Ep. 265: "Cisesthesia"
John: Hello.
John: Hi, John.
John: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: How's it going?
John: Oh, pretty good.
Merlin: We should pick an accent and stick to it.
John: Okay, let's just do this the whole show.
Merlin: It's going to be Humpty Hump and Tim Gunn.
Merlin: Make it work.
John: That's the Murgatroyd.
John: That's good.
John: He's a cool cat now.
Merlin: Who is that?
Merlin: I get stupid.
Merlin: I shoot an arrow like Cupid.
Merlin: I use the word that don't mean nothing like Luke did.
John: Oh, God, it's hectic.
John: It is hectic.
Merlin: Isn't it hectic?
Merlin: Is it me?
John: No, it's not.
John: I feel overwhelmed.
John: You're doing lots of things, right?
John: Well, but it's just the hecticness more than anything.
John: I mean, you know, I feel, yeah, I feel like I'm doing stuff, but I'm also just like, come on.
John: I need to just not be doing something for a while.
Yeah.
Merlin: I'm not saying, oh, I need a vacation, but if I do just the stuff that I have to do for my quote-unquote job, there's more to it than one would realize.
Merlin: I'm not asking for pity or something, but it takes time.
Merlin: You make the shows, you do the show art.
Merlin: I don't expect you to.
Merlin: And it's a nice job.
Merlin: I really like it.
Merlin: That all stacks up and you account for brushing hair and getting to school and finishing the poster and things like that.
Merlin: But then you get stuff where you got to reschedule things and you get a holiday.
Merlin: Oh, boy.
Merlin: You know, Dan Benjamin hates holidays.
Merlin: Is that right?
Merlin: You never heard him talk about that?
Merlin: No, I don't let him talk.
Merlin: No, that's probably good.
Merlin: But, you know, it's a good kind of hectic, I suppose.
John: He doesn't like holidays.
John: How do you feel about holidays?
John: You know...
Merlin: special holiday episode um get you get a travis voice for that one i i uh i feel like my feeling there's somehow okay so first of all my feelings about a given holiday are very very different it's almost a form of synesthesia or like there's some people who can like smell colors or like when they when they hear a note it makes them think of a word or something like that i taste tastes we'll know how you have a shape of the year right
Merlin: right you do taste taste that's the kind of that's kind of uh cis anesthesia jesus fuck oh god do over this show is over check your privilege taste boy um oh my coffee's still going i'm sorry you hear that bubbling that's my coffee
John: Oh, right.
John: When you said I need to make coffee, I pictured you using a coffee pot, but I'm sure you're using some sort of like moonshine still.
John: Yes.
Merlin: Yeah, I do use a, I have a, I'm like a monster.
Merlin: I'm an animal.
Merlin: I just have a little coffee filter, plastic coffee filter holder.
Merlin: Right, right.
Merlin: It's what some people call pour over.
Merlin: I would call it making coffee.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I mean, it's all so strange.
Merlin: Yes, it is.
Merlin: Systhesia.
Merlin: So you were saying... Oh, shape of the year.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: And people who listen to the program have drawn this.
Merlin: It's a difficult thought technology to turn into an artifact, but I have had a similar feeling that a year has a shape to it.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And I think that it's somewhat related to how I feel about holidays, where I have...
Merlin: Mostly dread about holidays, but sometimes I'm excited about it.
Merlin: I end up liking Christmas a little bit toward the end.
Merlin: But I think Dan's beef disrupts his work schedule.
Merlin: Oh, right.
Merlin: Which is kind of my beef a little bit, too.
Merlin: But it's fun.
Merlin: When you've got a kid my age...
Merlin: Little trips are fun.
Merlin: We'll go somewhere for a couple of days.
Merlin: It's not like a vacation, but you go visit somebody for a couple of days.
Merlin: And that's actually usually pretty fun.
Merlin: She has a capability for joy, and she's not totally terrible yet.
Merlin: So it's a nice... I want to really... Some people like to sniff a baby's head.
Merlin: I just want to really soak in this period because she's going to hate us so soon.
John: Well... Who knows?
John: Every child is different.
John: That's what they say.
John: That's what they say.
John: Whenever I meet somebody that has a teenager...
John: I'm always like, so is it pretty bad?
John: Like, give me the lowdown.
John: Right.
John: And it's surprising the number of people that say, you know what?
John: It's not there.
John: You know, they're great.
John: And I'm like, come on, come on, don't be, you know, don't be a hero.
Merlin: Yeah, don't be a fool with your life.
Merlin: It feels like it's got to be a very challenging letdown.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Also, some kids are terrible.
Merlin: That's the other thing.
Merlin: Yes, yes.
Merlin: I mean, you know, I haven't been around your daughter lately, but in both of our cases, what, at worst, they're precocious a little bit.
Merlin: Precocious, precocious is right.
Merlin: There's no fires being set.
Merlin: It's not like we have a boy.
Merlin: Have you been around boys much?
Yeah.
John: Yeah, because I go to her school and I interact with the kids there.
John: So I see them be boys.
John: There's a little boy that Marlo kind of counts as one of... She doesn't count him as one of the girls, but she counts him...
John: As one of the people who isn't a monster.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: And what's funny is that the first time I ever saw this kid, I was like, oh, I like him.
John: What's his story?
John: You know, like, I really do engage with him.
John: The rest of the little boys are... Yeah, they're awful.
Merlin: They'll just... A child will find a stick and hit a building with it until they're stopped.
Merlin: Pap, pap, pap, pap, pap, pap.
Merlin: They'll just hit the building.
Merlin: Or it could just be they find something sharp and just throw it in the air for 45 minutes.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And then they make that kind of a game and they tear one another's clothes and...
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I've come around a little bit on the idea of boys, but in the preschool and into the beginning of elementary school, the girls were so much more interested in social things.
Merlin: If they're interested in anything, it was like how people interact.
Merlin: And the little boys were just setting things on fire and turning desks over.
John: Yeah, it's true.
John: Although now in first grade...
John: And her stories about her little girlfriends are all about every day the alliances change.
John: Every day someone is now like won't play with her and is trying to exclude her from games.
John: And then the next day it's like, oh, no, we're friends now.
John: And it's this other girl that's trying to keep me out.
John: And I would listen to her stories and say like,
John: Let me try and put myself in this situation.
John: And, you know, because I always I know that the I know there's some narration bias, right?
John: Always.
John: When you're listening to somebody talk, you kind of have to.
John: Try and figure where, you know, some people have very little bias towards themselves and their own narrative.
Merlin: Also, their communication skills are weird.
Merlin: It's sometimes hard to know what actually happened and what didn't happen, what you imagine happened, what you heard happened.
Merlin: It's like reading a William Faulkner novel.
John: And particularly, as we say, she's precocious.
John: So I'm trying to picture a situation where she would be...
John: excluded that way and then I know the people she's talking about I know the other kids so I'm like hmm okay I can see that from this person that just seems like they have a devilish grin about things and they're but that you know but these other kids seem so incapable of that but then when I when I get when I really get down in the dirt with them yeah it's a constant process of like okay I'm the daughter and you're the dog and
John: Um, there's no, there's no mom in this story.
John: So I guess you can't play.
John: And it's like, right.
John: Why is there no mom?
Merlin: The mom died.
Merlin: Does it need to be this story?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: No, but that's, but you're also getting at something that like one of the painful early things, I mean, obviously there are things like there's occasional hitting or whatever and stuff like that.
Merlin: But the one that's a painful slow motion ride is you start watching kids discover the power of exclusion and
Merlin: and otherness and i'm not to get all like you know namby pamby but like that's kind of how i am but like you see it pretty early on where like the most natural formation you get is a dyad you get like oh you find somebody that you can hang out with and like you get along and like she has one friend at school like they both like netflix that's that's that's why they're friends and that's the kind of thing that happens and then that can maybe turn into a triad
Merlin: well, you got three people who are into a thing and they're kind of friends, but that now you've introduced this weird balance and now you get an out group and now you get somebody who's stinky today or whatever.
Merlin: And somebody who that's hard.
Merlin: That's hard to watch.
John: Well, and I think, I think my, my experience as a kid is that precociousness is hard for other kids to incorporate.
John: And there are, there were always kids in my school that,
John: who were kind of friends with everybody, and it's because their personality like code didn't have trouble kind of fitting in.
John: And it wasn't that they were conformist.
John: It was that they were good-natured.
John: They didn't talk too much, but they didn't talk too little.
John: They were physically capable enough that they could play every game.
John: And they didn't have like – they didn't have strong opinions or a strong need to be right or a strong – Like not ego assertive.
John: Yeah, not a sense of – like an involunt sense of justice.
John: They were just kind of easy to incorporate.
John: And then there were kids and I was one who had too much something going on.
John: And sometimes I was at the center of a game.
John: But a lot of times it was like I just priced myself out.
Merlin: of interactions with some kids because i couldn't uh i couldn't tone it down i know i think i think i was i was the same way i mean i would i i knew how to be funny but i don't think i have particularly good social skills i don't think in the sense that i don't like my daughter has friends even more she has acquaintances who are like like who is this child especially some of these little girls who are like very calm and
Merlin: And they listen and they have converse, not listen as in like, yes, sir, but listen as in, hmm, you make internet radio.
Merlin: Why do you need an office for that?
Merlin: And I'm like, oh, that's a really good question.
Merlin: It's like, what are you doing?
Merlin: Why are you doing that on a Sunday?
Merlin: Oh, well, it's, that's actually a really good question.
Merlin: And they just look at you and they'll turn their head and furrow their brow a little bit.
Merlin: Like they actually want to know why I need an office to make a radio show.
Merlin: And I don't really have a good answer for them.
Merlin: but in that case you know what i start to see if you ever do this do you do you ever god i hate this in myself do you ever find yourself lobbying for friendships with your kid for my own friendships or for i'll pick my kid up from aftercare where there's a lot of cool kids and it's kids who aren't in her class but you know are in her grade or maybe a grade younger and okay you know whoever i'll go like oh you know wow lila seems really cool like what's oh yeah what's her deal
Merlin: And she'll be like, oh, you know, she's mostly nice.
Merlin: I don't talk to her very much.
Merlin: I'm like, wow, she seems really cool.
Merlin: She knows a lot about Wolverine.
Merlin: If you talk to her, she's really... Mostly nice.
Merlin: Well, my daughter in her class now, I'm pretty sure her teacher's a socialist.
Merlin: It's super interesting.
Merlin: The way she runs the class is very interesting.
Merlin: And one of the things they do is they rearrange the tables somewhat randomly, like once a month.
Merlin: So you're sitting with different people frequently, and she deliberately tries to mix it up.
Merlin: She doesn't arrange them for each according to their need?
Merlin: Well, there's the brown table.
Merlin: You can guess who sits there.
Merlin: No, but my daughter now identifies as she's at the nice girls' table, and they have an alliance with the funny boys' table over here.
Merlin: Sure, you'll do that.
Merlin: But have you ever done that?
Merlin: I find myself lobbying, and then I'll keep coming back, and I'll go, man, that Lila's a sharp kid.
Merlin: Did you see her do that round-off?
Merlin: That was pretty great.
Merlin: You know, you ever hang out, you want to do a play date with Lila?
John: Nino.
John: Yeah?
John: Nino is a small girl.
John: That's a sweet name.
John: I like that.
John: It's a beautiful name.
John: And I adore her.
John: She's got so much personality and she is so, um, like there was a, there was a girl at her, at my daughter's old school who I also adored, but who was visibly, uh, a, um, she was visibly trying to undermine the
John: other kids and social situations she would pit kids against each other at four years old she would go into situations and just be like i'm friends with you and not with you and then she would go to the other person and say i'm friends with you and not with you mine has a friend friend like that she's like she's playing an ongoing game of diplomacy behind everybody's back it was crazy and i'm you know i'm a grown-up and just by virtue of the fact that i'm that i'm tall
John: Uh, I can hear the distance between that group and this group was only 15 feet.
John: And I just stood in the middle and could hear her on both sides.
John: And I'd be like, young lady.
John: And she would kind of look up at me with this knowing look of like, so I was a little terrified of her.
John: Now, she's grown up and has become like a gentle child.
John: I don't know what she went through.
Merlin: That's the other weird thing.
Merlin: They change.
Merlin: And one year, you get one kid who's the crazy kid who gets sent to the office.
Merlin: And the next year, they're like, oh, she's in theater now.
Merlin: She's doing really great.
Merlin: Yeah, she's great.
John: But Nino is a constant bugbear for my daughter.
John: And it's always a situation where she's doing something.
John: She's doing something.
John: And she's trying to...
John: you know boss uh or she's trying to this or that or this or that and i'm always saying like but she seems so nice i know and i get all this pushback and i know she's not nice maybe nino needs a friend honey maybe you should hang out with her so the thing i know about my kid is that she is she has a very very big she takes up a lot of space right and she doesn't um
John: She needs a little bit of coaching to incorporate other people's narratives into her very, very large and well-developed narrative about whatever.
John: And I think Nino just doesn't take it.
John: I think Nino just doesn't roll over.
John: Okay.
John: And pushes back.
John: Yeah.
John: Because Nino is socially successful.
John: I watch her in the school and people love her and she...
John: And I think she and I think they're just at loggerheads about like just simple, really simple shit.
John: Who's deciding what the story is.
John: Right.
John: And so I'm always trying to make this treaty.
John: And and the thing about Nino is she likes me.
John: So, you know, so she runs up to me and says, hi, and we have our little interaction.
John: And it's not like, you know, like I don't watch my kids sit and fume about it.
John: She doesn't care.
John: But she doesn't want to invite her to birthday parties.
John: It's very complicated.
Merlin: That's so interesting.
Merlin: We get the same thing here.
Merlin: And then I idiotically try and drill down a little bit.
Merlin: And now I sound like some kind of social worker.
Merlin: Because I'm always like, oh, did something happen?
Merlin: Did somebody hurt you?
Merlin: And she's like, no, no.
Merlin: I don't know what kind of monster I'm going to create with these sessions that I do.
Merlin: Can you point to the doll?
Merlin: Show me where Nino excluded your narrative.
Merlin: Show me where she wouldn't let you be the puppy in the story.
Merlin: Yeah, sometimes you can't be the puppy.
Merlin: But, you know, I think about when I was a little kid, and we mainly played media.
Merlin: Like I've told you before, we played SWAT, we played Tora, Tora, Tora, the three-hour Japanese Pearl Harbor movie.
Merlin: And we would play these things, and everybody had these certain things that they liked to do.
Merlin: Sort of like you wanted to be the English guy with the briefcase full of bombs, right?
Merlin: Everybody's got this role that they want to play.
Merlin: And it seems like a big part of that play becomes negotiation about, I guess this is obvious,
Merlin: but a lot of it becomes negotiation about what it is that we're playing right now.
Merlin: What the frame and the rules and the tone of what we're doing is.
John: I think we've talked about this before, but my mom had described that realization she had in the 1980s when she started to be on the board.
John: And she would go to these board meetings.
John: For school or for pipeline?
John: For the pipeline.
Okay.
John: And, you know, the way the pipeline hierarchy was, was that the president and the vice presidents came from the oil companies.
John: So they were never, the president of Alyoska Pipeline was never promoted from within.
John: It was always kind of a plum job that you got as you were working your way up in British Petroleum or Arco or, you know, one of the owner companies.
John: you would go and spend two years in Alaska being the president of the pipeline, and then you would have done your time, and then you would go to Scotland or something, and eventually you'd work your way, so forth.
John: But up to the level of vice president was all promoted within Alyeska.
John: And as my mom was climbing up that ladder and started to be in these rooms, she realized about herself, and I'm sure you and I have talked about it, that she, at the very beginning of a meeting,
John: would just kind of assert that she was going to run this meeting.
John: And she would do that until she was either running the meeting or someone else had thwarted her attempt to run the meeting.
John: At which point she would sit back in her chair and just try and shoot the guy that was running the meeting down.
John: And not in a way that was
John: She saw her role as either being running the meeting or being the gadfly.
Merlin: I was just going to say gadfly, yeah.
John: The one that was like, hmm, that's interesting.
John: Are you sure about that?
John: Not to hurt that person, but just that that was what she saw as...
John: that was what she saw there was a need for right either that either this room she's not just there to take up space like she's there to be an active participant in driving this thing forward in a rational way right but never saw herself as a as a member of the of the the team of six people that were going to take the information in
John: And then vote on it at the end.
John: It was always she needed to be she needed to have this role.
John: And it was either to command or to challenge.
John: That's super interesting.
John: Yeah.
John: And I feel like that is, you know, that's something baked into people, too.
John: And and at least so far, I don't see it in my kid.
John: She if if someone says.
John: You're not in charge of this game.
John: You're the dog.
John: She's happy to be the dog, but she's going to really play that dog role up in terms of how important the dog is to the family dynamic.
John: Right.
John: I see if she is if it's a game where there's a mom and a baby and a dog and she's the baby.
John: then the baby's going to be a loud baby.
John: And if she's the dog, then they're going to have a real handful of a dog on their hand.
John: You know what I mean?
John: It's never going to be a narrative where she's the patient mom going, oh, come now, hush, hush, baby.
Merlin: She's kind of like Jim Belushi.
Merlin: She's kind of certain way she's going to play this.
John: She's chewing up the scenery.
John: Yeah, sure.
John: That's right.
John: But it has affected my understanding of being human, for sure, watching these little humans.
John: I mean, in a way that you couldn't have known, right?
John: You couldn't have figured it out by watching yourself grow up.
John: It really takes watching someone else grow up.
John: to like contextualize a lot and it doesn't make my own childhood make any more sense to me but I do but it resonates in my adulthood somehow you know like we've spent a lot of time going over our childhoods and I kind of came to you know a long time ago came to an understanding of what happened to me growing up um
John: But I just see all of my adult dynamics played out within these playground dynamics.
John: And it's like, oh, yeah, it really is like people are people.
Merlin: So why should it be?
Merlin: The other thing with this is that, I mean, I think we've all had that experience, what you're describing.
Merlin: We've all had that experience of replaying something.
Merlin: In our heads and going, oh, maybe that was different than I expected.
Merlin: But like, you're also fighting this problem of, okay, well, what if you replayed that in your head when you were 19?
Merlin: And you thought you had it figured out?
Merlin: Like, have you replayed that again since then?
Merlin: Because who knows what kind of filter you had on at that point?
Merlin: This is not particularly insightful, but like...
Merlin: you know it is it is very strange for me it's like as much as i fight it and i'm a totally middle-aged man i still find my own prejudice prejudices about people and their behavior things that i feel like are very much rooted in how i felt like i was treated as a kid played out where i will go like not to my daughter but i'll maybe even say to my wife like oh god what is her deal she seems like that girl seems like kind of a dick she seems real conniving she wants to exclude people and whatnot
Merlin: And then I'll actually spend some time with the kid.
Merlin: And you know what?
Merlin: They're a normal nine-year-old kid.
Merlin: And I'm like, where did you come up with that?
Merlin: Why did your mind have to go to some place where you assume that your bad filtering from the past has to be what's happening right now?
John: Well, except that there are lots of, you know, there are a lot of people that seem like they're really nice and then it turns out they're not.
John: A lot of people that seem like they're not and it turns out they are.
John: Bad week.
John: Yeah.
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John: But, uh, but, uh, yeah, I had a, I had an interesting experience yesterday and,
John: that I wanted to tell you about.
John: I would love to hear it.
Merlin: People assume that we write a whole script for this or something, but a lot of what we end up doing for the program, my internet radio show I do at my office, it is largely improvised.
John: Yeah, why do you have an office to do an internet radio show?
John: Well, that's what I put all this shit.
Merlin: My family doesn't want it in the house.
John: Oh, that's true.
John: Nobody wants my garbage.
John: I built a basement.
Merlin: Daddy, bring home more boxes of comics.
Merlin: No, it's not a thing.
Merlin: What about these statues of Wilberforce?
Merlin: What about your dead-eyed superhero girl?
Merlin: What about all these bottles of kombucha from March?
Merlin: What's going to happen with that?
John: Bottles of kombucha from March.
Merlin: I love Tropicalia.
John: So, you know, sometimes one of the things that I do, as you probably know now and for always, is that I get asked to moderate things.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: You're a go-to emcee.
John: Yeah.
John: And that's the thing.
John: When I was in high school, I looked around the school at the jobs that one could do at a school.
Yeah.
John: The various roles that one could inhabit.
John: Right.
John: That's right.
John: As a freshman, I looked at my high school, which, you know, the first day of freshman year, my high school seemed like a big urban high school from the late 70s because it was the early 80s and Anchorage was five years behind.
John: So all the movies you've ever seen about an American high school in 1977 were
John: That's exactly what it felt like when I walked into freshman year.
Merlin: Were you aware at the time that y'all were behind?
Merlin: I mean, how attuned were you to like, oh, this isn't the way people dress on Dukes of Hazzard or whatever?
John: Not really.
Merlin: It's a bad example, but yeah.
John: And people, I mean, the world moved.
John: The world was starting to move pretty fast.
John: But like disco and punk rock...
John: were both still pretty present, culturally new things in 1981 and 2 in Anchorage.
John: And I know that they still were reverberating other places, but there wasn't that feeling that there was in the States that things were over or ever over.
John: And it wasn't until MTV arrived, which was in 82, I guess.
John: Was that right?
John: August of 81, but most people didn't get it for a while.
John: Yeah, we didn't get it until 82.
John: That's when I got it, yeah.
John: Where we suddenly had access to things happening that fast.
Merlin: You had up-to-the-minute New York taste on your screen.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Obviously, this is something that was way over-covered at a certain point, but it's easy to forget now how likely were you to be exposed to the motels, Adam and the Ants, and Captain Sensible in Alaska in the absence of MTV?
Merlin: zero yeah no no chance of it at all and um i feel like pretty much the same for florida i wouldn't even know where to look to find maybe not the motels but to find like sort of odd stuff i didn't have the budget or the purview to find that stuff and then suddenly especially in the morning when they show lots of weird videos you see the weirdest stuff yeah and it was each each new thing that came on you were like okay is this what we're doing now like that's what that's
John: But my first day of freshman year, like at that time, all the football players, the fashion was that they wore painter's caps.
John: Did this...
John: Was this a thing that happened nationally?
Merlin: Painter's Caps with, as I think I've told you, the misspelled mascot of our team on the back in Cooper Black.
Merlin: Technically green, but Cooper Black typeface.
Merlin: Yeah, the Boussineers, the Gulf High Boussineers.
Merlin: We had Painter's Caps in, I want to say, 82, 83 as a fundraiser.
John: So, yeah, that was a thing, I guess.
John: And it was a thing that felt... I mean, they felt very old.
John: They felt very adult.
John: They were very large, much larger...
John: The seniors, of course, than the freshmen.
John: Improbably larger.
John: Improbably larger.
John: Our school had 2,700 kids.
John: And it was a one-story 1962 high school that spread over what felt like 40 acres.
Yeah.
John: And walking in the front door, I mean, I'd been forewarned by kids.
John: Like, if you walk across the Thunderbird that is inlaid into the hallway, if you walk across it and a senior catches you, they will make you scrub it with a toothbrush.
John: And I and every incoming freshman was, like, more terrified.
John: Don't walk across the
John: The mosaic of the T-Bird, our noble mascot.
John: The Thunderbird.
John: The appropriated Native American, and not really even from our state or the local cultures, but appropriated from the distant Native American culture.
John: Utah Jazz.
John: But...
John: But at the time, it seemed plausible that schools were far enough out of the disciplinary reach of grownups that senior classmen could –
John: Could be that much in control of the school and of the space that you would be getting swirlies or scrubbing the scrubbing the floor with a toothbrush and the adults would be standing in the background with their arms crossed, nodding approvingly.
John: Yeah.
John: But.
John: My goodness.
John: What?
John: I have no idea what I was talking about.
Merlin: Oh, you were talking about what it's like to be.
Merlin: It's okay.
Merlin: No, no, no.
Merlin: It's a space.
Merlin: It's what it was like to be in Alaska at a time when you were running.
Merlin: I feel like the whole place is running a little bit behind.
Merlin: Painter's caps.
John: Yeah, painter's caps.
John: Got the Thunderbird.
John: But I started talking about it because I had another idea.
John: oh merlin this never happens to me am i getting am i like going old you can't tell yet you don't know that's the problem no yeah no i'm just starting to like have it and realize it you know yeah you you know that i like i i always make it back yeah i make a digression i go out into the woods i wander around but i always come back no you do you land it you really land it but what happened here should we do some exercises
John: I'll do with you.
John: I'll do with you.
John: Did I just have a stroke?
John: Is that what it feels like?
John: Do you smell toast?
John: It feels like nothing?
John: It feels like you're just talking and then you just don't remember?
John: You might have had an episode.
John: What kind of episode?
John: You'd have to get an EKG.
John: I think.
John: I mean, it's not like anything blurred.
Merlin: No, listen, we're going to get this.
Merlin: We're going to get this.
Merlin: Let's take a minute and pause and let's hear from our sponsor.
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Merlin: All right.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: So here's what we're going to do.
Merlin: Let's, let's do an exercise here.
Merlin: We're going to take this nice and easy.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: So the triggering thought was we were talking about children.
Merlin: We were talking about your mom.
Merlin: We started talking about the situations where some people are able to socialize with others.
Merlin: You started talking about how, when you started high school,
Merlin: In the early 1980s, you felt like things were actually more like a mid-70s.
Merlin: Things like punk rock, things like disco were still very current at the time.
Merlin: You can even look to things like the introduction of MTV to your area.
Merlin: In 1982, you've got seniors wearing painter's caps.
Merlin: Yes, seniors were wearing painter's caps.
Merlin: If you step on the T-bird, they're going to make you take a toothbrush and clean that.
John: It was a very good story.
John: But I was jumping off into it because something recently happened that I wanted to tell you about, I wanted to show you about, and you said, you said,
John: That we didn't see each other all the time.
John: That what was in the show was in the show.
John: That we largely improvised the show.
Merlin: Yes.
John: Which I thought was important for everyone to know.
John: Because they think we do work from a script.
John: Yes.
John: I obviously lost my script today.
Merlin: At least a set of beats.
Yeah.
John: Well, I'm just going to pretend that that segue over into high school in the 70s never happened until I can figure out how to tie it back in.
Merlin: If you want, I need to edit in a couple ads this weekend.
Merlin: Would you like me to add some kind of a sound zinger right here that would allow us to reboot the episode?
Merlin: Uh, like a... Like a... Or like a... How's it going, John?
Merlin: Hey!
Merlin: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: How are you?
Merlin: Are we starting over from the start?
Merlin: No, no.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: See, now I've got to add another noise now.
Merlin: Oh, all right.
Merlin: I don't know if I can find that.
Merlin: No, no, no, it's fine.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: People are terrible, and it's sometimes hard to know when you're the terrible person.
Merlin: I assume that I'm always the terrible person.
Merlin: Do you really?
Merlin: Because I mean, like the thing is, it's like and this kind of gets to my point about the changing your filter.
Merlin: Feel free to jump back in at any point.
Merlin: But this is part of my point with the filter is that I feel like I have probably sanded off, papered over and buttered across many, many things in my past as because reasons.
Merlin: Do you know what I mean?
Merlin: We're like, I thought everybody treated me this way because boodily boop, boop, boop.
Merlin: And I don't know.
Merlin: Sometimes I am reluctant to go too far back to look at that again because it's very painful.
John: Well, you know, my passage through time, personally, I have never felt any...
John: any strong need to cast myself as the victim of, of, of situations of the world or of other people.
John: Um, like I do, I never felt victimized by anything other than massive structures, right?
John: Like I, nobody, I wasn't, um, because I was enough of a, of a problem from a young age to,
John: That there was never a time when I didn't understand and it hadn't been imparted to me by everybody that I was kind of a problem and not always a bad problem.
John: Did you take up that mantle at a certain point?
John: What it did was it liberated me from it liberated me in a certain sense because there were because from a young age, it wasn't like John Roderick, you are a problem.
John: It was always from everybody.
John: Oh, John, you're such a problem.
John: Like it was nice.
John: Yeah, it was very it was always wrapped in a warm fuzzy that.
John: that the word problem i heard ringing my ears as the word exceptional the world's just not ready for you but that word was used too but but but that's how i heard it right so i never i i never felt like oh the reason this is because that uh or whatever that was whatever um whatever system was operating i i recognized that
John: Who I was, not my behavior, but who I actually was, was troubling or just wasn't ever going to fit in.
John: And I think I took then responsibility for a lot of stuff that wasn't mine.
John: that I wasn't the bad guy.
John: But I just, I accepted it because I already had such, I had this big cardboard box full of all of the things that I was responsible for.
John: Sure, why not throw something, you know, like, oh, you've got some, like, pickled quail eggs in a jar?
John: Sure, put them in my box.
John: I'm already carrying a box out.
John: And I think later on, when I went back and looked at my
John: I actually had to take some stuff out of the box and say, you know what, that wasn't my fault.
John: I couldn't have been responsible for that because that wasn't a thing that a kid could be responsible for.
John: That was a thing that adults should have been handling.
John: And I think when I'm angry at structures, what that usually means is that there was some adult...
John: who was operating according to a structure that they hadn't examined.
John: And that adult was doing stuff that affected me or didn't protect me.
John: But I don't blame them.
Merlin: I don't think sometimes they're just doing their job.
Merlin: I mean, the woman or more likely man who stood aside while somebody had to toothbrush the T-bird probably felt like not only were they doing their job, but they were doing a good job of their job.
John: They were doing it.
John: I mean, the vice principal was that was crucial.
John: No, this is long after coupful.
John: This was, you know, in high school at that point, whoever the vice principal was, he didn't.
John: You don't know who they are.
John: He didn't have a cricket bat.
Merlin: But... No, a cricket bat.
Merlin: Kufla had a tennis racket with weights on it.
Merlin: Is that right?
Merlin: And a cricket bat.
Merlin: And a cricket bat.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: He had both of those things.
Merlin: Huh.
Merlin: It seems weird.
Merlin: If people want to come and interview him in his office, it's strange that he would have so much striking sports gear.
John: Well, it's sort of like the it's a little bit of a mixed metaphor, right?
John: The Scientologists go across the bridge up the ladder.
John: All right.
John: Google was working on his on his tennis stroke.
John: But it also, I guess, translated to cricket, a sport that was not played in Alaska.
John: Who knows where he even got a cricket bat?
John: It was culturally sensitive.
John: If he turned it over, I bet it had that.
John: I bet it like.
John: Had the initials of his fraternity.
John: But by the time you get to high school, of course, you don't know the names of the assistant principals anymore.
John: They don't loom as large because in high school, they're not hitting you with a cricket bat anymore.
John: It's partly because the seniors are so big.
John: You can't take a 17-year-old and whack them.
John: You can get away with it when a kid is 12.
John: I mean, not anymore, obviously, but in Alaska in the early 80s.
Merlin: No, it was real.
Merlin: I remember being terrified when I arrived at my public school in Florida.
Merlin: I just remember reading the student guide because I was the kind of person who would do that.
Merlin: All the crazy rules about what kind of clothes you're allowed to wear.
Merlin: fetishist's description of the swatting, the spanking process, and exactly the very specifics of what kind of device was going to be used to strike you, and how it was so weird.
Merlin: I wish I could find it today, because it really feels like porn.
Merlin: It doesn't even feel like something from another time.
Merlin: It just feels like somebody's idea of like, I wrote this this weekend, can we put it in?
Merlin: I don't know, Jim, man.
Merlin: You're pretty specific about the kind of plywood to be used when you hit these girls.
John: Well, it's very important they understand the rules and why they're bad.
John: You just read the Marquis de Sade.
John: I remember how I got out there.
John: Yay!
John: How's it going, John?
John: I was talking about being a master of ceremonies.
John: Oh, I had that in my notes even.
John: Right?
John: And the roles that you go to a high school and you look around and you figure out what roles you're going to play.
John: And there were all these different roles, right?
John: Valedictorian, captain of the football team, all this stuff.
John: And I knew that I was none of those things.
John: I was never going to be captain of the cheerleaders.
John: I didn't want to be a photographer for the newspaper.
John: There were people that just like photographer for a yearbook or newspaper was all they wanted to be.
John: Because the photographer likes is behind the camera.
Merlin: They don't really have to they're not in front of the camera So they're usually a lone wolf lone wolf, right?
Merlin: They're there, but they're in the background.
Merlin: They're working alone Nobody really knows how to do what they're doing.
Merlin: It seems a little like magic You can be like you could be like the the like coolest dork in school if you had a camera Yeah, you get to be a rogue rogue warrior.
Merlin: You probably get a pass I bet you get a special pass you get to go to things early or late
John: Back then you certainly did.
John: Nowadays, who knows?
John: Who knows what kids are allowed to do now?
John: They got cameras on everything.
John: They got cameras on their backpacks.
John: Metal detectors just to get into school.
John: But I recognized I didn't want to be king of the nerds.
John: I didn't want to be president of the school.
John: I didn't want to be what I wanted to be was master of ceremonies.
John: I wanted to do the pep assemblies.
John: I wanted to talk on the microphone.
John: I wanted to do morning announcements in the school.
John: I wanted to be considered the host of the school.
John: Like the greeter?
John: And that wasn't a job.
Merlin: You'd be a greeter like a Walmart?
Merlin: You'd just be at the door?
John: Not the greeter, but like, you know, when you thought of... Looking good, James!
John: At the beginning of Red Dawn when the Russians arrived, you know, I wanted to be the one that walked out the front door and said, Hello, friends!
John: Oh, the emissary, the anchorman, yeah.
Merlin: that wasn't a job i had to go in to the principal's office day after day week after week and say you know what you you guys really need you need somebody to handle all this stuff they say don't dress for the job you have dress for the job that doesn't exist yet that's right and that was my job and that has continued to be there was a long period you're very good at it you're like your mom taking over the meeting you don't do it in like an assertive way but you're very good at like making sure that everything runs well in a social situation you're very good at that
Merlin: I like to put this person, you know, I like to make everybody feel comfortable.
John: I like to introductions.
John: You can walk them over to the couch.
John: So there was a long period of time there where I didn't have the I didn't have access to two worlds outside of my own immediate world where I could be.
John: You know, I love to just be that person at a party or in a situation where groups of people were merging, but I wasn't invited to.
John: out into like the city to host events for people.
John: Um, because I was for a long time, a drug addict and an unknown, but now, now I get asked to do this all the time.
John: Like it's a, it's a big part of, well, two things, right?
John: For a long time, it was part of volunteering for me.
John: It was like how I
John: I gave back to the community because a lot of the times what I was asked to do was host benefits, fundraisers, events for charities.
John: You're talking about like your later, this is like in more like your rock years.
John: Yeah, this is in the last 10, 15 years.
John: Like, hey, will you come do this for the March of Dimes or whatever?
John: And it was always, it was an automatic yes.
John: And then I started getting asked to do those things where it was not a charity.
John: It was like, this is our, our annual meeting, or this is a, we're having a, we're having a big event and we're a for-profit company.
John: And, and I've, it took me a while to realize like, so this isn't really a, this isn't really a benefit, is it?
John: This is more of a, it's more of a job you would hire somebody to do and then learn to learn how much to ask.
John: But I still, and particularly around the holidays, right, I've been invited to do this five times in the last two weeks.
John: Like, hey, will you do our thing?
John: And I'm practicing a little bit of the mid-2000s Merlin Mann where I'm like, I'm going to say a number.
John: And what I hope you hear in this number is, no, I don't want to do your thing.
John: But if you say yes to this number, I'll do your thing.
Mm-hmm.
John: Anyway, I get a call from the University of Washington.
John: And by call, I mean email.
John: And the email said, hey, will you come moderate or will you be the interlocutor, the interviewer for an event we're having?
John: And I said, you know, sure.
John: Yeah.
John: What's the event?
John: And they said, we're bringing Dan Harmon.
John: Oh, my God.
John: To the University of Washington.
John: We would like you to be his.
John: Oh, my God.
John: To interview him and host the event.
John: Oh, my God.
John: And I was like, this is my chance.
John: This is it.
John: I get to bring this whole story full circle.
John: Dan Harmon and I are going to... I'm going to do my due diligence this time.
John: I'm going to watch Rick and Morty.
John: I'm going to read his Wikipedia entry.
John: I'm going to... Catch up on all those shows everybody's always demanding you watch?
John: Make a few note cards about the names of the shows he's done.
John: And so when he says...
John: you know i love your shows and he says which ones and and and uh and i'll have that moment of like uh then i'll be able to answer i'll say rick and morty and he'll go what do you like about it but i'll be i'll be ready for him because i'll have written it down and i'll say rick
John: And Morty?
John: Or whatever.
John: I don't know.
John: I haven't done that work yet.
Merlin: But I was like... The point is, the point is not what you will say, but that you will know what to say.
John: I will not be caught with my drawers down.
Merlin: He's going to be sitting there with his harmon in his hand, because you are now a man who knows all the great shows.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: That's exactly it.
John: And I was super thrilled to have this opportunity.
John: And so I said yes, and I said...
John: You know, like basically like what's the drill?
John: And I got this email back that said, well, we're working on a list of questions that we're going to run by his people.
John: And then we'll send them to you so that you can go through and make sure that, you know, like add any edits you want to add.
Okay.
John: And this isn't ever what, this isn't normal, right?
Merlin: That is absolutely new to me.
Merlin: That's something you would do with somebody who's on the volunteer committee.
Merlin: Or, you know what I mean?
Merlin: Somebody who's on the student board for visiting speakers would get to go up and ask pre-asked questions.
Merlin: You would not have an editorial guest moderator come in and read somebody else's questions, I don't think.
Merlin: No, I agree that that seems odd.
John: So I was like, hmm, list of questions.
John: OK.
John: And I'm just thinking that it's got to be, you know, that I'm going to because sometimes.
John: Right.
John: And you have this experience, too.
John: Sometimes you do events for people who don't do events.
Merlin: They don't they don't do events.
Merlin: And it's I don't sound unkind, but it's not quite that they haven't thought it through.
Merlin: But on some level, it's that they haven't really thought it through.
Merlin: Like, okay, now in your head, walk through how all this happens, how we get on stage, what happens, how everybody's introduced.
Merlin: We talk for this amount of time and then what's going to happen.
Merlin: And that's even before setting aside all of the like behind the scenes stuff that like, if you haven't really thought about what order this stuff goes in and what people are used to.
Merlin: You're going to this is going to go slower than you think and it's going to be more difficult than you think because you're asking people to like reframe what kind of event this is.
John: There are those there are those situations.
John: And then I encounter a lot of them where there is someone running the event who's used to running a big operation because it's because it's a big it's a big event for a big operation.
John: And so they they put somebody whose normal job is manager of some department.
John: And they say, you know, you do the event and they're excited about it because it's their Christmas event or something.
John: And they're like, great.
John: And then I'll get a thing in the mail, which is their script.
John: They're like, you're the host.
John: And so at eleven twenty seven, we're going to ring the bell.
John: And at 1128, you're going to walk on stage.
John: And then here's your script.
John: Hi, everyone.
John: Welcome to the event.
John: My name is John Roderick.
John: And I am here.
John: And every word is written.
John: And I'm like, this is fantastic.
John: Thank you for sending this over.
John: I'll definitely work from this outline.
John: And 99% of the time.
John: Everybody's fine with that.
John: In cases like that, do they usually have a rehearsal?
John: Scheduled a full rehearsal?
John: Yes, they do.
John: And in those rehearsals, I'm perfectly happy to do the blocking and read from their script.
John: But I'm not going to get up and read a script at a thing.
John: Anyway, so I...
John: So I think that this list of questions is going to be sort of perfunctory and I'm going to peruse it and it's like, you know, tell us about all the shows.
John: And then I'm going to, I'm going to sit up there and be like, Dan, here's my next question.
John: What about the shows?
John: They're pretty good.
John: People like them.
John: Am I right?
John: And I opened this list of questions and it is phenomenal.
John: Um,
John: Do you have it in front of you?
John: So I do.
John: There are 15 questions.
John: And they are so, like, specific.
Merlin: You got a nice soft one to open them up?
John: The first one.
John: In an Adult Swim short clip, you talk about the roles of creator and createe, and specifically Rick as creator on Rick and Morty.
John: Can you tell us more about the theme of creation on the show?
John: And as an artist who creates yourself, is there a certain level of responsibility that comes with creating?
John: How do you consolidate that, especially given the context of Rick and Morty as a show acknowledged for exploring socially relevant topics?
Merlin: No one has ever read that out loud until this moment.
Merlin: That's the softball opener.
Merlin: Okay, I got a lot of notes.
John: And I feel like they wanted me then to go through this and put it in my own... Do they have reminders below that to nod politely while he's answering that excellent question?
John: No, but like, you know, put it in your own words.
John: And my reaction was, I have none of my own words.
John: I could not ask a follow-up to this, nor would I know what I was saying as I was saying it.
John: I would not know if he was giving a good answer or a bad one.
John: That's a really, really bad.
Merlin: That's not a good question.
Merlin: It's phrased poorly, and I would never open with it.
Merlin: That's an if there's time at the end.
Merlin: that would basically say, ask him how he feels about the creative process in terms of how he presents his characters or something like that.
Merlin: But that's such a weird question to open with.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I would not be surprised knowing the very little I know about him.
Merlin: You know, let me put it this way.
Merlin: You open with that question, you're not going to save yourself from the All the Great Shows situation.
Merlin: That is not an opening that is going to get you where you want to be with that situation.
John: No, like question number eight.
John: Here's how it's phrased.
John: Okay.
John: Dude.
John: Ellipses.
John: Why Szechuan sauce?
John: Does that whole craze excite or annoy you?
John: Have you had it recently?
John: What did you learn from your experience being fired as Community's showrunner after the third season?
John: I guess that's something that I would understand why people were asking.
John: Let's see.
John: Oh, my God.
John: It just goes on and on.
John: And so what happened was I sat and I studied this list of 15 questions.
John: And I felt like all of a sudden Dan Harmon...
John: was again receding into the fog and i was like dan and i was running slow motion dan no no come back and he just was you know and he could he was looking at me sort of cheshire cat and all i could see then was his face smiling kind of in the through the because dan harman can tell you have as we say in the sometimes in the tech world you flip the bozo bit
Merlin: Like, in the sense that, you know what I'm saying?
Merlin: Like, sometimes you meet somebody and you go, like, all it takes is them saying one particular thing.
Merlin: Could be jury duty.
Merlin: Could be waiting for the train.
Merlin: But somebody says something real stupid and you go, well, I don't have to pay a super lot of attention to that person.
Merlin: They just flipped the bozo bit.
Merlin: Flipped the bozo bit.
Merlin: And Dan Harmon is not going to hear that question.
Merlin: Even if you read that very well, he's not going to hear that and then think this is going to be a great interview.
Merlin: Well, right.
Merlin: Or, you know, and he's going to look at me.
John: He's going to think it's you.
John: He's going to think it's your fault.
John: You came up with that terrible question.
John: He's either going to think that or he's going to recognize looking at my face that I'm basically Zoltan.
John: Putting your hands on the cards.
John: And I'm just like, my little jaw is moving.
John: And I'm like, how does Rick and Morty... Like, I will have blank eyes.
Merlin: Read me again.
Merlin: Wasn't there a beginning dependent clause?
Merlin: Let's see.
John: It opened with...
John: In an adult swim short clip.
John: Okay, so I know what adult swim is, but I do not know what an adult swim short clip is.
John: In an adult swim short clip.
John: In an adult swim short clip, which might be a way of preparing beef, as far as I know.
Merlin: uh you talk about the roles of creator and createe he he talked about it so it's like a documentary like like talking head interview where he talked about so they're asking him about another interview that he did that was on the cartoon network right and they want him to follow up on that based on something something rick and morty i've watched adult swim quite a bit but i do not remember the short clip
John: as a thing.
John: I guess I haven't watched it recently, and it must be that they get creators and createes to get up and do many interviews.
John: But in the context of this, I do not know what they mean by createe.
Merlin: The one who is created.
Merlin: By... Is that what you take that to mean?
John: A creator creates things, and a createe is one who is created?
John: One who is created.
John: So how is Dan Harmon created...
John: By either Adult Swim or his show.
John: But then talk about the roles of creator and createe and specifically Rick as creator on Rick and Morty.
John: Now, is Rick a cartoon character or is he a person?
Merlin: He's a person who's a cartoon character on the Rick and Morty show.
Merlin: But he is a real person named Rick in the world?
Merlin: I don't think so.
Merlin: It started out, apparently, as kind of a riff on Back to the Future.
Merlin: He's kind of the Doc Brown character, but it's gone very far away from that since the pilot.
John: But it's not that Rick is like...
Merlin: Rick and Dan went to college together and started this show I'm aware of so I think he's a create I think he's a createee of Dan Harmon and his writing partner, right?
John: So Rick is not a creator on Rick and Morty Well, so anyway, I would be I mean I could sit with Dan Harmon and unpack the question for 45 minutes But he would be like shouldn't there be somebody interviewing me that knows that knows me and
John: Which is our prior interest.
Merlin: I mean, like a question, you think about anytime you're preparing to do an interview or you're preparing, even if it's just a podcast, I mean, I'm thinking about when I interviewed Hodgman for a thing here in town called City Arts and Lectures and the prep that went into that and talking to him.
Merlin: And, you know, really, but talking in that case, because it was going to be obviously a friendly interview about his book and talking about the kind of stuff he wanted to talk about.
Merlin: And I try to throw in a few zingers.
Merlin: But at the heart of it, like when you're preparing for stuff like that, like it's the question is a MacGuffin.
Merlin: I mean, what you're looking for is an opportunity for the personality.
Merlin: You think about a good Terry Gross interview, like a classic Terry Gross interview is where she talks to somebody where she doesn't really know much about what that person does, but ends up very curious about an angle into what they do that gives them an opportunity to say something they never knew they thought about that topic.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: I might be getting too inside my own head here, but I think the goal of a good interview is to not be like a fucking writer for Pitchfork and go look at me, notice what I'm creating.
Merlin: It's more to get out of the way and just provide enough ammunition for that person to go off in a direction that's going to be interesting, novel.
Merlin: And my goal would be try to get them to say something, not that they, maybe something they want to say, but get them to have a thought they didn't realize they'd had and have them articulate it in a way that surprises and delights them.
Merlin: Give them the ammunition for that.
Merlin: A question like that does not do that.
Merlin: A question like that wants to be written on a whiteboard and diagrammed.
John: Yeah.
John: And it's and it's obvious.
John: It was obvious to me as I was reading it.
John: Like, oh, this was the problem between me and Dan Harmon the last time we met coming through the rye, which was this is the level of fandom that he's used to encountering.
John: Like this, these questions were obviously put together by students at the university who were very excited.
John: It's obviously put together by someone who's partway through college.
John: And probably a team of them, because the suggestion as I was waiting for these questions to arrive was like, we're working on these questions.
John: And I do events for the university all the time.
John: And I really like the guy that puts on events there.
John: The last one I did was with Adam Savage.
John: And the way that I prepared for it was I had three cups of coffee and some peanut M&Ms.
John: And then I got up on stage and I was like, all right, here he is.
John: So, you know, so tell me, Adam.
John: He's so charming.
John: He's so charming.
John: You're a guy that makes things.
John: Like, what do you say about that?
John: And he's like, I do make things.
John: You know, he's like, he doesn't.
John: And I don't think Dan Harmon probably needs much help to get going.
John: So I was, you know, I was prepared to have some fun with him.
John: But reading this, I was like, I really do feel like the expectations of the students are very high.
John: first of all, for what we're going to, you know, we're going to put Dan Harmon to the grill here.
John: Because that question goes, the question that I just read the first half of goes on for a while and uses the word creator three more times.
John: So he does feel like maybe he is the creator to some of them.
John: Anyway, I wrote the university and my friend there.
John: You sent them a letter.
John: And I said, I sent them a letter.
John: And I said, this is the rare, rare occasion where I feel like I'm the wrong guy for this job.
John: I do not think...
John: I do not think I will do a good job.
Merlin: Usually as the emcee in waiting, you see nothing but opportunities where you could go in and contribute something.
Merlin: In this case, the rare, rare instance where you feel like you're the wrong match as an emcee for this.
John: That's right.
John: I have never written that letter before.
John: You know what?
John: I feel like I'm the wrong guy for this.
John: I never feel that way.
John: I'm always like, oh, what do you need?
John: Are we talking serious?
John: Are we being funny?
John: Is this supposed to be light?
John: Is this supposed to be...
John: dark?
John: Is this meaningful?
John: Are we going to see a montage of kids that we've helped?
John: Or are we just trying to auction off some funny thing while we're all dressed like 70s people?
Merlin: If I may, the thread in all of those, I feel like it seems like you're talking about yourself and what you do, but the thread in all of those is that you, I feel like, is that you have a sense of
Merlin: of it's going to begin like this and then i want people to feel like that and a lot of times that's they want them to be i want to feel laughter and entertained i want them to feel in on the joke i want them to feel that their efforts have had a great effect on people that they don't even know like you have a sense like you could may not articulate it that way but you know what the tone of it is supposed to be if that question goes great how is dan harman supposed to feel how is everybody in the room supposed to feel except from except for awkward
John: Right.
John: Well, with the Adam Savage thing, I mean, the surprise to me, I'd never seen it quite this way.
John: But it was a packed house.
John: And at the end, during the question period, probably 60% of the people who got up to ask a question got up and said, watching your show as a kid is the reason that I went into the sciences.
John: And now I am...
John: Here getting a master's degree in particle physics and I owe it all to you.
John: And 60% of the people either started with that or that's all they wanted to get up and say.
John: And it was like a completely diverse group of people, right?
John: It was equal number of men and women, equal number of people of all races.
John: It was a complete rainbow room.
John: And they all had this same experience.
John: And I was just like, wow, I didn't realize what a powerful religious figure he is and Mythbusters was in terms of like turning a generation of curious kids into scientists.
John: And I was looking forward to figuring this out about Dan Harmon, too, through this process.
John: So, Dan, honestly, you and I are about the same age.
John: You seem to be a very popular creator of things.
John: You know, and go from there, right?
John: Anyway, I wrote and said...
Merlin: This isn't even setting aside the fact that the thing's hiding in plain sight, and we talked about it a little bit last time, which is that he is a notoriously tough nut to crack.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: I mean, we should not skip over that, but apparently he is...
John: irascible like he he will be very provocative with very little provocation yes this was what i was really looking forward to you know we didn't have you could toss you know we didn't have a chance before you know we're standing in his green room and i was like hey so you are the i'm supposed to meet you mr guy here
John: People are acting like it's really great that you're here, I guess.
John: And now I was going to be like, Johnny on the spot about it.
John: Let's get into it, Dan Harmon.
John: Like that, that didn't intimidate me at all.
John: But boy, these questions did.
John: So, yeah, first time in ever.
John: I wrote and said, I'm going to have to say...
John: No thank you to this offer, and not because I don't want to do it, but because...
John: Because you guys want a very different thing.
John: This reads more like a Stassi interrogation.
John: And I wouldn't know.
John: Honestly, this is the thing.
John: I don't understand the question.
Merlin: Was this a woman who shared a residence with you?
Merlin: Did she have access to the mailbox at the time?
Merlin: It's very interesting.
Merlin: I noticed your shoes have mud around the edges.
Oh.
Merlin: Would you like a cigarette?
Merlin: You put out a bunch of folders and you just kind of casually pick up what's obviously a bug, like it's just got a wire hanging from it.
Merlin: This would look lovely on your lamp, yes?
Merlin: Tell me, Mr. Dunham, where do you get your ideas?
Merlin: All the great shows.
Merlin: All the great shows.
Merlin: Hey, if that's as good a time as any, remind you we're selling t-shirts.
Merlin: For two weeks you can go and pre-order t-shirts for the Roderick on the Line program.
Merlin: Oh, shucky darn.
Merlin: Yeah, shucky darn and slap the chickens.
Merlin: So we do, we have a show shirt.
Merlin: We have four, three.
Merlin: We have three designs of shirt.
Merlin: This is a terrible URL.
Merlin: You just go to show notes and you'll see a link to it in there, but you go to CottonBureau.com.
Merlin: I think it's CottonBureau.com slash people slash Roderick dash slash on dash on dash...
Merlin: that's the dash line i think that's it but if you go to show notes you'll see it but you can go and uh so we've got the return of the pound sign super train shirt we have the ding rodrick line orange bell and a brand new shirt that ironically enough we have an all the great shows t-shirt you can get all the great shows it has it has been i've been made aware of the fact uh that
John: The great shows has gone out into the world.
John: Oh, it's gone.
John: It's gone wide in our community Yeah, it's a it's in the podcast community right as much and what does it what does it mean?
John: to other people in the podcast community?
John: Is it being used appropriately or has the meaning morphed?
Merlin: Well, like all these kinds of things, I think the people who spread it very much know where it's from.
Merlin: I'm not sure the people who hear it always know, although I think it's gotten some currency.
Merlin: But yeah, like among people who've listened to this program and have other podcasts or podcast networks, it's become kind of the parlance.
Merlin: You can always tell it's caught on when you say a certain kind of thing and then there's a Slack bot auto response that dumps in all the great shows in.
Merlin: That's a good sign that you've been memed.
Merlin: But yeah, it's gone around.
Merlin: But what's really nice is designed by our friends at Cotton Bureau.
Merlin: And I don't want to get us in trouble from an IP standpoint, but I would say it's basically it's a T-shirt.
Merlin: It says all the great shows.
Merlin: Doesn't sound so great, but it's in pretty much the all in the family font.
Merlin: It's a great font.
Merlin: It is a really good first.
Merlin: They did it.
Merlin: I think they said it in Cooper Black and that looked great.
Merlin: But I think I don't know what this face is called, but it looks really sharp.
Merlin: And you can get it at Cotton Bureau.
Merlin: And like I said, go to the show notes, roderconline.com.
Merlin: For this episode, you'll find a link to it.
John: It's a shirt that I would wear.
John: I absolutely would wear this shirt.
John: I would give it as a gift.
John: I may give it as a gift.
John: Isn't that great when everybody opens a present and it's a present from you about you?
Merlin: One time I had a housewarming party and an acquaintance arrived and said he had a gift for me.
Merlin: And what he gave me was his vanity printed book of essays that he had signed.
Merlin: I said, thanks, buddy.
John: I have a framed picture of you on my piano.
John: What?
John: And...
John: Did I give you that?
John: During your period where you were doing business cards and stuff, you had that wonderful picture of you standing on a chair in the middle of a field of ivy.
John: That's a great photo.
John: Really shouting at the forest.
John: Holding a laptop.
John: Holding a laptop shouting at a forest.
John: Tall hair, orange sweater, looking a little chunky and screaming into the forest.
John: Yeah, it really spoke to me.
John: It's really the Merlin man that I know best and know and love.
John: And so I took that picture and I put it in a frame and I put it on my piano and, and it's just one of the things that is in the house.
John: It's just Merlin shouting at the forest.
John: It's a,
John: And I've always, as I walk past it, because I see it 40 times a day, it's the type of thing I really wish that you would give out at Christmas, a framed photo of yourself shouting at the forest.
John: Because I think everyone in your life would put it on their piano.
John: Huh.
Merlin: And you think that's the gift, but in particular, that's the photo that should be in the gift.
John: Well, no, I think if you, because you take pretty good pictures, and you've had some iconic pictures taken over the years, I think if you gave out a series of
John: Or like just, you know, just made coasters or whatever.
John: But if you gave out a series of framed photos of yourself.
Merlin: Oh, maybe a copy of my Vanity Press book.
John: I signed that for you.
John: Hey, I got you something.
Merlin: Enjoy the new house.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Merry Christmas.
Merlin: um let me ask you this so go go buy the fucking shirt um the thing i wanted to ask you if this were an alternate universe if we're in uh the the the ultimate uh dan harman universe and you had the opportunity to go and do the interview you'd like with him how would you open
Merlin: I mean, I know I'm putting you on the spot a little bit, but setting everything else aside, if somebody says to you, okay, you're going to have two chairs on stage, you've got a bowl of fruit and some water, there's going to be 300 people there in a theater atmosphere, you're going to have a lav mic, you'll have a lav mic, you've got 35 minutes plus 20 minutes for questions, what kind of thing would you open with?
John: I think I would sit down, not having yet read his Wikipedia entry.
Merlin: Would you strike the stage and reset where the chairs are, do you think?
John: Yeah.
John: My opening would be, Dan, leaving aside your entire canon, I think everybody in the room is super well-versed in the stuff that you make, and if they want to know more about it, they can go look it up, which I'm sure they already have.
John: And so a lot of the questions that people probably typically ask you are just rephrases of their own desire to let you know that they know what you do.
John: People just want to get up and ask obscure questions that they already know the answer to just to watch you perform like a like a marionette.
John: What I think I would rather do now is, you know, kind of get to the bottom of, like, why you're here.
John: What interests you about appearing in front of a group of people, making yourself available this way, as somebody that works in a medium where your face is not on the screen?
John: Like, what's your relationship to...
John: to this yourself in the world like what are you what are you hoping to hear from people um what and and is this about any way he wants with that he could say uh i don't want to be here my fucking agent made me come here yeah that could be fun that could be you could run with that i'm promoting a thing and this is part of promoting it or he could say you know that i don't get a lot of feedback like directly with people and i really crave the human contact
John: Or he could say, what an asshole question.
John: Why don't you just get on to the Rick and Morty stuff?
Merlin: Yeah, we'll talk about Szechuan sauce.
John: Yeah, whatever it is.
John: What's the deal with McDonald's?
John: Because I would be able to say like, look, I'm someone who also is like a human being in the world.
John: I've been asked to interview you and I could never get up to speed on everything you've done.
John: So the choice the university has here is either to sit a super fan against you or to put a person that's like a conversational person and you and I can conversate.
John: But I think a lot of that I would probably say to him backstage.
Merlin: And if he said, you know, that's a good point, like a little pre-interview kind of thing of like, well, what are you excited about?
Merlin: What are you mad about?
Merlin: What happened at your hotel?
Merlin: That kind of stuff.
Merlin: Same thing you do like before a talk show, like find out what's going on and figure out three big beats.
John: Yeah, right.
John: Are you here to pitch something?
John: In which case, let's pitch it.
John: Or are you here just...
John: Because you are doing the rounds or – like you seem to be somebody that however much money the University of Washington comes up with to bring you here, it's a drop in the bucket.
John: You don't care.
John: You're not doing it for the money, right?
John: Uh-huh.
John: Like really?
John: I mean like you go out and even if they're paying you $25,000 or $80,000 to appear, like I guess probably $80,000 is meaningful to someone who works in Hollywood.
Yeah.
Merlin: Another angle would be, what kind of advice do you have for young people?
Merlin: Mr. Harmon, many people want to get into the show business.