Ep. 340: "Scared and Stupid"
John: Hello.
John: Hi, John.
John: Hello, Madeline.
John: Hello.
John: Hello.
John: Hello.
John: Hello.
Merlin: How are you?
Merlin: I'm fine.
John: Corta el pelo detrás de las orejas.
John: El corta inglés.
Merlin: Deseo bistec con ensalada y sopa y después de fruta.
John: Gracias.
John: De nada.
John: Estación Bilbao.
John: Proxima.
John: Estación Universidad.
Merlin: Hmm.
Merlin: Hmm.
Merlin: Hmm.
John: Si.
Merlin: Ooh, it's been a full week since we've recorded, and I'm still feeling the ice cream and M&M's.
John: Yeah, you really want to take a nap still, don't you?
John: I want to take something, buddy.
John: I want to untake.
Merlin: I want to untake some things.
John: I woke up this morning and I immediately started negotiating with the day.
John: I was like, look, I got a lot to get done today.
John: I got a lot of things on my plate.
John: I got to find space for them all.
John: Step one, find a plate.
John: That's right.
John: Step one, find a plate.
John: Step two, find a clean plate.
John: And my mom said to me not very long ago, she was like, you got a lot of stuff going on right now.
John: Don't get sick.
Merlin: She said, you need to maintain a state of pound signed aloha if you're going to make it through.
Merlin: You're going to make it through this year if it kills you.
John: That's right.
John: Don't get sick.
John: Pound signed aloha.
John: Hashtag aloha.
John: And I was like, yes.
John: It's going to be the June from hell.
John: So I woke up this morning and I was like, aloha.
John: Aloha.
John: And I realized, you know, aloha is...
John: is for me at least the most useful when I feel like things should be a certain way and they're not.
John: That is when Aloha really comes into play.
John: When I think things should be a certain way.
John: That is the, that's the, that's the danger for me.
Merlin: Oh, it's the, it's an affliction.
Merlin: It's the middle age affliction.
John: Yeah.
John: Don't think things should be a certain way.
John: Things are the way they are.
John: Things are the way they are.
John: Wow.
John: Yeah.
John: Things are the way they are.
John: Don't think things should be a different way.
Merlin: Things are the way they are.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: I'm going to remember that.
Merlin: That's good.
Merlin: Trying, trying to remember it.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I think I told you about this, but the,
Merlin: What?
Merlin: In a world of pure imagination.
Merlin: Capitalist child killer.
Merlin: Caught.
Merlin: So, you know, there's a thing I run into.
Merlin: I'm pretty sure I told you this.
Merlin: Oh, God.
Merlin: I'm not getting better.
Merlin: Go ahead.
Merlin: There's a thing I run into.
Merlin: And I'm wondering, the last thing I want to do, you have a tough June ahead of you, and you got to stay healthy.
Merlin: But I don't know.
John: We're in it.
John: We're deep in the June now.
Merlin: Oh, God, yes.
Merlin: It's June 10th.
Merlin: Yeah, we're up to our knees in June.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Mack Weldon is a sponsor.
Merlin: It's June 10th.
Merlin: I'm wearing their underwear right now.
Merlin: Aw.
Merlin: I'll give you a little ding for that.
Thanks.
Merlin: Uh, okay.
Merlin: Um, so here's the thing.
Merlin: Oh my God.
Merlin: Too much ice cream a week ago.
Merlin: Um, the, um, the, uh, the thing, here's what I run into.
Merlin: I got the anxieties.
Merlin: I got various anxieties.
Merlin: I know you do.
Merlin: Here's my problem.
Merlin: I've said, I might've said this to you before.
Merlin: I don't really remember.
Merlin: Um, if you've never seen it, it's new to you.
Merlin: The thing I would run into is when I get panicky or I get into a panicky streak, that's when I turn to all the things that I'm supposed to be doing all the time.
Merlin: It's like when it's the equivalent of when you step on the scale and you go, wow, suddenly I'm 20 pounds more than I thought.
Merlin: I guess I better go run around and do a bunch of stuff.
Merlin: So when I get panicky and anxious.
Merlin: That's when I start doing stuff like meditation.
Merlin: And so to cut a long story short, it's gotten to where I now associate deep breathing with stress.
John: Oh, no.
Merlin: That was a little bit of a switcheroo.
Merlin: It's gotten me into a serenity now type situation where if I want deep breathing and meditation to be prophylactic for my condition, I need to not just do it when I'm feeling stressed out.
Right.
John: Heavy, heavy.
John: Because if you start to do it, well, this is the problem with using hashtag aloha.
Merlin: That's what I'm saying.
Merlin: I don't want to ruin it, but that's what I'm saying.
John: I figured out a while back that hashtag aloha will not walk me back from a heightened state of tweaking.
John: You know, like you get up to a point where you're just like, oh, shit.
John: I cannot hashtag aloha myself out.
John: I have to, I've already been hashtagging aloha.
John: And if I, if I get to, if I get up to a state of anxiety, I need a different method.
John: I can't, I can't just like say hashtag aloha, close my eyes and breathe because no, I had to have started there.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: That's the serenity now problem.
John: I went to the gym.
John: Can you believe this?
John: I went to the gym.
John: What?
John: I went to a gym, not the gym.
John: To go to the gym requires that you have been to it before.
John: I went to a gym.
Okay.
John: And I walked over, I was wearing some sweats, but they were the kind of sweats, they were like 1950s
John: athlete guy sweats like they were um champion cotton sweats you weren't wearing a like a contemporary technical no and in fact my sweatshirt said cruise on it because it was a inside joke of the joeco cruise oh no that's a legitimate that's a legitimate old school sweatshirt yeah and it's a whole and it was a hilarious joke at the time we all laughed and laughed pretty funny
John: So I'm standing there and I walk in the gym and I'm looking around.
John: Now, I've been in gyms before.
John: I know what a gym is.
John: I know what to do there pretty much.
John: I walked in.
John: I was like, where do you start?
John: If you haven't been to the gym in six years, where do you start?
Merlin: That's actually a remarkably smart question.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Because I'll tell you what the first answer is.
Merlin: Don't walk directly to the free weights and start grabbing things, probably.
John: Right, right.
John: What I'm not working on right now is my pecs.
John: Right?
John: That's not where you start.
John: Like, oh, I should work on my pecs.
John: No.
John: You're not working on your lats first thing.
John: But I'm looking around and I'm like, I don't, you know, one of the things that's kept me out of the gym for six years, six plus years is stretching.
John: I don't want to sit here and stretch.
John: Oh, you got to stretch.
John: John, you got to stretch.
John: I don't want to do yoga.
John: I don't want to stretch.
John: I just want to, I just want to, I want health to descend upon me like a fog.
John: And so I walked over.
John: I'd never been on a treadmill before.
John: That's what I was going to suggest.
John: Because I've always hated him.
John: You know, I feel like if you're going to go for a walk, go for a fucking walk.
John: What are you doing in here going for a walk?
John: Oh, yeah.
John: So I walked over to it.
John: I looked at it.
John: It had a video screen.
John: It had some buttons on it.
John: And I stepped up on it.
John: And, you know, I'm wearing some Converse tennis shoes.
John: I really do.
John: I look like a basketball coach from like... You got some like Animal House era athletic workout wear.
John: Yeah.
John: The only thing that was missing was a whistle on a lanyard.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: You should get those coach shorts that lace up.
Merlin: That'd be a smart look for you.
Merlin: An extremely tight t-shirt.
John: After a year at the gym, that's what I'll treat myself, just some lace-up coach shorts.
Merlin: I've earned it.
John: So I look at the thing and I push a button.
John: I push the button.
John: And the thing is, they make it really easy.
John: The button said start.
John: So I push the start button and it says, what do you want to do?
John: Do you want to do what kind of workout do you want?
John: I looked down the list and it said aerobic.
John: And I was like, aerobic?
John: I understand that that is good for you.
John: And so I pushed aerobic and it said, okay, well, do you want... Are you sure you want aerobic?
John: Please sign this.
John: Where are you starting?
John: So anyway, I pushed the button and the thing starts to move.
John: And I'm like walking along at the pace that you would be walking through, say, a JCPenney's
John: If you're not sure what, you know, it's like you're getting school clothes, but you're not sure if you want to be there, your mom's kind of dragging you there.
Merlin: It's a different speed than like you're headed for the exit with determination.
Merlin: There's a certain timidity and wayfinding.
John: Yeah.
John: So I'm walking along.
John: I was like, well, this isn't really very much exercise.
John: So there are two paddles on this thing.
John: There was speed and incline.
John: And so I flipped the speed paddle.
John: until I was walking at like what my pace would be, my walking pace.
John: I was like, yeah, all right, right here at about three and a half, 3.5.
John: So I'm walking along.
John: I'm like, yeah, this is good.
John: This is how I walk.
John: I realized that as I walk, I'm kind of unbalanced.
John: So there's a little bit of like in my normal walking, there's kind of a rhythmic stumble that happens.
John: So I figured out like
John: like my rhythmic stumble on this thing.
John: Kind of just, you know, bobbling along.
John: Did that for a while.
John: And then, you know, the machine is saying like, now we're going up a little hill.
John: And it was like a little bit more.
John: It's all fine.
John: It's going along.
John: So after about 15 minutes of this,
John: I was thinking, I could be doing this outside.
John: What is the advantage of doing it in here?
John: John, you walked across Europe.
John: I did, yeah.
John: But outside, there's stuff on the dirt you got to walk through.
John: You got birds and stuff.
John: You got to talk to the crows as they happen.
John: So I was like, now wait a minute.
John: Maybe I'm not going up a steep enough hill.
John: So I went over to the other paddle, and I was like, let's get this show on the road a little bit.
John: Well, so now to keep my pace, right, I have to dig in a little bit.
John: Like, okay, here we go.
John: And then the machine was like, now we're going to start going up a hill.
John: I was like, oh, we were already going up a hill because I made it a hill already.
John: Now we're going to go up a higher hill.
John: Well, so I had set this gizmo so that now I was working.
John: And I'm plugging away trying to keep this 3.5 pace at whatever that is.
John: going up this nine-sized hill, and I realized, oh, you couldn't do this outside.
John: Like, the only way you could do this outside is if you found a set of stairs that was a mile long, right, where you could keep this pace
John: without needing to cross any streets or without how much of a grade are we talking about well so like a san francisco street or like a mountain yeah like a san francisco street that's right well like like if you turned and looked up one of those high san francisco streets and you're like i'm going straight up it like like a film war where it turns into steps kind of thing
John: Yeah, a street where it's like, if you were on a bicycle, you'd have to be a pretty tough customer.
Merlin: Ours is kind of like that.
Merlin: We have a pretty steep one.
Merlin: But even if you were climbing up a hill, like you're on a hike, you'd still be tacking, kind of.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: You wouldn't walk straight up the face of a mountain.
Merlin: There's a path around the outside.
Merlin: There's a path, right.
John: And this is a hill that you would not...
John: You or I would not be comfortable skateboarding now.
John: That I can assure you.
John: So anyway, so now I'm like cooking and the sweat is starting up and I'm like starting to breathe like because I'm going up this hill and I did this freaking thing for 45 minutes where this like fake sidewalk and I went on this whole adventure together and once it was harder work, my mind was not...
John: Off on some sort of like, why aren't you outside?
John: You know, there are no Ravens to talk to in here.
John: And I was just like, just thinking about nothing, thinking about my breath or whatever.
John: And I realized, oh, I get it.
John: I get what this is.
John: I get what this is here for.
John: You're not in here.
John: You're not duplicating a thing that happens in life.
John: You're doing a different thing.
John: You're doing like some kind of thing, some other kind of thing.
Merlin: The word meditative is overused.
Merlin: You definitely get into a certain mind space that's not ordinary.
John: That's exactly what happened.
John: And I looked over at one point just to see who my peers were.
John: And there were some people that were running.
John: on the thing which i was i was pretty impressed by that a lot of people had headphones on and i thought about like if i had headphones on what would that be like and i was pretty sure that would be too distracting um and so and then there was the only other person that was like working at my pace
John: was like 75 years old and he was wearing a hawaiian shirt and a and uh like a carrying a lawn chair and a cooler he was wearing like a like a like a fanny pack and a baseball hat and and khakis like floral and khakis and some new balance shoes and he and i were like keeping pace with each other
John: And then I looked over.
John: I was at the YMCA.
John: I looked over and there was another 75-year-old guy doing pull-ups over there.
John: I was like, I got a lot of work to do to get up with these guys.
John: But I'm doing it.
John: So 45 minutes I went on an adventure on this machine.
John: And then I turned it off.
John: I don't know if you've ever done one of these.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: But I turned it off and I walked over to the drinking fountain.
John: And it was this super cool thing where I was walking.
John: Yeah.
John: And the room felt like it was moving at a different... It felt like I was walking with a green screen behind me because I had been walking very fast and not moving.
John: And now I was walking more slowly, but the room was moving with me this time.
John: And my body took like a full minute to readjust to...
John: to motion.
John: It was really cool.
John: I would go do it every day for 45 minutes just to have that like little one minute of tripping.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, I see what you're saying.
Merlin: Like you spin and spin and spin.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Like when you're a kid, right?
John: Right, right.
John: And then you're like, whoa, okay.
John: Yep.
John: This is fun.
John: I walked past the drinking fountain and down to the end of the hall and back.
Merlin: Did you think of your friend?
Merlin: We saw the drinking fountain?
John: Oh, no.
John: No, no, no.
Merlin: Oh, shit.
John: I still got that and you don't?
John: I don't think about Eric as much anymore.
John: Fuck.
John: Maybe it's because I passed that on to y'all.
John: Yeah.
John: No, I don't have to carry that burden.
Merlin: Well, you probably and me to some extent.
Merlin: I think we gave it to Syracuse.
Merlin: Oh, does he look good?
Merlin: Does he think of Eric every time?
Merlin: He thinks of the story of Eric.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You did this.
Merlin: He's out there still alive.
Merlin: Do you think you'll try this again?
John: Well, something has to happen in terms of me making some decisions right now on behalf of future John.
Mm-hmm.
John: Because on behalf of present John, I need to, on behalf of, you know, actually present John, be here now, John.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Be here now, John, just once to get a pint of ice cream and as I eat it down, fill up the remaining space with M&Ms.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: That's all present John ever wants.
Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: But future John, even tomorrow, John, doesn't want that.
Mm-hmm.
John: Let alone 10 years from now, John.
Merlin: Can I voir dire you a little bit?
Merlin: How far away is the why from where you sleep these days?
Merlin: Is it somewhere that's on a path where you would cross it naturally in your goings about?
Merlin: This is a great question.
John: I think it might be the primary question.
John: The last time I went to the gym, which was also a YMCA, it was...
John: I don't think other people would have considered it a walking distance from where I was living at the time, but I considered it a walking distance because I was still a walker then.
John: So I'd wake up in the morning, I would put on my coach outfit.
John: I would walk out the door.
John: I would walk to the Y. And it was a pleasant walk.
John: It was a long walk.
Merlin: Oh, that becomes like an informal warm-up.
John: Yeah.
John: There was a variety of territory on the way.
John: I would get to the Y, at which point I would be warmed up, and then I would stretch.
John: And then I would go in and I would do my weightlifting.
John: And then at the end, I would walk home.
John: And you got a cool down.
John: I had a cool down.
John: Oh, also I did a little bit of biking.
John: I would get on the bike then and I would ride the bike, although I don't like those bikes.
Merlin: I would walk home and the whole thing would be a couple of hours.
Merlin: I find the bike more existentially upsetting than the treadmill.
Merlin: When you talk about the whole like, oh, I'm just walking.
Merlin: Well, like to me, like this is just an unpleasant bike.
Merlin: It's a bike that's not fun to ride and I'm not going anywhere.
John: Yeah, it's a bad bike.
Merlin: It would be like me standing on a Segway that just stays in one place.
John: Well, I don't like the stair climbers either, or at least I didn't used to.
John: Those are hard.
John: Those are really hard.
John: But the Y now, let me just put it this way without giving too much away.
John: No, no.
John: The Y is on the other side of the airport.
John: Ew.
John: And to get from here to there, it's a considerable distance, and also it's a distance...
John: Where you're basically walking around an airport on a perimeter road and not a small airport.
John: This is not like the there are three airports in my part of Seattle.
Mm hmm.
John: And Marlo, or my daughter Marlo, who I'll name, says that she decided this many, many years ago when she was just a little child.
John: She said there's the Mama Airport, there's the Daddy Airport, and there's the Baby Airport.
John: Oh, one of them's just right?
John: One of them's just right.
John: The Daddy Airport is the one with three runways that runs 7,000 Alaska and Delta flights an hour.
John: The Mama Airport is Boeing Field.
John: where all the interesting jets and the space jets and the Blue Angels and whatnot all happen.
John: And then the baby airport is the little Renton airfield, which has a Boeing airplane factory on it, and it only makes 737s.
John: So whenever we're driving past an airport, we still refer to them as these three things.
John: And this trip to the Y involves walking around the daddy airport.
John: And the trip to the Y, basically, I would come out the other side and I would be doused in jet fuel.
John: It's that much of an industrial experience.
Merlin: So it doesn't... There's so many reasons not to go.
John: I would love, love, love it if I didn't have to drive to go to do my fake walking.
Merlin: Well, and again, this is why I say that driving somewhere that isn't a place you already go.
Merlin: I mean, you're not going to end up over there.
Merlin: It's so funny to think about how differently I ambulate now than when I lived in Tallahassee.
Merlin: When I lived in Tallahassee, the actual big boy gym with a laminated card by the movie theater on Thomasville Road was – I mean, I could –
Merlin: and had walked there, even though you don't really walk in Florida unless you have a DUI.
Merlin: It's true.
Merlin: You're obligated to throw things at people on bikes.
Merlin: It's just a matter of, it's the dignity of the city.
Merlin: But no, I can and did walk there in...
Merlin: Probably six, six minutes.
Merlin: I mean, it was definitely like less than a Safeway away.
Merlin: You know, we do everything here by Safeway and West Portal.
John: Yeah, how many Safeways away?
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: So, I mean, it was less than half a mile.
Merlin: But that still wasn't enough.
Merlin: Even though it was Thomasville Road, which is one of the arterials in that part of Tallahassee, I would still just drive by it all the time, even though I had a year-long membership there.
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: So, but anyway, the, the, the point being like, it does not take, so I'm putting on my productivity hat here.
Merlin: It does not take that much what we in the business call resistance for something to not happen, especially at the point when you're trying to build a habit of this being a thing that you do.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
John: Yes.
John: I, I started to go to the co-op here, the grocery store where there's, that's one of those ones that smells like vitamins.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah, there's muesli in there.
John: And they have a hot bar.
John: I love a hot bar.
John: Except it's a hot bar where it's like you can get two different kinds of ancient grains and then put all this tempeh on it.
Merlin: Oh, you have quinoa or the other quinoa?
John: Tempeh.
Merlin: Tempeh.
Merlin: I like a tempeh.
Merlin: I'll take a tempeh over a tofu.
Merlin: I'm sure I'll eat a tempeh.
Merlin: My wife had an Impossible Burger last night, she told me.
John: They're amazing.
Merlin: Have you had one?
Merlin: No, we have a shortage here in Frisco.
Merlin: She had one at the place she and my daughter are staying last night.
Merlin: Sorry, a week ago.
John: They are like hamburgers.
Merlin: I've heard they're actually super good.
John: They are really good.
John: They are just like hamburgers.
John: We are there.
John: We've arrived at the future.
John: So you go to the hot bar.
John: You go to the hot bar, and I was like, oh, well, I can just go here, get quinoa.
John: I can get a little bit of...
John: Nature vegetables.
John: I can get some nature foods.
John: Maybe put a little nature meat on it.
John: You can even get some superfoods probably.
John: Get superfoods.
John: Put it in there.
John: There's a box that if you fill it up to the top.
John: It costs $10, $11 maybe.
John: And that – look at this habit.
John: If I went there every day and just had one $10 box of whatever I could put in this box of like nature vegetables and nature foods –
John: How much better would everything be?
John: I would be so much better.
Merlin: Especially if you already ate before you went.
Merlin: I think one of the problems is that people go when they're hungry.
Merlin: You don't really want any of that food when you're hungry.
Merlin: To build the habit, you should go there when you've already eaten.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: You could go there after you have a milkshake.
Merlin: Yeah, precisely so.
Merlin: It's like only meditating when you're stressed.
Merlin: If you get that horrible, horrible food.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: If you get it when you're super hungry, you're going to go, ugh.
Merlin: How many ancient grains can a fellow put in there?
John: Yep.
John: Yep.
John: Well, and I bought one of those super blenders where you could conceivably put all your ancient grains.
John: You could put 70 pounds of spinach because it just disappears.
John: It just disappears.
John: You could put it all in there and every day, start your day...
John: With an entire natural food store.
John: You can make a natural slurry.
John: You can make a slurry and then just gobble it down in the morning and be like, I ate all my food for today.
John: What else you got?
John: What else you got?
John: Then I'm going to have a soylent at dinnertime.
John: Yes.
John: And then walk on the treadmill for three hours and I'd be a superhuman.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Every time I get baby spinach to make saute baby spinach, I laugh at myself.
Merlin: This is like morning Merlin, night Merlin.
Merlin: I think like, oh, this is asinine.
Merlin: This huge, huge, huge plastic dingus full of the baby spinach that we're going to saute.
Merlin: Let's be honest.
Merlin: We saute it very lightly.
Merlin: We just want to wilt it a little bit with some garlic.
Merlin: Sure, just wilt it.
John: Just wilt it.
John: Just make it feel bad about itself.
Merlin: Oh, absolutely.
Merlin: We talk about its weight.
Merlin: And a little balsamic vinegar and some garlic and a little pepper.
Merlin: But I cannot believe how that infant-sized box of baby spinach turns into two servings of sauteed spinach.
Merlin: It's zero.
Merlin: It's nothing.
John: It ends up being nothing.
John: Is it all water, John?
John: Is that the problem?
John: No.
John: Well, I think this is, I think, I think all you have to do is saute spinach to realize that the whole idea of nutrition is a lie.
Merlin: Is that right?
John: Yeah.
John: It's all just, it's all just nutrition, nutrition writ large, everything.
John: It just, there's nothing, there's nothing there.
John: There's nothing there.
John: It's just, it's just air.
John: All of the good stuff is air.
John: And we know for a fact that if you let ice cream melt, it's still ice cream.
Merlin: It's just melted.
Merlin: Well, and it accommodates the M&M's.
Merlin: You get a whole different range as it melts down and you're making the trench.
John: But if you let the spinach melt down, is there a trench?
John: Is there room for M&M's?
John: It just is.
John: I mean, like, it really gets slimy and weird.
John: But not if you put it in your super blender.
John: My super blender could turn... It's basically like... Did you buy one of the nice ones that can destroy some produce?
John: You put it in there and it just like...
John: And then it's basically ketchup.
John: I should be using it every single minute of every day.
John: I should go to the natural food store.
John: I should get a box of quinoa.
John: I should bring it home, throw it in this thing, eat my food with a straw.
John: Have a half of a glass of Soylent at the end of the day and spend the rest of the day lifting weights.
John: And then I would live to be 111.
John: And think of how, I don't know, think of how much enjoyment I would get out of everything.
John: I'd probably, Elon Musk and I would be working on a new super tunnel where you could just drive your car.
John: So car driving super tunnels.
John: I would, uh, enjoy food.
Merlin: Like what about, where does chili fit in?
John: You could put chili in this, in the blender.
Merlin: You put a can of wolf chili into your super blender.
Merlin: And now if you added some ancient, ancient brains to that and a little bit of, of sluicy spinach, you could turn that into some kind of a super drink each other with a straw and some blueberries.
John: Every day I would have one unbelievable burger.
John: Mm hmm.
John: That, you know, my sister made me my first unbelievable burger.
John: I heard they taste like meat.
John: She was like, do you want one of these?
Merlin: And I said, no, not on your life.
Merlin: Oh, I've been down this route, baby.
Merlin: I've been there.
Merlin: I've been there for, you can't tell the difference.
Merlin: I've been there for that.
Merlin: That's a discussion we've been having since the early eighties and it's always been a lie.
John: Yeah, no, I can tell the difference between your, your greasy chickpea patty and a burger.
John: And she said, why don't I just give you a little bite of my burger?
John: And I was like, okay, fine.
John: You know what?
John: I'm a person, I'm an adventurer.
John: I'm a person that will try anything once.
John: I'll have a bite of your stupid, unbelievable burger.
John: And she made this thing.
John: She put it on a nice bun.
John: There was a piece of lettuce.
John: I was like, look, don't dress it up with a bunch of flim flams.
Merlin: You guys always do this.
Merlin: You're always trying to trick us with your chickpeas and your tempehs and your textured vegetable proteins.
Merlin: I call it TVP.
Merlin: TVP.
Merlin: TVP can be nice in a spaghetti sauce, but I'm not going to mistake it for a meat.
Merlin: Don't put lettuce on there to try and fool me.
Merlin: Is it even real lettuce?
John: Yeah.
John: For years, I've been putting a pound of tofu in my spaghetti sauce because who can tell?
John: Who cares?
John: There's also two pounds of hamburger and a pound of sausage in there.
John: Sure, there should be a pound of tofu in there.
John: And it was exactly the thing that my dad used to do.
John: where he was like, oh, it's healthy because I didn't put salt in it.
Merlin: And it's like it's a hot fudge sundae that you wouldn't put salt in.
Merlin: Yeah, right, right, right.
Merlin: Well, my spaghetti sauce is the way some people make a martini, where you spray some vermouth this way and then just pour all the gin in.
Merlin: Mine's meaty, meaty, meaty, meaty, and then you put a little bit of that nightshade tomato in there because that can be hard on a person's tummy.
John: Nightshade tomato.
Merlin: Yeah, you want to cook it down.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: But in your case, do you enjoy a thing like that?
Merlin: Do you enjoy a blended beverage, slurry?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Enjoy is probably a strong word.
Merlin: If you want to live to be 111 teen, and you want to be one of those weird-looking guys who's like real ripped...
Merlin: shredded like lettuce, and you got that weird, super white chest hair on your slightly developed man tits.
John: I'm 75.
John: I'm wearing a Boda bag and New Balance, and I'm doing pull-ups at the live scene.
Merlin: No, no, no.
Merlin: You're going to be wearing a ripped-up Gold's Gym shirt with your coach shorts and cleats.
John: You're talking about the guy you beat.
Merlin: You're going to be wearing...
Merlin: cleats.
Merlin: And everybody's going to say, why does he have cleats?
Merlin: He must know something I don't know.
Merlin: Sure.
John: I'm coaching baseball.
Merlin: Take another lap.
John: I'm going to have that whistle.
John: I'm going to blow that whistle.
John: Do I want which version?
John: You know, I said the other day, I was looking at something.
John: I realized
John: You know, this thing about menswear, people are, people are, people are into, some people are into menswear.
John: Yeah.
John: And a lot of people are into working out.
John: And if you put menswear and people that work out together, you get a bad, it's a bad look.
John: Like you see these guys in suits, these tailored suits, but they have like gym rat bodies.
John: Suits aren't made for that.
John: Suits are made for people that don't work out.
John: It is precisely who they were made for.
Merlin: You're busy doing suit things.
Right.
Merlin: Suits are a way of going to the Pope and buying an indulgence for your body.
Merlin: It's a way of saying, forgive me, Father, I have man tits.
Merlin: You want a way to be able to say, you want to wear something like the president wears, where he looks fine from one angle.
Merlin: But if you look at him from any other angle, you say, wow, that suit is doing a lot of the work there.
John: I don't know what angle he looks good from.
John: His suits look like theater curtains.
Yeah.
Merlin: This episode of Roderick on the Line is brought to you by Mack Weldon.
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John: But, you know, a normal good suit on a normal person's body.
Merlin: Is it more like a caftan?
Merlin: Like a formal wear caftan?
John: It feels like his suits are two suits.
John: Like there's the material of two suits in them.
John: And I don't know how you find a way to have an entire extra suit within your suit.
John: No, he is terrible.
John: Did you see Vic Berger's post the other day where...
John: The president was at a funeral for some, I think it was for some fallen soldiers, some fallen heroes.
John: And his pants were so much longer than they needed to be.
Merlin: That's not real.
John: Was that fake?
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: They don't have a hem.
Merlin: Oh, no.
John: Do you think this is real?
John: They're dragging in the grass.
John: Oh, my God.
John: Do you think that's real?
John: I think so.
John: This is tremendous.
John: There's a whole extra suit in that suit.
John: But anyway, I realized, oh, here's a thing that's been ruined.
John: Like the people that have really nice bodies now have the kind of body that throughout history, the only person that would have a body like that is Spartacus.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, like like slaves, basically.
John: I mean, the only people like what we do now is like what rich people do now is deprive themselves of calories and and do like mysterious work.
John: That effectively is just like lashing themselves to a wheel.
John: So deprive yourself of calories and lash yourself to a wheel.
John: Now, throughout history, who would find themselves in that situation?
Merlin: That's the recipe for a slave.
John: It's basically like deprive them of calories and lash them to a wheel.
Merlin: Yeah, mix its own gravy.
John: Exactly.
John: And I think a lot of people at the gym are getting beatings somehow, or there's a beating component.
John: They're beating themselves.
John: And so you get these people and then they try and put on a suit, which is traditionally like the costume of the overseer.
John: And you get a little bit of a cognitive dissonance.
John: Like, wait a minute.
John: Why is the slave wearing the costume of the overseer?
Merlin: This is real.
Merlin: You should go.
Merlin: I know you already got your diploma or didn't.
Merlin: But this should be a master's thesis right here.
Merlin: It's a hot, hot, hot take.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: No, it's a real thinker, though.
Merlin: I mean, this should at least be a medium post and possibly a master's thesis.
John: At what point did we decide that wealth was best communicated by making ourselves look like history's most deprived?
Merlin: For men.
Merlin: Now, for women, I get the feeling most women want the effect of, not most women, but a lot of women want the effect of when we first saw Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2.
Merlin: Because you see her in Terminator 1...
Merlin: You know, and she and her housemate, they're bopping around.
John: Yeah, she looks like a gal.
Merlin: She looks like a pretty gal.
Merlin: But then she has gotten hard.
John: Oh, she got hard.
John: She's in the pokey and she has gotten hard.
John: So you're saying that the model for fashion girls now or workout people now is someone who has had a horrifying vision of the future where a murderous robot has come back in time to kill her.
John: Right, right, right.
John: And then she gets a, then she is told by her lover who also came back in time that the world is coming to an end and that their, their son whom they conceive in one passionate night before he is murdered by the robot is, is the spoiler alert is the son that will go on to be the one last hope of humanity.
Merlin: That is the look.
Merlin: He knows how to hack an ATM and he might, he does card skimming and he, he might just, he might just save the world with his cool hair.
Merlin: So that is the look.
Merlin: And now everybody tells her she's crazy.
Merlin: They tell her she's crazy.
Merlin: And if you want to really get an immersive spa experience, you're going to need to be strapped down and abused by this balding man, who's a very good actor.
Merlin: We're going to put you in the pokey, and now you're going to get hard.
Merlin: I don't see Goop doing that.
John: Well, she drove her Jeep down to Mexico, right?
John: I mean, which is a great Jimmy Buffett song.
Yeah.
John: But so I don't understand who the role models are, because my role model, my workout role model is someone, you know, what you want to look like if you if you've got a little affluence is somebody that never had to lift a heavy thing in their life.
John: Right.
John: I mean, at least traditionally, it was like, hey, you look great.
John: Thanks.
John: I never have to lift any heavy things.
Merlin: Great.
Merlin: And like you see those significations of like, you know, ladies with long nails.
Merlin: Or like a version of bound feet.
Merlin: Like if you got long nails, it's a way of telegraphing to the world.
Merlin: Like I don't need to do a lot of like manual labor, including typing.
John: Except you see an awful lot of people.
John: In fact, almost every person I know with really long nails, I meet them in the context of them doing some typing.
John: I know.
John: I know.
Merlin: It's like high heels is like super high heels for your hands.
Merlin: Yeah, and yet still they're amazing typists.
John: Yeah.
John: How is that?
John: I bet you got to relearn a lot of stuff.
John: Well, or you never learned it another way.
John: But no, you do have to relearn it because lately I've been going into places where the person is inputting my information into an iPad.
John: Oh, man, that's even harder.
John: And I'm like, this is incredible.
John: And I always ask, I'm like, how do you do that?
John: They're like, oh, it's just, you know, whatever.
John: This is life.
John: And I'm like, incredible.
John: But I always admire their nails.
John: It's always a real journey.
Merlin: They say this is a very awoke thing that I've learned, is that if you are going to, first of all, don't pay people compliments.
Merlin: But if you're going to pay somebody a compliment, make it a compliment about their choices.
Merlin: About their choices, that's right.
Merlin: Like, oh, well done on this.
Merlin: Yeah, you don't want to say something like, they say, here's your change, and you say, cool, cool, cool, I like big asses.
Merlin: Like, you don't say that.
Merlin: Even if you consider that, I love my curvy bodega lady, but you don't say your ass is big and I wanted to compliment you on that.
John: No, you wouldn't do that.
Merlin: I like your Android phone screen.
Merlin: The way that you've arranged that is nice.
John: Yeah, but you could say like, I love the choice that you made to have the whole top part of your underwear visible.
John: It's like, I don't know, it's bold.
John: Yeah, you chose it and it's bold and I think it's brave.
John: No, you wouldn't do that.
Merlin: Well, even if you knew them really well, the better you knew them.
Merlin: It doesn't get better.
John: No.
John: I mean, the better I knew them, the less I would think it was brave.
John: Oh, that's true.
Merlin: The more I would feel like there had been an accident.
Merlin: You don't want to be a member of any club that would have you as a groucho.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Okay, that makes sense.
Merlin: That makes sense.
John: So what I...
John: is I don't want to look like I'm lashed to a wheel, but I also don't want to die of heart congestion that no one was able to do.
John: to figure out in any of the tests yeah right like they're giving me tests right now because i reached 50 years old and yeah and everybody says you got to go to the doctor so i went she was like now you got to get some tests i was like you know if you're gonna go they they're never gonna tell you you're fine that's the thing you go to the dentist i sent you that article about dentists
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: When's the last time you went to the dentist and they said you're good?
John: You're good.
John: They never say you're good.
John: And this is the thing.
John: I went into the doctor and I was like, I'm good, right?
John: And she said, you seem good.
John: And I was like, well, that's good.
John: I did this with my fucking cat.
John: Fucking bananas.
John: You seem good, but a lot of things don't present.
John: And so I was like, all right.
John: She said, so we got to, you know, it's been a little while.
John: We should do some blood tests.
John: And I said, I've done blood tests.
John: It's still blood.
John: I'm good.
John: Yeah.
John: And she was like, yeah, but things change.
John: You're 50 now.
John: We should do some blood tests.
John: So we did some blood tests, came back.
John: Everything looked great.
John: I was a little high on the cholesterol.
John: And I said, so that's great, right?
John: And she said, well, it seems great.
John: But there are a lot of things that we can't know.
John: So you need a colonoscopy.
John: mm-hmm and i was like well i've heard about that shouldn't we just do that today and she was like no colonoscopy is not where it's not where the doctor puts their finger up your butt we're gonna do that today too and i was like oh do we have to and she was like they call it a mass it's part of a yeah but she said no a colonoscopy that's where you drink the stuff right yeah you drink the stuff you don't eat for a while and then they put a whole thing a
John: you like a thing that goes all the way up and tickles the inside of your ear it's got a video camera on it I was like I don't want anything to do with this and she said you have to do it and you have to promise me that you'll make the appointment I said I'm super bad at making appointments oh yeah you covered this you covered this on your other program you need a grace you have to do it and so I haven't done it yet but I was talking to somebody the other day and they were like oh you're gonna love your colonoscopy
Merlin: Because they give you the Michael Jackson drug?
Merlin: That's exactly what they said.
Merlin: They give you the Michael Jackson drug.
Merlin: And I said, I'm not on drugs.
Merlin: I had because of my chronic condition back in the day.
Merlin: And believe me, if you had the chronic condition I had, you're not looking forward to drinking a gallon of that stuff.
Merlin: But they're like, yeah, you're in pretty bad shape.
Merlin: And I think they might have given me the Michael Jackson thing.
John: And so what is that?
John: Cause I don't, I don't want to, I, you know, like people that are like, Oh, you're going to love it.
John: You get so high.
John: I'm like, I don't want to get high.
John: That's fundamental to like how I go through the day is like, is every time I come to a crossroads and I look down one as far as I could to where it bends into the undergrowth, I say is which one of these roads is going to lead me furthest away from getting a
Merlin: Whoever ends up buying your house, they're going to discover cigarettes over so many of the doors that you've never smoked.
John: They're going to go, what the fuck?
John: Why is there all this weed hidden underneath all the floorboards?
Merlin: Ed Merlin smoked all his Cuban cigars.
Merlin: No, but they're going to discover this was a man of restraint.
Merlin: This is a man of aloha.
Merlin: This is a man across this line.
Merlin: You do not.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: yes yes oh john i don't know because there's a pretty good reason it became the michael jackson drug these are the michael jackson because it's good it's good tasting i think it's supposedly maybe the funnest thing ever really let's look at michael jackson drugs because you get like giddy or something are you like oh my god i think it's way beyond that
Merlin: What's it called?
Merlin: Is it called Trofamidor?
John: Wasn't that one of the feudal homes in Game of Thrones?
John: Trofamidor?
Merlin: I think the Trofamidor is the ones with the Palmer's helpers for a head, and they don't understand how Billy Pilgrim can... Pro-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-po-
John: And he was taking it all the time.
John: Is that right?
Merlin: I think he was taking it kind of a lot.
Merlin: Propofol.
John: He was taking it a lot and still could do all those dances, even though he had a thing that was like blurg.
Merlin: Comes in a white, oily solution.
Merlin: Must be refrigerated.
Merlin: Come on, tell me about this.
John: So he's got Propofol and he had anxiolytic lorazepam.
John: Jesus juice.
John: Yeah.
John: Medizolam.
Merlin: Ask your doctor if Medizolam is right for you.
John: Medizolam and diazepam and lidocaine.
Merlin: Did Jerry Lewis name all of these?
Merlin: I feel like that's... Medizolam?
Merlin: Where did I hear about this?
Merlin: Anyway, okay, so I don't know if it's this.
Merlin: I think it might be this.
Merlin: But I heard an anecdote, almost certainly on a podcast, of somebody who had recently had this for a thing.
Merlin: And apparently it was B-N-A-N-A-S.
Merlin: Be-na-naz.
Merlin: Be-na-naz.
Merlin: Like, it makes you feel a way you ain't never felt before, is what I heard.
Merlin: Be-na-naz.
Merlin: Be-na-naz.
Merlin: She was a great rapper from the mid-naz.
Merlin: She's in the left eye.
Merlin: Side effects?
John: This is not happening to me that much.
John: Proposol and benzina.
John: Oh, wait, I know some of these drugs.
John: Uh-huh.
John: Benzodiazepine.
John: That's a benzo.
John: Me and Lorenzo rolling in the benzo.
Merlin: They don't make Valium anymore, do they?
Merlin: Didn't they stop making Valium?
John: I think they make Valium.
Merlin: What's the one in Wolf of Wall Street that they're running out of?
John: I don't remember.
John: Was...
Merlin: was uh jason gordon was gordon jason gordon uh jason gordon uh biden levitt gecko diprovan diprovan propofol diprovan
Merlin: Known as the hound.
Merlin: Propofor Deprevan.
Merlin: The sigil is a very, very relaxed singer.
Merlin: Oh, there's a lot of stuff here.
Merlin: You need to avoid Contradi, buddy.
Merlin: I would be super careful with the Propofor Deprevan.
John: So I've never had to do this, really, where I went into a place...
John: Uh, and I said, look, I don't want to get high.
John: Everybody wants to come in here and they, and the one good thing about this, where you stick your, your thing up their butt is that they think they get a chance to get high.
John: I don't want to get high.
Merlin: So do your dirty cinematography and let me like bite a wallet.
John: Yeah, but at the same time, right, I don't want to have to sit here with a horse's bit in my mouth either.
John: Is there a second option?
Merlin: I don't know if they can do a local.
Merlin: That's the thing.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I've not done a deep dive on this, and I'm already making too many keyboard noises.
Merlin: But I'm not sure that there's a local they can do for this.
Merlin: I'm trying to remember.
Merlin: There's two different – well, there's several different colon things.
Merlin: Now there's the colon thing where you can poop on a spoon, la, la, la, and send that in.
John: No, thank you.
Merlin: Well, it's like, no, it's the pre-screening one they do, blah, blah.
Merlin: There's that.
Merlin: But then there's two different colon ones, and I got the deep one.
Merlin: I don't even like saying the word.
Merlin: No, I got the Event Horizon Deepwater one.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: But I think there's another one, but it can be very uncomfortable.
Merlin: It's a lot of very invasive cinematography.
John: Yeah, well, so all this by way of trying to discern.
Merlin: We were talking about Gold's Gym shirts.
John: So this is the thing that's amazing about being a human being is that just when you think you've got it all figured out, one of your friends dies with no warning for no reason.
John: Oh, no.
John: And you go, what happened with him?
John: And then they go, oh, well, it turns out.
John: That he had a mysterious thing that nobody that didn't show up on any tests.
John: Doctors love this shit.
John: They love a fucking cautionary tale.
John: Yeah, they do.
John: And it was it never showed up on any tests and there was no way he could have known about it.
John: And he sat down one day and died.
John: And you're like, that's what am I supposed to learn from that?
John: You should never sit down.
John: Well, that or never go to a doctor because what the – you know, like – but then – so I've got a friend right now, a pretty good pal.
John: Yeah.
John: Who went in to the doctor not very long ago.
John: He and I are the same age.
John: And the doctor was like, oh, you have cancer in your testicles and it's going to kill you immediately.
John: Like a lot?
John: Yeah, it's going to kill you immediately or you can go immediately into like chemotherapy where you drink a cup of acid and it burns your whole body from the inside out.
John: Yeah.
John: And he was like, I guess I'll do that.
John: Yeah.
John: And then they were like, oh, and also we're going to, you know, one of your balls has to go.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: And he was like, oh, well, fine.
John: I mean, I guess I wasn't – Does he get to pick?
John: I don't care.
John: I'm not sure.
John: No, I think the one – I think it had – Is it a dealer's choice?
John: More cancer in it?
John: Yeah.
John: Okay.
Merlin: I'm sorry, John.
John: That's horrible.
John: I'm really sorry.
John: Well, you know, he's like soldiering on.
John: Both of his parents died of cancer.
John: That's the other thing that's – where it's ringing a bell in his head.
John: Oh, you got to watch Chernobyl.
John: Oh, and also, he got sober, like, within the last year.
Merlin: Oh, I know who you're talking about.
Merlin: He followed me on the Twitter, and I was like, hey, what?
Merlin: And that's the guy you're talking about.
John: Yeah, after 35 years of being a fucking drug addict.
John: Now he's like, I'm fine, I'm sober.
Merlin: Yeah, but he was like, you did that Silkworm record.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: And he's doing great.
Merlin: He's soldiering on.
Merlin: God damn it, I'm so sorry.
Merlin: Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.
Merlin: I'm sorry.
John: But it's like, where did that come from?
John: Like, I swear to you, two months ago, we were sitting and talking about like, oh, wow.
John: Well, now you're going to meetings and things are good.
John: And we're talking about like getting sober.
Merlin: The two Yorkshiremen.
John: Luxury.
John: These kids sit there and they won't believe it if you tell them.
John: And it's like, we were talking about that as like, this is the hardest shit, right?
John: Like, this is really hard to not...
John: Fall off the wagon.
John: And then it's like, oh, did you think that was hard?
John: How about you still have to do that?
John: God.
John: But also now you have to drink acid all the time.
Merlin: It's like a survivor challenge where it's like you have to balance the ball.
Merlin: Oh, and did I mention you have to walk over a seesaw too?
John: Yeah, right.
John: Oh, and we're going to be shooting arrows at you.
John: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: We're going to be throwing tomatoes at your head and shit.
John: There are all these opportunities now where he is, where people that are on the other side of it are like, well, we can give you this.
John: uh which is like a consolation prize like we'll give you these drugs and that'll be a consolation prize for all of this pain and it's like can't do those i can't do those because that's the worst pain in a way like it's i it's worse to go back to that
Merlin: I understand and respect your resistance to these things, even when it seems a little eye-rolly to me, where I think to myself, John, Theraflu is going to be fine.
Merlin: You're going to be fine, but you are how you are.
Merlin: I have to say, for arguably one of the first times, I would say, boy, this is –
Merlin: caution, caution, yellow card thing.
Merlin: Cause if you feel, if you get the Michael Jackson drug, apparently people super like it like pretty fast.
John: Well, this is the problems, right?
John: This is what happened to Chris Cornell, Chris Cornell.
John: They gave it was benzos.
John: It was the same stuff.
Merlin: And, and he was like, I don't problem with the opioids.
Merlin: Like you go in for a legit, like you, you're a minor and you fell on your knee and in two weeks now you're a drug addict.
Merlin: It doesn't take very long.
Merlin: You're a miner on a steel horse you ride, you mean?
Merlin: No, I mean a miner 49er and his daughter Clementine.
Merlin: Herring boxes without topsies?
Merlin: Yeah, sure, sure.
Merlin: There's miners in Chernobyl.
John: You're a dam builder on a river deep and wide.
John: You're a midnight toker.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Well, I'm sorry for everyone involved.
John: Yeah, it's a lot of work.
John: And what I don't want is to go in at any point ever and have them go, oh, it was a thing that we couldn't find on the tests.
John: What I really don't want is for them to say, if you had had the one test.
John: Yeah.
John: And so... Ugh.
John: This is my cat all over again.
John: I never wanted to wear a Gold's Gym shirt, not even when the first Gold's Gym shirts arrived.
John: I looked at them and I was like, no, I do not have a Dr. Zog sex wax shirt.
John: I do not have a painter cap.
Merlin: What about a no fear sticker?
Merlin: You have a no fear sticker?
John: I do not have a no fear sticker.
John: I do not have a painter cap that has like weird French Foreign Legion tails on it.
Merlin: What about a homemade shirt that says poker, poker, liquor in the front, poker in the rear?
Merlin: Do you have that?
John: Nope.
John: Nope.
John: I never had anything that said mustache rides.
John: I never had anything like that.
John: All I had was a crocodile.
Merlin: What would you charge today with inflation?
Merlin: How much would you charge?
John: Because a nickel seems pretty low.
John: A nickel is low, but you know, but you have to, it's for tax reasons.
John: You can't give them away.
Merlin: You're doing Bitcoin.
Merlin: Mustache rides.
Merlin: Bitcoin's going up, buddy.
Merlin: That's a lot of mustache rides.
Merlin: It's going up again?
John: God, I should have bought those big cans.
John: Oh, Merlin, you and I were both, we were there.
Merlin: We were there.
Merlin: We should have been there.
John: We looked at him and laughed, didn't we?
John: We were like, ha, ha, ha, look at those incels.
Merlin: I don't want to go too far into it, but nobody should ever go to the doctor.
Merlin: We took the cat in again.
Merlin: Uh-oh.
Merlin: I took the cat in.
John: Isn't it time to put the cat down?
John: I'm sorry to say it.
Merlin: No, no, it is.
Merlin: It's a perfect time.
Merlin: They've taken all its teeth, right?
Merlin: Haven't they taken all the cat's teeth?
Merlin: Oh, well, they've taken everything.
Merlin: You know how it is?
Merlin: So you talked about going to the hot bar.
Merlin: I can't go to a hot bar and not spend $17.
Merlin: I can't go to the vet and spend less than $1,500, which for a few years now has made me go like this.
Merlin: Huh.
Merlin: huh yeah like isn't that funny isn't it funny that no matter what i pick at the hot bar it's never less than 17 and doesn't it seem kind of ironical that no matter what we take the fucking cat to the vet for it's always four figures huh is the noise i made well see this is the this is the homeowner monetary unit that we used to talk about anything you do on your house yeah it's it starts at five thousand dollars and goes up
Merlin: So she was just acting a little screwy.
Merlin: I mean, she's super old.
Merlin: Long story short, we could tell that she was constipated and having hard poops, and we took her in.
Merlin: And the first thing that the wizard did was the wizard felt the cat from the outside, making eye contact with me as she held our shivering six-pound cat and kind of went with the fingers up the sides, like, feeling around.
Merlin: What did she find?
Merlin: Well, just with her doctor hands, she opined that there was a lot of hard poop in the tract, but she got to the side, kind of on the dorsal, and kind of went like, she went, huh, huh.
Merlin: She said, there's something unusual here.
Merlin: It's a Lego.
Merlin: You know what I'm thinking?
Merlin: Cat's got fucking cancer.
Merlin: Because she's already got a heart problem, so we've got to deal with that.
Merlin: We've been dealing with the heart problem.
John: She's full of hard poop.
John: There's got to be a reason.
Merlin: But here's what she did, just by going, ooh, like, something's kind of not in the right place over here.
John: You pulled your wallet out.
Merlin: Well, first, my brain peels out, and I'm instantly panicking, because I'm me, and thinking, oh, shit.
Merlin: No, it's not even the money thing at this point.
Merlin: It's the, of course not.
Merlin: It's not the money thing at that point.
Merlin: It's the, like, I don't want the cat dying and have everybody be sad.
Merlin: So instantly I'm thinking I'm George Costanza and I want to get out of here.
Merlin: I want them to say it's definitely not cancer, but that's how they get you.
Merlin: Sometimes it's cancer, but sometimes that's how they get you.
Merlin: So we had to, you should see the bill for this thing because it is wild.
Merlin: The battery of tests.
Merlin: Here's the thing.
Merlin: I hear something, you know, blah, blah, ginger, right?
Merlin: Blah, blah, blah, ginger.
Merlin: What dog's here?
Merlin: Blah, blah, blah, ginger.
Merlin: I hear blah, blah, cancer.
Merlin: So now I'm like, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Merlin: i'm doing this and all i want to hear is there's no cancer so oh you know what we need to do is we need to run these tests and we need to talk about pudding pops we need to do we need to do the cat the cat's hat might have a problem with the thyroid and the organs are shifting all you want is for everybody to be happy and i just want people to be happy i i say it all the time but anyway cut a long story short
Merlin: Yeah, so basically, test results are, yeah, you got to fuck that bald cat, but she's like, doesn't have all these problems and no cancer.
Merlin: You know, you might want to get her screened again.
Merlin: She has hard poop.
Merlin: The thing I first diagnosed is she has hard poop.
Merlin: So they gave her a $125 enema that produced nothing.
Merlin: Nothing.
Merlin: They said, you're going to have an explosive enema cat for a while.
Merlin: I said, that's fine.
Merlin: That's already my job to clean that up anyway.
Merlin: No, no.
Merlin: She's still making raisinets and milk duds, by and large.
John: But all I'm saying is— Have you considered that she might be a deer?
John: Why a deer?
John: A female deer?
John: I mean, that's—yeah, a female deer.
John: Ray, a drop of golden sun.
John: Huh, so?
John: No, no, that sounds like deer poop to me.
John: I mean, I'm no expert.
John: Oh, pellets, pellets, pellets, pellets.
John: Pellets, right?
Merlin: Pellets.
Merlin: Anyway, you definitely should go to the doctor, except you should never go to the doctor.
Merlin: Because, you know, part of it is also—and here's the other thing with the fucking dentist—
Merlin: And I, I, I don't know.
Merlin: I sent that article to you at what I'm imagining was a vulnerable time, but it just made me so goddamn angry.
Merlin: Even though it was mostly anecdotal stories of this one crooked dentist, it's still so resonated with me because it's the same goddamn experience as we got with the cat, which is like, they want to, yes, they're helping you stay alive.
Merlin: Thank you very much.
Merlin: Thank you for your service.
Merlin: I'm glad you're a doctor, but that fucking racket, the thing that they want to do is get you, they want to leverage this power differential and
Merlin: And information is power, right?
Merlin: The future, the future is power.
Merlin: Knowing the future is power.
Merlin: Electricity is power.
Merlin: It's all power and it's all doctors wielding it in this way that they're just so used to doing at this point, most of them.
Merlin: There's good ones and bad ones.
Merlin: You know, some of my best friends are doctors, but that's what they do.
Merlin: They leverage, especially if it's like where they stand to make a little dough, whether that's a dentist or a cat doctor.
Merlin: God damn it, the way that they wield that, they start with the guilt.
Merlin: Oh, you're not flossing enough.
John: Are you going to lead a lesser life than you could, Marlon?
Merlin: John, have you ever gotten the printout about heart disease from a dentist?
Merlin: Have you gotten the Xerox?
John: I've been told about mysterious infections that lurk.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: If you don't floss, you're going to have a heart attack.
Merlin: Did you know that?
Merlin: Oh, see, that's that's a printout I used to get from them because they want to upset the power differential, get me scared and stupid, make me feel bad about my life and my body.
Merlin: And then they just get to, like, wave their hand like they're looking at a shelf of fucking hair treatments and go like, here's all the ways I have to possibly fix you.
Merlin: But don't feel too secure.
John: Have you ever had a doctor feel you, feel your flanks and diagnose you with hardened poops?
John: See, I haven't.
John: I haven't.
Merlin: See, I want that now.
Merlin: I didn't know the doctors could do that.
Merlin: John, it did seem a little bit, what, alchemical.
Merlin: It did feel a little bit like something like Harry, Ron, and Hermione would be in some kind of a cat-feeling class.
Merlin: You go and you rub on a Crookshanks and you can tell if it has poops and it's hinders.
Merlin: It did seem odd to me that she could say this could be a kidney that's out of place over here.
Merlin: Oh, and I can feel right here.
Merlin: There's hard poops.
John: And over here, there's a Chinese guy that's like, no soup.
Merlin: Have you ever been, has anybody, let me ask you this, has a medical professional or friend ever felt up your hinders and let you know that you got hard poops?
John: No, everybody seems fine.
John: I do not poop pellets.
John: Sometimes the thing is like there are a lot of people that go like, oh, my pancreas.
John: And then the doctor says your pancreas is on the other side.
John: Or they say, oh, I think this and that.
John: You know me.
John: I don't complain.
Merlin: No, you never do.
Merlin: It causes you physical pain.
John: I do not.
John: I'm in pain if I complain.
John: And if I am in pain, I don't complain.
John: I'm not too blessed to be stressed.
Yeah.
John: That's right.
John: You know what?
John: I'm too busy for this.
John: I'm too busy to feel pain.
John: So I don't have pain, but I do recognize some flaws.
John: I was manufactured with some flaws from the factory, a little bit of planned obsolescence, right?
John: Some of the planned obsolescence that went into me is my face doesn't fit right onto itself.
Merlin: Your face doesn't fit right?
Merlin: Okay, so you're setting aside stuff like the results of getting jumped,
John: Yeah, no, no, that's all on me.
John: I can't complain about that.
Merlin: Wearing tear on a knee, do you count that?
John: Well, the one knee that had the surgery on it, that was my responsibility.
John: I fucked up.
John: And then the other knee having to bear the lion's share of the work and weight over the years, it's a side effect of the other knee.
John: I can't complain.
John: I've gone into the doctor and I've asked, not in a complaining voice, but just in a very general informational voice,
John: What can be done about the fact that like the knee, it doesn't appear to be getting better as I get older.
John: And what I've heard from the doctors is you're in a situation now where it's, yes, only going to get worse.
John: But also trying to fix it will be way worse than it being half ass broken like it is now.
John: So what you do is you walk around on it half-assed.
Merlin: I do kind of believe that.
John: Oh, absolutely.
John: I did too.
John: I was like, I was nodding just like, well, hey, we're two professionals talking to each other in a professional way.
John: And they said, this doctor said, for your life, for your whole life, you will have this broken knee.
John: And at the time that you finally need this knee actually replaced in order to stay mobile, it will be terrible for you.
John: And worse than it is now.
John: So just count your lucky stars.
John: And I was like, great.
John: Thanks.
John: But no other.
Merlin: He's right there.
Merlin: He's right there with the power differential, isn't he?
Merlin: Or she.
John: But he or she at that point was not trying to make any money.
John: They were just trying to set me up for feeling bad for a decade.
John: You know that's how they do.
John: That is how they do.
John: But the other thing, I feel like my lungs were made carelessly.
John: Yeah.
John: At the point that God was making all the parts, like the initial framework—
John: of me was like let's let's put together one that can uh tote that barge and lift that bale you know what i mean like let's put together one that uh that could conceivably carry a child through a war zone okay uh like and not even a small child let's say you know an injured small war zone injured 10 year old through an entire war zone not just a battlefield but
John: like let's let's build one oh you're gonna have to run between the raindrops a little bit yeah that's right uh so so uh so when they were building me they had all they had some very cool parts they were like this is going to be amazing let's build one that doesn't complain um but they said but they but they but they were out of good lungs that day and so they put in some they put in lungs for a smaller person i think
Merlin: Oh, it could be kind of for the same make and model, but not the same year.
Merlin: Like a subtle kind of thing.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: Like the hoses, they had to like jury rig some hoses.
John: And then the last thing was the eyes.
John: They also, I mean, I think that they took some eyes that were meant for a beaver.
Yeah.
Merlin: I'm sorry.
Merlin: I don't mean to laugh at your beaver eyes.
Merlin: Tell me more.
John: Not for a human.
John: They were out of human eyes at that point.
John: They took some beaver eyes.
John: They colored them blue to make everybody think that they were human eyes.
John: Because a beaver doesn't need to see that far.
John: You know what I mean?
John: Like a beaver uses other senses.
Merlin: It's like Daredevil.
Merlin: Yeah, I get it.
John: Yeah, they're in murky water a lot of the time.
John: A beaver doesn't have eagle eyes, right?
John: No, eagles do.
John: Eagles do and a beaver doesn't need to be watching for an eagle.
John: When was the last time you ever saw an eagle carrying a beaver?
Merlin: Oh, that is rare.
Merlin: That would have to be a huge eagle, small beaver.
John: That's right.
John: So there are a lot of little aminals that have to have eyes.
Merlin: Yes, and this is how you get a deer.
Merlin: You get a deer, and they're meant to be all jittery, or you get owl eyes.
Merlin: There's all the different ways where you can see stuff.
Merlin: We're like a fish.
Merlin: A fish can see people coming.
Merlin: A beaver is not jittery at all.
Merlin: Anglerfish is all about catching stuff in the dark.
Merlin: Exactly.
Merlin: It's more like a Dracula with a Christmas tree ornament on its head.
Merlin: It's a Dracula.
Merlin: It's an underwater Dracula, and it doesn't need the eyes because you're in dark water anyway.
John: And you want to think, like, there are a lot of angry animals, like a Wolverine is angry.
Mm-hmm.
John: Tasmanian devil is angry, but most of those are trying to eat other animals.
John: That's how angry they are.
John: But a beaver... But it's a kind of predatory anger.
John: Yeah, it's a predatory anger.
John: A beaver is just grumpy, right?
John: The number one thing a beaver does is what?
Merlin: Besides eat treats.
Merlin: Doesn't it make and maintain the home a lot?
Merlin: I mean, it's kind of like me with the couch.
Merlin: Like, could we try not to spill the milk?
Merlin: It does, but it slaps its tail.
Merlin: It needs eyes that are good for rolling.
John: Oh, it's got a smacked waffle tail, yeah.
John: It smacks its tail because it's irritated.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: It's just a very irritated, fat, little, like, bad-toothed, half-blind...
John: like fur thing.
Merlin: Sounds like a suburban dad, doesn't it?
John: Yeah.
John: But that can, but that has the diligence to sit and chew down a tree.
John: So I think that's probably why they put beaver eyes in me.
John: Cause they were like, Oh, he's got a lot of the, he's got a lot of the qualities of a beaver.
John: Okay.
Merlin: You're pretty, you're pretty industrious when it comes down to it.
John: Yeah.
John: I'd sit and chew on a tree until I, until it fell.
John: If my teeth weren't so fucked up.
Merlin: Why didn't they give you the beaver teeth?
Merlin: Exactly.
Merlin: Thank you.
Merlin: Holy shit.
Merlin: Oh my God.
Merlin: You're like a reverse chimera.
John: Yeah.
John: You know what I got?
Merlin: I got evil teeth.
Merlin: It's like if the Germans are the lovers, the English, the beavers are the... The beavers are the cooks.