Ep. 245: "An Ongoing Situation"
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
Merlin: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: Oh, you sound really good today.
Merlin: Do I?
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: You do anything different?
John: Well, I feel that, you know, using Marco's criteria, today's going to be a little bit of a rough background noise day.
Merlin: Okay.
John: Because, you know, he doesn't like background noise.
John: Mm-mm.
John: And I've got... So the Washington...
John: washington state college uh the the cougars people across the street who are rehabilitating jamaica's house they have a they have one of those little mini cats out there today oh of course so they're mini catting and then it's that season in seattle when the uh
John: When the sun comes out and all the airplanes go into the sky at once.
John: Because everybody here that wants to be in an airplane says, this is my moment.
Merlin: It's airplane season.
John: It's airplane season, big time.
John: So from a background noise standpoint, I mean, just a few moments ago, I was like, how's this going to work?
John: Because they were unloading the minicat and some kind of...
John: Paraguayan demonstration, jet demonstration team was flying overhead and I was like, this is going to be interesting.
Merlin: All those Paraguayans, they love the demonstrations.
John: They really do.
John: They love the, they want to put on a show.
John: It's part of their culture.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Well, apologies if, I don't know, I assume Marco listens to the show.
Merlin: I think, I think he did at one point, but you know, Marco, I'm sorry.
Merlin: It's, it's, it's hard.
Merlin: I was on a show recently where one of the sides of the recording took place.
Merlin: Somebody was on a beach and
Merlin: and they're able to record background ambient beach noise and use some kind of black magic to remove that particular range from the recording.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: It's crazy what you can do, if you try.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: You know, it's not go crazy here.
John: Yeah, no, but I mean, a lot of my just intrinsic background noise that just follows me everywhere is the sound of a beach.
Merlin: You know, I don't know if I've ever...
Merlin: I don't know if I put it in these words, but I just want to say that whatever happens in the show is in the show.
Merlin: This is all part of the show.
Merlin: I think that's why people here.
Merlin: I remember I feel like in our classic episode, Super Cartoid, that we talked about, you know, there are things that we could do.
Merlin: There are there are hacks.
Merlin: That we could deploy, but we're not going to do that because that's not part of the show.
Merlin: Hacks aren't the show.
John: No, the show is not about hacks.
John: We could do a life hacks episode.
John: You know what?
John: We should do a show called Hacks.
John: Hacks.
John: Oh, wait a minute.
John: I bet we'd win a head phony for that.
Merlin: Oh, is that like an earwolf show?
Merlin: Is that one of those comedy podcasts?
Yeah.
Merlin: You know what?
John: I don't understand comedy at all.
Merlin: I don't understand comedy podcasts.
Merlin: I can't tolerate them.
Merlin: What is a comedy podcast?
Merlin: You know what I mean.
Merlin: Yeah, I guess so.
Merlin: You know what they did.
Merlin: Comedy podcasts where you have comedy people on and they do comedy and then they have their friends who do comedy on and they do comedy together.
John: Yeah, comedy together.
John: Comedy together.
John: Comedy together.
Merlin: The only people that I think are funny are mostly people who are not formally funny for a living.
Merlin: Have you noticed that?
Merlin: Is that a thing?
Merlin: You park on the driveway, you drive on the parkway?
John: Every once in a while, I'll meet a comedian who's actually funny, a funny person.
Merlin: Once in a while, yeah.
John: Yeah, but it's not the regular thing.
Merlin: But, like, you know, I got friends that, like, work in libraries that are way funnier than most comedians.
John: Shit, Merlin, I've got friends that clean libraries that are funnier than most comedians.
John: Basura.
Merlin: Yeah, it's, you know, it sounds mean to say.
John: Oh, I know, everything does.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: That's the thing about today.
John: Everything's fraught.
Merlin: Yeah, but, yeah, I don't know, it's just...
Merlin: You've been to comedy things.
Merlin: We've performed at comedy things.
Merlin: Comedy people are not funny in person.
Merlin: Some of them are.
Merlin: I mean, you take a Jonathan Colton.
Merlin: Jonathan Colton's a very funny guy.
John: He's not a comedy person.
John: He's not technically a comedy person.
John: No.
John: Nope, not a comedy person.
John: There are a few.
John: There are a few.
Merlin: Do you think it's a busman's holiday?
Merlin: Do you think it's something where like... No, no, no, no.
John: I think that they, you know... Joel McHale.
John: Joel McHale.
Merlin: All the great shows.
Merlin: Joel McHale is a great guy.
Merlin: He seems like a nice guy.
Merlin: He's a funny guy.
Merlin: Chris Hardwick.
Merlin: That's one of the nicest people you'll ever meet.
Merlin: He's a funny guy.
Merlin: He's funny and he's nice.
Merlin: He's like a normal person.
Merlin: Oh, nice and funny.
Merlin: See, maybe that's it.
Merlin: And handsome.
Merlin: Very handsome.
Merlin: He wears suits to fit.
Merlin: I've always admired that about him.
Merlin: He's small, though, right?
Merlin: He's very small.
Merlin: He's almost pocket-sized.
John: Yeah, he doesn't seem big when you look at him on television.
Merlin: He's like 1.2 Dan Benjamins.
John: 1.2 Dan Benjamins?
John: Well, maybe 1.1.
John: 1.2 Dan Benjamins is a measurement of heat, right?
John: It's like a kilojoule.
Merlin: It's called the bulk bag thermal unit.
Merlin: I'm a horse today.
Merlin: I'm a pony.
Merlin: I don't know why.
John: I'm pretty frazzled, I gotta say.
John: I sent you a text at 5 o'clock in the morning last night.
John: You did.
Merlin: I think it sounds like your sleep got disrupted.
John: I said, Merlin, it's 5 a.m.
John: Normally I... It's one of the longest tweets you've ever sent me, I think.
John: Normally, you know, I'll send you a little text at two minutes before we're about to go on and say, hey, can we push this back a little bit?
John: And I say, you bet.
John: Yeah, but I had some foresight last night and said, Merlin, it's five in the morning.
John: I'm still not asleep.
John: Can we push our show back a couple of hours?
John: You're practically a project manager.
John: And look at you.
John: You were just like, fine.
John: I am flexible.
John: and ready to do whatever it takes.
John: Here we are two hours later.
John: So did you finally get to sleep around five?
John: I did.
John: You know, I was doing that thing that I do sometimes, which is I push it right to the wall where I was so tired, but I just wouldn't go to sleep.
John: It's not that I couldn't go to sleep.
John: I simply wouldn't go to sleep.
John: And right there, 4.35 in the morning, I was like, you bastard.
John: The light was starting to come up in the sky.
John: The birds were tweeting.
John: And I was like, you son of a bitch.
John: go to goddamn sleep and then whatever that other thing is i was like no oh big boy yeah and so i did whatever and something dumb i watched you know stalag 17 it's a 215 minute movie uh no i'm not going to bed and then finally i was just like oh my god go to bed so i did i went to sleep at five and
Merlin: Is it the dread of how you'll feel the next day?
Merlin: When you're finally able to shout down that four-year-old boy voice, what is the thing that finally tips the scales and you say, I got to go.
Merlin: This is crazy.
John: I think it is that I do have things to do in the day because in the old days when I didn't have something to do the next day, I would just go and go and go.
John: My mom would wake up.
John: Because my, you know, my mom would wake up, this is back when we lived together.
John: My mom would wake up about five and I'd hear her puttering around and I would go downstairs.
John: Always an unpleasant surprise for her because her 5.30 a.m.
John: time is her time.
John: Oh, sure.
John: She gets a lot accomplished in the early morning.
John: She does.
John: But, you know, that's her time to sit and read the newspaper and have her coffee and get her thing going.
John: And I would come bumbling down in my bathrobe like, good morning.
John: Good morning.
John: And she'd be like, oh, so I would get a cup of coffee, my 5.30 a.m.
John: coffee, and we would sit and read the newspaper together in silence, which is one of the things we used to do that gave us both an enormous amount of pleasure.
John: And it was just okay to be silent.
John: We would just sit there and be quiet and read the newspaper and drink coffee.
John: That's a nice relationship to have.
John: Yeah, she was just coming online and I was starting to go offline.
John: And right about the time that she would start to get chatty about the news, it says here that the port commission is going to eminent domain some warehouses.
John: I'd field a couple of those with my badminton racket, and then I would say...
John: Well, I should probably be getting to sleep.
John: And then I would, you know, toodle off and she would start her day.
John: So there were a few, well, not a few.
John: There were quite a few eras where I would push my sleep envelope all the way over to the other day.
Merlin: oh you'd uh do like a wraparound i'd do a wraparound yeah geez yeah it's really hard it's you know the wraparound i get real goofy yeah it's been it's been so it's been really since our daughter was a you know an infant probably accepting the occasional like you know health thing um i just don't do that anymore i can't do that anymore yeah it's tough
Merlin: I don't recover.
Merlin: It's also complicated when you live with other people, because you have to find... I mean, even if you live in a big American place... I mean, by international standards, our houses are pretty huge.
Merlin: But even then, you have to have a lot of culture...
Merlin: And understanding about people's spaces.
Merlin: If your wife says she's just going to rest her eyes and you say, why don't you just call it an app?
Merlin: She says, I'm just going to rest my eyes.
Merlin: You know, that kind of means, you know, don't be in the room.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: And I feel like some of those things we talk about, some of the things we don't talk about, but like it's the ways that you give each other space in a house can be very complicated.
John: Yeah, and super important.
John: My goodness.
Merlin: Like I say, I know it seems obvious, but in practice and in evolution, you think about things like, not to go on, but things like, okay, you change where the TV is, or you move stuff around in the dining room, and somebody's space gets disrupted.
Merlin: And if you don't honor that that was somebody's space without acknowledging it, it gets complicated.
John: This is starting to sound like a George Carlin routine.
Merlin: You got your stuff.
John: So we're talking about evolution is what you're saying.
Merlin: Yeah, as John Syracuse says, you know, it's evolutionary biology.
Merlin: Syracuse.
Merlin: Syracuse.
Merlin: Syracuse.
Merlin: Syracuse.
Merlin: Syracuse.
Merlin: Syracuse.
John: You know, for years and years, of course, I've been saying sort of out loud as an explanatory...
John: uh, you know, caveat about myself that I'm an, that I'm an introvert.
John: I just, I've been saying that for a long time.
Merlin: I'm still, I'm still chewing on that.
Merlin: And I, it's a very interesting thought technology.
John: I've been saying it, I've been saying it forever because it, it does accurately reflect, you know, the, the sort of classic description of an introvert as they,
John: as they are trying to interact with the rest of the world, like nine out of 10 of those line up exactly with how I feel.
John: So it felt very much like, you know, if you answered yes to more than four of these 15 questions, then maybe you have a problem with the diuretics or whatever.
John: And I was like, I just answered 15 out of 15 here.
John: So it's very explanatory.
John: But what I've realized is that it's not...
John: It is not completely explanatory, obviously, but also sharing space with other people where you want them there is like so complex, I think, for everybody.
John: And like I don't mind people being around me, it turns out.
John: I don't mind people in my house and in my space.
John: But there needs to be a very nice dance.
John: There's a very nice dance that happens.
John: And the other people have to also be really in the dance.
John: And it turns out, you know, one of the problems with me, one of the reasons that I've never been married is that I don't like people touching my feet in the night.
John: Don't touch my feet in the night.
John: You've been really clear about that, though, haven't you?
John: Yeah, it's really hard.
John: It's hard, though.
John: People like to touch feet.
John: The thing is, I love if you touch my feet in the afternoon.
John: If I'm sitting on the couch and I'm reading a novel, and you come sit at the other end of the couch and touch my feet, you can even grab and hold my feet.
John: You put my feet right in your lap.
John: This is in the afternoon, though.
John: In the afternoon.
John: In the early evening.
John: If you want to sit and pet my feet...
John: I will just purr.
John: I'll purr like a mountain lion.
John: A little pause.
John: But I'm going to say, don't touch my feet in the morning.
John: And in the middle of the night when I am sleeping, don't get around there and mess with them.
John: Save it for the afternoon.
John: Afternoon and evening.
John: That is a great time if you're feeling feety.
John: to come, you know, like have some feet time.
John: Yeah.
John: In the middle of the night, keep your feet over there and I'll keep my feet over here.
John: It seems very clear.
John: It seems very clear.
John: Yeah, but it also just seems so normal to me.
John: I'm sure there are people, in fact, I knew a girl that if you touched her feet, she would scream.
John: Not in a good way.
John: Not in a good way.
John: She had some thing, and I could never exactly figure out what she was talking about, but she had a thing.
John: Don't touch my feet thing.
John: And the first time I touched her feet, it was in public.
John: It was in a room full of friends.
John: And the other people had known her for a lot longer than I had.
John: Oh, boy.
John: And I touched her feet.
John: Put a hand on her feet.
John: And the room went gasp.
Oh, no.
John: You're the only one that didn't know.
John: I was the only one that didn't know.
John: And I looked around.
John: I was like, what?
John: I'm a good friend of mine.
John: And actually, Merlin, he's a friend of ours, as we say.
John: It's not just a friend of mine.
John: He's a friend of ours.
John: He said to her.
John: I can't believe what I'm seeing right now.
John: And she said, through short breaths, she said, it's okay, he doesn't know.
John: And I was like, what is going on?
John: And our friend, yours and mine, said...
John: I've never seen anyone touch her feet where she didn't scream like bloody murder scream.
John: And I took my head over her foot and I was like, whoa, why?
John: Are you injured?
John: And then I had this whole conversation about like, no, that's her thing.
John: Don't touch her feet.
John: And it was affectionate gestures.
John: She and I were having affectionate times.
John: And I had not gotten the bulletin.
John: And from that point on, of course, then you're like, oh, geez, now I do know.
John: I've never actually, I never actually experienced in her case a foot, a touched foot producing a scream because I then stayed away.
Merlin: Sure, you learned your lesson.
John: I didn't put hand on foot, but it was the, it was not her reaction.
John: It was the, it was the crowd's reaction.
Merlin: when i touched her foot because apparently they had all been completely traumatized in the past by like even accidentally touching her foot and just like this is a community of foot touching uh going on here that's that's a little bit outside my range of information all these people what is it about her feet that makes people want to touch them
John: You know, I think maybe it was just that they were all in college together.
John: Oh, sure.
Merlin: That's a foot-touching time.
John: Sure, you end up in a closet with each other at some point or another, and you're like, you know, trying to get comfortable, making shoes into pillows, trying to just never let the moment stop.
John: Yes.
John: And...
John: And I think that they'd all just had, or they'd been in the room when someone else touched her feet and never wanted to revisit the moment.
John: And I was coming along a little bit later.
John: Like this was these post-college times.
John: I was the new guy.
John: Yeah.
John: Boy, oh boy.
John: But I also felt a little bit special.
John: Like I'm the one person that any of them ever see.
John: Yeah, she didn't freak out.
John: You know, maybe it's just that she found the one that could touch her feet.
John: I've found the one over and over and none of them could touch my feet in the night.
John: Hmm.
John: And I think, I don't know why, I mean, I don't want blankets on my feet at night.
Merlin: I'll have blankets on my feet for different, I'll have my feet out or in depending on different positions that I'm in.
Merlin: It's not anything I've formally, you know, like worked out in my mind, but like, yeah, like in this position, I want my left foot to be out of the covers.
John: I do that quite a bit.
John: Left foot out.
Merlin: Sometimes my daughter comes in when I'm sleeping and like pokes me with a pencil in the foot and that really bugs me.
Okay.
Merlin: that's a firing offense see that you should you should make that your thing well you know you gotta be picky about how much you make your thing that's the other part of being in a house with people is that you know you have to be circumspect about well i mean easy way to put it is you have to pick your fights right you can't be a pill about everything like you know i've said before i have certain lines in the sand like never move my keys oh
Merlin: Like, ideally, never move my wallet.
Merlin: But, like, that stuff stays here, and that's how I keep from going crazy.
Merlin: Keys and wallet go in the keys and wallet place.
Merlin: Yeah, and I only got two keys, but still I get real panicky if I can't find them, you know, because then you can't open doors and stuff.
Merlin: Sure, sure.
Merlin: But I think you've got to be...
Merlin: everybody's got their hang-ups and their hang-ups is too strong a way to put it but everybody's got a certain way that they are and i i think it's i think it's nice to be sensitive to that fact and to not make people feel weird or shameful about like wanting things a certain way unless it really really butts up in a you know um irreconcilable way with how you like to do things
Merlin: I am.
John: Well, this is the thing about the touching of the feet, right?
John: It's not a thing that comes up very often.
John: Yeah.
John: And if you want that to be your thing, by all means, I'm not going to... And no one should, right?
John: Try and get up inside your command post and say, what's going on here?
John: Exactly.
John: It doesn't matter.
John: It doesn't matter.
Merlin: It's not your job to reprogram people.
John: People are not projects.
John: If they've got 40 things like that, though...
John: It starts to become difficult to accommodate that.
Merlin: It's like an old person's medicine.
Merlin: It's complicated when you've got a heart problem because you've got to take medicine.
Merlin: But then, let's say you get thin blood and you've got to take a blood thinner with that.
Merlin: There's all kinds of weird pharmaceutical synergies and things you want to avoid.
Merlin: And that can be a real juggling act.
Merlin: Now, if you're a person with, what do you say, 40, 60, you've got dozens of these kinds of things, then your life becomes complicated.
Merlin: That's a word that I keep using, but it's a good word.
John: You know what one of my things is?
John: I'm sitting here trying to think of my things.
John: Lock the bolt, but don't lock the doorknob.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Because that way they know the bolt is thrown.
Merlin: There are people that lock... The typical door-checking pseudo-robber is going to jiggle the door handle.
Merlin: And they are going to assume, if the door handle is locked, that the bolt is probably not.
John: I have not even thought about it that far.
John: Oh, sorry.
John: No, no, no.
John: There's no scheme to it.
John: There's no rhyme or reason to it.
John: I hate when people lock the little flipper on the doorknob.
John: It's just an insult to me.
Merlin: It's like just closing the door and putting scotch tape on the scene.
John: Yeah, right, right, right, exactly.
John: But there are people that do it reflexively because they're used to, as they leave, they're a doorknob locker, so they lock the doorknob and then do the bolt.
John: But when I come to my own home,
John: And there's been somebody visiting, let's say, somebody stopping by, somebody that has a key to my place.
John: And I put a hand on my doorknob and my doorknob is locked.
John: Oh, boy.
John: Oh, man.
Merlin: Doesn't that seem like an abundance of caution, probably?
Merlin: They want to make sure all the locks are locked.
John: It's just a reflex.
John: It's the same thing with the toilet seats.
John: People, you know, reflexively do things, right?
John: They just have a thing that they just that's how they are comfortable.
John: And they like I don't believe anybody ever walks out of the house and locks a doorknob.
John: thinking about it very much.
John: I see.
John: It's just if you're a doorknob locker in there, I'm sure the majority of people are.
John: But
John: But I'm not.
John: And the reason is if you're a doorknob locker and the door swings shut, then you're locked out of the house.
Merlin: That's a very good point.
Merlin: It's like a hotel room.
John: Yeah, right.
John: So did you have your keys on you?
John: I don't know.
John: I was just going out in the garden to water the peonies.
John: And now I'm locked out of the house because somebody came along and is a doorknob locker.
John: And that's not how we do here.
John: So I'll, you know, that's like here to pull up a chair.
John: I'm going to explain this a couple of times so that you don't do it.
Merlin: You don't believe the systems I put in place to avoid things like this.
Merlin: Because I've said this here before, I've said this in many other places, that I have certain things in life that are a bulwark against madness.
Merlin: That there are certain kinds of things that when they happen are so stupid and avoidable that I'm extra double, triple careful to keep those kinds of things from happening.
Merlin: In this case, we've got a clock radio that I like fine.
Merlin: I never use the alarm on the clock radio.
Merlin: I look at the clock and I listen to KQED.
Merlin: That's all I do.
Merlin: Now, I'll tell you one thing about a little side note, quick side note.
Merlin: Whenever I turn on a radio, I hit the snooze button.
Merlin: So it'll turn off automatically in 90 minutes.
Merlin: The radio doesn't stay on.
Merlin: Always act like you're not going to be around.
Merlin: Never set anything down in a bathroom that you wouldn't want to be there overnight, right?
Merlin: This is the thing when you go to a public restroom.
Merlin: You see what I'm saying?
Merlin: It's all logic, real analytical.
Merlin: So, well, I like my dream machine.
Merlin: I like it fine.
Merlin: Never use it for an alarm.
Merlin: But it has these little flimsy dials on top because it's got two different alarms with two different options.
Merlin: Sure, it's a dream machine.
Merlin: It's literally a dream machine.
Merlin: And so I'm always batting at it to either hit the snooze to turn it on, hit the off to turn it off, and I'll accidentally hit a knob.
Merlin: You see where I'm going with this?
Merlin: Oh, you hit a knob.
Merlin: Gaffer's tape.
Merlin: I gaffer's taped the dials down so that they cannot move.
John: There you go.
Merlin: There you go.
John: It's just like your distortion box.
Merlin: Your tone's not swinging around.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: you gotta, you gotta put systems in place.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: But you know, this leads to this whole, this is a minefield.
Merlin: It's a minefield of rat holes, but like, you know, it's, it gets into stuff I've talked about a lot on other shows, but like the whole thing with kids and like, I just, I know that like when you take your shoes off, keep them together, keep the shoes together.
Merlin: Don't take off a shoe, walk for a while and then take it off on another floor of the house.
Merlin: You're never gonna, you're always going to be one shoe behind for the rest of your life.
Merlin: One shoe behind.
Merlin: That is no way to live.
Merlin: Shoes want to be in pairs.
John: Never leave a shoe behind.
Merlin: That's a Marine Corps thing.
Merlin: Semper Fi.
Merlin: They want to be together.
Merlin: You want them to be together.
Merlin: You're going to be so much happier, healthier, and well schaden.
Merlin: Schadenfreude.
Merlin: Futs in.
Merlin: Futs in happened.
Merlin: I realized that I'm saying those systems.
Merlin: Systems that could be systems where you're just talking and say, don't touch John's feet unless it's the afternoon or early evening.
Merlin: It's a very simple bit of logic to insert.
John: Here's what it is.
John: When you come home from work, you can immediately start touching my feet all the way until we go to bed.
John: Let's just call it that.
John: That's the third of the day.
Merlin: That's plenty of opportunity.
Merlin: If a foot-touching event is going to make your day, Hakuna Matata, do it.
Merlin: John will welcome it.
Merlin: I do not have that many things.
Merlin: You don't think so?
Merlin: I think you haven't lived with enough people to realize how many you have, probably.
Merlin: It may be true.
Merlin: I like the dishwasher loaded a certain way.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: How about the trash?
Merlin: Taking out the trash?
Merlin: No, taking out the trash, I'm very... You don't mind if somebody doesn't break down boxes?
John: I'm system agnostic there.
John: If you want to throw a bunch of boxes in the recycling, somebody down the chain is going to be mad about that.
Merlin: Boy, you're going to get a note from me.
John: You're going to get a note from me.
John: Somebody's going to leave a note.
Merlin: You understand?
Merlin: There's many cubic inches of empty space being taken up now in our limited amount...
Merlin: And you know what?
Merlin: Don't put styrofoam in there.
Merlin: It says right on the lid.
Merlin: It says right there, don't put styrofoam in there.
Merlin: Because you know what happens?
Merlin: They come there at 5 a.m., bang, bang, bang.
Merlin: They come to show up.
Merlin: You know what they do?
Merlin: They don't pick it up, and they leave you a note.
Merlin: And they say, you know what?
Merlin: Like it says in the lid, don't put styrofoam in here.
Merlin: Guess what?
Merlin: We've got a week now.
Merlin: We're starting, okay?
Merlin: Starting with a full recycling container.
Merlin: It's just so simple.
Merlin: It's so simple.
Merlin: Don't put things in the recycling that are not recycling.
John: Well, see, I don't share a recycling container with anybody, so everything that goes in there is from my own house.
John: Okay.
John: And I feel like I'm, you know, like the whole garbage system, it just happens as it happens, right?
John: Let's just let it ride, let it ride.
John: I mean, you know, obviously there are some things like don't leave an open jar of jam on the counter because you're going to attract ants.
John: That's how you get ants.
Merlin: Is that what you want?
Merlin: You want ants?
Merlin: That's how you get ants.
John: That's just an everybody thing, right?
Okay.
John: Because that is how you cut ants.
John: You know, don't come around and start adjusting how dark my toaster makes your toast.
John: Oh, sure.
John: Adjusting it back when you're done.
John: Right?
John: Like, I don't want to come in in the morning and throw some toast in there and, like, you're Bernie toast person.
John: Yeah, Bernie bro.
John: But those don't exist.
John: Don't exist.
Merlin: I was just reading about that today.
John: You know, put it in the middle.
John: Like, leave the toaster brownness in the middle unless you have your own toaster.
Merlin: Make a middle note and switch it back, you know?
John: Switch it back.
John: That's right.
John: I do want, if you do a load of wash and it has dress shirts in it, or collared shirts, let's call them, I don't put those in the dryer.
John: I hang them up.
Merlin: Okay.
John: Drip dry.
John: Drip dry.
Merlin: You're a big guy.
Merlin: You got long arms.
Merlin: You don't want those shrinking up on you.
Merlin: Don't want shrinky arms.
Merlin: How about somebody unloads the dishwasher, puts away the glasses and mugs, bottoms up or bottoms down?
Merlin: You got a thought?
Merlin: I got bottoms up.
Merlin: I do always.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: Yeah, bottoms up.
Merlin: Now, what about the dander?
Merlin: Tops down.
Merlin: Okay, wait a minute.
Merlin: I do open part at the top, bottom down.
John: No, I do open part at the bottom.
Merlin: Like a bar, like they're dripping dry on a bar.
John: That's right.
Merlin: Do you worry about dander on the contact paper?
John: No, no.
John: I mean, do you worry about silverfish getting in and making a nest inside your coffee cup?
John: Have we talked about this?
John: No.
John: Did a silverfish get in your coffee cup?
Merlin: No, it feels familiar.
Merlin: Getting deja vu.
Merlin: Plus, you've got spiders, right?
Merlin: For you, this makes a lot more sense.
Merlin: Well, but in the Northwest, we don't have cup spiders.
Merlin: Oh, you don't have cup spiders.
John: No, that's a different part of the country.
Merlin: They're one of those British indie pop bands from the mid-2000s.
Merlin: Cup spiders.
Merlin: Cup spiders.
John: You know what I think it is?
John: I learned primarily, when I was growing up at home, my mom had so many systems.
John: Everything had a fucking system.
John: She likes things a certain way.
John: Oh, my God.
John: And if you did things, if you did put the dishes away, she would come in and redo it.
John: I kind of get that.
John: Well, sure, but I learned at a young age, don't bother doing anything.
John: And that was not the message she was trying to send.
John: Oh, I see.
John: She was trying to teach me like how to do things her way or how to do things her way.
John: Right.
John: But what it meant was if I did, if I put something, and the thing is I had what she got for me when I was a kid was little bins, little, um, what would have been little plastic buckets that you would wash dishes in or something.
John: You remember those little
John: Like you put it in a sink?
Merlin: Yeah, like a sink bucket.
Merlin: Like a square, six-inch, eight-inch deep pan that you fill with water.
John: Right.
John: Yeah.
John: She got me, let's say, eight of those, all in orange rubberized plastic.
John: Orange was my favorite color.
John: And they fit on bookshelves in my room.
John: I see where this is going.
John: And she was like, here's how you organize your toys.
John: And she put all the Legos in one.
John: She put all the Hot Wheels in one.
John: She put all the G.I.
John: Joes in one.
John: She put all the Tinker toys in one, you know, like this.
John: And so I would start playing.
John: And I was a mixed toys kid.
John: I would build a Lego fort, and then the Hot Wheel cars would be interacting with it.
John: That's a terrific style of play.
John: They'd drive up to the Lego fort, and then there would be a Tinker Toy bridge over to a G.I.
John: Joe, this and so forth.
John: And so she would come in and say, clean up your room.
John: And I would put these toys together into a bin,
John: Because they were related at this point.
John: I was in the midst of a story, and they were all going in the bin because these Legos and these G.I.
John: Joes right now were related to one another.
John: And she would come in, and it would drive her bananas because this bin is labeled Legos.
John: Oh, sure.
Merlin: I get it.
John: Why are the G.I.
John: Joes in it?
John: And so she would...
John: She would split it all up.
John: She would redo it.
John: She would break everything back down to first principles.
John: And I was like, but I was in the middle of an unfinished story that I was going to come back to.
John: And maybe for two months, the GI Joes would be in the Lego bin.
John: But it's, you know, like I do have a system.
John: But it and so eventually I was just like, you know what?
John: Putting them away is the same as just leaving them out for you to put away because it's not like it's double work.
John: Like I do the work and then you redo it.
John: So why not?
John: Why don't I just pretend that I that I didn't hear you?
John: And that really set me in life.
John: That was a set me on a course for the rest of my life.
John: Right.
John: Why don't I just pretend that I didn't hear you and then you can do it however you want.
John: Yeah.
John: I mean, that probably kind of works, you know.
John: But but so I didn't really ever put away dishes at home.
John: It wasn't my job was to mow the lawn and to vacuum the house.
John: But like dishwasher stuff.
John: It was just like, forget it, right?
John: There were so many systems around the dishwasher that I just never even looked at it.
John: So I learned to put away dishes when I started working in bars.
John: That's exactly what had happened.
John: The first time I really was like,
John: the dishwasher which is how i started at every bar job i ever had like you're hired here's your apron there's the dishwasher figure out how it works it's called a santa core or whatever whatever santa clore oh yeah yeah big thing where it was like a little house for your dishes yeah you put the dishes in you shut the metal door and that's terrific but you have to load up the rack and then you have to go put the dishes away
John: So that's where I really learned to put dishes.
John: And I still, I put dishes away like I'm working in a bar.
Merlin: That makes sense.
John: I never would have thought of that.
Merlin: What about storing socks?
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: You've done a load of laundry.
Merlin: You've got a bunch of socks.
Merlin: I'm not even going to tell you what I think the options are.
Merlin: I could think of at least three options.
Merlin: You tell me, when you're putting your socks away after they have been laundered, do you put them away a certain way?
Merlin: And is it important that they be that way?
John: Well, yes.
John: Socks are, I mean, the way you do it is you take, you find the matching pair, you line them up heels together, right?
John: Like side to side.
John: You're not just throwing two socks at each other.
John: But I'm not somebody that walks around with a pocket full of bills or a wallet full of bills where they're not faced.
John: You've got to face your fucking bills.
Merlin: Oh, my goodness.
Merlin: When I see people that don't do that, I have a two compartment.
Merlin: As you know, I have a taxi driver wallet with two compartments.
Merlin: I keep 20s in one and everything of smaller denomination in the other.
Merlin: They are in order by denomination and they're all faced and they're going to go in the same direction on every axis.
Merlin: Anything less than that is to live a life of total chaos.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: For two hours in Vegas, that's okay.
Merlin: If you're at a theme park, you can live with it, maybe.
Merlin: It's not unusual if you're doing some shopping, you're going somewhere, you get a pocket full of receipts, you get a pocket full of ones and fives, usually.
Merlin: You say always, stop what you're doing, get it right the first time.
John: Yes.
John: If I am part of a heist and someone hands me an armful of bills...
John: like a bushel of them at the very first moment I will stop and face them.
Merlin: If you found a gym bag in a tree, you take it down.
Merlin: Number one, get them in order.
John: Well, I'd get, I'd get out of there.
John: I'd get out of the hasty retreat, be the hasty retreat.
John: And then when I could look around and there was, and I was safe when I was, when I had found a dark alley and was safe, I thought from, you know, I'm not never safe from the Batman, but safe.
John: I would sit and start facing those bills.
John: And, you know, if I have hundreds and fifties, those go on the 20 side.
John: And the tens, fives, and ones are... When's the last time you had a 50?
John: I'd carry fifties.
John: Do they still have those?
John: Yeah, sure.
John: You get fifties.
John: In my line of work, you deal with a lot of cash.
John: But so, yes, I mean, right.
John: Your wallet has got you got to be really on top of your wallet or your life will go off the rails.
John: And I see people all the time.
John: They're just like, oh, how much is it?
John: And they're just it's just like a.
John: A wad of cash, but not a wad like a money clip wad.
Merlin: Just in passing, this is another bulwark against madness.
Merlin: This, to me, would be like keeping salad forks in the garage and dinner forks in the attic, except for when you just felt like putting it somewhere else.
Merlin: No way to live.
John: I walked into an argument in the marriage of Jonathan Colton and his wife, Christine Connor, one time.
John: And this happens sometimes when you're close friends with people.
John: You step into a marriage argument.
John: An ongoing situation.
John: An ongoing situation.
John: And it was the question.
John: I think a lot of married couples deal with this.
John: Do you put the silverware in?
John: Do you put the forks in the dishwasher, tines up or tines down?
John: And there were two very strong...
John: Feelings about it.
John: And I think also it was times up or times down.
John: And do you organize the silverware by type in the dishwasher buckets or do they just all go in?
John: And there was definitely strong feelings about all the forks should go together in one thing.
John: That way, when it's time to unload the dishwasher, you just grab them all and they're together.
John: Can I guess which is which?
John: You know what?
John: I don't want to get any more in their marriage than I already am.
John: Yeah, it's an ongoing situation.
John: But there was a lot, you know, I had to come back.
John: The first time I looked at my own dishwasher after that, I stood and stared.
John: I was like, what are, you know, these are things I've never had, because I'm not married, I've never had to argue.
Merlin: Well, as they say on the internet, you can't unsee it.
Merlin: Like once you're aware of that, of that special wisdom, you feel somewhat, you know, lacking, you know, like now for me, a lot of this, now here's another one.
Merlin: It's like, we've got one of those, uh, our, our cutlery holder in the drawer has four, uh, receptacles for your, your classic hand utensils.
Merlin: Spork spoons and other.
Merlin: Exactly.
Merlin: So I struggle with that because sometimes I think the teaspoons should be separate.
Merlin: Teaspoons should be separate.
Yeah.
Merlin: It means different things.
Merlin: I sometimes think about splitting up spoons.
Merlin: I sometimes think about splitting up forks.
Merlin: You're talking about teaspoons or tablespoons?
Merlin: Yeah, but then also I sometimes think about breaking up the knives.
Merlin: Like you get a steak knife over here.
Merlin: But that one I do not have a strong opinion on.
Merlin: My main thing is usability.
Merlin: Like, I think.
Merlin: I think.
Merlin: Now, if you ask somebody else in my house, they'd have a million ways that I'm really screwy.
Merlin: But one of mine is I always want the colander to be right here.
Merlin: I always want the two-cup measuring cup to be there.
Merlin: These are things that I use almost every day.
Merlin: Because, you know, as a kid, you do a lot of colander work, as you probably know.
Merlin: Yes, of course.
Merlin: Colander work is one of the most important facets of having a single-digit child.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: Don't put it in nesting Matryoshka bowls.
Merlin: Don't do that.
Merlin: You know what I'm talking about?
Merlin: There are people who think that storing things should be always like a nested situation.
Merlin: These are bowls of concentric sizes.
Merlin: Let's stack them inside of each other.
Merlin: What if I want to get the bowl that's sucking from the bottom?
Merlin: What if that's one of my top tier maintenance players?
Merlin: Yeah, I get you.
Merlin: Don't put the colander in there.
Merlin: I need the colander.
Merlin: I do a lot of colander work, especially in the afternoons when you're getting your feet touched.
John: Have you considered getting a colander just for the child?
John: A bespoke daughter colander.
John: A daughter colander for her colander needs.
John: Oh.
John: It isn't the kitchen colander.
John: It's the daughter colander.
Merlin: We have a little screeny one that we use for orzo because the orzo would slip through the regular colander.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: I had not thought about this.
Merlin: We need to really pare down.
Merlin: There's a lot of stacking going on right now.
Merlin: You don't need more colanders is what you're saying.
Merlin: You know, I just got a new pan that I really like.
Merlin: Um...
Merlin: Listen to the pen.
Merlin: Touch the pen.
Merlin: Only English people can fly.
Merlin: It comes up so much.
Merlin: I love the show so much.
Merlin: Don't miss.
Merlin: socks so you've taken your socks out of the dryer you you find the here's the one thing i want to mention just a point of information for our listeners it's my belief it's my belief on information that you are a sock man you have many kinds of socks you have you i'm a gold toe man all i got is white gold toe socks and when the ones when some of them get grody i throw those out and they're all mixed up i won't say anything more about myself but i think for our listeners purposes they should know and you tell me you got a lot of socks
John: You and I talked about gold toes many years ago.
John: When we first met, 15 years ago, we were talking about gold toes because I was wearing at the time some navy blue gold toes.
John: I think I gifted you with gold toes at one point.
John: You did.
John: You did.
John: My mom is also kind of like you, one of these sock utilitarians, trying to solve the problem of socks by getting a kind of sock.
John: Yes.
John: And she's done that to me several times over the course of the years.
John: Like, here are the socks.
John: They're the only socks we'll ever need again.
John: And I'm like, well, I don't know about that, Mom.
John: I did not experience, because the thing is, if a sock goes missing, I don't experience that as a major, that doesn't befuddle me.
John: Sock went missing.
John: It'll turn up, is what I say.
Merlin: It's like losing Tupperware.
Merlin: It's kind of, you don't want to do it, but it's not the end of your week.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: I mean, you can always get more.
Merlin: That's right.
John: You can always get more socks.
John: But for me, socks are...
John: Ah, they're fun.
John: I like socks.
John: And socks are an easy thing to buy as a memento.
John: Here I am in London today.
John: I don't want to get a little double-decker bus set of salt shakers.
John: I don't want to get a thing that says, I was in London today.
John: But look at that, a little pair of socks.
John: I'll buy some socks.
John: And then from then on, you think...
John: Oh, those are the socks that I bought that day in London.
John: You're creating memories.
John: Just little things like that.
John: Like, I got you some socks.
John: Everybody always wants socks.
John: And every pair of socks that I pull out of the sock drawer, I can remember where they came from.
Merlin: Of course you can.
John: Right?
Merlin: Mine all came from Amazon.
Yeah.
John: These are the socks from that time I went to the Natural History Museum and I decided that what I needed was socks.
John: You know, and they're cheap and it's just a little thing.
John: And then every day you walk around and it's like, oh, these socks have owls on them.
John: I got them at the place.
John: I had to get them at the Owl Natural History Museum.
John: But socks have to be paired together.
John: And then the top's folded down so that they are held together.
Merlin: So just to be clear, though, you're not making a ball.
Merlin: You're making a small but sturdy cuff.
John: A cuff.
John: That's right.
Merlin: You take an average-sized sock, like a men's dress sock.
Merlin: How long is your cuff?
John: Oh, I would say never more than a third of the sock.
John: Somewhere between a quarter and a third of the length of the sock.
John: See, because I come from ballers.
John: Well, and I know, and balls are a great idea.
John: Stretchy, stretches them out.
John: Seen it work, but it does feel stretchy, and it feels like...
John: Then it's a puzzle you have to unwrap every time.
John: My family always rolled and balled.
John: Yeah.
John: Nope.
John: We are, you know, I think I got it from, obviously it's a family thing.
John: Yep.
John: But I got mine, like, make a cuff, fold them over.
John: And then you look in, and the thing about them when they're cuffed is that you can see if, you can pull a pair out and see if there's any
Merlin: toe or heel wear without having to make a decision right then whether or not you're going to throw them away it's like having a glass lid on your pot just look right in you look right in you don't need to lift anything yeah you look right see this is it bulwarks bulwarks against madness i approve this and then when you put them in are they haphazard are they are they stacked neatly are you are you canoling what do you when you put them in there do you can all
John: That's a very good question.
John: There are so many different ways that I could organize my socks.
John: I could organize them by color.
John: I could organize them by size.
John: This is why you need a grant.
John: Wouldn't that be nice?
John: So I do not approve of ankle socks.
John: I just don't.
John: I don't know why I have such a strong feeling about ankle socks, but I just don't approve of them.
John: I don't want them in my house.
John: I don't want them in my garden.
Merlin: If you're wearing short pants and Stan Smiths, what kind of sock are you going to deploy?
John: No sock.
Merlin: No sock?
Merlin: You don't even do like a little grabby inside the shoe sock?
Merlin: I don't want those.
Merlin: I think I don't approve of them.
John: Don't approve of them.
John: If you want the no sock look, wear no socks.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: But you also probably rotate your shoes often enough that that doesn't become a problem.
Okay.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: I don't wear the same shoes every day.
Merlin: Okay.
John: No, no, you wear them one time and then you switch them out.
John: So like in the summer, for instance, I have summer shoes like we all do, but I have enough of a selection of summer shoes that, you know, if one of them goes in the lake, they can sit on the porch and they're not going to, you know, my progress isn't going to be impeded.
John: Okay.
John: But yeah, like no socks was a thing that I,
John: that I did as a kid and I did it into adulthood and I still do it and ankle socks just seem like a like a cheat like an unfair it's unfair it's like a diaper it's like a foot diaper like a finger cot for your foot yeah don't wear colored socks with short pants it's definitely a thing but I will wear a white athletic sock I think I was wearing a white athletic sock one time at the Chateau Marmont when Jesse Thorne crashed our party and he gave me some hell about it
John: I was wearing a white sock because I was wearing a suit.
John: And I said, yeah, I said, show me your socks, fancy guy.
John: And he lifted up his pants and there were all kinds of bunch of hoes in there or something, you know, like it was just suit suit stockings.
John: And I said, Jesse, and this was the beginning of this whole, like, can you climb a fence in that outfit?
John: Yeah, right.
John: Because I climb a fence in this outfit.
John: So you just mind your own beeswax over there.
John: Mind your bees and cheese, Jesse Thorne.
John: That's right.
Merlin: Give me hell about clothes.
John: Yeah.
John: The Rottweilers are going to tear you apart, my friend.
Merlin: You...
Merlin: strike me as somebody who has a large uh well large it's reasonably sized but you have a big wardrobe i don't think of you as much of a graphic t t-shirt wearer let me ask you this just in general answer however you want how many t-shirts of whatever variety do you have in regular rotation oh dear
Merlin: Do you wear, first of all, let's get to the obvious, do you wear a white, do you wear a t-shirt underneath what you call a long-sleeved shirt or a dress shirt?
John: Only when I anticipate the prospect of perspiration being an issue in whether or not I look gross or not.
Merlin: Okay, so you don't... I wear a t-shirt under almost everything.
Merlin: It might be a band shirt, it might be a podcast shirt, it might be a Mack Weldon fancy white shirt, but I always deploy a t-shirt as my bottom layer, always.
John: And that is not the case for me.
John: Okay.
Okay.
John: I will just put a button-down shirt on right over my natural self.
John: No socks, no undershirt.
John: No socks, no undershirt.
John: But if I'm wearing a tie, I'm going to be wearing a jacket, and I have a shirt on, and it's going to be a situation where I might...
John: My lower back might get damp.
John: If I take the jacket off, you'll be able to see that I have perspired.
John: I will wear a T-shirt as a bulwark, as you say.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: Okay.
John: I have a lot of – so the reason I started buying socks as souvenirs is that I went through, as we all do in rock and roll, many, many years of T-shirts as souvenirs.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: And a thousand T-shirts from the band Fiverr and Creeper Lagoon and, you know, the Tennessee Valley Authority or whatever, you know, just T-shirts everywhere that are very sentimental over time because it's like we did a tour with Fiverr in 2001 and I'm never going to throw that T-shirt away.
Yeah.
John: I still wear the Fiverr T-shirt all the time.
Merlin: Of all the purges that we have done, the one that was easily the most difficult was getting rid of the T-shirts, because I got T-shirts from the mid-'80s.
Merlin: But my favorite was this Dump Truck Concert T-shirt from maybe 1989, and it was so disgusting.
Merlin: Just even knowing that it was in the closet upset my wife.
Merlin: We're talking pit stains, buddy?
Merlin: Whew!
Merlin: I can put a pit stand on something.
Merlin: I think I'm very acrid.
Merlin: I know I seem probably very base, but I do something where it gets orange and hard and a little permanently moist, like a wax buildup.
Merlin: Oh, boy.
Merlin: And it had holes in it, but it was a dump truck shirt.
Merlin: It was from the Big Time Bad Time Tour.
Merlin: Remember Big Time Records?
Merlin: Remember them?
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: They were hard on some artists.
Merlin: Big time, bad time.
Merlin: Big time, bad time tour.
Merlin: Yeah, that was hard.
Merlin: Replacement shirts.
Merlin: Three replacement shirts.
Merlin: Like, there's all these things.
Merlin: But I was like, you know what?
Merlin: Of all the purge that I do, this is the most significant.
Merlin: Because this is where I moved up past the point of pain.
Merlin: Like, I'm really genuinely going to miss my Archers of Loaf shirt.
Merlin: And I do.
Merlin: I still do.
Merlin: It's been 10 years.
Merlin: I mean, we did this one big purge a couple years before our daughter was born.
Merlin: Huge purge.
Merlin: And the two difficult things were getting rid of the T-shirts.
Merlin: And then I think I told you this one.
Merlin: This breaks my heart still.
Merlin: We had idiotically put a bunch of our bags to store.
Merlin: into a contractor bag and we accidentally threw it away so oh yeah no we're talking like vintage Timbuktu bags from the 90s like probably 15 Timbuktu bags you know and you know me and bags right yep you love bags we realized that
Merlin: We scurried a little bit to look around.
Merlin: I was like, no, no, no, it's gone.
Merlin: Let it go.
Merlin: Leave it.
Merlin: Leave it.
Merlin: Leave it.
Merlin: But the shirts, I missed the shirts.
John: You know what Ben Gibbard did?
John: No.
John: He solved this problem.
John: He took all of his old band t-shirts from a thousand bands, and he gave them all to his mom.
John: Did she make a quilt?
John: She made a quilt.
Merlin: I thought I should have done that.
John: I should have done it.
John: She made a rock band quilt, and she takes the logo out of the t-shirt.
John: She backs it.
John: with some other fabric so it so it's you know stable and thick and then she made like a piano cover
John: You know, like not just quilts, but like things that you, you know, like covers for things.
John: Wow.
John: Like, you know, amp cover or whatever made out of old.
Merlin: Oh, that's I get it.
Merlin: I see what you're saying.
Merlin: Like a slip case for your amp or something.
Merlin: Like a slip case.
Merlin: Right.
John: That is so sexy.
John: Old band t-shirts.
John: It's great.
John: It's wonderful.
John: Um, it's like, what can you say about it?
John: It's, it's very crafty.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Maybe we should get out.
Merlin: Maybe we should get out of the closet.
Merlin: We could go, we could go to the bathroom.
Merlin: We could go to the garage.
John: I wish I, my bathroom and my garage are, are both windows on my soul.
John: And I don't want people looking in there.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: I feel the same way.
Merlin: I can't even have anyone over.
Merlin: Hmm.
John: I have a t-shirt that I got in the mid-80s, late 80s, mid to late 80s.
John: A girl gave me a t-shirt that had a cup of coffee on the front.
John: And the coffee, it was like a wood cut.
John: It was just a white t-shirt.
John: Then there was just a cup of coffee.
John: And there were three steam lines coming off the top of the coffee and then above it written in a kind of stylized font that maybe ended up being the font that they used on the TV show Friends.
John: You know, kind of like a hand-drawn font.
John: It said regular.
Oh.
Merlin: See, I was hoping it was going to say coffee, but I like regular even better.
Merlin: Regular.
Merlin: Regular.
Merlin: Oh, that's good.
Merlin: That is pregnant.
Merlin: Prognats, as the Germans say.
Merlin: Pregnant with meaning.
Merlin: Prognats.
Merlin: Prognats.
John: And so, at the time, a lot of our listeners are not going to be able to fathom this, but at the time in 1988, to wear a t-shirt that had a cup of coffee on it and it said regular was pretty fucking out there.
John: That's pretty out there.
John: That was really, really alternative to
John: And I was pretty proud of how alternative it was because it communicated to people that I was nobody's, you know, that I was not some spring chicken, you know?
Merlin: It's not your first day.
John: Right.
John: Like, I'm not new.
Merlin: Because you've got a shirt with a coffee cup on it that says regular.
John: It says regular.
John: You figure it out.
John: So I pulled that T-shirt out when I needed to...
John: When I needed to, you know, come correct.
John: When I needed to enter a scene.
Merlin: I totally had those shirts.
Merlin: That's why if you look at photos of the birth of my daughter around that morning, I'm wearing my favorite shirt at the time, my silkworm shirt.
Merlin: Because I knew I had to bring my A-game.
John: Yeah, I was wearing a shirt when my daughter was born that at the time was just like whatever shirt I had on.
John: And now the shirt has tremendous significance to me.
John: But it's like not one of my favorite shirts.
John: I don't hate it.
John: It's a fine shirt.
John: But it would have been a shirt that got purged at somewhere along the line if it hadn't been imbued with all this hyper significance.
John: Yeah.
John: Now it just sits on a hanger and I look at it and I go, well, I can't wear that shirt, but I also can't give it away.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: I think you get a pass on that one.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I did get rid of that Silkworm shirt, though.
Merlin: really i know i know but see this is when you get to that point and so like now i'm really trying to i'm not a minimalist i'm not damn benjamin but i try really hard to like keep things kind of organized like these are the white t-shirts and i and i call those i will go through and i will call the white t-shirts if i see pit stains gotta go right i've got the uh like the podcast shirts
Merlin: The Squarespace shirts, I've got, like, four Squarespace shirts.
Merlin: Those are great, like, go-to daily shirts.
Merlin: I have four Fantastic Four shirts.
Merlin: Those are all deployed in their own little special containers.
Merlin: And then I've got the long-sleeved T-shirts.
Merlin: These are the critical part of my wardrobe.
Merlin: Oh, long-sleeved T's are very tricky to pull off, Merlin.
Merlin: You know, Mack Weldon, they make a really good... It's costly, but they make a very good...
Merlin: See, for me, it's not about the underpants of Mack Weldon.
Merlin: They're not a sponsor of this episode.
Merlin: They should be.
Merlin: I see.
Merlin: I was really pleasantly surprised by their clothes.
Merlin: I'm wearing one of their French Terry hoodies as we speak.
Merlin: Oh, French Terry hoodies.
Merlin: French Terry hoodies.
John: You know, it's funny because...
John: It used to be back in the 70s and 80s that the ladies got all of the like thin, soft, really appealing little hoodies.
John: And the boys had all these super thick, chunky hoodies, chunky hoodies.
Merlin: That's how I feel when I wear my extra large Roderick on the line hoodie.
Merlin: It's like wearing a blanket.
John: Yeah, it's a big blanket hoodie, and that was all the hoodies that I ever had.
John: But then when I started spending a lot of time in San Francisco, and I started thrifting in San Francisco, and let me just say that I know that sounds like it wouldn't be that good, and it often isn't, but every once in a while, you do stumble on a thing.
John: I came into possession of a couple of
John: Extra large sized, but thin, soft, you know, like, like Gameline little, um, hoodies that were just like, just like t-shirts basically, except they were hoodies.
John: And I started wearing them around and then all of my lady friends would see them from across the room and be like, where did you get that hoodie?
John: Say, oh, you know, I found it.
John: Why?
John: And they're like, we can't find hoodies like that anymore for ladies.
John: Now the guys have all the soft hoodies.
John: And the lady hoodies are, I don't know, they're like into some, it's not a thing or something.
John: I don't know what it is.
John: But I have been the envy of several of my lady friends because of my collection now of very soft, small hoodies.
John: Not small, but like thin.
John: No, I know what you mean.
Merlin: Like a lightweight, non-bulky material.
Merlin: A hoodie that you could wear under something.
Oh.
Merlin: Oh, no, that's a tough call.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: I do know.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: It's almost like it's like an advanced T-shirt material.
Merlin: Yeah, a hoodie that you put on under a jacket, like under a blazer.
Merlin: Now I know.
Merlin: That could be like an OP shirt kind of thing.
Merlin: Right, right.
Merlin: I think OP made sure it's like that.
Merlin: They're kind of like a long sleeve T-shirt with a hood.
John: Well, okay, so now, okay, so I can't go there because that's to Dr. Zogg's sex wax, you know?
John: But a long sleeve T-shirt is a really tricky game because I have several.
John: And the long sleeve T-shirts that I that I get away with are one of them is from Portland's like Japanese garden.
John: One of them is a not a surf long sleeve T-shirt, which I never would have thought worked, but it did.
John: One of them is from the U.S.
John: Arctic National Research Council.
John: One of them is from like Homer, Alaska.
John: And there's just a few of them that I can pass because the danger of a long sleeve T-shirt is it's one thing.
John: It's like two inches of fabric away from a mock turtle.
Merlin: You're right.
Merlin: You're right.
Merlin: And sometimes you get a crew that's a little tight.
Merlin: If you're a little tight in the crew, it gets it gets into like you look like the rock.
John: Yes, you do look like the rock.
John: And it's really tricky.
John: You know, you can't just say because there was a there was a time one of my very first encounters with the I have solved the clothing problem.
John: was in 1987, my friend Bob Wood came back to the dorms, and Bob said, you guys, Eddie Bauer in downtown Spokane is having a big sale, and they have these shirts.
John: And he held one up, and it was a long sleeve, but it was made out of this miracle fabric.
John: It was 100% cotton, right?
John: But at the time, all we wanted was clothes that were really beefy.
John: Beefy was our watchword.
John: Is that beefy?
John: Yes, it's beefy.
John: All right.
John: That's the beef test.
John: It's beefy.
John: And this was a thing where it was like, this shirt was very beefy.
John: And he said, they're having a sale on these.
John: They're like $9 each, and they have them in every conceivable color.
John: And so, I mean, we're in college.
John: It's not a group of guys that you're typically going to think like, let's go to the mall.
John: But we all jumped on our mountain bikes, and we rode to Eddie Bauer.
John: They were having a massive sale.
John: And this was Eddie Bauer before they became terrible.
John: This was Eddie Bauer back when there were still canoes in the store.
John: And there on the sale rack, there was an entire wall.
John: I remember it like it's yesterday, an entire wall, two whole racks, top and bottom.
John: And there were two kinds of shirts.
John: There were mock turtlenecks and there were regular crew necks.
John: all made out of the same beef and material, and seriously, in every color.
John: White, cream, pink, orange, green, blue, you know, like plum.
John: And they were all 80s colors.
John: And we all, like our minds were blown, and we all felt like, for like, I think they were even cheaper than $9.
John: They were so cheap, we just felt like,
John: For a $50 investment, I will never have to think about clothes again.
John: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: You know, we had that libertarian moment of just like, I mean, there's points where that's very, very appealing.
John: And I bought eight shirts.
John: And I got mock turtles mixed in.
John: I got like three mock turtles and five crewnecks.
John: Because at the time, mock turtles seemed like they also solved a problem.
John: It was like a turtleneck, but without all the extra... You're talking in the 90s?
Merlin: This is 87.
Merlin: Because I remember in the early 90s, in the barn jacket era, there was a little bit of a vogue for a slight mock turtleneck on a fella.
Yeah.
John: Well, I mean, if you think about the early, if you look at the opening sequence of Friends, not to talk about Friends two times in a row, but I think Joey is wearing Mock Turtle necks a lot of the time.
John: Joey really liked a Mock Turtle.
John: When I first moved to Seattle, there was a punk band called Mock Turtle, but they spelt it M-A-C-H, Mock Turtle.
John: As in Mick Turtle.
John: As in, well, like, or like Mach 1, Mach 2.
John: Oh, I get it.
John: That's good.
John: Okay, that's good.
John: And their logo was a turtle with, like, a jet engine coming out of its butt or something.
John: They were a punk band.
John: Sure.
John: But I did have these Mach turtles.
John: And wore them until about 91 when it when it obviously then had become it was no it no longer felt like a adventure sports solution to a problem.
John: It felt like the beginning of a whole new problem that it was a Joey problem now.
John: And so I had my mom take the mock turtle part off.
Merlin: You're kidding me.
John: No, just so regular collar.
John: Just take the turtle part off.
John: That's so weird.
John: I swear to you, I still have three of those eight shirts.
John: Okay.
John: And they are shredded.
Merlin: They are shredded.
Merlin: It's hard to let go when you finally find something that's what you really want.
Merlin: It's so hard to let go.
John: We wore those shirts with such pride we had solved every problem We had the shirt
Merlin: You just can't get those days back.
Merlin: I have those kinds of internal moral panics when I finally find a pair of shoes that I like.
Merlin: This was a huge deal in the 80s.
Merlin: If you found a pair of shoes that you would like and it was a name-brand shoe, there's a pretty good chance that within the next year, it would be really different or even gone.
Merlin: Nike made this kind of shoe when I was in...
Merlin: It was my first, probably, or maybe second pair of Nikes, the Nike Dynasty.
Merlin: Do you remember that?
John: No, tell me more.
Merlin: In the early 80s?
Merlin: Let me see if I can find it for you.
John: The Dynasty.
John: So this is the Red Swoop era.
Merlin: No, before that.
John: This is before that.
John: Really?
Merlin: And these were so dope.
Merlin: See now, of course, they all look like all those other shoes now.
Merlin: Like all those neon, like thin.
Merlin: Oh, look at this.
Merlin: Look at this.
Merlin: Can I text this to you?
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: Oh my gosh.
John: Don't make me look it up myself.
John: I'm waiting.
John: I'm standing here with a catcher's mitt waiting for this text.
John: Come on.
John: There it is.
John: Clicking on it.
John: Oh, what a shoe.
Merlin: What a shoe.
Merlin: Wait till you see the Oxfords.
Merlin: I had two pairs of these.
Merlin: Oh, I love that.
Merlin: I love that fabric.
Merlin: I know, the mesh.
Merlin: Mesh.
Merlin: These are terrific.
Merlin: I was going to use a picture of the rock for show art this week.
Merlin: Totally putting in the dynasties.
Merlin: Oh, man.
Merlin: Show me the Oxfords.
Merlin: Yeah, it should come in a second.
Merlin: Look at that.
Merlin: Oh, with that orange swoosh on the tongue.
John: I'm having a strange flashback.
John: Yeah, what?
John: Well, I'd never had these because these would have been way, way, way too cool.
John: They were like $40.
John: Yeah, my mom would not have sprung for these, but I am having a flashback of envying these.
John: So these look like
Merlin: Stan Smith's.
Merlin: They got these relatively fat laces.
Merlin: They're like a mesh with suede around the toe and the heel, blue on the inside, and a blue swoosh.
Merlin: And I would wear these every day today if they made these.
Merlin: How do we get these?
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: You probably got to go on eBay.
John: No, but I don't want some old ones.
John: How do we get them remade?
Merlin: Now, is this a good use of Kickstarter?
Merlin: Could we just say, start giving us money so that Nike will make these?
Merlin: Is that how that works?
Merlin: I think so.
Merlin: I think that's how it works.
Merlin: We're powerful people in the world.
John: We could get Nike to start remaking a shoe if we just did a Kickstarter.
Merlin: I have no reason to think that it wouldn't work.
Merlin: But those are pretty sharp, especially when they're new.
Merlin: They're not usually quite this beat up, but they're not totally white exactly.
Merlin: Yeah.
Huh.
John: I love that combination of like mesh and suede.
Merlin: Yeah, within the rubber on the bottom.
Merlin: It's a great look.
Merlin: This episode has been a lot about feet.
John: Well, you know, my feet have held up really well.
John: Considering?
John: Considering all the work that I've put on them.
John: Walking across Europe, for example.
John: Oh, and just like I'm a walker, I'm heavy, and my feet have just never let me down.
John: You don't have to do a certain amount of maintenance on them.
John: One of the toes curves under.
John: But I can't imagine having problems with your feet.
John: It would be so...
John: It would be so much.
Merlin: It's the base of the column.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: Like knees are the other one, but feet for sure.
Merlin: Like, oh, man, you don't want to mess those up.
John: So my knees are terrible.
John: They're absolutely ruined.
John: Because of all the ball you played?
John: You know, well, the skiing didn't help.
John: But also I think it's one of those things where there's certain parts of your body that are just weak from the start.
John: And I always felt it was my knees and my lungs were the two things in my body that just from the beginning I could tell were like, eh, they're just not up to capacity.
John: So all the damage has been borne by my knees, but my feet are solid.
John: Take your lucky stars, am I right?
John: I do, I do.
John: I think about somebody that had pain in their feet and I just have tremendous sympathy because foot pain is no good.
John: Like, fucked up knees just means that now I'm starting to walk like my dad.
John: When I go up and down the stairs, it starts to be like a...
John: It starts to be a thing.
John: It's like, yeah, just, I'm going upstairs.
John: Okay, here I go.
Merlin: Is there a cracking noise?
John: Crack, crack.
John: Yeah, there's, I mean, I'm starting to walk like the penguin from the, you know, from Burgess Meredith, the penguin.
John: Because my knees.
John: And one day I'm sure that I'll have, there'll be some technology where I have knee replacement surgery, but you're never the same.
John: Probably not in your lifetime, but yeah, someday.
John: You're never the same.
Merlin: No.
No.
John: And so, yeah, I'm starting to just like, uh, I, because the thing was, I have one bad knee.
John: So I favored the other one for so long that now I've ruined it too.
Merlin: You know, you don't get that many shots with these things.
Merlin: You know, once it's depleted, like sometimes when my daughter and I are wrestling, she'll grab my thumb and I'm worried she's going to break my thumb.
Merlin: And I'm like, Hey, I got two of those.
Merlin: If I'm lucky for the rest of my life, I don't want to be down to one thumb.
Merlin: Do not break my thumb.
Merlin: No, don't break my thumb.
Merlin: I admire the move.
Merlin: Yeah, but I say that all the time.
Merlin: Please don't break my thumb.
Merlin: Please don't break my thumb.
Merlin: Don't touch my feet.
John: Don't touch my feet in the morning.
John: I start to, I mean, I'm not a, it turns out, this is a weird thing that I've just recently realized, is that it turns out that I'm actually pretty optimistic.
John: You're finding all kinds of things, aren't you?
John: Yeah.
John: I would never have thought of myself as an optimist because it didn't go along with being cynical, which I also was.
John: But it turns out they're completely different.
John: And when I wake up in the morning, I just assume everything's going to be fine.
John: And that optimism also means that I have never gone through that aspect of aging where you're like, what's going to break next?
John: I'm not worried about cancer.
John: I don't sit around and I don't scheme in such a way that I'm like, I think my liver is going wrong.
Merlin: You don't feel that hypervigilance about I better watch out and start, because if I can guess what it is, it'll be easier to deal with.
Merlin: You're not consumed by that.
John: I'm not.
John: But I am at that point in life where I do realize that something's going to kill me.
John: Right?
John: I mean, theoretically.
John: It's going to be something.
Merlin: You could be the first one, you know.
John: I don't think so.
John: It's going to be Peter Thiel.
John: I think the first person that, yeah, it's going to be Peter Thiel because he's going to keep using, like, virgin blood.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Until they run out of virgins.
John: Until they run out, right?
John: But no, I'm not going to live forever.
John: Something's going to get me.
John: Now, what is it?
Merlin: Yeah, I know.
John: You know, is it going to be enemy fire?
John: Probably not.
Yeah.
John: So something right.
John: And and so just even that idea, then you start doing those assessments.
John: We walk out of the door and you're like, everything seems to be working fine.
John: But that's what they all say.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: Everything's fine until it's not right.
Merlin: You can really drive yourself crazy with that stuff, though.
John: Yeah.
John: I don't want to go crazy.
John: That's another way to go.
John: See, that's how they get you.
John: Yeah, I don't want to drive myself crazy thinking about it.
John: How dumb would that be?
John: What did he die of?
John: Being crazy about worrying about what he was going to die of.
John: That's nuts.
Merlin: That's nuts.
Merlin: It's right there on the corner's report.
Merlin: That's nuts.
Merlin: Which is a very, very rare case.
Merlin: He's a man who worried himself to death.
Merlin: It's very concerning.
John: Somebody asked me the other day, like, oh, did your finger ever heal?
John: And I'm like, I mean, it healed as good as it's gonna.
John: Is that what you're asking?
John: It stopped getting worse, mostly.
John: I can grab things.
John: It's not, like, missing.
John: But it also, I mean, you know, do you want to hear it crack?
John: Do you want to see the ways in which it's not fine and never will be again?
John: So, yeah, I'm just wondering more and more, even in spite of the optimism, that at some point I'm going to have to...
John: at least get a gym membership.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Now, John's got a gym membership.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: You know, what are you going to wear and what's your workout going to be like?
Merlin: Would you have it organized for you by a professional or would it be an ad hoc workout of your own design?
John: I think in general, over time, I have seen that if I do work with somebody, it's only for one time and they design an exercise workout,
John: routine for me, but I've had that enough times now that I feel like I know how to go in and work the legs one day and the arms the next day.
John: So you'd be doing machines?
John: Well, no, I mean, I know how to do the exercises with free weights, but I don't... Oh, you'd be actually lifting the actual ding-a-lings yourself.
John: Generally what I do is like the complicated exercises, like the butterfly and stuff like that, that probably...
John: are much more effective if you use free weights because they're the ones that are really challenging to keep your you know your all your systems in place yeah i find those are much easier to just do on the machine and and not risk injury but like your normal sort of up and down weight lifting you just do it with free weights it's you know you don't need to sit and do the do the uh
John: Bicep bar bicep machine.
John: That seems a little silly.
John: I don't know.
John: I think this is pretty cool.
John: I like machines.
John: I use them.
John: You know, I'm not I don't I'm not I'm not proud.
John: But my workout outfit, I think, is usually red sweatpants with a white coat.
John: rope or white tie and a band t-shirt of some kind.
Merlin: That's a good look.
John: Yeah, some sort of band t-shirt or, you know, I've got a t-shirt from the Racing Forum.
John: I've got a t-shirt from Languedoc, Oregon, you know, this type of thing.
Merlin: We'd be listening to music or we'd be watching CNN?
John: No, neither.
Merlin: You don't do either of those in regular life.
John: No, I would prefer if gyms were quiet.
Shh.
John: I wish they were quiet and I wish that everyone else wished that they were quiet.
John: The idea of sitting on an exercise bike and watching the news, I just cannot fathom how you could do it.
John: I just don't understand it.
John: Why would you?
John: It's like I used to date a girl who we would go on long walks together at night and we would come to the bottom of a very steep hill of which Seattle has dozens and dozens.
John: And she would light a cigarette.
John: And I would say, we're at the bottom of the hill, sweetheart.
John: Don't you want to save the cigarette for the top of the hill when we've achieved our goal?
John: And her attitude was like, don't tell me what to do.
John: And so we would walk up this steep hill where we're both like huffing and puffing and she's smoking the entire time.
John: Now we would get to the top and I would have a cigarette, a valedictory cigarette.
John: Sure.
John: But she wanted to smoke all the way up.
John: I remember one time we were out in the middle of the night and we saw two kids in hoodies dart across the street with hoods up, dart across the street between one set of parked cars to another set of parked cars and like and and duck up an alley middle of the night.
John: And I said, let's go.
John: Let's let's chase those guys.
John: Let's find out what's going on.
John: Let's chase them.
John: And she said she was always up for adventure.
John: And she was like, okay, let's go.
John: Hang on.
John: And she lit a cigarette.
John: She gave chase while smoking?
Merlin: And I was like, we're in hot pursuit.
John: And she... He's fleeing the interview.
John: I couldn't believe it.
John: Yeah.
John: It's like, what kind of hot pursuit is that?
John: First of all, the Viet Cong's going to smell your cigarettes.
John: Second of all, then they're going to see the cherry, right?
John: That's how the snipers get you.
John: Yeah, it's bad OPSEC.
Merlin: Yeah, that's why you don't do three on a match.
Merlin: Another thing, it would seem so easy to just work that out with somebody.
Merlin: Smoke after when we're celebrating our victory.
Merlin: You don't smoke on a chase.
Merlin: I've never known anybody to smoke on a chase before.
John: I don't see how you can.
John: I mean, it's just so against the rules of a chase.
John: And particularly a chase like that where it's like, we don't know who these people are or why we're chasing them.
John: So you've got to be ready for every eventuality.
John: What if they run into a non-smoking facility?
John: What if they hide in a propane facility?
John: Right.
John: Either way, you're probably going to lose half a cigarette or you're going to endanger our lives.
John: But in those moments...
John: I don't know.
John: It just seems crazy to me that that's when you would light up.
John: And I guess that's why we're not together now.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Well, water always finds its own level.
John: I was explaining that to some kindergartners the other day.
Merlin: How'd it go?
John: Well, like explaining things to kindergartners, I was like, listen, all the water.
John: And I had like six of them standing around me.
Mm-hmm.
John: Because they wanted to know what a drain, they pointed at the drain pipe on the side of the building and they were like, what's that?
John: And I said, oh, well, it's the drain pipe.
John: It takes the water off the roof and it goes down this way.
John: And it was one of those drain pipes that had a bend and then it went down and then around a corner and then down.
John: And I said, you know, let's follow the drain pipe.
John: So all these little gaggle of kindergartners and I followed it down into the hole.
John: And they were really interested in it.
John: And I said, well, here's the thing.
John: All water wants to get back to the ocean.
John: So every time you see water coming down, it's going to try and get back to the ocean.
John: And they were like, you know, all their eyes narrowed as they thought about that.
John: And then in the kindergarten or fashion, they each had an example of water that did not get back to the ocean.
John: Well, what about over here on the playground?
John: There's a big puddle when it rains.
John: I was like, well, the water is trying to get to the ocean.
John: It just can't.
Merlin: The water is not magic brand.
John: Right.
John: Well, and then the one kid was like, the water goes down into the dirt.
John: And I said, yes, down into the dirt, into underground streams that take it to the ocean.
Merlin: You say, it can, Aidan.
Merlin: One of the kids' names was Aiden.
Merlin: We have three Aidens in my daughter's class.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Ugh.
John: Aiden.
John: Aiden.
John: Stop arguing, Aiden.
John: The water tries to get to the ocean.
John: Some things you just accept on face value when an adult says them.
Merlin: What's happening?
Merlin: What is happening these days?
Merlin: Did you ever think to argue about a puddle with somebody before?
Merlin: No!
Merlin: Did you ever think it was okay to argue with a grown man about a puddle and tell him how puddles work?
John: Absolutely not.
John: I would have said, yes, sir, thank you, sir.
John: May I have another, sir?
John: Because they eat too many avocados.
John: Young people do have too many avocados.
John: So we took our kid last night to dinner, and she hates Indian food because one time I ordered Indian food and it was too spicy and it spiced her out.
John: We went to this Indian restaurant and I said to the man, listen, everything's got to be just as bland as bland can be.
John: Because it needs to be baby food.
John: Because I want my daughter to like Indian food.
Merlin: I always use the magic incantation after I've explicitly described, when you bring this cheeseburger, the cheeseburger needs to be...
Merlin: A burger, what I want, what I want is a burger on a bun with American cheese and literally nothing else.
Merlin: And they say, no vegetables?
Merlin: And I say, literally nothing else.
Merlin: What about ketchup and mustard?
Merlin: It's so important that you not put ketchup and mustard.
Merlin: And then I say, I look at them, I look them in the eyes and I say, it's for a kid.
Merlin: And I think that's how you put the dot on the I. It's like saying, you know, deathly allergic, anaphylactic shock, danger, danger.
John: Right.
John: It's for a kid.
Merlin: And so you tell them, help me.
Merlin: I need your help.
Merlin: You help me help this kid learn to love me.
Merlin: The cuisine of your continent.
John: Yeah.
John: And this was lucky because the owner of the restaurant, this is a busy restaurant, the owner saw us come in and was immediately enamored with the child.
John: And so came over to the table and talked to her first.
John: You know, hello, princess, how are you?
John: That's nice.
John: Let me know if you need anything.
John: And she was charmed by him.
John: So that when I said, look, we need to...
John: have things be really like prepared in a way that is against their nature here uh in order to to satisfy this child he was like that's a good point you're asking for some kind of gastronomical chimera like something that probably shouldn't exist yeah this is not a thing that you would ever do on your own this is just a thing that we're going to do to to gradually introduce our daughter to to this idea
John: It was really curious because I'd always been a little bit, not suspicious, but I'd always had one eye open in this restaurant because I was like, I've been to a lot of Indian restaurants.
John: Something about this place is different.
John: And I don't know what.
John: And I...
John: For a long time, I thought, is this a Pakistani restaurant?
John: Is this some situation where they were pre-partitioned?
John: They were making food in the Raj, and then...
John: They're actually Pakistani, or they're actually Muslims, but they make Indian food?
John: Is that the game here?
Merlin: You're saying it's potentially non-Indian?
John: Oh.
John: Yes.
John: The restaurant is called Naan and Curry.
John: Naan and Curry.
Merlin: Oh, I got a lot of problems with this.
John: It's a terrible, terrible name, but it's always full of people, and I'm generally the only gringo in there, right?
John: Everyone else is from the subcontinent somewhere.
John: And so last night, I'm sitting in the restaurant, I'm looking around, and there are hijabs all over.
John: And I'm like, okay, this is not... And that would read as more Pakistani.
John: It would definitely read as, you know, like... That's more Muslim country as against the...
John: Yeah.
John: Something's going on here.
John: OK.
John: I mean, it's not I mean, I think within within the within that realm, there are a lot of hard feelings between the Hindus and Muslims, but also there's a lot of people that are just going along to getting along.
John: Right.
John: Everybody's.
John: In general, there are a lot of people there, so there have got to be people of all stripes.
John: Sure, and everybody likes good food.
John: Everybody likes good food.
John: But it was conspicuous given the fact that I already had some, just some, I don't know, just little tingle of like, what's going on here?
John: Tingly hunches.
John: So the man came over.
John: He was being very solicitous and great.
John: We had some mango lassies.
John: Um, everyone was happy and I said, sir, where, what is your origin story?
John: Are you, uh, where are you from?
John: Let's, let's just call it that.
John: This is going well so far.
John: And he got a big smile on his face and he said, Bangladesh.
John: And I said, Bangladesh, you're talking about East Pakistan.
John: And he was very excited.
John: He was like, yes, East Pakistan.
John: Whoa.
John: And so this is the crazy story of Bangladesh, right?
John: It's on the other side of India from Pakistan.
John: But when the schism happened, when the separation between India and Pakistan happened, East Pakistan, completely on the other side, went along with Pakistan.
John: Because they were majority Muslim.
John: And then along the way somewhere they were like, listen, we're not Pakistan.
John: We're Bangladesh.
John: And they changed.
John: And now it's now it's the nation of Bangladesh.
John: But serving really delicious Indian food.
John: And it just was like it was another door in my head opened up to a room that I now need to fill with stuff because I don't know anything about Bangladesh.
Merlin: Well, it sounds like you could find out now.
John: Well, except a little bit of stuff.
John: But yeah, so now I've got a friend.
John: Now I've got a Bangladeshi friend who owns a restaurant who now I'm going to go there all the time.
John: And little by little, I'm going to I'm going to ask more and more questions until I learn.
John: Until I learn, I guess.
John: That's how learning works, at least in these parts.
Merlin: Yeah, or until you ask the wrong question, you cross the wrong guy.
John: I feel like this man, if I asked the wrong question, he would very patiently and in a very friendly way say, ah, you have asked the wrong question.
Merlin: I love that in a restaurateur.
Merlin: I do not get that as often as I would like.
Merlin: Somebody who really heard what I said, they weren't just listening.
Merlin: They weren't just hearing.
Merlin: They were listening.
Merlin: They heard through, right?
Merlin: And they knew the answer.
John: Yes.
John: Yes.
John: And this man, he comports as a wise person.
John: So he knows that if I am asking a question that is the wrong question, it is not that I am wrong.
Merlin: that i have ill intent but simply that i do not know the right question to ask you know you should see if that guy could be your doctor because i feel like that's something i would love in a doctor you should find out if he he does medicine too because that wouldn't that be nice to have a doctor where you could go and say oh you are that's a very good question but you asked the wrong question my friend somebody who's very very helpful and regional yes he does he does give off the air of a doctor you should you know maybe that put that on your list maybe next time you're in there were you a doctor
John: So this place is called Naan and Curry.
John: It's in Renton, Washington.
John: It is not very interesting looking from the outside.
John: And when you go in there, you're going to have some kind of authentic Bangladeshi experience.
John: But the man definitely feels like a doctor.
John: And now I want to go...
John: Now I want to go ask him about some of the things that are like, what's going to kill me, doctor?
John: Yeah.
John: Is it going to be my knees or my finger or what?
John: Is it wholesome to feel the way I feel about my feet?
John: Yeah, right.
John: Is that a problem?
Merlin: You shouldn't do them all at once.
Merlin: You don't want to overwhelm.
Merlin: He's got to run a fucking business.
Merlin: But it would be nice to get some insight from somebody who's actually really listening.
John: I do feel like, you know, and he's enough older than me that I feel like if I sat down at a table with him and said this thing about touching my feet in the night, is this going to keep me from love?
John: Is this going to keep me outside of Pupin?
Merlin: You asked the wrong question, my friend.
John: And he's going to be like, that is a good question, but it is the wrong question.
Merlin: And you guys go out and play catch.
Yes!