John: I suddenly feel extremely old.
John: So now my kid is watching this movie.
Merlin: Oh, man.
Merlin: And even the cultural, I mean, you're like two orders or three orders away from the original.
Merlin: I mean, it must be so weird.
Merlin: The movie must seem so strange.
John: Well, it is.
John: It's very strange.
John: And what was cool about the 60s was that there was that nostalgia for the 20s.
John: There was a kind of like, kind of an element of nostalgia where those things were fashionable again.
John: Remember all the ice cream parlors where people were wearing straw boaters?
Merlin: Oh, sure.
Merlin: Like a thoroughly modern Millie.
Merlin: I mean, it was in movies.
Merlin: Absolutely.
John: Yeah, it was a bit.
Merlin: You get something like a Winchester Cathedral kind of song.
John: And we, like as kids, we were connected to it.
John: by people that were... I mean, it felt like a reasonable distant past.
John: But also, I mean, I probably saw...
John: I probably saw – let's say I saw Mary Poppins for the first time when I was the same age as she is, right?
John: So that would have been 1972.
John: So the movie was already 10 years old.
John: And yet what is fascinating is that both Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews are still alive.
John: Right.
John: Totally, totally.
John: We are still in their era.
John: It is still the time of that.
Right.
John: And like, it was astonishing to me watching that movie that first of all, that Julie Andrews wasn't made queen of the universe.
John: And I think she probably had a hell of a run there for a while.
John: She did have a good run, but like even still she should be queen of the universe.
John: And Dick Van Dyke for all, for as bad as that accent he does is every other aspect of his performance.
Merlin: He so throws himself into everything that he does.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Full on, full on Kevin's mom.
John: but so all of this like this churning kind of cultural goulash of like she is as I mean and I hate to play that game but like she's as far away from when this movie was made as this movie was from the time that it is about right
Merlin: I am obsessed by this game.
Merlin: I am totally obsessed by this.
John: But that little bit of connectedness...
John: I guess the surprising thing and the fun thing is that some of those – like Mary Poppins feels eternal in a way that Ace Ventura pet detective does not feel eternal.
John: But I don't know if I'm qualified to say that.
Merlin: No, I know what you mean.
Merlin: And it's funny because, I mean, some things that were considered classic movies when we were kids –
Merlin: Have not aged that well.
Merlin: Like The Wizard of Oz, I have to say, at least in my household, we can still watch The Wizard of Oz and it's still a lot of fun.
Merlin: It's old timey, but I don't think it's any more dated than a lot of comedies of the mid 80s.
Merlin: There's a lot of comedies in the 80s that feel like they're from like another millennium, which I guess they technically are.
Merlin: I was – we played – let's just call it the game.
Merlin: I've been obsessed with this game for a very long time of going like, well, it's this many years since the police put this out.
John: The game, isn't that when you drop some people off on a remote island and then hunt them?
John: The deadliest game?
John: So this isn't the deadliest game.
John: This is a less deadly game.
John: This is the oldiest game.
Merlin: I was looking – I followed this website.
Merlin: I look at this Tumblr called The Impossible Cool, and it's just photos of people looking cool like celebrities.
Merlin: In this case, a photo comes up I think on Saturday, the other day.
Merlin: It's a picture of B.B.
Merlin: King looking really cool on stage.
Merlin: He's got backup singers and he's got his guitar.
Merlin: And you can tell from the cut of his suit it's really old.
Merlin: And it says, B.B.
Merlin: King, Los Angeles, 1970.
Merlin: And I had to stop and do the math and get a drink.
Merlin: And I said to my wife, this is B.B.
Merlin: King in 1970.
Merlin: I went to see B.B.
Merlin: King.
Merlin: I lucked into some tickets to see B.B.
Merlin: King in 1986.
Merlin: So the year after I graduated from high school, I went to see him.
Merlin: And I remember we tried to get – we hung out by the stage door on the off chance that he might come out.
Merlin: And the stage manager came out and was like, hey, you know, Mr. King's a pretty old guy.
Merlin: He's pretty tired.
Merlin: He's not going to come out tonight, but I'll tell him he said hi.
Merlin: I was like, oh, that's cool.
Merlin: That's cool.
Merlin: Whatever.
Merlin: But, you know, I made a point of saying, you know, he's an old guy.
Merlin: He's an old guy.
Merlin: 1986.
Merlin: So from this photo of him in basically like a 60s cut suit to me seeing him in 1986, that was 16 years.
Yeah.
Merlin: I saw BB King live 29 years ago.
Merlin: And he's still alive.
Merlin: Testify.
Merlin: Oh, man.
Merlin: That's so messed up.