Ep. 363: "Butler of Sadness"
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
Merlin: Oh, hello, Merlin.
John: How's it going?
John: Well, it's early.
John: When did you get up?
John: Oh, I got up a couple of hours ago because of this whole daughter thing.
John: Situation, yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: And then I looked at the Internet.
John: I muted a guy.
John: And posted something on Instagram.
John: You know, it did the important work of the day.
John: Yeah.
John: You got to get connected.
John: You got to stay connected.
John: It's Cyber Monday, Marlon.
John: Oh, God, you're right.
John: I need to send out my cards.
John: Yeah, I know.
John: Cyber Monday.
John: But yeah, I muted a guy.
John: He didn't even really do that.
John: He didn't really do anything bad.
John: He just included me.
John: He at included me.
John: on a tweet that wasn't meant for me.
John: It was, or no, it was definitely meant for me, but it was, you know, it was just like a mild criticism of me.
John: That's enough.
John: That's plenty.
John: I was like.
John: He knows what he did.
John: Muted.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: It felt good.
John: Oh, God.
John: Well, you know what it was?
John: It was praise.
John: He started out with a little praise, and then he came in with a little criticism.
John: Just a little bit of a wake-up criticism.
John: I was like, oh.
John: It's going to feel good.
John: Cyber Monday.
John: Cyber Monday.
John: I'm going to mute this guy.
John: He'll never know.
John: He'll never know he was muted.
John: He's probably tweeting at me right now.
John: I'll never know.
John: He'll never know.
John: I got a lot to say.
John: I'm not going to say it, but I got a lot to say.
John: You know what?
John: Save it, Merlin.
John: Say it.
John: Don't save it.
John: I'll save it for the show.
John: I'll save it for the show.
John: You know what?
John: This is a safe space.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I mean, you know, I mean, here's part of the problem.
Merlin: Here's part of the problem is that everybody uses social media differently.
Merlin: And I think that's it almost all comes down to that.
Merlin: Yeah, go on.
Merlin: Well, you'll use it differently.
Merlin: Here's the thing.
Merlin: I don't think I've if I've done this, I haven't done this in at least probably eight years is to create what some people call a Twitter canoe.
Merlin: Who calls it that?
Merlin: I've never heard that place.
Merlin: Let's turn from back in the day when that response first became a thing.
Merlin: And people would start creating, you say, is anybody else having a problem with iCloud syncing?
Merlin: At person, at person, at person, at person, at person, at person, at person.
Merlin: Oh, no, they wouldn't at people some dumb thing like that.
Merlin: Because then you get dragged into a canoe and now you're paddling along even though you never asked to be in the canoe.
John: They have these on Facebook I see all the time.
John: People send out a message.
Merlin: Well, okay, so let's talk about particulars because you asked.
Merlin: I do not – for the longest time, I just feel like there's a difference between the human being and the Twitter handle for a variety of reasons.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Well, I'm not sure that that's true for everybody because there are a lot of people who think the handle is the person or more than the person.
Merlin: They would never think of using someone's name if you could use their handle, especially if you're trying to hail them.
Merlin: To me, when you use someone's Twitter handle, you're asking them to participate or respond.
Merlin: Sure, hail.
Merlin: Yeah, so I will, and I'm not a fan of that whole, like, if you ever go and look at all the other people, like regular normal people's Twitter, it's all hashtags and handles.
Merlin: And it's just like this soup of blah, because they're there for the medium, qua medium.
John: Hashtags and handles would be a great 70s Disney film.
Merlin: Would it have Angela Lansbury?
Merlin: I hope it would.
Merlin: Hashtags and handles and picture canoeing.
Merlin: Please just answer me.
Merlin: What the fuck are you doing?
Merlin: uh i don't like to do that because that's not how i use it that is how other people use it that doesn't make any of that good or bad but it is different now can i ask please yes you there what would your life have been like differently if your twitter handle was at merlin man
Merlin: I'll answer your question with an anecdote.
Merlin: And this is a twice-told tale that I'll do very quickly.
Merlin: But when it was TWTTR and it was SMS messages only, I was one of the very first users outside of the people in that building.
John: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: And it was a SMS-only service, and it had very limited functionality.
Merlin: And it was intended to be just this way to, like, send little things to your friends, like had a great Thai lunch, good run, that kind of stuff.
John: Hey, everybody, I'm on my way to the grocery store.
Merlin: And to quote Dwight Schrute, did you send me an SMS text message?
Merlin: I'd wake up in the morning...
Merlin: And I got this surfeit of blah, blah, blah.
John: Ah, surfeit of blahs.
Merlin: Sent to at Merlin Man.
Merlin: And cut a long story, very short.
Merlin: I emailed Jack and Biz and all the people.
Merlin: And I sent a blast.
Merlin: I put them on blast.
Merlin: And I said, please take me off of this service at your earliest convenience.
Merlin: Wow.
Merlin: This is no way to live.
John: And then it was blowing up your phone at the time.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: One, I was just like, you know, at the time, of course, I was that guy.
Merlin: And I was like, oh, God, be careful what inboxes you invite into your life.
Merlin: And this was a very low value inbox over which I had very little control.
Merlin: And I don't know how much you know about me.
Merlin: You were talking to people on your shoe at the time.
John: I was Merlin Mann.
Merlin: Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Merlin: But I'm pretty picky about the inboxes, especially the inboxes that I don't have a lot of control over.
Merlin: I don't love being on all these mailing lists for my kids' school, but I guess I got to be.
Merlin: I got to find out where they're selling brownies today or whatever.
Merlin: But, you know, I have enough inboxes I already don't want.
Merlin: So anyway, at that point, I think that freed my original AtMerlinMan username into the wild.
Merlin: When I decided to pick it up again, circa whatever, February 2007, that name was taken.
Merlin: Uh-oh, by whom?
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: A different one.
Merlin: Well, I've learned since then to deactivate rather than abandon.
Merlin: So you don't have that kind of thing.
Merlin: But anyhow, and I needed a name.
Merlin: So I used an old name from a book I like that I've used on other services.
Merlin: And to answer your question, I wonder how different it would have been.
John: My valve.
Merlin: Oh, that's such a good book.
Merlin: I don't think my kid would appreciate it.
Merlin: But man, so I don't know how it would be different.
Merlin: But I kind of like the idea of having a handle that's not my name.
Merlin: Not that you should do this, but if you go and you look at my stupid Twitter profile page, I like changing my bio.
Merlin: I change my bio often.
Merlin: And I like changing my background.
Merlin: I never change my handle.
Merlin: I never change my name.
Merlin: I never change my picture.
Merlin: It's always the same.
John: It's still green from your solidarity with Arab Spring.
Yeah.
Merlin: Well, I mean, read a book.
Merlin: It's about Tehran.
Merlin: We freed Tehran with our tinting.
Merlin: Read a book.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: But to that point, all I'm saying is, and I'm not trying to criticize anybody, but when you think about the value of something like muting, it depends on how you use it.
Merlin: You know how I use it?
Merlin: I use it to publish funny bits and to occasionally talk to my friends.
Merlin: And I don't need to be in a canoe.
Merlin: And I also do a thing that I think some people find very bewildering, which is when I do choose to respond to somebody who's made a little canoe, a baby canoe, I unclick all the people that I think don't need to be in that response, which they don't make easy.
Merlin: Because I don't want to get into a whole thing, especially if, let's just say, a person who's been included, we'll call it a Gilligan's Island raft, like a little canoe.
Merlin: Especially if I know somebody who's included in that canoe is somebody who likes to toss and tussle and go back and forth.
Merlin: Because now I'm involved.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: And I don't, I don't, if somebody has a question and it's a good question, that's a perfect place to ask it.
Merlin: And I'm happy to answer.
Merlin: If I have an answer that makes sense in the number of characters, you know, why, why have you chosen not to use this productivity app is not a thing that I'm going to respond to because that's, what the fuck does that even mean?
John: I got into a Twitter, some guy, some famous guy a long time ago, took me on, on Twitter about some shit.
John: And started a fight with me.
John: And then a bunch of other people climbed into the canoe.
John: You know, they were just like, I don't know.
John: They're just people that are standing around.
John: And this guy, you know, this guy wanted to start a fight.
John: And so a bunch of people were like, yeah, let me get in that canoe and get in that fight.
John: And then after a while, it's all full of people.
John: And it's, you know, blowing up his inbox or whatever.
John: And he says...
John: take me off of this thread.
John: And so I made a super duper point to include him in every single tweet that had anything to do with this bullshit fight that he'd started until he was screaming into the void, take me off this thread.
John: And I was like,
John: you will get taken off this thread with your cold, dead handle.
John: You brought a hashtag to a handle fight.
John: That's right.
John: Do you remember when I was first starting The Long Winters, before it was even The Long Winters, I was talking to John Vanderslice, the great John Vanderslice of San Francisco, California.
John: Yeah.
John: And I said, maybe I should just call the band John Roderick.
John: What if I just call it John Roderick?
John: It's all my songs.
John: It's all, you know.
John: Let's call it John Roderick.
John: The John Roderick band or whatever.
John: Just go solo.
John: I'm a solo artist.
John: And Van Der Slice said, don't do it.
John: My biggest regret is that when I went solo, I didn't have a band name.
John: First, he was in MKUltra.
John: He was in MKUltra.
John: And then he was like, I'm John Van Der Slice.
John: And he said, everything is more difficult than...
John: If your brand and the product and the company are all the same as your name.
John: Because everything's on you in that case.
Merlin: You don't really get a second act.
Merlin: That's what your thing is now.
John: That's your thing.
John: But also, everybody that's working for you, they don't have any ownership.
John: They don't feel like, I'm...
John: in the long winters or i'm in uh rem they're they're they're in their side as they say a side man now yeah i'm in john vanderslice you can't be in you don't want to be yeah no so anyway and i took that i took that to heart you know it's not like the long winters was some band name that i had bouncing around in my head for 15 years like
John: Like artwork for elephants is or artwork by elephants.
John: What was 15 years ago?
John: I was like, why isn't there a band called artwork by elephants?
John: I was like, I should have a band called artwork by elephants.
John: I've already said it more times out loud than I've ever said it before, although I've been thinking about it for 15 years.
Merlin: I have a whole list of band names I want to use someday.
John: Artwork by Elephants.
Merlin: The problem is it doesn't really roll up the tongue.
John: It's good, but it's not like... That's never stopped you before.
Merlin: I mean, Bun Family Players, I mean... That's a terrible band name.
John: So anyway, that's why I called my band John Vanderslice.
Merlin: Let's see here.
Merlin: I write down my dreams.
Merlin: I write down my band names.
Merlin: I write down lyrics for songs that I might write someday.
Merlin: Pump Kevin, Craig's Fist, We Below Badger, Litter Bomb.
John: We Below Badger?
Merlin: Yep.
Merlin: Apostle Paul, P-A-L-L, Abandoned Shit, Sex Dodgeball, Itch Doctor, Frank Buns.
Merlin: A lot of these are 90s band names, though.
Merlin: Felch Porridge.
Merlin: The Dunnats.
John: That's an 80s band name.
Merlin: Fan service dog.
Merlin: Lissure Peabreak, Emoji Stain, Baned Obsolescence.
Merlin: Oh, that's good.
Merlin: The Fuck Pants, Proud Gary, Darth Vapor, JFK Hole.
Merlin: Oh, no.
Merlin: Freudian Slippers, Bitch Bucket, Slot Gobbler, Prince Prince, Jack Awful, like the meat, Bees So Very Many Bees, The Punch Erics, Bread Carpet, Fuck Bunker, and The Opposite of Regret.
Merlin: fuck bunker you know if you got a band help yourself yeah a lot of those a lot of those you can't use a lot of those why the devil you say because because they're what darth vapor come on at that point when i i don't know when i wrote that down but i'm sure there's a darth vapor by now it's pretty good darth vapor proud gary
Merlin: Proud Gary, keep on rolling.
John: JFK Hole, come on.
John: I think about band names all the time, and I don't know what your relationship to regret is, but when I think of a good band name, it's always in the context of regretting that I didn't name my band that rather than name it The Long Winters.
John: Oh, interesting.
John: Okay.
John: Almost every good idea that I have is always connected to a feeling of regret that I didn't have it earlier.
John: Oh, that is so on brand for you.
John: It's really bad.
John: That is right in your wheelhouse, John.
John: It's one of the reasons I don't think that I listen to my own music, because when I listen to it, all I can think of is all the things I would do differently about it.
John: God, it must suck to be in your head.
John: I don't know why.
John: I mean, I seem fun, right?
John: Don't I seem fun?
John: You've always seemed fun.
Merlin: That's just one of the first things I thought about you is that you were fun.
Merlin: Yeah, this guy seems fun.
Merlin: He seems so fun.
John: Right?
Merlin: I seem fun.
Merlin: So fun.
Merlin: Regret.
Merlin: Well, I got the opposite of regret here.
Merlin: I still don't know what that is, but I like it.
Merlin: You have the opposite of regret?
Merlin: No, that's one of my band names.
Merlin: Oh, the opposite of regret, right?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: What is the opposite of regret?
Merlin: Well, you have to check out my SoundCloud to find out.
John: It's total contentment with your decisions over time.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: See, this is the problem is that there's a lot of negative emotions that I think, you know, when you're a little kid and you're learning, you know, white and black or, you know, up and down or all the Sesame Street, you know, distinctions.
Merlin: Okay.
John: Writing that one down.
John: That's pretty good.
Merlin: Wet and dry.
Merlin: The Sesame Street distinctions.
Merlin: It's like that Alan Parker movie is that is the things that we think of.
Merlin: And, you know, me, you know me in the words, right?
Merlin: Like, I'm a little bit word drunk most of the time.
Merlin: I like a word with that's more precise than the other word.
Merlin: And I think, you know, like they say, well, OK, so what's the cliche?
Merlin: The opposite of love is not hate.
Merlin: The opposite of love is indifference.
Merlin: I think that's a very interesting – that one in particular is a very interesting idea.
Merlin: I think that a lot of times it's so – this is so fucking – That's X axis, Y axis, Z axis.
Merlin: P and not P. Yeah.
Merlin: But this is so up my own ass, but I really do think this.
Merlin: There are so many – negative emotions are fairly easy to identify because they create a strong –
Merlin: Emotion.
Merlin: Like when you've got a negative feeling and you say, well, I'm fucking mad or like, ah, I'm so, I'm so like, I'm disappointed.
Merlin: I'm anxious.
Merlin: I'm depressed.
Merlin: That is like a snap to grid emotional response is like, you don't always trace your steps from how you got to there.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And not to be all Anna Karenina, but like happy can feel kind of like normal.
Merlin: Happy can feel like good.
Merlin: But like I think that the negative emotions are so easy to identify that like there's this ineffable quality to how the path we took to get there.
Merlin: Like what is the opposite of regret?
Merlin: Well, the opposite of regret could be six different things.
Merlin: Regret is where you land.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: How did you get to regret?
Merlin: You got to regret because these six potentially good outcomes, curious, excited, hopeful, right?
Merlin: There can be so many things.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: That's just my own theory.
John: Well, sure.
John: I mean, the opposite of regret is not noticing anything in that moment.
John: Right.
John: I mean, just like, like the opposite of so many negative emotions is just in some ways not having an emotional response.
Merlin: You know, like, I think, I think, I think I do when, when my, I, uh, cause I'll make this very fast and it's personal, but like, you know, I've been taking medication, um, to deal with, uh,
Merlin: What I thought was anxiety, but I think it's actually some depression.
Merlin: And I fell off it because it was making me nauseated.
Merlin: But like, I've had the last couple of days, I haven't felt much at all.
Merlin: And it's been great.
Merlin: How do you pin that to your bulletin board?
Merlin: Like, I didn't feel fucked up today.
John: Yeah, I mean, that's the classic thing that people that are depressed are terrified to hear because it's always been characterized, or at least the last 20 years, as like, oh, well, the opposite of your feelings is no feeling and you're going to lose everything and you're just going to sit like a zombie and stare out the window.
Merlin: That's been a wrap for a long time on bipolar disorder is that you won't be able to make anything and you won't care and you'll never have another boner.
Merlin: If you get to where you don't feel like you're out of your goddamn mind and you start losing friends, if you fix that, you will never feel again.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: You're a dead man walking after that.
John: But the reality is a lot of time, a lot of the time...
John: An emotional reaction is not required, right?
Merlin: I mean, I'm trying to... Oh, say it, sister!
Merlin: I'm just trying... Oh, my God, yes.
John: To get the peanut butter on the bread... What did you say?
Merlin: An emotional response is not required.
Merlin: It's not required.
Merlin: Oh, God, it's all related.
John: It's all so related.
John: Yes.
John: And so what I would rather is get the peanut butter on the bread and listen to The Long Winters and get my child off to school and choose a shirt and...
John: And not have every one of them attended by like a butler of sadness.
John: It doesn't all have to have an emotional valence.
John: Right, right.
John: It doesn't.
John: It doesn't.
John: And for whatever reason, the way I'm wired, everything does.
John: Oh, God, yes.
John: And as a result of that, as far as I can tell, everything has gotten turned to...
John: To some some version of those that little color wheel of emotion.
John: Yeah, that's that's all that's all the same temperature or whatever, which is just like a vacuum.
Merlin: I think also like for myself, if I had to peg it, it's also that like.
Merlin: Left to my own devices, my mind will seek out the negative in many things.
Merlin: And basically, it will keep running its radar at 100% until it finds the thing that could be negative about this.
Merlin: Which is really at odds with my personality in so many ways and how I think about myself.
Merlin: Like my whole life, I've never thought of myself being that way.
Merlin: But if I'm being honest, that's the source of a lot of pain.
John: Yeah, you seem fun also.
Merlin: I'm pretty fun.
Merlin: I really am fun.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Pretty fun.
Merlin: My family doesn't think so, but I think I'm fun.
John: Uh-huh.
Merlin: I'm good with memes.
Merlin: You're plenty fun.
Merlin: Oh, thanks, man.
Merlin: Yeah.
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John: You know, I had fun the other night at that music thing, and what set it apart was
John: in a really crucial way was that the entire night, I'd never once felt like an outsider, right?
John: I never once stood there and said, oh, I wish that I'd made...
John: better or more music.
John: I, I didn't feel at any point like, Oh, I shouldn't be here.
John: I don't belong in this group.
John: Uh, everybody's better than me.
John: Um, I didn't even say the thing I normally kind of say when I, when I'm around Dave Matthews, which is like, Oh, if only I had, if only I grooved more, you know, like for whatever reason I lucked out that night.
John: And I just I just flew through the evening just kind of feeling good about every encounter.
John: And I can't account for it because in so many of those types of situations, you know, micro analyzing every encounter and instead unintentionally.
John: I just, it's just a nature.
Merlin: What I'm saying is it's not anything where you find yourself saying, it's time for me to analyze.
Merlin: Oh, no, no, no.
Merlin: It's something where, like, you find yourself having begun analyzing.
John: The only encounter I had that involved any of that, because, you know, this is the problem, I think, both with you and me, is that whatever our perceptiveness is, it is tuned together.
John: It's like a race car that is tuned maybe not for reliability.
Merlin: Or maybe just that the gain is turned up way too much.
Merlin: You don't need that signal being that loud.
Merlin: It's actually distorting rather than helping.
John: Right, right.
John: It is.
John: It's too loud and you need other tones, right?
John: Not just gain.
John: You want something mellow.
John: You want something smooth.
John: They call it the volume wars.
John: You want to be on the neck pickup, not the bridge pickup.
Merlin: Oh, you know, a lot of men fear the neck pickup.
John: Yeah, well, it's too soft.
John: It's too groovy.
John: But so I'm downstairs at this event, and the food is being catered by Jack's Barbecue, which is Seattle's...
John: Uh, there's a guy from Austin named Jack who came up, he bought the old bar on airport way called Bogarts, which used to have a Humphrey Bogart theme.
John: And it was a place that you would go drink during the day.
John: And in fact, the bun family players played at Bogart several times.
John: And it was one of those things where they would just clear the tables out and you'd set up on the, on the concrete floor there in the middle of the bar.
John: Uh, it was great, great, great, big, big earner, big earner.
John: But Jack came in, he turned Bogart's into Jack's and he just started serving Austin style barbecue.
John: It's not like in Austin, he would just be one of a hundred people that was doing it.
John: But in Seattle, he's the only one doing it.
John: And Jack is tall and he's handsome and he speaks with an Austin accent and he's got that friendly kind of like,
John: Texas gentleman kind of vibe to him.
John: And he only hires Southern girls to work as servers, but they're, but they, but it doesn't feel like exploitative somehow.
John: You know, it's not, it's not like it's not hootery.
John: No, not at all.
John: It's just like regular old Southern girls who talk to you in a draw and it makes you feel like you're really getting the real McCoy.
John: Well, I have, I was, I went to Jack's really early on.
John: I enjoyed it.
John: I introduced myself as my father would have done.
John: And then the next time I came in, I said to Jack, hey, Jack, it's me.
John: And he, in his Texas Southern gentleman way, appeared not to remember me.
John: And so I was like, I was in here the other day.
John: And he was like, oh, yeah, hey, man, you know.
John: Counselor.
John: And then the third time I came in, I was wearing the same hat as the time before.
John: And I was like, Jack.
John: And he was like, oh, yeah, hey.
John: And I was like, no, no, remember, I've been here before.
John: And he was like, oh, yeah, man, hey.
John: And so I continued to go to Jack's.
John: I continued to say hello to Jack.
John: I continued not to be recognized by Jack until a point in time.
John: And Jack's very smart.
John: He's making millions of dollars there.
John: But I felt like there was something with the way that Jack was an enterprising person where he just did not recognize people.
John: And that was fine.
John: But then someone, a tech millionaire, hired me to play his birthday party a few years ago.
John: And it was one of those things where I got a message from somebody that was like, hey, this tech millionaire wants you to play his birthday party.
John: And I was like, oh, well, this is an opportunity to throw a number out that is like would be like a super duper fuck you because I don't want to play this guy's birthday party.
John: But I'll do it for this amount of money.
John: And he came back and was like, great.
John: And it was at Jack's Barbecue.
John: And so I showed up.
John: With a guitar and an amp.
John: I don't know if I told you about this.
John: I don't recall.
John: Tell me again.
John: And so he's a, you know, he's like a, he's an upper, he's upper management.
John: Is this in Austin?
John: No, this is here in Seattle at Jack's Barbecue.
John: Okay.
John: He's upper, upper level at one of these companies that you hear about in the newspapers.
John: And he's invited, you know, 50 of his closest friends to come to Jack's Barbecue for his birthday party.
John: And I am the band.
John: And I've been asked to play for whatever, half hour, 45 minutes.
John: Playing solo?
John: Playing solo.
John: So I start to play.
John: God, how would you not take that gig?
John: Well, because it's awful.
John: It's work.
John: It's work, right.
John: I start to play, and it's immediately clear that the only person of the 50 people in the room that cares about me or music...
John: And I don't mean my music.
John: I mean music.
John: At all.
John: Full stop.
John: Is the guy.
John: The birthday boy.
John: The birthday boy who stands in front of me singing along with the music and dancing and trying to get his friends to engage.
John: And his friends who are all other tech people are all kind of standing around talking and drinking and trying basically doing that thing that any musician has experienced, which is people are trying to talk.
Merlin: and you are making it impossible for them to talk and honestly you can't blame them right they don't know you and they don't like music so they just want to talk and the guy the birthday we've all been in that situation yeah like put differently not this is not reflecting anything on you but like you know you've been in that situation where like this is an event for people to hang out and be able to talk right and like the music is making that difficult yeah it's a barbecue restaurant
John: But he has paid me this amount of money to play my songs for him.
John: And so I did the thing that I wouldn't have done before.
John: I wouldn't have had the guts to do this before.
John: But I turned up.
John: I turned my amp up and I turned the microphone up until I was giving this man a very loud rock show right at his face.
John: And everybody else in the room just had to suffer because, you know, he only asked me to do it for a half an hour or whatever.
John: And so I just for a half an hour, I just like scorched earth this situation.
John: And he was, you know, I wasn't trying to punish him.
John: I was trying to give him what he wanted.
John: Yeah.
John: And he was thrilled, you know, because everybody's drunk, too.
John: So he's drunk.
John: They're drunk.
John: And he spent the whole time like, come on, you guys, it's cinnamon.
John: Hey, everybody knows cinnamon.
John: And a bunch of people are just like, I don't know, man.
John: So I played my thing.
John: But during the course of this event, I interacted with Jack a lot.
John: And this was the point at which I was like, okay, I've met Jack 15 times.
John: Jack never seems to be able to pick me out of a crowd.
John: But now I'm the guy with the guitar that's played in his store.
John: He doesn't have music in there.
John: I've played at Jack's now.
John: I've played for Jack.
John: I've played too loud for Jack.
John: He's going to put a name to a face.
John: But then for the two years after that, every time I would see Jack, and Jack's about my age.
John: He's about my height.
John: Every time I'd see him, hey, Jack, it's me.
John: Oh, hi, man.
John: No, I'm the guy that played here.
John: Remember, I played a show here.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: What's up?
John: Hey there, fella.
John: So anyway, this event at the, at the theater, Jack barbecue catered it.
John: And I come downstairs and there's Jack himself.
John: Not some, not like five Southern girls, but Jack standing there behind a, behind a ramekin, behind a tray of barbecue.
John: And so I got a plate and I walked up and I was like, Hey Jack, you know, we getting some barbecue.
Yeah.
John: And he was like, yeah, man, you're first in line.
John: And there were a bunch of Southern girls that he had standing there and they were in the middle of a conversation and, and they all were talking about their name tags.
John: Like, should we have name tags?
John: You know, should we, uh, should we, you know, then people talk to us and talk to us by name.
John: And Jack said, yeah, I should have a name tag that says Chet on it.
John: And then people call me Chet.
John: And I said,
John: Hey, Chet, hurry up with the barbecue.
John: And Jack didn't like it.
John: Hmm.
John: He didn't like being told to hurry up with the barbecue, and he didn't like being called Chet.
John: Okay, okay.
John: Now, I was just playing along.
John: Yeah.
John: I was just playing.
John: But Jack opens the barbecue up, and he gives me one...
John: Like the small rib at the end of a rack of ribs.
John: You know the small rib?
John: Mm-hmm.
John: The one that's about two and a half inches long?
John: Little guy.
John: It's like a baby toe of ribs.
John: The little end of rib.
John: He gave me a rib...
John: And a slice of brisket.
John: Okay.
John: And he did it in a very... He basically had a barbecue garage fuck.
John: Yep.
John: And he did it in a very Southern gentleman kind of way.
John: And this is the thing I think you know about that Southern gentleman.
John: Southern gentleman never breaks the politeness.
John: Politeness just gets more and more intense.
John: Extremely polite.
John: And so he, he loads it up and, and I was like, I didn't want to say then like, Hey, you know, don't be mad.
John: I was just playing.
John: You said Chad.
John: And I was like, you know, you don't want to sit and like get into it with a guy.
John: Yeah.
John: But so I take my little tray and I kind of move off to the side and the guy behind me walks up with his plate and Jack says, Oh, you're a big fellow.
John: Let me heap it on here for you.
Hmm.
John: In a southern gentleman kind of politeness, like one last hit on me as I walk away.
John: And so the one thing at this whole event that I felt very, very, very warm and embraced and loved and beloved was that down in the basement, Jack was there.
John: Jack, the legendary Jack.
John: Yeah.
John: And now he was mad that I called him Chet.
John: And so the whole night I'm thinking, in the three years I've been trying to get Jack to remember me, is this the, now every time I see him, is he going to be like, oh, that's the guy that called me Chet and I'm going to give him a half a rib?
Merlin: Now he remembers.
John: Now he remembers.
John: Yeah.
John: So, so, so the whole time I thought, well, I'll go down and I'll get seconds.
John: Eventually everybody's going to be done.
John: There's not going to be any mustache.
John: He's just going to be standing there and I'm going to go back up and I'll be like, Jack, Hey man, it's me.
John: Do you remember?
John: I played your thing.
John: Like go through the whole thing again with Jack and try to get him back onto, onto my team.
John: And try and get another little bit of ribs and brisket.
John: Because, you know, he brought more than he needed.
John: He didn't need to skimp on it.
John: It was some sort of southern attack.
John: And I never made it back there.
John: And at the end of the night, I was like, oh, shit, Jack.
John: And I ran downstairs with my paper plate.
John: And he had already packed up and gone.
John: Oh, jeez.
John: So now I got this.
John: Now, if I were a less sensitive person, I wouldn't have noticed any of that.
John: Right.
John: But I think if I were a less sensitive person, I wouldn't have been trying to get Jack to – I wouldn't have been Dave Roderick-ing Jack for four years.
John: And I maybe wouldn't have made the Chet joke.
John: I wouldn't have been, you know, I wouldn't have been kutzling up to him in the first place.
Merlin: Yeah, but I mean, on the other hand, how could you have known?
Merlin: How could you have known?
Merlin: You thought you were playing along.
Merlin: I was playing along.
John: You weren't being mean-spirited about it.
John: But I've been playing along this whole time because my sense of a Southern guy that owns a barbecue restaurant is that he also wants...
John: to be glad handed and back slapping and all this kind of, you know, like, Hey, macaroni and cheese is good today.
John: You know, like just sort of, uh, just that kind of conviviality that, that, um, that you would expect if you were a regular in a barbecue place.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: But I can't develop a grudge against Jack's barbecue cause he's the only one that's doing it.
John: I can't end up, I can't get, first of all, I can't get chetted out of there.
John: I can't I can't go in and have Jack, you know, whisper to the waitress, like, give him the small.
Merlin: You think he does remember you?
Merlin: Well, who knows?
Merlin: I have this is only a couple to test your theory because you like you some barbecue.
John: Go down there, you're saying and sit down there.
John: And and so so what would you do?
John: Would you go in and say, hey, Jack?
John: Or like every time or would you just sit and be a regular customer?
Merlin: Well, the functional part is you'd like to get you some barbecue.
Merlin: I think you just go in there and be a little bit low key and see what happens.
Merlin: If he gives you the baby toe rib again, you know, you're in Dutch.
Merlin: But I bet you, I bet you.
Merlin: Here's the thing.
Merlin: What the evidence has shown us so far is he's not a big rememberer of people.
John: That's right.
John: And he's running a big operation.
Merlin: That might be just as memorable to him as every other interaction.
Merlin: You've had no offense.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: No, I think that's I think that is hopefully what I'm hopefully just going to go.
John: Fuck you, Chet.
John: The problem is the problem is that on the sensitivity meter, you know, I'm back.
John: I'm back on.
John: I was on the neck pickup all night long.
John: And then suddenly I flip over to the bridge pickup.
John: And I'm on.
John: And the thing is, I'm on a Telecaster without without like waxed.
John: I haven't waxed those pickups.
John: And I'm going through like a high gain kind of gain stage situation.
John: I'm playing through a triple rectifier.
Merlin: You got a rat and a tube screamer.
John: Yeah, I've got a rat, a tube screamer, and I'm going into a triple rectifier.
John: And all this thing is doing, it's just howling.
John: I can't get any tone out of it.
John: It's just squealing.
John: When I get a little ripped.
Merlin: I'm so sad about my little rib.
John: I hate you.
Merlin: Fuck you, Chet.
Merlin: Fuck you, Chet.
Merlin: I'm never going to your fucking restaurant again.
Merlin: Yeah.
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Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Wow.
Merlin: That's, you know what?
Merlin: That's good.
Merlin: You know, it's all related.
Merlin: It is all related because it actually all relates to how this entire thing started, which is that we all use life differently and we can all be a little bit sensitive sometimes.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, we all use life differently.
John: That's right.
John: You know, what I never do is go online and offer any information.
John: critique of someone's work or... I don't ever... I don't say... I don't correct people online.
John: You know what I mean?
John: I don't... Oh, I know.
John: I feel exactly the same way.
Merlin: Why would you?
Merlin: Why would you think... Well, I worry about being misunderstood by my friends, let alone by strangers.
Merlin: And so that's why it's particularly perplexing to me on a molecular level.
Merlin: And I'm sorry I have a broken record about this, but it's...
Merlin: you know, this, this, this, Oh God, I got a whole bunch of these, but you know, one is that like, okay, so your first interaction with me is going to be a way too familiar joke.
Merlin: Like, sorry, way too familiar as in you are way being way too familiar with me.
Merlin: And it's going to be a joke.
Merlin: This may be a played bit and it's going to be a little bit mean spirited.
Merlin: You know, that's not a great opener.
Merlin: I know you think that signals that were tight, but you just chatted me pretty fucking hard.
Merlin: And it's like, Hey,
Merlin: yeah it's funny how he used to like everything i used to do better that's funny you know there's that there's the ongoing the ongoing blight of the fucking bring your own joke response that's gotta stop you gotta quit doing that but it's it's also like who said this somebody's uh this is a cliche also it's a cliche to say devil's advocate but you know slightly less cliche but true it's like who says the devil needs an advocate
Merlin: Like, do you really need to come in here and, like, do this fucking left-handed, shit-fingered compliment?
Merlin: Like, wow, you know, I'm usually not a fan of anything that you do, but you did this one thing that didn't suck so hard.
Merlin: Okay, thank you.
Merlin: So I've got responses.
Merlin: I've got standard responses for these.
Merlin: I have an app called Text Expander.
Merlin: It makes it very easy for me to type a couple letters, three letters sometimes, and it just fills in the response.
Merlin: One that I picked up from a friend of the show, Max Temkin, is thank you for your message.
John: Oh, thank you for your message.
John: That's nice.
Merlin: Thank you for your message is good.
Merlin: Thank you for your message.
Merlin: A good one that a friend of the show, Todd Vaziri, uses is just the word, okay.
Okay.
Merlin: okay but that's getting kind of tainted with the okay boomer over could be could be could be i also as you may have may have seen occasionally i sometimes just like to say i just want people to be happy what people want to toss and and they and they want to have they want to have a big online pillow fight in the canoe sometimes i'll just say i just want people to be happy and then i mute the thread yeah because i mute all the threads you should always mute all the threads right well you know it's it's not on brand for me to want everybody to be happy okay
Merlin: No, no, I'm just, what I am saying is, and then I have another one, perhaps my most well-known text expander shortcut that I highly recommend that everyone adopt is I type S-D-I, and that fills in, sorry, I don't argue on the internet.
John: Oh, I like that.
John: I don't argue on the internet.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Uh-huh.
John: Sorry, I don't argue on the internet.
Merlin: Because here's some maybe stuff I used to do.
Merlin: Here's the kind of thing I used to say.
Merlin: Fuck you, Chet.
Merlin: Here's the kind of thing that I used to say is that when you argue on the internet, nobody remembers who wins.
Merlin: They just remember that you're an asshole who argues on the internet.
Merlin: That's what they remember.
Merlin: Right.
John: Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Chet.
John: So I worry about that a lot.
John: I remember one time before the last election, I know we don't like to go back to before the last election.
Merlin: Can't get it back.
Merlin: Bringing Biden in is not going to change anything.
John: But there was a time there where I felt pretty confident how that election was going to turn out.
John: And I was pretty dismissive of people that didn't feel like the president was going to be who I thought the president was going to be.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: And there were people on all sides that had different ideas.
John: Different ideas about how it should go and what the crimes that were, you know, being played out were.
John: And so I remember being on there and just and, you know, people coming at me, coming at me all day because I would say things like, well, here we are.
John: Left, right and center.
John: Am I right?
John: Left, right and center.
John: And, you know, and I would say, well, you know, her emails, though, or whatever.
John: And I would get a bunch of at replies.
Yeah.
John: And at that point in time, my response was, hey, go fuck yourself.
John: Like, go fuck yourself.
John: Here's the thing.
John: Go fuck yourself.
John: And I often would phrase it like, I took a page out of the old Merlin man, and I would say, you think you're better than me?
Merlin: You think you're better than me?
John: You think you're smarter than me?
Merlin: Is that what you want to do?
Merlin: You want to do this.
Merlin: Do you want to do this?
Merlin: And then I go all Cyrano.
Merlin: I go all Cyrano.
Merlin: I'm like, are you sure you want to do this?
Merlin: My nose is rather large.
Merlin: Is this the thing you want to do?
Merlin: I'm going to compose an entire poem while I beat your ass in the theater.
John: Yes.
John: Is this a thing?
John: Is this where you really want?
John: I want you to sit and think about your life.
John: Is this the theater you want to die on?
John: And my life.
John: And I want you to put those on either side of a scale and then you tell me if this is what you want to do right now.
John: Are you having a great day?
John: Are you having a great day?
John: And I got a tweet from a middle-aged dude.
John: Really?
John: A middle-aged dude.
John: And he said, listen, I see what you're trying to do, but you're alienating a lot of young people.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: I hate that.
John: They hate being alienated.
John: They do.
John: And I said to this middle-aged dude, hey, go fuck yourself.
John: Let's hear your witty riposte.
John: And he said he was really disappointed in me.
John: Oh, God.
John: He's not even mad.
Merlin: He's really just disappointed.
John: He tisked, tisked, and he said, this isn't how we're going to educate another new generation.
John: This isn't how we're going to make the world a better place.
Merlin: The discourse, you know?
John: Yes, we need the discourse.
John: Yes.
John: And I was like, go fuck yourself.
John: Did I stutter?
John: Yeah.
John: And then eventually he finally said...
John: You know, I admire you and this is a really bad look.
John: It's like, go fuck yourself look.
John: And I said, go fuck yourself.
John: Yeah.
John: But then later...
John: I reflected upon it and I was like, uh, what you just said earlier, which is nobody remembers who wins.
John: Everybody.
John: The only thing you remember is that that guy's an asshole.
John: And I've realized like, Oh, I was just, I was just out there just fucking haymakers, just throwing haymakers at everybody.
Merlin: and for what what did i accomplish i didn't well it used to be less problematic i mean because like it was kind of like this is like i don't know i i've never regarded twitter as an ephemeral medium i think most people do i think the company regards it as that
Merlin: But like it used to be easier because it was a smaller world.
Merlin: And now today, I mean, look no further than the people who maybe they're using TweetDeck.
Merlin: Maybe they're just doing manual searches.
Merlin: But there are people who have the thing that they're pissed off about that they want to toss about.
Merlin: And they are looking for every thread that says that.
John: Every hashtag her emails, though.
Merlin: Yeah, exactly.
Merlin: Could be.
Merlin: Yeah, it could be anything.
Merlin: But I think there are people who just monitor that stuff all day long.
Merlin: Like if you have if you have a fetish for ladies who are seat belted into the backseat of the car, you're going to be spending a lot of time on Flickr looking for that.
Merlin: If you want to if you want to argue about her emails like, yeah, you're going to be there.
John: That's what you want, right?
John: It's not ephemeral.
John: No, I believe that it's all, you know, I'm working on an archive all the time.
John: I know you are too.
John: You know, the halls and halls and halls.
John: It's my legacy.
John: It's my legacy.
John: Just wandering those halls.
John: Somebody asked me the other day, they wrote and they were like, hey, I want to get a copy of Electric Aphorisms.
John: And I remembered like, oh, right.
John: i i made a book of tweets like who wants that and it's just and i realized oh it was just they're a completist or it's just a thing you know it's like it's like a fetish item or whatever but at the time it really did feel like we got to get these we got to get these tweets into book form fast oh i know this is some this is some top shelf content yeah yeah yeah yeah these tweets
Merlin: Um, I think it's difficult.
Merlin: These tweets.
Merlin: I think it's, I think it's difficult.
Merlin: I've got, I've got an interview.
Merlin: I've got an interview this week with, um, why am I saying this?
Merlin: I've got an interview this week with UK wired about, um, is there, is there a difference between UK wire?
John: Do they just put you in it?
John: Nailed it.
Um,
John: What are they doing over there that's different from over here?
John: Can't there just be one wire?
Merlin: Can't we all just get along?
Merlin: It says I'm running an ad blocker and ruining the internet.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I can't see so many websites.
John: So wait, you're talking about Inbox Zero?
John: I'm sorry.
Merlin: I just... No, that's what it is.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: And I'm, you know, which is just... I'm just so excited to be talking about.
Merlin: It's a legacy platform now, right?
Merlin: Inbox Zero?
Merlin: Well, I mean, it's... I just... I don't know what I have fresh... I wrote this one...
Merlin: blog post about it now six years ago where people were asking me about it so much.
Merlin: I'm like, what do you, how do I get to inbox zero?
Merlin: Or what about inbox zero?
Merlin: Whatever happened with that?
Merlin: And like, oh, don't you hate the way, and it's like, look, I wrote this blog post.
Merlin: Go read the blog post.
Merlin: I don't have anything new to say about this.
Merlin: There's like, the idea of somebody going back
Merlin: big with a media strategy of explaining why they've been misunderstood for a decade is, as your readers say, not a good look.
Merlin: I don't have that much to say about it.
Merlin: I'm not defensive about it.
Merlin: I'm done with it.
Merlin: I've been done with it for a while.
Merlin: And it's only very rarely where I have to say like, okay, how do I balance this?
Merlin: My balance of like, I'd really, I mean, like if you find it useful, that's good.
Merlin: If you read the actual thing and you find it useful, that's really good.
Merlin: I don't necessarily want to get real wound up in what I perceive to be the misunderstanding of it because I just, I don't actually care.
Merlin: It's the being asked about it that bugs me, the ongoing like, wow, what about that?
Merlin: Well, I mean, every once in a while, you have to ask yourself, like, if you find out that Ronan Farrow is going to be doing an article about you in The New Yorker, you have to think real carefully.
Merlin: It's like being called in by the DOJ.
Merlin: You have to either totally lie or totally tell the truth, and then accept the consequences of each one of those.
Merlin: So in my case, I sometimes think to myself, well, if somebody's going to do this, and it's somebody at that level, I would like to have my say.
Merlin: Oh, I see.
Merlin: And she seems cool.
Merlin: And I sent her, when I responded to her, a very nice email.
Merlin: I said, okay, well, yeah, sure, happy to talk to you about that.
Merlin: We can schedule it on a day.
Merlin: And just so you know, here's this blog post I wrote many, well, not in that many years, but after the Inbox Zero thing had gotten silly, here's this post I wrote about how I feel about this, where I stand with this today.
Merlin: And that's still pretty much how I feel.
Merlin: So that would be the context for my discussion of this.
Merlin: It's just, you've been through this.
Merlin: I know you've been through this.
Merlin: I know so many of my friends have been through this, and forgive me for repeating myself, but God bless you if you never have this situation.
Merlin: But in life, you encounter these people who have their reasons for wanting to talk to you, and they will sit on the phone until you say something that's close enough to what they needed you to say, the whole quote that they wanted.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Let's put it this way.
Merlin: If you've ever been interviewed for an article about a car accident, you know every article in every publication usually has a handful of obvious errors and at least one big lie.
Merlin: And it sucks.
Merlin: But that's how it goes.
Merlin: It's a tough process, tough gig.
Merlin: You got deadlines.
Merlin: You got to get stuff out.
Merlin: And you have to really weigh how much you want a quote from you to be on something that could be a gross perversion of not only what you believe, but what you actually said.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And so, you know, legacy.
John: This was what was so hard about being in a band back in the day, where the only way that your message got out was if you were interviewed by the local alternative newspaper, Indie Rock Reporter, and you hoped that they would write a feature on you, and then that feature would be such a garbled mess that
John: and their bad writing would reflect on you, right?
John: That's the other thing.
John: If you read an article by somebody and the writing's bad,
Merlin: it reflects on the person the article i totally agree i totally agree and it's it's also that you know i mean i guess things were a little different for you because you did have a you have a friend in sean that must have helped some but i've got a friend in sean but like and i i this sounds really unkind and i don't mean it to be because i have done this too but when you're scrapping to get noticed as a freelancer as a writer um
Merlin: You, you, you've seen this in Pitchfork.
Merlin: You've seen this in local music rags where it is really, especially with Pitchfork, this is really so much about this writer and their project and so much less about what they're writing about.
Merlin: whether that's Travis Morrison or John Roderick or whatever, where it's going to be about them getting noticed for this wild article, because I've fashioned myself as what Dave Marsh or Hunter S Thompson.
Merlin: And like, I need to get noticed for how wackadoo my article is.
Merlin: And then you just become journalistic cannon fodder.
Merlin: It's like, well, you know, you did that and move to the next project, but I'm going to fucking live with the bullshit that you said.
Merlin: That's not accurate.
Merlin: Or is misrepresentative or is silly or is misspelled.
Merlin: I'm the one who's got to live with that.
Merlin: You just move on to the next thing.
John: Every bad apostrophe hit me like a knife in the gut, especially when they would quote you and they would use bad grammar in their quotation of you.
John: Yeah.
John: So even the transcription of what you were saying seems illiterate.
John: You know, if they type the wrong your, it sounds like you don't know.
John: Dumbass.
John: The right your.
Merlin: It's been enough time that I'm going to tell a very quick anecdote about John Roderick that Captain Marm's probably heard.
Merlin: But one time you were being interviewed by someone who was a ding-a-ling, and they were doing a bad job at it.
Merlin: And I think at one point you said, look—
Merlin: Let's go ahead and call this an end to the interview.
Merlin: I will write this article for you, and then you will publish it under your name.
Merlin: Is that accurate?
John: Pretty close.
Merlin: And it's actually a publication people know of.
John: Yeah, it was pretty good.
John: It ended up being a pretty good interview.
Merlin: LAUGHTER
Merlin: This episode of Roderick on the Line is brought to you in part by Health IQ.
Merlin: You can learn more about Health IQ right now by visiting healthiq.com slash super train.
Merlin: Hey, hey, you know what?
Merlin: Do this for me, Chief.
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Merlin: Say it thrice and it's almost like praying.
Merlin: It's healthIQ.com slash super train.
Merlin: Our thanks to Health IQ for supporting Roderick on the line and all the great shows.
Merlin: If I do say so myself.
Merlin: God, white wines.
Merlin: The boys are just draining the wounds today.
Merlin: Anyway, you know what?
Merlin: Here's the thing.
Merlin: It doesn't matter who you are.
Merlin: It doesn't matter how you use the internet.
Merlin: No.
Merlin: If you can't be kind, at least be interesting.
Merlin: Be kind, rewind.
John: That's what I say.
John: I say that.
Merlin: You don't have to be a dick to people.
Merlin: And ask yourself, how would you feel if, God forbid, you were having a bad day or a low day?
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: And then a stranger approached you with this nonsense.
Merlin: Wouldn't you be a little bit bummed?
John: Well, now here's a question for you.
John: Yes.
John: Merlin.
John: Yes.
John: Which is that we...
John: offer our opinions of things to the world, to whoever wants to listen to them.
John: No one's required to listen to the opinions of Berlin Man.
John: That we know of.
John: Or of John Roderick, as far as we know.
Merlin: There could be some kids who are cutting trail.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: They staple on some headphones and say, here's what you're going to get some learning.
John: Somebody could be locked in the basement of a house in Austria and being forced to listen to Roderick on the line, although I doubt very much that that's true.
John: Let's assume that it's not.
John: Let's assume everyone is listening voluntarily.
John: They're consuming our opinions.
John: This is a world full of opinions.
John: Everybody's got a fucking opinion.
John: And a lot of people, they've got their opinion and nobody's listening to their program.
John: And so they feel like because we're putting our opinion out there that our opinion and their opinion, of course, are equal.
John: Because we live in a democracy and, you know, that's what democracy means.
John: Yeah, freedom of speech.
John: Is that Merlin's opinion and Chet's opinion.
John: I heard your opinion, now you need to hear mine.
John: That's right.
John: And yet you're not listening to their program.
John: Well.
John: And so here we are and we're putting our opinions there.
John: And the feeling that people have is that our opinion needs some correction or a corrective.
John: Maybe we didn't read all the books that we should have.
John: Sure.
John: They read some other books or, you know, and the thing is, they're very smart.
John: Yeah.
John: Typically, all of them.
John: All of our listeners are smart.
John: We know that.
John: Super, super smart.
John: And so they don't have a they don't have a venue.
John: And so Twitter becomes the venue where they want to say and it's not they don't they're not even wanting to make a joke.
Merlin: While we're on this, just quickly, though, just to save my ass here, hashtag not all listeners.
John: Sure, sure.
Merlin: No, no, no.
Merlin: We're talking about a gross minority here.
Merlin: And they're very gross.
John: Yes, but they're the ones... But I don't think that they understand that all this talk that you and I do about our feelings, which we do do some small amount of talk about our feelings.
John: Our feelings are real.
John: This is Mike Squire's... Feelings are real.
John: Feelings are real.
John: This is Mike Squire's innovation.
John: He came to me one time in the 90s and he grabbed me by the shirt and he said, John, feelings are real.
John: It's true.
John: It's totally true.
John: And I was like, what?
John: No.
John: And he said, no, they are.
John: They're real.
John: Feelings are real.
John: And I was like, shut up.
John: You deserve unenjoyment.
John: And he said, no, feelings are real.
John: And I've been living according to that credo ever since.
John: I don't understand it.
John: The thing is that a lot of things that Mike Squire says are like Coen's.
John: They're like Zen Coen's.
Merlin: You might have to think on it and then not think on it.
Merlin: You let it sit there for a while.
Merlin: You let it air out like a pillow.
Merlin: And then one day...
John: Yeah, 80% of what he says is horseshit, but 20% of it... See, that's how they get you.
John: They're like Zen Collins, right?
John: Where you're like, did Mike Squares just say something meaningful?
John: I'm not sure.
John: I'm not sure.
John: I can't tell because there's ketchup all over his face and I can't take it seriously.
John: He was a Marine.
John: Oh, sorry.
John: He is a Marine.
John: He is a Marine.
John: God damn it.
John: He is currently a Marine that was just politely asked to leave the Marines.
John: Do you thank him for his service?
Be honest.
Do I?
No.
Fuck no.
No.
John: He should thank me for his service.
John: It was my taxpayer dollars that paid him to sit and drink Kerr's Light.
Merlin: The feelings are real.
John: Anyway, feelings are real.
Merlin: Yes.
John: And, you know, why would you ever go to any lengths?
John: Why would you cross the street?
John: Why would you work at all to hurt somebody's feelings for no reason?
John: You know, you and I hurt people's feelings sometimes for good reason.
Merlin: Yeah, but just now that we're being full-on defensive, this is something that goes through lots of things.
Merlin: And I'll tell you, let me be honest with you.
Merlin: I have to remember this all the time because of my own brokenness inside.
Merlin: But when somebody's talking about something in general, there's a very good chance they're not talking about you in particular.
John: Oh, interesting.
John: Go on.
Merlin: You're the one who built that Twitter canoe and jumped into it.
Merlin: You're the one who decided that it needed to be about you.
John: Uh-huh.
John: A lot of the time.
John: Now, is this, does this apply to even when people address you directly?
Merlin: Well, I mean, like, it's, there's so much, it is so strange to me still, and of course, again, I do need to keep this in check for myself, but, like, it's, like, you just look at, look at how much, and I don't want to say just Twitter, so I'll just say, like, online social media stuff, becomes arguments, arguments, like wars about preference, right?
Merlin: And, like, how do you get in a war about preference?
Merlin: Like, everybody's so mad about Martin Scorsese for not being into Marvel superhero movies.
Merlin: It's, like, the man who was most lauded for working outside the studio system and wanting to make small films that played against the mainstream...
Merlin: of his time in some ways not i mean he's not jodorowsky but like he he was lauded for being an independent guy and for you know choosing his projects and doing his thing well that same reason we all loved him in the 70s is now why everybody yells at him because you've you've harmed my feelings because you were not as laudatory as i wanted you to be about fucking superhero movies
Merlin: Are you kidding me?
Merlin: And that's just one example.
Merlin: That's one example it's not even funny to talk about anymore.
Merlin: But like so many of these daily abattoirs that we walk through, we just move past and go, boy, yeah, I guess we were kind of shitty.
Merlin: Next thing, do you wash your legs?
Merlin: Who cares if you wash your legs?
John: What's the wash your legs?
Merlin: Twitter thing, but it's a Twitter, Twitter thing.
Merlin: It's another one of those like butter battle things of like, do you wash your legs every time you take a shower?
John: How can you possibly wash your legs every time you take a shower?
John: It's insane.
John: Everybody uses life differently.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Let's be honest.
John: Apparently.
John: Well.
John: There are really people that every time they're like, I got to wash.
John: Take it to the canoe, John.
John: There was an onion, one of those funny little onion ones.
John: Onion is very funny, as you know.
Merlin: It can be very funny, yes.
John: And the onions, one of them was like, you know,
John: The lower half of your legs content with whatever soapy water dripped down across them once again for the 10,000th day.
John: And I was like, yeah, exactly.
John: And I don't know.
John: Sometimes I look down at my legs and I go, yeah, right.
John: Right.
John: I could get down, you know, give you a little scrub, too.
John: But like.
Merlin: People can be very didactic about showers.
Merlin: I think every shower can be a different adventure.
Merlin: Never take the same route if you don't need to.
Merlin: Have a different shower.
Merlin: Every shower is different.
Merlin: Every sperm is sacred.
John: Every shower that I take either begins or ends with a bath.
John: Oh, I love that.
Merlin: Sometimes I'll do a bath before the shower.
Merlin: If I want to do like an apple cider vinegar bath or a lavender bath, and then I'll do a shower.
Merlin: But yeah, exactly.
Merlin: There's no rule on that.
Merlin: Did you get a manual about that?
Merlin: There's no rules.
Merlin: Just right.
Merlin: You ever have an apple cider vinegar bath?
John: No, I'm not sure what I'd be getting out of that.
Merlin: What would that be?
Merlin: Maybe nothing.
Merlin: It's just a preference.
Merlin: But an apple cider vinegar bath for a man like you who wants to strip away all of his skin and burn his balls, I'm just here to tell you, put more than they tell you, put more than they tell you in, take an apple cider vinegar bath.
Merlin: It's very invigorating.
John: They've never told me to put any amount in.
John: Well, that's how they get you.
John: Sure.
John: I don't...
John: what i want is to is to live in a world where um where i'm beloved yeah appreciate and appreciated appreciated and where i don't feel uh where i don't have a negative emotional um association with almost everything now
John: There are a lot of people that will tell me to yoga.
John: Have you tried meditation?
John: Or to meditation.
John: Yeah, walk, take a walk.
John: People will tell me to meditation and to yoga and to walks.
John: But I, you know, I've also read books about those.
John: I've read the same, not maybe the same books.
LAUGHTER
John: you've certainly read a lot of the same magazines i've read some magazines yeah let's just put it that way yeah for sure uh and so uh you know so to whatever degree to whatever degree uh that uh you know that you are helping me and i am helping you and by us helping one another we are helping people yeah um that you know that's the
John: That is, if there's anything that makes me feel like the Long Winter's music doesn't need to all be re-recorded, and that calling Jack Chet was a one-way ticket to short ribs, and I don't mean the good ones.
John: And not short ribs, pinky ribs.
John: Yeah, a one-way ticket to one pinky rib.
John: One-way ticket to pinky rib.
Merlin: Pack your bag, you leave tonight.
John: I feel like...
John: I feel like, you know, there is a path somewhere here.
Merlin: The helping plus the money is really its own reward.
Merlin: Money is its own reward.
Merlin: Well, but the helping is a reward.
Merlin: But you put those together, you got to get yourself a stew.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
John: Speaking of which, do you give your little rugrat an allowance?
John: Not really.
Merlin: We've gone back and forth, but we need to get back on that.
Merlin: There are times where I'm just like, I don't want to buy any more mine coins.
Merlin: Give me 20 bucks if you want that.
John: I've decided as of this week that she's got some chores.
John: She's got a little chore chart.
John: Does she do them?
John: She does.
John: Wow.
John: Because she's motivated by stars, stars on the chore chart.
John: Sure, sure.
John: But I wanted to start introducing money into her life because when money was introduced into my life, it was a watershed moment.
John: I was never the same.
John: No, no.
John: Why don't you get a little taste of that?
John: You're always chasing the dragon.
John: That's right.
John: And, you know, we always put gold D's under her pillow when she loses a tooth.
John: She's starting.
John: Gold D's?
John: Gold D's.
John: It's a Sacagawea dollar.
Merlin: We call it a gold D. Oh, D's dollars.
John: A D, D for dollar.
Merlin: Okay.
John: And I said to her the other day, I was like, if somebody were to give you $5, would you want five gold D's?
John: Would you want five $1 bills?
John: Would you want a $5 bill?
John: Or would you want 20 quarters?
John: Hmm.
John: Trade it for whatever's behind door number two.
John: And she, without even hesitating, she said a $5 bill.
John: Why would I want all those other things?
John: I would just want a $5 bill.
John: That's the best way to carry $5.
John: I was like, wow, sophisticated.
John: I think it wasn't until I... I wouldn't want it in nickels.
John: Yeah, it wasn't until I was in my 20s that I didn't want it in the denomination that made it look the largest.
John: I want a treasure bath.
John: Treasure bath.
John: So anyway, I have introduced the idea of a
John: of an allowance now we have not yet she has not yet achieved the requisite number of stars on the chore charts to have activated an allowance i think i think you're smart to start with the stars i think that's that the the money will come along but like that that is very motivational and it lays the groundwork for saying here's what happens if we don't do the chores if we don't do the chores we don't get as many stars but also now
John: It doesn't activate the, you don't back up the money truck.
John: Right.
John: No treasure bath.
John: No treasure bath.
John: And so, so anyway, I wanted to check with you to see if like that, if you had experimented, if you'd gone in, in these years old, I was, I was being given money by the time.
Merlin: Well, I mean, there's, I think there's a lot of turns out to this just in my own experience, which is that like, you do need to find what motivates somebody, but you know, again, let it begin with me.
Merlin: Why am I doing this?
Merlin: Am I doing this because I want them to complete chores or am I doing this because I want them to get better at budgeting money?
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: Like, I think before one dives into this, cause you're going to get frustrated.
Merlin: And if, and if in, well,
Merlin: When you and the kid get frustrated, you have to go back to, you know, first principles, Clarice, why are we doing this?
Merlin: And because, again, there's just so much shit where people, like, think they're doing the right thing, and all they're doing is causing an emotional muddle and disordered eating.
Merlin: Like, don't do that.
John: Right, right, right.
Merlin: Don't give your kid an eating disorder.
John: I definitely do not want to tie this chore chart to an eating disorder.
Merlin: You've got to be careful.
Merlin: You've got to be careful.
Merlin: See, a lot of emotional tumult plays out at mealtime.
John: Yes.
John: Right?
John: Yes, it does.
John: You've got to be careful.
John: You want to avoid that.
John: We're trying to avoid that.
John: I do want only that she grow up healthy and happy and without any of her father's emotions.
Yeah.
Merlin: I would like her to... I'm sure she won't pick up any of that.
John: I don't want her to have my sister's emotions either, or my mother's.
John: I would like her to have... Your mother's Vulcan dearth of emotions?
John: I would like her to have some other family's emotions.
Merlin: I have turned out that baby shoes, they were unnecessary.
John: And I don't know where these other emotions live in other people.
John: I would like her to have some of those.
Merlin: She's going to get a nice contrast of emotional disorders based on the distinction between you and her baby mama.
Merlin: You guys bring such different things to the dinner table.
John: There's a lot going on, right?
John: And I also don't want her to feel like emotions aren't real.
John: Emotions are real.
John: They're real.
John: They're really real.
John: And that's what – so that's what we're working on.
John: And maybe like a lot of people from my economic strata and social class, I'm going to just tie money to emotion.
Merlin: That's – you know, I get an early start.
Merlin: There's no reason she can't also turn that into an eating disorder.
Merlin: See?
Merlin: So maybe you could weigh her plate when she's done and let her know whether she was bad.
Merlin: No eating those Brussels sprouts.
John: No D's.
John: No D's for you.
John: No D's.
John: No stars, and stars turn into D's, and D's turn into love.
John: Daddy only loves you when you eat or don't eat.
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.