Ep. 308: "The Hi-Hat"
Merlin: Hello?
Merlin: Hi, John.
Merlin: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: How's it going?
Merlin: Is this Dave Roderick?
Merlin: You got a little whiff of Dave there.
Merlin: What the hell?
Merlin: Counselor?
Merlin: Good morning.
Merlin: It's great to be here.
Merlin: Oh, dear.
Merlin: Oh, I guess I should ask.
Merlin: Are you a little under the weather?
John: Yeah, I've got my fall cold.
John: No one else is sick.
John: It just snuck up on me somehow, licking doorknobs.
John: That's interesting.
John: You didn't get it from your kid.
John: Well, she's got an incredible constitution.
John: And so she'll get sick, and it just sort of bounces right off of her.
John: Maybe she's a carrier.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: Like a typhoid Mary type situation?
John: She's a typhoid Mary.
John: You know, I've never had the experience, honestly, in her whole life, really, of nursing her while she labors in bed with a bad cold.
Merlin: You ever had an earache?
John: Who, me or her?
Merlin: Well, I mean, like, no.
Merlin: I mean, like, when I was little, I don't know.
Merlin: Maybe I'm pretty sensitive.
Merlin: But, like, I remember having earaches where I was up all night.
Merlin: Our kid has been sick in the middle of the night in, like, you sit with her way maybe twice since she was an infant.
Merlin: Like, she just doesn't, I don't know.
Merlin: We're just lucky, I guess.
John: Yeah, they're the new generation.
John: They don't have human feelings and they don't get sick.
Merlin: Can't buy a house.
Merlin: But, you know, it's probably a lot of the hormones in the meat.
Merlin: We eat a lot of meat.
Merlin: Oh, it's a lot of the hormones.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Or it could just be, I don't know, she there might be something, you know, who knows?
Merlin: Noodles might be a superfood.
Merlin: Noodles.
Merlin: Is that what you call it?
Merlin: Get a best canudos?
John: Nudos are a superfood.
John: But if nudos were a superfood, then I would never get sick.
John: I have always gotten sick from the time I was small.
John: I do not have the ironclad constitution that so many people around me seem to have.
Merlin: People look at a big fellow like you and they think, how could it even be?
Merlin: Look at this guy.
John: Yeah, he's going to die of a common cold.
John: I'm sorry, man.
John: That sucks.
John: Oh, it is what it is.
John: You know, that's my favorite phrase.
Merlin: It is what it is.
Merlin: You know, it's a dumb, frustrating, useless phrase, except that it is actually very meaningful.
John: It is actually what it is.
John: It is literally what it is.
John: Yeah.
John: And I live by it.
John: I live by it is what it is.
John: I think you do.
John: I think you do.
Merlin: It is what it is.
Merlin: It is what it is.
John: It is what it is.
John: I had a cough button.
John: Some wonderful listener sent me a cough button a long time ago.
John: But it requires that I put it in line here.
Merlin: I bought a cough button.
Merlin: It didn't work very well.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: I think I might have tested it on the program.
Merlin: But I bought a cough button, and it cut out, I want to say, 90% of the signal.
Merlin: But you would still get some snot coming in.
Merlin: Oh, you'd hear a little bit of cough in the distance.
Merlin: Did you know you have a software cough button?
Merlin: I do?
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: You want to go deep on the tech for a minute?
Merlin: Sure, let's do it.
Merlin: Do you see, like, when you're outside of the Skype app, go somewhere that's not the Skype app, do you see a little window that says current call?
Merlin: It's got a blue button and a red button or similar?
John: You're talking about the one that has your face on it?
Merlin: Yeah, it got my face and the time.
Merlin: Yeah, well, sort of, yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: Well, if you hit that, don't hit the red button.
Merlin: Don't hit the red button.
Merlin: If you hit the blue button, it mutes.
Merlin: Happy birthday, buddy.
John: Is there a keyboard shortcut?
John: That's such a good question.
John: I never checked.
John: What about F2 or something?
Merlin: It's one of your function keys.
Merlin: No, no, I don't think so.
Merlin: That's a shame.
Merlin: That's a shame.
Merlin: That should be a key.
Merlin: Seems like it should be a key.
Merlin: I must be missing something here.
Merlin: This is going to be a very tech-heavy episode, I have a feeling.
John: Oh, you can tell.
John: There's a lot to talk about in the tech world.
John: Oh, wait.
Merlin: Let's try Command-Shift-M if you're in the app.
John: Did that work?
John: Shift.
John: No, it didn't.
John: M. Oh, it didn't work.
John: Sorry.
Merlin: You might be overriding your keys from somewhere else.
Merlin: We'll cut all this out.
Merlin: I'm sorry you're sick.
Merlin: I still have this sinus situation that's driving bananas.
Merlin: Oh, I hate that.
Merlin: It's the worst.
Merlin: I don't sleep well.
John: No, no, me either.
Merlin: But you know, I have, uh, so I, because of this, because I mentioned CPAP, sorry, because every time I mentioned CPAPs, people come out of the woodwork to tell us we got to get a CPAP.
John: No, I don't, I don't want to talk about CPAPs.
John: You guys.
John: I don't want to talk about them.
John: I know they've revolutionized people's lives.
John: I know they changed, they changed lives forever.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: But I don't want to do that.
John: I don't want to be like the guy in Dune.
John: Oh, right.
John: You know, the guy in Doom that has a CPAP?
Merlin: Is that, that's not, that's not the guy that, the fat guy hanging in the air.
Merlin: We're talking about an Atreides.
Merlin: You got that thing, or Max von Sydow, doesn't he stick a thing in his nose?
Merlin: He's got blue eyes from the Spice.
Merlin: Don't they all have something in their nose?
Merlin: I think you have to if you can go to the Spice planet.
Merlin: It's a wormy planet.
John: Oh, it's wormy.
Merlin: I just have a feeling there's one in my future and I want to put it off as long as I can.
Merlin: Now people are going to write me and they're going to say, don't put it off.
Merlin: Don't put it off, Merlin.
Merlin: Your life could change immeasurably in one simple...
Merlin: episode.
Merlin: There's a television program that I like a lot and often mentally quote.
Merlin: I don't always audibly quote it, but there's a show in Comedy Central in the 90s called Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist.
Merlin: It was a very, very good program featuring the great Jonathan Katz.
Merlin: And there's a great Bob Newhart-esque scene where he's on the phone with his father and he says something along the lines of, no, Dad, it's not that I don't want to go to bingo with you.
Merlin: I just don't want to see bingo on my calendar.
Merlin: And that's how I feel about the CPAP.
Merlin: I don't want a device that's there all the time.
Merlin: You know, I don't want it on my calendar.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Do you know what I mean?
John: prostate exam i thought about that this morning is that right did you give yourself one did you give yourself a quickie no no but i i but i you know the number of uh number of bathroom trips last night i was very sick got up and went to the bathroom a lot and i was like oh boy here we go hmm i feel like i should go to the bathroom a lot more for how much water i drink
Merlin: Now see, now people are going to write me.
Merlin: That's a weird problem to have.
Merlin: Well, I do have a little, usually at least one visit during the night times.
Merlin: And that's when the panic attacks hit me.
Merlin: Don't write me.
Merlin: Don't email me.
Merlin: I'm just as God made me, sir.
Merlin: You do the late night panic attacks?
Merlin: I have a petite panique.
Merlin: Um, not a grand mall.
Merlin: Um, but no, that that's when this is normal.
Merlin: This is not normal.
Merlin: It's common where that's when you realize that your life is falling apart is when you go to the bathroom.
Merlin: I think it's pretty common.
Merlin: I just stopped going to the bathroom.
John: All right.
John: Don't go to the bathroom.
John: That's where the fear lies.
John: Don't go out.
John: Don't go out into the hall.
John: Your urine is the mind killer.
Hmm.
Merlin: Death treads in on little cat feet.
Merlin: Cat feet.
Merlin: No, and not even the rain has such small hands.
Merlin: Should I show my daughter Dune?
Merlin: Probably not.
Merlin: I don't think so.
John: No.
John: All right.
John: Absolutely not.
John: Should I have her read the books?
John: Yeah, maybe.
John: I don't know.
John: I mean, it depends.
John: Do you want a Dune fan in your family?
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I think it would be kind of cool.
Merlin: I don't want to be the Dune fan, but I would not object to a Dune fan in the family.
John: How does she feel about Rush?
Merlin: I've tried.
Merlin: I've tried.
Merlin: She told me that she does not like the kind of music that I like.
Merlin: Oh, that's cool.
Merlin: And I know she doesn't mean that, or I hope she doesn't mean that.
Merlin: She basically tries to tell me that she does not like rock music, but... What does she like?
Merlin: Well, I have not forced it on her, but the one band that she continues to like a lot and choose to listen to on her own...
John: Don't say Sloan.
Merlin: No, no, I won't.
Merlin: Queen.
Merlin: Oh, sure.
Merlin: And on her own, she'll listen to a musical.
Merlin: You know, she likes a lot of musicals.
Merlin: She likes soundtracks for movies that she likes.
John: What is the music that she picks for herself?
John: Does she like contemporary pop music?
Merlin: i think so yeah she likes that band like whenever whenever a song comes on a commercial i say is that is that cake by the ocean she says no it's portugal the man and the portugal and you know i always get it wrong because i'm a dad i say oh uncle john knows that portugal period the man yeah and that's not cake by the ocean cake by the ocean is a different song
Merlin: Oh, I'm not familiar with Cake by the Ocean.
Merlin: You've probably heard it.
Merlin: If you've watched MSNBC, you've heard it probably.
Merlin: How does she feel about Imagine Dragons?
Merlin: I don't think she has a strong feeling.
Merlin: The thing is, when she rides around with her mother, they listen to the radio, like monsters.
Merlin: And so she does get, or at camp, there'll be songs that get played a lot at camps.
John: Right, Katy Perry songs.
Merlin: Yes, yes.
Merlin: Or just like, you know, whatever that kind of, it's not EDM exactly, but there is the kind of the boom clap music.
Merlin: You hear a lot of that stuff.
John: boom clap boom clap yeah when i look back at my own music career and i think if i just put boom clap as the as the rhythm part for every song you could go back i wonder what my life would be like now you could pull a jeff lynn and re-record your catalog but with like in this case with boom claps you already got the beard
John: I was listening to, uh, what was that that you just did?
Merlin: I think technically that was, uh, I think technically that was Tarzan boy, which in my head was the, uh, the ER boom clap song.
Merlin: Whoa.
Merlin: Did you just, did you just mute?
Merlin: I muted.
Merlin: Oh, I heard it.
Merlin: Hey.
Hey.
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Merlin: Baltimore, I believe, was the name of the band.
John: Tarzan Boy.
John: I remember it.
John: I remember it.
John: Sure, I don't think I ever was on a dance floor for it, but I was dance floor adjacent.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I'm sorry.
Merlin: I'm kind of a mess.
Merlin: My sinuses are really bad.
Merlin: Oh, you're not kidding, pal.
Merlin: I rewatched.
Merlin: I just want to be real clear.
Merlin: I rewatched a documentary about British synthesizer music last night.
Merlin: I rewatched it for the second time.
John: Yeah, you and I were talking about that.
John: In fact, I think I watched it.
Merlin: It's like Synth Britannia.
Merlin: Well, no, there was the one that was like the history of like Top of the Pops, but there's one called Synth Britannia.
Merlin: It features the normal, a lot of Phil Oakley from Human League.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: It's good.
Merlin: It's real good.
John: The thing about the Top of the Pops show that blew me away was
John: was the amount that the three main members of Human League are presently totally normal people who seem friendly and cool and regular.
John: Because Human League at the time, they were so cold.
John: They were so blue.
John: They were so machine.
Merlin: Yeah, they were so weird and fey and European.
John: But like, there was no, if you think about the music video for Don't You Want Me, no one smiles.
Merlin: There's that one moment where they cut away and somebody hands her a coffee and she smiles a little bit.
John: Oh, that's right.
John: You're right.
John: Somebody hands her a coffee.
Merlin: Not that I remember.
Merlin: But they had a harsher sound, and then they came back in 1981 with The Dare.
Merlin: But I learned a lot I didn't know.
Merlin: I didn't know a lot about Throbbing Gristle.
Merlin: I knew the name.
Merlin: I learned about that.
Merlin: But yeah, that's why I stayed up late watching that last night.
John: but i love to see them i love to see all the you know it's it's like people who used to seem so like dangerous and weird and edgy and like impossibly from another world right yeah but also but also they were pop stars in 1981
Merlin: And they were... They were breakout pop stars, but they'd had hits, I think, since the late 70s.
Merlin: When the other guy, the guy who then went on to do Heaven's 17 used to be in the band.
John: Right, but he found... The remaining guy found those two girls who were not singers.
John: They were dancers.
John: They were just dancers at a show.
John: And they were like 18.
John: And now when you...
John: When you see them, you realize, oh, they're like 54.
John: I know.
John: And the difference then between when they were 18 and I was 14 seemed like they might as well have been made out of space glass.
John: And I was just, you know, I was just a pile of cookie dough.
John: But now it's like, oh, you guys are like, I know 54 year olds.
John: They're all around me.
Merlin: You would think that that at some point gets less weird.
Merlin: But I mean, let's stipulate first of all, at least for me, I still think of everybody that I knew well at a given age in my head is still that age.
Merlin: And that's that's a weird thing.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: But what you're describing, it's so strange.
Merlin: You think about somebody who was on MTV and you're like, man, that's that's like a grown ass person with a career.
Merlin: But they're probably dead by now.
Merlin: Well, a lot of them were five years older than us.
John: Yeah, that's just so crazy.
Merlin: It's really upsetting.
John: It's so upsetting.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: All this time.
John: Well, you know, what is it that we always said?
John: Hmm.
John: uh something well you and i used to say things oh we used to say things all the time no but like when was mccartney 45 what year was mccartney 45 i think about this i this morning i was thinking about i wonder what year it was when my mom was my age he was like mccartney was born in what 41 45 well no it had to have been before that because in 64 he wasn't
John: He wasn't 19, he was... Really?
John: 21, at least.
John: When was McCartney born?
John: 42 is my guess.
John: Okay.
John: Are you looking it up?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: 42.
John: He was born in 42?
Merlin: So he was 45 in... 87?
John: 42 plus 45 is 87...
Merlin: yeah so he was 45 and 87 87 should be a runner up to 97 in terms of years that didn't exist 87 was a strange year that was when a lot of bands that that we liked and that had been popular in the early breakthrough american new wave were having their like their their i mean isn't that an era where you'd have like a successful in excess record or you'd have like a successful psychedelic furs record
John: Oh, that was the year of the big, or was it 88?
John: The big NXS record, Kick.
John: The biggest one.
John: Their big hit.
John: That's so weird.
John: Was right in there, 87, 88.
Merlin: I think of them as a 1984-85 band.
John: Well, because like Shabu Shabba.
John: That's the one thing.
John: Or earlier.
John: Earlier.
John: I mean, they were putting out records back when U2 just was making boy.
John: Wow.
John: Look at you.
John: Nice pull.
John: Yeah.
John: But 87 was kind of a bye year for me.
John: Yep.
John: But, oh, that's also the year.
John: 87 was the year of Bon Jovi's Dead or Alive.
John: I think it's Peter Gabriel So, frankly.
Merlin: I think So is 85, 86.
Merlin: I pegged that to the year after high school for me.
John: 87 was the year after high school for me, and I was absent.
John: When you look at movies from that year, I didn't see any of them because I didn't.
John: I was gone.
John: I was so gone.
Merlin: The difference between 1987 and 88 in my head, at least musically, it felt like 10 years.
John: From 87 to 88.
Merlin: Yeah, because 88 and 89 are where a lot of stuff, you know, people always say like you are most, the people tend to be most emotional about the music that they liked when they were like 14.
Merlin: Definitely when they were in like middle school, high school, stuff like that.
Merlin: But 87 to 88 and definitely 89, like a lot started changing for me.
Merlin: Like I was getting more into like a different kind of music.
Merlin: That was the year that punk broke.
Merlin: That was the year that punk broke for me.
Merlin: I broke my punk water.
John: Uh-huh.
Mm-hmm.
John: Yeah, I thought probably at the time that I was more or less done with new things in 1987.
John: Because I was growing up now.
John: I was growing up in 1987.
John: You were 19?
John: 1987, I was 18 for the majority of 1987.
John: Yeah.
John: And yeah, I felt like I'm buying my own socks now for the most part.
John: Yep.
John: Washing them?
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah, sure.
John: You know, if you get wool socks... There's budgetary issues.
John: Well, yeah, but wool socks you don't need to wash.
John: Just rinse them.
John: They just fill up with whatever it is that socks fill up with.
John: They become more and more water repellent and more and more... They stop itching, right?
John: Because they're like...
Merlin: They live their best life, is what you're saying.
Merlin: A wool sock becomes more like itself every day.
John: Well, it becomes more a part of you.
John: I was a big proponent of wool then and now, I guess.
John: I still am.
John: As a winter clothed.
Merlin: It's a punishing fabric.
Merlin: Punishing?
Merlin: Well, I mean, it's not like a modern technical.
John: Oh, it's not a technical fabric.
John: No, no, no, no.
John: It's the opposite of a technical fabric.
John: I'm very suspicious of technical fabrics.
John: Is that right?
John: You're not a fan of wicking.
John: Well, because when I was young, I was there, Marilyn, for the invention of Gore-Tex because we were outdoor people.
John: We knew Jim Whitaker.
John: We were Northwesterners.
John: And so we had very early Gore-Tex in our family.
John: We had early Gore-Tex coats.
John: You know, dawn of Gore-Tex.
John: And Gore-Tex, in its first iteration, after about five years, it started to separate.
John: It started to delaminate from itself.
John: It started to bubble.
John: And a Gore-Tex coat, where it started to bubble,
John: Oh, it's a, it's a big disappointment.
John: It's a large blow when you watch your, you know, your favorite Gore-Tex coat just start to, because the, because the technology, the, the technology just wasn't, it was still in beta.
John: And so as a, as a young person that imprinted on me, you can't trust, I didn't feel like I could trust Gore-Tex anymore.
John: Oh, I see.
John: And after that, I really didn't, I felt like I couldn't trust any kind of technical fabric.
John: Because, oh, sure, polypropylene, one's not going to delaminate from itself.
John: Yeah, exactly.
John: Like, oh, what if I'm, you know, what if I'm hanging from a cliff and all of a sudden my polypro all comes unraveled because nobody.
John: You're hanging by a thread.
John: Yeah, literally.
John: So from that point on, I was like, if it's cotton, wool or silk, I'll wear it.
John: If it's Gore-Tex, I mean, if it's nylon that's had Scotchgard sprayed on it, and we all know Scotchgard doesn't work.
John: It doesn't?
John: Well, I mean, it does, but like... Not really.
John: You can spray Scotchgard on your jacket all day and night, and it's like, well, okay.
John: It's not like waxing your pants.
John: Well, yeah, but the problem with waxing your pants is...
John: The problem with all those wax fabrics is that you perspire and it doesn't, it doesn't wick.
John: The opposite of wick.
John: Right.
John: So you get just as wet.
John: It's just you're wet with your own sweat inside the wax.
John: That's not, I don't really wax my wax jackets.
Merlin: With that said, I think the developments in like the clothes that children wear to be warm.
Merlin: I'm happy that that's come a long way because we didn't use used to be a pretty blunt instrument trying to keep a child warm.
Merlin: Oh, warm.
Merlin: Well, yeah, maybe not dry, but like, you know, but like I used to have the snowsuits.
Merlin: You'd have like an overalls kind of thing you'd put on with a jacket to go play in the snow.
Merlin: Aww.
Merlin: You know what I'm talking about?
John: Oh, a snowsuit with one zipper.
John: A whole, like, bodysuit.
John: Yeah, that was fun.
John: It was sexy.
John: Oh, that was so fun.
John: You know, they made a resurgence in the late 80s.
John: The, like, Descent Skiwear Company and Rafay and all those groups.
Merlin: Is this when everything got neon?
John: It's when everything got neon.
John: And what came back is the Unisuit.
John: A ski person unisuit.
John: My dad had one, which is hilarious.
John: You know, I think that they're meant for people that are doing like, that are helicoptering off every jump.
Merlin: Doing sick ollies.
John: Yeah, they're doing like crazy back scratchers and stuff.
John: And my dad's like in this.
Merlin: Nasty vape tricks.
John: Well, it was pre, any kind of thing like that.
John: I get, what is a vape trick?
Ha ha ha.
John: Is it like French inhaling?
John: I don't know.
Merlin: I'm still not used to it.
Merlin: I'm still not used to being in the car and there's a stoplight and suddenly billows of cotton come out of the car.
Merlin: I just don't think it's so strange.
Merlin: You're like smog.
Merlin: I mean, I look stupid enough riding a Segway, let's be honest.
Merlin: But people are walking around just blowing serious cotton on the street like that's a normal thing, carrying around this little like dildo R2-D2 thing.
Merlin: It's so strange to me.
John: It's pretty weird.
John: It's pretty future dystopia, isn't it?
John: I think it's a thing.
John: I think it's definitely a thing.
John: It's for shizzle a thing.
John: It still seems really, really, really juggalo to me, though.
John: Yeah.
John: And I know that there are vapors that are like, it's not juggalo.
John: No.
John: But it's pretty juggalo.
Merlin: It's pretty juggalo.
Merlin: It's like a suburban juggalo.
Merlin: I heard the juggalo face makeup defeats facial recognition.
John: Oh, I heard that, too.
John: Did you hear that?
John: Yeah, I saw a video just last night, in fact, where Shaggy2Dope ran out on the stage.
John: Is he an insane clown?
John: Shaggy2Dope is, yeah, he's one of the two.
John: One of the canonical clowns.
John: One of the two, he's insane, first of all.
John: Okay.
John: And he's a clown, and he is part of a posse.
John: All right.
John: He ran out on stage at a festival and tried to dropkick Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit.
John: Maybe the one person in the world that I would love to see dropkicked.
John: on stage at his own concert i cannot think every other person no matter how i feel about them i would say that is awful that's a total violation of you don't run up behind somebody when they're performing and like kick them oh boy that's that kind of defeats the rock code it's not cool and you know shaggy too dope obviously um joseph william utzler is his uh his name yeah joe utzler he uh
John: He had, I think in the parlance, he had beef with Durst.
Merlin: Okay.
John: Shaggy 2 Dope had beef with Durst.
John: Is this a long-running battle?
John: I think so.
John: A long time.
John: Because of some shit where Fred Durst gave him the high hat.
John: Don't give me the high hat.
John: But he gave him the high hat.
John: Gave him the splash.
John: He did.
John: And Shaggy 2 Dope was like,
John: Do you know who I am?
John: Or not even that.
John: He was just like, whoa, who do you think you are?
John: I think we all know who Fred Durst thinks he is.
Merlin: Yeah, we've all thought we were Fred Durst probably at some point.
John: No.
John: Not at all?
John: No.
John: No, come on.
Merlin: Playing the tennis racket?
John: You don't think you were a little bit Fred Durst?
John: no no no no no fred durst no okay there is no fred durst in me and i like to think there's no fred durst in you i'll be honest with you i don't know a lot about fred durst i know he's in that one new battle new metal band from uh like the early 2000s the less you know the less i know did he have beef with britney spears at one point
John: I think there was some situation where Eminem, Fred Durst, and Britney Spears got into, where it was like the worst kind of rap battle where they were both talking about Britney Spears.
John: I don't think she, I don't think she like put out a Britney Spears song that was like U2 ding-a-lings, shut the fuck up.
Merlin: They call it a diss track.
John: There was some kind of dissing happening, yeah.
John: You know,
John: Back when Axl Rose told Kurt Cobain to shut his bitch up, that was a rock beef.
John: That happened offstage.
John: He didn't try to dropkick him or anything.
John: No.
John: Okay.
John: But anyway, Shaggy too dope.
John: He's not really fit.
John: You know, he's not like the fitter.
John: Not conventionally fit.
John: He's not the fitter of the two.
John: Okay.
John: You know, there's like the juggalo who can eat no lean.
John: Uh-huh.
John: And there's the juggalo who can... Who's totally fat.
Merlin: Yeah, who can eat no... Is violent Jay the other juggalo?
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: His name's Joseph Bruce.
Merlin: They're both named Joseph.
Merlin: They could be called Two Cool Josephs.
John: Violent Jay is the skinny Jug.
John: Jug.
John: And Jug Jug.
John: I'm learning so much.
John: I think.
John: I'm pretty sure I have this right.
John: Violent Jay.
John: Anyway, so he ran out on stage.
John: He tried to drop kick him, but he couldn't have been more perfect.
John: He jumps up in the air and...
John: And just, it's not that he misses.
John: It's just that he thought, you see this.
Merlin: Is there a video of this that I could watch?
Merlin: Yeah, there is.
John: Okay.
John: You see this a lot in the modern era where people have watched fighting.
John: on TV or fantasy fighting so much.
John: They've watched it so much that they think they're good fighters.
John: Oh, sing it.
John: Because they play video games or because they've seen so many- They've played Mortal Kombat or seen a Jackie Chan movie.
John: They've seen a Jackie Chan movie.
John: So Shaggy Tootope comes running out and he goes to kick Fred Durst.
John: But you can tell that he thinks that once he goes into the air with his kick posture, that he's going to fly through the air.
John: Oh, like wire work.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Or like Jackie Chan, even like if Jackie Chan had jumped at the point that Shaggy two dope had jumped.
John: Yeah.
John: Jackie Chan would have flown through the air.
John: Right.
John: And probably would have been able to like.
John: take uh he could have taken fred durst's dog tags off yeah and then and then flown through a ladder and balanced a teacup on his ass yeah right and all and what and and no one would have even seen him because it would have happened it's jackie chan again doing his thing but so shaggy two dope goes up in the air but then he just falls oh no he like touches fred durst on the back with his shoe and then just falls to the ground he falls behind he just fell on his whole self
John: Oh, Shaggy Too Dope.
John: And Fred Durst turns around.
John: He's in the middle of, you know, like if he if Shaggy Too Dope had actually connected with him, it would have been dangerous.
John: He would have kicked him in the back of the head like and he's standing on the front of the stage like doing whatever his thing is.
John: I mean, I would I hesitate to call it rap.
John: but he turns around fred just turns around it's just like what the what was that you know he just felt like a i don't know felt like a feather duster and he was like oh man and just right he doesn't even recognize that it's shaggy too dope he's just like oh man you could you you didn't even pull that off like
John: That's pretty pathetic.
John: And then the security, like, hauls him off.
John: It was a thing where a thing that I don't, where all of a sudden, briefly, I felt feelings for people I generally do not feel feelings for.
John: Could you feel for both of them, kind of?
John: A little.
John: Yeah, I would definitely feel for both of them.
John: But I hate Fred Durst so much.
Hmm.
John: I don't want to feel any sympathy for him.
John: You don't always get to choose.
John: You can't choose your feelings.
John: I know, it's true.
John: I didn't buy Bitcoin, but I've been putting money away with my bookie on whether or not Fred Durst dies alone in a motel.
Merlin: Like an autoerotic thing?
John: Oh, I don't even think that.
John: I think just like...
John: drinking Sterno.
John: But he has a thousand lives.
John: He's back again.
John: Boggles.
John: Maybe there's something good about him.
John: Maybe somewhere deep inside the mine of Moria that is
Merlin: fred durst soul maybe there's like some gem or some i feel like a non-combatant with this because i was aware of and i'm not saying this to sound like you know the hip guy or something but like there are certain kinds of things where uh i just i feel so out of the loop perpetually about something we just like keep hearing a name over and over now see the one who did it for the nookie
Merlin: okay okay i know that song i remember that song he did it for the nookie and it's just around around the time cookie it's just around the time that system of a down had that really good record probably i think they're technically annoying no metal band system of a down was the one that had a guy from like albania or something right they're all from uh what's the one where the names all end in ian
Merlin: It's Armenia.
Merlin: I think they're all Armenian.
Merlin: I think they're all Armenian.
Merlin: Makeup.
Merlin: Makeup.
Merlin: That's a really good song.
Merlin: Armenia is a very interesting country.
Merlin: My local is owned by Armenians.
Merlin: They're very interesting people.
Merlin: Yeah, interesting.
Merlin: I think any time it ends in IAN, it's often an Armenian.
Merlin: Kardashians, I think they're Armenians.
John: Oh, sure, of course.
John: I have a friend named Kazanjan.
John: Okay.
Merlin: Eric Boghossian, I bet he's Armenian.
John: There you go.
John: If you talk to John Kazanjan about Armenia...
Merlin: he'll get right into it with you well they got they got a lot to be sore about well sure all the world's people you know what i mean all the world's people but then there's times where i just feel like a non-combatant and i feel like in this case like i i can i can make light of this because it just it's it's like silly young people music to me from 20 years ago but like i don't feel like uh i don't know it's it's i don't know
Merlin: It just seems so strange.
Merlin: It seems like there's a lot of beef culture that I don't comment on because, A, I don't understand it, and B, I really don't understand it.
Merlin: So, like, I don't want to be un-woke by saying, why is a Nicki Minaj so angry at a Cardi B?
Merlin: And vice versa.
Merlin: So I don't want to be unwoke by saying that, because I don't know.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: But it might be very unwoke for me to say, why do you guys keep arguing with each other?
Merlin: Like, do you really need to fight on Instagram?
Merlin: Like, what is that?
Merlin: But I guess that's a thing.
Merlin: And it would be unwoke of me to presume to say that that's a silly thing.
Merlin: Yeah, sure.
Merlin: You're both just, you know, millionaires yelling at each other.
John: Yeah, but you know, beef, right?
John: That's the thing about watching Human League look like just normal.
Merlin: He looks like he could be a dentist.
Merlin: He's like a dentist with a little bit of eyeliner now.
John: Yeah, he's bald.
John: They're both, I mean, they're not chavs or whatever.
John: They're just normal.
Merlin: He balded with dignity, whereas Gary Newman is, he's still trying to pull something off there.
Merlin: Oh, is Gary Neumann bald?
Merlin: Well, you know, once you're a guy and you reach a certain age.
John: That's a very good song.
John: You know what else is good?
John: Two Boy Army.
Merlin: Two Boy Army is very good.
Merlin: You go back and look at a Gary Neumann circa 1980 and you go, enjoy it while you can, kid.
John: Oh, it seems like he's balding even then, yeah.
John: Oh, I see what you're saying.
John: He's wearing a piece, isn't he?
Merlin: Well, he's got something going on.
Merlin: He's got a little critter on there.
Merlin: Well, there's a thing that my wife noticed in the indie rock world of mutual friends of ours.
Merlin: She started calling the hipster comb over, where you could definitely tell that there was a guy doing a hair thing.
Merlin: I don't want to talk about baldness, but I'm just saying, good on Phil Oakley.
Merlin: He looks like a dentist.
John: And he's real dignified about it.
John: I think Gary Newman in the 80s might have been putting shoe polish in his hair.
John: If you look at him, his hair is...
John: Too black, too strong.
John: Yeah, but there's no thickness to it.
John: I think it's got shoe polish in it.
John: And then as it kept going away, now he's got Johnny Marr hair.
Merlin: Oh, yeah, he does.
Merlin: It's a little dark.
John: He's got Johnny Marr.
John: I'm glad you know who Johnny Marr is.
John: That makes me happy.
John: It's not just dark.
John: It's like it's situated on his head wrong.
Yeah.
John: That's mislocated.
John: Yeah, it's like, wait a minute.
John: You took a toupee and you shifted it forward a little bit.
John: He's having fun with it.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: He took an online quiz and diagnosed himself with the Aspergers.
Merlin: I say good for him.
Merlin: Oh, nice.
Merlin: His wife said, you should take this online quiz.
Merlin: And now, you know, he's, he's, he says he's, it's kind of, the story's kind of confusing because apparently, well, let's be honest, the story doesn't really add up.
Merlin: The story goes something like the year 2000.
Merlin: His wife said, you should take this online quiz.
Merlin: I don't know how many online quizzes there were in 2000, but whatever.
Merlin: He might have been an early adapter.
Merlin: Well, he's a pilot.
Merlin: You know, he's a pilot.
Merlin: Did you know that about Gary Nium?
Merlin: He's a pilot.
Merlin: I love that.
John: I love that he's a pilot.
Merlin: I think he's a serious pilot.
Merlin: Uh, like John Travolta level series.
Merlin: I thought, I think he's more, well, he's like what John Travolta would wish to be.
Merlin: I think he's more like he drives, he drives crazy planes.
Merlin: I mean, not like crazy, like five wing planes, not like wacky planes, but Gary Newman in a biplane would be fun.
John: Great.
John: He's like a John, uh, a John Denver level.
John: Oh, too soon.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Sorry.
Merlin: Where was I going with this?
Merlin: Gary Newman.
Merlin: So anyway, but then retroactively, he says that he had been diagnosed with the S. Burgess when he was 12.
Merlin: So I think the whole story is kind of confusing.
John: Well, you know, I have that same problem with the, like, when did you know you were bipolar?
John: And it's like, I don't know, man, a long time ago, but I didn't start, I didn't believe it.
John: I mean, I believed it, but I didn't, I believed it, but I didn't believe that it was a thing.
Merlin: Do you know John Moe?
John: Are you familiar with the guy John Moe?
John: So John Moe got his start in public radio in Seattle.
John: And he had some shows here in Seattle that were early versions of a kind of like, let's talk about the news.
John: Not early versions in the world, but early versions in John Moe's career of like, hey, I got a panel of five interesting Seattleites and we're going to talk about the news.
John: That kind of midday show.
John: Okay.
John: And so I was a guest on his program.
John: uh a few times but john moe was a was a big uh a booster of the long winters he was like that's that's cool you should be on his podcast well so here's the thing his podcast okay put a fork in mine because i want to come back to mine but go ahead here's the thing all right so here's the thing do you know about his podcast that he does hang on hang on here's i do know about it i know all about it
John: John Moe, big Long Winners Booster.
John: John Moe moved.
John: He lost his job in Seattle.
John: The radio station here doesn't know how to keep listeners.
John: They keep changing their format.
John: And they decided, the public radio station here in Seattle decided...
John: that people listening to radio, you can guess where this came from, right?
John: It came from somebody in the head office.
John: Nobody wants to hear long form radio anymore.
John: We're going to stop doing these half hour shows where people talk to each other.
John: We're going to go to a format where it's just one segment after another.
John: You know, like 10 minutes is the longest we're going to have any guest.
John: Like just they just they betrayed what public radio is really all about.
Merlin: And probably ended up serving their audience poorly by guessing what it was that they wanted.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: That happens a lot with public radio.
John: We want to get young people listening to public radio.
John: And it's like, what?
John: I mean, just whatever.
John: Leave it alone.
John: Anyway, they they they they they offshored John Moe.
John: And so he moved back to what we all know to be the headquarters of all public radio, the font of public radio.
John: It's basically the gateway to the center of the earth of public radio, which is St.
John: Paul, Minnesota.
Merlin: Yeah, not Minneapolis.
John: No, no, it's all in St.
John: Paul.
Merlin: Totally different head.
John: Totally different head.
John: They got walls and microphones there.
John: I did a show there once and the guy opened a cabinet and
John: And there was, I mean, you know, and it's all old, like old heads from top to bottom, old heads all the way down.
John: He's like, let me put a mic on that for you.
John: And he opened a cabinet, and there was probably $10 million worth of vintage microphones.
John: Wow.
John: That's St.
John: Paul.
John: What the hell is that sarcophagus?
John: And he was like, he chuckled in that kind of old man with suspenders kind of way.
John: He was like, oh, you like that, do you?
John: I was like, oh, wow.
John: Some people, you know what I mean?
John: Anyway, John Moe went up there.
John: He started a show.
John: He started a show.
John: which was his like variety show.
John: And he started on Twitter and he got good on Twitter.
John: And we were pals.
John: We were pals from the old days.
John: You know what I mean?
John: We were both on Twitter in the fun times, pals from the old days.
John: And John Moe was, I thought, very good at Twitter.
John: Lots of laughs, good times.
John: Good times, great oldies.
John: He started having variety shows.
John: He started getting people.
John: He started, you know, attracting guests who were of a certain caliber.
John: Uh, Paul F. Tompkins, John Hodgman, you know, he's not attracting guests that are like George Clooney, but he's, you know, he's, he's now in that gang, right?
John: The gang, Paul F. Tompkins, John Hodgman gang that, that a lot of people want to be in a murder of micro celebrities.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: Like, like a murder of micro celebrities at which point, so I was on his show a couple of times and
John: but both times it was a show.
John: It was like Hodgman and I were on tour.
John: He wanted Hodgman and I was the musical guest and I enjoyed it, but he and I were communicating offline and I was like, you should have me on your show.
John: And he said, well, the people that put on the show are looking for, you know, musicians that are looking for, you know, it's not that he said they were looking for it was, he gave me the,
John: He gave me the hi-hat.
John: Oh, no.
John: A little bit.
John: Because he was like, he was booking AC Newman.
Merlin: Oh, I see.
Merlin: Okay.
John: And so the problem is, right, that it was a thing where the celebrity musicians that are at the same level as Paul F. Tompkins and John Hodgman are like celebrity, whatever they are, comedians, I guess.
John: The AC Newman's of the world now I perceive that to be definitely AC Newman is a bigger musician than I am just just just bigger, you know like
John: When the indie rock coffee table book is written, the new pornographers will be in it.
John: You think they'll be closer to the front?
John: The Long Winters will not be in it.
John: Okay.
John: You might be in an appendix.
John: Yeah, barely.
John: I don't know about that.
John: But the fact that John Moe and I have a long history and are friends and that I also am not just a musician but am part of the... I'm a junior member of the murder of micro-celebrities.
John: Made me feel like, come on, you're the host of the show.
John: It's your show.
John: Don't put this off on people, on somebody in the back office.
John: He was giving you My Hands Are Tied?
John: Yeah, he was giving me My Hands Are Tied.
John: But what it was was he was intoxicated by his proximity to this world of, I mean, you know, it's, again, not celebrity where you go, oh, but it's NPR celebrity.
John: Like the McSweeney's celebrity.
John: Yeah.
John: And so there were a couple of these where I was like, hey, you're having a show.
John: And everybody on the show is somebody that I've collaborated with.
John: This would be a good opportunity to have me as the guest.
John: And he was like, oh, you know, I got, sorry, my hands are tied.
John: And little by little, I started to feel...
John: resentment.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Now, you know how this is with me.
John: You steam a little bit.
John: When I get a resentment, right?
John: Mm-hmm.
John: I know.
John: Yeah.
John: And I even said to him, hey, why are you giving me the hi-hat?
John: Mm-hmm.
John: And he was like, oh, my hands are tied.
John: Oh.
John: I was like, you're not even going to acknowledge that you're giving me the hi-hat.
John: And so then, you know, times went on.
John: He lost that job at the, and again, I don't think for a minute through any fault of his own, but it's like public radio.
John: It's a dog-eat-dog world.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: and then and then merlin we get to the meat of the story which you were which you were trying to jump ahead to which is he started a podcast called the wonderful world of depression hilarious world depression hilarious world of depression now john mo and i have by this point known each other for 20 years john mo knows i think pretty well that i have not only suffered from uh depressive illness
John: But do so publicly.
John: But I have never heard from John Moe.
John: I have never heard an invitation to come on his hilarious World of Depression.
John: Because he is so, he is so, because he believes that he and his show are at the Tig Notaro level of depression guest.
John: Okay, okay.
John: And that I'm not going to drive the numbers or something.
Yeah.
John: And I just feel like that kind of high hat when you're talking about a podcast about depression.
John: That's a lot of high hat.
John: I take your point.
John: So I feel like, you know, John Moe is on my list of people that when I get, when I finally put out that long winner's record, when finally the world notices me and says, all those episodes of Roderick on the Line are going to be in the Library of Congress because of all of the help that they gave people.
John: And John Moe comes.
John: He's probably 80 now.
John: 80 at that point.
John: I'm about 79.
John: And he's like, I want you on my show.
John: And I'll be like, oh, now you want me on your show?
John: Yeah.
John: Just waiting.
John: I'm just waiting.
John: His show will be the hilarious world of living in a home.
Merlin: And what will you say when he invites you?
John: I'll be like, oh, now?
John: Can't do it.
John: My hands are tied.
John: I'll be like, look, sorry.
John: I've got...
John: That's the day I have to comb the nits out of my dog's hair.
Merlin: I'm awful sorry to hear that.
John: I think you'd be good on that show.
John: I like to think that my list of resentments, which includes Fred Durst on it somewhere, depends on how many pages you go to.
John: It depends on how many pages you go to on the list.
John: Yeah, how much time have you got?
John: But I like to think that most of those names on the list are grayed out.
John: If you click on them, the hyperlink is dead.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Oh, that's a very good way to put it.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: If it's blue, it means it's already visited.
Merlin: Like the Colin Malloy one is blue because it's already been visited.
Merlin: Sure, sure.
John: Colin and I have nothing.
Merlin: Is it blue or purple?
Merlin: But you've already clicked on Colin.
John: It's purple.
John: It's purple, okay.
John: Right, but the blue ones... They're still fresh.
John: They're fresh, and you can click on them and go look at the wiki.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Um, I like to think that I've culled that list down to, to not be a constant source and not a constant dragon on my back.
John: And I, and I know that a lot of the CPAP people are going to write and say like, if you had a CPAP machine, you wouldn't feel those resentments.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And you wouldn't imagine there's a dragon on your back.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Get a monkey on your dragon.
John: Well, a dragon attack, right?
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: Dragon attack.
John: Sure.
John: Sure.
John: Heart attack.
Yeah.
John: But so anyway.
John: I'm sorry to hear that.
John: That's a shame.
John: I don't like to hear about beef.
John: Well, you know, I mean, what do you do, right?
John: You get into the hilarious world of micro-celebrity.
John: Yeah.
John: And then you're just walking around the hall.
John: You're walking up to people and going, hey, I like what you do.
John: And they give you the high hat.
John: Um, you know, I walked up to Idris Elba one time at a party and I was like, I like what you do.
John: And he said, thanks mate.
John: And then we stood there and talked for a minute.
John: I would melt.
John: Now he didn't have any reason to stand there and talk to me.
John: I, the room was, he seems like a gentleman.
John: He was a gentleman and he stood there and there was somebody waiting to talk to him.
John: That was like one of his people.
John: And he, he did the thing where he gave me two minutes of his time.
John: And we had like a, we had just some kind of passing chat.
John: And then I was like, because I'm also not a monster.
John: I was like, well, it was nice talking to you.
John: Thanks for taking a minute with me.
John: And he was like, you know, it was a pleasure and shook hands and off he goes and off I go.
John: It's all it takes.
John: Perfect.
John: Idris Elba, right?
John: He's like, he didn't need, he didn't, there was nothing about me that Idris Elba looked at and said, well, this guy might be somebody, right?
Yeah.
Merlin: He's not running like a social media credit check on you.
Merlin: No.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: You get that feeling sometimes with people that they're like running a check.
Merlin: They're going, hmm, what's the ROI on this?
John: That's right.
John: For me.
John: And he said, he looked at me, I was wearing a green blazer that looked like I had won the Masters tournament, but I clearly had not won the Masters tournament.
John: And he was like, oh, this guy's in a green blazer.
John: Everybody else is in a freaking tuxedo at this party, but all right.
John: I'll give you a couple of minutes just to see, you know, just to see, just to, it's, I don't think he was like, I'm just being polite either.
John: I think he was like, man, world's full of interesting people.
John: Let's see.
John: That's all it takes.
John: That's all it is.
John: It's not that, not that hard.
John: Have a little kindness.
John: Have a little, try a little tender, tenderness.
John: Try a little tenderless.
John: Try a little tenderless.
Merlin: You know?
Yeah.
Merlin: So anyway, on the Hilarious World Depression, Chris Gethard, I think his name is, was on.
John: Is that a famous person?
Merlin: I think so.
John: Yeah, he's a comedian.
John: How is Chris Gethard famous?
Merlin: Oh, he's a comedian?
Merlin: He's a comedian.
Merlin: He's done shows, and he's out there.
Merlin: TV shows?
Merlin: Well, I think he was in that improv movie.
Merlin: He's done lots of comedy things, and he's been on, I think, Off-Broadway and stuff like that.
Merlin: So he's talking about his hilarious world depression and, um, and, um, but this goes back to something a long time ago.
Merlin: I don't know why I'm bringing this up, but these things like, you know, how did you know when you had this situation?
Merlin: And I think when you talk about, so when, well, what was your point originally?
Merlin: The, the original point from a long time ago was something like, you know, when did you realize that you're bipolar?
Yeah.
Merlin: And it's sort of like, well, it depends.
Merlin: How much did I realize?
Merlin: Did I have a name for this?
Merlin: When did I know this didn't feel good?
Merlin: That comes first, right?
Merlin: When do I notice there's a thing?
Merlin: When do I notice it doesn't feel good?
Merlin: That's a long time for most people.
Merlin: That's a long time before you get to, here's a name for what I have.
Merlin: what I live with, let alone, here's the thing I'm doing to ameliorate it.
Merlin: I just think it's worth mentioning, for our own sanity, that it's a really long continuum between, like, I've realized there's something in my life that's not normal, let alone that there's a name or names for the things that I have.
Merlin: Would you agree?
John: Was there a time in your life when you look back and think,
John: That you felt like you were normal and happy and things were simple and you belonged?
Merlin: Yeah, I think so.
John: When?
Merlin: Well, I mean, a fair amount of my childhood I felt mostly kind of normal.
Merlin: Oh, I mean, as an adult?
Yeah.
Merlin: Well, I think there was a time in my mid-20s was one of the first or second times where I felt like I had kind of arrived, where I'd gotten above where I thought I would be in life, and I felt, if not successful, at least like I wasn't a failure.
Merlin: I've had that a few times.
Merlin: But, I mean, I've never felt like I fit in.
Merlin: I'm not saying that for clapping.
Merlin: I guess part of the trick, as we've said before, part of the trick is realizing that at the time when you see people who are really popular in middle school and high school, you don't realize that they could be the most super broken inside.
Merlin: You don't learn until you're a grown-up that most bullies were bullied.
Merlin: You don't, you don't, well, you don't learn that in a way that you internalize, that they could be, I'm not, not to apologize for bullies, but that those are people who are acting the way they are acting because something probably kind of terrible happened to them.
Merlin: Nobody wants to behave the way that they're behaving.
Merlin: Nobody wants to be that weak and needy.
Merlin: Um, but then you get a little older and you go, oh, that makes sense.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Or like you go, oh man, that friend of mine who always wanted to do like, you know, road trips at two in the morning, they might've been a little bipolar.
Right.
Merlin: You know, and we didn't have you don't have a name for that.
Merlin: But I you know, I mean, I don't think there's that much I had going on that was super chemical.
Merlin: It was more emotional and social health that I was not always good at, which could have which could have a I mean, it's a current to put all that on chemistry.
Merlin: But I think there's a lot of stuff that I could just write down to not being very socially and emotionally adept.
Merlin: And I do think there's a difference.
Merlin: I mean, it's tempting to say that everything can come down to a specific kind of chemical thing, but I don't know.
Merlin: I mean, certainly, I do imagine that I probably had ADHD my whole life, but also that there were just times where, like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do here, and I probably shouldn't be here.
Merlin: Like, everyone else seems to understand what to do at this event, and I think this feels like a scientific experiment.
Merlin: i i still a lot of times feel that and then eventually i might get into it or whatever but like i had i definitely had like a certain sense of i don't know if it was narcissism but definitely a sense of otherness of like the reason i don't have more friends is because i'm just weird and shouldn't have friends probably uh-huh at times at times yeah i think yeah i think that the
John: The difference, and I think this was true when you and I met, or it was on display in our friendship from the beginning, was that I've always felt that I had a social understanding of how to work a room and how to meet new people and how to feel like I belonged to
Merlin: that was never it was the sort of the opposite of what you're describing right i described this to my daughter we were watching a movie we all like in the house the oceans 8 the oceans 11 remake with all women and we watched that movie it's really fun movie i mean it's got some plot problems in the third act but sure um but but the thing where we my daughter and i went and saw it in the theater and i love i don't spoil it for people because it's a fun movie but what centra bullock does at the beginning of that movie
Merlin: Where she just walks into everywhere she goes she walks in like she owns the place I said that right there.
Merlin: That's that's what John Roderick does I said that's that's the thing you need to know if you ever want to go somewhere Act like act like you belong there don't act like you need permission to be there.
Merlin: I said that's an important thing I learned from John Yeah, that's right.
John: Do not ever don't it's not even act don't think that you need permission from anybody to be anywhere Yeah, is it cool that I'm here?
Merlin: I feel like that when people come and service our appliances.
Merlin: I'm like, should I go?
Merlin: Is it cool that I stick around here in my own kitchen?
Merlin: Is it cool that I'm in my house?
John: I mean, I definitely say to people that are doing a job when I'm standing there looking over their shoulder, I'm like, look, if you want an extra 50 bucks just because I'm sitting here looking over your shoulder asking you what you're doing, I'm willing to pay it.
John: Sure.
John: I'm willing to give you 50 extra dollars.
John: I know it's a pain in the ass, but I'm going to ask you every single tool you pick out of your toolbox.
John: I'm going to say, what's that?
John: What are you doing now?
John: So what do you do?
John: So what would happen if you open that and it was full of crickets?
John: What would you do then?
John: What tool would you reach for then?
John: I'll give you $50 for that.
John: But no, the problem for me was all internal, right?
John: And it wasn't the stoner problem of like, are they looking at me?
John: Are they laughing at me?
John: It was, it was just entirely 100%, um, just, uh, just an internal loop that had nothing to do with other people.
John: Hmm.
John: Um, like I, you know, I assumed they were looking at me and I didn't care if they liked me or, I mean, that's not true, but, but the, the, the spinning, the spinning was all just like in my own, in my own, uh, like, uh, trash compactor.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Um, so, so, but, but when I look back at my adult life, there's not really, there was a period right after I got sober where I felt like I get it now.
John: I had a new group of friends.
John: They were all, they were all fun.
John: They were playwrights.
John: They were actors.
John: They were smart.
John: They were like goofy.
John: They were beautiful.
John: I thought they were beautiful.
John: Um, they had a certain kind of just grace and elegance.
John: And as time has gone on, that group of people, that 10 group of friends that I made right after I stopped drinking, because at the time they were people that were in, they were on the fringe of the world that I lived in and I had seen them, but I didn't, but they were kind of also invisible to me because if I was sitting in a bar and one of these people came in, I recognized right away, they were not going to buy me a beer.
Um,
John: And hanging out with them was not going to get me into a posture where there were any drugs.
Merlin: Can I tease something out here?
Merlin: I feel like you've said this before, but I just want to tease it out if it's true.
Merlin: Was there an overt thought on your part when you cut yourself off?
Merlin: Was there an overt thought on your part that you need to just not be around that same group of people that you've been with?
John: Well, I knew it because when I first got sober, I continued to try and hang out with my old pals.
John: and all they wanted to do was go to the bar and i would go to the bar and i would sit there and and watch the watch the the sunlight move across the wall while everybody else was drinking pitchers and i think i probably told you the story i was sitting with a group and a good friend of mine sitting across the table um he said something i don't remember it didn't it's not like it was mean or it didn't offend me or anything i just was sitting there and
John: Picked a lighter up off the table and I lit his soul patch on fire And he was like jumped up and was putting out his soul patch He was like what the fuck and everybody jumps up from the table and I stood up and was like that was totally I don't know where that came from But clearly I do not need to be here in that in this bar with you guys.
John: I'll catch you later And I got out of there because it was
John: What happened was I was sitting there and I was like, this is fine.
John: I don't need to drink.
John: I'm fine.
John: Bars are not always super fun if you're not drinking.
Merlin: Oh, not at all.
Merlin: It's not the kind of place where you would go to not drink.
John: But they were the only place I knew to go since I was 20.
John: I just transacted every single aspect of my social life in bars.
John: So I didn't know where else to be.
John: But I was sitting at this table and these guys, my friends, were sitting there talking.
John: I was fine.
John: I was just like I'm fine.
John: Everything's fine.
John: I'm fine.
John: This is easy And I looked over and the bartender I just caught a glimpse of the bartender take a last Intense drag off of his cigarette, you know that one where you're holding the filter kind of you're squeezing it between your holding like a joint middle finger.
John: Yeah, and you just like Take that last drag of the cigarette and then he put it out in the ashtray and
John: with that kind of like old man bar fly sort of like it's not just like you're dabbing it out you're like scrunching a little angry curly nub yeah you're just like and i saw this gesture that he made and i was just hit with a tidal wave of feeling of like oh
John: Shit like that's the drama that real life is made of this is that these are the times This is the you know, like what am I doing with my life?
John: Why would I ever think to quit drinking?
John: Because drinking is like how you express all of the many, many complicated feelings you have about the world.
John: And what am I, an artist or am I just a normal?
John: It all hit me with a bowling ball shot out of a cannon.
John: And I turned and I lit my friend's soul patch on fire.
John: And then I was like, I can't be in this bar.
John: And I never went back.
John: I never went back to that bar.
John: I stopped hanging out with those guys.
John: Not because of anything they did.
John: They were still totally good friends.
John: I was a little embarrassed that I'd lit his beard on fire.
John: It wasn't a beard, though.
John: It was soul patch.
John: But no, I went and I found this other group of people that, and it was crazy to me, drinking just wasn't part of what they did.
John: I mean, you know, if you gave them a beer, they'd drink it or whatever, but they didn't need a second one.
John: Blew me away.
John: And I felt for a brief moment there for nine months or something, I felt like, oh, I'm on a path.
John: I'm on a path to a place where I belong here because this group of people just feels like they have access to a whole other way of living where you're just making little art things and it's like, let's write a play.
John: Okay, let's do it.
John: And
John: Let's go down in the basement and jam and you be the drummer this time.
John: Um, like a, like fun.
John: But then I got in my first relationship with a, with one of the people in that group and I immediately, all of the problems that I'd ever had were all still right there.
John: You know, like problems with intimacy or whatever.
John: I was like, Oh, it's, it wasn't about being drunk.
John: That was actually not the problem.
John: Hmm.
John: In this way, you know, like it was the problem.
John: And like, since I stopped drinking, how many times have I been arrested?
John: Not very many.
John: How many times that I'd been arrested before I stopped drinking more by, by a fairly large margin.
John: So I at least solved that problem.
John: But like the, the problem of being in a relationship, I, it was like, Oh fuck.
John: I thought I'd, I thought that the stopping drinking was solving everything.
John: Turns out no.
John: And the tragedy is that a lot of that group of people, those 10 people, they suffered also.
John: I mean, their lives, none of us really from that group achieved the promise of those early years.
John: You know, a lot of the actors became professional waiters, in other words.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: And that hurts me a little bit because I think back at that group and I'm like, oh, you know, this group had so much kinetic energy.
John: It's only a matter of time before somebody makes a piece of work that's like totally great.
John: And it's a little weird to think that maybe I was the one that did.
John: You know?
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Because, yeah, that's a little weird.
Merlin: Sometimes it's... If you're seeking...
Merlin: a state in life that you've never been in or haven't been in much, any kind of a state that you regard as being a positive way to be, I think it's regardless of your age, but maybe especially at certain younger ages, it's sometimes very difficult to know what you need to add and what you need to remove.
Merlin: to get closer to that thing, let alone to fully inhabit that thing.
Merlin: And I think sometimes there are, I'm not by any means trying to say you shouldn't stop drinking, but like that there are sometimes there are some red herrings along the way that are deceptive because like anything where you haven't developed the expertise based on experience, a lot of it is kind of guessing or looking at...
Merlin: sort of circumstantial evidence and it's certainly fair to say like oh i might get a little more clear-eyed and get to hang with some playwrights if i wasn't you know super drunk all the time right but like then i think there's a certain and this could be things about about weight loss mindfulness like there's all kinds of things where just because you got rid of what you regard or come to realize just because you got rid of what you realize is the big negative in your life it does not mean that all of those things are gonna get better
Merlin: let alone get way, way better.
Merlin: And I think that can be a strangely empty existential feeling in some ways.
Merlin: This is not anything particularly deep, but I do think that's a funny thing.
Merlin: When you don't have the expertise and the experience, what happens could be real different from what you expected to have happen.
Merlin: It's not so different from a certain kind of magical thinking because you haven't experienced it yet.
Merlin: You know, you've never...
Merlin: gotten to the place where you feel like well you're a successful executive or you're a grandfather of seven or whatever it is and removing that one thing you know is a definite obstacle it might be the biggest rock in the road but just getting rid of that one thing doesn't mean everything's going to go the way you expected and i think that can be very disappointing yeah do you still think is there a part of you that still thinks that there's a magic pill
John: for feeling better.
John: Yeah.
John: I mean, or do you think that there's some transformation that could happen where you, uh, where you were significantly
John: different and more like if you just did something like stop eating potatoes or Something like that.
Merlin: Yeah, just go run more or something.
John: Just run more.
John: Do you still feel do you still like have any any investment in From an on a day-to-day basis like oh if once I get that once I figure out that
John: Do you have any of that?
Merlin: It's a very good question.
Merlin: I have kind of a mixed funny feeling about it, because I think I know what you're talking about.
Merlin: One thing, let's see, how should I put this?
Merlin: Being somebody who's anxious has, over time...
Merlin: led me to realize some very interesting things.
Merlin: And one of those things is that anxiety in an anxious person very rarely just goes away.
Merlin: You just become anxious about something else.
Merlin: So to cut a very long story short, one part of trying to live as an anxious person is to realize that you could find 17 different silver bullets for fixing it, but another approach is to realize that this is a part of your life, but it doesn't have to define who you are.
Merlin: right?
Merlin: Just in that sense of like, you know, you think about any kind of thing where you're feeling overwhelmed or you're feeling like you can't, just can't handle life.
Merlin: And you think about this stack of stuff that's like piled up in your life.
Merlin: And in most, I suspect that for most people, there's one big thing at the top that's like your most like dread and scary thing or like the thing you, the thing you obsess about, the thing you worry about, the thing you think could be your undoing.
Merlin: Well, if that thing magically disappeared, is there any chance that within a
Merlin: 36 hours, the number two or three one pops back up to that spot and you have that same feeling.
Merlin: Now, for a lot of people, that answer may be no.
Merlin: It's like, no, I just need to fix this one thing.
Merlin: I just need to get my car repaired or whatever.
Merlin: But something I think about is like wondering, well, if this is the way that I am and I'm not sure there's exactly a pill, please don't email me to fix it.
Merlin: There are ways to make my body feel less anxious, but I don't know if that's going to change my basic composure as somebody who gets anxious about things.
Merlin: And so my route in some ways has been slightly more kind of cognitive behavioral, which is more just to realize...
Merlin: Well, you know, what if everything's not a catastrophe?
Merlin: And what if this is just a feeling that I have?
Merlin: So, I don't know.
Merlin: I don't know if that answers your question, but I think— It does.
Merlin: Well, just because I feel like there is this—maybe this is an American thing, but there is this kind of entitled feeling we all have, which is like, there's this stuff that's getting in my way.
Merlin: And sometimes we have enough insight to realize those are things we've put in our own path.
Merlin: But a lot of times we look to other people and we blame our parents and we look at all the different reasons that things are the way that they are.
Merlin: And I don't mean to sound like Ayn Rand, but I think at a certain level, you just have to say, well, what is it you're trying to accomplish here?
Merlin: What is it that's preventing you from taking steps toward that today?
Merlin: And it's sort of like I said to you a couple of weeks ago in a funny back and forth was like, well...
Merlin: I think what I'd said to you was your thought about whether you're worrying about this right thing enough, and I said, well, does that help you?
Merlin: And you said something like, I don't know yet if that's helping me.
Merlin: But you feel the need to keep turning it over.
Merlin: So I try to say to myself, just like I'd say to a good friend, ask yourself whether those repetitions in your life and mind are things that are helping or hindering you, and then be open to the fact that that may be a thing you're kind of
Merlin: allowing or even visiting upon yourself, in which case you do some basic mindfulness stuff of saying, well, here's a bad feeling I'm having right now.
Merlin: And that's a bad feeling I'm having, but it's not who I am.
Merlin: So I don't know if that answers it.
Merlin: I don't know if there's a pill for stuff.
Merlin: I know enough people who've got on the right kind of medication that they went from very, very low to feeling not horrible, let alone feeling pretty good.
Merlin: I've had a lot of people in my life who were able to go from unmanageable to feeling...
Merlin: manageable mostly but i suspect that it's very rarely as simple as that because we don't know what other kind of it's like when you go and take a supplement and you say well this has ginseng in it well it's got ginseng plus what else like you hope that's the right amount of ginseng but who knows what other garbage is in there we all have we all have garbage in our life that we can look past because we're obsessing about that thing at the top of the stack and uh i don't know it's not really an answer but that's how i that's how i think about it
John: For me, the bipolar medicine was very, very akin to quitting drinking.
John: In the sense that I had an initial flush of... But the thing about quitting drinking is that there was a lot of pain in... And this is something that I try to say to people who want to quit drinking.
John: And it's not what anybody wants to hear.
John: but it's like you quit drinking.
John: And because, because what I do is I get a lot of emails from people that are like, I haven't had a drink in 30 days and I feel amazing and I'm never going back and I'm kicking ass right and left.
John: I'm working on the great American novel and I repaired my relationship with my sister and, and I always am like, Whoa, awesome.
John: But slow your role because that those feelings that you're having are exactly the feelings that are going to
John: Cause you to pick up a drink.
John: Like it's not like that.
John: You do not quit drinking for 30 days and all your problems are solved in your back and the, you know, and all of a sudden your greatness is revealed like six months and you're six months of, of being sober and you are,
John: Um, and you're still a three legged dog, you know, and you go up and down all the time.
John: But the challenge is not that you stopped, you stopped boozing and all of a sudden, you know, it's smooth sailing.
John: The challenge is every day you just try not to have a drink because tomorrow's going to suck.
John: And the first, you know, the first nine months of quitting drinking was just, it was just a cascade of pain for me.
John: Taking bipolar medicine was not that at all.
John: It was, um, instantaneous almost feeling of like, whoa, the, the really awful, awful feelings are gone.
John: Now, what I did of course was immediately buy a vintage RV, like within hours, uh,
John: And then... Hey, you weren't running for office, right?
John: Oh, no.
John: I had just stopped.
John: I had just stopped running for office.
John: So running for office was my last truly great manic episode.
Merlin: It didn't remind me, though, just so I want to get the timeline right, but wasn't this concomitant with you having a little bit of a health scare and going to the doctor?
John: So during running for office, you know, it was like...
John: It was one of those summers in Seattle that we never used to have that now we have, which is like, oh, it's 100 degrees all week.
John: Like, that's weird.
John: It used to be that it would get to be 100 degrees in Seattle once a decade.
John: And now it's like, oh, there's five days of 99 degree weather.
John: And I was going to 10 events a day.
John: all over the city where I would walk into an un-air-conditioned room full of angry people where everyone was angry and they had turned the lights off in order to try and, like, I don't know, cool it by one half degree.
John: So you're in some auditorium or someplace where it's like, you know, people are fanning themselves.
John: But still, they came out of their houses to come down here and yell at city council candidates.
John: And I had just gone to the...
John: Um, it just had a meeting with the board of the, um, the international brotherhood of carpenters or whatever.
John: This was the one where, where they, they said, we're against Arctic drilling as much as the next guy.
John: And I was like, yeah, Arctic drilling, like Seattle plays a large role in, in the staging of Arctic drilling equipment.
John: And I think we should wean ourselves off of that.
John: Cause I think Arctic drilling is, is dead issue.
John: And they were like, we agree 100%.
John: But what if I told you that the Arctic drilling equipment provided 50 carpentry jobs for local carpenters?
John: And I said, well, I would say that the carpentry union needed to also wean themselves off of Arctic drilling dollars.
John: We all have to pitch in here.
John: If we're not going to
John: create an environmental catastrophe that lasts a millennia.
John: We need to stop drilling in the Arctic.
John: And that means that 50 carpentry jobs are going to have to be redirected to other places.
John: And they were like, Hmm.
John: And you could see them all put a big black X mark on their little piece of paper where they were.
John: And I was like, uh, so did I, did I pass?
John: And they're like, thanks for coming by.
John: Oh, I see.
John: You're a politician.
John: You always say we should preserve those carpentry jobs at all costs, even if it means destroying the Arctic.
John: Anyway, I left that meeting.
John: They gave me the high hat.
John: They gave me the high hat, the union high hat, which is not the one you want.
John: I drove home and I was going to have like 30 minutes to sit at home and drink an ice water before I had to be at the next thing where a bunch of people were like, so here's a scenario.
John: What if there was a global socialist revolution?
John: Which side would you be on?
John: And I, and I was running in and I jumped up on my porch on my way into the house and I felt my heart go bloop bloop.
John: I was like, Oh no.
John: And the thing is my good friend Darius is,
John: who was the drummer of the Posies, who had drummed with the Long Winters on several occasions, who was like Eric Corson's roommate, who was Mike Squires' best friend, who was like a great dude and a good friend of mine for a decade.
John: Darius sat down on the couch.
John: Oh, and also Darius, 38 years old, sat down on the couch, opened his laptop, Googled heart attack, and died.
John: And that's how they found him with his computer open with heart attack.
John: Oh, shut up.
John: Are you serious?
John: Just died, 38 years old.
John: And so we were all just rocked by that.
John: So I jump up on my porch 100 degrees outside and my heart goes bloop.
John: I'm like, oh, is this this kind of like when the hatchet fell on me in the barn?
John: I have a feeling now where I'm sitting down.
John: Am I just am I like a dead man walking?
John: Is this the situation where Uma Thurman has given me the
John: Seven dragons treatment and as and I'm fine while I'm sitting here, but as soon as I stand up Oh, like a quivering palm.
John: Yeah, like a quivering palm Am I just gonna drop dead?
John: Am I gonna and will I be able to walk across the rice paper and leave no?
John: So I sit down and I'm like, what do I do the thing to do?
John: I'm under a lot of stress, but the thing to do is probably call the aid car and
John: Don't be one of those people that doesn't call the aid car.
John: So I called the aid car and they came out and the, and it was the, it was the medics.
John: They sent the medics, which they never do.
John: Usually they send like one of those contractor aid cars for, for whatever reason they sent the medics, the real fire department guys.
John: And they came in and the, the, there were like six of them and the head guy,
John: Cause they came in the fire truck, you know, it was like the whole, the whole comes in and he does all, does a few tests on me and he's like, he's got a smile on his face and he's like, I don't think you're having a heart attack.
John: I've seen a lot of heart attacks.
John: I don't think you're having one, but you know, just to be on the safe side, maybe you should go to the emergency room.
John: And I was like, Oh, all right.
John: To be on the safe side.
John: Now what I didn't realize was I was just, I was embarking upon a $8,000 afternoon.
John: Because a ride in an ambulance isn't free.
John: And then when you show up at the emergency room and they put you on the treadmill and all this stuff, or they lay you in a hospital bed, none of that's free.
John: And so later on the bill came and I was like, you know, when he told me I wasn't having a heart attack, I probably should have just gone up and taken a cool bath.
John: But that began.
John: So I still was running for office for three more months after that.
John: But I went to the doctor.
John: I've told you.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: And she said, she said, well, you finally landed on somebody who spoke to you in a way that was sensible to you.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: So I lost the election.
John: Oh, and what was great was I was ready in June to go to a psychiatrist.
John: But but I called them up and I was like, I'd like to make an appointment.
John: They were like, great.
John: We have our first appointment is in September.
John: I was like, it's June.
John: They're like, yeah, it's just how it is these days.
John: And so for the rest of the, for the rest of the campaign, I was still, I was waiting for this appointment and you know, was still like mega manic depressed through the whole, the whole thing.
John: But after I lost, I lost on the, the primary was on like August 5th and I lost and I kind of moped around for a little while.
John: And then I finally had the appointment and I went in and I took, and the guy was like, you got to take this medicine.
John: I took it for a couple of weeks and then it started to work.
Pow.
John: I immediately bought an RV.
John: You know, it's working because I was just like, and then I went down to San Francisco with John Hodgman.
John: I went to a party.
John: I went to a big fancy party where there was Lobster Thermidor and Naked Jugglers.
John: One of those software parties that you went to.
John: Not jugglers, jugglers.
John: Jugglers.
John: You went to the party and then you Irish goodbyed in classic Merlin fashion.
John: Like classic, like we were all walking, you, me, and Hodgman were walking together down a hall.
John: And then I was like, so Merlin, what are you?
John: And then you were gone.
John: And it was a hall.
John: I didn't even see that there was a door anywhere.
John: I'm stealthy.
John: We were halfway down the hall.
John: How did you even get out?
John: You went up through the ceiling.
John: I'm scoping means of aggress from early on.
John: Yeah, you pulled out your bat hook and just went straight up.
What?
Merlin: My grappling hook gun.
John: And I tapped Hodgman and I was like, did you see Merlin's gone?
John: And he was like, what?
John: How could he be gone?
John: We're in a hall.
John: I was like, yeah, I think he went through a trap door up or down.
Merlin: Was Elon Musk there?
John: Elon Musk was at that party.
John: That's right.
John: There were a lot of software famouses there.
John: I remember at one point with Hodgman looking around and saying, the only people of color in this entire party
John: are the Asian girlfriends of like software dudes.
John: This is not a good environment.
John: And John was like, let's go.
John: And then as we were standing up to leave, a fancy girl came over to Hodgman and said, I just want to say how important your work is to me.
John: And it was so clear that she did not feel that way because of course,
John: you can love John Hodgman, but it's very hard to say like his, his, uh, 10,000 hobo names are important to you.
John: You know what I mean?
Merlin: She kind of, she kind of, it was like, it was a kind of friendly high hat, but she kind of all the great shows him a little, a little bit.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: But you know, John loves talking to somebody who loves his work and,
John: And so he's so we all sat down again and I was like, just a moment, just a moment.
John: Here we go.
John: And she so it turns out this this woman that was telling him that she loved his work was one of the lawyers for Uber.
John: And like like a lawyer for Uber that later on, you know, like I learned hilarious things about Uber, like basically Uber's legal strategy was not let's be in compliance with the law.
John: Uber's legal strategy has always been, we're going to break the law.
John: Let's use our lawyers to figure out how to do it and not get penalized.
John: Like 100% that's their like corporate policy.
John: Not at all about like, well, how can we do this?
John: How can we run our business in compliance?
John: But the opposite, how can we not get arrested?
John: But then her friend was standing there
John: And her friend was also rolling her eyes.
John: And we both looked at each other.
John: And I'd been taking bipolar medicine for 10 days or something.
John: Or I'd been working for 10 days.
John: And I was like, oh, well, shit.
John: Hi.
John: And then began my two-year relationship with Millennium Girlfriend, who's also a tech lawyer and a
John: And, you know, we had an alternative relationship, which is like, oh, how did I get into this?
John: Like, I'd never been in an alternative relationship.
John: I mean, except in the sense that all my relationships were alternative.
John: But this was a San Francisco-style alternative relationship.
John: And I don't know if you know about those.
John: I live in the sunset.
Yeah.
John: Well, so, yeah, you know.
John: Oh, no, you live in the sunset, so you're out of it.
John: I'm in the other part of San Francisco.
John: I'm not in the alternative part.
John: You're on the backside of it, right?
John: Right.
John: I'm in the appendix of San Francisco.
John: This was a relationship very definitely situated in the Castro.
John: Oh, boy.
John: And it was all like, well, I've been taking this medicine for just a few days.
John: And I felt like all my problems are solved because all of my sorrow is gone.
John: But it was not that all my problems were solved.
John: And the last three, well, that was like October of 2015.
John: And now we're in October of 2018.
John: So three years later.
John: My goodness.
John: And all my problems were not solved by that.
John: I was just going out of the boiling hot pot into the fireplace.
John: Right?
Merlin: Yes, a less hot pot.
Merlin: But still a pot that's hot.
John: Yeah, it's not even a hot pot.
John: But as we talk about on this show for the last three years, I'm sitting in a room right now where I could not put a coffee cup down on a table anywhere because the table is all covered with guitar picks that have been sorted by color and shape.
John: and Cowichan sweaters that are piled up.
John: You know, like if I wore a different sweater every day of the winter, I would wear every sweater twice.
John: Like, you know, I have 50 sweaters.
John: What is that?
John: That is a mental illness of some kind.
John: Well, you like sweaters.
John: I do.
John: They're wonderful.
John: They're wool.
Merlin: They don't delaminate.
Merlin: But your feeling is you can't like all the sweaters.
John: Well, or some, you got to draw a line somewhere.
John: There are people out there who only have one sweater.
John: And I bet you, I bet you they don't think, ah, if I only had a second sweater.
John: That's like Tiny Tim and his little stool.
Merlin: Like you learn to really appreciate it.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Absolutely.
John: Tiny Tim had a little stool.
John: Well, he had a crutch.
John: A little crutch for his little stool.
John: He didn't even have, he didn't even have two crutches.
John: He was happy.
John: Well, Tiny Tim was happy.
Merlin: Yeah, I think he probably felt the need to keep it light.
John: He didn't want to be a drag.
John: You know, last night I was sitting around looking at Twitter.
John: It was bringing me down.
John: It was 2 o'clock in the morning.
John: I was sick.
John: And I sent out a tweet that was like, Twitter's real quiet at this time of night, but it still sucks.
John: Not quiet enough.
John: And I sent it out.
John: And in the middle of the night, somewhere out there in Never Never Land...
John: Lin-Manuel Miranda replied to my tweet and said, it's familiar, but not too familiar.
John: Whoa.
John: So he replied to my tweet with a quote from my song.
John: Holy shit.
John: And then, but the thing is Lin-Manuel Miranda has started.
John: Oh, cause he knows it from the, yes.
John: From the show.
John: Right.
John: But he follows you on Twitter.
John: That's nice.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, and it was like sitting there and he sees that tweet go by.
John: Well, and then, so of course it's Lin-Manuel Miranda, so I have like 60 people reply to that tweet.
John: But when I woke up this morning, before I had looked at Twitter or anything, I was standing in the bathroom and I was like, you know who's positive on Twitter, relentlessly positive?
John: Lin-Manuel Miranda.
John: He sure is.
John: He never...
John: He never says anything mean or lecturing or shitty.
John: He never gets his back up.
John: He never takes umbrage.
John: He's always putting content on the internet.
John: He never feels the need to explain.
John: No, he's just like, check it out.
Merlin: I admire that.
Merlin: I think it's a little brother of the anger is like the defensiveness and the need to explain.
Merlin: And he just seems... But he's not...
Merlin: I mean, it's a little annoying, but not super annoying.
Merlin: I think in the context of Twitter, I think he's a great positive force.
Merlin: Yeah, he's positive.
Merlin: And I was thinking about that.
John: He tries to do good things.
John: He tries to do good things.
John: He tries to make good things.
John: He tries to spread the love.
John: I don't know why I was thinking about that, except because of space vibes.
John: Because there's no reason for me to be thinking about him or him to be thinking about me.
John: But...
John: That thing where he is, I'm not trying to say that Lin-Manuel Miranda is Tiny Tim, but he is positive.
John: That's true.
John: And where do I get that positive?
Merlin: Where do I find that positivity?
Merlin: Sometimes it's nice to say, through something like a reference like that, it's nice to say, I see you.
Merlin: I see you.
Merlin: I think that's something I try to do.
Merlin: When it's appropriate, I try to say, I see you.
John: I see you.
John: That's right.
John: That's right.
John: I try to do that too.
John: I see you.
Merlin: Let's just be clear.
Merlin: This is different from when a celebrity dies and you find a photo of yourself with them and then post the RIP thing and you try to get a little bit of that recent death juice.
Merlin: Yeah, you try to be like... That's not about them.
Merlin: That's about you.
John: I miss my friend.
John: I miss my friend that I met once at a con.
Merlin: Yeah, right.
Merlin: Oh, Herschel from The Walking Dead was like a father to me.
Merlin: Okay, cool.
Merlin: Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.
Merlin: But now he doesn't see... I mean, you know, but when he does that, he does a good thing with it.
Merlin: Like when he gets with the guy from Dear Evan Hansen and they sing a little duo together, they're doing it for the Parkland kids and it's like he's just a...
Merlin: He seems like a good guy.
John: Yeah.
John: He says, I see you, John.
John: I see you.
John: I see you.
John: It's very positive.
John: But what he doesn't do is say, I see you, and here's a petition that I need you to sign.
John: No, actually.
Merlin: Maybe it is too familiar.
Merlin: You got to go heal.
John: I don't know what I'm going to do.
John: Go sit in the bathtub, maybe.