Ep. 263: "Rear Admiral Crunch"
Merlin: This episode of Roderick on the Line is brought to you by HelloFresh.
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John: hello hi john hi merlin how's it going super good are you having a nice morning so far a pretty good morning yeah pretty good morning you know i'm trying to i'm trying to practice better sleep hygiene i've heard rumors about this yeah and the sun now uh the sun has become my friend the sun accommodates us it's finally like a normal day
John: Yeah, except we're about to daylight savings time it again.
John: Like a week from now, it's all going to go to shit again.
Merlin: It's only in the last week that sunset feels like a normal time.
Merlin: And I don't mind the dark morning.
Merlin: But it feels like it came up.
Merlin: I mean, you're in a different latitude, longitude.
Merlin: You're in a different horizontal than I am.
John: That's right.
Merlin: Latitude.
Merlin: What does that do to your day?
Merlin: Well, both.
Merlin: I mean, it's both, right?
Merlin: Because I remember being in Portland and thinking, their time feels different here.
John: It is different, yeah.
John: In the summertime, the sun doesn't go down until like almost 10.
John: But in the winter, especially after the...
John: After the daylight savings time comes in the Sun goes down at four.
John: Yeah And so that's too early John that's the worst and there's no reason for daylight savings time up here It doesn't it all it does is is pummel us
John: um nobody cares if it's like light at doesn't that give your family more time to collect their potatoes yeah it's so so appalling it's like when you get home from work it's already dark when you get home from school it's like already dark there's no daylight that is hard on my lady friend man she works for a living it sucks to leave work while the sun is setting that is gross it's terrible well you know when i was growing up
John: In the winter, you never saw the sun.
John: I had a classroom.
John: My fifth and sixth grade classroom was in a converted locker room.
John: Hot.
John: Because the school, my elementary school, had been a Catholic school, like a private school, and somehow the city absorbed it.
John: But it wasn't quite big enough to...
John: to accommodate all the students and so they and also there weren't locker rooms because it was an elementary school now instead of i mean i think it was a catholic junior high or something okay so they turned the locker room into a into a class and it was great in there it was like this it was like this little uh it wasn't little it was big but it was all carpeted they'd carpeted the floors i think they'd carpeted like
John: They put carpet on everything they could, and it just felt like a little womb in there.
John: But the problem is you would go in in the morning, and it would be dark, and you would come out at night, and it would be dark.
John: And it was like you just... I mean, I guess on sunny days, they would give us recess, and we'd go outside and get a little sun.
John: There weren't windows, right?
John: So you couldn't look out and even see.
John: Oh, that's no good.
John: That's no good.
John: That's what's up for body clock.
John: It does, but it was like living inside of a beanbag chair.
John: I mean, now that I'm talking about it, I kind of miss it.
John: I wish I could go back to my fifth grade class and just curl up in the corner and read Watership Down.
John: That's a sad book.
John: You left alone.
John: It is a sad book.
John: It is a sad book.
Merlin: I want to circle back to your sleep because I'm not up to date on your other program, but I'd like to hear about your sleep.
Merlin: I've talked about this too much lately, so I'm just going to say this.
Merlin: I have feelings about time, and I have a lot of feelings about time.
Merlin: It keeps on ticking.
Merlin: My thought on this is just pick one.
Merlin: Just pick one.
Merlin: Pick a time?
Merlin: I mean, if we're going to do daylight saving time, let's do that all the time.
Merlin: If we do the other one, let's do the other one.
Merlin: But let's just do one and stick with it.
Merlin: The change is you have a kid now that's old enough that you're probably facing this.
Merlin: When daylight saving time starts...
Merlin: it feels criminal to a child it's not even near sunset you're supposed to go to bed while the sun is still visible in the sky are we farm people no france marcia um are we what what what is happening we need to just get one and stick with it i think time i have a lot of other feelings but just for the purposes of this program i just want to say let's not over complicate this it seems like daylight savings time
John: And the Electoral College.
John: Okay, I'm starting a list.
John: Are the same, right?
John: They're both things that we need to eliminate, but there's a lot of investment in it that, you know, it's like the sunk cost fallacy.
John: Nobody really cares what we've invested in them.
John: Like, it's not like...
John: It's not like it would cost us really any money.
John: We're just emotionally invested in these dumb ideas that are... And the electoral college is getting worse.
John: The time thing sucks, but it's always sucked mostly the same.
John: The electoral college problem is getting worse.
John: Yeah, but it's not like the people in power presently are going to do anything about it.
Merlin: Oh, I know, I know.
Merlin: But as more people move to cities and as collections of various political parties tend to get more...
Merlin: kind of collect or pool down to these same areas.
Merlin: I mean, come on, Montana, really?
John: It's awful.
John: But what do we do?
John: It's another example of a situation where they just need to give us the keys.
Merlin: It's that do-nothing Congress.
John: Yeah.
John: It's that damn do-nothing Congress that keeps changing our clocks every year.
John: I blame the government.
John: Wasn't it Arizona that decided in their way they passed a referendum where they wouldn't celebrate Martin Luther King Day and also they wouldn't go on Daylight Savings Time?
John: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
John: And is that still true?
John: Is it still the one state that won't switch over?
Merlin: I remember there were hip-hop songs about that, I feel like.
Merlin: And I'm pretty sure that Arizona is still off...
Merlin: the daylight saving time daylight but there's you know there's videos you can watch about this that are that will that will make you extra super mad because there are there are areas where like two two different uh sides of the street you know or like in different times there's there's stuff that's just bananas
John: Oh, I'm so mad already.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: That's not right.
John: I'm so mad.
John: You know, it's like splitting families apart.
John: It is.
John: It's a kind of temporal civil war.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: That's exactly what it is.
John: One side over here.
John: The other side over here has got no soup.
John: Yeah, and the brother against brother, but the other one doesn't find out for an hour.
John: It's just like in East Germany.
John: I remember seeing after they took the wall down, there were all these situations where I guess when the wall was there...
John: It was maybe less clear because there was a giant wall.
John: But when the wall went down, you realized how many places out in the countryside that they that just like in Berlin, they ran this wall down the middle of the street.
John: And there was a house over here and there was a house over there.
John: And all of a sudden there was a no man's land between them where.
John: They had been, like, neighbors where you could call from the porch and, like, yodel-ay-hee-hoo or whatever to the people across the street.
John: That's miserable.
John: That's so arbitrary.
John: It's like a tornado.
John: You know, you just, it's ridiculous.
John: It's crazy.
John: It's crazy.
John: And you can stand in those places now and just be like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait, wait, wait.
John: These were two separate countries before?
John: Like, really, it's across the street.
Merlin: What else goes on the list?
Merlin: I've got, I still want to talk about your sleep.
Merlin: I got daylight saving time.
Merlin: I got the electric college.
Merlin: Are there other things that were once a good idea for a reason that are sticking around in a way that's perhaps harming us more than helping us?
Merlin: That's a good question.
Merlin: Yeah, we'll think on it.
Merlin: I got a list started if you think of anything.
John: Well, you know, I'm thinking about that stuff all the time.
John: I usually think about it in terms of top-down organization rather than bottom-up organization.
Merlin: I mean, there are ones that are just like bees in my bonnet.
Merlin: You take something like a fax machine, where it's almost like anthrax or polio or something, where as long as any of them are still out there, we might get a fax or need to get a fax.
Merlin: They need to be eradicated.
Merlin: We need to just say, as people, we are not going to use this.
Merlin: It must serve a very important purpose, but there are so many better ways to do that at this point.
Merlin: Can I put that on the list?
Merlin: May I put fax machines on the list?
John: Yeah, please do.
John: Until very recently, it feels like only a year ago even, I was still getting...
John: emails from people saying, well, just print this out, sign it, and fax it back to me.
John: And I always refused to do it.
John: And there were a lot of... And now they want you to use an app that doesn't work.
John: Those are fun to follow.
John: For the last year or two... Just download this Adobe app.
John: Yeah, it's been like, oh, no, use DocuSign.
John: But I do a lot of my business on my phone, and a lot of those apps are badly, well, I don't have to tell you about an app that's badly.
John: This is a line in the sand, though.
Merlin: You said this to people in positions of power, where basically if you can't do it on your phone, you're not going to do it.
John: Right, and I said to a guy the other day, he was like, well, just send me an invoice for that.
John: And I said, you and I have been doing business for 22 years.
John: Do you need me to fucking send you an invoice?
John: Are you serious?
John: Are you serious right now?
John: You need an invoice from me?
John: Like, write it out on a piece of paper and sign my name to it.
John: You know, I don't give a shit, but what world are we living in that I need to send you an invoice?
Merlin: He needs it for a system, probably.
John: The thing is, I sent him one, and he's like, oh, I can't open that.
John: Because I did it in pages because I don't have Word.
John: I don't know.
John: I don't know, man.
John: I don't know.
Merlin: You should be able to send a text file.
Merlin: Send me $200, motherfucker.
Merlin: Right.
John: And don't make it a check.
John: I'm putting checks on the list.
John: So he says, oh, well, if I was the business, I can't send it to you because I'm not the business manager.
John: If I was the business manager, I'd do it.
John: And I'm like, you're the manager?
John: What do you mean business manager?
John: So you're dealing with the manager manager.
John: You're the manager manager.
John: You're telling me that the business manager has got some system that you are like, yes, ma'am?
John: Like, you're the manager.
John: Who's the manager?
John: This is why Trump won.
John: Let me speak to the manager.
John: Let me speak to the manager manager manager.
Merlin: Let me speak to manager cubed.
John: But DocuSign, and this is not a plug.
John: It's an outlet.
John: It's the opposite of a plug.
John: But DocuSign in the last nine months, let's say, has finally gotten to a point where...
John: More than 60% of the time I use it, I don't fling my phone across the room and scream.
John: Well, that's nice to hear.
John: Yeah.
John: So I just signed a contract a few days ago.
John: I signed it on DocuSign.
John: And it was one of those, I think we crossed some line where these apps now are starting to say like, ah, you've been here before.
John: Yes.
John: Like Square.
Yes.
John: When you go to a shop and you use your credit card on Square, it no longer, in most cases, is confused by who you are and wants you to put your email address in.
John: If I've used a credit card on Square now, I get a receipt in the email.
John: It's figured it out.
John: It's figured out for the most part.
John: There are still some places that are like,
John: Where the person by the counter says, would you like a receipt?
John: Would you like a receipt?
John: And I'm like, yes, I always want a receipt.
John: And they're like, they turn the thing around.
John: They're like, just put in your email address.
John: I'm like, I would rather give you a pint of blood than stand here.
John: and put my email address in for a receipt.
Merlin: You have a point of sale terminal for my blood?
Merlin: Because that's what you're going to get before you get an email address.
John: I want you to fax me the receipt.
John: I want you to fax it between two slices of bread and I want you to put it between your knees.
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Merlin: Well, okay, here's the thing.
Merlin: I don't want to go on about checks.
Merlin: But, you know, the thing is, a check made sense.
Merlin: The check people?
Merlin: Oh, no, sorry.
Merlin: I'm not talking about the metalists.
Merlin: No, but, like, in a time when most of us were using American green currency and coins to pay for things, checks made a lot of sense.
Merlin: So, like, if you want to get your sea monkeys...
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: You might send a check or whatever.
Merlin: Or your rent.
Merlin: Because it doesn't make sense to send your $200 rent check or to send your $200 in cash in the mail.
Merlin: You don't want to do that.
Merlin: No.
Merlin: And so you say, please accept this little piece of paper with my signature.
Merlin: That's going on the list.
Merlin: With my signature on it so you know it's me.
Merlin: And then my bank will give you this much money if it's in there.
Merlin: That made a lot of sense.
Merlin: But now we're not doing that so much.
Merlin: Now people, especially the millennials, the millennials don't even understand what cash is anymore.
Yeah.
Merlin: I believe it.
John: I see it at the Walgreens.
John: At the Walgreens, they want to buy some Altoids, and they use their chip card.
John: Yeah.
John: That's why I keep paying millenniums for things in Canadian currency, because they don't know the difference.
John: I'm like, here you go.
John: There's two loonies and a toonie.
John: And they're like, thanks.
John: Thanks, man.
John: Is this real gold?
John: That's a Canadian doubloon.
John: They call it a doubloonie.
John: A doubloonie.
John: Uh-huh.
John: Yeah, they put it up into their mouth and they bite on it because they've seen Olympians do that with their gold medals.
John: Oh, or prospectors.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Everything I know about counterfeit money I learned from prospectors.
John: I actually still get a book of checks.
John: Aw.
John: I know, because I pay people that come around.
John: Oh, sure.
John: You know what I mean?
John: Assam wouldn't turn down a check, I bet.
John: No, no, no.
John: In fact, I paid him with a check.
John: I pay people that come around.
John: I like to have every kind of financial instrument available because there are a lot of people that I do business with that don't trust the banks.
John: You want a German bearer bond?
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: That's right.
John: And the way I get them is that I shut down the entire electrical grid.
John: Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the FB.
John: You smell that coffee?
John: They pack them with coffee.
John: But I just found out the other day because...
John: You know that I don't like to sit and yell at companies or corporations.
John: You?
John: No, that's not going to happen.
John: I don't like to do it.
John: But recently, Chase Bank.
Merlin: So.
Merlin: I got to look.
Merlin: I did get a little note from your mom.
Merlin: I didn't understand the note, but I knew there was some kind of a problem, and Chase was now in your bad books.
John: Yeah, there's a problem.
John: There's a problem.
John: We've written a thousand-word letter to the state's attorney general.
Merlin: Did you get the whole team together?
Merlin: You got Susan on it, you got mom on it.
John: So, you know, a letter was drafted, and then it went out, and we edited it down, and now it's ready to send.
John: Oh, boy.
John: The state's attorney general is going to hear about it.
John: Stand by.
What?
John: When I was growing up, we always used the National Bank of Alaska.
John: It's not a state bank?
Merlin: It's a national bank?
John: Well, the National Bank of Alaska.
John: It's the Bank of the Nation of Alaska.
John: When my dad worked for the Alaska Railroad, we used the Alaska Railroad Employees Federal Credit Union.
John: And that was my first book of checks.
John: And when I was like 12 years old, my dad was like, I'm getting you a checking account.
John: And I was like, oh, my God, I'm so big.
John: I could almost drive.
John: And they let me pick out the kind of checks I wanted.
John: And of course, I got the ones with the Western theme that looked like old parchment.
John: And my checkbook looked like hand-tooled leather.
John: That's a good look.
John: That's a really good look.
John: I was really impressed by it.
John: And so because I wanted to be prepared...
John: I went through and I signed every check in advance so I didn't have to worry about doing it.
Merlin: Is that right?
John: I was at the cash.
John: I was just like, so you created a hand-tooled leather book of blank checks.
John: Blank signed checks, yeah.
John: That was my first experience.
John: Before that, my bank account that I had down here in Seattle when I was a kid, you know, I had a bank book.
John: Not only Millenniums won't understand this.
John: Oh, like a passbook.
John: Yeah, but even like Generation Y won't understand what that is.
John: But they give you a book like a passport.
John: And it was like a little ledger.
John: Yeah, and every time you made a deposit, they would like write it in this book.
John: And every time you...
John: Made a withdrawal.
John: And so you could keep this little book.
John: Oh, my God.
John: I poured over this little book, you know, because every time somebody would give me 25 cents, I would put it in a shoebox.
John: And when I got up enough money that it was worth a trip to the bank, I would carry my shoebox into the bank.
John: Oh, man.
John: And give them and open the lid and say, like, here, I made a dollar doing this and I mowed the lawn for six weeks.
John: And there's a lot of people in line.
John: No, no, no, no.
John: Of course, they loved kids because everyone had all the time in the world.
John: That's true.
John: That's true.
John: You can only be 16 people at Windows.
John: Yeah, right.
John: And the carpets on the floor and they were giving away toasters, going to the bank.
Merlin: That's like my first digital clock radio came from a bank.
Merlin: Bank, right.
Merlin: First time I heard Supertramp was on a bank radio.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: Oh, it wasn't at the bank.
Merlin: No, no.
Merlin: I had to take it home, plug it in, take out the box and whatnot, yeah.
Merlin: And it wasn't a real digital clock.
Merlin: It was one of the ones that flipped.
John: Oh, the flippers.
John: I was at a thrift store the other day, and I saw one of those, and it was the same one that I'd had as a kid.
John: And I was walking through the shelves, you know, looking at all the crap, and I saw this thing from afar and just had that, like,
John: That burst of familiarity of like, what the hell is that?
John: Like, I've seen a billion clocks at thrift stores.
John: Why am I having this reaction?
John: I walked over to it and it was like, oh, this is the button that I would every morning hit hoping that the alarm would close.
Merlin: stop bringing in that i would never have to go to school again and there it is this biggest day i almost bought it but then i was like don't buy it speaking of sleep the one that i had um when i was probably at my nearly most sleep deprived i want to say around eighth grade uh it had a real nice feature if you're having trouble sleeping uh you can get sleep at night and you know what it would do um before the minute card flipped it would grind a little bit there would just be here a little bit of like
Merlin: It popped over and said, oh, I guess it's 12.03 now.
Merlin: Oh, here it comes.
Merlin: You anticipate it.
Merlin: You're like, oh, here it comes 12.04.
Merlin: Shit.
Merlin: Oh, back when things were things.
Merlin: Oh, things were just things.
Merlin: It was so simple then.
Merlin: Things were things.
Merlin: Clocks were clocks.
Merlin: Well, I hope you'll follow up when you get a response to the letter.
John: Oh, well, so anyway.
John: Oh, yeah, more.
John: Good, good.
John: Okay.
Merlin: I don't know if this is bad OPSEC for you to talk about banking things, but since you're walking out the door, I guess you're free to talk about it.
John: Yeah, no, it's good.
John: So Washington Mutual, I got my first Washington Mutual account really early on in the 91 because I tried to use U.S.
John: Bank.
John: And U.S.
John: Bank had this program that they were really excited about.
John: They touted this program called overdraft protection, where if you wrote a check and you didn't have enough money to cover it, they would cover it.
John: It was overdraft protection.
John: That's magic.
John: And I was like, that's going to be great.
John: You guys cover it.
John: Fantastic.
John: All right.
John: And then I made the natural assumption that when you then put more money in the bank, they paid themselves and whatever little charge they had.
John: And everybody was good.
John: But in fact, what overdraft protection was, was that they
John: paid your debt and took the amount that they'd paid and put it in a separate account because it was a loan.
John: Oh, that's how they get you.
John: Yeah.
John: And so then I would make my deposit of my paycheck and merrily on my way.
John: Well, one day I went into the bank and they were like, you're $500.
John: You have $500 in your overdraft protection account.
John: And it's accruing at 24% interest or something like this.
John: And some banker told this to me.
John: And I was like, what are you talking about?
John: Because each one of these $20 checks that had...
John: that it would that would have bounced oh it's accruing toward them or them oh that's that's the wrong kind of accrual right and they had not it was not clear and they were like oh well if you'd read the fine print on the thing that you signed it was one of those if you'd read the fine print things and so at the time i was pretty young i didn't fully understand uh the repercussions of everything that i did and i said i am closing my account good day sir
John: And that set in motion a situation where I was getting phone calls in an attempt to collect a debt and any information will be used.
John: Oh, they Miranda'd you.
John: For 11 more years.
John: Oh, ye.
John: Every time I had a house with a phone number.
John: Mr. Roderick, does it make you feel like a big man not to pay you bills?
No.
John: For this $500 I owed U.S.
John: Bank.
John: But anyway, I went to Washington Mutual.
John: I loved my relationship with them.
John: They were right there on Broadway.
John: They got big.
John: I remember them being in Florida.
John: They became a big bank, but they were originally a local bank.
John: I had an account number that when I would go up to the teller and they would read my account number, they'd say, oh, wow, you've been here a long time.
John: This is the old style of account number.
John: And I always took a lot of pride in that.
John: I like to have an old style account number.
John: And then they got too big for their britches.
John: They screwed up.
John: They became a behemoth.
John: And they fell apart.
John: They lost a little bit of that personal touch.
John: They really did.
John: And they also lost several tens of billions of dollars.
John: And then they were absorbed by Chase Bank, a faceless New York banking enterprise.
John: And largely it was because of my old account number.
John: my, my now like account number that predated five different iterations of, of the bank that I just hung in there.
John: I was like, right.
John: I'm going to hang in there, you know, because I've got this account number that starts with zero five nine or something, which, you know, which it's, it's hard for me to, you know, when I call AAA and they're like, thank you for being a member since 1997.
John: I'm like, you're goddamn right.
John: You're goddamn right.
John: AAA, you provide a good service, even though you're
John: Even though your customer service is about 50-50.
John: Yeah.
John: Anyway, Chase Bank has started.
John: They wanted us to use their take a picture of the check and it'll deposit thing.
John: Yeah.
John: But in the last year, they have disappeared three separate checks.
John: Oh.
John: Where they said, your check has been deposited.
John: Here's your number.
John: Here's your transaction number.
John: And they sent the people whose check it was, a canceled check with my signature on the back.
John: Maximile.
Maximile.
John: But did not deposit the money.
Merlin: That feels like I don't want to talk out of school here.
Merlin: That feels like a failure at a fairly fundamental level for what one considers a professional bank.
John: For what a bank is being asked to do.
Merlin: For what we still actually need a goddamned bank to do.
Merlin: That's right.
John: And so they're like, hey, early adopter, grab on this technology where you just take a picture of the jack.
John: You kidding me?
John: It's so easy.
John: Why do we even do it this other way?
John: We'll just take a picture of the jack.
John: It's like when you go on an app and they're like, oh, just put your phone over your credit card and we'll scan it and then it'll be in your account.
John: And you sit there with your phone trying to square up the credit card for like a minute and a half.
John: You know, I could have just put the number in by now.
John: Anyway, so it was my bookkeeper who discovered this.
John: My bookkeeper who said, wait a minute.
John: There's like $5,000 missing.
John: That's a lot of money, John.
John: That's a lot of money.
John: So we called them.
John: We called their customer service operation, which was in Bangalore, right next to where they make the torpedoes.
John: Okay.
John: And we talked to some people who... They were able to resolve it very quickly, I imagine.
John: Ultimately, what they said was that a banking relationship between a bank and a customer is a relationship that requires some mutual effort.
John: In the sense that the bank can take your money and give you a number...
John: For the exchange, but then it's really the onus is on the customer to make sure that The money was there.
John: Oh, you fucked up.
John: There's what they're saying by not mm-hmm Being sure you didn't follow up you follow up to make sure the check went through is that what happened?
John: Yeah, I didn't check the bank's work and that was part of our mutual obligation to see now, you know
John: The bank takes my money and tells me that it's fine, but then I have to make sure.
John: So that precipitated.
Merlin: If you think about what is a bank actually good for, one of the obvious things is, okay, they've got a pretty secure facility.
Merlin: If you want to put your deed in a safe deposit box, you would do that.
Merlin: If somebody sends you a piece of paper that says it's worth $5,000, they'll take care of that.
Merlin: But what if they said, then you should really be checking in on that box.
Merlin: You should pop in once in a while and make sure that deed is still there the way you left it.
John: Yeah, make sure that we didn't break it open with a crowbar.
John: I thought you understood our relationship.
John: So believe you, me, my bookkeeper really had a lot to say on this matter and wrote, she tends to write very long letters.
John: And then my job is to, to, you know, punch them up a little bit, make, make them a little bit tighter, tighter.
John: Anyway, she's going to the state's attorney general, but in any case, but you're the manager manager in that case.
John: Yeah.
John: But we have, we're now switching our bank.
John: And this is another bank I've had a long relationship with because this was the bank where I did the banking for the Roderick Group.
John: Oh, right.
John: And what I had realized, I didn't know this, I guess, because I had registered several aliases.
John: at that bank because I was in a phase then before I started, before I really started taking bipolar.
John: Where I got another DBA.
John: Yeah.
John: If you had the option of registering an alias, I would, I would do it.
John: You dove out the door and did a roll.
John: What I did and didn't even realize I'd done is that you can write me a check.
John: you can write a check to hashtag super train and I can catch, I can cash it.
John: Please someone do this.
John: And I don't know why I haven't had people do this for like four years.
John: Wow.
John: If somebody is like, Oh yeah, I can write you a check.
John: Just say like,
John: Yeah, make it out to hashtag super train.
John: I can do that.
Merlin: Wow.
Merlin: I wonder if that ever, I could see that screwing up the system because that's got a special character in it.
John: Well, it does.
John: And I'm not sure either about whether or not the hashtag is just for fun.
John: Oh, I see.
Merlin: We should ask John Syracuse about this.
Merlin: He'd know.
John: Well, and I actually I sent an email to my banker and I was like, can I really do this?
John: And then I realized, wait a minute, I can get checks made that say hashtag super train.
John: Oh, my God.
John: I could get a platinum business card that says hashtag super train on it.
John: Oh, my God.
Merlin: If it was one of those new ones where the numbers just kind of etched on the back, that would look so badass.
Merlin: That would look super badass.
Merlin: Yeah, I'm okay for this bounce on Super Train.
John: Also, I can get checks written to all the great shows.
John: Oh my.
John: I don't even remember doing this.
John: I must have been in an absolute fugue state.
John: You had a lot going on.
John: I did at the time.
John: I was very busy.
John: I think even my banker offered me the option of getting checks made with
John: With a stencil picture, like a clip art picture of a GMC RV on them.
John: And I guess I maybe forgot to give him the go-ahead on that.
John: Now I partly regret it and partly am kind of fine with it that I don't have those.
Merlin: So you're moving banks.
Merlin: That's good.
Merlin: It feels like a good step I kind of feel like you need to ride that like if you do the I mean that's a pretty common thing now you take a photo of a check Like do you feel like you need with your new bank or your new old bank or supertrain bank?
John: You still feel like you need to kind of ride that and monitor the relationship well, it's interesting because When I was at Washington Mutual, I didn't have enough money coming and going that I had a banker and
John: But I knew the tellers, you know, I'd go in there and like, hey, because it was like the old style of banking.
John: Those people worked there for a long time and you would go deposit your paycheck all the time.
John: You would go in there and it was two blocks from where I worked and it was like part of your day.
John: Go to the bank.
Merlin: That was part of the ritual, like go to the butcher shop, go to the bank.
Merlin: There was like this certain like these at least weekly errands that I was compelled to attend as a kid that were just like part of life.
Merlin: Go to the post office.
Merlin: Yeah, right, right.
Merlin: Post office, bank.
Merlin: Buy your 13 cent stamps.
John: Post office, bank, hardware store, grocery store.
Mm-hmm.
John: That was back when I carried a little laminated card in my wallet where I'd written down the phone numbers of everyone I knew in tiny, tiny, tiny little letters.
John: Oh, that's so smart.
John: Then I laminated it with scotch tape, or with packing tape.
John: It was like a piece of paper, and I would put packing tape over the front.
Merlin: Well, we had to consider, you know, we still had the specter of nuclear war hanging over our head.
Merlin: We had to be ready to jump into a bunker at any time.
John: Oh, I'm reading a book right now.
John: about the United States government's like the basically the Cold War strategy for continuity of government and the whole like where the plan started during the Truman administration like wait a minute if the Russians were to drop a bomb on the White House do we have a plan right for that and the answer was no why would we never had a plan like like
John: Somewhere in the book is a story like the first day of Harry Truman's presidency after FDR died.
John: They're like, you're the president now.
John: And he was like, great, I'm going to the bank.
John: And he walked out the door of the White House and started walking to the bank where he did his banking.
John: And...
John: And the Secret Service was like chasing after him and they shut down the street and suddenly all of Washington, D.C.
John: is like paralyzed because the president like snuck out a side door and went to the bank.
John: And didn't realize or didn't factor in that he couldn't do that anymore.
Merlin: He was already vice president.
Merlin: How would he not know that?
John: But as vice president in 1945.
John: But like in the 40s, because he wasn't FDR's vice president until...
John: that final term, right?
John: Until... 44?
John: 44.
John: And up until that point, you know, he'd been a senator.
Merlin: Wait a minute.
Merlin: So wait a minute.
Merlin: If he was elected in 44, he came in January of 45.
Merlin: So he'd only been, it was April when Roosevelt died?
John: He was vice president for two months.
John: Oh my goodness.
John: And then it's like, oh, you're the president now.
John: If I knew that, I forgot it.
John: That's super interesting.
John: It's really interesting.
John: And I think the story is that
John: He got a message like, Harry, come over to the White House.
John: We need to talk to you.
John: And he said, huh, that's weird.
John: I've only seen the president twice since the election.
John: I wonder what they want.
John: And he walked over to the White House and Eleanor Roosevelt was waiting for him.
John: Oh, my goodness.
John: And she was like, Harry, you're the president now.
John: and he's like shit i gotta go to the bank yeah i gotta go make sure my checks went through but i think until until i'm about to get a lot busier right until the middle of the war there was no secret service protection for the vice president they didn't think it was necessary who would bother so he just walked around and then i think it was then they realized oh wait a minute he's the next in line
John: and fdr could die any day we'd better put we'd better give him two agents you know to kind of make sure he doesn't get lost and and and truman was more of like minders yeah and he was like get off me you know you get out of here kid you're bugging me uh but then he realized oh you can't do that anymore harry you're the president but so this book yeah it's about all of the secret
John: You know, gradually, and I didn't know this either, but there was a whole period in the late 40s, early 50s where conventional wisdom in the United States seemed to be that our future as a country was going to involve us basically moving our industry underground.
Merlin: Because of the threat of nuclear war.
Merlin: A seemingly survivable nuclear war that will let us continue to have milling machines underground for perpetuity.
John: That's right.
John: So government agents went around and did an enormous survey of all the caves in the United States.
John: And they were like, well, let's see if we just requisition all these caves, if we eminent domain all these caves and we build like General Mills.
John: Are you serious?
Merlin: Is this real?
Merlin: This is real.
Merlin: So Dr. Strangelove in the mineshaft gap was not so far off.
John: No, no, no.
John: There was a period there.
John: And I think it was.
John: I think depending on who you were talking to, the period was either long or short.
John: I think a lot of people in government who had actually seen the pictures of Hiroshima were like, oh, wait a minute.
John: This is a lot worse than we thought.
John: There's nobody – there's no surviving this.
John: But they didn't really – they didn't disseminate that to everybody.
John: And so there were a lot of people running around like – well, you know, not just building bomb shelters but –
John: But really envisioning that the entire country was going to move out from the cities, get out of the center so that we weren't as easy a target and sort of, you know.
John: disseminate our business and manufacturing sort of out into the woods.
Merlin: The United States basically becomes a series of horcruxes.
Merlin: So if we distribute everything, and I've seen that movie where they wear sunglasses when they're watching Bikini Atoll, we should be pretty good to go.
Merlin: We dig a whole yard, we move our industry into Oklahoma, and everything will be fine.
John: Yeah, there were actually real estate advertisements at the time for houses in upstate New York and southern Virginia that were like, you know, this is a beautiful farm.
John: It's well outside the blast zone.
John: Oh, my God.
Merlin: Was this also run?
Merlin: So, I mean, there's gosh, there's been so much presidential stuff floating around about just the way laws work.
Merlin: Like when did it?
Merlin: Is it officially like a law, a rule, a policy, for example, that the president and vice president don't fly together?
Merlin: Isn't that a thing?
Merlin: So this happened.
John: Is this that era?
John: Is this what we're talking about?
John: This is that era.
John: Okay.
John: I mean, I think it had always been that the Speaker of the House ascended to the presidency if the president and the vice president were dead.
Merlin: But they finally codified like when interior comes into the picture.
John: Yeah.
John: And this went all the way down to eventually what happened was if the secretary of interior dies.
John: The guy that's running the Tennessee Valley Authority is next in line to become secretary of the interior in the future administration post-apocalypse.
John: And somewhere down the line, there's a list of succession that's like 60 people deep.
John: That's insane.
John: Like the mayor of Skokie, Illinois becomes the president of the United States at some point.
John: If the 75 people ahead of him in line were all vaporized.
John: And every single cabinet member also has this train of potential successors.
John: And in situations where the U.S.
John: gets on a real war footing, all of those people know they're on that list and they get some like beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, like some telegram activating this, like,
John: defcon one thing and it actually has a name like that like like concom when when this uh set of conditions occurs this plan goes into action the word goes out we're now in uh we're in a space white house mode right and some of those people the tennessee valley authority person or the person that is in charge of the grand coulee dam
John: like a federal agent or someone else empowered to do this shows up and becomes that person's bodyguard.
John: Like we need to protect you, sir.
John: Like you can't go to the bank today because you are 42nd in line to be the secretary of, of housing and human welfare or whatever.
John: So, and so as the fifties wore on,
John: The government became less and less convinced and then less and less interested in this project of putting the American.
John: all of the american people underground and all of our industry they were like you know what this isn't going to work this is really doesn't seem very scalable no like carl's bad canyons we could put like a few apartment i think they're pretty i think a cave is pretty moist john it's it's moist it's moist and it's dark it's there's not much parking no and where the where are you where the potties where would you go where would you go out to smoke
Merlin: Think about that.
Merlin: At the time, that would have been a big issue.
Merlin: That would have been a huge issue.
Merlin: What are you going to do?
Merlin: Are you going to go up the mine shaft?
Merlin: Are you going to ride an elevator outside and have a butt every 20 minutes?
John: I'll tell you what.
John: I'll go up your mine shaft and have a butt.
John: 50s.
John: So the government did not abandon this project when it came to themselves.
John: So basically, as far as the American people were concerned, the government was like, let's do that civil defense thing where we show them a lot of cartoons of kids ducking and covering.
John: A turtle's so cute.
John: Yeah, Nermal the turtle or whatever.
John: Like, look out, kids.
John: That was the extent of the plan.
John: Oh, and they built the interstate highways, I guess.
John: And the internet.
John: Well, eventually.
John: I mean, is that in the book?
Yeah.
Merlin: Not yet.
Merlin: But isn't that, at least the lore that I always heard was that what we consider the internet today started as a DARPA project to be able to maintain continuity of communication and structure after some kind of a devastating event.
John: Yes, right.
John: And that whole, so I'm not that deep into the book, but that all came after they realized, oh, wait a minute, how are we going to
John: Like, how are we going to stay in contact with the Department of the Navy if everything blows up?
John: How are we going to stay in contact with General Mills?
John: How are we going to get our Captain Crunch?
John: And little by little, you know, they... He got a field promotion.
Merlin: He's a colonel now.
Merlin: Colonel Crunch!
Merlin: Colonel Crunch!
Merlin: No, he wouldn't be a colonel.
Merlin: What would he be?
Merlin: He'd be a... What would you call it in the Navy?
Merlin: I just really shoved my ass, didn't I?
Merlin: Oh, you're talking about, oh, he's in the Navy, of course.
Merlin: He's in the Navy, so what would he be?
Merlin: He'd go from, a captain is like a colonel, right?
Merlin: Yeah, he'd be Admiral Crunch.
Merlin: This is confusing.
Merlin: So you think of Hawkeye.
Merlin: Hawkeye's a captain with two bars in the army.
Merlin: But I believe a captain in the Navy is like a colonel or, yeah, Fulberg colonel.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: Okay, so then he'd become a, would he become a brigadier general?
Merlin: He would become a rear admiral.
Merlin: He'd become rear admiral Crunch, yes.
Merlin: Rear Admiral Crunch.
Merlin: Why is that funny to me?
Merlin: It's pretty good.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Sorry.
John: Rear Admiral Crunch.
John: It's a lot of things.
John: But so they continued to build secret installations for government people to survive the war.
John: Caves and underground bunkers.
John: Not just the one from War Games, but like all over.
John: Every single state has an underground bunker for the government people to escape to.
Mm-hmm.
John: And all these elaborate plans and they have they have secret laminated cards that have not only the numbers of all their friends written on them.
Merlin: It's like Dr. Strange Love were written and directed by Wes Anderson.
Merlin: Yeah, right.
Merlin: You know, you get walkie talkies, you get laminated cards, you get cool uniforms.
John: Oh, I bet I bet those.
John: What is it's that Terminator movie, the third one where they find that.
John: that bunker in the mountain right isn't that the third term i don't acknowledge that movie but that sounds like it could be right so and they go in and and the whole thing is decorated super mid-century modern living room and all this isn't that the ultimate bachelor pad right right it's like it's like it's like the playboy mansion except like hardened against the grotto's a real grotto and it doesn't have cum in it
John: No, but it has a lot of hanging moss that came from the sweat and cigarette smoke of all those people in there.
Merlin: Can you imagine how much coughing there'd be in that cave?
Merlin: That wet air?
Merlin: All those pall malls?
Merlin: Oh, the consumption.
Merlin: Everybody would... The farts?
John: Think about the farts.
John: Have you been recently to a hotel that has not been upgraded yet?
John: from times of yore?
Merlin: Well, I feel like I got... I think I told you my sad tale of woe where I got stuck in... Where was I?
Merlin: Anyway, I recently got stuck somewhere.
Merlin: My flight got canceled.
Merlin: I had to stay overnight.
Merlin: And, you know, I'm a Marriott man.
Merlin: They put me up in a Marriott.
Merlin: And I think...
Merlin: It was that rare thing where I was in this Marriott probably right at the end of the cycle, where the furniture is a little oversized and, like, brown wood and stuff.
Merlin: It hadn't gotten that light look that you see in most hotels today.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: I mean, it always strikes me how much, especially given how many basically old, like, disused SROs get turned into hotels now.
Merlin: Like, it's weird what gets attention and what gets upgraded.
Merlin: But, yeah, most of them seem like they've gotten an upgrade in the last 10, 15 years.
Merlin: But you still get some where there's, like...
Merlin: So like the one you were at in San Francisco where there's bits of carpeting that have been replaced because probably blood.
John: That was a total SRO, a classic hotel that probably until recently.
John: Down to a shared bathroom, right?
John: Well, the rooms had bathrooms and looked like bathrooms that had been there a long time.
John: But almost certainly...
John: Almost certainly 25 years ago, if you walk down the halls of those of those floors, it would smell like fried fish because people had a hot plate and they were frying something up in there.
Merlin: And if you looked up from the street... That's not, John, that is not a very friendly thing to fry in an SRO.
John: Oh, my goodness.
John: Oh, my goodness.
Merlin: It's just going to cling to every fiber.
Merlin: And it's going to be close to a bait fish quality, probably.
John: That's exactly what it is.
Merlin: It's not going to be like a lightly sauteed halibut.
Merlin: No, it's a white fish fried in oil.
John: You want some skink?
John: I stayed in enough of those places.
John: And I've looked in enough doorways at a guy in an undershirt with a cigarette in his mouth, frying fish on a hot plate.
John: He's just on fire a little bit.
John: And at the time when I was 22 or whatever, I didn't realize that the world was going to change.
John: Because this looked like...
John: What it looked like in the 50s, you know, until the 90s, there were still the 90s.
John: But there were always like old guys in undershirts frying fish on hot plates in single room hotels.
John: I thought that would always be true.
John: I didn't realize that all those hotels would become ace hotels and be $50 a night.
Merlin: I'm sorry.
Merlin: I was just looking at my phone trying to find, where were we?
Merlin: Where were we when I met the guy from TV and we hung out and you got the nice room and I got the not nice room?
Merlin: Was that Portland?
Merlin: Guy from TV?
Merlin: Yeah, I met that nice guy from TV with the jaw.
Merlin: That nice man I like.
Merlin: James... Sure.
John: Urbaniak.
Merlin: James Urbaniak.
John: I like that guy.
John: Yeah, that was a classic, like... Classic.
John: ...Siemens Hotel...
John: You're going to want to go to the Siemens Hotel.
John: The Siemens Hotel.
Merlin: Rooms are cheap.
Merlin: They don't mind if you fry a fish.
Merlin: If you got a hook for a hand, they'll give you a good room.
Merlin: The doors are accommodating for a hook hand.
Merlin: But don't you be putting the bones down the sink.
John: That was the hotel room where I opened the door one time and there was a single walkie-talkie lying in the center of the room.
John: And I was like, is this the beginning of an adventure?
Merlin: And mine looked like, I don't know, like an updated version of The Prisoner.
Merlin: It was a very, very tidy cell.
Merlin: yeah yeah how do you not put a tv in a hotel room john well because we don't even have tv is it for cunnilingus is that what it is like there's no place there's no there's no drawers you can only hang your clothes basically you could throw pillows and cunnilingus that's the whole thing right you go in there you're going to wash your hands you might well sure you might want to brush your teeth but like is it because young people have so much sex they just want to get on the bed is that what it is because the bed is real central to the room
John: No, I think you come in, you put, here's what you do.
John: You take your Nanamica bag, you set it down, you pull out your can of mustache wax, you pull out your can of hair wax, you pull out your can of eyebrow wax.
John: Your hog fat hair tonic.
John: You untie your... Your bindle.
Merlin: Your bindle.
Merlin: Ha!
Merlin: That's the next thing.
Merlin: It's going to be hobo chic.
Merlin: It's going to be the next thing.
John: It's all it is.
Merlin: It's going to be an artisanal handcrafted bindle.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: You let your hair... It's going to be a locally sourced neckerchief tied around an artisanal responsibly sourced stick.
Merlin: That's right.
John: That's right.
Merlin: Well, yeah, like a renewable stick.
Merlin: Renewables.
Merlin: It's going to be like that hardwood flooring site on NPR.
Merlin: It's going to be all recovered hobo sticks.
John: That's right.
Merlin: Hobo sticks that they found in a pile at the big hobo massacre place.
Merlin: It's like didgeridoo.
Merlin: It's like you don't make a didgeridoo.
Merlin: You find a didgeridoo.
Merlin: Okay, so you go in the room.
Merlin: You're ready for some cunnilingus.
Merlin: You take out your bindle.
John: Here was the philosophy initially.
John: You remember initially.
John: When you first heard of boutique hotels.
John: Well, and artisanal anything.
John: Oh, OK.
John: Right.
John: We're going all the way back.
John: We're going to set the set the way back machine to all the way back to the first time you heard the word artisanal bread.
John: Okay, right.
Merlin: I remember hearing about, we actually have a loaf in our refrigerator right now that says artisan bread.
Merlin: I think bread, if memory serves, is the first thing where I heard somebody use that where they didn't mean like you're an artisan making wagon wheels.
Merlin: You're not a cooper.
Merlin: You're not a Fletcher, right?
John: An artisan bread.
John: Right.
John: Okay.
John: I don't remember the first time I heard the word artisanal.
John: Well, the first time I heard artisanal was from you.
John: I appreciate the credit on that.
John: I think I've really given that one some legs.
John: You sure did.
John: Yeah, I think the first time you said it, I had about 30 seconds of very slow thinking where I was like, what is he saying?
John: Is he coming on to me?
John: Wow, it is.
John: I am an artist.
John: So I dated a gal in the 90s who was part of that whole, I've told you about her, who was part of that whole, find jeans in Montana for 50 cents, bring them to Seattle, find old jeans.
John: For 50 cents at thrift stores in Montana bring them to Seattle sell them to a broker from Japan for $1,500 He will take those jeans to Japan and sell them for fifteen thousand dollars Wow Really early on in this game pants minor she was and I know a guy who was a literal pants prospector and he made a fortune he bought himself a house and
John: Just driving around Montana in that weird era where all these old guys were dying, their old buckle-back Levi's were going to the Goodwill, and you could drive around and just go to Goodwill's and just flip through stuff and be like, oh, check out these jeans.
John: They're worth $20,000.
John: Okay, so just real quick.
Merlin: I don't want to break the goof here.
Merlin: How far off is that really?
Merlin: How much were they charging for jeans in Japan?
Merlin: Like over $1,000 sometimes?
John: Up to five figures.
Merlin: If you've got some really authentic 60s, made-in-the-USA, Jefferson Airplane-era Levi's, in the right condition, with the right, what's called, Hinge?
Merlin: Jean-J?
John: Jean-J?
Merlin: Hige.
Merlin: You're going to be able to move that up to five figures.
John: I mean, right now, if you find a pair of 60s Biggie Levi's,
John: You can sell them online for good money.
John: But there was a bubble in that market.
John: Just like there was a time when...
John: um when a 1959 les paul i mean there were 59 les pauls that were selling for a million dollars um that's not true oh i see what you mean bubble yes yes do you know what yes yes yes yes they're like a tulip type situation yeah so there was a while where it felt like um so yeah right here i have a pair of vintage 50s biggie levi's for fifty five hundred dollars oh jiminy on etsy um
John: We've got, uh, let's see.
John: Nope.
John: Those are from 19.
John: So this pair of jeans from 1987 is $250.
John: Like, this world still exists.
Merlin: Here's a nice pair of vintage men's Levi's XX gray acid-wash jeans.
Merlin: They're all $24.99, so you can just pick those right up.
Merlin: Acid-wash jeans.
Merlin: Can you believe that?
Merlin: 32-36.
John: That's a slender, kind of taller fellow.
John: But there were these... But even older Levi's, the ones that had, like, a buckle in the back, were...
John: uh were super prized among the the like fashion cognoscenti in tokyo and and i don't think you can still get that kind of money but this friend of mine who did this work who drove around montana he said i have my retirement and my like um my escape bag my my keep a small bag pack yeah
John: under my bed i have two pairs of jeans in this bag that um if i need to i can live off of he sure wouldn't trust it to a bank no it's under his bed you know there's a famous story of a woman that was out in the out in the sort of outside of sacramento and she was just out in the gold country they call it gold country and she found a mine shaft that was just sort of open
John: And she walked in just touristing, you know, just like booping around boopity boop and kind of walked into the mine a little bit, maybe further than you would do if you weren't bold and turned a corner and there was a table and there was a pair of jeans on them.
John: That were like an old patched pair of jeans.
John: And she pulled them out of there and was like, oh, look at these.
John: You know, look at these old great jeans.
John: And they'd been patched and whatnot.
John: And she brought them out.
John: And they're the oldest pair of Levi's.
John: Like oldest surviving pair.
John: The oldest pair.
John: No one at Levi had ever seen them.
John: And she brought them in and they became like these talismanic pants that were...
John: you know, that were just the, right, right, right.
John: But so that was my first experience of understanding that there was value in something that wasn't an antique, but was, you know, like a soft good.
John: And it wasn't, it wasn't,
John: It wasn't clear where the value actually was other than scarcity, I guess.
Merlin: Also, it's interesting how, I mean, I guess this is obvious, but it also sets a new bar in some ways where you think about like, oh, wow, it's almost like breaking a record, right?
Merlin: Like where somebody breaks a record...
Merlin: And breaks it by like more than 5%.
Merlin: And you're like, wow, we're capable of much more than we realized.
Merlin: So that might kind of reset the market a little bit.
Merlin: Because now people are going to go, oh, are there more of these out there?
Merlin: Should we go a little bit deeper into the cave and see if there's some special pants?
John: That's exactly right.
John: And I remember sitting at her, because I would sit and watch her do her job.
John: And people would come in with a big stack of Levi's.
John: I bet you get a pretty good eye for that.
John: Oh, you get a really good eye.
John: And she had this, she already had that.
John: That attitude.
John: You know, she had really, really dark brown hair, and she dyed it black.
John: She dyed it black for no reason.
John: Like, it was already as brown as brown could be, and she was like, black.
Merlin: Oh, man.
Merlin: You say this in the 90s?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, that's so 90s.
John: I have the brown hair.
John: Oh, man.
John: dark, dark red lipstick, and she would sit and smoke cigarettes behind the counter where she worked, and people would say, I got all these Levi's, and she would flip through them with such disdain.
John: So attracted, this woman I haven't met.
John: The person on the other side would just feel so bad for themselves for bringing this stack of jeans down to her.
Merlin: That's like when you go to the record store.
John: Oh, no jacket required.
John: Well, that's a tough one to get.
Merlin: Thanks, buddy.
John: Totally.
John: She'd be like, thanks, but no thanks for these, but I will take this pair.
John: And you're just like, wow.
John: And she was one of those people that had the ability to go to a thrift store, buy a puffy coat, and make it seem like it was from the future.
John: It's like, how did you make that seem like it's from the future?
John: That's like a mom coat from 1981.
John: And she's just like, I don't know, man.
John: That's a gift.
John: Yeah, why are you talking to me?
John: And it's like, I'm your boyfriend.
John: Yeah, yeah.
John: I'm entitled to talk to you.
John: But so...
John: I think the premise as we moved into the whole thing of like, well, these boots, admittedly, these boots are $500.
John: The premise was that you'd only need one pair, right?
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Right?
John: It was that, yes, things that are made in America, things that are made by hand are going to be a lot more expensive.
Merlin: Oh, this is how you get to the artisan thing you're saying?
Merlin: This is how you get to the artisan.
John: Okay, sorry.
John: It's going to be a lot more expensive, but you're already used to paying $3,500 for a pair of Big E jeans if you're anybody.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: You're just making that mental transition.
John: You're not going to have seven pairs of these boots.
John: You're going to have one.
John: And just sit with that for a second.
John: You're just going to need one.
John: Just one.
John: Just one.
John: Just one.
John: It's going to be very expensive.
John: But it's all you need is the one.
John: It's like finding the one true beard comb.
John: Yeah.
John: One beard comb.
John: That's all you need.
John: You're going to have one can of mustache wax, not four.
John: And that idea, like, I remember it kind of reverberating.
John: It actually, it hit the top pair of Levi's in the stack of 40 pairs of Levi's I had, and it reverberated all the way down to the bottom.
John: And I was like, wait, I only need one pair of Levi's?
John: I think that's wrong.
John: I think I need all these.
John: Maybe I don't need all these Levi's.
John: Right.
John: But I definitely need more than one pair.
John: And then that was all of a sudden there was denim that was made at the white cone mill in Osbach, Tennessee or whatever, Carolina.
John: It's like, well, these jeans are $500, but you only need one.
Merlin: Yeah, jeans are tough.
Merlin: Now, if it's a top hat, or...
Merlin: You don't need four top hats.
Merlin: You need one really nice artisanal top hat.
Merlin: You only need one.
John: From a small batch Tennessee top hat factory.
John: But I think when they check into those fishermen's hotels...
Merlin: Oh, it's all coming together now.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: It would be embarrassing.
Merlin: Don't embarrass me.
Merlin: Don't embarrass yourself by giving me fucking drawers.
Merlin: What am I going to put in drawers?
Merlin: I have one pair of pants and a top hat.
John: Yeah, you open the door to your room.
John: There's no TV.
John: There's a walkie-talkie on the floor.
John: There are two hangers, and there's a little area.
John: Locally sourced hangers.
John: Locally sourced hangers that are carved out of prehistoric whale bone.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: You hang your one jacket that costs $1,200 on it.
John: You put your artisanal boots on the floor.
John: And then you lay back and read your artisanal book.
John: You only need one.
Merlin: And your jacket is one of those bandleader ones, right?
John: There's no jacket required.
Merlin: Yeah, you're right.
Merlin: That and a top hat, wouldn't that be a smart look?
Merlin: You're walking around, you're one pair of pants, you've got your band.
Merlin: What do you call that kind of jacket?
Merlin: Like an out-of-man jacket?
Merlin: There's a name for that.
John: I would say it was the... What is the guy... What is he called?
John: We've covered this.
Merlin: Adam Ant Vest.
Merlin: What's the Adam Ant Vest called?
Merlin: It's like a Bob Pollard jacket.
Merlin: You got the... Not band leader.
John: It's the sergeant major.
John: The something major.
John: The drum major.
Merlin: Yeah, but there's a name for that particular vest.
Merlin: You're talking about the one with the multiple... With the froggings and stuff on it.
Merlin: They got the froggings waistcoat.
Merlin: They call it a waistcoat in England to make it even more confusing.
Merlin: Oh, they do.
Merlin: Oh, man.
Merlin: There's so much vintage Adam Ant stuff.
Merlin: Look at all of this.
Merlin: You can get a Bone Apart hat.
Merlin: I call him Bonaparte.
John: We call him Bonaparte because we're still mad at him.
John: Still mad.
John: We're against him.
John: We're against him, not for him.
Merlin: It sounds like I'm the one that needs to adjust.
Merlin: I need to get out of this mindset I have.
Merlin: I'm going to bring seven pairs of MeUndies for the two days that I'm there.
Merlin: I need one pair of underwear.
Merlin: I need one bandmaster jacket with froggings.
Merlin: I need one top hat.
Merlin: And even though I don't have a mustache, I should probably bring some mustaching oils.
John: You can use it on your eyebrows.
John: Okay.
John: If you get one of those pairs of Mack Weldon silver underpants, those aren't cheap, but you can wear those day in and day out because the silver will anesthetize the bugs.
John: I'm talking about the antimicrobial silver.
Merlin: Yeah, the microbials, yeah.
Merlin: Our thanks to HelloFresh for supporting this episode of Roderick on the Line.
Merlin: HelloFresh.
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Yeah, lots of froggies.
John: I was in the market for this kind of thing not very long ago as I was compiling my King Neptune outfit.
John: Yeah.
John: And I contacted a man in Canada because what I really wanted was a jacket from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
John: Wow.
John: But what I learned is that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police iconic red jacket was
John: is not only copyrighted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, but you never own your Mountie jacket when you're a Mountie.
John: You are only lent it.
John: You're just inhabiting it for the role, for the duty.
John: That's right.
John: Canadian duty.
John: The jacket...
John: is sacrosanct.
Merlin: It's sort of like the way you refer to the queen.
Merlin: You've got the queen, but the queen is different from the throne, right?
Merlin: And you've got the pope, but that's different than the Vatican or the papacy.
Merlin: There's this thing that's bigger than you that you're just inhabiting, and in that case it's a red coat.
Merlin: Yeah, you've got the pope over here.
Merlin: Yeah, we've got no soup.
John: Right, the jacket, the emblem of the Mounties is...
John: is a thing that when you're done being a Mountie, you give the jacket back.
John: So you don't see Canadian punk rockers out rolling around in old Mountie jackets with the big anarchy.
John: It's not like West Germany green jackets that are just everywhere.
John: No, it's not.
John: And so I am I was up in the Canadian Internet.
John: I don't know if you've ever been to it.
John: That's the dot CA.
John: Yeah.
John: And it's that, you know, that's that's almost like a fully functioning Internet.
John: It's a lot friendlier.
Yeah.
John: But I'm up there and I'm like, look, I want one of these.
John: And they're like, sorry.
John: And then I found a guy outside of Ottawa who, as far as I could tell, lives in a shipping container.
John: And he's a very friendly man.
John: He actually wanted to talk on the phone quite a bit.
John: And because he was helping me, I indulged him in this.
John: And I spoke to him on the phone for a long time and heard all about his many adventures, driving a truck in the Yukon territories and living in a big house with a lot of friends that he doesn't have anymore.
John: But one thing he does have is,
John: is a small collection of jackets which were used in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Academy.
John: Oh, pretty good.
John: And they are, in a lot of ways, fancier than Royal Canadian Mounted Police normal tunics.
John: They're called tunics, by the way.
John: Okay.
John: And because they're like cadet jackets, right?
John: It's not like you're the rank and file.
John: These are the hot shots.
John: So they've got a lot of gold braid on them.
John: And I don't even know if that academy still makes them wear these jackets.
John: But somehow the fact that they were cadet jackets meant that there was a loophole.
John: And he had some.
John: And I wanted them.
Oh.
Merlin: Also, you're not as far as I know Canadian.
Merlin: So are you honor bound?
Merlin: Are you stealing Canadian valor by wearing that?
Merlin: Because it seems to me if you're from a different country, you should be able to get the real deal.
John: Well, but this is the thing.
John: They're not letting them go.
John: They're not letting them go.
Merlin: Scarcity against scarcity.
John: Yeah, you serve at the pleasure of the president.
John: Yeah.
John: Who works for the queen, who works for the crown.
John: It's all that stuff, all that stuff, that government stuff that my dad used to have around when he was working for the federal government that would say, like, when you're done using this pencil, return it to the federal government.
John: Anyway, so this guy, very unusual person, and these jackets had an unusual sizing system, and he and I were negotiating what...
John: what jackets he had, and I said, listen, just send me the biggest, tallest one you have.
John: I know there are big, tall Mounties, but I'm not willing to take chances.
John: So send me the biggest, tallest one you have.
John: Well, the jacket arrived, and it was neither big nor tall.
John: But it was the biggest one he had.
John: And so what I have, Merlin, is a 60s Royal Canadian Mounted Police Academy jacket.
John: How long is it?
John: Well, I think it would fit you perfectly.
John: Oh, my God.
John: But I don't want to give you things that you don't want, right?
John: Because there are all these people trying to give you things you don't want.
John: I have a whole closet full of things I'm supposed to give you at some point.
John: But here is this thing.
John: If you wore this around, you would be so adamant and fancy.
John: There's no one in America that has one of these.
John: It's called a hussar.
John: A hussar.
John: Search for H-U-S-S-A-R.
John: H-U-S-S-A-R.
John: But aren't I going to get a bunch of hot topic stuff here?
John: Because I don't want to look like I'm in the newfound glory.
Merlin: No, I think you'll be safe.
Merlin: I think it's hard to know.
Merlin: Your Google is not my Google.
Merlin: Your grandma is not my grandma.
Merlin: So try Googling it.
Merlin: And then you get a handsome mannequin and a hussar.
Merlin: Hussar.
Merlin: Hussar, it looks like.
John: For $1,500, you can get this one, a Napoleonic Wars dolman.
John: It's a French Hussar dolman.
John: More specific, chasseur.
Merlin: I just learned the word dolman literally this week.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: Dolman is the kind of sleeve I learned about on Project Runway.
John: Dolman is the kind of sleeve you learned about on Project Runway?
John: I'll be hornswoggled.
John: Dolman is the kind of sleeve you learned about on Project Runway.
John: Hussar.
John: Hussar.
John: Hussar.
John: How did you learn about it and why?
Merlin: Oh, because they were talking about making a dolman sleeve and they said they're kind of tired of seeing that look and they want to see them doing something else that's not in black.
Merlin: What is a dolman sleeve?
Merlin: I think it's where it's part of the, I don't know exactly, but I'm not going to look it up because I don't want to screw up my search history.
Merlin: I got Hazar in there.
Merlin: I don't want to mess myself up.
Merlin: I think it's when you got a front and a back and the sleeve is implied by the general shape of the garment.
Merlin: It's not like a separate sleeve that you sew on.
Merlin: Oh, I see.
Merlin: And now I'll find out if I'm right.
Merlin: What is it called?
Merlin: Dolman.
Merlin: Dolman.
John: Wow.
John: Why did I not know?
John: Well, the problem, the problem is that there's a lot of steampunk overlap here and the steampunk overlap.
John: Anytime I'm walking through the world and I walk into any kind of Venn diagram that is like overlapping a steampunk Venn diagram, I have to tread very carefully.
Merlin: It's a little bit like Juggalos, where there's a certain amount of it where you have a kind of awe and respect, but you don't necessarily want to be a Juggalo.
Merlin: You've got to be careful that you just stay Juggalo-adjacent.
John: Yeah, right.
John: And with steampunk, I like leather.
John: I like brass.
John: Sure.
John: I like gold braid.
John: You would love to have a leather typewriter.
John: I like little tinkery things.
John: The other day, I was walking through one of those little towns, and
John: Here in Washington, it's a little town on the ocean that has a store that's basically selling old fishing net.
John: There's a guy with literally a corncob pipe selling old net.
John: But then the town is trying to decide whether it wants to get fancy or not or whether it even can get fancy.
Okay.
John: And so there's a little store where there's a guy selling cigars, but he also sells, like, nauticalia.
John: And I can't resist... You can put that up in your Siemens Hotel.
John: I can't resist it, right?
John: So I'm in there, and I'm looking at old barometers.
John: And I'm like, how many barometers can a person have in their house before it's a problem?
John: I bet you get some really nice, giant-ass compasses.
John: You get big compasses, right?
John: Like nautical, nice nautical compasses.
John: Really polished, really, you know, like a...
John: I want a sextant.
John: I don't even know why.
John: Oh, you could use a sextant.
Merlin: I bet you could pick that up in a weekend.
Merlin: But this is really difficult.
Merlin: You'd be reckoning distances like by Sunday.
John: What I don't want, though, is to have more stuff in my house that is steampunk adjacent because I already have a lot.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: You know, when you put it all into one place, yeah, it tells a different story than you want to tell.
Merlin: So I find this walking.
Merlin: Do you have a deep-sea diving suit?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Have you ever wanted one?
Merlin: It seems like a gorilla suit.
John: No, no, no, no, no.
John: Really?
John: It's too big.
John: Too big.
John: Do I want one?
John: Yes.
John: But am I too claustrophobic?
John: Yes.
John: Oh, I just meant to hang there.
John: No, but if it was there, I would want to put it on, and if I put it on, I would panic attack.
John: But there was a walking... Jesus Christ!
John: Jesus Christ!
John: Get me out of here!
John: And then I'd open it up and put it back, and I'd be like, I've got to put that on.
John: A desperate act of steampunk self-immolation.
John: I have 12 different Stetson fedoras, and I would never wear one outside, but I wear them around the house all day.
John: I look like Adam Savage walking around.
John: And I'll see a fedora across the room, and I'm wearing one, and I'll walk over and I'll take the one I have on off, and I'll replace the other one.
Merlin: Because you always carry two.
Merlin: You got to have two.
Merlin: You got to have a reserve.
Merlin: Three is two, two is one, one is none.
Merlin: You know, like, I want a shoulder holster.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Oh, like your buddy Ed Brubaker?
John: My buddy Ed Brubaker, wearing my pistol under my Levi's vest.
John: In case you got a pistol with a punk.
John: But I realized, I think probably back then, and this entire show, the entire history of Roderick on the Line, all points to one thing, which is that I should never, ever, ever carry a concealed weapon.
John: Interesting.
John: Because I'm a natural-born sheriff, and all those dummies out there carrying, you know, like...
John: Carrying pistols are all not even officers.
John: They're not at all.
John: They think of themselves as sheriffs, too.
John: But the problem is, I know I'm a sheriff.
John: And if I was carrying a gun around, I would be sheriffing all the fucking time.
John: And that is not what the world needs.
John: There is not a single parking lot that you attend to that would go unsheriffed.
John: I would sheriff, I'd be sheriffing everybody.
John: I'd be like one of those Australian shepherds who's like, every time somebody tries to run... You pull the kids back into the yard.
Merlin: You grab their pants with your teeth, you pull them back in the yard.
Merlin: That's you.
Merlin: That's you with a pistol in a parking lot.
John: Yeah, that's not what I need.
John: Froggy went to court and he did ride.
John: But I do want a shoulder holster, and I'm not sure what to put in it.
John: Your phone, obviously.
John: Oh, no, I'm not going to be my phone.
John: I think what it should be is one of those... Your steampunk phone.
John: A collapsible brass telescope.
Merlin: Brrrr...
Merlin: Oh, no, no.
Merlin: It's your travel sextant.
Merlin: You only need one.
Merlin: You can keep it in your top hat.
Merlin: I want it, but I don't want to be it.
Merlin: Oh, no.
John: And so here I am.
John: I'm looking at these Hussar jackets.
John: And I'm like, oh, I really like that.
John: You're a steampunk golem.
Merlin: You accumulate enough clay and pretty soon you're saving Judaism.
Merlin: We have fun, don't we?
Merlin: Oh, that's fun.
Merlin: That's fun stuff.
Merlin: Really fun.