Ep. 358: "Celebrate the Hams"
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
John: Oh, hello, Merlin.
John: Oh, hello, John.
John: Good morning.
John: Is it time for our frank and unscripted weekly phone call?
John: Candid call.
John: Candid call.
John: Oh, candid.
John: Candid, candid.
John: Candid call.
John: It's time for the call.
Merlin: Robert Evans died.
Merlin: You bet your ass he did.
Merlin: Oh, man.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You know, I don't I don't want to be too adulatory for a variety of reasons.
John: Sure.
John: Of course.
John: You know, nobody likes a fan.
Merlin: Well, I you know, then the thing is, I mainly, you know,
Merlin: I come at him from the angle of the, you know, the tape, the book on tape.
John: Yeah, the book on tape.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Which is tremendous.
John: That's the angle.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I think he's probably done some bad stuff and I'm going to pump the brakes on being too.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Sure.
John: I think that's all well documented.
Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: But you know, we're fans.
John: We loved him.
John: We loved him in his time.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Somebody posted a photo this morning and it really made me think of you.
Merlin: Let me see if I can find this one.
Merlin: I think it was the one.
Merlin: It might have been David's cough.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: David's cough.
Merlin: I believe who wrote that book about Robin Williams, a really good bio of Robin Williams.
Merlin: I'll send you this photo.
Merlin: This is, I want to know if you could tell me what your first thought is.
Merlin: Do you remember the movie Popeye?
John: Oh, do I ever.
Merlin: Okay.
John: I loved it.
John: I loved it.
Merlin: Oh, I did too.
Merlin: I was so into Robin Williams at the time.
Merlin: I would have watched him paint a fence.
Merlin: Robert Evans, you can see the photo, the young, handsome, sunglassed.
Merlin: Look at him.
John: He looks like Dustin Hoffman.
Merlin: I bet your ass he does.
Merlin: Robert Evans with Jules Feiffer and Robert Altman on the set of Popeye.
Merlin: Who else would have greenlit it?
John: Is that Jules Feiffer?
Merlin: I guess so.
John: You know, I never put his face to a name before.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Well, it's a different time.
Merlin: My first thought was, I think it might have come out in 1980, but I bet it was shot in 1979.
Merlin: I'm going to say my first thought, holy shit, made of cocaine.
John: For 100% it was.
Merlin: Without cocaine, none of this would have happened.
John: You know, do you ever feel like we missed the great drug years?
John: I do.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Well, I do.
Merlin: And this is such an old topic for us.
Merlin: We were, well, I would never show my kid anything related to Watchmen because she's too young.
Merlin: But I had to like re-re-re-explain to her the whole nuclear thing.
Merlin: Now, it helps that she is also terrified of nuclear war, which is awesome.
John: Now, how did she get that?
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: She has bad dreams about it.
John: What have young people even heard of nuclear war these days?
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I mean, she worries about annihilation.
Merlin: It's the sweetest thing.
John: nuclear but you know that we had the nuclear war and we had all of the different diseases oh yeah a lot of things that define the 80s oh but you know wait a minute remember famine there was a lot of oh yeah let them know it's christmas time yeah that's right that's right so people hey you know we were at uh it was it was before anybody had uh coined the phrase peak oil but we were at peak food yeah there was never going to be enough food
Merlin: Yeah, in retrospect, it was such a Twitter kind of thing.
Merlin: Like, we all got to go, you guys, you guys, it's Christmas.
Merlin: They don't even know about Christmas.
John: They don't even know, especially the Muslim ones.
John: There are flies on the baby.
Merlin: You guys, get a shirt.
Merlin: Buy a shirt.
Merlin: Flies on the baby.
Merlin: This is, I mean, yes.
Merlin: Okay, first of all, yes.
Merlin: Made of cocaine.
Merlin: I mean, because you know Bob.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: You know, Bob was throwing down.
John: He had a lot of cocaine.
Merlin: Robin Williams, I think he had his share of the cocaine over the years.
Merlin: He was fueled by cocaine.
John: How the hell is Robert Altman going to walk around in a captain's hat?
John: He looks like the captain from Gilligan's Island.
John: Oh, the skipper.
John: The skipper.
John: How's he going to walk around like that if he didn't have a bunch of cocaine?
John: Absolutely.
John: Absolutely.
John: Yeah.
Yeah.
John: Jules Pfeiffer, on the other hand, I don't think of him as being a real coke guy.
Merlin: No, no.
Merlin: But the thing is, here's the thing, and this is why we missed the window.
Merlin: I say disease stuff because first herpes and then HIV and AIDS came along.
Merlin: And there was that time where we were, people didn't know what caused quote unquote gay cancer, but like there were a bunch of ideas and maybe it's poppers and it could be drugs.
Merlin: It could be.
Merlin: And then later we learned, oh yeah, you know, sharing needles, not so great.
Merlin: And there was a real trickle down to that.
Merlin: We were already scared of all the drugs.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Whereas it used to be you could just do cocaine and it was seen as, I think, a performance enhancer.
John: I remember right at that period, which is, of course, right when you and I were first arriving on the scene where it was conceivable that we might kiss somebody.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: uh i remember i think it was no less a person than my own mother who said boy you really missed out well your generation really missed out and i'm like what what huh and she was like yeah you should have been here for the 60s and 70s and i was like but you didn't do anything and she was like i know but it was it was it was happening all around
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: We talked about how our dads, at least my dad, started dressing different.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: Because he had to.
Merlin: And you can see it.
Merlin: I mean, you know, you look at the evolution of a Mike Brady over those three years on that show where he went.
Merlin: Yeah, he ended with the perm, which matched Greg's, which was creepy.
Merlin: But even when he started out, he had kind of swoopy.
Merlin: swoopy uh you know not hippie hair but like it's just wild it's wild yeah i guess you know it must have been kind of exciting but like god this is all of our old topics being rehashed but i wouldn't want to live through in 1968 as a sentient adult can you imagine no i i wouldn't accept there was that that the promise of it in the 70s that we ended up seeing unrealized
John: But the promise of it that we were living in a new era of freedom and possibility.
John: Yeah.
John: And now we weren't going to be hamstrung by old morality and we were going to, you know, people were going to be able to just be who they wanted and not be not have to live in this conformist.
John: and it just all came unraveled so fast.
John: But for a brief period there, it seemed like, oh, I mean, this was the thing that the baby boomers traded on for 15 years after the fact, which was like, we made it safe to be cool.
John: Well, I don't know, man.
Merlin: You're welcome.
John: Jesus Christ.
John: But I don't know, you know, maybe we're right on the cusp of a, I don't know,
John: And I was just about to say on the cusp of a new golden era, but I don't see any sign of that.
Merlin: Let's leave that to Twitter talk.
John: Are you familiar with, are you a fan of the comics of Jules Pfeiffer?
Merlin: I mean, I think I know his stuff from New Yorker compilations mainly.
John: He's one of the... So I'm kind of a fan of his.
John: I have a bunch of collections of his work and have actually kind of sought out maybe an original Jules Feiffer drawing on the aftermarket, on the dark web of former editorial cartoonists for The Village Voice.
John: I've yet to secure one.
Merlin: That's a good goal.
Merlin: If you're going to go for it like that or a George Booth or a Gorey, I would support that.
John: Right?
John: And there are a couple others.
John: I've always wanted a Gilbert Shelton.
John: I've always wanted a...
Merlin: like a an original dirty plot you know i've got i've got a bunch of these the when you talk about your comics with an x uh that would include there's a lot of stuff from the like our crumb famously our crumb kind of era but also you would maybe include jules feiffer in that rat king of cartoonists you know it's weird because he i don't know i mean the that that generation of
John: of sort of pre-Dunesbury political comic artists that were alternative.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: I mean, you know, where they would sometimes do a comic for Playboy, and then the next week they'd have one in The New Yorker.
John: But Jules Pfeiffer is an example of an editorial cartoonist that in the 50s, if you read his comics from the 50s,
John: They feel incredibly modern.
Merlin: The style of these is incredible.
Merlin: And definitely a precursor to Doonesbury, for sure.
Merlin: I mean, Doonesbury obviously nicked some of his style in terms of the panels, but also just the drawings, the very fluid drawings.
John: Yeah, like super kinetic, but also just topically.
John: Like he covers the Civil Rights Movement, he covers the politics of the 50s, which...
John: I don't know if I've talked about this with you, but like the first time I saw Dr. Strangelove, the idea that we had in the 80s that the 50s had been this time of conformist paranoia and like sort of lockstep.
John: Yeah, Levittown sort of.
John: And when I saw Strangelove and realized that there was
John: that there was satire in the 50s.
John: It kind of blew my mind.
John: But then to read Jules Feiffer is to see the mid-century in a completely different light and realize that there was so much sophistication that has been kind of papered over by the sort of broad stroke myths that we put together about decades and
John: It's just like, oh, yeah, a madman or whatever.
John: But you read – his writing was so personal and he had such an interesting take.
John: And then you realize he was a popular editorialist at the time and that means that there were –
John: There was an audience for it, right?
John: They wouldn't keep inviting him back.
John: Right.
John: There were a lot of people that shared his sentiments, and there just isn't, other than Lenny Bruce and kind of that little slice of hipster commentary, you don't really get that sense of like a mainstream bebop, hep cat, but smart people.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: That's a place I wish there was a documentary of that sort of Nichols and May culture.
Merlin: It's certainly informed by the Beats and the Hipsters and stuff like that, but it was so very sophisticated.
Merlin: Right, sophisticated.
John: It wasn't just like they were critical of Eisenhower, but they were so
Merlin: snooty about the kennedys even you know just sort of like yeah here's our here's our satirical album about camelot right yeah yeah yeah yeah well i mean like the what was it called the first family the there was a vaughn meter album that was like a uh send up of uh the kennedy years that was popular so popular for so long but nichols and may is a really good way or even like maybe would you include like uh like rob reiner and mel brooks
Merlin: Yeah, right.
Merlin: I mean, Rob Reiner may be a little Carl Reiner.
Merlin: What's it called?
Merlin: The Thousand-Year-Old Man?
Merlin: What did I say?
Merlin: I'm sorry, Carl Reiner.
Merlin: I was thinking of the Thousand-Year-Old Man where they did the improv bit.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: The 80s made the 50s look like the 90s.
Merlin: Looked like the 90s.
Merlin: That's exactly what happened.
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Merlin: I got to get a ding in.
Merlin: This morning... Oh, go ahead.
Merlin: No, I was just going to say it is...
Merlin: This is embarrassing to say, but there's that kind of editorial cartoon that has been popular or has been what we think of as an editorial cartoon since at least the late 1800s, which is a drawing of something that's usually a little bit silly, and then it's got labels on it to explain.
Merlin: The do-nothing Congress.
Merlin: The hard-working farmer levies.
Merlin: And you're like, ugh, God, it's so lame.
Merlin: you know what i mean just in the in this current era the uh pro 45th president editorial cartoons are they're so they're so bad and they've got the ones that are owning the libs you mean yeah exactly and they and they and they like so like i just tweeted about this a second ago this this shirt that they're putting out that's a mash-up of hocus pocus and uh the impeachment democrats
Merlin: that's going around, and it's so bad.
Merlin: It really looks... I mean, I'm sorry, Godwin's Law.
Merlin: It looks like, you know, an editorial cartoon about Jews from the early 30s.
Merlin: It's that kind of terrible, scritchy-scratchy drawing style that's just awful.
Merlin: But when you look at something like Jules Feiffer, and it's all done narratively.
Merlin: These are characters talking and moving and doing things, and it...
Merlin: some of these really perfectly capture the tone of culture and society at the time without needing a label on it that says Congress.
John: Yeah, they did.
John: And, you know, another thing I love about Pfeiffer is that he has reoccurring characters, but you don't see them... It's not like...
John: It's not like they're there every week.
John: He'll do a strip this week about the military industrial complex and he'll do a strip the following week about the five-year grain harvest plan.
John: And then his character of Huey and Bernard, Huey and Bernard will show up and they'll do a thing.
John: And we already know Huey and Bernard.
John: We've seen them do their thing over the years.
John: But then they then we don't see them for weeks.
John: And then the the the woman that does the dance of spring will show up.
Merlin: She'll do her dance of spring.
Merlin: Gorgeous.
John: And then, you know, and then weeks will go by and then Huey and Bernard are back.
John: And and it's like you feel the passage of time with both with Huey and Bernard.
John: They've been living their lives somewhere in his imagination.
John: And I love that.
John: You know, the the.
John: And Doonesbury used to do that, right?
John: We wouldn't see Zonker for a long time, and then Zonker would show up.
Merlin: There might be a week kind of thematically covering something, you know, that's about, oh, the guy with a football helmet, you know?
Merlin: Yeah, right.
John: Right, yeah.
John: The little Vietnamese kid that was, you know, a member of the Viet Cong.
Merlin: Oh, my God, yes.
Merlin: Wasn't he amazing?
Merlin: I owe so much.
Merlin: So go do a Google image search on George Booth, and I think you'll know him when you see him.
Merlin: Boy, his comics really capture something.
Merlin: I owe so much to people whose parents had collections of basically New Yorker cartoonists.
Merlin: So George Booth was one.
Merlin: My friend Sam's dad, Ken, had this collection called Omni Booth.
Merlin: And it was just a big collection of George Booth comics.
John: George Booth is a genius.
John: I love the dog.
John: The dog is so perfect.
John: All of his.
John: The two old people sitting in a New York apartment.
Merlin: Yeah, somebody's in a bathtub.
Yeah.
John: With the one light bulb hanging down and she's saying something inscrutable from the kitchen.
John: He's so smart and so dark.
John: And yet, you know, he never talks down to the people of the world.
John: I don't know.
John: You can buy his originals.
John: You can get an original George Poop.
Merlin: So I mentioned that.
Merlin: The other one is that now my kid loves is, like I say, Gory, the guy who does – most famous in America probably for the opening titles to the mystery show on PBS.
Merlin: But he did the Gashley Crumb Tinies.
Merlin: Are you talking about Edward Gorey?
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: Like, N is for Neville, who perished to Fitz.
Merlin: S is for Susan.
Merlin: It's so goddamn dark.
Merlin: She has a poster of the Ghastly Chrom Tinies, the A to Z kids.
Merlin: She has that poster framed in her room.
Merlin: But anyway, all of those things, so whether that's George Booth or whether that's Edward Gorey or...
Merlin: What's another one?
Merlin: But I owe so much to people where like you'd be overhanging it, just hanging out at somebody's house.
Merlin: And now we'd just be sitting in the plastic with the recent newspapers and like it was ordered a bathroom.
Merlin: And like I got so acquainted with this stuff.
Merlin: from the seventies and then got reinterested in later Bloom County, but definitely Dunesbury.
Merlin: Like I got very into Dunesbury in the early eighties and would check those out of the library right alongside Garfield.
Merlin: And like, I love them so much.
Merlin: And there's just, there's just something about a good, not necessarily a New Yorker cartoon, but about, about a one panel cartoon that like the older I get, the more I appreciate the subtlety.
John: of that being well done gahan wilson or gay hand oh yeah sure yeah yeah yeah i mean that's that stuff where it's just one panel and he's so dark and so like he puts so much evil into some of his people um so grotesque yeah yeah but like so i don't know my my older cousins you know i had three older siblings that were 20 years older than me and then all my my cousins were
John: The closest person in age to me was at least 10 years older than me in terms of other kids.
John: And so I would get these things for Christmas gifts.
John: I'm seven years old.
John: I opened a gift from my older cousin, and it's a book of Edward Gorey.
John: you know, like a compilation of Edward Gorian.
Merlin: Yeah, I had one called, the one I got into was called Amphagory.
Merlin: Amphagory was the first one.
Merlin: Yeah, it had the color section and it had the bit with the ants in it and all of that.
Merlin: It's so good.
John: But I also got all the Doonesbury collection stuff from my brother David.
John: I got all the old National Lampoons.
John: And this was from, you know, they were just like his used ones.
John: So, yeah, right.
John: A sophisticated... It's kind of why I don't
John: It's kind of why I don't mind my kid reading comics that are over her head.
Merlin: I totally—you've got to show your child things that they literally can't understand.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: It's so important.
Merlin: Like, don't—you know, it's like, obviously, they say, you know, make sure your kid hears lots of words.
Merlin: Pre-literacy, which is such an important concept, is that they have—
Merlin: books around them.
Merlin: They hear lots of words.
Merlin: I mean, I don't know if that's scientific, but I think going to the library a lot, making that a thing that we do.
Merlin: We buy milk at this store and we go to the library.
Merlin: Like, this is an errand you must participate in and you should go and find books on the shelf that you just think look interesting.
Merlin: And I think it's, whether that's Watchmen or whether that, which is not entirely appropriate, like, you don't want to scar your kid, but, like, let them have...
Merlin: things they don't completely understand.
Merlin: But in the same way that, you know, you and me and John Syracuse could watch Monty Python as a kid and not understand it, but know that it is funny.
Merlin: Let your kid have good taste and intellectual curiosity by presenting them with challenging things.
John: I remember I gave her a bunch of Calvin and Hobbes when she was, I don't know, six or seven.
John: And I sat and tried to read them to her.
John: and realized, oh shit, Calvin and Hobbes is meant for 13 and over.
John: I mean, there's so much going on that you just couldn't even understand what they're talking about.
John: I mean, he's like, he's a child that has adult thoughts.
John: But I sat with them for a while and she was like, what does this mean?
John: And I was like, well, and tried to explain a couple of them.
John: And then I said, just read them.
John: And the ones that you get
John: you'll enjoy and the ones that you don't save them, you know?
John: And so she, she kept trying to plow through them.
John: I think she, she identifies more with Garfield's sense of humor right now, but which is, which is totally fine and normal.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Well, right.
Merlin: I mean, I love your kids just, just lucky charms every morning.
Yeah.
John: No, and I think the one worry I have is that Archie Comics, which I also have a lot of, because I liked Archie Comics.
John: I'm not embarrassed.
John: Archie Comics spend an awful lot of time just like –
John: engaged in this this sort of somewhat perverted love triangle that it feels a little bit above her pay grade but she she digests them like she's she's voracious so i you know i haven't i haven't jumped in and said like no more archie comics i don't like the way that veronica treats you know it's uh you know i just yeah no because because we i mean when you become an adult and you are deep into chunking
Merlin: biases and heuristics you tend to look at everything as boxes that have stuff in it and i think i know i i try to catch myself doing that and i struggle with it and sometimes you know if there's something there where there is a question instead of just saying well what do you think it means i'll say well you have to understand that this was a different time and this this uh this ghastly triangle that that archie and vettie and veronica are involved in it would be very problematic by today's standards but
Merlin: You also have to understand the release schedule for these comics, where not everybody would buy every comic or digest.
Merlin: And so they've just made it very, you know, let's talk about Bazooka Joe.
Merlin: And it's like, no, like, stop putting stuff in boxes.
Merlin: That's an adult thing.
Merlin: I think that is primarily an adult thing to do.
Merlin: Or as you get older, you more often say, well, you know, as my friend Max likes to say, what am I looking at here?
Merlin: Like, give me the context for understanding why you're showing this to me.
Merlin: And let me know what box this goes in before I even watch it.
Merlin: So, you know, it's like when I recommend a TV show to somebody, I really struggle to avoid saying, oh, it's on Western with sci-fi elements.
Merlin: And it's like, well, no, just go watch it if you like my taste.
Merlin: Trust me.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: Go see the movie.
Merlin: Get the movie Green Room.
Merlin: I could tell you what it's about, but I'd rather you just watch it.
Merlin: Just watch it.
Merlin: Yeah, just watch it.
Merlin: Go watch Green Room.
Merlin: Go watch Blue Ruin.
Merlin: Don't ask me to tell you what this thing is.
Merlin: Just if you trust my taste, give it a shot.
Merlin: If you hate it, do what my kid and I do.
Merlin: We do the 20-minute test.
Merlin: If you absolutely can't stand it, after 20 minutes, watch something else.
Merlin: But if you trust me and my taste, don't ask me for a box.
Merlin: Ask me for the stuff that goes in the box.
John: I'm sure you're going to enjoy the movie Popeye, but I understand it if you don't.
Merlin: Give it 20 minutes.
Merlin: Put on some eagles, you cut up some lines.
John: If you don't like it, then you can always go watch Bugsy starring Annette Bening.
Merlin: There's one thing that happens in Popeye several times, and I really, I should just go find a copy of the movie and make my own animated gif.
Merlin: There's one character in that movie, it is so important that everybody know, and that's Olive Oil's father.
Merlin: Hmm.
Merlin: Do you remember Olive Oil's father?
Merlin: Not at all.
Merlin: He has a line.
Merlin: Well, he's got a line that he says numerous times.
Merlin: Everybody will be sitting around and talking really fast because it's Robert Altman and people are talking over and saying, you owe me an apology.
Merlin: And he'll be...
Merlin: Just keep rolling along, and then later on, I just go, you owe me an apology.
John: That's his line.
Merlin: Yeah, and so many times, he's just indignant about what's just happened, and somebody owes him an apology.
Merlin: And I think about Olive Oil's father about 40 times a day when I look at the internet.
Merlin: I just imagine an old man at the end of the table with his hair in that weird point and his weird little round glasses going, you owe me an apology.
John: I want to see this, as you say,
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: Well, you know what?
Merlin: I'll give myself a homework assignment.
Merlin: I'll see if I can put it together.
John: Why don't you do it?
Merlin: The pictures of him, olive oil father, the pictures you find of him are in a real poop deck pappy?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: What are you talking about?
Merlin: That's Popeye's father.
Merlin: What's happening?
John: Poop deck pappy?
Merlin: Yeah, isn't that Popeye's father?
Merlin: Come on, Google.
Merlin: Get it together.
Merlin: Olive oil father apology.
John: I don't think you could call a character Poop Deck Poppy today, Pappy.
John: Poop Deck Pappy.
Merlin: No, we don't say that anymore.
John: I feel like that's an example of how the language has changed.
Merlin: Well, and it was another reason why we don't say niggardly.
Merlin: Liggerly is a great word.
Merlin: It is a nice word.
Merlin: But it's very difficult.
Merlin: It is a good word that is very meaningful, but boy, I'm sure not going to use it.
Merlin: No.
Merlin: Except here in lots of brackets.
Merlin: Sure, sure, with brackets around it.
Merlin: Do you say slavishly?
John: Well, you know, I think I would say slavishly.
John: Oh, that's so much better.
John: I'm a mispronouncer, mispronunciator, as you know.
John: But it's slavish.
John: I'm slavishly devoted to the... Spock.
John: Sabotage the system.
John: To Sabado.
Merlin: I say Sabotage.
John: Sabotage.
Merlin: Somebody in my life... Sabotage.
Merlin: Somebody I love in my life...
Merlin: I recently had to go to a professional development – this is like straight out of the office.
Merlin: I had to go to a diversity training session.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: That was popular.
Merlin: No shade, no lemonade, but like –
Merlin: This person had said that there were things in this that were very good and very well done, but some of it got a little silly.
Merlin: And this person in my life tells me that it was run by what this person described as a helpful white lady.
Merlin: Oh, was she helpful?
Merlin: It was run by a helpful, you know the type.
Merlin: So she's a helpful white lady.
Merlin: I do.
Merlin: And they were just talking about being more sensitive to the people around us.
Merlin: And most people were pretty game for it.
Merlin: But one of the participants was this older man who is a medical doctor.
Merlin: He's an older Jewish fella who was trying real hard to play along and even participate in a way very few others were.
Merlin: And this doctor person said, well, I think one thing that's really important as we kind of proceed through this new landscape is to be sensitive about our own privilege and really about the blind spots that we may have.
Merlin: And the helpful white lady said, we don't say blind.
Yeah.
Merlin: Blind spots?
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: We don't say blind.
Merlin: No, which, okay.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: So here's the thing.
Merlin: I get that.
Merlin: And like a lot of people, I'm trying hard to not say hurtful things if there's an equally meaningful way to say something that's not hurtful.
Merlin: I think that's reasonable.
Merlin: But how awesome is that in the diversity training, this good faith effort is made to say, I'm trying to become more aware of my privilege.
Merlin: And then, yeah.
Merlin: So the participant was chided for his ableism.
Merlin: What is the term of art?
Merlin: What would we prefer to an unsighted location?
John: Oh, is it?
John: So a person that doesn't have vision is now, the term is unsighted?
John: Oh, gee, I don't know.
Merlin: Oh, boy, I'd just rather avoid that thistle.
Merlin: Yeah, sure, sure, sure.
Merlin: But anyway, no, I get it, but it is, I don't know, it's kind of funny.
Merlin: I mentioned this to a friend of mine texting with somebody recently, and the person said, well, it's really become a contest for which white person.
Merlin: It does not end up at the bottom of the pile.
Okay.
Merlin: This episode of Roderick on the Line is brought to you in part by Squarespace.
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Merlin: Not me, not me.
John: Not me, not me.
John: Do you continue to read magazines?
John: When was the last time you had a magazine subscription?
Merlin: I subscribe to, I'm going to write this down.
Merlin: So right now I subscribe, I believe, to four things, one of which I get physically.
Merlin: So I subscribe to the online, I subscribe to the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, and the New Yorker.
Merlin: And we get the New Yorker delivered because my kid likes the comics.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, there it is.
Merlin: I had New York Magazine until recently, and there was no particular reason.
Merlin: God, it's so worth subscribing to.
Merlin: It's a very good magazine.
Merlin: Just for the recent Olivia Nuzzi piece on Joe Biden is a barnstormer.
Merlin: She's such, such a good writer.
Merlin: And I'm just joining the course of people saying, wow, this is extremely well written.
Merlin: Of course, a lot of people are all sad because, oh, we love Joe.
Merlin: And yeah, well, she goes into that.
Merlin: She gets into that.
Merlin: But she talks about the struggles of this campaign in a way that – and it's what the journalists call a write-around.
Merlin: She did not have a huge amount of access to the candidate.
Merlin: But she wrote this, to me, like Tom Wolfe or Hunter Thompson-level piece of like –
Merlin: Just so colorful and well told.
Merlin: So yeah, New York Magazine is very good too.
Merlin: The only magazine I currently subscribe to is The New Yorker.
Merlin: It sounds like you don't.
Merlin: You don't get hard copies.
John: So what I used to do, I subscribed to The New Yorker, to New York Magazine, to The Atlantic.
Merlin: This is now or previously?
Merlin: Well, so... I used to be a big Harper's guy.
Merlin: That was the one I subscribed to for years.
John: I bounced out of Harper's pretty – I mean I – They pile up fast.
Merlin: Yeah, they do.
John: And I probably had it for about five years.
John: But when I worked at the magazine store, I stopped needing to subscribe to some of those.
John: But I always kept New Yorker – You had access to free dirty diaper magazines.
John: I did.
John: Diaper magazines for dirty boys.
John: Do you have any poo-poo pee-pee?
No.
John: um i i always had new york new yorker uh atlantic discover magazine is a wonderful magazine to have um particularly when you have a young person in the house back in the day oh omni really good yeah but i still have subscriptions too so i stopped with the new yorker a couple of years ago just because
John: Because I spent so much time on my phone, and I just wasn't doing that thing where I sat and read A New Yorker all day.
John: Yes.
John: Which was one of my favorite things to do for so long, so many years.
John: But I still get the hard copy, and my subscription to New York just lapsed.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I'm so San Francisco, John.
Merlin: I think my one year of New York Magazine, I think it came with my KQED membership.
Ha ha ha!
Merlin: Here's your liberal pack.
Merlin: It comes with that.
Merlin: Here's your tote bag.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Well, but I still get the hard copy of The Atlantic.
John: And over the years, I just, I keep coming back to The Atlantic as a magazine that just defies expectations, just routinely, where you're like, well, I think I know what The Atlantic's all about.
John: And then you'll read a big feature article where you're like, well, shit, I didn't see that coming.
John: In terms of, like you're saying, like just a well-written, fully realized...
John: piece, like an article that feels not like it's coming from any one particular worldview.
John: It's not coming from anti that worldview either.
John: It's just somebody wrote a freaking good article about something.
John: And somebody edited that article.
Merlin: It isn't like a David Brooks column in the New York Times that just gets splattered onto the screen.
John: No, they got someone that was being paid that had good talents made it better.
John: Anyway, the latest issue of The Atlantic just reminded me of that.
John: Because they're not blind to the world.
John: They're just writing about it in a way that still feels like it's coming from that place of...
John: I don't know, you can't even say nonpartisan anymore, but coming from a place of like smart people talking about things.
Merlin: I'm just looking through my history for what I've read recently.
Merlin: And they had that fantastic Malcolm Gladwell piece recently that was super good.
Merlin: No, I totally agree with you.
Merlin: And it's not just a hot take on what happened earlier today.
Right.
Merlin: Which we need.
Merlin: We so need that.
Merlin: That's why The Economist, I don't agree with them politically, but I've said for years, like, one reason I used to subscribe to The Economist was in the days before nonstop Twitter and news, that was a great way to read whatever that is, four to six pages of international news.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Which is the beginning of that.
Merlin: Those issues are such a good refresher course on this being an entire planet and not just, you know, the 500 people that you see on Twitter.
Yeah.
John: I definitely subscribed to The Economist for a long time, and I think there just maybe was one day that I got so pissed off at them about something that I was like, fuck you, I stopped subscribing in protest.
Merlin: I really am so embarrassed to say this.
Merlin: I'm not one of those virtue signallers that talks about canceling The New York Times, but boy, there sure have been a handful of times where I'm like –
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: Really, Maggie?
Merlin: Really, Peter?
Merlin: Really, Mikey?
Merlin: That's your thing?
Merlin: You're just trying to keep us off balance.
Merlin: You're both sizing all of this stuff, and plus you still give money to David Brooks.
Merlin: What is happening?
Merlin: But it's – and like honestly, like in the case of The New Yorker, I've kind of joked about this.
Merlin: But this is – it's – I subscribe to The New Yorker because I do enjoy it.
Merlin: We like getting the cartoons.
Merlin: But like I want someone to pay Gia Tolentino all the money.
Merlin: So like in the case – there are times where I'm like I just – like I'll love an article that somebody wrote so much that I subscribe to the online version of something.
Merlin: And her stuff is, she's just so good.
Merlin: Her recent book is so good.
Merlin: There's just people where I want to make sure you keep paying them.
Merlin: Like I'm fricking Washington reporters for the New York times have really been driving me a little bit crazy lately, but it's so important.
Merlin: They keep driving me crazy.
Merlin: It's so important that they get paid to do what they're doing.
John: Please get paid to do what you're doing.
John: Reporters that are still reporting on things.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah, absolutely.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Now explain to me,
Explain to me.
John: Explain to me.
John: Explain to me.
John: Because there was a while there where if you clicked on a link from Twitter to a New York Times article, you could go, if they tweeted it,
John: You could follow that link and not have to have a subscription to the New York Times.
John: But they stopped doing that.
Merlin: There used to be all kinds of public workarounds that you could use an incognito window.
Merlin: You could follow it from Google News.
Merlin: There were like a whole bunch of hacks...
Merlin: But like, and then the one that finally got revealed, much to my relief, was when they finally said, oh, look, it turns out that there has been, here's why everybody links to these Wall Street Journal things that only show you 50 words.
Merlin: And that's because there was this extremely well-known
Merlin: password and name combination that they never patched i was like how are all of you people paying for the fucking wall street journal shame on you like and like but then they i think they closed that but like i i don't i mean i can't believe how often people link to these stories in anyway i'm taking off your point but yeah yeah you're right there used to be lots of tricks and now that doesn't work anymore like if you try to go wall street journal from an incognito window it says you're using incognito window yeah i know i know believe me i know
John: But there is a, there's a regular, I know you don't like talking about the people that listen to our program other than John.
John: But there is a, there's a senior editor for the New York Times that is a regular listener to our show.
John: The devil you say.
John: By the name of Patrick LaForge, or as I like to think of him, Patrick LaForge.
John: And he is, he has been listening to the show for many, many years.
John: He, he, he periodically will pop up and,
John: And and give some some context to something that we've said.
Merlin: But now we are in a position to now say, watch your ass.
Merlin: We pay your salary, sir.
Merlin: Oh, that's right.
John: That's right.
John: Well, and so he so for a long time, he was kind of like, you know, he would give me the little tip off.
John: Like, here's how you here's how you read the articles.
John: If you want to go, you know, if you want to come through the service entrance.
John: But then eventually it was like, yeah, that's all closed now.
John: So anyway, subscribe to the New York Times.
John: Go kiss my ass.
John: Party's over, Jack.
Merlin: Party's over, that's right.
Merlin: Yeah, go pony up the dough, loser.
John: Don't get high on your own supply, Patrick Forge.
John: But what I don't understand, what I want.
John: What I want.
John: I don't understand how to subscribe to a thing that
John: And then also then as a result of that subscription, have it on my phone.
John: I've never figured out how to connect it.
John: Like, I get the things.
John: I get the New Yorker.
John: I get the New York Times.
John: I get the Atlantic East.
Merlin: Oh, yeah, there's two I forgot.
Merlin: Just before I forget, my lady subscribes to the Sunday New York Times.
Merlin: And also, I belong to Slate.
Merlin: That's the other thing.
Merlin: So mostly for the podcast.
Merlin: But continue.
John: Oh, did you ever get wired?
Merlin: I got wired for years, too.
Merlin: I sure did.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: I had all the original, like, first year of them.
Merlin: And I think I just threw them away.
Merlin: Oh, man, those are worth a lot of money now.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Well, I mean, Wired started right when I was getting on the internet.
Merlin: It was like perfect timing for me.
John: Wait, I thought that was PC gamer news.
Merlin: Yeah, I still get PC gamer news.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I get it on my Game Boy.
John: Do you remember PC Magazine when it first arrived?
John: Boy, I used to have a subscription to PC Magazine.
Merlin: I could see that being in your house.
Merlin: No, I used to get Macworld.
Merlin: I got MacWeek.
Merlin: I got MacUser.
Merlin: Then Macworld bought MacUser.
Merlin: MacWeek went away.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: It was so funny.
Merlin: As long as we're ranting, though, you may not remember this.
Merlin: I wonder if you were working at the store then.
Merlin: So I got my .com job.
Merlin: Sorry, Freudian Dick, everybody out of the... There was one called... I think it was called the Industry Standard, but John Battelle had this one that was all about the...
Merlin: internet startup online business stuff.
Merlin: I love that stuff.
Merlin: And I remember around the time I got hired at that job in 1999, it went from being a magazine-sized magazine to looking like a Sears catalog.
Merlin: Some issues would be like half an inch, three-quarters of an inch thick.
Merlin: There were so many ads, and then it just went away.
Merlin: Magazines were such a thing even in the late 90s, and then it just all exploded.
John: Oh, the people that would come into the newsstand to look at Italian Vogue.
John: Oh.
John: And, you know, they couldn't afford it.
Merlin: That's a doorstop right there, huh?
John: It really is.
John: They couldn't afford it.
Merlin: You get the September issue of Italian Vogue?
John: Ugh.
John: Jiminy.
John: But they wanted to look at it.
John: And it was always... The people that came in to look at Italian Vogue and not buy it.
John: It had Italian boobs.
John: Well, it did, but it was... The audience for it were the fashion people that didn't have money.
John: And I've always loved...
John: I've always loved poor fashion people because they're making fashion out of what they can.
John: And they really care about and all this other, you know, it matters to them because they're like a fan community.
John: And we think of fashion and high fashion as being this like province of just rich swells.
John: But there's a whole universe of people that
John: That follow it just like people follow sports teams.
John: Especially young gay guys.
John: Well, and, you know, I remember there was a girl on Capitol Hill on Broadway that had a baby really young.
John: She was 18.
John: And all of a sudden, she was 18 and I already knew her as a, like, scene girl.
John: And she wore... She did her makeup...
John: Kind of like the two girls in the Flock of Seagulls I Ran video.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: But they weren't wearing the garbage bags.
John: Yeah, wearing the garbage bags.
John: She did the kind of like Pris from Blade Runner eye makeup.
John: That's a good look.
John: As her just sort of around the neighborhood stuff.
John: But then she had a baby.
John: And so all of a sudden she's like pushing a pram.
John: But she still...
John: is uh is you know rocking like bowie in berlin fashion wow cool and she kept it up and i i imagine admiring her or i mean i remember admiring her so much although also being like sort of i don't know shocked or or put off a little bit
John: By her devotion to high fashion or extreme or like ultra fashion, even as she was – beats me like how she was scraping it all together.
John: But she would come in and sit crisscross applesauce on the floor of my magazine store.
John: when the big Vogues came out.
John: And like you say, the September Vogue or whatever, they're fucking battleships.
John: And she would sit there and I would, you know, there were some people, like if you were going to be in the back looking at diaper magazines, but also if you just like posted up and started reading Mojo all afternoon, I'd be like, hey, can I help you with something?
John: Like, you getting everything you need over there?
John: Unless you're Courtney Love, in which case, like, sure, you know, run of the store, babe.
John: She had a posse, right?
John: She did.
John: Yeah, her posse was on Broadway.
Merlin: Now, is that the Broadway in Seattle?
John: Same Broadway.
John: Because it's mix.
John: It's mix.
John: Dick's Drive-In was only like a, I mean, half a block from the magazine store where I'm
John: Where I, where I worked.
John: So that's where mix, uh, that's where his posse was.
John: And also there's a fairly famous Macklemore video that is like a hat tip to mix, uh, mix a lot or Sir mix or mix as we call him.
John: Yeah.
John: Uh, and I, I, I, I tried to appear in that Macklemore video.
John: Like I went to the shooting, uh,
John: of it.
John: And I stood around in the, in the dark while Macklemore drove up and down the street in a Cadillac limo.
John: And after a while, I, I,
John: Like I was almost in a Drew Barrymore movie one time.
John: What's that one that she did in the early 90s that was set in Seattle?
Merlin: Oh, for the girls or no.
Merlin: What am I thinking of?
Merlin: Drew Barrymore.
Merlin: Oh, geez.
Merlin: This is going to make me feel real bad.
Merlin: I'm going to have to go look up her IMDb.
Merlin: Go ahead.
Merlin: Seattle IMDb 90s.
Merlin: Drew Barrymore 90s.
Merlin: Remember when she was in E.T.?
Merlin: Remember that?
Merlin: I do.
Merlin: She was so cute in that.
Merlin: She was real popular in that movie.
Merlin: She sure was, yeah.
John: Anyway, that Drew Barrymore movie, as you're looking it up, I went, and it was a grunge movie.
John: Drew was there in grunge time.
Merlin: Boys and Ivy, Gun Crazy, No Place to Hide, Doppelganger, Bad Girls.
Merlin: I don't think so.
Merlin: Boys on the Side?
John: Maybe, yeah.
John: Okay, let's call it Boys on the Side.
John: Anyway, there was a scene where the camera was panning.
John: Long, long shot.
John: from one end of the bar to the other while they... Maybe it was a walk and talk.
John: I don't know.
John: But there were a bunch of us that had been called in as grunge-looking extras.
John: And we were sitting at the bar drinking apple juice out of pint glasses and smoking cigarettes and looking real.
John: Yeah.
John: And sat there for... It takes a long time to make a movie, I guess.
John: There's a lot of waiting around.
John: That's what they say.
John: Yeah.
John: A lot of waiting around.
John: So I waited around for a long time
John: And then I was like, fuck it, there's a real bar across the street that's selling actual beer.
John: I'm going to go over there.
Merlin: That's how they lose some of the greats.
Merlin: I'll be back.
Merlin: A lot of the great extras.
John: I said to the extras sitting next to me, I was like, hold my spot.
John: I'll be right back.
John: I just need to augment this apple juice.
John: Get the beer out of here.
John: So I went across the street and then I forgot to go back.
John: But I look back at it.
John: I look back at it now, and I'm like, it could have been in a Drew Barrymore movie, man.
John: It could have been in a Macklemore video.
John: Wow.
John: Yeah.
John: I mean, think about what my Wikipedia page would look like if I had those credits.
Merlin: So different.
Merlin: You were in the December's video.
Merlin: That was good.
John: I was, yeah.
John: Every once in a while, somebody will discover that.
John: Oh, my big bushy beard.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah, that was my big bushy beard.
John: That was back when you could grow a big bushy beard, and it was a sign that you were having a bad time.
John: Huh.
John: Like a divorced dad kind of thing?
John: Yeah, it was like a depression beard.
John: Okay.
John: And these days, you grow a depression beard and people are like, did you forget your suspenders today?
John: Yeah.
John: Like, aw.
John: That sucks.
Merlin: It doesn't work anymore.
Merlin: It does.
Merlin: It does suck.
Merlin: Look at Travis, right?
Merlin: You take a Travis.
Merlin: Okay, you're talking about a Travis.
Merlin: Travis seems like, you know, we have this conversation around the house all the time because my daughter and I are total creeps and wonder about people's lives.
Merlin: But we're always like, you know, you can tell Griffin and Justin have a fair amount of social anxiety in different ways.
Merlin: You know, Travis doesn't seem to have so much.
Merlin: He's an extrovert.
Merlin: He's a very extroverted guy.
Merlin: He doesn't seem depressed at all.
Merlin: As Uncle Tupelo said, no depression.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
John: He's got something in him that is immune to the things that plague his brothers.
John: And I don't know how it is that he got the gift.
Merlin: He's the middle brother.
Merlin: He threaded the needle.
John: His dad is very...
John: Seems like a very lighthearted, fun, socially open, warm, garrulous person.
John: That's exactly right.
John: But, you know, what we have never met, what I've never met, is the McElroy mom.
John: And I feel like a McElroy mom holds the key.
Merlin: Well, that's a sad story.
Merlin: It's a sad story.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: No, she passed.
Merlin: And then they all got Zelda tattoos.
Merlin: And they each have a different ability highlighted on their tattoo.
Merlin: And then their dad has all the abilities in the tattoo.
Merlin: Why do I know this?
Merlin: Because I'm a creepazoid.
John: That is a little creepy, but it's nice.
John: It is nice.
Merlin: It's one of the very few tattoos that I will approve.
Merlin: Max Tempkin's measuring tape on his arm.
Merlin: I'll approve that.
Merlin: That's fine.
Merlin: You can have that.
Merlin: Also, Adam Savage has that, too, the measuring tape arm.
Merlin: That's a good one.
Merlin: Now, what happens if you—I mean, will a standards body admonish you if you get older?
Merlin: In the case of, like, my late mother-in-law, she kept getting smaller.
John: Yeah, I learned something today.
John: I was having the garage door here worked on by a guy who came and he's like, and I realized, you know, we have this stereotype of people in the tech industry who maybe are socially maladroit and they work in tech as a result of not wanting to have to interact with other people.
John: But you know what?
John: You don't have to be in tech.
John: You can also be in garage door repair.
John: Yeah.
John: That's so good to know.
Merlin: That's so good to know that there are other avenues other than managing a network.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: You don't have to be a remote area network manager.
John: You can be a garage door repair person.
John: Oh, that is such good news.
John: This guy, he was one of those guys where you'd ask him a question and then you weren't sure if he heard you.
Yeah.
John: And then he would answer it in a roundabout way later by saying something that you're like, oh, what you just said answered the question that I asked a little bit ago.
John: How about if I let you work?
John: I said at one point, like, well, I won't get in your way.
John: Let me get out of your hair.
John: And he didn't reply.
John: He just stared at them.
John: But what I learned is that cables, when they fray, bear with me.
John: Okay.
John: When a cable frays, it gets shorter, not longer.
Merlin: When a cable frays, it gets shorter, not longer.
Merlin: I'm not a physicist, so can you walk me through that?
John: Well, I think that what happens is that they get tangled, or the frayed parts get sort of bunched up, and it shrinks the cable not...
John: You know, it's not stretching.
John: It's breaking and dreading, I guess, is one way you could put it.
John: It's like... Oh, you weren't swoggled.
John: I would not have guessed that.
John: Yeah, it's like Jar Jar Binks hair.
Merlin: I enjoy a fact like that.
Merlin: I enjoy a fact like that.
Merlin: He's interested in frame.
John: So, I don't know.
John: I asked Adam, actually, about his measuring tape tattoo.
John: Like, how accurate is that?
John: What are you going to go on?
John: He was like, it's a rough...
John: It's, you know, it is as accurate as I can make it.
John: But, you know, as you say, skin is –
John: It's going to tighten up, it's going to loosen depending on heat and humidity and how much you subject your arms to flames.
Merlin: Get a dollar bill.
Merlin: How long is a dollar bill?
Merlin: Exactly six inches.
John: No, really?
John: I think so.
John: Hope so.
John: You know what?
John: An American Nickel, which is a great album title.
John: That sounds like a Neil Young record.
John: An American nickel weighs about a gram.
John: Wow, so there's a use for nickels.
John: Yeah, if you have a scale and you're trying to weigh out a gram of weed, you just put a nickel on the other side.
John: Put a nickel on it.
John: Okay.
John: Yeah.
John: Put a nickel on it.
John: That's what we used to say.
John: That's what we used to say in Portland.
Yeah.
John: Double nickels on the dime bag.
Merlin: Now come... Wow!
Merlin: You get triple credit for that.
John: Thank you.
Merlin: I have a Minuteman poster right here hanging in my office.
Merlin: You know that.
Merlin: You've been there.
Merlin: It's over where my dolls are.
Merlin: I've seen it.
Merlin: Yep, I got what?
Merlin: I have four X-Men posters and I got a Minuteman poster.
Merlin: Got an old license plate.
John: How do you feel about your...
John: How do you feel about the – so here's Merlin's mind.
John: Here's Merlin's mind on drugs.
John: Okay, and I've known you for a long time, and I know that sometimes the things that are in your mind, you explode out onto the walls.
Merlin: Oh, there's so much to the key I keep in.
Merlin: Like earlier, it was all I could do, not to parody a Who's Could Do song by saying, There's a girl who lives on Capitol Hill!
Merlin: But I didn't, because I'm a gentleman.
John: But sometimes, you know, like back in the old days, you used to put Post-it notes up all over the place.
John: Yeah, it's okay, kind of.
John: Every time you would have a thought, it would go into a post-it note and the post-it note would go into it.
John: Okay, I'll allow it.
John: I'll allow it.
John: And then, you know, you three by five cards and then you, but so for me, it's the same.
John: Like I sometimes need to understand what I'm thinking by having it become physical and then I put it on a table or I put it on the wall or I put it somewhere.
John: Oh yeah, big fan.
John: And it's a thing and then I look over at it and I can go like, okay, right, you over there, you know, it's a representation or whatever.
John: But but also I remember when I moved into my farm originally, I didn't have anything in my room, my bedroom, nothing, nothing on the walls.
John: No, not even a mirror, no furniture, just like a bed.
John: It had white sheets, white walls.
John: And that was it.
John: Sounds like a John Lennon video.
John: Yeah, a little bit, right?
John: Oh, and I slept in a white tuxedo.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Bare feet, bare feet, white tuxedo.
John: Don't touch my feet.
John: A white top hat.
John: And then, you know, and I would sing Minnie the Mooch.
John: Kiss, kiss, kiss.
John: Oh, but also I had a residence single eyeball head.
What?
John: But I remember feeling like my room was like a place of calm, a place where I went and there was nothing to look at and to be... You like to stare at a wall.
Merlin: You live in a Love and Rocket studio.
Merlin: You just like to stare at a wall.
John: I do.
John: I do.
John: It's a ball of confusion.
Merlin: No, no.
Merlin: That's what the world is today.
Merlin: No, no.
Merlin: Anyway, so we've established everything we can think of in a white... Oh, maybe a Duran Duran video, maybe?
Merlin: Is there some white rooms in those?
John: No, I think not.
John: I think they're just women in leopard paint.
Merlin: Okay.
John: All right.
John: Sailboats?
John: Sailboats.
John: Sac solo on a sailboat.
Merlin: Wow.
Merlin: Yes, yes, yes.
Merlin: The spirit of Nagel.
John: So I wonder, as you're sitting there in your office looking at your four X-Men posters and all of that, your Wilberforce doll and the naked ladies and then the Minutemen and the various milk jugs around the bottom underneath your desk.
John: Yes.
John: And other things, coffee pot, ceremonial prayer rugs, Super Bowl memorabilia.
John: Do you feel like your stuff becomes slightly overwhelming?
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: And I do purges.
Merlin: And the last purge really took.
Merlin: And I've discovered how pleasant it is.
Merlin: to have less stuff.
Merlin: And to this point even further, we are, my lady and me, kid doesn't know this yet, we are on the verge of a super purge at the house because it has become untenable.
Merlin: And to be honest, it actually, in a way that used to affect my, it's weird how my wife and I have swapped.
Merlin: She used to be the person who really needed to clean and to have the house clean in order to feel mentally stable.
Merlin: And now that's me.
Merlin: I'm like, okay, this room,
Merlin: Yesterday was my kid's birthday.
Merlin: And the room where the things were was overwhelming to me, and I had to leave.
Merlin: So yes, to answer your question, having fewer things and having them in some sort of order has become very important to me.
John: So tell me about this purge.
Merlin: Well, you know, this is something that we've done actually before our kid was born.
Merlin: Twelve years ago.
Merlin: We had done this once at the house.
Merlin: Can you imagine that?
Merlin: I remember when she was born.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: It's insane.
Merlin: She was just a little baby when she was born.
Merlin: She was a baby for a while.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And it was more manageable in many ways.
Merlin: But no, this is a long story short.
Merlin: This is a book that I like a lot that really helps you not just buy a bunch of plastic boxes and put stuff in it.
Merlin: Is it called The Tipping Point?
Merlin: It's called Glance.
Merlin: No, it's called It's All Too Much.
Merlin: And it basically, instead of being the sort of tidying up book that teaches you how to be more organized by buying things at the container store, it encourages you, this is not for you, except it is for you, and it encourages you to address your potentially very unhealthy relationships, the things that you own.
Merlin: And he's really good at walking you through the things that most of us say about why we keep things and then shows you, well, if you really felt that way, you'd be doing this instead of that.
Merlin: Why don't I have this book?
Merlin: It's called It's All Too Much by Peter Walsh, and I really, really like it.
Merlin: And it made me go like, oh my God, I...
Merlin: I hit every single one of these things.
Merlin: This thing is valuable, so I have to keep it.
Merlin: This thing has a sentimental value, and I will be essentially what?
Merlin: I will be dishonoring the memory of my grandmother if I get rid of this, or my kid made this drawing, and I can't throw it away.
Merlin: And as Jeff Beck says, blow by blow, you go through and address each of these dumb fucking toxic ideas you have about things you own, and it utterly changed the way I think about my stuff.
John: Wait a minute.
John: I'm here on the internet looking at It's All Too Much.
John: There's a- It's also a Beatles book.
John: There is, but there's also an episode of 43 Folders about- Please don't.
John: Please close it.
John: It's all too much.
John: It's a clever hanger trick that's featured- Oh, that is a great trick.
Merlin: On 43 Folders.
Merlin: it works so you hang you hang your clothes is the site updated oh my god you um you instead so like if you've got a way you hang usually you hang your clothes by grabbing the hanger thing and you hang it with the little opening on the back what's recommended is instead when you put your clothes back hang them such that the opening is reversed and in the front and then return make yourself a reminder for whatever one month three months six months and then look at how much of the clothing obviously has never been taken off the hanger
John: Oh, this is the backwards clothing trick, eh?
John: I probably called it a hack because that's how I remember it.
John: Let's see.
John: Here's one of my favorite... Oh, you called it life hacky.
John: With a dash.
Merlin: Life hacky.
Merlin: Oh, God, this is taking a turn.
Merlin: So that book was really helpful.
Merlin: So what we did was, so at that point then, really, and my lady and I both read this book and really liked it.
Merlin: And it's still very, there are two books that have really informed, two self-help books that have informed the way that I live.
Merlin: One of them is that, and the other one is Getting Things Done by David Allen.
Merlin: And they've both been so important in rewiring the way that I think about stuff that I do.
Merlin: And honestly, that's one of them.
Merlin: I don't always follow it, but boy, if I need to get some semblance of order with objects, that's what I do.
Merlin: So why am I saying all this?
Merlin: Because an interesting thing happens and you, once you, once anyone but you starts doing this process, you find yourself going, oh God, yes, more trash, more trash, more junk.
Merlin: And then it just becomes about like, where does this go?
Merlin: You know, as Michael Stipe says, is there a way that I can recycle some of this?
Merlin: What can I donate that somebody actually wants?
Merlin: Please don't donate socks.
Merlin: Nobody wants you to use socks.
Merlin: Buy, if you care about shelters, buy new socks.
John: Oh, but it turns out that the Goodwills and the thrift stores do end up using all of that stuff that you think nobody's going to want these old socks.
John: They sell it for bath mat makers or something?
John: Yeah, they sell it, and that's what they make the interstate highways out of now.
John: That's awesome.
Merlin: Your old socks.
Merlin: Well, it's funny, because the last time we did a mini purge a few months ago was in the midst of the whole Marie Kondo trend, and all of the
Merlin: the thrift stores were, were at the very least becoming much more picky, but we're also like often just saying, look, please, I thank you.
Merlin: I'm so glad you rented a truck and you're bringing this all your, all your treats.
Merlin: But like, seriously, we just, we don't have capacity for processing things.
Merlin: You know what I'm talking about?
Merlin: So that tidying up with Marie Kondo thing really caught on with Netflix and it became this huge thing.
Merlin: And a lot of the haulers, I can tell you, started raising their prices.
Merlin: And it became just because it was like this whole new business had formed around moving Americans' former possessions somewhere else.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: But it's like for me, it is really I do still find myself falling back into that.
Merlin: And I say, oh, I got to keep this Arby's Cool Cat glass because like it's I'm sure it's worth a lot.
Merlin: His tip for that is like go on eBay.
Merlin: If you think if your single reason for keeping that Burger Chef box from 1977 is because you think it's valuable, like go on eBay and look at what it's worth.
Merlin: Because it can be pretty shocking that nobody wants that.
Merlin: And the people who do are paying a nickel for it.
Merlin: So that's taking up cubic inches of your home and your psyche every day that you keep it.
Merlin: So anyway, yeah, that's me.
Merlin: And so here at the office, it's pretty great.
Merlin: As I've told you before, I think I don't have canonical San Francisco trash service.
Merlin: So it is very easy for stuff to pile up if I don't take it out.
Merlin: That Taco Bell bag might be worth something.
Merlin: It might be worth something to sell to Cool Cat.
Yeah.
Merlin: But, you know, occasionally, like, my trick, as I've said before, I think, is I'll just, I'll call a junk place that day, which forces me, again, to, like, have to get it together.
Merlin: I'm carrying on.
Merlin: But, you know, that's made me feel happier and healthier and have honestly transformed this little space into a place that I'm much happier to be.
Merlin: That and getting a couch.
Merlin: My old couch from the, the very old couch came from our house to here, and now I can sleep here.
Yeah.
John: Do you, I mean, when I used to spend a lot of time at your apartment, which was now a long time ago, but I used to, you know, I used to camp out at your place for sometimes days on end.
Merlin: There was that one time when I think you were having a bit of a time and you visited with us for a few days.
Oh.
Merlin: But a lot of times it was tour-y stuff.
Merlin: And I don't know, maybe sometimes it was concomitant with a break in the tour where you could spend two or three nights.
Merlin: It was nice.
John: Beginning of a tour, end of a tour, I'd spend a few nights.
John: Yeah, one time you and Maddie were generous enough to say like, why don't you just come?
John: And that was fun.
John: It's always fun.
John: It's always fun.
John: But at the time, your place was extremely comfortable and well done.
John: Thank you.
John: our places were done when we were in our 30s.
Merlin: Oh, for sure.
Merlin: There were probably still milk carton furnishings in my office.
John: Yeah, the stuff that we had from college combined with another thing that we found, and then there was this, and then there was that.
John: I'm a crap hound, man.
John: I still have so much junk like that.
John: Well, and you guys had that wonderful mattress in your guest room, which was shaped like a taco shell.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: That was a bad bet.
Merlin: Now you've got a Casper mattress.
John: You really, really, really insisted on it for a long time, past the point everybody told you, like, listen, that's a thing.
John: You'll find yourself rolling off the bed, you know.
John: It's bad.
John: It's worse than not having a guest room, frankly.
John: It's kind of like a bathtub, but with sheets on it.
John: Which is the opposite of the Coltons.
John: The Coltons used to have a wonderful guest room that was just like this perfect little place in New York that you could go crash at the Coltons.
John: And they took it away and replaced it with one of those modular...
John: Like Ikea couches that you can't get comfortable on no matter what you're doing.
John: You couldn't get comfortable on that couch if you were floating three feet above it.
John: No, it doesn't want you to be comfortable.
John: No, and then I realized, oh, they don't want you to be comfortable.
John: They don't want you to come stay there for five days.
John: Oh, it's purposeful furnishings.
John: Yeah, it was just like, oh, hey, come on, stay with us anytime.
John: We just made this couch out of cinder blocks.
John: How do you like that?
John: Cinder blocks covered with Owen's Corning fiberglass.
John: What's it crinkling?
John: But my question for you is, now that you are full-grown with a child that has, obviously, she has yet to put away childish things, did you, did Maddie in particular, develop an adult style that was based around getting some nice pieces?
John: Not much.
Merlin: You know how people say that?
Merlin: Oh, yeah, I do.
John: They got some nice pieces.
Yeah.
John: Did you get some nice pieces?
John: No, I mean, no, not really.
John: You don't have cinder block bookcases though.
Merlin: No, but it's also something where, I mean, I don't want to throw her under a house bus, but like my kid does a lot of crafts and it could just be something where like, you know,
Merlin: cleaning paintbrushes, like half a bottle of like rubbing alcohol is spilled on this thing and didn't get cleaned up.
Merlin: And now it's, it's bad.
Merlin: No, it doesn't.
Merlin: No, we'll just get a different Ikea, you know, a different Ikea table for the nook or something like that.
Merlin: No, no, we get lots of stuff.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: It's no, no.
Merlin: What about, no, what about you?
Merlin: You've got a lot of classic pieces in your home.
Merlin: Well, yeah, but you know, I don't know if we ever talked about that.
Merlin: You found a home for the piano, right?
John: Oh, yeah.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: Found a home for the piano, and I feel liberated by that, having left the piano.
John: Um, but I'm, you know, I'm thrift store eclectic and I think that things are worth more than they are.
John: Um, but you know, the other day I posted a picture of a lamp I have and somebody wrote me and was like, that lamp's worth $900, which was like, I didn't know that they're not helping you, John.
John: They're not helping you.
John: No, they were not.
John: I didn't know that you could even have a lamp that was worth $900, let alone, uh, that I had one.
John: But then it's that thing where then you go look on, you go and look on the line and
John: And you realize, oh, there's one of these lamps for sale somewhere for $900.
John: That does not mean they're worth $900.
Merlin: Or maybe put slightly differently, there is somebody in the world, there might be 12 people in the world that would pay 10 times more than that, but it's not going to be super easy to get connected up with them this week.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: It's going to happen.
Merlin: eBay must be good for that in some ways.
John: When you do get connected with them, what are you going to do?
John: Show up with a lamp over your shoulder?
John: No, you're going to want to make that connection turn into some kind of Robert Evans production deal.
John: You know what I mean?
John: You're not going to say, hey, I just met this amazing person that would pay $1,500 for this lamp.
John: Yeah.
John: Let me go get my lamp.
Yeah.
Merlin: No, no.
Merlin: That's how you end up in a clown's basement.
John: Yeah, maybe someday.
John: I mean, someday is now, right?
John: Someday is now.
John: Someday is now.
John: Whoa.
John: Right.
John: Talk more about that.
John: Well, see, that's what I've been trying to – I was about – I can't say that's what I've been trying to tell you about because that's not what I've been trying to tell you about because I am trying to tell myself that.
John: Someday is now.
John: For everything.
John: I have lost a little bit of aloha, which is not to say that I don't – that I've gone –
John: away from aloha i'm just not reminding myself all the time which feels like part of aloha is to say it to yourself when you need it i haven't been and i need to i need to get get my return to return to aloha i need a little return to aloha yep yep yep yep and um
John: I just, yeah, what's my path?
John: I mean, I guess I get to just go back to Hawaii?
Merlin: You know, there is a way in which we are similar, I will postulate.
Merlin: You and I?
Merlin: Me, we're not so different, you and I. So with me, I will always be very anxious about something.
Merlin: And just because that something gets resolved to my satisfaction, that might buy me an afternoon.
Merlin: But I'll just say, okay, what's next in the stack?
Merlin: And my brain will say, that's the new thing we're anxious about.
Merlin: Yay.
Merlin: Yay.
Merlin: You're not like that necessarily with anxiety, I don't think, but you do get a bee in your bonnet, and that bee in your bonnet has understandably been your housing situation.
Merlin: Do you think your mind is casting about for the next bee to go in your bonnet?
John: Somebody asked me the other day, like,
John: Do you, are you excited?
John: You know, I get this every once in a while.
John: Are you excited?
John: It's a common thing for people to ask one another, I guess.
John: Are you excited?
John: I'm not sure I've ever asked that of somebody.
Merlin: No, it's like I said the other day on the internet.
Merlin: It's like every time I get in a lift, they say, having a busy day?
Merlin: And I go, not really.
Merlin: And they're like, hmm.
Merlin: Guys always like telling you they're busy.
Merlin: Now what are we going to do?
Merlin: This is 98.1, the breeze.
Merlin: You're supposed to tell me you're busy.
Merlin: And I go, are they working?
Merlin: Nope.
Merlin: Crazy day.
Merlin: No, I mean, the whole reason I run my life the way I do is I don't have to...
Merlin: Talk to people.
John: The garage door guy and I spent 15 minutes talking about the cold.
Merlin: Oh, God, the cold?
John: What are you going to do about the cold?
John: Well, I kept trying to get there with him.
Merlin: I was like, well, time to get your winter jacket out.
John: What's going on with the Warriors?
John: I can't talk about that, but I was like, time to get your winter coat out.
John: And he said, this is it.
John: I'm wearing it.
John: And so I said at some point later, he was like, it's fucking cold.
John: And I said, well, it's time to start getting some layers on then because I'd already tried the winter coat gambit.
John: Yeah.
John: And it hadn't occurred to him to have two or something.
John: And his winter coat is dirty, too.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: And I was like, time to get some layers going, you know, like some sweatshirts.
John: It's the Northwest.
John: And he was like, I'm wearing them.
Merlin: i was like all right well you got cucked like what the fuck yeah you're complaining about the cold i'm trying to offer you some solutions here like you know like don't make me do all the work here see the hill he's the opposite of the guy who got the poop out of my garage who who wanted to talk about uh about uh ottman and brahman oh yeah i had hot food upstairs john i had pho i couldn't unload that guy well for me my neighbor's poop was by my foot and he's talking about ottman and brahman i don't
Merlin: I don't want to hear about that.
Merlin: I mean, God bless you.
Merlin: I'm so glad you've had this journey.
John: Well, I'm having some floors redone right now.
John: And for whatever reason, every floor guy I've ever met is from Ukraine.
Merlin: I don't know why that is.
John: Every floor guy is from Ukraine.
John: The floor guys are from Ukraine.
John: And so I hired the floor guys to do this floor work.
John: And the guy that I talked to on the phone...
John: was Vietnamese, and his company kind of had like a sort of Vietnamese name and so forth.
John: And then the guy that actually showed up to do the work was from Ukraine.
John: I was like, okay, what's going on here?
John: There aren't a lot of roofers Turks.
Merlin: Oh, interesting.
Merlin: Interesting.
Merlin: Is this racist to talk about this kind of international home improvement?
John: I'm not sure.
John: This is the question.
John: Is it even racist to talk about Ukrainians?
John: I don't think so.
John: I think you might have a little bit of a blind spot.
John: For sure I do.
John: But when somebody says, are you excited?
John: My only answer is, my excitement is very short-lived.
Merlin: You're not just talking about your home project.
John: No, no, no.
John: About everything.
John: Okay.
John: If I am anticipating something, I am excited...
John: But it's tinged with anxiety, like I'm anxious, is kind of what my excitement feels like.
John: Change is hard.
John: Uncertainty is hard.
John: And then as soon as the thing happens...
John: Because I've known a lot of people that as soon as they have a single-minded goal and as soon as they achieve it, they forgot that they ever cared about it and they just move on to the next goal.
Merlin: I'm not that.
Merlin: A lot of CEOs like that.
Merlin: We were like, dude, why don't you just retire?
Merlin: Why do you have to keep wrecking the world?
Merlin: You just made all the money.
Merlin: I'm like, no.
Merlin: I think there's people who are addicted to feeling edgy about the next thing.
John: Yeah, and I don't feel that, but I definitely, excitement immediately converts to tasks.
John: As soon as I achieve a thing, it's like, I know I'm no longer excited.
John: I have a list of jobs now.
John: And it's like, but you just got, you just achieved, you just, the thing that you were, you know, it's like you won first place.
John: And it's like, yeah, but now I have to find a place.
Merlin: Somebody's going to have to do all the stuff.
John: Yeah, I have to go put this on a mantle.
John: I have to dust it.
Yeah.
John: So I don't maintain any kind of... What is it?
John: Like, I don't know.
John: We've talked about it before.
John: Sense of achievement.
Merlin: Oh, right.
Merlin: You don't retain victories.
Merlin: I don't retain victories.
John: Now, how does one...
John: You tell me, Merlin, how does one retain a victory?
Merlin: How do you retain a victory?
Merlin: John doesn't retain victories.
Merlin: How do you retain a victory?
Merlin: Well, I mean, it's funny.
Merlin: You should say that because I think this is a –
Merlin: There's a affliction here that can go lots of different ways.
Merlin: There are some people who have what I like to call dumb guy confidence who retain too many victories.
Merlin: They think they won lots of contests that they not only didn't win but weren't even in.
Merlin: And boy, that can be really rough to be around.
Merlin: But yeah, then there are people who, like yourself, who are struggling with –
Merlin: What is it you wish were different?
Merlin: If you retained victories, or however one wishes to phrase it, if you were able to get a white ribbon and say thank you, like a gentleman, what would be different if you successfully retained a victory?
Merlin: If you retained it a little longer than you currently do?
Merlin: What do you think would feel or be different?
John: I think that I would be able to put stuff behind me.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: that's what i really want to do put stuff behind oh certain sort of like the way where like you you uh one uh ignores 100 compliments but like highlights one slight forever well that but also like let's say um let's say that i uh that somebody said you got to butcher this hog turn in hams yep and i'm
John: And I butchered the hog and I turned it into hams.
John: But in the course of doing it, I nicked my knife.
John: And at the end, I would point to the stack of hams.
John: And I would go, I made the hams.
John: And the person would come and say, did you butcher the hog?
John: And I would say, hog is butchered, made the hams.
John: And they would go, good work.
John: You know, like, nice job.
John: And I would go, yeah, but I nicked my knife.
John: And they would go, huh, well, anyway, here's the money for the hams.
John: Go buy yourself a new knife or whatever.
John: Good work, pat on the head.
John: And then they go, the hams are gone.
Merlin: You're amplifying this one part that felt like a failure to you.
John: And what I do when I put it away is I put it away on the shelf and the box is marked, nicked my knife.
John: The box is never marked.
John: Made some hams.
John: Made the hams.
Mm-hmm.
John: And it's because the hams, like making the hams is a transient thing.
John: It's the job.
John: They gave me the pig.
John: I made the hams.
John: But the nicked knife lives forever.
John: Yeah, yeah.
John: And that's what I want to be different.
John: I want to celebrate the hams.
John: And I want the knife to just be like, oh, yeah, knives get nicked, man.
John: And how to flip that.
Merlin: How to flip that.
Merlin: Yeah, I'm trying to find a name for this.
Merlin: I think there's a name for this that is encompassed in things like depression and in things like borderline personality disorder.
Merlin: Not saying that's what you have here, but there is, this is one thing they talk about a lot in stuff like cognitive behavioral therapy, is that tendency for people, let's just say, especially with depression, to overly highlight the negative about things and to minimize
Merlin: The neutral.
John: Accentuate the negative.
Merlin: Nick your knife while you're making a ham.
Merlin: No success for you.
Merlin: And that...
Merlin: And I think this might be a little bit of a Daniel Kahneman thing where like even if you are sort of aware of this type of bias or this – well, you know, the way they talk about it in cognitive behavioral therapy is, you know, that you are – you're trying to – there's a moment between something happening in the world and you feeling a certain way.
Merlin: So in some forms of this, you refer to this as like A, B, and C. So like a thing happens.
Merlin: Like somebody didn't say hi to me at work.
Merlin: And now I'm sad or angry or anxious or whatever.
Merlin: Well, you know, what is the somewhere between something happening in the world and you having an emotional response to it, something happened.
Merlin: Try to become more aware of what the thing is that made you feel that way.
Merlin: And they encourage, for example, keeping a log of moments where you had a strong emotional reaction that you didn't like.
Merlin: And so you get into like the seven dwarfs of bad emotions, as Dan and I like to say.
Merlin: You get into your, you get your, you get your angry, you get your sad.
Merlin: Snuffy, greasy.
Merlin: Snuffy, greasy, finger bang.
Merlin: Yeah, all of those.
Merlin: And so try to become more aware of that.
Merlin: And then you can apply a rationality to saying, well, are there other plausible explanations for what happened here that aren't just, I nicked my knife and now I'm bad?
Merlin: Like what?
Merlin: Anyway, I'm just tossing this out.
Merlin: So I guess what I'm saying is I don't know what this is calling.
Merlin: I don't know how to fix it.
Merlin: But I think a lot of people have it.
Merlin: But if it's at a point where it's distracting in its negativity to you, that's no bueno.
John: Oh, well, it has been for 40 years.
John: I'm just now trying to.
John: I feel like Aloha was the.
John: You know when there's a nail that has been pounded and it went halfway in and then it bent and the person that was pounding it just kept pounding the shit out of it until it was flat into the wood, but still there was half a nail there?
John: Aloha has been the nail-removing awl.
John: that has allowed me to start pulling out some of these nails.
John: Yeah.
John: And so, you know, it's not that this is new.
John: It's just that I'm trying to find languages for it.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: No, I'm with you.
Merlin: I mean, I've got tactics for this that work if I remember to apply the tactics, but I rarely remember to apply the tactics.
Merlin: But, you know, there's one, there's one I'll mention.
Merlin: This is, again, probably not for you, but it does help me sometimes, is if I catch myself.
Merlin: being emotional about something in a way that makes me unhappy, or if I catch myself having an outsized, what I realize it seems like an outsized response to something, at the risk of repeating myself, I say to myself, very overtly, not out loud, but in my head, I've decided not to let it bother me.
Merlin: And that has two important parts to it.
Merlin: What seems like the important part is not letting it bother me, but it's also really important that I decided.
Merlin: I've decided not to let it bother me.
Merlin: And so that could be something where I'm getting mad on Twitter, or it could be something where, God, what was the one the other day?
Merlin: I was trying to accomplish something really stupid along the lines of fixing metadata on an MP3.
Merlin: But I found myself, as we say, shaving a yak, like going down a rabbit hole and getting flustered.
Merlin: And now my shoulders are up in my ears and I don't know why.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Why can't this thing work?
Merlin: And then I go, wait a minute, what is this in service of?
Merlin: What is it I'm really trying to accomplish here?
Merlin: And then I say to myself, I've decided not to let it bother me.
Merlin: Now, that can turn into a serenity now.
John: I like that, though.
Merlin: But sometimes it helps to catch yourself and say...
Merlin: Really, it's the equivalent of things when I start having an anxiety about something, a good first attempt, well, the first attempt most of us try to do that is unsuccessful for brain reasons is to try not to think about it.
Merlin: Oh, I thought it was Google anxiety attack.
Merlin: Go to WebMD and find out which cancer you have.
Merlin: I've got it down to three!
Merlin: Oh, God!
Merlin: Why are these nails in here?
John: I've decided not to let it bomb.
Merlin: We try to have fun.
Merlin: We try to have fun and make a nice thing.