Ep. 317: "You Can't Be Drunk at Disneyland"
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
Merlin: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: How's it going?
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: Come on.
Merlin: It's going great, man.
Merlin: Oh, it's going great.
Merlin: Merry Christmas.
Merlin: Hey, it is.
Merlin: It is.
Merlin: It is a Merry Christmas.
John: How are you on the whole telling people happy holidays controversy?
John: Do you teach the controversy?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I have to be honest.
Merlin: I just don't want to offend anybody.
Merlin: And the truth is, you can offend somebody either way.
Merlin: That's true.
Merlin: Well, I mean, if you're saying that to somebody to be a nice person, I think you have to be a little bit contextual about it.
Merlin: Context is important.
Merlin: Yeah, look at your context clues is what I'm saying.
Merlin: Yeah, context clues.
Merlin: Well, I don't know how else to do it.
Merlin: I mean, I feel like there's no really good answer right now.
John: I think context clues is a good answer.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: That would be a good public television show for children.
John: Context clues.
John: Context clues.
John: Just teach kids how to read the room.
John: You know what I'm saying?
John: Here's a situation.
John: What do you think about this situation, kids?
Merlin: Oh, okay.
Merlin: Like one time when I was 14, I walked in on my best friend's grandmother in the bathroom.
Merlin: I still think about that.
Merlin: Context clues.
Merlin: She looked like, I mean, setting aside that she was sitting on the toilet, she really, in her physical appearance as a normal person, looked like a 1970s version of an old lady.
Merlin: Like hair in a bun, big long blue dress.
Merlin: Did she have a mole on the end of a long nose?
Merlin: I didn't notice that.
Merlin: I think she was dropping a duke.
Merlin: Yes, I should read the room, but also lock the door.
Merlin: When there's strangers in the house,
Merlin: But yeah, I think context clues, they don't teach that.
Merlin: They don't teach that in school, do they?
Merlin: No.
John: There's so many things they don't teach in school.
Merlin: Well, and let's go ahead and just call out the corollary.
Merlin: The problem is that they teach, I feel like...
Merlin: I will say from times that I was in school, I can't speak for my kid, but from times that I was in school, things were pretty often for a variety of reasons presented as a very clear black and white issue.
Merlin: And there was no need for context clues.
Merlin: Just say, just say no.
Merlin: Just this, just that.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Which I guess if you're trying to teach a kid something, you would say like, if you're trying to teach a kid not to touch the hot stove, then you're going to want to say, look, just don't touch the hot stove.
Merlin: Just say no.
Merlin: Read the room.
Merlin: But yeah, just say no.
Merlin: But I don't know.
Merlin: As far as the holiday Christmas thing.
Merlin: See, I feel like this is the liberal arts problem.
Merlin: Oh, is on the one hand, my whole life, I've always I think I've mostly said Merry Christmas.
Merlin: And then I realized that that's kind of problematic because there are a there are people that celebrate something other than Christmas.
Merlin: Importantly, very important.
Merlin: B in this day and age is there are people who do not celebrate a holiday thing in general.
Merlin: And it's sort of like asking people when they're going to have a baby.
Merlin: You ever get that?
Merlin: Just say no.
Merlin: Just say no.
Merlin: But, you know, it's like it's one of those things where, like, you feel like that's a real, like, if you're somebody who's really a baby haven't, you say, oh, you guys are so cute and you're married.
Merlin: What are you going to have a baby?
Merlin: Like, what a terrible question to ask.
Merlin: Just say happy holidays.
Merlin: or nothing at all i don't know i'm not making a lot of sense here's the problem if i say merry christmas on the one hand there's like three levels to this right that's what i would naturally say because i think of it as christmas time i learned that's problematic and now so if i i'm usually going to say nothing if i say anything i normally say happy holidays um but then also right am i turning into like a bill o'reilly guy if i say merry christmas are people going to assume that i have a mission sure
Merlin: Or as I said in a tweet many years ago, happy whatever holiday you're surprisingly touchy about right now.
Merlin: But that is problematic.
Merlin: Nobody listens to this show.
Merlin: Now, what do you do?
Merlin: Do you feel the need to acknowledge holidays when you talk to people?
John: You know, generally what I do is I immediately ascertain whether the person has a pet or a child.
John: Or both.
John: And I set about either to invalidate their choices as a pet owner or a parent or both.
Merlin: That's complicated.
Merlin: Yeah, it is.
Merlin: It's tough.
Merlin: People with kids and especially, let's be honest, dogs are probably Christmas people.
Merlin: Oh, okay.
John: People with cats and giraffes are probably happy holidays.
Merlin: Careful, careful.
Merlin: Well, I don't know.
Merlin: There's this lady I like a lot and follow on Twitter.
Merlin: I think it was Julia Yaffe, but I forget.
Merlin: But it's, you know, it's the reason I say it's like the... Well, okay, think of all those dumb things people say to you.
Merlin: In retrospect, it seems so offensive.
Merlin: Like, when are you going to get engaged?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: When are you going to get married?
Merlin: When are you going to have a baby?
Merlin: There's so much cultural assumption in all of those things that to you, that feels like if you're from like some Mormon community with 35 kids, that's a very normal question to ask.
Merlin: It's along the lines of how do you take your coffee?
Merlin: Like, when do you plan to have lots of kids outside that community?
Merlin: That's kind of a, I mean, it can be, it's a weird, too unkind, too hurtful thing to say to someone.
Merlin: Like, what if that person doesn't want kids or what if they wouldn't mind kids, but like are unable to bear?
Merlin: That's kind of, you know, it's kind of an awful thing to say to somebody.
Merlin: I think holidays can be a little bit like that.
Merlin: It's hegemony, hegemony.
Merlin: It's holiday hegemony.
John: Hegemony.
John: Hegemony.
John: The thing about context clues, of course, is that when someone says something to you that you get offended by, you also should be using context clues.
John: Like, is it a little old person or is it someone who's just innocently walking through life like you thinking, oh, it's Christmas time or a thousand other things before you get offended?
John: before you believe that the world is arrayed against you and everyone is in a giant conspiracy to make you feel bad from moment to moment.
Merlin: Do you believe that intellectually or in your heart?
Merlin: Do you believe that in your heart?
Merlin: Well, I don't get offended.
John: You don't get offended?
John: Well, I mean, I get offended.
Merlin: Okay, but you don't get offended.
John: If somebody came up to me and said something like some person on the...
John: In the world trying to be nice.
John: Yeah.
John: And they missed the mark.
John: If they're like, oh, you're pregnant.
John: And I'm like, I'm fat.
John: Yeah, I've done it.
John: Or, I mean, you know, people all the time say, are you out with your granddaughter?
John: Come on, guy.
Merlin: It's our first date.
Merlin: Are they...
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Merlin: There's salt in my game.
John: So often now, it's true.
John: They say, wait a minute.
John: This is a bar.
John: She can't be in here.
John: I'm like, we've been dating for six months.
John: Come on, don't age shame her.
John: You know, they bend down to my little girl and say, are you playing with granddad?
John: But also there are a lot of people that want to, and you know, and you experienced this too.
John: A lot of people that want to comment on my appearance or on your appearance at how bedraggled we look or old.
Merlin: Oh yeah.
Merlin: It's a really funny bit.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: And I get it all.
John: I mean, I had dinner with my cousins last night.
John: And, you know, a thing went around between the three of us like, ha, ha, ha.
John: Well, here we all are.
John: We all made it.
John: You know, everybody's looking good.
John: And then one of the cousins said, I mean, except you.
Merlin: Who would have thought we'd be sitting here today drinking Chateau de Chassoli?
Merlin: Sorry.
Merlin: Luxury.
Merlin: I'm sorry.
Luxury.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: You're sitting around with your friends.
Merlin: You say, hey, here we are.
Merlin: We made it.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I was born in a cardboard box in a corridor.
Merlin: Uh-huh.
John: If I can pull up the transcript of that episode.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: It's so good.
Merlin: I have to lick the streets clean with our tongues.
Okay.
John: When was the last time you watched Monty Python?
Merlin: My daughter specifically requests the Four Yorkshiremen sketch, and we watch it.
Merlin: The Hollywood Bowl version from, I want to say, 1981, which I think of as the classic.
John: It's been a long time since I sat and watched a Monty Python episode.
Merlin: Oh, well, you know, that show's really conducive to sketch watching, but there's many different versions of that.
Merlin: There's ones where, like, there's one that, oh, who's the cross-dressing funny English guy?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: That doesn't help that much.
Merlin: Eddie Izzard is in one version of it.
John: Eddie Izzard, yeah.
Merlin: He's very funny.
Merlin: And then there's the classic version that precedes, that was written by, I want to say, Graham Chapman and Michael... Anyway, but there's one version with Marty Feldman, who used to be a British comedy guy before he was a movie guy.
Merlin: marty feldman is in monty python no so before so before monty python all the different pythons have worked in i see what you're saying various they've done like um footlights and different things and then they were on tv for a while and it was not spike milligan but one of the the not the goon show it was doesn't matter dudley moore was in all those
Merlin: Yes, he and Peter Cook were in... I'm not going to get into this.
Merlin: I can't win this fight.
John: They were going to get into... They were in the office, the British office.
Merlin: Yeah, that's right.
Merlin: I'm so sorry I took you off your Christmas game.
Merlin: You're sitting around with your friends.
Merlin: You're chatting.
Merlin: You're having Chate de Chasseli.
John: Yeah, no, I forget what I was talking about.
Merlin: But the point is... It's about the presumptions that we bring to our conversations with people, the cultural baggage and or valence that we bring to a conversation, things we assume are normal to say.
Merlin: I get this all the time with the other moms at school.
Merlin: The kind of shit the other moms at school say to each other just leaves me gobsmacked.
Merlin: I return null.
Merlin: I don't even want to be in on this conversation that from the get-go is so often about status.
Merlin: It's unstated.
Merlin: This is such a thing in our age.
Merlin: People size each other up like jungle cats, figuring out how much money they make.
Merlin: Or whatever.
Merlin: Like, what kind of car do you drive?
Merlin: All that kind of stuff.
Merlin: And there's so... I try to avoid those conversations altogether.
Merlin: They make me very uncomfortable.
Merlin: So what do you say?
Merlin: What do you say to people?
Merlin: Yeah, how do you do that?
Merlin: How do you avoid that?
Merlin: I default to happy holidays, but based on my own ping pong idea of who the person might be.
Merlin: That's a status conversation people are trying to have?
Merlin: No, not that one so much.
Merlin: Oh, I see.
Merlin: Oh, but it turns into a status really quickly because you say, oh, you got any plans?
Merlin: You got any plans over the holidays?
Merlin: And if you say no, you sound poor.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: You're supposed to say, oh, yeah, we're going skiing for a week.
Merlin: Or we're going to go to Disney World in Orlando or whatever.
Oh.
Merlin: You know?
Merlin: Uh-huh.
Merlin: I'm going to update my GoFundMe, you know?
Merlin: Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I do try to think about, you know, the check your privilege thing, I guess is getting a little long in the tooth, but I do try to think about hegemony just in a sense of just thinking about like how much culture I, that often is not benefits me that I like bring upon other people in this.
Merlin: I want to speak to your manager kind of way.
Merlin: And I'm trying to be more, uh,
Merlin: cognizant of that because I don't want to become like that.
Merlin: I don't want to become one of those old guys that just assumes everybody's wrong.
John: Do not speak to people's managers.
Merlin: I was going to say something, but it sounds so fruity in holidays.
Merlin: The thing I'm trying to assume is that nobody's intentionally being a dick.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: I'm trying to assume, like, it's in how I take things.
Merlin: You know, you take it personal and make it personal.
John: Context clues.
Merlin: Context clues, you know, reading the room.
Merlin: Reading the room is very important.
Merlin: I was talking to John Syracuse about this.
Merlin: I think that's a skill that they should teach in schools is learning how to read the room.
Merlin: How's John Sarcuso?
John: I think he's doing fine.
John: I haven't heard from him lately.
Merlin: No, he seems like he's doing fine.
Merlin: He's, you know, having Christmas time, holiday time.
John: Yeah, he used to reach out to me sometimes.
John: He would ping me.
Merlin: on things but he hasn't been pinging me lately i feel like uh you know who knows well can i can i can i read the room well i'll cut this out of course i won't he listens to our program still oh he does oh that makes me feel good oh that's nice that's the nicest compliment somebody still listens to your show isn't that nice yeah that is that isn't a nice compliment not for everybody john no no no no no it's not you know what i mean by read the room
Merlin: You got to read the room.
Merlin: Context clues.
Merlin: I mean, I'm not just trying to be funny pants.
Merlin: You know what I'm talking about, right?
Merlin: Like, figure out before you come in with a big pivot to what's happening in a situation, like, just come in and figure out what's already happened.
Merlin: Before you got there, there was a conversation or there was a mood happening.
Merlin: And, like, how do you suss that out before you go diving in?
John: Yeah, totally.
John: Don't you think they should teach that in schools?
John: There are so many things they should teach in schools.
John: Tell me some.
John: Oh, just, I mean, geography.
Merlin: Geography as in learning that there are countries and oceans and that there's maps and globes and stuff.
John: Yeah, I mean, I think you should learn the 50 states and capitals.
John: I think you should learn how many Canadian provinces there are.
John: I think you should be able to name all the rivers in Africa.
John: Oh, boy.
John: Not every minor river, but every major river.
Merlin: Lake Victoria, which is not a river, I think that's in Africa.
John: Lake Victoria.
Mm-hmm.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Because there's an attraction at Bush Gardens that has a Lake Victoria.
John: Oh, so you, yeah, that's what you learned.
Merlin: Everything I learned about Africa, I learned.
John: They called it the Dark Continent.
John: Yeah, they did.
Merlin: Geography.
Merlin: You learned a lot of that stuff at Bush Gardens?
Merlin: Bush Gardens, Tampa.
Merlin: It started out as a garden and brewery where you could go.
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: It's only, I think, in the 70s that they started adding rides, maybe early 70s.
John: Oh, this is like...
John: Uh, Mary, it's great America.
John: No, it's like, um, it's like the, uh, the pie place, the, uh, berry farm.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: The knots.
John: Yeah.
John: They, uh, they, they, they had a berry farm and, uh, they made pies and then they put rides in there.
John: It's a really great story.
Merlin: No, it's good.
Merlin: Most of them have pretty modest roots.
Merlin: In the case of bush gardens, it started out as an Anheuser-Busch brewery.
Merlin: Oh, no, it's not.
Merlin: I didn't realize it was related.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Well, I told my daughter this and she was a gog.
Merlin: So, like, I had a season pass in 1979.
Merlin: It was like $20 a year.
Merlin: I'm a gog.
Merlin: It was great.
Merlin: They had great roller coasters.
Merlin: But, like, it started out as a brewery and literal gardens where there would be, like, some statuary and some topiaries.
John: Remember when people used to, that was a destination, like, let's go visit the famous gardens?
John: Yeah.
John: Absolutely.
John: In Florida... There's a place in Vancouver.
John: Or no, I think it's in... Is it on Vancouver Island?
Merlin: Oh, there's a place... It's on Vancouver Island.
Merlin: Famous garden.
Merlin: Well, there's the... In the Victoria Park?
Merlin: Is that what it's called?
Merlin: Is that gorgeous park in Vancouver with the big body water?
Merlin: No, no, no.
John: It's on Vancouver Island, so it's outside of... See, they're very confusing, the Canadians.
John: So there's a Victoria garden in Vancouver, but there's a Victoria town on Vancouver Island.
John: Oh, okay.
John: It's completely separate from one another.
John: Outside of the Victoria town on Vancouver Island, there's – my sense is – I think I have this right.
John: They built someone.
John: When I say they, it's usually one crazy old Italian guy or Japanese guy.
John: In the case of my neighborhood, there's a Kubota garden.
John: which was built by one crazy Japanese guy over the course of his whole life.
John: And now he gave it to the city.
John: Oh, that's cool.
John: I think the one in Vancouver Island, it seems like it was built in an old rock quarry because it's got a lot of geography, but it's beautiful.
John: So many, so many beautiful plants and they bring like tour buses and everything.
John: It's like, we're going to, there's no rides.
John: There's nothing for the kids to do.
Merlin: except you know there's there's plants there's lots of there's lots of pretty plants there's so many things in florida that started that have beat that eventually became destination attractions for families that started as precisely that and it's right in the name i mean cypress gardens started out as gardens they added trick water skiing and then they eventually added some rides and i think there was a lot of confederate um propaganda uh things like home assassin springs
Merlin: I'm a sassy spring home assess the Springs you got wiki watchy the mermaid place wiki watch you is basically gardens plus mermaids you're making all this up now wiki watchy and you sit in front of a giant like Theater-sized fish tank and watch ladies eat bananas underwater.
Merlin: All right Hand to God.
John: I would watch that right now except somebody would say why are you here?
John: Are you here babysitting your grandchildren?
John: Sorry, please step away from the mermaids.
John: Is she... Are the mermaids... Is it another, like, water show where they are doing tricks?
Merlin: What they do is... And honestly, it's like... Imagine you go to an aquarium.
Merlin: And, you know, most aquaria have the big tank somewhere.
Merlin: It's somewhere that's got, like, the ecosystem in it.
Merlin: You got the little tanks where you get a skate or something.
Merlin: But then you get the big wall.
Merlin: Like, you go to, like, a Monterey.
Merlin: And it's got, like, the big, like, wall.
Merlin: Or here at the...
Merlin: uh the academy of sciences they have a really nice aquarium so just imagine like a uh not even human size like a massive like fish tank that you see into it's a big wall of glass and you sit in theater chairs and ladies dressed as mermaids swim around and do little acrobatic tricks and there's a tube that comes down into the water where they can occasionally take a toke of uh of oxygen uh-huh this sounds like a go-go's video
Merlin: Vacation have to get away.
Merlin: Yeah, so it's the W-E-E-K-I space Wachee.
Merlin: W-A-C-H-E-E.
Merlin: My point being, I'm with you.
Merlin: There are so many things used to start out as just gardens, and then they added stuff.
John: So you had a lifetime membership to Busch Gardens, which was named after the beer brewery?
Merlin: Yeah, I had a, what was a military school, 79 to 80.
Merlin: We were heavily encouraged to get one of these, which is, like I say, 20 bucks for the year.
Merlin: And it was, well, and the thing was, it only took three visits.
Merlin: It was $9 admission, $20 for a season pass, and you could go as much as you wanted.
Merlin: We went almost every weekend.
John: No, but I mean, why were you encouraged to get it?
John: Oh, just because that was one of the.
Merlin: Because our house father could pile us into a van and take us somewhere.
Merlin: And it was pretty fun.
Merlin: And it didn't cost a ton because we'd already like, you know, bought the pass.
Merlin: But I told my daughter, the agognis came from me telling her that even at that time, 1979, 80.
Merlin: Well, B, there was tons of branded merchandise.
Merlin: for obviously like budweiser miller um like michelo i had a visor i had a budweiser visor and i had a budweiser and i had a budweiser piggy bank but a you know why because they had a beer garden where when you had paid your admission and came in you could go to the beer garden
Merlin: Not when you were in military school, surely.
Merlin: But if you were of age, if you were at the time, I think 18 or 19, you could go to the beer garden and drink free beer.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: It was a small cup, but you could have more if you wanted.
Merlin: Now, can you drink beer at Disneyland?
Merlin: You can drink.
Merlin: I get this confused.
Merlin: I know Epcot at Disney World in Florida.
Merlin: I want to say no.
Merlin: I've only been to Disneyland twice.
Merlin: I want to say no, except in some areas.
Merlin: The restaurants sometimes have it.
Merlin: I don't think you can just walk around with a beer at Disneyland, but I could be wrong.
John: I'm pretty sure you can't do that.
John: I'm just going to go out on a limb and say that you can't walk around with a beer.
John: Right, right, right.
John: But it feels like that would be the type of thing that Disney himself would have said –
John: Can you imagine a drunk person at Disneyland?
John: They would put him on a cart and down into a well.
Merlin: Yeah, they'd catapult him over to Tom Sawyer Island.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: You can't be drunk at Disneyland.
John: Although I think there are a lot of... Oh, you know, it used to be very fashionable among people in my circle, extended circle, I'm not talking about immediate circle, to take LSD and go to Disneyland.
John: But I think they said...
John: that the Disney people actually had people stationed at the gate looking, like profiling people, to see if you looked like you were tripping.
Merlin: Like have real dilated pupils and stuff?
Merlin: Do a little dance by yourself?
John: Yeah, if there's five of you who are all alternative, and you're giggling really hard about nothing,
John: And you're like, ha, ha, ha, and you're looking at your hands.
John: Yep, yep, yep, yep.
John: Somebody might step out from behind a glass wall and say, hey, why don't you guys come over here for a second?
John: Can I ask you a couple of questions?
John: And then they pull you over and the person's like, do you feel boxed in and drawn out?
John: And then everybody goes, whoa.
John: And they're like, no, you are not coming in here.
John: You felt boxed in and drawn out.
John: Question number three.
Merlin: Do you think that at this moment you might be living in an entire civilization inside of a giant's fingernail?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Have you ever thought about green?
Merlin: I mean, no really thought about it.
Merlin: Have you ever looked at your hands?
John: Look at them now.
John: Really look at your hands.
John: But I don't know if they still do that, but I'm sure.
John: I mean, the kids today, they love to psychedelicize.
John: Oh, they have what they call Molly?
John: Yeah, but Molly's not a good psychedelic, I don't think.
Merlin: Isn't Molly what we used to call ecstasy or MDMA?
John: Yes.
Merlin: But it's the same formulation?
Merlin: It's not like an oxy and fentanyl type situation?
John: As far as I can tell, and this is the thing, children are very unreliable narrators.
John: But as far as I can tell...
John: mdma was a mouthful and ecstasy felt like something that felt like an old person drug molly i don't i can't think of very many instances where where a drug has remained constant but then but the street name went from i mean there's always like a variety of street names for drugs like oh it's this marijuana has had a few where i feel like weed has probably been the most enduring
Merlin: Yeah, there are a lot of things that you could call dope.
Merlin: Yeah, that was so confusing to me because dope can either be marijuana or heroin, right?
John: Right, or anything.
John: I mean, you're not going to call cocaine dope, I guess.
John: I mean, these days...
John: Yeah, a lot of different options.
John: And the thing is, if it's a different formulation, like MDA was the first drug and then it was like MDMA.
John: Okay.
John: And I was confused about what exactly had gone on there.
John: Did they add an extra M or was it just a thing like it was a attention deficit disorder and it was like, oh no, it's attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder.
John: Yes.
John: Is that where the extra M came from or is it a different M entirely?
John: But then I never heard of Molly until...
John: It feels like just recently, but in fact, it was probably a long time ago because time has collapsed.
Merlin: Well, it's easy to lose a few years.
Merlin: I like to call it, you drop a decade.
Merlin: Sometimes something's changed, you sort of wake up like Synecdoche New York style, and you're like, whoa, I don't remember this being like this.
Merlin: And it turns out it's been like that for eight years.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: Molly, there's a whole generation of kids that have never heard of ecstasy, and they're like, what are you talking about?
John: I'm 29, and all I've ever heard of is Molly.
John: Yeah.
John: But that's not your psychedelic, I don't think.
John: You're talking about like a good old-fashioned LSD type situation.
John: I don't think there's a better psychedelic on the market today than good old-fashioned LSD.
Merlin: Which some people are taking micro doses of, as we discussed.
John: Yeah, LSD micro doses.
John: But there's just the good old LSD, which is scary.
John: I know it is scary.
John: It should be scary.
John: You should be scared of LSDU listeners.
John: We don't usually break down the fourth wall and talk directly to our listeners.
Merlin: No, no, no.
John: We've stopped that.
Merlin: We stopped it a long time ago.
Merlin: It's hard to know exactly what you're getting on any number of levels.
Merlin: And if you're not in the right state of mind, it can be really not that fun.
John: Well, and as you know, I mean, people routinely lace pot with PCP.
Yeah.
John: Is that really true?
John: That's not at all.
John: No, no one has ever laced upon with PCP.
Merlin: You know, let's do the materialist argument.
Merlin: Does it make sense to do that economically?
John: It really does not.
John: No, there's no reason anyone would do that.
John: But, you know, anytime you take a drug, you cannot know exactly what's going to happen.
John: I suppose in general, the thing is, like, with cocaine...
John: It ends up being a question of how pure is the cocaine.
John: If you have pretty good cocaine and then you go somewhere else five years later and you take pretty good cocaine there, it's going to pretty much have the same effect.
John: Although you could be a very different person.
John: And if you take a drug when you're in a bad mood, it's a very different drug than if you're in a good mood.
John: Oh, hell yeah.
John: But lysergic acid or acid or LSD...
John: which is lysergic acid diethylamide or whatever.
John: That's the D. They didn't just add that later.
John: It wasn't lysergic acid, and then they put diethylamide in it, and they changed the name.
John: Oh, it's not an ADHD type thing where they're just retroning.
John: Where they threw another thing in there, and they're like, that's what we always said.
John: Oh, I just did that.
John: I went back.
John: It's like that Sinbad Genie movie that wasn't real.
John: I never saw that.
John: I'm not sure that was real.
John: No, but I went back and I was having a DM conversation with someone within an app.
John: Uh, which happens sometimes now people will, uh, they'll message you within an app.
John: Okay.
John: I don't know if you're familiar with this.
Merlin: And when they mess, I'm sorry, when they message you, that comes to you directly.
Merlin: It comes to, well, no, it comes to you through the app.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: So it's, it's kind of a, an indirect message.
John: I mean, yeah, right.
John: I don't know what you consider directly.
John: No, me neither.
John: But, um, but it's not how you get messaged.
John: You get message within the app.
John: Okay.
John: Let's, you know, somebody had something to say.
John: Somebody said something to you.
John: They could have emailed it to you.
John: They could have sent it to you.
John: They could have tweeted it to you, but they found this other way to get to you, which is to DM you.
John: Anyway, I was having this conversation with them and then I went back and reviewed the conversation later and not for any real reason, but I just went through and selectively deleted one in five remarks.
Okay.
John: And not because it was a bad conversation or because I just took one in five remarks away.
Merlin: Kind of like a game of conversational Jenga.
John: Purely as a gaslighting event.
Merlin: Okay, for you and for them.
John: Well, no, I at least know what's happening.
John: But if...
John: Because I knew, I think, that I had awakened first that they were going to review that conversation and that they were going to wake up and find that it was a different conversation than they remembered last night.
John: Oh, wow.
John: You're getting in there.
John: And I did it for no good reason.
John: Just because I could.
John: Because I was reading it and I was like, I wonder what would happen if I just...
John: If I could just change this slightly.
John: And then I was like, oh, you can.
John: It doesn't change theirs, though, right?
John: No, no, it doesn't change what they said.
John: See, the thing is, I don't know.
John: You know Dan Benjamin.
John: You're familiar with Dan?
John: Yeah, we've done a podcast for seven years.
John: Oh, okay, okay.
John: I'm not familiar with your work.
John: But Dan is somebody – he's a young person, as you know.
John: He's got a young soul.
John: He's got a young soul, and he likes to – I realized he's one of those people that sits at a computer.
John: The responses come faster and more voluminous.
John: Yeah, but when he's texting with me, he will send me 15 small texts rather than one –
John: long text or even one medium text even one just concise text he finds a way to turn it into 15 separate texts okay which are like yes send let's send what if send you know this type of thing and i don't use i don't keep uh notifications on my phone it doesn't buzz it doesn't make sounds oh interesting
Merlin: uh because uh because of situations like this where like i'm on some threads where 15 old rock dudes will every once in a while find a picture of ken stringfellow and really want to talk about it yeah and it's nice that you can go in at least on the apple platform you can go in and uh shut off notifications for a given conversation oh i didn't know that click on yeah click at the top and give it a funny name if you want and then click on the i and you can see that you can uh
John: Oh, that's wonderful.
John: Thank you for telling me that, Merlin.
John: I'm going to do that in so many instances.
Merlin: John, have a better 2019.
John: Oh, my goodness.
John: I didn't realize.
John: It's real good to know.
John: I'm going there right now.
John: I'm not even going to wait until tomorrow.
Merlin: I bet you're going to find three or four you'd like a little break from.
John: Oh, sure are.
Merlin: So I go up here.
John: I go to info.com.
John: You guys really need me for this?
John: I go to hide alerts.
John: Oh, man, that's so good.
John: Wait a minute.
John: Will that hide also the little red dot that tells me that people have added to it?
Merlin: I believe it does.
Merlin: I think you only see it when you're inside the app.
Merlin: You'll see that it's on red.
Merlin: But you'll see a little crescent moon that says you're at peace now.
John: Oh, wow.
John: How lovely.
John: How lovely is that?
John: Oh, oh, I sing the body electric.
John: Yeah.
John: Anyway, so.
Merlin: Anyway, let's just say hypothetically you have certain friends in the world that send you.
John: Yeah, yeah.
John: It said like 40.
John: But the thing is, once I got the Apple Watch, of course, one of the benefits of the Apple Watch is that it does a little what it calls a haptic.
John: And someone asked me the other day, is that a word that Apple made up or not?
John: Haptic and taptic.
John: because no one ever used to say that word and now it's a word that we're i think haptic is when it buzzes because you did something and haptic is when it's saying to you hey hey hey over here but i'm not sure but i'm not sure but like i'll be driving in the car and then uh you know somebody for instance i don't know like just random person just a random person you happen to know a random person that you and i both might have been doing a podcast with for a long time separate podcasts
John: uh we'll say we'll send messages a lot of them in order and and my watch will freaking buzz off my off my arm like i'll drive off the road it causes pain and i'm just like what the you know like because because my you know my first instinct is always oh shit there's a fire at my daughter's school of course of course that's your first thought
John: yeah so so but but but the the ability to go into that conversation and take like every fifth just to like oh it's i feel like it's really a it's really a new level of gas lighting for me that's so small
Merlin: So just to be clear, though, I know when it comes to art, as you certainly know, as an artist, we don't have to look at intentionality or purpose or outcome.
Merlin: But when you're doing that, it's a performance for yourself.
Merlin: It's a gaslighting for yourself.
Merlin: It's a setting your watch forward 15 minutes kind of situation.
Merlin: You know what you're doing, but you can still appreciate the art.
John: Yeah, right.
John: I mean, I'm enjoying... You know, you don't want to gaslight somebody where you're genuinely...
John: Like in a relationship where they're asking themselves, am I crazy?
John: Am I the bad person in this relationship?
John: You've got to deploy that carefully.
John: Yeah.
John: But gaslighting as a form of friendship in terms of like, you know, one of the best gaslightings that you can do to somebody is to notice when a light bulb is burned out in their house and change it.
John: Oh, it's the opposite of the titular movie in play.
John: Right, right, exactly.
John: That's good.
John: You flip it around, you flip the gaslight, because I guarantee when a light bulb burns out, the person who lives there has noticed.
John: They just haven't gotten around to it.
John: Yes.
John: So if you go switch it out,
John: They're going to think, was it not burned out?
John: Was it just like the bulb was loose or something?
John: Why did the light come back on?
John: I used to do that all the time.
John: There was a light that was down in a stairwell that would burn out outside of a girl's apartment I knew.
John: And she was responsible for it.
John: But it would burn out and the stairs would be dark.
John: And so I would go change the light bulb.
John: It burned out because it was, I don't know why, the fixture was bad.
John: Or it was some kind of thing where it was too hot inside the glass and the bulb artificially shortened its life.
John: I would change her light bulb.
John: And then she would say, did you change the light bulb in my stairs?
John: And I would say, no.
John: Now, it wasn't a thing where it was scary to her.
John: Like these days, I think if you did something like that, the person would say, oh shit, someone is...
John: whatever stalking me but back then stalking didn't exist at least not it wasn't uh like normal people didn't feel like they were no it was more more adorable for sure it was something she was just like i just can't understand it i just loved that kind of thing i just can't understand it my daughter has been gaslighting her mother oh boy uh because uh she bought a um her mother bought a screen for the fireplace and the screen has two handles
John: And the handles are normally in the down position, but they can be in the up position.
John: Okay.
John: And every time I go over there for the last two weeks, her mother has said, were you over here?
John: Did you move the fireplace screen?
John: And I was like, no.
John: And she would kind of zoom in because I'm a renowned gaslighter.
John: She's like, are you sure?
John: I'm like, why would I come over in the middle of the night and move the fireplace screen?
John: She's like, I don't know.
John: It's just like,
John: The handles, I swear they were down.
Merlin: Oh, God.
John: Now they're up.
John: And I'm like, I know that it's easy to get spooked, but I don't think that's the type of thing.
John: That is the type of thing a ghost would do.
Merlin: Oh, that's classic ghost behavior.
Merlin: That would be my first thought.
John: Yeah, that's super ghost behavior, but it's not the type of thing that a person would do.
John: And she's like, oh, man.
John: So she walks over and she puts the handles down.
John: And then two days later, she's like, look, look, look, the handles are up.
John: I swear to you, I didn't touch it.
John: And I'm like, I didn't touch it either.
John: And she's like, and neither of us are thinking there's a seven and a half year old in that.
John: Oh my goodness.
John: We're both like, there's no explanation.
John: And eventually we were talking about it and it dawned on one of us like,
John: marlo isn't that a funny thing isn't it you assume that's just going to be a sweet precious angel you know what i mean have you been monkeying with the with the fireplace screen and she looks up from her archie comic book for two seconds and is like i don't know why why what's the big deal yeah maybe wow oh all right well problem uh mystery solved
Merlin: I did try to think for a while with my kid.
Merlin: Mostly... It's nice... If you're going to do a lot of experimenting on your child, I feel like it's a good idea to try a lot of it before they're five or so.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: Because, you know, they do a mind wipe around five or six where they forget everything they ever knew.
Merlin: Is that right?
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: Well, it's funny, you should say.
Merlin: Wikiwachi, one of my first...
Merlin: almost the earliest memory that I have which might be a Implanted memory for my family as I remember Slamming my finger getting slammed in a very heavy door outside the mermaid theater at wiki watchy.
Merlin: Oh Now wait a minute because I say that's why I can't finish unless there's a mermaid there I always assume.
John: I always assumed that you Earliest memories are in Ohio
Merlin: Well, we were visiting Florida at the time.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, good catch, good catch.
Merlin: We were visiting Florida.
Merlin: I don't know.
John: Visiting Florida, that's a thing.
John: When people that lived in Florida, when they talk about Florida, I never think, oh, before they lived in Florida, they visited Florida.
John: Yeah, the before times.
John: Because I never visited Florida until I was in my, well, the first time I ever darkened the door of Florida.
John: I was already 35.
John: Was it while touring?
John: Yeah, the first time I ever went to Florida was with Harvey Danger, but that was a fly-in fly-out.
Merlin: Oh, my goodness.
Merlin: Let's see.
Merlin: Let me guess.
Merlin: Let me guess.
Merlin: Let me guess.
Merlin: How many dates did you do?
Merlin: Do you remember?
Merlin: We did two shows.
Merlin: I'm going to say...
Merlin: Were they already pretty popular?
Merlin: Yeah, of course they were already pretty popular.
Merlin: So, Miami, right?
Merlin: Nope.
Merlin: Gainesville?
Merlin: Nope.
Merlin: Shit.
Merlin: Tampa Bay?
Merlin: St.
Merlin: Pete?
Merlin: Nope.
Merlin: Jacksonville?
Merlin: Nope.
Merlin: Oh!
Merlin: Tallahassee?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: Oh!
Merlin: Lutes?
Merlin: Plant City?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: Naples?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: Hang on, I've got a few more.
Merlin: West Palm Beach?
Merlin: Yes!
Merlin: No.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: What?
Merlin: !
Merlin: west palm beach that was a joke one that's funnier than lutes it's good city's got the strawberry festival no west palm beach the devil you say it was palm beach and did i ever say orlando you did not orlando west palm beach and orlando were the two places i've been those are two pretty florida places to go flew in played a rock show flew out
John: I remember we walked out from the hotel at one point and we were walking to the all-night Walmart because it was the only place that was open.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: And it was also, I had never been to a Walmart.
John: Oh, wow.
John: 35 years old.
Merlin: Your first Walmart was in Florida?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: That must have been so overwhelming.
Merlin: It was insane.
Merlin: You'd already been to a Costco probably, right?
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: Okay, okay.
John: I've been to a Costco, but we left the hotel.
Merlin: I still remember the first.
Merlin: I feel like the first time I went to a super Walmart was a mind blower.
Merlin: Well, so I think this was a super Walmart.
Merlin: Like it had the grocery store and the giant automotive section and the whole nine.
Merlin: Yes.
John: So we walked out of the hotel.
John: We were walking along a road.
John: I don't think there was a sidewalk because it had never occurred to anyone in that region to walk any place.
John: Don't need them in Florida.
John: I was walking along this road.
John: There was this kind of on either side of the road.
John: There were giant ditches like a ditch you could put a car in.
John: It was covered with some weird seagrass material that was not grass.
John: It was like thick, thick-bladed grass.
Merlin: So far, you've identified 85% of Florida.
John: And I'm walking along with a couple of the guys in Harvey Danger.
John: We're headed to this Walmart that we can see.
John: And the Walmart is so large.
John: It's like the Death Star.
John: Was it Jeff and Aaron?
John: It may have been Jeff and Aaron.
John: Yeah, that's a good group.
John: Oh, Jeff and Aaron couldn't stand each other.
John: It's so fun to hang out with the two.
John: At the time or ever.
John: oh i don't think ever but you know like early on i think they all were in that we're young and in a band i like that aaron he's all right very then very very quickly it was like i like that we're in a band yeah boy it's like didn't take long for their situation to get real different wow yeah it's complicated okay so so so harvey's danger are walking you can see this wall mark yes and and it seemed like it was um it seemed like it was close
John: but it was just that it was huge.
Merlin: It's like that Las Vegas effect.
John: Yeah.
John: We're almost there.
John: We're almost there, but it's just like, no, it just keeps getting bigger, but it's still far away.
John: But the whole way I was, and again, 35 years old, I was very, very,
John: vigilant looking out for crocodiles.
John: Crocodiles, alligators.
Merlin: Florida's kind of like Australia Junior.
Merlin: There's so much weird stuff that can get you there.
Merlin: They're alligators, though.
John: That's correct.
John: Yeah, gators, not crocodiles.
Merlin: Eye placement, and I'll say they have the squared-off snout rather than the pointy one.
John: Snared-off, there it is.
John: That's the one.
John: So I was looking all around and I don't – and the thing is I was with other people from Washington.
John: So there was nobody to say like whether or not there would be alligators where we were.
John: I don't – I still to this day don't know what the criteria are for an alligator to be in a ditch.
John: But we got to the Walmart and walked in the door and it wasn't just that it was enormous and that it was open at 2 o'clock in the morning and that it seemed to stretch on forever.
John: But at 2 o'clock, this was the most amazing thing.
John: This is the thing where Florida just – Florida planted a flag in me that I've never been able to – even lower to half-mast.
John: And it was that we walked in the door of the open all-night Super Walmart at 2 in the morning, and it was full of parents with kids.
Yeah.
Merlin: yeah that's that that is that is a strange thing well a lot of times people work strange hours you know you get paid you get your kids yeah don't yeah or i mean yeah but weird like uh to me a lot of like not just babies well for somebody your age especially not being a kid not having a kid yeah it is very jarring the first time you go to a walmart i remember visiting my mom and like that was that was where you went for everything the last time i visited my mom
Merlin: It's like where you go.
Merlin: It's like where you go.
Merlin: There's ample parking.
Merlin: They have those little, like, scooters you can ride around on.
Merlin: It's got everything that anybody could want and, like, probably low prices and open all night.
Merlin: Plus, they have, like, watermelons and tires.
John: Low prices, open all night, full of kids, alligators presumably all around it.
John: It was like a Florida eye opener.
John: And so bright.
John: So, so bright.
John: But so it never, growing up where I grew up, there's no nobody, I don't think, it was uncommon for people in my region to vacation in Florida.
John: That just wasn't where you were going to
John: That wasn't going to be your first place to go.
John: Right.
John: Because there was a California nearby.
Merlin: There's a great I mean, as you as you most certainly know, there's a huge affinity between the tri-state ish area like New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the Rust Belt, but especially that like northeastern corridor and.
Merlin: Florida, for a simple reason that a lot of those people would go there to vacation, but it's also just where a lot of people bought houses in the 40s, 50s, and 60s to retire in.
Merlin: They bought houses for, you know, $15,000, $20,000 then.
John: But, you know, and there's that, but it's also, and this is the great thing that I learned being on tour, you can drive from Ohio to Florida in less time than it would take you to drive from Seattle to Los Angeles.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, I-75.
Yeah.
John: I-75, that's right.
John: You get the bugs off your bumper and the bears off your tail.
Merlin: And 11 long-haired friends of Jesus in a chartreuse microbus?
John: Yeah, exactly.
John: You know, it's 16 hours, and you're going to bring that curse down.
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Merlin: Was it Big Enos and Little Enos?
John: Yeah, Big Enos and Little Enos.
John: But I'm looking here.
John: I'm looking here.
John: You want to guess?
John: Just guess.
John: Okay.
John: How much is a flight from Cleveland to Florida?
John: It's like Orlando?
John: Well, let's see here.
John: I'm just going to get in this a little deeper.
John: Okay.
John: Is it Delta?
John: Okay, let's say... Are you buying one seat or two?
John: Let's say Fort Myers.
John: How about from Cleveland to Fort Myers?
John: Round trip.
John: $430.
John: It is $61.
Merlin: What?
Merlin: Is that Spirit Air?
John: I don't know.
John: Holy crap.
John: It's Google Flights.
John: Google Flights.
John: Which is not a thing I knew about until right now.
John: It's not a thing I ever heard of until right now.
Merlin: That's like printing out your own business cards on Avery.
Merlin: With little scores so you can cut them off.
John: Oh, okay.
John: Oh, wow.
John: Weird.
John: You nailed it.
John: Spirit Airlines...
John: From Cleveland to Orlando, $103.
Merlin: I read an article.
Merlin: I don't know from Spirit Airlines, but I read an article.
Merlin: Libby Watson had an article about Spirit Airlines yesterday that put the fear of God in me.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: Like, you think you got it bad with Delta?
Merlin: Spirit sounds bad.
John: $99 from Cleveland to Tampa.
John: $99.
Merlin: You know they charge you for check bags and carry-on bags?
Oh.
John: You get charged for any kind of bag.
Merlin: You get carried on.
Merlin: You bring a satchel on, you get charged for it.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: Yep.
Merlin: And then they hide it all in this little fee thing down in the footer.
John: How much do you get charged for a carry-on bag?
John: Because if it was a $99 ticket, I think I'd pay $20 to carry on my bag.
Merlin: Well, it's emblematic of a larger...
Merlin: Nickel and diming type situation, right?
John: It's right.
John: Right, right.
Merlin: I see I told my mom I wanted to have a punk rock band called free beer She said something very sage and she said now now are you sure?
Merlin: That you says I was like, we'll put the flyers out and people see freebeer.com and she said well Are you sure that you would want the people who had come to see your rock band if it's called free beer?
Merlin: I mean Zing like Molly Ringwald dad says you know if you put out signals, you know people gonna pick up on that and
John: Well, I mean, the thing is what your mom didn't know.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: What the Duke boys didn't know.
Merlin: Ha ha ha ha ha!
Merlin: Now, wait a minute.
Merlin: The car is about to go over some body of water.
Merlin: It's midair, motion blur.
Merlin: And the balladeer jumps in.
John: What she didn't know was, yes, you did.
John: You did want the people that would come to a concert called Free Beer.
John: Because, of course you did.
John: What a great concert that would be.
John: It's all the Free Beer people are here.
Merlin: I thought about this last night.
Merlin: My family, very thoughtfully, they got me a great birthday present.
Merlin: Your current family, not your practice family.
Merlin: My current family, as far as I know.
Merlin: They got tickets to the domestic ballgame.
Merlin: And so we went to see the Warriors last night over there in Oakland.
Merlin: And it was really fun.
Merlin: But it's funny.
Merlin: There's lots about it that wasn't quite.
Merlin: It's my first professional NBA game I've been to.
Merlin: Serious?
Merlin: Yeah, professional basketball.
Merlin: First professional basketball game?
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: I've watched basketball three or four times a week on TV now.
Merlin: I did not know that.
Merlin: I'm not talking about it too much because it's super weird.
Merlin: Oh, wait, is this the thing that you're doing for Dubai Friday?
Merlin: No, no, it's for daddy.
John: It's all for daddy.
John: Wow, Bastic Ball.
Merlin: Yeah, the team's real good.
Merlin: And the pacing is... I turned to my lady at one point.
Merlin: I thanked them profusely because it was so sweet and so expensive.
Merlin: But I was like, it's amazing to sit here.
Merlin: And my daughter wasn't even bored.
Merlin: It's so exciting to watch.
Merlin: And I turned and I was like, you know...
Merlin: This is so different than watching a baseball game.
Merlin: A baseball game is like watching 14 to 16 very still people.
Merlin: wow shots fired yeah well it's a different kind of game it's all about story and stuff but um no but you know what's funny about it was there's a lot about that wasn't quite how i expected a lot of it was exactly how i expected there's a lot more booing than i would have liked i said to my daughter we're not a family that boos because oh that's true that's true don't boo don't boo one day i did try to start a little bit of beef with steph curry and the crowd was not having it oh dear you don't start beef with steph curry not not the oracle arena oracle i don't know what that means but yes
John: But I love that you say that's not who we are.
John: We don't boo as a family.
John: I like that.
John: I would be happy to talk about that.
John: Yes.
John: That's something that we say over here at this house, too.
John: This is not a thing that we do.
John: There are people who will stand in the center of a restaurant and make a
Merlin: any kind of scene we are not those people i'd love to talk about that okay so let me just close the bug on this all i was going to say was a la free beer and whatever i was referring to before free beer you got to be careful whose company you want to keep that's all i'm saying like yeah i did buy a couple very tasteful pieces of gear that i've had my eye on i had a very specific piece of gear that i wanted to get and i love what i got but i'm not going to be a guy who's always wearing warrior stuff no offense because i don't want you to think i'm that guy there was so wait a minute
John: Wait a minute.
John: You got a couple of pieces of warrior merchandise?
John: I did.
Merlin: Like a hat?
Merlin: No, no.
Merlin: My daughter got a hat.
Merlin: We got my daughter a hat, like all the boys at school have.
Merlin: What did you get?
Merlin: Like a G-string?
Merlin: They have a jersey that's very, very tasteful jersey that's kind of like a tribute to Chinese culture.
Merlin: It's got a cool little Chinese character on it.
Merlin: And I wanted a Kevin Durant, but I got a Steph Curry.
Merlin: That's fine.
Merlin: I really like Steph Curry, too.
Merlin: But it's a T-shirt.
John: Is it like three sizes too big, so you kind of look like a lovable little grizzled child?
Merlin: like like an emaciated child no just like here he comes but i didn't i didn't i mean there were that guy and they're just real like lump and proletariat and god love them and like there's just something which is weird considering how costly these goddamn seats are john you have no idea do you have any idea how costly it is to go to a game i have a sense of it yes it's a three-digit number
John: Oh, I didn't know that.
Merlin: We were up in nosebleeds, and it was three-digit number.
Merlin: Is it really?
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Oh, things have changed.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: So anyway, but a la Free Beer.
Merlin: I think it does, and I definitely want to get back to your We Don't Do That thing.
Merlin: I just wanted to say, like, you know, it was really fun.
Merlin: I had a good time.
Merlin: Some of the people were super nice.
Merlin: So I'm doing more standoffish than I expected.
Merlin: I greeted the person who sat next to me.
Merlin: I said, hello.
Merlin: And she looked at me like I was a crazy person.
Merlin: She just wanted to get back to her chicken, I guess.
Merlin: I thought that sports fans all were delighted to be with one another.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: But anyway, I think I want to be careful about the groups I choose to associate myself with.
Merlin: There's never been a better time to be more careful about the groups you want to associate yourself with.
John: You know, Rajneesh... Rajneesh... Talking about sexy Sadie or the guy with the compound?
John: The guy with the compound.
John: He used to, I think, send buses...
John: into oregon cities yep to get something to get voters yeah something yeah but it was didn't he attract him with something like a free bear sign oh interesting something like that i think it's a little bit of a grapes of wrath type situation oh like here come we're gonna yeah finally have a good job for you something like that boy that was a hell of a documentary
John: I have always felt, I didn't see the documentary.
John: I just remember this from my own years of thinking like, if a bus drove up to me on the streets of Portland and offered me free beer.
John: Depends, depends, depends.
John: I would, you know what it would be?
John: It would be context.
Merlin: Context clues.
Merlin: You got to read the, read the bus.
John: Yeah, I'd take a step on the bus.
John: I'd look it over.
Merlin: Is it okay if I look inside?
Merlin: And if they say no, walk away.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: But if I looked it over and it looked like a bunch of guys that like to party, I'd go, yeah, I can hang with these guys.
John: I mean, that's how I ended up taking the green tortoise so many times.
John: You step on, you look around, you go...
John: Anybody on here I wouldn't mind sharing a mattress with?
John: Is that a metaphor?
John: Yeah, I could see a couple of people that I wouldn't mind curling up with.
John: Green tortoise.
John: I'll get on the green tortoise.
John: You know, green tortoise, you used to be able to go from Los Angeles to Seattle for like $50.
John: It was a hippie bus line where they bought some old buses.
John: And they took out about half the seats in the back, and they put mattresses on the floor.
John: Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
John: Oh, no, no, no.
John: Or like no amount of money.
John: I don't even remember.
John: This is one of those things where somebody asked George Bush how much a gallon of milk is, and he was like, I don't know, $40, $400?
John: I don't remember what money was worth.
John: I don't remember what money was worth in 1990 or 1986.
John: It's hard to remember.
John: Was it 50 cents?
John: Was it $50?
John: Green tortoise.
John: But anyway, you would get on.
John: Sleeper coaches.
John: Yeah, but that's kind of a polite way of saying a bunch of mattresses on the back.
John: So you'd be in L.A.
John: and you'd be like... And the thing is, it was a little bit... It was not... I feel like it was fairly underground in that you would...
John: I don't remember.
John: There was some kind of situation where you would be standing somewhere and the green tortoise would pull up.
John: There wasn't a regular stop.
John: It was something where you called a phone number.
Merlin: It's like the night bus in Harry Potter.
Merlin: It just shows up when a wizard needs it.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: And so you'd throw your three paper sacks or whatever you're carrying your belongings in.
John: And then you'd get on and there was no way to be like, hey, how's it going?
John: And have the person next to you just like turn away because you were all on a long bus ride together.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: And so, you know, I did it many times.
John: And at least a couple of times I would wake up in the middle of the night, you know, to the sound of the road and there would be like
John: I would be spooning a girl I had just met, and there would be a girl spooning me.
John: We'd all just met, and we were like... Just think of the bugs.
Merlin: There must be so many bugs in there.
John: Oh, it was so buggy.
John: There were a couple of British girls that actually, when we got to Seattle one time, I had rented an apartment.
John: We got to Seattle and they were like, here we are in Seattle.
John: We don't know what's going on.
John: We don't know what to do.
John: And I was like, come stay with me.
John: And they were like, oh, that's wonderful.
John: We brought a couple birds home.
John: And then I think one of them ended up taking a pair of overalls that I had.
John: And she was like, they fit me well enough.
John: And then off they went.
John: That's cute.
John: Yeah, it was cute.
John: And it was very Green Tortoise.
John: It was a different time.
John: I bet she looked like a Dexie's Midnight Runner.
John: She so did and that was exactly what she was trying to do.
John: She tied a little handkerchief in her head.
Merlin: Oh, that's such a cute look.
John: That is such a cute look.
John: Somebody started playing violin music and she danced a little jig.
Merlin: Skinny girl and overalls, poor old Johnny Ray.
John: But yeah, so then those days, like the Everybody's Friends days, but see, I haven't been to a sporting event that wasn't a basketball game.
John: I can't even say the word Bastic.
Merlin: I know, I know.
Merlin: I feel so bad, but I can't stop.
Merlin: It's taking over our house.
Merlin: We always call it Bastic Bowl.
Merlin: Yeah, it's Bastic Bowl.
Merlin: Bastic Bowl.
Merlin: Sounds to me like you're going as a guest.
John: To sports events?
Merlin: For Bastic Ball.
Merlin: I mean, I don't see that.
Merlin: Let's be honest.
Merlin: The Oracle Arena is not the prettiest place in the world, but the Warriors do good at Bastic Ball.
Merlin: But, you know, so you think somebody else picking up the tab for these?
John: Well, so back in the 90s when the Seattle Supersonics were super...
John: And everybody loved them because they had Sean Kemp and they had, you know, we were famous for Bastic Ball.
John: Although we weren't, we never won anything, I don't think so, ever since 1979.
John: But I don't remember how many different things there are to win.
John: You know how in sports games, you win something and they hang a big banner up, but you didn't win everything.
John: You just won an intermediary thing.
John: Like, oh, we're going to the Final Four, and they hang a banner up.
Merlin: It's like the Democrats, where you don't win, but you overperform.
Merlin: You get a white ribbon.
Merlin: You get a ribbon of some kind, right.
John: And so the Supersonics did that a lot, and it was during the era when the grunge bands, I guess it was, I don't remember whether it was funny or ironic or what it was, but the hair metal bands that the grunge bands supplanted, I don't know if the hair metal bands were
John: openly like sports uh people but like pearl jam and the presidents of the usa and i think i don't know some of the other grungers were like sonics they were really into the sports teams that's a cool name too it's also the name of a cool northwestern band that's right well also the name and you know why the sonics were named the sonics i think because of boeing
Merlin: right because we were we were you were literally sonical now your team's gonna be the suns that's even better than utah jazz the washington irony the washington ironies i know i can't wait to see the logo it's just like you won't it just be a spider web just a gray ball it's a spider rabbit dusk yeah
Merlin: The Seattle Suns.
Merlin: Is that real?
Merlin: I heard that.
Merlin: Is that just a joke or is it true you guys might be bringing the Suns there?
John: The thing about Seattle sports is, you know, there are like 15 radio stations that just have people arguing about sports in Seattle.
Merlin: Yeah, it's like if you want to listen to AM radio in the South, it's always Jesus.
Merlin: And here it's all sports, sports, sports, sports and politics.
John: Because, you know, Jason Finn likes to yell about sports.
John: And I have said many times, like, Jason, you've really got a great
John: Well, a face for radio, but also a voice for radio.
John: Oh, he'd be so good.
John: Right.
John: And he loves to yell about sports and he knows all about sports.
John: And I said, why don't you go down, you know, for the last five minutes that you're still a famous person, why don't you go down to the radio station and say, I'm Jason Penn and I want a radio show about sports.
John: And he says.
Merlin: He sounds like he's riding the green tortoise.
John: He says there are 50,000 people in Seattle who know more about sports and are more excited to yell about them than me.
John: Wow.
John: And I'm like, that can't be true.
John: You're the one of all the people I know who likes to yell about sports the most.
John: And he's like, yeah, that is because you don't know any people that are part of this world.
John: But I know that I would be so outmatched.
Merlin: It's Dunning-Kruger.
Merlin: He knows enough to know what he doesn't know.
John: That's right.
Merlin: That's right.
John: And, you know, honestly, if the phone rang and somebody said, hey, John, would you be the host of a program where we yell about sports?
John: I'd say, sure.
John: Of course.
John: Of course I will.
Merlin: This is the top of your CV.
Merlin: You walk into every room like you belong there, and you are prepared to address any topic that is brought to you.
Merlin: That's absolutely right.
Merlin: I think that's part of your value proposition.
Merlin: I'm being dead fucking honest.
John: I would host a sports radio program in a second.
John: And I don't know whether it would be a quality sports radio program.
John: I think that some people would think it was.
Merlin: I think it would have your own little imprimatur.
Merlin: It would have your little twist to it.
Merlin: It might end up being about countries in Europe you haven't heard of, but it is ultimately kind of about sports.
John: You know, I've been thinking about this.
John: I think that what I need is... I know.
Merlin: Merry Christmas.
John: What do I need?
John: Is a place where...
John: I can be yelled at and it's fine with me.
John: Now, bear with me.
John: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: I'm listening.
John: Because there are a lot of places on the internet where people occasionally yell at me and I'm not fine with it.
John: Because they're yelling about me about things that I think I know more about than they do.
John: And so when somebody yells at me about a thing and I feel like I know more about it than they do, then it affects me.
John: I cannot just walk away.
John: I end up having to tweet, fuck you, loser, at them.
John: Which I've decided is kind of my new, that's my new response right before I mute somebody.
John: Mute, sure.
John: My last tweet to them is, fuck you, loser.
John: Or no, it's ha, exclamation point, fuck you, loser.
Merlin: Fuck you, comma, loser.
John: Oh my goodness.
John: And then mute.
John: So they can't reply.
John: Mute.
John: It's a little bit gaslighty.
John: It's something.
John: It's something.
John: It's not the right thing, but it's what I'm doing.
John: Okay.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: You're trying on ideas, like a sports coat.
John: Yeah.
John: I mean, it's not going to be my permanent thing, but just in the last few days.
John: Sure.
John: Fuck you, losers.
John: Send mute.
John: You should have John Syracuse to write you a little script that could do that for you.
John: But what I think is interesting is that if I had a sports program, the whole point would be people screaming at me and I wouldn't care.
John: And that would feel...
John: Really, I think freeing because they'd be they'd be yelling at me about a thing that they knew way more about than I do and they'd be so mad that I was hosting a sports show.
John: Because they'd be rightfully mad.
John: Why is this guy hosting a sports show?
Merlin: They'd be double mad.
Merlin: They'd also be mad just because you're not qualified.
Merlin: They'd be mad at what you're getting wrong and mad that it's not them that's there.
John: That's right.
John: And they'd be so mad, and I think it would be really healthy for me.
John: It's a safe space.
John: Well, because I know a lot of people who are either generally happy people or are people that don't, that when strangers yell at them,
John: They somehow in their own mind, they're able to...
John: identify those people as strangers who don't matter to them, and so them yelling has no consequences.
John: They're just people.
John: Everybody's got an opinion.
John: Yeah, that's just somebody else who's yelling at me.
John: What do I care?
John: They're using angry language, and I'm not interested.
John: But, you know, me, I take it all.
John: I take it all in.
John: I take it all very personally.
Merlin: You still do that.
John: You still do that.
John: I grind on it.
John: I grind, grind, grind.
John: You steam.
John: And...
John: And then I like – well, I think the only solution is, oh, I just have to not be on the internet.
John: I can't be on the internet.
John: It's too bad.
John: It's too much.
John: I don't –
John: and then little by little i creep back on and then pretty soon i'm like i'm tweeting you loser or i'm ha you loser send mute and then it's like oh this is bad i just should not be on the internet yeah but what i need i think is to go over to sports internet and be over there and say like how many touchdowns in basketball or whatever it is that non-sports people think is funny yeah
John: And then the sports people are like, that's not even fucking funny.
John: It wasn't funny 25 years ago when we first heard it.
John: But then they love to yell.
John: They love to yell at somebody.
John: And I would be over there just like taking all this heat.
John: And that would be good.
John: It would be good for me.
John: It's existential shitposting.
John: But I don't want to go over there just to antagonize them.
John: That's why I think the sports show.
Merlin: Anywhere that you do not have a long and deep relationship with the topic area.
Merlin: If it's something where you don't know a lot about it and you know you don't know a lot about it, you'd be okay getting yelled at.
Merlin: Crafts, like home crafts, could be like knitting.
Merlin: I don't think craft people yell as much as sports people.
Merlin: Craft people can be very passionate.
John: um i have gone on etsy a few times i've looked and i've seen and i'm like oh yeah you could make a living making wallets over here and then i then i forget etsy exists for a while and then i go back pubes yeah there's a lot going on there well and i think i i bought a couple of wolf masks at one point from etsy and it was a positive experience okay okay in fact i think there was someone from etsy someone from etsy corporate who listened to this show
John: who sent me an email one time and said, I'm vice president of yarn balls over here at Etsy.
Merlin: If you ever want.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: We did.
Merlin: We interact with a techie Etsy.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: If you want to do something over on Etsy, you just let me know.
John: And I was like, I'm not making any wolf masks.
John: And I think she said they don't have to be wolf masks.
John: And I said, what?
John: And then, I don't know, I probably didn't reply to the last email, although I had a wonderful exchange with them.
John: But yeah, I feel like if I was on sports and people were yelling at me, they would feel better because they know more about it than me.
John: And that's a big part of being a sports fan is knowing more about it than other people.
John: It's probably even more so than politics.
John: Your whole interaction with other people is to say,
John: Uh, you don't know what you're talking about.
Merlin: Well, it's like kind of like a comic guy, camera store guy, record store guy, similar kinds of things.
Merlin: Comic book guys are like that.
Merlin: Um, they can be a little bit hostile toward, uh, other readers.
Merlin: But, but, but why?
Hmm.
Merlin: It's canon.
Merlin: Uh, I don't, I don't know why.
Merlin: I don't know why, but it's why it's why, for example, like, do you ever go to a camera store back in the day?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I mean, it was always a pretty hostile experience for me.
John: Oh, sure.
John: They talk so far down to you that you feel like a little worm.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Or like indie rock record store guy.
Merlin: You know, I mean, like not everybody, not Nabeel, but, you know, people who work for Nabeel probably.
Merlin: But, um, yeah.
John: The early days of indie rock, almost all of the indie rock photographers that I knew were, were ladies.
Yeah.
Merlin: You got that Autumn DeWild.
John: Would you count her?
John: Autumn, absolutely.
Merlin: She's very good.
John: She's very, very good.
John: Laura Musselman and Elizabeth Weinberg.
John: These were all indie rock photographers that were friends.
John: And they would recount these stories of going into the camera store.
John: And it was like children pull up a chair or like sit around the campfire while I tell you the story of how I was treated at the camera store.
John: And it's like, go, go, go.
John: Tell me more.
John: Tell me more.
John: And, you know, they would walk in and they're just young, first of all, and girls, second of all, and they want to buy a thing.
John: Like a whatever it was, right?
John: The dripping like condescension that would come from from the men behind the counter.
Merlin: Oh it you could fill volumes My favorite not a meme but one of my favorite Twitter things to happen is when some guy Dresses down a woman about how she knows a little about something.
Merlin: She's like, yeah, I've worked at JPL for 25 years So yeah, isn't that that's one of those I love those I love those and what is one of the people I would say I just witnessed a murder
Merlin: It's so good.
John: But I don't understand how that could translate to comic books.
John: Aren't they all – isn't it all just sort of right there on the page or is it like, oh, you don't know what Wilberforce's inner motivations are?
John: Yes.
John: Yeah, that's it.
John: It's part of it.
John: It's part of it.
Merlin: It's you know, it's I don't know Wilberforce as well as I know Wilberforce Not gonna not gonna be drawn in I'm not gonna be drawn in so you're you're looking for places that where you could go and it would be an environment where you would not take it As we say from mr. Show you wouldn't take it personal and make it personal It would be something we go.
Merlin: You know, you're right.
Merlin: I don't know if I call about this
John: No, I would never say I'm right because that would make it not fun for them.
Merlin: No, no, I'm saying you're saying to them, you're right.
Merlin: You're right.
Merlin: I don't know much about the Splash Brothers.
Merlin: I shouldn't have said anything.
John: No, I would never say that.
Merlin: You wouldn't say that.
John: I would say what?
Merlin: Oh, I see.
Merlin: You're talking about basketball.
Merlin: This is training for you, you're saying.
John: I wouldn't care.
John: I'd be gaslighting them.
Merlin: I see.
Merlin: I see.
Merlin: Okay.
John: You know what I mean?
John: I do.
John: I would be fighting them because that's what they were looking for, but I wouldn't have any skin in the game.
John: Yep.
John: Like whether I won or lost wouldn't matter to me.
John: Whereas if somebody wants to yell at me about something that I think I know about – The Habsburgs.
John: The Habsburgs.
John: Well, you know, what I've discovered doing that war movie podcast is I don't know half as much about the Habsburgs as –
Merlin: as the craziest fanboy hapsburg fanboy why do people tune into a comedy podcast about movies and it's just it's so it's it's so odd to me to make anything i feel like i don't know i got a lot of theories about things including i have a lot of theories about podcasts that uh yeah it's just my own feelings about it but like
Merlin: I feel like whenever you go into... If you're starting from scratch with something, any kind of project, it helps to have a variety of facets to it.
Merlin: There should be something somewhat topical.
Merlin: And I don't mean about the news, but I mean it should be...
Merlin: And I've covered this ground for over a dozen years now in talks and stuff.
Merlin: But I feel like there should be a topic and a voice.
Merlin: There should be like, who is it that's saying this about this kind of thing?
Merlin: Ideally, the topic should be something relatively specific.
Merlin: Like saying, I do a podcast about movies that's funny.
Merlin: And it's like, wow, okay, great.
Merlin: We could really use one of those.
Merlin: You go in and you say, like I always used to say, I'm not going to do a podcast about Star Wars.
Merlin: I'm going to do a podcast about Ewoks.
Merlin: Or whatever.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Zoom in.
Merlin: But it's going to have this kind of voice to it.
Merlin: But then you have to also decide, I think an important axis a lot of people get wrong is sort of starting out, evolving, and arriving at the level of engagement with your audience, or what I call the outside world in my theory of podcasts.
Merlin: How much of the outside world is allowed into what you're doing?
Merlin: And for a lot of people, that's the hugest part of what they do.
Merlin: And like on YouTube, there's all the thanking of my Patreon people and da-da-da-da and on and on until it's just not my kind of show.
Merlin: I like the kind of show where the hosts are very circumspect about how much of the outside world is allowed in.
Merlin: Only they get to decide what's brought into the world.
Merlin: So, you know, where am I going with all of this?
Merlin: I think you could take all of that advice and all of those angles and you could come up with something very, very interesting.
Merlin: You think so?
Merlin: Yeah, I do.
Merlin: I do, and I think it's good practice for you.
Merlin: It's like a virtual reality Twitter.
Merlin: You can go somewhere, and you won't feel the pain in the same way that you would on Twitter.
Merlin: You could do it on Twitter, but it's like you're doing it on fake Twitter.
Merlin: You're doing it on sports Twitter.
Merlin: Sports Twitter.
Merlin: Sports Twitter, you're being somewhat inoculated.
Merlin: But then, of course, what's going to happen?
Merlin: They're going to go, and they're going to look at your profile and go, what's that?
Merlin: They're going to do it in that voice, too, which is kind of the worst part.
John: I don't want to get yelled at in sports Twitter or in real Twitter.
John: How can you work toward it not bothering?
John: you yeah do you want to do you want it not to bother you do i want it not to bother because i think that that's first principles clarice do you want it not to bother you or is it bothering you part of who you are no bothering me is not who i am or it's not the bothering it is do i how invested am i in being
John: Correct.
Merlin: And the answer is seen as being correct.
John: Well, no, I don't care how I'm seen.
John: I believe I'm correct.
John: Like I because I'm trying to I'm trying to help.
John: But if you're correct, if you're correct, then why do you respond?
John: Because you need to be seen as being correct.
John: No, no, no, no.
John: Because I want them to get better.
John: Oh, you're sharpening like a knife.
John: Yeah, like, I'm not trying to, I don't care, like, I'm not right because I want to be puffed up and wearing a hat that says he's right.
John: I want to make the world a better place.
John: Okay, okay.
John: I want the other person to stop being wrong, and then the problems of the world would diminish by there being one less person that's wrong.
John: That is very troubling, right?
John: I mean, that is a thing that means that I will never be... That's a lot to expect of yourself.
John: Well, yeah.
Merlin: Do you know that's a lot to expect of yourself?
John: Well, yeah, but it is.
John: But how do I stop...
Merlin: how do i stop and go back to like well the world is all fucked up and i can't do anything about it so i have an indirect answer and this is something that i gleaned from reading what other people have said about this topic but there was a time in my life where i was getting a lot of people communicating with me about a lot of different things and it was increasingly less anything that directly did anything good for me compliments are nice but a lot of times they were compliments couched in like can you do this thing for free or whatever oh i
Merlin: or it could just be people who are being nasty but there's a lot of email that if i answered those emails the way that it asked to be answered i would never do another thing my entire life and so i looked at like people who are busier and more successful than me but a lot of people who are like you know writers novelists and they would they basically reached a place in life where they said look i think neil gaiman in particular neil gaiman in particular probably said this but somebody said look
Merlin: I can either answer emails or I can make novels.
Merlin: Now, you know, and I thought that was such an interesting way to look at it in the sense of, and I had a twist on this, but I think you have to start by going like, I'm going to be selective about where I put my attention and effort for these kinds of things, because I can't afford to have 10,000 different conversations in 10,000 different closets for the rest of my life.
Merlin: That doesn't help anybody outside that closet.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And I get real pulled in with this other person who has a lot more time and interest than me.
Merlin: You know, it's like fighting a frat boy or a pig.
Merlin: And I think the same is true, can be true in public, which is like, I can't fight every battle with everybody, but I can do this in a way that's useful to people.
Merlin: Like if a bunch of people ask a question on Twitter, I'm more than happy, I'll do the occasional quote tweet, which I think is usually a little bit of a dick move.
Merlin: But I'll do the quote tweet thing with my answer in it, because several people have asked that, and they can see that was where the question came from.
Merlin: What's the quote tweet thing?
Merlin: Well, I mean, okay, so on Twitter, when you respond to somebody, there's two basic ways, basic built-in ways you can respond.
Merlin: One is to hit the at button.
Merlin: Somebody says, oh, hey, I heard you talking about Spider-Man.
Merlin: Where can I find more stuff about Miles Morales?
Merlin: And I can hit the at button and say, hey, good question.
Merlin: You can go look at this.
Merlin: Now, if another person has that question...
Merlin: They're very unlikely to have seen my response because they probably don't follow that person They might not know what the context for that was so a lot of people I know it's not a huge dick move It's a little bit of a dick move but like you do the quote tweet So you quote what the person said to you and write your response above it and you're basically you're kind of addressing that person
Merlin: But I feel like that's a little bit of a stage whisper to everybody who follows you when you do that, rather than actually responding to the person.
Merlin: The benefit is, though, many more people are likely to see it.
Merlin: Not everybody.
Merlin: Not everybody's going to bother to check whether you've answered the question before.
Merlin: But, you know, hakuna matata, let go and let God.
Merlin: I can't solve all these problems.
Merlin: If there's a thing I'm excited about,
Merlin: and somebody asked me about it, I for damn sure want to tell people more information, especially if lots of people want that.
Merlin: And if I do that, to go back to the previous example, if I do that one email at a time, I'll lose my fucking mind.
John: Oh, sure.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: You can't do that.
Merlin: So what do you do?
Merlin: You're going to write some FAQs and point people there?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Come back in six months and let me know how well that worked.
John: Well, but here's the thing, Merlin.
John: You are somebody that people turn to for information, right?
John: Nobody ever, anybody that asks me a question, there's never someone else that has the same question.
John: hmm every single question to me is you know usually starts off like i've been seeing my girlfriend for eight years and or you know what i mean like they're they're always it's always something where they want to talk about or or they want to reference some kind of political moment or they're replying to a tweet uh that i put out there as a as a humor tweet but they're replying angrily because i'm an idiot
John: And you are somebody who could say, like, I've answered this question 40 times.
John: Here's the same answer.
John: I'm just going to pin this to the top of my thing.
John: Right.
John: But I don't have any kind of nobody comes to me as a I'm not like a font of of information.
John: It's something you're a font of opinion.
John: Yeah.
John: Interpretation.
John: I don't know.
John: Maybe.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: All I'm trying to say is like, okay, so let me just state the obvious here, which is if or when you get involved in an argument on Twitter, what that mainly does is take your increasingly brighter beam and point it back at that person, which makes a way of like calling people out and make them look like a dick.
Merlin: I try to do that with
Merlin: relatively not too often.
Merlin: But it also really just amplifies the fact that you're arguing with somebody that you don't know.
Merlin: When you point that beam back at them, this 15-follower account, no offense, who's trying to start some beef with you, you take your very powerful light and you point it at them, and now people just notice you're a guy who argues.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: One is one who argues.
Merlin: And that's why I say, I think you have to deploy it.
Merlin: I, for me, I would choose to deploy that with some care where somebody's just like throwing tomatoes.
Merlin: It's like, that's your, you're entitled to just like, you know, yell at me or whatever.
Merlin: But like the worst thing for me would be to engage in that.
Merlin: personally personally yeah well no it's the worst thing for me too well but like it sounds like you have your reasons right it's just not really not good reasons you know yeah it's just it makes me it gets me all wound up i'm like man i gotta go cook a spatchcock chicken i'm gonna get in an argument with this guy and like have to keep checking in to see if i got dunked on it's like oh no i want to go make my spatchcock where did the phrase dunked on come from
John: uh dunking on somebody i think uh the i work at jpl i've worked at jpl for 20 years is a kind of dunk oh for sure i mean i understand what it is i just don't know like there was i never heard that phrase before and then that context uh well i mean i've heard it in the basketball contest yeah basketball the guys uh the guys on friendly fire the podcast uh war movies that we were talking about
John: They use dunked on all the time, and I'd never heard it before.
John: And I was like, oh, you know, that's a good way of describing being dunked on.
John: But it was like one of those, it was a turn of phrase that appeared out of nowhere, kind of like right on or totally or whatever, a thing that happened or whatever even or whatever.
John: It was a thing that came out of nowhere.
John: And now having heard it from you, like I identified it as a thing that was coming from these youths.
John: But then hearing you say it, I'm like, oh, now I guess we just say dunked on.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: I think it's up there with trolling.
Merlin: You troll people and then you dunk on them.
Merlin: You troll them and then you dunk on them.
Merlin: I'm not trying to help, John.
John: It's like a fishing metaphor with a Bastic Ball metaphor.
Merlin: Yeah, it's like the fish that saved Pittsburgh, starring Gabe Kaplan.
Merlin: It's a lot like that if you think about it.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I don't know.
John: Oh, fishy, fishy, fishy, fishy.
Merlin: Where did he go?
Merlin: Went wherever I did go.
Merlin: Merry Christmas.
Merlin: Happy Christmas.
John: Merry Christmas.