Ep. 288: “Mustache President”
John: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: How's it going?
Merlin: Good.
Merlin: How are you going?
Merlin: I'm good.
Merlin: I feel loose.
Merlin: Yeah, me too.
Merlin: Loose as a goose.
Merlin: I had a weird breakfast that made me think of you.
Merlin: How did it go?
Merlin: You know, it went pretty good.
Merlin: I went really easy.
Merlin: I went in and I ate half of a boar's head pepperoni.
Merlin: Just ate it.
Merlin: Oh, you're my hero.
John: It's like the super Jager.
John: Was that the entirety of your breakfast?
John: Yes.
John: That's the best breakfast ever.
Merlin: I don't like making pans.
Merlin: I don't like making pans.
Merlin: I feel like some kind of, I don't know, some kind of Appalachian caricature.
Merlin: If I can have one pan to clean, I feel like I've really scored.
Merlin: Last time I had breakfast for lunch last week, I did it all in one pan.
Merlin: I did smash browns, I did ham, and I did eggs all in the same pan like a prospector.
Merlin: Sure, you don't want to make three pans.
John: I don't want to have to have three pans to clean.
John: Then I cracked an egg on it, and then I put on the spaghetti, too.
John: Two fresh cracked eggs and gunpowder.
John: It's good.
John: Get off of my claim.
John: You know, Hodgman loves to make toad in the hole.
John: Oh, yeah, like an egg in a plastic.
John: Yeah, any time you go to his house, at any time of the day or night, he'll say, toad in the hole?
John: You want to toad in the hole?
John: I'll make a toad in the hole.
Merlin: I love a toad in the hole.
Merlin: What do we call it?
Merlin: We call it...
Merlin: So eggy and a bready, some people call it.
Merlin: Yeah, eggy and a bready.
Merlin: I don't even remember what I call it now.
Merlin: I'll take a shot glass, I'll knock out the middle of the bread and toast it, and so much butter.
Merlin: How does he make it?
John: You know, I never, I was not, we didn't eat toads in holes where I came from.
John: Alaska doesn't really have toads, first of all.
John: I don't know what you would call it up there.
John: You'd call it a marmoset and a Chevy Vega, I guess, is what you'd call it.
John: He takes a piece of nice bread, he puts a cup on it, and he takes the center out, and just tons of butter, and he's using a cast iron pan because he likes those now, and cracks an egg in it, and then
John: Uh, I don't know whether I think he might even put some cheese on there.
John: Some people will cheese.
John: You can, uh, you can grate some cheese.
John: It's a, it's a really nice thing.
John: And you know, he likes to, he's somebody who likes to, to, to, to, who, who was it?
John: I was at somebody's house the other day.
John: Oh, I was at my friend Cal's house and I was going with another friend over there and I, and I wrote Cal in advance and I said, Hey, you know, my friend's a vegetarian right now or, you know, has some special food needs.
John: And, uh, and my other friend was like, Oh, don't do that.
John: I don't want to inconvenience them.
John: I don't want to know.
John: You shouldn't have told him that I'll just, I'll be fine.
John: I'll do whatever.
John: And I was like, listen, yes, that's true.
John: But also somebody like my friend Cal, he just wants to have an excuse to make something special for you.
John: Like don't this whole, like, I'm fine.
John: I'm fine.
John: Don't, don't inconvenience.
John: Anybody is actually depriving of,
John: Someone like Cal or someone like John Hodgman of that of that opportunity to be the great host that they want to be.
John: Yeah.
John: And I was absolutely right when we got over to Cal's house.
John: He was like, well, I got this, but I also made you this.
John: And here's this other thing, you know, just like just wanting so desperately to to, you know, to to like parent and and.
John: and and just like shelter other people some people some people it's an improv opportunity they like the creativity and the graciousness of being a host who figures out how to not just do it but do it in a in a fun way it's not it's not necessarily an inconvenience yeah right and that whole thing of like oh i'm a vegan or i'm a vegetarian or i don't eat olives or i don't like potatoes whatever your thing is you know whatever your normal thing is like just being a normal person who doesn't eat potatoes uh
John: I feel like there's this nice there's this really thin line between telling people about it in a way that's kind of shitty.
John: That's like entitled.
John: Right.
John: You know, like, oh, you're having a pizza party.
John: Yes, I'm coming, but I don't eat pizza.
John: Or this other thing where it's like, no, no, no, that's fine.
John: I don't need any special treatment.
John: And then you kind of just sit there.
John: and just like chew on a toothpick because nobody knew that you needed other food.
John: There's a thing right up the middle where you're just like, hi, this is what I'm doing right now.
John: I am fine either way.
John: I'm fine if you don't want to accommodate it.
John: I'm fine if you do.
Merlin: I've had a real change of heart over the years about this in a very general way, about all kinds of things as I become slightly more aware of how people are different and have their needs and aren't all privileged me.
Merlin: Um, you know, there's lots of things where, where like, you know, you don't want to, we used to think of these things as being inconvenient accommodations for weirdos.
John: Right.
Merlin: Special.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Or like, well, yeah, like, but just that you're weird.
Merlin: Like you're the, you're the one kid who can't have peanuts or something like that.
Merlin: And I feel for people in that position.
Merlin: I mean, it's like we say when you're designing a website, you know, accessibility is good for everybody.
Merlin: If you make something accessible to everybody, eventually everybody will need it, but it's also good because anybody can change the size of the type or do it on a JAWS reader if they have sight issues.
Merlin: But I saw one the other day, last time I had to travel, when I'm flying out of SFO, I always get this breakfast, kind of disgusting, but okay breakfast sandwich.
Merlin: And this poor woman right in front of me in line, she felt bad about it.
Merlin: She was like, yeah, my son has a peanut allergy.
Merlin: and and the person working there there was you know some language issues and she was like yeah so is there any peanut oil or is there peanut stuff here and they're like i don't know and she's like okay okay and she came back and she was like um can you find out that she felt like she was so inconveniencing this person like can you find out because you know i probably should get something else
Merlin: But this will literally kill my child.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: But like she's been she doesn't want to inconvenience anybody, but she's in a position.
Merlin: I don't know if it was the mom.
Merlin: I don't know if it was like an aunt who was watching the kid.
Merlin: But like she was she was struggling with that.
Merlin: And the folks who worked there couldn't or didn't want to go too far to like help her.
Merlin: They weren't going to go in back and like really find out.
Merlin: And the answer she knew in her heart, probably the answer probably was, yeah, whatever they say, act like there's peanuts in it.
Merlin: And I don't know.
Merlin: I mean, I don't want to sound like I'm virtue signaling here, but we shouldn't have to feel bad about that.
Merlin: You should not have to feel bad about saying to Cal, do not put a potato on my plate or I will send it back.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You're very clear with servers about this, John.
Merlin: You're very clear about this.
Merlin: I don't want it on the side.
Merlin: If you could prepare it in a non-potato kitchen, I'd be fine with that.
John: The thing is that a lot of most kitchens, but I mean, most restaurants just shovel potatoes onto plates.
John: It's like the number one.
John: It's just the first thing they do when they're plating something is like shovel one.
John: Basically, one half of this plate should always have potatoes on it because they're the cheapest garbage food that you can buy.
John: Never give it a second thought.
John: And we soak it in grease and we cover it with salt.
John: And then that will that people think that's food and they're paying money for what they what we are calling food here.
John: And I'm like, look, I don't want potatoes.
John: I don't want to see a potato.
John: I'm not being a problem.
John: I'll pay extra.
John: I will pay extra to not have a potato.
John: I just don't want it.
John: And they're always like, sure, no problem.
John: And they write it down.
John: And then about 25% of the time, the thing comes out and there's a plate of potatoes.
John: Yeah.
John: Because they just shovel it on there.
John: They're not thinking.
John: Now you've got to be that guy.
John: But the thing is, I'm never like, ahem, miss.
John: uh i didn't order potatoes or whatever i just that when they come back around yeah i say this happened the last time i had breakfast with you this happened and you handled it in a very sane way i was like can i have an extra plate and they're like sure and they bring an extra plate and i put the potatoes on it i think what you said was i said
Merlin: I don't want potatoes on this.
Merlin: Could you please take this back and bring me a plate that does not have potatoes on it?
John: Did I say that?
John: At a restaurant that you and I went to?
John: Maybe sometimes it's a situation where the potatoes are, if they're intrusive, you know, an intrusive potato.
John: Yeah, like an invasive exotic.
John: Yeah, exactly.
Merlin: Any kind of nightshades, yeah.
John: If you got your potatoes over here and your food over here, that's one thing.
John: But if you got, if it's like,
John: If it's like the food and the potatoes can't be extricated, then you got it.
John: I'm sorry.
John: Let's shoot the moon here.
John: Let's go one more time at this.
Merlin: I think we're all special and we shouldn't have to feel weird is my feeling.
Merlin: I feel like I'm really coming around to that.
Merlin: I may not express it in every single thing that I do, but I am really coming around to that.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: you know, just what you're really objecting to is some, if somebody makes a face about it, what they're really objecting to is that this person has the temerity to ask you to do something that isn't automatic.
John: Yeah, right.
John: Well, although I think you and I both have for a long time been conscious, and I think most of our listeners are conscious of the fact that
John: That should be the way the world is, but also don't abuse it.
John: Oh, right, right, right.
John: And I think we all encounter people that we feel like are abusing it, and that's a tough thing.
John: That's not a thing you want to systematize.
John: You don't want to do the thing that is so popular in our country now, which is systematize the assumption that people are going to abuse it rather than systematize the assumption that people are being honest about what they need.
John: And that's what it should be.
John: We should always assume that people are being honest about what they need and not presume that everybody is trying to work some scam on us.
Merlin: There's a podcast that you kind of unintentionally introduced me to that I listen to a lot now, and they had a running bit for a while coming.
Merlin: called subway hacks which is people coming up with all these different ways to like make the servers life hell so you get slightly more of something you consider valuable out of subway at subway at subway there's all this there's apparently like a whole culture well you know there's the whole culture of like how to get more stuff for free especially you know from businesses and restaurants and like oh you know on your birthday they have to give you a free cone oh right right right oh what was it there was there was one of those oh i got a ticket
John: I got a ticket from a remote camera.
John: Oh, really?
John: I was going 26 miles an hour in a 20 mile an hour zone on a big road on a like a four lane divided road.
John: And it was 20 miles an hour because it was a school zone.
John: And I know the neighborhood because my daughter goes to the very school.
John: Oh, no.
John: And I was going to pick her up at school.
John: And I was late enough that I was going 27 whole miles an hour.
John: I mean, I don't know the last time you were in a car, Merlin, but if you're going 27 miles an hour, it doesn't feel fast.
Merlin: I think I drive these days, but here's one thing I will tell you.
Merlin: Anytime in my life and up till now when my wife is doing the driving, when we see one of those cars, when we see one of those little signs that says, hey, did you know you're going this fast?
Merlin: We're never not speeding at one of those signs.
Merlin: I mean, it's a safe driving family, but I know exactly what you mean.
Merlin: 27 is a very... Try driving 27 miles an hour.
Merlin: It's slow.
John: It's really slow.
Merlin: I'm not trying to excuse what you did, but I'm just saying it's not like you were going 150 in a 60 zone.
Right.
John: I drove one time in the last couple of years from Sacramento, from the Sacramento airport up to...
John: up to a town in Northern California because I was retrieving my GMCRV.
John: It was up there.
John: Someone in the Black Book who lived in Red Bluff, California had repaired my GMCRV and I landed in Sacramento and I had actually my millennial girlfriend pick me up.
John: And as we were driving up, I said – because we had a weird relationship.
John: It was a weird relationship, let's be honest.
John: And I got into – she had rented a SUV.
John: And I actually got in the back seat.
John: And I said, I would like you to obey all posted signs.
John: And –
John: Like all speed limit signs, all posted traffic signs, I would like you to obey them to the letter.
John: Okay.
John: While I ride in the back and explain how roads work.
John: Hmm.
John: And it was exceedingly difficult.
John: Yeah.
John: Because it's like, well, this off, you know, this off ramp from the road is 30 miles an hour.
John: And even though we weren't going 80 because that because the posted speed limit was 65, which was hard enough.
John: But then, you know, you need to slow to 30 now because we have to be at 30 based on this sign and all that stuff.
John: Every little on the highway, like the speed limits go up and down.
John: Things are happening all the time.
John: And if you are not...
John: If you're not doing what we all do, which is just get up to speed and go where we're going, but if you're watching those signs and following them, driving feels insane.
Merlin: Oh, in Florida, it's the worst.
Merlin: I mean, in Florida, there's all these now people who go up and down 75, know where the speed traps are, where you, I don't know what the speed limit now is, like 65, but then there'll be this right outside of town, it suddenly drops to 40 and nobody catches that sign.
Mm-mm.
Merlin: Is there a point in the story where you're going to explain why this particular trip you wanted her to honor all laws?
Merlin: Were you a drug mule at the time?
John: Well, no.
John: See, you know, part of—and I don't think I've talked about this a lot on the program.
John: Maybe not at all.
John: But part—like an element of our relationship was founded in—and this was introduced by her—
John: Early on in the relationship, she's from San Francisco, right?
John: Which is a kind of, you know, San Francisco's a little bit of an edgy town.
John: It's a little bit of a dangerous kind of scene down there.
John: You guys are famously sort of edgy, right?
John: Castro and so forth.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: We're all walking around with our flick knives and dancing in rows.
Merlin: Yeah, that's right.
John: Everybody's got handcuffs for a belt, you know?
John: Once you're a jet.
John: From your first cigarette to your last dying day.
John: Don't fuck with the Wongs.
John: But so she introduced the idea into the relationship that she wanted us to be, how do you say?
John: She, let's just put it this way.
John: She perceived me to be a dominant male.
John: Okay.
John: If you will.
John: Ego assertive?
John: Uh, just in, in ways, I guess that within the, within the particular subculture, it's understood that you are, you know, you are a very long, you're just large and in charge, let's say.
John: And she was diminutive, but, but, but, you know, a powerhouse in her personality.
John: Strong personality.
John: She's not a... Not a shrinking violet, as my grandmother used to say.
John: Not a shrinking violet, but she had a very small shoe size, right?
John: I mean, she's like a small person, but a lawyer in her day, and she needed to be in charge during her work hours.
John: But then after work, she wanted to assume a more...
John: Oh, boy.
John: Submissive posture.
John: Is this going to be a Shades of Grey thing?
John: So this was all very new to me.
John: I was being introduced to a subculture.
John: And in a way, I felt, in some ways, I felt seen for the first time.
John: You know, like, oh, wow, I understand.
John: Like, within this subculture, I'm a certain type, right?
John: I'm a character that is like a fetish item, even.
John: Oh, wow.
John: If you can find a person like me that has all the qualities that I have.
John: Yeah, how exciting.
John: You're the total package.
John: So I was the total package.
John: And so as a component of this, I was always trying to invent some situations where this dynamic could be put into play.
John: I was like, oh, you know, because I'm not somebody that's like, oh, you know, like,
John: In a way, it isn't natural to me because I'm a Northwestern person.
John: My typical way of going about things is like, is everybody cool?
John: Is everybody cool?
John: Is it fine?
John: Because I'm cool.
John: If you're cool, I'm cool.
John: And this was much more like, here's how I want it.
John: That was the expectation, right?
John: That I would have strong feelings about how things went.
John: And I would want things to go my way.
John: And this is exciting within the subculture, right?
John: Like you want, here's this person who wants it to go his way.
John: And here's this other person who wants to, who wants to, who wants to serve to be guided, to be guided.
John: That's right.
John: Uh, and so this was an instance where I was like, I'm not going to drive, nor am I going to sit in the passenger seat.
John: I'm going to sit in the back and also obey all, all posted signs.
John: And, uh,
John: What was interesting is a lot of people don't, they don't think about driving, right?
John: They learn to drive at some point.
John: Someone sort of haphazardly taught them to drive.
John: And then they're off to the races.
John: And, you know, you see people like this all the time that are driving.
John: We used to talk about them constantly.
John: I was like, what are you thinking?
John: Don't do that.
John: And you realize they just never, no one thoughtfully explained how roads work.
Right.
John: And this was an instance where it had never, no one had ever explained to her and it had never occurred to her that when a highway turns, there is a constant radius, right?
John: Someone takes a protractor out and on a piece of paper draws a curve with the idea that
John: you set your steering wheel into the curve, and you should be able to just hold that turn.
John: It's not a set of six...
John: uh oblique angles it's a curve right yeah it's yeah exactly it's not a hexagon um and so we would we're driving and she would take these big wide sweeping curves and it would be like turn turn turn a little bit herky-jerky and i so eventually i was like oh i see you you need like a little bit of um
John: training, for lack of a better term.
John: I'm so uncomfortable right now.
John: A little bit of fatherly direction.
John: A little direction about how to go into a curve and to set a constant turn and then follow through on that, keeping your speed up.
John: You know, there's like all this kind of technique about it.
John: And it was sort of revelatory for her.
John: It never occurred to her that that was how
John: And I was like, imagine the focal point of this turn out there in the desert somewhere.
John: There is a point around which this turn goes.
John: And the point is 200 yards out into the scrub there.
John: And you just need to find that point in your mind.
John: And that's what we're turning around.
John: We're not just like they didn't build this corner to go around a cactus.
John: It's like we are making a we're making a big arcing turn and then it's going to come and it's going to turn the other way.
John: It was a really interesting night.
John: It really was.
John: We both learned a lot.
John: But it really was an eye opener to me because until I conceived of this adventure, sort of like on the fly.
John: I'd never driven a long stretch of road where I was obeying all the signs.
Merlin: I had no idea how many signs there were.
Merlin: That's a real exercise in mindfulness, honestly.
Merlin: You'd be amazed how much stuff you're just not paying attention to.
Merlin: We've all had that experience that you're driving for a while and then you forget that you're driving.
Merlin: But you've driven safely the whole time, presumably.
Merlin: But two minutes later, you're like, oh my gosh, what am I doing?
John: Yeah, how did I get here?
John: Yeah.
John: And especially if you are driving 65 miles an hour on a highway where everybody else is going 90.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: You need to be out of their way and not create a hazard.
John: But also, if you're coming up on a truck that's going 60 miles an hour and people are going 90 in the other lane, this is a math problem.
John: You don't want to get up too close to the truck before you go around it, but you don't want to merge out into the left lane and then some guy going 90 has to slam on his brakes.
John: There's a lot of timing that you have to think about if you're also going to be following the signs.
John: If you're not, if you're just like, all right, here we go around the truck.
John: And you can, I think, exceed the speed limit briefly if you're passing.
John: But yeah, it was a great experiment.
John: But the other day,
John: I got this ticket for going 27 in a 20.
John: And I was from a camera from a camera.
John: And I was mad about it because this is a thing we used to have to deal with in Europe all the time.
John: Speed cameras.
John: But that's not it's not American.
John: It's really just not the American way.
John: They raise a lot of money, these things.
John: I know.
John: But like in the USA, put a cop out there.
John: Come on.
John: It's part of the interaction that we have with our authority systems.
John: Cop pulls you over.
John: Cop pulls you over.
John: I was scared as hell.
John: I said, I don't have a license, but I drive very well, officer.
John: yeah girls of the world ain't nothing but trouble i almost had a heart attack that day is that a song you're doing sorry it is yeah it is no no i thought i just i didn't know the words i recognized it from the cadence good job uh anyway i get a ton of replies on social media because of course i socially mediated this experience yeah of people saying
John: Oh, you don't have to pay those.
John: All you have to do is claim someone else was driving the car or all you have to do is swear to an affidavit that you, you know, that you're a member of a religious community that doesn't obey posted speed limits or, you know, there were all these like life hacks.
Merlin: like you're there's like there's so many this is an interesting online culture there's a whole bunch of different vectors into just parking tickets where there's like there's been services that will go in and say like okay how did you know did you write this down did you did this six look like a p like there's all these kinds of like like technicality stuff down to like figuring out what days the cop is least likely to appear in court you know that kind of thing but it sounds like that that exists with the with speed cameras too
John: Oh, yeah, and a lot of people were saying the speed camera companies are contracted by the city and they have no actual enforcement ability.
John: And so if you don't pay the ticket, they're just like, it's basically like a collection agency.
John: Oh, interesting.
John: They might pester you, but they don't have to afford it.
John: Well, that's not medieval at all.
John: Jesus.
John: I know, right?
John: But a lot of people were very, very generously and also sort of...
John: in good spirit, offering me these solutions.
John: And it felt like part of this culture of like if you go into Subway and you say the magic six words, you get an extra piece of ham.
John: Well, if you learn your sandwich's true name, you can exploit its powers.
John: I went into a Subway years ago when I was kind of one of the first ones I went into.
John: And the guy behind the counter was like the manager, I guess.
John: And we were making we were making some noise, some jokes.
John: And he was joking with us.
John: And he said, listen, if you can tell me what BMT stands for, I'll give you the sandwich for free.
John: Biggest, meatiest, tastiest.
John: And I was like, BMT.
John: And we were all looking at each other.
John: And I was like, this is the kind of thing that I have to get right.
John: Yes.
John: I need to get this right.
John: You've been preparing your whole life for this.
John: And steam was coming out of my ears.
John: And he was just laughing.
John: And I couldn't do it.
John: And what it stands for is the Brooklyn Manhattan Tunnel.
John: Oh, stop.
John: Yeah.
John: Turn it out.
John: BMT Sandwiches, the Brooklyn Manhattan Tunnel.
John: Because the store is called Subway.
Oh.
Merlin: And in the very early days... So that was a retronym when they made it Biggest, Medias, Tastiest.
John: Yeah, because it was like, this can't be yogurt.
John: No fucking way is this yogurt.
John: Then they were like, no, it's this country's best yogurt.
John: Which is like, boo, it should still be this can't be yogurt because it's so good it can't be yogurt.
Merlin: They did that with Kentucky Fried Chicken became KFC and then they retconned it to it means kitchen fresh chicken.
Yeah.
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Merlin: Our thanks to Mack Weldon for supporting Roderick on the line and all.
Merlin: All the great shows.
John: What I felt like with this ticket was, listen, what you guys are saying is that I swear on an affidavit that I was not doing a thing that I was doing, which I will not do.
John: No, no, no, no, no.
John: I will ignore a ticket by a company that doesn't have authority over me, but I'm not going to lie.
John: Because I was going 27 in a 20.
John: And I don't believe in cheating on my taxes.
Merlin: So you would offer up procedural problems before you would try to contravene what had actually happened.
John: I would write a letter and say, this is ludicrous.
John: I was going 27 miles an hour and to rigidly enforce a 20 mile.
John: What I would say is if there was an officer posted there, he would not have pulled me over.
John: Because he would have been conserving his energy to pull someone over that was going 40 in a 20.
John: And that is the way of the world.
John: That is the way of our roads.
John: And you presume that if you're going less than 10 miles an hour over any speed limit, you're fine.
John: Because a cop isn't going to – it's not worth their while.
John: Unless you're also driving with a headlight out or in a lot of places in the United States if you are black or two black people in a car.
John: You will get pulled over for doing anything, apparently.
John: But in my case, 27 miles over, I would not see rollers in my rearview mirror because the police officer would say, there are bigger fish to fry.
John: But now you've got this speed camera, and you can ding everybody that's a mile over the speed limit.
John: Yeah, right.
Merlin: It's a Robocop-type situation.
John: And it is unjust.
John: It is an example of AI being used inappropriately by municipalities, and I protest that.
John: But I won't say I wasn't doing it.
John: And if you go into a subway and you say, hey, pal, like, I'm nice.
John: You're just a kid.
John: We're both here.
John: It's 2.30 in the morning.
John: My friend Merlin is ordering six sandwiches because he wants us to try every one.
John: We'll throw for the table.
John: You want to throw an extra meatball on there just because, you know.
John: Extra meat for a dollar.
John: Just because we're, like, cool cats.
John: I'll slip you a dollar.
John: You want a long winter CD?
John: I got one in the trunk.
John: I can do that.
John: I can make that happen.
John: But to be in there, like, hacking some system.
Merlin: I'll make you a moderator on the site.
Yeah.
John: You know, exactly.
John: But to roll up in there with a KFC bucket and say, I'm going to fill this with with with like Fanta because you guys don't have a policy against it.
John: Yeah.
John: I just feel like, you know, no, no.
John: Like hack every system you can, but don't, you know, don't be like dangling just because you can.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: No, that's a good point.
Merlin: A lot of people will be a dangling because they can.
John: Mm hmm.
John: Because nobody's watching or, you know, and it's like it's like how we it's like how our Congress is doing right now or how how the presidency has been diminished because it's like, oh, it turns out we never actually wrote down anywhere that the president president shouldn't have a stripper pole in the.
John: And so apparently it's why.
Merlin: I've never said anywhere that I have to act like an adult.
Merlin: I've had people read the documents.
Merlin: Very, very best people told me I do not have to act like an adult.
John: And the rest of us are looking around like, did we never write that down?
John: Should have written that down.
John: I guess that should have been something we thought to write down.
John: Didn't think to write it down.
John: So don't live like that.
John: Obey the spirit of the law.
John: So what did you do?
John: Did you pay the ticket?
John: yeah i paid the ticket because it ends up being you know it's just like i'm just one voice crying out among millions of souls all crying out at once yeah and being extinguished disturbance in the force yeah somewhere there's an obi-wan kenobi who had to sit down and and look off into space not for long but just for a minute you just need to sit down for a minute
Merlin: Just for a second.
Merlin: I'm exploring the world of secret menus, and it is bad fucking news.
Merlin: Give me some examples.
Merlin: Oh, God.
Merlin: Okay, so I'm on... This is hackthemenu.com.
Merlin: Hack the menu.
Merlin: Hack the menu.
Merlin: And this is just a lot of real... A lot of it's just real stupid stuff.
Merlin: like like i put two kinds of flavors in my mcflurry or whatever he put an apple pie in there some of these are just just horrible abortions here's the land sea and air i can wrap he i can wrap the land sea and air burger uh let's see it's uh so basically you order a big mac or mcdouble a fish and a mcchicken and then you put them all together into one sandwich that's a hack
Merlin: You have them do it?
Merlin: No, you do it at your table like a monster.
Merlin: Can you believe that?
Merlin: I wish.
Merlin: $8.49, all told.
Merlin: Here's when they call it the 1035, the Mc1035.
Merlin: Because 1035, you know, switching over breakfast.
Merlin: So this is you get an Egg McMuffin with extra McDouble burger patties, $3.49.
John: Okay, say that again.
Merlin: An Egg McMuffin.
Merlin: And then you add the patties from a McDouble to it.
John: I mean, that sounds pretty good if you ate it with a knife and fork.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I'm having trouble coming up with the subway hacks.
Merlin: I mean, one of the classics is the, um, the old style cut.
Merlin: You can go in and say, what's it called?
Merlin: You can go in or old cut.
Merlin: Cause remember they used, well, remember you used to get the little miniature loaf of bread and they would cut a divot out of the top and then sort of rough in all the parts and then put that little hat back on.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You can order that.
Merlin: Well, now they just, I think they just cut it and cut it in half.
Yeah.
John: Oh, they don't do the old cut.
Merlin: A Subway old cut was once the only way they cut their sandwiches.
Merlin: That was over 10 years ago.
Merlin: They stopped cutting their sandwiches.
Merlin: Wow, time flies.
Merlin: You may get lucky and find a Subway artisan who knows the secret menu trick and is willing to cut your sub the old cut way.
John: Oh, somebody that's been working there a long time.
John: Now I'm on the Arby's secret menu.
John: Yeah, you don't want to do that.
John: Apparently you can get an Arby's French dip Max.
Yeah.
John: which is a regular French dip sandwich with twice the meat and Swiss.
John: But most of these are just order two things, isn't it?
John: Well, I wonder how much French dip max...
John: It costs double the meat on a French dip.
John: It varies by location, it looks like.
John: That doesn't seem like a secret.
John: I've been doing that for 25 years.
John: I've been doing that for 35 years.
John: Can you give me extra meat for a dollar?
Merlin: Oh, I do this all the time.
Merlin: I think I don't need a website in order to know that you can take two sandwiches and make it into one super sandwich.
Merlin: I've been doing that for a while.
John: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: I've been doing this since you were in short pants, buddy.
Merlin: The meat mountain, that's a thing.
Merlin: The whole In-N-Out burger thing where you go in and order it animal style and all.
John: It's exhausting.
John: It's just, give it to me, animal, paleo.
John: No, what are the options?
Merlin: Yeah, the animal ones, I think it's onions and mustard, something like that.
Merlin: There's one where you get it with no bun.
Merlin: You just get it between two slices of lettuce.
Merlin: I've done that.
Merlin: I've done that when I was trying to be paleo.
Merlin: But you know what happened to that guy?
Merlin: He slipped on the ice.
Merlin: He hit his head and died.
Merlin: I don't want to die like that.
Merlin: What?
Merlin: The version of you that was doing paleo?
Merlin: I'm stealing your joke.
Merlin: When paleo was popular and everybody was doing paleo, and then the guy died, you go, what?
Merlin: That guy died.
Merlin: People will be like, yeah, well, he slipped on ice.
John: He's like, yeah, I don't want that to happen to me.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: You can't say that there's no connection.
Merlin: How do you know?
Merlin: Roderick!
Roderick!
Merlin: yeah i don't know man i just just life is so short you know i mean life is short in the one sense of like just get two sandwiches don't don't make a big wink just get two sandwiches and if you want to have a big sandwich by yourself in a fast food restaurant hakuna matata but like you really have to make life difficult for the people who work there you know do you have to be cute do you have to feel like you're in on something special you're part of some secret society at fucking in and out burger which is already not the best burger
John: Well, now this thing is called the McGangbang.
John: That is problematic.
John: It's one of McDonald's most famous secret menu items.
John: Let's see.
John: Um, well, now this is a problem here because as they're writing it, they did not say McDonald's with an apostrophe.
John: They went McDonald's apostrophe S, which is not it because it's McDonald's.
John: Oh, here it is.
Merlin: Okay.
John: Simply order a McDouble and a McChicken and then the McChicken sandwich is placed directly inside of the McDouble.
Merlin: Does this really need a website?
Oh,
John: Get two sandwiches and make them into one sandwich.
John: So for $2, according to this, you've created a huge tasty sandwich.
John: How tasty does that sound?
John: It sounds pretty tasty.
John: A McChicken inside of a McDouble.
John: Inside of a Turducken.
Merlin: It's a painful, god-forsaken Turducken.
Merlin: A protein-esque.
Merlin: You know who I bet is good at this?
Merlin: Let's look at Taco Bell.
Merlin: I bet Taco Bell is great at this.
Merlin: Well, they only have four menu items.
Merlin: Yeah, exactly.
Merlin: Exactly.
Merlin: It's unlimited.
Merlin: Oh, discontinued, discontinued, discontinued.
Merlin: You can ask for the incredible.
Merlin: Oh, this is awful.
Merlin: Double grilled quesadilla.
Merlin: No, I'm closing this.
Merlin: This is no good.
John: Well, they started doing that themselves, right?
John: Putting tacos inside of flour tortillas and then rolling it into a burrito.
Merlin: I feel like I remember one of their earlier experiments in this.
Merlin: I think they called it the double-decker, maybe?
Merlin: But it was a hard-shell taco inside of a tortilla with refried beans, and you wrap it around that like that's normal.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Oh, what a burger.
John: I mean, you have to be so stoned.
Merlin: Taco Bell drives me crazy because they don't have regular Mountain Dew.
Merlin: They got that blue Mountain Dew.
Merlin: Baja Blast.
Merlin: What is that now?
Merlin: Well, the only time I ever want a Mountain Dew in life is when I'm getting KFC.
Merlin: I always crave Mountain Dew with KFC.
Merlin: They pair nicely together.
Merlin: But our KFC, which, as you know, is a tiny little Taco Bell KFC.
Merlin: All they have is a Baja Blast Mountain Dew.
Merlin: Like, who's that for?
John: Oh, Baja Blast Mountain Dew, but they don't have real Mountain Dew.
John: They don't have regular yellow Mountain Dew.
John: You know, when I have a rider, I always say, it's not necessary that you put Mountain Dew on our rider, but if you do...
John: It should be green.
John: Don't put any red Mountain Dew.
John: Don't put any extreme Mountain Dew.
John: Don't put any, like, teen youth Bible Mountain Dew.
John: I just want green Mountain Dew.
John: Extreme teen Bible.
John: Extreme teen Bible Mountain Dew.
John: And people will reply sometimes and say, you mean lemon-lime Mountain Dew?
John: And I say, no.
John: What I want.
John: Green.
John: What I want is green.
John: And I don't, you know.
John: Hold it between your knees.
Merlin: Excuse me.
John: Excuse me, sir.
John: Hold it between your knees.
John: uh i i just want the i just want things to be the same i just want you know what i want i want larry bird and magic johnson oh yeah going head to head and that doesn't that doesn't make me an old that's just that's just what it should be it's vintage
Merlin: Yeah, my daughter's going through an interesting thing where she's trying some things out.
Merlin: Basically, you know, she's still kind of reluctant to try new-ish foods, but sometimes she'll just ask for something random to be different.
Merlin: Like, we had pizza the other night, and she wanted to get pizza with no cheese.
Merlin: Whoa.
Merlin: Yeah, so you get the pizza bread part, you get the red sauce, and you get the pepperoni, but no cheese.
John: And no cheese.
Merlin: Not my kind of thing, but she seemed to like it.
John: Yeah, think about that for a while.
John: Put your little deerstalker hat on that.
Merlin: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
John: i thought for a while i thought uh this was when i was in about sixth grade i thought you know what i'm gonna wear a deerstalker this is a terrific story that's gonna be my and what was what was the uh what was the burn yeah go uh what it would go investigate someone else was that it yeah it was something like i want to go solve your mystery sherlock holmes or something like that
John: And I slunk out of there feeling like, well, and that's the same one where I decided Jethro Tull was going to be my band.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah, that lasted about eight hours.
Merlin: Yeah, we're pretty much out of topics.
Merlin: I should tell our listeners, sometimes I make a playlist for the show.
Merlin: I don't make any money off of this, but if you go to merlinm.com slash merlinsplaylists,
Merlin: isn't there a way for you to make money off of this no i don't want to make money i just want to make people happy but if you go on spotify and search you'll find uh we've got some rodrick on the line playlists up there that you can listen to you got the made a cocaine list uh you've got uh i forgot what was last week's called oh american car it's changed a lot over the years because one of your early uh life hacks was uh you were one of the first people that got
John: uh that would recommend cameras and then if people went and bought the camera from your link you would get a dollar right isn't that a thing that you were like a pioneer of absolutely i was a pioneer of that yeah and uh and now you don't even want to make a dollar off of this playlist this great playlist extra playlist for a dollar you know what i'll break my rule and i'll put this in show notes it's just uh just a list of links to spotify playlists but it's fun to do it's fun to make it is i i realize that i keep doing that like in the middle of the night
John: um in the middle of the night i worry it's blurry even without light i know this um oh wait uh not a surf yeah that's right good uh i i i sometimes post youtube videos but then i realized like
John: Like I posted this video the other night of Frida from ABBA doing her 80s hit.
John: There's something going on.
John: Phil Collins produced.
John: Something going on.
John: And then I realized, wait a minute, I've posted that before.
John: And that's a thing that you should only post once.
Merlin: I struggle.
Merlin: There's some things I post a lot.
Merlin: There's some things I'll definitely post more than once.
Merlin: like uh like songs or other things uh youtube videos in particular i think the video of um the who doing a quick one at the rolling stones rock and roll circus that should be posted every six months people should watch that a lot um almost any version uh then i'm telling you i'm not leaving by by any of the great performers of that song should be posted and appreciated you think you work hard for a living you think you work hard try being try being uh jennifer hudson that's all i'm saying
Merlin: You say that all the time.
Merlin: I do.
Merlin: I say that all the time.
Merlin: I'm always saying that.
Merlin: Other ones.
Merlin: Oh, you know, Sunday Candy by Donnie Trumpet, that Chance the Rapper song, Sunday Candy?
Merlin: Do you know that song, Sunday Candy?
Merlin: I do, yeah.
Merlin: It's a really good song.
Merlin: And the video is a delight.
Merlin: I love the video for that.
Merlin: My family makes fun of me and rolls their eyes because I watch it so much.
Merlin: But I just love that it's presented as like a little play, like a little musical.
Merlin: I love it.
Merlin: How do you feel about the Drake Hotline Bling video?
Merlin: Oh, is that where he's doing the dance?
Merlin: That's the dance.
Merlin: I think I only know it from parodies.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I've got a list here somewhere.
Merlin: I should do more of these, too.
Merlin: I should do lots of things.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You and me both.
Merlin: Where's my playlist?
Merlin: Show more.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: I got one called Watch Often.
Merlin: Oh, David Letterman's first episode.
Merlin: Lake Street Dive, Didn't Call Off Your Dogs.
Merlin: Oh, and you have to do Don Rickles on The Carson Show.
Merlin: Oh, I'll just disappear into that.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: Oh, I got him and Rodney Dangerfield.
Merlin: I will just disappear into those for like a whole night.
Merlin: Oh, and Bebop Deluxe's live performance of Made in Heaven from 1975.
John: I was watching Don Rickles on The Tonight Show the other night, and it's early.
John: It's like 72.
John: And Don is on there to congratulate Carson on his 12th year in the show business.
John: Or his 12th year on The Tonight Show.
John: Right.
John: Right.
John: And, you know, it's the classic version of both of these guys.
John: That's just exactly how they look in my mind.
John: Yeah, when Johnny was like graying and wearing like the plaid suits.
John: But they were still smoking.
John: Oh, absolutely.
John: Yeah.
John: And at one point, Rickles says, well, I mean, you know, like we're about the same age.
John: I'm 46.
John: And Carson's like, I'm 47.
John: And he's like, yeah, 46, 47.
John: What?
John: And I'm like...
John: Oh, no, no, no.
Merlin: Melania Trump is younger than I am.
Merlin: Is that right?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I had one.
Merlin: I told you the one I'm younger than or I'm older than a Supreme Court justice.
Merlin: That hurts.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: What was the one?
Merlin: Oh, is Carol O'Connor was like four years younger than me when he started all in the family?
Merlin: He was in his 40s.
Merlin: He's in his like mid to late 40s.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: People used to look.
Merlin: Did people used to look older?
Merlin: I mean, look, I know my mom's yearbook, 1954.
Merlin: Everybody looks like they're in their 50s.
Merlin: We talked about this.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: Forget it.
Merlin: We're out of topics.
Merlin: We talked about this.
John: No, we're not out of topics.
Merlin: Your mom talked about this.
Merlin: She didn't want to listen to the Beatles.
Merlin: She was listening to different kinds of music.
Merlin: Oh, that's right.
John: You've talked about that on two different shows.
John: And now I'm talking about it.
John: I collect old yearbooks, as you do.
John: And it's absolutely true.
John: If you pick up a yearbook from 1925...
John: A high school yearbook.
John: All those people look like, I mean, basically like the insurance agent I've been going to for 30 years.
John: I mean, they all they all look 60.
John: And it's not just haircuts.
John: It's not just their clothes.
John: It really is their faces.
John: And I don't know whether it's because they started like.
John: They started butchering chickens when they were 10 years old, and they've seen a lot of death.
John: Sun damage, secondhand smoke.
John: But also, it's their physiognomies, or their physiognomies.
Merlin: Physiognomies, yeah.
Merlin: Really, I'm going to say up until even the late 60s.
Merlin: Up until even in the early 60s, people looked old.
John: And it might be like intermixing.
John: of even you know even if you are uh like a race where if you feel like my parents and my grandparents never miscegenated they didn't marry or have children outside of their race but even if that's true just the people that were by the 60s communities had become more diasporan
John: And you were marrying somebody, if you were English and married someone from Scotland, that would have been...
John: unusual or rare to have happened until America in the 20th century.
Merlin: I'm sure it happened, but I bet it didn't happen nearly as much as it did after the 20th century.
John: Right.
John: And even if you moved to the United States, you were still within a community of people from Scott.
John: You were with other Scottish people in West Virginia.
John: Right.
John: And that little bit of intermixing that happened in the 20th century was enough genetic
John: diversification that suddenly we looked younger and plumper and we were taller and it was just like finally our genes had somewhere to go and express themselves where they weren't constantly like recapitulating one another that's my theory
Merlin: Yeah, I don't know.
Merlin: Yeah, I don't know.
Merlin: I feel like I feel like white people look old faster.
Merlin: I'm trying to avoid being problematic here.
Merlin: But like, you know, there's a lot of like Asian and African American ladies where it's kind of hard to tell how old they are.
John: they just look good black don't crack is what they used to is that what they say yeah black don't crack which which is you know which was was their uh way of of explaining why there were so many like 80 year old black guys that just looked young and totally great you think it's a melanin issue yeah probably probably just it's just a thing where yeah the pinker your skin the more vulnerable it is to attack
John: from everything, particularly if you're sitting around smoking and eating Cheetos.
John: The smoking, I bet, takes a lot.
Merlin: I bet that does a lot of the aging.
Merlin: When did people start really smoking?
Merlin: Probably beginning of the 20th century.
John: Like cigarettes, like cigarettes, cigarettes.
John: Yeah.
John: But I think people were smoking chair roots and cigars as early as well.
John: That's part of what part of the southern economy was exporting tobacco to the United Kingdom throughout the 19th century.
John: And all those little clay pipes and stuff that you find in in archaeological digs.
John: So people were smoking that stuff even in the 18th century, I think.
John: But it was cigarettes.
John: It was rolled cigarettes that really blew it up.
Merlin: I'm looking at pictures of the president.
Merlin: You know, I never think much about Zachary Taylor.
Merlin: He just doesn't come up.
Merlin: He's from that weird period.
Merlin: Listen to this run.
Merlin: Oh my God, what a run.
Merlin: You got William Henry Harrison.
Merlin: I think he's the guy who died after one month in office.
Merlin: John Tyler, James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan.
Merlin: It's a it's a it's a rogues gallery.
Merlin: You just don't think a lot of they don't come up very much, do they?
Merlin: I mean, maybe in historical circles, but I feel like they just don't come up very much.
Merlin: Well, it's in that whole like 11th, 12th, 13th.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Andrew Jackson is seven.
Merlin: You got Martin Van Buren, who was very cool looking.
Merlin: And then from 1841 to 1861 for 20 years, I just I don't I don't know much about any of these presidents at all.
John: Well, it's like a very curious time in American history, right?
John: You're talking about – Like the age of expansion?
John: Age of expansion, but also this was – I mean pre-Civil War, this was an era when the whole dynamic of the United States was –
John: Here we have the northern states that are, for the most part, abolitionist against slavery, certainly against the expansion of slavery.
John: And then you have the southern states, which have— It wasn't like it just came up in 1860.
John: No, no, no, no.
John: This was what they were fighting about, basically, from the founding of the Union.
John: And then the southern states, which had this very patrician—
John: And they were very prominent in the Congress.
John: So the Congress tended to be like where the pro-slavery side was really standing athwart any attempt to abolish it.
John: And so all the expansion that was happening was happening within this context of like, well, this territory wants to become a state.
John: And they're down in the southern part, so we're going to call them a slave state.
John: And then it was like, well, then we have to admit
John: a new state in the north part yeah like it was so all those guys like missouri that's right they were all compromised and then they were also compromised by mexico and texas and that whole business and you know and then that is where california came in and then 1849 they discovered gold right up there where you are suttersville i'm starting to sound like my dad now right up there your friends up there in suttersville
John: Well, they found gold just right up there.
Merlin: Gold country, they call it.
John: Right there next to you, your friends.
Merlin: You know how kids love having things explained to them?
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: They love that.
Merlin: They just crave it.
Merlin: They crave it.
Merlin: My favorites are the things where I try to explain something that seems really simple, and then about two sentences into it, I realize how biased, prejudiced, or potentially problematic my explanation is.
Merlin: And it started off as simple as saying, why are there fans in the seasonal aisle at our Walgreens?
Merlin: Why are there fans in the seasonal aisle?
Merlin: Well, first of all, as you know, I've always referred to Walgreens as the store that almost has everything you need.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: They don't have almost everything you need.
Merlin: They almost have everything you need.
Merlin: They don't have what you need.
Merlin: They have something that's almost like what you need.
Merlin: And as you know, we have a very small footprint, Walgreens.
Merlin: Yes, you do.
Merlin: Just follow me on this.
Merlin: And so we're just walking around.
Merlin: We're going to get the train, and you have conversations, as you do.
Merlin: And I found myself saying, like, well, we're talking about, what were we talking about?
Merlin: The outsized influence of non-coastal states and cities, right?
Merlin: You could look at this in the electoral college, right?
Merlin: You think about the way that, you know, there's an outsized influence that some areas have that's not in keeping with their cultural or populational values.
Merlin: contribution sure i'm trying to be not a jerk here sure i understand but i found myself we're talking about i found myself talking about like like you know um like how there's no parking at our walgreens you have to go find street parking whereas i was telling her that when i was growing up in my teen years in florida i don't think i was ever in a parking lot that was full
Merlin: Whether that was the mall or later on a Walmart.
Merlin: I don't think I ever saw many full parking lots in my life until I moved out of Florida.
Merlin: And we're just talking about the difference in real estate and availability.
Merlin: But anyway, it got down to this thing where I was saying, well, you know, you think about the way our Walgreens is laid out or the way our Safeway is laid out.
Merlin: It's like...
Merlin: The thing is, they are stocking our Walgreens as though it might as well be in Missouri or North Dakota.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: I mean, they're working at a certain kind of scale that does not accommodate the weirdness of the climate of San Francisco.
Merlin: So it is just kind of funny that in the 20s, 19 years that I've been here, it is funny to me that every summer you go to the seasonal aisle, you know, you've gotten past Valentine's Day, you've gotten past Easter, and now it's just fun and sun on the beach.
Merlin: So it's 48 degrees outside, and it's all suntan lotion and umbrellas and fans.
Merlin: And nobody just laughs at that and thinks it's funny.
Merlin: But that's what's wrong with the Electoral College in some ways.
Merlin: I mean, you know, let's be honest.
Merlin: They're stalking fans.
Merlin: for states that don't need fans.
Merlin: Everybody else needs those.
Merlin: So, of course, why wouldn't we just stick them in the aisle?
Merlin: And I'll even account for the fact, oh, maybe you're going to go travel somewhere where there is sun.
Merlin: But at least on this tip of the particular peninsular penis that we call the San Francisco Bay Area, it's fucking cold in the summertime.
Merlin: You would be better to have sweatshirts in that aisle than fans.
John: You don't need a fan.
John: And we had this problem with Walgreens up here.
John: They were building a new Walgreens here in Seattle.
John: And they said, we have a style of architecture.
John: We like to call the Walgreens architecture.
John: And Seattle was like, tell us more.
John: And they said, well, here's what a Walgreens looks like.
John: And Seattle said, well, that's an abomination.
John: We don't want your Walgreens to look like that.
John: And Walgreens said, well, we own the land and we're going to build a Walgreens in the style of Walgreens.
John: You don't tell Denny's not to build a Denny's.
John: Yeah.
John: And Seattle said, well, in fact, we did tell Denny's not to build a Denny's.
John: And Denny's built their Denny's in the style that we told them.
Merlin: There's all kinds of places where McDonald's has to go with sign ordinances and put their arches on a pretty wooden sign that's no taller than six feet.
John: Right.
John: And so we said to Walgreens, you cannot build a Walgreens on that corner, which is in the center of town, which we are trying to perform this density magic on.
John: And the citizens rose up and there were all these meetings and, you know, it's typical sort of Seattle thing.
John: But Walgreens ended up building a five story tall apartment building over their Walgreens.
John: Right.
John: And I'm sure there's somebody in the corporate office at Walgreens that still, to this day, wakes up in the middle of the night shuddering that they didn't get to build their Walgreens.
John: That's super.
John: I'm looking at this.
Merlin: Is it kind of like, I don't want to say Chicago style, but kind of old school, like whitish, big corner blocky things, reddish toward the middle?
Merlin: Yep.
Merlin: Oh, look at that.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, that's super interesting.
John: Yeah.
John: Walgreens was really opposed to it.
John: And in that spot, they wanted to just build their one story tall,
John: like stupid looking warehouse building and uh and seattle like stood up to him i'll be damned yeah that looks cool it's kind of old school yeah it's better it's better than what what what it could have been yeah you know i always think about that period of u.s presidents where
John: And I think of them as the facial hair years.
John: Yeah, that's after.
John: That's like starting with Lincoln, kind of, right?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Well, Lincoln was the first one with a beard.
Merlin: But you're getting into the Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, Harrison, Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, all the way up to McKinley.
Merlin: They all had facial hair.
John: Well, and then... They all look like a box of cough drops.
John: Then they kept going.
John: It was all the way to Taft, because they were the mustache years, right?
John: Roosevelt and Taft.
John: had the stashes and i just keep i keep hoping that one day we'll have another mustache i think we should have some women for a while please but then eventually we should have a guy with a mustache and i don't know how to get back to that you know in the 70s there was a governor of the state of alaska named jay hammond and he had a big beard he looked like grizzly adams
John: And he was like the governor of the state who wore flannel shirts and he was soft spoken, mellow, groovy guy.
John: He was a Republican, but like he was very much in keeping with Alaska.
John: And if you ask Alaskans now to rate all the governors.
John: Jay Hammond always is the favorite governor, even though he presided over a period of Alaska where basically his governorship was like, yeah, sure.
John: Like he was the yeah, sure, governor, but not, you know, it wasn't like, yeah, sure, you can have a Ku Klux Klan up here.
John: But it was basically like, yeah, if you if you want to start up a bulldozer and drive it that way.
John: And, you know, and like put the blade down and just keep going that direction until you've made a road.
John: Sure, that's fine.
John: What years are you talking about here?
John: Mid-70s.
John: Okay.
John: Jay Hammond.
John: Put that in.
John: You'll see he's a very handsome man and in a style that you just don't see anymore in public life.
John: Oh, look at him.
Merlin: He's hardy.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: He looks like a character actor.
John: Yeah, for sure.
John: I feel like Jay Hammond was what all Alaska governors should look like.
John: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: Um, and you just, there aren't governors like that anymore where it's just like, are, are sure, whatever, you know, if we're going to see a mustache president in our time, uh, it's hard to say, obviously you're hitting a moving target here, but what would you look for in terms of the mustache and the man?
Merlin: Like, what would you, what would you, what do you think would, what do you think would make it?
John: I don't want an over trimmed beard or mustache.
John: It needs to be like it needs to be full.
John: I don't want one of those Dave Navarro beards where he's like drawing it in with a Sharpie.
John: But the mustache can't be sleazy.
John: It's got to be, you know, it's got to be like it's got to have authority.
John: I try this all the time with my mustache.
John: Where do you draw the line?
John: You don't want it in your food, but you also want it to communicate that you can read a map.
Merlin: Oh yeah.
Merlin: I went through this in my recent beard adventure where it was the longest I'd gone with, you know, not shaving with getting a beard.
Merlin: And I had an honest to God beard, but, uh, the mustache is always the hard part.
Merlin: And like, you really got to trim it or it kind of gets into your mouth and you get a tie cob kind of thing going on.
Merlin: But you also want it to, that's the part that's like slowest to thicken up in some ways.
Merlin: Unless you're, you know, some people, some people have a face for that, but, uh, I found it very challenging.
Yeah.
John: Yeah, you got your lonely sandwiches that can grow a beard in an afternoon.
John: Right, Dan Benjamin, same way.
John: Dan Benjamin, you know, he's growing a beard right now.
Merlin: It's tricky, though, because you think about, like, you take something like even a John Waters, like, that might be a little bit too trim.
Merlin: Like, you know what I mean?
Merlin: Like, you know what I'm saying?
John: But Clark Gable somehow pulled that off for decades.
John: Yeah, that's true.
John: But, I mean, he was a little bit, you know, a little touch and go.
John: A little bit of feat, though, like for a president today.
John: No, you couldn't get away with that.
John: I bet you could get a full but trimmed mustache and beard.
John: I bet that would fly.
John: I think the millenniums have embraced the beard so strong that by the time we have a millennium president, the only problem is they'll have a Macklemore haircut, but they'll have a nice, glorious beard and we'll be back to trusting beards again.
Merlin: That's true.
John: I mean, that's my goal.
John: I don't I think I realize that I'm not going to be president because I don't like to run for office.
John: And I think liking running for office is a key component of ending up being the president.
John: Probably.
John: But it's very wise, very wise about that.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Now, you know, I consult the tea leaves and they continue to say, do not think about it.
John: Because there's a lot of hullabaloo now about the city council up here being out of touch and people are edging up to me at parties and elbowing me in the ribs like, hey, what do you think?
John: And I'm like, leave me out of it.
John: I don't even want to know about it.
Merlin: You got to start canoodling with those jackals at the stranger again.
Merlin: Get them on your side.
John: No, no, no.
John: It's too late for that.
John: But I do feel like still, and particularly with the Trump administration, I feel like I'm in the running for director of CIA.
John: Yeah.
John: Oh, you could be up there.
John: You never waterboarding anybody as far as we know.
John: Well, and how many, you have to go, I mean, he's gone through a lot of people.
John: Like I've got to be on the list somewhere.
John: Oh, for shizzle.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: I get closer and closer all the time.
John: Yeah.
John: And I'd be, oh, I'd be so good at that job and I'd bring a beard to it.
John: Yeah.
John: You'd be a good administrator.
John: You'd be a good listener, I bet.
John: I feel like, I feel like that.
John: I would respect the institutional culture of the place while also implementing some reforms.
Hmm.
John: What kind of forms do you think you bring?
John: Well, you know, I feel like CIA has gone afield of its real purpose.
John: I mean, you know, of its initial premise.
John: Of its, like, spook roots.
John: Yeah, it needs to get spookier.
John: But, you know, less like dependent on technology and more boots on the ground.
John: You know, I'd like to see a lot more agents out in the field, you know, learning other languages, writing in invisible ink.
John: Oh, God, I would love that.
John: You know, I feel like there should be pigeon drops and blind drops.
John: Yeah, blind drops.
John: You want cars that emit smoke screens.
John: Oh, God, yes.
John: License plates that flip around.
John: I don't think you need a lot of satellites.
John: I don't think you need... Like a screen that comes up in the back so people can't shoot your back windshield out?
John: Yeah, where the bullets ricochet.
John: There needs to be more ricocheting bullets.
John: What about an injector seat?
John: There ought to be an ejector seat.
John: There ought to be machine guns behind the headlights.
John: Oh, God.
John: But I think, you know... I think you've really got a platform already.
John: If you put people out in the field, that's what I'm saying.
John: More operatives and less of this, you know, less like listening into phone calls and trying to, you know...
John: All this kind of business.
John: And I believe every once in a while we should buy a Lamborghini for a Saudi prince in order to get a phone number.
John: Sure.
John: You've got to break some eggs.
John: Yeah, exactly.
John: Yeah.
John: Exactly.
John: I think there should be people riding around on scooters in Bangalore.
John: Interesting.
Merlin: So it's sort of along the lines of like some places have been trying to move to more community policing and beat cops.
Merlin: You're saying except instead it's secret agents overseas.
Yeah.
John: Precisely.
John: And the thing is, you don't need waterboarding.
John: It doesn't work.
John: It's not effective.
John: What you need are informants.
John: You need your huggy bears.
Merlin: That's true.
John: Right?
John: You need people that you talk to all the time and you're like, hey.
John: And every once in a while, sure, somebody's going to get their fingernails pulled out with pliers.
John: Well, it's just the cost of doing business.
John: Sure.
John: And that's not a thing where you're trying to get information.
John: That's just more of like, hey, you know what?
John: I guess they're sharp.
John: Yeah.
John: You did the wrong thing and we got to take your fingernails like it's a you know, it's cost of doing business.
John: Yeah.
John: But I mean, I think everything every we should have we should have 600 people out there that have four or five passports in a in a safe deposit box somewhere.
John: Um, and that's not, you know, that's not even counting like Smiley and those guys who just walk around in trench coats and think hard about stuff.
John: Oh, like a think tank kind of thing.
John: That's what we need.
John: We need thinkers.
John: We need people thinking about it.
John: We need Roy Scheider.
John: Could they be smoking a pipe?
John: They ought to be some of them.
John: Some of them, you know, you get a Roy Scheider type that has to, that has to wear a tighter collar, but, um, you know, like, and we should be recruiting, we should be recruiting booksellers
John: who make frequent trips to Russia.
John: It just feels like normal stuff.
Merlin: They're just sleeping on the job with all this stuff.
Merlin: Leaving it for the future.
Merlin: Now, what about the Millenniums?
Merlin: What do you think they'll do for the CIA?
John: Well, the problem is they're just going to computer.
John: They're just computer computers.
John: Oh, I get it.
John: They're going to get snap goggles or something like that.
John: Yeah, snap goggles.
John: They're going to be Snapchatting, and that's not where it is.
John: That's not where it's happening.
John: Boots on the ground.
John: I thought about this the other day.
John: We forget...
John: that all the things that we used to think were inevitable, a lot of them weren't.
John: You know, we thought we were all going to die in a nuclear holocaust, that it wasn't conceivable that we wouldn't, just given the temperature of the world.
John: Something had to go wrong.
John: It had to happen, but it didn't.
John: And we thought there were going to be flying cars and all these things that we thought were inevitable, and they ended up not being inevitable.
John: And so when I look at my kid...
John: And you spend a lot of time thinking like, well, it's inevitable that they're going to be living in this world of augmented reality.
John: And they're just going to be completely tied to the Internet.
John: And it's there's going to it's just going to be they're going to be these these weird robotic people that that just sit and have like Internet sex while wearing a PVC bodysuit.
John: And they think they're going to be flying over.
John: Future sex cyborg.
John: Yeah, right.
John: That's you just feel like, oh, that's just where it's going.
John: Why do I even bother?
John: Keep my kid away from YouTube videos.
John: You might as well learn about, you know, shisa porn now.
John: But in fact, it's not inevitable.
John: And I and I talk to young people all the time who are just like, oh, it just sucks.
John: I do.
John: I do.
John: I'm out in the world.
John: I'm in the rock business.
John: Young people come to me for counsel.
John: Yes.
John: Yes.
John: They're like, you know, does this does this look infected?
John: Like I hear from them a lot.
John: Right.
John: Right.
John: Right.
John: And and it feels like, wait a minute, there's nothing inevitable about it.
John: We might just all suddenly turn against the Internet and just say this isn't working.
John: There's another way to do this where we get the good parts and we don't have to be mired in this shit show.
John: I believe it.
John: You know, I believe it.
John: I believe it's possible.
John: We're not.
John: It doesn't have to be that we're all on Facebook or whatever the future.
Merlin: I mean, it could be all of these things.
Merlin: I think the one thing that I very much believe in is that people my age and older are going to continue to die and continue to stop having undue influence.
Merlin: I hope so.
Merlin: It's just it's the worst.
Merlin: I mean, that's the problem is us.
Merlin: The problem is, I mean, I'm going to say specifically my age, but yeah, let's say people over 40 are the problem.
John: You know, I don't think so.
John: I disagree with you there.
John: Do you?
John: I mean, not including your mom.
John: I mean, I think definitely the baby boomers had a lot of bad influence.
John: And I think part of the millennial part of what I what what makes them kind of problematic for me is that they adopted a lot of the patterns of their parents who were baby boomers who were not necessarily generation Xers.
John: But no, I feel like people in their 40s, 50s and 60s have a lot to offer the world in terms of
John: experience and we're not i mean i do not believe that high school kids should be spearheading the movement for gun control i think it's lovely that they do but really we should be doing that yeah yeah we have failed it and i don't i don't trust any 46 year old who says thank god these we should turn the reins over to these 17 year olds
John: Because 17 year olds don't have any judgment and they don't have any experience.
John: They should not be running the world at all.
John: Absolutely not.
John: And neither should 25 year olds.
Merlin: I just feel like, you know, maybe I just probably watch too much cable news.
Merlin: I remarked the other night that everybody who's out to defend our president right now looks like either an apple core or a moist human thumb.
Merlin: I think we just need to get that cohort of people, the cores and the thumbs.
Merlin: Like when they die off, there's always going to be cores and thumbs.
Merlin: God bless them.
Merlin: People are going to live forever.
Merlin: That's going to be fine.
Merlin: But it's just these dug in people from two generations ago that like feel like such a karma suck to any good change.
John: Well, they are.
John: But the problem is Paul Ryan.
John: Look at Paul Ryan.
John: He's all hailing healthy and he's the worst.
John: He's the worst.
John: And the thing is that cores and thumbs are.
John: Until just the last 10 years had no they were there was no visibility.
John: They have always been those people, but there wasn't an Internet.
John: So they weren't on Facebook.
John: You never saw them.
John: And they didn't feel politically empowered.
John: They just sat in their little hovels and they were like, God damn.
John: But now everybody's got an equal voice.
John: And, you know, I'm a guess and a little bit of at least politically an oligarchist.
John: I don't think that those those dum-dums should have equal voice to somebody that has a degree in political science.
John: And the idea that we have in America where we were experiencing or we're experimenting with democracy for decades.
John: for for 200 years and then you arrive at a place where okay well this is what how you know this health this is what democracy looks like and it's like yeah actually take a closer look at that is that what you want
John: um or or do there need to be i guess what we used to have which was checks and balances oh i remember that you know if you have democracy where everybody is on the internet and they're like well you know what i think the earth is flat and it's like are we really talking about this yeah so no i think about that i think that you that there's a reason that people in their 40s and 50s are running things and it's because
John: If you're 24 and somebody says, oh, college should be free, you've never thought about why that might be hard to implement.
John: Not impossible, but it's also not a thing that you elect a president about.
John: You've got to move some furniture around if you're going to do something like that.
John: You do, and you can be against banks.
John: I'm against banks.
John: But have you ever thought about what happens if you take banks away?
John: You don't just take banks away.
John: It's got to be a cryptocurrency.
John: Banks do things.
John: And you might hate them.
John: The worst of them are the worst.
John: But, like, banks are – they do a job.
John: And, I mean, like, look, I'm against private property as much as the next progressive.
John: Oh, boy.
John: anyway anyway so yeah i i think um i think that maybe we're not all gonna be you know merlin i've been on 4chan oh john i thought we talked about this buddy we did i know it's really bad it's so much worse than it was even well if you spend half the time that you would have spent on 8chan with 4chan you're probably in good shape and i you know i don't even get me started on the dark web
John: I promise I will.