Ep. 339: "Internal Grace"
Merlin: Hello.
John: Hi, John.
John: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: How's it going?
John: It's pretty early.
Merlin: Poor Professor Lupin had a really tough night.
Merlin: Professor Lupin.
Merlin: My family was out of town for the night and I overdid.
John: Oh, you did.
Merlin: I overdid literally everything.
John: You overdid.
Merlin: I overdid the meat.
Merlin: I overdid the TV.
Merlin: I overdid the pudding course.
John: Did your eyes take in too many photons?
No.
Merlin: I think with me, I'm like, hmm, you know, I'm going to go have some dad time.
John: Yeah, a little dad time.
John: Get an extra pudding course.
Merlin: I had pudding course.
Merlin: Yeah, I had some drinks.
Merlin: But that was really only part of it, you know.
Merlin: The meat played a role.
Merlin: The meat played a role.
Merlin: It all played a role.
Merlin: And I think I watched seven hours of TV.
John: Oh, my heavens.
Merlin: Yeah, it was all whatever I wanted.
Merlin: I could just watch it.
John: Sure, of course.
John: You didn't have to argue with anybody.
John: You didn't have to make a case for anything.
Merlin: No, but then I had to wake up.
John: Sure, sure, sure.
John: That's me, too, in a nutshell.
Merlin: You had to wake up, too.
John: You just said it.
John: You just said what I had to do.
John: Wake up.
John: Wake up.
John: Wake up, dummy.
John: What's funny is I set my alarm for the wrong time.
John: No.
John: But as I lay in bed, luxuriating in my...
John: Fifth hour of sleep.
John: Well, yeah, somewhere in the fifth hour of sleep, I think.
John: I heard the sweet tones of my daughter running down the hall talking in a kind of good morning, Mrs. Torrance style, like overdone vocal fry to the, you know, to like scary monster level.
John: Oh, creepy.
John: That's her new thing.
Merlin: You mean like the little boy who lives in Danny's mouth?
John: She's like, good morning, Mrs. Torres.
John: And I taught her to say that without her knowing what it means.
John: That's going to be fun with teachers.
John: I taught her to say it to her mom, and now she's just really inhabited the character, and I kind of regret it.
Merlin: That's not what you want to hear first thing in the morning, though.
John: No.
John: So she was doing that, and then kind of that grace...
John: That Grace person.
John: Grace!
John: Who runs my calendar.
John: Oh, yeah, Grace, yeah.
John: Grace!
John: Can you call Merlin?
John: Grace said... With your bad knee, you shouldn't be throwing anybody.
John: She said, you set the alarm for 9.40.
Merlin: Oh, no.
John: Really, you're talking to Merlin at 9.
John: Oh, man.
John: And I looked at the clock, and it was 8.47.
John: Oh.
John: And I said, ah, here we go.
John: Here we go.
John: Another day.
Merlin: Up and at them.
Merlin: But you were here on time today?
Merlin: Yeah, right on time.
Merlin: You did that in 13 minutes?
John: 8.59.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: You're the Iron Man.
John: A little coffee.
John: I had a, you know, I splashed some water on my face.
John: And then I splash some more water on my face.
John: That's the key.
John: You do it in stages.
Merlin: Oh, boy.
Merlin: You know, I can't say enough good things about splashing water on your face.
Merlin: I like it in the morning.
Merlin: You know what I really like?
Merlin: I like it in the late afternoon.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: Not too cold, not too hot.
Merlin: It's room temperature water splashed on the face and neckl area will just make you feel alive.
John: It turns you right around, doesn't it?
John: So right now you are laboring under a little bit of a yoke of...
John: uh, of your past.
John: Is that what you're trying to say?
Merlin: That's a really nice way to put it.
Merlin: I, um, recent past decisions you made.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You know, I mean, there was, there's a lot of good stuff to it.
Merlin: I mean, I, uh, you know, I, I have a thing I try to do, which is however long, and I'm not saying I succeeded this, succeeded this, but you know, this is, that's, you know, the Christian way is that, um, I, whenever my wife is away, um,
Merlin: Even if it's just she goes out for a run, I strive to have the house be nicer than when she left.
John: Oh, isn't that sweet?
John: It's like your national parks philosophy.
Merlin: Yeah, I'm a regular John Muir of doing a shit job on the dishes.
Merlin: But I do.
Merlin: But, you know, like I say, I don't always succeed at it.
Merlin: And, you know, I'm fighting a certain amount of 11-year-old inertia.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: With like, you know, can we not have all of the art supplies on the floor?
John: Oh, yeah.
John: Colored pencils, right?
John: She's got them out.
Merlin: She's drawn on the doors.
Merlin: Sometimes I got to put it in really stark terms and just say, you're making me look really bad.
Merlin: Oh, oof.
Merlin: You make me look bad.
Merlin: You know, there's a couple reasons why.
Merlin: I'm going to give you three reasons why you wear a jacket.
Merlin: You wear a jacket because it's San Francisco and the weather can change in all kinds of ways.
John: Absolutely true.
Merlin: And that's what preparedness is.
Merlin: Preparedness is not everything will go well.
Merlin: Preparedness is things could go differently.
John: You know, the coldest winter my dad ever spent was the summer in San Francisco.
Merlin: Winston Churchill.
Merlin: And then what are the other reasons?
Merlin: Two more reasons.
Merlin: Well, I mean, okay, so I don't have time for this.
Merlin: I'm very, very tired.
Merlin: Sometimes I have to say to her, look, look, it just started to rain.
Merlin: And it might get, because you know what it is here, it might start warm, get cool, get warm.
Merlin: You get a little down and up and down.
Merlin: But I say, here's the main thing.
Merlin: You are not going to walk to school in the rain
Merlin: And the pre-cold and not have a jacket.
Merlin: And I'll tell you why.
Merlin: Well, I want you to be dry.
Merlin: San Francisco wants you to be, wants you to be comfortable, but also you are only allowed so much latitude in how your parents are made to look bad.
Merlin: I don't like to put it in those terms.
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: But sometimes that's what it has to come down to.
Merlin: You're not allowed to have pinworms.
Merlin: You're not allowed to have lice.
Merlin: You got to wear a jacket.
John: Yeah.
John: No tattoos.
Merlin: I mean, if you don't turn on your homework, bad on you.
Merlin: But if you go to school in the rain without a jacket, when you have a jacket, you're fortunate enough to have a jacket.
Merlin: Well, I know.
Merlin: Privilege.
Merlin: You know, it's a jacket, but you're just not allowed to make us look bad.
Merlin: And when you take out literally all of the markers and the sharp knife, and now there's cardboard.
Merlin: Cardboard makes little pellets like a rabbit.
John: Sure, cardboard can also be sharp, you know.
John: You cut cardboard with cardboard.
Merlin: Well, it depends.
Merlin: Cardboard depends on the body part.
Merlin: I've cut a lot of fingers on a cardboard.
Merlin: Or similar, but like, you know, just, you know, eh.
Merlin: And sometimes, why am I revealing this?
Merlin: I'm very vulnerable right now, John.
Merlin: Sometimes I have to say, look, you had been watching a fair amount of TV since you got up.
Merlin: And then you were watching TV when mom left the house.
Merlin: And I'll say to her, I'm going to say something in a very coded way to you.
Merlin: And I hope that you understand the implications, but it would be very valuable to both of us, especially you and especially me.
Merlin: If the TV were not still on when mom got.
John: Oh, see, that's nice.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: You want to represent, you want to represent the positive things are happening.
John: Yeah.
John: What do you do when she employs inescapable logic?
John: Like, for instance, I'm not cold.
John: I know.
John: And I'm not going to get cold.
John: How do you argue that?
John: That's iron tight.
John: I'm not going to get cold.
John: The end.
John: Why are you guys allowed to have screens now?
John: Well, see, yes.
John: I just heard that for the first time.
John: She'd never employed that iron tight logic, which was...
John: Something to the effect of you don't have to quit talking with your mouth full.
Mm-hmm.
John: And I said, I, A, don't have to do anything.
John: I could fall asleep right now on this table.
Merlin: Now, if you were smart, you would literally stop right there.
Merlin: Because you are going to undercut your argument as soon as you get to B. You could tell me, I am an artist and this is my medium.
John: I could pick up your spaghetti right now and dump it on your head.
John: There are literally no rules that apply to me.
John: No, the only consequence I would feel is years later, you would still be mad about it, but I'm willing to bear that consequence.
John: I don't really have, there are no rules in my life.
John: Your life is bound by rules.
John: It needs to be.
Merlin: She's not allowed to make you look bad.
Merlin: That's right.
John: But the thing is, there's a huge difference between me talking with a little bit of scabetti over inside of my mouth and
John: And saying to her, don't talk with your mouth full.
John: Then her with like spaghetti cascading down her face into the pockets of her dress.
John: But, you know, like she's not wrong.
John: I did have some stuff in my mouth.
John: Some materiel.
John: I want to know how seven hours of TV feels.
John: Oh, sure.
John: How does it feel?
John: Does it feel great?
John: It feels great, but then does it hurt later?
Merlin: I mean, my taste is so good.
Merlin: Yeah, and around that, that's always been true.
Merlin: I feel like you really abandoned a good topic there.
Merlin: Can I address one thing?
Merlin: The logic.
Merlin: No, let's go back.
Merlin: Just real quick, and I'm sorry, it's your show, but the logic can be difficult if you fall into that trap.
Merlin: But here's the thing, is for almost everything the child has logic for, and believe me, I've tried to play the logic card on my racist grandfather, and it didn't go great.
John: So you've been doing this a lot longer than I have.
Merlin: Because of grandfathers?
John: He's a shriner.
John: I never met either of my grandfathers.
John: No, that's not true.
John: One of them I met when I was an infant.
Merlin: Yeah, same with my daughter and my grandmother.
John: Yeah, so their racism, and as far as I can tell, at least one of them was really racist.
John: The Ohio one?
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: That's where I come from, yeah.
John: I never had to confront it.
John: But no, you've been doing the dad thing longer than me too.
John: So I'm all ears.
Merlin: Oh, I'll do the best I can.
Merlin: One time my grandfather was giving one of his periodic updates on why black people aren't allowed to be Freemasons.
Merlin: Because I guess that's the thing he thought I, you know, again, logic, right?
Merlin: It's something I needed to know about.
John: It's not true anymore.
John: You know, we have a handful of Masons that listen to this show.
John: Anytime we mention Masonry, I hear from them.
John: Hmm.
Merlin: About it.
Merlin: I did some masonry in construction class.
John: You did?
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: I built some bricks.
Merlin: Did you get your golden trowel?
Merlin: Yes, I did.
Merlin: You know, a high school student is never so tall as when he stoops to help a crippled brick.
Merlin: Wait, were you a de mole?
Merlin: No, my mother was a rainbow girl, though.
Oh.
Merlin: Okay, we got a lot going on here.
Merlin: Okay, so anyway, you were telling me about logic.
Merlin: But there's layers and there's levels.
Merlin: And I've said this to you before, I've said this to lots of my people I visit with on programs before, is that we have to talk about preparedness.
Merlin: And I know you have an interest in preparedness.
Merlin: I know there are women where you and she have found each other mutually attractive, but you didn't like their footwear because, not because of feet things, but because they couldn't climb a fence.
John: Yeah, well, see, I just had some comments and suggestions.
Merlin: Well, if you, but that's sensible.
Merlin: That's sensible.
Merlin: I mean, like how often, don't say, but how often have you and a lady friend needed to scale a fence?
Merlin: Probably not more than eight or 10 times, but you don't know what's going to happen when you go out into the world.
Merlin: This is why in my city, everybody has a backpack because you're basically ready for like whatever comes along.
Merlin: Maybe in uni is just not going to happen that day.
Merlin: Like you need a poncho.
Merlin: Like who knows?
Merlin: Preparedness is not getting ready for everything going great.
Merlin: It is having in the back of our mind, we want to mitigate the problems that we can anticipate.
John: Right.
Merlin: And a very basic one is my arms are cold.
Merlin: Oh, your arms are cold.
Merlin: That's why you need it.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: We'll give you a light jacket.
Merlin: Now, here's what I do.
Merlin: You take a light jacket.
Merlin: You roll it up real tight.
Merlin: You wrap that up with some silicone rubber bands.
Merlin: You put that in there.
Merlin: You got something smaller than a vape rig that turns into a jacket.
John: Well, now you have bridged the gap between old San Francisco and new San Francisco, or rather we should say mid-San Francisco and new San Francisco.
John: And now you can carry a much smaller backpack because all of the clothing garments...
John: that you wear in san francisco now are all made out of uh like alpaca and peruvian monkey silk and things and they look like t-shirts they just look like normal windbreakers yeah but the 700 yeah 720 700 and they're yeah and they're made out of like special microfibers that wick away your uh any any remorse you might have had yeah that's right
John: So that's very convenient to you guys because you can wear those little teeny, teeny backpacks that look like micro parachutes.
Merlin: Oh, like Sharon Clueless, like a comically small backpack.
John: Yeah, right.
John: Here, you know, I insist that all her clothes be made of wool and leather and mithril.
John: And so she has to have like a...
John: She has to have one of those.
John: Is she in the Night's Watch?
John: She has to be.
Merlin: Did she take the black?
Merlin: I don't think we say that anymore.
No.
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John: She has to wear one of those pre-World War II English Boy Scout backpacks, backaxe.
John: anyway so yes that's why preparedness like like you were you're suggesting that i have not had to climb that many chain link fences with people that i want you to have to say and it's and i you know honestly like over the course of time like you're right it's it's only been a handful but there's been so we've had to chase a cat burglar or or two
John: Right.
John: And that's another thing.
John: Like if your shoes can't go over a chain link fence, it's not.
John: You'd have to abandon the pursuit.
John: Right.
John: It's not did you go over a chain link fence?
John: It's could the cat burglar you're chasing get away from you by going over a chain link fence?
John: Even if that cat burglar didn't choose that.
John: How would you have felt if we'd been clopping along after them and they'd gone over a fence, right?
John: That would have been an untidy end to the date.
Merlin: So –
Merlin: Okay, so there are people who would say, if you over-prepare for things that are quote-unquote unlikely, you are becoming paranoid.
Merlin: Like, you are assuming the connection of facts in the outside world that do not reflect reality, and that's not healthy or wholesome.
Merlin: Now, you, I would say you're not a paranoiac, but you have always...
Merlin: You have always been aware of your perimeter and those who might attempt to cross it.
John: Yes.
Merlin: And in previous times when you, again, I don't want to go too far in this, but there have been times that you spent a lot of time in your life.
Merlin: You hear something in the house.
Merlin: You're already not sleeping that great.
Merlin: Probably you get up, you put on the sword over the bathrobe and then you go pursue the noise, the source of the noise.
Merlin: The one time, the one time, the one time,
Merlin: The one time you didn't do that.
Merlin: Now look where we are.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: You had an actual, you had an actual cat burglar.
John: Yeah.
John: I had an actual possum in the form of a tweaker.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And, and so one time, one time, one time I did.
Merlin: And yeah, exactly.
Merlin: And that, that marks you.
Merlin: It's like, oh, you go like, oh, here's a classic young person.
Merlin: I'm almost done with this.
Merlin: I'm so tired.
Merlin: The, the, the, so the classic example of young person is,
Merlin: You know, there's a lot of times in your life when you not only don't have a lot of dough, you don't have really any dough.
Merlin: And so if you've got a classic, not a classic car, but like a normal car from normal times, every normal car has five tires.
Merlin: It's got five full-size tires, right?
Merlin: So what happens?
Merlin: You get a flat tire.
Merlin: Now, you get that replacement fifth tire out, you put it on, you put the flat tire into your trunk.
Merlin: You're 20 years old.
Merlin: Do you go directly over to the tire czar in your neighborhood and buy a fresh tire?
Merlin: Do you replace all of them because you're a responsible young person who knows how to rotate?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: Typically, no.
Merlin: You got a flat tire.
Merlin: You got all the gear.
Merlin: You got the tire lever, as they say in England.
Merlin: You got all that back there with a flat tire.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: How good is that?
Merlin: And you're fine.
Merlin: You're fine for a while.
Merlin: You're fine for a while, but you're not going to be fine if you get one of those other tires goes.
Merlin: No, you've got that insecurity.
Merlin: Do you see what I'm saying?
Merlin: Do you see what I'm saying?
John: Yeah, you do.
John: You walk around all the time, and if you're not thinking about it, some part of grace, your grace— Your personal grace, your internal grace.
John: That grace is conscious of the fact that that flat tire is back there, and she's not going to sleep.
John: She's not going to sleep as well.
Merlin: If you're afflicted as I am, in fact, your internal grace might experience a huge amount of stimulation in the few days after that because you have magical thinking that makes you think, oh, if one broke, the other one will break.
Merlin: Or similar.
Merlin: Or if one broke, another one will never break.
Merlin: Well, that's the thing.
Merlin: That's part two for me.
Merlin: My internal grace thing goes, eh.
Merlin: You're good.
John: Oh.
Merlin: You're good.
Merlin: Grace.
Merlin: Grace.
Merlin: Grace.
Merlin: And this is, yeah, so this is the problem.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: That's the problem.
Merlin: So anyway, with the logic, it's hard because, and then, so here's my, so this is my, this is my Sisyphus Cassandra, is that I have stopped being a person who says I told you so.
Merlin: I try very, very hard to not be an I told you so person because if the child is at a very vulnerable moment because they fucked up,
Merlin: I don't think it's surpassingly useful.
Merlin: I've explained this to my daughter.
Merlin: I said, look, this is what we train for.
Merlin: We spend our whole life trying to notice ways to not spill milk on things.
Merlin: Like a kitchen table, we're ready for that, but let's not spill a milk on the pretty new couch.
Merlin: no we spent our whole life i spent my whole life trying to avoid the spilling of things onto the other things but can i tell you when that does happen i get eye of the tiger i'm super calm the child is very emotional and i i say you know what these things happen
John: Tell me about the new couch.
John: Oh, it's just briefly, just briefly.
Merlin: Oh, it's, it's an internet couch and you put it together yourself.
Merlin: It's pretty good.
Merlin: Oh, that sounds good.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: It's hard to buy a couch.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: So is there anything else for the, it feels great to watch a lot of TV.
Yeah.
Merlin: Because the TV I want to watch, I want to watch, is, you know, I will not permit a family binge of a program I do not like.
Merlin: So we've been binging on the 30 Rock.
Merlin: We just finished the entire run of that series.
Merlin: It's a very good show.
Merlin: I'm not going to permit a binge of a terrible show.
Merlin: You just finished 30 Rock?
Merlin: Is that what you said?
Merlin: All the way through, yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, it's a nice show.
Merlin: It's a good show.
Merlin: The second to the last episode, especially.
Merlin: How many seasons is it?
Merlin: Season six, not good.
Merlin: Season seven, it kind of comes back.
John: Last night, I was introduced to a new episodic television program.
John: I was sat down and told I was going to watch a TV, which happens sometimes.
John: Here's a crazy thing.
John: Are you ready?
John: I'm ready, yeah.
John: Sitting there, you know, trying to follow a diet plan around here that doesn't involve just eating scabetti and milkshakes every day.
John: Yeah.
John: Sitting there.
John: It's late at night.
John: Later at night.
John: My daughter's mother's looking at her phone.
John: I'm looking at my phone.
John: And then she says, I just did a crazy thing.
John: And I said, what's that?
John: And she said, I just had Postmates.
John: who I hope is sponsoring this episode, I just told them to deliver us two milkshakes from Denny's.
John: What?
John: Or not Postmates.
John: It was one of those things.
John: Like a DoorDash or a Grubhub?
John: Yeah, something like that.
John: And I was like, that's insane, those words that you just said.
John: But I forgot about it.
John: I didn't take it seriously.
John: I thought it was just some sort of internet hubbub thing.
John: some sort of thing that people say that's not real maybe i thought it was a meme i don't know oh yeah milkshakes from denny's sure and then it's one of those things you come across and you're like what milkshakes from denny's is that like a milkshake doc milkshake nigel farage like what's the joke yeah exactly exactly is this some is this some little like eight-year-old japanese girl that can play rock and roll by led zeppelin all the way through on the drums all right no turns out
John: Like a half hour later, the doorbell rings and there's a guy standing there.
John: And this is like the middle of the night.
John: And he's holding two.
John: It's not in a bag.
John: He's just holding two milkshakes in big cups that say Denny's.
John: Wow.
John: And I was like, I looked at him and he looked at me and I was like,
John: This is ridiculous.
John: And he laughed and was like, yeah, yeah, man.
John: But you know, chocolate peanut butter is my favorite too.
John: I was like, chocolate peanut butter?
John: What are you even talking about?
John: He handed me two milkshakes and I went in the house just dumbfounded that at 1130 at night, just a random stranger could hand you two giant milkshakes.
John: And my daughter's mother was like, which one is mine?
John: And I was like, what do you mean?
John: And she said, well, one of them's chocolate peanut butter.
John: I was like, the guy, the delivery guy knew one of these was chocolate peanut butter.
John: What kind of conversation did he have with the people at Denny's?
John: They're not, they're not differentiated.
John: You know, it's not like one has a mark on it.
John: And then my daughter's mother said, we're watching a new TV show tonight.
John: It was the middle of the night by then, by this point it was.
Merlin: I love this proactive baby mama.
John: And I was like, what, who?
John: And she said, she said, you don't get a choice.
John: So I sat down.
John: And this TV show came on called Killing Eve.
John: And I was like, wait a minute, is this one of those shows that has a strong female lead?
John: And she said, yes.
John: And then it became apparent that there were at least two strong female leads.
John: And then there were four or five strong female leads.
John: And I was like, what kind of sorcery is this?
John: And then it turned out it was a really good television program.
John: Super good.
John: How much do you love Villanelle?
John: So great.
John: Really?
John: And then I was like, this actress or the actor who was playing the lead lady, I said, who is this person?
John: Is this a comedian of some kind?
John: And she said, no, this is a famous actress.
John: Actor of television.
John: She's Grey's Anatomy.
John: From Grey's Anatomy, a show I never saw.
John: Nope.
John: So I was like, oh, I don't know what that is.
John: And then she did that thing where she listed like three or four different media properties that I had not seen.
John: And then she tried to triangulate to it by... Just real quick, she's still selling it at this point?
John: No, no, no.
John: She's just trying to... Because I like a little backstory.
John: I like to get filled in on who's who and what's what.
John: It's also got Mrs. Weasley in it.
John: We'll see that.
John: I don't know what that is either.
John: Oh, sorry.
Merlin: Don't give it away.
Merlin: No, from Harry Potter.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: You know, the mother where he has to sleep in the cupboard in the hall.
Merlin: The mother is the lady super boss.
John: Oh, lady super boss is the mom from the Harry Potters.
John: I never saw Harry Potter yet.
Merlin: Later on, you're going to see in season two, you're going to see the Quidditch teacher from the first movie.
Merlin: So there's a lot of that.
Merlin: There's a lot of that.
Merlin: Harry Potter and Doctor Who.
Merlin: It's basically everybody's been on all of them.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: But she was saying about she was trying to get me to know who the people were by talking about some of the media properties that people who had worked with them were on.
John: OK.
John: Like, oh, she was on the show with the guy that was in the.
John: was in this other movie that you never saw.
John: Right.
John: So it was that.
Merlin: A lot of those kinds of people are Danish.
Merlin: I did a deep dive on Constantine, and I think he's a Dane.
Merlin: There's a lot of Danes.
Merlin: Jamie Lannister, I think he's a Dane.
Merlin: Oh, yeah, Danes.
John: There's a lot of Danish.
John: He looks very Danish.
John: Yeah.
John: Anyway, so now you go from one, you swing from one vine to the next, but if you're watching seven hours of TV...
John: It can't all be TV, can it?
John: Didn't you watch all three Godfathers in there or something?
John: Like, how do you get, is it really all televisions?
John: Is it binge watching?
Merlin: Is that what you're doing?
Merlin: Is it binge watching?
Merlin: Well, I mean, do you want particulars?
Merlin: Because I can tell you.
Merlin: I can easily tell you.
Merlin: No, no, no.
Merlin: Say it out.
Merlin: Spread the peanut butter.
Merlin: When you're done with the extant Killings Eve, I don't know if you're the kind of person that jumps around, but first of all, Killing Eve, good choice.
Merlin: Patriot, also highly recommended.
Merlin: If you haven't seen Patriot, did you see Patriot?
Merlin: I forget.
Merlin: You recommended it to us and we watched it.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Well, second, I watched, I'm continuing my rewatch of Game of Thrones.
John: Oh, from the start.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And right now I just, I got, I watched, I don't know if it was seven hours, but I watched, the second part of my watchings when I was really getting into the ice cream was, I think I watched three or four episodes, which was the completion of season three and the beginning of season four of the Game of Thrones, which I have on Blu-ray.
Merlin: And so, yeah, it looks good.
Merlin: It looks really, really good.
Merlin: And, you know, that's a very good program.
Merlin: What is a Blu-ray player?
Merlin: Is it a kind of DVD?
Merlin: It's like a super DVD.
Merlin: And in my case, like a lot of people, I don't own a bespoke Blu-ray player, but there's one inside my PlayStation video game system.
Merlin: It's excruciating to use, but...
Merlin: Oh, that's nice.
Merlin: Inside your PlayStation.
Merlin: But you can buy them all on Blu-ray.
Merlin: And yeah, I just, I really, really like that show.
Merlin: Is it holding together now that on second watch?
Merlin: Oh my God.
Merlin: Season three was just so incredible.
Merlin: And yeah, I mean, it's got a lot of the hot stuff.
Merlin: It's got the, you know, the Brienne and Jamie stuff walking around.
Merlin: And, you know, now we just got...
Merlin: No spoilers, but we just got into where Arya has parted ways with the Hound.
Merlin: Oh, yep.
Merlin: And she's going to go off and do her thing.
John: Sorry to interrupt.
Merlin: No, sorry, you there.
John: Were you...
Merlin: uh a final season hater or were you a final season uh liker or were you somewhere uh did you have some concerns somewhere in the middle i mean i'm gonna say one thing about this because i don't want to get into a thing unless you want to get into a thing well we could have a special episode about this we have the capacity for that that's true that's true my feeling is the donors only feed me right of course
Merlin: Of course.
Merlin: We're asking questions.
Merlin: What kind of relationship should we have with our listeners?
Merlin: It's a question.
John: Yeah, that's exactly right.
John: It's just a question.
Merlin: It was a certain show, mostly for six seasons, and then it was a different show for the two mini-seasons.
Merlin: So, two mini-seasons?
Merlin: Was there a second mini-season?
Merlin: Seven and eight were kind of miniature seasons.
John: Oh, they were only how many episodes instead of how many episodes?
Merlin: Well, I thought it was six or so, but that's the ones where, you know...
Merlin: I don't want to get email, but it's where travel stopped mattering and the Ravens did all the heavy lifting.
Merlin: Oh, I see.
Merlin: Daenerys can arrive in a dragon faster than a milkshake from Denny's.
Merlin: Travel stopped mattering.
Merlin: Travel stopped mattering.
Merlin: I've covered this on another program, but yes, it's very important that, God, this is so confusing in the timescape, an episode of Reconcilable Differences that will be out by the time the episode you're listening to now
Merlin: that we're recording comes out.
Merlin: Yeah, it's my feeling like a lot of people, my beef generally is that the rules of how we understood that universe changed.
Merlin: And like what my main point was, what got left behind was stuff that made things like season three great.
Merlin: Like how Brienne and Podrick
Merlin: brienne and podrick's adventures walking around jamie and um and brienne's adventures walking around they do a lot of walking around right there's there's campfires uh people are trying to find some food to eat still lots of good killings but like so much of what we came to understand about those characters is through their interactions walking around
Merlin: you watch the hound he walks into a place and he looks around to see if it's safe he does that a lot he spends a lot of time looking around to see if it's safe there's one in toward the end of season three I don't know how I forgot about this but there's the one where they go into the inn and it's very D&D super D&D and Arya recognizes this one guy who's being a dick and they're bullying this lady he was the singer from Saxon is that right?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: New wave of heavy metal?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: New wave of British heavy metal.
Merlin: British.
Merlin: New album.
Merlin: New album.
Merlin: New album.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And, you know, the hound, of course, the sand pump breaks, but that leads to some very good fighting, and Needle comes out, and she hits him with the pointy end, and that's real good.
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: That's my general feeling.
Merlin: I mean, you know, it's just so exhausting.
Merlin: Many, many, many weeks ago, the show concluded, as you listen to this, and there was a lot of takes that were hot.
Merlin: Decades ago.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: No, I mean, I didn't hate it, but I was just, you know, I felt a little bit narratively cock-blocked.
John: But you didn't have to post about it, did you?
John: Well, you don't need to post.
John: No, you don't.
John: Oh, I meant to say happy non-denominational day of happiness.
John: Oh, thank you.
John: Yeah, because this show is airing sometime in March of 2020.
John: Okay.
John: We want to keep it evergreen.
John: Yes.
John: So we don't reference.
Merlin: So you don't want to directly thank me for my service.
John: No.
John: No, no, no.
John: Just thank you generally.
John: Yes.
John: And you thank me for a happy day.
Merlin: Thank you.
Merlin: We should just have a day of gratitude, a non-denominational gratitude day.
John: I'm going to the baseball game today.
John: Oh.
John: With a friend of the show, Jason Finn.
John: Oh, nice.
John: And I got yelled at by some people yesterday for supporting our own hometown baseball team because the feeling among some of my friends is that our baseball team should be punished for
John: Oh.
John: They feel very strongly about sports.
John: Yeah.
John: And so strongly that at a certain point, if your baseball team betrays you enough times, it becomes your worst enemy.
Merlin: Like, they don't prefer another baseball team.
Merlin: Oh, it doesn't merely make them go, hmm, I'm not into it.
Merlin: The switch flips, and now they're an adversarial team.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: I said to another friend, another friend of our show...
John: Um, uh, but, but less so than of course, Jason Finn, who is a reoccurring character.
John: Uh, Jason Finn is kind of the Podrick of this show.
John: It's like so hot by, uh, uh, but, uh, but another friend, when I said I'm going to the baseball game with Jason, their, their reply was why, why this is a friend I've been to a hundred baseball games with.
John: And I was like, why?
John: Why?
John: It's one of it's America's pastime.
John: It's one of the things we do.
Merlin: This isn't your friend, friend of French, the bird.
John: No, this is the friend.
John: This is a former superfan.
John: No, this is this other friend is is the lead singer guitarist of a of an enormously popular band.
Merlin: OK, but it's somebody.
Merlin: But what I'm trying to get at is like, is it somebody who used to be very into the local sports team?
John: Yes, somebody that used to be very into the local sports team.
John: And now they feel betrayed?
John: They feel betrayed by the local sports team.
John: And this is the thing about sports people that I don't fully understand.
John: They take the defeats personally to the point that they are embittered.
Mm-hmm.
John: And it's like, oh, hey, I'm going to go.
John: I'm going to go over to a dinner party at your ex-girlfriend's house.
John: And they would say, why?
John: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: And I'm wearing a song.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: And this is one of the myriad reasons where I have so little interest in the behind the scenes stuff, because there's a lot of behind the scenes stuff with our local sports team.
Merlin: And I think it's the behind the scenes stuff and no shade, no lemonade against anybody and their feelings.
Merlin: Everybody has their reasons, but that's one reason I don't like, yeah.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: So Kevin Durant's going to go to the Knicks probably, but we're not sure.
Merlin: I still like basketball.
Merlin: I still like watching it.
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
John: Like in that case, Barry Bonds is juicing.
John: You know what I mean?
Merlin: Or maybe he's not.
Merlin: What does he have?
Merlin: He has the, what's the cold and the cream, the cream, the cream and the swab.
Merlin: He had two different ones.
Merlin: He's got the cold and the cream and the cream and the swab.
Yeah.
Merlin: He had the, no, what's it called?
Merlin: There was a name for it.
Merlin: They kept saying it over and over.
Merlin: He's got the lime and the coconut.
Merlin: You should also watch Russian Doll.
Merlin: Oh, yeah, I heard about that.
Merlin: That's got some Harry Nilsson in it.
Merlin: And I do want to come back to my first TV watching.
Merlin: But no, this is the thing.
Merlin: And I get this.
Merlin: I mean, I grew up with the Big Red Machine.
Merlin: Like, my prime childhood baseball years, I mean...
Merlin: Were those the Pete Rose betrayal years or pre-betrayal?
Merlin: No, no, no, no, no.
Merlin: We're talking 75, 76 World Series.
Merlin: We're talking Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Dave Concepcion, Ken Griffey, George Foster.
Merlin: This is amazing baseball.
Merlin: Oh, this is some great fucking baseball.
Merlin: And you got Sparky Anderson.
Merlin: And they were all terrific.
Merlin: And so, yeah, I mean, that's what?
Merlin: That's like growing up like in the Yankees or something.
Merlin: It's easy to like that team.
John: But anyway, Cincinnati, anything to do with Cincinnati, you're always an underdog, right?
John: You're always Cincinnati is always punching above its weight.
Merlin: Cincinnati, it's rough.
Merlin: Like a place where your mom comes from.
Merlin: Tell her I said hi.
Merlin: A place like where your mom comes from.
Merlin: There is a to pronounce it like my grandmother is an umbleness.
Merlin: You're very humble.
Merlin: You're very humble.
Merlin: You know, I think she thought it meant something different.
Merlin: But like, it's a kind of like, I'm not just I'm not just a humble bragging.
Merlin: Like, I'm genuinely like, yeah, we're we're we're hill people here.
Merlin: You know, yeah.
Merlin: Cincinnati, though, you know, it's you got the you saying you saying Cincinnati puts on airs.
Merlin: Well, you know, it's a story with the fringe on top.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: Chicks and ducks and bees better scurry because you're right betwixt.
Merlin: You know, you got the river there.
Merlin: You're right betwixt Indiana and Kentucky.
Merlin: You are the demon spawn.
Merlin: You are Cincinnati snow or Cincinnati sand, depending on where you come from.
Merlin: You know, it's a bastard town, but it thinks it's fancy.
Merlin: Because it's different than the rest of Ohio.
Merlin: It's a big state, certainly, but it is a solidly, like, it was when I was a kid, like a union state, very, like, working class.
Merlin: You make the tires.
John: So you're saying it's like the Luxembourg of Ohio.
Yeah.
Merlin: You know what they say, John?
Merlin: They say, I'm not sure what this means to the conversation.
Merlin: I'm very, very tired and had a lot of ice cream.
Merlin: But they say when you're buying, you're the one who's involved in real estate.
Merlin: But I've heard it said that if you're thinking about buying a house, buy the house you can afford in the nicest neighborhood.
Merlin: Don't get the fanciest house in the neighborhood that's falling down.
John: That's right.
Merlin: I'm not sure which one Cincinnati is, but it's not the good one.
John: Is it the bad house in a good neighborhood or is it the good house in a bad neighborhood?
John: Cincinnati's one of those.
Merlin: It's the house where somebody got a bonus and put a hastily erected second floor.
Merlin: You ever seen a hastily erected second floor?
Whew.
Merlin: You see in Florida where there's no zoning laws, and you can put a house on your house.
Merlin: We'll just let you.
Merlin: It'll be totally different.
Merlin: But it's basically like a child irresponsibly using Legos to just make a whole second house.
Merlin: You can do that in Florida.
John: In Seattle, that was very popular to do except at great expense.
Merlin: Do you try and make it look consistent with the previous house and the neighborhood?
John: No.
John: Why would you do that?
John: Why would you do that?
Merlin: Or does it look like the Erie?
Merlin: Is it going to have a big thing on a thing?
Merlin: Because I bet you, when you get to the point where you put a house on your house, I bet you want it to be nicer than the one below, and maybe even heavier.
John: So you'll go even into a nice neighborhood where you see these beautiful four-square homes, these nice sort of neo-colonial homes.
John: Three-story homes with a big – up on the top floor there, you've got these beautiful big dormers.
John: And you can picture this upstairs room, light flooding in.
John: It's kind of got all this architectural interestingness up there.
John: And some will come along.
John: This was popular earlier.
Merlin: I think in the 1980s, but a fancy person will come and they'll... I'm not sure what neocolonial is, but I do know that kind of mix, not a McMansion, but that mix of Greek and colonial, something involving columns, that was meant to be the signifier of fanciness to new money in the 80s.
John: Well, but so these houses, so those columns, like you can put those in your condo, right?
John: They're not load-bearing columns, yeah.
John: But these houses are like 1898 houses.
John: Oh, shit, dog.
John: That a young urban professional couple might buy.
John: And for whatever reason, they wanted an 1898 house, but they also wanted to take everything out of it and replace it with things from the 1980s.
John: So they wanted to take the load-bearing columns out and put some non-load-bearing columns in.
John: And they wanted to take out the interior walls and replace them with glass brick, all this kind of thing.
John: But one of the great things they would do is they felt like that top floor was
John: Often, I guess, the dormers didn't provide enough headroom.
John: Maybe they built a handball court up there.
John: But often it was also that they sensed that there was a view.
John: available to them from those windows and that that that view needed to they needed to be able to have that view they're the guy who puts his girlfriend on his shoulders at the concert ah that's exactly what it is yes so they would blow out those dormers and they would put these giant elephant ear dormers and they for whatever however it was that and i still don't understand it how a person can look at a beautiful home
John: Think to themselves, I can improve on this.
John: And then build a thing on top of a thing.
John: Put a – because it's one thing if you're like living in a small house and you want an extra floor and you put it together and you put an extra floor on there.
John: And you're not trying to – you're just trying to be taller than the neighbors.
John: But there's nothing – you're just dealing with a –
John: You're dealing with a Florida bungalow to start with, you know, as opposed to like a like a gracious home where you think, wouldn't it be great if I put huge ears on this?
John: Like just if I put Dumbo ears on the top of this house.
John: They never go out there.
John: They don't care about the view.
John: Still, even though there is a view, all they do is go over and stand in the window.
Merlin: Do they have a master suite?
Merlin: See, that seems to me like a—I have family members that did a tricked-out second floor, and it was to make a totally huge master suite with two closets and all that kind of stuff.
John: That might have been it.
John: Although I feel like if you're going to have a big house like that and you're going to put a master suite in somewhere, you know, just do it.
John: Why would you climb three flights of stairs?
John: Like what kind of Richard Simmons life are you living?
John: It's true.
John: Put the master suite right there.
John: Take out the dining room and put it in there.
John: Why don't you?
John: Anyway, I mean, every once in a while they walk over, they open the curtains, they griswold at the view for like 30 seconds.
John: But as you drive down the street, you're like, what?
John: Is that the Grand Canyon?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: It was stupid.
Merlin: I never really liked it.
John: Sorry.
John: Anyway, you see that a lot.
John: Every once in a while, I'll stop and take a picture of one of these houses where someone had a house from 1898 and they thought they could improve on it.
John: And they just don't have – I don't know.
John: They didn't learn scale and proportion.
John: You know what it is?
John: They didn't take an art history class.
Merlin: Well, yes.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: That's what I've been struggling to figure out.
Merlin: I can't even come up with a good analogy for this.
Merlin: But perfect and perfect – however it is, those houses have an internal consistency born probably out of practicality.
Merlin: Maybe it's based on materials, but there's a – they may not have thought of it as a design sense.
Merlin: But one thing that makes us crave the beauty and –
Merlin: fucking authenticity of these old things is they do generally have a practical and aesthetic internal logic to them.
Merlin: Yes, yes, yes.
Merlin: I know they painted the Roman statues.
Merlin: Shut up.
Merlin: But in this case, you take something that you... You could...
Merlin: There's so many ways you can fuck that up.
Merlin: And like I say, I don't even have an analogy.
Merlin: I'm struck by saying, okay, what are the perfect French fries?
Merlin: McDonald's, right?
Merlin: McDonald's French fries.
Merlin: So are you going to improve them by keeping them in the box in their perfect French fry state and then having a quarter pounder with cheese on top and eating it like a sandwich?
Merlin: Well, you just fucked up two things now.
Merlin: Now, that's stupid.
Merlin: When you're mixing your eras, and let's be honest, if you got the dough to do this, you probably have ambitions to look a little bit fancy.
John: Yeah.
Yeah.
John: Yeah, but just go downtown and do something.
John: I don't know.
John: Go out to the – I don't know where you want to go.
John: Find an abandoned lot.
John: Buy one of those old motels.
Merlin: But Capitol Hill still has a lot of those pretty old houses, right?
John: Oh, they do.
John: Although, you know, they tore down my grandmother's house and built some kind of old folks home there.
John: You're telling me that you put a quarter pounder on top of French fries and eat it like a sandwich?
Merlin: A quarter pounder is already a sandwich.
Merlin: Not I. Not I and I. I'm just trying to come up with a good analogy for stupid where like – and it is this – God, this sounds so –
Merlin: You used the phrase young urban professionals, right?
Merlin: Which used to be a thing that we would say in an abbreviated format that I think we don't say anymore because it's hateful.
Merlin: Double income, no kids.
Merlin: Dinks.
Merlin: Oh, see, now that.
Merlin: That sounds like something, you know, thank you for your service.
Merlin: Whoa, dinks.
Merlin: No, we don't say.
Merlin: There's a reason they're not allowed in the Freemasons.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: but the uh but you know what it is it's just fucking like not even the lumpen proletariat just just fucking normies normies with money could fuck up a wet dream you know and you get like a house that you could afford theoretically but then you put another house on it you know it's just it's so emblematic of a lot of things that are gross i i went to a i went to a uh comedy show a couple of days ago
John: Which is not a thing I do.
John: I'm just going to spoiler alert everybody and say that I went to a comedy show and that it's not a thing I do.
John: And one of the comedians, I went to it because one of the comedians asked me to perform at it.
John: And an old friend, stand-up comic, he was making a live album.
John: And he said, you know, will you come and be the voice of God?
John: He said, and I was like, sure.
John: I'll be, yes, I'll be the voice of God.
John: And then I got there and he was like, so, you know, you'll get up and do like 10 or 15, um,
John: And then this other comedian will do 10 or 15.
John: And then I'm going to do my show.
John: And I said, wait a minute.
John: You said you wanted me to hear as the voice of God.
John: And now you're saying I'm the opening comedian?
John: That's an unusual way to frame that.
John: I was like, huh.
John: So I got up and just insulted the audience for 10 minutes.
John: But then he got up and he did a whole bit on wet dreams, on nocturnal emissions.
John: You just mentioned wet dreams.
John: Yeah.
John: This was a thing that, as I was watching the show, I was like, I cannot relate to this.
John: This is like being told that Patrick Dempsey was in a movie, and that's how I should know who the actor of this is.
Merlin: Wow, nice pull.
Merlin: Is he the fellow with the face that's in the Killing Eve lady show?
Merlin: Is he from Shondaland?
Merlin: He was.
Merlin: Is he a Grey?
Yeah.
John: He was in Grey's Anatomy.
John: Okay, Patrick Dempsey.
John: Yeah.
John: And so I was like, I was being guided to understand who the actress that I was watching that was on this show was by being told that Patrick Dempsey was once in some other thing.
John: And I was like, you're naming names that were in magazines.
Merlin: She's showing off.
John: She's showing off.
John: But these are names I know and faces I know from magazines that I read in dentists' offices in the, what, 90s?
John: Oh, 2000s.
Merlin: You get an Us Weekly.
Merlin: You learn about Patrick Dempsey.
Merlin: He's not Patrick Duffy, although I thought that for a second.
Merlin: But you know how it is.
Merlin: I do.
John: You don't have to go to the dentist's.
Merlin: I don't retain that.
Merlin: I deliberately drop those bits.
Merlin: Yeah.
Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, anyway, I was thinking never once.
John: He's talking about, he was talking about wet dreams as a thing that he had a lot.
John: Yeah.
John: And then there was some moment in his life where he stopped having them and he was talking about enjoying them and all this stuff.
John: I never had a single one.
Merlin: I've never had a single wet dream in my entire life.
John: No, me either.
Merlin: I must have arrived just like a couple of days before they would have started.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
Yes.
Yes.
John: Yes.
Merlin: But I was able to dig the trench on my own.
John: Yeah, I'm not sure what happened.
John: I feel like it was... Do you think it's a snipe hunting kind of thing?
Merlin: Do you think it's a way they just trick the new guys?
Merlin: What if it's not a thing?
John: Well, no, because there's all these guys that have...
John: masturbating socks and all this other stuff like uh people that are cutting holes in the bottom of of popcorn barrels in the 1950s movies i was i didn't ever wanted any of that neither you nor i ever wanted any of that that's one of the things that we know about each other yeah but you know i've never been to nicaragua but i assume it does exist
John: I have to assume that nobody would talk about this.
John: No one would make Wet Dreams up just to gaslight us.
Merlin: Maybe.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I only know it as an analogy.
Merlin: I could have gone with Scruble Steel Trap, but I went with Wet Dreams because it just felt better in the moment.
John: Yeah, well, I only wanted to sidebar that because it's always been very confusing to me.
John: For a long time, I was sort of waiting for it.
Merlin: I can't tell which one I'm supposed to feel more guilty about.
Merlin: I can't tell if I'm supposed to feel guilty for not having had a wet dream because I guess I'm an onanist.
John: Oh, I see what you're saying.
John: I mean, I'm an onanist of old?
John: Sure, that's the trench.
Merlin: But see, that's what makes me think it's a snipe hunting type situation.
Merlin: Like, here's your special bag.
John: Go find the snipe.
John: Oh, it's a thing that people say, and then they look at you, and if you're like, oh, I never had one, then they're like, masturbator!
Merlin: I guess, yes, because you don't have the stones to go.
Merlin: Not only do I not masturbate, but I know because I'm science-y that wet dreams are a myth.
Merlin: Maybe they could do a Mythbusters on Wet Dreams.
Merlin: Is that still a show?
Merlin: They got the new guy.
John: There's some kind of Mythbusters for kids now or Youngbusters.
John: I don't know what they do.
John: What Adam Savage does is he just turns on his money printing machine.
John: I like that guy a lot.
Merlin: I like the Mythbusters.
Merlin: I feel like it suffers from the cable TV problem of like, this could be a lot tighter.
John: Oh, do they do the thing where they at the end?
Merlin: A lot of recaps, a lot of recaps.
John: Yeah, right before the commercial, they talk about what they just did and then they do it again at the beginning.
Merlin: Yeah, the Asian fellow and the enthusiastic lady, they get very excited about shooting the gun at the Whirligig, you know, and we got to see the recap of that.
John: Do you remember when R. Lee Emry, Emily, R. Lee Emry?
John: Yeah, R. Lee Emry, yeah.
John: He had all these shows where he was shooting different guns.
John: He had a show where he just shot different guns.
Merlin: It was, yeah, Gun World with Emily Early.
John: Yeah, and the thing about that show was I was intrigued by it.
John: And this was at a time, I guess, when I had access to television.
John: And when I would see E-Arm Emily come on the... E-Arm Emily?
Merlin: Like J.J.
Merlin: Arms?
Yeah.
John: Yeah, like J.J.
John: Armsbrums.
John: He would come on and I would say, oh, this is going to be a show where he fires some Civil War musket and yells at me for half an hour.
John: I'm in for that.
John: Sure.
John: I'm in for a penny and for a pound.
Merlin: For a pound, yeah.
John: The thing is that the premise of that is the premise of a five minute show.
John: Here's a gun.
John: Here's what it's here's where it's from.
Merlin: Oh, that might be better as like, God forbid, that might be better as a YouTube episode.
John: YouTube episode.
John: Right.
John: I mean, just just just shave it down.
John: OK, here we go.
John: We're going to shoot it.
John: Oh, pow.
John: And you shoot at some balloons or you shoot at a pig in the dirt or whatever it is you're shooting at.
John: And then the episode's over.
John: But they had to stretch it out to make it a half hour long.
John: So there was a lot of yelling.
John: There was a lot of recapping.
Merlin: There was a lot of graphics.
Merlin: You cut to the commercial and there's a graphic in like a rubber stamp font or army font or something like that.
John: Yeah, exactly.
John: But even the graphics would be recapping something that he had just yelled at you.
John: I know.
John: So it was like internally recapping.
John: Because there's only five things to say.
Merlin: Well, because that's why I say it's a cable problem.
Merlin: No offense, but like that's because people are fucking flipping around.
Merlin: They're flipping around.
Merlin: I covered this in my thesis.
Merlin: So people are flipping around and then so they go, oh, look, it's Emily Arley and is going to shoot some guns and then they have to recap.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: What happened with the, I don't know, the stock or whatever.
Yeah.
John: As you're flipping around, how many shows do you keep in your on-deck series?
John: docket how many shows are on deck as you're flipping do you go like oh oh uh sex in the city yeah and then it goes to commercial and you're like okay sex in the city's on channel 27 i want to want to stop back by here and see what's going on historically in the in the uh in the uh okay the four times when you go flicka flicka flicka yeah how many shows would you keep on the docket um
John: Before you settled in, you know, before you found, you got somewhere and you were like, Fletch.
John: Yeah.
John: And then you forgot everything was erased.
John: That might be on USA where characters are welcome.
John: Could be.
Merlin: Could be, right?
John: But you're flipping around and you're thinking, do I want to watch like...
Merlin: this do i want to watch that yeah i could do this and it's and and so you're keeping them in a file folder but you're still flipping yeah because you haven't found that's a good question well i'll tell you something there's one thing is that let's uh let's talk about the technology um one thing that was great you know you could go and and just watch a show like a person and just leave it on but even if you're watching most things on cable there's going to be commercials now there's something special special there's something special special
Merlin: Special bull about jumping between two shows because now you get to benefit from the preve button, the previous.
Merlin: Oh, previous button, right.
Merlin: So you're just hopping.
Merlin: You hit preve and you go between two things with one click and that's pretty cool.
Merlin: They could be separated by 80 channels.
Merlin: Exactly.
Merlin: But you just preve it.
Merlin: Yeah, as long as you don't break the chain.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: If you don't love me now, never love me again.
Merlin: Don't break the preve.
Merlin: With that said... Chains that bind you, nobody else will find you.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: Take a good look behind you.
Merlin: Take my love, take it down.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Sometimes as many as five, because of course you got to jump in.
Merlin: You got to jump in on MTV, see what's going on there with the videos.
John: Now, is this the thing that technology has solved?
Merlin: No, I don't flip anymore.
Merlin: I don't flip.
John: You don't flip.
Merlin: Oh, because you only watch what you want to watch.
Merlin: Well, but also, I mean, it's a long story, but like the non-cable service I use for streaming TV is called Hulu.
Merlin: I have the fanciest version of Hulu.
Merlin: I sound like the Frozen guy.
John: How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?
John: I'll let you know.
John: What is the fanciest version of Hulu?
John: Does the fanciest version of it mean that you don't have to have any of the other eels?
Merlin: Well, again, it's another long story, but I get relatively few commercials.
Merlin: Asterisk, asterisk.
Merlin: But no, I've got one where like if I and actually I've kind of gotten off this, but like I used to like watch a lot of like news, cable news on there.
Merlin: But it also has a DVR-like functionality, so you can say, okay, I like 30 Rock.
Merlin: They show me all the episodes of 30 Rock, and that's in my Bastic over here of things I like to watch.
Merlin: So that's mainly how it is.
Merlin: I mean, we don't jump around watching live TV.
Merlin: Jump around, jump around.
John: What do you do?
John: Okay, so one thing you've done is eliminate from your life almost any chance that you will be staying in a hotel.
John: Yeah.
John: Sitting and looking at the television and trying to figure out where Sex and the City is.
John: What a different world.
John: But my question for you is, what do you do when you want to watch something and it's not on Hulu?
John: Is fancy Hulu, is there stuff on it that's not on Hulu?
Merlin: We are heavily subscribed.
Merlin: I see.
Merlin: We are heavily subscribed.
Merlin: I can tell you there's a not terrible service called Just Watch, which has an app or a website.
Merlin: If you go Google Just Watch and you enter in – because I used to have this terrible habit of just buying a movie.
Merlin: We're like, oh, we want to watch Mean Girls.
Merlin: And so we'll just go buy Mean Girls.
Merlin: But it's like the thing is Mean Girls might be streaming somewhere.
Merlin: Turns out you're paying a subscription to something.
Merlin: Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Merlin: And you never know because it's so random.
Merlin: It could be, well, increasingly not as much, but it could be on Netflix.
Merlin: There's all kinds of weird stuff that's on HBO in there, like back catalog, stuff on Hulu.
Merlin: Those are all things we're subscribed to.
John: I encounter this all the time now, which is this thing where you have to go onto each one of these things and search for the thing you want to watch.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Try the Just Watch app.
John: Try Just Watch app.
Merlin: Well, like go search.
Merlin: Well, anyway, it's kind of boring to do on a podcast.
Merlin: But yeah, I do that a lot when I have the presence of mind to check.
Merlin: Like, where can I get Mean Girls?
Merlin: A lot of times it'll say you can buy it for $14.99.
Merlin: You can do it at $2.99.
Merlin: But there was one just the other night where we were able to – oh, well, actually, that's a bad example.
John: But it does come up.
John: It does come up.
John: No, no.
John: Give me the example.
John: What was it?
Merlin: Oh, um, um, you know, when you're, when you and your child are hanging out, you end up talking about stuff.
Merlin: And I was, I was trying to explain the concept of in media res, which she instantly got, which is like, you're dropped into something.
Merlin: And it was in the context of talking about like good TV shows where you drop in and like, don't know what's happening and have to kind of suss it out.
Merlin: Right.
John: That's better than one that's, that starts you off.
John: Like you never saw anything before.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: exactly and she's like oh yeah like that's the kind of thing where after you see that then it says you know 24 hours earlier and i'm like yeah exactly that kind of thing and i said it's a very good example of this from a tv show called breaking bad and so i i described it to her but then i was like yeah let me just show it to you so so i showed her the pre the the cold open in meteor as open of breaking bad and was exactly as good as i remembered
Merlin: episode one episode one there's a man in a gas mask in his underwear driving an rv full of liquid drugs money and bodies and he pulls off the road and he makes a video of himself for his family and then here's sirens coming and he goes out goes out uh stands there on the road with a gun pointed and it's like oh god how are you not gonna watch every episode of that show after that it was so good or like the other one for me is lost
Merlin: The way Lost starts is perfect.
Merlin: There's a guy on the ground.
Merlin: There's a dog.
Merlin: He's in the jungle.
Merlin: What's happening?
Merlin: He walks to the beach.
Merlin: It's beautiful.
Merlin: Still beautiful.
Merlin: But Lost doesn't end well.
Merlin: That's what I've been led to understand.
Merlin: That's what people say.
Merlin: Can I tell you about my B?
Merlin: Can I tell you about my A?
Merlin: Because I think it's something you might want to check out if you haven't already.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: Tell me about your A. So B was when I got into the ice cream was when I was watching the Game of Thrones.
Merlin: But before that, I finally dipped into something that has come highly recommended from a bunch of people.
Merlin: I don't want to oversell it, but if one of the places where you do or don't have a TV has HBO, you should check out Chernobyl.
Yeah.
Merlin: Ooh, I like the name.
Merlin: Sounds exotic.
Merlin: Did you like Das Boot, for example?
Merlin: Do I need to ask?
Merlin: Did you like Das Boot?
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: I'll imagine Das Boot, except it's about nuclear power in the Soviet Union plus corruption.
John: Yes.
John: Soviet corruption?
John: I'm a big fan of that, you know.
Merlin: So much corruption.
Merlin: And it's got the guy from Mad Men.
Merlin: He's in it.
Merlin: Not that guy, the other guy.
Merlin: The English guy is in it.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
Merlin: You know what else has got?
Merlin: It's got Dr. Selvig from the Avengers movie.
Merlin: See, now I'm doing that thing to you.
Merlin: I'm doing that.
Merlin: I do that.
Merlin: yeah you do anyways it's got three episodes so far um and i watched all three of those back to back while i was eating the steak that would later undo me uh yeah i watched i watched i think i think for any of the obvious reasons boy it's awfully well done i would check out chernobyl you know i uh i did a deep dive just the other day for no good reason and here's the thing nowadays every deep dive i do should be for a reason
Merlin: Oh, God.
Merlin: Yes.
John: I keep thinking this.
Merlin: Think it through.
Merlin: What am I in for here?
John: Yeah.
John: What am I deep diving here?
John: Yes.
John: And I did this deep dive on Brezhnev and drop-off Chernyenko, Gorbachev.
Mm-hmm.
John: For no reason.
John: I wasn't boning up on anything.
Merlin: You didn't do any Boris Yeltsin dancing videos?
John: No, I started.
John: I didn't.
Merlin: Best of Yeltsin, please treat yourself.
Merlin: John, you were never in your entire drinking life ever as drunk as Boris Yeltsin was all the time.
Merlin: I'm sure.
Merlin: I remember it.
Merlin: He's a very enthusiastic dancer.
Merlin: I looked away.
Merlin: Deep dive on four premieres.
John: Yeah, I cold opened myself on that.
John: I didn't start with Brezhnev.
John: You know, I started I started right in the middle and then I was like, got to go back and find, you know, I got to go.
John: Got to go see how my characters ended up here.
Merlin: Oh, you're going to see the faceless man guy, but not know that he was also in the cart and Aria saved him.
Merlin: And that's good to know.
John: Yep.
John: That is good to know.
Merlin: A lot of the coins.
Merlin: He gives her the coin.
John: A lot of that last season of GOT, there was that kind of like, who's this?
John: Oh, this is something.
Merlin: So many important callbacks.
Merlin: You don't get the joke about how Brienne is constantly being asked if she's a knight.
Merlin: Nope.
Merlin: Nope.
Merlin: She says, I'm not.
Merlin: You can't be a squire, says the pod.
Merlin: You can't be a squire because I'm not a knight.
John: You can't be a squire.
John: You are not the assistant regional manager.
John: You're the assistant to the regional manager.
Merlin: Yeah.
Yeah.
Merlin: Deep dive.
Merlin: Deep dive.
Merlin: And you should have asked yourself, what is this in service of?
Merlin: Why am I deep diving?
Merlin: And yet you did that on the premieres.
John: I should have asked myself, how did I get here?
John: I should have said to myself, my God, what have I done?
John: Yes.
John: But instead, there's not an infinite number of hours in the day.
John: I have to do various things.
John: I have to do this.
Merlin: I have to do that.
Merlin: How much did you want?
Merlin: You want 26 hours?
Merlin: Is that the day you've historically wanted?
John: 26 hours.
John: 26 hours would round out real nice.
John: If I had two more hours of sleep before the show today, if I could just put those two hours in there instead of robbing Peter to pay Paul, then the coffee sipping you would have heard on this show would have been a lot more...
John: You wouldn't have noticed it, right?
Merlin: I wouldn't have made a point to like... When I was putting the handfuls and handfuls of M&Ms into the vanilla bean ice cream container as it got lower, because, you know, you have more and more room for M&Ms in there as it melts.
John: No, you worked from the top down and then replaced the missing ice cream with M&Ms.
Merlin: Which on Syracuse in video games, you call it grinding.
Merlin: I did the grinding of first, like, getting a trench, a moat,
Merlin: so that it would enable, like I had some just pure vanilla bean, and that's a good ass ice cream.
Merlin: That's a very, it's a highly underrated ice cream.
John: It's a very, you know, it's the most popular ice cream, so you can't really say it's underrated.
Merlin: Well, people like vanilla, I'm talking here, I'm talking about French, French bean, like bean, vanilla bean, vanilla bean, French bean.
John: The bean.
Merlin: Bean, and so I do the trench run, and I make a moat around the center, around the sept, and then I'm dropping in all the M&Ms.
Merlin: See, now at the time, that felt like a deep dive that was going to be good for me.
Merlin: Of course.
Merlin: Well, because first of all, M&Ms are healthy.
Merlin: And they're perfect.
Merlin: They're shiny.
Merlin: They're delicious.
Merlin: They're perfect.
John: They add a little crunch to your thing.
John: Yeah.
John: And this is a thing.
John: John Siracusa had a theory about this.
John: He calls it
Merlin: the uh what did he what did you say he called it oh the way the way that he eats ice cream yeah how does he eat ice cream he eats ice cream um in centimeters i think he has a bill somehow he has a built-in barometer for how he eats ice cream that is as organized and well thought out as the rest of his life i see john john when i open the ice cream um i've decided to stop living a lie so when i open the pint of ice cream i literally throw the lid in the trash
John: Wow.
John: I admire that so much.
Merlin: Committed.
Merlin: It's a deep dive.
Merlin: I say, I know what I'm in for.
Merlin: I know what this is in service of.
John: I've only done that probably... Is it...
John: I think I've done that just a knowable number of times.
John: Oh, good for you.
John: You know what I mean?
John: Like, but, but, but how many is a knowable number?
John: Like, has it been over the last, because I remember the day it occurred to me.
John: You can't put M&Ms on a fraction.
John: You can't put M&Ms on it, right?
John: You can't cut an M&M in half.
John: You're a good man.
John: No, I know.
Merlin: I mean, you could.
Merlin: You can eat one of those skill cutters from Walgreens.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: But you know, my pill cutters just explode my pills.
Merlin: But maybe I shouldn't be using them on capsules.
Merlin: Right, right.
Merlin: The blade's not sharp enough.
Merlin: Where do I get a nice one of those?
Merlin: Is there like an oxo version, right?
John: Yeah, every time I buy a pair of cuticle scissors, I think...
John: There's got to be the finest one of these.
John: I'm not going to find those at Bartels.
John: I'm going to find them somewhere.
John: It's one of these places where hairstylists shop, where they find like $900 scissors.
Merlin: It's going to be German or in some sense Asian.
Merlin: It's going to be from like some forbidden forge.
Merlin: I bet a German cuticle scissor is a good cuticle scissor.
John: Where do I find those?
John: I'm willing to spend the money to get the nicest mustache trimming scissors.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: They got a whole store for that over in the Scheisseplatsen.
John: Yeah, well, see, but I need directions.
John: I need the pill cutter that can cut an M&M without chipping the candy.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Well, it's like, no, I agree.
Merlin: It's like, it's like, it's like Bruce Lee.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: You're hitting an inch behind the board.
Merlin: You want something that's not going to go, I'm not so sure I'm ready for candy.
Merlin: You want something that goes like, I'm already done.
Merlin: You didn't even know I was done.
John: Right.
John: No, I was trying to cut something on the other side of that M&M.
John: Absolutely.
Right.
John: that is what i want i want a whole drawer full of those things because this was this was the problem i always had with my dad this is a shitty piece of stereo equipment he would say yeah but i bought it at a thing i found it some guy some guy pulled up in a link continental and opened the trunk and here it was and i bought it and i'm like yeah then they were friends forever yeah they were friends forever that's right now he would drive over just to chat with them i officiated at his wedding wonder where louise is today and i would say
John: Look over here in the garage at the seven other non-working tape players we have.
John: Why didn't we just buy one good tape player once?
John: And, you know, honestly, he would say, I wouldn't have met all these great guys.