Ep. 170: "The Wilder Universe"
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Merlin: Build it beautiful.
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
Merlin: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: How's it going?
Merlin: Good.
Merlin: Happy slightly belated birthday.
Merlin: Oh, thank you.
Merlin: I did text you on the day, but, you know.
Merlin: You did?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: How'd you have a good birthday?
Merlin: How did I have a good birthday?
Merlin: I'm sorry.
Merlin: Take two.
Merlin: Did you have a good birthday?
Merlin: I did.
John: I, you know, I'm not a big birthday celebrator, but I have a family.
Okay.
John: Who care about you?
John: So I'm obligated to allow them to celebrate me.
John: Grudgingly celebrated.
John: So I do.
John: I submit to being celebrated.
John: But I was in Portland, one of my favorite northwestern river towns.
John: You were in Portland?
John: Portland, Oregon.
John: Nice.
John: and uh i was there and then there was in the middle of the xoxo festival how was that oh it was fun did i go to that you did oh my god i totally did you did in fact i saw you in person i ate ramen with you real life merlin man i saw just a couple of days ago
John: Not only did I see him, I pinged him a couple of times.
John: We had a high-level conversation in a hotel lobby.
John: We did.
John: We did.
John: We did have ramen.
John: We saw a lot of Internet people.
John: Oh, my God.
John: So many Internet people.
John: I want to talk about that.
John: I'm so overwhelmed.
John: A very nice man gave me a very nice book.
Hmm.
John: Told some stories.
John: Who gave you a book, can you say?
John: He's a wonderful fellow from Baltimore.
John: He gave me a book.
John: He said, I thought that you would like this book.
John: It was wrapped in brown paper tied with a string.
John: Like he was someone who knew how to do things.
John: When somebody hands you a package and it's wrapped very nicely in brown paper, you're like, oh, you know how to do things.
Merlin: I totally agree.
Merlin: I think if somebody gives you something, it should be wrapped in brown paper, probably with string, because nobody needs to know what's in there.
Merlin: You see, especially if it's a gift and you don't know what it is, you should be able to open that in your repose.
John: That's exactly right.
John: And I was sitting later at a table with the Armentz, Marco and Tiffany, and with the biorhythmist, Matt.
John: Love that guy.
John: And a couple of Andes, various Andes, one Andy, one Andy in particular, an XOXO Andy.
John: And I had this package wrapped with brown paper and they were all speculating what it was and I didn't have to reveal.
John: And then there was some talk about like maybe he just came with a book in a brown paper wrapper and he was just waiting for somebody to give it to.
John: And I said, oh, well, or maybe there's a card in here addressed to me with a nice note.
John: And they were like, probably not.
John: Probably he just walked around with a book.
John: And then he figured out to give it to somebody.
Merlin: Let him speculate.
Merlin: You are under no obligation to break the tension.
John: Yeah, I said, I guess you'll never know.
John: But in fact, there was a nice note.
John: Yeah, the book is called... Oh, Jesus.
John: I've been thinking about it all the last day.
John: It's called... Oh, friggin' frag.
John: I'll remember it.
John: It's one of those book titles like... Down the street here, there's a railroad... Well, there's a railroad...
John: here in seattle sort of a famous one burlington northern and they bought the santa fe railroad not very long ago well a long time ago and now it's called the burlington northern santa fe but they have a system where they park their locomotives way out by the airport and then they drive people they drive the engineers and the brakeman and the i guess the coal shovelers they drive them out there in vans
John: And the company that owns the vans is called something like Transportation Company Limited.
Merlin: It looks like an FBI van.
John: Yeah.
John: And I'm like, Transportation Company is really... Or it's called Professional Transportation Company.
Merlin: That sounds completely made up.
John: And I was like, that's not real.
John: And I took the time to Google it.
John: Like, Professional Transportation Inc.?
John: Really?
Yeah.
John: and it was like yes professional transportation inc is really what it's called and it's owned by it's a subsidiary of like uh company incorporated or like business business enterprise incorporated i'm just like this the people that work for railroads need to jazz up their game a little bit yeah but this book that he gave me has a similar title it's like systems
John: Design Systems, Inc.
Merlin: Is it really big?
John: It's a very big book.
Merlin: Is it Design Patterns?
Merlin: Is it Design Patterns?
Merlin: Is that the name of the book?
Merlin: By Christopher somebody?
Merlin: Is it like a really, really big book about how you make spaces?
John: It's a very big book about spaces.
Merlin: Might be Design Patterns, which is a very good book.
John: But it's from the 70s.
Merlin: It's probably a book called Design Patterns that's really, really famous.
Merlin: You are familiar with this book?
Merlin: I have a copy of it.
Merlin: If it's the one I'm thinking of, it's like a really simple-looking cover by Christopher.
Merlin: I forget who.
Merlin: But he's the guy who invented the idea of design patterns.
Merlin: Design patterns.
Merlin: Yeah, which are now huge in all kinds of disciplines.
Merlin: And it's a really, really interesting book because it's really more like – it's like reading a cookbook.
Merlin: You wouldn't read it all the way through.
Merlin: It's more like a reference book.
Merlin: Hmm.
Merlin: And it's got things like, you know, a place to sit by a window.
Merlin: Like, that's a pattern.
Merlin: Like, you know, having these, having closely grouped houses with access to retail and things like that.
Merlin: It's all these ideas, the things that tend to work when we make public and private places.
John: See, you are describing exactly what this book is, but I have just looked up the book-designed patterns on the internet, and that is a book...
John: Subtitled Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software.
Merlin: Well, yes.
John: And it does not look like the book that I have.
Merlin: Christopher Alexander.
Merlin: Oh, sorry, maybe A Pattern Language.
Merlin: A Pattern Language.
Merlin: Now we're talking.
Merlin: That's the book.
Merlin: A Pattern Language.
Merlin: So he first used it to talk about architecture and communities, and it's a super interesting book.
Merlin: And yes, what you're describing has been, today I would say arguably more famous for its use in software.
Merlin: Oh, I see.
Merlin: I mean, roughly speaking, a design pattern, I've heard it described as a design pattern is a method that tends to work in certain contexts.
Merlin: And then you also have your anti-patterns, right?
Merlin: You ever heard me use that phrase, anti-pattern?
Merlin: An anti-pattern is something that seems like it works, or seems like it would work, but doesn't actually work.
John: Oh, there are so many of those.
Merlin: Oh, man, this book is good.
Merlin: You talk about it.
Merlin: This is maybe one of the original great thought technologies.
Merlin: It's really good.
John: Well, and just thumbing through it, I was like, oh, I'm very interested in that.
John: I'm very interested in that.
John: And I'm also very interested in that.
Merlin: Wow, and that's a really, just for what it's worth, you might want to go check.
Merlin: That's a very costly book.
Merlin: I received that as a gift as well.
Merlin: It's a very costly book.
John: Well, I couldn't be more thrilled.
John: You know, I got another book while I was down in Portland.
Merlin: I saw that.
Merlin: Two very, very thick.
Merlin: We had to go to the orange room or the purple room or the pearl room to pick it up?
John: Well, so we were in the gold room for a while.
John: The purple room was where you spent quite a bit of time.
John: I picked up the book somewhere and the pink... We had to go to a disused top floor where only cranky people work.
John: Right, that's right.
John: Where the carpeting stopped and then all of a sudden it was just metal doors clanging.
Merlin: That's one of my favorite Shel Silverstein books.
John: Where the carpet ends?
Merlin: If you know what I mean.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: Call it Brazilian.
John: Listen.
Merlin: I think that is a book that you... I don't want to oversell it, but it's a book you might find rather absorbing.
John: Well, you know, so I've been curating several libraries...
John: as you know, and the one I've been spending the most time on recently has been the library for the downstairs bathroom.
John: Oh, wow.
John: And the library for the downstairs bathroom now has sort of matured.
John: And I feel like if you spend any time in the downstairs bathroom at my house, you are going to find something.
John: This is the one in the back by the kitchen.
John: That's the one in the back by the kitchen.
John: You're going to find something to engage you and thrill you in the downstairs bathroom library.
John: I feel like that library is complete now.
John: This new set of books is definitely like, I'm afraid that they're both a little too heady for the night table.
John: It's going to be hard to sit up in bed and read either one of these books because they weigh six pounds.
John: And, you know, like this is the problem with this kind of book, right?
John: It's not a thing that you read to put yourself to sleep.
John: You have to stay focused.
John: You have to read them with good posture.
Mm-hmm.
John: So I feel like it's back.
John: These are both going to end up in the kitchen library.
Merlin: Oh, this might be like while pasta is boiling.
John: Right, or sitting at the dining room table with a mug of something.
John: You know, fall is here.
Merlin: Actually, it was Tiff.
Merlin: Tiff Tiff tore my outfit apart.
Merlin: What?
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: Well, first of all, as you know, I was way overdressed in terms of layers for everything.
John: Oh, yeah, it was warm.
John: It was warm.
Merlin: She gave me a pretty serious browbeating for wearing a Pendleton shirt when I was 84 and pointed out that my Clarks were made of suede, and that's actually a fall shoe.
John: She's right about the suede Clarks, but I feel like... Labor Day's come and gone.
John: What she doesn't understand about the Northwest is that the Pendleton shirt is a year-round shirt.
Mm.
John: Because the wool really breeds.
John: And we just wear the wool all year, even when it's 90 degrees.
Merlin: It's like an executive assistant.
Merlin: It's always there.
John: Yeah, she's from the East Coast.
John: They have different ideas about things.
Merlin: Oh, John, they have so many different ideas about things there.
John: You know what I mean?
John: She probably has something to say about ultra suede.
John: And I don't even, A, know what ultra suede is.
John: No.
John: And B, could not tell you a single time when you were meant to wear ultra suede.
Merlin: Is ultra suede to suede as pleather is to leather?
John: I think.
John: But, you know, my mom from Ohio used to have all kinds of things to say about ultra suede.
John: And I guess, to my eternal shame, I tuned it all out because now I still don't know what it is.
John: I think it is a manufactured suede.
Merlin: It sounds like a band from about 1995.
John: Oh, wouldn't that have been too bad about that other band named Suede?
John: But that doesn't dissuade most people who like to copy old band names, including bands in the Northwest who have called themselves Western State.
Mm-hmm.
John: Even though I already had a popular band called Western State Hurricanes.
John: You were almost on a label.
John: We were almost on a label.
John: There's a band called A Long Winter.
John: Yeah, and I think they're a metal band.
John: No, that's Long Winter's Stare.
Merlin: Oh, okay, yeah, because I used to find, we call it namespace pollution.
Merlin: I used to find it difficult to find you amongst the many other Longs and Winters's.
John: Yeah, so Long Winter's Stare was actually a fairly... Like a prog metal band or something?
John: I think they were a viable metal band for a time.
John: And we may even have... For a time.
John: For a time, we may even have intruded on their space because they may have preexisted the Long Winters.
John: So I may be on thin ice here complaining about...
John: This pollution that you're talking about.
John: But then later on, another band, some other dumb, non-viable indie rock band, called themselves A Long Winter.
John: And that forced me, forced me, to get a copyright attorney and to register the trademark, The Long Winters.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: Which then, A, cost me a lot of money, B, caused me to have to deal with attorneys, including copyright attorneys.
Merlin: John, if I could say it's a kind of eel.
Merlin: I've had copyrights.
Merlin: It is costly.
Merlin: It does take attorneys.
Merlin: And then you've got to update them and keep them up.
John: Oh, and it's such a bunch of baloney, this updating.
John: It's just like the biggest eel of all.
John: Like, well, you've been pouring money.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: into this thing you know what it is it's one of those things it's like my my late great friend leslie harpold used to say i don't like buying toys for my toys in this case like i don't want to have to buy a phone and then a case and then a cable and all that stuff ultimate eels right and in this case what is a copyright thing a copyright thing is something that enables you to have uh standing in costly lawsuits that you can't afford that's right so it's like it's like the cover fee
John: After 15 years of paying these lawyers to basically file a piece of paper that any idiot could do, but that I just didn't want to do myself or that, you know, maybe it's impossible to do.
John: Who knows?
John: Doesn't seem like it should be.
John: But they have that bank of switches that every lawyer has that they can turn on the switch and you can't.
Merlin: That's how they make money is they take something really inconvenient that nobody wants to do and they have the knowledge and scale to do it for nickels.
Merlin: And then charge us a whole bunch.
Merlin: But God bless them.
John: But then I got a registered letter from the estate of Laura Ingalls Wilder.
John: What?
John: Who, you may or may not know, wrote a book called A Long Winter.
John: as part of her series of books about life on the prairie.
John: Houses, prairies, littleness.
John: And they said, oh, oopsie-daisy, we forgot to copyright A Long Winter because it didn't occur to us because we're her estate, and who knows who we are.
John: We're just a room full of lawyers, too.
John: But now we're thinking of developing...
John: A Long Winter, her less famous book about life on the prairie.
John: We're thinking about developing it into some various products, maybe a movie, maybe, you know, it's sort of the Marvel universe, except it's the Laurel Engel Wilder's universe, and we want to make sure that we have the... I'm sorry, suddenly I'm imagining it in the same way we describe the Marvel universe or the DC universe.
John: Yeah, that's right, and they're like, and they honestly said in this letter, you know,
John: We don't think that there will be any confusion between a long winter and the long winters.
John: So we're just hoping that you won't mind as the copyright holder.
Merlin: Let's avoid any unpleasantness.
John: That's right.
John: Let's avoid any unpleasantness.
John: What will it take for you to not mind?
John: But then they proceeded to list some of the other things that they wanted to do as they were exploring the new Wilder universe, which was maybe we'll do a Broadway show along winter.
Merlin: Oh, now it's like the Apple problem.
Merlin: Now they get into music.
John: That's right.
John: And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Merlin: I was thinking about doing a Broadway show.
Merlin: What if I wanted to do a Broadway show?
Merlin: Let me tell you, Wilders and Ingleses, I'm thinking about doing a lot of stuff.
John: That's right.
John: And they were like, what if we had a Broadway show that had a soundtrack?
John: What if it was a musical set on the prairie?
John: And so then my team of lawyers who had been sitting dormant inside their chrysalis, their chrysalis, you know, struggled to open on stage and they were inside and they're trying to play the bass.
John: But eventually they were animated and
John: And said, well, if you listen, a state of of a famous American author, if you want to use a long winter, you're going to have to talk to us.
John: You're going to have to come through us.
John: You're going to have to pay us some like fuck you amount of money.
John: That's like having a bodyguard that picks fights.
Merlin: It's exactly what it was.
Merlin: That's the worst.
Merlin: Everything's fine.
Merlin: This does not need to be complicated.
Merlin: This is something you could settle with a couple calls.
John: Yeah, this is fine.
John: And she is a beloved American author, loved by people everywhere.
John: I'm not the thug in this story.
John: I just got the copyright for the band name because of these dorks who decided to call their band A Long Winter, and I wanted to send them a letter that said, hey, shut it down, dopes.
John: And now I am dealing with the ghost of Laura Ingalls Wilder.
John: Suddenly you're Mr. Burns.
John: And I presume that that estate, it's not like they have $500 million.
John: I don't even think they have $50 million.
John: I would be surprised if they had $5 million.
Merlin: She's got to be.
Merlin: No, wait, I'm sorry.
Merlin: Her stuff came out.
Merlin: Here's one.
Merlin: The Long Winter novel came out in 1940.
Merlin: So it's still in copyright.
Merlin: Oh, still in copyright.
Merlin: I think.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: But I had the trademark.
John: All right.
John: You know, who knows?
John: Who knows?
John: But they sought, I think they actually, before they sent me that letter, they saw that I owned it and went before a hearing officer of some kind and said, this isn't a problem, right?
John: We had this thing.
John: He came along, has that thing.
John: This is an issue.
John: And the hearing officer said, actually, it is.
Merlin: It is or it could be.
John: Or it could be, right.
John: You don't want to already have the shirts printed up, right?
John: Exactly.
John: So they came to me with hat in hand because already they had talked to somebody.
John: And so my lawyers...
John: You know, they all had, they looked up from their meal of raw meat that they were having at some giant table in New York City.
John: And they were like, shall, you know.
John: Shall I enjoin them, sir?
John: What shall we do, master?
John: I can file many things.
John: And that was exactly right.
John: And oh, so my copyright lawyers were the only lawyers I ever had.
John: And I've had a few lawyers, including some that were indicted in federal court.
John: But these were the only lawyers I had that every time they sent me a letter, they charged me $300.
John: They would send me a letter saying, hey, we... You must get reluctant to respond.
John: It's time for us to send you a letter again.
Merlin: Your response generates a bill.
John: Yeah, well, yeah, exactly.
John: It wasn't even a response.
John: I was just sitting there minding my own business, and here was a letter, and then an invoice came, $300, because we sent you a letter.
Merlin: They sent the invoice for free.
John: And I would, yeah, each time I would call them and yell and say, you can't charge me $300 to send me a letter.
John: And they're like, oh, well, you know, I'm going to send you – I'm going to forward you over to billing.
John: You know, back and forth, back and forth.
John: A couple of those things I got them – a couple of times I got that $300 credited to me, but I'm sure that they charged me somewhere else.
John: Anyway.
John: So they were like, for the low, low price of $12,000 worth of registered letters, we can probably get them to give you $20,000 for the rights.
Merlin: But that's, I mean, am I wrong?
Merlin: It seems like to me like, no, no, the thing is I prefer that you not use the name.
Merlin: And then if you agree to the name for what sounds like a lot of money in that case, I mean, what if that thing gets really huge?
Merlin: The lawyers see it as a here's how we get paid thing.
Merlin: You see it more as a don't use my thing thing.
John: Yeah, right.
John: I didn't register this trademark so I could squat on it and exploit people.
Merlin: It's probably going to cost you $600 to explain that to your lawyers.
John: Exactly.
John: And these are all these internet squatters.
John: Right, like the domain squatters.
John: Yeah, that we used to think that was a really low class thing to do, sit and squat on somebody's domain.
Merlin: Or, you know, the way they buy patent portfolios and just wait for somebody to get successful and then send them a FedEx and say, by the way, you now owe us this amount of money plus future profits.
John: Well, listen, let's be honest.
John: We are podcasting right now, which is a thing that was invented by a guy, and we owe him probably hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Merlin: I think they finally kind of mostly settled that.
Merlin: That was a huge thing.
Merlin: And some of our friends received letters about that.
Merlin: Oh, that's hilarious.
Merlin: The idea.
Merlin: And anyway, there's this American life about patent trolling.
Merlin: That's amazing.
Merlin: But yeah, basically these, these folks that are undo that, they, they buy other people's patents.
Merlin: So it's not even the people who like, and of course all the patent descriptions, it's, it's a total shit show.
Merlin: Like all of the stuff, there's all kinds of stuff that has a patent, like hyperlinks have a patent.
Merlin: Like if you make a webpage with a link on it, you're supposed to pay somebody.
Merlin: Oh, rightfully so.
Merlin: Absolutely.
Merlin: And I think if memory serves, there was one – the patent that was being pursued on podcasts was so asinine.
Merlin: It's like if you'd ever heard or especially if you'd ever made a podcast, you would look at that and go, that's not this.
Merlin: It had to do with audio books and it was this idea from like the 80s.
John: I mean I hold the patent for farting in a shot glass.
John: Is that right?
John: that's in your portfolio and I think people are doing that all the time and I'm not getting any money for it I mean I've been to Germany I know people are farting in shot glasses worldwide and I'm not getting a fucking cent
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John: So, suffice to say, I eventually called these lawyers and I said, cease and desist.
John: I'm sorry I ever engaged in this.
John: If Laura Ingalls Wilder's estate wants to make a Broadway musical based on the long winter, first of all, Godspeed.
Godspeed.
John: Like, that's going to be a fucking flop.
John: And that universe is not real.
John: I mean, they're just, that's just a room full of lawyers.
John: The prairie's very big.
John: Our house is very little.
John: Yeah, that's a room full of lawyers also farting in shot glasses.
John: copyright John Roderick because they're just sitting around like huh what can we do to justify how many billable hours can we come up with here like we should go out and see if anybody has any competing copyrights with all of the books that she wrote and then we can charge the estate for all of these registered letters so I said stop doing this and then I got a couple of more $300 letters from them and I said you know what I
John: I feel like I have established myself as the Long Winters and people know what it is.
John: And if other enterprises intrude upon that space, let the chips fall where they may.
John: I do not want another Remora attached to my soft white underbelly.
John: So go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut, you lawyers.
John: And they presumably did.
Merlin: He went back in the chrysalis.
Merlin: And they were like, They're suing somebody right now.
John: They don't care about me.
Merlin: God, what an awful business.
John: So anyway, all by way of saying, if you or anybody else is interested in pursuing a musical adaptation of The Little House on the Prairie Universe, you may find a ready audience somewhere.
Merlin: Yeah, careful.
Merlin: This might come up in court someday.
Merlin: The Wilder Universe.
Yeah.
Merlin: I had a funny Portland thing.
John: Oh, what happened?
John: A funny Portland thing that I was not witness to?
Merlin: I had two funny Portland things happen at the airport yesterday.
John: Now, let's just preface this by saying that you are a huge, huge deal at XOXO.
John: No, that's not accurate.
John: You are a massive, massive star in this environment.
Merlin: Thank you.
Merlin: Here's what I will say is, you know, I get overwhelmed sometimes, but like, you know how I'm always cracking wise.
Merlin: And, you know, I think you saw this several times, even during our just our time together at retail and restaurants.
Merlin: I'm always ready to leave all the time.
Merlin: Oh, that's right.
Merlin: I'm always very close to leaving all the time.
Merlin: Or I'm always near the door.
Merlin: Like I come in, I stay near the door.
Merlin: You know this about me.
Merlin: One foot out the door, I would call.
Merlin: In this case, I mean, like, whatever.
Merlin: But I mean this as a way of telling a funny story, and it's not a bragging thing, but it's a really nice thing.
Merlin: Like when I walked up to the venue to, like, get my badge, and, you know, I knew so many people.
Merlin: Standing in line, I knew, like, four people just standing in line.
Merlin: I got up to where you get the badges, right?
Merlin: and I go to the whatever K through Z section.
Merlin: And the guy, oh gosh, what was his name?
Merlin: You got a photo with, I took a photo of you with him.
Merlin: Oh, he's such a nice guy.
Merlin: And he was like, he greets me with a catchphrase.
Merlin: And I was like, whoa, you totally know one of my shows.
Merlin: How are you?
Merlin: And I introduced myself.
Merlin: He goes, oh yeah, I am this guy from the internet.
Merlin: And he's a volunteer there.
Merlin: He's a really nice guy.
Merlin: And while I'm standing there, this guy walks up wearing a Roderick on the line shirt.
Merlin: And I did – this is something I learned from my friend John Gruber.
Merlin: I walked up to the guy.
Merlin: I gave him a little pat, and I said, that is a really handsome shirt.
Merlin: And he goes, oh, you're a merlin' man.
Merlin: I'm Andy McMillan.
Merlin: I'm the co-founder of XOXO.
Merlin: And I was like, are you shitting me?
John: You're walking around.
Merlin: Beautiful pine furniture.
Merlin: No, no, no, he's not like that so much.
Merlin: But he was wearing a Roderick on the Line shirt, and I was like, it's boner town.
Merlin: Like, oh, my God, you're totally wearing that shirt.
Merlin: That's so cool.
Merlin: And then, like, I walked in, and I swear to God, I don't think I got more than 10 or 15 paces in in half an hour because I kept seeing so many – this is not a recognizing Merlin thing.
Merlin: It's more like, oh, my God, there was like – well, anyway, it doesn't matter who.
Merlin: But like a bunch of people that I have not seen in like eight years.
Merlin: It was incredible.
Merlin: It was so fun.
Merlin: And that was all the time.
Merlin: And as wonderful as it was, it does get a little overwhelming.
Merlin: But like to just walk around and it's like all of these, I don't want to name drop, but like just a bunch of people that I had never met before or people I had met or just known on the internet for like 10 or 15 years.
Merlin: And that's, you know, obviously the programming for this thing is great.
Merlin: It's fantastic.
Merlin: Talk about a high quality crowd.
Merlin: I think the phrase I used was it's very extremely low level of ding-a-lings at this thing.
Merlin: Like, it's some really, really cool people.
Merlin: And I loved it.
Merlin: It was amazing.
John: I had that experience, you know, where they say, of course, if you look around the room and you can't figure out who the ding-a-lings are, that maybe you're the ding-a-ling.
John: Oh, yeah, right.
John: And I was like, am I the ding-a-ling?
John: Oh, yeah.
John: There are so few ding-a-lings here.
Merlin: uh that i must be the ding only and there's like and then i kept seeing people who were there that i that i didn't get a chance to meet and awkwardly introduce myself to but like you know the guy who you've heard me talk about that show adventure time the guy who makes it made created adventure time was there oh i've always wanted to meet him pen ward was like there for like the second year in a row it's bananas i meant to meet him last year and i meant to meet him this year you know your friend john gruber
John: They studiously avoided meeting me.
Merlin: I didn't see John and Amy until I was in the airport.
Merlin: And so I walked down the terminal, the C terminal, flipping a bird at them both, just walking down the airport.
John: And there they were.
Merlin: We had a nice visit.
John: Oh, that's nice.
John: Anyway, so two things happened to you.
Merlin: John's a camper outer.
Merlin: John likes to go and camp out and then, like, have people come to him.
Merlin: Oh, right.
Merlin: And that's not how you roll.
John: Well, that's what I should have done.
Merlin: Greetings.
John: John Gruber deserves that I come to him.
John: Oh, come on.
John: No, I think I should make that approach.
John: I think I should be the one that waltzes over while he camps.
Merlin: Let's focus on getting you and John Syracuse together.
Merlin: That's something that needs to really happen.
John: Well, I recently ran for office where I was dressed down every day.
John: Did you win?
John: I didn't win, no.
John: By various constituencies.
John: On one hand, I have a little bit of a thick skin now, but I just feel like John Syracuse has a very long list of things that he wants to talk to me about.
John: I'm worried I'm going to really get excoriated.
Merlin: I'm not going to let the cat out of the bag, but we got something special coming.
Merlin: That's all I'm going to say about that.
Merlin: Anyway, so what happened at the airport?
Merlin: Well, I'll just close by saying that it's so lame to sit around and talk about something great that happened that other people didn't get to do.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: Sorry, everybody.
Merlin: Yeah, but no, but I just would like to say it was – I didn't go to that many events.
Merlin: I was there mostly for the people and to do the one performance thing I did.
Merlin: But it was really great.
Merlin: And the people who run that thing really care a lot about every single person having a really good and safe time there.
Merlin: So I just wanted to salute the entire XOXO.
Merlin: But in the fullness of time, I did have to fly back to my family, which I was really keen to do.
Merlin: And so I'm at the airport.
Merlin: So Portland thing number two, which I mentioned on the Tudor.
Merlin: You don't see this because you're not following me right now.
Merlin: I'm not sure why.
Merlin: Did I unfollow you?
Merlin: You did, like, months ago.
John: No.
Merlin: But I was at this.
Merlin: So thing number two is that I'm in the terminal.
Merlin: And you know there's a vibes player in the C area?
Merlin: There's, like, a person who maybe plays harp.
Merlin: There's a person who plays guitar.
Merlin: And over in the C area, there's a guy playing the vibes.
John: Yeah, I'm part of the Seattle Music Commission.
John: And we have made the SeaTac Airport a safe place for vibes.
Yeah.
Merlin: You got a code of conduct?
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: So you can't say anything, whether you're pro or anti-vibes, whether you believe in God or not believe in God.
Merlin: It's a question of you're not allowed to stare at somebody's vibes.
Merlin: You can stare at them appreciatively.
Merlin: Well, what about should the vibes have a different colored lanyard?
John: Yeah.
John: Can I say that?
Merlin: Is that ping pong to say colored?
John: If the Vibe player is wearing a red lanyard, that means no staring.
Merlin: Don't photograph the Vibe.
Merlin: Did you enjoy the Vibe?
Merlin: Well, I've heard the Vibe player before.
Merlin: I was in Portland about a month ago, and the fellow was also there.
Merlin: And it's cool.
Merlin: I guess they volunteer, and then they get tips.
Merlin: It's pretty cool.
Merlin: But it's a lot of nutcracker stuff.
Merlin: Like, which is like, you know, it's a perfect thing to play on vibes at an airport.
Merlin: And then you hear a little bit of, which is one of my favorite songs.
Merlin: And this goes on and he plays a lot of classics and a lot of kind of swinging jazz stuff.
John: Sure.
Merlin: And then I'm sitting there, sitting there and I hear.
Merlin: Let's see.
Merlin: He's playing Needle in the Hay by Elliot Smith.
Merlin: Exquisite, perfect, dolorous.
Merlin: like and you know what's so great about that song that song as quiet as it is it's so intense and so like it's it's more intense than a lot of metal songs just in that four four like stroke on that song and i was like am i hearing this am i having a stroke he was totally playing needle in the hay like how many airports are you going to go to where somebody plays an elliot smith song on vibes only one and i went and i went and i gave him a five and i said thank you very much there you go so it turns out
Merlin: Turns out somebody told me he played at the premiere of Heaven Adores You, the pretty good Elliot Smith movie, and wasn't a dry eye on the house.
John: so that's my second portland experience it was pretty great so the vibes uh so i i know a vibes player here in seattle um actually our good friend uh who has never listened to this show sean nelson uh dated her for a while she was a she's a spectacular vibe player never listened to the show at all i can't imagine that he don't you think he'd at least does he have an intern that listens for references to him
John: I don't think he does have an intern.
John: I think I would know.
Merlin: He's never mentioned the not crediting him for all the great shows.
John: It may be that he, it's hard to know, hard to plumb the depths of Sean Nelson.
John: He may listen to every episode.
John: But it's never come up.
John: And just sit in a wingback chair clenching his fists.
John: A wingback toadstool.
John: And chewing, gnawing on the end of his pipe, his meerschaum pipe.
John: But no, I don't think that he could stand to listen to you and me talk like we do.
Merlin: It would be like listening to two of your ex-girlfriends have a show.
Merlin: It's like, you know what, that's not for me.
Merlin: Yeah, that's not for me.
Merlin: That's for other people.
Merlin: That's for other people.
John: But did I ever tell you about my dad's vibes?
Merlin: I want to hear about your dad's vibes.
Merlin: I also want to tell you my story number one about the airport.
John: Oh, no, let's go back to story number one.
John: No, it's really fast.
John: I thought that was the Gruber story.
Merlin: I didn't want to toot about it because...
Merlin: It's creepy, but I went to the security line, and I got to tell you, I like the Portland airport.
Merlin: That's a pretty good-ass airport.
Merlin: Sometimes the TSA people, they're super nice and super helpful.
Merlin: They're sometimes a little too performy for my liking.
John: The Portland Airport is like the Burbank Airport.
Merlin: According to something I heard announced over the PA, it won some kind of a phony baloney award as an airport for best airport for travel and leisure.
John: This is another thing I learned being on the Seattle Music Commission.
John: Airports have their own...
John: I think there are multiple airport awards ceremony.
John: Oh, sure.
John: And awarding organizations.
Merlin: It's like Who's Who Among American High School Students.
John: Oh, that's a great book.
Merlin: It's mainly about getting you to buy the book.
Merlin: Congratulations.
Merlin: You have been nominated for Who's Who Among American High School Students.
John: Would you like a $60 book?
John: That's in my bathroom library.
John: Who's Who American High School Students, 1978.
Merlin: Anyway.
Merlin: I built it up too much, but it was just funny because I was in the line, and there's this one super loud, a woman who I think considers herself extremely funny as TSA agents go.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: She's a good one.
Merlin: And she's cracking wise, and she's talking to people.
Merlin: Making it fun.
Merlin: Sure, and I'm getting in the line, and I hear, Carrie Brownstein!
Merlin: Carrie Brownstein!
Merlin: And I turn and I see this wisp of a woodland creature with a roller bag, like sprinting toward this screaming woman, taking a card out of her hand and saying, thank you very much.
Merlin: And then.
Merlin: So basically, Carrie Brownstein had gone through TSA pre and had left her driver's license.
Merlin: And this woman in Portland.
Merlin: with somebody who I have to guess is kind of a private person starts screaming Carrie Brownstein oh my god and so the woodland creature called oh my god and she is so cute she would fit in a vest pocket she is first of all I just adore her I love Slater Kinney I love I love Portlandia I just think she's amazing and she's tearing ass to get somewhere far away from where this happened and the woman who was yelling Carrie Brownstein someone says to her she goes oh I didn't know what
Merlin: And of course, as you can imagine, like half of the people in line, like strain their necks to turn.
Merlin: I mean, talk about a sighting.
Merlin: I mean, if you're in Portland, you want to see Carrie Brownstein walking around.
Merlin: That's exactly who you want to see.
Merlin: She looked nice.
Merlin: She looked really nice.
John: That's the second, because I knew that she was there because turns out, during XOXO Festival, the internet's Jesse Thorne,
John: And Jordan Morris of Maximum Fun.
John: Of the Jordan and Jesse show, they call it.
John: Jordan and Jesse show.
John: Jordan and Jesse go.
John: Go show.
Merlin: Jordan and Jesse go.
John: They were playing a show of their own podcast in Portland that same time that we were there.
John: Oh, and was she a guest?
Oh.
John: Well, I can't imagine.
John: I don't know.
John: Who knows?
John: But I said, that seems funny that they were in Portland at the same time.
John: So I texted Jesse Thorne, and I was like, are you in Portland?
John: He was like, yes, my flight has been delayed, and now I'm sitting at Powell's Books or something like that.
John: And I said, well, I'm not going to come over there to see you if you didn't make any attempt to come see me.
Mm-hmm.
Merlin: But... You should probably put all that in a pamphlet at some point, just as a thought.
John: Yeah, I said, but go screw yourself and also up your nose with a rubber hose.
John: And he said, well... Yeah, that's right.
John: And I said, you know, I'm sitting with some internet people who are fairly prominent on the internet.
John: One of them even has a pink iPhone that I'm not allowed to touch.
Yeah.
John: And Jesse Thorne wrote back and said, last night I was hanging out with Carrie Brownstein.
Merlin: I'd like to see some documentation of that.
John: So that's exactly right.
John: I don't know whether he was in the same theater area of town with her or whether they were hanging out.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I think he was hanging out with her very much the same way that I was hanging out with her, which is we happen to be in the same building.
John: I don't know.
John: You know, he's kind of a big deal.
Merlin: So anyway, that was my Portland story, and she seemed nice.
John: Every impression I have of her is that she's very nice.
Merlin: There was a big interview with her a few weeks ago, maybe a couple months now, and I don't know.
Merlin: She's very thoughtful.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
John: Yeah, smart and nice.
John: It's good to be successful.
John: That's another thing that you don't have to... Some people get successful and then they turn into monsters because they were always monsters.
John: Yeah.
John: It's always there.
Merlin: It's inside all of us, John.
John: That's right.
John: But sometimes you get to be successful and then you get to be really nice because now you are able to be nice.
John: You don't have to be mean because you're successful.
John: You can just wear it with grace.
John: It seems like she's in that category.
Merlin: I'm kind of, I don't want to say surprised, but I'm pleased to hear how comfortable you are spending time on purpose with internet people.
Merlin: You seem like you've really come a long way with that.
John: I have.
John: Well, I realized at a certain point, I don't know when, but I realized that I was sort of an internet person, I guess.
John: People recognize me from the internet, among other places.
John: I can't fight it anymore.
John: I'm still not allowed to touch the pink iPhone, but I can sit around and talk about...
John: I mean, like, for instance, Marco sat next to me and told me about his microphone reviewing.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: He did a long series of reviews about microphones.
Merlin: He did one on headphones, and now he's done one on microphones with a bent toward helping podcasters, who famously don't know anything about how things sound, to get better at choosing a mic.
Merlin: And very opinionated, but I thought extremely useful.
John: And I've been in the pro audio circles for many years and have A, B tested some very expensive microphones.
John: Some microphones that even the top podcasters would never get their grubby little hands near.
John: Microphones that even Marc Maron...
John: Couldn't have in his dusty garage.
John: Even Mark Maron.
John: Even the guy that used to be the second banana on the late night talk show host where the girls jumped on trampolines and bikinis.
John: Even that ding-a-ling.
John: Can't get it.
John: Can't get the mic.
John: These are microphones that cost more than a car.
Merlin: These are the Hopes Diamonds of microphones.
John: These are microphones built in pre-war Germany.
John: Oh, man.
John: They're Weimar mics.
John: That's exactly what they call them.
John: They say, bring out the Weimar mics.
John: These are the microphones that were manufactured in Japan.
John: After the war, to be better than every other thing.
John: You know, Japan went through a long period there where everything they made, they tried to make better than every other thing.
John: And smaller.
John: And some of the... Well, these microphones are not smaller.
John: That's one thing that they didn't get right.
John: They made these microphones enormous.
John: I have A-B'd those microphones.
John: And so I was able to sit and talk to Marco about microphones...
John: Where I was coming from some place of, you know, fairly, I was coming from a knowledgeable place.
John: And then I said, give me your opinion of my tone, Marco.
John: Oh, man.
John: And he was uncomfortable.
Merlin: He thinks the SM7B is problematic because it takes so much to drive it that you have noise with it.
Merlin: I've never heard the noise.
Merlin: I don't know what that noise is that he's talking about.
John: He said two things.
John: One, his noise floor, he has a different standard of noise floor.
John: He likes the background to be completely dark.
John: and that we have a little too much noise for his taste.
John: What about the coughing?
John: No, somehow he didn't believe that what my cough button was, was just to turn the mic 90 degrees and go...
Merlin: And then turn it back.
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John: But then the other thing he said was that he was going to talk to you about rolling some of the bass off.
Merlin: Oh, that's a good idea.
John: Of me.
John: That maybe there's just a little too much bass.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, I can do that.
Merlin: It's in GarageBand.
Merlin: I don't think he even has a copy of GarageBand, probably.
John: Yeah, I feel like, and for me, I feel like that bass is part of the appeal for some people.
John: The way my voice kind of reverberates, not just in their ear bones, but down in their pelvic bones.
John: Oh, sure.
John: That's part of the reason they listen to the show.
Merlin: And if you took off the bass, your voice might stop at their abdomen, and that's not far enough.
John: Yeah, then I'd be up here.
John: Yeah, that's me.
John: Yeah, that's your – I cover this district up there.
John: That's your domain.
John: Automobile, automobile.
Merlin: Counterfeit money machine.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hello, America and all the ships at sea.
Merlin: Let's go to press.
Merlin: That's a good one.
Merlin: My sinuses are a mess, John.
Merlin: I have a lot of sinus problems right now.
John: Well, you were traveling.
Merlin: I travel, and the thing is between going to places with air conditioning, which I don't have, and I'm not around, and being in the fart tube, the fart tube will really draw you out.
Merlin: So I've got a lot of topography happening right now.
John: What's amazing about these tech conferences is that they are basically events where an entire group of people that just...
John: by definition do not travel or do not know how to travel or do not like traveling or do not want to travel.
John: But the unifying characteristic is that they do not travel well, are all asked to gather in a faraway place.
John: Like everybody there was like, oh, you know, nobody knows how to pack.
John: Nobody knows how to be around people.
Merlin: There's veterans of World War II that are more likely to get on a plane than some of these folks in their early 20s.
John: yeah yeah that's right and you can just you can see it in their body language they're just like now i'm standing in a big field and surrounded by people and there's no corner i can back into and there i don't have my special chair uh but still everyone overcomes it and i'm sorry to hear that you have sinus problems oh no i'll be all right i'm okay
Merlin: It was good.
Merlin: It was Alaska Airlines, which is a great airline.
Merlin: I was able to upgrade from my seat in the back of the fart tube into a seat, like a row six seat, for $16 American.
Merlin: Alaska does that.
Merlin: You can upgrade.
Merlin: It used to be, time was, you could upgrade to first for like $50.
Merlin: Now, I don't know if you people fly a lot, but you fly first class most places.
Merlin: That starts around $1,200.
Merlin: Wow.
John: Yeah, Alaska used to have a lock on good times.
John: And as you know, sitting in the front of the plane, that means everyone else on the plane is behind your fart orifice, right?
John: Farts go backwards.
Merlin: Maybe you could license your shot glass idea to the airlines.
Merlin: It could be something like, you know, with Virgin, you got the red.
Merlin: You say, I want some pop chips, and I want that weird salami box, and also give me a shot glass so I can fart in.
John: I'm wondering whether at the back of a plane where all of the farts are accumulating and presumably condensing.
Merlin: If you think about the physics and the movement of the plane, it would be entirely natural, and usually maybe the plane's at a slight incline.
Merlin: It just makes total—all the farts are going to go to the back of the plane.
Merlin: They're going to go to the back of the plane.
Merlin: Plus, buttressed by the fact that people are literally ruining that bathroom every couple minutes back there.
Merlin: Oh, hello, buttressed.
Merlin: Yeah, buttressed.
Merlin: It creates, I think in physics, it's called a fart sink.
John: So here's my question to you, right?
John: If we understand that farts are actually do have an element of particulate.
Merlin: They got a valence and they got a weight.
John: So how many farts?
John: Before you could actually condense them down to something with like to a product, like to make like a puck.
John: How many farts would you have to accumulate and condense before you could make a puck?
John: And then what would that puck be good for?
Merlin: That's a really good question.
Merlin: I think the most difficult part – I think getting farts – first of all, getting farts is not a problem.
Merlin: But then gathering them, that's a secondary problem.
Merlin: I think the primary problem is how do you remove things like dander from the fart collector?
Merlin: Would you have a filtering unit?
John: Right.
Merlin: And what would it look like?
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I think it would be a kind of viscous, light brown, not an orb exactly, but like an undulating egg shape.
John: Oh, ooh.
John: If it could be done.
John: So you're going to say that it has... See, I always imagined that it was like...
John: Yeah, he would distill it down and it would be kind of like a brick, but you're saying it's more of a, you're saying it's like water in zero gravity.
Merlin: Well, like imagine like a bit of mercury that you could hold easily in the palm of your hand, except it's made out of farts.
John: Hmm.
Merlin: I don't know if you'd want to hold it in your hand, but you'd need the right containment facility for that.
John: See, I think about this a lot because this is sort of an adjunct of super train thinking.
John: Let's call it super train thinking.
John: Super train 2.0.
John: Where, let's say you have a sports stadium.
John: Now, the fashion in sports stadiums now is to destroy the multi-million dollar covered sports stadium that your town built in the 70s and 80s to wreck it.
John: and rebuild a sports stadium that is open to the air.
Merlin: Yeah, that looks old.
John: That looks old-timey.
John: We did that here in Seattle.
John: We had a perfectly fine cement bunker that we tore down and built two fake old open stadiums to replace it.
John: But back when you had a concrete...
John: Domed sports stadium where you had climate control.
John: Oh, right.
John: How much like human moisture could you and did they process?
John: And what did it ultimately like?
John: Why were we not collecting that and studying it?
John: Like all of the moisture-laden breath of 50,000 sports fans.
Merlin: Think about all those wet mouths exhaling.
John: Yeah, and all that wet air was sucked into some duct somewhere and taken down to a basement room where it was condensed into what I can only imagine is like buckets and buckets of,
Merlin: like everyone's hopes and fears yes and then memories because you're creating memories when you're with your family watching sports you're creating memories so like like an old man's shirt there should certainly be a way to to mine that to liberate the memories and the moisture in some kind of a containment facility also for anyone who's having trouble imagining this we're thinking it's some kind of sci-fi thing have you ever had a dehumidifier in your house
Merlin: I can say I've had a dehumidifier in my house.
Merlin: And you bring this big thing.
Merlin: It used to be it was the size of a file cabinet.
Merlin: You bring it in your house.
Merlin: There's a big coil on the back.
Merlin: And it would take the moisture out of the air.
Merlin: And then you know what would happen?
Merlin: It would drip off the little coils into a bucket.
Merlin: And after like a week of that or even a couple days of that, you cannot even believe how much moisture is being pulled out.
Merlin: Now, let me ask you this.
Merlin: You're walking around your home.
Merlin: Are you noticing?
Merlin: Are you feeling moisture?
Merlin: It's a little muggy in here.
Merlin: But you would never guess that you could make a bucket.
Merlin: Just imagine if you did that with farts and memories.
John: If you pulled all the farts and memories, first of all, if you did it at a sports stadium, all those farts and memories probably are 4% alcohol.
John: Right, right.
John: And, you know, 2%.
John: Once you boil off the water.
John: 2% memories.
John: It's a PPM.
John: It's a PPM level.
John: You got 50,000 people in there.
John: You probably got basically a dumpster of wet.
John: A dumpster of wet memories.
John: Of wet memories and fears, right?
John: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: And then what are you just dumping that into the bay?
Merlin: Boy, that really seems like a waste.
Merlin: Because if we learn anything from Fury Road, it's that someday you're going to want that water.
Merlin: And you might even want the memories.
Yeah.
John: You absolutely want the memories.
John: That is our patrimony.
John: Right?
John: That's like... Oh, absolutely.
Merlin: Nobody reads anymore, John.
Merlin: Except for me.
Merlin: You buy garlic fries, you get garlic fries, you get a hat, you get maybe a churro.
Merlin: But like, you know...
Merlin: If you are going to remember that, well, you probably won't remember that because, again, see also alcohol.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: But I'm thinking you could get three and a half ounces of memories out of most sporting events, especially if it's baseball, because people have lots of memories about baseball.
John: What are you talking about?
John: Three and a half ounces per person?
Merlin: By volume or weight?
John: Yeah, right.
John: Right.
John: So we should really go to the metric system.
John: Speaking as that's true, we should have a long time ago.
Merlin: We're like the only country that doesn't do it.
John: You know what?
John: I tried.
John: I did my part in the 70s.
Merlin: It's so hard to be the only person doing something.
John: You're just sitting there.
John: You're like, I'm a little kid.
John: You've already tried to change the world through little kids.
John: You Americans love to force the kids.
Merlin: John, so many film strips.
Merlin: So many film strips about the metric system.
John: Just forcing the kids.
John: And the kids were like, we're there.
John: We're ready.
John: 60 KM.
Merlin: Can I please have nine centimeters of red vines?
John: Yeah, I would like to have one and a half grams of protein powder.
Merlin: 750 milliliters of liquor.
John: Please and thank you.
John: And then the adults who are in charge, you know what happened?
John: We elected Reagan president and Reagan was elected president on a platform of no metric system.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: Good luck trying to get Ronald Reagan to even understand the metric system.
Merlin: He's probably going to be one of those suckers that's constantly doing the mental calculations.
Merlin: That's the wrong way to do the metric system.
John: Reagan was using imperial weights.
John: Reagan was using, you know, the Scottish systems.
Merlin: Like tonn, spelled T-O-N-N-E.
Merlin: Tonnays.
Merlin: Tonnays.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Tonnays.
Merlin: They're going to send over a 50 mega tonnay bomb.
John: Yeah, and he was measuring distance in furlongs.
John: Forget it.
John: So we missed our opportunity.
John: Hogsheads?
John: That's right.
John: How many hogsheads and barrels of memories is it going to take to get one aircraft carrier?
John: Those are the questions he was asking, and now we're in anachronism, but we're the ones that are building a manned mission to Mars, so we're going to take inches and feet to Mars, and then they're going to be so confused up there.
Merlin: Can you imagine that?
Merlin: Can you imagine when the grays see that we're still using that nonsense?
Merlin: I mean, we might as well be talking about, like, you know, cubits.
John: I mean, but the problem is that they're measuring everything according to atomic clocks of their own device.
Merlin: I imagine a lot of what we do seems pretty quaint to the Grays.
John: So quaint, because it's all right there.
John: It's all written in the fabric of the universe.
John: The metric system isn't any... I mean, I guess it is.
John: It's a little bit more tied to the fabric of the universe.
John: It's not just the distance between your elbow and your middle finger.
John: It's a little...
Merlin: little bit more when we get the memories though the memories part of what would make the well i guess it depends on what you're going to use the memories for the water obviously once it's been purified can be used for lots of different things but part of what makes the memory special is that they are uh unique or at least differentiated is should we make any attempt to keep them uh in in silos by different type of memory by age of memory uh by accuracy of memory or or does it just become part of the same uh large uh emotional slurry
John: No, their whole usefulness is in the ability to cross-reference them.
John: So if you want to access somebody's memory, bad memory of a clown at a birthday party, you can come at that.
Merlin: We'll get 13 to 23 of those at a typical baseball game.
John: absolutely oh my god i have one yeah right i would i would i would estimate there were 500 bad clown memories at any at any birthday or i'm sorry at any baseball game 500 bad clown memory clown memories that that rise up to the level of like that's a bad memory and i don't like clown that was a bad clown
John: But you need to be able to get to that by, obviously, you're going to want to search bad clowns, but you're also going to want to search bad memories, childhood memories, traumatic events, PTSD.
Merlin: Circus-related memories.
Merlin: Yep.
Merlin: And then you're saying that it's a cross-reference.
Merlin: There's kind of like an implicit database that combines all the different clown memories.
John: There would have to be.
John: This is the promise of the Internet that we keep failing to realize.
Yeah.
John: Like, it's supposed to be all there.
John: And I continue to be astonished at how poorly so many people search the Internet.
John: It seems to me that most things I want to find, it takes two or three stabs.
John: at most to figure out the magic combination of words that's going to get the thing I'm looking for in the top three search results.
Merlin: And I think I know why.
Merlin: It's not because you don't know what you're looking for.
Merlin: It may be partly you don't know what you're looking for.
Merlin: I think it mainly is that the first search you do on something is where you learn how the computer thinks about that.
John: That's exactly right.
John: What words is the computer thinking?
John: Because I ask questions of the computer in full sentences.
John: You do.
Merlin: That's adorable.
Merlin: Yeah, for the most part.
Merlin: So you would say, what is the weight in grams of an average bad clown memory?
John: Absolutely.
John: I would type that in.
John: And then I would, you know, the first set of search results would be all like vape pens.
John: And I'd be like, what is this about?
John: Why am I getting vape pen results?
John: Oh, right.
John: Grams.
John: and clowns grams and clowns sent me right to some juggalo drug dealer sites and i was like fuck right okay modified search you know and then you come at it a different way like i'm not actually it's the the salient point is not the clown memories specifically i want to get at this through the memory of
John: Like the weight of memories.
Merlin: For some reason, now I can't stop thinking of this really creepy clown vaping, and it just got like five times worse.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: He's on his break.
Merlin: He's on his break, sitting out back with his head in his hands and a vape pen.
John: Going like, magnets, how do they work?
John: I'm so baked.
John: So, yeah, but, you know, I try to ask full sentences as a computer because I understand that the computer is learning.
Merlin: And you wanted to learn, like, good grammar and punctuation.
John: That's right.
John: I wanted to learn to be able to answer my questions.
John: So the other day, so I had a nice experience in Portland.
John: I decided that I was going to go up to the Alberta neighborhood.
John: which I have watched evolve over my 25 years of going to Portland from a street that had nothing of interest on it to a street that was being rehabilitated and colonized.
John: And now it's a street where...
John: There are bars and there are artisanal ice cream places and there are places where they make handbags out of sales.
John: And there are places where they sell space pens and little books of waterproof matches all at quadruple the price of what they should be.
Merlin: But it's all locally sourced.
John: It's all locally sourced.
John: Places where there was a store where they were selling Zippo lighters that were carved out of wood, which seemed to me to be like, what?
John: That's a terrible idea.
Merlin: A wooden lighter?
John: Yeah.
John: Mustache wax and all the above things.
John: Mustache wax cases.
John: Mustache, wax, cases, carrying bags.
Merlin: Mustache, wax, case, box bags.
John: Yeah.
John: And then a lot of things that like Seattle can't do this anymore and San Francisco can't either, which is that there used to be a whole sub economy for people who wanted to spend all their time in thrift stores and they could go pick stuff out of thrift stores and then they could sell it for instead of for $2, they could sell it for $20.
John: And open a little store and just sell their vintage stuff that they curated.
John: Well, now that a typical storefront in San Francisco is $70,000 a month and a typical storefront in Seattle is $17,000 a month, you can't have a store like that anymore.
John: But in Portland, you still can.
John: You can still go pick up other people's garbage.
John: spend your weekends at garage sales, and then not even clean it, but just arrange it artfully in a storefront on a cool street and sell it for $30 instead of $13.
John: And so there's still enough of those that I was kind of wandering around, and they make me mad because they are all curated by someone else, and so their aesthetic is always wrong.
John: And the shit that they choose and that they think is cool is not cool.
John: And then I think I should have a store.
John: It would be the coolest store in the world.
John: And then I start, then I'm daydreaming.
John: And then I'm imagining myself working at a store.
John: And then I'm super depressed because I realized that anytime you open a business, you're just giving yourself a bad job.
Merlin: You wouldn't take that as a job in somebody else's store.
John: No.
Merlin: Why would you want to do it on your own?
John: Every friend that I've ever had that's like, I'm going to open a cafe.
John: I'm like, really?
John: Do you like working in a cafe?
John: And they're like, well, no, that's why I'm going to open one.
John: And I'm like, well, you're giving yourself an 18 hour a day job at a cafe.
John: The fact that you're the owner doesn't change the fact that you're working.
Merlin: You're going to work there more than anybody else.
John: Yeah.
John: You are the person that has to work there anytime anybody else is sick, but also a normal shift every day.
John: And also at the end of the day when it's not profitable, you are the one that cries.
John: So do not open a business unless that is the best job you ever had.
John: Vaping and crying, crying and vaping.
John: But so I walk into one of these stores and I'm looking around and I'm like, oh my God, a bunch of Woolrich shirts and a bunch of...
John: you know, like Timberland shoes that are pre-owned Timberland shoes.
John: Come on, those should go right in, you know, the big, the big, the technology now in garbage is to shred.
John: There's big, have you seen those big shredders where you can put a washing machine into it?
Merlin: Not a shredder like a paper shredder, but it's almost like the end of Toy Story 3.
Merlin: You make it into like bits of stuff that are like the size of a dime.
John: Yeah, right.
John: You can throw a Chrysler Imperial into it, and the shredder just reduces it down to confetti.
John: And that's where all used Timberland shoes should go.
John: I mean, new Timberland shoes, it's fine.
John: You get them, you wear them, it's fine.
John: But once they're used, right into the shredder.
John: And they should become a park bench or some tarmac.
John: Like, that's what that stuff is good for.
John: There's not something you should buy used.
John: So I'm walking around this door and I'm sneering at it.
John: And then in the back, I see a rack of men's clothes where I see some Pendleton shirts.
John: And I'm thinking about Pendletons because I'd just seen you.
John: I'm like, let's go see if there's any Pendleton shirts for Merlin here.
John: And I flipped through and, you know, Pendleton, there are a lot of different kinds of Pendleton shirts.
Merlin: You eyeballed a Pendleton from like 15 feet away the other day.
Merlin: You looked in a window and goes, oh, look, Pendleton shirt's 20% off.
Merlin: And I was like, how can you tell just by looking?
Merlin: It didn't have the name on it.
John: Yeah, I could see a Pendleton shirt from 150 yards away.
John: I can see a Pendleton shirt moving in a car on a guy that also has a jacket on.
John: I can tell you probably within 10 years of its era.
Merlin: Someday you're going to find the perfect job.
John: I really someday might.
John: You know what?
John: I should just be uploaded to the Borg.
John: And then all of the knowledge I've acquired.
Merlin: They would absolutely find a use for your disparate but related skills.
John: Well, wouldn't that be nice?
Merlin: Anyway, you went to Alberta.
John: So I'm flipping through these shirts in Alberta.
John: I'm looking at them, and I'm like, no, no, no.
John: I've got an idea of the Pendleton shirts that I'm going to get for you, and these were not them.
John: And then I see this fabric at the end of the rack, and I'm like, oh, hello, what is that?
John: And I go, and I find this suit.
John: And it is a very, very curious suit.
John: It's the one suit in the entire store, the one men's suit.
John: And I'm thinking, what is this A, what is this doing here?
John: And B, like, how did this survive here?
John: And I take it and I immediately grab it and take it and try it on and it fits me perfectly.
John: And now I'm trying to discern.
John: There are no visible tags.
John: I'm trying to discern the suit.
John: I'm suit whispering to it, rubbing my hands on it.
John: I want it to tell me its stories.
John: What are your stories?
John: What are your stories?
John: The suit is not telling me any stories.
John: I come out and my friend that I'm walking around with looking at stuff looks at the suit and she says, oh, it's an 80s suit.
John: And I said, I think, I mean, I know why you think it's an 80s suit.
John: But the suits in the 80s, it's a kind of speckled wool.
John: The suits in the 80s were imitating a kind of 40s, 50s suit.
John: And I think this is one of those.
John: Oh.
John: And she said, no, it can't be.
John: It's too nice.
John: It's in too good a condition.
John: And I was like, I know, but I feel like there is...
John: There's enough about this.
John: It's vibing me.
John: It's reverberating that its real truth lies many decades ago.
John: And so I take this suit and I bring it home.
John: I'm fondling it.
John: I'm fucking with it.
John: I'm trying to figure it out.
John: And I find sewn in the pocket one of those like union-made labels that
John: And I say, there's got to be a code, and I know there is, but I've never taken the time to figure out what the codes are.
John: But now I'm ready.
John: Since there are no other identifying marks on this suit, I'm ready to figure out the code of this union label.
John: And so I go to the computer machine, and I ask it some questions in full sentences.
John: And very quickly, I am at, as you can imagine...
John: A specialist site where nerds, haberdashers, basically like any group of nerds who have decided that they are interested in fashion, which I believe a group of those are called a fedora.
John: Anytime you see a fedora of nerds, you know that they're probably sitting around talking about – they're either all wearing dusters or they're twirling their handlebar mustaches.
John: But so a fedora of nerds had made a website.
John: And it had all of the union labels that had ever been sold in any American item of clothing.
Merlin: That's what you were looking for.
John: That's what I was looking for.
John: And how to date things by tiny little variations in these labels.
John: Like in 1948, the label changed.
John: But then in 1961, that exact same label, they added a tiny little registered trademark symbol down in the corner.
John: So if it has the registered trademark symbol, you know it was manufactured after 1961.
John: But if it doesn't, you know it was made between 48 and 61.
John: And that is what was true of this suit.
John: And I was absolutely right.
John: It was an old...
John: but somehow meticulously cared for speckled wool black suit that I got for $30.
John: $35.
John: That's amazing.
John: Up on Alberta.
John: And now what am I supposed to do with that?
John: Now here I am.
John: I got another great thing.
John: The world doesn't care.
John: Everybody else is wearing yoga pants and they're farting in shot glasses and not even paying me my royalty.
Merlin: Oh, no, no, no, no.
Merlin: Oh, boy.
Merlin: Oh, so in the end, maybe you were actually more curious about the provenance than having it as menswear.
John: The thing is that I feel like I rescued that suit from that dumb store full of used Timberland boots and Woolrich jackets.
John: I found this thing that was like a prize, a little prize egg.
John: It was like a Fabergé egg that was in a store called Eggs and Such.
John: And the people that owned it were like, look, a pretty egg.
John: We'll put it in our eggs and such store.
John: And it's like, no, fuck you.
John: This is a real thing.
John: This doesn't belong here with you and your wooden lighters.
John: This belongs with me.
John: It belongs in my curated, hermetically sealed, like, menswear closet of stuff that there is no appropriate place to wear.
Merlin: Here's the thing.
Merlin: We had several interesting retail experiences together.
Merlin: I think one of the interesting retail experiences we had was there was what looked like kind of a fancy shoe store, a men's and ladies kind of fancy shoe store.
John: Oh, this was interesting.
Merlin: And we went in there, and there's a very nice man there.
Merlin: I think his name was Jordan.
Merlin: And he was very enthusiastic.
Merlin: And he asked the question that, for some reason, lots of people ask me lots of times, is this your first time here?
Merlin: I'm like, can I tell you a little bit about how Ruth's Chris works?
Merlin: Like, in this case, he's like, I've had so many people ask me if this is my first time there.
Merlin: Like, there's something I could do horribly wrong.
Merlin: Well, over by the bathrooms, we have an avatar with a wheelchair on it.
Merlin: You don't want to go in there.
John: Have you ever been to a store before?
John: Well, let me tell you how stores work.
Merlin: We have various goods on what we call shelves here.
Merlin: So we went in there, and there's a bunch of shoes, and they're shoes.
Merlin: But he explained to us that this was actually the – it's not even really exactly a store.
John: It's more like a showroom.
John: Yeah, he explained that we could not buy any shoes here.
John: You've got to go on the Internet for that.
John: Yeah.
John: This was just a place to see shoes.
Merlin: Now, just out of curiosity, John, were those shoes from far away?
John: Yeah.
John: Well, it's funny.
John: The shoes were from all over.
Merlin: But was it a local company?
John: Because I only work with local companies.
John: The company was headquartered just a few miles outside of town.
John: Just like seven miles out of town.
John: From Tigard, Oregon.
Merlin: It's locally sourced shoe purchases.
Merlin: The shoes are from China, but they're purchased not very far from here.
John: Yeah, and he pronounced Tigard Oregon as Tiger.
John: Oh.
John: And I was like, Tiger?
John: And then it took me a second to realize, like, and maybe this is a thing where I call it Tigard and it's really called Tiger.
Merlin: Oh, I get that.
Merlin: You know, an event like XOXO is when you realize how many things you pronounce wrong.
Merlin: But okay, so on the one hand, this is a very interesting idea.
Merlin: It's a very interesting idea.
Merlin: If you're already aware of tigershoes.co, it's going to be nice to be able to go and look at the goods in person.
Merlin: If you've never heard of tigershoes.co, it's really weird to walk into a place where it's a bunch of shoes and some iPads.
Merlin: And the idea is that you go in there and then you can actually buy what you want and they'll deliver it to you.
Merlin: And it'll show up at your house.
Merlin: So I guess I want to point that out because I thought it was an interesting thought technology.
Merlin: But is that the kind of thing that could work for your collection?
Merlin: I feel like we return to this maybe three times a year is how do we curate what John has?
Merlin: At one point, you talked about eBay.
Merlin: At another point, I think we had the idea of an assistant coming in and capturing some of your stories and putting them somewhere.
Merlin: Is there any way – and the reason I mention this is that you are, if I may say, becoming a little bit more comfortable with even the idea of Internet people.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Somebody might be able to help you make a site to curate your collection.
Merlin: Could there be a retail component?
Merlin: Could it be a series of museums like Subways?
Merlin: We start having Franchise John Museums everywhere where certain special items might be available for viewing there.
John: Well, so here are the challenges that I have identified, or really it's a primary challenge, which is that if I went on Etsy, I could put up some things and say, here are some things I'm selling.
John: And here are the stories.
John: Here are my stories.
John: Every one of these things has a story.
John: Hi.
John: That's nice, isn't it?
John: Can I tell you the story about that?
John: Here's the story of this thing.
John: And I have researched the story of some of these things, but also a lot of these garments have my own stories.
John: I have done... I have, you know...
John: I've watched the sea beams glitter off of Tannhauser Gate in this shirt.
John: I was wearing this shirt watching attack ships burn off the shoulder of Orion.
John: And so this shirt not only is a cool shirt from the 60s, but also I have filled this shirt with my own crazy shit that I want you to know about.
John: And you can buy this shirt just because you think that Gantt is a cool menswear label for people that like Ivy League preppy shit.
John: But also...
John: There's this other element, which is that you're not just buying some dumb shirt from a guy.
John: There's stuff that happened in this.
Merlin: I feel like you're buying a story and getting a shirt.
John: That's right.
John: But the problem with Etsy is that you price the thing.
John: And when I go on Etsy, I feel like everything is overpriced.
John: It's very rare.
John: Rarely do I see a thing where I'm like, oh, that's the correct price of that item.
John: So eBay.
Merlin: Crucifix made a pube, $700?
Merlin: Seems a little high.
John: That seems, yeah.
John: So you made this Eiffel Tower with popsicle sticks and you think it's worth $900?
John: You are wrong.
Yeah.
John: On eBay, it seems much more like the actual proper price of things can be determined.
Merlin: It's more of it because it's a marketplace.
John: It's a marketplace.
John: And as we know, in America, the market is the highest moral order.
John: And so the market will decide.
John: And if it turns out that two guys...
John: who are members of different fedoras.
Merlin: Fedoras of nerds.
John: Yeah, one guy who's a member of some New Zealand fedora, and one guy who's a member of some Brighton fedora.
John: They both decide that they want this particular thing, and they want to bid it up to $7,000 because they're both fans of Roderick on the Line, and they know for a fact that I watched the sea beams glitter off Townhouser Gate in that shirt.
John: Then that's what the market will bear.
John: But I feel like putting the stories...
John: Attaching the stories to the items within eBay is a violation of the eBay unwritten terms.
John: The eBay unwritten terms are, we're here schlepping stuff.
John: We're here trading.
John: We are basically like a trading town.
John: We're border town.
Merlin: Oh, okay.
Merlin: So in order to make it a marketplace – I mean take something like in Slacker.
Merlin: The kid's trying to sell Madonna's pap smear, right?
Merlin: And so you could sell a pap smear and maybe mention that Madonna's involved, but you would not be primarily selling it as Madonna's pap smear.
Merlin: Like in your case, the story is not what's being sold.
Merlin: It should be this good that we could – you could evaluate versus another Gantt shirt based on quality and –
John: That's the criteria on eBay.
John: Like, this is a Gantt shirt.
John: How is it priced?
John: How does it compare to these other Gantt shirts?
John: eBay people do not want to be bothered to wade through like some guy talking about all the shit he's fucking seen wearing this shirt.
John: Nobody gives a shit.
John: It would just be like, what?
John: I had saved search term Gantt.
John: And now I'm reading somebody's fucking blog?
John: Screw you.
John: And I think that within eBay, of course, you'd get some three-star ratings or something, and then you'd be ejected from the community and sent to a prison park.
John: So how?
Merlin: Do you think they have private agents that do that, take care of that for them?
John: I imagine there'd be a knock on my door.
John: They'd have to swear out a warrant?
John: Yeah.
John: They'd just be like, listen, you've gotten too many three-star reviews from people that feel like, you know, one star.
Merlin: They'd send out a heavily armed fedora of nerds.
John: Yeah, they would.
John: One-star review of a national park.
John: I went to Yellowstone and there weren't any bears there.
John: One star.
John: Isn't there a way that they can make the bears walk around more?
John: Yeah.
John: So how do I get the like crafts fair at an elementary school where people are selling the garbage that they made and boring the shit out of you with their long stories vibe of Etsy?
John: With the let the market decide what this thing is worth vibe of eBay.
John: Because I think that some of my items, there might be two nerds bidding for it.
John: But then there's some like clothes nerd.
John: Who doesn't even care about the story.
Merlin: This is why it needs to be more of a museum and less of a store.
Merlin: Because if you went to even a garage sale and you say, oh, how much are these shitty fucked up looking souvenir spoons?
Merlin: And they go, well, actually, I can't just sell you the Yogi Bear spoon.
Merlin: These are part of my late grandmother.
Merlin: My grandmother had cancer.
Merlin: And when she passed, I inherited these.
Merlin: They've been very precious to us.
John: it's a grandma's cancer spoons so we can't break up the we can't break up the collection i'm so worried that this is me i'm so worried i just want the yogi bear i'm so worried this is me no no no no no you don't want to this isn't just an 80s brooks brothers shirt this is the shirt that my dad wore when he went into court to sue my mom
John: It's an heirloom.
John: And they're just backing out of the room.
Merlin: You should see if your lawyers want to buy it.
John: Well, you know what?
John: I should give them each a parting gift.
John: One Brooks Brothers shirt.
John: And then they'd bill you for it.
John: And then they'd send me a $300 bill for opening the package.
John: So I do.
John: I need to find... I feel like they're...
John: I feel like there are so many people out there that can help us, just as we have helped them.
John: But how do you put... This is the job, the matchmaking service that somebody needs to come up with.
John: It's an app.
John: It's an app that comes preloaded on your pink iPhone 6S.
John: that connects the underused nerd to the person who desperately needs the one nerdy skill.
John: Oh, right.
John: Who is the video editor who needs to get paired with the person that has 10,000 hours of footage?
Merlin: Match.com meets CareerBuilder meets History.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And future history.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Because here's the thing also is when you say something like, oh, yeah, well, here's this thing that I got in 1980 that was already 20 years old, and then I wore it for 25 years.
Merlin: And now somebody else is going to wear it after that.
Merlin: It's about provenance.
John: Yep.
John: And the thing is that if I put something on a hanger and put a price tag on it,
John: At my store, and the person comes up and is like, I'd like to buy this pink shirt.
John: And I go, you know, funny story.
John: I saw Edie Burkell and the New Bohemians in that shirt.
John: There's an 85% chance that the person's going to put it back on the rack and run out of the store.
John: Like, they don't want that.
John: That's too personal.
John: But there is someone in the world that wants the shirt that I saw Edie Burkell and the New Bohemians in.
Merlin: Oh, there's no question about it.
John: It might even be Edie Burkell herself.
John: Are you what you are or what?
John: Yeah.
John: So how do we match the thing with the story to the person that wants it?
Merlin: Oh, there's so many levels to this.
Merlin: I mean, I've said it before.
Merlin: You need a master's thesis about you.
Merlin: I mean, there's so many levels to this, John.
Merlin: It's about emerging technologies and personal histories and farts and memories and baseball stadiums and family and spoons and cancer.
Merlin: It's about everything.
John: Thank you.
John: Well, and a lot of, you know, and a lot of people are listening and they're like, well, maybe I do want one of these shirts.
John: I didn't know that I did until until now.
John: I didn't realize I definitely didn't want it until you mentioned the new Bohemians.
John: But now I do.
John: But I am not a giant man.
John: I do not need a shirt with a 17 and a half inch neck.
John: And to them, I say, do you have a sleeping shirt?
John: Do you want a sleeping shirt that smells a little bit like me?
John: And a little bit like Edie Brickell.
John: A lot less like Edie Brickell than me, but still.
John: I'm imagining patchouli and hoagies.
John: Still, yeah.
John: Do you want a shirt that smells a little bit like a meatball sandwich and a little bit like someone's burning sage?
Merlin: Drop me in the shallow water before I get too deep.
Merlin: I'm going to stop you there.
Merlin: Woo!
Merlin: Oh.
Ah.