Ep. 301: "Non-Euclidean Space Library"
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
Merlin: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: How's it going?
Merlin: Oh, good.
Merlin: Happy Monday.
Merlin: Yay, I love the happy Mondays.
Merlin: Not really.
Merlin: No, no, no.
Merlin: No, that was a big time.
Merlin: I kicked off an era of bands where I didn't understand why they were popular.
John: Yeah, for me too.
John: That whole movement, in fact.
Merlin: That was a mess.
John: I was in Spain in 1989.
John: You were in Ibiza.
John: Yeah, Ibiza.
Merlin: You were there when it all happened.
John: I was, and I still didn't understand it.
John: I was like, boy, if you can't understand it from that perspective, I don't get where you're going to understand it from.
John: But I guess you had to be...
Merlin: in mad chester yeah i mean i guess we wouldn't have uh overrated bands like oasis without overrated bands like happy mondays am i alone in this please tell me because i feel like i feel like i'm being gas lit here's the thing about shoegaze huh
John: Here's the thing about shoegaze.
John: Okay.
John: You're not counting Oasis as a shoegaze band.
John: No.
John: Okay.
John: Here's the thing about shoegaze.
John: Here's the thing about shoegaze.
John: I don't know what to count as a shoegaze band.
John: Because I get the word shoegaze.
John: I get the feeling shoegaze.
John: Partly, I live shoegaze.
John: I gaze at my shoes all the time.
John: There are some iconic images...
John: Of British pop stars in track suits with the zipper zipped all the way up, staring at their shoes, playing the guitar.
John: You can't see their face because they're shaggy hair.
John: Yeah.
John: That are some of the great images of rock and roll.
John: But then you listen to the music and it just doesn't line up.
John: It doesn't make me want to gaze at my shoes.
John: But you like MBV.
John: Oh, I like them a lot.
Merlin: You seen him lately?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: He got older.
Merlin: He looks old.
Merlin: He looks old.
Merlin: I saw him... Oh, what does he play?
Merlin: Mustang?
John: No, well... Jazzmaster or something?
John: Yeah, Jazzmaster.
John: And the other one, the Jaguar, are the ones... Something like that.
Merlin: Yeah, anyway, I watched a video, probably sponsored by Fender, of him talking about his guitars.
Merlin: It was fun, but wow.
Merlin: You learn a lot.
Merlin: People our age got old.
Merlin: Oh, I had this experience yesterday.
Merlin: What's his name?
Merlin: Not Kevin Barnes.
Merlin: Kevin Barnes is the guy of Montreal.
Merlin: He's Kevin Murphy.
Merlin: Shields.
Merlin: Kevin Shields.
Merlin: That's the guy who used to be on MTV.
John: kevin murphy that's a guy that i don't get either what's kevin murphy is that a thing murphy is the lcd sound system oh no no that can't be right i don't understand kevin murphy it says here it's a hair care product oh no kevin murphy isn't he the guy from uh like from uh who's the one from the from the the fall murky smith
Merlin: oh that's the underwear model from boston oh you're thinking of you think of his brother marky mark mark what's the one from what's the one from the sixth sense that that's hailey joel osmond yeah that's right he's making the rounds he's getting he's getting his face out there was he yeah well sure sure now he's now he's got that good haircut yeah i think he grew something like a beard yeah well that's what you do when you're a child star did you know i'm growing a mustache
John: As a dare?
John: Is this part of your other podcast where you get a challenge to do interesting things?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: I don't know why I did it.
John: I did it mostly... Wait, you did this on just your personal recognizance?
Merlin: Well, I hadn't shaved for a while, and I went and I shaved, and I thought, huh, there's more hair than usual out there.
Merlin: I should just let it rip.
Merlin: And it's real appalling.
Merlin: I look kind of like... I look at a cross between, like...
Merlin: porno rob delaney and commissioner gordon or lieutenant gordon i look a little bit of a gary oldman thing going on and have a little bit of lcd sound system hair on top of it that's not kevin murphy i don't think who's the one in uh mystery science theater is that kevin murphy oh well that uh that is well that's we call him murph murph murph
John: Is there a Kevin Delaney?
John: Is there Rob Delaney?
John: There's Rob Delaney.
John: I'm sure there's a Kevin Delaney.
John: You can't put those two good Irish names together.
Merlin: Kevin Delaney says here is an American voice actor.
Merlin: Hmm.
Merlin: Kevin.
Merlin: Uh, boy.
Merlin: You know, my best friend in high school is Kevin.
Merlin: Wait, I get confused about your best friends.
Merlin: I feel like I need an infographic.
John: Yeah.
John: I don't, I mean, it's not like I've had a thousand best friends.
Merlin: We've had a few.
Merlin: I get, I get real confused.
Merlin: And it's very early.
Merlin: Yeah, it is.
Merlin: Poof.
Merlin: Kevin Delaney, Kevin Barnes, Kevin Shields.
Merlin: Then who's the one from, who's the one from MTV that you like?
Merlin: Oh, uh, that's, um.
Merlin: Ray, Ray Shields.
Merlin: No.
Merlin: Kevin.
John: Kevin Costner.
Merlin: Kevin Costner.
Merlin: He's the one who drank his pee-pee on that boat.
John: Oh, I never saw that movie.
John: I was told not to see that movie by the critics.
John: If you build it, they will come.
John: And, you know, sometimes you don't do things when critics tell you not to.
Merlin: That was a different era.
Merlin: It really was.
Merlin: That was after the Dances with Wolves, I think.
Merlin: I think that's in his jubilee year.
Merlin: He could have done whatever he wanted, and he did the pee-pee boat.
John: That's right.
John: Well, that's what happens sometimes.
Merlin: Was that Gene Triplehorn?
Merlin: Who was in that?
Merlin: It wasn't Kevin Costner.
Merlin: It was Kevin Barnes.
Merlin: I want to say Gene Triplehorn, but I don't think that's right.
Merlin: Gene Triplehorn!
Merlin: One for Daddy.
John: It was the guy from Miss American Life.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: All right, Kevin.
Merlin: And that's, wait, hang on.
Merlin: I know this.
John: It was Kevin seal.
John: That was Kevin seal.
John: What an unlikely name, but it's true.
John: It's really his.
Merlin: Yeah, that's right.
Merlin: I saw him in a movie theater in 1988.
Merlin: He was a torch song trilogy in 1988.
Merlin: You actually saw him in person in a movie theater.
Merlin: He was in the city of Manhattan.
John: uh what were you doing in manhattan in 1988 oh i remember with my girlfriend to see museums you know that picture me in the green jacket yeah you're in the subway yep uh henderson says my jacket i always used to wonder about that because i was like there are no subways in florida no that was uh pretty crazy hair then
Merlin: Do you want to start the show?
Merlin: Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.
Merlin: Hold on, hold on, hold on.
John: You had a mustache then.
John: You're right, I did.
John: Bringing it back around.
Merlin: I don't have a recording camera near me right now, so I can send you one from like a week ago.
John: Well, send it to me when you get a recording camera.
Merlin: Yeah, it's gotten better, I guess.
John: Yesterday, I was speaking of how Kevin Shields doesn't look as good as he used to.
John: Yeah.
John: I was in this neighborhood I'm trying to move to or thinking about moving to.
John: Not really trying.
John: Your aspirational neighborhood.
John: An aspirational neighborhood.
John: And there was this open house.
John: And so I, so I pulled in and, uh, you know, there were a bunch of people there.
John: There was a real estate agent there.
John: It was, you know, your typical open house.
John: I don't know.
John: Do you ever go to those as, um, uh, for like just the lulls?
Merlin: Um, my lady, my lady friend in the past has done that.
Merlin: I find it very uncomfortable to be in anyone else's house.
Merlin: Especially because they probably died.
Merlin: But she likes to go look at other people's houses just because it's the thing.
Merlin: What can we get for $4,500 a month?
Yeah, right.
Merlin: Start looking around.
Merlin: Yeah, you know.
Merlin: Well, so I was, so I'm doing double our rent, but it would be smaller and smell weird.
John: I'm doing this thing.
John: I'm doing this thing.
John: I'm going to places.
John: You're having a whole process.
John: And I don't, I don't, I'm uncomfortable doing it.
John: Uh, especially like I don't like to do it with, uh, with other people.
John: Like I don't like to roll in with my family because it's just got, that's too much splaining to do.
John: But if I'm just walking around and I walk into a place, I feel like I can stay...
John: I can stay agile.
John: Like I can talk to a real estate agent.
Merlin: Oh, there's more question marks if you come in by yourself that it would be improper to ask.
Merlin: Whereas if you went in with your family, then they feel they can ask questions about school and age and grades and all that kind of stuff.
John: Yeah, and I feel like there's a little bit of sort of divide and conquer that happens where they're like, oh, so, you know.
Merlin: Want to see your new room?
John: Yeah, that type of thing.
John: Yeah.
John: Anyway, so I go in, but the owners are there, which I don't think that's supposed to happen.
John: I don't think you're supposed to do that.
Merlin: And I think they're supposed to be gone.
Merlin: That's part of the process.
Merlin: You bake cookies.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: You stage it.
Merlin: You put out some flowers.
Merlin: And then they're not supposed to be there.
Merlin: That queers the deal, I think.
John: They're not supposed to be there.
John: And as soon as I walk up, I can tell that they are the owners.
John: Because in the front driveway of this house is a totally cherried out 1957 Chevy that has been...
John: custom custom custom it's like not just it's not a stock 57 chevy it's a hot rod in 57 chevy that's been like frenched and dropped and this is in your aspirational mid-century modern uh neighborhood of the future that's right and i see this car and i'm like hmm and there's a bearded guy standing there uh
John: talking to somebody and he's got his hand on it.
John: And I'm like, Oh, the owner.
John: Well, so they're not supposed to do this, but this is something that I love.
John: The owners are lurking around their own open house.
John: Ooh.
John: Now I am in it to win it.
John: Mm hmm.
Mm hmm.
John: And partly it's because I have a fantasy that I'm going to charm the owners and they're going to say, you know what?
John: Just take the house.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You've had this for a while.
Merlin: You've had this idea that maybe something needs to be passed along and they're just waiting for the right person.
John: Yeah.
John: They're going to be like, you know what?
John: We're rich.
John: We don't even care.
John: We're just doing this as a formality.
John: Our kids suck.
John: We're not going to give them the house.
Merlin: Right.
John: We need somebody who's worthy.
John: Yeah.
John: Talking to you.
John: This seems like a thing.
John: We'll just give you the house.
John: Yeah.
Yeah.
John: So I roll up and the real estate agent comes beelining for me.
John: And she's like an older lady who's been doing real estate for a long time.
John: And you can tell that she is mega stressed out that the owners are there because they keep interrupting her.
Merlin: See, the whole point of doing the way we do houses today is that you can, it's sort of like going into a bathroom or a hotel room.
Merlin: You're supposed to feel like nobody else has ever been there.
Merlin: You're supposed to imagine how you would use the bathroom.
John: This house is not that because it's one of those instances where
John: Where the people are still living there.
John: They're not, they are not selling the house because they bought a better place.
John: They are selling the house to see how much they can get for it.
John: And they don't even know where they're going to go.
John: But, but I jump ahead.
John: So now I have the complication both of really wanting to talk to the owners, but also not wanting to, not wanting the real estate agent to feel bad about she's got her job to do.
John: Right.
John: So I let her show me around the house.
John: And she gives me the spiel.
John: And here's this guy, the bearded guy.
John: He's lurking around behind us and he keeps trying to interject.
John: And I'm like, so these light fixtures, are these 110 or 111 or what are these?
John: The real estate agent goes, oh, well, everything in here is up to code and then he leans over and he's like, I put these in myself.
John: I'm like, oh, really?
John: Who am I talking to?
Merlin: Am I talking to you?
Merlin: Am I talking to you?
John: Who am I talking to here?
John: Well, this is the thing.
John: I give him the, I ice him out because I know he wants to talk to me and I want to talk to him, but I'm pretending to care what the real estate agent says.
John: So she walks me through the whole house and she's doing the real estate thing.
John: She turns all the lights on.
John: She talks about the local HOA dues, all this crap.
John: And he just can't bear it.
John: He's just lurking.
John: He's straightening books on the bookshelf.
Merlin: And there are other people in the house.
Merlin: I don't think this guy wants to sell his house.
Merlin: There's not any of the classic feelings that this guy actually wants to move this unit.
Merlin: I think he's got something else going.
Merlin: I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I feel like there's something else afoot here.
Merlin: Maybe he's casting a movie?
John: That's not 100% impossible to imagine.
John: He's big.
John: He's as big as me, and he's got a gray beard and gray hair, and he's wearing a polo shirt that's got a little logo on it, and he's kind of...
John: You know, he's pretty stocky, but you can tell he's strong.
Merlin: His hair is a little long-ish.
Merlin: Could he throw somebody through a window if he had to?
Merlin: Oh, yes.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: Thanks.
Merlin: That helps.
Merlin: Oh, yes.
John: He could probably, if a child was trapped under his 57 Chevy, he could probably lift up one corner of it to free the child.
Merlin: Especially if the child's been, you know, fixed up and is in cheery condition.
Yeah.
Merlin: Exactly.
John: If the child has, if the child has Crager rims, you want to, you want to, you want to get him out and restore him.
John: Oh yeah.
John: You got the blown out Hemis Converse.
John: Anyway.
John: So eventually I, it's so early.
Merlin: It's really fucking early.
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John: So I pull myself away from the real estate agent, and then this guy's on me like tar paper.
John: And the first thing I notice is the emblem on his polo shirt says U.S.
John: Navy SEALs.
John: And I'm like, hmm, okay.
John: I'm not going to mention it.
John: Federal body inspector.
John: I'm not going to mention it.
John: I'm just going to walk around with him.
John: And the house is decorated in a style.
John: First of all, it's a beautiful house.
John: It's like a really, really interesting architectural mid-century house.
John: But he and his wife clearly have decorated it in a hodgepodge that they think is beautiful but is pretty wrong.
John: I think it was probably a five-bedroom house.
John: And they said, well, we want a master bath, so this bedroom is going to become the best.
John: And they basically have a bedroom that just has a bathtub and a shower and a toilet.
John: Wow.
John: And then they're like, this bedroom is going to be the room.
John: That screams no kids.
John: No kids, right?
John: This room, we're going to take all the windows out of it so that we can put racks of CDs.
Merlin: This is how my old action figures and Aurora models.
John: Yeah, exactly.
Merlin: Like a Brian Pussain room.
John: Yeah, that's exactly what it feels like.
John: Like, we don't need all these rooms.
John: We're going to turn them into specialty rooms and paint, you know, and paint like Ouroboros on the kitchen wall and stuff.
John: But so I walk into a room and there is a, like, there are a bunch of photographs of the owner doing Navy SEAL shit in Vietnam.
John: Jumping out of helicopters.
Merlin: Wait a minute.
John: He's that old?
Merlin: He's a Vietnam-era vet?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: What?
Merlin: I'm so confused.
Merlin: I'm clocking this guy around 30.
Merlin: No, no, no, no.
John: He's got... Oh, you think this guy might be 65?
John: I think he's 70.
Merlin: He could throw a guy through a window.
John: But he doesn't look 70.
Merlin: Navy SEALs polo shirt, gray beard.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: He's fit.
Merlin: He's fit.
John: But I mean, he's fat, but he's like, he's fit.
John: How about his wrist size?
John: He has big wrists?
John: He's big all around.
John: Okay.
John: And he's friendly.
John: And so as soon as the real estate agent, as soon as he kind of like emotionally or energetically bullies her out of his own house,
John: He's like, what's your story?
John: And I'm like, well, I'm looking for a house.
John: You know, I'm around here doing some things.
John: And he's like, yeah, well, this is a house.
John: I'm like, it sure is.
John: And we start talking.
John: I was like, so, you know, this room, interesting.
John: No windows.
John: And he's like, oh, yeah, I concreted in all the windows to make it soundproof.
John: I was like, why do you need this room to be soundproof?
John: Not that I'm not that I'm not intrigued.
John: He's like, oh, well, this is the room where I, you know.
Merlin: There's so much reflection of the killing floor.
John: He's got all this crazy shit that he's like, that he's prepped the house for.
John: And I said, so your special forces, I gather.
John: And he was like, yep, three tours.
John: Shit, dog.
John: I said, well, let's just, let's light this candle, shall we?
John: Do it.
John: Go.
John: Anyway, I was there for four and a half hours.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
John: Three tours is a lot of tours.
John: It's a lot of tours.
John: His wife comes out of the back room, and I swear to you, I wouldn't have been surprised if she was my age.
John: If you had said she's almost 50, would have bought it 100%.
John: I looked at her, and I was like, boy, this is interesting.
John: he's, he's taken a much younger bride.
John: Was she Caucasian?
John: She was.
John: Okay.
John: And they start talking and they're like, well, when we got married in 1970, and I'm like, wait a minute, you got married in 1970?
John: Like you're both 70?
John: 48?
Merlin: Is that right?
Merlin: She looks... 48 years they've been married?
Merlin: Is that right?
John: Yeah.
John: She looks my age or younger.
John: and i'm like who what reality are you people and so we're walking around and he's he's somewhat we walk outside and he's like well let me tell you i don't like talking about politics and i'm like i bet you do don't he starts kind of you know like intimating was there was there an implicit comma there where the politics were going to be coming in a second oh yeah oh for sure he wanted you know he wanted me to know like first of all the
John: What you need to know in this neighborhood is never go to the government for a permit because they can't see up the driveways.
John: And I was like, good point.
John: He said, yeah, that's the great thing about living out here.
John: The inspectors don't come around.
John: The driveways are all too long.
John: You have to worry about those pesky revenuers.
John: I was like, this is so, this is so great.
John: Tell me more inside info around here.
John: Cause you know where I live, the inspectors are like climbing the trees.
John: And he said, yeah, that's why we're getting out of here.
Hmm.
John: Seattle.
John: Seattle's got too many inspectors.
John: Interesting tapestry.
John: So it turns out they write travel.
John: They do travel coffee table books.
John: Okay.
John: This is their job.
John: Is she the photographer?
John: They both are.
John: Okay.
John: And they both write and they do travel books about things.
John: I'm not 100% sure exactly.
John: I perused a couple of their books.
John: It seemed like a lot of their books were for hire.
John: Okay.
John: Like Horizon Air decides they want a coffee table book of the history of Horizon Air.
John: Well, that's a good gig.
John: Yeah, and I don't think Horizon decides it.
John: I think that they went and made pitches to places and said... Yeah, their thing is going to be all about the right relationships.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: You don't have to have relationships with the clients.
Merlin: You have to have relationships with the people the clients hire.
Merlin: And if you get an ad or marketing agency in between you...
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Or an agent of some kind.
John: But like it's endless, right?
John: You could go to the Ski-Doo snowmobile company and say, you guys need a coffee table book about the history of Ski-Doo.
John: And they would believe it.
John: Sure.
John: And people would buy it.
John: I mean, I'd buy a book about Ski-Doo's.
John: Anyway, so.
John: I'm just rapping with them.
John: We're talking about, she doesn't have any interest in telling me about how to get around local laws.
John: Okay.
John: She says that she was briefly an airline host, a stewardess, a waitress in the sky.
John: Yep.
John: And her first ever flight in 1970 was hijacked.
John: I was like, let me get my spiral bound.
Merlin: Remember when that used to happen?
Merlin: You used to have hijackings.
Merlin: I know, you got hijacked.
Merlin: You just have hijackings all the time.
John: I was like, where's my spiral bound notebook?
John: I want to just be here all afternoon with you.
Merlin: You know who needs a coffee table book is these two.
John: Whoa, I didn't even think.
John: How meta?
John: Do a book about yourselves.
John: You should pitch them.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Anyway, so I'm there.
John: Well, I can't fathom it.
John: And at one point he says, well, the guy next door bought the house.
John: You know, the house next door used to belong to our in-laws.
John: But a new family moved in.
John: And then he says, then here's the turn of the knife.
John: Okay.
John: He says, I mean, you know, he's not like our age.
John: And he gestures between himself and me.
John: He goes, he's a younger guy, like in his 30s.
John: And I was like, and then he said, he kind of caught himself and he was like, no, I mean, not to imply that you and I are the same age, but you know, he's not like one of us.
John: He's like one of those, one of them.
John: And I was like, ah, you're 70.
John: You're 70.
John: I'm 49.
Merlin: You think you got the cut wrong?
Merlin: It should be like, like more like you guys, like you and that young 30 year old guy.
John: Or something.
John: I mean, or something like, you know, he's young, sort of like where you would be.
John: That sounds like a sign of respect.
John: It was.
John: And I also feel like, you know, when I look in the mirror right now, I have to acknowledge I'm a little bit on the heavy side.
John: Oh, come on.
John: And my beard has gone almost completely gray.
Mm-hmm.
John: You know, when I get a little heavy, the weight, you know, a lot of people are like, oh, the weight all goes to my butt or the weight all goes to my belly.
John: In my case, it all goes to my neck.
John: Oh, no.
John: My neck goes from like a size 18 to a size like 30, right?
John: Really?
John: And it just, and, and with the gray hair, I just, I start, I just start looking like George Lucas.
John: You think you're getting a doolab?
John: Well, I don't, I don't.
John: But, but at the same time, like if I catch, if I catch up a glimpse at a photograph of myself, just like what the hell is going on?
John: I look like I could have been a Navy seal in Vietnam.
Hmm.
John: You do.
Merlin: You do.
John: I mean, in a good way.
John: But I don't think it's good.
John: I was like, I was like, yeah, just like us, like, like men of a certain age, like a, like, because, you know, because looking at her, I was like, well, shit, I thought she was 45.
John: So if you think I'm 69, like there's, we're in a, we're in a vortex.
John: Yeah.
Yeah.
John: She started talking about the house as though I already lived there because I'd been there for four hours.
Merlin: Were they pulling for you at this point?
John: Sitting in the living room.
John: Well, no.
Merlin: Because they want you to have it at this point.
Merlin: They're going to retire on that big coffee table book money.
John: I think they did want me to have it, but they also, a big part of the later conversation was like, well, we're thinking about moving to Tennessee.
John: You know what you can get in Tennessee for $350,000?
John: I don't even want to know.
John: You can be the governor of Tennessee for that month.
John: Uh, so I don't know where the hell they're living, but, or where they're planning to go, but they're not rich.
John: They're not rich enough to give me their house.
John: Okay.
John: And I think they could tell, I don't know.
John: I, I, I, I kept my cards pretty close, but she said, you know, next door, um, you're not going to want to go introduce yourself next door.
John: She's naming all the neighbors.
John: And I was like, Oh, why not?
John: And she said, well,
John: The woman who lives next door is an Alaska Airlines stewardess, and she's a little bit, she'd be, she would glom onto you really hard, and she'd be over here every day.
Merlin: Don't throw me the briar patch.
John: I said, that doesn't sound too bad.
John: One of my number one criteria in looking for a house is that it be next door to a house full of stewardesses.
Merlin: who's familiar with Alaska and gloms on, but then leaves?
John: And she said, yeah, but not this one.
John: You don't want that.
John: And I was like, all right, I'll take your... I think she's doing some kind of pickup artist thing on you.
John: She's speaking as a stewardess who has been hijacked.
Merlin: She's seen some stuff.
John: She's been in the shit.
John: Oh, and she was born in Alaska.
John: I forgot to tell you that.
John: My goodness.
John: They met and married in Alaska.
John: We had so much to talk about.
John: By the time I left, it was...
John: Did they offer you a drink?
John: Oh, yeah.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: We had drinks.
John: We sat in the living room with our ice clinking in our glasses talking about all of our experienced drinks at home.
Merlin: Was the real estate agent there the whole time?
John: No, the real estate agent realized that... What was it like in the moments right before she left?
John: All three of us couldn't wait for her to go.
John: Because I was like...
Merlin: The nature of this event has changed.
John: Yes, it has.
John: Now this is a Navy SEAL conversation that's going to morph into the story of these two people's lives that I desperately want to hear.
John: And I'm not interested in where the hot water heater is anymore.
John: Also, I figured that out.
John: On my own opening doors.
Merlin: Well, yeah, you probably didn't want to mention him that you were almost the head of the CIA.
Merlin: Well, there were a lot of things.
John: There were a lot of things.
John: You know, this is the classic thing.
John: A lot of things that they failed to ask about me.
John: So they I walked away with a lot more information about them than they did me.
John: And I'm never... If people are interesting, boy, I do not care.
John: I don't care that they know anything about me.
John: I just wanted to know about them.
John: Yes.
John: And, you know, they're out there.
John: They're out there.
John: This is the... I used to feel so much...
John: Well, until very recently, in fact, until about one and a half seconds ago, I felt tremendous contempt for the baby boomer generation.
Merlin: But they got it coming.
Merlin: They really got it coming.
John: But you know, that feeling I had when I realized that my dad's generation was dying like, like by the thousands every day.
John: Yeah.
John: And if we didn't do something, if we didn't, I don't know, record them somehow, like get them into the board, we were going to lose them forever.
John: How would we ever know how much a Coke used to cost?
John: Well, and now we never will.
John: Except... Except... Except... Except I was listening.
John: How long did it take the radio to warm up?
John: I was listening.
John: I can at least remember some of those stories.
John: But now I'm realizing, oh shit, this is going to happen to the boomers too.
John: We're going to lose all of their great stories.
John: Oh, their collective knowledge.
John: Oh my gosh.
John: And 70% of their stories are lies and they always were lies.
Merlin: And they were baked, drunk, or gacked out for so much of like 20 years.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Don't you think?
John: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: I mean, they remember that TGI Fridays is a place, but they probably don't remember a lot of what happened there.
John: Well, these two went to great pains to explain to me that they never did drugs, because during the 70s, after they were married, after he had matriculated out of the special forces...
John: they became rock photographers oh so they saw the needle and the damage done they did he was they were they were saying like oh we were at this we were sitting in this restaurant one time with wolfman jack and i was like go on i would love to go to a diner with wolfman jack i know and i know right now all of our all of our younger listeners are like who
Merlin: What's going to happen to everything that Gen X knows?
Merlin: It's just going to disappear.
Merlin: Who's going to remember Wolfman Jack?
John: Well, you know, we're the bridge.
John: We're the bridge generation.
John: Is that it?
John: We can speak to both sides.
John: Anyway, they were with Wolfman Jack, and Wolfman Jack said, can I get you some beers, or would you like some Coke?
John: oh i i could see him doing some bumps i could definitely see that yeah and they were like uh do you have any diet coke uh and wolfman jack literally drew a square in the air with his fingers no wait for it wolfman jack says it's always diet coke all right baby what was his catchphrase coming to you from the airwaves uh boy i don't remember i uh
John: I can hear him in my head, but it's Casey Kasem that really fills up my AM radio ear holes.
Merlin: Boy, look at Wolfman Jack.
Merlin: There's no way he was not doing tons of coke.
Merlin: Oh, the whole time.
Merlin: Look at him.
John: He's made of cocaine, John.
John: Even before cocaine was fashionable, Wolfman Jack was doing cocaine.
John: Oh, my God.
John: You know, what's funny is that he seems like such a...
John: a 70s character, but he's really a 50s character.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: I think he was in American Graffiti.
John: Yeah.
John: I believe he was.
John: He was.
John: He was for sure.
John: Yeah.
John: He was in your favorite movie, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Merlin: Oh, the one with the Bee Gees.
Merlin: Who was the Bee Gees and who else?
Merlin: Who was the other star?
Merlin: Andy Gibb.
Merlin: Andy Gibb, of course.
Merlin: Poor Andy Gibb.
John: These two, the Navy SEAL and his wife, had an Andy Gibb story.
John: She said, I wrote a letter to...
John: The Gibb brothers saying that Andy looked bad and that they needed to come rescue him because those those snakes in Hollywood were filling him full of drugs.
John: Oh, no.
John: And she said they never replied.
John: And then it was too late.
John: I was like, wow, I didn't think I was going to get an Andy Gibb story out of this whole thing.
John: Is it behind the music?
Merlin: It's one of those shows.
Merlin: It's a very good one on the Brothers Gibb.
Merlin: We talked about this.
Merlin: And then Morris died.
Merlin: It's all very sad.
Merlin: Everybody dies eventually.
Merlin: Look at Wolfman Jack.
Merlin: He's got so much cocaine coursing through his veins.
Merlin: Look at that guy.
Merlin: There's a lot of tragedy in the world.
John: You know, Wolfman Jack is the first guy, I think, that had that shoe polish beard.
John: Like a Michael McDonald beard?
John: Well, yeah, except, like, clearly colored with shoe polish.
Merlin: Oh, okay.
Merlin: All right.
John: I mean, look at it.
John: That is not how beards grow, and that is not the color of beards.
John: I see, I see, I see.
John: You did some fill-in work.
John: Well, and I have a friend who plays rock and roll.
John: There are a lot of people in the rock and roll business that...
John: You know that that are worried about getting old.
John: I mean, even more worried than me.
John: And I and I know a guy.
Merlin: There's a lot more comb overs going on than anybody wants to talk about.
John: Yeah.
John: And he and this guy is very handsome guy.
John: He's very he's very rock and roll, dark, dark rock.
John: And he definitely draws his beard.
John: he draws his beard black let's say that is fascinating and uh and with a sharpie well or it's no like something some kind of just for men he he like makes his beard it's not that he doesn't have the hair it's just that he he wants it to be just for men
John: Yeah, the gray goes away.
John: He washes the gray right out of his hair.
John: Oh, wash that.
John: Yeah.
John: And he washes blackened.
John: And he looks, you know, he looked like at a certain point, you start looking like Anton LaVey, no matter what you do.
John: It starts to not be.
Merlin: That's the inertia of the human beard.
Merlin: Really, I mean, that's where you're headed.
Merlin: That's the singularity of the Anton LaVey beard.
Merlin: I just keep looking at pictures of Wolfman Jack.
Merlin: I've got to put this down.
Merlin: He's gorgeous, isn't he?
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Here's a picture of him.
John: Never handsome, exactly.
Merlin: Here's a picture of him, very old picture of him, with Don Imus, Howard Stern, and Soupy Sales.
Merlin: Yep.
Merlin: How would that be for a room?
John: Yeah.
John: You know what it is?
John: It's the Dave Navarro factor.
John: Oh, Jesus.
John: Dave Navarro, at a certain point, you know, in the very earliest days of Jane's Addiction, Dave Navarro was very young.
John: And he was, I always thought, very pretty.
John: Like, he was surprisingly pretty.
Merlin: Yeah, he had kind of an androgynous slimy goth thing going on.
John: Yeah, right.
John: I mean, Perry Farrell was 10 years older than us, back when that seemed to make a real difference.
John: But, like, Dave Navarro was the same age as we were.
John: But he was, like, in this big, big band.
John: And I couldn't even.
John: I was still, like, going downstairs going, Mom, I can't give this to Mom.
John: And Dave Navarro was all on the, you know, like, people, you know, flying through the air.
John: I was like, Mom, you put my toys away in the wrong box.
John: Mom.
Mom.
John: So now you look at Dave Navarro and it's like he takes his eyeliner pencil and he draws his eyes on and then he draws all the rest of himself on.
John: He doesn't wear a lot of rings.
John: I think so.
John: He seems like a ring guy.
John: He does.
John: Too many rings.
John: I was at the guitar store one time, the fancy guitar store.
Merlin: Can I say one thing I love?
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: First of all, I want to say, as we do, we got some nice comments about last week's episode.
Merlin: I thought it was a very good episode.
Merlin: People liked you talking about, you did a good one last week.
Merlin: But people always say to me, they say, oh, John was really good last week.
Merlin: And I say, you know, the thing about John is I never know.
Merlin: We don't talk about what we're going to talk about.
Merlin: And I never know.
Merlin: Whatever's the show is the show.
Merlin: And I don't know what is going to happen.
Merlin: I don't know what John's going to say.
Merlin: He's always surprising me.
Merlin: But it took till this episode, 301, for me to realize also a lot of times...
Merlin: I don't know why you're telling me a story, and I'm not sure if you've told me the important part yet.
Merlin: And I've come to treasure that.
Merlin: No, it's a good thing.
Merlin: It's a very good thing.
Merlin: I'm not sure if you've already told me the important part.
Merlin: And then maybe you're figuring out as you go.
Merlin: But I'm not sure what the important part of that story was, but I really enjoyed it.
Merlin: And it got me thinking about Wolfman Jack.
John: The important part of the house tour show.
Merlin: I feel like the important part was, and this is why I asked, was that it started out as just looking at an open house and then ended up four and a half hours later with you got a new friend.
Merlin: Is that kind of part of it?
Merlin: No.
John: Did I miss it?
John: You want to start over?
John: No.
John: Well, you know, the important part of the story is unfolding.
John: I think you're right.
John: Oh, we're not there yet.
John: Shit, I just screwed the pooch.
John: I'm sorry.
John: No, no, no.
John: It's all right because the important part of the story, as it reveals itself, it is immune to interruption.
John: It's there.
John: The important part is there.
Merlin: That's a very lucky thing for your story.
John: I may still be trying to draw it down.
John: You know, a lot of the time on this show, what we're doing is we're trying to figure out what the important part of any story is.
Merlin: This might be the seventh inning stretch.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And then you're going to come back to the story.
John: Then later on, just be like, you know, what I realized was there were people buried on the floor of the music studio in the back.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: But I don't think there were.
John: I don't think he's brave.
John: Did you ever find out why the room was soundproof?
John: Well... Was it for crafting?
John: Did they craft loudly?
John: No, he started to talk about his music.
John: And at that point, I really, really... I did a strong redirect.
Merlin: You suppose there's any chance it might be kind of heavy rock blues?
Merlin: Yes.
Yes.
Merlin: Is there any chance at all that it's heavy rock blues?
Merlin: I think there is.
Merlin: I think there was a very good chance of it.
John: You know he plays a Strat.
John: He absolutely started talking about his Strat.
Merlin: Oh, shit dog!
John: And I was like, hmm, yeah, your Strat.
John: Anyway, let's go take a look at those.
John: What I would like to see now is the water cooler or the water heater or whatever you call it.
Merlin: Whatever you got to change the temperature of water, open that door now.
John: Yeah, because I didn't want to hear him talk about his strat.
John: I don't like hearing you talk about your strat typically.
John: If you're a listener to this program and you have a strat and you want to talk about it with me, come up with another strategy.
John: Yeah, do better.
Yeah.
John: But as part of my process here, I'm trying to decide what color I'm going to paint my beard.
Merlin: It looks like you're just gathering string, but it's part of a larger process.
Merlin: Trust John's process.
John: Yes.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: And you'll figure out what the process is for when you're good and ready.
Merlin: All you know is there's a process maybe.
Merlin: Maybe part of the process is figuring out if there is a process and if so, what the process is.
Merlin: You got to figure that out.
Merlin: You have to figure that out by doing it.
Merlin: I'm so much more into that than I should be.
Merlin: I'm super into that.
Merlin: It's like you might need a framework.
Merlin: You need a guide.
Merlin: You need a paradigm, like a mental model.
Merlin: Sometimes, sometimes you got to do research to know what kind of research to do.
John: The thing is, I don't I don't typically like to apply a mental model.
John: I like the mental model to come from the experience.
Merlin: The one chooses the wizard.
John: Yes, I am building new matrices every day.
John: And that's why, you know, that's why if you look behind me in time, in my inception, my bookcases are not all parallel.
John: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: I do.
Merlin: It's a non-Euclidean space library.
John: Yeah, it's much more like my design of that of the film in my mind of that.
John: it would be very much more fractal and less like Library of Congress.
Merlin: Well, I think, with all due respect to the Time Lords, I think part of it was, the whole idea was, they're trying to, and the spoilers for Interstellar, I think they were trying to show five-dimensional something to a creature that can only nominally understand the three dimensions.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: That's what I'm trying to describe to people.
Merlin: It's a model for a model.
Merlin: Yeah, five-dimension reality.
Merlin: Okay, okay.
Merlin: Five-dimension reality.
Merlin: But there's a kind of dream logic to it where you don't know if it exists or has been discovered.
Merlin: You're not building it.
Merlin: It is being built.
Merlin: You're involved, and eventually in time, you may or may not discover that as part of your process that may or may not exist.
Merlin: Exactly.
Merlin: That's the process.
Merlin: The process is we don't know if there's a process.
Merlin: Is this bookshelf curved?
Merlin: Precisely.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: In Russia, process builds you.
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: I mean, I say dream logic, but I mean, that's the thing.
Merlin: That's the thing.
Merlin: I have a whole bunch of things related to dream logic that I won't go into.
Merlin: But I think one of them is that, you know, you get the dessert that you discover.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: You don't get to go design a bunch of bananas.
Merlin: Sometimes you just have to say, I'm aware of the presence of a dessert in this dream, and I'm going to go discover it.
Merlin: And you've got to kind of walk backwards at half speed.
Merlin: You find the thing, you discover the matrix or the process model, even if it's expressed as a bookcase curved or otherwise.
Merlin: You may or may not find it, and you know who's discovering it?
Merlin: It may not be you.
Merlin: It's being discovered, and you are there for it.
Merlin: Don't you think?
Merlin: I mean, a little bit.
John: The process is the process.
John: In my experience of this particular moment in life, in my life,
John: I am definitely trying to figure out where things belong.
John: Oh, boy.
John: I think about it a lot.
Merlin: I think about that so much.
Merlin: I think about that on so many levels.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Where do things belong?
John: And when I get a thing, I try and figure out where it belongs.
John: I try and figure out where I belong.
John: Does it strike you quickly when something is not where it belongs?
John: sometimes, but a lot of the time things are Alma or just about where they belong.
John: They're right around where they belong.
John: Or sometimes you pick up a thing.
John: You're like, I have no idea if there's, if there, if there is even a place for it or yeah.
John: Or like, is this an unprecedented thing that,
John: And we do have to invent bananas.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You may.
Merlin: You don't know.
Merlin: But it's the same kind of thing where you go and you say you want to get a P.O.
Merlin: box.
Merlin: And they say, well, what size?
Merlin: And you say, how even would I know?
Merlin: How even would I know?
Merlin: Why would I need a larger P.O.
Merlin: box or a smaller P.O.
Merlin: box?
Merlin: That is a very...
Merlin: that that's somebody who i think is in on the process in the bookshelves when they're asking you a question like that there's some kind of hidden secret banana dessert in that i don't know what the fuck that means because if it fills up you'll hold it for me and i'll pick it up sure is there any downside to me am i missing out on treats if i don't get the very large box and you know what you ask them and they're gonna say you should just get what you think you need how do i know what i think i need here's the thing if it's free refills why would i get a large it doesn't even make sense it's just it's not as comfortable in your hand yeah you just get the smallest cheapest one and then it's free refills okay
John: I'm not going to get a large coffee if you have free refills.
John: I'm going to get a small coffee if you have free refills.
John: Yes.
John: Yes.
Merlin: I feel... It's difficult to know, but I think sometimes... Let me give you an example from the meat world, from meat space, which is today's the first day of fifth grade.
Merlin: We spent the weekend getting all ready.
Merlin: Today's the first day of fifth grade?
Merlin: It's the middle of August.
Merlin: We start early.
Merlin: We've talked about this, but I can't believe that, Stella.
Merlin: She's getting her stuff ready.
Merlin: She's got her... Huh?
Merlin: Yes.
Yes.
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So fucking early.
Merlin: Okay, and so she's getting all her stuff together, and you remember how it was.
Merlin: I was always my favorite part of the new school year in many ways was the school supplies, like the Duotank folders, the pens, the holder for the pens, all of the things.
Merlin: Trapper Keeper.
Merlin: Trapper Keeper, the data center.
Merlin: Remember the data center that preceded the Trapper Keeper?
Merlin: Absolutely, yeah.
Merlin: Metric converter, 90, 60, 90.
Merlin: Yes.
John: Did you have, I mean, you're, you and I are both a little bit close.
Merlin: I'm one of the data center age.
Merlin: The trapper keeper was a little bit, I did have a trapper keeper later, but the data center was the baller when I was a kid.
John: The data center was hot, but you didn't, we, neither of us had slide rules, but I learned the slide rule in the gifted program.
John: Like it was a time when they were trying to figure out what exactly a gifted program was.
John: See, see, that's some process process right there.
John: It sure was.
John: They were like, do we put shoe polish in our mustaches or do we teach nine year olds how to use slide rules, a thing which these handy calculators have eliminated forever?
John: And they did.
John: They were they were like, no, no, no.
John: You guys need to learn slide rules because, you know, what if we need to put a man on the moon?
John: And we were like, there is a man on the moon.
John: We did that.
John: We did that already.
John: We have computers now.
John: Anyway.
John: So data center, I had, I could have with my little data center, I had the ability to put a man on the moon.
John: I could, I could measure anything that needed to be measured.
John: I could draw any, I could draw a circle with any, any kind of radius.
John: I could, I could do curly cues.
John: I mean, you had every tool and they were analog tools.
John: Right?
John: Didn't your data center have, like, tables?
Merlin: Yeah, I'm looking at it right now.
Merlin: Google's not letting me copy the image.
Merlin: But data center, oh, my God.
Merlin: Just seeing this over-kerned, like, Helvetica makes me so happy.
Merlin: Who made a data center?
Merlin: Mead.
Merlin: Mead.
Merlin: Data center planning and filing notebook.
Merlin: You get a data planner.
Merlin: It's got a three-year planning calendar, metric conversion chart, class schedule, and telephone directory.
Merlin: That's just the start.
Merlin: Then you get your data files.
Merlin: Data files contains tabbed file folders for permanent information storage.
Merlin: That's all intercapped.
Merlin: You got a lock flap, a lock flap closure.
Merlin: I wish I had one now.
Merlin: It's got a fucking clipboard, John.
Merlin: And then it's got a slide ring.
Merlin: A new pinchless, easy sliding ring works with new push-pull activating tab.
Merlin: I have one of these upstairs.
John: I have a meat data center.
John: You think I don't?
John: I shouldn't have thought you don't.
John: You know what?
John: You don't go to war with the data center you want.
John: You got the one you had for a while, the data center.
John: And I think the data center was the one where I first realized, I first saw someone who had taken the stock graphic out of the outside of their data center and slipped in another...
John: Oh, right, right, right.
John: You can totes do that.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: And I was like, whoa, you are seriously cranking person I don't remember.
John: You're making your own world, and that's the kind of person I want to be.
John: I want to be the person that changes the image on their data center.
John: And I think I never looked back.
Merlin: I remember this was not cheap.
Merlin: I think this cost a few bucks.
John: This was an investment.
Merlin: How do we get to, oh, we're talking about the process.
John: Yeah, well, so I feel like living in a world as you and I do, where we have probably ill-advisedly set ourselves up to be
John: largely self-managing.
John: Like I have done, I've done everything in my whole life that I could to make sure that I didn't have a boss, but that isn't maybe the smartest move because as, as we've talked many times, I kind of want to,
John: To be managed a little bit.
John: Yeah, we talked about this a little bit.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: I want to manage how I'm managed, but like I'm not the best self starter.
John: I'm not the best like long term planner.
John: I'd like to have and I keep saying I'd like to have an assistant, but I'd like that assistant to have a little authority over me, but not too much authority.
John: Anyway, what we've done, you and I... There's all kinds of ways in life.
Merlin: I mean, I don't think this is a bananas thing you're talking about.
Merlin: There's all kinds of things in life where you say there's a lot going on here.
Merlin: There has to be some guardrails.
Merlin: That doesn't mean I can't choose to go around the guardrails if I want to, but it means that in order for life to make sense, there has to be some kind of reasonable expectations about how this is all going to work together.
Merlin: And that could be a person.
John: What I see when I look out in the world is an awful lot of most people...
John: They are governed by a lot of structures that they just don't question.
John: They don't think, I need to invent a banana.
John: There's a banana and they accept it.
John: That's what bananas are.
John: And if you put yourself in a posture in life where every day you could just like, you could never have another banana again because you're working on your alt banana.
John: You know, like it's too much.
John: It's too much.
John: there's too much possibility.
John: Hmm.
John: And so, so now I'm trying to think of, I'm, I'm looking at, I'm looking at things like my, my Tesseract right now is not just like, where do things belong?
John: But, um,
John: i honestly i could sell my house and move to thailand really i could you could get even more than you can become the governor of thailand that's even cheaper than tennessee i can become the governor thailand although there's a king in thailand and they don't like very respectful of the king yeah don't make a joke about the portrait in the thai restaurant so that's not what i'm gonna do i'm not gonna move to thailand i'm not gonna become the king of thailand okay but i could move a lot of places i could do pretty much anything like
John: Like, I could do pretty much anything and continue to do Roderick on the Line with you every Monday morning.
John: I mean, there's no reason I couldn't be in Thailand right now.
John: I might not know you've moved.
John: I could be in Thailand right now, for all anybody knows.
John: And that's too much.
Merlin: Oh, I totally agree.
Merlin: I totally agree.
Merlin: It's too much.
Merlin: That's madness.
Merlin: I mean, I almost interrupted you with this, but I feel like it's a little bit like where you can go with food.
Merlin: where if you don't have some relatively arbitrary ideas about food and how it gets in your body, you could spend the rest of your life just doing food as a thing.
Merlin: Like, is this organic enough?
Merlin: What if I just wanted to go farm-to-mouth?
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: There's all kinds of shit out there where if you think too much about your sourcing and your methods, like, oh my God, if you let everything in your world be that big and open...
Merlin: that's that's that's the eye of madness yeah it feels a little you have to know that you even though you could be the king of thailand let's just tick that off the list you're not going to become the king of thailand tick it off tick it off but how do you tick it how do you i mean it's it's an it feels a little bit like an oliver sax problem like
John: Like a mental illness where you think your wife is a hat.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, you think this little boy is a fireplug.
Merlin: There's some kind of a perceptual processing error, potentially?
John: In the sense that, like, you know you can't...
John: do everything, but you don't know exactly where to start drawing, where the reasonable lines are drawn because you blew out all lines.
John: So it's like, I know I can't walk to the moon.
John: This happened to a lot of baby boomers.
John: They blew out the lines.
John: They blew out the lines.
John: Look at them.
John: You know, they were just, they were living their best life.
John: They were on the edge.
John: They were surfing that curl.
John: Everything's all higgledy-piggledy.
John: Everything will be fine.
John: They were writing letters to Andy Gibbs brothers.
John: But in my case, like,
John: What are the good lines?
John: And do I actually have the power to draw them for myself?
Merlin: Because you can't tell your manager where the lines and guardrails are until you've decided where they should be.
John: You can't pick the size of your P.O.
Merlin: box until you start getting mail.
Merlin: I don't even know how much mail I'm going to get.
Merlin: You can't land on a fraction.
Merlin: No.
Merlin: Why would you get the large size if it's free refills?
Merlin: Free refills, you don't need the large P.O.
Merlin: box.
John: So me, here I am, I'm once again...
John: Like, I guess I didn't realize that some of the lines that I'd drawn around myself were just that I bought a house and I plopped myself down in the middle of it.
John: And there are literal lines called walls that are around me.
John: And I have, you know, bills and I have habits and habits.
John: Lines have emerged.
John: Lines have emerged, but habits are not the same as laws and rules.
John: I can feel like it.
John: They can.
John: They can feel like it.
John: But that's you're talking about there.
Merlin: Yes, exactly.
John: Exactly right.
John: And I'm and I'm not I'm not a person that is invested in my habits to the point that I don't every once in a while just shake them all off and say like, OK, well, you know what?
John: From now on, I'm not drinking coffee or eating macaroni and cheese.
John: How do you like that?
John: Mind leave it.
John: Like I do that a lot so that, but now the, the, the, the prospect, like walking into this, uh, walking into this Navy SEAL house, um, and looking around and thinking like, well, what color would I paint these walls?
John: And then I'm, then I'm, I'm imagining myself situated here and there's not that much to my life that
John: That is constant so that if I were in this new house, it would just be like kind of new me entirely.
John: I would, what I would, what I would do is I would bring.
John: this microphone over there and i would do roderick on the line every week at 10 a.m that's that's a line that you would pack up and bring with you but everything else would be up for grabs and now i could be down at the city hall like like leaning on the counter talking to the talking to the comptroller saying you know i don't even get permits for this work i do on my place and they would say why are you here again you're down here every day
John: And I'm like, yeah, I feel like I'm going to be mayor of this town eventually.
John: And I just wanted to see where all the light switches were.
John: Yeah.
John: Like any it's every day is anything can happen day.
John: And it's it's I don't know.
John: I don't know what to do about it.
John: Hmm.
John: I don't know.
John: Is that a Mickey Mouse Club reference?
John: Every day is everything can happen day.
Merlin: Anything can happen day.
Merlin: Wasn't that a day?
Merlin: It was a day.
Merlin: Hmm.
Merlin: Um, it was, it was an Annette Funicello day.
Oh God, I loved her.
Merlin: It's so, it's like a pictures of Lily thing to be in love with, with some, the way somebody used to be before you were born.
John: Yeah.
John: Annette Funicello was already 45.
John: Uh, when we were, when we were watching her show and being like, she had her name right on her sweater.
Yeah.
Merlin: anything can happen day uh so you're looking for how can i put this how does how do you how do you explain this to the snorks you're you're open to an idea that there's something like lines and you're saying are there lines and if there are what are they and would i put them into a u-haul box and bring them with me to to the navy seal house if you moved in there which i'm not saying you are
John: Or if I moved somewhere, are there pre-existing lines there that I can't see right now?
John: I think that's why the Navy SEAL is moving.
John: I think he doesn't like the lines.
John: Well, I think that's right.
John: I think that's exactly right.
John: And there are a lot of psychological lines now that are all around all of us all the time.
John: And you're like, which ones of these belong to me?
John: Which ones of these am I just trying to stay away from because I feel they're electrified?
John: Which ones of these are really important?
John: And who would I... You're not encouraged to test them.
Merlin: Not least that you would not want to be driving off the side of a cliff.
John: No, you wouldn't want to be screwing with the public easement There's all kinds of things were like you're better off to just be conservative about assuming that there is a line and that is for you but you know in the in the in the long ago times in the in the before times the idea of having friends that that disagreed with you that having friends that had very different lines from yours and
John: um, was an idea that was, I mean, maybe not a hundred percent commonplace, but it was certainly how I'm modeled my, uh, passage through life, right?
John: I did not want friends that necessarily agreed with me.
John: I was friends with people that disagreed with me as often as people that agreed with me.
John: I didn't, I didn't choose friends based on common, um,
John: media preferences or friends based on common politics or friends based on common experience.
John: I did the opposite.
John: I made friends with people that had different experiences from mine, different viewpoints, not because we sat and argued, but because I know what my media preferences are.
John: I don't want those reinforced necessarily.
John: I don't want to sit and watch movies with my friends.
John: I want to
John: be exploring the world and you meet somebody out there that's different from you and you go, you're interesting.
John: And then it turns out they are interesting and, and that's fun.
John: Right.
John: But I, I, you know, I, uh, it was all, it was often challenging to me when I would meet somebody that I liked and I would say like, Oh, I don't like any of the movies you like.
John: And they would say, why are we friends then?
John: And I would always be shocked by it.
John: Sean Nelson said it to me one time.
John: He was like, you don't like anything I like.
John: And I was like, I know.
John: Isn't that great?
John: And he was like, why are we friends?
John: Like friends like the same stuff.
Merlin: We'll find out.
Merlin: We'll find out eventually why we're friends.
John: What are you talking about?
John: Friends don't like the same stuff.
John: What kind of crazy thing is that to say?
John: And he was like, it's the very definition of being friends with somebody that you like the things that they like.
John: And I was like, whoa, no way.
John: I like a lot of people that like the Smiths and the Smiths are garbage.
Hmm.
John: You like the person, not their preferences.
John: Right.
John: And you distinguish.
Merlin: You see a line.
John: The person is not their preferences.
John: A person is not their preferences.
John: A lot of people don't agree or they don't see it that way.
John: They think the preferences are the person.
John: And nowadays, especially as we silo...
John: against one another like the preferences are the person in so many people are just making choices based on their preferences and not i think you could even say the the the person is only the preferences the person is the preferences right and i'm i am zero that like i i have no you're a loose cannon roderick well i don't have any preferences is part of the thing like i don't care i mean i i do in the sense of you know what you don't prefer
John: If you say, would you like to listen to the Smiths or would you like to listen to the Decembrists doing their version of the Smiths?
John: What about potatoes?
John: I will say, I would prefer the Decembrists.
John: This comes with potatoes.
John: Would you like potatoes?
John: I will say no.
John: You prefer not to have potatoes.
John: If you say, it only comes with potatoes.
John: Oh, okay.
John: I will say, bring the potatoes.
Oh.
John: Really?
John: Yeah.
John: I mean, if it has a gravy, I'll eat anything.
John: I'll eat potatoes all day.
John: I'll eat an entire plate of potatoes if it's covered with gravy.
John: But also, I'll take a few bites of potatoes.
John: You know, it's not my favorite.
John: Right.
John: I mean, you can push the olives off to the side of the salad.
John: Yeah.
John: I mean, I have preferences, but it's not like I... But I'm not super invested in them.
John: Okay.
John: If you said all you can listen to for the rest of your life is jazz, I would go, well, all right.
John: I mean, it's fine.
John: It's cool.
John: I mean, I can get into jazz.
John: It's not, you know, like, it's not like what I would...
John: It's not the number one thing that I would have chosen.
Merlin: Yeah, the rest of your life is a long time.
John: If it were chosen for me, well, that's the old thing where you say, if you could only eat one kind of food for the rest of your life, what would it be?
John: Go.
John: Yeah.
John: What would it be, Marlon?
Merlin: A steak.
Merlin: Steak?
Merlin: Yeah, but I can also tell you, when we lived with my horrible stepfather, who owned a steakhouse, after about a month of it, I was good and sick of eating a fucking ribeye every night.
Merlin: Well, that's a thick steak.
Merlin: That's a hearty steak.
Merlin: What if you had just like a little steak?
Merlin: Well, I mean, a steak.
Merlin: A steak is a, you know, that's a whole bunch.
Merlin: That's like saying, what kind of flour do you like?
Merlin: I mean, steak.
Merlin: There's a lot of steak.
Merlin: Do baby back ribs count as steak?
Merlin: I don't think so.
John: I don't think so, but I'm going to interrogate it with my mind lines.
John: Yeah, right.
John: I mean, what category do baby back ribs fall into?
John: Yeah, man, like what even is a steak?
John: What even is a steak?
John: What is it?
John: I mean, like you can have a lamb steak.
John: You can have a ham steak.
John: You can have a ham steak.
John: You can have a ram steak.
John: You can have a jam steak.
What?
Merlin: I love that I don't know exactly what point I lost the plot.
Merlin: But I'm super interested in where it's going.
Merlin: It's really early.
Merlin: It's so fucking early.
Merlin: Fifth grade.
Merlin: I believe.
Merlin: I believe.
John: I believe.
John: What I want.
John: I feel like I'm at a turning point.
John: And all bets are off again.
John: No.
No.
John: And I don't, uh, and I, and I don't want to do it wrong.
John: That's part of the fear.
John: And my, you know, my sister is all, how many more chances are you going to get?
John: Well, I got, I mean, a thousand million.
John: Sure.
John: I don't know.
John: We don't know until we've had the chances, but, but just still, you know, there's time and stuff.
John: My sister does this thing where she's like, you know, she, she's always be here nowing me.
John: And she's like, you know, if you're, if you're anxious, you just need to breathe.
John: And I'm like, that's the, that.
Merlin: What about the, what about the moment sucks?
Merlin: you know interesting well no i got a thought technology for that but that's the problem when a lot of people say that then you become like me and you turn to these kinds of thought technologies only at times when you're stressed out and now the idea of of deep breathing makes me very anxious oh sure because now i associate with being anxious well and what what she what she won't allow me to do is uh she's like the the fact that everything is a story to you
John: is um that's the thing that you have to you have to breathe oh that is super interesting and i'll bet you're not into it well i'm like everything is a story and she's like exactly it isn't and i'm like your life would be so different if everything weren't a story
John: Well, yeah.
John: Oh, my God.
John: That is the thing that makes me need to breathe into a paper bag.
John: Well, I take the guardrails off your fucking highway for sure.
John: What the fuck do you mean everything's not a story?
John: It's all a story.
John: And she was like, it's not a story.
John: The story is the problem.
John: You're taking things that aren't a story and you're turning them into a story.
Merlin: Would she be frustrated to know that you've turned that piece of advice into a story?
John: She, well, so what she says.
John: She's probably used to that.
John: She is.
John: And what she says is, if you turn everything into a story, now all you have to do is recognize you're doing it.
John: And in the moment, be like, I'm storifying it.
John: And then.
Merlin: She's wise.
Merlin: She's very wise.
John: That's your first, like, that's the first step.
John: And I'm like, the first step to what?
John: Exactly.
John: And she's like, don't worry about it.
John: Exactly.
John: You'll find a banana.
John: Just start, just start, just start moving.
John: I'm not sure what to do with that.
John: The idea of me living in the moment is very stressful.
John: It's pretty far off brand for you as a thinking person.
John: Yeah, but if that is the only way... Because she said to me the other day, she's like, to be happy is not to be happy.
John: I was like, all right.
John: To be happy is not to be happy.
John: She's like, you're not like...
John: you're not walking around full of joy all the time.
John: Like to be happy is just to feel your feelings.
John: You just feel them.
John: And if you're, if you're upset, you feel upset and you feel them and you don't, um, does she do that?
Merlin: Do you think she actually does that?
John: Well, so she, my sister was definitely like a, um, she was, she rage quit all the time, every, all the time.
John: She rage quit on me all the time.
John: Um,
John: she just had so much anger that it was a thing that it defined her life and all of her relationships.
John: And in the last five years, she has metamorphosized.
John: She, you know, she's still herself.
John: She's still, and you can still feel that energy in her somewhere.
John: She just doesn't, um,
John: It doesn't overcome her.
John: It doesn't, it doesn't, she, she doesn't, that, that thing she used to do where the eyes rolled back in her head and all of a sudden all you could do was take cover.
John: It's gone.
John: And I, and it isn't just gone in the sense that like when she gets mad, she turns around and walks out of the room.
John: Like she's managing it somehow.
John: It's, it's there, but it doesn't define her.
John: It doesn't define her.
John: And I, and it doesn't,
John: She's not terrifying in the same way.
John: I mean, she's still terrifying, but she's not terrifying in the way that she used to be, which is like, well, pretty much any encounter with my sister could go completely sideways.
John: And then the day is ruined and the month is ruined.
John: Like that's all, that's all kind of gone.
John: Good for her, man.
Merlin: That's, that's really good.
John: Yeah.
John: It's entirely a product of her self managing.
Yeah.
John: And so when she says these things to me, I mean, she's always kind of had a tendency to like give moral lectures.
John: And I always just sort of was like, okay, whatever, you know, rolled my eyes a little bit.
John: But now I'm inclined to pay attention because I've seen real results in her.
John: She's actually changed and it has improved all of our lives.
John: Oh, that's nice.
John: So maybe there's possibility for me to change and improve all of our lives.
John: I mean, I don't know how.
John: How does one change and improve everyone else's life?
Merlin: What a story.
Merlin: What a great story.
Merlin: It's a great story.
Merlin: Great story, John.
Merlin: No, I mean, I don't know.
Merlin: I am very interested.
Merlin: Something we talked about probably once a month is an idea that I think is very valuable that I try to keep in mind, which is that we do not have to be our thoughts.
Merlin: We do not have to be our emotions.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Given just your day to day, I will become my thoughts and I will become my emotions until it occurs to me that it doesn't have to be that way.
Merlin: And I don't know if this is what she's saying, but something I've heard that I have found to be true is there is just the tiniest little crack in it.
Merlin: in your, in your system, when you realize even just for a minute that you're a person who's, who's feeling an emotion or you're a person who is thinking a thought.
Merlin: And there is a moment where like, it's not going to change your life, but just to become aware of that for a second can be very liberating.
Merlin: I'm a person who's feeling of emotion.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, well, I mean, it sounds corny, but the problem is if you don't, then you're just somebody who's, that you become like, it's no longer that you are a pipe that the water is passing through.
Merlin: Like, you are that.
Merlin: Now you are mad.
Merlin: You are anger.
Merlin: You are that.
Merlin: Or you are that ruminative, intrusive thought.
Merlin: You will never not think that thought until it decides to not be thought anymore.
Merlin: And there is something very liberating.
Merlin: This does not have to get into real woo-woo stuff.
Merlin: It is just a little bit of cognitive awareness to just go like, holy shit, I'm totally thinking a thought.
Merlin: And again, you get back to one of my favorite dumb hippie cliches, I'm the sky, not the weather.
Merlin: Like, the thing is, I'm the sky.
Merlin: There could be all kinds of different weather, but I am not defined by whether it's raining.
Merlin: right now like that's just that's a raining is a thing that's happening and the sky is who i am that's that's one way to think about it right and i think that's very valuable and if that sounds corny well maybe in a few years it won't sound corny but that's a very valuable thing to realize is that you do not have to be you are the you are the medium not the content in some ways the content is what gets eyes on your medium but you know what i'm saying like yeah
Merlin: I'm just saying, it's good to be aware of.
Merlin: It does not have to change your life.
Merlin: You don't have to become a hippie.
Merlin: But that can be very valuable if you do that once a day.
Merlin: If you do that once a week, that's a start.
Merlin: If you do it a couple, eventually get to a couple times a day, now suddenly you are a slightly different person.
Merlin: You are a person that has experiences, thoughts, and feelings, but is not defined by them all the time.
John: No, you are the sky and not the weather.
Merlin: It's corny, but it's pretty good, you gotta admit.
Merlin: Yeah, yes, it's very good.
Merlin: You like sky stuff.
Merlin: You're almost like a Miyazaki.
Merlin: You love flight.
John: What, what do you think?
John: Because here's the crazy thing.
John: In 10 years, your daughter will be gone.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: And that's not very long.
Merlin: Why am I getting this on all sides now?
Merlin: It's killing me.
John: Do you remember 10 years ago?
John: Yes.
John: It was just a blink of an eye.
John: I know.
John: That was 2008.
John: 2008.
Merlin: She's like a senior in primary school.
John: Yeah, she's a primary school senior.
John: So the question is, what are you going to do?
Merlin: Oh, I have no fucking idea.
John: I know, right?
John: Isn't that a little destabilizing?
John: Oh, sure.
Merlin: Stop you right there.