Ep. 329: "Useful Hippie"
John: Hello.
Merlin: Hi John.
John: Hi Merlin.
Merlin: How's it going?
John: So good.
John: Yeah, I just had to fix the internet.
Merlin: Oh, you did that all by yourself, huh?
John: Yeah, well, you know, I don't know if you knew this, but the internet's broken.
Merlin: The internet is broken.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Not broken enough, if you ask me.
John: Oh, see, you're one of those Bay Area disruptors.
Merlin: I have a slide deck right here I'd like to show you.
John: Slide?
John: Are you going to disrupt the internet?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: We're going to change the way people think about being sad.
John: What I realized about the way the Internet is broken is it's broken all the way down.
John: Oh, it's just broken.
John: It's just broken all the way down.
Merlin: Say more about that.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, you know, I was just so what happened.
John: What had happened was.
John: There were some movers in here.
John: Did you know they were going to be there?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I mean, you know, I figure there's time.
Merlin: You just want some company.
John: You call them some movers.
John: There's this.
John: So yesterday was one of those days where I called a couple of different service people.
John: I've had those days.
John: Those are rough days.
John: Some of them came and some didn't.
John: But the guys that are very consistent, there's this family of dudes from the Marshall Islands.
John: who have over the years been like just really great like call up anytime you need like four guys four really big guys to come and just just do whatever you you know like take apart an airplane or yeah or uh you know like deal with a like a
John: A bull that got out of its pasture.
John: This type of stuff happens around here.
Merlin: So you call SOM if you need some stuff done with your trim and your tiles.
Merlin: But these guys come in.
Merlin: It's like hiring construction equipment.
Merlin: They come in and reliably make a big problem go away.
John: Yeah, and Ben, who's the oldest of them, who claims that every single one of the men, and it's always different.
John: It's always six different guys.
John: They're all his nephews.
John: And I believe they're all his nephews.
John: He's like, man, every time, you know, every time a new generation of kids grows up in the Marshall Islands, they all come here and work for me.
John: And I was like, a whole generation?
Merlin: It's like a feeder country for the moving industry.
John: But so they were here yesterday.
John: They were moving stuff around.
John: And
John: They're a little bit of a blunt instrument.
John: Do you have to give very clear directions?
John: Well, moving, it turns out, that's a set of skills.
John: That's a particular... You can be a good...
John: You can be great at moving stuff around, but moving someone from one house to the other is like you have to have a different set of skills.
Merlin: Based on my experience with movers, I'm going to tell you what I know about movers.
John: You haven't moved in a long time.
Merlin: But I've had cause to have things moved.
John: Sure.
Merlin: I'm going to tell you what I know about this, and then I'm going to let you finish.
Merlin: But here's what I know about movers is that good movers are...
Merlin: They are – well, tireless for one thing.
John: She's a good mover.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Tireless.
Merlin: They are usually pretty good at following orders.
Merlin: But the thing that always shocks me because I lack this skill except when I see movers doing it and that makes me think I should have this skill –
Merlin: is that they think in three dimensions.
Merlin: Everything is Tetris for them.
Merlin: It's three-dimensional Tetris.
Merlin: So they can utilize the inside area of the couch to wind around a corner and then put it up into the air to get up and down staircases.
Merlin: But you know what I'm saying?
Merlin: They do the most appalling things with being able to move things.
Merlin: It's absolutely mind-blowing.
Merlin: But you do have to provide very clear instructions, and you have to understand that they are essentially bull mastiffs in jumpsuits, blah, blah, blah.
John: Well, this team, my like bull wranglers, they have not mastered all of that.
John: So, for instance, yesterday in moving stuff around, we got a couple of holes in the...
John: Well, you don't want that.
Merlin: You don't want that.
John: A hole in a door and a hole on the ceiling.
John: I might have been responsible partly for the one on the ceiling.
John: But one of the things they did.
Merlin: Were you on your mini tramp?
John: How did you make a hole in your ceiling, John?
John: Well, things are getting moved around.
John: Everybody's excited.
John: The music's playing.
John: The beat is pumping.
John: And pretty soon, you know, the closet door comes off and then there's a hole in there.
Merlin: You didn't actually discharge your weapon or anything.
John: No, no, no.
John: Okay, good.
John: All right.
John: I only use bladed weapons, as you know.
John: That's a good point.
John: Anyway.
John: You're not a cleric.
John: At one point, they were moving stuff around, and they sheared...
John: the cable connection off the wall.
Merlin: Oh, the coaxial cable coming out of the wall?
Yeah.
John: Oh, shit.
John: So no matter what else you want to say about the internet, no matter how bad it is, there was a guy on Facebook yesterday who left a post on a fan page for all the great shows saying that
John: Although he hated me on this one show, it was really nice to see me get my ass handed to me on this other show that he also listened to.
John: And then this third show of mine that he also listens to, this other thing happens that he also hates.
Merlin: So he took the time to break that down for you.
John: Well, but I was also like, you sure are listening to a lot of shows where the only common denominator is me.
Merlin: considering how mad you are about me from his pov it's like it's like deciding to eat a plate of dog shit every day just to show how bad it tastes i'm not sure why a person would spend like four hours a week listening to me if he felt so strongly there i understand doing it once i don't understand doing it on the reg i honestly do i legit i understand the concept of what is called hate watching
Merlin: I can understand there's people I follow on Twitter just because they're a basket case, but that takes a real minimum of effort.
Merlin: I don't understand listening to hours of podcasts a week just because you find somebody not entertaining.
John: Well, I wonder whether it is just that this is a person who is there's something else going on.
John: Maybe they love me.
John: anyway he's fighting it yeah all of that notwithstanding on the off chance that he listens to this program is there any special message you'd like to send to him oh no no no no okay no i would like the messages to be very general general messages of aloha to all you're so good but uh what's crazy is that all of that him out there in the world
John: Because it truly is a hymn.
John: Surely is a hymn.
John: Yeah.
John: I didn't need to ask.
John: Everything I'm doing, all of you and me, the whole universe, as far as I know you, I haven't seen you in a long time.
John: I haven't seen you in a couple of months.
John: You might not even really exist anymore.
John: You might be a bot.
John: But it all has to go through a coaxial cable.
John: It goes through an Ethernet cable to a dingus, which is connected to a dingus, which goes through...
John: coaxial cable into the wall which was installed by a guy who like was showing me the back of his butt the whole day and it goes out to a phone pole that is owned by comcast yeah and that goes through another dingus like it can't this can't be it this cannot be real this can't even the sewers are more
John: are better managed.
Merlin: Are you, I wonder, I'd say as much as you can for OPSEC reasons, but I wonder if you're in a position similar to what I'm in where there are options for non-coaxial cable if your residence accommodates it, but I have a single choice for getting coaxial cable internet, and that is called Xfinity by Comcast.
John: I also have only one choice.
John: None of the other internet service providers, I mean, probably someone can find my house just by
John: figuring out which house in the city all the other options get very proximate to without going over, right?
John: So all the Venn diagrams are all overlapping and that right in the center, there's one house that isn't covered by anybody by Comcast.
John: And you know, when I was running for office, I really made a big push for Seattle to start thinking about internet as a public utility.
John: And I think it's, you know, around the country, there are lots of different movements.
John: Some places have it.
John: It's not that hard.
John: It should be a public utility.
John: And I know right now there are all these internet libertarians listening to the program because we're very popular with them.
John: And they're saying, we're saying, oh, yeah, why don't you make it like the government?
John: The government will do it efficiently.
John: Well, go screw yourselves.
Merlin: Sounds like you've had a rough weekend.
John: The government will do it better.
Merlin: Well, but like similar to utilities, just to pivot a little bit, is not every – how do I put this?
Merlin: Not every dish that you boil with water will be delicious.
Merlin: Not every dish that you boil with water will be delicious.
Merlin: Well, I don't love boiled food.
Merlin: Put a fork in that.
Merlin: And not every single appliance that you run with electricity will produce the results that you want, but you damn sure want to have water and electric in your house.
Merlin: You do not want your electric to be sheared away simply because there's this horrible, horrible man, I assume, on Reddit, uh...
Merlin: And no, you need that pipe, buddy.
Merlin: You need the pipe.
John: Yeah, you need the pipe.
John: You need to take another hit off the crack pipe.
John: No, hash pipe.
John: What's the band that you love so much?
John: Hash pipe.
John: Oh, you're making a Weezer joke.
Merlin: It's a hash pipe.
Merlin: I saw a video the other day of somebody offering someone a vape, a series of people a vape at a party, but it was Nintendo Remote, and it was really funny.
Merlin: Lol.
Merlin: Watching girls at a party take a hit off a Wiimote is pretty, pretty funny.
John: Wiimote.
John: Where's the carb?
John: Get me the Wiimote.
John: Wiimote.
John: Wiimote.
John: No, everything is awful.
Merlin: So are you using your wireless internet connectivity?
John: No, you know what I did?
John: So as everyone, and I'm speaking for everyone now,
John: I had a giant bin full of cables.
John: Now, not speaking for everyone, as a musician, I have 40 giant bins full of various cabling.
John: I could set up...
John: a 24-track studio in my house just out of cables.
John: I wouldn't even need the board.
John: I could just touch the cables together, and it would be fully automated 24-track studio.
Merlin: That's amazing that you have all of that right there ready to go.
Merlin: Any kind of cabling you need to make a full, like a Todd Rundgren-style studio, you could make out of cables today if you needed to.
John: I could make it out of cables.
John: That's right.
John: I could make a sling that a...
John: That a Bell helicopter could lift a whale.
John: Wow.
John: Out of just quarter inch cables alone.
John: That's amazing.
John: Yeah, let alone XLRs and like MIDI cables.
Merlin: You're talking about mono quarter inch.
Merlin: Like you could make an army of guitars that could like literally lift like a whale.
John: I lift a whale.
John: That's right.
John: And over the years, of course, like anyone who has ever lived, I had a whole bunch of these coaxial cables of various different lengths.
John: Every time somebody from the cable company comes, they say, oh, all these old cables don't work anymore.
John: Because apparently coaxial is the most vulnerable of all systems.
John: Oh, I got a story about that.
Merlin: So I had Bach.
Merlin: Basically my internet had been acting crazy for, for every time Comcast came to quote unquote, fix my internet, it would eventually get worse.
Merlin: And finally I got the one useful guy who came out and said, I have no idea who did this, but they have added so many yards of unnecessary coaxial cable to this, like, like, like layers of the city of Rome that basically my signal was so degraded that it couldn't make it up two stories.
Merlin: And he basically, he took out like a quarter of a mile of coaxial cable and then my internet worked.
Merlin: You don't always get the good guy.
Merlin: It's insane, right?
Merlin: Yeah, you know, you frequently don't get the good guy.
Merlin: They're all equally confident.
John: That's right.
John: You don't sometimes get the good guy.
John: Yeah, you get the guy that lays a quarter of a mile of extra cable, and then the other guy takes it out.
John: My house, when I bought this, my house had six different televisions in it.
John: There was a television in every bedroom.
John: Like Ellis Cooper.
John: That's so odd.
John: They were just people that liked television.
John: And I think it had been a rooming house.
John: So it was like every person in the house went to their own room and watched TV in the middle of the night.
John: Or maybe even in the early part of the night.
John: I don't know.
John: I didn't live here.
John: Sure, you couldn't tell.
Merlin: It would be hard to tell.
John: But the outside of the house is wrapped in coaxial cable.
John: in order to get it from one location to every room in the house it's wrapped like a particle accelerator it's wrapped like pictures that you see of the of the large had drawn collider like like like windings on a humbucker yeah that's exactly right there's wire all over there all over this except it has literally the opposite effect
John: Yeah, it does.
Merlin: It's an analog format.
Merlin: Like even with these things, in my case, I had gone out and bought like amplifiers to be able to amplify the signal.
Merlin: If they literally wrap your house like a Seymour Duncan, it's not going to work.
John: they sold me some amplifier too and i was like really you guys yeah really an amplifier that's your answer yeah they didn't sell it to me it was part of you know it's all they sold it to you in a larger sense which is even worse uh but uh so at some point in the recent months and this always is the thing that happens right as soon as you get rid of your uh wire cutters you need to cut a wire
John: Uh, wherever this bin was of like 25 year old coaxial cable, I was like, this is never, this doesn't help me to have, this is not Aloha.
John: Right.
John: Yeah.
John: And so I got rid of it.
John: So now I'm wandering around the house.
John: I've got a sheared off coax cable and I'm like, are you serious?
John: This house is practically made of coax cable and I can't find a six foot length of it.
John: Jesus.
John: And then eventually I was like, wait a minute.
John: Behind the couch that's in the in the panic room underneath the piano.
John: But, you know, betwixt the fireplace and the and the monk hole.
John: Yeah.
John: And I pulled that couch out.
John: And sure enough, there was a four foot length of coax just like fastened to the wall going nowhere.
John: Yeah.
John: And I did it.
John: I came over here.
John: I flimmed with the Jim Jam.
John: Yes.
John: And all the connections were broken, but they all work now.
John: Listen to me.
John: I'm on the internet with you.
Merlin: Hang on.
Merlin: Hang on.
Merlin: So I don't want to get too deep in the weeds here, but the thing that was sheared off was mainly the dingus at the end.
Merlin: You needed to re-put a dingus?
Merlin: Or what got sheared?
John: Well...
John: The coupling on both ends got sheared so that I had... Oh, but it was... I'm sorry.
Merlin: It was the actual cable once it was out of the wall.
Merlin: It was not the connection in the wall.
Merlin: That's so much... Okay, it's so much better.
Merlin: But you did something miraculous.
Merlin: You just recondominiumed your house.
Merlin: You got rid of a bunch of coax.
Merlin: And then over here, back in the monk hole, you found a piece of cable.
Merlin: That's amazing.
John: That's right.
John: Secret cable.
Merlin: Secret cable.
Merlin: Do you wonder how many more might be there somewhere?
Merlin: They say for every spider you see, there's 17 spiders near you.
Merlin: That's right.
John: For every coax cable you see.
John: This is why I used to put cigarettes over all the doors.
John: It's the same thing.
John: You just put coax in all the... You put a little piece of coax in every coax slot in case you need it later.
Merlin: That's really smart.
Merlin: And it finally paid off.
Merlin: And then you forget about it.
Merlin: And then when you need it, like you're giving yourself a little treat from the past.
John: That's right.
John: That's right.
John: I mean, if I was a rich person, I might have used to have put little bindles of cocaine under every lamp or something.
John: I don't know what rich people do.
John: I don't think they own pendles, but still.
John: But for me, a little cigarette over the door, it was like finding a pot of gold.
John: Yeah.
John: And now I've got my internet up and running.
John: Now the problem with this story is, first of all, we...
John: We kind of bounced off of Internet as a public utility.
John: But the real problem with this story is that the people, the realtors who are staging my house are doing that.
Merlin: Is this the first time?
Merlin: I'm sorry, John.
Merlin: I don't follow every single thing you do every single place.
Merlin: Have you talked about this in places?
Merlin: I'm not sure.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: But you're OK talking about this.
John: You know, when I go to like a cafe and I talk to somebody and then I come on the Internet and talk to you, I don't remember which was real and which was to my friend that is just a hologram.
Merlin: OK, I'm going to keep I'm going to keep showing up either way.
Merlin: I want to I want to I want to bring to you the opportunity to to to mirror whatever it is you want to talk about.
John: Yes.
John: Yes.
John: Well, people have to know that I'm selling my house because I want one of them to buy it.
John: Oh, you do.
Merlin: Oh, I see.
Merlin: You're saying that if one wants to sell one's house, after one has decided to sell one's house, they have to tell people it's for sale.
Merlin: You can't just assume that people are going to come up and have escrow.
Merlin: This is the thing.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Right.
Merlin: You have to tell them.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: OK.
John: And as you remember one time, whatever it was, eight years ago, somebody put a super train sticker on a deadhead sticker on a Cadillac.
John: Mm hmm.
John: The super train sticker went right over the deadhead sticker.
John: Mm hmm.
John: No, they put it on a stop sign like four blocks from my house just so I would know that they had retconned my place but not so close that they were in trouble with me.
John: They weren't trying to sweat me.
John: They were trying to like...
John: You know, but a different kind of sweat.
John: They big fanned you in the wrong way.
Merlin: They tipped their fedora.
Merlin: Oh, Jesus Christ.
Merlin: Guys, guys, really don't do that.
Merlin: That's really bad.
Merlin: Don't zoom in on pictures and don't put stickers near someone's house.
John: Stop zooming in on the pictures, guys.
John: It's got to stop.
John: It's so good.
John: Hey, I noticed that you guys use salt and pepper in your house.
John: I can see it there behind the...
Merlin: Time for a quick visit from Gary the Privacy Concern Clown.
Merlin: It looks like you have that kind of fire poker that's been recalled.
Merlin: Just want you to be safe.
Merlin: I have concerns.
Merlin: I know where you live.
Merlin: I'm not telling anybody.
John: But now is the one time when I want people to know where I live so they can come and spend their internet money buying my house.
John: Maybe three of them will get into a bidding war and I'll be able to fly out of here on an UFO made out of dreams.
Merlin: Oh, that would be so nice.
Merlin: You could adjudicate the whole thing in a bathrobe with a sword.
Merlin: You could be there to sort of like they step into the octagon, which is your home in this case.
Merlin: And I guess they probably fight shirtless or something.
John: No, I would put the, I'd take my bathrobe off and I'd put it on them and I'd take my sword off and I'd hand it to them and I would say, now you are the keeper of the flame.
Merlin: What do I need to do today to put you in this bathroom?
Merlin: Thank you.
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John: So the realtors are like, you can't live in this room anymore.
John: We've got to stage this room so that it looks like you live here.
Merlin: I'm so glad you're sharing this.
Merlin: This is an amazing thing that you're going through.
Merlin: So you should repeat what you just said.
Merlin: We need to stage your house so that it looks like you live here, but not you that lives here.
John: Not you.
John: God, get out.
Merlin: Imagine the house where a better version of you lives.
John: That's exactly it.
John: And, you know, what's very flattering to me is they're using all my stuff to stage it.
John: Very selectively, right?
John: Very selectively.
John: I've known these...
John: Realtors for a long time and generally their policy is everything out and we stage it all with this light They have a warehouse full of stuff that they use to stage houses But they came in here and they were like, oh no, no, no, we're just gonna use your stuff and it looks great It's amazing, but they don't they won't let me live
John: So they're like, you have to go downstairs.
John: Now you have to sleep.
John: They don't want me here at all.
John: And I'm like, look, I have to keep living here.
Merlin: You're a guest of theirs.
Merlin: I said to you offline not too long ago that this is so much like a literal dream.
Merlin: It was my house, but it wasn't my house.
Merlin: My stuff was there, but I wasn't supposed to be there.
Merlin: And they let me stay on the couch, but they didn't like it.
Merlin: That's so much like a dream.
John: So now I'm finally relegated to the last room that I could possibly be in.
John: And they've given me until Thursday.
John: They're like, on Thursday, you just can't be in there because we're going to transform that room into the master suite.
John: I'm like, okay, all right.
John: Well, anyway, so I'm in here now.
John: And all that's in this room is like a keyboard bench from a piano, a walking stick.
John: the last the last bed that hasn't been like turned into a model bed uh there's like a banjo made of a cigar box you know it's just like everything everything that they were like no um so they're gonna take a pass on the cigar box banjo for the staging i have two of them and they used one of them they were like oh this oh i see that one not so much
John: It was one of those where they liked one better than the other, and then I had to feel bad for the one that they didn't like.
Merlin: Oh, 100%.
John: Yeah.
John: Because I feel bad for inanimate objects.
Merlin: No, I don't like picking a shirt.
Merlin: I know, right?
Merlin: All the other shirts.
Merlin: How do they feel?
Merlin: Well, especially when it comes down to two, and it's like you've almost made it to the big game, but like not today, you know?
John: I apologize.
Merlin: I apologize to my shirt.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Wow, you're having a very interesting time, John Roderick.
John: I'm super stressed.
John: I'm super... Well, I don't know whether to call it stressed or not, but this has been a weird month and a half.
John: You know, my sister...
John: So I have a lot of friends because I'm on the internet, but also in show business, but also just living in the world today.
John: I have a lot of friends that have experienced trauma over the course of their lives and they think about it a lot.
John: And they're dealing with trauma different ways and strategies and books and stuff about it.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Life can leave a mark for sure.
John: Yeah.
John: And so my sister's been on this, you know, just been on this kick for a long time.
John: And the other day she said she had a test.
John: a test that she'd taken on the internet that was, that rated like your childhood trauma.
John: Whatever it was, by some standard.
John: And she was like, I want you to take this test and see if you get, you know, and then we can compare our scores.
John: Because, you know, we grew up in the same houses.
John: And I was like, oh, all right.
John: And so she took, I took this test and she said, okay, what was your score?
John: And I said, zero.
John: And she said, zero.
John: And I said, zero.
John: And she said, did you even read the test?
John: And I was like, yeah.
John: She said, these aren't like
John: These questions aren't like poems.
John: They're just straight questions.
Merlin: You answer them straight.
Merlin: This is specifically to determine what your childhood trauma was and how much it's affected you?
John: Yeah.
John: Okay.
John: And zero was not the score that she thought that I was going to say.
John: Did she think you were being dishonest?
John: Well, no.
John: I mean, she didn't.
John: She and I, like I would have no reason to lie intentionally.
John: And she was like, so then she started reading the questions like, well, what about this one?
John: And I was like, well, yeah, what about it?
John: Like, no.
John: And she said, but this is demonstrably yes.
John: And she talked about some things from our childhood.
John: And I was like, oh, well, I mean, if you look at it that way.
John: And she said, well, no, it's not an interpretation.
John: It's like a yes or no question.
John: Did this happen?
John: And it did.
John: And I'm like, well, yeah, I mean, I guess.
John: And she was like, it literally happened.
John: And I'm like, yeah, okay.
John: But I mean, I don't, I sort of don't, it didn't really affect me.
John: And she's like, that is not the question.
Merlin: Could this, I mean, don't be too personal, but could this include things like, were your parents divorced?
Merlin: Is it that kind of thing?
Merlin: It's that kind of questionnaire, yeah.
Merlin: It's not simply like, did you, like, were you an altar boy and things went awry?
Merlin: Like, it could be more garden variety stuff that...
Merlin: may not be, well, I mean, I don't know.
Merlin: I mean, can you give other examples of things that definitely weren't you?
John: Well, I mean, so, you know, so it's the type of, it's the type of, it's the type of questionnaire where the question is like, did anyone ever put a cigarette out on you?
John: Okay.
John: And you go, well, no, no one did.
John: Now, in my case, no one ever put a cigarette out on me.
John: But my sister was acting by the answers to the questions that I did
John: that I did answer, that I was, that someone had put a cigarette out on me and I was, and I just didn't remember it.
Merlin: You had an Oprah memory.
John: What's an Oprah memory?
Merlin: Remember all that thing about recovered memories?
Merlin: We're hot for a while.
Merlin: It was this idea like everybody's had bad touch.
Merlin: They just can't remember it.
Merlin: And then like one day you wake up.
Merlin: It's a Sunday and you ride your bike and you go, oh, my God.
Merlin: Like I forgot about this memory.
Merlin: You know what I'm talking about?
John: No, no.
John: I do know what you're talking about.
John: But no, it was –
Merlin: It was... I guess the question I'm asking is, were these things where you went, yeah, I remember that, but that wasn't a horrible thing that I still obsess about?
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: That's what it was.
Merlin: You acknowledge that these things did happen, but you deny that they had a long-lasting, permanent, debilitating impact.
John: Well, it was tricky, because I was so... I would not say that I was in denial, but I was so... I guess...
John: I guess I, I did not, I would not say that I was checked out as a kid, right.
John: As a teenager, I, I would have said I was fully present and fully engaged.
John: I was just, you know, I was under a lot of pressure, but according to, you know, like the fact that I went down through this, uh, this thing and there were all these questions where it was like, um, well, for instance,
John: There was a question that said, did you ever in the course of your childhood, was there ever like an alcoholic in your home, like a practicing one?
John: And I was like, no.
John: And then Susan said, well, what about mom's boyfriend from 1980 to 88 who lived with us?
John: And I was like, what about him?
John: And she was like, he was an alcoholic.
John: And I was like, yeah.
John: And she said, and he lived in our house.
John: I was like, yeah.
Yeah.
John: And she said, and the question says, did you ever live in a house with an alcoholic?
John: And I was like, well, yeah, but I mean, I just avoided him.
John: And Susan said, that's not what the question asked.
John: And I was like, well, yeah.
Merlin: Susan on redirect.
John: Counselor, isn't it fair to say?
John: And I was like, well, I mean, you know, like, it's not like he was my dad.
John: And she's like, that's not the question.
John: He lived in our house and you lived in the house and he lived in the house and he was drunk all the time.
John: And I was like, well, I mean, sure, I guess if you put it that way.
John: And she was like, it's not a question of how I'm putting it.
John: You must have been driving her crazy.
John: I'm just imagining her.
John: Yes.
John: Oh, she was going crazy.
John: She's like, the question says, did you ever live in a house?
John: And you lived for like eight years in a house.
John: And that wasn't even the only like alcoholic boyfriend that lived with us.
John: That was just the long one.
John: And he was, he was terrible.
John: He was terrible.
John: And I was like, huh?
John: Interesting.
John: Because I'm not,
John: I'm not like being brave or anything.
John: It's not like I'm... It's not like I was...
John: telling us like some kind of, uh, lie or anything.
John: I just didn't think of it that way.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And so there's this.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Oh my gosh.
Merlin: I, this came up in the Michael Jackson documentary and in the surprisingly very good Oprah, uh, after the documentary interview is that like the thing that I'm not saying you did something to you, but like what she's saying with these, these two men is, uh, basically that she's been saying for years that in order to, please don't email me.
Merlin: In order to understand what's happening with what is happening to kids, we must account for the sort of seduction part of this, which is that, like, yes, it's horrible.
Merlin: And please don't Barbra Streisand me, I beg you.
Merlin: But it's really, really complicated.
Merlin: And, like, a kid has...
Merlin: A kid does not have a grown-up's mind.
Merlin: And the way that they perceive things in the moment can be persistent for a very long time.
Merlin: And part of the way a kid perceives something might involve the way that they are unconsciously deflecting the badness of this thing.
Merlin: And then that becomes sort of encoded on how you think about it for years.
Merlin: And it isn't until you maybe sit down with somebody, and I'm not talking about an Oprah memory here,
Merlin: But you know what I'm saying?
Merlin: The way you encode that at a very young age will stay with you for a very long time unless unperturbed.
Merlin: That's how we survive life.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: This is what's been so astonishing.
John: You're not being evasive.
John: You're just being human.
John: Right.
John: And it's been blowing my mind because this is all kind of part of this aloha thing for me this spring.
John: Because Susan, she's always got something.
John: some book I need to read, you know?
John: And, and I usually have just been, I mean, over the course of 45 years, I've let, you know, because she was five years old.
Merlin: I imagine her deploying them at you like a chef at Benihana, just flicking them at you.
John: I mean, when we were kids, she was like, you need to read our bodies ourselves.
John: I was like, I do not.
Yeah.
John: Um, but, but, but lately I've been, uh, I've been just like, you know, okay, I'm listening or whatever, you know, I'm not, not listening or whatever, but even like I leave the or whatever off, which is, which is, is new.
Merlin: And, um, that's, that's part of the springtime Aloha.
John: Yeah, it is.
John: It's just like, I'm listening.
John: All right.
John: And, um,
John: You know, over the course of my life and all the years that I've been sober and all the millions and millions and millions of conversations about drinking and drugs I've had with people and all the different places, the question always comes up, did you grow up in an alcoholic home?
John: And I always answer, well, my dad stopped drinking before I was born.
John: Right.
John: Which is true.
John: Yes.
John: Never once in all in all those years did it ever even occur to me to say, yes, there was a practicing alcoholic in my house all through junior high and high school.
John: Never didn't even.
John: I mean, it's total.
John: It was news to me.
John: Anyway, she goes down this question, this questionnaire.
John: It's 10 questions.
John: And she's like, well, what about this?
John: And so she goes, she asks these other questions and I'm like, well, no.
John: And she's like, but what about this exact scenario that I am going to, you know, like this question basically is the exact scenario of you.
John: And I'm like, oh, well, I guess if you put it that way.
John: And, you know, she was just climbing the walls, but she really made me see that.
John: that there's no, that these aren't interpretation questions.
John: These weren't essay questions.
John: It was like, yes or no.
John: And I had all this, I had all these layers and layers of like, well, that doesn't count.
John: Because by that point I was already, you know, I had already joined the special forces and she was like, you were never in the special forces.
John: Yeah, I mean, technically.
John: And it was crazy.
John: So for the last several weeks, I've just been wandering around going like, wait a minute.
John: You know, I scored a four on this thing, which in and of itself is kind of crazy, but I thought I scored a zero, which is – I mean, it's not in your – if I could say as your pal, like it's not in your makeup to see –
Merlin: It seems to me it's not in your makeup to go back and Monday morning quarterback being 12.
Merlin: Like, you can look at it with a sense of humor, and you can have a little fun with it, and you can interrogate aspects of your personality, but it isn't a way of collecting a debt about what you're owed or what you're entitled to in the world because of what you've, quote-unquote, suffered in life.
Merlin: That does not seem like your MO.
Merlin: Yeah, no, and nobody— It's very much like, to use our phrase, off-brand for you, right?
Merlin: That's really not how you look at the world.
John: Well, and, you know, nobody owes me anything, but Susan's like—
John: She's saying all this to me as part of this practice of trying to, because everybody's been doing this to me lately, coming at me from all sides.
John: Amy Mann was on me about it, and my psychiatrist, and they're all like, you need to learn, you need to practice self-care.
John: I'm like, stop using those words.
John: I don't even know what that would- I objected this entire conversation.
John: I have no idea what that means.
Merlin: This happened to me when I was getting ready to leave my college town to go get a job, and my very sweet hippie ex-girlfriend, and I talked about it.
Merlin: I was like, yeah, yeah, I feel really good about this, but I'm sort of not sure about leaving here.
Merlin: Strong feelings.
Merlin: There's a girl I like, and she's like, you know, Merlin, sometimes you don't experience your emotions.
Merlin: And I was like, I really should go.
Merlin: I think I'm double-parked.
Merlin: But I've thought about it since 1990.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: The phrase might have been, you're not fully experiencing your emotions.
Merlin: And I do, I mean, I'm not ruminative about it, but it does occur to me from time to time because it was a very memorable line.
Merlin: It made me very angry in the moment.
Merlin: But I do think about that.
Merlin: Like, am I fully experiencing my emotions?
Merlin: Are my emotions something that I don't feel entitled to for whatever reason?
Merlin: And like, it's just easier for me to put that behind me and go to the next thing.
Yeah.
Merlin: Not dissimilar thing, where a useful hippie comes along and tries to make you sad.
Merlin: You know I love Susan.
Merlin: I also love the fact that with Susan, it seems like such a wonderful, improbable combination of deeply caring about you as a person and also just being fucking furiated that you weren't doing it right.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, and, or, or, you know, she's because she's come a long way too.
John: Yeah.
John: So she's trying, she's owning, owning her anger about traffic for one.
John: Yeah.
John: And she's trying to say to me, like, I care about you and I want you to know that you are good and okay.
John: And that you can, that you, you can make it or whatever.
John: And you know, our relationship has always been, she'll say something like that to me and I'll be like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: Okay.
John: Whatever.
John: Yeah.
John: Like, gotta bounce.
John: And then she gets mad and throws an ashtray at me.
John: But lately she hasn't been throwing ashtrays, and I've been at least sitting still and going like, okay, all right, so I need to practice self-care.
John: I mean, like, every three weeks I get a pint of Ben & Jerry's and eat it in the bathtub.
John: Is that not enough?
John: Have I not self-cared enough?
John: You don't not enjoy it.
Merlin: I mean, that's a nice thing to do for yourself.
Merlin: You get your tray, you can have your crossword, and you have a little bit of ice cream.
John: I got it all, right?
John: I don't even smoke cigarettes, but I always have one on the tray there with my undressed salad and my three iPads.
Merlin: My trouble is, in my head, is there are two phrases, self-care and working from home, that both sound like euphemisms for masturbation.
John: I'm working from home today.
Merlin: I'm literally masturbating all day.
Merlin: I have to do some self-care.
John: Well, she keeps talking, and this is what I'm hearing from everybody.
John: I guess apparently, Merlin, there's a child inside of us all that needs to be cared for by us, our other adult selves.
John: but i've got a child that is inner in some sense an inner child yeah i have no sympathy for that kid no he's like he's he deserves everything he gets he should be made he should be caused to suffer yeah he needs to get up and fucking do his thing it's the only way he's gonna learn do your thing as my dad would say you don't get a medal for doing what you're supposed to
Merlin: Welcome back.
John: Welcome back, Dave.
John: So, you know, I go, yeah, why does that kid get a medal?
John: I never got a medal.
Merlin: Oh, yes.
Merlin: Oh, God.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Oh, gosh.
John: Yes.
John: No, you are very you're very hard on that child.
John: And I'm like, well, fuck, what did he ever do?
John: Yeah.
John: So anyway, it's a long process, but it's it.
John: So I'm sitting in this room, which is the only room in my house I'm allowed to go.
John: And I'm just thinking about like... Sitting there with your memento, Maury.
Merlin: You've got a walking stick.
Merlin: You've got a cigar box banjo that your realtor didn't want.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And you've got an internet mattress.
John: An internet mattress.
John: And I've got my...
John: Your favorite chair, your paddle ball game?
John: I made that joke yesterday, and nobody laughed.
John: I was like, oh, well, all I need is this chair and this paddle ball game, and they all just rolled their eyes.
Merlin: Anybody who gets my jokes from the jerk or Caddyshack is always welcome to sit with me.
John: But I'm like – I'm thinking –
John: I'm thinking about this stuff all the time so that I'm walking around like I don't feel like I'm gonna cry But I do notice that my eyes are kind of welled up with tears all the time And I'm not it's not like a it doesn't feel like a
John: You know, like when you get to the point where you're so sad that you cry.
Merlin: I got a strong thought on this that I would like to share with you.
Merlin: I don't want to talk about myself and my feelings, but I will share something with you.
Merlin: There's a phrase, or a word rather, that you reintroduced to my life several years ago.
Merlin: It was while we were interviewing Asher Vollmer, who was the creator of the...
Merlin: An iOS game called Threes.
Merlin: Oh, yes.
Merlin: And you said something that was very, very funny in the moment, but I think about a lot.
Merlin: You said, this is not a game for vulnerable people.
Merlin: And that reintroduced, for some reason, the phrase vulnerable into my life.
Merlin: And I've been thinking a lot about that over the years.
Merlin: It's a word that people don't use all that much, except to talk about...
Merlin: impoverished children or something.
Merlin: These are vulnerable populations.
Merlin: I'm going somewhere with this.
Merlin: I think too often we're scared of the idea of vulnerability.
Merlin: Most of the time, we don't want to be vulnerable because we don't want to be seen as weak.
Merlin: We also don't want to be seen as vulnerable because vulnerable ultimately means you think you're just weepy and sad all the time.
Merlin: And I am not quite as deeply, certainly not as deeply as your Aloha project, but I'm very interested in being more vulnerable or the way that I write in my journal is that I want to become vulnerable in more interesting ways.
Merlin: And part of that is that like you don't turn away from something that makes you, this is me, not you, but that means I don't turn away from something that makes me feel feelings because I can sit in the moment with that.
Merlin: And it's actually kind of given me an even better as I watch my daughter just get taller and taller and taller.
Merlin: And like she just got found out what middle school she's going to.
Merlin: Like I'm not going to run away from how that makes me feel.
Merlin: It doesn't make me sad.
Merlin: It doesn't make me happy.
Merlin: But I'm vulnerable to whatever my heart is picking up from what's happening with that, which sounds super corny.
Merlin: But like that's that's the thing is like vulnerability does not just mean that you're a wuss.
Merlin: It means that your heart is open to what is there right now, I think.
Merlin: And I think that's kind of, it's not entirely dissimilar from your Aloha project.
Merlin: You've made yourself a little bit vulnerable to these ideas.
Merlin: And forgive me, I hope you're not going to stick that negatively.
Merlin: But you've made yourself a little bit vulnerable on purpose.
Merlin: You've become vulnerable in a more interesting way in order to see stuff you haven't seen before, in order to notice things you haven't noticed before, and in order to, as part of your long-running John Roderick project, to learn what the fuck is actually going on here.
John: Well, yeah.
John: That's all true.
John: I think that the first half of my life, or at least into my early 20s, every emotion, no matter what it was, it all got compressed down into sadness.
John: So that no matter what happened, no matter what I felt,
John: Um, there was always a, it always went into a function machine and came out the other side as like paralyzing sadness.
John: And after I stopped drinking, after I got sober, there was a, there were a couple of years there where I was like experiencing all these feelings for the first time and didn't know what they were.
John: And what happened was as I, as I tried to get, as I tried to feel them and not just have them all turn into
John: paralyzing sadness, what they turned into was anger.
Merlin: I was just gonna say that.
Merlin: If you don't watch it,
Merlin: almost any feeling can turn into anger if you're not careful.
Merlin: That is the... Not the default, but that is the magnetic north of emotions, is everything wants to be... So whether that's... And again, it took me a long time to realize that part of depression is anxiety.
Merlin: Guess what?
Merlin: They're actually both compatible.
Merlin: They work great together.
Merlin: It's a wonderful pairing, those two.
Merlin: But left to their own devices, anxiety, depression, sadness, they all will eventually...
John: converge toward anger i have found i i find that to be very true and you gotta you gotta fucking stand over that and like really watch it because that's what those things want to become because guess what you're not if you're angry you're not vulnerable anymore well right right and and when i was when i was young i couldn't afford to be angry i didn't have any i didn't have the power to be angry like i i needed to be i needed to keep everybody else alive i mean you know
John: That's why I learned to be funny and be outgoing was that I needed to keep my mom laughing.
John: I needed to keep my sister laughing.
John: I needed to keep everybody laughing.
John: Um, but I, there was no room, no room in my family for me to be angry.
John: Everybody else was so fucking laid out pretty clearly for you.
John: I was, there was not space for me to be really angry or dissatisfied at all or upset at all.
John: I was, um, and you know, another thing Susan has taught me recently is like, no, when she and I entered the picture, no one else in the family wanted us there.
John: Like, when we think about it now, we laugh because it's like, oh, wait, nobody liked us.
John: Like, none of my uncles or cousins or aunts or anybody, they were all just like— Did you, like, unintentionally fuck up the status quo by being born?
Merlin: Was that part of it?
John: Well, for sure, right?
Merlin: But, I mean, everybody had—like, in a family, like, you can really settle into certain roles, you know, by the time you're 9, 10, 11, 12.
Merlin: And so, like, you're part of this new second generation that nobody asked for.
Okay.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, and the youngest people, yeah, we're all like 14.
John: And the thing is, my family didn't like each other.
John: So they already had lots and lots of like they were they were very, very like set in their ways of who of how they hated one another.
John: And then Susan and I came in.
John: And we were tied to my dad and tied to his second marriage and tied to all these different other strata.
John: And we were just like we were disliked when we were infants.
John: And it wasn't like it wasn't overt.
John: Right.
John: It was just there was no there was no love.
John: Nobody ever.
John: Nobody loved us.
John: And that's another thing I never would have said.
John: I would have been like, oh, we're a tight knit family.
John: Everybody.
John: But so when I started getting mad, oh, I felt so out of control.
John: I felt like I felt like a crazy person because I'd never I'd never felt any emotion that wasn't just like paralyzing sadness.
John: And now I'm mad.
John: And I was I'm a big, full grown person.
Merlin: Man, like I'm scary.
Merlin: Sadness is very inward turning.
Merlin: Boy, this is a deep fucking episode.
Merlin: Sadness is very inward turning.
Merlin: Anger is very outward directed.
Merlin: I mean, no matter how hard you make your sad, I mean, you might seem a little bit goth, I guess, a little bit emo.
Merlin: But like anger necessarily is explosive.
Merlin: Whereas sadness is a way of controlling.
Merlin: It's a way of reining in, not only yourself, but as you stipulate it.
Merlin: And I found this is very true for everybody.
Merlin: It also means I'm not going to break this sighing expectation that everybody has about how I'm supposed to feel and then how I would demonstrate in a public way how I feel.
Merlin: I've got to keep that inside or I'm going to be, at best, disappointing.
John: Well, and that was what was crazy when the anger came on.
John: I knew it was terrible because even if you're just standing there clenching your fists and gritting your teeth, you're scary.
John: You don't have to be yelling or even moving.
John: You can just sit there and be fucking scary just in your little dark cauldron.
John: But I didn't want to go back to being sad.
John: I knew that going back to being sad was to go back to this dead inside place.
John: Where everything just, you know, like recapitulates sadness.
John: So I knew that, and there were people telling me, you know, like angry is the path forward.
John: You have to be angry and then go through angry to the other side.
Mm-hmm.
John: But God, I was angry for a long time and I didn't know how to go to the other side because it's not like I was reading any of these books that my sister was giving me.
John: She and my mom are talking about all their past lives and I'm just like, let me... I'm just trying to get to the refrigerator for the love of God.
Merlin: Can I just have two more newspapers to cover myself in?
John: I'm just going to make a little tent.
John: I want the morning paper.
John: I want the evening paper.
John: I'll be here under the card table.
John: I'm going to go sit in the bathtub while you guys talk about fucking everything.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Really?
John: You were Ramses, huh?
Merlin: In your previous life.
Merlin: That's so interesting.
John: But so anyway, here I am, right?
John: And now I do feel vulnerable and I don't know what to do with any of it.
John: And a lot of it.
John: And so Susan says to me, so last night I'm driving Susan to the airport.
John: She's going to Ethiopia.
John: And I'm driving her to the airport.
John: I'm like, why are you going to Ethiopia?
Yeah.
John: And she says, oh, well, there's somebody, this woman, this and the other people.
John: And then cousin Paige got involved somehow because she runs a nonprofit and then this other thing.
John: And so I'm going to – I'm flying tonight to Chicago and then I'm taking a 15-hour flight to Ethiopia.
John: I'm going to spend 10 days there flying around in puddle jumpers doing some kind of thing.
John: And I was like, all right, I don't, none of that made any sense to me, but like, you know, Godspeed.
John: And she's like, I'm super anxious.
John: I don't want to be on an airplane for 15 hours.
John: I don't want to fly for 24 hours.
John: And I was like, I know, I know, I know.
John: I know I don't like it either, but like, you're going to be in Ethiopia.
John: It's what you want.
John: And then she said, she, so she's, she's been doing this my whole life, but I've always blown her off.
John: And now I'm not, she grabs me by the shirt and she's like, listen,
John: I want you to know that your whole life you've never had a home.
John: And I'm like, uh-huh, okay.
John: Thanks.
John: And she's like, no.
John: And then you got your home.
John: You bought a house.
John: And it was the first home you ever had that was your home that you felt like was a home.
John: And I was like, I guess.
John: And she said, and now you're selling that house.
John: Oh, shit.
John: And you don't have another house to move to.
John: You don't even have a house that's not yours to move into.
John: No.
Merlin: You have nothing.
John: I'm living in a room in my house that I'm allowed to live in.
John: While they get ready to sell it out from under me.
John: And this is all me.
Merlin: Thanks to the noblesse oblige of your realtor.
John: It's not like this is happening.
John: It's not like this is happening at gunpoint.
John: I'm initiating this.
John: But she's like, you're selling the one safe place you ever had.
John: Oh, God.
John: You've never felt safe anywhere in your life.
John: And now here it is.
John: And so you are like, and she said, like, I'm really proud of you with your
John: trying to be vulnerable because she uses that word she's like you're trying to do all this but you have to let yourself off the hook you have to forgive yourself for freaking out because there's a reason you're freaking out and it is that i never had a home where i didn't need to hide yeah to quote the author and so i was quoting you by the way yeah the author just i don't know if you remember that song it's my favorite long winter song whatever
Merlin: uh well yeah and i mean like like uh let me ask let me interrogate this a little bit did that did you get a boom out of that like i got a boom out of that did that resonate with you as holy shit like i hadn't thought of that from susan yeah yeah yeah i mean she's wise she's not uh but i never ever ever would have thought of that and if you'd asked me two days ago like
John: If you'd asked me that line in that song, I never had a home where I didn't need to hide.
John: What is that about?
John: I would have said, well, you know, generally.
Merlin: Every line in that song is perfect.
Merlin: I mean, it quits stealing as soon as I steal for the last time.
Merlin: Oh my God, I love it so much.
Merlin: But yeah, yeah, you wrote that, you fuck.
Merlin: You're the one who wrote that.
John: Well, yeah, I mean, and I, I think at the time I would have said like, well, is this a character that I was playing over here about a person.
John: Spy on a gurney or something.
John: I don't know.
John: Whatever the fuck.
John: So, yeah, I'm sitting here and I'm looking around and I'm realizing, like, well, actually, the fact that they've staged my house so that it looks like I live here, it's a pretty nice place.
John: Like, I really like the guy that lives here.
Merlin: You should tender an offer.
John: He only has a couple of swords, not like 40.
John: This place is just like an ingot short of being really nice.
John: Yeah, because they kept a couple of swords.
John: I'm like, are you serious?
John: They're like, I don't know, man.
John: Who knows what people want?
John: But I say, now that you're at this point, do you want to stay here?
John: Do you want to stop this whole process?
John: Because you still can.
John: You don't have to sell your house.
John: You can just tell everybody to go away.
John: But I'm like, no, I really have to sell it.
John: I don't know where I'm going to go next.
John: I don't know what it's going to be like.
John: But I can't retreat now.
John: I have to do this for some reason.
John: And I don't feel like – I'm not motivated by –
John: running or by By a feeling like well you started it so now you have to finish it like there's no there's no There's no negative voice in that conversation.
John: It's like do you want to sell your house still?
John: Yes, I do Why you you're you're selling the only a pair according to your sister.
John: You're selling the only safe place you ever had I'm like yes, maybe but I
John: I have to.
John: Like it's time to do... The next thing.
John: The next thing.
John: And that's what I have to do.
John: And so...
John: So anyway, two days from now I'm going to be sleeping in the bathtub because it's the only place that they'll let me be.
John: For now, yeah.
John: You need to get out of here pretty soon.
John: We've got to stay in the bathtub.
John: But something's going to happen.
John: That's right.
John: We have to stay in the bathtub.
Merlin: We're thinking of putting a tray in there and maybe some chili dogs.
John: I walked, yeah, like some chili dogs from one of those Japanese plastic coated... Like when they make the sushi?
Yeah.
John: Oh, I took and I took Marshall Islands Ben out to the pool yesterday.
John: And I was like, how many still be lumbered?
John: It's so be lumbered.
John: I'll send you a picture of it.
John: It's really incredible now.
John: They're just like, they're like, listen, don't be like a Viking.
Merlin: John, it'd be like a Viking funeral for your house.
Merlin: You've been so you've been so acquiescent about all of their directives.
Merlin: One Viking funeral for the pool would not hurt anybody.
John: They said if you let this pool on fire, the Seattle Fire Department will fine you $50,000.
John: Okay, that's no good.
John: And you will burn the neighborhood down because there's no way you could contain this fire.
Merlin: Well, you know what McNamara said.
John: Sometimes you have to destroy the neighborhood to save it.
John: But I took Ben back there and I was like, Ben, how many nephews will it take to clean the pool?
John: Oh.
John: And Ben was like, wow.
Wow.
John: So Ben's got all these ideas.
John: He's like, well, first thing you do is you take a picture of it, you put it on Craigslist and you say, free wood.
John: Wow, that is thinking outside the box.
John: He said the number one thing that Craigslist is for, the number one transaction on Craigslist is free wood.
John: You put free wood and this place will be picked clean by people who are living in the city and in an economy where firewood is still like
John: how they are how they're saving money but it's wet wood it's not seasoned wood right well no i mean it's all it's it's like it's pre-seasoned it's fucking crazy is what it is it's crazy it did it used to be all trees john was it trees on your lot or was it something you got for a project were you gonna make a log cabin how did how did they for if i could ask how did they first arrive in the pool it's
John: It's every tree that I ever cut down in my yard.
John: It's the tree that I cut down out of my neighbor's yard when he sold the house, and I was like, you know what?
Merlin: That house is... It's like a scrapbook for plants.
John: That's good.
John: That house is for sale right now.
John: That neighbor's never coming back, but before the next people buy it...
John: I should chop down that tree that I hate.
Merlin: The tree you hated with the neighbor.
Merlin: Well, not peach tree.
Merlin: What was it?
Merlin: There was a tree that was getting up in your shit.
Merlin: I remember that.
John: Yeah, it was up in my shit.
John: And the thing is that the people that – I did it before the people made an offer on it.
John: So the people that made an offer on the house knew that they were buying a house without that tree.
John: And the guy that was selling the house was selling the house.
John: He didn't care whether the tree was there.
John: Nobody even noticed the tree was gone.
John: Absolutely not.
John: That tree's in the pool.
John: But also then there was a big storm that knocked down all of the like cedar fence.
Merlin: Oh, I remember that.
Merlin: I remember that.
John: I remember that storm, yeah.
John: All the cedar fence went in the pool.
John: You know, all the cut down blackberries.
John: Everything goes in the pool.
John: Every time I mowed the lawn, I would dump the cuttings in the pool.
John: And so anyway, so Ben is like, first we need to put free wood.
John: This place will get picked clean like a National Geographic sped up footage of ants on a forest floor.
John: And then we're just going to have a swimming pool full of moss and dirt.
John: And let's be honest, maybe some cinder blocks and boat anchors or whatever.
John: And he's like, then I get the nephews in here.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: and we clean out all the dirt, and we just spread the dirt around the yard.
Merlin: Oh, this is a real Columbo move.
Merlin: I like this.
Merlin: So smart.
John: What dirt?
Merlin: What dirt?
Merlin: Just a yard.
John: Shit, dog.
John: For the pièce de résistance, Ben says, and then...
John: We clean out the pool and we paint it blue.
John: Now it's a pool again.
John: So the people come and they look out and they're like, it's a pool.
John: This accommodates water.
Merlin: You just raised the resale value of your realtor's house by like $15,000.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: It's just like it just paid for itself.
Merlin: There's a pool.
Merlin: It's not operational at this moment, but this is Seattle.
Merlin: It's a fixer upper pool.
Merlin: It's a fixer upper pool and you know what?
John: It's spring.
Merlin: Oh my God.
Merlin: When a young boy's thoughts turned to pool.
John: Wow.
John: So yeah.
John: And you know, the whole time I lived here, every, every few months, somebody would come over and say, you got to fix up that pool, man.
John: Think about the, think about the times we would have.
John: And I'm like, yeah, I'm thinking about the times that we would have, but also I'm thinking about
John: that pool and i know the pool is i'm just filling up the pool with i'm once the pool gets up to the top i mean i always said and i'll have a huge bonfire and that'll be great but then i don't want to get fined fifty thousand dollars that's a lot of money and burn down the whole neighborhood right there could be some liability there yeah because it got it got past that i passed the point but paint the pool it's above the water line
John: Yeah.
John: Okay.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: You can talk about it now because it's going to get fixed.
Merlin: You got a plan.
John: Sure.
John: And Ben's like, call me, you know, call me.
John: And the thing is, like, even though Ben Marshall Island, this Ben Marshall, even though he like put a hole in the door and the wall and maybe was partly responsible for a hole in the ceiling and he sheared off my coax cable, moving stuff around inside the house.
John: How much damage can they do moving dirt around outside the house?
John: That is more of their core confidence.
Merlin: Look at Thomas Edison.
Merlin: He kept failing until he succeeded.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
John: Prissy small.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: It might take 100 bad ideas before you get the good one.
Merlin: That's amazing.
John: Yeah.
John: So...
John: So here it is.
John: I mean, I only have one coffee cup because it's all they'll let me have.
Merlin: Oh, man.
John: But I've got my computer and my microphone and my paddle ball game.
Merlin: You know, you found a coaxial cable.
Merlin: You should start looking for cigarettes and other shit you might have hidden around.
Merlin: You might have more stuff in the house than you realize.
Merlin: You should go plumb the monk hole.
Merlin: See, that's the thing.
John: I don't want to sell this house and then have somebody open a door and go,
John: Is that a silver ingot?
Merlin: Shit.
Shit.