Ep. 373: "An Unannounced Friend"
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
Merlin: Oh, hey there, Merlin.
Merlin: How's it going?
Merlin: Oh-ho-ho.
Merlin: Woo-hoo.
Merlin: Whee.
Merlin: Yeah, I'm feeling it.
Merlin: Whoop-ee-doo.
Merlin: Whoop-ee-doo.
John: Whoop-ee-doo, as we say.
Merlin: Oh.
John: Reporting here from coronavirus ground zero.
Merlin: I wasn't going to say anything.
Merlin: And now I'm going to say something.
Merlin: You got the coronavirus, right?
John: You got to.
John: Well, everybody does.
John: Everybody does.
John: That's the thing.
Merlin: It's the thing that's going around.
Merlin: King County, baby.
Merlin: Woof.
Merlin: Wash your hands.
Merlin: Yeah, that's what they say.
John: Stop picking your nose and eating it.
Merlin: I'm not going to stop eating my nose.
Merlin: Ha ha ha ha.
Merlin: It's early.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: Yep, yep, yep.
John: I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue, you know what I'm saying?
Merlin: Uh-huh.
Merlin: I just, you know, I have a lot.
Merlin: Well, I'm not going to get into it.
Merlin: I have a lot of selfish concerns.
Merlin: I have selfish concerns about travel that we have planned and stuff like that.
Merlin: But I think my biggest, most selfish thing is I am not looking forward to a situation where all three of us have to be in the house for an unknown amount of time.
John: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: I mean, I like those folks a lot, but I think the key to happiness in any relationship is knowing when certain parts of the experience will end.
John: Sure.
John: Important part is some people have to go out of the house sometimes.
Merlin: See, now me, I'm fine just being in the house.
Merlin: Well, but you've got your office.
Merlin: You can go down there and close the door.
Merlin: Oh, believe me.
Merlin: I'm slathered in privilege.
Merlin: I think about it all the time.
Merlin: Every time I get miffed about how people are abusing my areas at the house.
Merlin: Yes, your areas.
Merlin: And boy, I could talk a lot about how people get into my area.
Merlin: Things that are known to be, you don't put things in the area where my seltzer goes.
John: That's daddy's area in the fridge.
Merlin: Well, and, you know, Daddy's seat on the couch is always Daddy's seat on the couch.
Merlin: Don't put your iPad there and don't put you there.
John: No, don't put you there.
Merlin: You know, that's where all my stuff is.
Merlin: I'm like the Captain Kirk of that room.
Merlin: That's where I, you know, bring it up on screen, like open a comm channel, that kind of thing.
John: Yeah, open a comm channel, precisely.
Merlin: Precisely small.
Merlin: You got the comm, I say to my wife, and she goes, why do you keep saying that?
John: Yeah, stop saying that, sweetie.
John: You make it hard to love you.
John: I was supposed to go to Japan.
John: Why the fuck would you go to Japan?
John: Why would anyone go to Japan?
John: I mean, some of the people would be Japanese and would be there already, but I was going to go there.
John: So I'm leaving on the Joko cruise in six days.
John: Wait, wait.
John: And they're like, whoa, wait a minute.
John: You know, like you might not get into the Dominican Republic.
Merlin: I have so many questions.
Merlin: You just redirected the whole show.
Merlin: Okay.
John: Hodgman's been texting me like, are you ready to just be on this boat with me for 90 days?
John: Wow.
John: I don't know.
John: I don't want to do that.
John: But then I was going to go to Japan after that.
John: And our Japanese host wrote and said, everything's closed now.
John: Uh, Tokyo Disney is closed and they won't let us go out on the streets.
John: So maybe not the best time to come.
John: Oh my.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: I wasn't ready for this.
Merlin: Um, okay.
Merlin: So, so should we, can we take these in order?
John: Sure.
John: Let's go.
Merlin: So you're back on the Joko cruise.
John: Oh yeah.
John: Well, you know, I only took one year off last year.
John: I, uh, last year I was not planning to go, but then right at the last minute, I just went ahead and went as an unannounced friend and, uh, played some, you know, played some bits and bobs, did a little, you know, picked up this, did a little of that, but I, uh, I toted that barge.
John: I lifted that bail.
John: Um, and it was good.
John: You know, I was, I had a lot of Aloha at that point.
Um,
John: And so I just took the Aloha with me on the cruise, a place where I had always been Aloha challenged.
John: And I went through the cruise maintaining Aloha the entire time.
John: But it was wonderful.
John: Maybe the best year for me.
John: Really?
John: Yeah.
John: So now I'm going to really test it.
John: I'm really going to test it.
Merlin: Let me look at this.
Merlin: Let me see what we're working with.
Merlin: I've got like 12% aloha right now.
Merlin: I'm looking on the website.
Merlin: Oh, there's a really cute girl in a Jedi helmet.
Merlin: Wow.
Merlin: I think I just found my special thing.
Merlin: um so what do you say what i click on here you go cruise 2020 cruise guests okay i'm clicking okay here we go oh yeah david reese okay that's cool you got the adventure zone that's good oh kelly sue's gonna be there that's nice kelly sue kelly sue um wow i'm looking at this look at this there's a lot there's a lot of mcelroys
John: So many.
Merlin: I mean, you got The Wives.
Merlin: You got Pat Rothfuss.
Merlin: All the great guests.
Merlin: You got Will Wheaton.
Merlin: Oh, John Scalzi.
Merlin: We did a thing with him.
Merlin: I like him.
John: Yeah, there he is.
John: Liz Fair.
John: Are you kidding me?
Merlin: Oh, Manfraction.
Merlin: Yay.
Merlin: Jimboja.
Merlin: Okay, classic.
John: um let's see here okay hang on jean gray like her oh ken jennings is going to be there you do a show with him that's that see there's the there's the trick every year uh i apparently now every year i get to bring one co-host and so this year it's ken they got it's like a pyramid scheme they got lucky this year because they agree they uh agreed to bring ken before he won all the champions
John: Now his price went up, huh?
John: Yeah, that's right.
Merlin: He would have been able to write his own ticket.
Merlin: He would be prohibitively expensive.
Merlin: That's a guy who's obviously not done making money.
Merlin: That is a man who is still creating bank.
John: That's true.
John: This is the time of the season for loving.
John: But also, this is the time of the season for Ken Jennings to talk to people about how much they're willing to pay.
John: Which is nice.
John: It's nice to be in that position, I imagine.
Merlin: Well, one of these things is not like the other department.
Merlin: Two of these things.
Merlin: They're on this list of guests.
Merlin: There are exactly two people wearing a necktie.
John: Oh, right.
Merlin: Want to guess who the two are?
John: I'm going to say me.
John: And... It's not Sidney McElroy.
Merlin: I'm sure it's not Patrick Rothfuss.
Merlin: It is definitely not Pat Rothfuss.
John: I'm going to say, who is it...
Merlin: let's say it's a guy who won Griffin McElroy oh let me look no he has a dog body he has to get dog clothes now Ken Jennings from Jeopardy is wearing a necktie too
Merlin: kidding that's good john hodgman's wearing a cowboy hat anyway okay sorry sorry okay so you committed to this at some point is it fair to say i'm going to speculate that your commitment to the 2020 joko cruise was uh was obtained uh you agreed to do this before we had all this virus business oh yes yes yes yes the cruise is booked a long time out and um
John: And I don't think anyone expected the state of Washington to be the place where the first Americans would contract coronavirus unto death.
John: Mm hmm.
John: So now.
John: So, for instance, this really put you guys on the map.
John: I kind of feel it has.
John: You know, it's what we're known for.
John: Space needle.
John: Boeing.
John: And coronavirus.
John: Grey's Anatomy.
John: Yeah, Grey's Anatomy.
John: Frazier.
Merlin: Frazier Crane.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: You got Daphne.
Merlin: Yep, yeah.
Merlin: What else to get?
Merlin: You got the people of Starbucks, the fish-throwing men.
John: Amazon.
John: Amazon.
John: Right.
John: Costco.
John: Going down to tier two, you've got Costco.
John: You've got Weyerhaeuser.
Merlin: You took us on a real nice tour of the waterfront.
John: It's nice there.
John: Oh, we forgot Microsoft.
John: That's a big one.
John: Semi-big Microsoft.
Merlin: Grunch.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
John: You know, Quincy Jones went to school here.
John: Shut your mouth.
John: Quincy Jones grew up here.
John: Yeah, he's a graduate of Garterfield High School.
John: Jimi Hendrix.
Merlin: Now, my follow-up question, which is going to seem a little dim...
Merlin: How closely are you following the news about this virus?
Merlin: And are you aware that it is on cruise ships in particular where it's, as the youth say, popping off?
John: Well, I'm following it.
Merlin: It's basically a Petri dish with gravy.
John: So a few years ago, I was traveling internationally during one of these epidemics, and
John: And, you know, they have these guns that they – these, like, temperature guns.
John: Yeah, they fired at your forehead, right?
John: Yeah, all the years that we had to sit there for three minutes with a thermometer under our tongue.
John: If you're lucky.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Now, as a youth, we didn't do no oral.
Merlin: Oh, no.
Merlin: No, we did.
Merlin: My family did only butt stuff.
Merlin: Oh, no.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: These kids today don't know from rectal thermometers.
Merlin: Time was you put a mercury filled tube of glass into your butthole.
John: Yes.
Merlin: And that would say, are you healthy or not?
Merlin: No, I'm not healthy.
Merlin: I have glass in my butt.
Merlin: Please be extremely careful.
John: For many years, when you went to the doctor, you got a thermometer in the butt.
John: But my mom always put it.
John: My mom did not put anything in my butt.
John: That was, I guess it was just like.
Merlin: It's almost like it's almost being like being an observant household.
Merlin: You really want two sets of dishes, if you know what I mean.
Merlin: If you're going to if you're going to have both, they need to be very clearly marked.
John: It seemed like the one under the tongue did the job well enough that we didn't need to go.
John: We didn't need to pursue the nuclear option, if you will, and put anything in our butts.
Merlin: When my kid was sick two, three, four weeks ago, for whatever reason, the old thermometer we had wasn't working.
Merlin: I ran down to Walgreens and out of the thermometer jail, they unlocked for me one of these ones where you put on your forehead and it is virtually instant.
Merlin: It's incredible.
John: I mean, how you can point a thing at somebody standing in an airport and register whether or not they have a fever.
John: That's pretty great.
John: I mean, I think that's great.
John: You can scan the RFID on their passport.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: You can see if they've got Bitcoin.
John: It's Jedi technology, really.
John: Oh, I was at a thing the other day, and there was a lightsaber.
John: Two lightsabers.
John: And I was like, how much for the lightsabers?
John: And the box said 99 bucks on them.
John: But they were, you know, the boxes, they were used, right?
John: And I was like, how much for the lightsaber?
Merlin: Oh, they're pre-owned lightsabers, so you wouldn't even have to have to bring your own kyber crystals.
Merlin: You'd have to do somebody else's work.
John: These were nice, you know?
John: So I was willing to give this guy 50 bucks.
John: And he was like, they're worth 600 bucks each, but I'll sell them to you for 450.
John: I was like, oh, man, I walked into some kind of honey trap here.
Merlin: Yeah, a lot of things about that exchange that trouble me.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: If it's really worth that much, why are you charging so little?
Merlin: Hey, hmm.
Merlin: Well, were they, I mean, were they like Adam Savage quality?
John: There was a Luke one and there was a Dark Vader one.
John: Okay.
John: Okay.
John: And they were, you know, I don't know.
John: Maybe they went, I didn't turn it on.
John: The guy was like, they're still in the box.
John: And so I was like, I don't want to mess around with them.
John: I don't want to mess around with you is what I said.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: I think that relationship is scotched from the outset.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: But the, you know, I don't like getting sick.
John: And I definitely don't want to be part of a pandemic.
John: And I'm certainly pandemic conscious.
John: I mean, I'm a guy that's got 90 days worth of food in case of a devastating earthquake.
John: I think you've already said too much.
John: Yeah.
John: Talk about a honeypot.
John: Woof.
John: Do your worst.
John: Do your best, all you people that have already Googled my house on whatchamacallitland.
John: Yuck.
John: Nerds.
John: No hard pass.
John: But in terms of going on the cruise, I feel like roll the dice.
John: You know what I mean?
John: Like what's going to happen?
John: Somebody dressed as a Pokemon is going to come on the boat and they've got a sniffle and then it turns into a full-blown coronavirus.
John: Right.
John: But everybody on there is fairly healthy and, um, you know, there's like varying degrees of health, but like, I don't, it's not like a, but it's not like it's an old folks home.
Merlin: Um, you know, my mom used to say to me, my mom used to say something to me that at the time seemed like bullshit.
Merlin: Um, like so many things, but, uh, I came to realize that it's a true thing.
Merlin: Um,
Merlin: So we didn't have a lot of dough.
Merlin: I wanted to get a driver's license.
Merlin: My mom said we can't do that.
Merlin: It's going to be too costly for our insurance if we have a 16-year-old kid, which is probably true.
Merlin: And then she would say, when I did start driving, she would say, it's not you that I'm worried about.
Merlin: It's the other people.
Merlin: Now, admittedly, that sounds like bullshit, but it's actually true.
Merlin: And in this instance, I would say it's not Jimboja that I'm worried about.
Merlin: It's the other people.
John: Well, sure.
John: I mean, that's always the case.
Merlin: Do you worry about Jimboja?
John: I do worry about Jim Bojan, but for other reasons.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: He's been very good to me.
John: Jim Bojan?
Merlin: He's been a friend.
Merlin: He's really helped me out.
Merlin: He helped me.
Merlin: I hope I'm not talking out of school.
Merlin: When my daughter started to play ukulele, Jim was instrumental.
Merlin: in helping me choose the model for her.
Merlin: And he's been real helpful with that.
Merlin: I've gotten some Guitar Lely advice from him as well.
Merlin: Guitar Lely, yes.
Merlin: And that guy can play that guitar like ringing a bell.
John: Well, he's a wonderful guitar player, a wonderful musician.
John: You know, Jim Bogia and I have a comedic...
John: competition with one another.
John: Oh, good.
John: That's based on Jim teasing me about needing to tune my instrument for longer than most people.
John: I take my time tuning because I care about the audience.
John: But Jim has not perfect pitch, but let's call it very, very attuned pitch.
John: And so he's one of these guys, and you see them all the time.
John: Oh, absolutely.
John: Somebody that's playing the guitar and they reach up and do a little micro tune on one of the strings in the middle of playing.
John: That's just showing off.
John: That is showing off.
John: It's really showing off.
John: But he's one of the people that claims like, oh, I heard that the...
John: the g string was um was you know slightly out of tune it's like all right man whatever but then you know of course i said isn't it always the g or the b a lot of the time it's the b a lot of the time but i'm mr like
Merlin: Oh, because you want to have one of those Pete Townsend strobe tuners on stage.
John: Or no, I just like doing it by ear.
John: And also it's kind of a bit.
John: It's a little bit of a bit.
John: So and then my bit, my bit where I tease him back is just that I'm a pretty good teaser.
John: And so I just, I just give him the, I give him the goods, you know, like if you're going to tease me, boy, you're going to get teased.
Merlin: Are you going to say you're saying you give as good as you get?
John: I do.
John: I give, I'd say 120% when it comes to teasing someone from the stage.
Merlin: Yeah, but also it's that, you know, something we haven't talked about in a while, and you and I have not hung out a lot lately, but the thing that really struck me about you from the beginning is your ability to instantly clock somebody's vulnerability.
Merlin: And then not...
Merlin: You don't, what's the beauty part is that you, I don't know, you're like one of those slow animals that waits for a fast animal to come to the watering hole and then you slash it behind the knee.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: You don't immediately deploy it.
Merlin: You don't go like, well, your shirt collar's too small or whatever.
Merlin: Like you, you know, you wait and then you deploy it and that vulnerability becomes something that they're self-conscious about.
John: Well, you know, I don't deploy it unless it's absolutely necessary, right?
John: For instance, I would never deploy it unless you were teasing me about how long it takes to tune.
Merlin: So you got that in your pocket for everybody.
Merlin: You've got a dossier.
Merlin: You're ready.
Merlin: From the stage, you throw some shade at John Roderick about his tuning.
Merlin: Woof!
John: But I'm not worried about Jim spreading coronavirus to me.
John: I'm not really worried about... What about HPV?
Merlin: A lot of people have HPV and don't know it is what I heard.
John: They don't know it.
John: Yeah, but you can get a vaccine for it.
John: It's just controversial whether or not to give it to...
John: your younger house residents.
Merlin: I love getting our kid vaccines.
Merlin: I'm so into it.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: Just fill her up.
Merlin: Just all the way to the top.
Merlin: Just top it off.
Merlin: Keep with the vaccines.
Merlin: Top it off with vaccines.
John: I feel like...
John: Where do I go with this?
John: I think about pandemics a lot.
Merlin: You're going to be on this boat.
Merlin: And here's the thing.
Merlin: You remember, there's so much we've learned from Donald Rumsfeld over the years.
John: Sure.
Merlin: And so many things.
Merlin: He is a very quotable man.
Merlin: But one of the things, what was the thing?
Merlin: Somebody, it was probably him, might have been Tom Ridge.
Merlin: But somebody said, you know, when it comes to Homeland Security, we have to be right every time and they only need to be right once.
Merlin: You see, that's which I'm not sure is the best long term plan, but I get what they're saying.
Merlin: Yep.
Merlin: Quippy.
Merlin: You don't worry about being stuck in this on this big boat with one person who's here.
John: Here's what I have learned.
John: And I learned this from my sister, who is very fond of telling you what to do.
Merlin: She just got a tweet from Mark Hamill.
John: She did.
John: We were at breakfast, and I said, well, I was... Did you say Han?
Merlin: Did you say Han Solo?
John: Well, my little girl's very into Star Wars.
John: And again, you know, Merlin, I have a lot of bits.
John: They're very small bits.
John: I don't have big, long bits.
John: I have small bits.
John: No, you have tiny bits that you deploy.
John: You like to interrogate it.
John: Little teeny bits.
John: And so we're sitting at the... And she's very into Star Wars right now.
John: Yeah, the best of bits.
John: I do.
John: I have a little whole Bastic of them and her birthday is coming up.
John: And so she's very excited about telling everybody it's going to be a star, a star Wars themed birthday.
John: And I said, well, I'm going to be Han Solo.
John: And that drives her crazy.
John: My daughter is driven crazy by it.
Merlin: You're such a dad.
Merlin: I love you.
John: And I keep saying, well, you know, early on, Luke called him Han, but then started to call him Han somewhere in the middle.
John: But, you know, I feel like it's one of those like Han Han.
Merlin: Show her the Billy Dee Williams scenes.
Merlin: He doesn't give a fuck.
John: He calls it Han and Hanbo.
John: He calls it Han the whole time.
John: And it's like Kirsten, Kirsten, Kirsten.
John: Yeah, get a proper name.
John: They're different names.
John: I get it.
John: But like, come on, you're going to yell at somebody because they didn't say Kirsten?
John: It's a movie in space.
John: So anyway, my little girl's pounding her fist on the table because I've been building this up in her for months, Han Solo.
John: I also say Sasquatch, which drives a lot of people up here crazy.
Merlin: That's how I learned it.
Merlin: I know that's not what we say now.
Merlin: Yeah, they feel like it's Sasquatch.
Merlin: I also used to call the name brand of the running shoe Nike.
John: Oh, you called it Nike?
John: I didn't know.
Merlin: We didn't have the internet then.
Merlin: Did you ever say Spokane?
Merlin: Yeah, probably.
Merlin: Oh, that's too bad.
Merlin: You know, in my head, when I hear the word Seattle, you know what I still think is the Brady Bunch.
Merlin: Were they in Seattle?
Merlin: They were going to go to Seattle, and Cindy says something like, who's Attle?
Merlin: Because we're going to go to Seattle.
John: That's great.
John: That's great.
John: I feel like Han Solo is, that's maybe even the hill I'm going to die on, because my sister was like, you know what?
John: Mark Hamill will reply to almost any tweet.
John: Whoa.
John: And I was like, what are you talking about?
John: And she said, if you ask Mark Hamill how he pronounces Han or Han Solo, he's going to reply.
John: I guarantee it.
John: Really?
John: I was like, that seems crazy.
John: And she said, watch and learn.
John: And so she tweeted him from the table.
John: How do you pronounce Han Solo?
John: the name of your co-star, and he replied, and he says it's Han Solo.
John: That's so cool.
John: Well, it's very cool, but it kind of put me at a disadvantage.
John: Oh, you put you on blast, yeah.
John: Oh, also, I've been teaching her some comebacks lately.
John: Oh, wait, your daughter?
John: Yeah, she doesn't know any comebacks, and I was like, here's a comeback, and
John: If somebody says something to you that you don't like, say, get a job.
John: And she was like, why would I tell him to get a job?
John: I was like, just don't ask questions.
John: Just go.
John: Just repeat after me.
Merlin: She's the apprentice here.
Merlin: She needs to be learning from you.
Merlin: It's not her job to question.
Merlin: Her job is to learn it and then rehearse and get better.
John: And the first time I ever heard her say to someone else who was antagonizing her, you know, someone...
John: Someone close by.
John: Someone close to us.
John: Just giving her a little bit of a business.
John: First time I heard her go, get a job.
John: I mean, it brought the house down.
John: Of course it did.
John: That's brilliant.
John: Yeah.
John: So I've been teaching her a lot of these G-rated comebacks.
John: And, you know, things like talk to the hand and whatnot.
John: Pretty easy stuff.
John: Is this your first day?
John: Pretty basic stuff.
John: Is this your first day?
John: Like, get a job.
John: I taught her sit on it, Potsy.
Ah!
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John: Which is a nice one to hear every once in a while.
John: Up your nose with a rubber hose.
John: That's right.
John: Oh, I haven't taught her that.
John: That's next.
John: I taught her eat snakes, which is a good one.
John: That's a less common one.
John: But if you tell someone to eat snakes, that lays them low.
John: But anyway, so I've been getting told to get a job lately.
John: And she got in my face and dropped a couple of pretty good burns.
Merlin: on me while i was uh sitting there trying to trying to recover from this han han business yeah but yo up your nose with a rubber hose is really good yeah what was the other one um up your nose with a rubber hose and your face with a can of mace something like that okay okay so so uh you're not that worried about it i'm worried so jonathan
John: titular Jonathan Colton.
John: The Joe and the Co.
John: The Joe and the Co.
John: Texted me this morning and he was like, what's going on out there?
John: What's the story?
John: Give us the coronavirus breakdown.
John: I was like, well, you know, last night, Ariella, who is a vice president at her company, she employs or she is the boss, the immediate boss of
John: or the boss through however many layers of corporate malfeasance.
John: Is that how she describes it?
John: No, that's just how I think of it.
John: But it's the boss of some handful, group of people, large or small.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: Okay, I'm the same way with my poor sweet wife.
Merlin: People ask me what she does, and I'm like, I...
Merlin: i i mean i know i know i i don't really know what she does no no i mean i know i know i know how she works i know where she works but i still don't completely understand all the details of her job in the same way that she would have no interest in knowing mine but it is very embarrassing sometimes i don't really know what her company does if you asked me i could i could tell you
John: But I don't fully understand it.
John: I mean, it's like something on the... Anyway, she started to get messages from her employees asking whether or not they should come into work today.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: So that company has not put out like an official like, here's where we are right now with this kind of statement?
John: Oh, you know, maybe not, but...
John: But also, I mean, there are only two possibilities, only two possible answers to that question.
John: Or rather, there are only two possible frames of mind where a person could create that question.
John: The one frame of mind is that they understand the situation so little that they think if they stay home from work for a week, the danger will have passed.
John: Right.
John: Right.
John: And the other frame of mind is that they are prepared to not come to work today and for 90 more days.
John: It seems like you're going to want some clarification on that.
John: Yeah.
John: They think they're like, well, maybe we shouldn't come to work today and then until July.
John: Uh-huh.
Merlin: And it feels like... Is it the kind of job where you kind of need to be there?
John: Oh, sure.
John: I mean, to the degree that any job you need to be there, any job that happens on the internet...
John: That you need to be there.
John: I mean, no, they don't need.
Merlin: There's not that many jobs where you need to be there.
John: they could close the whole thing down and everybody could work from their phone on the subway, but they have a job and they're supposed to be there.
John: I mean, who would attend the meetings, Merlin?
John: Who would attend the six meetings?
Merlin: This is our concern, dude.
Merlin: My feeling is that as my, how do I put this?
Merlin: I think for a long time, a lot of employees have known that telecommuting or some flavor of telecommuting is,
Merlin: is capital P productive.
Merlin: Sure, it can be abused, but you know you get so much stuff done when you're away from all that of the job.
Merlin: Not for everything that you do, but one day a week, two days a week, three days a week.
Merlin: It's so productive.
Merlin: My gut is that it is management that does not like that a lot of the time because that makes the management of things...
John: You do not need as many layers of management for sure, right?
Merlin: Well, if a lot of the value that you bring is to coordinate, you know, physical activities or to make sure it looks like people further down the ladder have their butt in the chair at exactly 8 a.m., you can't – I don't know.
Merlin: That's just my gut.
Merlin: But somebody there needs to talk to those folks because that's a whole bunch of confusion.
Yeah.
John: Well, I mean, what the talking to they got to or the talking to they got was, yes, you're coming into work tomorrow.
John: What are you talking about?
John: Yeah, I think that I mean, I'm somebody who would abuse a work from home policy.
Merlin: Oh, no question.
Merlin: I would abuse it.
John: Yeah, but I did.
John: But I do believe that, for instance, Ariella does not abuse it.
John: She works hard from home.
John: You don't get in that corner office by slacking.
John: That's right.
John: And we could – I mean if she decided that she wanted to move to Luxembourg, she could do her job from Luxembourg.
John: And if she moved to Luxembourg, I would be hard-pressed to come up with a reason –
John: Not to follow them to Luxembourg.
John: I've heard it's very beautiful.
John: It's wonderful there.
John: It's like a train set.
John: Oh, I want to live in a train set.
John: Yeah, there's like a little mist comes in off the river and there's a little train that, choo-choo, ding-ding, through the tunnels.
John: It's cute.
John: And they speak German, French-ish.
John: They speak French-ish.
John: I think that's pretty common.
John: They speak Frank-ish.
Mm-hmm.
John: But I don't what's happening right now is that coronavirus is sweeping the nation.
John: It's the new hit fad.
John: And what it is is a flu.
John: And what you should do is wash your hands and stop licking doorknobs.
John: And that's it.
John: That's all you need to do.
John: You don't need to.
John: I mean, if you're on a if you're on a crowded train and someone standing next to you coughing at you, that's not acceptable even in normal circumstances.
John: Yeah, and keep your shoes on on the plane.
John: Keep your shoes on.
John: Keep moving.
John: Get out of the way.
Merlin: Well, rather than try to close the border with Mexico, like if we're going to come up with some phony baloney thing to say why people should be better, I think what we need to do is have a very – don't wear pajamas on the plane.
Merlin: Do not take off your shoes.
Merlin: If you put your bare feet on the bulkhead –
Merlin: We're going to we're going to fire you out of the airlock is what we're going to do.
John: You know, there is a lot of people don't know this, but on many airplanes, I think maybe even most airplanes, there's an elevator.
John: There's an elevator that goes downstairs.
John: Now, that's not true of everything, but there are a lot of airplanes that have an elevator on them.
John: like on a big seven something uh seven like a seven something seven big boat there's a um there's an elevator it takes you downstairs and once you're downstairs there's uh there's more stuff down there there's like a um i didn't know there was more stuff oh yeah there's like a little there's places down there i think you can go down there and pet the doggos that are in their little doggo houses oh that would be so nice
John: And so what ends up happening with that is that I imagine at least that there's also a place down there that you could put someone in a shipping container and gradually change the dimensions of the walls while you drip acid into their water.
Merlin: The ultimate black site is no site.
Merlin: It's a moving black site that cannot be traced.
Merlin: The ultimate black sight is no sight.
John: That's so true.
John: Get ready, Dick Cheney.
John: Get that small backpack.
John: So I do feel like if you're in your pajamas and your bare feet are up on the bulkhead, someone should come along and say, can you come back here with me?
John: I've got a special present for you.
Merlin: Oh, that's a good idea.
John: And then take you down the elevator, put you in a shipping container.
John: Say you've been upgraded.
John: You've been, oh, you've been upgraded.
John: Oh, you're going to love this.
John: Oh, you're going to love how I make you look.
Merlin: Did my nightstand move?
John: I don't know.
John: So anyway, I'm very worried about pandemics.
John: I do not want to die in a massive, like, flu that sweeps the world and kills 400 million people.
John: I don't want to be one of those people.
John: I am ready to go deep.
John: I'm ready to go to the mattresses.
John: But I don't think we're quite...
John: there yet.
John: And I, I know there's a moment, right?
John: There's a moment where you waited too long and you're like, I'm not going to be one of the people that gets it.
John: And then you waited too long and now you've got it.
John: Like, that's not where I want to be either.
John: I want to be ahead of that curve, but it's not going to keep me from, you know, it's keeping me from Japan.
John: Although against my will, I'd probably go.
Merlin: So, okay, so this notional trip to Japan, in as much as you can say for InfoSec and OpSec reasons, this is a pleasure trip for you?
Merlin: So I never went to Japan before.
Merlin: It seems very overwhelming.
Merlin: In a potentially very good way, but like Tokyo seems wild.
John: Well, one of the reasons I never went was that it seemed really overwhelming.
John: So overwhelming.
John: I mean, did you ever see that movie Lost in Translation?
John: I did.
John: Yeah, that was a really interesting movie.
John: You know, you don't know what he said to her at the end.
John: You don't know what he said.
John: He could have said a lot of things.
John: He could have said, like, you know, there's a...
John: I don't know what.
John: Pull my finger.
John: Avoid coronavirus.
John: We don't know.
John: We'll never know.
John: That's what's crazy.
Merlin: Cinderella's story.
Merlin: Tears in his eyes, I guess.
John: But I was super worried about going to Japan, not because that I would get a disease, but because I would be in an environment that I would be overstimulated, that I would be overstimulated, that I would fully not understand, and where I would be a figure of curiosity in a way that I do not like to be.
John: I do not like to be...
John: Oh, like you'd be the Sasquatch.
John: Yeah.
John: Here's what I don't like.
John: I don't like people pretending to like me.
John: Oh, brother.
John: I'm writing that one down.
John: I don't like it.
John: I don't like it.
Merlin: I don't like it, and I also don't like that I'm supposed to like it, and I don't like that I'm not allowed to protest.
Merlin: I'm not allowed to say, I object to this entire process.
Merlin: You're not allowed to say that.
Merlin: Because now you're the bad guy.
John: And this kind of goes, it's complicated, right?
John: Because I don't like people not to like me.
Merlin: But pretending, I mean, it's like the lightning in the lightning bug.
Merlin: I mean, to say that one does not want to be patronized with that kind of fake relationship stuff that assumes a level of familiarity not in existence, to say that that makes you Chili the Elf Who Cannot Love, because you prefer authentic relationships.
Merlin: I just want to be a dentist.
Merlin: You want to make, I mean, you want to get to the level of where you're making what a fairly successful dentist would make.
John: That's right.
John: I went to a thing the other day.
John: A person, I went into a place.
John: Okay, here's the thing.
John: What had happened was.
John: So I went into a place and there was a thing there.
John: There was a table there.
John: And a table and chairs.
John: Okay.
John: And I was like, I like this.
John: I've never seen this table and chairs before.
John: I like this.
John: And a guy in a hat that said like Vietnam veteran on it that was wearing a jacket that said San Francisco 49ers sort of stepped out of the shadows.
John: And he said, I bought that table and chairs in 1967 in San Luis Obispo.
John: And it was my table and chairs all these years.
John: And now I'm selling it.
John: And it's a collector's item.
John: Another one of these.
John: Yeah.
John: And I was like, yeah, okay.
John: All right.
John: That's fine.
John: It's a collector's item.
John: But, you know, it's a little bit thrashed.
John: And also, here's one thing I'll tell you about a lightsaber.
John: It's worth what someone's going to pay for it.
John: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: Sing it, sister.
John: So I was like, well, it's interesting, this thing.
John: I'll talk to you about it later.
John: I'll come back if I care about it.
Merlin: Is this lightsaber guy also a table and chair guy?
John: No, different guy.
John: There's a lot of these guys out there.
John: Oh, for sure.
John: So I go out and I go back into the world and I research this table and chairs because that's what you do when you find something interesting.
John: You want to know more.
John: Sure.
John: And I found that these were kind of an interesting but not that rare thing that you can find.
John: The problem is if you're looking for them on the Internet, you do find them and you find them in Olathe, Kansas.
John: You find them in Augusta, Georgia.
John: You find them in places where you are not.
John: Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Yeah.
John: And so that's right.
John: And so I didn't want to pay for somebody to ship this thing to me.
John: But I at one point made the mistake of giving my phone number to the woman that works the desk at the place where the guy in the 49ers jacket was.
John: OK.
John: And so they started talking, I guess.
John: And she started texting me.
John: Hey, it's it's Linda.
John: Over at the place.
John: What?
John: Just wondering if you're still interested in that table.
John: She's following up.
John: Well, yeah.
John: And normally I would write back and say, Linda, never text me again.
John: But I liked Linda.
John: She and I talked about a television for a while.
John: Um, and I see what she's doing.
John: She's just trying to keep the, she's trying to grease the wheels.
John: She's trying to keep it all moving.
John: So I was like, Linda, aren't you charming?
John: Texting me about that table and chairs.
John: I've done some research and I feel like that table and chairs is too knackered for what he's asking.
John: And she said, he's chopped the price in half just for you.
John: I was like, uh-huh.
John: All right.
John: Here we go.
John: So she was like, why don't you come by?
John: And I was like, well, Linda, I'm telling you, I'm going to be difficult on this.
John: And she was like, oh, you know, it's fine.
John: Just come on by.
John: So I went down there and I looked at it again.
John: And now a 49ers jacket Vietnam vet guy is standing there.
John: Linda's standing there.
John: Linda had a black eye for some reason.
John: And she was like, oh, sorry about my black eye.
John: I was like, sorry, it's okay.
Merlin: I'm standing there.
Merlin: A black eye is the physical version of being named Merlin.
Merlin: There's no one who will encounter that that won't at least want to talk a little bit about it.
John: A little bit.
John: And so she preempted that by saying...
John: Oh, what she said was, the bungee cord won.
Merlin: Oh, that's good.
Merlin: I would have said I fell down some vintage stairs.
John: Yeah, right.
John: I hit the edge of a door.
John: He's usually really nice to me.
John: She lost a battle with a bungee cord.
John: God, that must have hurt.
John: Ouch.
John: I thought that too.
John: I thought that too.
John: Well, it's not a, that's not a trebuchet you want to meet in the forest.
John: So I look at the table and chairs.
John: It's totally knackered.
John: I know he's come down.
John: I could, I could chop him down even further, but I'm looking at it and I'm like, it's right on the edge of two knackered.
John: It's right on the edge of, if I buy this, it's going to be, I'm going to always look at it and go, eh,
John: There's a better one out there that I wish I had.
Merlin: And just to be clear here also, you like this, but you're not in love with it.
Merlin: And is there urgency for you from a practical standpoint?
Merlin: Is there a room that needs this furniture for you to be happier now?
John: That's exactly the thing.
John: I do not need it right now.
John: There you go.
John: That's everything you need to know.
John: But here's the problem.
John: I'm realizing in this moment that I don't want to disappoint myself.
John: these people now i don't know them i don't you know i don't have any i'm never going to see them again after this but the the little vietnam guy that bought this in 1967 in san luis obispo and the woman that and linda who lost a battle he's not he's not super big i mean he was probably taller when he was in vietnam go down together he's a little bit smaller now
John: Linda, who lost a battle with a bungee cord.
John: I want these people to have a good day.
Merlin: We all want to be liked.
Merlin: When I called the company that makes our broken cat litter robot, I wanted Jasmine to like me.
John: Yeah, I wanted Jasmine to like me too.
Merlin: I wanted the replacement unit because it's driving me crazy, but also I want Jasmine to like me.
Merlin: I don't know Jasmine, but I want Jasmine to go, wow, I wish everybody was that cool.
John: Yeah.
John: Thank you very much.
John: I just want to take, you know, I want to go off script right now and thank you, Mr. Mann, for being so great.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Mr. Mann, I'm not supposed to do this, but if you don't mind, you're the best customer service experience I've ever had.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: And then I said, well, thank you, Jasmine.
Merlin: I really appreciate your help with this.
John: Can I send you a card?
John: You know, that's what I'm hoping.
John: Like a personal note.
John: A personal note.
John: Love, Jasmine.
John: And so what I want in this situation is to get out of this store.
John: I don't want to talk to these people anymore.
John: I do not want this table.
John: But I don't want to say, I don't want the table.
John: Thanks for all your work, all your hard work and getting me in here.
John: But I'm going to pass.
John: Thank you.
John: I'll see you again.
John: Maybe, probably not.
John: Good luck.
John: God bless.
John: It's very hard.
John: Bless your hearts.
John: It's very hard for me to do that.
John: And I realized that I was on the cusp of buying the thing.
John: Knowing that I didn't want it or need it in order not to disappoint the two people.
John: And that desire to have everybody be fine, to go through life and make everyone fine is a real handicap that I've...
John: really hurt me over the years, I think.
John: Because I'm doing things like buying a table I don't want just to not make a guy in a 49ers jacket feel bad.
Merlin: The funny thing about this, I've realized, because I have thought about this because I suffer from this and I've thought about it a lot.
Merlin: And this is not directed at you, it's directed at me.
Merlin: But the problem with that, one of the problems with that approach is that one, when I say you, I mean me or whoever, you're making this about you.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: Also, you think on the face of it, it seems like you're saying, oh, I'm going to do this.
Merlin: I'm going to be nice to this person.
Merlin: You're doing it for selfish reasons in some ways.
Merlin: You're not saying what is the basic kindness that needs to be conducted at this point that I could participate in.
Merlin: You're saying, like, regardless of how this goes down, I want this person to like me.
Merlin: Now, that person, the black-eyed bungee lady, like, she's still – she's got a grift on.
Merlin: She's doing sales, and you're doing –
Merlin: personal relationship in some ways so it's you can't turbo out of that situation without revealing a lie and seeming like a jerk you you can't you know break that delicate skin right and and you know like it's it's weird because i because like wanting someone to like you is one thing but like i don't
John: really care if they like me i want them to be i want them to be happy you know i want them to i want everyone to be happy and and so the degree to which because i'm never going to see them again right so right so and they don't even know me by name so liking me in the moment is sort of like ah it's really that i want
Merlin: I don't know what, bring joy to the world, or like, never have... Well, I mean, you know, is it fair to say, I mean, you know, something you're taught, you used to be taught as a little kid, is leave the place better than you found it.
John: Better than you found it, right.
Merlin: So that means, you know, regardless of whatever mess is there, there should be less mess after you've been there.
Merlin: And I mean, the hopefully less selfish thing that I really do believe in is...
Merlin: I just believe in really like little small town shit.
Merlin: Like if I'm riding my Segway past an old person, I will always try to make eye contact and I'll say good morning or I'll say have a good weekend or something like that.
Merlin: Not because I want them to like me.
Merlin: They're not going to like me.
Merlin: I'm a 53-year-old man on a Segway, la, la, la.
Merlin: But I do want to leave just the tiniest little bit of kindness that would make them feel better about how this day has gone.
John: That's right.
John: And the problem, you know, and I don't, there's no downside to that, except that every once in a while you're going to encounter somebody who's rude in return.
Merlin: But if you're a mature person, that should bounce off you.
Merlin: Because like, it's like I say to my kid, as like, you know, kindness and brushing teeth, you know, we don't do this for other people, we do this for ourselves.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: I mean, when I say that, what I mean is we do this because this is who we are, not because there's some codex that we need to be following about human behavior.
Merlin: This is just who we want to be.
John: It's who we want to be because we believe it's going to make the world better for everybody, right?
John: That you leave it better than you found it so that the next person also... If somebody was insulting to me, that doesn't mean I wouldn't brush my teeth.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: Yeah, sort of.
Merlin: Well, what I'm saying is that when one has decided to conduct oneself with kindness and civility in exchanges with human beings in real life...
Merlin: Having that not be reciprocated doesn't mean you stop doing that.
Merlin: Although it is said, boy, I hate when people quote science as a thing, but it has been said that there is a kind of reverse pay it forward that happens, where if somebody's unkind to you, you are then more likely to be unkind to somebody else.
John: Oh, I think that's 100% true.
John: If you show up at a campground and there's poop on the floor, that you're going to also poop on the floor, right?
John: You're not going to end up cleaning up.
Merlin: I'm not going to be a sucker.
John: I'm not going to be a sucker and go over my old porcelain master.
John: So the point at which I was going to give these people $1,200 just to have this transaction not be one where I felt like they were going to feel bad, I actually had to...
John: Say to myself, like, you're just going to have to man up here and disappoint these people and make them there.
John: And they both did the thing where they were like, oh, really?
John: Oh, you know, and they were.
John: Oh, I thought that you were the one.
John: And it's just like, I got to go.
John: See you later.
Merlin: Didn't I tell you I slashed my phony baloney made-up price?
John: I thought you were cool.
John: My worry about Japan is that my expectation for a long time has been that I would walk around Japan...
John: Making grave errors at every turn, offending people, being in the way, not, you know, standing there looking at menus, uncomprehending.
John: I mean, you are a Sasquatch.
Merlin: I mean, you're going to you don't want to be the tall guy who's getting the tone wrong and not reading the room.
John: The beds would be the wrong size.
John: But in every instance, no matter what I did or said, the people around me would be unfailingly polite.
John: And I've heard from people that have spent a lot of time in Japan to not worry about this, that people in Japan are plenty rude and are just trying to get where they're going.
John: And they're not going to, you know, it's not everyone is obsequious.
John: There's going to be a lot of like punching you in the nuts if you're standing in the way.
John: And I'm like, well, that is great.
John: Like I can handle like, please.
John: Right.
John: But it comes down to I want to be liked.
John: I want to create good in the world.
John: But I would much rather be treated rudely than fake nice.
John: And I'm against the world in some ways here because there are so many people that would prefer to be treated fake nice than to be treated in a way that's more in line with how the other people actually feel.
Merlin: You become brand management because now you're going to Starbucks and now you're mad that they said your name wrong when they called your name or whatever.
Merlin: And it's just like that whole like zoo component of dealing with other people where like everybody's evaluated according to how much they were deferential to you.
Merlin: you know right right but but but also as in england i bet there are different flavors of civility where i'll bet you there is a certain kind of like extreme i've watched a lot of videos about stuff in japan i feel pretty knowledgeable and there is there is a huge amount of civility and ritual karate from the show sure i learned oh wow how many are you gonna do wow this episode of rodarch on the line is brought to you in part by john what was this brought to you by
John: Well, it's brought to you by the Western State Hurricanes Bandcamp release of the Western State Hurricanes long-awaited debut record, Through With Love.
John: We talked about it on the show quite a bit.
John: The record is out.
John: It's available on vinyl from Latent Print Records, along with some merch items that are still there, hats and shirts and so forth.
John: But people often ask me what the best way to get music is that helps the musician the most, whether to get it on iTunes or direct from the records label or whatever.
John: And in this case, the best way to buy the record, if you intend to buy it, is on Bandcamp under the Western State Hurricanes.
John: And so where are they going to go for that?
John: Yeah.
John: to WesternStateHurricane.com.
John: I'm not sure.
John: We should probably check.
John: Bandcamp.com slash WesternStateHurricanes.
John: One of those.
John: I'm assuming everyone listening to this program is computer literate enough to Google Bandcamp Western State Hurricanes.
Merlin: Wow.
Merlin: Am I wrong?
Merlin: Wow.
Merlin: Okay, hang on.
Merlin: I'll find this for you.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: No, that's not it.
Merlin: Anyway, I'm super proud of the record.
John: Hang on, hang on.
John: We've got to redo this.
John: Super proud.
John: I enjoy it.
John: It's a really good record.
Merlin: That was a terrible ad.
Merlin: Stop.
John: You can get it at bandchamp.com.
John: I don't think that's it.
John: It's westernstatehurricanes.bandcamp.com.
John: westernstatehurricanes.bandcamp.com.
John: And if you use the code supertrain, hashtag supertrain, it does nothing.
Merlin: Did you figure out what it was?
John: That won't help you at all.
John: But you can listen to it on there, too.
John: You don't have to buy it on there.
John: But then if you want to buy it, it's there.
John: Anyway, thank you, everyone on this show, for your support in making that record.
John: Your comments in response to the episodes that we did about it were extremely encouraging.
John: And thank you.
John: Thanks, everyone.
John: And thank you, Merlin.
John: We'll do a bell there.
Merlin: have the money or i would have gotten roses yeah i only had three albums in an ep but it's all in there salted butter is my punishment i still think that every time i i though the of course there's the water fountain but then also every time i i see unsalted butter i think that's my punishment oh there it is my punishment uh but also you can be you were i'm sorry i keep interrupting you you're trying to get to japan
John: Well, and the thing is, as you know, I have not watched that many movies about Japan, and basing your feelings about Japan on having watched some movies is probably not the way to go.
Merlin: Well, I know that when somebody hands you their business card with two hands and bows, and you're supposed to accept their business card with two hands and bow, and you're supposed to check their card out and admire it.
Merlin: If somebody in Japan hands you a card with two hands, and you get, oh, say thanks, bud, and you stuff it into your back pocket,
Merlin: No good.
Merlin: Bad mojo.
John: That's a bummer.
John: Although I do expect also that people in Japan are going to recognize that I am a big, dumb moose, and they're not going to get offended by it.
John: They're going to be like, here's the moose, and probably no one's going to give me their card anyway.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: I'm not going to waste a card on the Sasquatch.
John: But yeah, a card that I couldn't read, and I'm probably not going to employ your services.
John: Was that a chupacabra?
John: But I have decided recently that I can no longer go through life afraid of going to Asia.
John: It's time.
John: It's time for me to overcome my phobia of being treated too nicely and of being – or not too nicely.
John: What I mean is of being an exaggerated person.
John: thing that everyone's going to look at, right?
John: It's more than being treated too nicely.
John: It's just that I'm going to be conspicuous and I don't prefer to be conspicuous.
John: Well, you also really read as foreign.
John: That's why.
John: That's why.
John: I mean, I will be conspicuous.
John: Now, I've also talked to a lot of people who have said in 1986, there were not very many gaijin in
John: And now there are a lot more.
John: And so you won't be as conspicuous as you may have once felt you would be.
John: And it's like, OK, that's also fine.
Merlin: I see what you're saying.
Merlin: So you worked up your courage to do this.
Merlin: It was on.
Merlin: You're looking forward to it.
Merlin: And now it kind of sucks that you're not going to get to go.
John: Well, no, it also feels I mean, I'm kind of one of those people that as far as disasters go, like whenever there's an earthquake, my first thought is I wish it had been a bigger earthquake.
John: Whenever there's a tornado or a hurricane or a tidal wave or a landslide.
John: You're a climactic accelerationist.
John: I am.
John: Bring it on.
Merlin: You can't take me down.
Merlin: I'm lashed to the mast.
John: It's just the best the world can do.
John: Really?
John: What's the biggest volcano ever?
John: You call this a disaster?
John: Like, why have there not been any Krakatoas lately?
Merlin: Yeah, where's my Krakatoa?
John: Give us, where's our Krakatoa?
John: I know.
John: Give us a real disaster and not this, you know, these disasters where it's like 200 people died.
John: It's like, wow, really?
John: There's 6 billion people in the world.
Merlin: There's so many planes in the sky, you'd think there'd be more exploiting planes.
John: So I do feel a little bit like every disaster is a better disaster waiting to happen.
Hmm.
John: And I feel that way, you know, I'm sorry about the coronavirus, but it seems a little bit like, ah, two people in Kirkland died.
John: I feel that way about the stock market.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: When's the stock market going to plummet?
Merlin: I want the stock market to go to like seven.
John: Do you remember when in 2007 or 2008 when the economy was collapsing and they were like, the dollar is going to be worth nothing and the economy is going to collapse?
John: I was like, bring it.
Merlin: That must be so wild.
Merlin: What would that be like for a little while?
John: Right?
John: Like, let's go.
John: We got to patch it back.
John: Let's shake it up, man.
John: Because I have 90 days worth of food here.
John: My premise is that one day in my life,
John: Because here's my mom's thing.
John: My mom's thing is, let's assume all the bridges are down.
John: Oh, man.
John: And I'm like, all the bridges are down.
John: Okay.
John: All right.
John: Because we like running scenarios.
John: Sure.
John: So I'm like, all right, all the bridges are down.
John: So what are the knock-on effects of that going to be?
John: But here's the other thing that people don't know is that when I was running for city council and talking a lot about transit,
John: I talked to quite a few city engineers and people that are engineer proximate, right?
John: One kiss away from a city engineer.
John: Civil engineering.
John: Yeah.
John: People around who are working on these things.
John: And they're like, what people don't understand is how many bridges there are.
John: Because they said a lot of the bridges you don't notice or see because it just looks like the road.
John: But in fact, we had to build a bridge over a hole.
John: There was a hole.
John: You know, when we arrived here in this clean country,
John: In this virgin country before you guys in your shiny suits came out here.
John: And I would appreciate it if you paid for that.
Merlin: Does an overpass count as a bridge, John?
Merlin: Sure, it does.
Merlin: That's a bridge.
Merlin: That's still a bridge.
Merlin: Even if it's just exit 21 and you go to the Citgo here, that still counts as a bridge.
John: Oh, but what these guys are, what I learned here in the city was if you're at the store, let's say you're at your office and you're going up to the Walgreens.
John: Yeah.
John: Now, when that was all sand dunes or whatever it was.
John: Yep, sand dunes.
John: They were not like flat, even sand dunes.
John: They went up and down.
John: And when the road was built, they had to fill in the parts that were down with the things that were up.
John: Secret bridge.
John: Sometimes they had to build a bridge.
Merlin: Is that right?
Merlin: It's a secret bridge?
Merlin: It's a secret bridge.
Merlin: And there's like little creeks.
Merlin: There's all kinds of stuff.
Merlin: Oh my God, you're blowing my mind.
Merlin: It's like Burmese tiger traps everywhere.
John: Yeah, they built little sidewalks on either side of it, and then they built buildings, and you're like, da-da-da-da-da, the world is flat.
Merlin: I've always known it this way.
John: There's no bridge, no bridge here.
John: But there are bridges under the roads.
John: Whoa.
John: And especially in Seattle, where there were, I mean, if you're trying to level off a neighborhood and make it flat, you can take the tops off of things and put them in the bottoms, but sometimes the bottoms are deeper than the tops.
John: And so the city engineers are like, if you're going to put, let's say, for instance...
John: A tramway, a trolley, and you're going to put the trolley up this road that to you looks like a flat road.
John: In fact, in order to build a trolley track, we're going to have to reinforce six bridges between here and there.
John: And it's like, there are no bridges on that street, sir.
John: It's sidewalks and buildings the whole way.
Merlin: But it's a perception error on our part because we think that is road.
Merlin: We are not engineers.
Merlin: You see road road is flat.
Merlin: Road has always been there.
Merlin: Just maintain road.
Merlin: But what you're saying here is you take the weight of something like a trolley or streetcars in my neighborhood.
Merlin: You're going to need to make sure there's reinforcements and all.
Merlin: Oh, man.
Merlin: It's infrastructure, baby.
Merlin: It is complicated.
John: It's crazy, crazy, crazy stuff.
John: And this is why we have engineers.
John: And God bless them.
John: Thank you for your service.
John: Thank you for your service.
John: But not all of those bridges are going to collapse in an earthquake because some of them are just sort of like big culverts or whatever, but some of them will.
John: And so my mom, my mom, who already had every bridge, actual bridge mapped out, then I introduced the idea of hidden bridges.
John: You problematized it.
John: And she was like, all right, let's assume, you know, let's assume that 30 percent of the bridges, the hidden bridges also.
John: fall crack or break or somehow you know these are the cracks in the side right this is a scenario she's like how are we going to get from hither to thither we're not unless we're prepared to uh to walk and i'm like that's why i have a 1979 suburban because it doesn't have because it's it has no computers so it won't be destroyed by an electromagnetic pulse
John: oh you're like battlestar galactica yeah adama adama won't allow those communications on his ship because of what happened with the cylons a long time ago whoopsie doopsie turns out that was a pretty good move that's it that's it so when everyone else's wiring harness has melted into uh to like a rat king my mechanical my 100 purely mechanical machine
John: will continue to be able to be started and run.
John: And it has the low four-wheel drive and stuff, so it can make it down and back up through many broken bridges.
John: But she's like, but there are too many waterways in this city.
John: You're not going to be able to make it across everything.
John: You can't cross the Duwamish in it.
Merlin: Because you're trading off, and to have that ruggedness of this large, heavy vehicle, though, you're trading off the, you might break a bridge in a way that a VW Bug wouldn't.
Merlin: Sure, you're going to break a bridge.
Merlin: Sometimes you break a bridge.
John: You got to break a bridge to make some— You can't make a city without breaking a bridge.
John: That's right.
John: So these are things that I'm conscious of, and all that disaster preparation, it's just like if you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
John: Yeah.
John: If you have 90 days' worth of Hershey bars, every problem looks like a disaster that could have been bigger.
Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, and I mean, let's be honest.
Merlin: If you've gone out of your way to say, like, there's a risk in my life, I'm going to buy insurance for this, you don't want to need that insurance a lot and all the time.
Merlin: But on the other hand, if you never got to use the insurance at all, you'd feel a little bit ripped off.
John: A little, right?
John: So I went to the Apple store yesterday because coronavirus is sweeping the nation, so I felt like I'm going to go to a mall.
John: I'm going to go to a mall and walk around.
John: Good for you.
John: Lol.
John: Bring it on.
Ha ha!
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Bring it on.
John: You call this a disaster?
Merlin: Also, give me one of those Auntie Annie pretzels.
Merlin: Smells like a diaper.
John: So I went to the Apple store because you're at the mall.
John: Why not?
John: And I said, look, I bought this phone with the upgrade program, but then I never upgraded it because I'm lazy.
John: Also, I'm not even sure I want the latest thing.
John: That's right.
John: Put it back on their heels.
John: Let them work for it.
John: And the girl said...
John: Well, past a certain point, what you've just done is paid for your phone.
John: So now you own your phone.
John: Yeah.
John: And so you're in a different category of like, you don't just bring it in and get the upgrade because you own it now.
John: But of course, it's also only worth $170.
John: So what do you want to do?
Yeah.
John: And I ended up, I ended up walking out of there feeling like I had paid for insurance that I didn't use.
John: I felt a little gypped, although, or I'm sorry, a little ripped off.
John: We don't say gypped anymore.
John: You got Ramani'd.
John: I got, I didn't, but that's also a slur.
John: Is that a slur too?
John: What do we say?
John: Do you say anyway?
John: What do you say?
John: No, because the Ramani people are not ripping you off.
John: That's the slur part.
Merlin: So is there another group we should focus on?
John: I think you can safely blame it on white boomers.
John: Yeah, absolutely.
John: I got white boomered again.
Merlin: So did you walk out with an iPhone 11 Pro?
John: No.
John: I talked to a person with a mustache about it.
John: The photos are so nice.
John: And he said the photos are really nice.
John: And I was like, are they worth it for the other stuff?
John: Yeah.
John: And he was like, what is worth it?
John: And then he said, I'm, I'm slightly disabled in one of my hands.
John: And so I like the fact that it turns on when it looks at my face.
John: And I was like, he has like an emotion issue.
John: It said, well, of course, then I looked at his hand and it seemed like he had it kind of in a Bob Dole posture.
John: He had it.
John: Oh, I see.
John: Yeah.
John: I know what you mean.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Like a palsy or something.
John: It's hard for me to hold a phone and touch a bunch of buttons and
John: So with this, I just look at it and it turns on.
John: So I only need the one hand.
John: And I was like, interesting.
John: All right.
John: Well, what else?
John: Sell it to me.
Merlin: And he was like, I mean.
Merlin: It's sort of like what people have said about Apple Watch all along, which is you don't need this.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: It's not bad.
Merlin: It's good.
Merlin: But you don't need it.
Merlin: It's almost like a knackered dining room set.
Merlin: You don't need this.
John: You don't need it right now.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: And he said, oh, and then he did the real Apple thing where he was like, I mean, a few six months from now, maybe the 12 comes out and it's really good.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Then are you going to be the one, are you going to be, want to be the one that has an 11 plus?
John: And I was like, oh man, now what am I supposed to do?
John: Like now I got to think about nine months from now.
John: It's not really advice.
John: Time is a flat circle, man.
John: Like how am I supposed to?
John: Anyway, I, so I, I walked out of there with the same old phone.
John: Same old phone.
John: Although I did stop by the LensCrafters.
John: Oh, interesting.
John: A place that I avoid like the plague.
Merlin: Well, that seems antithetical to your whole Weltanschauung.
John: Well, it is and has been for years.
John: You know, my rock and roll optometrist who lives in Yakima provided me with some very strange glasses frames over the years.
Merlin: That's my favorite sentence of mine.
Merlin: My rock and roll optometrist in Yakima.
John: Yeah, often would send me nice glasses.
John: And so I...
John: But he's kind of gone quiet lately.
John: He's a little bit off the radar.
John: He's a human being.
John: He's got life stuff going on.
John: But all my glasses have gone missing.
John: I feel like there's some kind of ferret or maybe opossum that would come through the house and take them and build nests out of them or something.
John: Maybe it's nearsighted borrowers.
John: Nearsighted borrowers.
John: It might be because I leave my truck unlocked and I leave a pair of glasses in the truck, although I never do.
John: But that's the only thing I can think of that like prowlers are coming by and stealing my glasses because it's the only thing to steal.
John: Anyway, they're all gone.
John: And the ones that I'm wearing now have an old prescription and the lenses are scratched.
John: It's really annoying.
John: So I was outside this LensCrafters and I was with someone who said, well, why don't we go into this LensCrafters and get you a new pair of glasses?
John: And I said, it's going to take three weeks, and all their glasses are dumb.
John: And they said, just walk into the LensCrafters.
John: And I stood on the threshold, and I was like, I don't want to go into a LensCrafters.
John: It's like a professional sports person going into a mall sports place.
John: It's like you're going to Sam Goody to buy a December's record.
John: Yeah, why would I buy a Decembrist record at Sam Goody?
John: I'm never going to do that.
Merlin: I don't want to cross the threshold.
Merlin: I don't want to be on record as having been in here.
John: No, what if somebody gets a photograph of me standing in a lens crafter?
Merlin: What if they have to do a coronavirus lockdown and you're stuck in a lens crafters?
John: So I walk into the lens crafters against my will and better judgment.
John: And a man comes over in his... He has a smock.
John: He had a name tag.
John: He was wearing a coat and tie and he had a name tag and it said regional manager or something.
John: It said, you know, like some kind of poobah.
John: And I was like, I don't want to be in your store, but how long does it take to get a pair of glasses made?
John: And he said, I could turn them around in an hour.
John: And I was like, I could buy a pair of glasses right now and you could give me a new one in an hour.
John: But then he said, I'm legally prohibited from making glasses from a prescription that's older than two years.
John: Legally prohibited.
John: Legally prohibited by Washington state law.
John: State law.
John: from making and this has got to be one of those state laws that was put in by the by the optometrist association big lens it was big lens right they were passing a law about about transit bridges and somebody lobbied they snuck in a codicil that's right that's bullshit so i called of course i was like let me call my mom and see what she says about that that's a good that's a good idea
John: And so I called my mom and she was like, yep, they're legally prohibited from... She said, I thought it was only a year.
John: So I said to the guy... It's probably like copyright.
John: Something, something.
John: I said, I don't have my latest prescription.
John: And he said, I have an in-store ophthalmologist.
Merlin: Optician?
Merlin: No, wait.
Merlin: Optometrist is an eye doctor.
Merlin: An optician makes glasses.
Merlin: An ophthalmologist is, I think, a surgeon.
John: Oh.
John: Well, whichever one it is that in a store could do an eye test.
Merlin: They put the owl on your face and do the squirt and the puff.
John: Did they give you those Don Knot sunglasses?
John: Well, this is the thing.
John: I hadn't noticed it before, but there was a door in the LensCrafters.
John: And when you looked through the door, you were in an optometrist's office.
John: Like, all of a sudden, there were ferns.
John: There was, like...
John: There was dramatic lighting.
John: There was a front desk that was there to check you in.
John: It was a full-on optometrist's office like you might find in a brick building in a suburban shopping center.
John: But it was through a portal.
John: in the center of a LensCrafters in a mall.
John: But it's inside the LensCrafters.
John: Inside the LensCrafters.
John: So I was like, whoa, do other stores have doctor's offices in them that I just never noticed?
Merlin: Are there other stores?
Merlin: Does the Apple store potentially have a medical facility that I don't know about?
John: Right.
John: The thing is, I was in this LensCrafters for half an hour.
Merlin: You go and you see the eye doc.
John: I had not noticed the door.
Merlin: Are you going to credit that one, eye doc?
John: iDoc.
John: Yeah.
John: That's the Apple doctor.
John: Oh, oh, thank you for pointing it out.
John: I would have let it go.
Merlin: You ever been to South Carolina?
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: You ever go to a liquor store in South Carolina?
Merlin: They got a big red dot on a sign because that's the classic speakeasy symbol in South Carolina.
Merlin: That's just a fun fact.
John: A red dot on a sign.
Merlin: But then the thing to know, this is true in South Carolina, this is true, God, New England is so goddamn weird about this.
Merlin: They have so many blue laws.
Merlin: But like in South Carolina, you have to sell spirits
Merlin: in one store so you can't sell spirits and non-spirits in the same store so washington used to do that too so you go and there's there's a building with two doors one door you know over here you can come in and get your spirits but if you're going to want like i don't know uh parasols and tonic like you're going to have to go to this quote unquote other store yep basically it's the same building but with two doors is it a somewhat similar feeling to that
John: Washington did.
John: Washington used to do that, too.
John: Liquor store over here, beer and wine over here, but also the bars.
John: Right.
John: It was liquor bar over here, beer and wine bar over here.
John: South Carolina.
Merlin: The time was when I was last in South Carolina in a previous relationship.
Merlin: Now, I know you're not a drinking man, but in South Carolina, if you go to a bar, they give you you got to buy an airplane bottle.
Merlin: Did you know that?
Merlin: Weird.
Merlin: Now, there's so many ironies to this because here's the thing.
Merlin: You go into a bar.
Merlin: They don't have big old.
Merlin: This might have changed.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: But they don't have those big old bottles.
Merlin: You've got those airplane bottles.
Merlin: But it really turns out the amount of alcohol, it's bigger than a shot.
Merlin: So you're actually getting a bigger, stronger drink because an airplane bottle has more than a shot in it.
John: See, that feels very South Carolina.
Merlin: There's a lot going on there.
Merlin: I don't like the mustard barbecue.
Merlin: I don't hate it, but I don't love it.
John: I bought an amplifier in South Carolina one time.
John: What brand?
John: It was a Vox AC30.
John: I'd been looking for one of a certain kind.
Merlin: Vox AC30.
Merlin: Wow.
Merlin: What do I know that from?
Merlin: Not Pete Townsend.
John: Because they're amazing.
John: They're ones that you should know.
John: AC30.
John: Okay.
Merlin: I got a fake one of those in GarageBand, I think.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: The GarageBand has faked them all up.
John: Oh, my God.
Merlin: It's so beautiful.
John: They're beautiful.
John: And there was a certain one that was like the last one of the ones.
John: And I was like, I got to have the last one of the ones.
John: And I was like, well, you can't find the last one of the ones anymore.
Hmm.
John: And so I looked for them everywhere and was like, yeah, that was the last one of the ones.
John: If you're going to buy one, you're going to have to find it.
Merlin: That's a goddamn shame.
Merlin: It's like finding out when somebody... Oh, sorry, Brian May.
Merlin: That's who it is, Brian May.
Merlin: Yeah, that's right.
Merlin: It's like finding out and not learning about somebody's music until you heard that they died.
Merlin: That's right.
John: It's very much like that.
Merlin: Also, James Lipton died today.
Merlin: I think a lot of kids probably don't know who James Lipton is.
John: Did he really?
John: He died.
John: He passed away.
John: I love that guy.
John: Oh, that's too bad.
John: I used to love that show.
John: Tiny little trees, right?
John: He'd just paint those tiny little trees.
John: I think he's going to Radiohead.
John: Another band that used the AC30, The Beatles.
Mm-hmm.
John: Right.
John: But anyway, the edge from you to the edge used a lot of different amps.
John: But I was in this I was in this store and there was one.
John: And I went to the person and I was like, this is the one.
John: This is the one.
John: And he was like, yeah, but here's the problem.
John: Here's what some people wouldn't know.
John: just coming in off the street.
John: And that is that no one in South Carolina cares about, uh, the Beatles or even like, he's like, nobody makes this kind of music here.
John: Look around.
John: Do you see the other amps?
John: And I looked around and it was like a wall of Mesa boogie, triple rectifiers and whatever else those Marshall.
John: Oh, you do.
Merlin: You get more like that kind of thing.
John: He's like, he's like, all we sell is amplifiers to make either country music or metal music there.
John: Nobody wants to make Brit pop.
John: And I was like, well, I came to the right place.
John: And he was like, I'll sell that to you at a bargain price.
John: So it was basically like getting a $600 lightsaber.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Mark down to $450 and then out the door for $200.
Merlin: But also, unlike the dining room table that you didn't necessarily need and it was knackered, I mean, this is the first of these, you know, the rule of threes.
Merlin: This is your third dickering transaction that we've had to deal with in this episode.
Merlin: But it seems to me like you probably did pretty well with this, assuming that it wasn't empty inside or something.
John: It was wonderful.
John: It was a wonderful amplifier.
John: And the thing was, I was with my rock group at the time.
John: So I'm there closing this transaction.
John: And my rock group said, where do you think that amplifier is going to go?
Merlin: That van was already packed pretty tight and had a bed.
John: Yeah.
John: They were like, there's no place in this van for you.
John: So one in, one out.
John: Well, but that's the thing.
John: I wasn't about to get rid of any of one of my other amps.
John: Right.
John: And then as this is happening, the amp salesman said, hey, I can ship this to you.
John: And so before I left that day, I'd bought an amp and also contracted to have it shipped to Washington State.
John: That's so grown up.
John: When I got home, it was here.
John: I plugged it in and it didn't work.
John: Oh, Jiminy Christmas.
John: But wait.
John: I took it to the amp store and they said, well, even though this amp is several years old, because you just purchased it from an authorized Vox retail environment, it technically is a new amp and it's still under warranty.
Merlin: What magic land are we living in?
John: They replaced everything about it that didn't work and made it basically perfect for free.
John: What?
John: Because it was a new amp, even though it because and the reason it was new is it had been sitting on the showroom floor in this South Carolina music store for however long for four years.
John: while guys with like chew-stained baseball hats walk past it, saying, do you got anything louder?
John: So that's one of those South Carolina stories.
John: That's a good experience.
John: I mean, not everybody's got a good South Carolina story.
John: Some people are like, I don't want to talk about it.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I didn't understand South Carolina.
Merlin: It was a little bit neither fish nor fowl.
Merlin: I could never really get a handle on it.
Merlin: I like Savannah.
Merlin: My band played in Savannah once.
Merlin: It was really nice.
John: Savannah, South Carolina?
Merlin: Yeah, it's a wonderful town.
Merlin: Yeah, we played at SCAD.
Merlin: SCAD?
Merlin: Yeah, the art school there.
John: Yeah, it's where, oh, the South Carolina School of Art and Design?
Merlin: Art and Design, I think, yeah.
Merlin: They didn't like us that much, but it was fun.
Merlin: We did get to drive to Savannah and it was fun.
John: How many, did you ever open for Jimmy's Chicken Shack?
Merlin: No, no, no.
Merlin: My band only ever played two out-of-town shows, one in Gainesville and one in Savannah.
Merlin: Because, you know, everybody had jobs and wives and stuff.
Merlin: How did you book that Savannah show?
Merlin: A guy who used to be a DJ at... So you've probably heard of...
Merlin: I love a guy that used to be a DJ at the beginning of any anecdote.
Merlin: I don't mean to brag.
Merlin: There's a lot I liked about Tallahassee.
Merlin: But we had one of the empirically greatest college radio stations in America, which is WVFS, the Voice of Florida State.
Merlin: Won CMJ Music Director of the Year two years in a row while I was there.
Merlin: And so this dude who had been kind of a muckety-muck DJ at WVFS had taken a job at SCAD.
Merlin: And he was in like student activities there.
Merlin: And he's like, hey, you know, I like Baking Ray.
Merlin: You guys should come here.
Merlin: I was like, all right, fine.
Merlin: We'll give you money in a hotel room.
John: I like Baking Ray.
John: You guys should come here.
John: I love that.
John: I love that kind of American story.
John: You know, really, it's the people.
John: It's really all about the people.
John: The whole music business is really just about the people.
Merlin: One time a friend of mine was visiting me in town.
Merlin: I had this anecdote in my pocket for half an hour.
Merlin: This is how we're going to end the show.
Merlin: I'm only realizing right now.
Merlin: We're talking about dealing with people, right?
Merlin: I'm only realizing right now how important this experience was for me and what prepared me so much for our shared message of keep moving and get out of the way.
Merlin: And that was, uh, I was in, uh, we're in Chinatown here in San Francisco with a friend of mine who was visiting, who was very winded, a guy who's used to being in a minivan driving from place to place.
Merlin: He's not used to walking.
Merlin: And even to Chinatown is pretty crazy.
Merlin: I mean, crazy in the sense that like, there's a lot going on.
Merlin: There's a lot of movement and there's a lot of, um, uh, Tokyo style, like keep moving and get out of the way.
Merlin: Correct.
Merlin: And one point my friend was having a little bit of trouble keeping up.
Merlin: And I, I, I, I, I,
Merlin: It's very busy.
Merlin: We didn't want to lose him.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: So I paused and I turned to locate my friend and extremely exasperated, probably four foot tall Chinese woman said to me, you walk too slow.
Merlin: I don't like it.
John: I don't like it.
Merlin: She added that you walk too slow.
Merlin: I don't like it.
Merlin: I apologized.
John: For walking too slow.
Merlin: Well, yeah.
Merlin: I mean, like, I needed to hear that.
John: It wasn't that you were walking too slow.
John: It was that you were distracted and not getting out of the way.
Merlin: Well, I mean, the passing lane is not a hotel room.
Merlin: The sidewalk is not a place to, well, some people have to camp there.
Merlin: But, like, the sidewalk is a place where everybody's trying to get someplace.
John: Right.
John: But she wouldn't have cared how fast you were walking if you weren't in her way.
Merlin: Listen, her English was better than my Cantonese, let's be honest.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Or a Mandarin.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: So you're going to go on this boat, and now the scenario that I want to pose to you, this is going to be a, we don't say your mother's name, it's going to be a Mother Roderick-style scenario building.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Have you started thinking about what's going to happen?
Merlin: So, you know, when you go on the cruise, you end up in that one room where Paul and Storm always are holding court and, you know, Ted Leo's doing a crossword or whatever.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Are you prepared for what's going to happen when the fucking Thunderdome shit comes down and you're going to have to fight for gravy with an Amy Mann or a Liz Faire?
Merlin: Are you prepared for who you're going to make alliances with, who you're going to take down early?
Merlin: It's going to be a little bit like Survivor.
Merlin: Have you considered, and if you don't want to say that's fine, but you're going to be stuck on this fucking Petri dish for gravy.
Merlin: What is your plan for making sure that you survive and thrive amidst all of these other independent artists?
John: So I think the first thing I should do is immediately upon boarding the ship, start hoarding food.
John: That's so good.
John: Right?
John: So you go up to the gravy buffet.
John: It doesn't help to hoard food once it's gone.
John: You need to hoard the food while it's there.
John: Exactly.
John: So you go upstairs and you go through the buffet and you take non-perishables or at least foods that can sit in your room for a long time.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: You fill up your room refrigerator with fruit and cheese, crackers.
Merlin: Maybe grab some extra towels that look like animals just to make sure you got those in case you need them.
Merlin: A couple of those.
Merlin: You're going to want coffee, buddy.
Merlin: Oh, you're going to want coffee.
John: Plenty of cheese pizza.
John: Some cold, you know, some coffees, but you don't put the cream in them because you want to just sit there and get cold.
John: No, the cheese pizza is for your table.
John: You.
John: You need that.
John: And so, but do it very subtly.
John: Do it gradually.
John: Every time you go up above board.
Merlin: Oh, like Steve McQueen.
Merlin: You're filling your pockets with sand, except it's gravy.
Merlin: That's exactly right.
John: That's so good.
John: So you start filling your room, and you want to do it in a way that your room steward does not start to become suspicious that your apple basket has like 50 apples in it.
Merlin: They probably have to report that.
John: Maybe.
John: Who knows?
John: Who knows?
John: But if you're in a situation where you're hoarding enough sort of crackers and cheese that when... And you're not doing this for when stuff first goes haywire.
John: Because when it first goes haywire, the cruise company is going to try and keep you supplied.
Merlin: Sure, but a lot of that's going to sort itself out like the rats in a barrel eating each other.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
John: Right, right.
John: It's only later when disease has spread rampantly...
John: Oh, when you're moving on to the Albert Camus portion of the cruise.
John: Right.
John: And when other people are forced out of the safety of their rooms in order to forage for any kind of sustenance, that's when I'm going to be able to keep my door closed and live on cheese and crackers and...
John: Until, well, presumably until everyone else is dead.
Merlin: All we want is to eat your cheese.
Merlin: We're not unreasonable.
Merlin: No one's going to eat your coffee.