Ep. 366: "Cafetorium Seppuku"
Merlin: Hello.
John: Hi, John.
John: Oh, hi, Merlin.
John: Hi, how's it going?
John: Oh, good.
John: Would you like to initiate a video chat?
John: I know.
John: I know.
John: Can you imagine if we had done this show all these years on video?
Merlin: I'll do it if you will.
Merlin: All these years?
Merlin: That's going to take a while.
Merlin: Oh, no, I hadn't thought of that.
Merlin: We're on what?
Merlin: What is this?
Merlin: This is 366?
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: That's going to take so long.
John: 366 episodes going back and doing it on video.
Merlin: Listen, listeners, we're going to need a lot of help on this.
Merlin: I guess we're going to need transcripts and we're going to need to go back and re-listen to each show because I know you listened to each show a couple times probably.
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: It's the only way to really improve.
Merlin: And then it's going to be a real Borges type situation.
John: We're going to have to go back, I think, and look at our photos and try and duplicate our appearance later.
John: Oh, man.
John: During all the different phases of Merlin and John that there have been.
Merlin: I'm going to need so much help with hair and makeup.
John: Yeah, me too.
John: And a lot of shoe polish in my beard.
Merlin: Okay, but here's the question.
Merlin: To be forward-looking about this, videos in the past, man.
Merlin: People pivoted to video a long time ago.
Merlin: If we're going to make this for posterity and have it be something that your daughter can listen to in two to 40 years, how do we make it forward-compatible with technologies that
Merlin: That would be satisfying to a person in the future.
Merlin: Is video going to be seen as table stakes?
Merlin: You know what I mean?
John: Is it VR?
John: Should we be doing this in first-person?
Merlin: First-person VR?
Merlin: It could be VR.
Merlin: I mean 3D people...
John: You could choose to be Merlin or be John, like just sit and look at the microphone.
Merlin: Choose your fighter.
Merlin: You come in and you can upgrade with a rudder coin to get a nicer hat.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Like, body blow, body blow, body blow.
Merlin: Knock them out!
Merlin: Have you played a video game since the 80s?
Merlin: Combination.
Merlin: Yeah, I don't know.
Merlin: I guess we could do it.
Merlin: I mean, it would be fun.
Merlin: How about this?
Merlin: How about we do one very special episode where we just recreate an episode?
John: A very special episode where we recreate an episode.
Merlin: Why can't people just make animatics?
Merlin: The McElroys, people who make animatics, they take a dump and somebody makes an animatic of it.
Merlin: Who do we have to blow to get an animatic of our very funny bits?
Merlin: What's an animatic?
Merlin: An animatic is when... So in the industry, I think, an animatic is a...
Merlin: a fairly, um, raw.
Merlin: And, uh, it's basically, here's what this will look like with very slight motion and will eventually animate the whole thing.
Merlin: It's almost like storyboards for, uh, animation.
Merlin: Um, and then, uh, but no, you can take a funny bit and then, then you can animate it and, uh, it's fun.
Merlin: You've probably seen these.
Merlin: People have made it for dear Evan Hansen.
Merlin: I know you're a fan of that.
Merlin: You know, that's out there.
Merlin: Yep.
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: A lot of Hamilton animatics.
John: Well, so here, I have a transcript here of our first episode.
Merlin: Oh, okay.
John: Are you on the site?
John: Well, should I?
John: Can you pull that up too?
Merlin: Is it the underscore David Smith site?
John: I'm not sure.
John: No, I have it here on my desktop because I don't understand about sites.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: Is there a way you could send it to me?
John: Oh, yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Hang on.
John: Let's see.
John: Well, you know, here it's a pages file.
John: Oh, boy.
John: I'm going to go up to share.
John: Oh, boy.
John: Should I share a link during iCloud?
John: No, I don't want to do that.
John: Here, I'll send it to you in messages.
John: Yeah, that'll work.
John: Send a copy via messages as a pages or a... No, you don't want it as a PDF.
John: Pages is fine.
John: Okay, here we go.
John: Next.
John: Clicking on next.
John: Okay, clicking.
John: The machine is thinking.
John: Okay, it brought up a messages box.
John: Okay, here we go.
John: Melrin.
John: Melrin man.
John: And... Okay, sent.
Okay.
John: All right.
John: So this should work here.
John: Episode one.
John: Okay.
John: Is it there?
John: Yeah.
John: Okay.
John: Intro music.
John: That happens.
Merlin: Just really lean into it.
John: Really lean into it.
John: Okay.
John: Here we go.
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hi.
John: How are you?
John: Hello, Merlin.
John: I'm late again.
John: It's all right.
John: I'm usually late to everything, so this is my just desserts.
John: Are you?
John: You don't seem like a late person.
John: It's not that I'm late.
John: It's that I don't get there on time.
John: Okay.
John: And that's because I don't leave the house with enough time to get where I'm going.
John: And I don't think that's the same as being late.
John: I think that is a question that has more to do with how you perceive space and time.
John: So it's more of a science problem.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I mean, the thing I was, in order for you to be late, you would have to have some interest in other people, I think, on some level.
John: What would that be like?
John: Okay.
John: All right.
John: I think people are going to get the gist.
John: Right.
John: We could do that.
John: We could go back and do all of our shows again.
Merlin: But John, would we be virtual while we're doing it?
Merlin: Would we be in some kind of a holodeck?
Merlin: You're wearing a sombrero and I have a Sherlock Holmes hat.
Merlin: How would we do it?
Merlin: Would we both be Data?
John: No, I think that people could choose our outfits.
John: What if we were both Data?
John: What if we both were Travis McElroy?
Ha!
John: I want to play Roderick on the line with... Let me hit you with this.
Merlin: Okay, okay.
Merlin: But when you pick your... When you choose your fighter, you could be... So you could be Jesse Thorne.
Merlin: You know, you could be my friend Jen.
Merlin: You could play as any podcaster in the system.
John: Right, but the only thing that... So...
John: So one version of this, the thing that would remain constant is the transcript.
John: So you would be playing Jesse Thorne as you, but he would have to conform to the words of the original episode.
Merlin: But as you know, John, you've walked literally across Europe.
Merlin: The map is not the territory.
Merlin: That is the map.
Merlin: But then the territory is you inhabit the character of Jesse and you get hit points and various abilities.
Merlin: I guess you'd have to roll a Jesse.
Right.
John: This is the third question is when the UIs get bulky enough, when all these AIs become UIs, right?
John: When your AIs get to be UIs, it's going to make the 50s.
John: say it look like the 20s okay um but if you did that could you play roderick on the line with travis mcelroy and like uh scott simpson but where they were talking like themselves i think that's the only way this really works otherwise you're just doing uh doing a kind of uh puppet show and this is much more there's much this would be much more sophisticated i think
Merlin: It would have all of their personal problems and baggage, and they're walking the territory of the map that has been already drawn.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Now, could it branch off in other ways, or do they have to?
John: It would have to.
John: Yeah.
John: It would have to, because you're going to get to that, and Jesse Thorne's going to be like, I'm never late.
John: Well, it's like they said.
John: And then he takes umbrage at it.
John: Oh, God, he's so angry.
John: And then Travis is like, whoa, he's really, you know, no, virtual signaling all over.
John: It's not going to be the same.
Merlin: Yeah, well, he'd definitely be interrupting Justin.
Merlin: And then I think also, okay, so then here's the thing.
Merlin: This is what Damon Lindelof said about his Watchmen TV series, is he didn't want it to be a cover band.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: He wanted to take the existing stuff and then do something very different.
Merlin: I personally think he succeeded.
Merlin: I think that's a good guiding principle for us here.
Merlin: Ditto for his TV show The Leftovers, which departs greatly from the novel.
Merlin: So what I'm saying here is that this is going to break the timeline in the most creative of ways.
Merlin: And now we're creating new product.
Merlin: And yes, we own all of the IP.
Right.
John: Yes, but do you think you could... Do we license the podcasters and their likeness?
John: Could you cast this show using young people where they were not doing canonical, they were not doing puppet shows of us, imitations of Merlin and John, they were inhabiting it, living the roles, and it was a new thing, but somehow your Dark Vader and my...
John: Lucy Skywalker or whatever are still intact somehow.
Merlin: Okay, so it's a little bit... I'm thinking it's sort of like Bugsy Malone.
John: Bugsy Malone.
Merlin: Yeah, it could have music in it.
Merlin: But you're recasting it.
Merlin: You're doing a reboot of Roderick on the line.
Merlin: Keep going.
Merlin: Are you talking about that fellow playing piano at the end of the pie fight?
Merlin: It could have been anything that you wanted to be.
Merlin: Budweiser's king, the king is a number one.
Merlin: It's basically the Budweiser song.
John: With all respect to Paul Williams.
Merlin: With all respect to Paul Williams.
Merlin: I have a really low resolution copy of that movie I found and I only ever watched the end.
Merlin: I've shown it to my daughter twice and she finds it extremely confusing.
Merlin: She finds it extremely what?
Merlin: Confusing.
Merlin: I mean, as you do.
John: It's very confusing.
John: I have a group of little girls over here yesterday and they were like, can we watch a movie?
John: Can we watch a movie?
John: Did your daughter know?
John: Yes, she was the ringleader.
John: It was a group of actual little girls.
Merlin: Well, I'm not sure that makes it better, but okay.
John: How many are we talking about?
John: Two or three?
John: No, we had five little girls.
John: Oh, boy.
John: And between the ages of eight and nine.
John: Yep.
John: And they were entertaining themselves quite well.
John: And then eventually we reached a point where it was like, everybody's tired now.
John: They're walking around with unopened go-gurts.
John: The parents are like, oh, this has been a great play date.
John: But somehow we're committed to going all the way to bedtime now.
John: And can we watch a movie?
John: Can we watch a movie?
John: And I looked at the other mom and I said, and the other parents are also Gen Xers.
John: They're not millenniums.
John: Like a lot of parents of kids our age, they are Gen X parents, late parents.
John: And they sort of pride themselves on Gen X references.
John: You know, they're like, they're cool parents.
John: They like to, you know, like yesterday, somebody said something and the other mom was like, warriors come out to play.
John: You know, like deep cuts, right?
John: She's throwing that stuff in there all the time.
John: And so I looked across the table and I was like, bad news bears.
Merlin: Bad news bears.
Merlin: Oh, no.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: It's one of those ones like Ghostbusters you remember loving and thinking this is an appropriate kids movie.
John: Well, and so she says, she says, there's a lot that we're going to have to, there's a lot of front selling of this we're going to have to do where we say, listen, sweeties.
John: There's a lot of like sexism, racism, bad wording.
Merlin: He has a convertible automobile full of Budweiser cans.
John: Yeah.
John: He drives around and drinks and swears and calls kids names that and kids call each other names.
John: Yeah.
John: We don't say those words anymore.
John: We don't say those words anymore.
John: And so but I was like, look, you know, this is what we watched when we were eight.
John: I mean, we literally watched this movie when we were eight.
John: Yeah.
John: So these kids are eight and nine.
John: Like, what do you guys say?
John: Just put, let's just put it on.
John: Let's just fucking, you know, guns in the air.
Merlin: These are eight to nine year old girls in 2019.
John: In 2019.
John: And we, because, you know, I'll tell you one thing about Bad News Bears.
John: Strong female lead.
John: Very strong.
John: Very strong.
Merlin: One time somebody asked her what she's looking for in a guy and she made her face.
Merlin: It was really funny.
Merlin: And to my mind, speaking of Watchmen, I believe that's the first movie I remember with Jackie Earl Haley.
John: Oh, that's right.
John: Jackie Earl Haley's in there.
John: Haley Jo Osmont isn't there, but would have been if it was rebooted.
John: If it was rebooted now and the coach was Melissa McCarthy and she wasn't drunk and nobody swore, I'd go watch that movie.
John: Oh, absolutely.
Merlin: She elevates everything she's in.
John: She really does.
John: So it goes around the table.
John: The parents are all like, ha-ha, we should.
John: We totally should.
John: And then we all settled on them watching Brady Bunch.
John: Brady Bunch the movie?
John: No, Brady Bunch.
John: Brady Bunch the TV show from the 60s and 70s.
John: Straight up 1969 episodes of Brady Bunch.
John: And, you know, they're soaking it up.
John: It's a thing where the trials and tribulations of those kids...
John: the Brady Bunch kids, they just, they transmit through time.
John: People can really relate to what Jan was going through, to what Peter was going through.
John: And so, you know, and Jan and Peter are kind of the ones that are right there in the
Merlin: the uh like eight to nine year olds identify with their problems oh god a hundred percent i think they are easily obviously jan and but then second place would be peter in terms of what's her name alice no what's that alice well alice sure so in terms of like empathy from the audience far and away number one jan number two peter number three alice
John: And the thing about Alice that you don't remember, I don't think, you probably don't remember, is that she does a lot of physical comedy and she is the butt of almost every single joke.
John: She's a good sport.
John: She slips on every banana peel.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
John: She, you know, hits her head every single time.
John: They generally treat her terribly.
Merlin: She always wears that same outfit.
Merlin: And I think that door, as we look at the kitchen, there's a door in the back right.
Merlin: And I think that's the single tiny room that she lives in.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: I think she lives in basically a large broom closet.
Merlin: You see her coming in and out of that door.
Merlin: I don't think that's a pantry.
Merlin: I think that's where Alice lives.
John: That's where she lives.
John: Alice B. Davis.
John: Anne B. Davis.
John: As Alice.
John: She's in the middle square.
John: So, Ann B. Davis was, she was born in 1926, which means in 1969.
John: Nice.
John: She was, what?
John: I know, right?
John: 1969, when this show was on, she was, what is she, 45?
John: Huh.
John: That's a handsome woman.
John: 44?
John: Yeah.
John: But she was playing, you know, she was playing as though she was like, oh, spinster.
John: She refers to herself as fat all the time.
John: What?
John: Yeah, she's like, oh, you know, she's always talking about her weight.
John: There's a lot about the Alice character that leaves one with more questions than answers.
Merlin: When they blended the family, remind me, she came from the Mike Brady side, right?
John: Yeah, his side.
John: Mr. Brady.
Merlin: She says it with a lot of... Okay, so I'm sorry, I'm forgetting something that's hiding in plain sight.
Merlin: Mr. Brady's an architect.
Merlin: He's the one who designed the wackadoo house that they live in with the odd sculpture on the side table, if memory serves.
Merlin: And so then when they blended the families, and it's a very awkward first episode, if memory serves...
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: The very first episode.
Merlin: I mean, I don't know if I'd start there.
Merlin: But is that right?
Merlin: So they basically, forgive me, I don't remember Carol's name.
John: Surname?
Merlin: The Carol family, the four of them come.
Merlin: I think even Tiger is part of the Brady household.
John: The craziest thing now, looking back at the show, is that Greg and Marsha are fully...
John: what 15 but somehow they are super fine with just calling the other the new spouse mom and dad like hey mom and i just can't imagine even in 1969 or in 49 or in 1910 that a 15 year old would would do that with without effort and
John: You know, just be like, hey, mom.
John: And, you know, it just seems like, whoa, that's really asking a lot.
Merlin: You think they would have pushed back a little bit on the... Well, I mean, like, God, I have so much to say about this, oddly enough.
Merlin: But one thing is...
Merlin: Okay, let me get one thing out of the way.
Merlin: There's a thing that TV shows did, and this is a very famous thing that happened, is that at a time when there's always been this fight, ever since TV came along, there's been this tension between TV and movies.
Merlin: And that was evidenced in the 50s by things like, okay, well, we're losing market share, people are staying at home watching TV, so let's create experiences you can only have in the movie theater, you get Cinerama or whatever.
Merlin: And then I think in the post-Kennedy era, it became about social relevance, right?
Merlin: So you had to create something that was socially relevant, but it had to operate within the perceived mores of very middle America.
Merlin: So the classic example of this is when they wrote The Wonderful Mary Tyler Moore Show.
Merlin: In the original version of The Wonderful Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mary was supposed to be divorced.
Merlin: But it was decided, I know everybody knows this, but it was decided that, no, we can't do that because why?
Merlin: What other than the Mary Tyler Moore show, what's the most famous thing that Mary Tyler Moore was on up to that point?
John: The Dick Van Dyke show.
Merlin: And so, for America, watching CBS shows, what does it mean if Mary Tyler Moore is divorced?
John: Yes, right.
Merlin: People would read into it, because that's mostly what they know from that and the Bob Cummings show, but anyway, that people would think that, so they had to make her a widow.
Merlin: Oh, a widow.
Merlin: No, wait, sorry.
Merlin: Mary Tyler Moore, broken off engagement.
Merlin: Brady Bunch, both widowed.
John: Oh, they were widowed.
Merlin: So their parents died, the kids.
Merlin: Yeah, you're trying to address the issue of what we used to uncharitably call broken families, but you can't talk about divorce.
Merlin: Not until like a one day at a time, right?
John: Yeah, oof.
John: Oh, boy, she had her work cut out for her.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: So but now point number one to return to your question.
Merlin: So, yeah.
Merlin: So, oh, hey, I'm 15.
Merlin: My mom and or dad is dead.
Merlin: These two decide to hook up.
Merlin: And now I got a new mom and I got to call her mom.
John: New mom and three new siblings, and we're all living in the house that apparently we were living in already.
John: Right?
John: Mike built that house himself, and they were living there before?
John: He's got his own office.
Merlin: He's got his own office with a table in there.
Merlin: I don't think Carol did anything like that.
John: So these four gals just straight up move in on them.
John: Yeah.
John: And we're left with like, hey, mom, dad, and there's sort of, there's parody between the two worlds, but there's not parody there.
John: These girls would have been moving into rooms that were formerly full of ping pong tables or something.
Merlin: Holy crap, you're right.
Merlin: There would have been probably Skee-Ball in those rooms.
Merlin: He's obviously very wealthy and gay.
Merlin: And so you move these girls in, talk about privilege, Jiminy Christmas.
John: It would have been a really different scene than the one that we were given in that first episode.
Merlin: All three girls and all three boys were each in the same room, if memory serves.
Merlin: Boys over here, girls over there, yes?
Merlin: With a shared bathroom in between.
John: And I think that that means that Greg probably had the girls' room to himself.
Merlin: And then he had to share a bathroom with a six-year-old girl.
John: Yeah, he's bumped, first of all, back to living with his two brothers, where he's like, what?
John: I'm a freaking teenager.
John: I'm about to learn to drive.
John: Yeah.
John: And then he's got all this, and, you know, like... Well, and he's probably exploring his changing body.
Merlin: You know, they're over on the bunk beds.
John: There's sexual tension between him and Marsha.
John: I mean, this has got to have been fan-fed.
Merlin: I mean, they're siblings, but not really.
John: Not really at all.
Merlin: But look at that.
Merlin: They're all, listen, John, this is 1969.
Merlin: They're paired, they're basically, the implication is they're paired up.
Merlin: They each have an equivalent.
Merlin: They have a, they each have an, you know, a, you know.
John: Everybody's in mini skirts and really tight shirts.
John: Oh my goodness.
John: Those trousers.
John: It's a weird, it's a weird time.
John: But to your point, we did live a lot of the social changes of the 60s and 70s and 80s.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: I'm talking about our generation, yours and mine.
John: We lived those transitions through television and television like way behind the actual social curve.
John: was kind of running this stuff out.
John: I watched with my daughter the premiere episode of Eight is Enough.
John: I was like, let's watch Eight is Enough.
John: We're talking circa, what, 77, 78 probably?
John: 76.
John: Okay, wow.
John: Because the oldest son in the debut episode of Eight is Enough is played by Mark Hamill.
John: And this is pre-Star Wars Mark Hamill.
Oh.
John: I just watched it.
John: And he's in the pilot.
John: And then he gets cast in Star Wars.
John: And he goes to the producers and he's like, can you let me out of my contract?
John: Because I have this movie.
John: And the producers are like, you know what, kid?
John: Sure.
John: Good luck to you.
John: And they recast The Sun.
John: Because the series gets picked up after the pilot.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And then there's Grant, what's his name?
Merlin: Does he become the oldest son?
John: Yeah, the oldest son with the curly hair.
John: He looks 32.
John: Yeah, yeah.
John: Well, I mean, Hamill.
Merlin: Look at how handsome Mark Hamill was.
John: Look at that guy.
John: And he really, he plays a great role in the show.
John: But like the debut episode, the pilot episode of 8 is enough.
John: Like one of the daughters gets arrested for murder.
John: possession of pot.
John: It wasn't Abby.
John: Who was it?
Merlin: I don't remember their names.
Merlin: All these people look so much older than their age.
Merlin: This is bananas.
John: Wow, so it started out pretty intense, is what you're saying.
John: Yeah, and Mark Hamill moves out of the house in episode one.
John: He's like, Dad, you know what, man?
John: I'm a grown-up now.
John: And Dick Van Patten's like, hey!
John: And Dick Van Patten is fully on cocaine.
John: He's raging.
John: And there's a kid.
John: I mean, implied.
John: Oh, he's just tweaking.
John: And then they hire an architect, but Dick Van Patten can't afford it.
John: And so he goes to a guy and he's like, hey man.
John: He's got so many fucking kids.
John: It does.
John: He's like, look, I can't afford it.
John: And the architect is like, are you reneging on our deal?
John: And Tick Van Patten is like, no, man, I'm trying to pay you here.
John: I just have to do it in installments.
John: And then the architect looks off to the side and he says, my son is dying of cancer.
John: Oh, my God.
John: Oh, come on, John.
John: And so, you know, my little girl and I are watching this and I'm just like, are you OK, sweetie?
John: And she's like, well, yeah, I mean, it's a lot going on.
John: But, you know, we were watching this in real time as kids.
John: I was eight years old exactly when that episode came out.
John: Yeah.
John: And this was what TV was like laying out for us.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: And it's a dramedy, right?
John: Because they're going for laughs throughout the whole thing.
John: Is there a laugh track on it?
John: I don't remember.
John: I don't remember.
John: There's a lot of flag football in it.
Merlin: Yeah, I'm seeing that.
Merlin: I feel like I remember her name being Abby.
Merlin: Abby could easily be these kids' aunt or aunt, as you say.
Merlin: And I do see some flag football on the field, it looks like.
Merlin: It looks like, not Nicholas Hammond, who's a little boy, Adam Helmethead.
Merlin: Adam West.
Merlin: Adam West is wearing, it looks like maybe a 49ers helmet.
Merlin: How did they explain, John, if I could ask, I'm sorry, I don't want to make this the whole show unless you do.
Merlin: How did they explain, they have to keep, they've already committed, their pot committed to eight.
Merlin: Eight is enough.
Merlin: So if after the first episode, it's now seven's not enough, they're going to have to change a lot of letterhead.
Merlin: How do they explain Mark Hamill moves out and Grant, 40 years old, moves in?
John: What we didn't do is watch the first episode of the series.
John: We watched the pilot and we were like, whoa.
John: And then when my daughter recognized that Luke Skywalker was in it, and I said, and I did a quick like, what am I seeing here?
Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.
John: And I said to her, well, he left after this first show and his character becomes a different.
John: His character is a different actor going forward.
John: Oh, they do.
John: They basically do a swap out.
John: And they switch a couple of other daughters, too.
John: They were like, ah, this girl, this daughter didn't test as well.
John: Let's find a different daughter.
John: And and my little girl was like, well, I don't want to watch it if it doesn't have Luke Skywalker in it.
John: Yeah.
John: I was like, well, I can't argue with that.
John: And also, I'm not sure I'm ready to watch a show with her where it's like, oh, the third daughter's a junkie now.
John: And somebody else is like, you know, it was like adult themes, adult themes.
John: Like, I don't want them watching.
Merlin: I don't remember the show being like that.
Merlin: Well, you wouldn't know.
Merlin: You only watch the one.
Merlin: I wonder if it becomes tamer.
John: I think it must.
John: Yeah, it must.
John: But like, as you were saying about one day at a time,
John: You know, I identified with one day at a time because I was living with a divorced mom.
John: We didn't have a kindly super who just let himself into our apartment all the time and had a cool mustache.
Merlin: We don't talk about that enough.
Merlin: Schneider had that big ring of keys and he would just come in the house whenever he felt like it where three women lived.
John: Lenny and Squiggy like, hello.
Hello.
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Merlin: And all the great shows.
John: There was a lot of that in our childhood, right?
John: People coming into sitcom sets where they just walked into someone else's apartment.
Merlin: Years later, that would be Kramer.
John: Oh, that's right.
John: Hello!
John: We don't see that in real life.
John: If somebody from across the street just walked into my house, I would be like... You'd be posting on Nextdoor in a New York Minute.
John: Hey, some guy can find himself in my apartment.
John: Hey, moonwalk back out of here and ring the doorbell.
John: And my doorbell's broken, so now what are you going to do?
John: Moonwalk back over to your house is what you're going to do.
John: Just go over there and think about your life.
John: But yeah, I mean, I feel like a lot of the things, like I got a copy of My Body Myself or whatever.
John: My mom gave me a copy of like, here's a book where there are pen and ink drawings of naked people with a lot of body hair.
John: And they're having different sexes.
John: But it had like diagrams.
John: Yeah, like here's what happens when two people love each other very much or whatever.
John: Yeah.
John: And I just, the book was toxic to me.
John: I didn't want to even touch it with my hands.
Merlin: Especially knowing it came from your parents.
Merlin: I got one.
John: We gave my daughter one.
Merlin: Yeah, I mean, like, but yeah, yeah.
Merlin: Knowing, but like, so, okay, quick question.
Merlin: Did she hand it to you first person or did she leave it where you could find it?
John: Well, you know, I've told you the story, I think, that my mom bought a Playboy and a Playgirl.
John: This is in 70.
John: What year was the Burt Reynolds Playgirl?
John: I'm going to say circa 75, 76.
John: Burt Reynolds Playgirl was, I think you're right.
John: Oh, he was in Cosmopolitan.
Merlin: Oh, okay.
Merlin: That's it.
Merlin: I remember he was real hairy.
John: He was Harry.
John: He was in Cosmopolitan in 72, but I think there was a... Well, anyway, she bought a copy of Playgirl and a copy of Playboy.
John: Brut Reynolds wasn't in Playgirl, or he was on the cover in 81, but that was way later.
John: Oh, and she tucked them into the bookshelf between...
John: Between encyclopedia.
Merlin: As though it had been brought to you by the porn fairy.
John: By the gods, right?
John: And she knew that I knew every book in the bookshelf, and I was there all the time, and I would sit on the floor.
John: Did you see near the encyclopedias?
John: Oh, well, shit dog.
John: She knows you're going to find that.
John: That's right.
John: And I think the bottom two or maybe the bottom three shelves of the big bookshelf were the ones that I would like sit on the floor and these were the books that I would interact with.
John: And so I found him, of course, and I pulled this thing out and I was like, what?
John: And we've talked about it.
John: We've shared that anecdote.
John: But when she put the book with the pen and ink drawings of the body hair people having intercourse with one another –
John: That was a little bit later.
John: I was probably, I mean, she introduced me to porn first, but it was like, here's naked people.
John: And I was like, oh, right, naked people.
John: And then here's the real damage that naked people can do.
John: I was like, I don't want to know about it.
John: I don't want to see it.
John: No, no, no, no, no.
John: But there wasn't follow up.
John: There was that class in seventh grade where they took the girls away to a different class.
John: They don't do that anymore.
Merlin: They do it all in the same room now.
Merlin: I was shocked.
Merlin: I was shocked.
Merlin: My daughter gave me a play by play of when they did this in fifth grade.
Merlin: And all the girls apparently were very mature about it.
Merlin: And all the boys were literally scribbling on the workbook to cover the ding dongs.
John: Yeah, right.
John: I mean, if that had happened to me, I would have been hiding under the table and making farts.
John: No, it would have been cafetorium seppuku, gone, done, out.
John: Because even in the room where it was just boys, we were climbing the walls to get out of there.
John: I mean, they had to lock the door and they're like, listen.
Merlin: Not least because you know you have a tiny little dingus that's nowhere near the illustration.
Merlin: it seems very unreasonable.
Merlin: It might as well be fucking John Holmes.
Merlin: Like, oh my God, look at the dongs on these guys.
Merlin: And the girls are like, oh, you know, it's like my buds.
Merlin: But the boys are like, ah, am I gay?
Merlin: I'm looking at a wiener.
Merlin: I'm looking at a wiener and it's huge and it's mine so tiny.
Merlin: It's like a little acorn.
John: As you walk around 7th and 8th grade, the girls are already tormenting you with their womanhood.
John: They have so much power.
John: So much power.
John: And they're just beating you into submission with every look and every little wave of their hand dismissing you as children.
John: And you are children.
John: Did I tell you the time that a girl looked across the lunch table at me and said, a milk mustache doesn't make you a man, John?
John: Whoa!
John: A milk mustache doesn't make you a man.
John: Somebody like a Patton Oswalt wrote that for her.
John: That's a very good line.
John: And then she and the six girls on that side of the table stood up and walked out at leaving me standing there.
Merlin: They didn't just cackle.
Merlin: They actually walked away.
John: It was just like, it was, and that was before even Mike drop existed, but it was just, and she was responding to some like, I mean, she, it wasn't out of nowhere.
John: I had been, I'd been like some, some comment and she just did that.
John: And yeah,
John: And, you know, my friend Kevin stopped playing Brick Breaker on his digital watch and looked over at me and was just like, well, you're done.
John: I mean, I was done.
John: I was done for a year.
John: I was cooked by that remark.
John: And, you know, and she was right.
John: Like, I didn't grow a mustache until I was 24.
Merlin: Even though it's very blonde.
Merlin: You look like a skydive.
Yeah.
Merlin: I look like a scallop with a bunch of hair on it.
Merlin: Not even a bunch of hair.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: Oh, God, John.
Merlin: Here's part of the problem.
Merlin: Okay, a couple problems.
Merlin: One thing is, what you're describing with that aid is enough.
Merlin: They're shoveling way too much, what's the word I'm looking for?
Merlin: Oh, relevance.
Merlin: Too much relevance.
Merlin: Too much relevance.
Merlin: Got the pot, got the cancer.
Merlin: Well, coming straight out of the gate with all that relevance is a bit too much.
Merlin: And the other problem that I think I might just be repeating what you said is that necessarily, especially for a network TV show, you're necessarily – okay, here we go.
Merlin: Let's bring it all together.
Merlin: MASH.
Merlin: MASH is a movie and TV series about Vietnam, except insofar as no way could that be about Vietnam.
Merlin: It had to be about Korea.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: So it had to take place in Korea, even though it really was.
Merlin: I mean, again, it's something everybody knows if people know what MASH is, is that that was, you know, obviously it came out when the Robert Altman movie came out.
Merlin: That was, you know, the novel comes out and it's relevant because it's in the middle of this bloodbath of Vietnam that we can't get out of.
John: But the TV show doled its relevance out one drop at a time.
Merlin: Oh, by the fourth or fifth season, yeah, it had really run out of ideas.
Merlin: Everybody got to direct an episode.
Merlin: It all became a little bit too Alan Alda.
John: But a lot of that stuff was just like... I mean, it was toned down, but things like...
John: Did you see the movie Little Darlings when it came out in 1980?
Merlin: That was one of those movies, like Little Foxes or like A Little Romance.
Merlin: Oh my God, they all had little in the name.
John: Well, wait, did Foxes have... Wait, are you talking about the one with the Girl from 8 is Enough, right?
John: Well, the Little Darlings had Tatum O'Neill from Bad News Bears.
Merlin: Little Foxes is... Never mind, Little Foxes is... Never mind.
Merlin: Little Foxes, I think it's with Betty Davis.
Merlin: Little Darlings.
John: Okay, so anyway... No, but Foxes also came out in 1980, and it had Jodie Foster and Scott Baio.
John: Okay, so am I remembering that right?
Yeah.
John: Here's 1980.
John: No, it's just Foxes.
John: In 1980, I'm 12 years old.
John: And in one movie, you've got Jodie Foster and Scott Baio exploring their teenage sexuality.
John: That actually has a cameo in it from Sherry Curry, the lead vocalist of The Runaways, just to give you the Pinky Tuscadero angle.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: That movie also has Randy Quaid in it.
Merlin: You mean like from the Joan Jett, the Alita Ford band?
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: She's in there as like the saucy, I guess.
John: I don't remember these movies very well because I watched them with both hands over my eyes.
John: Because Tatum O'Neill and Christy McNichol are at some summer camp.
John: Yes.
John: And they make a bet.
John: And these girls are not that much older than us, right?
John: No.
John: Christy McNichol is like... I mean, she was...
John: what six years older than me but she always tagline for little darlings is don't let the title fool you right right and she's she's what she's born in 62 so what is she i guess she's 18 18 playing yet playing younger yeah 15 or 14 and so this movie is about this summer camp where they're like let's lose our virginity who's gonna get the sweet d first
John: And I'm watching it like, I don't want to.
Merlin: Can we tease out a fact here?
Merlin: It's a fact that will become very important for me in a moment.
Merlin: Now, did you go see this with your mom?
John: I think at this point, so she drew a line in the sand at Animal House.
John: She went to see Animal House by herself in order to screen it to see if I could go see it.
John: And she came away from the theater because it had John Belushi in it.
John: Sure, he's funny.
John: And I was like, I want to see it.
John: I want to see Animal House.
John: And she came home and she was like, you're not seeing Animal House.
John: And I didn't understand why.
John: Why, why, why?
John: You know, it's the funny show.
John: And she was like, no, it has grown-up themes.
John: And so she drew the line there.
John: Now, of course, we did get to see Jaws that summer, which traumatized us forever.
John: But by 1980, like, Blues Brothers came out, and we went to see that with no hesitation.
John: And there's a lot of adult themes in Blues Brothers.
Yeah.
John: So trying to remember if I saw little darling, I don't think a parent went with me.
John: I think I went to the multiple.
John: Did it still make you feel, um,
John: Funny feelings?
John: Well, not funny feelings.
John: It made me feel total insecurity because I was so many millions of miles away from losing my virginity at summer camp.
John: Right.
John: Like I was still like, here comes the, here comes the guy from Spectre and GI Joe waits for him over the hill and the helicopter lands.
John: And then all of a sudden there's a fierce firefight.
John: Yeah.
John: And then, you know, and then it's like, oh, these girls that are not much older than me are like, boo, sex.
John: So, and I carried that insecurity, well, again, until I was, what, 29, maybe?
John: Because I had a massive crush on both Jodie Foster and Tatum O'Neill for different reasons.
John: Christy McNichol.
John: I'm sorry.
John: Well, and Christy McNichol, but also Jodie.
Merlin: Oh, no, they were all, well, you were a candle shoe man, so.
Merlin: That's the triumvirate, right?
Merlin: Yeah, now I know, 100%, 100%.
John: Tatum and Christy and Jodie.
John: She'd won an Oscar, you know.
John: It's the Pantheon.
John: Well, I know.
John: I didn't even know what that was, but Candleshoe.
John: Candleshoe.
John: David Niven, right?
John: Yeah.
John: All of them tomboys at the time.
John: And am I right that all three came out as lesbian over the course of their adult lives?
John: Oh, definitely Jody.
Merlin: Let's learn about Christy McNichol.
John: I think she did, but Tatum was married to... Look how cute she was.
John: Oh, my gosh.
Merlin: started she is according to wikipedia she's in the category uh lgbt people from california so yes yep yep but i'm looking at tatum oh in 2015 she began dating women tatum o'neill you say yeah but she chose not to identify herself okay well she's mislabeled she's in here as lgbt people from california tatum what tatum or tatum well she might be you know
Merlin: playing different sides.
John: She's bi, which is a group of people that often is underrepresented.
John: Absolutely.
John: People don't, for whatever reason, don't accept bi.
Merlin: That is so interesting, John.
John: I never put all this together.
John: All three of the triumvirate of my earliest girls that I was like, them!
John: This is me.
John: This is who I like.
John: These are the ones.
John: They're all so... I'm starstruck.
John: I'm stunned.
John: You know, I had the copy of Dynamite Magazine with Christian McNichol in a frame on my wall.
Merlin: Oh, I didn't have it in a frame, but I did have it.
Merlin: Big fan, big fan.
Merlin: Oh, she had that.
Merlin: She was just so darn cute.
Merlin: And there's something to the tomboy thing.
John: Yes, yes.
John: And all three of them gay.
Merlin: Well, how many people do you know who consider themselves out gay people as adults didn't know by the time they were 18 that that was their deal?
Merlin: Like, I mean, eventually most people, in my experience anyway, most people after they've come out are like, oh, yeah, I've known since I was four.
John: There are a lot of that, although I have met a few people.
John: And I think the thing is that a lot of people that I know a lot of.
John: And when I say a lot, I actually mean like a lot more than a handful of people that had long term live in gay relationships.
John: And then later on.
John: Okay.
John: Okay.
John: And that's one that's a lot harder for people to, I don't know, calculate because it doesn't fit.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: It doesn't fit.
John: It doesn't fit if you like binary.
John: Right.
John: It doesn't fit the model.
John: And the thing is they go on – like the friends that I've had who have gone on to have straight, committed, children-bearing relationships do not still at least as far – I mean in our heart to hearts don't identify as bi even.
John: They're like – but they don't disavow the four years they spent in a homosexual relationship.
Merlin: Well, there's also this thing where like, you know, when you're looking from the outside as a heteronormative person, you think everything – you have these – if you're looking at a certain model of gender or sexuality, there's these two columns.
Merlin: Like you're either all in this column.
John: But this is also true of gay people when they look at it too.
John: Like you don't hear a lot of gay people say like, oh sure, this is a common story.
Merlin: There's more – all I'm trying to say is there's more to it than who you want to donk right now.
Merlin: For practical purposes, well, they just don't touch each other.
Merlin: But that doesn't change the fact that they have a marriage that works and kids in college or whatever.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: It's like, so, you know, you're a writer when you're right.
Merlin: If you stop donking your husband, does that mean you're not straight anymore?
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: What's the, what's like, well, you've got to have a donk rating.
Merlin: You've got to have a, well, like if you're Hillary Clinton, you know, I'm just saying, you have to have a certain very libertine point of view about, you know, how a marriage operates.
Merlin: None of my business, but I'm with you, man.
Merlin: I'm with you, and like, I'm going to add to this a little romance.
Merlin: Now, I did not see, I think I was not allowed to see things like...
Merlin: foxes or uh little darlings but i did with my mother go to see a little romance now as you know about me john i have been not horny but very romantic i have wanted a girlfriend oh my oh no but see what's this movie called let me i don't go look up a little romance 1979
John: Little Romance, same period.
John: The thing is, who is Little Darlings, but I don't mean to deflect you because I'm going to look at Little Little Romance, but who is Little Darling made for?
John: An adult audience?
Merlin: That's such an upsetting question.
John: Do we want to see a movie where 15-year-old girls are losing their virginity or 14-year-old girls if you're a grown man?
Merlin: Okay, so ask yourself, who watches this and says, yay, because I'm betting it's not a lot of moms and dads.
John: And is it a movie made for 15-year-olds?
John: I mean, I guess it is.
John: I guess that's what it is.
Merlin: It's from that period, though, where there was boobies and drinking and everything—
Merlin: Right?
John: A Little Romance has Laurence Olivier and Diane Lane.
John: Diane fucking Lane.
John: Okay.
Merlin: Oh, and it had an Academy Award for Best Score.
Merlin: Directed by George Roy Hill, the great George Roy Hill.
Merlin: All I'm saying is this.
Merlin: As somebody who was an ignorant, long-time romantic and just felt this deep... So you felt a certain amount of shame and exclusion.
Merlin: I felt yearning.
Merlin: Not to bone down, but like, oh my God, I would love to kiss Diane Lane in Paris so much.
Merlin: And I'm sitting there with my mom watching this with my changing body.
John: She was in, she was in, um, she was in a dynamite magazine as well.
John: Diane Lane, Diane Lane.
John: I remember that.
Merlin: Oh, well, you know, later on she was in lots of things.
Merlin: She was in streets of fire and lots of other things, but anyway, no, there's something, but now I, okay, let's pivot.
Merlin: Who is this for?
John: Who is this for?
John: Well, it's certainly not for my little girl at eight years old.
John: But I, you know, and but the thing is, I think I think I owe it to the world to eventually show her bad news bears.
John: I just don't think and I don't think it's something I show her at 18 and say, this is what they showed me at eight.
Yeah.
John: But I don't know exactly how to I don't know what role it plays.
John: Right.
Merlin: I mean, yeah.
Merlin: But one thing that's changed.
Merlin: So, I mean, there's a lot that's changed, but like kind of apropos of the.
Merlin: So a while back, I was talking about how when you show something on TV, you want to do something that says they say relevant, but it can't be too out there.
Merlin: Like, even in, like, a fucking Star War today, yeah, there'll be people kissing, like, two people the same gender kissing, like, way in the background, or whatever.
Merlin: Like, oh, yeah, yay, we get a point on the board for being woke.
Merlin: And, like, but back then, like, if you wanted to talk about, you know, breast cancer, or gay people, or cancer, or, like, whatever it was, like, you had to, or...
Merlin: assault like you had to tread very lightly you're gonna get that mature content warning but you can only go so far and you can't really tell the whole story your gay person will probably have to die at the end like there's not there's not going to be a happy outcome for that now today the interesting difference is you're not trying to jam all of that relevance into the same thing for everybody
Merlin: So you can have something today.
Merlin: There's so many fewer boobs in movies today, and it's such a blessing.
Merlin: I mean, I'm not afraid of my kids seeing boobs, but the dumb sex stuff that had to be in every movie in the 70s and 80s, you see less of that now.
Merlin: So you can see something that's a little bit brainier, gives you a lot to think about, because you're not trying to jam in the relevance and titillation for everybody.
John: I think that there are a lot of kids in the movies that we saw that were trying to connect with us by...
John: Being kids that were latchkey, that said a lot of swears, that were mature before their time.
John: That was that that was characteristic of our era because a lot of kids were unsupervised Kids who are smarter than their parents kind of thing sassy kids who are smarter than their parents who are smoking pot at age 11 who are who you know like the kids in Whatever the beasts and the children or whatever that movie was who like learn to drive and get shot by the cops and What was that movie called?
John: beware the beasts and the children oh bless the beasts and children bless the beasts and it's got a good carpenter's tune in it it's got a great song in it but but uh you know that movie like where the kids stand up to the grown-ups to save a i don't remember what they're saving a horse is it about native americans maybe bless the beasts and the children but it might be about the environment
John: Or something else.
Merlin: Take Billy Jack.
Merlin: You got Billy Jack where you got all these kids virtually got ass kicking Billy Jack, but then he's protecting the Native American kids who are being treated very badly by the townspeople.
Merlin: And so he has to kick lots of people in the face.
Merlin: But the kids are not treated well in that at all.
John: Well, here's the plot of Beasts and the Children.
John: Okay.
John: It's six adolescent boys.
John: Now, this came out in... Billy, mommy's in it.
John: This came out in 71.
John: Right.
John: And I saw it... I didn't see it in 71 because I was three, but I saw it on television some night where I was unsupervised watching TV with the lights off after the grown-ups had gone upstairs or something.
John: I was watching this, and it was the late-night movie.
John: And it's, let's see, six adolescent boys whose preoccupied parents send them off to the Arizona Box Canyon Boys Camp for the summer.
John: John Cotton, played by Barry Robbins, leads this bunch of misfits who are all to varying degrees emotionally or psychologically disturbed.
John: The group composed of rejects and outcasts is known as the Bedwetters.
John: And the boys are constantly demeaned and ridiculed, which inevitably crushes what little self-esteem they might otherwise have possessed in the first place.
Merlin: I think they're protecting horses, I want to say.
John: Yeah.
John: He then goes out.
John: They're all just totally... Sammy Shecker is an overweight, paranoid Jewish boy.
Merlin: Wasn't there one kid who was literally super violent?
John: Yes.
John: And then there was the little kid who barely spoke who actually wet the bed.
John: And he was like very, very he was like phobic and very small.
John: But but but oh, it's the buffalo.
John: Oh, the buffalo.
John: Save the buffalo.
John: Save the buffalo.
John: And then in the end, spoiler alert.
John: Oh, no.
John: There are some of the boys are shot.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: Cotton dies for the buffalo.
Merlin: Cotton?
Merlin: Played by Barry Robbins.
John: Cotton dies.
John: Yeah.
John: And whatever.
John: Whoa.
John: And is this a kids movie?
John: It stars kids.
Yeah.
Merlin: It has kids, and it has children in the name, but yeah.
John: You live with kids.
John: It's challenging material.
John: For grown-ups now, would they make a movie for grown-ups that had a cast of nine-year-olds?
John: Who were saving the buffalo and who are called bed bedwetters and we get inside their little heads.
John: No, it's a movie about kids.
John: That's for kids.
John: But it's it was it it scorched me like scorched me.
John: I lay in the dark thinking about the bedwetters.
John: For years.
John: And the Buffalo plot gradually, in my mind, just morphed into... I don't remember what it morphed into.
John: It was really tied to that song.
Merlin: All I have to do is hear the opening bars.
Merlin: Even if you don't remember which mammal it was and how it turned out, what you may remember is that these kids...
Merlin: the bedwetters, like undertook an impossible mission, right?
Merlin: Like a lot of your World War II movies you like.
Merlin: This is a mission that's not going to end well.
John: And completely unsupervised by neglectful and messed up parents.
John: Yes.
John: And the kids, instead of like a World War II movie where it's like the Italian guy, the Jewish guy, the guy from Texas, the guy from the Bronx.
Merlin: The guy who runs fast and dies, you know.
John: This movie was the kid that is super violent, the kid that wets the bed, the kid that is... It's like the Dirty Dozen a little bit.
John: It is.
John: They're all... They're all like misfits.
John: Yeah.
John: And as someone in 1977, when I saw this, who identified as basically a bedwetting misfit, because I did wet the bed until much later than my friends.
Yeah.
John: I watched this movie, and I was like, well, I guess this is me.
John: And then I went to see Little Darlings and was like, well, that's not me.
Merlin: Yeah, I mean, it doesn't seem like Jodie Foster's going to roll with the boy who wets the bed.
Merlin: So at what point did— You're going to wet your bunk.
Merlin: Oh, no.
Merlin: You have to bone down with Christy McNichol, but you've got to try a wet spot, and it's not the wet spot you want.
John: You have to have plastic sheets so you don't ruin the mattress.
John: Oh, no.
Merlin: You have to wear prescription pants.
John: Oh, no.
John: I mean, think about, you know, I didn't get to go to a lot of slumber parties when I was eight.
John: Because it was still an issue?
John: Because it was like, well, what have you, what's the bed?
John: Like, you can't go to a slumber party.
John: Yeah, no, it sucks.
John: It sucks.
John: He'll never live it down, right?
John: And I wouldn't have lived it down.
John: But at some point, kids entertainment got completely, I don't want to say neutered, but all of that was taken out of it.
John: And it became like, a bunch of kids, go on an adventure!
Merlin: The one I'm looking at right now, I'm just going to throw this out, I don't want to dwell on this, but this actually came up over the weekend.
Merlin: I had a nice family visit with a nice family.
Merlin: and a friend who is in the movie industry.
Merlin: And we were talking about just all the different things we liked and what's appropriate for kids, a conversation we often have.
Merlin: And I was like, how do you feel about The Goonies, the 1985 movie The Goonies?
Merlin: How do you feel about it?
Merlin: I did not see it at the time.
Merlin: I didn't either.
Merlin: But I did see it later.
Merlin: And I think –
Merlin: What I remember is thinking, this is horrifying.
Merlin: Like, this is so full of like, maybe this idea, maybe it's supposed to be like, I don't know, Hans Christian Andersen type situation or like a 19th century, you know, Treasure Island kind of thing.
Merlin: Do kids get eaten by witches or something?
Merlin: It's got a lot of really fucked up stuff in it.
Merlin: And like...
Merlin: It's just a grotesquerie.
Merlin: And I guess that's the idea.
Merlin: But is it like get killed stuff or is it there's no sex stuff?
Merlin: A group of no, no, no, no.
Merlin: A group of young misfits who call themselves the Goonies discover an ancient map and set out on a quest to find a legendary pirate's long lost treasure.
Merlin: But this is in Astoria, Oregon.
Merlin: Yeah, it's got a lot of... Wow, look at these names.
Merlin: Wow, John Matuszak.
Merlin: Joey Pants.
Merlin: Joey Pants is in it.
Merlin: That's nice.
Merlin: Anyway, no, I agree with you.
Merlin: It did neutered.
Merlin: So when did that happen?
Merlin: I'm going to stand by my theory.
Merlin: I'm going to stand by my theory that over time, it became, even with the rise of cable TV, it became more okay to...
Merlin: i don't even i doubt that i bet this is purely ideological purely hegemonic but at some point we didn't need to put everything in everything like a neutered like a neutered version of uh societal what's the word pro-social values right a neutered version of wokeness like you could make something that was a little bit more out there like harry hamlin remember when harry hamlin was the gay guy in that tv movie and it was a really big deal
Merlin: I don't... But, like, they're all so, like, gentle and, like, he's kind of gay, but, like, you know, that one was controversial because I think they actually might have had physical contact.
Merlin: But, like... But think about us in ninth grade.
John: Like, we had Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
John: Oh, my God.
John: Which actually had... Last American Virgin.
John: It had teenage nudity in it.
John: Always.
John: Fast times.
John: Caddyshack.
John: And stonerism.
Merlin: Big time stoners.
Merlin: They always involve a girl getting pregnant.
Merlin: Last American version.
Merlin: Caddyshack.
Merlin: I'm pretty sure fast times.
Merlin: Porky's.
Merlin: Oh, gosh.
Merlin: You got that hole in the wall.
John: You shouldn't have a hole in the wall.
John: All the porky's.
John: No, no.
John: But so when did that, because those were definitely targeted at teenagers.
John: Yes.
John: But it got tamer by the time of 16 Candles and Pretty in Pink, but all of those themes were still there.
Merlin: No, they're still super problematic, but I totally agree.
Merlin: For the time, that was like, you know me, I'm the one guy who doesn't like Breakfast Club.
Merlin: But all the other ones, they were pretty brainy as teen movies go at the time.
Right.
Merlin: Well, because you're also coming fresh off of slasher movies in the late 70s.
Merlin: After Halloween, there was this huge explosion in Friday the 13th and The Howling and like all of the like, you know, American Werewolf, which I really loved.
Merlin: There's all those like slasher horror gore movies.
Merlin: Comedy, though.
Merlin: Some of them.
Merlin: Some of them.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: But like basically teenagers boning down and getting killed.
John: It's always the ones that are out having sex in a field that get – or like whatever.
John: Yes.
John: They one by one get picked off by the man in the scheme.
Merlin: You will be punished for your sex times for sure.
Merlin: When did it change?
Merlin: When did it change?
Merlin: How would we even begin to learn?
John: Well, that's the thing.
John: I don't know what teenage movies are like now, do they?
John: Are they still – I mean aren't they all superheroes?
John: Like are there actually just like dumb teenagers who are –
Merlin: Well, there's been, you know, I mean, I'm just speculating here, but in all the times since Harry Potter came out in the late 90s, there has been, I believe, a huge resurgence in what came to be called young adult stuff.
Merlin: So I would put into that, obviously, stuff like that, or I guess Percy Jackson, there's the fantastical things.
Merlin: But then, then you remember a few years ago when it was all about werewolf sex?
Merlin: And like, you go to your Barnes and Noble, and like, there's a whole section of vampire sex.
Merlin: yes vampire sex i didn't even think of that but of course that's what it is vampires vampires boning down right because there's something there's something safe about it because it's fan it's fantasy i think i might have a photo somewhere here of a time we went to barnes and noble and there was an entire rack i believe it was called supernatural fiction or something like that and all the covers look like twilight and it was all about werewolf sex
John: Right.
John: And my friend Isaac Marion, who wrote the warm bodies that got made into a movie about a zombie who has feelings and gradually falls in love with the he like learns his feelings and the girls saves him and he doesn't eat her brain, even though he wants to.
Merlin: Oh, that's all he wants.
John: Yeah, it's really it's it's super nice.
John: But Lost Boys was Vampires.
Merlin: That's Vampires.
Merlin: Again, I think Corey Feldman was in that one, too.
Merlin: He was.
Merlin: That was one of the Corey's movies.
Merlin: He was in Goonies, and he was in the Vampire movie.
John: That also was a great star turn for Donald Sutherland's kid.
John: Oh, Donald Sutherland's gift from 24.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: That's right.
John: Okay.
John: But that was a transition movie because that did not have – it had sex, but it was romantic vampire sex.
John: It didn't have any Michael Anthony Hall like – Selling panties or whatever.
John: Yeah, no panty selling.
John: There wasn't any joke sex.
John: There wasn't any hole-in-the-wall sex.
Merlin: Yeah, the girl in the convertible.
Merlin: That was pretty upsetting in that one movie.
Merlin: Vampire sex.
Merlin: But then you also get – here's another one is the success of Hunger Games led to – which I think we have to give credit to Battle Royale, but that's fine.
Merlin: That's my own thing.
Merlin: Anyway, Hunger Games comes along and then you've got Maze Runner and all those kinds of – Is there sex in Hunger Games?
John: There's not.
John: There is.
John: There's no sex in Hunger Games.
Merlin: No, there's like – there's a lot of privation and the kid leaves out the burnt bread.
John: I mean, the sex in Hunger Games is killing.
John: The sex is killing.
Merlin: Yeah, I guess.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: But like in protecting your family theme.
John: I always felt like in our movies, the sex was killing in a different way.
John: It was killing in the sense that all sex meant death to me.
Merlin: That is a very French idea.
Merlin: John, you might be French.
Merlin: That is a super French idea.
Merlin: You are so French.
Merlin: Oh, sacre bleu.
Merlin: Oh, le bon down.
John: Au revoir.
Merlin: Le petit mort.
Merlin: Oh, entre nous.
Merlin: Le petit mort.
Merlin: Ah, le petit merde.
Merlin: Anyway, Corey Feldman was in a lot of things.
Merlin: Oh, Gremlins.
Merlin: Wow, Gremlins.
Merlin: But even like E.T.
Merlin: is a little scary.
Merlin: Gremlins was scary.
Merlin: You're talking there, you're talking 1984.
John: I guess I saw Gremlins and I guess I was left unmoved by it because I did not feel like the Mowgli were that threatening.
John: Really?
John: If you feed them after midnight.
John: Well, that's... But I felt like... That's easy enough.
Merlin: Just don't feed them after midnight.
Merlin: Don't get them wet.
Merlin: It's not that hard.
John: Well, there it is.
John: There it is.
Merlin: Don't give your cat ibuprofen.
Merlin: Don't give your dog chocolate.
Merlin: It's going to be fine.
John: Don't give your dog chocolate.
Merlin: It's basic stuff.
Merlin: you can't roller skate in a watermelon patch you know what i'm saying like get with it just if you're gonna be a pet owner if you're gonna get a fucking cursed uh a cursed furby from the chinese man read the book read the fucking book plan ahead read the book that's one of the things they taught us yes i've i can always read the manual you know
John: I came through our childhood, and you and I had different childhoods for sure, but during the same exact period— Every year we get closer in age.
John: I came through that whole period terrified of everything because I think I saw all these movies a little bit too young or emotionally too young.
John: I was emotionally a lot younger than I should have been, again, until I was 29.
John: Yeah.
John: Or 34, maybe, is when I caught up.
John: When I was 34, I was chronologically 34 and emotionally, well, no, I wasn't emotionally 30.
John: I'm emotionally 34 about now, I think, which is embarrassing.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: I was trying to explain this to my kid that everybody has these certain ages that they feel they, like, in their head where, like, I kind of feel 19, even though I'm 53.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Uh, yeah.
John: I don't feel 19 anymore because I, well, because I don't know.
John: Because of your knees?
John: The thing is, yeah, there are 19 year olds who already know what they want to do and are doing it.
Merlin: Oh, they're saving the environment and they're like buying fewer, fewer plastics.
Merlin: Maybe.
John: but you know the ones that are like i'm a good guitar player already and this is what i want to do i want to be a guitar player are the ones that are like i'm in pre-law and i'm gonna be a lawyer and then they do they go and they do they do they follow through or they're like i already know who i'm gonna marry we've been together since we were 15 like those 19 year olds and me even now i'm not that 19 yeah i'm some other what's your what's your what do you tell me what's your internal age
Merlin: What's my age again?
Merlin: Is that what you're asking?
Merlin: Because you sit here right now, how old do you feel like you are?
Merlin: If you want to include your body, include your body.
Merlin: It's your body.
Merlin: How old do you feel like you are?
Merlin: You feel like, what, you're 30 maybe?
John: If you could, well, I think this is... Do you need facets?
John: Would facets help?
John: No, no, no.
John: I feel like it's in the family of if you could go back...
John: And to be any age, what would you go back to?
John: Oh, that's a very different question, but an interesting one.
John: Well, but it feels like that is what the reason I connect those questions is that I feel like that.
John: I mean, if you could go back to being 14 and just live it all over again.
John: But if you could go back to where you basically feel ready to be that, like I had no point in my life that I feel ready to be where I was when I was there.
John: Right?
Merlin: When I was 33, I was like, I could nail being 28 right now.
John: Yeah.
John: And I don't even feel like I could really be a good 28 year old, but I feel like I could be a good 33 year old.
John: Like I've got the skills to be 33 that I didn't have when I was 33.
John: But I do now.
Merlin: You're always fighting the last war, John.
Merlin: You really are.
Merlin: You really are.
Merlin: You are, and one is, and you're fighting the, you know, with the keloids of outrageous romance.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: The slings and arrows, you're always fighting the keloid that you got when you were 13.
Merlin: That has not healed.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: You're still trying to avoid re-injuring that spot.
John: There are all kinds of people who become parents at 33, right?
John: You and I meet them all the time because they are the other parents in our children's lives.
John: All the other moms.
John: Who were parents at 33 instead of parents at 40.
John: And you became a parent at... 40... 30.
Merlin: 40-something?
Merlin: Nope.
Merlin: 40-something, right?
Merlin: And so did I. That's a show I'm not going to watch.
Merlin: 40-something.
John: 40-something.
John: I think 41.
John: 41.
John: I was 41 also, and you were 41.
John: And so 41 is very different from 33.
John: Oh, shit, dog.
John: So different.
John: And I feel like now at 51, I could be a very good 33-year-old parent.
John: Yes.
Merlin: I totally agree.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Well, if I got to, I don't know if the genie's going to allow it, but if I'm allowed to take what I've learned, such as it is, I feel like I could go back and be a very good 33-year-old parent.
John: Yes, yes, yes, yes.
John: Especially for one kid.
John: Now, as a 28 year old who was like in the middle of his music career, I in one way, I still don't feel like I would be good at that.
John: And being 28, what would I be trying to accomplish?
John: I would just be like I would be sitting in bars and the girl that was sitting next to me that I said something that made her go like, well, I'm calling it a night.
John: Would you be 28 now?
John: You'd be 28 now.
John: I would be, whoa, no, I do not want to be 28 in 2000.
John: You want to redo 28 then?
John: If I could be 28 in 1996, I maybe would take a run at it again.
Merlin: Okay.
John: But to be 28 in 2019?
John: No thanks.
John: No, thank you.
Merlin: Hard pass.
John: Hard pass.
Merlin: I don't want to be anything in 2019.
Merlin: I mean, it's nice to be extant.
John: Let's be honest.
John: Yeah.
John: If I could be 33 in 2019, if I was a parent, I might take a shot at that because I am a parent now and I feel like, okay, I can navigate this.
John: I would just be 33 instead of 51.
Merlin: I think I could handle 31 if it was 2014, maybe 2012.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Yeah, okay.
John: I could be 31 in 2012.
John: I'd be married.
Merlin: Then I'd be dealing with her.
John: Wow, this gets complicated fast.
John: It does.
John: It really does.
John: If I were 31 in 2011... Okay.
John: I could have done a better job, I think, than being 41 in 2011.
John: Or whatever I was.
John: 42 and a half.
Merlin: Jonathan Goldstein does this really good podcast called Heavyweight that I can highly recommend.
Merlin: And what I learned from that wonderful program, after every episode, I find myself going, God damn it, the real lesson of life is I should have stopped being selfish sooner.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I mean, not you, but like me, but like all these stories end up being like, oh, I can't decide if I should contact this person.
Merlin: But it turns out that that person wanted to be contacted, but they were scared also.
Merlin: But then we met and like it was all going to be okay.
Merlin: And we both admit there are things where we should have contacted each other earlier.
Merlin: And it's like, fuck, man, that's so me.
Merlin: That is so me.
John: I also feel like I could have been less selfish a lot earlier than
John: And I don't like looking back.
John: I look at this because I can examine events and go, wait a minute.
John: Did you really do that?
John: Did you really do those things and say those things in those moments?
John: Because those were not appropriate reactions to that set of conditions.
John: But I cannot inhabit the emotional world I was living in at the time.
Merlin: No, context is everything.
Merlin: It's not an excuse.
Merlin: It's not even necessarily a reason.
Merlin: But context is everything.
John: And I don't know what I was... I mean, I remember, and I think we were... I don't know whether this happened immediately before you and I started really getting to know each other.
John: No, it didn't.
John: It happened after.
John: Someone, when my friend Kristen Cosmas first introduced the idea to me that I was an introvert, which had never occurred to me and no one had ever said it before, and it became just that simple little kernel.
John: Talk about a thought technology.
John: It was, for me, one of the original thought technologies because all of a sudden, so much about who I was and what had happened to me snapped into some clarity.
Merlin: You get maybe eight of these in life.
Merlin: Like one of my friends in college said, you are your options.
Merlin: Like when he said that, I still think about that twice a week.
Merlin: That's a thought technology where I went, holy shit, why didn't somebody tell me this when I was 12?
John: And now with you, it was that.
John: But when Mike Squires sat across from me and said, John, I need you to hear me when I say feelings are real.
John: And I was like, I mean, I didn't go right away.
John: The first thing I said was, you're a dumbass.
John: No, I said like, you know, shut up, dumbass.
John: And he was like, no, listen to me.
John: He got all sincere, which he doesn't always do.
John: And I was like, why are you getting sincere?
John: Stop it.
John: And he was like, feelings are real.
John: And because it had occurred to him and he was like, I need to share this with you.
Merlin: He's a Marine.
Merlin: That's a big deal.
John: He's a Marine.
John: It was a really dumb aphorism, but it, but I walked away from that encounter going, feelings are real.
John: Feelings aren't real.
Merlin: I'm the sky.
Merlin: I'm the sky, not the weather.
Merlin: No shit.
Merlin: No, if it's stupider it sounds, the more likely it is something you should have learned a long time ago.
Merlin: That's how a thought technology works, goddammit.
John: But I feel like nowadays there's not a single 28-year-old that hasn't already long ago identified which HMTP they are.
John: And there's no introvert out there, at least in our world, in the podcast listener world, that is in the dark about whether or not they're an introvert.
John: No.
John: But for me, it was just like, how could I be an introvert?
John: Look at me.
John: I'm all about put on a big show.
John: Look at me.
John: And Kristen was like, you are an unknowable cipher that retreats from all human contact and stares at a spot on the wall for hours at a time.
John: And can't be touched or loved.
John: And I was like, what does that have to do with anything?
John: Watch me play guitar.
John: So, you know, so nowadays I'm so many generations of thought technology.
John: That I've built on top of those, like, feelings are real understandings from 20 years ago that now it's like, well, what if I knew all – what if I took all that?
John: What if I had this, like – I mean, so much so that the architecture now includes the possibility that, well, long past the land of, like, well –
John: introversion is on a spectrum and so is extroversion and the two things aren't mutually exclusive and you know like just all this kind of nothing no one little thumbnail ever makes sense of everything and no no no not at all it's a further a further technology right where am i across all of these spectra spectra spectra recently understanding that the women in my life
John: that I've really connected with, most of them have borderline personality disorder.
John: Woof.
John: On a spectrum.
John: On a spectrum.
John: That's another spectrum.
Merlin: They're not, they're not the ones who are.
Merlin: Borderline personality.
Merlin: That's the one where you don't want to be abandoned.
John: Oh, it's it's a it is a complicated and dark.
John: I bet that one gets misdiagnosed a lot.
John: It does.
John: And the thing is, it's one of these that like psychiatrists are are they're very they're very clear.
John: Like, well, there's a bipolar one and there's a bipolar two and they're they're different.
John: And, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
John: But if you say borderline.
John: They all flip way over into this DSM for world where they're like, here's what borderline is.
John: And there and there is no sort of like lesser borderline.
John: It's all if someone has borderline, then basically like a mother would pick her teeth with the shin bones of her kid if it suited her.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Part of it is that the name is very misleading.
John: Yeah, the whole thing I don't think is understood.
Merlin: Because when you say borderline personality disorder, you think that means, oh, you're on the edge.
Merlin: And it's like, well, or you don't have the thing.
Merlin: But it's not that.
Merlin: It's a whole constellation.
Merlin: It's sort of like a Chinese super buffet of little problems that create into a whole big thing that make you tough to deal with.
John: Really tough.
John: So what it says here, just like Googling it for a second, is difficulties regulating emotion.
John: They feel emotions intensely and for extended periods, and it is harder to return to a stable baseline after an emotionally triggering event.
John: And so this is the world that I grew up in.
John: This is my mother.
John: This is my sister.
John: And this is all the women that I've ever really loved.
John: And as a manic depressive person, I have never dated a woman who was bipolar, right?
John: I've never dated a woman who was just normal and stable.
John: And it's all – I'm just – I'm compelled by women who are like, oh, well, my new emotional reality is this.
John: And now this is the only reality that ever existed and it's – and this is a state that's going to exist until my – until a new emotional reality arrives.
John: And just knowing that about myself, which is not about – it's not a thing that I have, but that connection, that compulsion –
John: Oh, like a girl who's attracted to bad boys.
John: Right.
John: My whole life is defined by being in a state that is defined by someone else's emotional radicalism.
John: And I can't think of a time when I wasn't living in that world, which is a world that I seek.
John: And I continue to seek even now that I am fully grown.
Merlin: And you know it.
Merlin: Knowing it doesn't help.
Merlin: That's the thing about a cognitive bias is just because you know it exists doesn't make it go away.
John: No, and I can meet someone coming through the rye.
John: Coming through the rye.
John: You seem emotionally stable.
John: Great to meet you.
John: Like, you know, we should get coffee sometime.
John: But then I come meet someone coming through the rye and they are like, just like, hi, oh my God, this is, you know, meeting you is amazing.
John: And then three days later, they're like, why are you staring at me?
John: And I'm like, wow, you're amazing.
John: You're like, what do I have to do to spend more time with you?
John: Let's make this dangerous and weird.
John: So that's a strange knowledge to have.
John: And in particular, because lately I've been in this sort of new world that you and I have spent many years kind of exploring.
John: discussing in our different ways, which is like, oh, I'm living in this like preaching the medicine land where I'm like, I took this medicine and it really helped me.
John: But the problem with borderline is when you talk to, I don't know, the medical professionals, they're like, there's no treatment for it.
John: The only thing you can do about borderline is to sit and meditate and think about, try and do better.
John: Oh, get more sleep, drink water.
John: The people I know that have this condition and suffer from it are tormented by it.
John: You know, like, it's not just that they sit in like a depressive state.
John: It's that they go from total depression to complete agitation and
John: But not in this... Not in the bipolar way.
John: Not in the bipolar way.
John: In a way where they are triggered and all of a sudden their mind is completely transformed by a new reality.
John: And so what do you say?
John: Like, well, you need to just sit with your feelings and like think it.
John: You know, it is a really, really difficult thing to live with.
John: And I'm just like right in there.
John: So...
John: So how would I go back to being 31 or 33 and say, hey, self, there is a connection.
Merlin: I would avoid women who introduce their career as they make jewelry.