Ep. 347: "Pareto Olive Principle"
John: hi john oh hi there merlin how's it going oh it's going swimmingly how uh how do things sound things sound fine are you doing something different with your setup well i mean the setups changed quite a bit uh last last few weeks and uh now i'm back to the old setup i just wanted to make sure that
John: Everything sounded good.
John: Are you okay?
John: Blink twice.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: I'm fine.
Merlin: You're not being held against your will is what I'm saying, right?
John: No, it's very important to me, the sound quality of our show.
John: And so I just want to make sure.
John: It's kind of important.
John: It's not super important.
John: I mean, it's important.
John: It's...
John: It's relatively important.
John: It's relatively important how good our show sounds.
John: I just wanted to make sure today is a day that it sounds good.
Merlin: I think it's important to act like we think it's important.
John: I think that, yeah, I get what you're saying.
John: Yeah, it's important to me that we act like it's important.
John: Yeah.
John: I mean, I'm a professional audio professional.
Merlin: Yeah, that's true.
Merlin: You are a professional.
Merlin: They say that it's nice to be important, but it's also important to be nice.
John: Oh, isn't that sweet?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I think another way to put that is it's nice to pretend to be important, but it's even more important to pretend to be nice.
Merlin: Pretend to be nice, yeah.
Merlin: Don't you think?
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: That's one of my priorities.
Merlin: That's got to be one of my highest priorities.
Merlin: Which one?
Merlin: To pretend to be important or to pretend to be nice?
Merlin: Oh, I think they're like the two lobes of the brain.
Merlin: I think they interlock like my hands are doing right here.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Open the church and see all the people.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: I do know.
Merlin: Now I know.
Merlin: It's all so important.
Merlin: I think we can agree that it's all so important.
John: There's a lot of stuff that's important.
John: Yes.
John: Am I right?
Merlin: Oh, so much is important.
Merlin: So many priorities.
Merlin: Oh, gosh.
John: Golly.
John: Golly.
John: Woo, it's early.
Yeah.
John: it is you know i had a donut already i had a bagel i don't usually i don't usually what kind of donut was it you know i like cake donuts oh interesting oh boy you must be in your corn because nobody ever wants the cake donut oh well i find it to be the opposite no one wants to order the cake donut but when the donuts arrive the cake donuts are the first ones that everybody grab you think i i feel like a glaze will go fast
John: I don't know.
John: I can't stand it glazed.
John: If, if you, if you opened a box, if you got a dozen donuts and there wasn't a cake donut in the box, I just keep walking.
John: You just flip the table over.
John: I don't even, it's just like.
John: Again, again, do it again.
John: Sure.
John: You know, why not, why not put a bowl of olives out?
Yeah.
Merlin: I like olives.
Merlin: I don't know if we need a whole olive bar.
Merlin: That's always seemed like a bridge too far to me.
John: How many olive bars are within walking distance of your house?
Merlin: That depends how much you want to walk.
Merlin: But, I mean, okay, you know, 80-20 Pareto olive principle.
Merlin: How many kinds of olives do we need?
Merlin: I'm sorry.
Merlin: This is turning into a bit.
Merlin: It's so important.
John: It's so important.
John: The number of kinds of olives I need is zero.
John: It's a null set.
John: How many kinds of olives do you need?
John: Green and black, right?
John: Is that what you're leading up to?
Merlin: I don't see color.
Merlin: I like...
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Merlin: No, don't get me wrong.
Merlin: I like an olive.
Merlin: I like an olive, but, but, but, but.
Merlin: I am from Cincinnati, Ohio, and I'm always on the lookout for somebody who's trying to make me look foolish.
John: Sure, you learn that in Cincinnati early when they put chili on your spaghetti.
John: Yeah, well, it's like in fourth grade.
John: This is how they eat it everywhere.
Merlin: In fourth grade, you study Ohio.
Merlin: In fifth grade, you study apologies.
Merlin: And in sixth grade, you look out for ways that people think they're better than you.
Merlin: Oh, right.
Merlin: I don't know if they get this in northern Ohio, but in southern Ohio, we're always on the lookout for somebody who's fancy and is going to try and fool us.
Merlin: And like when they put out all the fucking forks and spoons and knives and there's like a trap fork that you're never supposed to touch.
Merlin: Only the suckers and noobs ever grab that fork.
Merlin: Because you guys are wedged right between Kentucky and the north.
Merlin: We're right between Kentucky and Indiana, which is the worst place to be.
Merlin: Indiana.
Merlin: Indiana.
Merlin: Indiana wants me.
Merlin: Let's leave Indiana out of this for a minute.
Merlin: Oh, so many Confederate flags.
Merlin: But somebody goes, oh, oh, I see you haven't touched your muscles fork.
Merlin: You go, I didn't know there was a muscles fork.
Merlin: I'm like, ha ha.
Merlin: Well, you've passed.
Merlin: Were they serving muscles?
Merlin: You've solved my first riddle.
Merlin: There's no such thing as a muscles fork.
Merlin: You know, that's how they test you out.
Merlin: Like how they make you a Shriner or something.
Merlin: Muscle Spork is where they recorded all the great background vocals.
John: Yeah.
John: How many olives do you need?
John: How many kinds of olives?
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: I'm going to say I need between, I need, uh, I need, uh, no less than one and on the very outside, no more than four.
Merlin: Once you're getting to olives that are stuffed, uh,
Merlin: With anything more than the red thing, which I think is a pimento.
John: Pimento, I think, yeah.
Merlin: Or a creamed cheese.
Merlin: You get too much further.
Merlin: Here's what I'm saying.
Merlin: I'm saying that pound for pound, inch for inch, I don't think we need that much olive at the store.
John: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, though.
John: You are conflating...
John: preparations of olives with varietals.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Okay.
John: All right.
John: It sounds like you just need two kinds of olives and then also pimentos and cream cheese.
Merlin: Well, I am from Ohio.
Merlin: We put cream cheese in fucking everything and not in a Jewish way.
Merlin: No, no, no.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: We roll it up in a salami, you know, you can, you can put it on a, on a, on a celery.
John: yes right is that ants on a log or ants on a log is peanut butter and raisins is that right raisins i don't eat a lot of cream cheese um the only time i've ever had cream cheese was in a jewish way okay uh and then somebody tried to give it to me as a dessert one time and i was like now that's a prank see you think you're better than me you think you're better than me oh you just ate a fucking pound of cream cheese did you even know that
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: See, I don't want to sound any way.
Merlin: It's so important to be nice.
John: That's very true of you.
John: You really don't want to sound any way.
Merlin: I don't want to sound any way at all.
Merlin: I think people should enjoy what they like, Hakuna Matata.
John: Do you ever feel like you're walking through life like you walk through a crowded store where you don't want your body to touch anything?
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Like one of those crazy old hardware stores where everything seems to have tetanus on it.
John: It smells like insecticide, that kind of hardware store.
John: Just trying to get through here and not snagged on anything.
Merlin: Oh, John, John, John, John, John, John.
Merlin: I can't think of a better way to put it.
Merlin: It's very early.
Merlin: But yeah, that's pretty much my whole life.
Merlin: It's just not trying to have my body touch anything in the store except the store's life.
Merlin: Can I just go?
Merlin: Can I just get through here?
Merlin: No, I don't want to buy anything.
Merlin: I don't have an opinion.
John: I don't need any help.
Merlin: No, no.
Merlin: I don't really need anything.
Merlin: It can be very exhausting.
Merlin: It's so important to sound nice.
Merlin: So I don't want to sound judgy about anybody's fruits, vegetables, legumes.
John: Oh, you're afraid that somebody who is like
Merlin: all seven olives or whatever is gonna is gonna come at you as though your two olive thing is prejudicial what if what if somebody's meemaw died in the war trying to save olive varietals and i'm up here with my privilege pissing from the hot bar saying oh there's too many olives and all of a sudden i'm the one with the privilege in my pants sure fuck that guy he's not he's not even trying to be important or nice let's take a moment of silence for meemaw
Merlin: She would always say, I love you.
Merlin: We never got to the trademark on it, so it's something nobody says anymore.
Merlin: I love you.
John: I feel like, in interrogating Olive Bars, I feel like we're on the right side of justice.
John: You know what I mean?
John: Nobody's going to come after us and say, is it too easy of a target?
John: Well, no, I think we're punching up here.
John: I think nobody's going to say, you know, 75 kinds of varietal olives is like a people's thing.
John: No, no, no.
John: We're going after the, we're going after the real problems here, Merlin.
John: We're going after big olive.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: We're going after big olive and we're going after big wine bar.
Merlin: Oh, see, that's another one, though, where I guess all those different wines mean different things, but I feel this way in a lot of places.
Merlin: I do a lot of my shopping online just because I am very overwhelmed by things like the jams and jelly aisle.
John: That's what we understand, yeah.
John: I find it very, very overwhelming.
John: People who follow you and like your content are aware that you often shop online.
Merlin: Well, you can just reorder, too.
Merlin: You can just say, give me that one again.
Merlin: Like, give me that one again.
John: You can just say it into the room, right?
John: You can just go, Alexa.
Merlin: Hey, you are, geez.
Merlin: I'm not going to edit that out.
Merlin: Alexa, more wine.
John: More wine.
Merlin: No, no, no, no, no.
Merlin: Oh, no.
Merlin: What were we talking about?
Merlin: Now, here's the thing.
Merlin: I feel like we've talked about this because we have talked about food for the table a lot.
Merlin: But I feel like, you know what?
Merlin: Fuck it.
Merlin: I know we've already talked about this.
Merlin: I don't care.
Merlin: Here's the problem is the way is that if you are ordering food for yourself, you would order it in a very, let's say it's for you and your family.
Merlin: Let's say it's for three people.
Merlin: Okay, we're ordering it from home.
Merlin: Okay, so no, I'm talking about donuts here.
Merlin: I'm talking about donuts.
Merlin: I'm talking about pizza.
Merlin: I'm talking about even olives.
Merlin: You know what the answer is?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: No olives.
Merlin: No olives.
Merlin: No need for olive.
Merlin: But you know what you don't do is like, you know, your small family goes out, let's say your, what I'm guessing, more or less core four-person-ish family-ish unit.
Merlin: You go out.
Merlin: You don't order extra speculative pizzas that no one asked for.
Right.
Merlin: right you just said a mouth okay so now now i know it sounds like i i know it's nice to be important all i'm trying to say is nobody goes oh let's also get to like um goat cheese and palm olive wraps or whatever you don't just like order shit you would go who's gonna eat that i know the kid's not gonna eat that meemaw doesn't like that she just wants olives nobody's gonna eat
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: But when you order donuts, you become fucking insane.
John: But wait, you've been to, I'm sure, I am 100% sure, back when you used to do things and go places.
John: I did.
John: You have been to events, company things, right?
John: Where several pizzas are ordered for a group.
John: Yes.
John: You've been to these events.
Merlin: All the time.
Merlin: All the time.
Merlin: I have to talk people.
Merlin: After soccer games, I have to talk people off the ledge.
Merlin: I have to talk them off the ledge.
Merlin: I say triple the amount of cheese and pepperoni.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Do not get what like like ricotta and inner tube or whatever.
Merlin: Like you don't don't get cute.
John: Have you ever been to an event where there were 20 people?
John: Yeah.
John: And someone ordered eight pizzas, all of them vegetarian.
Yeah.
John: Without consulting.
Merlin: Without consulting the room.
Merlin: Oh, no.
Merlin: Huh.
Merlin: That's a pretty, if I may say, a pretty aggressive move.
John: It's pretty aggressive.
Merlin: Especially because I'm not, here's the thing.
Merlin: I just want to be super clear.
Merlin: I don't want to dive too deep because I feel like we have a lot up here.
Merlin: at the top level.
Merlin: But one problem with the quote, unquote, vegetarian pizza is a lot of them veggies gonna sweat.
Merlin: It makes you a fucking wet pizza.
Merlin: If you get, nobody's ever really wanted broccoli on a pizza.
Merlin: Not because broccoli's bad, but because broccoli, it embitters your pizza.
Merlin: You get some tomatoes on there and pretty soon your whole pizza's wet.
John: It's wet.
Merlin: You can get some things like, I think a pepper, a red pepper will travel well.
Merlin: There's all kinds of things you can get that aren't meat.
John: The thing about broccoli and those wet vegetables is you're putting them on a pizza because you're trying to think of things to put on a pizza that isn't meat.
Merlin: Exactly right.
Merlin: That food is not for eating.
Merlin: That is conceptual food.
John: But the idea that a person would take charge of a situation and say, I'll order the pizzas and then get all vegetarian ones as though...
Merlin: That's just a normal thing.
Merlin: Yes, yes, yes.
Merlin: We're back to we can all agree on cheese in this instance.
Merlin: Assuming that the monad, that the molecule, that the norm is a vegetarian pizza.
John: That's right, the norm.
John: And I overheard this situation going down.
John: I was nowhere in the hierarchy of people who were making decisions about the pizza.
John: I was just passing through.
John: I was waiting for a bus.
John: But I heard this go down and I said, you need to order one pepperoni.
Merlin: Pepperoni is the second most popular pizza.
John: After cheese?
John: After cheese.
John: And they turned...
John: There was a moment.
John: And then they said, all right, get a pepperoni.
John: And then the now, well, eight pizzas because one of the something had to go in order to accommodate this pepperoni.
Merlin: One in, one out.
John: And the pepperoni pizza was instantly gone, instantly gone.
John: And then there were like, I don't even need to know.
Merlin: I'm just, I'm talking about not even the law of large numbers.
Merlin: I'm talking about the fucking law of numbers.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And can I interrogate one thing here?
Merlin: Cause I feel like we walk right up to the edge of this very, very often.
Merlin: And I, I, I want to tell you my take on something.
John: Wait a minute.
Merlin: Wait, wait, wait.
John: You're going to give your take.
Merlin: I'm going to give a little take.
Merlin: It's so nice to be important.
Merlin: You ready?
Yeah.
John: Yeah, I'm ready.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: I want to go back to...
Merlin: We've talked a lot about keep moving and get out of the way.
Merlin: It's always important to add that and.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: I want to return for a moment to we can all agree on cheese.
Merlin: Now, in that anecdote, which is a canonical John Roderick, Roderick on the line, TMTMTM anecdote, you were frustrated, if memory serves, because you and some of your fellows had gone out and you were trying to decide.
Merlin: You wanted to have the conversation about what we should order.
John: Well, if you recall, there was a little there's a little tent placard on the table that said a special three topping pizza.
John: Three three topping special.
John: Yeah.
John: And we were trying to decide what the three toppings were going to be.
John: Go ahead.
Merlin: Oh, okay.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: So, I mean, like, obviously, problem zero here is we all agree we want pizza.
Merlin: That we do agree upon.
Merlin: Now, what we haven't talked about is what we would like on the pizza.
Merlin: And I just want to clarify here because I think a less careful listener will walk away with us saying never order cheese pizza.
Merlin: I did not take that as the point of your story.
John: Not at all.
Merlin: The point that I took of your story is stop trying to – stop trying to –
Merlin: Tell me, stop trying to act like there is a scent about cheese.
Merlin: If there is not, it's important we have the conversation about what we want for you to just keep trying to like round it to the nearest tenth and say like everybody wants cheese.
Merlin: Nobody said that.
Merlin: You're not, you're not even saying that, right?
Merlin: The guy you were arguing with about this was the one who kept saying we can all agree on cheese.
Merlin: And I think the point of that story is not that cheese pizza is bad because cheese pizza is awesome.
Merlin: It's very good.
Merlin: The problem is that that guy was trying to speak for the group without actually saying anything.
Merlin: He was trying to literally like a dummy talk for the whole group without actually saying he never said I want a cheese pizza.
Merlin: He just kept inferring, implying, saying that everybody wanted cheese when nobody had said they wanted cheese.
Merlin: Is that correct?
John: Well, so and he is also, let's be clear, a person from Ohio and and from Southern Ohio.
John: But is it Pete Rose?
John: It wasn't Pete Rose.
John: No, no.
John: This this friend of mine was never was never kept out of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
John: He's he's still eligible for Cooperstown.
John: OK, my friend.
John: No, it's a thing that I see a lot here in the Northwest, which is someone – so there's two we can all agree on cheese archetypes.
John: And one of them is the person that wants to help a group come to a decision, someone who wants to be in the position of facilitating –
John: on behalf of everyone, and rather than just let four people negotiate over the table, someone steps in and wants to take charge of the process.
John: Pete's a peacemaker.
John: A peacemaker, right.
Merlin: A kind of ad hoc Anil Dash who comes in and tells everybody what they agree on.
John: Yeah, and they're trying to feel, what they don't like is conflict and what they do like is being in charge.
John: Yes.
John: And so what they're going to try and, you know, so they do the thing of like, what do I hear you saying?
John: You know, they do that thing.
Merlin: That's such a kind of gastronomical gaslighting.
John: Well, and it's also just a... They're answering a question no one asked, right?
John: Like the four people...
John: The four people who are negotiating the pizza had not yet arrived at an impasse where a mediator was needed.
John: It was just like, what do you guys want?
John: Well, I don't know.
John: I want pepper.
John: Well, hang on.
John: And, you know, somebody jumps in there.
John: They're trying to end an argument that doesn't exist.
John: That's right.
John: There's no argument yet.
John: Four people are perfectly capable of arriving at a mutual agreement.
John: Right.
John: Without without one of them taking the lead role.
OK.
John: Is this a form of Bellinghamming, John?
John: It is.
John: It's Bellinghamming.
John: Okay.
John: But the specific, we can all agree on cheese instance, was an example of someone, this friend of mine.
John: He's a good friend.
John: Love him dearly.
John: An Ohioan.
John: An Ohioan.
John: And what he wanted was a cheese pizza.
Okay.
John: And what the other guy and I, Peter, Peter and I saw the thing that said— You wanted to explore the three-ingredient tent.
John: Yeah.
John: Today's special three-topping pizza.
John: And very naturally, we were like, well, what about this, this, and this?
John: And the other guy said, well, I don't know about that.
John: You know, I don't like these.
John: And I'd go, okay, well, what about this, this, and this?
John: You know, and through this process, three people can arrive at three ingredients that they—
John: They want.
John: Right.
John: You just test some stuff out.
John: Not everybody likes mushrooms.
John: Not everybody likes green peppers.
John: There's a limited number of things you're going to try.
John: Right.
John: If you're somebody that's like, well, what about sardines, onions and olives?
Merlin: Well, any honest American is aware of their how controversial what you might call their preferences are.
Merlin: might be.
Merlin: If it is actually, even if you're just like, you know, you can't make it hot enough for me guy, you know, you know that you're being a little bit of a weirdo and you know how much you'd be willing to give away in the service of getting a single pizza, which I take to be the rule that's on the table here is we'd like to get one large pizza.
John: That's right.
John: And you just said it in a nutshell.
John: How much are you willing to give away?
John: And it's absolutely part of that process to throw your most radical choice out there at first.
John: Right.
John: Because maybe you're with a bunch of foodies and you're like, hey, why don't we get fish and fish and ghost peppers?
John: Yeah.
John: Fish and ghost peppers.
John: What do you guys say?
John: And if you and if you're with people who are like either.
Merlin: Because, of course, they brought air horns.
Merlin: They pull it out of their goatee.
John: Either you get a team that's like, let's ride this.
John: Let's ride the dragon.
John: Or you get a couple of people who are like, I'm not going to back down from a dare.
John: But if the people that you're with are like, I don't think so, bro.
John: Then you back off.
John: Then you go.
John: And the thing is, you don't have to go all the way back.
John: But like, don't sit and don't sit.
John: If you're with people that clearly do not want
John: Don't keep throwing anchovies.
John: Don't try every combination of that.
John: Take the fish off the table.
John: But this was an instance where the one friend was sitting quietly listening to us negotiate and kept saying, well, I mean, we can all agree on cheese.
John: As though... Well, because what he wanted was... John, there's so much wrapped up in that.
John: He wanted to come into the pizza parlor and say, one cheese pizza, please.
John: And we would all be like, great.
Merlin: But he wouldn't say that.
Merlin: He's trying to do a Jedi mind trick.
John: He also could have said, why don't you guys get a large, I'll get a small cheese.
John: But what he was used to doing...
John: Was being the guy in the first example, the person who was like, well, I can see there's some disagreement here.
John: And so let me be the one.
John: Let me be the peacemaker.
John: Yeah.
John: But what it was clear to me had been happening this whole time because I'd always been very suspicious of this close friend of mine because he's one of these guys and I know, you know, these guys.
John: who everybody thinks is amazing.
John: No one ever has a bad word to say about this friend.
John: You know what I mean?
John: It's like all the people in Hollywood, the way they talk about Paul F. Tompkins.
John: Oh, he's so amazing.
John: What a great guy.
John: He's the nicest guy.
Merlin: Uncontroversial.
John: Just the nicest fellow.
John: Well, Paul F. Tompkins is controversial, but he... Not within his group, he's not.
John: But not within the Hollywood people.
John: Oh, he's so amazing.
John: He's so friendly.
John: Never trust him.
John: Never trust him.
John: Not for a minute.
Merlin: That's really good to know.
John: Yeah, this this friend, it's one of those where every girl he ever dated is still his friend.
John: All the guys who he dated their girlfriends after they broke up, they are all fine with it.
John: He's like he's beloved in every quarter.
John: Oh, here he comes.
John: Oh, it's Scott.
John: Hey, welcome at every party.
John: Yeah.
John: He can stand at a party with his arm around the girl he's currently dating and his other arm around the girl he used to date.
Merlin: If I understand correctly, he's largely being evaluated in proximity to women he has dated and the men companions of the women that he's dated.
John: He's got a walking Kenny Rogers song or something?
John: Primarily because he and I dated some of the same girls.
John: Oh, okay.
Merlin: Well, thank you.
Merlin: I did not know that you actually wanted a cheese pizza, John.
Merlin: That's very good to know.
John: That's right.
John: And in one case, we both had serious long-term relationships.
John: With a specific lady who was very important to us, Bo.
John: At different times.
John: At different times.
John: And, you know, I will not say that she broke up with him in order to be with me because that's not a good description of what happened.
John: It was much more complicated.
John: Okay.
John: All right.
John: But this is many years after that that we are trying to negotiate this pizza.
John: And it was a scales fall from your eyes moment for me when I realized, when I first started to really get a handle on Bellinghamming and the fact that it can come from Ohio.
John: Bellinghamming may have even started in Ohio.
Merlin: It's like calculus.
John: It's like calculus, right.
John: It started in China.
John: It started in Arabia.
John: Then it migrated to... Lima, Ohio.
John: Yeah, North Polia.
Merlin: Okay.
John: And so it resonates with me all the time.
Merlin: I don't disagree at all.
Merlin: I think there's something – the phenomenon is very, very similar.
Merlin: To call it passive-aggressive would not fully encompass the subtleties and nuance –
Merlin: Because done correctly, it does not feel anything aggressive.
John: The overuse of passive-aggressive is exactly that.
John: It's not aggressive.
John: It's not the least bit aggressive.
John: It's passive-passive?
John: It's passive-manipulative.
Merlin: Oh, I see.
John: It's neutral evil.
John: Yeah, passive-manipulative isn't aggressive.
John: It's an attempt to steer the future in the direction that the manipulator wants without them ever stepping forward, putting their nose out.
John: Because if it doesn't go the way they want, they don't lose face.
John: Whoa.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: So they also get to keep their reputation as that group's not Paul Tompkins, but as the go along get along guy.
John: That's right.
John: If you if you if you step up and say, well, I'd like a cheese pizza and you get shut down.
John: People are like, that's a dumb idea where it's a three topping day.
John: Well, he's usually so laid back.
John: Yeah, then he loses.
John: He's usually the peacemaker.
John: He's the peacemaker.
John: But this time, you know, it's those small defeats that you say, I want a thing and you don't get it in a group that are the thing, you know, those sting the most for some people, right?
John: And so he never wants to lose.
John: And so if it can be put, if it can be always couched in these other terms, right?
John: He never is, if he wins, then he made it
John: He made it possible for everyone.
John: And if he loses, then it's just that you guys don't want it to be nice.
John: Right?
John: You don't want everybody to be happy.
John: But that's on you guys.
John: He tried.
John: And I saw over the years many, many times where he would do a Jedi mind trick like this.
John: Like, well, I mean, you know, the easy solution is that we all go back to my place.
John: And he just wanted to go home.
John: Objection, your honor.
John: Assumes facts, not in evidence.
John: But then somebody would say, well, no, I think we should all go out to the club.
John: And so and one other person would be like, well, I don't want to go to the club either.
John: So I'm just going to go home.
John: And then my extremely close friend, Scott, whom I'm deeply suspicious of, would go would kind of do a shrug like, well, I offered a solution that would have worked for everybody.
John: But you guys wanted to go and now the group is breaking up.
John: So I guess I'm going to go home too.
John: That's where you want to go all along.
John: Yeah.
John: And it's a thing where then somebody, for instance, in my position who didn't want to go to Scott's house would be left within the context of the group looking like the guy that had ruined everything.
John: Yeah.
John: And if we'd just gone to Scott's house, well, me and the other people that didn't want to go to Scott's house would have been bummed.
John: But Scott would have looked like he had made it possible for everyone to have a good time.
John: It happens now.
John: I see it in my own life all the time because I'm surrounded by Bellingham.
John: And they're always thinking two, three steps ahead, people from the very northwest corner of Washington State.
John: They're always three steps ahead of you.
John: They're always looking ahead.
Merlin: Jedi mind chess.
John: Well, but they're looking ahead at what you think you want.
John: Oh.
John: And how they're going to let you think you got what you think you want.
John: Oh.
John: While also...
John: you know remaining kind of in control of the of the of the whole you know it's a kind of hurting mentality but without any yapping or biting it's important to think that you're nice it's just like it's so important to because you don't lose any reputation points it's almost like it's whatever you're smelling has got to be somebody else's fart because todd would never leave a fart like that
Merlin: No.
John: You know?
John: Are you kidding me?
John: Paul F. Tompkins doesn't fart.
Merlin: No, no.
John: No.
John: No, no, no.
John: That's all the people.
John: That's all the other people.
John: That's me.
John: I have to say I fart.
John: I'm well known as a person.
John: You do something for sure.
John: I don't know what it is.
John: I don't solve problems as often as I create problems.
Merlin: I was speaking more specifically of the way your van used to smell.
John: Oh, that wasn't me.
John: That was the other guy.
Merlin: Okay, all right.
Merlin: I do feel unburdened, though, that now we can, if we choose to, I don't want to cut you off here, but I just want to say in passing, I do feel unburdened that we can talk about cheese pizza and not have it be code for cheese pizza is bad.
Merlin: I'm glad that we've... Can we consider that canon?
John: Yes, although... Oh, boy.
John: Cheese pizza is a... Like a 2011 4chan code...
John: for something that is bad.
John: Oh, no.
John: John, you've got to get off the chance.
John: It's never been clearer.
John: This is a Chan.
John: This is something I know from 2011.
John: This is like a Charlie Chan.
John: I don't even think they do it anymore.
John: So you can't just go out into the world and say, cheese pizza is good.
John: It's a bad...
Merlin: All I was trying to say was there's something that happens in the human mind, in the human mind, in the human American mind in particular, when we get weird and we get ambitious at times when it does not benefit us to be ambitious.
Merlin: If you are getting post-soccer pizza for 10-year-old girls, you do not need to be getting a lot of interesting things with olives.
Yeah.
John: You get five cheese and five pepperoni and maybe one Hawaiian and no one will be better.
Merlin: Get a fun one.
Merlin: Mix it up.
Merlin: But do understand the cheese and the pepperoni.
Merlin: And the cheese is also good because, I mean, it's not vegan, but it is vegetarian.
Merlin: Extra cheese.
Merlin: That's good.
Merlin: Extra cheese.
Merlin: And I just feel like all I was trying to say as regards, you know, vis-a-vis your cake donut is I think the same thing happens with donuts.
Merlin: If you went and ordered half a dozen donuts for a family of three, you would get exactly what those three people wanted because there's no margin of error.
Merlin: Everybody gets two donuts.
Merlin: What two donuts do you want, right?
Merlin: You don't get an olive donut out of those six because nobody wants, nobody actually ever wanted the olive donut.
Merlin: is what I'm saying.
Merlin: And when you order four, five dozen to take to an event, don't get cute.
Merlin: Five dozen?
Merlin: This is what I'm saying.
Merlin: I'm saying that over six donuts, especially over a dozen, over 12 donuts, you order more than 12 donuts and most human Americans will get weird, they'll get cute, and they will get creative in a way that benefits no one.
Merlin: Because it's not going to change the amount of people that still want a regular fucking donut and not something weird.
John: Here's what you do.
John: If you're ordering five dozen donuts, you get a dozen glazed in a box.
John: Easy.
John: That's easy.
John: That's the box of glazed.
John: Plain glazed.
John: Plain glazed?
John: Plain glazed.
John: Okay.
John: You get a dozen cake donuts.
John: Chocolate frosted?
John: Okay.
John: You get a dozen chocolate frosted.
John: I don't know.
John: I'm just saying.
John: No, that's fine.
John: Then you get a dozen cake donuts.
John: Okay.
John: Then you get a dozen bear claws.
John: Ooh.
John: And then one more dozen.
John: What's another kind of donut?
Merlin: Well, what you could do at that point, if you want to be cute.
John: Oh, a dozen cream filled.
John: You could get a Boston cream.
Merlin: And if you want to be cute, if you get into large enough donut numbers, you can say to the operator, the donut operator, you could say, mix it up for me.
Merlin: One time.
John: One time.
Merlin: Some men just want to watch the donuts burn.
Merlin: Like, you be my agent of chaos and tell me, fill that box with whatever the fuck.
Merlin: But don't do that on two dozen donuts.
Merlin: Or you're going to have a dozen donuts that people have each taken one bite out of.
John: Yeah.
John: Maybe.
John: And I think this is a general, I think it should be a general rule.
John: Don't get cute.
John: Stop being cute.
Merlin: You're not impressing anybody.
Merlin: Nobody gives a fuck about your little game.
Merlin: Do you see the phenomenon?
Merlin: The phenomenon being that when we get higher than a certain number, it stops seeming meaningful.
Merlin: Sort of like me saying to you, oh, yeah, I agree to do something on this Wednesday in two years.
Merlin: Like that doesn't exist.
Merlin: That's not a thing because that's too many numbers between here and there.
Merlin: Any number, I don't know what the exact number is, but at a certain point, we stop acting like we're buying food for people.
Merlin: And we start acting like it's an exercise in creativity where you want to show up and have a visual, I think, you want a visual variety, right?
John: Oh, but also at a certain variety, you are now absolved.
John: Because there surely was one of the thing the person that missed out on what they wanted, wanted.
John: So in the three dozen donuts, there was one donut that would have worked for them.
John: The fact that there was only one and somebody else got it first isn't your problem as the donut getter.
John: And the fact that there are seven olive donuts left and nobody wants them, that's not your problem either.
John: It's like the people that ordered eight vegetarian pizzas.
John: If you didn't, one of them was cheese or whatever, but the ones that didn't get eaten,
John: They don't look at that and see their problem.
Merlin: It's like a donut.
Merlin: Nuremberg, nobody did anything wrong.
John: Nobody did anything wrong.
John: Now, if they got one dozen donuts and there were five people there and all five of them were fighting over one donut and then there were 11 donuts.
John: Because you got seven olive donuts.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah, 11 donuts that just sat there and everybody was like, these suck.
John: Why did you get these?
John: It would be on that person, right.
Merlin: I mean, I was about to say black licorice.
Merlin: I was about to say the example being black licorice.
Merlin: But I mean, there are people who like black licorice.
Merlin: But like if you were going to get another one is pop.
Merlin: If you're going to go out and get soft drinks for people.
Merlin: Like, you would not want, unless you have inside information that I don't have, you're not going to have over half of it be caffeine-free diet cherry Dr. Pepper or whatever.
Merlin: Well, if you go to somebody's house.
Merlin: Diet Coke.
Merlin: People like Diet Coke.
Merlin: I don't like Diet Coke, but when I order drinks, I know a lot of people will like Diet Coke.
John: If you go to someone's house and all they have is diet drinks, you're at their house.
John: Yes.
Yes.
John: If you go to someone's cookout, if they invite you to their house for an event, for a cookout, and all they have is diet drinks, they have made a, I would say, a pretty aggressive move, either in the direction of, fuck you, I only drink what I want, I only buy what I want, and if you wanted something else, you should have brought it, or...
John: I do not think when I invite people over, I do not think about them or their needs beyond thinking about them in terms of them fulfilling my need.
John: Neither one is a good look, John.
John: No, it's not.
John: That's not a good look.
John: If you invite people over and all you have is...
John: What's that stuff called?
John: Not Dasami.
John: Oh, you hate Dasami.
Merlin: That's the raccoon water.
Merlin: But what's the water that tastes... Like the actress, Aquafina?
John: No, the stuff that tastes vaguely like a flavor, but it's in a can.
John: It's called... Oh, LaCroix, LaCroix.
John: If all you have to drink is LaCroix... I got LaCroix and vitamin water.
John: Like, no, no, no, no.
Merlin: Get some pop, get some juice, make a pot of coffee, something.
Merlin: Imagine you had a high C that you poured into a large thing of ice and then it sat there for two days.
Merlin: That's your LaCroix.
Merlin: Oh, it's so good.
Merlin: It's basically canned aftertaste.
John: Yeah.
John: Oh, my God, John.
John: People love it.
John: People love it.
John: People love it.
John: It's so hard.
John: You know, my daughter's mother, she drinks it.
John: My friend Jenny, who rides the motorcycle, that came to our show.
Merlin: My lady enjoys a Pomplamoose.
Merlin: She'll get a Pomplamoose.
John: A Pomplamoose LaCroix.
John: Pomplamoose LaCroix.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: That's a grapefruit, you know.
John: If I let's say I was on a cross country trip in an old car and there and there was a cooler in the back.
John: It was full of Croix and the car broke down in the desert somewhere outside of Barstow.
John: And the sun was beating down.
John: Suddenly you're a wall of voodoo song.
John: And I sat there and pretty soon it got really hot and there's no help came.
John: I'm fanning myself with my straw hat.
John: With the rocking chair that you brought?
John: Pretty soon.
John: Pretty soon I'm starting to get a little parched.
John: Do declare.
John: At that point.
Uh-huh.
John: I might pop the lid off the cooler, look in at the LaCroix, and then put the lid back on.
John: Got to try and keep them cold.
John: But I still wouldn't be thirsty enough.
Merlin: I would sip the cooler water first.
Merlin: Yeah, that's right.
Merlin: I wouldn't be thirsty enough to try.
Merlin: The dirty cooler water with twigs and dirt in it.
Merlin: I would sip on that before I would have a LaCroix.
John: Later that day...
John: When the sun went down, if I started to feel – if my skin started to get red and prickly, if I started to feel like I was suffering from heat stroke, I might take one of those cans of LaCroix out and rub it on my forehead.
John: like a kid in an old pepsi commercial i don't know still if i would open it that's how bad that's how i feel about you know the worst possible party i could be invited to yeah is all uh all like glazed donuts la croix and olives
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John: party it's just like oh no tell you what i'm gonna go back i'm gonna leave the party now i'm gonna go to the store i'm gonna buy actual things for this party i'm not gonna bill you you're gonna terraform the party you're gonna get a party gaia bomb yeah but i'm gonna come back with a pepperoni pizza some some cake uh various pop uh-huh name brand name brand pop
John: Yeah, some name brand pop.
John: And, oh, Fritos and Cheetos.
Merlin: Oh, come on.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: Can I just also say it's your party?
Merlin: I say, yeah, bring some Funyuns.
Merlin: Nobody thinks they like Funyuns until they have a Funyun in their mouth.
John: Yeah, but Funyun is one of those things.
John: Yeah, if you try it, you're like, oh, I remember.
John: Oh, it'll fuck you up.
John: It's so good.
John: I know, but Funyuns sitting there on the table, you're going to... You think it's an aesthetic issue?
John: I don't know.
John: Funyuns seem to me to be like...
John: Just like what you think you're better than me, pork rind.
Merlin: Oh, I don't know.
Merlin: It's a powerful delivery of salty powders.
Merlin: Well, so is the pork rind.
Merlin: That's true.
Merlin: Pork rinds seem a little bit, oh, I don't know, a little bit CCR to me.
Merlin: It's a little bit fake working class.
Merlin: I see.
Merlin: It's putting on airs a little bit.
John: You think they're the fortunate son of snakes?
John: I don't know.
John: I'm stuck here in Lodi again.
John: What do I know?
John: Boy, I go back and forth with CCR.
John: I love CCR.
Merlin: No, I'm making a joke because pork rinds are silly.
John: But it's something I think about all the time.
John: Can you be...
John: Can you do Bayou music from L.A.?
John: And what makes Bayou music?
John: Because nobody from the Bayou is making that music.
Merlin: I think it's the difference whatever has the big wheel that keeps on toining.
Merlin: It toins, right.
Merlin: It toins.
John: And this is something I used to ask Sean Nelson about because, you know, Sean spent part of his childhood in the South.
John: And I said, why is there a southern accent, deep south accent, that sounds like Jackie Gleason in The Honeymooners?
John: Like...
John: Because you can be also from Chicago and say Toyn or from Long Island and say Toyn, right?
Merlin: That's so interesting because usually you've gone on in the past in a very informative way about the existence of Scotsmen in the South and how that's so much of the problem is the Scottish people in the South.
Merlin: It is.
Merlin: But now in the case of New Orleans, as I like to say, it's just so hot.
Merlin: In the case of a Nolan's, you're talking about that's a Francophile kind of situation.
Merlin: Something's going on there.
Merlin: And Jackie Gleason, you're going to get that rat king of Italian and Jewish people, I'm guessing.
John: Oh, the old Jewish Italian rat king.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: That doesn't sound good at all.
Merlin: Oh, no.
Merlin: Oh, no.
Merlin: I don't.
Merlin: So what does Sean have?
Merlin: Is he too close to the problem?
John: Is he able to tell you anything?
John: In fact, he does a phenomenal version of that accent.
John: Did you know Jackie Gleason was only, I would have said, if you'd asked me, I would have said he was born in 1889.
John: He was born in 1916.
John: He was only five years older.
John: No, no, no.
John: Wait, no.
John: Yeah, he was five years older than my dad.
John: He's younger than my grandmother?
John: Yeah, he was born in 1916.
John: He was a young guy.
John: He was part of the greatest generation.
Merlin: That's crazy.
Merlin: Yep.
John: He grew up in Brooklyn.
Merlin: Smoking, man.
Merlin: That smoking will do you in.
John: Well, no, he lived to be 71, which, you know.
John: Right before the age of 71.
John: He's married three times.
John: That doesn't seem that old, but back in the day.
John: Well, for somebody who smoked that much, that's pretty good.
John: 71.
John: He was 71, yeah.
Merlin: Now, Groucho Marx, I believe Groucho Marx is contemporaneous with my step-grandfather.
Merlin: I think Groucho Marx should get more of like an 1880s kind of guy.
Merlin: Well, let's see.
John: I think Groucho, yep, 1890.
John: Okay.
John: Now, and my grandmother, my dad's mother, was born in 1889?
John: Wow, wow, wow.
John: So, same age.
John: And she died a little bit before Groucho.
John: 77.
John: Now, you know, Dick Cavett knew Groucho.
John: I think he might have met Groucho once.
John: I'm not sure.
John: Yeah, he met Groucho.
Merlin: Did they ever exchange letters at all?
John: I think they did, yeah.
John: I think they had a regular... Did he ever have anything to say about Peter O'Toole?
John: Uh, well, if I recall correctly, yeah, he did.
John: He'd met Peter a couple of times.
Merlin: Did you ever notice that Peter O'Toole has two dick names?
Merlin: Two dick names?
Merlin: That was what he wrote to Dick Cabot.
Merlin: Oh, isn't that funny?
Merlin: Oh my God, look at the irony.
Merlin: Woo!
Woo!
Merlin: Do you ever notice Dick Cavett has a dick name?
Merlin: Peter.
Merlin: Peter.
John: And O'Toole.
Merlin: Peter O'Toole.
John: You know, that's the kind of humor that's been lost.
Merlin: Yeah, I know.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: Because it used to be, oh, the phrase Groucho would use in interviews, dirty.
Merlin: Dirty humor, he used to call it.
Merlin: Oh, blue.
Merlin: But the way he said it was really, he would say like doity.
Merlin: It was really cute.
Merlin: It was doity.
Merlin: It was toining.
John: Well, there you go.
John: That's that same accent we're talking about.
Merlin: It was doity.
Merlin: But also Alan Alda.
Merlin: Alan Alda is from New York, too.
Merlin: That accent, I'm told by John Cedricosa, that Alan Alda accent, which I thought was somewhere more New England-y, is a, I think it's a Long Island accent.
John: Long Island, right.
Merlin: Now, Groucho, I feel like, is from a borough.
Merlin: Is he from a borough?
Merlin: He's from Brooklyn.
Merlin: He's from Brooklyn, so he's still Twain.
John: Oh, wait, no, he was born, I just said he was made, but I don't know where he was made, but he was born in New York, New York.
John: He says he was born between Lexington and 3rd on East 78.
John: So he's born on the Upper East Side.
John: Are you kidding me?
Merlin: Lost it all.
Merlin: Lost it all.
Merlin: Lost it all in the stock market.
John: So that's where he's from.
John: Look at how much they all look the same.
Merlin: Isn't that crazy?
John: Well, you know, Alan Alda, of course, was very famous for his Groucho impression.
Merlin: Oh, he did.
Merlin: Well, famous.
Merlin: He did do that.
Merlin: He'd be sitting with BJ sitting around the still.
John: That's right.
John: I mean, famous, right?
John: But you know what Alan Alda's real name is?
John: Alan Aldowitz?
John: Alfonso Dabruzzo.
John: Whoa!
John: Alfonso Dabruzzo.
John: That is a spicy meatball.
John: It's like Siracusa.
John: I've noticed that when you say John Siracusa's name now, it's just a whisper.
John: You just go...
John: Yes.
John: It's just like it's the sound of the wind.
Merlin: It's because it's written on the wind.
Merlin: It's soft and it's almost like praying.
John: I had no idea until this very moment that Alan Alda was Alfonso D'Abruzzo.
John: So he is a person of Italian descent.
John: He's from the Bronx and he is.
John: Oh, Bronx.
John: Okay.
John: He's six months.
John: Oh, wait.
John: He's around your mom's age?
John: No, no, no.
John: He's like a year and a half younger than my mom.
John: So what do you know about that?
John: Alfonso DeBruzzo?
Merlin: He's been married to the same lady since 1957.
Merlin: See?
Merlin: That's really cool.
John: He is the guy he lets us know he is.
John: I guess so.
Merlin: He did those roles for a while where he was playing against type.
Merlin: Remember he was in that Annabella Scioran movie?
Merlin: Oh, no spoilers.
Merlin: But he was in that one...
Merlin: Oh, you know what?
Merlin: Also in the Howard Hughes movie.
Merlin: He's good against typing that, too.
Merlin: He played a bad guy, you mean?
Merlin: Wasn't he?
Merlin: Let's see.
Merlin: Him and Alec Baldwin.
Merlin: Alec Baldwin, I think, was the Eastern Airlines guy.
Merlin: And I think Alan Alda was like a senator in that.
John: I don't know anything about it.
John: You've never seen that movie?
John: No.
No.
John: Wasn't he in the West Wing after it got bad?
Merlin: Oh, I don't know.
Merlin: Oh, look at Alan Alda circa 1960s.
Merlin: I know, handsome kid.
Merlin: Cheese and crackers.
Merlin: Look at that guy.
John: You know, it's a thing where people with wide set eyes, if it goes too far, they look like Avatar.
John: But, you know, nice wide set eyes, boy, it's an attractive.
Merlin: I would kill for wide set eyes.
Merlin: I got that John Darnielle problem, man.
Merlin: I look dishonest.
Merlin: My eyes are too close together.
Merlin: Too close together.
Merlin: I think mine are too... I don't know.
John: We've talked about this.
John: A scallop is your problem.
John: Too squinty.
John: Too scallopy.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, not enough eyebrows.
John: That's true.
John: Your glasses help.
John: Yeah, thanks.
John: He's got swoopy hair.
John: Even in the 60s, he had swoopy hair.
John: He looks so modern here.
John: He does.
John: He does.
John: But also prep.
John: He's very prep.
John: Oh, for sure.
John: For sure.
John: Especially for an Italian fellow.
John: Well, that's the thing.
John: You know who else is Italian?
John: Who's that?
John: Half Italian.
John: Who?
John: John Hodgman.
John: You'd never know it until you realized, like, until he grows a mustache.
John: And then you're like, oh, hey, I don't know about that.
Merlin: You think Alan Alda likes olives?
John: Sure he does.
Merlin: Don't rely on the stereotype of everyone on MASH liking olives.
John: That's a stereotype.
John: The thing, though, he puts them in his freaking martini all the time.
John: And if he had enough control on the set of MASH after a while, if he didn't like olives, he could have made... Well, he did have a lot of martinis.
Merlin: He had a lot of martinis, and he'd have it in a medical cylinder.
John: But he could have said something to the effect of, you know, I think Hawkeye's affectation is that he has a strawberry in his martini or whatever.
Merlin: I don't know what else you put in a martini.
Merlin: So he might have had like a lobster or something in there.
John: What are the alternatives if you wanted a martini that didn't have an olive?
Merlin: Is there an alternative?
Merlin: Ones that I'm aware of are a pearl onion.
Merlin: You can have, I think, and I will literally, if you email me about this, I will literally ban you from the show because I don't care.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I think a Pearl Onion is one you can have.
Merlin: See, somebody's going to say, no, well, that's actually a Colorado chaser.
Merlin: And I'm like, fuck you.
Merlin: Anyway, Pearl Onion, I think you can have some lemon, like a lemon skin.
Merlin: What's that called?
Merlin: Lemon rind?
Merlin: Lemon skin.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: And the lemons smell so sweet.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: That kind of thing.
Merlin: Or you can get, yeah, right.
Merlin: So, see, the problem is this...
Merlin: it doesn't take long for this to turn into like the whole, is this a sandwich thing?
Merlin: And then I have to just go walk into the sea.
John: Well, somebody online the other day, see, I've been enjoying online lately.
John: Oh, really?
John: You're back.
John: Well, just a little bit.
John: I don't know.
John: I don't know if you, uh, if you really enjoyed, uh, 30 to 50 hogs in three to five minutes as much as I did.
Merlin: It really, it was, uh, it's nice to have fun.
John: It was some fun on the internet.
John: It wasn't like the really old days, like the old, old days on the internet.
John: It wasn't that kind of fun.
Merlin: I mean, it kind of just only had the one part of the joke, which was the 30 to 50 was the funny part.
John: The only part that was funny.
John: 30 to 50 and 3 to 5, I mean, I don't know.
Merlin: No, like I say, I'm not here.
Merlin: No shade, no lemonade.
Merlin: I'm glad people enjoyed it.
John: Yeah.
John: I'm glad you're back online.
John: Fish tube came right on the heels.
John: Well, no, I'm not really.
John: Oh, fish tube.
John: We're having fun with that right now.
John: And the thing is, fish tube's so great, and it came right after 30 to 50 feral hogs.
John: Yeah.
John: And there have been a lot of people.
Merlin: I have eaten the parody that you left in the refrigerator.
John: So fish tube, so 30.
John: Some of them are super good when you incorporate 30 to 50 feral hogs into the fish tube.
John: Jokes, so you get both.
John: You get both somehow.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: A lot of... They're all the same.
John: It's just really wry.
John: And so I've been really enjoying that.
John: And I feel like it's brought me... I don't know.
John: It's brought me closer to everyone.
Merlin: Oh, good.
Merlin: Oh, that's a nice feeling.
Merlin: That's a good feeling.
Merlin: Yeah, it's nice.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: If you could pick a celebrity to get donuts...
Merlin: for a bunch of people who would you pick who do you trust who do you trust i think there's there's me and a bunch of celebrities in a room and somebody's gonna go get some donuts i i know the answer to this i feel like um but i want to know what you think i'm sitting here i'm making this picture of alan alda into show art uh and i'm just thinking about uh it's not and just you know my answer is not alan alda oh i think he would be a loving selector of donuts who's your celebrity for picking donuts
John: Does it have to be a celebrity that I know or it's just any celebrity?
John: God, no.
John: Oh, Jesus.
John: You don't know any celebrities.
John: What are you talking about?
John: That's true.
John: That's true.
John: I mean, I know you pretty well.
John: You don't want me picking your donuts.
John: Although I've never met him.
John: You know, I've never met John.
John: I'm going to say it.
John: Don't say it.
John: Let me think.
John: A good celebrity who's going to pick all the donuts.
John: I'm going to say Alec Baldwin.
Merlin: Wow, that's very close to my second choice.
Merlin: Yeah, I was going to go with George Clooney.
Merlin: Wow, we were really close to one another.
Merlin: Because those seem like thoughts, I'm sure, I know.
Merlin: Listen, don't email me.
Merlin: I know Alec Baldwin's problematic, but I bet he's fucking great at picking donuts for a group.
Merlin: And you know, you know Clooney would be great at that.
Merlin: Yep.
Merlin: Yep.
Merlin: You're right.
Merlin: He wouldn't be walking around bugging everybody.
Merlin: Actually, actually, it's it's 625.
Merlin: You owe me, you know, like he wouldn't be doing that thing.
John: Clooney would show up with however many donuts he chose.
John: And at the end of the party, there would be one half of one donut left.
John: And as you're cleaning up, you're like, this is amazing.
Merlin: We've never gotten this close to all the donuts being eaten.
John: Yeah, there's like zero.
John: The only problem is that some jagoff only ate half of a donut and then nobody else wanted to eat the second half because it's a fancy party and you don't go around eating half donuts.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: But the thing is, Clooney would already be gone.
Merlin: You know what else he does?
Merlin: He sees you.
Merlin: He sees you out of the corner of his eye.
Merlin: He goes, is everything okay, John?
Merlin: You go, everything's fine, George.
Merlin: You did a great job.
Merlin: He goes, no, no, really.
Merlin: What's wrong?
Merlin: What's wrong, John?
Merlin: And you say, well, you know, I really would have loved this one specific cake donut.
Merlin: He reaches into his beautiful Gucci jacket.
Merlin: He pulls out.
Merlin: It's a donut in an envelope.
Merlin: And it says John Roderick on it.
John: I have a donut in an envelope right here.
John: I have a donut for you right here.
John: Right next to me.
John: I'm saying me right now.
John: I have a donut in an envelope.
John: It's right here on the floor.
John: You already got an envelope.
John: Here I am.
Merlin: You got an envelope full of donuts?
John: Here it is.
John: Huh.
John: Here it is.
John: I didn't eat it before the show because I didn't want to get too sugary, although it wouldn't have mattered.
John: No.
John: No, I think George Clooney, my dream.
Hmm.
John: Is that George would say, because he's not a magic man, right?
John: He's not just like pulling donuts out of his coat.
John: He'd say, oh, you didn't get enough cake?
John: Come with me.
John: And it's a bustling party, right?
John: But he'd walk me through the swinging door into the kitchen.
John: And there'd be a couple of people there hired to like do the catering.
John: And they'd both like titter and kind of run out because the boss was here, you know, George Clooney.
John: And he's with John Roderick, you know, fairly well-known phony award-winning podcast.
John: Yeah, right.
John: And he'd say, so cake, you say.
John: And he'd open up the refrigerator and there would be a piece of Safeway eight-layer chocolate cake.
Merlin: Oh, you like that too?
Merlin: The icebox cake?
Merlin: That square cake?
John: There are several Safeway cakes that I will go to bat for.
Merlin: Safeway makes a square.
Merlin: I don't want to take you off your story because I also imagine it being under a bell jar.
Merlin: Wouldn't that be sweet?
John: With a little beautifully written name tag on it.
John: Little cake thing.
John: He'd bring it out and he'd be like, why don't we both have a piece of cake?
John: Why don't we sit in the kitchen and have a piece of cake and a cup of coffee?
John: What's on your mind, John?
Merlin: What have you been thinking about?
Merlin: You got any projects coming along?
Merlin: Is there anything I can do?
Merlin: Is there anything I can help with?
John: I'm a little embarrassed right now because I went off on that 30-50 hogs fish tube digression, but it wasn't a digression.
John: It was going to be a classic come back around Roderick on the line.
John: Oh, sorry.
John: Sorry.
John: Where should we pick back up?
John: Well, no, the problem is I don't know where I was.
John: Even as I was in the moment, the problem was I got an email at that moment.
John: I was looking at a picture of Alan Alda.
John: I was telling the fish tube story and I've got some donut sugar in my head and I couldn't land the anecdote.
John: And that never happens to me.
Merlin: It's preceded by you're enjoying online more.
John: Right, right, right.
John: But that was the leap into it.
John: Were you already into the leap at that point?
John: I was already in midair, and I can't get back to where I jumped from, and I'll never be able to.
John: And that's one of those... You left Clooney's cake out in the rain.
John: Yes.
John: It was the fact that I had Alda's face on the computer, and then I saw this email come up.
John: And I made the ultimate...
Merlin: roderick on the line era do not click on the thing yeah because that that's not what we're doing i mean it's what's in the show is in the show yeah no but i tried to do a thing i tried to do i feel i feel you because it is it is difficult it's very hard to pick back up and if you listen to the show you'd be able to know what it was when you listen back but i don't think you listen to the show so now tears and rain
John: It is tears and rain.
John: But it's like I worry all the time.
John: How many hours can I sit and talk before I lose the ability?
John: What's going to happen?
John: What do you mean?
John: What does that mean?
John: What happens if one day I just can't talk anymore?
Merlin: No, you just pull some kind of like your own new version of like, I don't know, like just the Dave Roderick where you're like, ah.
Merlin: And suddenly the words just don't come.
Merlin: I like line readings.
Merlin: Don't get cute.
Merlin: Let's review.
Merlin: It's important to be nice.
Merlin: It's nice to be important.
Merlin: Don't get cute.
Merlin: Say what you want in life.
Merlin: Don't Bellingham your friends.
Merlin: Don't do it.
Merlin: Don't Southern Ohio your friends either.
Merlin: And keep an envelope full of donuts in your pocket in case you run into John.
John: I'm going through a little bit of a phase.
John: I don't know if you've been following this, where I've been selling my house.
John: Is that you?
John: You're the one doing that.
John: Yeah, I'm the one selling his house.
Merlin: You're going to wait out the buyers and see if there's some double secret probation that they screw up with by not taking occupancy by a date certain, no motorcycles left for 3 p.m., and then you get to keep the house.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: I feel like, uh, does it seem to you that I've been selling my house for a year for a full year?
Merlin: I mean, you, you, it's like, it's like, it's like Jerry Seinfeld says it's like tipping over a Coke machine.
Merlin: You don't do it all at once.
Merlin: You've been, you've been, you've been house selling adjacent for many months.
Merlin: House selling adjacent.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: To be honest with you, I think it seems like it's mostly sold at this point part is what's felt like the longest.
Merlin: And that's been, what, two, three months?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: It seems like it's been going on forever.
John: Tomorrow is my last day.
Merlin: Your last day in the house.
John: Last day.
John: The last three days I've been moving.
John: After I get done with the program, I'm going to go over and I'm going to move.
John: And by the end of today, I should have the last thing out.
John: And then tomorrow I have a lady coming to clean the house.
John: And then I guess I'll lie on the floor and stare at the ceiling, and then it's over.
John: Then it's done.
Merlin: If there are ghosts there to speak to you, this is the last chance for them to say anything.
Merlin: This is the last chance after 11 years.
Merlin: First thing you did, last thing you'll do.
Merlin: Are there any ghosts in here?
John: I'll say goodbye.
John: I'll say goodbye.
Merlin: That feels momentous, John.
John: Well, and the thing is that the whole time, the whole time,
John: I don't look back and feel like I ever made a bad decision.
John: It was always...
John: Like, well, I should move.
John: Like, I don't want to just – I don't want to live in the same place all my life and this is an opportunity and things are going to get good and I'm going to exercise more and this move is going to help me weed stuff out and I have to sell my house before I buy a new one and all these things.
John: You know, every choice along the way, I feel like I made the affirmative choice.
John: But what didn't happen is that the perfect house for me –
John: Came along during that period.
John: And so what I could not have anticipated a year ago when I started this process was that I'm moving out tomorrow.
John: And I don't have another place to go.
John: I don't have a.
John: plan or a house or, uh, you know, I'm like staying in the guest room and boy, am I a little bit, uh, I don't know how I arrived at this place.
John: I was fine.
John: I had a house.
John: I lived in a nice house and now I'm like living in a car.
Merlin: Are you feeling seller's regret?
Merlin: No, no.
Merlin: I feel like you embraced, you embraced, you just described this, uh, 90 seconds ago.
Merlin: This is part of a bigger thing.
Merlin: This is not just selling a house.
Merlin: This is a, this is a whole, uh, clutch of opportunities.
John: Right.
John: But I think that I just expected, I didn't assume, but I expected that at some point along the way, a...
John: an opportunity would present itself that would suggest what I was going to do next.
John: And if I were moving out of my old house into an exciting new place, I think I would have less melancholy about it.
Merlin: Oh, absolutely.
John: But I'm just leaving my beautiful house, and when I look ahead, it's only just mists of fear.
John: Uncertainty.
John: Uncertainty.
John: But my good friend Chad...
John: And this is the reason I'm referring to this is this is the email that I got a second ago that I clicked on.
John: Showbox Chad?
John: Showbox Chad.
John: Showbox Chad said, you know what we need to do?
John: You and I need to start an investment firm where we buy old houses and rehabilitate them.
John: Is that what you need?
John: You're not going to buy a house, he says.
John: We're going to buy some houses.
Merlin: That would be a new project for you.
John: Right?
Merlin: Right?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: We're going to buy some houses.
John: That's the route.
John: to real wealth in this country.
Merlin: Oh, because property... No, wait.
Merlin: Real estate is the only true value.
Merlin: What was the phrase?
John: Something like that.
Merlin: No, you used to have... That was your watch phrase.
Merlin: This is back in the mists of time, in the misty water-colored uncertainty.
Merlin: Real estate is the only real wealth.
Merlin: That's it.
Merlin: That was something that has been pecking at your brain, just trying to get in there somehow.
Merlin: So here we go.
Merlin: So you got an email while we were recording the podcast and now you're pivoting to buying multiple houses.
John: Maybe I'm not going to get a mid-century beauty where I sit in a smoking jacket with my beslippered feet up on my bespoke hearth and I only have one piece of furniture per room.
John: Yeah.
John: Maybe instead I'm going to walk around with a with a keychain like Schneider.
John: And I'm going to, you know, I'm going to have like 11.
John: You should become a woke slumlord.
John: Yeah.
John: 11 rinky dink houses on the edge of town that I'm like.
John: You know, knock on the door and then just open it because I have the key.
Merlin: I'm going to check the sink.
John: I'm going to check the sink.
John: It's the plumber.
John: I've come to pick the sink.
Merlin: So you're going to do that with Chad.
Merlin: You're going to have a house buying firm.
Merlin: No, you could also pivot that probably into some kind of cable TV show at some point.
John: Wow, you mean like hipster flippers?
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: My household is banned from watching any of them.
Merlin: I will simply not permit them in my home.
Merlin: But I know, I guess, that they're popular.
Merlin: It shows where white people put on goggles and bring hammers into them.
John: Yeah, then put a Lowe's kitchen in them.
Merlin: Yeah, you have a small house movement, and there's flippers, and there's creepy twins from Canada.
Merlin: It's a whole thing.
John: The problem is here, what I have now is I had a very limited set of, I mean, I had a lot of restrictions on what my next move was going to be.
John: And that then those limitations were keeping me disciplined.
John: But if Chad comes swinging in, showbox Chad, and he says, no, no, no, what we need to do.
John: Is pool our resources and go buy 25 rinky-dink houses and become like woke slumlords.
Merlin: Oh, my goodness.
Merlin: That sounds like a terrible way to address this problem.
John: That is way too many variables now.
John: So Chad and I are going to have to come to some arrangement.
Merlin: I mean, you know, if it's mostly for therapeutic purposes.
Merlin: You know, it could be good.
Merlin: But it's like, who was it?
Merlin: Torius B.I.G.
Merlin: says, you know, you never get high on your own supply.
Merlin: My concern here is that you're just getting more supply to get high on.
John: You know, what we all want, what I want.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: There's a reason.
John: There needs to be a reason for the season.
John: Hmm.
John: And... You're saying you're going to become born again?
John: The reason for this season is... Here we are.
John: Here you and I are.
Merlin: Here we are in Spain.
John: Here we are.
John: We're in Spain.
John: We're in the middle of... An occupation and a pizza topping.
John: Don't say olives.
John: We're right in the center of our middle-agedness.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Agedness.
John: Our chronological Barcelona.
John: Here we are.
John: We're in chronological Barcelona.
John: Okay.
John: Okay.
John: Okay.
John: What the hell are we going to do?
John: What's the reason?
John: What is the next 40 years going to be filled up with?
John: It's got to be filled up with something.
John: You can't just sit around, you know, drinking soda water all day.
Merlin: You got to like have something to do.
Merlin: Sure you can.
Merlin: You got, you know, there's stuff to do.
Merlin: You got to probably mow the lawn.
Merlin: My kid's got to get to school.
Merlin: Like, there's all kinds of stuff to do.
Merlin: You got to pick up Pecorino Romano cheese.
Merlin: There's always stuff to do.
John: I mean, but what if you gave yourself really something to do?
John: Like, oh, shit, I never thought about this.
John: A moonshot?
John: What if I become a landlord?
John: Yeah.
John: I mean, there's a guy that tied a bunch of weather balloons to his lawn chair and everybody celebrates that guy.
John: Must have worked because we're talking about it.
John: What if I buy like five 900 square foot houses and then I Pinterest them and then I Airbnb them or something?
Merlin: Sure, sure, sure.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: Now you're in the housekeeping business.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: Now I've got a friend in the housekeeping business.
Merlin: Oh, wait a minute.
Merlin: I got it.
Merlin: You should have an olive bar in all your houses.
Merlin: That's what's going to distinguish it.
John: Come on in.
John: Let us know.
John: Little houses in rinky-dink neighborhoods, and I'll turn them into olive bars.
John: Yes, residential olive bars.
Merlin: The zoning will definitely cover that.
John: Did I tell you I almost bought a hair salon?
Oh, my God.