Ep. 283: "I Never Follow the Voice"
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hi John.
Merlin: Hi Merlin.
Merlin: How's it going?
Merlin: Hmm.
Merlin: Hmm.
John: Super duper.
John: No.
John: Super duper.
Merlin: I'm late because I got too headstrong.
Merlin: I thought I could run an errand.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Late 911 wears the late crown.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Am I right?
Merlin: 911's a joke in your town.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: What was your errand?
Merlin: Oh, it's not very interesting.
Merlin: Did you go to the bread store for some bread?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: No, no.
Merlin: No.
Merlin: I went to the ATM.
Oh.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: You've got to go to the ATM sometimes.
Merlin: You're going to need some cash around the house today?
Merlin: I don't like not having cash.
Merlin: These Millenniums, they love everything on a card.
Merlin: I know they do.
John: They want it all on their thermostat.
Merlin: It needs to stop, John.
Merlin: It needs to stop.
Merlin: The card thing needs to, we just need to pump the brakes.
Merlin: But anyway, sorry, I don't usually talk about the show on the show, but I ran a little late, and so now I need to walk over here and get myself a can of seltzer.
Merlin: Oh, shit.
Merlin: Oh, shit.
Merlin: You there?
Merlin: I'm going to open a new one.
Merlin: I'm going with you, Duke boys.
Merlin: God damn it.
Merlin: God damn it.
Merlin: Holy shit.
John: I got a lot of fucking issues with the Canada Dry Company.
John: Oh, you're drinking a brand name seltzer.
Merlin: I have developed a taste for Canada Dry, and it's become a monkey on my back.
Merlin: Yeah, because all those years ago... Like a soda stream, like one of those guys, right?
John: Also, you got this just like the Kroger... Ha ha!
Merlin: well okay so we should probably just do a whole episode about water at some point because i it's been a journey for me i have some issues yeah well when i okay so when i first got into uh sparkling water slash seltzer water slash soda water it's a regional thing i guess uh i used to get it in like safeway 12 packs
Merlin: And then this is still a point when I would drive a car around like an animal.
Merlin: And then I discovered that you could get Safeway in cases.
Merlin: Yep.
Merlin: Yep.
Merlin: And then I discovered that the Safeway delivery people would theoretically deliver things to your house for a nominal fee.
Merlin: Say what now?
Merlin: Is this like a back alley deal?
Merlin: Oh, this is a seltzer hack for show.
Merlin: So I got the wrong keyboard on my document open.
Merlin: Holy shit.
Merlin: So what I did was I discovered.
John: I'd like you to put a fork there in the wrong keyboard.
John: I'd like to revisit that.
John: Put it in the document wrong keyboard.
Merlin: The wrong keyboard.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: For old time's sake, I should use the old keyboard, my regular keyboard.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: No, no, I don't want to make noise.
Merlin: People will email us.
Merlin: So what I discovered was a seltzer hack, which was you could contact the Safeway Company of Pleasant, California, and you could say, hey, you know, I could use a quart of milk and let me have some of that icebox chocolate cake and 18 cases of seltzer.
John: Do you have to talk to them like Randy Newman?
No.
Merlin: i'm like that mitchell and webb character the guy who goes into the corner store and he's like oh i'm so thirsty today wonder what i should have this morning oh he just buys a malt liquor every morning he wants to play it off like he's just oh so so very thirsty what could i have in my case i'm like yeah you know why don't you give me some of those uh give me some of those uh right of french fries and um oh you know what's good is
Merlin: Yo, your flank steak is good.
Merlin: I got 18 cases of seltzer.
John: And they will deliver it to your home.
Merlin: Oh, they hate it.
Merlin: They hate it.
Merlin: Because this is back in the day.
Merlin: So this is, you know, lots happened in the years since this went down.
Merlin: But this is when Safeway was trying to do their own offering.
Merlin: They still do this, but they're getting their butt kicked by all the other companies.
Merlin: But a man in a Safeway truck would come to your house, and man, he was fucking hating life.
John: I had no idea.
Merlin: Well, you know, normally you're like, oh, you know, could I get a loaf of bread and a stick of butter?
Merlin: And they come out and they give you a nice little bag.
Merlin: Cart of the milk.
Merlin: Carton of milk, stick of butter.
Merlin: Stick of butter.
Merlin: Tip the cap.
Merlin: Hello, governor.
Merlin: Here's your staples then.
Merlin: What they were not expecting was the life hack guy asking for 18 cases of seltzer and then asking, please stack them up in this area of my garage, please and thank you.
Merlin: Is that a pallet?
John: I mean, how many is 18 cases?
John: I don't know if I've seen that in a long time.
Merlin: 18.
Merlin: It's more than the guy with the little back brace really feels like bringing it into your house.
Merlin: I still continue this to this day because I fight this.
Merlin: I fight the system.
Merlin: The system does not want me to get heavy objects.
Merlin: They want me to get the dainty bag and pay the fee.
John: They're happy to home deliver toilet paper to you.
Merlin: Well, they'll bring you a few, but then, you know, let's not abuse the system, right?
Merlin: It's like, I'm like the guy with that all you can eat salad bar wearing waiters and just stuffing mashed potatoes into my pants.
Merlin: And so, but since sometimes you got to be strategic about it and you got it, you do an order and you say, I want 18, 18 cases of seltzer.
Merlin: And they show up and they go, sorry, brah.
Merlin: They didn't have any seltzer.
Merlin: And you're like, really?
Merlin: You didn't have any seltzer?
Merlin: And so I'd have to start doing competitive ordering where I might do two to three orders in a day, hitting the minimum until I got, you follow me here?
Merlin: So let's say the minimum is $30.
Merlin: You pay a $10 fee or whatever.
Merlin: I didn't have it the first time.
Merlin: I do it a second time.
Merlin: I keep scheduling.
Merlin: I keep scheduling.
Merlin: I still do that to this day.
Merlin: I am prepared at this point to open a back channel with the Canada Dry Company to say, look, treat me like a restaurant.
Merlin: Like, I am probably the single largest consumer of this.
Merlin: Let's bypass the middleman.
Merlin: I'll pay a little premium.
Merlin: But, like, you know, cross your palm.
Merlin: But I want some fucking Canada Dry original sparkling seltzer water, 12 fluid ounces.
Merlin: I want that in large, large amounts at my house.
John: There's got to be a distribution center somewhere in the Bay Area.
John: Yeah.
John: Where the, you know, where the big truck pulls up and it's like when Axel Foley...
John: is hijacking or intercepting the hijacked truck full of cigarettes at the beginning of Die Hard or whatever.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: It's him and the other guy.
Merlin: It's the one that he buys the carton of cigarettes.
John: Yeah, Axel Foley.
John: But there's got to be some deal you can make.
John: Some stack of money gets exchanged and a guy opens up the back of a semi-trailer and it's just full of Canada drive.
Merlin: Well, okay, so this is an interesting twist on the decongestant problem, okay?
Merlin: Because you think about the glory days, and you know about my glory days.
John: Oh, I do.
John: You know I've got a spreadsheet about ephedrine.
John: I still have it.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: I rode that wave with you for a little bit.
Merlin: Oh, brother.
Merlin: So you could go.
Merlin: Time was...
Merlin: You could go get yourself a $1.09 malt liquor, and you could get yourself a bottle.
Merlin: I think it was 100, 25 milligram ephedrine.
Merlin: The ephedrine, I think it was $2.99 for 100.
Merlin: Over time, that went up.
Merlin: Eventually, they made it illegal.
Merlin: And now today, if you want to be able to breathe, and I legit want to breathe.
Merlin: I want that Claritin D. I got to go.
Merlin: You and me both.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: So I have to go to the pharmacist window, where for some reason, they're a little higher up than me.
Merlin: Not a fan.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: They're looking down on me when I see your driver's license for your 30 tablets of Claritin.
Merlin: And I ask them, I was like, what's the jam up on this?
Merlin: Is this so people won't make, you know, Walter White meth?
Merlin: And they're like, yeah, you can't buy, if you buy this more than twice in a month, federal agents will come to your house.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Wow.
Merlin: Now, here's the thing.
Merlin: I kind of get that.
Merlin: It's sort of, I was telling my, we traveled recently and I was telling my daughter about TSA and, you know, one time somebody had a kind of like a bomb in their shoes.
Merlin: So now we take our shoes off.
Merlin: And one time somebody had some liquid and that's why we can't have liquids and all that jazz.
John: You gotta watch out for liquid.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: But I mean, like how much meth can you really make with 60 Claritin D's?
Wow.
John: Not very much at all.
John: I mean, it's so many of the decisions we make now as people are based on the absolute worst thing that a single, like, lowest common denominator person will do, right?
Merlin: A common denominator can do.
Merlin: Okay, I'm writing this down.
John: I'm putting a pin in this.
John: Denominator.
Merlin: Denominator.
Merlin: But in that case, here's the thing.
Merlin: Now, I'm inconvenienced.
Merlin: I'm not trying to make meth.
Merlin: Sure, I'd love to abuse stimulants.
Merlin: I'd be super into it, but I can't.
Merlin: So I've made my piece.
Merlin: Now I get my Claritin once a month because I don't want federal agents at my house.
Merlin: I don't want to have a problem.
Merlin: But here's the thing.
Merlin: 99. how many nines of people out there just want fucking Claritin so they can breathe.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: In the same way, most people, you think about buying Canada Dry original sparkling seltzer water, you're buying that for a party.
John: What are you going to buy?
Merlin: You're going to buy one two-liter bottle of that.
Merlin: It's like Werner's ginger ale or, what, caffeine-free Diet Coke.
Merlin: It's something for the weirdos that want to mix a drink.
John: Yeah, but you know what it is?
John: I bet you some of these flat earthers are using bulk Canada Dry to power their low-orbit spacecraft.
John: We laughed at that guy, but he got it off the ground.
John: Sure he did.
John: And it was steam-powered, right?
Merlin: Yeah, I think so.
Merlin: I think he had a steampunk rocket.
John: Yeah, so how far is it before we realize that, oh, no, it's like fizzy water-powered.
John: That's the real way to get it.
John: That's what Elon Musk has been working on this whole time.
John: That's why they don't want to give you a palette of flavorless pop.
John: Oh, you think it's big space?
John: I think it's big space.
John: They're putting the kibosh on your garage building.
John: It's a what's he building in there situation.
Merlin: They're going to get to the fireworks factory.
Merlin: And so now, here's the situation now.
Merlin: I do have a gig economy service that I use to have these things delivered to my house.
Merlin: But here's the thing.
Merlin: Now, Canada Dry has made the move of now putting them... They don't have cases of Canada Dry.
Merlin: I can't buy case of Canada Dry.
Merlin: Time was, a grown man, a grown-ass man in his early 50s could buy a gentleman's 12-pack of Canada Dry.
Merlin: Oh, guess what they're doing now?
Merlin: Now they're getting cute.
Merlin: And now they have eight packs.
Merlin: John, they sell you a cardboard eight-pack.
Merlin: And the little dispenser doesn't even... You heard me struggling.
Merlin: Did you hear me struggling over there with the dispenser trying to get it open?
Merlin: Was that from an eight-pack?
Merlin: That's from an eight-pack.
Merlin: I'm stuck with eight-packs now like an animal.
Merlin: I've never heard of an eight-pack.
Merlin: Eight-pack.
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: And I don't get it from Safeway anymore because my gig economy service, they charge a premium for going to Safeway.
Merlin: Fuck Safeway in the eye to begin with.
Merlin: I'm a Molly Stones man.
Merlin: I don't want to make it creepy.
Merlin: I don't even know what that is.
Merlin: Molly Stones, what's that place you and I go to in Seattle?
Merlin: What's your kind of nice grocery store?
John: Oh, well, Seattle's just built on kind of nice grocery stores now.
John: But are you talking about the QFC?
Merlin: Probably.
Merlin: The place that has flowers and we bought some steaks there.
Merlin: Yeah, QFC probably.
John: The Quality Food Center.
John: But they're owned by somebody now.
John: I don't know who.
John: Sure.
John: They're not independent anymore.
John: But then we have the...
John: You know, we've got the co-op and we've got the other market and we've got the, you know, the like, how many fancy olives do you want store?
Merlin: Oh, you get an olive bar, John.
John: You get an olive bar.
John: We've got more olives than the other place.
Yeah.
Merlin: Stuff it with blue cheese.
Merlin: So now I'm in a situation where I got a monkey on my back and I got a Moray on my butt.
Merlin: So now I've got Ramore.
Merlin: Rebecca De Mornay is the actress, right?
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: It's a Monet.
Merlin: You have a Monet.
Merlin: I got a Monet up close.
Merlin: It looks like a bargain.
Merlin: So now I'm stuck with this.
Merlin: With the eight pack?
Merlin: Well, I'm stuck because also I like the, here's the problem.
Merlin: I'm a connoisseur, John.
Merlin: I like the flavor.
Merlin: I like the mouthfeel of Canada Dry.
Merlin: It's better than the generics.
Merlin: It has a slightly sweet aspect to it, maybe because of where they source their water.
Merlin: It's sweet water.
Merlin: It's sweet water.
Merlin: It's not sweet.
Merlin: It's not like that fucking vitamin water bullshit.
Merlin: Like, just have a Coke.
Merlin: Like, you know, in this case... But you're saying, like, the fizz has a sweet... The fizz, it has a cool, sweet, round quality to it.
Merlin: Utterly lacking in the other generics.
Merlin: Or, let's be honest, the other premium products.
John: Well, speaking of which, I have a good friend...
John: Who is addicted?
John: Well, let me roll that back.
John: Wow.
John: I live in a culture now of people who are addicted to the LaCroix brand of mildly flavored.
John: I don't understand how that has become such a lifestyle.
Merlin: I don't understand how that is.
Merlin: People have taken up the mantle of LaCroix as something.
Merlin: It's like vaping.
John: I just don't understand how that became such a thing.
John: I have a gal pal who is a motorcycle adventure person.
John: And her online handle...
John: Hookers and Popcorn.
John: That's her tag.
John: That's her brand.
John: What would you call it?
John: Not her avatar.
John: I guess Handel.
John: Let's call it Handel.
John: And under the Handel Hookers and Popcorn, she does all kinds of motorcycly stunts and lifestyle events.
John: She goes into adventures and does adventure-y things.
John: She jumps around.
John: Sometimes will ride a motorcycle standing on it.
John: Hmm.
John: That doesn't seem very safe.
John: It's not.
John: She does unsafe things.
John: That's another way of describing it.
John: She puts unsafe photos on the Instagram.
John: She does unsafe things, puts photos up of them, and then she's not saying that she's a role model.
John: If you go jump on your motorcycle in...
John: Sparkly underwear and right and standing up over a cliff like that's your problem The fact that she has a trained eagle that grabbed her right at the last minute and flew her off to a mesa where she had a Ayahuasca ceremony does not mean that that's gonna happen to you And she's a member of a culture of people who are lifestyle
John: purveyors.
John: Would you say she has a lifestyle brand?
John: I think so.
John: She resists it, or maybe resisted it.
John: It doesn't sound very cool when you put it that way.
John: No, no, no, no.
John: But she often is in a group of people and they're all like, whoa, check me out.
John: And they're all doing amazing things.
John: They're all like stunt motorcyclists and skateboarders.
John: They're basically all skateboarders, let's be honest.
John: But skateboarders of cars.
John: But
John: And it's amazing.
John: Believe me, they truly do amazing things.
John: It's just that, like, there's always a drone flying around.
John: Somebody's jumping their motorcycle over 40 cows.
John: I think this is a thing now.
Merlin: This is a thing now.
Merlin: There's, like, that one guy who looks like a frog on YouTube, and he's real popular, and he takes his Canon camera out, and he jumps canyons and stuff, and tells you how to enjoy life, and you are alive.
Merlin: You're alive, exactly.
John: And, you know, they all have, like, a million followers, and I don't know what happens.
John: People give them stuff.
John: Okay.
John: And, you know, me, I've been living on...
John: uh, reds, vitamin C and cocaine for many years.
John: Um, and, uh, and I never, you know, I don't turn my nose up at a swag bag.
John: No, that's how you get your coffee.
John: That's how I get my coffee.
John: But like, nobody's given me a motorcycle and I'm not saying anybody's given them motorcycles either.
John: Oh, and also, we've got to talk about the Gibson Company later.
Merlin: Oh, shit dog.
Merlin: I saw that and thought of you.
Merlin: Wrong keyboard, worst thing with a common denominator, and Gibson Woes.
Merlin: Oh, they got Woes, buddy.
Merlin: You saw that coming miles off.
Merlin: I did.
Merlin: I've been talking about this for ages.
Merlin: You went to the factory and you were disappointed.
John: Yes, yes, yes.
Merlin: Okay, it's on the list.
John: I got it.
John: But she drinks 80 LaCroix a day.
John: Does she finish them?
John: I think so.
John: She'll often send a photograph of the floor bed of her, you know, the footwells of her truck as she drives across America from one adventure to the next in a never-ending constellation of a string of pearls of outrageous adventures.
John: And the footwell of her truck will be like
John: like ankle deep in la croix cans and i don't think you're throwing those la croix cans down there half full that would be a mess i think she's finishing them off she's not doing what we used to do and i don't see people do this very often anymore where you finish a can of something and you crush it yeah as part of finishing it did you ever do that i do it now because i'm a super recycler and i need every square inch every cubic inch
John: And you have that problem.
John: I remember the last time I spent any, you know, stayed multiple nights at your home.
John: There was the constant problem of where is the can of sparkling water I was most recently drinking?
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
John: Yeah, I do that.
John: There's like there's cans on top of everything.
John: And it's like, oh, shit.
John: And they're all half full.
Merlin: When I did my afternoon cleanup yesterday, I tried to clean up in the afternoon, get ready for the dinner hour, get everything prepped.
Merlin: I go and I clean up any cans that are around.
Merlin: I had three, three quarters full cans.
Merlin: That's how you know you got a problem.
Merlin: Because the fizz is gone at that point.
John: But I feel like she has been trying to get LaCroix to start backing up the LaCroix truck.
John: But I don't think they do it because I feel like there's probably within the LaCroix cult.
John: I don't know if they need it.
John: No, everybody's drinking that stuff.
John: They don't need any advertising.
John: They don't need anybody jumping motorcycles drinking a LaCroix.
John: Oh, God, she's naked in some of these pictures.
John: She's naked in some of these photos, John, or part naked.
John: Yeah, yeah.
John: I mean, not everybody in the lifestyle brand circuit is also... She finds herself naked in a lot of unusual situations.
Merlin: She's busy having adventures.
Merlin: She's naked a lot in public, John.
Merlin: Are you aware of this?
Merlin: She's got her pants part off in this one.
John: She's not a role model.
John: She never said that.
John: She's doing her own thing in her own time.
John: She's making stuff up as she goes, but she's, you know, she truly does do some... She lays on the ground a lot.
John: Hairball stuff.
John: That's one of her things.
John: She does the, like, I'm face down dead on the ground somewhere.
John: Okay.
John: Over time, you know, everybody's got a little bit, and when you follow people's bits, over time you're like...
John: Yeah, I'm into that bit now.
John: Yeah, no, I understand.
John: She did one here in front of my house.
John: She laid down in front of Shea Farmhouse here and did a dead girl thing.
Merlin: She seems pretty good at this.
John: Yeah, she's good.
John: She's good people.
John: But, you know, it's the LaCroix, really, that is the...
John: You would think she'd be repping all these heavy brands like sports gear and all the people that are doing adventure sports stuff.
John: It seems like they're always holding up their K2s and being like, I did it, or Mountain Dew or whatever.
Merlin: Or you'd find some kind of bespoke upstart brand that needs a motorcycle lady that could really benefit from being part of that branding.
Merlin: I'm just saying LaCroix is pretty well established.
John: Yeah, but she's not doing it to get, I don't think she's, she's just like addicted to LaCroix.
John: The point of this story is, I don't, well, no, it's directly to your point.
John: I don't understand, to any of you, how you get addicted to fizzy water.
John: It's got no caffeine in it, it's got no sugar in it, it's got no... What is it doing to you?
John: Like, I'll have a soda water when I'm with you, but, like, I don't know... I think you're having a can of Safeway Seltzer in the interview in my yard that one time.
Merlin: Uh-huh.
Merlin: I think you had a coffee, maybe you had a coffee, I had a seltzer, something like that.
Merlin: uh i have a theory i think i think part of it is and i got into this with the uh when i was doing the soda stream family of products is uh if you're somebody who enjoys sparkling water you i think increasingly uh you're chasing the dragon you like that burn you like that super strong fizz it doesn't hurt but i mean think about you and hydrogen peroxide another monkey you got on my back don't you like that feeling you switch it around it burns a little bit you got a canker sore you go oh i really got in there
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: I like that burn.
John: I like any kind of burn.
John: Anything you put on something and it hurts.
John: See?
John: Yeah.
John: See, that's the healing.
Merlin: It tastes like healing.
Merlin: But then to want that with grapefruit.
Merlin: You know, my lady likes the Pomplamoose.
Merlin: That's her favorite of the La Croix.
John: Did you know that the medication that I'm taking...
John: it is contraindicated to eat grapefruit the devil you say yeah something i don't know what and this is the miracles of the world this is chemistry uh somehow if you eat grapefruit it makes the medicine not work is it is it contraindicated by other hand fruit and citrus
John: I think you can eat oranges.
John: Something special.
Merlin: Something special about grapefruit.
John: Yeah.
John: And the thing is, I didn't even know that medical people and pharmacologists were even paying that close of attention to stuff.
John: Like, how would they have even figured that out?
John: I feel like it's a thing where somebody was like a grapefruit fiend.
John: And they said, my medicine doesn't work.
John: And they put it together.
John: But like, are they just testing it?
John: How did they even test that?
Merlin: I'm on the WebMD page for interactions for the grapefruit.
Merlin: And there's a lot of interactions.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Between grapefruit and other things.
Merlin: Oh, sister.
Merlin: You wouldn't believe how many there are.
Merlin: Buspar, Coreg, Propylcid, Anafranil.
Merlin: I think that's one of the stay-awake drugs.
Merlin: Dextromethorphan.
Merlin: Oh, that's Robitussin.
John: Yeah, dextromethorphan.
Merlin: The body breaks down dextromethorphan to get rid of it.
Merlin: Grapefruit might decrease how quickly the body breaks down dextromethorphan.
Merlin: Drinking grapefruit juice might increase the effects and side effects of it.
Merlin: Oh, so it's an antagonist, an agonist.
John: Yeah, it's an antagonist.
John: It's a force multiplier for cough syrup.
John: Some things it force multiplies, some things it antagonizes.
John: Interesting.
John: But, you know, don't mess around with Leroy Brown.
John: Yeah, pull on Superman's cape.
John: And I am, as you know, a Pomplamoose lover myself.
John: Because I like anything that burns.
John: I like anything that hurts.
Merlin: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
Merlin: Oh, there's major interactions.
Merlin: I'm going to send you this link.
Merlin: This is crazy, John.
John: Yeah.
John: But I don't... I've never gotten on the personal fizzy water train.
John: And I did get... I did get one of those soda streams.
John: And I did make my own fizzy water for a long time before I just, like everybody that buys a thing like that, just sort of got bored of it.
John: But it's not a thing like...
John: I don't do that thing that you or Jenny, um, uh, like, uh, uh, it does with the, with the, like, I need this in profusion.
John: How many do you drink an entire 12 pack a day?
Merlin: Approximately.
John: Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.
Merlin: And that's a real screwed up now with the 8-packs.
Merlin: I don't even have a way of easily knowing how many I've had.
Merlin: Now, you can't get a 12-pack?
Merlin: They don't sell it anymore.
Merlin: They've redone it.
Merlin: They've repackaged it.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: No, but this is the indication that you're a user, is that I'm never out.
Oh.
Merlin: Uh-huh.
Merlin: I mean, I'm always stocked up.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
Uh-huh, uh-huh.
Merlin: So, I mean, I think it's one of those things like chain smoking where you're never not doing the thing unless there's a reason or, you know, admonition from doing the thing.
Merlin: Like, I've always got one of these.
Merlin: Uh-huh.
John: Rattle, rattle, rattle.
John: It's like the chains of the Ghost of Christmas Past.
John: Ah.
John: Too true.
John: Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo.
Merlin: This episode of Roderick on the Line is brought to you by Squarespace.
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John: Three spirits will visit you tonight.
Merlin: Can they bring me some water?
John: Oh, I think I'll have a delicious malt liquor.
Merlin: Oh, I'm just so thirsty this morning.
Merlin: Yeah, it's hard.
Merlin: Well, you know, I passed over a Styxian Rubicon myself with this, where I used to be satisfied.
Merlin: I passed over a poor leaf clover.
Merlin: I got, you know, for a long time I would get the cans, and then I thought, oh, I should do the SodaStream, and of course then,
Merlin: You know, I think I became, in our circle, somewhat well-known for doing the SodaStream.
Merlin: This was the biggest part of your brain.
Merlin: Not that it matters, but, like, no, I would make it, and I was really into it, and I got really into it, and I got extra bottles.
Merlin: And then pretty soon I was getting into a situation where I was doing— Extra bottles because you wanted a stockpile.
Merlin: You got a stockpile.
Merlin: I'm not going to be out of it.
Merlin: But then, of course, we got a kid, and you can't do that at night.
Merlin: It wakes up the whole household—
Merlin: And then I passed a Rubiconian Styx, which is, at this point, I was like, okay, this isn't really practical.
Merlin: There's too many bottles that have to be washed.
Merlin: You crossed the Rubicon and the Styx?
Merlin: Oh, both of them.
Merlin: Yeah, going both ways.
Merlin: Uphill.
Merlin: Yeah, anyway, so that's how I got back into the cans.
Merlin: And then eventually, in the fullness of time, I discovered the Canada Dry brand, and I started, now you know there's a problem.
Merlin: So now I'm out there trying to buy the Mickey Mouse LSD.
Merlin: I had to have a special kind of fizzy water.
Merlin: It's just...
Merlin: You know, I don't have places to talk about this, so this is an opportunity.
Merlin: It's an opportunity stake.
Merlin: I had to go to the ATM, John.
Merlin: I had to go to the ATM.
John: You went to the ATM in order to pay your dealer?
John: Is that interesting?
John: I can't get into it.
Merlin: So, anyway, what's the worst thing?
Merlin: I typed this really.
Merlin: Do you want to talk about Gibson Woes, the wrong keyboard, or the worst thing to do with a common denominator?
John: Well, let me ask you, first of all, this is the only... I'm always amazed, as you know, by computer people and by their ups and downs, their ins and outs, their foibles, their common little...
John: like keychains that they hand to one another.
John: It must seem very odd to you.
John: And you have, for a long time, you were my number one computer guy, the one that would explain all the computers to me.
John: And when I would say, what the, what the what?
John: You would say, oh, well, that's just this or this is just that.
John: And I would go, oh, thank you.
Merlin: The way I like to think of it, John, is I think I feel this is true for myself with technology for a long time.
Merlin: And I know it's true with other people who instruct me, which is like, I just I don't need to know everything about this at a high level.
Merlin: Let me know if this is something I need to know about and if it is or something I just need to not worry about or think about.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And if it is something I might want to be interested in, can you just give me some bullets to just sort of acquaint me to kind of be my personal Wikipedia for letting me know, like if I'm in the ballpark for getting near understanding of this thing.
Merlin: So I can say to you, like, oh, you don't need to worry about that.
Merlin: Yeah, you don't need to sign up for that service.
Merlin: That's silly.
John: Don't do that.
John: You did that a lot for me.
John: You would say that's not a thing that you care about.
John: And I would say, but, but, and you'd say, no, don't worry, don't worry, don't worry.
John: If that ever becomes a thing that you need to know about, you'll know about it.
John: And I was like, great, awesome.
John: But there are still things that amaze me all the time.
John: I had a question about, for instance, last night, it seemed like when I got home, I went on the internet to look at things, as you do, and it seemed like everyone...
John: that i knew and everyone in the world well everyone was watching jesus christ superstar on the television yes and my question was not um like
Merlin: uh why because obviously jesus christ superstar is amazing and and uh and this was a live production of it live streaming on tv yeah they did they did a live uh production of it for the east coast and the west coast so they did it twice but so oh oh really and both times it was a different performance i think so typically when nbc does these live uh things that they tend to do it twice
Merlin: And judging by the way, Judas kind of screwed up the lyrics for heaven on my mind.
Merlin: Uh-oh.
Merlin: No, he did fine, but it was a loud room.
Merlin: I think he lost the cadence a little bit, but that guy was good.
Merlin: Where was the performance taking place?
Merlin: I want to say the Los Angeles area.
John: Well, so here's my question.
Mm-hmm.
John: I do not remember, in the last five days, everybody saying, we're all going to watch Jesus Christ Superstar on TV, right?
John: Everybody?
John: It came out of nowhere.
John: It came out of nowhere.
John: And everyone seemed to be watching it.
John: I hadn't heard about it.
John: And also, I think if I had heard about it, the premise wouldn't have necessarily been...
John: super enticing like oh NBC is gonna do a live Jesus Christ Superstar I would have been like you wouldn't like clear your schedule for that if you knew about it two weeks ahead yeah like there's a lot of stuff going on that you can watch on TV and
John: And yet it seemed like everybody just agreed offline or in a secret news group.
John: Oh, we're all going to watch this thing and we're all going to like live comment on it.
John: And I understand when it's the Oscars or something that everybody's on, everybody's watching the Oscars.
John: It's just understood that you're going to do it.
John: But that was an example of a cultural moment where
John: Where I was like, okay, do I follow 400 people who just all are really into musical theater?
John: Is that, that's not unlikely, or it's not impossible.
Merlin: Yeah, like, what was, like, where did this come from?
Merlin: And when it came, where it came from, is it more about an interest in a live event?
Merlin: Is it about the theater part?
Merlin: Is it about, you're curious about this production?
Merlin: Like, how did it become such a phenom?
Merlin: Yeah, do you have any insight into that for me?
Merlin: Yeah, I mean, I think just because of my own way in with it was I had not heard about this at all.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: At all.
Merlin: And then I saw a couple people on political Twitter making jokes about Jesus Christ Superstar and referencing Mr. Show's Jeepers Creepers.
Merlin: And I thought, oh, that's kind of weird that everybody's mentioning that.
Merlin: And then it didn't seem like it was until, like, I think Saturday night, Sunday morning, that I was even aware that this was going to be a thing.
Merlin: Testament to this is the fact that when I did flip it on at 7.58 last night, there was a show where Steve Harvey talks to talented children, a show I didn't know existed.
Merlin: Because I don't know most TV exists.
Merlin: Not because I'm a snob, but just because that's the nature of TV today.
Merlin: That's how I found out about it, and I am a fan of...
Merlin: i mean i guess i'm a fan of the musical i'm i'm really a super fan of a handful of the songs yeah um and my daughter is getting more into what you could generally call musical theater i mean she likes some musicals a lot and especially some kind of like especially staging things a lot and i thought you know this could be fun she doesn't know from jesus i had to give her a lot of like backstory on what's happening with judas jesus backstory
Merlin: Yeah, I basically said Judas.
Merlin: Judas in this is, apart from also being a black guy, Judas in this is kind of like Aaron Burr in Hamilton.
Merlin: He's sort of down to earth.
Merlin: He's worried about being practical.
Merlin: But no, that's how I found out about it.
Merlin: We watched it.
Merlin: I let her watch a little bit of it.
Merlin: She got to see Caiaphas, and then she had to go to bed.
John: I know a lot about Steve Harvey because I follow, do you know who Vic Berger is?
John: Oh, he makes the funny videos, right?
John: He makes the funny videos.
Merlin: Yeah, she only knows about Kenan Thompson's impersonation of him from Saturday Night Live.
Merlin: I was like, that's the guy that the guy you like from Saturday Night Live is impersonating.
John: He, uh, Vic Berger makes little videos.
John: Oh my God.
John: They're so funny.
John: His Jim Baker videos.
John: Oh my God.
John: They're, they're awful.
John: Uh, but his Steve Harvey videos are, uh, are also, he hasn't made one in a while, but they're very fun.
John: And so I have a, so I became aware of Steve Harvey and then, you know, did a little back background research on him to know what the hell I was looking at.
John: The Jim Baker food buckets.
Merlin: That is a very, very funny episode.
Merlin: Steve Harvey is kind of a throwback, maybe a little bit along the lines of Chris Hardwick, kind of a throwback to a kind of character you don't see as much anymore.
Merlin: Actually, the kind of character I always thought you should aspire to be, which is a TV personality.
Merlin: You got people who just show up and do stuff in different places, and sometimes they have a regular show or another regular show, but they're just like a fixture of TV to a, and I don't say this disparagingly, but to a mainstream audience.
Merlin: You go, oh, look, that's Steve Harvey.
Merlin: He's doing another thing.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Sort of like what?
Merlin: Sort of like, I don't want to say Paul Lin, but sort of like along the lines of somebody you would see on Mike Douglas, you know, who might host, you know, Battle of the Network Stars or something.
Yeah.
John: I mean, that world doesn't exist anymore.
John: And that's kind of the thing that confuses me about...
John: This thing that you watched last night because it feels like a throwback to a time when everybody sat down to watch the day after.
John: Because there were only three things on TV.
John: You're going to watch Hello Larry?
John: No, you're going to watch the world blow up.
John: No, you're going to watch the show.
John: That's the thing.
Merlin: There's not that much event viewing anymore.
Merlin: And in the age of... So lots of people, idiots like me, there are a handful of shows like Game of Thrones that I will watch the second that it comes on.
Merlin: But you can't really talk about it because of spoilers and stuff.
Merlin: But, like, if you're not in the world of live sports, you don't have that much community event viewing anymore.
Merlin: Right.
John: Community event viewing.
John: Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
John: Well, you know, I don't even have a TV.
John: Oh, of course.
John: I don't either.
John: If I do have a TV, I don't know about it.
John: But so you were saying earlier that you were like, oh gosh, and I have the wrong keyboard.
John: And so in my mind, all of a sudden, not only did...
John: Did my mind generate a world in which you have like a shelf with Between 9 and 15 keyboards and you pull them down Like people from West Virginia to play rifles.
John: Yeah, right like oh man I need my or just like oh, I need my Gibson SG for this song You're like, oh, this is my rhetoric on the line keyboard doing a personal herald You're like bringing all the topics together in this.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: Come on.
John: Let's just let's just put them all on one card I
John: And so I was like, wow.
John: But then I thought, then immediately I leapt to, oh, shit, do I not have enough keyboards?
John: Oh, no.
John: Like, is that my problem?
John: Did you have a FOMO?
John: I was just like, whoa, Merlin didn't tell me I needed multiple keyboards.
John: And now you send me a picture, and what it seems like you have is an analog clickety-clack keyboard.
John: And then you have that great little keyboard that you told me to buy a long time ago, the little solar-powered keyboard.
John: Right.
John: And I still have mine, and not only do I have one, but I got another one for another computer.
John: And I think they're just great little keyboards.
John: So you were saying you were going to be on the clackety-clack one, but you didn't have your... Can you see all the dander on these?
John: Yeah.
John: There's a lot of dander.
John: I posted a picture of my keyboard one time, and I got like 40 replies that were like, clean your disgusting keyboard, you slob.
Merlin: This is why I don't play anything on the internet anymore.
Merlin: They're going, oh, why you got a box cutter?
Merlin: Are you a terrorist?
Merlin: Scotch tape?
Merlin: You like Scotch brand tape?
Merlin: Oh, I see you bought those expensive earphones.
Merlin: I bet, though.
Merlin: $5 bill?
Merlin: I can't believe you still use cash.
Merlin: What kind of hat is that?
Merlin: I thought you liked the other kind of hat.
Merlin: What is that?
Merlin: Is that a moleskin pen?
Merlin: Is that a moleskin pen?
Merlin: Why don't you, if it's a solar keyboard, why don't you clean up the solar part, you monkey?
Merlin: Solar part.
John: Thanks, buddy.
John: I got a tweet yesterday that was, and this is how you know it, it's a crazy tweet.
John: Because although it's only at, they only at me,
John: They're speaking as though they are talking about me to a group of people.
John: Sometimes you gotta check the tweet before that one.
John: Oh, I see.
John: I think this will be of interest to Professor Roderick.
John: I see.
John: I think this was just out of the blue.
John: Or no, it was in reply because I sent out some tweets.
Merlin: You're getting lots of responses to your nice tweets.
Merlin: That was a nice tweet storm you did.
John: Well, I'm very shy about promoting myself and about promoting the podcast.
Merlin: But you did it well.
Merlin: You did it well, and you were real straight up about it.
Merlin: You didn't go...
Merlin: Hey, for the afternoon crowd, in case you missed it, tiddly ding.
Merlin: You were straight up.
Merlin: You said, hey, I make these podcasts and I'm happy and proud of these.
Merlin: And if you're not listening to them, I'd like you to give them a try.
Merlin: And I thought you were a real gentleman about it.
John: Well, and I got a lot of nice, nice, nice replies.
John: A lot of people that...
John: That, you know, that obviously like Roderick on the Line was their introduction and they still love the show and they wanted to say how much that they did.
John: And, you know, I love that stuff, although that's not what I was, you know, I'm never fishing for that.
Merlin: It's like President Nixon said, you get a silent majority.
Merlin: I mean, the truth is most people who listen to a podcast like tend to like the podcast.
Merlin: Why would they ever say anything about it?
Merlin: But it's nice when people do that.
Merlin: I'm happy and humbled when people do that.
Merlin: It makes me very happy.
Merlin: Yeah, me too.
John: Me too.
John: Absolutely.
John: And as you're just describing, when I put them out there, I thought... Because every time you're reading the replies, you're like, how long before I get...
John: How long before I get a turkey here?
John: How long before I get before I'm at the Wonka factory and the goose that's laying the golden eggs, one of them goes and goes down the shithole.
John: You know what I mean?
John: And there was one that was just like.
John: Some asshole remark, and I went and looked at their bio, and their Twitter bio was like, I'm an asshole.
John: I was like, okay, you're easy to block.
John: I tried it a couple years ago.
Merlin: I couldn't get into it.
Merlin: Thanks, man.
John: What do you do?
John: It was a guy who said, no, the one that was like, I'm an asshole, was just like, what are you called?
John: three white guys sitting around with nothing to talk about a podcast.
John: I was like, that's good.
John: That's good stuff.
John: That's good.
John: You should record that.
John: That's very clever.
John: Take it on the road.
John: Uh, but no, this guy was like, I used to love Roderick on the line.
John: I listened to it all the time.
John: It was, you know, my number one show or whatever, but I listened to friendly fire, my podcast where I talk about war movies and John was so mean that
John: to saving private ryan that i can't listen to any of the shows anymore not only not that that sounds like a straight-up medical situation not only not very very difficult to diagnose yeah and i really is that what happened is that what happened is john said he didn't like a movie and now you can't listen to his stuff
Merlin: Well, it wasn't just that I said I didn't.
John: Very hurtful, John.
John: I do like Saving Private Ryan.
John: I might have, like, oversold how mad I was about private.
Merlin: Why don't you just do a podcast where you just compliment things all the time?
Merlin: Wouldn't that be fun?
Merlin: I do feel like that's what some people want.
John: Why would you review movies if you don't like some of them?
John: Wow, this bag of Czech party mix is really good.
John: I like every single thing in it.
Merlin: I don't even know which one to praise most.
Merlin: They're all so good.
Merlin: I can imagine why anybody would love these more than all of their foods.
Merlin: I could not praise any one more than another.
Merlin: Oh, you know what you forgot?
Merlin: You forgot this other Czech mix that I make that you've never heard of.
Merlin: You forgot.
Merlin: I love the you forgot guy.
John: Oh, there was a guy that replied and said, oh, yeah, podcasts are great.
John: You should listen to mine.
John: And then another guy, a pretty excellent guy, was like, that's kind of not how you do it.
John: You don't do that.
John: You don't reply to somebody's really nice tweet stream about what they're making with a link to your own thing.
John: and then the guy replied to that guy oh boy and said it's on he said you don't know me man i'm living in my car right now and still i'm managing to put podcasts out every week that'll show you the guy the guy had the greatest line he was like uh well you know like being poor and being an asshole are not mutually exclusive oh doctor
Merlin: We've talked about this before.
Merlin: I've talked about this everywhere.
Merlin: I'm sorry.
Merlin: It's just how I feel.
Merlin: I think one must be very careful about feeling a level of familiarity with a stranger to where your first time that you address them, you address them as though they know you as well as you feel you know them.
Merlin: And I almost did it last night.
Merlin: Somebody that I like and follow on political Twitter, who has no idea who I am, had a hot take on how Godspell is better than Jesus Christ Superstar, which, of course, is a garbage opinion.
Merlin: And I was about to make a joke about it, and then I thought, wait a minute.
Merlin: If somebody did that to me, I'd go like this.
Merlin: Brr.
Brr.
Merlin: Like, you know, basically the sound of running into something in an old video game.
Merlin: Like, try the key again.
Merlin: And like that, my first interaction with Matthew Gertz might have been, I'm going to let you have this one because it's Easter, Matthew Gertz.
Merlin: And of course he would see that.
Merlin: I closed the window because he doesn't know who I am.
Merlin: Leave it.
Merlin: Like, I'm going to be my first interaction with this person that I like and admire is to be an asshole.
Merlin: And I was like, don't be that guy.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And I'm not even saying you have to go and roll out a carpet and bring a fizzy drink and say, oh, I love everything you do.
Merlin: But don't assume a level of familiarity that's not there.
Merlin: If somebody did that with you, well, look what happened with that guy.
Merlin: Somebody turned around and did that to him, and he got all touchy about it.
John: Oh, he was mad.
John: He was mad.
John: In fact, he ended up texting.
John: He ended up tweeting me that he blocked the other dude.
John: Oh, and I was like, hey, buddy, you and I are not the friends in this scenario.
John: Like you and I are not the ones that are conspiring against the other guy who I'm removing myself from this narrative.
John: But I, you know, I still do it where I see somebody I admire on Twitter that I think is doing something funny.
John: And I try to chime in with some funny thing like, lol.
John: And I get that back.
John: And I'm just like, oh, and then I kind of, you know, my shoulders sag and I'm like, they didn't reply.
Merlin: He didn't like my thing.
John: And then I'm like, you know, and then I go through a little minute or two where I'm like, just don't even bother.
John: Just don't even try.
Merlin: In the afternoon crowd, in case you missed it, here's my bon mot.
John: And then I'm just like, oh, of course, they got a lot of replies.
John: You know, my friend Elon Gale, right?
John: The producer of The Bachelor.
John: The airplane guy.
John: He's the airplane.
John: He's whatever, Janet and 7C or whatever.
John: He's a troublemaker.
John: He's a troublemaker, and he probably gets 20,000 replies to every tweet he does.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: Like, let me redo your joke in a not-as-funny way or explain it to you.
John: Yeah, yep.
John: But he's incredibly good about making sure that if I, like, jump in and go, hey, ha-ha, you know,
John: Let me get in there.
John: You know, like, hey, hey, hey, hey.
John: He gives you like a little leg up.
John: He always gives me a prop.
John: He always like he always does a touch.
John: Right.
John: He just like reaches out.
John: And even if it's just like, yeah, buddy, he he's super duper duper considerate about the about like, there's my friend.
John: And I don't know how he does it.
John: I don't know how he's scanning through all this stuff.
John: And maybe he has some setting where he's just like people I know are the only ones I want to see.
John: You can do that.
John: He's always good about just like, hello, and gives that little touch.
John: That's nice.
John: And I'm not good at it.
John: People are like, you know, trying to jump in all the time.
John: And I'm just like, yeah, that's funny.
John: That's funny.
John: But I don't like give them a bunch of I'm not like throwing.
John: uh, like game at everybody.
John: Yeah.
John: But boy, when I don't, that's unseemly.
John: It is.
John: But, but, but you know, if I'm like jumping in on some, some thread of friends and I'm like, yeah, you guys.
John: And it's just like, you know, just to hear the tumbleweeds.
John: I'm like, Oh, never try.
Merlin: Never try.
Merlin: Just go, just go die.
Merlin: Are you being a try hard?
Merlin: This is a term I learned last week.
Merlin: Are you being a try hard?
Merlin: Hmm.
Merlin: See, now I need you.
Merlin: Good thing to do.
Merlin: Are you, are you here for this?
Merlin: Is this everything right now?
Merlin: i'm here no there's these terms that i read and i don't suddenly everybody's telling me what they're here for oh or they'll tell me they'll tell me that is everything or or or sometimes there are some kinds of things that are too real what do these things mean oh i don't know like these easter eggs were too real twitter told me too real oh too real like oh man whoo
Merlin: Too real.
Merlin: I'm here for this.
Merlin: I'm here for this.
Merlin: I'm here for this.
Merlin: Where do you put the accent?
John: I can't tell.
Merlin: It's just a text medium.
Merlin: You can't have bold face.
Merlin: I'm here for this.
Merlin: I'm here for this.
Merlin: Oh, man, you untangled a lot of wire there.
John: Well, you know, the thing that was going around a few years ago, which was, I'm done.
John: Oh.
John: People were like, I'm done.
John: And it wasn't friendly.
John: It wasn't like, I'm done.
John: It was like, I'm done.
John: Is that kind of like they say, I'm over this?
John: Yeah, it was like a mic drop thing where they'd have some exchange with somebody and then they'd just be like, I'm done.
John: As though they were some king in a 50s teleplay who was off with his head or something.
John: Or like vaudeville, they're giving you the hook.
John: Oh, the hook, right.
John: But it wasn't funny or friendly.
John: Mm-mm.
John: And I remember, so I, when I was running for city council, I was sitting in the stranger offices with their election control board with my opponents.
John: The three of us were sitting, or four of us, I'm sorry.
John: We're sitting around a big table with all of the stranger editorial writers, and they were peppering us with hard questions.
John: They have hats that said press on them.
John: They basically did.
John: And there was an on the election control board.
John: There were like three people who were older.
John: Uh, in the, my age area, one of them was Dan Savage, uh, who's a little older than me.
John: One of them was Tim Keck, the publisher, who's a little older than me, but they were like old.
John: And then there were the youngs who were all in their mid twenties who were like the radical stranger writers who believe that private property should be abolished and that we don't need police.
John: Um,
John: And they were really, one of them in particular, who ended up getting fired from The Stranger for being a dickhole.
John: And not just personality-wise, but he was fired because he did unscrupulous journalistic things.
John: Oh, that's no good.
John: You don't want that.
John: No, and I never liked him.
John: He's a tool and a bad writer.
John: But he definitely felt like he wanted the other guy to win.
John: Oh, interesting.
John: One of my opponent to win.
John: It was just written all over him.
John: And he was peppering me with questions about stuff that my opponent was an expert on.
John: So one of my opponents was a housing advocate.
John: And the writer was directing a stream of increasingly hostile questions to me like, well, what's your housing plan?
John: And essentially my answer was, my housing plan is once I'm elected, I'm going to hire this guy to my right to be my housing guy.
John: What are you talking about?
John: What's my housing plan?
John: I'm not going to go head to head with my opponent who for 10 years has been developing a housing plan.
John: I'm running for city council, not for housing guy.
John: And at one point he said, he leaned back in his chair and he was like, I'm done.
John: Really?
John: Yeah.
John: That's a thing that he said.
John: Yeah.
John: And I felt when you go back, when you run for office like that, it's a very concentrated set of events where I apparently, if I'm an idiot,
John: indication, the rest of your life you will be replaying those moments and going, oh, you know what I should have said?
John: Because it's a lot of those things all at once.
John: And, you know, you build up a lifetime worth of, oh, what I should have said.
John: Like, anytime I'm driving now.
John: Esprit d'escalier.
John: Yeah.
John: If I drive for very long, my mind will start to go to some event in a union hall somewhere where I should have told somebody,
John: where they could put it and what i should have said to that guy was the jerk store calling they're running out of you yeah exactly what do you mean you're done you're not done like what the fuck is that you're done yeah but then now you don't want to become that guy where you're famous for that interview
John: Well, you know, I'd rather be famous for that interview than not famous for that interview.
John: That's what Oscar Wilde said.
John: You know, I could have I would have happily burned that place down.
John: I walked out there like because the stranger was supposed to they were supposed to be my friends.
John: Right.
John: I've known I've been part of the stranger.
John: I've written for the stranger.
John: They're all they're all pals, you know.
John: And yet they had this every three years they hire a bunch of new young writers and the new young writers weren't friends of mine.
John: They didn't know anything about me.
John: And it was like I expected some leftist old boy network treatment where it was like the stranger has been, you know, like the stranger is a radical newspaper.
John: I'm a radical.
John: We've always been on the same page.
John: But now there are a bunch of 24-year-olds that think I'm some crusty.
John: And it's like, oh, bummer.
John: I should have run for office 10 years ago.
Merlin: In the spirit of your personal Herald, I feel like there's sort of a thread that runs through some of this stuff, something that I try to be aware of, because I think it's important.
Merlin: I mean, one problem when we communicate with others, and especially today in the weirdly mediated way that we have access to strangers, not the titular stranger, but people we don't know, I feel like there's a certain kind of I'm done problem.
Merlin: tone to things I certainly do it I'm sure we all do it we all have limited attention and patience and vulnerability that we're willing to have destroyed but I think one thing you don't have to be cute about this you don't have to be like a fakey weirdo about it but like when you're interacting with people in general I think it's important to try and leave room leave air
Merlin: Like, you don't need to settle every mystery immediately.
Merlin: There should be, it doesn't have to be necessarily like a flirtation, but in interactions that you have with people, there should you, unless you have a real, unless you're like, you know, serving a warrant, like generally, try and leave some air.
Merlin: Try to leave some room.
Merlin: For joy, for playfulness, for the other person to have an opportunity to get their fun in as well.
Merlin: But also, and when I say this, I'm not saying you have to have a relationship with everybody, but it seems like a lot of communication...
Merlin: in some ways, especially on the internet, especially on places like Twitter, it comes down to like, you're a bad person, you're a bad person, and I would never want to have a relationship with you.
Merlin: And even if that relationship is just kind of a silent from a distance enjoying another person's stuff, in your case,
Merlin: I mean, that was probably kind of not cool with that person.
Merlin: I understand their job is to afflict the comforted and all that kind of stuff.
Merlin: But even in the way you ask interview questions of people, give people some space to answer in an interesting way.
Merlin: And if they aren't answering the question, you could pursue them.
Merlin: But I feel like in so many of our interactions, we're trying to create some kind of a conversational trap that leaves no room for...
Merlin: for this to go anywhere where basically you're just going meh and then it just stops right there and like i mean i don't have one specific example of this that i can give but like i do know that like a certain amount of lightness and playfulness and like or or you know or curiosity is maybe another way to put it like don't be afraid to be curious and you don't have to be a weirdo about it but
Merlin: Especially when you're communicating with people on Twitter.
Merlin: Think about that.
Merlin: Think about whether you are preemptively shutting down an actual conversation that you could have with somebody if it is a conversation you want to have.
Merlin: And if it's not, just mute them and have them go away.
Merlin: But I don't know.
Merlin: I don't mean to be a concern troll here.
Merlin: But I worry that what starts out as something we type with our fingers on our phone can start to affect the way that we think about any interaction.
Merlin: And now we become super annoyed about everybody in line at the grocery store, and we forget that this is water.
Merlin: And I'm like, I don't know.
Merlin: I like to try and keep that in mind.
Merlin: And if I am genuinely curious about another person, I want to give them room to take this thing where they want to go with it, rather than feeling like I'm going to constrict them or creep them out by giving some kind of decisive punctuation mark about this non-relationship we have.
Yeah.
John: I wonder if it's a thing where, like, we've talked about this quite a bit.
John: When we were young, there were still a lot of unsolved mysteries.
John: Yeah.
John: Right?
John: We sure talked about this.
John: The Bermuda Triangle, etc.
Merlin: Or just knowing who the guy in that show is.
Merlin: The Unsolved Mysteries show?
Merlin: No, sorry.
Merlin: That's not Leonard Nimoy, is it?
John: No, Unsolved Mysteries was... Was it John Walsh?
John: I wouldn't know John Walsh if he walked in right now and handed me a cupcake.
John: But I could Google him.
Merlin: No, but you're right.
Merlin: I mean, like the obvious example is like like me sitting there last night watching series of unfortunate events and going like, ah, I know that actress.
Merlin: Oh, it's that actress from the Austin Powers movies that I really like.
Merlin: And of course, I'm able to look that up instantly and drill straight into that episode that just aired a day ago.
Merlin: And it's already there.
Merlin: I already have instantly the information about something that I want immediately.
Merlin: That's a trivial example.
John: Yeah.
John: Oh, John Walsh is exactly who I was thinking of.
John: He's the host of America's Most Wanted.
John: Adam Walsh's father.
Merlin: Is that right?
Merlin: Yeah, he had that terrible situation with his son.
Merlin: That's how his, one doesn't want to say career, but that's like he started off by being an advocate for kids.
John: Well, so that's not, that's probably not who did Unsolved Mysteries.
John: But you're, to my point.
John: Gary, his name's Gary.
John: You're saying, Gary, I got those tweets.
Merlin: Now that was good.
Merlin: That's an example that is good.
Merlin: That was funny.
Merlin: That was funny.
Merlin: Making fun of us for not remembering one of our canonical characters was funny.
John: Gary!
Merlin: His name is Gary!
Merlin: But when I was a kid, unsolved mysteries.
Merlin: Things that were not easily findable, but may not even be knowable at all.
John: Well, and still a great number of places in the world that you felt like hadn't been explored, right?
John: Islands in the South Pacific that were uninhabited.
John: It was still plausible that Gilligan and the Skipper would get into a shipwreck on an island that
John: could sustain life, but that there just wasn't anybody living there and it was uncharted.
John: Like there were uncharted places.
John: Who knew behind the Iron Curtain?
John: Who knew it was back there?
Merlin: You can't prove a negative.
Merlin: Like how do you know Atlantis doesn't exist?
Merlin: Well, we have no way of knowing.
John: We have no way of knowing.
John: And now we've mapped the entire world.
John: We believe we have overlaid it with a grid system enough that we can pretty much put our pinky down on anything we wanted to see.
John: And with Wikipedia and everything else, we feel like we've called it all.
John: We've named everything.
John: And all that's missing from Wikipedia is stuff from the olden times that we haven't brought forward and put on.
John: But there's nothing happening now that isn't being recorded.
John: There's nothing...
John: If you and I wanted to go sit and study Google Earth, we could find Gilligan.
John: We could find anything we were looking for.
John: And that's happened in a very brief amount of time.
John: And so there's an element to the curiosity that we grew up being expected to have, or it was kind of baked in, a kind of curiosity about...
John: What is in the forest even?
John: Like, oh, if I go into the woods here next to my house, because I'm a little kid, I don't know how big the woods are.
John: And I imagine maybe the woods go forever.
John: And maybe these woods go into... Dig a hole to China.
John: Yeah, right.
John: It's go to Sherwood Forest or whatever.
John: And now there's a maybe, I feel like, in the world, a sense that everything's mapped.
John: And...
John: So there isn't that feeling that, oh, you know, maybe no one's ever been in this cave.
John: Maybe no one's ever... I mean, from the time that you're small.
John: I wonder if I'm the first person to ever climb this tree.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: And so is our relationship to curiosity changing so that all these responses that we're getting to on the internet...
John: there's not a feeling that anybody else has anything to teach you anymore.
John: Like you, you already know everything too.
John: Everything's already known.
John: It's not a question of, of learning.
John: It's a question of just opinion.
John: Like it's not, it's not that I didn't know that it's that I just didn't have an opinion about it yet.
John: And it's so different from when, when we were kids where it was just like,
John: You know, when I heard that maybe Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page was like, had bought Aleister Crowley's house, I was like, is the music of Led Zeppelin amazing because Jimmy Page is talking to the devil?
John: Mm-hmm.
John: And now, even if I was eight years old, there'd be like 11 other eight-year-olds who were like, well, actually.
Mm-hmm.
John: I don't know whether I don't know what how to teach curiosity or how to how to do what you're saying, like reply to people and say, leave some space like like let it be interesting.
Merlin: I totally agree.
Merlin: And like, I don't mean this to sound sexist, because I think it's actually true of everybody.
Merlin: But one of the first things I remember hearing in terms of grown-up relationship advice that I found to be very useful, especially given my personality.
Merlin: Now, this is such a cliche, A. But B, it's also true of, I think, all sexes and genders.
Merlin: Which is like, when somebody...
Merlin: Especially, historically, a woman wants to talk about something.
Merlin: Men have a tendency to want to solve a problem.
Merlin: And I feel silly even saying this, because everybody knows this at this point, supposedly.
Merlin: But the idea is that somebody comes to you and they want to talk about, oh God, Barbara at work has really been a thorn in my side lately.
Merlin: And she didn't invite me to this meeting, and I'm not sure if I should feel weird about that.
Merlin: And men like me tend to want to jump in and go, well, you should go straight to your boss, or you should talk to Barbara, or you should send an email.
Merlin: Let me solve this problem for you before you're even done with the sentence, let alone the paragraph.
Merlin: Where really, that person maybe wasn't looking for a solution.
Merlin: That person just wanted to talk about something in their life.
Merlin: Maybe don't want a solution for.
Merlin: And maybe the talking and like could be sometimes the talking about it is the solution.
Merlin: But like you don't, you know, and I really, really struggle with this in life.
Merlin: Like I don't like when people finish my sentences.
Merlin: Like I don't want to finish other people's sentences because sometimes they just need to ramble a little bit.
John: I've talked about this, I think, as a component in the relationship between my mother and sister.
John: My sister comes home and is one of these people that wants to just talk about the problems that she had during the day.
John: With no... With no... She's not doing it in order to find a solution.
Merlin: She's not filing a bug.
Merlin: She's not looking to like, in an hour, I need this solved.
John: Does not want a... Does not want the problem solved.
John: Wants to... I mean, basically wants to bitch about it.
John: Yes.
John: And then at the end, be done.
John: And my mom is someone who...
John: wants to solve the problem.
John: She's like a dog with a bone, man.
John: She solves problems.
John: Yeah, she's just like, well, why don't you talk to your manager?
John: Oh, here's something you could do.
John: Unplug the refrigerator.
Merlin: Maybe with a little bit of hint of, like, this is actually not that complicated.
John: Absolutely.
Merlin: I mean, I think, isn't that kind of an important aspect of, like, why is this a problem?
John: Well, but also the flip side of it is that bitching about stuff is uncomfortable for certain people to listen to.
John: Like my mom is extremely impatient because she doesn't want to hear because to her ears, it's just like, why are you complaining?
John: Like either solve the problem or get used to it, you know, get accustomed to it and deal with it and like stop complaining is my mom's take on it.
John: And so it's a long bin.
John: When it starts to happen in my house, I usually pick up the newspaper and just slowly... And crawl inside of it.
John: No, just slowly edge out of the room without saying anything.
John: I'm behind the newspaper.
John: I'm reading an article so intently.
Merlin: There's a medium-length fuse that has just been lit.
John: I'm just like, I'm headed into another room.
Merlin: What's Susan's response?
John: Does she...
John: For years, it was just really frustrating because they had not identified this as the dynamic.
John: Susan's response was just to get more and more agitated because she's like, well, yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Like, sure, I could unplug the refrigerator, but that's not the point.
John: Right.
John: And the point is just awesome.
Merlin: Sometimes what you're really saying is, yeah, I know.
Merlin: I know the world is that way.
Merlin: I don't want the world to be that way.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Don't tell me how to change the world.
Merlin: Just listen to me be frustrated that the world is this way.
John: Yeah.
John: And it's, and it was, and my mom just got more and more frustrated too.
John: Like, well, if you don't want, if you don't want my advice, why are you coming to me with this stupid problem?
Merlin: I can see and have been on both, both points of view, both sides of that.
John: Yeah.
John: And I think there is a, there is a culture of, um, well, I don't know.
John: I mean, like for myself personally, I try, it's not even that I try.
John: It is not in my nature to complain about,
John: There are times when I protest, like if I go up to the counter at an airline and they say, you do not get blank.
John: I say, I would like to lodge a protest.
John: What do you mean I'm not getting an upgrade?
John: But that's a protest.
John: Once they say you don't get an upgrade or once they say, sorry, we're not going to let you put your guitar in the overhead box.
John: been because we didn't read the memo from the u.s senate or whatever i don't then sit in the chair and complain you know i'm like resolved and resolved you know part of it is that i feel like i deserve suffering but but also like there is no point to it because i cannot win now you know and my mom is the same way like well
John: You know, if I have to wear these shoes that are made out of fire, then I guess I have to wear shoes made out of fire.
John: I don't like it, but what does it serve to complain?
John: And my sister on, on the other hand is going, you know, her way of processing the events that happened to her is just kind of like putting them out there in the form of either celebration or lament.
John: And, um,
John: But it is participatory, right?
John: My mom does not require my sister to help her process her events because she is doing them internally and quietly.
John: But my sister does require my mom.
John: She does require a listener.
John: It wouldn't be sufficient to just make a cage and put some socks around it and have a bowl of food in it so Susan could cling to it and yell at it about her day.
John: That would not work, right?
John: She needs someone to listen and pay that attention somehow.
John: And it feels like another example of the introvert-extrovert.
John: issue where the extrovert is like introverts are very very aware of extrovert culture introverts know what extrovert world looks like because they can't help but know yeah it's like it's like not being into sports like i'm not into sports but boy do i ever have to know about sports right but extroverts are not aware of introvert culture or their needs because why would they be
John: All they see are other extroverts and introverts just seem like people who are standing there waiting for them to come talk to them.
John: And, you know, it's like it's like when you talk to black people about white culture, they're like, look, we know all about white culture.
John: Let me explain this to you.
John: We can't avoid it.
John: We know all about it.
Merlin: That's a good example.
John: It's everywhere.
Merlin: We're soaking in it.
Merlin: When a guy butts into like three women talking on the Internet to explain what they misunderstand about feminism.
John: Yeah, right.
John: Or what they misunderstand about men.
John: It's like, oh, what you don't know about men.
John: And they're like, no, seriously, we know all about men.
John: i saw a tweet last week that i can't even believe is real which was where somebody responded to a woman and said you know mansplaining is not really a thing and i hope it's a joke because it was so perfect it's great but it's that but it's that type of thing you know you hear about you hear about this uh divide as being a thing of like
John: Or the way you initially started to describe it.
Merlin: Initially, it was presented as husband and wife.
Merlin: The whole model was that, hey, husbands, you need to listen to your wives more.
Merlin: But I only did that as a jumping off point of how I learned about it.
Merlin: The truth is it goes for everybody.
Merlin: Be aware when somebody just wants to think out loud a little bit.
Merlin: There's a funny episode, a very good episode of Parks and Rec.
Merlin: I think you're probably not a huge fan, but...
Merlin: I don't have the TV.
Merlin: And that is a way over simplified shorthand, but it's kind of true.
Merlin: Adopt a that sucks attitude that has you open to listening to that person rather than trying to explain how they're being unhappy wrong.
John: Yeah.
John: That's pretty good.
John: Yeah.
John: I am definitely being unhappy wrong.
Merlin: No, you're not.
Yeah.
Merlin: I periodically check in on this podcast called I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats.
Merlin: I don't listen to every episode, but it's a very interesting idea.
Merlin: It's the guy from, oh, what show is it?
Merlin: He does Night Vale, I think.
John: I love that when you are trying to remember something, you put a little tremolo in it.
Merlin: It's the guy from...
Merlin: I think.
Merlin: But anyway, and they're going through, God, what album is it?
Merlin: All Hell West, Texas?
Merlin: But anyway, and they go through track by track, and this guy interviews John Darnielle, who's a very articulate guy.
Merlin: I'm not a giant fan of the music, but hear me out.
John: You know, I know John pretty well nowadays.
John: He's a very, very bright guy.
John: Extremely bright guy, yeah.
Merlin: But it's really neat.
Merlin: So the show has like a kind of chemistry to it that would be impossible for obvious reasons on any other show, which is like, he's a very interesting writer who has interesting thoughts about life.
Merlin: And this very good interviewer interviews him and they talk about one song on the album and then somebody covers it at the end.
Merlin: Oh, what a good podcast.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: And it's on iTunes.
Merlin: You can go listen to all the songs.
Merlin: I think Laura Jane Grace did the Best Ever Death Metal Band from Denton.
Merlin: Those are great songs.
Merlin: But anyway, a recent episode was Source Decay, which is a song that I really like.
Merlin: It's a slightly unusual Mountain Goat song for the time.
Merlin: But long story short, the reason I mention this is he said something.
Merlin: You know how it is.
Merlin: Somebody says something that once you hear it, you go, God, that's so obvious, but I so needed to hear that.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: Probably not entirely dissimilar from how you write, I'm guessing.
Merlin: But the guy said something so cool.
Merlin: His name is Joseph.
Merlin: He was talking to him about, like, well, you know, but what does this mean in the song?
Merlin: Like, is this Jenny the same Jenny from the other song with Jenny in it?
Merlin: And I don't remember his exact response, but he's basically saying, you know, I don't know.
Merlin: I mean, I don't know.
Merlin: I could guess just as much as you could guess.
Merlin: But here's the quote.
Merlin: He said, most people don't treasure the unknown.
Merlin: Most people want all the information.
Merlin: I never want all the information.
Merlin: And I was like, oh, man, I shouldn't even tweet about this, but I'm gonna.
Merlin: Because I thought that was so great.
Merlin: I was like, you know what?
Merlin: I'm kind of the same way.
Merlin: Whilst I love being able to watch Netflix and look up the name of an actress in a scene, that's no problem at all.
Merlin: While it's great to me to be three seconds away from knowing drugs that interact with grapefruit while I'm on a podcast, all great.
Merlin: Wow.
Merlin: But I kind of, I think about when I started, this is not a slam on Star Wars, but like I saw Star Wars when it was just Star Wars.
Merlin: Like a week after it came out, I saw Star Wars.
Merlin: I didn't understand what are these creatures?
Merlin: What is going on?
Merlin: I didn't know that George Lucas had a name for every single piece of equipment and every rock in the entire area.
Merlin: I had basically two viewings of Star Wars, the reviews about it, and then maybe like a Fangoria magazine feature.
Merlin: But, like, I didn't know, I didn't have, like, a DK encyclopedia of Star Wars, and that was part of the fun.
Merlin: I wanted to know everything.
Merlin: I would just consume everything I could find about it, but there wasn't that much to consume, especially after the first one.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: It was six or eight months into the cycle before, I mean, they were sending out coupons for the action figures.
Merlin: There were not big books about it that were official books.
Merlin: Anyway, I just wanted to put that in front of you, because I thought John Darnielle saying that was really smart, because I realized I'm the same way.
Merlin: Like, I...
Merlin: I don't need to know that there's an answer to like, you know, in that song, is that Warren Beatty?
Merlin: Like, is that David Branson?
Merlin: It's like, I don't know.
Merlin: I don't know if I need to know.
Merlin: I don't know if my enjoyment of that song will change one way or another if I know who You're So Vain is about.
Merlin: Does it have to be about one of them?
Merlin: Maybe.
Merlin: Maybe that's a bad example.
Merlin: But I like the not knowing.
Merlin: I like the fact that this is a snapshot of a little bit of a story.
Merlin: And like...
Merlin: I don't know if you can even know all the details of this, especially if the person who wrote it chose to not have a codex or a rubric for being able to delineate what everything in the song means.
Merlin: And I have to tell you, that's one reason I love your songs.
Merlin: I don't know what the fuck your songs are all about.
Merlin: Even when you explain them to me, I don't understand them.
Merlin: And I really like that.
Merlin: And I wanted to just toss to you.
Merlin: Do you feel that way about... Do you like the not knowing?
Yeah.
John: There are three three things that I that you're inspiring me to think about I want to say simultaneously The
John: The geographic version of this, somebody posted something the other day that was like, did you know that Google knows everything that you've ever done and everything you've ever thought and said?
John: And I was like, oh, no.
John: You know, Google is going to be – Google is going to know all this stuff about me.
John: And I went and I followed the link.
John: And, you know, Google does know everything I've ever Googled.
John: But that would be very confusing to an algorithm because it's like, who are the last five kings of Armenia?
John: It's like, what are you going to sell me?
John: But Google –
John: Google supposedly knows everywhere I've been.
John: And I went to the thing where it said, you know, Google basically knows everywhere you've been.
John: And I was kind of excited about it.
John: Like, what is this map that Google is going to draw of all the places I've been?
John: Like, how exciting.
Merlin: The truth is, it's actually kind of disappointing.
Merlin: You're like, oh, man, Google, I thought you would know all the places I went.
John: Well, and what was crazy was I got there and there was no information.
John: And then I realized that what I do, I do Google where things are.
John: I Google the like, is there traffic or whatever?
John: I Google routes to things.
John: But I look at the route and then I put my phone away.
John: I have never followed GPS instructions where it's like turn left.
John: Like I put it away.
John: I look at it like I used to look at paper maps.
John: I get a sense of where it's telling me to go.
John: But I never follow the voice, the machine.
John: And so Google doesn't know where I've been because I never, because I always turn it off because I still don't want to know all the answers.
John: Like I don't want to get there.
John: Even if I'm late, I don't want to get there via the computer's best estimation of the fastest route.
John: I want to find it.
John: Um,
John: That's a big, big part of how I live in the world.
John: I want to find it.
John: I know it's there.
John: I know it's over there, and I'm here.
Merlin: In that case, you do know that there is an answer, that it does exist.
Merlin: There is this Stuckey's somewhere west.
John: Right.
John: I'm going to a place.
John: I know where Spokane generally is.
John: I want to get there and not...
John: just be guided there by a, by a tour guide, you know, by a, by a, I don't want to, I don't want to ring in my nose and somebody yanking on a rope.
John: That's the geographic version.
John: But in response to your thing, the real thing, the John Darnielle thing, you know, I think my greatest regret about
John: the success of my band, the, and by success, I mean the level of success.
John: And one of the things about, I'm one of the things that complicates my relationship with John Darnielle personally is that he has, and this is true of so many, I mean, so many musicians, when you really get them down and get a few drinks in them and they're sitting around a campfire, you can't help but say, ah, if I just had a,
John: Like, I don't want to be Eddie Van Halen.
John: I just want the success of John Darnielle.
John: the amount and kind of success that he had and maybe maybe the steadiness i think that's one of the most admirable things about him is like just that he seems so steady about he just keeps doing the work he does the he does the work and you know when you get to know him personally you realize like oh it's part of his process of coping right to do the work like he's he is also struggling as we all are with a constellation of of uh like contraindications of grapefruit
John: And he his way of getting through the year is is making music and putting it out.
John: And that's true of a lot of people I know.
John: And I have the opposite affliction or some other, you know, I eat too much grapefruit.
John: But, you know, guys like if you I mean, I'm sure if you sat down with Carl Newman and said, how do you like your fame?
John: He'd say, it's great.
John: I'm very happy here.
John: But I would, you know, wouldn't it be nice if I had.
John: Just the fame of Jonathan Richman.
John: I don't know who anybody's comparison is.
John: I believe it was you.
John: Even Bono has a boss.
John: Even Bono has a boss.
John: But I would love...
John: To sit down with somebody who wanted to go through my music and talk about what things meant.
John: Because when I was writing it, I meant something by everything.
John: There's no filler.
John: I wasn't like, well, I need to get to the chorus, so I'm just going to say the same thing over again.
Merlin: Yeah, I remember first reading this, I feel like, in the John Chardy poetry book where he said something like, make every line tell.
John: Yeah.
John: And I think that's part of why, I mean, when I listen to great pop music and I realize that there are so many songs that I really love where the chorus is just like, hey, nah, nah.
John: And I love that music, but like,
John: I just, I just filled the lyrics with meaning and I want somebody to care enough.
John: And I know that there are people that do, but I didn't have that, you know, like Darnielle and his band inspire a kind of culty reference.
Merlin: It was kind of a law of large numbers thing where they have enough fans that they probably would eventually get to meet some super smart and engaged people that were super fans and would want to talk about it.
John: Yeah.
John: And, and there are those people about the long winters.
John: It's just that there's not an audience for their output, right?
John: There's not like you could do a podcast about John Darnielle and there'd be an audience for it.
John: If there was a podcast about the long winters, there wouldn't be necessarily very big audience for listening to those songs digested.
John: But, you know, I got a, I got a, uh, I got an email from a, uh,
John: A guy the other day who was like, I teach literature.
John: I teach, you know, English literature in college.
John: And I wanted to.
John: Oh, and I asked my students to take your line from the song.
John: Which is it?
John: Seven, I think.
John: Where where I say every eyelash is a picket or a wire.
John: And he was like, you know, and I had to explain to people what I had to explain to them what pickets were because they didn't know what pickets were.
John: But then we talked about it and I was like, oh, I was just I was laying there in my in my little, you know,
John: cuddle cozy bunny suit like oh my god someone somewhere is looking at a line that i wrote and glorious once wheeling your way out to the mailbox and there's some fan mail i'm still a star but it meant so much to me that that someone would do that and you know what has been true the last
John: Half a dozen years is the people that listen to this show and the many attempts that people have made to make a codex to make a an encyclopedia of of everything we've talked about and all the different cross references and stuff.
John: You know that really like.
John: All those attempts, even though none of them has really succeeded and become the definitive one.
John: And I think there are a half a dozen orphan projects where... Yeah, there are people who have very, very kindly taken a stab at it, for sure.
John: Yeah, yeah.
John: And it's a lot to take on.
Merlin: I mean, that kind of thing is really... To me, that's really useful.
Merlin: I mean, there's also our friend of the show, underscore David Smith, has done a wonderful thing where he...
Merlin: does voice recognition, I don't know what you call it, but he basically turns the show into searchable words.
Merlin: So if you want to find a bit, I think stuff like that's great for finding where a bit appeared, but like, God, please don't study it all too carefully.
John: Well, there's that, but also like, I mean...
John: There's the impulse to try and find like our witticisms or our – The first time somebody said this.
John: Some of that and like the stories, the big like stories, the capital letter stories.
John: But, you know, you and I have traveled a lot of ground.
John: And we kid, and then our fans kid back at us, and then we kid back at them about helping people.
John: But, you know, there is a trove, at least.
John: And I don't mean necessarily even a treasure trove, but just a trove.
John: It might just be a trove of dirty diapers.
John: That count as a trove.
John: I think so.
John: A trove is a trove.
Merlin: It's a trove.
Merlin: Yeah, it's like a tranche.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, you tell me what a trove is.
John: You tell me.
John: Yeah, a tranche is a trove.
John: A tranche is a trove.
John: Trove.com asks, is your big customer hiding in your company's email?
John: Is that what they ask?
John: They're considering your company's email as a trove of qualified leads.
John: Tranche.com, somebody's just sitting on the domain.
John: Is that right?
John: There's no Tronch.
John: There's no Tronch.
John: Just the Trove.
John: Well, Trove.com wants to find the Glengarry leads in your company's email.
John: It's already there.
John: It means you are wanting.
John: Let's talk about something important.
John: Put that coffee down.
John: But in terms of not having the answers, we spend a lot less time solving problems than we do
John: describing them and a lot less time even describing problems than just inhabiting them like a furry costume yeah you know and i think probably a portion of our problems aren't even aren't even obvious to us we have people listening to the show they're like here they go again i've been reliably informed that that's true
Merlin: You think that's your problem?
Merlin: Holy shit.
Merlin: Oh boy.
Merlin: Oh boy.
Merlin: You need to take the subject and replace it with the object.
Merlin: You're going to need an associate degree in your own life to even begin to understand what you don't fucking get about what you don't understand about yourself.
John: But like, Darnielle is super wise about, you know, about a lot.
John: But he, like anybody, has blind spots.
John: There are certain aspects of Darnielle that he isn't wise about.
John: not just as a writer, you know, or maybe principally not as a writer.
John: And it's the same with me.
John: Like, there's a lot of... There was a review one time in the Salt Lake paper of Ultimatum, when Ultimatum first came out.
John: And this reviewer really, like, was mad at the song Ultimatum in particular.
John: And, you know, and gave this kind of excoriating review.
John: As a student, why do you dream of me?
John: Yeah, student, why did you dream of me?
John: It gave an excoriating review, which was not a negative review.
John: It was a review that said, this is a beautiful song, well recorded by a very interesting band, and I disagree with it.
John: And I was like, go on.
John: You know, like I put a big napkin in the front of my shirt and tucked myself in and I was like, tell me more.
John: And they had listened to it enough to understand the viewpoint of it and be mad at the viewpoint, which meant so much to me because it was the rare interview or I'm sorry, the rare review of a record that
John: Took that approach.
John: You know, reviews are just like, well, this band sounds like that band and their third song is a really nice jangle pop, blah, blah, blah.
John: But very few people are like the viewpoint of the narrator in this song, I find it does not like.
John: uh, is not life giving or whatever.
John: And I was just like, tell me more.
John: And, and what they were mad about was that the, you know, the viewpoint of, of the narrator and ultimatum is, is you're in a way you're kind of, um, you're cowboy.
John: Um, the one that doesn't want to be a villager and, um,
John: But also kind of, you know, wants to hang around the village and get free drinks.
John: And they were and they felt like it wasn't hopeful.
John: That the narrator himself should try harder.
John: Oh.
John: I was like, yeah, man, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: Take a stand.
John: Take a stand against this thinly fictionalized character.
Merlin: But you like it when people engage.
John: Well, obviously.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Well, I mean, I don't know.
Merlin: No, no, I don't, I don't think I wasn't trying to provoke you.
Merlin: I just think there are some people who think, well, you know, here's the thing I said, and I said it.
Merlin: And like, if you really understood it, you wouldn't need to do all this parsing.
Merlin: It's like, stop, stop trying to understand this thing.
Merlin: That's really easy to understand.
John: Yeah.
John: That's the Kurt Cobain model of like, of, yeah, no, obviously.
John: I mean, I think, I think it's like, that's not my nature, right?
John: To be like, I said it, it's in the lyrics.
John: Like, no, no, no, I want to discuss it.
John: I've thought about writing down like a line-by-line exegesis of my song lyrics.
John: I just don't know who the audience would be.
Merlin: I wish you wouldn't.
Merlin: No, no, no.
Merlin: Just because, I mean, you know, I don't know.
Merlin: I mean, like, hmm.
Merlin: I like it not being known.
Merlin: Well, let me turn it around a little bit.
Merlin: So you try to have every line tell.
Merlin: Everything is in there for a reason.
Merlin: Everything that's in the song is in the song.
Merlin: Do you feel like there are remaining mysteries and unknowns in songs to you?
Merlin: Like, something as general as like, oh, I'm not really sure who that was about.
Merlin: Or like, I'm not really sure what this song is saying.
Merlin: Like, your song is very much, even if I don't always understand the POV, I know they have a POV.
Merlin: Like, there's somebody's...
Merlin: In a situation, in a lot of the songs.
Merlin: But do you feel like there are still unknown corners of your own stuff that you would benefit from having people, for lack of a better word, explain to you?
John: Oh, they all... I mean, every song... The exegesis would not be me explaining them as much as me saying...
John: Here are the possibilities in this line, I guess, is more my relationship to them.
John: Because they are point of view based rather than, you know, it's not like this is a song about John F. Kennedy.
John: But I changed his name or whatever.
John: You know, they're all about everything.
John: I don't know.
John: I just worked so hard on them.
John: And I feel like they're often just... It's the problem, I guess, of any writer where you put it up against other pop music.
John: And some pop music, and again, it's pop music I love, isn't really about anything.
John: And yet I'm also working in that vernacular.
John: So, I mean, I was listening to Boney M last night, as you do.
John: And, you know, Boney M has a song called Daddy Cool.
John: And it has three lyrics.
John: I don't think any Boney M song has more than about 15 lyrics.
John: Boney M. Boney M. Looking it up, yeah.
John: But, you know, like, for instance, my good pals in the band of horses who have that song, I think I've referred to before, where the lyric is, When I was alone, is there a ghost in my house?
John: When I was alone, is there a ghost in my house?
John: And it's a hell of a line.
John: It conveyed a lot to me.
John: But that's kind of the main lyric in the song.
John: I mean, sorry, it's like one of a very few lyrics in the song.
John: And it's a more popular song than any song I ever wrote.
John: But
John: it doesn't have any, it's not, it's not even like, um, the, like the two songs are not like, let's take that song and any song I wrote.
John: There's no, there's no lyrical commonality in terms of intent.
John: Um,
John: Yeah, right.
John: The lyrics of his song.
John: And it's great because if you Google the lyrics of Is There a Ghost by Band of Horses, there's a whole lyric sheet.
John: It's really long.
John: And it says, I could sleep, I could sleep, I could sleep, I could sleep.
John: When I lived alone, is there a ghost in my house?
John: I could sleep, I could sleep, I could sleep, I could sleep.
John: And those are the only lyrics in the tune.
John: And so it's like, I don't know who, who was I writing for?
John: I guess you Right in terms of like when you were composing songs Yeah, like who Like listening to the lyrics of John Darnielle songs is it's baked into it because the songs are so lyric driven I
John: There's not a lot of keyboard parts.
John: There's not a lot of... He doesn't quadruple the harmonies on the choruses.
Merlin: No, he's got a boombox in the old days.
John: Yeah, you're there to listen to the lyrics.
John: It's like Billy Bragg.
John: It's folk music.
Merlin: I mean, you know, a lot of songs that I like... I don't even know what genre you call it, but they...
Merlin: Whether it's the Beatles or you or whomever, I like a song that has a sense of urgency to it.
Merlin: And it doesn't have to be urgency in terms of necessarily being upbeat and high energy or whatever, or super sad.
Merlin: But a lot of the songs I like and remember and think about, there's something...
Merlin: There's something, some message of some kind, there's some feeling even that has to be put across.
Merlin: Like they say in acting, one of the basic things they tell you in acting is that remember, everybody on stage at a given time wants something.
Merlin: right they and maybe there's other things to it maybe there's their secrets that they have that they don't want people to know but there's something that everybody wants out of a scene like if you if you're not sure what to do with the character think about what it is not just quote-unquote motivation but like what is the most important to that person in the room what are they trying to hide what are they trying to show how are they are they trying to deceive but like everybody up there wants something and how if you as an actor you have to connect with what that feeling is and i feel like a lot of songs i hope this isn't a derail but i feel like uh in terms of like who it's for i'm not always sure but like
Merlin: There's something I've got to tell you, and this is how I'm doing it.
Merlin: To somebody, even if it's an imagined person.
Merlin: For the Beatles, a lot of the early stuff was that they're just disappointed in women.
Merlin: I had occasion to go back and listen to a lot of early and middle Beatles, which I love, but I was realizing how many songs, I want to say just John's songs, but Paul's songs, but so many of John's songs in particular are just about how misunderstood he is by women, but he puts it really well.
Merlin: But, you know, I mean, even something as seemingly simple as I Want to Hold Your Hand, there's obviously an extreme sense of urgency to that.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And in that case, you know who's being addressed in that.
Merlin: But are you talking about who you write the songs in order to reach as an audience, or who the song is addressing?
John: Oh, no.
John: I mean, my songs are all addressing the same people that John Lennon's songs were addressing.
John: I was just a little bit...
John: Older when I was writing them so it wasn't quite I'm not Yeah, I mean there it was all the same confusion just just like quadrupled by an extra decade of feeling confused But no it's like It's a you know, I have a desire still to be
John: Well, I mean, we all have a desire to be appreciated.
John: To be appreciated or to be heard?
John: Well, I'm not so worried about being heard.
John: You know what I mean?
John: If I go into the great sleep, if I go gently into that good night and don't feel like my howl was... Your barbaric yelp.
John: My yelp was registered, you know, whatever.
John: It's not...
John: I don't feel an under heard.
John: Uh, but, but no, like, like, um, when you do, when you try to do something with subtlety, and I think this is a, this is a lot of the, a lot of times a problem for anybody working in any medium.
John: If you try to do something with subtlety and
John: And then you see things that are done unsubtly succeed.
John: And you feel like, oh, you know, I like worked really hard to make this opaque.
John: And then somebody comes along and is just like, shake it, shake it.
John: And people are like, yeah, I want to shake it.
John: And you're like, fuck.
John: Just tearing their shirt open and waving them around.
John: Yeah.
John: And you're like, shit.
John: You know, like, who is my audience?
John: If not everybody.
John: If I'm not just like, shake it.
John: If I'm like, super, super.
John: like making all these tiny little beads when you, when you do it, your dream is that you're going to be reaching the same people that you're going to be, you're going to be reaching people like yourself who are looking for that in other stuff.
John: Like I'm, I'm trying to accomplish.
John: It's a key for, for a lock I didn't know I had.
John: Right, right.
John: Oh, exactly that.
John: Exactly that.
John: Um,
John: But then I think about it and it's like, oh, when I could finally understand Michael Stipe's lyrics, I was really disappointed.
John: It was a lot better when he when you couldn't tell what he was saying.
John: And I what I wanted to be was I wanted to be as I wanted to create the feeling that Michael Stipe created in me.
John: Except when you got into it, you found there was something there instead of just.
John: You know, like nothing or or partial, whatever it was that he was like something that just happened to be like a beautiful splatter pattern.
John: Yeah.
John: I mean, he was obviously creating a super appealing vignettes.
Merlin: Yeah, but also, yeah, it's very, I always, I've talked about this ad nauseum in so many places, but you know, the ability to create a mood.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And a feeling, a very poetic way, where like, the sound of the words, like when you said before, like a picket or a wire, is that right?
Merlin: Picket or a wire?
Merlin: Uh-huh.
Merlin: It's also that, like, think about those two words, how they contrast in sound.
Merlin: Like, one's kind of sharp and one's a little bit more round.
Merlin: And, like, that's why we like Dylan Thomas, is, like, because the words, the way the words sound is part of the meaning.
Merlin: And, like, there's meaning under the meaning, but then there's also meaning in the sounds, and people get different things from that, but, like...
Merlin: You were just quoting Do Not Go Gentle, but the force that threw the green fuse.
Merlin: There's these things that he says, and you're like, that's just a bunch of words, but it's very meaningful the way those words sound.
Merlin: And it's nice when you dig in a little further and go like, oh, there's a pattern to the syllables.
Merlin: There's a pattern to the rhymes.
Merlin: But you don't have to know any of that to feel strangely emotionally moved by something.
Merlin: Even if you don't understand everything in a Shakespeare monologue, you're still going to get some kind of a feeling out of it.
John: Do you remember when you first got into pavement?
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Were you into pavement?
John: Very.
John: It was Summer Babe.
Merlin: It was my first favorite pavement song.
John: The effect of pavement in terms of creating a mood and also being full of information...
John: And also being, and also seeming to be full of maybe more information than was actually there.
John: You know, like, Pavement was such a... They were so sincere, but also just mostly smarmy.
Merlin: It's like, so smarmy, but there was something really poignant about American life in their songs.
John: Yep, and really smart turns of phrase, but also just thrown off, like, in a way that...
John: suggested like either that they didn't care or that half the guys in the band didn't understand what half the other what the other half of the guys were talking about but it didn't matter i mean there was so much going on in that that influenced i mean i don't think anybody in seattle wants to acknowledge what an influence pavement was because we were making our own thing up here then yeah you're not so it's like it's like you're not supposed to be into something that's that cheeky right but it was it
John: It's very influential because it feels impossible to duplicate in a way.
John: Weezer feels very easy to duplicate.
John: There are a lot of bands that are making Weezer music.
Merlin: You don't need that much exegesis, but here's one.
Merlin: I was dressed for success, but success never comes.
Merlin: And I'm the only one who laughs at your jokes when they are so bad.
Merlin: But then you get to the chorus.
Merlin: And all the sterile striking it defends an empty dock you cast away.
Merlin: And rain upon your forehead where the mist for higher if it's just too clear...
Merlin: Let's spend our last quarter stance randomly.
Merlin: Go down to the outlet once again.
Merlin: That's in the way, you know, painted portraits of minions and slaves, crotch mavens in one-night plays.
Merlin: And they're the only ones who laugh at your jokes when they are so bad, and the jokes are always bad.
Merlin: Come join us in a prayer.
Merlin: We'll be waiting, waiting where everything's ending here.
Merlin: That's the name of the song, Here.
Merlin: But it's very portentous when you're listening to it.
Merlin: It's very, the tempo and everything, it's, you know, for one of their early, I guess, maybe they got cheekier as they went, but like, a little silly, but like, I always found that song very moving.
Merlin: I don't know what the song's about, but I always found it very moving.
John: It's the same with a lot of Nirvana, where you're like, what the hell are you talking about?
John: But it conveys, it's very like,
John: The atmosphere is appropriate, like the atmosphere communicates and the lyrical atmosphere communicates what you want it to.
John: It's not just.
John: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: This is your seven sided lighthouse made of dreams to get all of that stuff together.
Merlin: I mean, you know, for the lyrics to be meaningful that a lot of people go into a song and their lyrics people.
Merlin: We had a whole episode of the show I do with Syracuse about this where we talked about your music a lot.
Merlin: um but like there's this whole thing of like diving straight into what the lyrics mean but like to me there's a whole like giant play going on here there's the set dressing and there's the characters and there's like there's so much going on and like there's little little spots about what's said and what's not said there's so much to it that goes beyond just like what did the lyrics mean like there's a whole evocation that can be happening in a song that even plays against the lyrics i mean it's you know i don't know i i i like music
John: Well, I know, and me too, and I just wonder, sometimes I wonder whether podcasting with you and writing articles and stuff, whether it did something, it took away some of the universe building that I had within the songs, just in that I had expressed a viewpoint in those albums, and I was so desperate to be
John: uh to to like be interviewed and to be able to explain not the world view of the songs because i felt like that's that that was fine you know like i'm not i don't need to go in back into the songs but i want to talk about all this other stuff too and as time goes on like does it detract from the from the universe from the um from the game of thrones universe
John: If George R.R.
John: Martin is out there also talking about how he feels about vending machines and so forth.
John: Hmm.
John: But, I mean, you can't put the podcast back in the bottle.
Merlin: No.
John: Whatever's in the bottle's in the bottle.
John: You can't put the genie back in the vending machine.
Hmm.
Merlin: What the fuck does that mean?
Merlin: It can't be known!
Merlin: It cannot be known!