Ep. 345: "Allemande Left"
John: Hello.
John: Hi, John.
John: Hi, Merlin.
John: How's it going?
John: Hi.
John: For no reason, for no reason at all, I was still awake at five plus o'clock in the morning last night.
Merlin: No good reason.
Merlin: You had not slept and then you were awake at 5 a.m.
John: No.
John: Yes, that's right.
John: I had not slept.
John: And then I was still awake at 5 a.m.
John: There's no reason.
John: There's probably a reason.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: There's probably a reason.
Merlin: There's not a specific reason.
Merlin: You weren't going, ah, ah, ah, or anything.
John: No, as an adult would say to a child, there's no good reason.
Merlin: Oh, as our friend Marco likes to say, it's not my fault, but it is my problem.
Merlin: Isn't that a terrific line?
Merlin: I think about that a lot.
Merlin: It's not my fault, but it is my problem.
Merlin: Yeah, if something breaks with his app, it's not his fault.
Merlin: His paid customers will go, meh.
Merlin: And what's he going to say?
Merlin: What's he going to say?
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: He sounds like a swing manager at McDonald's if he passes the blame.
Merlin: No, you're right.
John: That's a low-level manager.
John: Now, me, it is my fault is the thing.
John: Oh, okay.
John: All right.
John: You know, I made a series of decisions along the way.
John: Each one of them.
Merlin: They just compound like interest used to.
Merlin: Exactly right.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: That was good.
Merlin: That was smart.
Merlin: Compound decisions.
Merlin: Maybe I should be a guy who wore hats.
Merlin: Maybe something would be different.
Merlin: Maybe if I read different books.
John: Can you imagine?
John: Have you ever seen you in a hat?
John: Not even in a baseball hat.
Merlin: Oh, man.
Merlin: I got an update for you.
Merlin: First of all, I slept like shit last night.
John: I can tell.
John: No, you can't.
Merlin: Can you?
Merlin: Is it my problem or my fault?
John: What'd I do?
John: No, no, no.
John: It's in the room.
John: You can feel it.
John: I can feel it.
Merlin: Do you feel like my energy's flagging?
Merlin: No, no, no.
Merlin: How could it flag?
John: We're just starting.
Merlin: How could it flag?
John: How could it flag?
Merlin: We're doing new things with drugs, and they make me some of the drugs.
Merlin: No, no, it's not like deep drugs.
Merlin: It's not hard drugs.
Merlin: I know the drugs.
Merlin: No, I take off label stuff.
Merlin: My shrink is basically a witch doctor.
Merlin: I don't think I've ever had anything on label.
John: But what are we trying this time?
Merlin: Oh, okay.
Merlin: Well, I can tell you why.
Merlin: I'm trying to use the royal weed, but I feel like I'm invested.
Merlin: No, by all means.
Merlin: It's been a big week.
Merlin: It's been a huge week.
Merlin: And I do want to share a photo with you.
Merlin: So, you know, one of the things we're working on is anxiety and the consequence, not consequent, the precedent sort of probably likely depression without having to go deep on like depression horse pills.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: In the time, and this is probably more personal than it needs to be, but I'll share because it might help people.
Merlin: Like the last time, the last round that I did with him in dealing with what we were then calling my ADHD,
Merlin: We're talking, what, 10, 12 years ago, the instruments were much blunter.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: And we talked about this somewhat.
Merlin: We talked about how we've both been on Lamictal to help with, at least for me, the personality and the mood stuff.
John: The ADHD thing used to be like, let's just rev your motor up so high that it
Merlin: You put it so well.
Merlin: And let me just say, I mean, I don't know if you ever, it sounds like you don't get cravings anymore.
Merlin: I loved Adderall so fucking much.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: Adderall was really, really fun.
Merlin: You got a lot done.
Merlin: I got too much done.
Merlin: It made me very intense.
Merlin: And it made me, or I hate to say it made me.
Merlin: It's not my fault, but it is my problem.
John: Right.
Merlin: It, in the, uh, it could make me emotional in ways I didn't, wouldn't prefer to be emotional.
Merlin: Um, the afternoons were a little bit rocky sometimes.
Merlin: And then now, you know, pretty soon you're fucking Elvis and Dr. Nick is giving you something to bring you up and take you down at the same time while you're being laced into the corset.
Merlin: They're shooting the vitamins into your anus and like giving you all of the different things.
Merlin: And it's like, eventually I got off that merry-go-round and tapered myself off all the things.
Merlin: And,
John: Now, subjectively, those of us that were close to you, you could definitely identify a wave.
John: It was a wave of Merlin.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: You feel like that?
John: Oh, yeah.
John: And if you caught the wave...
John: at the right spot in the day, depending on when the wave started.
John: If you caught the right Merlin, you could ride that wave all the way up on the beach.
Merlin: Yeah, I think that's true for so many things.
Merlin: I mean, think about Drunk Dad.
Merlin: Like with Drunk Dad, you get Drunk Dad on the right drink number, and he's going to be fun.
Merlin: He's fun.
Merlin: Most of them are wrong drink numbers is the problem.
John: Well, that's the thing.
John: If you catch that wave, get the Merlin wave.
John: If you catch dad at the right drink, then you can ride dad all the way into the beach.
John: Then the rest of the night is fine, right?
John: Because you caught dad at the right drink.
John: You didn't catch him.
Merlin: It's like the kid in Breaking Away drafting on the truck, and the guy's giving him fingers to show him how fast he's going.
Merlin: You're drafting off dad and his drinks.
Merlin: That's nice, right.
John: Oh, I used to love when I would catch a Merlin wave, but then, oh, you get on the wrong side of that wave.
Merlin: I can be a lot, I know.
Merlin: But you actually nailed it.
Merlin: And I'm not here to bag on Adderall because it was great, but it was a, I don't want to say it was a one bit drug, but it was basically in order to get you to where you are able to focus and concentrate, we have to bring your dopamine level way the fuck up.
Merlin: And the side effect of that, oh, by the way, did I mention it's actual speed?
Merlin: So you're taking speed and speed is maybe not so great for everybody.
Merlin: Okay, but now we've come a long way.
Merlin: And now I'm taking different things that are much more sophisticated and subtle.
John: And they do help, but, you know, it's a constant... What's their method of activation now?
Merlin: That's a very good question.
John: Do they tickle you with a feather?
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Merlin: I'll give you a good example.
Merlin: Something I started last week that is fascinating to me.
Merlin: I feel like since the 80s, I've heard about something called beta blockers.
Merlin: And I'm like, that sounds like something from the pickup artist seduction community.
Merlin: I don't know what a beta blocker is.
John: It blocks a beta.
Merlin: It blocks a beta.
Merlin: And so I'd heard about beta blockers.
Merlin: I didn't know much about them.
Merlin: I figured it was something you give a guy who keeps having heart attacks.
Merlin: Turns out that it does help for people who have heart attacks.
Merlin: But I didn't understand the mechanism for how it works.
Merlin: Well, what are the betas?
Merlin: Well, the beta, the titular beta is a kind of adrenaline.
Merlin: Oh, really?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And so I think this is kind of, I think it might be on label.
Merlin: I mean, it's mainly on label for it keeps your heart rate and blood pressure from going higher than people would like.
John: Oh.
Merlin: Here's what's interesting.
Merlin: There's a kind of anxiety that is regrettably not the anxiety that I have, which is called like a social anxiety or what is called situational anxiety.
Merlin: Situational anxiety is three times a year, hypothetically, three times a year I have to go give a talk where I work and I am, you know, one is a wreck with anxiety about the whole idea.
Merlin: Your hands are shaken.
Merlin: Your arms are shaking, your feet are shaking, you know, so crazy.
Merlin: That's what the island song is about, I imagine.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: But we're like people with stage fright.
Merlin: The situational part is that there's a certain kind of situation, whether that's social anxiety, performance, public appearance.
Merlin: There's certain kinds of things that are a bespoke kind of anxiety that you have.
Merlin: Again, I don't know if it's on or off label, but you take a beta blocker half an hour before you do the hated thing.
Merlin: And for a lot of people, it goes way better.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: Yeah, because it is...
Merlin: governing, I think, you can do your own due diligence, but I think what it does is it governs a certain kind of adrenaline that comes out of a situation that causes you to have higher blood pressure, higher pulse.
Merlin: So the crazy part is I've been taking this for like three days and it's fucking great.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: You can feel it?
Merlin: Well, you know, I track all the things.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And most of it ambiently.
Merlin: And I was able to go in on Saturday morning, less than 18 hours into this, pop open the heart rate app that tracks my heart rate for me.
Merlin: And it was, I mean, it was like, it was crazy.
Merlin: It was nuts.
Merlin: It was like, you know, basically mid to high 80s average through the day down to around 70 after a day of this.
Merlin: What?
Merlin: That's like the heart rate of like a chill person.
Merlin: Of like a middle-aged man, yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, so that's one example where like, okay, instead of, let's go back even further.
Merlin: Let's go back to the Robert Lowell days or let's go back to the John Berryman days or all the days where we would over-medicate our great writers.
Merlin: You know, you'd have tardive dyskinesia.
Merlin: You would have what they call the prolixin stomp.
Merlin: There's all these different things you could give people.
Merlin: Remember back in the day?
Merlin: Yeah, the prolixin stomp.
Merlin: Yeah, let's all do the prolixin stomp.
John: I'd like to point out that all of the beta blockers
John: have in their name, they all end with LOL.
Merlin: Mine is Propanololol or something like that.
Merlin: Don't think I didn't notice.
Merlin: I'm sitting there in his office with my notebook and Googling and I'm like, LOL.
John: LOL.
Merlin: The reason I mentioned that here... God, this is so fucking boring.
Merlin: The reason I mentioned that is...
Merlin: That is a long way from, I mean, here's another example.
Merlin: Think of it in terms of like from a different area of medicine, like putting someone totally under for a procedure versus a local anesthetic versus where we are now where there's certain kinds of things that you can do, these non-invasive surgeries with like a little camera and a knife on a tube.
Merlin: and you don't need to do hardly nothing.
Merlin: Half the surgeries now you can do yourself at home.
Merlin: You do it yourself.
Merlin: You do it at home.
Merlin: You have a shot of something, and you just go to town.
Merlin: But it's getting more specific, more subtle.
Merlin: I don't want to go into too much detail, but with things like Lamictal, for example, which I'm not taking right now.
Merlin: I haven't taken it for years.
Merlin: But people get profound effects out of that because it is more subtle in its mechanism.
Merlin: Also off-label.
Merlin: It's on-label for seizures, I believe.
Merlin: For seizures.
Merlin: I think it's on label for preventing seizures.
Merlin: If you want to get seizures, that's probably a different drug.
Merlin: You probably get that from Canada.
Merlin: Well, no, I can help you with that.
Merlin: You give everybody seizures.
John: But yeah, it's off label.
John: No, wait a minute.
John: Now it's on label, but it was not designed to do what it does.
Merlin: Yeah, they just discovered in doing these trials.
Merlin: There's all kinds of stuff that goes like that.
Merlin: So anyway, because it's basically all voodoo.
Merlin: No one wants to mention that, but it's all.
Merlin: Sure, lick a toad, lick a toad.
Merlin: Lick a toad, lick a toad.
Merlin: Lick a toad-a-lol.
Lick a toad-a-lol.
John: Well, I'm so glad that science is once again helping.
John: And, you know, I turned a corner on this.
John: It's not great, but it's something.
Merlin: It's something.
Merlin: I'm not doing the screaming memes and yelling at spiders in the corner or anything like that.
John: No, no, no.
John: I can hear you, and I haven't heard a single screaming meme yet.
No!
John: But you know, that heart rate, that heart rate, that is a real, that's a, that's one of those, um, it's a reciprocating, right?
John: It's, um, it's, it's a self perpetuating.
Merlin: Oh, like a positive.
Merlin: Well, yeah, it's a positive feedback loop in some ways because yeah.
Merlin: And so the thing, God, this is getting very personal, but the thing I said to my shrink, uh, even a day into it, I was like, this is pretty interesting.
Merlin: I sent him a couple of screen grabs of that app and said, I obviously don't know.
Merlin: This is not science.
Merlin: This is not science.
Merlin: This is just one day in, uh,
Merlin: But what's interesting and really desirable is that I can still feel the feelings that I would prefer not to feel.
Merlin: But what I, what I wasn't aware of that, I mean, I'm aware of this, but I wasn't so aware of it.
Merlin: You know, there's like knowing something and there's like knowing something.
Merlin: I always knew that anxiety was causing my heart rate to be up or,
Merlin: Let's be honest, heart rate might be causing me to have anxiety.
Merlin: That's like how this stuff works.
Merlin: But what was fascinating was I would feel a feeling, but I wouldn't feel that immediate, oh boy, of like now I know that there's gonna be this thing where I start feeling physical symptoms of that.
Merlin: which i think in the long run will make this more manageable for me so so that was good also my daughter this weekend while she was miniature golfing uh heard the song she blinded me with science by thomas dolby and she said and she said is this disco and her mother said this is not disco and she said i i think i think everything old sounds like disco wait a minute is it disco i don't think it's disco no it's not is that ghostbusters what was that
Merlin: um so that's so i got a little bit tummy upset because we're trying some different things and then ironically enough i slept like homemade shit last night yeah i see it the app doesn't lie the new york times says not to use these apps because it just upsets you well whatever um right but uh but no but you're upset already i'm
Merlin: I don't need an app to tell me I'm upset.
Merlin: You're a piker.
Merlin: Move on to the next article, turns out guy.
Merlin: But that's what happened with that.
Merlin: How did we get – oh, so, okay, if you don't mind it, we do have other things to talk about and things to follow up on.
Merlin: Sure, sure.
Merlin: People who listen to other things that I do may know this story, but I want to return you to something.
Merlin: Do you remember the time that I visited you, you were at your mom's house, you went downstairs, and you picked out a sublime pair of eyeglasses for me from late 50s, early 60s, and you were kind enough to gift them to me, and they became my canonical glasses.
Yeah.
John: Yes.
Merlin: Do you remember what happened?
John: They looked wonderful on you.
John: It was one of those things where you tried them on.
John: Yes.
John: And the angels sang.
John: The wand had found the wizard.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: The heavens opened up.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: And it was like, and then, you know, I gave, you say I gave them to you.
John: Yeah.
John: But really, it really, God made it impossible.
Merlin: You think it's a sword in the stone type situation?
John: Yeah, it was one of those things where it's like, well, you know, like,
John: What am I to do to stand betwixt thou and thy God?
Merlin: The in mine of God.
Merlin: You're a John the Baptist, not that you're beheaded.
Merlin: Anyway, you may recall that some years back, a beloved family member threw them away after a dinner.
Merlin: I heard about it.
Merlin: I'm going to send you a photograph.
Merlin: Look at these glasses that I found.
Merlin: And I don't know if you remember, do you remember what those look like?
Merlin: Oh, of course.
Merlin: You have a pretty good memory.
Merlin: I remember everything.
Merlin: Check this shit out in your text.
Merlin: Creep.
Merlin: That's, that's, that's, that's.
Merlin: Oh.
John: Not bad.
John: Oh.
John: Now they're, they are slightly bigger than the ones.
John: They are bigger.
John: They're a little more Michael Keaton.
John: And there's just a tiny little bit of additional square-ness.
John: But those are extremely handsome.
John: And they have, they do have the kind of amber.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: They're not, they're not, they're not, I would say the wrong word.
Merlin: It's not tortoise.
Merlin: It's not turquoise.
Merlin: It's, what do they call that?
Merlin: What do they call that look?
Merlin: What do they call that?
John: It's not turquoise.
Merlin: Tortoise shell.
Merlin: One time I said to my lady, I think I want to get turquoise shell glasses.
Merlin: And she said, are you sure that's what you mean?
Merlin: Could she imagine me looking like a retired man from Arizona who wears a lot of blue jewelry?
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: Turquoise shell.
John: Anyway, those are so nice.
John: You're so happy.
John: It's not bad.
Merlin: And now I can see I walk outside and it's like the difference between like 480 and 4K.
Merlin: I walk outside and I see how dirty everything is.
Merlin: It's amazing.
Merlin: Are they Mack Weldon's?
Merlin: Close, yes.
Merlin: It's the Mack Weldon of glasses.
Merlin: But, you know, I get their index frames, so I get the, they're not sponsoring this episode, shame on them, but where my eye is, I look forward and I can see far things.
Merlin: And then it's got little magnifying boys at the bottom so I can read things.
John: Oh, now how are you getting adjusted to that?
Merlin: Oh, it's great.
Merlin: That's what I had in the ones that I've had before.
Merlin: But, you know, eventually I just kind of lost my will to live for glasses.
Merlin: I was so frustrated with not having glasses I liked.
Merlin: That's all I wanted to say.
Merlin: That's all of my follow-up.
Merlin: Copyright John Siracusa.
Merlin: That is all of my follow-up this episode is to tell you those things.
Merlin: Thank you for setting me onto a path for glasses I could love.
Merlin: And thank you to Mack Wilton for giving me...
Merlin: I went to a store.
Merlin: They have a store here.
Merlin: There's a block on Hayes Street that has an Away luggage store and a Warby Parker.
Merlin: They have this entire row of podcast ad merchants.
John: But are they the type where you go in, you look at the things, the wares that they have, and then you go online and order them?
John: No, they'll do it for you right in there.
Merlin: Wow.
John: I remember that was a thing for a while.
John: There was a store in Portland that was like...
John: super cool tennis shoes like you know like rad kicks oh i remember this i think we went there i think we went there and they had like uh it was like an apple store for shoes yeah and then you use a very special offer code to go buy them online you're like oh wow that's oh i love those and the guy's like great well here's my card i still have this card i think
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: So we're back.
Merlin: Now this is, I'm going to throw this to you.
Merlin: I'm not going to edit this episode because I'm not a fucking monster, but here's the thing.
Merlin: We had, we had things that we wanted to talk about in terms of followup.
Merlin: Item two was to hear how your trip went.
Merlin: Item three was to hear how your hurricanes record is going.
Merlin: Item one, you left us fucking dangling.
Merlin: My friend last Monday where you, I don't know if you want to talk about this.
Merlin: You left us where you were waiting from a phone call from a homeowner.
Merlin: From a former home.
Merlin: Can you tell us more about that?
Merlin: Because people are champing at the proverbial bit to hear what's going on with you waiting for a call from the man, the divorced man who doesn't have a condo and he has a big TV and he's very attached to his kids and their shoes.
Merlin: And he was going to call you.
John: Monday or Tuesday.
Merlin: Monday or Tuesday.
Merlin: My prediction was that he probably wouldn't call you because I believe I said he's not a serious man.
Merlin: Did you ever hear back from that man about him potentially selling his home to you?
John: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday went by, and I did not hear from him.
John: And on Thursday, I got a text from him.
John: And the text said, Hey, buddy.
John: I'm going ahead with the restoration.
John: Sorry, it didn't work out.
John: And I wrote him back and said, like right away, and said, hey, why don't you name a price that would make you not go ahead with the restoration and instead sell the house to me?
John: Mm-hmm.
John: And then I like tipped my hand and I said, the thing about your house is that it hasn't been restored.
Merlin: And that's... Read as screwed up.
Merlin: Screwed up.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: In an unnecessary way.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: There's no need for you to screw up the house that I want.
Merlin: I want the house you have, not the house you think you want to refurbish.
Merlin: Well, that's the thing.
John: You don't want this house.
John: You want a house like this one, except that you've gutted and spent $100,000 turning into a modern condo.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Um, it's important that these houses, I think that the ones that are, Oh, because in his text, Oh, this was the worst part of it.
John: I forgot to mention the text said there are a lot of great houses coming online right now.
John: You know, I'm sure you'll find a nice one or something like that.
Merlin: Hmm.
Merlin: That is a nice thing to say.
Merlin: He's not being a total power douche.
John: Well, except that there aren't a lot of nice houses coming on the market right now.
John: He's just talking out his ass.
John: That's his idea of nice.
John: Yeah, and also it's like, what?
John: Fuck you.
John: I mean, listen, blanket, not fuck you, because over the top here, like one mile up,
John: He didn't owe me a phone call in the first place.
John: It's his house.
John: He bought it fair and square with his capitalist money.
John: Yeah.
John: So I can't say at any point he's being a dick.
John: He can do what he wants.
John: It's his late capitalist money, which is worse than regular capitalist money.
John: Apparently.
John: Yeah.
John: But I mean, he could build a lighthouse on top of it.
John: He could absolutely bulldoze it to the ground.
John: Would he be in your dreams and have someone's thoughts?
John: He could build a lighthouse made of dreams right on the spot.
John: And now that he knows my phone number, he could text me pictures of it.
John: He still might.
John: He still could text a picture of himself holding a hammer over the original pink sink and bathtub set right before he smashes them.
John: So in that sense, how do I talk shit about this guy?
John: He's basically Bane.
John: He was nice.
Merlin: I want to smash the lighthouse and then I'll allow you to die.
John: Some people just want to watch the world.
John: I don't think this guy does.
John: I think this guy just wants to.
Merlin: Give your home back to you.
John: He wants to make it through life from here to thither and just have things the way he wants them, which I can't.
John: That's just the same as me.
John: Anyway, I wrote him back and said, it's important that this house – it's not important.
John: Let's, you know, just between you, me, and the giant multinational corporation that's monitoring our texts, why don't you sell me the house?
John: You name your price.
John: I just want to preserve this house because I'm one of those – I'm a preservationist.
John: And he wrote back and he said, sorry, pal, the ship has sailed.
Merlin: What?
Merlin: With those words?
John: The ship has sailed.
Ugh.
John: And so I wrote him back and I said, thank you for even considering it.
John: You know, go in peace.
John: And so with that, what I, what I, what I had done to myself was spend a year thinking about this house as though it were somewhat inevitable.
John: And so everything I did was,
John: in terms of packing my own house, preparing my house to sell, selling it, going through the, you know, every one of those processes, processes, the whole, all the traveling I did this spring, the going to California multiple times, the motorcycle trip, Estonia, the whole time, Joko Cruz all the way back.
Mm-hmm.
John: This house is there.
John: It's been there.
John: And in a way, it's kind of like if there's a girl who loves you and you think that you can always go back to her, and then one day she writes you and says, I'm engaged.
John: I'm pregnant and getting married.
John: Yeah, but what do you mean?
John: You were my safety.
John: You're my safety school.
John: Now it's gone.
John: Yes.
John: You're getting a lot of these this summer, John.
John: These are coming fast and furious.
John: They are.
John: They are.
John: So now I'm out.
John: So here I am.
John: I'm sitting in my house right now.
John: I'm in the farm.
John: And the new owners take possession of it in two weeks exactly from today.
John: And partly they take – there's something in this whole – in all of the paperwork that says if you don't occupy your new home within 60 days of receiving the final paperwork, you are at risk of being charged with mortgage fraud.
Merlin: Whoa, wait a minute.
Merlin: You're on the hook for that?
Merlin: No, they are.
Merlin: Because it's a whole... If they don't... Sorry, I'm really... New drugs.
Merlin: If they don't... So the house has closed.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: They have sign on the line that is dotted.
Merlin: That's true.
Merlin: If they don't take occupancy in 60 days, they're in Dutch with somebody.
Merlin: That's right.
John: Because the structure of the loan...
John: is different if you are buying it as a rental property versus as your primary residence.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: So if you say... The assumption on this loan and mortgage and deal is that this is going to be their primary residence.
Merlin: Not an FHA, but like some kind of like a you've got to come live here.
John: Right.
John: And if you are buying it as a rental property, then you have to have a whole different set up of...
John: of uh down payments and and no i mean i bet this is what michael cohen ran into like it's a whole different thing is it 60 days from closing yeah 60 days and how long has it been it has been 45 days shut your mouth so here we are and they are uh they're like
John: They understand the rules, as we all do, because we're all rules-based.
John: Love rules.
John: Right?
Merlin: This is why you don't hate bureaucracy, John.
Merlin: You get potholes in Romania and nobody fixes them because they've got no bureaucracy.
Merlin: They've got no rules.
Right.
John: And my daughter loves rules.
John: We talk about rules all the time.
Merlin: So you can lord them over people, even strangers.
John: You can.
John: You're doing it wrong.
John: If you're going to stand somewhere with your hands on your hips and say, swing your partner, do-si-do, you're following some rules here.
John: All right.
John: So, and they're, you know, the people that are taking over, they're real hands-on.
John: They're getting stuff done already.
John: They, like, have already built a fence in the backyard.
John: They've already had, like, an engineer come out and look at the barn.
John: They got an engineer coming out looking at the pool.
John: They're, like, ready to hit the ground running.
John: And I'm sitting here.
John: I have been packing.
John: I've got the house all messed up again.
John: There's stuff everywhere.
John: There's a briefcase over here.
Merlin: You have, as we used to say, you've spread out.
Merlin: I've spread out.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Let's see what I can see over here.
Merlin: Is there more than one cardboard box open?
John: More than one cardboard box open.
John: Yep.
John: I've been packing bags.
John: You know, I like bags.
John: Sure, sure, sure.
John: Red Ox, baby.
John: Red Ox.
John: I've got those going.
Yeah.
John: But so I'm good.
John: So now I'm still in this kind of fantasy state where, okay, I lost my safety school.
John: Yeah.
John: But I'm still in my house.
John: When I want to come here and just be in my place and take a bath and do a crossword puzzle or just wander around with a bathrobe and a sword, like all my neighbors are still here.
John: They all know I'm still here.
John: We're just living in this space.
John: I'm a dead man walking, right?
John: We're living in a state where a thing is already done.
John: You're a lame duck resident.
John: Yeah.
John: Now, when it finally goes away, when I walk around to every room in the house and stand in the corner and say, goodbye, goodbye, room, goodbye, other room, and walk out the door for that final time, then I will truly be adrift, right?
John: And the whole idea of this started a year ago when I said, when I thought what I was doing was starting a two-month process.
John: And I started a 12-month process with the idea that I was going to better my life.
John: This was all an attempt to change my living circumstances so that I had less stuff
John: So that I walked more and was more engaged in my surroundings so that I did not wallow here.
John: for another 10 years and just keep living, you know, my existence?
Merlin: Well, I mean, part of that is the, I guess, for lack of a better word, the inertia, where, I don't know, the basic thermodynamics of like, there's not, in that current situation, over 10 years, if one had to make a prediction, you would not predict that you'd become less of a bunkered up loner.
John: if anything right that's the inertia is like you might become even more bunkered up get some new munkles the bunkered up loner who's sort of living in a house waiting for waiting for something else to change i mean i've tried so much in the last 10 years to to get things to change
John: in one way or another.
John: And I rented an office, uh, downtown because I, because I felt like I was podcasting with you.
John: That was when I only had one podcast, but I was writing a column for the Seattle weekly podcasting with you.
John: It was all happening in the same room upstairs.
John: I was composing my tweets on my lap, on my, not on my desktop, not my laptop on the original banana Mac and
John: And I said, I'm stuck here.
John: I'm in a cycle.
John: And I rented that space downtown.
John: And then I started the Roderick's Rendezvous where I did a show every week, live show every week.
John: Then I ran for city council.
John: And then I had Millennium Girlfriend.
John: And then I was King Neptune.
John: And all of these things are like, let me find something that's not...
John: finishing a long winters record it's not tweeting six times a day it's some something some governing thing and and this selling my house was was you know was like a big it was a big one of these like let's do it let's do something and now i'm like i talk about catching the wave and
John: Like, let me catch this wave at the right spot now.
John: You know, like, I've done it.
John: I did it all.
John: I sold it.
John: And I didn't do badly.
John: You know, at the time, I was a little bit disappointed that the sale of the house wasn't more dramatic.
John: But, you know, the market has gone blue.
John: And, like, I'm okay.
John: I'm okay.
John: I'm not freaking out.
John: Nothing has gone wrong, necessarily.
Yeah.
John: Like not getting this house, I cannot put this in the category of things that have gone wrong.
Merlin: It's just... Because you started out, magical thinking is way too strong a term, but you started out, like you've made a variety of moves in your life that involved spaces and proximity.
Merlin: And like you've moved some of your pieces out from their original position, but...
Merlin: based on a hope or desire that changing things about where you do what you do could attract, not attract, because that sounds like Oprah, but you've decided to do some stuff with your house and your office and your surroundings and your relationships to line things up in a certain way.
Merlin: Spooky action at a distance.
Merlin: You've made hopefully good decisions, right?
Merlin: About doing things with your surroundings and your space.
Merlin: And then saying, well, if I do these right kinds of things, then maybe it'll become clear what it is, what my role is, what my place in the world is.
John: Yeah, create conditions where thriving is possible.
John: That's a good way to put it.
John: Yeah, some of that is like...
John: What I have traditionally done, I think, is look back, sometimes looking pretty far back and realizing, oh, I was thriving and I didn't realize it.
John: I didn't feel like I was thriving.
John: I felt like I was definitely not thriving.
John: But it turns out if I weren't – if I weren't – oh, Jesus –
John: If that's not thriving, I don't know what thriving looks like.
John: I was doing fine, let's call it that.
Merlin: But it felt static?
Merlin: It felt like you weren't making any forward motion with where you wanted to be?
John: Well, because I don't have a plan and I've never had a plan.
John: I've never had a plan and so it doesn't feel like I'm succeeding at my plan.
Merlin: You're not succeeding at your non-existent plan.
John: Yeah, and I think people with a plan can look and see the things on the list that are checked off.
John: It's why people check things off the list, so that they can look at the list and go, yes, I did it.
John: I've got seven of the nine things.
Merlin: You're a man who loves maps.
Merlin: And while we would never want to argue against the idea of wandering in life, if you had decided for the sake of argument that Berlin was where you were headed,
Merlin: or that Grand Tetons is where you're heading, you have a very specific way to measure whether today brought you closer or further from that point in three dimensions.
John: Right, but if you're looking at a map in terms of, I am here, and by this time tomorrow, I don't know where I'll be, and that's exciting, and you're drawing a line, because a lot of the maps, like if I go to a hotel,
John: and i say where is city hall and the person behind the counter whips out the local map that they keep behind the counter
John: And poises their pen over it.
John: And you know what they do.
Merlin: They've done this a lot.
Merlin: It's the same way when they show you where your room is.
Merlin: They whip out this thing.
Merlin: It's like a child's placemat.
Merlin: And they circle room 303 and might circle the area where you will park.
Merlin: And they've given you your destination and how to get there.
John: Right.
John: And they do a big sloppy circle around where we are.
John: Or they put an X there.
John: And when they do this, when they deface this map in front of me, I'm always wincing.
John: Right.
John: Because then they slide the map over to me and it's got a big X over where we are and it's got a big circle around City Hall.
John: And what I do then is I say, thank you very much.
John: May I have a map that hasn't been drawn on?
John: Can I have a fresh one?
John: That circle gets the square.
John: Almost always they go, oh, sure.
John: And they hand me a regular map and then I leave their... But I've added value to this paper.
John: That's right.
John: I leave their mutilated map with them.
John: They can give that to the next person.
John: But that's how I interact with maps, right?
John: It's like, oh, I am headed out of here with the 60% chance I'm going to go to City Hall.
John: But who knows?
John: Where the day takes me is the philosophy.
John: And so not being able to check things off, not being able to look at a map and say, oh, but although I don't want someone else drawing on my maps, in most cases when I'm doing like an extended trip,
John: I have a map that I carry that's not my navigation map.
John: It's generally a larger scale map, an encompassing map, and it's always a nice one.
John: Like an atlas-y kind of map.
John: An atlas-y map, and at the end of the day, wherever I am, and sometimes it's after five days or something.
John: It's not like I pull it out every day, but I will sit and carefully draw the line of where I was.
John: Because I'm keeping the map of, in particular, overland travel.
John: So that by the end, I find this snaky, I have a snaky line.
John: So I don't have to go back 10 years later and say, did I go to Freckenhorst?
John: I'm pretty sure.
John: But did I, I was in Freckenhorst, but did I go to Paderborn?
John: I don't remember.
John: I remember seeing signs for Paderborn.
John: Did I go there or did I go around Paderborn?
John: So I have a record.
John: I keep that, but that's very past looking.
John: You know, it's, I'm not, I don't draw a line to where I'm going and follow it.
John: I'm always making, I'm always leaving a trail instead.
Yeah.
Merlin: So it's more like a – what is it?
Merlin: A cartological journal.
Merlin: Here's to repeat what you just said.
Merlin: It's where I've been.
Merlin: It's where I was.
Merlin: And I also think just for what it's worth, I think it is valuable to do that.
Merlin: Any kind of light journaling like that because it takes a certain amount of –
Merlin: Oh, I don't know.
Merlin: Unearned confidence to believe you will always remember what happened in what order it happened in.
Merlin: But you're right.
Merlin: It's very different from saying like, here's the thing that I am doggedly pursuing.
John: It's because when I'm, when I'm standing here in Freckenhorst and I'm looking forward,
John: And I'm making choices that day whether or not to go to Paderborn.
John: A lot of them are whimsical.
John: A lot of them are look down the road and go, I don't like the look of the shoulder on that road as much as I do over here.
John: And so that is how to travel in my estimation.
John: If you look up here and you don't like the shoulder, but that's where you drew the line, you march off into a thing you don't like.
John: But I realized, I think last week, I realized that partly a solution to all the bad feelings right now.
John: I just stumbled upon the idea that these are just bad times.
John: These are not good times.
John: We're not doing anything wrong.
John: There's nothing you can do about it or I can do about it.
John: There's nothing to solve.
John: These are just bad times.
John: The mid-1930s were just bad times.
John: And in the course of our life, we've lived through some good times.
John: I didn't realize at the time that 1990 to 2005...
John: were were really good times i mean we were we were grousing about it we were poor and young and and dumb and um and everything seemed a little bit dirty and and low but it turned out everything was cheap we could do whatever we wanted we were basically free and
John: and we were and we were concerned mostly with making culture we were just making culture we didn't have to we didn't have to fight anything you know and and in at least in the bubble that i lived in um downtown seattle or or capitol hill seattle it was already a very inclusive community like everybody and moving in the right direction moving absolutely in the right direction but you know in 1992
John: In our community, we had already solved for accept everyone.
John: And so it seemed like, sure, they don't accept everyone in a lot of places, but we certainly have and we're the future.
John: So, you know, we're living our dream already.
John: And also you can just, if you want to start a, a fucking theater, you can just go down the street and find an empty store and find the landlord and pay him $350 a month, you know, and now you can paint the walls black and now you've got a theater.
John: Um, and so those were good times.
John: And when I look back, I go, ah, fuck, that was great.
John: And, and now when I drive around and think I'd like to start a theater, um,
John: I can't even get to the shop because traffic is so bad.
John: When I do get there, it's like, oh, rent is $6,500 an hour or whatever.
John: You can't do anything now.
John: And of course, young people are mad.
John: And of course, everybody's fucking frustrated.
John: And of course, it's just these are shitty times.
John: And Seattle and San Francisco and all these cities, they're working on building a city that 20 years from now is going to be cool for the people that live there then.
John: It just sucks for us now.
John: We're all putting in the work to make 20 years from now people
John: Able to have access to things, able to – and who knows what even money will be.
John: So that took a great – that was a great relief to me in the sense that this feeling that we were doing it wrong or there was something that needed to click into place.
John: And it's like, yeah, it is.
John: It's going to click into place 20 years from now when we do all this work.
Merlin: Yeah, I mean, despite all evidence to the contrary in the last couple, three years, I mean, I've been way too optimistic at every step of the way.
Merlin: But with that said, I do still feel like...
Merlin: I'm just going to say it.
Merlin: A bunch of people need to die off.
Merlin: I don't want them to be killed, but a bunch of people need to die off.
Merlin: And when a bunch of people die off, it's going to become less difficult.
Merlin: There's going to be a new kind of younger ding-a-ling that comes along.
Merlin: But I do believe that, I mean, think about where we were four or five years ago.
Merlin: Go back and watch, I know you're not a giant fan, but go back and watch that video of Lin-Manuel Miranda singing the title song from Hamilton at the White House.
Merlin: And if you go back and watch that now, it's like Shangri-La.
Merlin: You go back and you watch that, and it's like our cool black president and his cool black wife are watching an American whose family came from Puerto Rico sing a song about Alexander Hamilton.
Merlin: And they are laughing convivially at it because he comes out and says, yeah, I just won the Tony for In the Heights, but I'm writing this musical...
Merlin: about Alexander Hamilton.
Merlin: Everybody has a good laugh about it.
Merlin: And it's like, there's so much about that moment that's like a flashbulb, really.
Merlin: Even though I wasn't like a giant fan at the time, I go back and I watch that and I'm like, holy God, this is, you're like, you're somebody like looking, it's like looking at baby photos for the country.
Merlin: And you're like, God, it was so much simpler than, but it wasn't simple because everything that brought that black family to the white house and brought that American Puerto Rican man to the white house and brought the very problematic Alexander Hamilton into it.
Merlin: Like every, every single bit of that people worked fucking hard for, but there was a sense of momentum, right?
Merlin: at that time.
Merlin: Of course, the buzzword everybody has a laugh about now is post-racial America.
Merlin: Well, black people have never thought it was post-racial anything.
Merlin: But you do watch that and you're like, oh, we're really not moving in the right direction right now.
Merlin: But there's a part of me in my bones that really believes that if we can survive the next few years, yeah, basically a bunch of people are going to die off and there's going to be an opportunity for us to not sweat so much of the bullshit, the retrograde bullshit that we're dealing with right now.
Merlin: I like to think, like you say, it's a bad time.
Merlin: Like I say to my kid, my kid stubbed her toe really bad.
Merlin: She didn't want to go to camp today.
John: It's just bad times.
Merlin: Well, sometimes you just have a bad week.
Merlin: Sometimes you have a bad morning.
Merlin: Sometimes you have a bad hour.
Merlin: I didn't say this to her because I know better than to give her advice at this point.
Merlin: But I was able to think to myself, sometimes you just have a bad something.
Merlin: And if you've decided that it's going to be bad forever, that's on you.
Merlin: That sounds very privileged, but I think that's true.
Merlin: There's nothing to be lost by hoping, figuring, and planning in a way that it can get better, even if that just means getting an office with seagulls outside for a while.
Merlin: But try and move yourself in the right direction, and maybe everybody else will line up with you.
John: But the difference, or at least the way I'm thinking about this is in— You're speaking more about personal.
John: Well, in relation to the fact that I am 50 now, and you are 52.
John: Hello.
John: Yes.
John: And—
John: there is never going to be a time that we are these things again and at at 50 i feel very capable very engaged you know cape but still capable right and i mean and and when i i went to the funeral of a friend and afterwards i was sitting in the uh sitting you know sitting shiva i guess with his mom and his stepdad and we were sitting around a table and
John: And I was like, oh, you know, boy, it's tough, you know, these days with my back.
John: And the, you know, and the man in the room who was like 87 years old.
John: was like, are you seriously going to sit here and complain about your back?
Merlin: Were these literally Jewish people?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Believe me, you have no idea, John.
Merlin: It can be so much worse.
Merlin: You have no idea.
Merlin: It's bad, but it's also worse than you think now, and it can get worse.
Merlin: All of the things are worse.
John: And, you know, I should, as point of order, say that you can sit Shiva with someone when they're not Jewish and when you're also not Jewish.
John: You know, it's like an act rather than a – it's like a place.
John: It's a place you can carry with you.
Merlin: Sometimes the best thing you can do for somebody is to just be there with them.
John: Right, but they were very much like, we are not interested in hearing you complain about age-related decay.
John: And I realized, oh, right, this has become a thing that I sit and do with my friends, like, oh, boy, my toenails.
John: And they're like, you are young.
John: And I was like, right, right, right, right, right, right, right.
John: This is the thing that I've been doing since I was 20, which is assume the mantle of a much older person.
John: But I'll never be 50 again.
John: And I feel extremely capable now.
John: But these are bad times.
John: And so my vitality is – it exists within a time that it isn't – it's not as valuable a commodity as I thought it would be.
John: And by the time these things happen, by the time all this – by the time the mass die-off has occurred –
John: We will be 60, 65, or maybe 70 before it all shakes out.
John: And so knowing that my 20s and 30s happened during good times and my 40s and 50s happened during bad times allows me to just be in it.
John: Because otherwise, you know, otherwise it either feels like it's all it's the rest of my life is going to be during bad times or that this is just what the time.
John: This is just this is just times or or like, you know, Jesus, what what do I how do I find a place for my vitality?
John: Where do I put that energy that's healthy?
John: Where do I live now?
John: That's better.
John: How do I live within bad times?
John: Well, and so and, you know, and by well, I just mean I want to contribute.
John: I want to contribute to something.
John: Mm hmm.
John: And we're all meant to contribute in different ways.
John: You can't – there's no one offering, right?
John: Nobody can tweet me after listening to this episode and make suggestions about how I can contribute because they are inevitably suggestions that that person is considering about how they can contribute and they're –
John: having a hard time doing it and so they'd like to displace that responsibility on someone else.
John: You know what you should do?
John: You should go to Guatemala and build homes.
John: It's like, oh, really?
John: I feel like that's maybe something that you should do.
Merlin: You're so wise.
Merlin: The penultimate of Erickson's stages of development is generativity versus stagnation, described in this infographic.
Merlin: Are you sending me an infographic?
Merlin: No, no.
Merlin: I'm going to read it to you.
Merlin: Oh, I see.
Merlin: It's a readographic.
Merlin: The middle age discover a sense of contributing to the world, usually through family and work, or they may feel a lack of purpose.
John: Hmm.
Merlin: Oh, of course, the last one you get to is integrity versus despair, but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.
Merlin: No, let's not get there.
Merlin: No, but like, you know, I mean, I always feel like, what's the one where I fucked up?
Merlin: Oh, yeah, intimacy versus isolation.
Merlin: I feel like I kind of blew that one.
Merlin: So it's not surprising that I have trouble with generativity versus stagnation.
Merlin: But that's the stage, according to Erickson, is like you're in the thing now where you're trying to make sure you're being valuable and contributing something.
Yeah.
John: And I know I know that, you know, my dad, of course, was always from within his own universe.
John: He was like, there's no such thing as a geographical cure.
John: So don't think you can just, you know, move over to there and your problems will be over.
John: And I was like, hmm, are you talking to me or are you talking to you?
John: Sit down and finish your rice pudding.
John: But he was trying to understand, I think in part, he lived in Seattle longer than he wanted to.
John: And he didn't want to be the guy that walked around town and knew everybody.
John: He didn't mind.
John: He liked it.
John: But he wanted to get called up to the majors.
Merlin: Evidence of things like running for office and whatnot?
John: Well, and also just evidenced by the fact that we Rodericks do feel like we're somewhat destined to, at risk of sounding like we're just memeing all the time, like we are here to help people.
Mm-hmm.
John: And if you're here to help- You're like a border collie.
Merlin: You're not happy if you're not doing important work.
Merlin: You have to do the work.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: You have to.
Merlin: Sometimes it makes you probably run around the yard in a circle and grab kids by the pants.
Merlin: But like, that's what a border collar wants to be useful.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: And I'm not hurting as much as I am.
Merlin: No, no, no.
Merlin: And I'm not being altogether jokey.
Merlin: I'm saying we all are kind of different sorts of dogs that want different kinds of things in ways that we can't possibly understand.
Merlin: That's the real like destiny or whatever is that like, I don't want to keep eating doorknobs and chewing on shoes, but that's how they bred me.
Merlin: My cat would love to be able to breathe, but she can't because that's how they made her.
John: It's how God made me, sir.
Merlin: I'm just as God made me, sir.
Merlin: Now she's a grotesquerian.
Merlin: We love her very much.
Merlin: I'm looking for my duck.
Merlin: Always have.
Merlin: Oh, shit.
Merlin: You're that dachshund chasing a rat.
John: But scared of coat hangers.
John: Anyway, what I don't...
John: What I don't want to do is imagine that a new house is all I need or a new office is all I need or to do – the idea of doing that weekly show, it was meant to – not to dislodge anything in me.
John: It was just meant to be work –
Merlin: that i did that would lead to something i mean like you're not i didn't mean to imply that i mean to me it's more like you're building new hallways and requiring yourself to walk down them periodically and sometimes you might might decide that that's not a hallway you're going to walk down anymore but like you're creating as i'm getting so woo now but like you're creating like i used to say in project management that like the only thing more important than the water is the glass that holds it you need structure
Merlin: Not need structure, but having a structure where you've got to write something.
Merlin: You've got to write something for that.
Merlin: I mean, now you've made a job.
Merlin: You've created a job for yourself.
John: And I don't... It's not anymore like I believe that I personally have a world of infinite possibility.
John: Like, I no longer honestly think that I'm going to be an actor anymore.
John: No one is going to discover me or cast me in a thing.
John: No...
John: roderick on the line fan is going to become the uh the d laurenti of 2030 and think my wilford brimley is john roderick or whatever you know like um i know and and i have always lived according to what was my father's principle i think which was at any given moment
John: You may get a letter in the mail, a registered letter that says, dear sir, it turns out that you are a United States senator.
Merlin: There was a clerical error a few years ago.
Merlin: I realize this is going to be inconvenient.
Merlin: You're going to have to move some stuff around.
Merlin: But we need you, Senator.
John: That's right.
John: About a year ago, a year and a half ago, I guess, the King County executive, Dow Constantine, asked me out to lunch.
John: And we went out to lunch.
John: And the entire time, it was clear to me that we were lunching and having a good time.
John: He's a vegan.
John: So we go to this vegan restaurant where the food is really amazing.
John: Yeah.
John: 10 minutes after it comes out of the kitchen.
John: And if it cools down at all, it coagulates back into what appears to me to be just like... It's like McDonald's, but worse.
Merlin: Now you can really see the matrix.
Merlin: Like once it cools off, you're not eating food anymore.
Merlin: You're eating ideas.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: It's basically the pink slime of vegetable matter.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: But so we're sitting there.
Merlin: It's very hard to keep vegetables hot.
Merlin: Vegetables and bread.
Merlin: It's very difficult.
John: It's very hard to keep it hot.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: But Dow was sitting there, and it was clear that he had asked me to lunch because he had an idea that maybe I was useful to him.
John: The voters of Seattle, in the one chance I gave them to elect me to office, they chose not to.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: But Dow is in a position to give people jobs.
John: It's what happens when you're a high-powered person.
John: And he was like, is there a job for John as some kind of minister of the arts?
John: Or will he be useful to me as some sort of spokesperson maybe?
John: Or, you know, you could just see the gears turning.
John: And over the course of the lunch, where I talked about Building 7 and how jet fuel can't melt steel beams and that the antidote to chemtrails is to spray a mixture of vinegar and baking soda into the sky, or whatever the fuck I was talking about, who knows, you could just see him go, hmm, I don't think that right this minute...
Merlin: There's a job.
Merlin: He popped you back in the conceptual level.
John: We're not there quite yet.
John: Maybe when I'm governor, there will be a job.
John: He's going to keep your resume on file.
John: And he just, a few weeks ago, appointed my friend Kate to be his director of arts department.
John: For the county.
John: And the county is a much bigger area and, you know, unostensibly like a larger operation even than the city.
John: That's King County.
John: It's a big place.
John: King County.
John: It's a big place.
John: And the executive and there's a King County Council like the city council and they do all this.
John: It's much more sort of land you see.
John: But Dow is setting himself up to run for governor.
John: and he'll be a good politician.
John: There's a little bit of scandal associated with him right now in some kind of backroom dealing with a guy that's a bad operator.
John: But it was clear to me in that moment, and also when I left the event, when I left the vegan lunch, and oh, and the other wonderful thing about Dow is he's always shadowed by a plain-clothes King County Sheriff's deputy.
Hmm.
John: And in our case, and who is also the driver.
John: And in our case, it was a lady deputy who had, like, at least one pistol.
John: If not, like, she might have also had an ankle pistol.
John: And she just kind of sticks around, you know.
John: She, like, she drives, but she also parks it and is kind of, like,
John: It's sort of within shouting distance at all times.
John: It's really fascinating to have a bodyguard, even if it's not...
Merlin: somebody could have come you think you'd like having something like that bodyguard because it's kind of like it's kind of like i'm thinking of veep where you've kind of got marjorie it's kind of gary it's kind of like you've got a valet body man uh protector lady like all in one you got you got a voltron of uh of security well we went so for after we got done with the lunch we went for a walk he and i and so we're walking around the neighborhood just just strolling
John: Having a good old time.
John: And when we got to the point in the – we didn't do the loop that you would normally do if you were going for a walk and you were walking ultimately back to the car.
John: We just sort of walked in a direction.
John: And when we were done walking and it was time to go, he like pushed a button or I don't remember what he did.
John: But then the car came and found us.
John: Which was like, huh, that's pretty nice.
John: The car was in motion somewhere.
Merlin: I'm sorry to be the dumb guy here.
Merlin: Was there a driver?
Merlin: Yeah, it's a lady sheriff.
Merlin: Lady sheriff drive car.
Merlin: He hits button and says, you know where.
John: Right, and she's around us.
John: And so then the car pulls up.
John: So they came and picked me up.
John: to take me to something and it was like oh we so we're not going to have to worry about traffic we're not we're just sitting in the back talking we're just chatting he gets a lot done driving around town yeah sure dealing with the stuff right and she's not road raging she's just cooling it anyway it was clear i was not going to get a job
John: that day and i was fine with it it was not like it's not like oh i should i should put on my best face here just in case there's a job in county government for me i was like i got nothing i got nothing uh i didn't bring anything to this to this party except um who i am and you gotta dance with the one that brung you which in this case is me and so
John: The job has to be something for me.
John: I can't be something for a job.
Merlin: I understand that.
Merlin: I'm equally useless.
Merlin: I totally understand that.
John: So more and more, I realize I just have the work that I have to do and I know what it is already.
John: I know what the work is that I have to do.
John: And I always have.
John: And there's a reason I'm not doing it or there's a reason I'm not doing it to my satisfaction because
John: What has to change the, the amount of work I do or the degree to which I am satisfied or what I still at, at, at, at 50 years old, I still don't know.
John: So maybe what I need is a new kitchen.
John: Maybe what I need is a new old kitchen, but I don't think it's the kitchen.
John: Hmm.
John: You put the lime in the coconut.
John: But, you know, the important thing is not the lime.
John: It's the coconut.
John: You got to put the lime in the coconut.
John: I thought I was mixing it all around.
John: Well, sure.
John: But if you don't have a coconut, what do you do?
Merlin: What do you put your lime in?
Merlin: You put another lime?
Merlin: You can't lay on a fraction.
John: You can't, right?
Yeah.
John: Is it scuttling across the... I don't want to even get into it.
Merlin: Is it great, man?
Merlin: What if you just started... Okay, last week, you were not interested at all in my idea that you go to him and cry.
Merlin: You were not interested even in my very good idea of crying while you hold a tire iron.
Merlin: What if you just stand in front of his house like John Cusack?
Merlin: With a boombox?
Merlin: Of course with a boombox and a trench coat.
Merlin: You probably got a trench coat.
John: Do I ever?
John: What?
John: In fact, I found a really nice, super expensive cashmere trench coat.
John: I thought you were going to say cashmere jukebox, which sounds like a very bad Seattle band for the 90s.
John: Ooh, cashmere jukebox.
Merlin: Are you kidding me?
John: Those guys suck.
John: No, that's a Roxy Music spinoff.
Merlin: Oh, sure, of course.
Merlin: After Eno, yeah.
John: But, um...
John: no i don't well first of all what would be what would you be playing in your eyes the light the heat in your eyes oh oh it's the you do the or you know you can play one of your songs and kind of go huh huh yeah you like it no that's too risky that's do you remember that would be so odd that would be so weird
John: Based on the internet, the internet reaction every week, there's somebody that's like, yeah, I love him on that podcast.
John: I never listened to his music, but I got a record and you know, it's fine.
John: Whatever.
John: Oh, there was a situation.
John: My daughter's mother was invited to a swimming pool party by some parents who are kind of our age, a little younger.
John: And the dad is kind of a dick.
John: He seems to me to be the kind of guy like the guy I'm dealing with in the house.
Merlin: I already know the type.
Merlin: But the mom is... People slightly younger than me are insufferable.
John: Yeah, I know.
John: But the mom is like she's a Jewish girl and she's fun.
John: She's like fun.
John: And my daughter's mother is kind of always – she always feels like she's got a fun lady friend deficit where she's like, where are my fun lady friends?
John: Yeah, it takes work.
John: And I got to tell you what, man.
John: listen but anyway she's at this thing and she's like oh and so she's telling me the story and she's like oh and it turns out like they're they're like indie rock people they were they went to timber festival and i was like oh so uh you know so and then i'm like and i'm like wink wink about like oh so you know big long winter fans or whatever local indie rock fans and she's like oh and her face falls because she walked into she stepped into it
John: And she says, well, she was really upset.
John: She was really bummed.
John: that she hadn't heard of the long winters because she liked all the bands around and so she's now she's really excited to like get into the long and i was just like just stop tell me your podcast i'll check it out no i would prefer you don't yeah that's horrible did you mention you're on the oc people love the oc uh no no no what about that they might be giants cover
Merlin: Speaking of which, you're older than you've ever been.
Merlin: When's the last time you listened to that song and went, ha, ha, ha, and then you come back and it's two years later.
Merlin: And now you're older still.
Merlin: Fuck that guy.
Merlin: Fuck that other guy, too.
Merlin: Fuck them both.
Merlin: Fuck them.
Merlin: Fuck them in the ear.
Merlin: What can I do?
Mm-hmm.