Ep. 293: “Force Majeure”
John: Hello.
John: Hi, John.
John: Hi, Merlin.
John: How's it going?
John: Good.
John: It's early.
John: What song is that?
John: I was just riffing.
John: I mean, every song sounds a little bit like Terrence Trent Darby.
Merlin: Once you learn enough songs, you pretty much know all the songs.
Merlin: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
Merlin: Well, and he, you know, he wrote the songs.
Merlin: Bushing Well, Kiss and Tell.
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: You have some coffee?
John: Yeah, just having a little bit of the Joe.
Merlin: A little Joe, a little bit of hot stuff.
John: Yeah, a little bit of that.
John: Morning time elixir.
John: What's going on down there?
John: You've got lots going on.
John: That's how my dad makes.
John: I don't know.
Merlin: It's a strange time.
Merlin: It's a very strange time.
Merlin: I'm very emotional right now.
Merlin: I'm having a very emotional time.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: No, the thing is, like, I'm in a weird way today.
Merlin: I didn't sleep very well last night, and yet I felt pretty good.
Merlin: I feel pretty good today.
Merlin: But, you know, there's stuff going on that's kind of emotionally trying.
Merlin: Yeah?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And that's actually, it's kind of getting to me a little bit.
Merlin: But no, I'm going to rally for this.
Merlin: I was just listening to a Los Lobos song that always makes me happy on repeat.
Merlin: So that's getting me along.
John: That's good.
John: I didn't realize that Los Lobos played a role in your happiness suite.
Merlin: Well, here's how it works.
Merlin: On the one hand, I have a YouTube list I really need to update more often of the things I want to make sure I watch at least once a month.
Merlin: And then what I really need to do, I need to create a list.
Merlin: I mean, I'm not clinical, but the cage thing is starting to weigh on me a little bit.
Merlin: It's starting to really bug me.
Merlin: All the other stuff hasn't really bugged me, but this one really bugs me.
Merlin: This is getting to you.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: It's getting to me a little bit.
Merlin: It's a little bit emotionally trying.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: So, yeah, listen to that song, Saint Behind the Glass.
Merlin: I don't know if you're familiar with that song, but it's really cool.
Merlin: I don't know it.
Merlin: You should listen to it.
Merlin: Go search for, I just tweeted it a minute ago, but yeah, Saint Behind the Glass.
Merlin: It's got a harp.
Merlin: It's really beautiful.
Merlin: And it's got nice little minor chord changes.
Merlin: So that helps.
Merlin: What is on my YouTube list?
Merlin: I know I've got The Who doing a quick one at the Rock and Roll Circus.
Merlin: I really try to watch that at least once a month.
Merlin: Yeah, where they just take everybody else to rock school.
Merlin: They just blow everybody.
Merlin: So the story, we've talked about this probably, but the story goes that they've been recording all night.
Merlin: It was kind of a mess from a logistics standpoint, but they came on.
Merlin: All the other bands, including the Stones, had been kind of off the road, whereas the Who had been touring heavily.
Merlin: And they showed up at like 5 a.m.
Merlin: and just blew the roof off the place.
John: You are forgiven.
Merlin: They're having fun.
Merlin: I think they were in their corn.
Merlin: I think they knew exactly.
Merlin: I think they knew from the minute they came out there that they were doing something kind of special.
Merlin: I get the feeling.
John: You do, but also I just feel like, you know, first of all, fun has no place in rock and roll.
Merlin: Fun has no place in rock and roll.
Merlin: You think it's antithetical to rock and roll?
John: Yeah, you know, everybody else was doing something very serious.
John: Keith Richards was wearing an eye patch and a top hat.
Merlin: He had an eye patch and a cigar.
John: Yeah, that's all great.
Merlin: They also had a little person dressed up.
John: I feel like there was a little person sitting crisscross applesauce.
John: And then the Who came and they just were having fun.
John: And, you know, you just can't allow that.
John: You just can't have that in a rock and roll setting.
John: You're right.
Merlin: Rock and roll was getting very serious around that time.
Merlin: This is what, probably 67, 68?
Merlin: You know, 67, whatever it takes.
Merlin: Whatever it takes.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I'm glad we do this show.
Merlin: I do.
Merlin: I'm glad.
Merlin: I'm going to learn to enjoy every sandwich.
Merlin: I'm going to get out of this emotional trough.
Merlin: Although, you know, I didn't sleep well, but I feel fine.
Merlin: Go figure.
John: You know, in the middle of the night last night, middle of the night, not middle of the night, but early middle of the night, I deleted the Twitter app off my phone.
John: Oh, I've thought about that.
John: Yeah, you know, there's a lot going on, emotional time.
John: But I don't need...
John: Right now is Twitter.
John: Yeah.
John: So I just got it off there.
Merlin: I just got it right off there.
John: Got it off there.
Merlin: Do you remember, I mean, was it just an accumulation?
Merlin: Was it one particular thing where you're like, okay, that's it?
John: I mean, as in all things, there's always one thing.
John: Like, okay, that's it.
John: Yeah.
John: It's not always the biggest thing, but it's the thing that it took.
John: That's right.
John: It was a small thing.
John: And it was, you know, for me, I don't follow any bad people.
John: And for the most part, nothing...
John: I don't have to deal with conservative Twitter.
John: I don't have to deal with any of the various Twitters that are doing awful things.
John: But even my gentle Twitter made up largely of people who live in New York or Hollywood and who alternate between making money by being in diaper commercials and in trying to get on a sitcom.
John: Where they are like Wil Wheaton's younger brother.
John: And people I know personally who are in these places.
John: I just can't.
John: I just can't have it anymore.
John: I just can't listen to them anymore.
John: Yeah.
John: And so I was just like, so one of them went by and it was like a tweet by a person that I adore.
John: And it was a tweet I despised.
John: And I was like, I adore this person, so I don't need this.
John: I don't need to hear them in there.
John: You hate the sin, but you love the sinner.
John: Yeah.
John: I love the sinner.
Merlin: I love the sinner so much.
Merlin: But I just can't be party.
John: Yeah, I can't be party to it.
John: So I just was like, you know, is this helping me at all?
John: What is this in service of?
John: And, you know, and I like to help people.
John: Yes.
John: Is me being on here helping anyone else?
John: Oh, John, you know, this is helping people.
John: Well, this, you know, this, not that.
John: Yeah, this, not that.
John: Yes, that's not that.
John: The thing is, I'm increasingly realizing that you and me on this program and a lot of the things that we do that go out to the world through the Internet.
John: These things are not actually the Internet.
Merlin: Oh, interesting.
Merlin: It would be like thinking you're a particular space with your car and it was the whole parking lot.
Merlin: Right.
John: Or like, you know, I am the highway.
John: It's like, no, you're not, you know, like, or rather like, like me going to visit you is the, is the interstates.
John: Okay.
John: Got it.
John: You're right.
John: You're right.
John: That's something to think about.
John: I hate the interstate.
John: I don't like going on the interstate.
John: It's nice to go places.
John: But me going to visit you is not the interstate.
John: It's me going to visit you.
John: And so the podcast, like the internet now is inevitable.
John: The internet is large.
John: It is wide.
John: Anybody's allowed on there.
John: People listen to us.
John: There's no vetting process.
John: You don't have to fill out a form or anything.
John: You just show up on the internet.
John: You don't need a license at all.
John: So you and I arrive to people via the internet, but this is not the internet.
John: You and I are not the internet.
John: No, we are old-time radio.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Not the interstate.
Merlin: You're right.
Merlin: You're right.
Merlin: I should do it.
Merlin: I should do it.
John: Well, you know, it's to each his own.
Merlin: Yes.
Yes.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: I think partly because of my dopamine issues, sometimes I feel like I need to do a lot of a thing that I don't like doing to make me feel the way I want to feel.
Merlin: And I need to be careful because I think that's not a healthy pattern.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I don't know if you know what I mean.
Merlin: But, like, sometimes when I'm especially anxious and I'm looking at political Twitter and I'm like, just reloading all the pain.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: No, it's super unhealthy.
John: I should pull over.
John: It's super unhealthy.
John: You should pull over.
John: You should take your inhaler out.
John: You should get a good, like, couple of huffs.
John: Yeah.
John: Turn the radio off.
John: And take that bag of Donald's French fries and throw it in the back seat.
John: Okay.
John: All right.
John: What else?
John: Roll the window down.
John: Check the spare.
John: Take your shoes off.
John: Take your shoes off.
John: Drive with your bare feet on the pedals.
John: They tell you not to do it, but do it anyway.
John: Do it anyway.
John: Don't wear clogs.
John: When I was 16, I remember I was driving down Northern Lights Boulevard in Anchorage, Alaska, and I realized...
John: wait a minute nobody can tell whether i have pants on or not whoa and so like i was at a stoplight and i was sitting there the stoplight of northern lights and lake otis and i just took my pants off oh that's freeing that's freeing like how's this what about this now and so i drove around 16 you know so i'm just i'm driving around town like you got a little secret you got a little secret nobody needs to know i
Merlin: no pants and it felt crazy yes it felt crazy it was crazy now it doesn't feel crazy i do it every day i used to be very um ashamed of my body not for any particular reason but just because it was just the thing you were supposed to do was to like you know be ashamed of your body i would be scared to like go to a public restroom you know uh or like change in the gym and all that stuff and i feel like i remember one of the first times i was ever comfortable uh skinny dipping
Merlin: And it felt revelatory.
Merlin: Because nobody cared.
Merlin: We weren't always checking each other's dingus.
Merlin: Of course, you should check them out a little bit.
Merlin: No, I mean, you don't get in there.
Merlin: But you're looking at stuff.
Merlin: But mostly, you're just swimming around.
Merlin: And everybody's just having fun.
Merlin: It doesn't have to be weird.
John: Yeah, I was never... I was always... Oh, I was so shy.
John: I was so body shy.
John: I've got these pictures.
John: You have no idea.
John: There's a picture of me in a group of like 30 people...
John: on the beach in like marbella and everyone because i'm with a bunch of scandinavians everybody's mooning the camera because it was a long time ago and mooning was still i don't know why we did it i honestly don't it was before the interstate that was a valid form of expression before it might show up on somebody's linkedin page and it was so international right anybody could do it you could you could explain mooning in just a second it's like the word okay
John: Yeah, it's like the word taxi.
John: Okay, yes.
John: Taxi.
John: And so you didn't moon?
John: Oh, so 30 people all moon in the camera, and I'm the one in the middle who has his... I've got my hand on my pants as though to tear it down, but I turned around and I'm making a peace sign at the camera.
John: Oh, you're self-conscious, Sid.
John: Yeah, I was, and when I look at the picture, I'm like, aw, the kid could never just let it go.
John: He could never just let it ride and moon the camera.
John: You know, you can't even see anybody else's face.
John: It's just like 30 butts.
John: Yeah.
John: Oh, man.
John: And then be right in the middle like, hello.
John: Was anybody else butt shy?
John: No, everybody else had their butts.
John: Scandinavians.
John: Yeah.
John: So, yeah, but I was not like a never nude, but definitely was not out there like streaking.
John: There was one time in...
John: In college, when streaking made a very brief return.
John: I made a little comeback, huh?
John: It did.
John: When we were kids, streaking was kind of big.
John: You'd streak at a baseball game.
John: You'd see it on TV sometimes.
John: It was in Time Magazine.
John: There's a song about it called The Streak.
John: Do the streak.
John: He's always showing off his physique.
Merlin: If there's an audience to be found, he'll be streaking it round.
John: I did not feel confident about my physique and could not streak.
Merlin: Could not streak.
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Merlin: casper.com slash super train offer code super train our thanks to casper for supporting roderick on the line and all the great shows oh so much shame oh my god my gut oh yeah i just didn't want people to see my tummy my god my gut my god my gut let alone my dingus oof yeah yep nope we were both late bloomers that's the other thing if you're one of those guys with lots of secondary body hair
Merlin: You're out there like fucking Michelangelo's David with a towel over your shoulder.
Merlin: Yeah, like, check this out.
Merlin: I mean, I've had hair since MTV played videos.
Merlin: It's fun, you know?
Merlin: Not me.
Merlin: No, not me.
John: Well, you know, I still don't have eyebrows.
John: Not at all.
John: They're just very blonde, right?
John: They're blonde.
John: Yeah, I have big eyebrows, but they're blonde.
John: I did not know.
John: You know, I think that this is I think that kids that grow up in the locker rooms or with brothers or or whatever, like, you know, you get a sense of how other guys look.
John: And you kind of put yourself just naturally like in a, you just put yourself in there somehow.
John: Like, oh, I look like this guy, but not like that guy.
John: And I just didn't, it wasn't just that I didn't take my clothes off, but I didn't want to look at other people either.
Merlin: So as I got older, like... I'm still not a fan.
Merlin: Makes me very uncomfortable.
John: Yeah.
John: So I didn't have a sense of what other people really looked like.
John: You know, I knew what they looked like with their clothes on because I looked at them then, but...
John: But and I think maybe that contributed a little bit.
John: Even it was it became like a cascading effect of
Merlin: of not uh not feeling very secure well yeah you could be embarrassed for yourself and others yeah well shit plus all the images in the magazines you know and you get a lot of guys you know a lot of those guys in the locker room they're probably they're probably not looking so uh so cut anymore but back then they're looking all ripped and they're in shape and they're walking around and whoo
Merlin: They're just pee in the shower.
John: They don't care.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Shower down and get an A. I sent you my list called Watch Often, which I need to add more tunes to.
John: Oh, I have some of those.
John: You know, I'm embarrassed to say.
John: Well, not embarrassed, but you know about me long ago.
John: I went through a very hard...
John: down period in about 2005 I think I spent the pretty much most of 2005 well let's see the first six months of 2005 I spent in bed and you know at the time I thought that I suffered from untreated depression turned out later that the story is that I suffered from untreated bipolar disorder but that was the first time as a grown up
John: Where a combination of real life factors and like an increasing sort of mental imbalance put me just in bed.
John: I just couldn't hack.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: And what I did was I watched poker on television because I really liked it.
John: I had television at the time.
John: And it was during the big boom of poker, TV poker.
John: Because now you can see the cards.
John: And so it was a whole new sport to watch.
John: Because you knew what everybody had.
John: So I watched a lot.
John: And in the process of that, I got to be a fan of Daniel Negrano, who is a Canadian fan.
John: poker famous he's a poker fan he's poker famous and i got i i like them all you know i like phil hellmuth the brat of poker i like phil these guys they wear sunglasses and hats right well the guys that i'm talking about uh typically they're the ones that are like they're old school so they don't show up like wearing a fucking gorilla mask okay like all these like a bunch of dorks
John: Like Phil Hellmuth will wear some sunglasses, but like the rest of them, Daniel Negronu, he wants you to see his face because he's like, he's fucking with you.
John: Oh, I get it.
John: But I like Negronu a lot.
John: In particular, he reminds me of Ben Gibbard.
John: They have a lot of similar mannerisms.
John: What's the guy's name?
John: Daniel Negronu.
John: So it's N-E-G-R.
John: It's like a Frenchie name.
Merlin: Oh, Negronu.
John: Negronu.
John: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: Look at that guy.
John: Yeah.
John: He looks like a maitre d'.
John: He does.
John: It's one of those situations where he was pretty prematurely balding 15 years ago.
John: Oh, look at that.
John: He got an Elon Musk touch-up.
John: And now he doesn't seem as bald.
Merlin: Yes, he's got that LeBron James thing.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: But he's got a lot of sassafras.
John: I like watching him because he schools people.
John: He kind of can guess your cards a lot of times.
John: That's one of his signatures.
John: He gets in your head, huh?
John: Yeah.
John: And so lately when I'm laying around, I'm trying not to look at Twitter.
John: I'm on my phone.
John: I'm looking at stuff.
John: I'm looking at like how to how to sync the Bismarck again.
John: And I'm looking at, you know, like top 10 ways to make a difference, et cetera, et cetera.
John: And then late, late at night, I'll just like go over and I'll watch Daniel Negreanu play a couple of hands of cards.
John: Oh, that's good.
John: And I'm like just watching some guys that are really good at cards, playing cards with each other.
John: And there's nothing that shuts up a talkative person like losing $100,000.
Merlin: Oh, that'll put a ding in you.
John: So anyway, that's one of my must-watches.
John: This must watch some, try and watch a little poker every day.
Merlin: I will seek this out.
John: Now, where am I?
John: I want to see your list of two watches.
Merlin: Oh, look over in the conversation section on the Skype.
Merlin: I see.
Merlin: Here it is.
John: Oh, so there's two.
Merlin: You should see a little lady's back.
Merlin: Well, I also sent you an article about how Steve Albini just won a bunch of money playing poker.
John: Oh, Steve Albini.
John: He does it again.
Merlin: He does it again.
John: He's always mixing it up.
Oh,
John: Okay, so here's your watch often list.
John: Yeah.
John: Do you really... You watch The Last Letterman.
Merlin: Not as often, but I definitely wanted to make sure I had that, because it really is a delight.
Merlin: It's really quite good.
Merlin: And Foo Fighters are on, you know?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, very emotional.
Merlin: Foo Fighters made some very, very good appearances.
Merlin: They play that Everlong song that Dave likes, which is one of my favorite songs of all time.
John: And it's funny that Dave would...
John: You know, it's funny to think of Dave and think of his taste and think of him like Foo Fighters.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: Well, I'm very emotionally vulnerable right now.
Merlin: Did you remember when Dave came back from the heart attack?
Merlin: Yep.
Merlin: This would be probably 2000, 2001.
Merlin: And...
Merlin: Basically, in prepping for the story goes, and apparently this is true, the story goes that when they were prepping for the show, they said, hey, is there anything special you want to do?
Merlin: And he said, yeah, I want to do this.
Merlin: I want to have my doctors on, et cetera.
Merlin: And he says, oh, man, I would love it if Foo Fighters would come on, my favorite band, and play my favorite song ever long.
Merlin: And they totally did it.
Merlin: And I guess what he didn't know at the time was they were touring in Brazil.
Merlin: And they totally pulled up stakes and came to New York to play Everlong on the show where he comes back.
Merlin: And Paul kind of half ruins it with way too much organ solo stuff.
Merlin: But it's still really fucking good.
Merlin: It's got that pretty blonde guy on drums.
Merlin: Man, that guy plays drums like ringing a bell.
John: Yeah, he's a good drummer.
John: Taylor Hawkins.
John: Taylor Hawkins.
John: Dave got him off the heroin.
John: Got him off the heroin, which is a great thing for Dave to have done.
John: Marco Collins, who was the local DJ here in Seattle that made a bunch of grunge bands happen on 107.7 The End.
John: Marco Collins Sessions.
John: He posted a picture the other day of Pat Smear and Dave sitting crisscross applesauce on top of a dumpster in the alley.
John: I saw that!
John: Yeah.
John: And that show, so I was there at that show, but I was...
John: I felt like I was too cool to go in.
John: This was when you were young enough that you had so little to do that you would go to a show and just hang out outside.
John: Absolutely.
John: Three nights a week.
John: And so I was outside that show hanging out in the alley.
John: and you know the walls of the club were paper paper thin like we listened to the whole show but it was just like uh yeah it's a drummer from nirvana like right how good could that be uh turned out i liked that album quite a bit the first one the first first one's very good but i we harvey danger opened for the food fighters uh early on in the taylor hawkins years and um
John: And he and Dave did like a little drum off with each other.
John: Oh, wow.
John: And Dave was very, very generous at giving him at a certain point, like Taylor Harkins played something and Dave was like, oh, I can't get it.
John: You know, I can't do it, man.
John: You blow me away.
Merlin: He could do it while braiding his own hair.
Merlin: He's an awfully gifted drummer.
Merlin: He's pretty gifted.
Merlin: Taylor's got a nice touch.
Merlin: So what I got here, I got number one, I got Jennifer Hudson doing that song.
Merlin: And I am telling you, I'm not going.
Merlin: I got David Letterman's last show.
Merlin: Really good song by Lake Street Dive called Call Off Your Dogs.
Merlin: I highly recommend.
Merlin: Another song that's almost always in my head, Sunday Candy.
Merlin: By Donnie, Trumpet and the Social Experiment.
Merlin: Chance the Rapper, mostly, but with this group.
John: Oh, I see.
Merlin: Have you ever heard that song?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: Oh, God, it's good.
John: All of this is new to me here.
Merlin: You should listen to some of these songs.
Merlin: I don't know any of these songs.
Merlin: I think you would dig Bebop Deluxe, Made in Heaven.
Merlin: I've watched this video maybe more than almost any YouTube video ever.
Merlin: It's them live on something like Old Grey Whistle Test or one of those shows.
Merlin: They're this three-piece.
Merlin: kind of like hard i guess you'd say like kind of like hard power pop but like very very hard but this guy is just a very was named bill nelson is a very very gifted guitar player and i would like you to watch this i'll spoil it for you a little bit they come out and do this great song they got great harmonies they're super fucking tight i forget where but somewhere fairly early in the song a careful viewer you understand that you got one guitar in a guitar bass band you could tell at one point he breaks a string
Merlin: if you're watching carefully and he doesn't miss a beat he's playing like parts it's like a mark knoffler thing he figures out how to like redo his whole thing to play around the broken string and the fact that now probably his fucking g because it's always the fucking g or the b is out of tune and he figures out how to play around it and still plays the super hard power pop song
John: I love that.
Merlin: It makes me happy.
Merlin: I don't know why I'm telling you this.
Merlin: I'm very emotionally vulnerable.
John: I can always tell when somebody breaks a string.
John: It's a thing, you know, you just make a face.
John: Oh, that sucks.
John: That's too bad.
John: I'm surprised that this only has six things on it.
Merlin: I should put more things.
Merlin: Well, there's lots of things I do watch a lot over and over.
Merlin: I feel like I should put them here.
Merlin: I should look at things that I favorited and I should share this with the world.
John: Well, yeah, because this is a thing I can see people can subscribe to.
John: There are over 800 people who have subscribed to this.
John: What?
John: No.
John: No, no.
John: I think you're confused.
John: What is this over here?
John: What is this subscribe button?
John: Subscribe to Merlin Mann, 800 people.
Merlin: Oh, yeah, that's probably a mistake.
John: But you never know.
John: I might post something.
John: Yeah, put something on there.
John: I mean, there are a lot of people, I think, who have subscribed to my eBay feed.
Merlin: They're just waiting.
Merlin: Any day now.
Merlin: It remains empty.
Merlin: Here it comes.
Merlin: It's going to come.
Merlin: Look out.
Merlin: Tidal wave.
Merlin: Save your money.
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Merlin: So, yeah.
John: Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.
John: So today I have somebody coming over.
John: His name is... So I plugged something into the outlet in my house, the outdoor outlet, the one that you plug your Christmas lights into.
John: And it was a set of Christmas lights that I plugged into it.
John: And I was going along, I was checking to see the Christmas lights still worked.
John: And one of them, one of the lights exploded.
John: Pow!
Merlin: Okay, let's go back a little bit.
Merlin: Do you have a year-round holiday spirit light thing you do tastefully with white lights?
Merlin: Is that a thing you do?
Merlin: Yeah, I use white lights around that.
Merlin: So it's not just that, it's June 18th and you're getting ready for the holidays.
Yeah.
John: No, it's just to make a happy, like a fairy like environment.
John: Yes.
John: Fairies living in the bushes.
John: And and I used to have lights all around the outside of the house, but some took them down when he was painting the house.
John: And it's hard to put them back up.
John: It's a lot of time up on the ladder.
John: Yeah.
John: So I haven't put the lights back up, but I have all these lights.
John: They're all around.
John: And anyway, so I set one of them up here in the yard, you know, pull the strings out, get them all straightened away.
John: And light bulb explodes.
John: But something, it like...
John: It exploded and then there was a moment where the light stayed on, but they kind of did like a whoa.
John: And then there was like a popping sound and they went off, but then the outlet didn't work.
John: Oh, no.
John: And so I was like, oh, that's weird.
John: So I went in and I did all the breakers and everything.
John: Still didn't work.
John: So I figured, well, I guess I got to go deal with that now.
John: I got to go deal with that outlet.
John: But then I went into the kitchen.
John: And within the next day or two, I realized that like two of the outlets in the kitchen didn't work anymore.
Merlin: Now this is getting interesting.
Merlin: It's like some kind of electrical virus.
John: Yeah.
John: So I went down and I screwed around with the breaker panel and I was like, listen, is this one of these things where the breaker popped but you can't tell?
John: So I did everything.
John: Nope.
John: And so these outlets in the kitchen and this outlet on the outside of the house didn't work.
John: And then I went out to the barn and the lights in the barn didn't work.
John: Oh, come on.
John: So I was like, what is going on?
John: And the barn has a separate panel.
John: The barn has a separate.
John: Would it be like a fuse or something?
John: Well, that's the thing.
John: I've gone to the panels.
John: It's not no fused popped, but something definitely like went wrong.
John: So I have an electrician coming today.
John: Whose name is Sum.
John: Come on.
John: Yeah.
John: Huh.
John: So Sum is coming.
John: Sum is coming.
John: My mom...
John: And insists that some, the electrician, it pronounces his name Psalm.
John: That would be convenient.
John: And so when she talks about him, she's like, well, what we should do is get Psalm out here.
John: And then I always say, I don't think Psalm is coming back, mom.
John: Psalm like, yeah, he went to a farm.
John: Psalm did his job.
John: And then, yeah, that's right.
John: He went, he, he got onto his magic steed and he rode away.
John: And she's like, no, no, no.
John: Psalm, the electrician.
John: And I'm like, you mean some.
John: It's an Abbott and Costello routine out here all the time.
John: It's a very short Abbott and Costello routine.
John: He's coming today.
John: He's handyman today.
Merlin: He's got a lot of crazy names.
Merlin: How many guys you got working on your house, Sam?
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John: Let me find my bell for that.
John: Stupid, stupid, stupid.
John: Thank you.
John: So it's exciting.
John: It's exciting.
John: Doing some home improvement out here.
Merlin: Well, you've got to get to the bottom of this, John.
Merlin: Now remind me, though, what was the thing that happened when you were diddling with your lighting in, like, the dining room area?
Merlin: Didn't you have some kind of weird mojo back then, too?
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Was that isolated to just that one room, that one switch?
John: There was, and I replaced all those switches.
John: I replaced them, and I was much happier.
John: I've been happier ever since.
John: What I did was I took some...
John: I took some newfangledness out.
John: What happens, I think, is people want to bring newfangledness in.
John: Oh, absolutely.
John: And I am somebody who wants to take newfangledness out.
Merlin: I don't understand.
Merlin: It doesn't age well.
Merlin: It's not good.
John: No, I'm rattling against the world all the time where people are like, look at this newfangled, and I'm like, out.
John: But oftentimes, once you put newfangled in, you can't just take it out and put...
John: Oh, there's consequences.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
Merlin: No, no, this is absolutely true.
Merlin: Bad decisions that somebody made that they thought were newfangled in 1979 do not age well.
John: No.
John: And the thing is, something that's original to the thing...
John: is going to work pretty much better than anything you're going to do other.
Merlin: It's like teeth, right?
Merlin: Whatever teeth you got are going to be better than any teeth that they replace them with.
Merlin: Right.
John: That's what they keep telling me about my bum knee.
John: I go to the doctor and I'm like, hey, this knee's bum and it's been bum for a long time.
John: It's getting bummer.
John: You guys have all this robot technology now.
John: What's the over and under on giving me a robot knee?
Merlin: Yeah.
John: And they're always like, keep walking on your shitty knee.
John: It's always going to be better.
Merlin: Can you just scrape out the rotten part?
John: It's always going to be better.
Merlin: I see a lot of these guys that are retirement age with some kind of a knee thing.
Merlin: They have like a knee, like a brace.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: That would look kind of cool.
Merlin: Have you thought about that?
Merlin: You can wear shorts more.
John: I got a lot of braces here.
John: You do?
John: Yeah, because I ski, right?
John: Yeah.
John: So I put the big heavy brace on in order to ski and not feel scared.
John: Oh, I see.
John: But I also have all those like weird little neoprene braces that my dad bought in the 70s and a bunch of braces that, you know, I have little cloth ones that I get at Walgreens every time I'm out of town and I forget that I wanted a brace for something.
John: so i've got a huge i've got one of those gallon plastic bags full of them and then i have like another duffel bag full of other ones but i don't want to be like i don't want to walk around with a brace on you look like a guy of retirement age all right i had a dream last night if you get the robot knee you wouldn't need all that stuff you throw the bag away well sure and while they're in there why don't you fix all the other parts you know when we're cyborg'd
Merlin: Well, you know, it's like back in the day when they'd say, oh, my VCR doesn't work, doesn't rewind.
Merlin: And they'd say, okay, well, your VCR costs $200, but there's a bench fee.
Merlin: And the bench fee is not even us fixing.
Merlin: This is how they get you.
Merlin: The bench fee is not even me fixing it.
Merlin: The bench fee is me accepting this into my shop and putting it on the thing and looking at it.
John: That's the bench he's putting it on.
John: That's the bench fee.
Merlin: Well, you know, you're going to pay the bench fee for the knee.
Merlin: You might as well get everything done.
Merlin: Just scrape it all out.
Merlin: Scrape it all out.
Merlin: Clean it out.
John: Shine it up.
John: There was a repair shop here in Seattle that repaired amps that had a bench fee like that.
John: And I took a thing in one time and they looked at it and looked at it for like two hours and couldn't get it working.
John: And so I went in and I was like, hey, you know, how's my thing?
John: And they were like, yeah, sorry, can't be fixed.
John: $300.
John: What?
John: What?
John: And I was like, $300?
John: He said, yeah, well, we worked on it for three hours.
Merlin: Oh, they didn't agree to fix it.
Merlin: They agreed to work on it.
John: Yeah, I said, you didn't fix it.
John: They said, well, I mean, we still worked on it for three hours.
Hmm.
John: I was like, I hate you and I'm not coming back here.
John: And maybe I don't understand capitalism or working or things like that.
John: Charging for things, time.
John: Yeah, but I was just, I figured like, well, that's one of those things where you, you know, I didn't bring it in here.
John: It's not how you make a friend.
Merlin: No.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: We had that.
Merlin: We had somebody come out and look at our furnace.
Merlin: I think I told you this one time we had somebody come out and look at our furnace in our rented house because sometimes that's just easier.
Merlin: And and the guy the guy basically he'd been there for maybe maybe two minutes, maybe two minutes.
Merlin: He's like, yeah, here's your free estimate.
Merlin: You need a new furnace.
Merlin: And we're like, well, that's not really in our purview, but thank you for the free estimate.
Merlin: And the next thing we got from them was a hand-typed letter threatening us with a lawsuit if we didn't pay them for the free estimate visit.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: And you know what I say to that?
Merlin: I say that's not how you make a friend.
Merlin: It's not how you make a friend.
Merlin: We flew United this weekend.
Merlin: Oh, that's not how you make a friend.
Merlin: Oh, boy.
John: Merlin, you know not to fly United?
Merlin: Ask me if I made the reservation.
John: Oh, but still.
John: Oh, Jesus Christ, John.
Merlin: Couldn't you protest?
Merlin: I mean, it's one thing if you're accepted that this is how your life is and you're just going to fly United.
Merlin: We have not deliberately flown United in probably 10 years.
Merlin: For all the reasons that you understand.
Merlin: Yes, it's America at its worst.
Merlin: And they did not know how to make a friend.
Merlin: The thing that is particularly crazy making about United, it's an experience that can kind of be paralleled by a really bad hotel, but you really feel it with United, is that...
Merlin: Some things were good.
Merlin: The waitresses were nice on the plane and the waiters.
Merlin: But the main thing is every single piece of dealing with that company is terrible.
Merlin: Starting with the website, all the way down to dealing with the delays and the lack of care that their own flight is late and now you're going to miss your flight and they're like, sorry, we'll get you on one in the future.
Merlin: There's all that stuff.
Merlin: Down to the fucking...
Merlin: I had to pay $100 in Wi-Fi to get three different devices so that I could get to my daughter's, update my daughter's United app so that she'd be able to watch Peter Rabbit.
Merlin: And I'm fuming.
Merlin: Oh, and guess what?
Merlin: You can't paste anything into the fields.
Merlin: You got to put it all in manually.
Merlin: Oh, really?
Merlin: Why would they do that?
Merlin: Because they don't know how to make a friend.
Merlin: You know, there's so many ways.
Merlin: How many things?
Merlin: I took you way off five topics already.
Merlin: But the thing is, there's so many ways you could improve what you do if you said, I wonder if I'll make a friend with this.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, you paid your fare.
John: You don't want to complain.
John: But they get to you and they're always out of champagne.
Yeah.
Merlin: We were in one of those, whatever, Embraer, whatever, one of those CJ tiny little, like, you know, 30, 20, 30.
Merlin: Jump jets.
Merlin: We call them jump jets.
Merlin: Yeah, we got two seats on one side and one on the other.
Merlin: And, of course, all the fucking animals with their carry-on luggage are there because, you know, they don't want to pay the $25 to check a bag.
Merlin: Right, of course.
Merlin: But of course, everybody's got their bags that will never, no way, any fucking way fit onto the plane.
Merlin: And so now they all have to be gate checked, and that takes time.
Merlin: So we had 36 minutes to make a flight.
Merlin: It was 20 minutes early getting in to the flight.
Merlin: It was like a 30-minute flight.
Merlin: But then they were all jammed up in front of us.
Merlin: We couldn't find a plane.
Merlin: There was no port in the storm.
Merlin: So we had to wait.
Merlin: We had to wait.
Merlin: And guess what?
Merlin: When we finally got to the quote-unquote terminal, no, no, no, no.
Merlin: We weren't on the terminal.
John: No.
Merlin: We're in the middle of the field.
Merlin: We're in the middle of the field.
Merlin: You know what you do?
Merlin: You wait for a bus, John.
John: You wait for a bus.
John: You wait for a bus.
Merlin: You climb down the ladder and you wait for a bus.
Merlin: Oh, and by the way, did I mention the bus can't leave until everybody with their fucking green tag, check luggage, gets the luggage.
Merlin: Hey, our flight is taking off in 11 minutes.
Merlin: Are they going to hold that for us?
Merlin: And they say, we don't know.
Merlin: If we don't get you on that, we'll get another one.
John: Oh, I'll get you another one.
Merlin: Is that a way you make a friend?
Merlin: You drive people in a bus.
Merlin: You drive people through a construction site to get them to the terminal.
John: Is that a way to make a friend?
John: No, no, it's not.
John: No, no, no.
John: Well, and the thing is that United of...
John: Because all airlines are awful, right?
John: None of them want to make... Don't do it.
John: None of them want to make a friend anymore.
John: They don't care.
John: They're awful.
John: But United takes it that extra step where they're like... They're indignant.
John: Well, and they're like... They really want you to feel like you deserve unenjoyment.
John: It's not just Delta, which feels like it's better than you.
John: Delta just feels like they're better than you.
Merlin: Yeah, if you wanted to be treated like a person, you should have upgraded.
Merlin: You understand that with any airline.
Merlin: But with United, they treat everybody equally shitty.
Merlin: It's vindictive.
John: yeah yeah right like like they're like like running their business isn't is a burden on them yeah and um and you are like you're just uh like a leech just some kind of like fucking fucking traveler sitting in my seat yeah on my fucking plane wants what to watch a movie with their daughter um sir sorry we're here for we're here for your safety
Merlin: I'm here for your safety.
John: Anyway, nothing to let, you know, I went on a podcast one time.
John: The whole purpose of the podcast was to get a panel of people together to talk shit about United.
John: Moises Chuyon's podcast.
John: That's right.
John: Yes.
Merlin: Thank you.
Merlin: Thank you for your service.
John: It was called, I think.
John: It was wonderful.
John: We had a wonderful time on there talking shit about United.
John: There are websites about it.
Merlin: This is after you had had a truly epic United situation.
John: this is one where where you i believe in your daughter you're trying to get like to like hawaii or somewhere and there was not even anybody you could talk to about the lack of flight no there was no united had no people no customer services and so when i finally found someone from united there was a line of like 200 people trying to talk to them and i said look this here's what's crazy sorry to interrupt but
John: There's a very, very small window of opportunity here for us to get out of here today.
John: And you just totally surprised everyone at the gate by saying like, oh, and here's what they said.
John: Oh, the plane needs maintenance.
John: Force majeure.
John: It's not their fault.
John: Well, shouldn't you have maintenance on a schedule?
John: Sir.
John: And she said, sir, you know, this is like nothing we can do about it.
John: And I was like, there is something you do about it.
John: You put your planes into a routine maintenance schedule.
Merlin: Is this something that just didn't come up before?
Merlin: Is this a new thing?
Merlin: The fixing of the plane?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Have other planes available.
John: Seems like that'd be like a scheduled thing.
John: I mean, so it sounds to me like either the plane broke, which is your fault, or something else that's your fault.
Merlin: It's the same thing.
Merlin: It's like, how is there no birth for our plane when we're 20 minutes early?
Merlin: I understand we're going to get there on time, but then we're late.
Merlin: It's like, did you not know?
Merlin: Don't you have a radio or something?
John: Is there like GPS?
Merlin: I mean, the larger pattern here.
Merlin: Isn't there a way you could have anticipated?
Merlin: Even before we got on the little...
Merlin: Even before we got on the little shitty flight, the lady gets on the thing, and she's like, once again, once again, we're going to need at least one person to please accept the flight.
Merlin: And, like, it's our fucking fault that you overbooked the flight, and she's all mad.
Merlin: She's in a sweater, and she's all mad.
John: Yeah, she's mad.
John: That is not a way to make a friend.
John: Because I don't think that United makes friends with their own employees.
John: Oh, they're so mad.
John: So, yeah, I tried to demand satisfaction.
John: And what ended up happening was that we didn't get to Hawaii until the following day.
John: And I had a very short amount of time I could spend with my family there.
John: I had to go to San Francisco from Hawaii.
John: I was going to miss the last couple of days of the vacation.
John: So I was like, I'm just, you know, we're going to get there and
John: You know, we're going to start vacationing.
John: And then we lost a whole day to regularly scheduled maintenance.
John: Regularly scheduled maintenance.
John: It just comes up.
John: And they couldn't put me on a flight on a competing airline because of reasons.
Merlin: Oh, they'll do.
Merlin: I hate to sound like a paranoia conspiracy person, but they will do anything to not do that.
Merlin: But it's your own fucking flight.
Merlin: I flew with you because you could say I stop in this town for a minute and then I get on another one of your planes.
Merlin: At one point, we're on the bus.
Merlin: On the bus.
Merlin: We're not even at the terminal.
Merlin: On the bus waiting to be taken.
Merlin: Because that's just what you do.
Merlin: It's a plane too small to care about.
Merlin: So you wait and we're waiting on the bus.
Merlin: And my daughter is getting anxious because she can tell that my wife and I are getting very anxious.
Merlin: Because you know how this works.
Merlin: You miss that flight, you might get... Well, we're certainly not going to get the upgraded seats that we paid for.
Merlin: We're going to get on whatever the fuck, sitting in any row, wherever, anywhere.
Merlin: We could be stuck in some kind of baggage carriage, for all we know.
Merlin: Or it's going to be 2 p.m.
Merlin: tomorrow.
Merlin: Here's a voucher.
Merlin: And you're like, no, we really need to be getting home.
Merlin: We need to be getting back.
Merlin: We need to be on this flight.
Merlin: And at one point, I was saying to my lady, here's the problem, though.
Merlin: I'm mad, too.
Merlin: We need to not be emotional because they hold our fate in their hands.
Merlin: And at one point, she's the ding-a-ling people waiting for everybody with their fucking green...
Merlin: tag bags to get onto the goddamn bus so we can make it to the goddamn airport she says this is your fault and she said ma'am this is not our fault and they were indignant she's like it's your airline why are we not why are we waiting for all these people we have to be on a plane like 11 no it takes off in 11 minutes i'm sorry it's not how you make a friend john no it's not it's not and um
John: And yeah, they do that.
John: They do exactly what you're saying, which is that they make it seem like when you said we really need to get home, their answer would be, well, sir, everyone needs to get home.
John: And the answer to that is, yes, that's your job to get everyone home.
John: I'm not saying I'm special.
Merlin: It's such a common response in the culture today is that, you know, hey, listen, you know, yeah, everybody wants cancer surgery.
Yeah.
Merlin: Believe me.
Merlin: Believe me, sir.
Merlin: You're not the first one to want your tumor taken out.
John: Can I tag your bag?
John: Green tag.
John: A tip there is not everyone wants cancer surgery.
John: Only people that have cancer that surgery would benefit.
Merlin: Is this a Jeff Foxworthy bit?
Merlin: If you find yourself wanting an oncologist to remove your tumor.
Merlin: So, there's not some.
John: It's not some.
John: It's some.
John: Some.
John: He's coming today.
John: Can I homonym that as S-U-M?
John: I think that's what it is.
John: Some.
John: Okay.
John: Some.
John: Some.
John: But, you know, my mom hears vowels differently than other people.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: She transposes vowels a lot, and she also just hears them differently.
John: It's like she sees green and blue differently than I see them.
John: She says things that are on the spectrum between green and blue.
John: She and I often differ.
Merlin: about where they are she's like that's clearly blue really i think that happens a lot with like like there's that one that's going around a while like what color is a tennis ball and immediately you say to me what color is a tennis ball i say green but they don't actually look at a tennis ball it's actually more yellow it looks yellow right but it's you know but she might also be losing some of her i mean with all due respect she might be losing some of her rods and cones i think as we age we drop off a little bit of our red range we've been arguing this for for 35 years
John: the green green and blue this is not like is the dress gold and white is blue and black yeah this is my mom doesn't know what's green and what's blue dude you know mike squires is colorblind huh he doesn't see color uh he well he does see color but he does so you're saying he's pretty cool racially he doesn't see blue and green he sees i mean he sees he sees people
John: But right.
John: He can tell when someone is African-American.
John: Good for him.
John: Yeah.
John: But he does not know when a pair of pants is blue or black or green.
John: And so he he's one of those rock and roll guys that wears a lot of black.
John: But he has a good excuse, which is that it solves.
John: He can go up to the woman at the store and say, is this black?
John: And if she says yes, he goes, great.
Merlin: Do you always see black versus navy?
Merlin: I bet you do.
Merlin: I spend a lot of time.
Merlin: In a normally lit room.
Merlin: I'm not talking about Adam Macy's.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: But like in your closet, can you immediately suss out black versus true navy blue?
John: I have spent a lot of time with my eye very close to garments going, show me, show me.
John: You don't want to discover once you're out the door that you got blue pants and a black jacket.
John: But what I have is I have a black tuxedo and I have a midnight blue tuxedo or like a dark, dark blue tuxedo.
John: And so I have put them next to each other in a lot of different lighting situations and familiarized my eye with the subtlety.
John: Okay.
John: You sort of trained yourself.
John: A little bit.
John: I don't have a ton of things that are like dark navy, but a couple of things.
John: And some of them I just know by the garment.
John: But in the case of the tuxedos,
John: I really wanted to, you know, you don't want to mix and match them.
John: You know what I'm saying?
John: You don't want to put the pants of the one with the jacket of the other.
John: You're going to look going to be real, real sad, real bad.
John: Um, yeah, but no, I, I, I'm not, uh, like, I'm not some kind of like savant whose color savant.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: So, uh, so you've got some kind of an electrical situation.
Merlin: It might be viral.
Merlin: It might be bacterial.
Merlin: We don't know what it is, but there's some kind of shenanigans going on with your electric.
John: We know that all of this is a subset, um,
John: Of a larger project, which is causing me to have a lot of anxiety.
John: Oh, boy.
John: You know, I was at the psychiatrist the other day, a couple of months ago, let's be honest.
John: Sure.
John: I don't go every day or even every other day.
John: Okay.
John: But I was there and I said, yeah, you know, I just, I don't know.
John: It's hard for me to identify anxiety because I don't, I'm not, you know, it's not a thing I've thought about a lot, but I recognize that things can change.
John: Things can be called anxiety or things that you think are something else are actually rooted in anxiety.
John: But I went through a period there a couple of months ago where I was kind of waking up in a panic or I was feeling panicky before I went to sleep.
John: I was feeling panicky.
John: I was having panicky dreams about having my breath constricted.
John: Oh, no.
John: And that's a real thing I don't like.
John: I don't like feeling like I can't breathe.
John: I'm sure there are plenty of people who love it.
John: That's the thing.
John: All those people that deep dive for pearls and stuff without any oxygen.
John: I was thinking of Germans, but yeah, you're probably right.
John: Yeah, I do not like the idea of hanging myself on a belt over a door in a hotel room.
John: Oh, no, or being buried alive.
John: That's a thing you don't like.
John: Don't like it at all.
John: Don't like it.
John: I don't like somebody putting a blanket over my head.
John: But I did.
John: So I was laying in bed for for a month or so.
John: And I was having these terrible I you know, I didn't I was on an airplane flight one time where I had to I didn't have to breathe in and out into a paper bag.
John: But I did.
John: I did ask the the.
John: waiter in the sky to put a hot towel in a cup for me uh and and he did and i was i was soothed by it it was my it was my i should remember that that sounds nice comfort rag uh but so the psychiatrist it's like it's like a it's like a like a uh you know kind of like a like a comfort peacock
John: Yeah, I didn't have to pay an extra fare for my turkey to sit next to me.
John: I just had a rag and a cup.
John: Sorry, Mr. Wiggles will have to go up into the baggage rack.
John: I needed the cup.
John: And...
John: And so I said this to the psychiatrist, and he was like, well, it sounds like you're having some anxiety, and we don't like that.
John: And what psychiatrists do like to do is give you a prescription for something.
John: Oh, Klonopin or similar?
John: No, so what he did was he gave me a prescription for an antihistamine that works on anxiety.
John: The devil, you say.
Merlin: A prescription antihistamine that's off-label for anxiety.
John: Yes.
John: Oh, dear.
John: And here's the crazy thing.
John: As you know, I fetishize antihistamine.
John: Well, you've seen what it can do to a person.
John: I have.
John: But...
John: So this stuff is called hydroxyzine.
John: Hydroxyzine.
John: And hydroxyzine is like, it's a proper antihistamine that you use for itching and you use for motion sickness.
Merlin: Oh, and it's similar to Xanax.
John: Yeah, you use it if you're coming down off of opioids.
John: It has a little sedative effect.
John: That's a movable feast.
John: But apparently, according to him, it does not lend itself to being abused or to...
John: You know, it's not like a it's not something where you're going to get like where you're taking them all the time for stuff.
John: Yes.
John: And so he so he gives me this prescription.
John: Well, I'm thinking, oh, so I say to him, so what do I just take these and I don't feel anxiety?
John: And he said, no, no, no.
John: If you start to feel anxious, take one and then in a little while you'll feel better.
John: Well, the problem with that is that if I think at all about feeling anxious, the feeling subsides.
John: You know, like if I wake up in the middle of the night and I'm like, I don't want to die in a tube.
Merlin: Just kind of acknowledging it and naming it.
John: Yeah.
John: Like I do 10 deep breaths.
John: And then if I had to get up, go downstairs, take a pill and then wait for it to work, like it would be the same as not.
John: Might as well get up and look at eBay.
John: Yeah, sure.
John: Exactly.
John: Might as well buy five more Hawaiian shirts.
John: Have a look at Twitter.
John: But you may also know this about me.
John: I'm sure anyone listening could have divined this.
John: I am somewhat of a drug hoarder because I hate the idea of back in the old days when I did like drugs, I would hoard them because you want you save your drugs for a rainy day.
John: I mean, you'd if you could get enough drugs that you could hoard them.
John: Like I used to walk around the house and put a cigarette over every door.
John: Oh, I see.
John: You're like, you're like smoke.
John: Yep.
John: Right.
John: I'm sitting on my, on my pile of cigarettes, but also I like to, if I put one over every door, then I forget they're there because I'm rich right now.
John: Right.
John: I've got like four packs of cigarettes.
John: So I take one and I put them over the doors and then I have another pack that I'm smoking and
John: I forget about the ones over the doors, but then when I don't have a pack of cigarettes and I'm like, oh my God, I freaking need a cigarette.
John: Then I go, wait, there's one over the door.
John: And I reach up and there's a cigarette there.
John: Just waiting for you that whole time.
John: And for a long time, there were cigarettes over the doors in this house, a long time after I quit smoking because I forgot they were there.
John: I forgot to take them down.
John: That's interesting.
John: Anyway, now I have this prescription for this hydroxyzine.
John: I've never taken one.
John: But it's an antihistamine, and as you know, I suffer from allergies, so I'm waiting for the opportunity to take a hydroxyzine.
John: Oh, interesting.
John: But I'm stockpiling them.
John: I don't think that they... It's not like they have any...
John: It's not like they have any street value.
John: Street value, right, right, right.
John: I don't think.
John: I don't think anybody wants to buy this.
Merlin: We haven't checked in in a while.
Merlin: I mean, I don't want to go too deep on this, but there was a time some months ago when you had sort of accepted the idea that certain kinds of medication or improvement swallowables would be beneficial to you, and you were even in the market for a bespoke pill case for it.
John: I did get a bespoke pill case.
John: Oh, did you?
John: I ended up getting someone who listens to the show, a couple of people, sent me some links to a British fly fisherman's fly case.
John: And they're often branded by the Orvis company.
Merlin: That's where Steve Bannon buys his jackets.
Yeah.
Merlin: Is it really?
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: Turns out.
Merlin: Fly rod travel case?
Merlin: Probably something smaller than that.
Merlin: It's more for the literal flies.
John: It's a case for flies.
John: It's just for the flies.
John: And it's like an aluminum box, and it has lots of little compartments in it with little glass doors.
John: It's a fly box.
John: Oh, look at the fly boxes.
John: And so this kind is made by Wheatley,
John: Wheatley, which is a British like old school.
John: I mean, I don't know anything about fly land, fly fisherman land, because like I'm an old guy, but come on, that's some old guy stuff.
John: Right.
John: But this company Wheatley makes.
John: these old school aluminum boxes with little glass doors oh these are great and they're small fly boxes yeah they're small they they uh they just fit right inside your your jacket pocket oh that's pretty cool and you can put and it's like got got enough little doors for two weeks worth of pills and so you're doing them not by day but by type
Merlin: i'm guessing or are you are you segmenting them i put each each little box has an entire day's worth of pills six inch compartment boxes yeah i'm guessing that's it yep okay all right so i uh so i got oh you choose 10 compartments 13 compartments 16 compartments look at that oh that's handsome and i have um
John: I have 32 compartments in my little box.
John: Jiminy Christmas.
John: And I found them on eBay.
John: They're not cheap.
John: They're like 200 bucks.
John: No, no, these are costly.
John: Yeah.
John: But I found it on eBay.
John: I got it for cheap.
John: It was one of those, you know, the way I do eBay is I just wait around for somebody who puts their thing on there on the wrong day and nobody comes around.
John: Sure.
John: And I'm like, hey, I got it.
John: I'm sorry, person that thought they were going to get 200 bucks for that.
John: But I got it for $11.
John: So I really enjoy my little box.
John: It came full of wonderful flies, these beautiful flies.
John: And I dumped all the flies out into basically a cup.
John: I have these wonderful flies.
John: Now you need a second case.
John: Right.
John: I'm unlikely to learn fly fishing at this point.
John: But I realize that flies are...
John: Flies cost money to people.
John: People who want flies, I have these flies now.
Merlin: If you learn anything from eBay, it's that everybody wants something.
Merlin: I heard that.
Merlin: Don't you think?
Merlin: I mean, isn't that kind of true?
John: It is true.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: There are people who may not be people with your interest, but somebody wants everything.
John: Everybody wants something.
John: Everybody wants somebody sometimes.
John: Everybody wants some.
John: Everybody wants some.
John: He barely comes around here.
John: One handyman coming up.
John: But I'm feeling anxious now, not because I'm afraid of being buried alive, but because I feel like I'm on the path to selling my house.
Merlin: Yeah, I was wondering about that.
Merlin: We haven't recorded for a couple weeks.
Merlin: I was wondering if there was any.
Merlin: Because you sounded like you had some velocity and interest in surveilling what was happening with the suburbs.
John: You sounded like you were pretty motivated to learn more about that.
John: I'm motivated.
John: I went down.
John: I drove around down in there.
John: There are a lot of ravines in the suburbs around here.
John: I don't know if you know this about this area.
John: Ravines in the suburbs, you say?
John: Yep, yep.
John: These aren't suburbs like you would see, say, in Indiana or... I mean, they have ravines in Indiana.
John: Don't get me wrong.
John: But these aren't like your Los Angeles suburbs that just stretch to the horizon.
John: These are Washington suburbs.
John: So they're all...
John: They got ravines.
John: They got ravines.
John: They got cliffs.
John: They got twisty roads, curvy roads.
John: I was driving around and a guy came up behind me in a Corvette.
John: And I was like, hey, you know, there's twisty roads here.
John: And if I could pull over for you, I would.
John: But you can see as well as I can that you're in a Corvette.
John: I'm in a 79 Suburban.
John: I'm going to get out of your way as soon as I can.
John: Let's just put it that way.
John: But I need you to... So I pointed to my Yosemite Sam back off mud flaps.
John: Yeah, mud flaps, yeah.
John: He backed off.
Merlin: There are a lot of ravines, and you know... That's considered a stay-in-your-ground warning.
John: Oh, yeah, for sure.
John: Next one.
John: It said it right on the mudflap.
John: That could be a court exhibit.
John: Sure, it's admissible in court.
John: I like a ravine.
John: I like a ravine for a lot of reasons.
John: Back when Gibson was alive, I used to take Gibson on these exploring trips down here where we would go down into the ravines.
John: Gibson was a very fancy dog with very long feathers.
John: Gibson did not feel like he was a ravine dog, and he was furious at me.
John: He would sometimes stop and not go any further.
John: Oh, and just say this is going to do stuff to my coat.
John: Yeah, or like, he's like, it hurts my little paws.
John: Was Gibson, forgive me, a Borzoi?
John: He was a Borzoi, yeah.
Okay.
John: Or, sorry, a windhound, a silken windhound.
John: Oh, a windhound.
John: I can't even say it.
John: A windhound.
John: But so I love a ravine because often in the bottom of a ravine is a stream.
John: I love a stream.
John: So I was looking at a house yesterday that had a stream in the backyard.
John: Oh, that would be nice.
John: Just to know it's there.
John: Just to know it's there.
Merlin: Just a little burble, bubble, burble of the stream.
Merlin: My brother and sister-in-law have a creek right out back.
John: I'll see.
Merlin: You can go look at the creek.
Merlin: Creek goes up, creek goes down.
John: Well, and this is, you know, it's Washington, so people here really care about things.
John: They care about taking out invasive species and putting in native species.
John: And they care about taking down culverts and replacing them with fish ladders.
John: Like, they care about those things now.
John: They didn't 80 years ago because they didn't know any better.
John: But now they want to protect the salmon.
John: And I talked to somebody who said, oh, yeah, sometimes we're starting to get fish all the way back up this stream now.
John: And I'm like, oh, if I had a stream... It's nice to know that can change.
John: Yeah, the fishy came back?
John: Yeah.
John: Oh, and there's nothing that I like better than fish spawning and then dying in my yard?
John: I don't know if you've ever been around a big fish spawning thing.
John: But I bet you notice it.
John: Boy, because what they do, the fish, they spawn...
John: And then their life cycle is over and they die.
John: Oh, hakuna matata.
John: Yeah, you got a bunch of dead fish all over it.
Merlin: Could you fly fish back there, you think?
Merlin: Get some waders and a sandwich, maybe a big Stanley full of coffee.
Merlin: Go out there and do some fly fishing.
Merlin: I don't know that much about it.
Merlin: It doesn't mean you have to catch anything.
Merlin: You could still fish.
John: Oh, you could sit there and fish all day, sure.
Merlin: If you're hungry enough, everything is food.
John: I'm starting to say that to my daughter, although, you know, Father's Day came and went.
Merlin: What else do we have?
Merlin: You're not hungry.
John: You're not hungry if you're still asking, what else do we have?
John: I'm trying to convince her that
John: mom and dad are never going to stop eating japanese food oh get used to it we're always going to find something to like here because this is not a thing that's going to end and if you just get edamame we're fine with that just get edamame and be quiet no interest in a cucumber or an avocado roll uh she just is very she's at a point in her life where if it isn't made of cheese um
John: She just looks at it.
John: You know, and I have friends whose kids are like, more olives and baby cucumbers.
John: More pickled radish, please, father.
Merlin: Give me a break.
Merlin: I'd kill for that.
Merlin: I got her to try some Popeye's sides this weekend.
Merlin: That was a big victory.
John: I got her caraage.
Merlin: I got her caraage and rice and Cajun rice.
Merlin: She tried them both.
John: We were at the fancy Japanese restaurant.
John: I got her caraage, which is like fucking fried chicken.
John: Everybody loves fried chicken.
John: It's a Japanese fish finger.
John: And she turns her nose up at it.
John: I'm like, it's fried chicken.
John: Jesus Christ.
John: And she's like, meh.
John: I don't like the meh.
John: So I was like, look, you know, I'm only going to eat Japanese food.
John: That's what happens.
John: That's how you make a friend.
John: Because...
John: Because I'm a dad and dad's run out of ideas.
John: And this is my newest idea, which is... Here's a new thing we're going to try.
John: Which is, I'm going to get sick of Japanese food.
John: That's how dedicated to this cause that I am.
John: What do you think of that?
John: You think you think Japanese food is bad?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Is that how you think it's going to work?
Merlin: You think that's going to give up?
Merlin: I hope it's the refrigerator.
John: It's just full of bento boxes.
John: All of them just have pickled radishes in them.
John: it's so hard i love you daddy jesus christ so um so that's happening today uh some is coming on his way he's on his way right now you can hear him you can see he's in he's got a little ladder truck yeah there's like there's probably somebody in a fireman's hat running after him wearing uh wearing uh like long johns where the flap in the back is open oh nice that's a good look that's a good look
John: But it's the beginning of a cascade of things.
John: Some is going to fix the electrical outside, which is like one of the things that I have to do before I decide to sell the house.
John: And I was walking around with my little one the other day, and I was like, yeah, this is the house where you said your first word, where you took your first step, where you crawled for the first time, where you did everything for the first time.
John: You did every single thing for the first time.
John: You read your first...
John: word here.
John: And she was like, huh.
John: And then went and doesn't care.
John: Jesus Christ.
John: But you know, a dad cares.
John: Oh, a dad cares.
Merlin: I have strong feelings about every stump and log in our park.
Merlin: That's where we used to read Curious George.
Merlin: I don't remember that.
John: Your park is full of Civil War ghosts.
John: It's a little scary over there.
John: Among other things.
John: Well, there's a lot going on.
John: We also got gophers.
John: Are you sure they're gophers or are they moles?
Merlin: Pretty sure.
Merlin: I could send you some videos.
Merlin: I'm pretty sure they're gophers.
Merlin: We found one, a denuded skeleton of one.
Merlin: It had those big nasty teeth.
Merlin: It was a little nutria.
Merlin: What do you think killed it?
Merlin: Probably a raccoon.
Merlin: There's a family of very territorial raccoons in our park.
Merlin: We see them crossing the street sometimes.
Merlin: You know, raccoons, they eat...
John: invertebrates a lot.
John: They eat invertebrates a lot.
John: I think the majority of a raccoon's diet is like bugs.
John: Okay, right.
Merlin: But I do think that they... You're saying they get a hold of a gopher, and that's like a chicken dinner.
John: Yeah, I'm not sure a raccoon would battle royale a gopher, but maybe a gopher that wasn't putting up much of a fight.
Merlin: Might have been annoying, like playing loud music or something.
Merlin: I have moles.
Merlin: Moles.
Merlin: Moles are really creepy, right?
John: They're awful.
John: Moles.
John: They're like a rat that's also a fish.
Merlin: Oh, God, yes.
Merlin: Oh, look at that.
Merlin: It's like a tiny little fuzzy manatee.
Merlin: Oh, I don't like that at all.
Merlin: Look at those little feet.
Merlin: No, they're awful.
Merlin: If you search for moles, you see pictures of big brown things on people's faces and these horrible little creatures with like a vagina face.
John: They're terrible.
John: I just got a mole taken off of me.
John: Good for you.
John: It wasn't like... Was it a little concerning?
John: Was it bumpy?
John: Was it irregular?
John: No, that's the thing.
John: I went in and I said... People always tell me I should get my moles looked at.
John: Is this mole concerning?
John: And the...
John: The dermatologist did the thing that they've always done to me when I go in and say, is this mole concerning?
John: Yeah.
John: They look at the mole just for like half a second and they go, no, no, that mole is fine.
John: And I'm like, I don't get jokes about it.
John: I'm like, I'm sure within dermatologists.
John: All the time to worry about this stuff.
John: All we hear is like, look out for your moles.
John: And they're like, no, no, no, your moles are fine.
John: But I'll go look at your moles if you want.
John: And I'm like, you're not giving me a lot of encouragement to keep coming in and getting these looked at because you keep telling me that it's nothing.
John: Yeah.
John: So she went over my whole body and she was like, yeah, you got moles and they're all great.
John: There's not a bad one among them.
John: I was like, all right.
Merlin: Just by looking, they didn't have to do like a biopsy or anything?
Merlin: Nope.
Merlin: Just looking.
Merlin: Did you want a biopsy?
Merlin: Nope.
John: Didn't care.
John: Didn't care.
John: You did your part.
John: You showed up.
John: You showed up.
John: Yeah.
John: But she said, you know, that one that you asked about, you know, is it bothering you?
John: And I was like, well, I mean, you know, yeah, I guess.
John: It gets raw.
John: You think about it enough, anything can bother you.
John: You know, it hurts, I guess, sometimes.
John: She was like, well, I can take it off.
John: Really?
Merlin: And I said... Is that an inpatient, like your outpatient procedure, they do it right in the office?
John: Yeah.
Oh.
John: And I said, well, what are the advantages and disadvantages?
John: She said, the advantages is it's not there anymore and there are no disadvantages unless it bothers you.
John: Wow.
John: And I was like, huh.
John: Straight Talk Express.
John: Yeah.
John: I said, uh...
John: You know what?
Merlin: Yeah, take it off.
John: Sure.
Merlin: Just do it.
Merlin: See, this is, again, it's the bench fee.
Merlin: You're already there.
Merlin: I'm there.
John: You should get it all taken care of.
John: You should scrape out your knee, get rid of your mole.
John: Well, and you can tell with some... Like, I went in one time with a hurt.
John: Like, I had a... What was it?
John: It was a impacted tooth of some kind.
John: Oh, man.
John: And I went to the dentist, and I was like, oh, this really hurts.
John: And she said, well, you know, we can...
John: You set you on a course of antibiotics.
John: We can do all these things.
John: We can do this and that and this and that.
John: But but it was this was a rear tooth like a what was it?
John: It was a molar.
John: No, it was the kind that you're supposed to get taken out anyway.
John: Wisdom teeth.
John: Wisdom tooth.
John: It was a wisdom tooth.
John: Those are tricky little bastards.
Merlin: And she said, you know, the other thing we do is just take it out.
Merlin: That's what they did to me.
Merlin: That's what they did to me.
Merlin: I had one that I have one that wasn't doing what it's supposed to do.
Merlin: And they just said, we'll just take them all out.
Merlin: And I was like, that seems fine.
John: Well, she just wanted to take the one.
John: And I was like, it hurts so bad that I had turned against this tooth.
John: And I was like, take it out.
John: And she got this look because, you know, she's a dentist, right?
John: She wants to do exciting things.
John: She doesn't want to do dumb, boring things.
John: Sure.
John: And she's like, taking out a wisdom tooth is really, that's fun for us.
John: You know, we have to put one foot on your forehead.
John: Yes.
John: And yank.
John: So with the dermatologist, I was like, take the mole off.
John: And she got all excited and put on her gloves and got her tools.
Oh.
John: And she took the mole off, and then she says, this is the thing that she should have said beforehand.
John: She said, now you need to put a salve on it and keep it covered for two weeks.
John: That was not part of the deal.
John: And I said, what?
John: I'm not going to put a salve on this or keep it covered beyond...
John: this office visit yeah and she said no no no no no you need to you know you need to put a antibiotic salve on it and keep it keep a band-aid on it for two weeks oh chimney and i said yeah well okay i sure will thank you and then as soon as that band-aid fell off i haven't thought about it since and i haven't died and it's been more than two weeks so did they let you keep it
John: Oh, I looked at it.
John: I was like, I got it.
John: You know, don't take something off of me and not let me look at it.
John: Oh, no, no.
John: How deep does it go?
John: I mean, is it like a decal or does it have roots?
John: Well, so this isn't a thing like a wart where they got in with a shovel and got it out.
John: They just sliced it off at the skin.
Merlin: I've only had like four warts in my life.
Merlin: And every time I'm like, I bet I could take care of this.
Merlin: I bet I bet I could do this myself.
Merlin: Oh, I used to cut them out.
Merlin: You cut them out by the roots?
Merlin: Well, I would try, but you get down there and it starts to bleed.
John: Why don't you freeze them yourself like a WD-40 or something?
John: You can get that stuff at the drugstore, but it's sort of like meh.
John: Oh, come on.
Merlin: That's like putting stuff on your cold sore.
John: Just pop it.
John: I would sit and cut them with X-Acto knives.
John: Like a fresh X-Acto knife.
John: Yep, just like slice them right off because you can't feel it.
John: It doesn't have feeling.
John: That's not part of you.
John: But the mole looked like a pretty big pencil eraser.
John: In terms of the width, not the depth.
John: It looked like... It was deep enough to be an eraser?
John: Yeah, it looked like if you took a brand new pencil and you cut the eraser off the back, it looked like... Oh, my goodness.
John: Okay, so that was really sticking out.
John: Sure, it was a big nubbin.
Merlin: If somebody was to rub you lovingly, their hand might have caught on it.
John: Oh, it happened all the time.
John: Oh, dear.
John: Oh.
John: Everybody that knew me well, let's say, knew about this mole.
John: I also had a skin tab that I got taken off, but that's a different story.
John: Skin tag seems like a smaller deal.
John: A lot of people live with skin tags.
John: Well, it seemed like a smaller deal except the location of this one.
John: Oh, okay.
Merlin: Somewhere where it got in the way.
John: Somewhere where it was noticeable to very few people.
John: Oh, but they nearly noticed probably.
John: They noticed it, yeah.
John: It wasn't noticeable to passers.
John: But they wouldn't miss it when it's gone.
John: Uh, no, I don't think they would miss it when it was gone.
John: I think that they would, I mean, I think they might say like, Oh, it's gone, but they wouldn't say like, Oh, somebody, somebody just sent me a link to a New York times article from 2000.
John: Uh, that, uh, is titled the 2000 campaign colon the impressions Washington state semicolon in the Northwest still undecided.
John: And the article starts, in one obvious sense, it would be hard to consider Martine Dedek or John Roderick swing voters in the coming presidential election.
John: Young, unabashedly liberal, both proud participants in last fall's demonstrations here against the World Trade Organization.
John: And goes on to talk about the Bush-Gore election, using me and this young woman, Ms.
John: Dedek, as...
John: As like their two West Coast proxies.
John: Did you remember this interview?
John: I have no recollection of this.
John: And listen to what I say.
John: This is what's crazy.
John: This is where we were.
John: Because I voted for Nader in that election.
John: And what I say is, and this is going to sound so good, so prescient.
John: I'm not horrified about the idea of Bush winning this election, said Mr. Roderick, 31, who's about to graduate from the University of Washington with a degree in the comparative history of ideas.
John: Not quite about to graduate, but sure.
John: Yeah.
John: And here's what I say.
John: You do.
John: It could be the thing.
John: This is Bush winning the election.
John: It could be the thing that reunites liberals around a common enemy, I guess, for lack of a better word.
John: It could force liberals to see what their principles are.
John: Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
John: Oh, I really was so into this idea that it was going to force liberals to.
Merlin: Oh, this is this is good.
Merlin: What is a name for this?
Merlin: What is the name for this phenomenon?
Merlin: The shoot, I forget what it's called, but there's this name like, oh, yeah, it's going to get so much worse.
Merlin: We're finally going to fix this.
John: We're finally going to fix it.
John: Later on, it says, because I guess we're watching the debates.
John: And I say, I would be outraged if Mr. Nader was excluded.
John: Boy, does this sound like something you've heard before?
Merlin: Oh, they're different times, weren't they?
John: I did come into this situation feeling the only responsible vote was a vote for Nader, I said.
John: Still, the acceptance speech by Mr. Gore had put my vote back in play because the vice president touched on important themes.
John: And then I say, I'm susceptible to that kind of democratic rhetoric, talking about the poor, about schools, about paying teachers what they're worth.
John: Oh, you sound like a man that's about to graduate from college.
John: As much as I believe those are the first things that always go out the window, he was talking about them.
John: And yet, and here, this is the New York Times reporter putting themselves in the story.
John: And here, Mr. Roderick smiled at himself for trawling back and forth again with his thoughts.
John: Everyone seems to want to reduce this whole thing to Bush against Gore.
John: And that's a condensation I don't want to participate in.
John: I wouldn't speak that way now.
Merlin: Unusual word choice.
John: Really weird.
Merlin: There's some condensations I would want to participate in, but I don't know about this condensation.
John: Really great.
Merlin: Very moist.
Merlin: It's a very moist election.
John: Somebody sent that to me, and I appreciate that.
John: I appreciate them sending that.
John: I don't know.
John: I do not recall.
John: I do not recall it.
John: But here I am.
John: Did you not vote for Nader, if you could say?
John: I voted for Nader.
John: I voted for Nader both times he ran.
John: And then when people blamed me for electing Bush, I reminded them that Gore won Washington by a handy 10,000 million votes.
John: And it was really just some horseshit in Florida that turned the top.
John: I immediately threw my vote away, sir.
John: I had no effect on the outcome.
John: I did not throw it away.
John: It was a vote for principal.
Merlin: Principal.
Merlin: Please welcome president principal.
John: It was a principal.
Merlin: Hello, I'm Robert Principal.
Merlin: I'll be your new president.
John: Later on in more recent times when people talked about voting for their principals, I was like, well, you know, I did that a few times.
John: Yeah.
John: But it would also be good to get the better of the two candidates elected.
John: But young people pish-poshed me on that, just as I would have pish-poshed.
John: Ron Paul revolution.
John: I did not want to see that condensation.
John: That's not a condensation I will participate in.
John: You will not abide this condensation.
Merlin: All right, I feel better.