Ep. 315: "The Slow Destruction of Bueno"
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John: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
John: I'm Merlin.
Merlin: How's it going?
Merlin: good yeah christmas is the time to say i love you is it that's what billy squire says i was uh going through spotify looking for good christmas lists and all i had to do was see the title of that song and now it's been in my head for 18 hours
John: Isn't that the way with all of those songs?
John: A lot of bad ones.
John: A lot of bad ones.
Merlin: But a lot of in-your-head ones.
Merlin: Well, I don't love the Paul McCartney song that can't be named, but it sure gets in your head.
John: Boy, it does.
John: You know, he's famous for that.
Merlin: Getting in your head, you don't want him there?
John: Songs that get in your head, yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, he's got good riffs.
John: Ah, the best.
Merlin: His riffs and his, just his little, I don't know, little riffs.
Merlin: He has little filigrees, little things.
Merlin: I mean, his melodies have good bones, but he's got lots of little parts where you find yourself just singing a few notes.
John: Yeah, flibbity-jibbities.
Merlin: He's got the little flibbities.
John: I wouldn't call that one of them.
Merlin: You want love that lasts forever, and it never fades away.
John: The thing is, I feel so sorry for him.
John: And there's no reason to feel sorry for him.
John: He's worth a billion dollars.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, he does all right.
John: He's gotten everything he's ever wanted in life.
John: But he's just pathetic.
Merlin: But he's like Alexander, right?
Merlin: He has no more lands to conquer.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
John: yeah i guess i don't know i just uh how do you how do you put a price on someone else just give me a minute i could do that there's some people i feel i could do that pretty well with yeah yeah i know i think a lot of people would be in the mid four digits that's the price i'd put on four digits for you know like 2500
Merlin: $2,500.
Merlin: Well, you know, I don't want to be dismissive of human life or value.
John: $3,600.
Merlin: $3,600 is a good amount to pay for most people.
John: I think so.
Merlin: You know?
Merlin: I think so, sure.
Merlin: As they say, with stock, a lot's like baked into the price.
Merlin: You know, you get what you pay for.
John: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: You're looking for growth.
John: The thing is, $3,600, though, that's, you know...
John: That's not the insurance price, right?
John: I mean, that's not what you get it insured for.
John: Oh, I see what you're saying.
John: Okay.
John: But also, there are a lot of things that are worth $3,500 that you'd have a hard time getting $3,500.
John: Oh, absolutely.
John: Absolutely.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: I mean, that car to you was worth $36,000.
Merlin: But as soon as you drive it off the lot, nobody's going to pay you $36,000 for it.
Merlin: I don't think that's how that works.
John: Oh, yeah, but we're talking four digits here, right?
Merlin: Not five digits.
Merlin: If you paid $3,600 for a car and drove it off the lot, bad on you.
Merlin: Don't drive it off the lot.
Merlin: Just keep it on the lot.
Merlin: If you only drive the car on the lot, they are obligated, I think, legally.
Merlin: Oh, to pay you the same amount back?
Merlin: It's called the Posse Comitatus Act.
Merlin: As long as you stay on the lot, they have to give you coffee, and any time you stop, they have to put balloons on your car for as long as you stay there.
John: That's a little-known loophole.
John: Well, and if you lived on one side of a car lot and worked on the other, and it was a big car lot... If you worked here, you'd already be home.
John: Major life hack.
Merlin: It's a huge life hack.
Merlin: See, people don't always think this stuff through.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
John: No, no, they don't.
Merlin: Sometimes you want to think outside the box, but sometimes you just want to get way deeper into the box.
Merlin: How deep in the box can you go?
Merlin: That's a very good question, because a lot of people would say, once you've passed the edges of the cubic edge of the box, you're in the box, but can you go deeper into the box?
Merlin: I think you can if you get smaller.
Merlin: Right.
John: You become like Nano John.
John: So what you do is you go deeper into the center of the box by getting smaller and smaller in the center of the box.
Merlin: There could be a quantum space in the box where you get to live in a car.
Merlin: Hmm.
Merlin: You've lived in a minivan, right?
John: I've lived in a couple of cars, let's be honest.
John: Let's be honest, yeah.
John: Let's not mince words.
John: Okay, I won't.
John: And I've lived in cars where you could lay all the way down, and I've lived in cars where you couldn't.
John: I infinitely prefer the first style.
John: Oh, absolutely.
John: You're a tall man.
Yeah.
Merlin: You are.
Merlin: What's funny about that?
Merlin: You're empirically tall.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: This is part of the joy of having a kid is you get to explain, you know, lots of things, which they don't care about.
Merlin: But like my daughter, maybe last week or so, you know, she's getting older.
Merlin: She's turning more into a person.
Merlin: And we're using that phrase.
Merlin: We use a phrase that a car was totaled.
Merlin: Which is a phrase you just use all the time.
Merlin: Oh, the car was totaled.
Merlin: And she's like, what does that mean the car was totaled?
Merlin: And I had to stop for a minute and think to myself, what does it mean that a car was totaled?
Merlin: And the way I explained it was, I said, that's actually a really good question because it made me think.
Merlin: I think what totaled means is...
Merlin: The car is now, to make this more difficult, expendable, which is to say the car would be more costly to repair than to replace.
Merlin: And this is back to your insurance issue, right?
Merlin: If you've totaled a car, it means that whatever that car is insured for, you wouldn't be able to fix it.
Merlin: How would you use the word totaled?
John: Yeah, the same.
John: The cost to repair is greater than the value of the car.
John: That's a real interesting concept.
John: That's a deep inside the box concept.
John: And there's an entire universe, an entire sub-economy.
Merlin: of people who are just making money on things that are too expensive to repair because if it's too expensive to repair it doesn't cease to exist it goes somewhere okay think give me some examples does that include stuff like kqed saying uh give us your car like we donated our old car to kqed because we knew it wasn't worth a lot and you got to go through the whole thing of selling us we just donated it are there other kinds of things like that people getting it for parts
John: Oh, sure.
John: I mean, if you have a lawnmower that doesn't work at all, and you put it out on the street with a free sign on it, it will be gone that day.
John: It will disappear, and it will go into the world of tinkerers.
John: There are people who can fix lawnmower engines more easily than you or I.
John: Most of the time, lawnmowers that don't work, they just need to have their carburetor rebuilt or something.
John: They just have some small problem.
John: And then there's this other universe of people who buy lawnmowers from tinkerers.
John: I don't know if you've ever seen it, but if you drive out, probably not in your immediate neighborhood, but you won't have to go far before you'll drive past
Merlin: uh somebody's house where they have 10 lawnmowers out front i'm thinking of like the kind of tinkery shops that you used to see back in the day of course they've been pushed up by shoe stores and dot coms but you go to you go somewhere like hayes valley um mission uh south of market like there used to be places where there'd just be you could afford to have a giant giant giant garage or tinkery store we have john we have one store in town that's nothing but light bulbs
Merlin: right yeah that used to be i sought the market i don't know how long they're gonna be able to hang on to that but places like that right or like back in the day vcr repairs like that you could find a purpose for all of those disused parts i don't what i don't understand is i mean this is a famous san francisco thing i'm sure it's true in other urban areas but like it is on the one hand it's incredible what kind of stuff you can put on the street
Merlin: where it might be gone in a few minutes, but definitely, like, overnight.
Merlin: Like, the stuff is gone.
Merlin: The second part of that that blows my mind, though, is what doesn't get picked up and what does.
Merlin: Like, you know, something like a perfectly good table might sit there, but, like, computer speakers from 1998 get picked up.
Merlin: Like, that's what I find strange about it.
Merlin: The sand people sweep in on their Banthas, and they pick up all the stuff that they think could be useful.
Merlin: I just don't understand what it's useful for.
Merlin: Maybe I'm thinking too far outside the box.
John: These tracks are too close together for sand people.
John: Yeah, they travel single file.
John: I feel like this sub-economy is, even in these places where we perceive the cost of living to be too great for this sub-economy to still be operating, it's all the more operating.
John: And it is, like, there's a thing called the salvage title, which is that you can get a vehicle which has been declared unsalvageable
John: You can get a title for it.
John: It's just a salvage title.
Merlin: It just means so that car that's no longer like a usable car belongs to you.
John: And you can make it usable and title it and put it back on the road.
John: What's the advantage of that?
John: Well... You take nothing and make something.
John: You take nothing and make something.
John: You can get a car for free or for the price of parts and then make it work as a car.
John: Now, if you're like a
John: If you're like a car collector, you're a little wary of a car with a salvage title because it can conceal a multitude of sins.
John: A lot of cars, you know, like when the storm surges surge into places, a lot of the people that live there, they have nice cars in their garage and all of a sudden the car is underwater.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Well, once a car has been underwater, even for a little while, it's kind of screwed up.
John: It's kind of like if you shoot a fire extinguisher into the dashboard of your 79 Suburban.
John: Just as a hypothetical.
John: Then later on in the year, your windshield wipers won't go off.
Merlin: How high's the water got to go?
Merlin: How high's the water, Mama?
Merlin: It's got to go what?
Merlin: You got to go like above the axles.
Merlin: I think if you go, yeah, if it goes over the sills.
John: What's that?
John: What's the sill?
John: What's the sill?
John: Well, the sill, like the door sill.
John: The door sill.
John: The door sill.
John: Yeah.
John: The door sill.
John: Okay.
Okay.
John: What's the sale?
John: What's the sale?
Merlin: I'm learning so much.
John: Don't lock me.
Merlin: I'm learning.
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Merlin: Jesus Christ.
John: You can't dry it out, right?
John: It's hard to dry out, but you can dry it out.
John: People do it all the time.
John: You just got to want it enough.
John: It's like I say to my daughter, everything's food if you're hungry enough.
John: That's right.
John: That's what I say to my daughter, too, as I hand her half a sole of a shoe and say, eat it.
Merlin: If you're still hungry, you can have the other half.
John: But when my suburban caught on fire, I had a choice.
Merlin: Excuse me, a point of information.
Merlin: Were there literal flames?
Merlin: It was a serious smoke situation for sure, right?
John: There were not literal flames.
John: Well, I mean, there were not flames that you could see.
John: What had happened was...
John: An alternator... Did we talk about this at the time?
John: I don't care.
John: An alternator is a device, an electrical mechanical device that takes the electricity that is generated.
John: It generates...
John: Well, let's see.
John: There's a generator and there's an alternator.
Merlin: The motion of the ocean is translated into electric that's eclectic.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: Kind of?
Merlin: The alternator, the alternation is it's turning this kind of power into that kind of power.
John: Well, it's breaking some power down.
John: Like an alternator is taking some hot power and it's turning it into some less power, some lower power, so you can use it on things.
Merlin: Because you're... Does this lead to the thing about, like, don't leave your lights on when the car's not plugged in because you've run down your battery, but if the car's running, it's using that power of the car running to keep your lights lit.
Merlin: Kind of?
Merlin: The power of the motor... Is that a totally different thing?
Merlin: Well, you know, the... I'm a real gearhead, John, so don't feel like you've got to dumb it down for me.
John: They have different names, but yes, basically what's happening is that...
John: That the power of the motor and the power of the power, the size of the electricity that the motor generates is bigger than the size of the electricity that will fit in the battery.
John: And so the alternator stands in between them and changes the size of the electricity.
John: That's not how an electrician would say it.
John: That's not how anyone would say it.
Merlin: Our listeners aren't electricians.
Merlin: They'll appreciate you arguing by analogy.
Merlin: I think it's useful to people.
John: We definitely have electricians listening to the show, and we will hear from them, and they'll explain about amps and watts and megawatts.
John: And our follow-up on that will make for great radio.
John: But what happens is usually when an alternator fails, 99 out of 100 times when an alternator fails, what it does is it gradually stops working.
John: It stops...
John: alternating it does it stops transmitting uh electricity it stops it stops breaking down stop breaking down but in a very rare instance my alternator when it stopped working it just started passing electricity through it at the at the amplitude that it was
John: coming from the motor.
Merlin: That sounds dangerous.
Merlin: The firewall's down.
Merlin: Anybody can get in.
John: That's right.
John: It's like if your house is wired 110, 111, whatever it takes.
John: But it has to break down from 220 where it's coming from the city.
John: The big boss.
John: The big boss.
John: And if you just put 220 right into your
Merlin: House it would be too hot and that that's why most Electric sockets in your house have to those little pig faces on it.
Merlin: It's taking the 220 splits it into two different 110s and that's on a per outlet basis, I think We always have to run two amps to two lamps and so it pulls two amps, but you draw two lamps So you got to keep both lamps on all the time.
Merlin: Otherwise your dryer will stop working
Merlin: We're definitely going to get letters.
Merlin: It's a lot like the bodily humors.
Merlin: You want to keep them in balance.
Merlin: For shizzle?
Merlin: Don't you think?
Merlin: People short shrift, but I think you want to stay in balance.
Merlin: You don't want to be too phlegmatic, otherwise your lamp and your dryer won't work.
Merlin: In this instance... You got pure energy, as Spock would say.
Merlin: You got uncut product going straight to your dashboard.
Merlin: Pure energy.
John: Pure energy.
John: Pure energy.
John: The average age of a combat soldier in Vietnam was 19.
John: No, no, no, no, no.
John: So, yeah.
Merlin: Was that Harold Falchermeyer?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: That was like Paul F. Tompkins.
Merlin: What was the name of that?
Merlin: Who did 19?
Merlin: No, no, no, no, 19.
Merlin: 19.
John: I don't even know what you're talking about.
John: I was just reading from Wikipedia.
Merlin: Okay, sorry.
John: So your dashboard's getting lit.
John: Everything got hot.
John: Hot.
John: And you get that hot smell.
John: You give a little bit of heat, but you can't have a lot of heat.
John: A lot of things around the hot things...
John: I think in modern cars, let me try and figure if I can.
John: See, modern cars are made almost entirely of plastic, but they've also figured out ways, I think, in which you can put plastic against hot things and it doesn't catch on fire.
John: They've figured out how to have things not catch on fire.
John: Okay, okay.
John: In the olden times...
John: They used to, I think, just stuff the back of the dashboard with cotton and maybe oil-soaked rags.
John: Okay.
John: For good conduction?
John: Yeah, and just to keep the wind from blowing in through the cracks.
John: Okay, it's kind of ad hoc insulation.
John: This is from the factory.
John: You know, General Motors in 1979 was putting oil.
John: It was a good job for middle class people.
Merlin: You could be a cotton stuffer.
John: You could be a rag boy.
John: Oil rag dipper is what they were.
John: The rag boys would dip rags in oil so that they would keep the air out.
John: Flame wrangler.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: So, smoke was involved, certainly, and I don't think the smoke was just coming from the plastic.
Merlin: It's like they always say, where there's smoke, there's something making the smoke.
Merlin: Hot electrical wire is what the phrase is.
John: Where there's smoke, there's hot electrical wire.
Merlin: Okay, I don't like that at all.
John: But I did not need to throw a huge amount of fire extinguisher.
John: That was the bad... Fire extinguisher was the bad...
John: That ended up being the thing that was bad.
Merlin: Oh, because you got the wrong kind of extinguisher.
Merlin: Is that the story?
Merlin: Then you have like the wrong kind, wrong kind of extinguishing.
John: Wrong kind.
John: And it's the old kind.
John: That's the thing.
John: Often, so often in these things, the old kind is the wrong kind.
John: Seems like fire has always been fire.
John: We I think a lot of us for for my part, I've I've spent a lot of my life thinking that the old kind was the good kind in so many ways and so many things.
John: Oh, it's the old kind.
John: That's the good kind.
Merlin: If it wasn't good, it wouldn't still be around.
Merlin: It couldn't prima facie.
Merlin: It could not be old.
John: well in these days you know the the new kind that's not the good kind i tried i tried to buy my classic amp bait yesterday my classic amp bait it's not even available i had to buy different amp bait turns out it's a better amp bait oh is that right i killed the shit out of the man's last night that's nice you know what they did yeah they did to my amp bait they just made it they watered it down from from one from one year to the next i got the amp bait i was like
Merlin: here's the good old ant bait and i went to to spooge it out yeah and it didn't spooge the same way it was like much i don't want to take you off your car but are you talking about ant gel ant gel ant gel see now i'm a classic grant's ants man grant's ants grant's ants has made a great grant's ant steak for a long time you'll know the grant's ant it looks like it's got like a little uh kind of elongated dingus disc usually made of metal with a hole in it and then that's got this gray plastic thing that ends in a pointy thing designed you know what i'm talking about
Merlin: No, I don't.
Merlin: Oh, Grant's Ants.
Merlin: It's a classic.
Merlin: And you stick them around your house or you stick them in your house.
Merlin: Now, I saw a lot of complaints on Amazon.
Merlin: I couldn't find Grant's Ants.
Merlin: I spent 16 minutes looking for Grant's Ants.
Merlin: I had to go with a different brand that's real cockamamie, but it worked great.
Merlin: But you're saying they cut it.
Merlin: It's something where you expect it to be a certain level of quality, and they've cut it.
Merlin: They've introduced some kind of other materials to it.
John: I use Advion Ants.
John: uh killer okay okay yeah advion ant they call it and it's just a delightful little gel oh there it is look at that you squeeze it out and then you just put you just put a little little dabble do you and the ants come along and they see it and they're like this delicious gel is just sitting here unattended
John: They think it fell out of your picnic basket.
Merlin: You only need one.
Merlin: Once one finds it, the others will find it.
Merlin: That's E.O.
Merlin: Wilson said that.
Merlin: They will come, and all you need is the one, and then the others come.
Merlin: And the more they come, they make a bigger trail.
Merlin: That's E.O.
Merlin: Wilson.
John: If you build it, they will come.
John: E.O.
John: Wilson.
Merlin: I got some sadistic fucking ant killer.
John: So this stuff, what it does.
Merlin: Mine is clear, so you can see them inside of it struggling.
John: Well, this isn't a struggle-based apocalypse here, this Advion stuff.
John: What it does is it's a neurological toxin.
John: Oh, I'm so into this.
John: And so the ants eat it, and then they go back and they take it back to their nest.
John: Yeah.
John: Hey, guys, dinner.
John: But then it starts to work on them neurologically.
John: And you'll see ants that have had the Advion, and they come back out, and they're like, I'm back.
John: I'm ready to party.
John: And then they start to get a little twitchy.
John: Ants are twitchy, and their legs start to twitch, and they start to not be able to walk in a straight line.
John: If you're really into mayhem,
John: Um, Advion is, I mean, it will, I think that it was Ted Bundy that said, if you want to collect serial killers, just give them ant killer and see who like really gets down on their hands and knees and gets into it.
Merlin: Oh, like when you're a little younger, you get a little too interested in wielding the magnifying glass.
John: But, but, but, but they watered my Advion down.
John: It didn't work as well, but it still works.
John: But it used to be,
John: I had an exterminator come out one time because I had, I don't know, a possum in the wall?
John: I don't know if we've talked about this.
Merlin: I feel like I'm struggling to remember, but I feel like we might have mentioned it once in passing.
John: But he, as he was walking through my house, he saw a little thing, a little tube of Advion.
John: Because I used to keep the Avion just on the windowsill in a couple of different places where the ants normally would come in.
John: Oh, the way you put like a robber's head on a pike.
John: I would not put the Avion back in the cabinet.
John: I would just leave it on the windowsill like just as I walk past if I see ants.
John: The Adveon gets deployed and they never seemed to get tired of it.
John: You know, they never got.
John: But anyway, the exterminator walked past and he did a double take.
John: And he was like, where did you get that?
John: Where did you get that Adveon?
John: I was like, what do you mean?
John: Where did I get it?
John: He was like, where'd you get it?
John: I mean, that's like, that's like crazy.
John: specialty to the trade.
John: You only get that if you work in the business.
John: Or if you go on Amazon.
John: You don't even need a prescription.
Merlin: You just go there and get it.
John: He felt so burned that you could just get that
John: now on Amazon.
John: And I was like, look, bro, I don't know what to tell you.
John: I'm sorry.
John: So you're swearing here by tarot liquid ant balls or ant baits.
Merlin: Yeah, I got the ant balls because I couldn't find the Grant Sants.
Merlin: Now, I see on Amazon a lot of people, here's a funny thing.
Merlin: I clicked on literally the same thing I bought from Amazon last time, which is the Grant's Ants.
Merlin: And it even said at the top, it had a little banner, it says, you bought this on this day.
Merlin: Okay, great, click.
Merlin: Boom.
Merlin: Nothing, not available.
Merlin: It's widely not available.
Merlin: So I'm wondering if there's some kind of jam up with that.
Merlin: So I went and I read lots of clickbait articles about the best ant bait, ant balls.
Merlin: And that's where I found Tarot.
John: I'm afraid they're using the past tense now.
John: Grant's Bates was...
John: one of the best ant killers.
Merlin: It's a heartbreaker.
Merlin: I mean, it's like everybody... It's like every baby mama has a certain kind of diaper she likes.
Merlin: You know, you got a ketchup in your house.
Merlin: Are you a Heinz person or are you a monster, right?
Merlin: So what does Grants do?
Merlin: Oh, Grants, Grants, well, it's got the poison in the little dingus and they eat it and I think they take it back and it kills the others.
Merlin: Now, this stuff...
Merlin: is really grotesque.
Merlin: So you get this, I don't know if you can see from the box I sent you, but it is clear all the way through.
Merlin: Now you turn that thing over, you clip off a little bit of an end.
Merlin: You see that little ramp where they come in?
Merlin: Yeah, I see the ramp.
Merlin: You cut a little hole there.
Merlin: Let the liquid flow down into the basic, according to the oil trap part.
Merlin: And they say, what's going on in here?
Merlin: What's happening in here?
Merlin: And then they go in there and they scurry around in the poison.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: It's amazing.
Merlin: Do they come out or do they just stay in there?
Merlin: No, no, no.
Merlin: That's where they live now.
Merlin: Oh.
John: And you get to see it all.
Merlin: So you wake up in the morning.
Merlin: Now, here's the crazy part.
Merlin: And then I want to hear about your car.
Merlin: But I... So I noticed, you know, when it rains here, you got about...
Merlin: Maybe 24, 36 hours before you start seeing some guys going, hmm, what's going on?
Merlin: The ants get washed out in the rain.
Merlin: They got no place to live for a little while.
Merlin: So they're going to come up into your flat.
Merlin: And you see some guys looking around.
Merlin: You're flat.
Merlin: John, I saw some guys looking around.
Merlin: And so I got the tarot liquid ant balls.
Merlin: I put that stuff out.
Merlin: I came back.
Merlin: I want to watch a little TV, put up some Christmas stuff with my family.
Merlin: I came back 45 minutes, hundreds and hundreds of ants swarming.
Merlin: They were attracted to this.
John: How many ants will fit inside one of those ant stations?
Merlin: Ask me in a week.
Merlin: Is that right?
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Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: No, as of this morning, it's not as full as I could have liked, but it's not great for the ants.
John: Yeah, I see what you're saying.
Merlin: But it's pretty fun to get to see them inside.
Merlin: Now, I want to clarify something, because you're going to get letters about this.
Merlin: I am not a basically cruel person, and I don't like harming animals.
John: No, that's verifiable.
Merlin: No, I'm the person in the house who is charged...
Merlin: With capturing a flying insect and releasing it, because nobody else wants to do it, and everybody feels sympathy for the thing.
Merlin: I got no problem with that.
Merlin: There's a couple kinds of things I don't love.
Merlin: I don't love an ant, and there's little sugar ants, and I don't love a mosquito.
Merlin: Now, those guys I take the gloves off for.
John: The mosquitoes, yeah.
John: It's hard to feel sorry for them.
Merlin: We had a little run of mosquitoes for a while.
Merlin: They hang up by the wainscoting.
Merlin: They're up near the ceiling.
Merlin: You don't see them.
Merlin: They hang out there all day.
Merlin: Then I wake up, and my daughter's got red dots on her.
Merlin: So I take care of those.
Merlin: I dispatch those.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: Get rid of those, right?
Merlin: You and I both suffer from living in old houses with lots of cracks.
Merlin: Oh, Jesus.
Merlin: I wish we just had cracks.
Merlin: I mean, basically, I can see they come up through the fireplace and they come through about an eighth of an inch hole.
Merlin: So I stuffed that with aluminum foil.
John: Oh, that's my mom's trick.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Well, you know, in Florida, we would use steel wool if you find a hole.
Merlin: That's a good way to keep out a cockroach.
John: If they can fit their head in, their body will come in.
John: Still will rust in the wet.
John: That's true.
John: I've seen that happen.
John: Apparently, ants don't like cinnamon.
John: I didn't realize this.
John: Ants don't like cinnamon.
John: Ants don't like cinnamon, it says.
John: But it's not that you can just pour cinnamon around your house and they won't come in.
John: But this person on the internets here is using...
John: cinnamon to corral ants.
John: I have found that I do not... I am not trying to get inside the head of the ant anymore.
John: It is too... It is too inscrutable.
John: I just want... I just love the idea of them taking the food back to their queen.
John: Oh, I love that idea.
John: And then gradually poisoning her.
John: Now, I also am not cruel.
John: I also do not want bad things.
John: But the thing about... I do not want to hurt things.
John: I don't relish it.
John: The thing about the ants around here at least is if you turn your back, if you forget about them for one second, they will overrun your home.
John: They will be everywhere.
John: They will find, I could put a tiny little sugar candy inside.
Merlin: Like a starlight mint?
John: I could put, well, let's say a wet starlight mint.
Okay.
John: I could put it inside of a pillbox, inside of a tied condom, inside of a leather glove, inside of a lockbox, inside of a gun safe, and the ants would find it.
John: I think a lot of people would watch that video for what it's worth.
John: Ants would find it in a half hour.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: It's like a lady who swallowed a fly, but it's an ant in a glove.
John: So over time, you get bruised, you get emotionally injured.
Merlin: You kick yourself a little bit.
Merlin: It's almost like letting the feeling of a possum take you off a burglar.
Merlin: In this case, bad on me, right?
John: Yeah, right.
John: So I go after the ants, I do.
John: And the mosquitoes, too.
John: You're right.
John: Those two, they get no quarter around here.
John: Everything else, I'll work with it.
John: I'll take it back out.
John: Oh, wait, no, there's a new one.
John: What?
John: Stink bugs.
John: Oh, I'm not super familiar with stink bugs.
John: Stink bugs do not get any quarter.
John: Stink bugs.
John: So here's the bad story.
John: Do they only stink when you step on them?
John: Yeah, or squish them more.
John: They can stink if you grab them and they don't like it.
Merlin: We used to have a stinky bug in Florida, and when you stepped on it, it smelled like an Amaretto Sour.
John: That is kind of what these, well, these smell like, people have a lot of different descriptions for how they smell.
John: But there is an invasion of stink bugs happening.
John: Right now in our country, an invasion of stink bugs that came from overseas.
John: You do have to build a wall, but it's too late.
John: It's too late for us to build a wall.
John: In a very short amount of time, they came from Pennsylvania, where they were first introduced, and now they are all over, and they're voracious.
John: So when I see stink, oh, they're voracious, and also they like to overwinter in your house.
Merlin: It looks like I see one here on a leaf.
Merlin: Oh, they come in to get warm and dry?
Merlin: A marmorated stink bug.
John: Brown marmorated stink bug.
John: So those will come in.
John: There's a New Yorker article about brown marmorated stink bugs.
John: And I highly recommend everyone read it.
Merlin: Oh, God.
Merlin: Oh, God.
Merlin: When 26,000 stink bugs invade your home?
John: When 26,000 stink bugs invade your home.
John: March 12th.
John: Oh, my God.
Oh.
John: This is written by my friend Catherine Schultz.
John: I met Catherine Schultz one time at a party in New York City back when she was she was not writing these feature articles in the New Yorker and she was still just like.
John: junior cub reporter whatever we had a nice conversation I liked her very much and then all of a sudden she started writing these like not all of a sudden but like I started seeing her byline where she was writing these brilliant long fun you know the kind of New Yorker articles that you just wish you could write I love those articles the ones where you're like oh take me take me on a journey Catherine Schultz just take me somewhere into a thing I didn't know about and now I'm and so anyway I recommend you read this article it will horrify you
John: But also, it's important that we all know that stink bugs, no quarter, no quarter for stink bugs.
John: Stink bugs are the kind that I will actually, I won't use an entire toilet flush on one stink bug, but I will put a stink bug in a toilet.
John: Let them think about it for a while.
John: The thing is, stink bugs are very resourceful.
John: If you just put a stink bug in the toilet, it'll climb out.
John: It'll get out.
John: It might start a small business.
John: So you need to be wary.
John: You need to be vigilant, always vigilant.
John: And when you start getting stink bugs, fill up a toilet with them, flush them down.
Merlin: This is why I admire you.
Merlin: One of the reasons I admire you is you're not trying to get in the head of the ant, which I think is smart, because there's nothing in the ant's head but machinery.
Merlin: So I read this E.O.
Merlin: Wilson book a long time ago about ants, and it was chilling.
Merlin: You can even go watch a talk by him about ants.
Merlin: But the way that ants work...
Merlin: is magical.
Merlin: I feel bad killing such a magical creature.
Merlin: Oh, they are magical.
Merlin: But the way they work is almost completely chaotic.
Merlin: They are just seeking machines.
Merlin: So, forgive me, Dr. Wilson, if I get this wrong, but the basic nut of it is ants are just walking around all the time.
Merlin: This is why I went from... That's what they do.
Merlin: They walk around.
Merlin: They just walk around.
Merlin: But when they walk around, I don't know if it's their testicles dragging like a rat, but they leave a little bit of a trail.
Merlin: And do the walk around.
Merlin: It's like, you know, so they walk around.
Merlin: And then if they pick up a trail that maybe another ant's been around, that trail gets stronger.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And through purely chaotic means, they very quickly, surprisingly quickly discover where food is.
Merlin: Just by dumb luck walking around and running into where other guys have gone.
Merlin: But they are machines.
Merlin: They are little machines.
Merlin: And I admire them except for how I want them dead.
Merlin: I do admire them.
Merlin: I admire their ingenuity and I admire you for not getting in their head because there's nothing to get into.
Merlin: It's all just gears in there.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, and one of the great things about killing ants is watching ants.
John: Yeah.
John: I wish that I could just watch.
John: I wish that I were one of those people that had an ant farm on a shelf and I could just sit and watch them because I like watching them.
Merlin: Domestic ants are nice.
John: Yeah, for sure.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: But but but watching them when you're trying to kill them.
John: Mm hmm.
John: I often cheer them on.
John: One will come and find the thing and I'll be like, now go, tell your friends.
John: And sometimes they get confused and sometimes they're not interested.
John: Ants are coming from a different place and they've already got a mission or a plan or something.
John: A side hustle.
John: Yeah, a side hustle.
John: Excuse me, excuse me.
John: But it's one of the ways in which I'm connected to the natural world.
John: A lot of people online have a lot of theories about killing ants.
John: But an interesting thing is ants drown.
John: That's why they're in your dang house.
John: But you can kill them with water.
John: That's all.
John: For a long time, I failed to appreciate that they were so vulnerable.
John: And I started, when I realized that, I would go out into the yard and find one of those giant anthills and I would just take a bucket and pour a bunch of water down it.
John: That's all.
John: That's all it takes.
John: But I don't know for 100% sure.
John: If it was just that ants drowned, then every time there was a big flood, all the ants would die.
John: It would be like the ant origin story over and over again.
John: So there's got to be some other thing.
John: Ants have got to be able to float away on a leaf or something.
John: They do hustle.
John: They're a hustling critter.
Merlin: What's crazy with me is I kept finding reasons to leave my family and come back and check in on the Terra Liquid Ant Balls.
Merlin: And I would go in and look, and I was like Bobby Hill.
Merlin: I was hypnotized.
Merlin: I kept just staring at him because it was amazing.
Merlin: You could watch these movements of them.
Merlin: God, I admire them and want them dead.
Merlin: They're amazing.
Merlin: Because the thing is, the ants are sugar ants.
Merlin: They're real, real, real little.
John: um they move fast and then they suddenly move very very fast have you ever seen this where they they're moving fast and then they move improbably fast almost like they're teleporting and i admire that they got somewhere they need to be it's incredible they have they have um they have extra ant power right and if you could be down there next to them and hear hear the like like you could hear the sound effects that were happening in their ant universe right if you could go
John: Not outside the box, but deeper in the box by getting smaller.
John: Right.
Merlin: It's interesting because it is a lot like Ant-Man and a lot like the Bionic Man, where you could probably, if you got a small enough microphone, you could actually hear that.
Merlin: That credit sequence, which I love, does not impress my daughter.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: You can go online and there's somebody out there.
Merlin: We can make it better than he wants.
Merlin: I love these dear hearts who go out and there's this fella.
Merlin: I'm sure it's a fella who goes through and it's like, here are the opening credits to every TV.
Merlin: Did I tell you about this already?
Merlin: Yeah, I did.
Merlin: Here's the opening credits to every new TV show from 1983 or whatever or 1978 or whatever.
Merlin: They all look real old to a kid.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: I just remember thinking that countdown with Steve and then the thing blows up and then they got to rebuild and better, stronger, faster.
Merlin: That was state of the art for the time.
Merlin: It was pretty hot.
Merlin: So good.
Merlin: I don't feel good about this.
Merlin: I don't feel good about my ant problem.
John: Well, I think that the ant problem is you're now locked in an internal cycle.
Mm-hmm.
John: You're never going to kill the ants.
John: The ants are never going to kill you.
John: Oh, we've always been at war with East Antasia.
John: You guys are going to be, you now have become one with the ants.
John: You think they worry about me?
John: I don't think they worry about me.
John: They don't, but they are, I mean, you keep putting things in their path, including poison.
John: I'm sharpening them like a knife.
John: Death hats.
John: But no, I think that, you know,
John: I have become obsessed with the ants, and then I realize, oh, the ants are winning, right?
John: Oh, they'll always win.
John: Because now they're inside my head.
John: Oh, now the ants are in your head?
John: Yeah, the ants are in mine.
John: How did that happen?
Merlin: They got deeper inside the box.
John: I'm trying not to get inside their head, but they're getting inside mine.
Merlin: Do you have any sense at all of how you could keep them out?
Merlin: It's kind of you that's allowing the ants in.
Merlin: You're the one who's dropping cereal somewhere.
John: As my landlord once said to me years ago when there was a rat under my refrigerator and I said, yeah, there's rats in my apartment.
John: And he said, I did not make the rat.
John: God made the rat.
John: Wow.
John: He was from India.
John: Okay.
John: And he – It sounds very wise, John.
John: It was.
John: It did feel wise.
John: He was a good landlord in the sense that he was fun to talk to.
John: He was a bad landlord in every other respect.
John: And he and I got along famously until there was a rat in my kitchen.
John: And then when I told him and he said, I did not make the rat.
John: God made the rat.
John: I felt that we had arrived at an impasse.
Merlin: This is something that I think has always been true for me.
Merlin: And I've never been somebody who had tenants, so I can't put myself in their position.
Merlin: But it seems to me that two distinguishing characteristics about most landlords is that they don't like fixing stuff.
Merlin: And instead of fixing stuff, what they like to do is talk.
Merlin: And what they love to talk about is the problems with their other tenants.
Merlin: You ever get that talk?
Uh-huh.
Merlin: Oh, we had three gals from the community college living here, and they flushed all their clothes down the toilet.
Merlin: You're like, really?
Merlin: Oh, the girls are the worst.
Merlin: Oh, you've got to not have them there at all.
Merlin: Oh, that's some people at a meth lab in the sink.
Merlin: And it's not my problem.
John: I don't know.
John: I feel like I don't.
John: I feel like when I'm thinking about my landlord.
John: Let me think about my landlords for a second.
Merlin: thinking about my landlords oh hang on one second this episode of roderick on the line is brought to you in part by simple contacts you can learn more about simple contacts right now by visiting simple contacts.com slash super train 20 simple contacts is the most convenient way to renew your contact lens prescription and reorder your brand of contacts from anywhere in minutes
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John: Thinking about the landlords.
John: Thinking about them all.
John: A lot of the landlords I've had.
John: over the years i did not interact with directly because i was the person that came into the housing situation later right like i was the person you're not on the lease aha right right i was the leaseholder third roommate the lessor so the the rent check like i always had a roommate that was like rents due and i would give the roommate the rent and i never knew anything more
John: And every once in a while, maybe a roommate would say, the responsible roommate would say, the landlord's coming by.
John: You guys get out of here.
John: Okay.
John: And so most of the landlords I knew, I didn't know.
John: Most of the landlords I only interacted with through an intermediary, which was the person that imagined that they had always been a really cool, chill person and had now gotten into this apartment situation where they were living with John Roderick and all of a sudden they weren't cool anymore.
John: They were like a nagging, awful roommate.
John: And they didn't know what had happened to them.
John: They didn't understand it.
John: Something had taken them over.
Mm-hmm.
John: And they felt awful.
John: My roommate, Bueno.
John: Bueno?
John: Bueno.
John: His name, his nombre was Bueno?
John: His nombre was Bueno.
John: His father's nombre was Bueno.
John: That's fantastic name, John.
John: Bueno imagined that he was probably the coolest dude.
John: Okay.
John: And always had been the coolest dude.
John: He had a waterbed.
John: Bueno had a waterbed.
John: Bueno had a waterbed.
John: Bueno had handcuffs hanging from the rearview mirror of his Scirocco.
Okay.
Merlin: so so much to unpack there bueno had a personalized license plate from montana that said wait no bueno was gonna pick a state to get a latinx license plate in that's probably the state you want to go for bueno was the coolest cat but when i started living with bueno
John: uh at first point i was like hey rent's due and i was like what is rent really and then like a few months later bueno was like look this kitchen has gotten out of control and i'm like is that bad or god created the kitchen not you like like is the kitchen out of control or is it out of control what is this in service of and then a couple of months later bueno was like um
John: When I come back to my room, all of my records are all upside down and put away wrong.
John: I'm like, well, did you think that maybe there were other systems besides the narrow system that you're using?
Merlin: Bueno's just pointing out facts in the world.
John: Bueno's just trying to get on down the road.
Merlin: These are not actionable statements to you.
Merlin: He's just pointing out realities in the world around the house.
John: And little by little, Bueno became...
John: Very uncool in the sense that Bueno was always nagging.
John: He was leaving notes.
John: He was laying in wait for things to happen.
John: He was staying up all night, like peeking out of windows, and then nothing would happen.
John: He's like the foster landlord.
John: Yeah.
John: He became the landlord proxy because things were happening in the house that
John: somebody needed to do something about and it i remember watching this the slow destruction of bueno during this period from being a guy who you know would walk around watching it you had no role in it you were just there as a third party observer i was just there like wow bueno like what's going on man like what's happening to you and he would just be like i just want don't just stop and uh
John: And yeah, so I was usually that person in the relationship, in the roommate relationship, the one person that ruined everything.
John: And then, you know, when I left, I had no scars on me.
John: I didn't even get pain on me.
John: Yeah.
John: And Bueno was just curled up in a corner just like so.
John: How did you meet Bueno?
John: Do you remember?
John: The thing about Bueno now is he's the coolest guy.
John: He's the coolest guy in his town.
John: He just realized he didn't need me as a roommate.
John: That was the thing.
John: I was a cool suck.
Merlin: Oh, I see.
Merlin: Like a sink.
John: I was a sink.
John: That's right.
John: All cool goes into me and none comes back.
John: Oh, you drained his cool.
John: I met Bueno because I got kicked out of where I'd been living before.
John: And Bueno very generously.
John: You know, this was back when I would meet somebody at a party and then the next day I'd be living in their house.
John: You know, there's a reason that I stopped doing drugs.
John: There are a lot of reasons, actually.
John: And some of them have to do with the fact that I would get kicked out of places and then I would go to a party that night.
John: A party, in quotes, any event that I could make into a party.
John: And by the end of that event, I would usually have found somebody that would agree to let me go to a third location with them or a second location.
John: Oh, you got a cycle.
Yeah.
John: And do not ever take a hippie to a second location.
John: No, sir.
John: But definitely do not take me to a third location.
John: And then once I was at that location, I would put my very small bag down and say, huh, it's nice here.
John: Would you mind if I – what if I were your roommate?
John: Kitchen's real clean.
John: Records are real well organized.
John: They're like, it's a three-bedroom apartment.
John: We've got three people living here already.
John: And I would go, but there are so many places.
John: Yeah.
John: you could have a fourth person living in this apartment you wouldn't even notice as tall as you are there's probably places you could fit there were places there and then then i then i became a cool sink all the things started everything started why is this record put away with the dishes
John: Oh.
John: That's a really good question.
John: You know, the thing about that record is, think about it, doesn't it belong with the dishes?
John: Really bad.
John: I kept moving.
John: I kept moving.
John: Always keep moving.
John: Sharks keep moving.
John: Bueno now owns the record store.
John: in bozeman montana the cool record store he's a record store owner bozeman is a cool town and uh you can go into that record store any day any day of the week and and uh bueno's there it's also for a long time it was a head shop
John: I think as record sales declined, it started selling more like tapestries, other things, maybe carved soapstone things.
Merlin: I think the salvation for those, we have one near us, I think the salvation for a lot of those today is yes, weed seems less illegal, but boy, vaping.
Merlin: Vaping has taken up a lot of the head shops these days, I think.
Merlin: vaping vape well vaping vape culture vape vape materials vape juices vape rigs vape replacement parts because time was you would go into a store and they'd say okay you go into a store and like you'd have the counter and under the counter they'd have the locker room they have the rush like they'd have hookahs and then the rolling papers and whatnot and pipes and then lots of signs that said for tobacco use only
Merlin: I don't want to know the savvy lawyer that came up with that.
Merlin: But I mainly went there to buy Rush.
Merlin: I bought an occasional bong, but mainly I would replenish my supply of Rush.
Merlin: But they would have other things.
Merlin: You're right.
Merlin: It could be tapestries.
Merlin: It could be posters.
Merlin: But I think vaping is big now, John.
John: People vape.
John: You know, I was thinking about... So this is a little bit of an admission.
John: But, you know, I make admissions on this show periodically.
John: You go through a tear sometimes.
John: I've seen you make four or five admissions in one show.
John: Four or five admissions.
John: But I was thinking about this last night because I went to a Christmas party.
John: And at the end of the Christmas party, I was getting set up to go.
John: And the hostess said, Did you have any pumpkin pie?
John: Because I made...
John: pumpkin pie specifically because I know that you like pumpkin pie and I said I didn't have any pumpkin pie and she said well why don't you take this there's only one piece left why don't you take this pumpkin pie home with you and I said thank you so much
John: And then I looked around the houses, you know, it's the end of the party, right?
John: So the house is a shambles.
John: And I said, do you think if I put whipped cream, this is a question that I would ask a hostess.
John: Do you think if I put whipped cream on this pumpkin pie right now and then put it in the refrigerator, whipped creamed, already whipped creamed, that it will survive till tomorrow?
John: Because I was thinking I'm not going to eat this pie tonight, but I do want it tomorrow.
John: But I don't want pumpkin pie without whipped cream, and I don't have any whipped cream.
John: So if I put some whipped cream on it now, will it travel?
John: And she said, I don't really know the answer to that, but here, this canister of whipped cream is almost empty.
John: We're not going to use it for anything else.
John: Why don't you just take the canister of whipped cream?
John: Okay.
John: So I did.
John: I said, thank you very much.
John: I took the whipped cream with me with the one piece of pie.
John: And this morning, when I looked at the whipped cream,
John: I realized, oh, I also am out of half and half.
John: And so when I make my cup of coffee this morning, I'm going to put a little whipped cream on top of it.
John: It's going to function as half and half until I can get to the store.
Merlin: Get down near the bottom of that can.
Okay.
John: So I put a little whipped cream on there.
Merlin: Worked great.
Merlin: Just real quick in passing.
Merlin: So did you actually not eat it that night?
John: I did not eat the pie.
John: Damn, son.
John: But like a ding-a-ling at 1130 last night, I made noodles and put goulash over the top of it.
John: So I should have just had the pie.
John: What I did, in fact, is I ate a big plate of goulash.
John: Pumpkin pie can be nice for breakfast.
John: Pumpkin pie for breakfast is the best.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Anyway, but as I was looking, as I was putting the whipped cream on the coffee cup, I realized that, you know, I quit doing drugs in 1994, December of 1994.
John: Wow.
Merlin: Wow.
John: Yeah, December of 1994.
John: And since that time, you know, just like, like I'm a real stickler, you know, I think you probably.
Merlin: Oh, I know you're a stickler.
John: Yeah, I'm a stickler.
Merlin: You have a very bright line upon which you do not, right?
John: There are some lines upon which I do not.
John: But I always kept like – I kept a little thing in reserve, right?
John: I kept a little bag of holding.
John: And I said in this bag of holding, like there's something – because the mistake I made when I –
John: The thing that resulted in me getting sober was that I decided I was going to stop drinking because it was making me – because I was an alcoholic.
John: But I was going to keep doing drugs and I took some – and on the last night that I ever was intoxicated, I took a bunch of drugs instead of drinking.
John: Like the last time I drank was probably, I don't know, December 1st.
John: 1994.
John: It was all in that same month.
John: But I don't get, I don't mark my sober day until December 10th, 19 or 2000 or whatever it was, 1994.
John: Because that 10 day period between when I had my last drink and when I actually stopped doing drugs, I was doing drugs the last 10 days.
John: But I always kept this little bag of holding, which was, you know, like LSD is not a thing that you would
John: it's not a thing i abused you certainly can't abuse it you can take it every day i never understood people who could take it that much and you'd be insane to do it and p and it does and it has made people like addicted to like going to the dmv to me just so weird yeah but i always put put it in a separate class where i said look i can't do drugs i can't get drunk
John: And I just have to understand that like every day I have to just renew that pledge because I know what the result will be.
John: But there may one day come a time when I am presented with the opportunity to do LSD or some form of hallucinogen.
John: And I just need to carve out a little space for that possibility because I believe it is a different – it's in a different category.
John: And when I did that, when I left that door open, I knew I was putting myself at risk because if you leave a door open anywhere, the ants can get in.
John: But somehow over the last 24 years, no ant has ever slipped in through that door.
John: I've never taken mushrooms on a weekend or something.
John: I've never done any kind of intoxicant.
John: Except for one, which is that at the end of a whipped cream, I will do the whip it.
John: No kidding.
John: And I've always done it for 24 years.
John: Because I get a thing of whipped cream once a year, right around pumpkin pie season.
John: I eat whipped cream on top of pumpkin pies.
John: And right about the time that the pies are no longer – right about the time nobody's eating pumpkin pie anymore, it's about when you run out of whipped cream.
John: And there's always that time when you're like throwing the whipped cream on the pie and it goes – like you're out of cream.
John: And there's that last bit of nitrous oxide.
John: Yep.
John: And I just, I don't know why I made an exception.
John: Nitrous oxide was the first drug I ever saw used in eighth grade, I think.
John: Because I wasn't coming up with kids that were smoking pot in seventh grade.
John: I knew kids that did, but I wasn't at those parties.
John: And in eighth grade, seventh or eighth grade, I was at a party at Brent Loxus' house.
John: Brent had whippets Brent was the first kid I ever knew that had a car phone really Brent lived a very unusual life he was an unusual character but Brent had whippets and like all of the cool girls were going into Brent's room and doing whippets and then coming out giggling and I was sure it was like the most decadent thing I was appalled
John: And it was only because I had just the tiniest modicum of cool that I didn't, like, forever brand myself as a mega nerd by freaking out and being like, what's going on in here?
John: You guys need to stop this.
Merlin: Yeah, whereas at a younger age, folks like you and I would admonish women for their choices in men, right?
Merlin: Wasn't that a lot of the best thing we both did?
Merlin: But, you know, you get to a point in life where you don't want to be the guy who's harping everybody about their whippets.
Merlin: You're just like, because I didn't understand what it was.
Merlin: And I was like, you guys are going to get the drugs.
Merlin: Like Rush, until you've done it, you don't understand what is this thing that these people are doing?
Merlin: What is it doing to them?
Merlin: It is not white trash.
Merlin: That's the wrong term.
Merlin: But it's a very declassé way to get high for just a little while.
Merlin: But it's pretty fun when you're in middle school.
John: It was really fun in middle school, and we continued to do whippets late into, I mean, I did it all the way through college, because doing nitrous oxide in conjunction with marijuana.
John: Oh, my goodness.
John: Call the cops.
John: That is some good stuff.
John: What a wonderful, wonderful journey.
Merlin: So good.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: And the trouble is the, I don't know, what do you call it?
Merlin: Russia locker room.
Merlin: What do you call it?
Merlin: Amyl nitrate.
Merlin: Amyl nitrate.
Merlin: That will give you a Hawaiian headache.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Like, super bad, and I never had that experience with whippets.
John: well this is just like 90 seconds of fun we industrialized uh whip it doing because we would then go to the the um like the party supply store and buy a tank of nitrous oxide oh god and then get really big uh those big balloons that are meant to that are on rubber bands that are meant to like uh that's like going from a bb gun to an ar-15
John: It was fantastic.
John: So what we would do is we'd get two balloons going, and you'd fill one up, and then you'd take it in, and then just when you exhaled it, you would take the next one.
John: Oh, God.
John: And you'd exhale them back into the balloons so that you could get... And you'd get so... I mean, basically, half of your buzz was... You're professionalizing this in a way that makes me very uncomfortable.
John: Well, because you'd be suffering from oxygen deprivation as well as quadruple dosing on nitrous oxide.
John: Oh, we would fly.
John: I mean, you'd completely lose consciousness.
John: Did people pass out from that?
John: It felt like passing out, although I never saw anybody lose consciousness, but you certainly lost conscious contact with the world for a little bit.
John: anyway so it's the one vice in the drug world i've allowed myself is that at the very end of a can of whipped cream i kind of and i'll do it sometimes even when there's a bunch of people in the kitchen i'll kind of go around the corner and i'll go good for you and you're not hiding it just hold it and like and it's never it's the end of the can it's never enough to get like a full it's not like i laugh or anything i just get a little head rush yeah
John: It's the one drug in 24 years that I have that I've allowed.
John: But the other day I was at a party and a guy I was talking to a guy and I was like, oh, how long have you been a hippie?
John: When did you become a hippie?
John: And he said, the funny thing is people think I'm a hippie, but I'm not.
John: And I said, you're definitely a hippie.
John: And he said, no, I'm not a hippie.
John: I'm like, I got.
John: I'm hippie adjacent.
John: I got into this thing through a back door.
John: I was doing something else.
John: I was a normal.
John: I didn't know anything about this stuff.
John: And then, you know, I met this person and that person.
John: Then all of a sudden...
John: I'm hippie, but I'm not a hippie.
John: I was like, whoa, okay.
Merlin: Can you say what made him a Jason?
Merlin: Was it like spirituality or tambourines?
John: No, no, no.
John: That's the thing.
John: He's not into the hippie spirituality.
John: He was in it for the money, which I could totally admire.
John: I was like, look, man, if you can get money out of hippies.
John: Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
John: You're a better man than I. And the thing is, I don't think he's pretending to be a hippie.
John: He's just being himself.
John: It's just he's standing around with a bunch of hippies.
John: And you think hippie like you just it gets he gets hippie all over him.
John: But it's not but he's not he it's not like he's wearing beads or anything.
John: But I said to him, so no hippie is, you know, like you don't.
John: hippie's not on you are you a stoner and he's like i'm not a stoner like are you i mean do you like do you hacky sack he's like no i mean i'll throw a frisbee and i'm like look frisbee is it's not hippie frisbee's fully cool but then he said there is one thing
John: Just recently, these people have turned me on to micro dosing.
John: Yes, I've read about this.
John: And he's like, I've been micro dosing a little bit and it's really great.
John: That's what people say.
John: So then I talk for their work and stuff.
John: So I talked to somebody else about it because now this he talked about micro dosing.
John: So I was in the conversation, some other conversation somewhere.
John: And I was like,
John: what about this micro dosing?
John: And the person I was talking to was like, I have been doing micro dosing.
John: I was like, I suspected as much.
John: And so what they say is, so the one, the first guy did not have a ton of drug history.
John: Micro dosing was kind of his, this is his new thing.
John: The other person was a drug experienced person who wasn't doing drugs anymore, but had started micro dosing.
Merlin: It appeals to both ends of the spectrum.
John: Yes, and both people reported the same thing, which is you do not really perceive yourself to be... You're not hallucinating.
John: You just have that like... thing that you get when you're coming on.
John: Right?
John: That little just like sort of... Oh, boy.
Merlin: That'd be better than coffee.
John: Right?
John: The heightened buzz.
John: They say you're just... Your mind feels active.
John: You feel energized.
John: You feel capable...
John: And also that thing, that wonderful thing about hallucinogens where you just see a little bit better through the hypocrisy of life, but you see through it with good humor.
John: We're just like, oh man, everything is everything, you know?
John: Just like don't sweat the small stuff.
John: That little thing that you get when you're first coming on where you're like, oh, don't sweat the small stuff.
John: But then you just stay there.
Merlin: That's what I imagine it's like if you could meditate successfully.
Merlin: I keep doing it even though I don't really know what I'm doing.
Merlin: But that idea of being able to not get attached to something like you could just like the craziest thing in the world could be happening and you could be experiencing the craziness, but the craziness doesn't like affect you.
Merlin: You just kind of see it and you just kind of smile.
John: I always imagine, you know, you and I have spent a long time in our friendship trying to figure out what the perfect, how you could possibly take the perfect small amount of non-addictive amphetamine every day.
John: Just a little.
Merlin: Just a little bit.
John: Just a cross top that never got addicted.
Merlin: I want like Coffee Plus, Coffee S. I want just a little, you know, some of the similar qualities, but man, I'll tell you, buddy, every day, 22 minutes after taking Adderall.
Whew.
John: That's what I want.
John: I want the 22-minute feeling.
John: That 22-minute feeling.
John: You know it because you suddenly go, whoa.
Merlin: But not three and a half hours later or not nine hours later.
Merlin: Yeah, certainly not 12 hours later.
Merlin: Yeah, that's not as fun.
John: But so I was quizzing these people like, all right, microdosing.
John: So what happens?
John: Is it 12 hours long?
John: And they're just like, I don't know, man, just sort of all day.
John: You're just kind of puddling along and you forget that you ever did it and you just feel like a little bit, everything's just a little brighter.
John: Yeah.
John: You don't start talking to a dog or playing with somebody's hair or any of that shit?
Merlin: I don't think so.
Merlin: You never find yourself saying to your manager, I'm so into your hair right now.
John: Maybe.
Merlin: Maybe they microdose too.
Merlin: Maybe they don't mind.
John: They're just experiencing it.
John: I mean, if you're hippie adjacent, it's not going to matter.
Merlin: I'm not hippie adjacent is the thing.
Merlin: Like, I don't want to spend a lot of energy getting non adjacent to hippies.
Merlin: I have a fill of that buddy.
John: I don't think I can.
John: I don't think there's any way in which I can micro dose.
John: I don't think that that is a thing I could put into practice.
Merlin: Oh, okay.
Merlin: So for your own reasons... Yes.
Merlin: Okay, no, no, I don't know.
Merlin: Because... But it's there.
Merlin: I mean, if we look at these concentric circles, right?
Merlin: I've seen this as concentric circles.
Merlin: Very, very, very far out in those circles is John has a ready supply of whatever your favorite brand of alcohol is or was, like, in the fridge all the time.
Merlin: You move the stroganoff, make room...
Merlin: for the molsons or whatever like they're that's way far out and even and as we as i've said repeatedly this this happened at uh i think it was bimbos you wouldn't even take cold medicine from me no you would not take theraflu you would you would not take trucker speed from me not interested no no and i do i keep like a i keep i think a gram or two of weed a bunch of pot
Merlin: He used to put cigarettes on the doors, right?
John: I still have cigarettes up in the cupboard here.
John: I have like four or five bottles of liquor.
Merlin: Until I smoked them all, you had those Cuban cigars.
John: I still have a couple of Cuban cigars because somebody brought me a couple.
John: Oh, Jiminy.
John: So the next time you come... We should visit, yeah.
John: But I don't... None of those things pull on me.
Merlin: But then there's a slightly grayed-out can of Ready Whip here that's not on top of you in the center of the circle, but it's there.
Merlin: It sounds like somewhere nebulously in between.
Merlin: Where would a microdose fit for you in the concentric circles?
John: So the big question... So CBD...
John: brought this all to the fore a couple of years ago when everybody was like, oh, no, man, CBD.
John: Oh, it doesn't get you high, bro.
John: It just makes you like, just chills out your fingernails.
John: Like, were your fingernails too stressed before?
John: Just take some CBD.
Merlin: Be very careful.
Merlin: That's all I'm going to say.
John: Be very fucking careful.
Merlin: But everybody says, you know, we have a mutual friend who I think is on record numerous times as saying there is no bad dose of this.
Merlin: Oh,
John: CBD, CBD.
John: So I called up my, I called up my alcoholic, uh, group, which is, um, you know, you know, I'm Bill and Ted's excellent adventure when, uh, Clarence Clemens and, uh,
John: And George Carlin, their little, like, tribunal.
Merlin: Oh, yeah, sure, sure, sure.
Merlin: Oh, I see what you're saying.
Merlin: It's like when Billy Batson goes and talks to the Shazam guys in the cave.
Merlin: You've got your own little, like, American Idol group.
John: I've got my Shazam guys.
Merlin: You've got a Shazam team, Shazam board.
Merlin: I do.
Merlin: I say Mark calling Orson.
Merlin: Oh, angels, fleet, and strong and wise, appear before my seeking eyes.
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Merlin: Almighty ISIS.
Merlin: Wow.
Merlin: I used to love those shows so much.
Merlin: How did he get 30 years older?
Merlin: It's so strange.
Merlin: Anyway, you go before the tribunal.
Merlin: You call together your group.
Merlin: You have a blue ribbon committee.
John: John's Blue Ribbon Alcohol Committee.
John: I do.
John: And these are people who have been in the shit.
John: Okay.
John: And have made it out of the shit.
John: And they're all super solid.
John: But these aren't the ones that are like, oh, I was in the shit.
John: These are the ones that were in the shit.
John: And so I consult them sometimes because I'm just like, I don't know, man, you know, I just need, I need some, I need, I need a fucking council of elders.
John: And so I went to the council with CBD and I was like, what's our ruling on CBD?
John: Yo.
John: and so everybody was interested in coming up with the in talking about it coming up with a ruling and so it went around thinking about it people talking about it saying different things and the consensus was when the when they when the tribunal ruled the consensus was no you can't do cbd and the reason is not whether or not cbd gets you high the problem is that cbd is pot and if you
John: If you kick that door open, that door that I have a little crack open there that lets whippets in and potentially the notion of microdosing.
John: But if you kick that door open a little bit wider to put in some kind of pot that doesn't get you high.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: You have kicked the door open wide enough for pot to get through.
John: It's at least the beginning of a potential slippery slope.
John: Because if you're taking something that has pot in it that doesn't get you high.
John: Something that pot made.
John: Oh, that's right.
John: This is the house that pot built.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Then there are a lot of things out there that it's oil.
Merlin: It's not in a bag.
John: You don't use a dropper like a gentleman.
John: It's like a breath.
John: It's oil.
John: It's not pot.
John: It's just a little it's just candy.
John: Then you get one of those in you and then you're like your hair says never told you your hair is beautiful.
John: And then you're a fucking stoner, and then whatever.
John: You know what I mean?
John: It's a mental game as much as it is a physical one.
Merlin: And I do not want... I mean, if I may say, it's about... I don't know where the subtleties fall in all of these, but they all...
Merlin: It comes down to decision-making.
Merlin: It comes down to what you allow or refuse in your life.
Merlin: And if your shields are up, and you're full of Billy Batson group all the time, the shields are always up.
Merlin: So the shield comes down, and now you're in a vulnerable state.
Merlin: Like, what do you allow in?
Merlin: What do you invite in?
Merlin: What do you seek out?
Merlin: It seems to me, if I may say it, your intentionality about what gets past those shields has a huge role, potentially.
Merlin: I mean, don't you think?
Merlin: If somebody dosed you at a party, you'd survive.
John: If somebody came in right now with a bottle of Jim Beam and said, let's go to Spokane, I would be able to drink a bottle of Jim Beam and go to Spokane and survive.
John: The problem is – there are a lot of people I'm sure listening to this, and I see this all the time.
John: There are people who are very sympathetic to – I think most people are sympathetic to drug addicts who are struggling to get over drugs, but they'll never understand why –
John: once you're over drugs, why you can't just have a little?
John: Or why you can't have a drink on New Year's Eve or something?
John: They're never going to understand.
John: And they're sympathetic.
John: They're nice people.
John: They're not trying to be dicks.
John: They don't understand the slippery slope problem.
John: And then there are a lot of people that struggle with drugs and alcohol their whole lives because they also cannot ever really...
John: get a handle on the fact that they just can't.
Merlin: To quote Strother Martin, you haven't gotten your mind right.
Merlin: Isn't that kind of part of it?
Merlin: It's not enough.
Merlin: Your history shows that mostly saying yes or no, how can I put this?
Merlin: The getting your mind right part to me is realizing that regardless of your feelings about a higher power and faith and whatever, you do have to accept on some level that there's some stuff that is no longer for you.
Merlin: And it seems like making that line is a very personal decision that has an impact on relationships with people, just like not having it, had those ramifications before.
Merlin: But it's a very personal thing.
Merlin: You shouldn't hassle somebody because they say, I can't have any of that.
John: Oh, well, and it's not even...
John: I think most people who have been sober for very long are super not worried about other people hassling them.
John: Because you have to get used to that.
John: If you meet somebody and they're like, dude, why don't you just have one drink?
John: You're like, hey, guess who is not on my list of friends?
John: You.
John: Anyway, moving right along.
John: None of my close friends are ever like, just one.
John: Because that's why they're not your friend.
John: But more to the point, I'm not worried about those people.
John: I'm always thinking about the person that's struggling, right?
John: And you say it very well.
John: You end up with things that you just have to acknowledge.
John: These just are not things for me.
John: But one of those things is that in our culture, there is a lot of energy devoted to
John: alleviating pain.
John: And alleviating pain, it's not just a major, major, major, billions of billions of dollar industry in terms of medicine, but it's also a thing that we spend a lot of time thinking about and talking about, and meditation.
Merlin: Well, there's one very far end of the continuum, which is alleviating pain.
Merlin: uncontrollable, unnecessary, extreme pain.
Merlin: I think we can agree, most of us probably could agree that like if you're in stage four in a hospice, like there's no reason for you to be suffering, that there are things that we can do to make that time easier for you.
Merlin: But then you make a step over from extreme pain into pain.
Merlin: You eventually make a step from alleviating pain to alleviating discomfort.
Merlin: And before you realize it, you might be somewhere where you've gone from alleviating discomfort to alleviating boredom.
Merlin: And you're getting closer and closer to the center of those circles.
John: But also there are different kinds of pain.
John: And I know a lot of people, I have known personally several people who had stage four pain, the worst kind of pain, and it was a fatal pain, but that to them, taking pain medicine because they were sober people
John: To them, the pain of being on drugs, which is to say the psychic pain of being on drugs was worse to them than the physical pain of dying without pain medicine.
John: That is fascinating.
John: I have a friend that got hit by a car and went through the windshield.
John: He was on a motorcycle.
John: He got hit by a car, went through the windshield of the car that hit him and came out the windshield, the back windshield.
John: Oh, God.
John: And when they pulled his helmet off, there were shards of the helmet in his eyes.
John: Oh, my God.
John: And they took him to the hospital and rebuilt him and in the process put him on a pain drip.
John: And he pulled it out of his arm and said, I want all of this done without morphine because the only thing worse than dying is for me to be a junkie again.
John: Wow.
John: And I've seen that a bunch, including my own dad, who, as he was in the hospital dying, refused all pain medication the entire time.
Jesus.
John: And did it with no complication, no doubt in his eye.
John: Because there are things worse than death.
John: And there are things worse than pain.
John: And when you look at what killed Chris Cornell, he ostensibly hung himself.
John: But what had happened was he was addicted to Ativan.
John: And Ativan is a medication that was prescribed to him for anxiety.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Because he was suffering from some anxiety pain.
John: And I've been suffering from anxiety pain lately.
John: And I've realized for the first time in my life that anxiety pain is real pain.
John: It's not just like, oh, you're a scaredy cat or whatever.
John: You're like, oh, this is awful.
John: Anxiety is awful.
John: But there are worse things.
John: And one of those is being a drug addict.
John: So the doors...
John: But again, as you've said, that's all very personal and every person has to find their own path.
John: But if you are someone who is looking for an escape,
John: And you can, there are, there are millions of people who are millions of routes where people will say, oh, this isn't a drug, man.
John: It's CBD.
John: This is, this isn't, this, these aren't lewds, bro.
John: This is Ativan.
John: It's good for you.
Merlin: You need to change your conception of what a drug is to understand how different this is, essentially.
John: Well, and you had, I mean, that guy that was having pieces of shards of glass picked out of his eye without, without anesthesia.
John: had been through the shit enough times to know that there were worse things than the pain he was feeling.
John: Wow.
John: He didn't get sober when he was 24 and then never drink again.
John: You know, like he was in and out.
John: He was up and down.
John: He tried and failed and tried and failed and finally had his feet on the ground and was not going to lose it.
John: And my dad too.
John: I mean, my dad was like,
John: Are you kidding me?
John: I'm going to be sober for 50 years and then spend the last two months of my life gacked out?
John: No, I'm not.
John: I'm in pain.
John: And that's how I know I'm alive.
John: Whatever.
John: But he was in real pain.
John: He wasn't just surfing it.
John: But there were worse things.
John: So for me, talking to the tribunal, they were like,
John: What is worth your sobriety?
John: What is CBD doing?
John: Relaxing you?
John: You got muscle pain at the end of the day?
John: You need something to take the edge off?
John: You have to put everything it could possibly do to you in one column.
John: And then in the other column, what your table stakes are, what you're putting up.
John: And is it worth it?
John: And it's like, no, Jesus, when you put it that way, whatever fucking CBD, you know, like whatever, putting a little bit of it on my top lip in order to like be in order to walk through a graveyard without being scared.
John: Like, no, I'm not like my fucking sobriety isn't worth it.
Mm hmm.
John: But this microdosing thing.
Merlin: Well, I've read and heard a lot about it.
Merlin: I had read that it's a thing that's been sort of like a...
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: There's been some buzz about it in Silicon Valley for a while.
Merlin: And then a podcaster listened to did a whole episode about it where one of the guys actually tried it.
Merlin: And I don't know.
Merlin: Here's the thing, though.
Merlin: I don't want to talk you out of this.
Merlin: But it does sound like one of those things where, okay, I'm going to tell you about CBD oil.
Merlin: CBD oil will sound right up the alley for me.
Merlin: CBD oil.
Merlin: CBD oil is on it right up the alley.
Merlin: And I'm going to pivot back to the microdosing in a second.
Merlin: But all I heard from everybody, because the only people who were talking about this were people who loved it.
Merlin: And all I heard from everybody was this is, this oil is going to, it's good for what ails you.
Merlin: In particular, it's good for helping you sleep.
Merlin: In particular, it's good for reducing anxiety.
Merlin: There's all kinds of stuff.
Merlin: There's nothing in, though there is not a surpassing amount of large study information about this, everything we know so far is that this stuff is great.
Merlin: I'll cut a very long story short.
Merlin: I tried it starting with very, very, very small amounts.
Merlin: And what I got out of it, it would be difficult for me, and I was not doing a scientific study, but I would say it would be difficult for me to quantify the positive effects of this in a way that I couldn't write down to having a good day or a bad day, too much coffee, too little coffee.
Merlin: You tried this.
Merlin: You tried this.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: I've tried it like three or four different times, thinking like, I must be missing something.
Merlin: So, but I, you know, and I take, have just a little bit, try more.
Merlin: A little bit.
Merlin: Just a little bit.
Merlin: Just a little bit.
Merlin: There's no toxic dose.
Merlin: And so, I don't know.
Merlin: What I did notice was, I did feel like...
Merlin: My dreams and my REM sleep was kind of weird and kind of not what it used to be.
Merlin: I was dreaming less.
Merlin: I was having less REM sleep, according to the app that tracks that stuff.
Merlin: And I read a little bit that said, well, it's not unusual for marijuana-related things to disrupt your REM sleep.
Merlin: And I said that was one of the first times I stopped.
Merlin: I'm just here to tell you.
Merlin: I want to tell you about one Saturday morning that I was very unhappy.
Merlin: I took my usual regular amount of this stuff that literally has no psychotropic effects.
Merlin: It literally can't do anything to you.
Merlin: I woke up in the middle of the night and felt kind of weird and went to have my evening gentleman time.
Merlin: and suddenly felt the tunnel, the black tunnel, and I really thought I was going to pass out.
Merlin: And I made it back to bed.
Merlin: I thought, wow, that was kind of strange.
Merlin: Oh, no.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: I woke up the next morning, and I felt very unwell.
Merlin: At first, I thought, oh, gosh, you know, maybe I slept weird.
Merlin: Who knows?
Merlin: Very long story short, I was tripping half balls.
Merlin: Whoa!
Merlin: I was, like, I was having trouble...
Merlin: holding on to any thought for more than a second and a half or two i started to feel crazy i started to feel basically like i was having a bad trip and i didn't want to freak out my family i didn't want to scare them but i had a really fucking bad morning and into the afternoon of like nothing making sense and it did eventually occur to me oh gosh that's right i took the totally harmless cbd oil that maybe that had some impact on this but
Merlin: There's nothing else I took that could cause me to feel like I have tripping.
Merlin: I have not taken anything hallucinogenic in 25 years.
Merlin: But, okay, so here's the thing to know about this.
Merlin: Well, there's lots to know about this.
Merlin: One was, like, that should have been the only warning I ever needed to stay the hell away from this.
Merlin: Now, for some background, I will tell you that I have had...
Merlin: um pot in food and almost every time i have pot and food i pass out regardless of the dose i can drink all day long i am i am somewhat sensitive to smoke marijuana i'm extremely sensitive to eating marijuana so let's just say maybe i'm the weirdo maybe i'm the only person in the entire hemisphere who's gotten some kind of thc like effects out of something that doesn't have thc in it supposedly the only one right
Merlin: But it was really fucking jarring.
Merlin: It was really scary.
Merlin: And I'm kind of surprised that I kept trying to experiment.
Merlin: I got a better dropper, trying small amounts, thinking this thing's going to be this great thing.
Merlin: It's the dropper.
Merlin: The dropper.
Merlin: Well, bad on me, but I kept with it.
Merlin: And then finally I thought, you know...
Merlin: I guess maybe it was finally, then I started hearing there's been a lot of noise, not noise, but news in the last, I'm gonna say couple months that, be careful.
John: What is news if not noise?
Merlin: Well, some of this news was that even the premium stuff that I was getting,
Merlin: There's the quality control on it.
Merlin: Go do your own fucking due diligence on this.
Merlin: I'm just here to tell you, I do not believe for a second that you're getting the same thing with the same properties from all of the places.
Merlin: I'm sure we can find some reason to blame somebody about this, but I'm just here to tell you, that stuff is not harmless.
Merlin: It was not harmless for me.
Merlin: I'm not trying to scare anybody off doing it, but I am saying that everybody's different, and that stuff kind of fucked me up a few times in a way that I think should be
Merlin: at least a pseudo cautionary tale about being careful with this stuff and maybe you do have sensitivities or don't have sensitivities but holy shit is that ever true for acid i don't want to show up for my silicon valley job and start tripping balls right and however micro the dose is i feel like you can micro dose maybe if you don't i beats me you know beats me but people don't people do it like every day
John: 90 99 percent out of 199 yeah i will uh not do any kind of micro dosing at all because i feel like i have not i have not taken it to the to the tribunal but i know what they're gonna say i think that one's gonna be an even tougher sell than the cbd oil for sure yeah although there is within the within the world i i think within the world of drug people like an acknowledgement that
John: There's a lot of ground between taking a tiny bit of LSD and taking morphine.
John: But I think you're right.
John: I think they're going to come back and say...
John: What are you risking and what do you seek to gain?
John: What are you looking for?
John: A little bit more tingle on your day?
John: What are you putting up on?
John: What's up on the table?
John: Your sobriety?
Merlin: Well, and we should say, and I'm not encouraging this, but I have seen people say that it does help with some of the things that you and I both suffer from.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: That it can be a useful, I guess like a mood stabilizer in some ways.
Merlin: People say lots of things about what it's good for.
John: They do.
John: They do.
John: And I think that there could be a time when this new free-floating anxiety would be causing me so much pain that I would be willing to look deeper inside the box.
John: Yeah.
John: But I hope not.
John: And I hope – I was at a party –
John: uh recently where um you know maria semple we've talked about maria semple right she's uh isn't she the partner of somebody that we know yes well and she is she is um she and her partner both are uh like pretty so she her writer types yeah her husband is um a george from the simpsons george george mayor george mayor yeah from the simpsons and they were both at the party and they and and i enjoy them very much they're they're wonderful people and and um
John: George and I agreed that neither of us like superheroes, but Maria and I talked a little bit and she was like, listen, because she's, you know, she's she's seeking solutions.
John: She's looking for she's looking toward the future.
John: And she said, what do you know about TM?
John: And I said, I know it stands for Transcendental Meditation.
John: And she said, I know, but what else?
John: And I was like, oh, I know a lot about it, actually, because I have a friend.
John: My friend Hookers and Popcorn grew up in a Transcendental Meditation community in Iowa.
John: And she was like, oh, well, that's not what I was expecting you to say.
Merlin: But anyway, I would expect you to say my foul cards are David Lynch and something like flying.
Merlin: Yogic flying.
Merlin: That's my that's my two foul cards is, you know, but David Lynch seems to present in a very wholesome way.
Merlin: But I think of David Lynch and I think of supposedly flying.
Merlin: You don't think of the White Album?
Merlin: Is that Jaguar Udeva Ohm?
Merlin: Yeah, I mean, all those guys were over there.
John: Oh, you're talking about with Sexy Sadie.
John: Oh, you're right.
Merlin: Was that TM?
John: No, I think so.
John: That wasn't TM, was it?
John: Oh, I believe it was, yes.
John: Huh, all right.
John: Okay.
John: And I think that's, you know, she was just, her go-to was like Mia Farrow.
John: And I'm like, look, I do not follow Mia Farrow on Twitter.
John: So I don't know.
John: She's not my go-to.
John: You follow Ronan?
John: I don't follow Ronan either.
John: Ronan's a very good writer.
John: I know he's a nice person, and I know he's a good writer, but no, I do not follow her.
John: But so she was like, TM is really the way to go.
John: And I was like, really?
John: She said, yes.
John: Is she okay with you talking about this?
John: Yeah.
John: Okay.
John: And then she said, the other thing, stoics.
John: The stoics.
John: The ultimate white guy philosophy.
John: And I was like, the stoics, you mean like... The official philosophy of privileged white people.
John: Because my psychiatrist...
John: You know, like, my psychiatrist... What about The Art of War by Sun Tzu?
John: Did she recommend that?
John: I should have recommended that.
John: In times of peace, prepare for war.
John: But my psychiatrist, what was it, nine months ago, that was like, you need to read Epictetus.
John: And I was like, uh-huh, uh-huh.
John: So I went, I'm not sure if I followed all the way through with this, but I went to my Harvard five-foot shelf of books collection, of which I have like six or seven different versions of the Harvard five-foot shelf of books.
John: and I went through and I was like, you know, everything's in these.
John: Sure.
John: And so I found Epictetus, and I was reading it, and I was like, yeah, these are just aphorisms.
John: Like, I can't live according to aphorisms.
John: I love them.
John: I'll write aphorisms all day.
John: There's all Instagrams about it.
John: These are just Greek aphorisms, and I'm not going to, like, I do not feel in the mood to go, like, dig into Heraclitus.
John: But she was saying Transcendental Meditation and the Stoics together combined—
John: form a a new matrix of ectoplasm mental ectoplasm which uh is like a like a different level of um solve your problem and i was like all right i'm i am you know me merlin i'm open to everything you're a seeker they call you the seeker they do i'm seeking all the time
John: So, you know, I've got some calls in.
John: I called Epictetus.
John: I called Epictetus.
John: The first question was, is it Epictetus or Epictetus?
John: His Wikipedia picture is him with a crutch, which seems kind of... I'm not being ableist.
John: Well, no, I think if you went to Gandhi's Wikipedia page, he's probably got a crutch.
Merlin: I'm just saying your number one philosopher, you know, King of New York ain't number one.
Merlin: For you, it would probably not be somebody with a literal crutch.
John: You remember when that kid wrote into MacArthur and said, why do you always walk with a cane?
John: And MacArthur threw the cane in the garbage can.
John: Oh, that was a great scene.
John: Huh.
John: They do that in Sherlock, too.
John: Throw the cane in the garbage can?
Merlin: Well, John Watson, he puts the cane away.
Merlin: I think Sherlock proves to him that he didn't really need it.
Merlin: I'm not saying that you don't really need it.
Merlin: Please don't email us.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: So she's saying you get a wholesome, all-purpose cocktail out of a combination of TM and stoicism.
John: yes and i mean i think she's fairly recent uh into this i think she's experimenting what is it what is it is it a venn diagram thing where they offer complimentary things i think so i think that's what it is i think it i think you do a little this you do a little that sure you do a little dance you make a little love get down and you uh but the thing that i didn't realize is that you have to pay transcendental meditation one thousand dollars to get your mantra
Merlin: See, I didn't want to interrupt you, but this is reminding me of a podcast, a pretty good podcast I've been listening to about multilevel marketing and about revealing the problems with multilevel marketing.
Merlin: And in this latest episode, they highlight who it is that's really affected by MLMs.
Merlin: And it's not rich people.
Merlin: The people who are affected by get-rich-quick schemes are people with not so much money.
Merlin: You got single parents, single moms.
Merlin: You got retirees.
Merlin: You got people who have had a sudden economic hardship.
Merlin: And the people who are least –
Merlin: The people who can afford at least are the people, and to use a word that you've used that's crept into my vocabulary, people who are vulnerable.
Merlin: People who are vulnerable find themselves in these systems.
Merlin: And then they're told that the reason they're not doing well is because they don't believe it enough, which makes them even more vulnerable.
Merlin: And they're moving from one to the other.
Merlin: And pretty soon they could be hundreds or thousands of dollars in debt.
John: yes so that's probably not tm but i don't know uh no i think you don't have to pay for the stoicism though right that's all open source i don't know i honestly don't know exactly where it's not the harvard five foot books i don't think it's in the five foot books i'm gonna i'm but i do have this i do have a friend who grew up in in in the tm community which i didn't even know was a thing
John: until i met her i was not sure that i didn't know that there were tm communities there's a town popcorn and motorcycles who's this by hookers and popcorn okay all right um so all of this is like oh it's all it's all giving you a lot to chew on it's a lot to chew on i do not think that i'm gonna microdose i'm a hundred percent close to sure that i'm not gonna give a thousand dollars to transcendental meditation to get my mantra is that the cover charge
John: Yeah.
John: Okay.
John: They're a bunch of mantras, but only one is yours.
John: You think it's so they know you're serious?
John: I don't know.
John: I don't know.
John: But you know, one time I got a membership at the Seattle University Health Club, back when Seattle University would let non-students use their gym.
Mm-hmm.
John: And they gave me an ID card, and I walked around for an entire year and never once went.
John: And that ID card, and it was not a cheap ID card.
John: This was back when I didn't have a ton of money, and it was like $100 for a year or something like that.
John: And I walked around with this thing.
John: Maybe it was $300 for a year.
John: I walked around with this thing in my pocket for a year, and it just throbbed.
John: It was just like a sore, like a polyp.
John: in my wallet, reminding me every day of what I was failing to do, how I had failed.
John: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: Gym membership, I mean, that's close to a classic example of that.
John: I was never so relieved as when New Year's Day arrived and my membership no longer was active.
Merlin: It's like people who sort their laundry on a treadmill.
Merlin: Not while they're riding it, but that's where they store the laundry they folded.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: One of those constant reminders that you chose poorly.
John: You chose poorly.
John: This thing is right here in the middle of the room.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: So I don't think I'm going to pay $1,000 to just feel bad about not having done my meditations.
John: Probably.
John: I mean, I think everything's online.
John: I mean, I looked up yogic flying not very long ago just because I delight in it.
John: I bet you'd be pretty good at that.
Merlin: Yogic flying?
Merlin: Well, it seems to me that once you really get into something, you dive deep in it.
Merlin: You could probably yogic fly.
Merlin: I bet you only get that at the higher levels.
John: You have to be, I think, a lot more flexible than I am.
John: I don't know.
John: Also, you have to have a bouncy mattress.
Merlin: See, everybody's got their reasons.
Merlin: Now, what about the stuff?
Merlin: So you're seeking right now.
Merlin: There are many avenues.
Merlin: You have concentric circles.
Merlin: There's some things you're considering, but you're probably not going to allow in.
Merlin: What's your medium term goals here?
John: I would like to have some of this stuff that people talk about when they say, I made a list of all the things that were in my power.
John: And I go, uh-huh, uh-huh, okay, tell me more, tell me more.
John: And they're like, I made a list of all the things that are in my power.
John: And then the things that weren't in my power, I no longer worried about.
John: And I'm like, okay, all right, all right.
John: I'm listening.
John: How do you know the difference?
John: And they were like, oh, well, something.
John: And I go, oh, okay, interesting.
John: But what about this?
John: And they're like, well, I didn't really think about that.
John: Or whatever.
John: It's not like I'm not disabusing those things.
John: But somebody was asking me about my anxiety the other day.
John: And they were like, you know, one of the things is you just have to
John: You make a list, and then you just have to stop worrying about what other people think.
John: And I was like, I'm not worried about what other people think.
John: I'm worried about being buried alive.
Merlin: Or getting a hood over your head and putting it in the back of a cop car.
Merlin: Right, which is a form of being buried alive.
Merlin: It's a civic form of being buried alive.
John: And they were like, well, I mean, that's kind of, you know, like...
John: They were trying to connect it to something.
John: They were like, I think, you know, it's like a metaphor for like, if you're worried about what other people think.
John: And I'm like, it's not.
Merlin: It's just literally what I'm worried about.
John: Being buried alive is my greatest fear.
John: And if you leave me alone in a room and give me enough time, it's like six degrees of Kevin Bacon.
John: I can take any scenario.
Merlin: And if you spend three more minutes with that person, you're going to say to them, no, no, no, you don't understand.
Merlin: I'm really worried about being buried alive.
Merlin: And they say, do you know that that's crazy?
Merlin: And you say, yes, I know that that's crazy.
Merlin: Ask me if that makes me feel better.
Merlin: Ask me if knowing why I'm anxious or why I'm not anxious or why I could or couldn't change.
Merlin: Ask me if knowing any of that is making this better for me.
John: Well, and this conversation at this particular event did get a little weird because they were touting whatever their system was.
John: And I was like, I want to hear all about it.
John: Can it help me stop worrying about being buried alive?
John: And we arrived at a place where they felt like maybe it couldn't.
John: And that what I had was something that needed more.
John: That's when you say, can I speak with your manager?
John: I needed more help.
John: And I was like, all right, well, good.
John: I'm glad we've eliminated your system.
Merlin: You got through like first level tech support.
Merlin: Did you try unplugging it and plugging it back in?
Merlin: You need to talk to their manager.
Merlin: You need to get this escalated.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Not really worried about what other people think.
John: I'm not sure what that must feel like.
Merlin: I'm just looking over your file.
Merlin: Just catching up here.
Merlin: I hope you're doing very well.
Merlin: It looks as though you cannot be talked out of anxiety about being buried alive.
Merlin: Is that correct?
Merlin: Do you have Mac or PC?
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: Mac or PC.
John: Have you tried turning it off and turning it back on again?
John: Blow the dust out.
John: So, yeah, so I'm looking for something because I do feel like being buried alive is something that I can have some effect over.
John: Right?
John: Like, I can make some choices.
Merlin: You can avoid, you can avoid, I don't want to make light of this.
John: I don't want to go out into a cornfield with Joe Pesci.
Merlin: Five strangers with shovels, like, offer to give you a ride somewhere.
John: No.
John: There are choices I could make in life that would lead me closer toward being buried alive.
John: Like, I could start right now if I had it as a goal.
Merlin: Oh, you could do it as a face of fear thing.
Merlin: Like, you start out just by making a hole, but then don't do anything with it.
Merlin: Well, you know that kind of therapy like if you're scared of snakes first hold a string that kind of thing Oh, no, I haven't heard if you just bury your what if you just buried yourself a little bit What if you just buried your feet?
John: I feel like it's the G Gordon Liddy thing of like oh, I'm afraid of lightning So I'm gonna tie myself into a tree in a lightning storm and then the birds pick out your liver every day Then I'll eat a rat they need a rat.
John: What if you had a friend bury your feet?
John: Well, you know, when I go to the beach, I get my feet buried.
John: But nobody's got a bag over my head.
John: Maybe that's the element.
Merlin: This is really complicated.
John: So many factors to consider.
John: Really, no.
John: Just the bag.
John: Okay.
John: And the buried alive.
John: Yeah.
John: And the handcuffs.
John: The bag of handcuffs.
John: Okay.
John: All right.
John: Bag, handcuffs, buried alive.
John: All right.
John: The thing is, there are people out there that are so into bag and handcuffs.
John: Yeah.
John: It's very German.
John: Very German for sure.
John: It's a whole genre.
John: Yeah.
John: Right.
John: If I went online, if I went on Craigslist and was just like bag and handcuffs, two bits.
John: It's called Bagenscheitze.
John: Right.
John: Bagenscheitze.
John: It's not what I want.
Merlin: So you're not going to microdose, probably.
John: I don't think so.
John: I'm not going to microdose.
John: I'm not going to take any CBD.
John: I don't think I'm going to give $1,000 to Transcendental Meditation.
John: And I am not going to probably read Heraclitus.
John: And I don't.
Merlin: Leave Heraclitus out of this.
Merlin: You pick on that Epictetus guy, but you leave Heraclitus out of this.
Merlin: Heraclitus had some good things to say.
Merlin: Oh, for sure.
Merlin: Epictetus.
Merlin: He's not going to charge you a thousand drachmas or whatever.
John: Epictetus.
John: Epictetus.
John: He also had many great things to say.
John: Look, it's not like this is the first time I ever read these guys.
Merlin: The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
Merlin: Losing one parent is a shame.
Merlin: Losing two seems like carelessness.
Merlin: I think I'm confusing.
Bye.