Ep. 252: "The Ur-Choad"
Merlin: This episode of Roderick on the Line is brought to you by Casper.
Merlin: Casper is an online retailer of premium mattresses that you can get delivered to your door for a fraction of the price you pay in stores.
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Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
John: Hi, Merlin.
John: How's it going?
John: Oh, it's really early.
Merlin: Is it early?
Merlin: Hang on, look at that.
Merlin: I guess it is.
Merlin: It's pretty early.
John: Yeah, I mean, it's not as early as it could be, but it's early.
John: I woke up singing 8275309.
John: Wow.
Merlin: That's a good song.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, God, I usually have two to three songs in my head when I wake up.
John: That's got to be cacophonous.
Merlin: No, it's terrible.
Merlin: I just have a little mini stroke for a couple hours in the morning, and I just cycle through.
Merlin: one or two lines from a song, and it'll be different songs, and it just goes on and on and on.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: It's kind of like how you listen to the Long Winters albums.
Merlin: Well, you know, I like to hear the first part, get the feel for what the song's going to be like.
Merlin: You know?
Merlin: As soon as the lyrics start, you can go to the next song, because you've got a feel.
John: Yeah, just skip ahead.
John: Teaspoon!
John: It means something different every time.
John: It does.
John: I still get in a lot of trouble for that song in the music press, who feel like it wasn't enough.
John: I didn't say enough.
John: You know what?
Merlin: They were probably listening like...
Merlin: Like I did, you know?
John: Yeah.
John: The lyrics came in and they were like, skip ahead.
Merlin: You get in a closet with headphones.
Merlin: You don't even have a way to control the music.
Merlin: You just get in the closet and you could just close your eyes in a dark closet and you just listen to John's work.
John: The music closet.
John: Everyone in the house should have, everyone listening to this program should have one music closet in their house.
John: Even before you get a munkhole.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Get yourself a music.
Merlin: I'm having a hell of a, hell of a day.
Merlin: Tell me.
John: It's so early.
Merlin: How could it have started already?
Merlin: Oh, boy.
Merlin: Well, the latest is the roofers are still here, and today they're real relaxed and very jovial.
Merlin: They're having some very loud conversations, and the occasional grinding noise that you hear is the giant tar bucket.
Merlin: I hope that's not racist.
Merlin: They've got a giant tar bucket that's whirling around, and they're having all kinds of conversations about stuff.
John: Yeah.
John: Is it hot and smelly?
Merlin: I could smell it from my home.
Okay.
Merlin: No, it's nice, but that's really just the icing on the shit burger.
Merlin: I woke up at about, I think it was 1 a.m.
John: Oh, that's early.
Merlin: Yeah, well, that's usually I urinate between 3 and 5, and that's when the trouble starts.
Merlin: That's when I have trouble getting back to sleep, and that's when you get into bonus sleep, double bonus sleep, triple bonus sleep.
John: You set an alarm for the three to five urination?
Merlin: No, daddy's got an alarm downstairs.
Merlin: You look down from the mezzanine, that's where the alarm is.
Merlin: You're looking down.
Merlin: Ding, ding, ding, ding.
John: It's like a fire alarm, right?
John: Like you slide down the brass pole?
John: Yeah, a lot like that.
John: Like an Ultraman.
Merlin: Like my chest that's beeping.
Merlin: I know it's time to make it number one.
Merlin: So I went to bed.
Merlin: I watched Ed Sheeran on TV last night and got mad.
John: No, no, no, no.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: It was so horrible.
Merlin: At the age of 50.
Merlin: I can still get mad about an English man.
Merlin: What are you doing on my Game of Thrones?
Merlin: It looks like somebody left Ron Weasley in the dryer for a weekend.
Merlin: Your hair is stupid.
John: So you are I know this about you.
John: You are somebody that's right there at the debut.
Merlin: This is one of my day and date shows.
Merlin: Yeah, I've did something I have rarely done, which I forced my wife to get into this show.
Merlin: It was very tough.
Merlin: I made her watch some recaps.
Merlin: It's really fucked up.
Merlin: It's so fucked up.
Merlin: But I think I kind of got her a little bit into it.
Merlin: We watched it, and we were both so angry until bedtime about this.
Merlin: We got up this morning.
Merlin: It's the first thing we talked about is how we're still angry about Ed Sheeran.
Merlin: I know this is not going to matter.
Merlin: Tears in rain.
Merlin: Point is, I watched my program.
Merlin: I've been trying really hard to get to bed by 11, and I've been pretty successful with it.
Merlin: At 1 o'clock, I wake up with an aging migraine.
John: Oh, that's not what I thought you were going to say.
Merlin: You thought it was a boner?
Yeah.
John: I mean, that's what wakes me up at one in the morning.
Merlin: Hey, it's Christmas in July.
John: But go ahead.
John: A raging migraine.
Merlin: At first, I thought it was my usual I slept hard in a weird way.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: That could have been Ed Sheeran.
Merlin: uh normally that's where i get a back problem i get a back problem because i'll do a slight twist sure pinched nerve yes could be pinched could be pinched it could just be aggravated but um no it was like in my hippocampus like i could feel the radiating oh no of like this is probably my seventh migraine ever in your life but i was up and i was hurting oh and it's sort of like a bad trip
Merlin: you've had bad trips like you get enough bad trips yeah and you eventually learn to go oh this is gonna suck but i'll i'll make it through this this is gonna i luckily i don't do that sort of thing anymore but you know having done that it's a movie man have an orange slice shut up i'm in hell like in this case i got vision i got visions of ron weasley dancing in my head and so i get up and i go okay all right i've got to get up out of my casper bed which is very very comfortable
Merlin: And I go to the bathroom and I take a hot shower.
Merlin: I put it on the thump, thump, thump setting.
Merlin: And I'm gripping the accessibility rail.
Merlin: Does that help?
Merlin: The thump, thump, thump?
Merlin: It hits you right in the pineal gland.
Merlin: You know, you got that little spot right in the back of your neck.
John: Sure, that's nice.
John: Then you gleek, right?
Merlin: It's like soul gleeking.
Merlin: I love that album.
Merlin: What's the guy's name?
Merlin: Mike Dodd?
Merlin: Mike Coffey?
John: Michael Coffey?
John: Well, you know, he left Genesis early.
John: Oh, right.
Merlin: They hired that other guy.
John: The guy looks like Ed Sheeran.
Merlin: They hired that guy to play drums and sing like Peter Gabriel.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Still up here on Charles Berry Hill.
Merlin: So, and that was a... What are you doing?
Merlin: ZZ Top?
Merlin: What was that?
Merlin: Actually, technically this week we're moving to 1989.
Merlin: 1989, the year in music.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: So you're there, you're thumping.
Merlin: I'm holding, I'm literally gripping the accessibility rail, groaning, and trying not to wake my family with my migraine and my hippocampus.
Merlin: And so I'm just fucking...
Merlin: And because that can help.
Merlin: And you say to yourself, you know, it's like the orange slices.
Merlin: I'm just going to I'm going to get through this and I need to be a little bit pseudo Buddhist, a little bit pseudo Buddhist.
Merlin: I need to say here, OK, how much of this is a bad thing that's happening to me?
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And how much of this is my 10 times more terrible feeling about how I feel about what's happening to me?
Merlin: And I suspect we may have some common ground there.
Merlin: I think that's a useful thought technology.
John: Yes, it is.
Merlin: But you know what it was?
Merlin: It was the fire in my hippocampus that was actually the problem.
John: It was the former of the two possibilities.
Merlin: There are no easy answers, John.
Merlin: How you felt about it was irrelevant.
Merlin: I'm gripping, literally gripping the accessibility rail.
Merlin: Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.
Merlin: Practically ran the joint out of hot water.
Merlin: I got out a towel off.
Merlin: I have half a seltzer, and I think, okay, this is it.
Merlin: Daddy can go back to bed.
Merlin: Anyways, it was not great.
Merlin: But can I tell you the funny part?
Merlin: Can I tell you the turns out?
Merlin: There's a funny part.
Merlin: Well, you get to, say, six.
Merlin: I've managed to get some sleep.
Merlin: I've got pseudo-bonus sleep at this point with my pseudo-Buddhism.
Merlin: I've gotten a little bit of sleep.
Merlin: And the thing is, I'm waking up and going, oh, I wonder if my hippocampus is still on fire.
Merlin: And you know what?
Merlin: It only hurt a little bit, and I was so fucking happy.
Merlin: I was so buoyed.
Merlin: I've had like four hours of sleep, but I'm so glad that I'm not having that head thing anymore.
Merlin: Oh, that's so wonderful.
Merlin: Isn't that a funny way life can get you?
John: Yeah, isn't that?
John: Ain't it, though?
John: So how long do they normally last of the seven you've had?
Merlin: Like a stress bump, the first thing is you go, uh-oh.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: As you know, several hours to even a day and a half before you get a stress bump, you get the uh-oh.
John: Yeah, it could be an uh-oh.
John: That's right.
Merlin: The tingle.
Merlin: Oh, now I've thought that thought.
Merlin: Now I'm going to get a stress bump.
Merlin: Yeah, I've got a tingle and now I'm thinking about a tingle.
Merlin: And so that's what happens is you go, oh, and there might be you see some Christmas lights a little bit.
Merlin: It could be that you feel the dark veil of death approaching.
Merlin: You know that something is not going optimally and you go, OK, I just got to get ready for this.
Merlin: I need to call everybody important and say, here comes the migraine.
Merlin: Oh, geez.
Merlin: And then it starts to set in and then it takes over and then it becomes the it's a kind of have you ever had a migraine?
John: I know.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: But you know that kind of like that real centering kind of pain where it's like there is nothing else in the world apart from what is being visited upon me right now.
Merlin: I do.
Merlin: And they last, I mean, you know, you can take some Excedrin for it, but, you know, caffeine helps, but you rarely less than three hours, rarely more than eight hours.
Merlin: You just go, you go lay in a room and like watch Mr. Rogers on mute, you know, just...
John: Well, you know, our good friend Jesse Thorne suffers from these.
John: Does he still suffer?
John: Yeah, habitually.
Merlin: I know he's sought many different avenues for dealing with this, but he's real, I don't want to say fucked up, but I mean, he gets them bad and often, right?
John: He gets them bad, but I think the debilitating thing is that he gets them often, so often.
John: That it's just like you can set your watch by them.
Merlin: How does he make so many programs?
John: That's mind-blowing.
John: I don't know.
John: It's mind-blowing.
John: Am I right?
John: My mom gets them.
John: I have, I guess, in my life probably had a headache that was bad enough that the lights wiggled and it throbbed somewhere in my hippocampus.
Merlin: Like a non-hangover headache.
John: Well, yeah, right.
John: Like for some reason.
John: But headaches are not a thing I suffer from typically.
John: I don't remember the last time I had a serious headache.
John: But a couple of years ago, I...
John: I had a pain suddenly in the side of my head.
John: Like, you know the old pain like an ice pick?
John: Oh, yes.
John: You know the ice pick pain?
Merlin: That's a good old-timey term that still works.
John: Right?
John: Nobody even knows what an ice pick is or does anymore in our modern world.
John: You can't go into a hot topic and get an ice pick.
John: No.
John: What would you do with it?
Merlin: You could buy 50 ice picks for the price of one avocado.
John: Sure, right?
John: I mean, and I think that's the going exchange rate.
John: One Singaporeese dollar equals 50 ice picks or one avocado.
John: Now you get an app.
John: You get a cyber ice pick app.
John: Don't even know what that means.
John: It's about 73 cents U.S.
Merlin: dollars.
Merlin: It's 73 cents.
Merlin: They call it skeuomorphism.
Merlin: So which side of your head as you're looking out?
John: As I'm looking out of the control room, from the right side.
John: Stage right.
John: Stage right.
John: I got this, but it immediately becomes all-encompassing, right?
John: And it's coming from inside the house.
John: It's somewhere in the middle.
John: It's like a pick trying to get out.
John: It's like a pick trying to get out.
John: And, you know, I know what an ice pick is.
John: I know what they do.
John: I routinely go to stores where I'm like, should I get another ice pick?
John: And I say, no, leave it.
John: Leave it.
John: But this ice pick is inside the house.
John: And I am at a certain point.
John: I'm rolling on the floor, sweating.
John: I'm banging my head on the wall.
John: It's 11 o'clock at night.
John: So what does one do?
John: There's no one to call.
John: Who are you going to call?
Mm-mm.
John: If there's something strange... I'm not going to do it.
John: I'm not going to take it.
John: If there's something strange... Boston makes me feel good!
John: In your neighborhood... Who are you going to call?
John: Ice pickers.
John: Yeah, so I lay there.
John: It's happening in my... It's happening from my...
John: Not in my brain, though.
John: My brain is clear.
John: Is it more scully?
John: Yeah.
John: My brain is there for me in order to really, truly feel and appreciate the pain.
John: And it's not like a burning.
John: It's not a searing.
John: It is a pick.
John: It is a pick on an exposed nerve.
John: And I locate it in my dentistry.
John: It is a pick somewhere on a, like, as though you took a dental drill and just no anesthetic, just straight down into some molar.
John: And I'm, you know, how often can you really say you're writhing?
John: When was the last time you writhed?
John: Eight hours ago.
Merlin: But before that, no, I take your point, though, not often.
Merlin: Most, as you get older, like, you take something like the classic from me as an earache.
Merlin: where I will never have an earache, I hope, as bad as the earaches I had as a kid, right?
Merlin: There's certain kinds of pains that are canonized when you're a child, and even when you get them later in life, you go, it's still not as bad as when I was a kid.
Merlin: I never got as sick as I got when I was a kid.
Merlin: And you learn to go like, again, you double boot up, and you go like, you know what, I'll get through this.
Merlin: I can do other things.
Merlin: I could tag my MP3s or something.
Merlin: But no, writhing is rare.
John: And I had one of those where I got off an airplane and some nitrogen bubble inside my sinuses, which were clogged because of a cold, got up in there behind my eyeball.
Merlin: It's all just pipes and wires in there.
John: It's all transport for things.
John: It's the tubes, right?
John: It's the tubes that make up the internet.
John: And I was, again, banging my head on a door saying, like, I don't care anymore.
John: Make it stop.
John: Give me a chopstick.
John: I'm going to shove it up into my...
John: temporal lobe and then my girlfriend at the time called her mom who was a hippie and the mom said take some ginger ground it up take a pot of hot water like boil a pot of water it's like having a baby boil a pot of water nobody knows why get some rags and then get a pot of cold water or boil a pot of cold water get it cold boiling
John: Remember those guys back like 20 years ago that came up with cold boiling?
Merlin: Yeah, it was going to run everything.
Merlin: You run your automobile, your coffee maker, all off cold boiling.
Merlin: Yeah, and then nobody could figure out how to cold boil again.
Merlin: Hard to replicate.
John: So she got a pot of hot, a pot of cold.
John: She put the ginger in the hot pot and then dipped the rags in the hot ginger water.
Merlin: Ginger in the hot pot picking out dough.
Merlin: The shiny fiddle made of gold.
Merlin: I'm laying on the... 1979, the year in music.
Merlin: So you got the hot guy over here, you got the cold guy over here, you got the ginger.
Merlin: Right.
John: Listen up, you son of a bitch, I'm the best it's ever been.
John: Fire on the mountain, run boys, run!
John: So I put the, and she's like, hippie mom is like, alternate between the hot and the cold.
John: So you put the hot thing on there.
John: You barely stand it.
John: It's so hot across your eyeballs and across your nose.
Merlin: Alternate hot and cold.
John: Yeah.
John: You flap the hot on there until it cools down.
John: You keep the hot side hot and the cool side fresh.
John: You put the hot on there and then you pull it off.
John: You put the cold on there and it's icy cold.
John: Then you whip that off and you put the hot back on and lo and behold,
John: I don't know what the fucking ginger did about it, but the hot and cold.
John: The ginger's a MacGuffin.
Merlin: But it changed the way that part of your body felt.
Merlin: It's like when people put on the hot and cold creams, right?
Merlin: You put on your lower back.
John: Sure.
John: When you're taking LSD with your friends all day, you take a little bit of bag balm and you rub it on your nose.
John: Everybody needs a hobby.
John: And, uh, and, and so it relieved it, whatever it did, like the nitrogen bubble went bloop.
John: And it was the thing where the pain just subsided, this awful pain just subsided.
John: And I still remember that.
John: I still remember that hour.
John: I never loved my girlfriend so much.
John: I never met her crazy hippie mom, but she's in the pamphyon for me of people that know what they're talking about.
John: I'm so glad to know about this.
Merlin: I'm going to try this.
Merlin: Next time I have some kind of excruciating pain, I'm going to try that.
John: Hot and cold.
John: The hot side is so hot that you're like, ah!
John: And then it cools down.
John: It gradually cools down on your head.
John: And when it gets to, like, temper it, whip it off.
John: Icy cold.
John: Ah!
John: And, you know, kapow, right?
John: So anyway, this other time, this time I'm referring to that was more recent.
John: The hot side, hot, cold side, cold did not work because the pain was coming from inside the house.
John: It was on the nerve.
John: And I have never, ever, ever been at a dentist's office when they arrived in the morning.
John: Wow.
John: I was parked out in front.
John: at seven o'clock in the morning when the dentists, when the dental assistants started to arrive, you know, like birds chirping, keys jingling on chains.
John: And I'm like, good morning.
John: Hello.
John: It is so good to see you guys.
John: It has been too long and I love you guys.
John: And you know, my dentist was like, generally if someone is waiting for us to open the door, I get them in the chair pretty quick.
John: That's not a thing.
John: That's not a thing.
John: Particularly somebody like you that wakes up in one of the afternoon.
John: And so she gets in there and she's like doing her monkeying around and she's like, oh, you have an abscess.
John: I said, what's an abscess?
John: What's an abscess?
John: What do I want?
John: What do I want?
John: And she said, well, somewhere down there you get some infection on the root.
Merlin: That sounds like a bad place to have an infection.
Merlin: It's one thing to have it up in the high leaves and the baby leaves, but down in the root?
John: Sure, get it up there where you can get some antibiotics on it.
John: And so she says...
John: It's on a, what is it?
John: Oh, it was on a wisdom tooth.
John: And I had all four of my wisdom teeth at the time.
John: And she said, you know, we could do a lot of things.
John: put a course of antibiotics on it.
John: I could do this.
John: I could do that.
John: I could hit it with a microwave.
John: I could hit it with a banjo.
John: But, you know, it's a... Listen, the banjo will make you so furious it will distract you from the... It's the banjo players.
John: They're the real problem.
John: God damn it!
John: Stop it!
John: Guns would be fine if nobody ever picked them up.
John: That's right.
John: They don't kill people.
John: She said it's a wisdom tooth
John: you know and and here's the thing she said i love pulling teeth can i just pull that tooth and i was like pull it get it out and you know i'm i i got a big uh i got a big jaw i got a beard shaped face and i have my wisdom teeth were are big were big and were deeply rooted a lot of people don't know about you is you're built to scale you're like a 1.1 sized person yeah everything is built to scale
John: Did you ever see that, do you remember that motorcycle show where the cheating swine, Jesse James, used to make custom, Jesse James, who was married to America's sweetheart.
John: You remember America's sweetheart.
Merlin: I know these are all words.
Merlin: This is probably a cable show about repping your hog.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: So you remember America's Sweetheart was the gal that was in the movie Speed.
John: Oh, sure.
John: She's like the discount Julia Roberts.
John: She's talking about Sandra Bullock.
John: Sandra Bullock, right.
John: Sandra Bullock.
John: She was on a motorcycle rep your hog show?
John: Well, now listen.
John: Do you remember when Speed came out?
John: Yes.
John: What a joy Sandra Bullock was.
John: Where you were like, who is this fascinating young actress?
John: She was America's real sweetheart.
John: I did not even know about this person until I saw this fairly dumb movie.
Merlin: It's like the year of Edward Norton.
Merlin: Like, where is Edward Norton hiding?
Merlin: And suddenly he's in a musical with Woody Allen, and he's in the Richard Gere jail movie.
John: He played the lawyer in Larry Flint.
John: He was the lawyer.
John: Yes, and he was so good in that movie.
John: He was so good, and then he was in that Fight Club movie.
John: How do I get more Edward Norton is what I was thinking.
John: Where has he been?
Merlin: Unwrap him.
John: Yeah, and Sandra Bullock in that movie was a classic example of like, come on.
John: Why is this not a thing that, I mean, this is America's greatest export right here, Sandra Bullock.
John: Yeah.
John: And this is a movie that is being spoiled by Dennis Hopper and Keanu Reeves.
John: I mean, that's like the fucking how does a movie survive?
John: And it's because they had a bet on who could ruin it more.
John: It's like Dennis Hopper is definitely going to ruin this movie.
John: Wait a minute.
John: No one expects Keanu Reeves.
John: You can't land on a fraction.
John: So, Sandra Bullock, at a certain point, right at the peak of being America's sweetheart, it was the early generation of the, I think, Jesse James, who was a guy with a Macklemore haircut and a neck tattoo...
Merlin: Oh, I know his name.
Merlin: He was married to somebody.
Merlin: Sandra Bullock.
Merlin: He was married.
Merlin: Was he mean to her?
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: I do remember this.
Merlin: It's the coward Jesse James.
Merlin: I remember this.
John: So this guy is a total chode.
John: Yeah.
John: I think I remember at some point he got tattooed on his palm.
John: Pay up, sucker.
John: On his palm.
John: He's this kind of guy.
John: I bet you he has Confederate flags everywhere.
Merlin: That's like getting on with stupid on your forehead.
Merlin: It's kind of funny once, but do you really need to see that for another 60 years?
Merlin: Pay up, sucker.
Merlin: Pay up, sucker.
John: he's a chode this guy but he was he was the first he was the first before all these he's the ur chode yeah before the all the grease monkeys that are out there like we go out and steal cars from people and turn them into shitty cars or whatever right like there's there's so many of those shows now because people love the idea do you think he's partly responsible for guy fieri
Merlin: Jesse James?
Merlin: The coward Jesse James?
Merlin: It sounds like he's partly because really, if you think about it, Guy Fieri is somewhere in between like Jimmy Buffett and the coward Jesse James.
John: Well, yeah, right.
John: He's a little bit motorcycle.
John: He's a little bit Robert Bourdain.
John: I don't think he's Robert Bidane.
John: I like Robert Bidane.
John: I take it back.
John: He's also got a lot of tattoos, Robert Bidane.
John: He's got seasoned fries.
John: No, you know what?
John: It was Emeril.
John: Emeril's Bam is a direct great-grandfather of donkey sauce, whatever it is.
John: But you know that captivating thing that was then extended by Pimp Your Ride, where you watch your show and it's like, these guys can take a shit car and turn it into a cool car in a 45-minute episode.
John: That gives me hope that my shit car that's parked in front of my trailer can be made into a hot car.
Merlin: It's like having a TV show about the lottery.
John: Yeah, exactly.
John: I like to watch my stories.
John: What they don't show is like 40 people working on this car for two and a half months.
Merlin: Ditto, everything with Gordon Ramsay.
Merlin: We're in the last act.
Merlin: Every time they redo a hotel or a restaurant, they obviously overtly make it look like it was literally done overnight.
Merlin: After the place closed and before it opened, they changed the entire hotel.
John: Right.
John: Get in there.
John: People are running around with chairs on their heads.
John: It's like, come on.
John: And it was actually like a nine-month redo.
John: So Jesse James was the first guy that was out there.
John: And this is before even Orange County Choppers, which were some.
John: It was called Orange County Choppers is called Orange County Choppers, which implies that it's in L.A., but it's actually Orange County, New Jersey or Orange County, some like upstate Connecticut, like hillbilly East Coast people.
John: making big hot rod motorcycles that you could not give me for free for people like Billy Joel at a cost.
John: No, these Orange County Choppers guys made a motorcycle for Billy Joel, and they gave it to him on stage at a concert in Wapiko, Wasapikama, Massachusetts.
John: And it was like peak Goomba, right?
John: It's just like...
John: It's really just a matter of trust.
John: These guys with giant mustaches are like... Is this why Target parking lots look the way they do now?
Merlin: It all started with the coward Jesse James.
Merlin: And this is why everybody's like a beefy guy with a shaved head and sleeveless shirts.
Merlin: Do you think it goes back to him?
John: Well, so Jesse James, you know, so he's got the Macklemore long time before Macklemore.
John: Oh, right.
John: And he just has this.
John: He's just such a smug.
John: He's just smug.
John: He's like California smug, California punk rock smug.
John: Just a guy that you're like, oh, I want to take your like pay up sucker tattoo and stick it right into a paper shredder.
John: But he's making motorcycles for people.
John: He's out there building these cool motorcycle guy comes in.
John: He's like, I want a motorcycle, but I want it to not be your normal motorcycle.
John: And Jesse James is like, I got you, bro.
John: I got you.
John: And then I just need you to sign my palm.
John: And then they're just putting it together and they're building the frame.
John: And it's always going to be a hard tail because they're not pussies.
John: And it's like, and, and,
John: And you just get this feeling like, oh, I live in this garage with these cool assholes.
John: You're like, I could be an asshole too.
John: But, you know, tomorrow I've got to go to work at State Farm.
John: But for now, I get to watch the insides of these guys.
John: And when Jesse James isn't building motorcycles, he's riding up and down the street in his like...
John: you know gto or whatever it's got the flames coming out of the tailpipe he married sandra fucking bullock sandy sandy sandy fell for this she fell for this ding-a-ling because he was like on the top of his game he's it's not like he's ever adam savage level of like 18 seasons of award-winning television yeah
John: But he was he was he was at his peak, his momentary peak in 2000, whenever it's wish.
Merlin: In some ways, it is wish fulfillment, because if you think about sometimes we'll be in a hotel room and you flip by a food network hoping that you get maybe a chopped or similar.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And instead, it's it's.
Merlin: 48 hours of something about diners and dives and drives.
Merlin: And it's Guy Fieri.
Merlin: And so basically, in terms of wishful fulfillment, Guy Fieri shows up at your place where you make terrible, terrible food.
Merlin: And then he gets to walk in the kitchen and eat it for free.
Merlin: Pulled pork sliders.
Merlin: Pulled pork sliders.
Merlin: It's like a tram ride through Flavortown.
Merlin: The sliders.
John: What the fuck is a slider?
John: They never existed before.
Merlin: I'd leave my fucking donkey sauce in this slider.
Merlin: Do you mean a small sandwich?
Merlin: That's...
Merlin: Because the thing is, if a guy walked into a sports bar and said, Hi, yes, excuse me.
Merlin: I want like a cheeseburger, but I want like a big one.
Merlin: Can I get like three small cheeseburgers?
John: You want the slider platter with the cider donkey sauce.
John: Slider.
John: And then what the fuck are these big beer bottles now that are like, what are they called?
John: They're not mules.
Merlin: Not a growler?
Merlin: A growler?
Merlin: Growlers!
John: Growlers!
Merlin: Where did those come from?
Merlin: Oh, you bring your own fucking giant bottle and fill it up and you get to say to everybody, oh, I'm going to go refill the growler.
John: I drank beer like a goddamn fucking stevedore for a dozen years.
John: I never heard a growler.
John: Yeah.
John: It's the handlebar mustache of beer.
John: Oh, growlers and sliders.
John: Sliders.
John: Anyway.
Merlin: It's so, oh no, it's bad.
Merlin: You know who should be allowed to call them sliders?
Merlin: White Castle?
Merlin: Because A, they're the OG slider, and also it gives you the shits.
John: Yeah.
John: Right?
John: Are you pro-White Castle or anti-White Castle?
Merlin: I'm going to say two out of six times I'm pretty into White Castle.
John: Yeah.
John: The other ones are rough.
John: When I got back east, because we don't have them out here in the west, White Castle.
John: I haven't been in years.
John: When I went back east for the first time,
John: So 1986, I was like, I've heard of White Castle.
John: I'm trying to I'm doing all the things that I heard about.
John: Right.
John: Like I like the first time I went to L.A., I was like, where's Sunset and Vine?
John: And I went there and I was like, I did a Griswold like.
John: All right.
John: Got it.
John: But I'm back east.
John: I went to Philadelphia.
John: I had a Philly cheesesteak.
John: I went to Baltimore.
John: I had a Baltimore cheesesteak.
John: And I see a White Castle.
John: And I'm like, I got to go in there.
John: And I think I might have gone to a payphone and put in 74 quarters and called my mom.
John: And I was like, what's a White Castle?
John: What do I do here?
John: She was like, oh, it's little burgers.
John: You get a bag of them.
John: But she said, but don't do it.
John: They're terrible.
John: And I was like, Mom, I'm on my own now, even though I'm calling here to ask you about the hamburger place that's across the street.
Merlin: I need snack advice from my mom.
John: I need to know what's going on, but I'm my own man.
John: And I went in, I got a bag of them, and it's like food service beef.
John: It's the kind of beef that's like, is this meatloaf?
John: It could be packing material.
John: Yeah, was this meant to go in dog food, but it got on the wrong conveyor belt?
John: Well, you know how...
Merlin: Wendy's, it's well known that Wendy's makes burgers, and when those burgers get burnt, they throw them in a bin, and then the meat in that bin gets turned into chili.
Merlin: It's like if somebody went back a week later and sluiced through all of the Wendy's chili, and then made them back into burgers and put holes in them with onions.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Reverse engineered sliders.
John: A lot of onions.
John: So how'd you do?
John: Did it give you tummy ache?
John: Yeah, I didn't like them.
John: It did give me a tummy ache.
John: And that was at a time when I could not afford to have a random tummy ache because you never know where you're going to find your next clean bathroom.
John: Oh, that's a good point.
John: Right?
John: I'm out in New Jersey somewhere.
John: I was in East Orange.
John: They call it the Garden State.
John: I was in Northeast Orange.
John: And I'd eaten in one of these.
John: And it's like, at the time, in East Orange, you didn't just go around knocking on doors saying, can I use your bathroom?
John: Things might have changed.
Merlin: Can I give you a real-time science fact?
John: Yes, always.
Merlin: 16% of the states in the U.S.
Merlin: have an Orange County.
Merlin: How many?
Merlin: Eight.
Merlin: Eight states.
Merlin: Orange County, California, Orange County, Florida, Indiana, New York, North Carolina, Texas, Vermont, and Virginia all have an Orange County.
John: Well, so if you're south of the Mason-Dixon line and you have an Orange County, I'm going to assume, at least if you're...
John: I mean, I don't think you can do this if you're in North Carolina, but if you're in Florida or California, you probably grow oranges there, right?
John: Ta-da!
John: Orange County.
John: I accept it, right?
John: And then I think on the East Coast, I'm going to say that the Orange Counties there are a reference to Dutch settlers.
John: Oh, that's good.
John: Right?
John: That's good.
John: Like somebody from the Dutch lands, the Nederlanders, which are low.
John: The Nederlanders.
John: They are the low lands.
John: They are, you know, orange is the color of the... Orange is the color that their baby wore.
John: And what's more, it's true.
John: And they came over and they call it Orange.
John: But Indiana?
John: What the fuck do you have an Orange County for?
Merlin: They're so into Indians there.
Merlin: You know, if I may say, ditto New Jersey.
Merlin: They've got a lot of Native American names.
John: They do.
John: And they also had a lot of early Dutch...
John: The settlers.
John: The lowlanders.
John: The laterlanders.
John: I'm going to give it to them.
John: And I know right now there's someone listening to this program in Kroonigan who's saying, you know what?
John: We're not all Dutch.
John: You know what?
John: You're very insensitive about our background.
Merlin: You know, it's not the grain.
Merlin: He started his gold finger and turned into James Bond.
Merlin: That was good.
Merlin: No, Mr. Bond.
Merlin: I expect you to die.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: I'm on the page now.
Merlin: There's no try, only do.
Merlin: There's only New Jersey.
Merlin: This episode of Roderick Online is brought to you by Casper.
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Merlin: the great shows.
Merlin: I'm on the Internet Science page.
Merlin: Go ahead.
Merlin: I'm on the Internet Science page.
Merlin: I'm on the Internet Science page.
Merlin: God, I love this.
Merlin: List of the most common U.S.
Merlin: place names.
Merlin: Springfield is number two with 41 instances.
Merlin: Number one, Washington with 88 instances in the U.S.
Merlin: You're kidding me.
Merlin: Franklin, Greenville, Bristol, Clinton.
Merlin: This all sounds like the names of Sarah Palin's children.
Merlin: Fairview, Salem, Madison, Georgetown, Arlington, Ashland, Dover Rocks, Jackson, Burlington, Manchester.
John: Oh, Manchester.
John: After the bad reputation that Salem got early on, why would you name your town Salem?
John: Eighth most popular place name.
John: That just seems bananas.
John: Salem.
John: Salem.
John: Salem.
Merlin: That has bad mouthfeel.
John: Yeah, it does.
John: You cannot think about anything when you hear Salem except for, well, it's the capital of Oregon.
Merlin: Is that right?
John: No, come on.
John: Really?
John: Actually, the capital of Oregon is Springfield.
John: Springfield, Washington.
John: Because that's the one.
John: Springfield, Oregon is the one, right?
John: It's the Ur Springfield.
John: The Ur Springfield.
Merlin: It's the Simpsons.
Merlin: Did that make Cartoon Boy want to name it that?
Merlin: Yeah, it's the Simpsons.
Merlin: Oh, I see.
Merlin: I'm learning so much today.
Merlin: The guys are still tarring.
Merlin: I don't know if you can hear that.
Merlin: They're out there.
Merlin: They're getting pretty busy.
Merlin: I think they had a little break.
Merlin: They talked, they worked some things out, and they've gone back to the tar now.
John: You know what tar is?
John: It's just dinosaurs.
John: It's just liquid dinosaurs?
John: Yeah, it's liquid dinosaurs, like so many of the other things that we use in life.
John: Liquid dinosaurs just add labor.
John: Turns out to be liquid dinosaurs.
John: Liquid dinosaurs that lived at the same time as humans.
John: Humans rode them.
John: People are constantly trying to cover that up.
Merlin: yeah i mean how would we the only way we could know have you thought about this professor science briefcase yeah how would you even know how would you even know about dinosaurs if people weren't alive then probably like sure taking selfies and stuff sure exactly true selfies but drawing a picture of themselves with a dinosaur on a stone in a way that was probably very perilous because you shouldn't do that you should get away from the dinosaur but maybe as a historian as a budding uh paleo historian you felt the need to capture that
Merlin: Absolutely.
John: Clam's got legs.
John: Right?
John: Bee's got to swim.
John: An absterix is a wingless bird with hairy feathers.
John: Hello, billboard.
John: So, Jesse James.
John: At one point... Do you know what station he was on?
John: Oh, it was Discover.
John: It was back when there were only five stations.
Merlin: I used to love A&E.
Merlin: I used to love Bravo.
John: And now it's all people selling houses.
John: A&E was about arts and education.
John: It was not about the top rock star wives of Beverly Hilton.
Merlin: That's where you would watch the guy asking everybody questions.
Merlin: James Lipton had that show on A&E.
John: There used to be a lot of stations that had a premise.
John: And you know what, Merlin?
John: They had principles.
John: Principles.
Merlin: Well, you did what it said on the tin.
Merlin: You discover National Geographic, which is not geo.
Merlin: You know, like, come on, guys.
John: You would discover things on Discover.
Merlin: You say Bravo because you're watching a performance.
John: Bravo.
Merlin: Not because you're watching two ladies in tans with high heels hit each other with champagne glasses.
John: Yeah, how many times did I actually say Bravo?
John: Bravo!
John: After watching a show on Bravo.
John: A lot.
John: Very, very rare.
John: Well, now I hardly do it at all.
John: So, you got the coward Jesse James.
John: He's repping people's hogs.
John: He's making hogs for people.
John: And every guy... And, you know, who can pay this asshole to make a hog for him?
John: Rich guys.
John: But, you know, they're masking the rich guys.
John: They're making them look like cool rich guys.
John: Anyway, then, in the door...
John: walks Shaquille O'Neal.
John: And you go, what?
John: Shaquille O'Neal?
John: Like, I lean forward in my chair.
John: Here comes Shaquille O'Neal into Jesse James' motorcycle shop.
John: And Shaquille says, I want a motorcycle, but here's the problem.
John: I'm Shaquille O'Neal.
John: I am
John: Exponentially bigger than everyone else.
John: He's 1.25 people at least.
John: He is 1.3 people.
Merlin: Okay, let's find out.
Merlin: How tall is Shaquille?
John: But he's not just tall, right?
John: No, he's a big man.
John: His feet are big.
John: His legs are big.
John: His name's hard to spell, apparently.
John: He's got knees.
John: 7'1".
John: Yeah, 7'1".
John: 45 years old.
John: But he's perfectly proportionate.
John: He's a giant person.
John: He comes in.
John: He says, I want a motorcycle, but all these Harleys that, and he sits on a regular Harley and it's like, it's hilarious because these Harleys are big bikes.
John: They're hard to control.
John: If I was on a Harley and it laid down, it would be like, ow, right?
John: And like, these are large animals.
John: And he sits on this Harley and he's like, you see my problem, right?
John: And it's like he's sitting in a, it's like he's sitting in coach.
Merlin: It's like the picture of Andre the Giant holding a beer can.
Merlin: And the entire beer can is like, it looks, his palm is larger than a beer can.
John: Do you remember the, it's a very famous photograph from the 70s of the two fairly obese twin brothers that are riding minibikes?
John: You know I do.
John: Of course you do.
Merlin: Billy and Bobby, and they were pro wrestlers for a while.
Merlin: It was a very unflattering photo, but it was every edition I ever owned.
John: It was hilarious.
Merlin: Billy Joe and Bobby Joe, something like that.
Merlin: Was that Petticoat Junction?
Merlin: I forget what they're called, but they had Petticoat Junction names.
John: Billy Joe and Bobby Joe.
Mm-hmm.
John: It was, I think, the most ubiquitous poster from the 70s that didn't include Farrah Fawcett was that picture of a wet cat hanging from a... Hang on, baby.
John: Friday's coming.
John: Wet cat hanging from a curtain rod?
John: Yep, yep, yep.
John: Yeah.
John: Or the little baby with the bullet spaghetti on his head crying.
John: Aw, that came a little lame.
John: That's like fat cat capsizing.
John: Anyway, that's a trip ditch.
John: All right, so Shaq needs a hog.
John: Shaq comes in, and Jesse James, asshole of the universe, who cheated on Sandra Bullock, America's sweetheart, cheated on her with, I think, Teresa Von Tease or somebody.
John: Oh, the burlesque lady.
Merlin: She was with nine-inch nails.
Merlin: No, she was with Marilyn Manson.
Merlin: She had nine-inch heels.
John: It's called burlesque.
John: I think she burlesked her way into the marriage between assholio and America's sweetheartio.
John: But so Shaq doesn't know any of this, I'm guessing, right?
John: Shaq's just like having his time.
John: He's like, I want a motorcycle.
John: Where do I get one?
John: I go to this guy on TV that's making motorcycles.
John: And he says, you got to make me this motorcycle.
John: So they had to build a motorcycle that was proportionate to Shaquille.
John: And did it.
John: They accomplished it.
John: And I'm not saying that he's a bad welder, right?
John: I think Jesse James is probably a good welder.
John: He's a good fabricator.
John: He added some good fabricators on his team.
John: They fabricated this motorcycle.
John: And Shaq gets on it.
John: It looks right.
John: It's the right size for him.
John: It's exactly how it should look, how a motorcycle should look on a man.
John: And he rides off down into the night.
John: And and the final shot of the show is he pulls into a gas station to put gas in his giant motorcycle.
John: And it's like it's it's like a trick of perspective.
John: It's like being in one.
John: It's like being in a fun house where you're like, why are you like a Peter Jackson filling station?
John: Yeah.
John: Here's this thing that just seems like if you if you saw him at a distance, you'd be like, oh, it's a guy on a motorcycle.
John: It's bigger.
John: You're like, what's happening?
John: Why?
John: Force perspective.
John: Yeah.
John: Why are my hands so big?
John: Ah.
John: And it was like the most amazing.
John: It was just tremendous.
John: And the thing was, I always wanted things in the world to be built to the scale that I was.
John: And this started even when I was little.
John: I was like 11 or 12 years old.
John: Other kids...
John: uh around me were starting to be interested in one another sexually they started to like you know like my friend kevin uh he and he and his little girlfriend would stuff leaves down the front of their sweater each other's sweaters this is an autumn and then they would you know have to help one another that is so that is so playful right isn't that sweet oh god that's so playful but they're like touching each other under the sweater they have to they gotta get the leaves out and here's what i was thinking of i was not thinking of that
John: I was thinking, why can't I have a 1968 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow that is scaled small to me?
John: Not a pedal car.
John: This is not some Bugsy Malone garbage.
John: I want this thing to be battery-powered.
Merlin: Bugsy Malone.
Merlin: That's a really good song.
John: That's a very good Paul Williams song.
John: That's all I'm going to say about that.
John: Every song in that record is incredible.
John: The ending with the pie fight is so weird.
John: It's so weird.
John: It broke my heart.
John: It scared me.
John: It's clear that those people are dying.
John: They're being shot and killed by whipped cream pies.
John: But they don't die.
John: They just start singing.
John: But I knew they were dying.
John: Oh, that movie.
John: I really that deeply, deeply affected me to this day.
Merlin: Did that have an impact on your Jodie Foster feelings?
John: Fuck yes.
John: Oh, my God.
John: Yes.
John: When that movie was in the theaters that summer, which would have been what?
John: Summer of 76?
John: Summer of 77?
John: Maybe a little later because Chachi was in it.
John: 78?
John: Probably.
John: I'll find out.
John: Whatever summer that was.
John: It became a thing that my mom could take me to the theater and drop me off.
John: 76.
John: 76.
John: Because I would just go watch Bugsy Malone.
John: And it was the first movie I think that I saw multiple times in the theater.
John: back when you could send a kid to the movies for two bits.
Merlin: They used to not police that very well.
Merlin: One thing they would do is, this sounds crazy today, this would drive John Syracuse crazy.
Merlin: If you got there early, you could go in and watch the end of the movie you were about to see and then just stay there and watch it all the way through again.
Merlin: I did that many times as a kid.
John: Watch the end of the movie and then watch it and then stay and watch it again.
John: They didn't really police that.
John: No, I mean, you couldn't do it if it was Star Wars, right?
John: Because there was a line around 14 blocks.
John: Right, right, right, right.
John: But Bugsy Malone, matinee.
Merlin: This is before the age of the blockbuster.
Merlin: We're still not on Jaws.
John: Yeah.
John: 1976, my God.
John: 1976.
John: I mean, this is back when people actually said two bits still, and other people knew what they were talking about.
John: But I would sit and daydream, because I had a mile and a half walk to school in seventh grade.
John: uh rain or shine and it was alaska it was cold as uh cold as uh well as we used to say as a witch's tit and i would and i'm sure other kids were walking home from school and they were thinking about like oh if i what's my next stratagem for getting to touch a boob and i was thinking how do i get a scale battery powered roseroy silver shadow
John: And why do I not have one already?
John: And I was imagining, seventh grade now, this is when people start to get sophisticated.
John: This is when hormones start to rush in.
John: And I'm picturing, I'm imagining a scene where I would arrive at school in a battery-powered scale Rolls-Royce and park it and be admired.
John: I was imagining that I would be admired rather than reviled.
John: That is how...
John: That is how slowly my brain developed.
Merlin: But you seize upon that idea.
Merlin: And another thing, here's two things I knew about the Rolls Royce Silver Shadow.
Merlin: I don't know if either of these are true.
Merlin: But I heard that was the nicest car you could get.
Merlin: In the conventional wisdom, a Rolls Royce, everybody knew, was the nicest car you could get.
Merlin: And I remember hearing that the Silver Shadow, I don't know if this is true, a Silver Shadow in the 70s cost $100,000.
Merlin: Maybe.
Merlin: See, I don't even care if it's true.
Merlin: But that, going in, didn't you have that same impression?
Merlin: Like, this is the ultimate luxury ride, whatever the cost?
John: It's the nicest car.
John: It's the car that you would get if you, well, it's the car you would get if you were John Lennon and you painted it with a bunch of psychedelia.
John: Put a record player in it.
John: Sure.
John: Sure.
John: I mean, that's the Grey Poupon car.
John: That's the one that's the canonical nice car.
John: Sure.
John: It's the guy, the guy in Candleshoe.
John: That's right.
John: I know them all.
John: The only mistake, of course, with Bugsy Malone is that they didn't.
John: None of those kids could sing.
John: They could barely talk.
John: Chachi is so fucking stilted in that film.
John: They're really bad.
Merlin: That's part of the wonder of it, though.
Merlin: There's so much they put into the production design of that movie and the costumes and the wonderful Paul Williams and his great music.
Merlin: But the kids, they're little kids.
Merlin: It's like community theater.
Merlin: Obviously, though, Jodie Foster's in a different movie.
Merlin: She's so good.
Merlin: She's so good.
John: And the kid that plays the main heavy...
John: Oh, yeah, he was good.
John: He was just some kid that auditioned to be in the chorus because the film was made in England because that was back when it was cheaper to make films in England because England was a depressed economy.
John: England was a poor country.
John: Oh, right.
John: This is around Sex Pistols time.
John: Yeah, Sex Pistols time.
John: This is when the punk rockers were all mad about how you couldn't get a job.
John: They wouldn't collect the garbage.
John: The garbage would just pile up.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: That's right.
John: You know, if it wasn't for the nymphs being so good at building ships.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Froghead wings.
John: So they auditioned this kid.
John: He came in and he was just like... Is this a true story?
John: Are you really... Do you know this?
John: I know this.
John: Do you have the Bugsy Malone coffee table book?
John: You know what it was?
John: It was actually a coffee mug that had little factoids of Bugsy Malone on it.
John: Education, really, it takes a lifetime.
John: So, no, the kid did this audition and they were like, you're amazing.
John: We're going to give you this big part.
John: We're going to give you a speaking role.
John: But the problem with the film is that they didn't have time.
John: to get the kids to sing the songs.
John: And so every time a kid opens his mouth to sing, it's actually Paul Williams' voice.
John: Coming out of A Little African American Boy, for example.
John: Yeah, because Paul Williams did the demos, sent them off, and the filmmakers, you know, he was like, here's the songs.
John: And the filmmakers were like, well, that's good enough.
John: And they just used him singing his songs over himself.
John: And...
Merlin: that is the thing that makes that movie like not a classic right it would be it would be in the pantheon yeah i mean it definitely i i watched it where was you know what it was that song what is the name of that wonderful song at the end of the movie i'm spacing on uh yeah okay the song the nice song i'll cut all this out
Merlin: Bugsy Malone.
Merlin: We've only just begun an official song.
Merlin: We've only just begun.
Merlin: That's not in the movie.
Merlin: Ah, you give a little love.
Merlin: Yeah, you give a little love.
John: You get a little love.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: What was my point?
Merlin: I had a migraine last night.
John: Well, no, that was the point.
Merlin: Yeah, you give a little love.
Merlin: That's the point.
Merlin: In the end, the Paul Williams you give is equal to the love of the bugs that you make.
John: Right.
John: So Jesse James married... I still want to scale Rolls-Royce, but it would now be 1.1 scale.
Merlin: Got it, got it, got it, got it.
Merlin: But it would be electric power.
Merlin: You'd pull right up.
Merlin: You'd have your own spot because you're student of the month.
Merlin: And then all the ladies and the dudes, let's be honest, would all go, ooh, sweet shadow.
John: Yeah, they would not at all say, oh, my God.
Merlin: He's finally lost it.
John: What the fuck?
John: He spent all of his allowance on this.
John: This is before kids even sweared openly.
John: No.
John: They would just be like,
John: i cannot believe what i'm seeing like it would be the ultimate i mean i was already as uncool as you could be but this would be a new i might as well well i i would i would step out and put on my top hat and walk the biology like mr monopoly at your service what world did i think i was living in i did the same thing i had these visions i'm always thinking of that i
Merlin: think it was a willow cather story paul's case about the little boy who wants to be luxurious and he runs away from home and he does something fraudulent to get money and he goes to this hotel and fancy restaurants and like that was me i wanted that so much i wanted to be fancy i wanted to be fancy i really wanted i would my mom would pick me up after work sometimes go out go out to skyline chili and i'd wear a three-piece suit i'd wear a three-piece polyester suit to go have chili oh
John: Can you even believe that?
John: You're so sweet.
Merlin: And I'd be careful not to get cinnamon on my necktie.
John: You know, I did the same thing.
John: I loved it.
John: I loved being fancy.
John: Somebody yelled at me the other day.
John: They were like, you like being fancy.
John: And I said, well, who doesn't want to be fancy?
John: You say that like it's a bad thing.
John: Yeah, and the answer was that, you know, that
John: You don't want to be fancy because that's some kind of, you know.
John: You think you're better than other people.
John: Yeah, you're fancy instead of being, like, real.
John: And I was like, look, I am fucking real.
Merlin: You wanted to be, I think, to borrow a word from our friends across the pond, you wanted to be posh.
John: Well, you know, I want to be able to pick up the phone and say, front desk, I'm allergic to these pillows.
Mm-hmm.
John: And have the front desk say, we'll be right up.
John: And then they show up and they have a whole arm load of pillows that you're not allergic to.
Merlin: They got a pillow valid.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Somebody comes up, they're going to walk you through the process of figuring out the one that's going to be right for your allergy.
John: Well, they're going to say, like, you know, go entertain yourself in the other room of your hotel room.
John: Well, I change out all your bedding, and you'll never know they were here.
John: You'll never know these allergic pillows were even here.
John: And they just leave.
John: They don't want to talk about it.
John: It's not like the room service guy that wants to take the lid off all your food and talk about it.
John: No, they do not.
John: They're not even soliciting a tip.
John: They're just like, I'm a ghost.
John: I'm a ghost that is taking problems away because that is the nature of it.
John: I would love a problem ghost so much.
John: And the thing is, there are plenty of hotels you could stay in in America that don't even have a phone.
John: You have to walk down and wrap on the ice machine because that's where the desk clerk lives.
Merlin: Which is, by the way, one floor down because they don't have them on every floor anymore.
John: And the guy says, oh, we have a set of those, but they're in use.
John: Or something, you know, like where you're walking down the hall of the hotel and there's a pattern in the carpet from all the people that have walked before thee.
John: So many of them are dead now.
John: Well, and a lot of them were dripping blood, so it's darker.
John: I've stayed in four of those fucking hotels.
Merlin: They call it a desire path.
Merlin: Come on.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Follow the blood trail.
Merlin: You walk over to the Andy Griffith phone.
Merlin: You crank it a few times.
Merlin: You say, give me Raleigh on the phone.
Merlin: And then Raleigh picks up down at the front desk.
Merlin: Maybe.
Merlin: Maybe.
Merlin: Or maybe you go straight to voicemail.
John: Well, also, I'd like to, if I pick up the phone and say, hello, front desk, I'd like them to already know my room number because it comes up on their system.
Merlin: I ordinarily find it super creepy, but.
Merlin: In other situations, I would find this creepy, but I'll tell you what I like.
Merlin: I call it in-room dining.
Merlin: I'll call for in-room dining, and they say, hello, Mr. Man.
Merlin: Well, I don't want to give it away.
Merlin: Are you in 306?
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Yeah, right on.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: And, you know, you ask for a pitcher of water and they know they know you want a pitcher of water.
Merlin: You don't want three glasses of water with plastic wrap on them.
Merlin: And you know what?
Merlin: More ice.
Merlin: I don't want to get ice.
Merlin: Bring me ice.
Merlin: I love a place where if they don't have an ice machine, they are Johnny.
Merlin: They are Jonathan on the spot about bringing you Jonathan on the spot.
John: yeah oh i love it so much so not exactly fancy not fancy that makes me fancy then i'll carry that own it wear it wear it like a belt i slept i slept on the floor in plenty of hotel rooms you've been undressed by kings where there was still forensic tape wrapped around the leg of the bed yes you should call down here yeah i'm here are you there oh merlin i'm there where are you
Merlin: I'm here.
John: Merlin, Merlin, Merlin.
John: What happened?
Merlin: Are you muted?
Merlin: I'm muted.
Merlin: I'm not muted.
John: Merlin, Merlin.
Merlin: Oh, John.
Merlin: I'm here.
Merlin: I've got to text John.
Merlin: Hey, everybody.
Merlin: I'm going to text John.
Merlin: I'm not going to edit this.
Merlin: Oh, wait.
Merlin: No, you're back.
Merlin: Hey, buddy.
Merlin: How's it going?
Merlin: Good.
Merlin: Where'd you go?
Merlin: Where'd you go?
Merlin: Well, I was here.
Merlin: So you called down to Jonathan Ponathan.
Merlin: You called down to the guy at the front desk.
Merlin: You wanted to be fancy, kind of up to a point.
John: It's not about being fancy.
John: You know what I mean?
John: I've definitely seen the splatter on the wall.
John: I have definitely looked out the window into the parking lot and said, well, I'm not going out in the parking lot tonight.
John: Not based on what I'm seeing out this window.
John: And now I can call down and say, I would like...
Merlin: two orders of your i would like two large pots of coffee and they don't they don't ask how many people how many people uh it doesn't matter how many people doesn't matter i mean i guess it kind of does because it's number of settings but i think it's the chinese food problem where they're mainly shaming you like only six people would want this much food asshole right
John: Well, and they're saying, like, what if we bring you one pot of coffee and then if you want more, we can bring you a second.
Merlin: Oh, man.
Merlin: You know what I don't need as a coffee coach?
Merlin: I do not.
Merlin: If it's fucking 6.30 a.m.
Merlin: and I've got a flight in an hour and a half, the last thing I need is you being my interlocutor between me and the coffee.
Merlin: I do not need that.
John: I sat in an Audi the other day.
John: I was driving this Audi.
John: It was like, here, you drive, and now I'm driving the Audi.
John: And I stopped, and there was some kind of situation.
John: I was at a beach club because I'm fancy.
John: I was visiting some friends at a beach club.
John: And this is a Washington Beach Club, right?
John: So the water is cold, murky.
John: And apologetic.
John: It's apologetic.
John: It also has, like, stuff floating in it.
John: Like, there's nothing—the water in Seattle is an antagonist, right?
John: It's very beautiful.
John: You can ride on it happily.
John: But to go in it, you have to be—
John: You have to have a prod.
John: It has to be a thing where you're like, I'm stealing myself.
John: I live here, and I'm going to do this.
John: You can't defeat me, water.
John: It's not welcoming as a body.
John: No, no, no.
John: Unless you're a child, and children have apparently no nerve endings or no feelings of any kind, although they will cry if they are brushed too vigorously.
John: They'll cry like they're being soldered, but they can also jump into a freezing cold lake, and apparently it has no effect on them.
John: No effect on their little bodies.
John: But so I'm sitting in this Audi and here's what I want.
John: Are you ready?
John: I want to sit in the driver's seat, but with my feet out the door.
John: I want the door to be open and I want the engine to be running.
John: Now, I don't have any reason for this.
John: I just want to start the car, leave the door open because I'm still talking to somebody.
John: And I've slid my bottom onto the driver's seat.
John: Oh, I see.
Merlin: You're in kind of a resting state.
Merlin: You're in a conversational state.
Merlin: Yeah, I'm in the middle.
John: The engine is on.
Merlin: You're not out of the car, nor are you driving.
John: Right.
John: And the thing is, I started the engine because I thought, okay, we're leaving.
John: And then someone in our party said, oh, wait, I forgot my ex.
Right.
John: at the, you know, back at the beach club.
John: I heard it on the X, and I forgot it.
John: Now I have to go down there and get it.
John: But I've got the motor running, so I have a choice.
John: I can turn the motor off.
John: I can turn your mother down.
John: You can brighten rock.
John: What I choose in this moment is leave the motor running, open the door, flip my legs out so I can continue a conversation with somebody that's outside the car.
John: And here's what the car does.
John: Bop!
John: relentless and i don't know what my problem i don't know what i'm doing wrong am i sitting in the chair without my seat belt on is the motor running with the door open is it that i have previously had a problem with people driving away in an audi with the door open and they feel like feet on the ground and feet on the ground and as a precaution they just want to add a boop boop boop
John: But it's not even a boop-boop-boop.
John: It's like, wah, wah, wah.
John: It's like all hands.
John: It's like dive bomber, dive bomber.
John: And I'm looking at the car.
John: It's interrupting my conversation.
John: I look at the car, the dashboard of the car, and I'm like, what?
John: What the fuck is your problem?
John: Leave me alone.
John: I know what I'm doing.
John: And the car is just like, womp, womp, womp.
John: And I'm like, fucking nanny state.
John: Let me make my own decisions.
John: Let me make this choice for myself, right?
John: Like, it's one thing to tell me, fasten your seatbelt, sir.
John: Or we recommend you fasten your seatbelt.
Merlin: Or I'm going to say the innovation where garage doors got the little beam of light that if this light is broken, stop the door coming down.
Merlin: I personally don't consider that nanny state most of the time.
Merlin: The worst frustration I'm going to get out of that is you've got to redo it, but it might save your Pekingese's life.
Merlin: But some of this stuff, it does not seem thought out.
Merlin: It seems like it's mostly to, what, avoid litigation?
Merlin: Don't know.
Merlin: Don't know.
Merlin: I mean, an Audi is a nice car.
Merlin: Oh, sure.
Merlin: But like you do not want to map map map from your German car.
John: Well, and and a wah wah wah where there's no indication what the car's problem is.
John: It's like and I'm literally now talking to the car like, what is your fucking problem with me?
John: Like, look, man, I'm a I'm a grown ass man.
John: I know when I need to put my foot out the door, Miss Daisy.
John: Yeah, so here I am, right?
John: I'm wearing wet swim trunks.
John: You're reasoning with it.
John: You're reasoning with the car.
John: I'm talking to somebody that is also a member of a beach club, right?
John: And that's fancier than me.
John: I'm not actually a member of this beach club.
John: I just want to look cool, right?
John: I want to sit there with foot out the door.
John: I can see it.
John: It's a good look.
John: How much gas am I burning?
John: It's going to burn more gas to turn the car off and then back on than it is to just sit here and let it idle.
John: It's just a little thimble dropper.
John: It's just a little eyedropper of gas going into the fuel injection.
John: And I look like a fucking dork.
Yeah.
Merlin: because there's a klaxon in my car telling me i'm doing something wrong and and and you have no ability to turn it off you look very weak no there's that's right that's right i look like a total but it's a double the thing is it's a double hit because on the one hand it's warning you about something you don't need to know about and you do not have the agency to stop it that's right i'm a freaking cock here you got cocked the
John: The car is cucking me.
John: And so here are my choices, right?
John: Close the door.
John: So I can't.
John: So I can't.
John: Or like close the door and roll the window down.
Merlin: Your window is down.
John: Your window is down.
John: That's something that a mom at a beach club does.
John: But I'm a dad.
John: I want my feet on the ground.
John: Get the feet out.
John: Or maybe the problem is that I don't have my seatbelt on.
John: So then put the seatbelt on halfway across my inside out box.
Merlin: I bet if you turn the engine off, it might, well, would it still make, I bet it would still make the door beep, beep, beep.
John: Also, this is what I, this is what I ultimately chose.
John: Did you satisfy?
John: I shut the engine down.
John: I shut everything down, took the key out, like shut it all down.
John: Fucking shut it down.
John: It was like a it was like Three Mile Island.
John: I'm standing in the middle like shut it down lockdown mode and finally everything went off enough that I could have this conversation and you know and I felt like okay, you know what car fuck you then how do you like going back to sleep and
John: But I didn't win.
John: I didn't win because what I wanted to do was go to Germany, walk through very, very, very clean hallways with someone in a white lab coat who would use a key card to fob me in to some inner lab and fob me past that into a further lab where a guy sitting on a stool, a very, very clean metal stool at a very clean metal high desk.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Also wearing a lab coat and some glasses would turn around, be introduced to me, and then I would slap him with a white kid leather glove.
John: Oh, you, sir.
John: I challenge you to offend to a saber duel right now unless you eliminate this feature or put a button on the dash that turns all this shit off.
Mm hmm.
Merlin: And we'll see like do not disturb on your phone, like where you could just say, like, I don't want to hear about anything.
John: Yeah, something like something where you could sign a piece of paper.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: It's like the Tesla's.
Merlin: Maybe they have a bareback, bareback mode that they could enable on a bespoke basis.
Merlin: You take it in.
Merlin: You say, are you aware you did?
Merlin: You agree to the terms, the terms and conditions, and we will enable bareback mode.
John: Yeah, we'll take all of this away.
John: Yeah.
John: You know, I had an old Audi a long time ago that had an early iteration of this beep, beep, beep.
John: It wasn't wah, wah, but it was like beep, beep, but loud.
John: And that Audi had some problem.
John: It was a 1989 Audi 5000 S Quattro.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: It had a problem because it was old and it had been ridden hard and it had been put away wet repeatedly.
John: Yeah.
John: And what how it manifest that was that this thing, this sound periodically as I was driving.
John: would just go like five times really loud.
John: And sometimes the car would go through phases where it did it every 20 minutes.
John: And sometimes you wouldn't hear this sound for weeks.
John: And then it would.
Merlin: I've had cars with problems like that.
Merlin: And you take it to the guy and the guy says, it's electric.
John: Right.
John: It's probably electric.
John: That's exactly what I got.
John: I was like, tell me where the tell me where these wires are and I will clip them.
John: Electric is code for six hundred dollars.
John: Right.
John: If if these wires are and the thing was, I would when it was doing it, I would lean down into the dashboard and try to identify from whence it came because I was prepared.
John: I was prepared to do that thing.
John: One time in high school, a friend of mine had like a 72 Camaro RS that he had really customized.
John: It had baby blue flake paint.
John: It had super cool Kroger rims.
John: It was really dope.
John: And we went out to the high school parking lot at lunchtime one time, and someone had smashed the window of his car and stole his whatever, Nakamichi tape deck or whatever it was.
John: And it was kind of an intrusion.
John: We all felt it was an additional crime over the break-in because it happened in our high school parking lot.
John: Like, you know what?
John: Fuck you.
John: Oh, no.
Merlin: That's so close to home.
John: Yeah.
John: Like, we've only been in class a couple of hours.
John: We're powerless.
John: We're stuck in class.
John: And you're taking advantage of us.
John: So this guy broke into my friend's Camaro RS.
John: And he was like, he said, it's not a big deal.
John: I've got insurance.
Yeah.
John: And then he went around into his trunk and he pulled out like the big...
John: socket wrench thing.
John: You know, the socket wrench comes in three big sizes.
John: This one's the big one.
Merlin: It's almost like a hexagon.
Merlin: It's almost like an inch across.
John: This is a thing where you're going to... This is a come-along.
John: You know, you would hurt somebody if you whacked them with it.
John: And I think he even might have had an extender pole for really busting loose some rusty nuts, if you know it.
John: The nut buster.
John: And he put it on, and he reached in, and he just...
John: Wham!
John: And he totally bashed in his tachometer.
John: Just like bashed it.
John: And I was like, what the fuck are you doing?
John: That's the RPM meter.
John: That's right.
John: And he said, it was busted.
John: So since the insurance company is going to pay for my windshield and my tape deck and all this stuff, I might as well get a new tack out of it.
Merlin: This is before they had water sensors in iPhones.
Yeah.
John: Long time before.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: So, I mean, there's no way to know why your tachymeter was smashed with a hex-like pattern.
John: Exactly.
John: Like, the insurance adjuster, if he's clever, is going to say, I get it.
John: Broke the window, took the tape deck.
John: But why would the guy spend an extra minute to bust... That makes sense.
John: That makes sense.
John: Just one more question.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: That makes sense.
John: All right.
John: Let me ask you.
John: Yeah.
John: One clarification.
John: But that was the first instance that I'd ever seen of like, huh, he seems to be gaming the system.
John: It's car hacking.
John: But when I would drive this Audi...
John: It was really irritating to me, but at the time I had a lady friend who was, you know, a diminutive woman.
John: She was, how would you describe her?
John: A pixie?
John: She was a little bit of a pixie.
John: Yeah, she had very short hair, short red hair.
John: You might even describe her as a manic pixie dream girl, although she and I were the same age, so it wasn't something where I was like an old man.
John: Oh, she wasn't helping you get your groove back?
John: No, she wasn't trying to save my life or validate my aging.
John: She was just a friend who was the same age as me who happened to be a pixie.
John: She happened to fit all the bills.
John: A lot of people think there's only domesticated pixies.
John: There are also wild pixies.
John: So this, she is definitely a wild pixie.
John: And one of the things about her is that she is very tightly wound.
John: Wound like a Swiss watch.
John: Like...
John: her tolerances are within a pretty narrow range in terms of how hot and cold and also surprising beeping sounds.
Merlin: Interesting.
Merlin: Much like herself, like a high-performance European vehicle.
John: Yes.
John: She is very high-performance.
John: She uses only the highest octane gas.
John: And when we would drive in the car, the beeping would happen, and she would leap like a cat,
John: That had that you had hit with like you'd if you stood behind a sleeping cat and hit some orchestral symbols like Point of information.
Merlin: Is this the one who didn't like her feet touched?
John: No, totally different sexy continue right there are a lot of high-strung pixies in my life It is it is a thing I do not understand right like I'm a blue things on the road that indicate where a fire hydrant is a fire plug as you say you don't notice that until you start noticing it and then brother you really notice it and
Merlin: Once you know about wild pixies, you will start seeing them everywhere.
John: If you buy a first-generation Volkswagen Scirocco, you're going to suddenly see Sciroccos everywhere.
John: Now, in this instance, that is wrong because you will not see Sciroccos everywhere because they don't exist anymore.
Merlin: It's called the Scirocco effect.
John: Right?
Merlin: Because it doesn't have anything to do with Sciroccos.
John: You saw Scirocco's all the time.
John: You saw first-gen Scirocco's, second-gen Scirocco's, third-gen Scirocco's.
John: I challenge you to go out of the door today and keep your eyes peeled.
John: Tell me if you see one fucking Scirocco in the next week.
Merlin: Bader Meinhof.
Merlin: It's not just a river in Egypt.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Pretty soon you're seeing it everywhere.
Merlin: It's like the first time.
Merlin: I got one for you.
Merlin: Are you ready for this?
Merlin: Did you ever watch that girl?
Merlin: Of course.
Merlin: Okay, Donald Hollister is engaged to, what's her name, Anne-Marie?
John: You know that there's a very significant significance.
Merlin: in my life to the to that girl i'm not gonna i'm not gonna stipulate it oh no that's where it comes from oh yeah oh i never knew that okay um he's trying to shop for an engagement ring and they ask him how many baguettes he wants it to be
Merlin: This is my first Bader-Meinhof phenomenon.
Merlin: This is the first time I ever had an experience of it, even before I knew that name.
Merlin: Bader-Meinhof.
Merlin: So Donald Hollister, he hears about baguettes in diamonds, and then he keeps hearing about baguettes, and he says aloud, I don't know, this is from like 1968, he says something like, you don't hear a word for your entire life, and then you hear it all these times in a row in the same week.
Merlin: And guess what that means?
Merlin: That means little boy me had the same experience.
Merlin: I got Donald Hollistered by that girl, because that was the first time I had ever heard the word baguette, and it's baguettes all the way down.
John: Right.
Merlin: Is that a bread, or is that a unit of diamond?
John: That's a bread.
John: Baguette is a bread.
Merlin: What do they call it in a diamond?
Merlin: Carrots.
Merlin: Gluten.
Merlin: I think it was a baguette.
Merlin: How many baguettes do you get per diamond?
John: How many baguettes does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop?
John: A one, a two, a three.
Merlin: That was the first time you got Donald Pleasant.
Merlin: You mean like a Halloween type situation or Escape from New York?
John: I, well, I can't.
Merlin: You're going to do Roland Blofeld.
John: I cannot not think of Escape from New York now that you've said it.
John: I watched it last week.
John: I watched it last week.
John: No, you didn't.
John: Come on.
Merlin: We talked about it on a program I do at John Syracuse as my canonical example of seeing a movie without knowing anything about it when I was in eighth grade.
Merlin: And I watched it again last week.
Merlin: And you know what?
Merlin: It was fucking great.
Merlin: It holds up, huh?
Merlin: Snake Plissken.
Merlin: I thought you were dead.
Merlin: Oh, fuck.
Merlin: King of New York, A number one.
John: He rode that glider to the top of the world.
John: He rides the glider.
Merlin: He rides the glider.
John: You can't do that today.
John: Never forget.
John: I'm proud to be an American.