Ep. 375: "The Shellfish Rights"
John: Hi, John.
John: Hey there, Merlin.
John: How's it going?
John: Merlin.
John: Merlin.
John: It's going good, although, you know, one of the challenges of the sequester is that there's a lot more demand for the bandwidth around here.
John: Oh.
John: Everybody's on the computer, so...
John: You know, given the completely unprofessional way we record this show, you may find that I go into robot voice or tiny voice.
Merlin: I'll consider it an opportunity for improv.
Merlin: Hmm.
Merlin: And we'll keep going at any cost for up to three hours.
John: Okay, good.
John: I know people are counting on us to provide that.
Merlin: Yeah, probably.
Merlin: They'll probably take anything they can get at this point.
John: Well, that much-needed content.
John: Uh-huh.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: In or out of bread.
John: I have noticed, maybe strangely, that on the podcasts where I am responsible for monitoring the listeners...
John: Now, on Roderick on the Line, I am not.
John: When we started doing this show, the premise was that I didn't know anything, and that if I were kept blissfully unaware, it would just make the thing run more smoothly.
Merlin: You sure I knew that?
Merlin: I think I knew that.
Merlin: I have forgotten more about this podcast than you've ever known.
Merlin: It's 100% true, but I do not know.
Merlin: I like the idea of that.
Merlin: That's a fun premise.
John: True.
John: I don't know anything about the production or putting up of Roderick on the line.
John: I don't really do any of the ad reads.
Merlin: Oh, that bit.
Merlin: Yes, yes, yes, of course.
Merlin: I think that is very much canonical.
Merlin: Yes, now I understand.
Merlin: I literally woke up a few minutes ago and you were kind enough to start late, so I'm still having that coffee.
Merlin: Also, I just said I'm still having that coffee.
John: I'm having that coffee.
John: So now flash forward 14 or 15 years.
Merlin: How long has it been?
John: It's 14 years.
John: We can ask Captain Miriam, but some other shows where I actually look at the listenership numbers, it seems that the lack of commuters, the lack of daily commute time has actually...
John: They paradoxically reduced podcast listening rather than have the sequester increase it.
John: That seems rude.
John: Well, isn't that something?
Merlin: Well, I'll call that John.
Merlin: It turns out.
Merlin: It turns out.
Merlin: Doesn't it seem like you would go, oh, yummy, yummy, yummy.
Merlin: Put all the John Roderick in my face.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: What's up with that?
John: But people are home.
John: They're taking baths.
John: They're eating chili.
John: They're like, I don't have time.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: This economy?
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: Oh, no.
Merlin: Oh, no.
Merlin: We get to say it.
Merlin: Oh, no.
Merlin: You have to say it unironically again.
Merlin: Oh, no.
Merlin: They've even taken that away from us.
Merlin: They've taken it away.
Merlin: Oh, John.
Merlin: That's my first time I've said it.
Merlin: It feels different.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And this economy?
Yeah.
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Merlin: Thanks to Mack Weldon for supporting Roderick on the Line and all the great shows.
Merlin: We're fucked.
Merlin: We're fucked.
Merlin: We are.
Merlin: We're so fucked.
Merlin: Yeah, it's fun, though.
Merlin: We... Yeah.
Merlin: You know, it's a real mixed bag.
Merlin: Yeah, it is.
Merlin: You know?
Merlin: I like having... Oh, God, this is so shameful.
Merlin: Perhaps... I don't want to take over the direction of the show, but I would like to make some notes and perhaps a confession.
Merlin: And, you know, I have an omnibus package of confessions that I'd like to tender to you right now.
Merlin: And, you know, one of them is that I don't like doing things.
Merlin: This is stuff like this I love.
Merlin: That's why it's my job.
John: I don't like having to be... 100% don't have to do things.
Merlin: 100%.
Merlin: Well, that's what I'm about to say.
Merlin: I've got two fantasies that are impossible.
Merlin: One of those fantasies is that someone literally put me to sleep for one solid month.
Merlin: And maybe to rebuild me and zap out all my tumors and stuff.
Merlin: That'd be nice.
Merlin: But the other thing I want from day to day is runway.
Merlin: Clear runway, clear skies.
Merlin: I not only hear this is important.
Merlin: Now, you will appreciate this.
Merlin: I think you will appreciate this in a way that a lot of people I know will think is weird.
Merlin: I do.
Merlin: not only don't want to have anything to do, but I want to know that I don't have anything to do.
Merlin: For sure.
Merlin: Now, that's going to be lost on a lot of folks.
Merlin: And here's the thing.
Merlin: Here's the big brag.
Merlin: Except for dealing with the, let's say, catastrophic changes of news twice a day that utterly changes our entire Earth planet doings, I want to know that for a series of days, if I chose to, I could just know.
Merlin: That's clear sky, clear runways all the way.
John: Hey, Merrill.
John: Yeah.
John: Tomorrow?
John: Yeah.
John: You don't have to do anything.
John: Yeah, but I should check.
John: No, no, no, no.
John: In fact, it's irresponsible for you to do anything.
John: Interesting.
John: It is in violation of the law that you would do anything.
Merlin: Oh, so you're saying that ignorance, ignoratia gratis humanis, non excusatat.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: If you don't social distance from theoretical events, the terrorists win.
John: You're against the law.
John: Whoa, whoa.
John: My friend Chad, who occasionally appears on this show, who's a booking agent of some renown,
John: He's from rural Washington.
John: Let's call Olympia rural Washington.
John: People in Olympia are going to protest that, but they know it's true.
John: What do they do, throw a cow at you?
John: They know it's true.
John: What do they do, throw a gooey duck at me?
Merlin: What do they do, throw a grain silo at me?
Merlin: What do they do, throw a farm subsidy at me?
John: Chad's like, you know, he moved to Seattle a long time ago.
John: He's a big city guy.
John: He runs the biggest clubs in town.
Merlin: He was the club we were at.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: He runs all the thing, every band in the world.
John: He was on San Tropez one day waiting in line at a conch shop.
John: And he gets a tap on his shoulder.
John: He turns around.
John: It's Paul McCartney.
John: And Paul's like, hey, Chad, what's going on?
John: You know, like in an Irish accent, of course, because that's one of the jokes that Paul does.
John: Like Paul McCartney, like sees him and comes over and is like, hey, Chad.
Merlin: In a line for conch.
John: yeah paul mccartney is the one sir sir paul mccartney sir paul of wings is the one who notices chad and then he notices him actively with a tap and a funny voice yeah yeah and chad's like oh hey paul what's up this same chad his fantasy has always because chad's a collector like i am except he was one of those collectors that i don't know collected circus stuff and you know
John: like prison photos and stuff that I never collected, but he's really into, uh, you know, Pendleton stuff and old blankets.
John: And he's, he's a, he's a classic Northwest.
John: junk store collector i went to uh i went to an estate sale with him one time and there were these two like lumps of lead that had been very primitively shaped into faces and chad was like i have to have those how much are these and the guy sitting behind the folding table was like uh 50 bucks
John: each tip number one never begin a negotiation by saying quote i have to have this and chad chad was like he you know he like says to me in a whisper i think these are some i think these are something i was like they're not anything chad they're lumps of and he was like no no i think this is something and he paid 100 bucks for him and they sit on his man his shelf of treasures oh
John: And he's not been able to just he's not he cannot find anyone that will confirm that they are like some kind of important thing.
John: But he believes it.
John: But his his collection is way deeper and cooler than mine because he's got focus.
John: It sounds like he's got focus.
John: He has albums and albums of Polaroid photos taken in prison by gang members.
John: All in the 70s and early 80s.
John: So all these guys like, you know, like making these proto gang signs in prison and then they sign the bottom of the Polaroid and I guess send it to their girlfriends and then their girlfriends put it on eBay or somebody's, you know, grandchild puts it on eBay and Chad collects them.
John: These things are astonishing.
John: I would study these books for hours.
John: Anyway, Chad, his dream growing up in Olympia as a poor kid was to one day have a house on the ocean.
John: But his dream of a house on the ocean was just like he just wanted a humble Northwest oyster shack on the ocean.
John: He didn't want like a new house.
John: He very definitely wanted an old house.
John: Okay.
John: So after he became a big shot, he bought this little house on the ocean out in Shelton, which is BFE.
John: You know, like if you could find a geoduck to throw at somebody, you'd consider yourself rich out there.
John: Okay.
John: And so I wrote him the other day and I was like, are you in Shelton?
John: And he was like, I've been here for two and a half weeks.
John: And I said, this is kind of your dream scenario.
John: He was like, I'm never leaving.
John: And he sent me pictures of like, he's building planter boxes.
John: He's got his little lumpen lead heads.
John: He owns the shellfish rights for his beach.
John: So he can collect.
John: I know that sounds crazy.
Merlin: It sounds crazy now, but who's lousy with conch?
John: In Washington state, there are a few different things about the shellfish beds.
John: You can own a house on the water and own the shellfish that are under the ocean in front of the house.
Merlin: Oh, like mineral rights.
Merlin: I get it.
John: But the state of Washington also sold the shellfish rights separately from houses.
John: So you can own a house on the beach, but some other dum-dum owns the shellfish rights.
John: So you got to look out at these goofballs harvesting gooey ducks 100 feet out in front of your house and
John: And then the tribes also have a treaty...
John: right to shellfish across the whole game.
John: A certain percentage of the shellfish the tribes can just claim as part of a treaty, an otherwise totally unfair treaty.
Merlin: Wow, just sui generis.
Merlin: They could just come in and take some of the shellfish, a percentage.
John: Yes, because of a treaty they signed 100 years ago that in every other respect screwed them out of everything.
John: And so that's one of the reasons that they're like, you know what, motherfuckers, we're taking these shellfish.
John: Because it's one thing that is on this list that we are sticking to.
Merlin: Real estate teaches us that it's a game of square feet.
Merlin: But it sounds to me, what you're saying, this real estate is really a game of cubic feet.
Merlin: And it goes under the sand.
Merlin: It goes under the sand.
John: Because it turns out, gooey ducks are... Oh, you're making me look it up.
Merlin: Three is a charm.
Merlin: What the fuck is a gooey duck?
Merlin: They are extremely popular.
John: Graphic user interface duck.
John: They're extremely popular in Asia.
John: Okay.
John: Um, and so geoducks, which we're, we're always considered kind of like a clam.
John: It's a, it's a clam.
John: It looks like a hog and I don't mean a pig.
John: So it is spelled geoduck, G E O D U C K geoduck.
John: It is the largest, uh, in the clam family.
John: It is the damn Sam Clamest clam you'll ever slam.
John: Okay.
John: They are the size of a hog.
John: Like a man's big hog.
John: They're too big to fit in a shell.
John: Well.
John: Unless she's a MILF clam.
John: That's terrible.
John: It looks like a dick.
John: It's a big dick.
John: Yeah.
John: But big, big.
John: And they're hugely popular, of course, because anything that looks like a dick is popular someplace.
John: Oh, Asia, what am I going to do with you?
John: And they slice them up.
John: They're not a very good clam, I don't think.
John: They're chewy.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: I mean, I would go more for a little neck.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Like a micropenis clam.
John: In my experience, the smaller the clam, the crisper and more delicious.
Merlin: Oh, John, it's true for everything.
Merlin: That's true for your peas.
Merlin: Yep.
John: Oh, yeah, you want a small pea.
Merlin: Get a small pea.
Merlin: Get a small pea.
Merlin: That's nothing to be embarrassed about.
Merlin: You should be happy about that.
John: You go to a clam bar back in New York State, and they put these things on your plate that are as big as tennis shoes.
Merlin: You go somewhere, and they give you an oyster on the half shell, and the half shell is the size of an Ultimate Frisbee.
Merlin: Yeah, those are sloppy plants.
Merlin: You could serve me other seafood on the giant oyster.
Merlin: That would be pretty cool.
Merlin: A little bit of crab.
Merlin: A little bit of non-human, non-centipede.
John: All that stuff out here on the West Coast is better.
John: I'm sorry to tell you.
John: It's just better.
John: Anyway, so he's out there.
John: He's got a dock that's grandfathered in because, of course, on Washington coastlines, if your dock is grandfathered, you can have a big old dock coming out from your house.
John: But if it's not grandfathered, you can't just build a dock.
Merlin: Oh, and that's an intransitive verb.
Merlin: You can't grandfather a dock.
Merlin: It has to just get grandfathered.
Merlin: A dock is either grandfathered or it ain't.
Merlin: And if it ain't, it ain't.
Merlin: That might be a Native American's dock.
John: That's right.
Merlin: Or at least a portion of it.
John: A percentage of it.
John: Don't come take it away.
John: But so he's got this great dock.
Merlin: It turned into a very, very, very, very small casino.
John: And the sea lions believe that the last hundred feet of his dock belong to them.
Merlin: Oh, it's theirs now.
Merlin: They live there.
John: Yeah, so every morning he wakes up, and he's got a bunch of sea lions on his dock.
John: Now, is there a better thing than your own group of, like, sea lions?
Merlin: If you're the sort of person who likes a morning rooster when they're in Hawaii, and you come back, and you've got a sea lion...
Merlin: And just so we're clear here, these are not seals.
Merlin: These are sea lions.
Merlin: These are these small, cuter, they're like halfway between an otter and a seal.
John: No, a sea lion is bigger than a seal.
John: A sea lion is a monster.
John: Wait, so you're getting sea lions or seals?
Merlin: Sea lions.
Merlin: Oh, no, no, those are too big.
Merlin: You don't want those.
Merlin: They're giant.
Merlin: Oh, no, no.
Merlin: Okay, so see, I flipped it and reversed it.
Merlin: I was thinking, you're talking about the San Francisco kind of like big boy.
Yeah.
John: So those, except the sea lions are like, but the thing is, Chad has two dogs that look like sea lions and are the same size as sea lions.
John: So the dogs run down on the dock and the sea lions and the dogs have a moment every morning where the dogs are like, you're going in the water.
John: And the sea lion is maybe this time we'll fight.
John: Maybe this time we'll fight.
John: And the dogs are like, you're going in the water, but the dogs are not.
John: Sure.
John: Because the sea lions are bigger than, frankly, the sea lions are bigger than the dogs.
John: The sea lions weigh 400 pounds or whatever, and the dogs do not.
John: But they have a moment, but the dogs end up being the alphas every time they push those sea lions into the water.
John: It's great out there is what I'm saying.
Merlin: And it's really kind of like, I don't know, I was going to say it's different from preppers.
Merlin: So preppers seem to have this sort of...
Merlin: They shorted humanity.
Merlin: They bought short.
Merlin: Yeah, that's exactly right.
Merlin: And so essentially they're saying, look, I'm pretty sure this whole thing is going to go tits up.
Merlin: And I'm going to be out there with boxes of ammunition and Jim Baker buckets of corn and stuff like that.
Merlin: And I will be like people who buy too much insurance.
Merlin: God bless them.
Merlin: They're going to be good and happy when something goes wrong because they feel like their short bet really paid off.
Merlin: They want it so bad.
Merlin: Yeah, I think it's a very – I don't want to – these are fraught times politically, but I think that is a pretty hairy sort of – at least among the non-super wealthy, that's a pretty right-wing type thing.
Merlin: I think among the super wealthy, it can be very left-wing.
Merlin: Not left-wing, but libertarian net job Elon Musk type situation.
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: But anyway, in the case of your friend, it's just like Chad saying, this is beautiful.
Merlin: I have the bivalve house of my dreams.
John: Chad is just like you in the sense that all he wants is not to do anything.
John: I get it.
John: Yep, yep, yep.
John: And he got himself a little house where literally no one is ever going to just stop by, except for his next-door neighbor, whose name is Dr. Falcon, who used to work on...
John: some kind of missile program he named his sea lion joshua so dr dr falcon comes over and they fly kites or whatever and chad loves it but not too often but sometimes twice a month twice a month is plenty yeah otherwise he doesn't have to book any concerts he doesn't have to meet paul mccartney he doesn't have to do anything he wakes up in the morning he has some coffee looks out at the sea lions
John: That's it.
John: Everything else is optional.
John: God damn it.
Merlin: That sounds pretty good.
Merlin: That sounds really pretty good.
Merlin: So nice.
Merlin: So nice.
Merlin: And with social distancing, I would say kites with Falcon would be a very nice, let's call it a morning thing.
Merlin: I bet it's nice and windy in the morning.
John: You're 20 feet away from each other.
John: You can still hear each other talk, but you don't cough on each other.
John: Tiger Falcon's old.
John: You don't want to cough.
Merlin: No, don't bother that guy.
Merlin: You know, something you've talked about so much over time, and I think this has some precedence in one of your other programs, is this idea of, like, if there were some kind of EMP – wait, no, that's the place where you go to see the van and the shoes.
John: But also it's an electromagnet.
Merlin: Okay, yes.
Merlin: So the other EMP sub two, if we have one of those and all the information goes away, how will we survive?
Merlin: You know, at the very least, how will we recreate Wikipedia?
Merlin: God bless it.
Merlin: Or whatever.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: But we have seen, I mean, is there anything more enduring, maybe next to living well in a desert, which is very difficult.
Merlin: You can live well by the sea, and you don't need all the electronics.
Merlin: You're tide pools.
Merlin: You'll figure it out.
John: There's a lot of plenitude in the sea.
John: It's defined by plenitude.
Merlin: It's not an economy of scarcity.
John: It's not an economy of scarcity.
John: It is a economy of abundance.
Merlin: It's a moist blanket of plenty.
John: But if you're up here in the Northwest where you just go out, stick a shovel in the mud, and pull out some clams...
John: Um, and then, you know, harness up, uh, put a saddle on a sea lion and then you're out, you know, you're swimming with the fishes, but not like Luca Brasi.
Merlin: No, no, a masculine child.
John: That's right.
John: I feel like you could, I mean, you could just live on ferns alone.
John: Absolutely.
Merlin: If you had enough butter.
Merlin: If you had enough butter.
Merlin: So you'd have to get pre-butter.
Merlin: You want a stock pot?
Merlin: Would you have like a root cellar?
Merlin: No, you get sea lion butter.
Merlin: You get out there and milk them.
Merlin: You go and milk a sea lion.
Merlin: That's a mammal, right?
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: So they have little water stitties?
Merlin: They do have water stitties.
What?
Merlin: All right, let's keep it short today because I think I'm losing my fucking mind.
Merlin: All right, so he's out there with the walrus titties.
John: If Chad's dogs didn't try and push those, because Chad's dogs are water dogs.
John: They're not afraid to go in after.
Merlin: Oh, is it like something that ends in an oodle?
Merlin: It's a water dog.
Merlin: I bet that's why it looks like a sea lion.
John: It's a something doodle.
John: They are some kind of, what are they?
John: What are they called?
John: A lab in a poodle kind of thing?
John: Yeah, but it's not a cross.
John: There's some kind of purebred thing that looks like a, I don't know, looks like a furry sea lion.
John: How tall is it?
John: Oh, they are three feet at the shoulder.
John: They're giant.
Merlin: Like a Newfoundland or something?
John: No, not that tall.
Merlin: Not that tall.
John: Two feet at the shoulder.
Merlin: Okay, okay.
Merlin: But they ain't afraid of no seals.
John: No, no, they're not.
John: But if they weren't down there doing that, I think Chad would have tamed the sea lions by now enough that he could not get close enough to milk them, but get close enough to see the whites of their eyes.
John: He's Aquaman.
John: He could be.
John: Could be.
John: I don't think he wants to, frankly, I don't think he wants that to do either.
Merlin: He doesn't want to wake up the morning.
Merlin: The Hall of Justice meetings, in this case, he wants to, and I think Hall of Justice, some of these clubs are closing down wholesale.
Merlin: Slim's closed.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: It's all closed.
Merlin: Everything's closed.
Merlin: No, but I mean like Slim's is out of business now.
John: Well, you know, there's out of business and there's out of business.
Merlin: There's out of business and there's out of business.
John: There's out of business and there's out of business.
Merlin: But it would be contra what it is that Chad is looking for, which is by the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea.
Merlin: He's been waiting for this his whole life.
John: I think so.
John: I'm trying to decide if I've been waiting for it.
John: Yesterday, I went down into my ravine.
John: And I spent seven hours moving logs with my own two hands in a day.
Merlin: I'm sorry.
Merlin: Is this a photo you posted on Instagram?
John: Did I post a photo on Instagram?
Merlin: Of like six or seven horizontal or parallel logs?
Merlin: Oh, logs.
Merlin: A bunch of logs.
Merlin: I thought that was a legacy from your old pool.
Merlin: This is new logs, new ravine.
John: New logs, new ravine.
John: Okay.
John: And I'm moving logs, and it ends up being like a training montage for a Rambo film down there.
John: Because I'm lifting logs, I'm moving wheelbarrows full of rocks, I'm digging with a shovel, I'm pushing stuff around.
John: And by the end of the day...
John: It's like a strongman competition.
John: There are a couple of times where I'm moving so many heavy things that I have to sit down and just catch my breath just from moving heavy things.
Merlin: That's the kind of situation, healthy or not, young or old, you can really injure yourself by overdoing just that one time.
Merlin: It only takes that one time.
John: It only takes one time.
Merlin: Don't you think?
Merlin: I did that bringing up some of my daughter's soy chocolate drink.
Merlin: I almost pulled something.
Merlin: And I thought it's probably a lot like John's logs.
John: I'm trying not to pull anything.
John: Although you're right.
John: All it takes is once.
Merlin: You don't want to go to a hospital right now, my friend.
John: Tell you what.
John: But I'm down there and I'm making enough noise that the raccoons know that it's time to move to a different tree and, you know, all that stuff.
John: I'm building trail.
John: I'm literally building trail.
John: And I couldn't be happier.
John: Now, not everybody, of course, has a place where they can go build trail, right?
John: Even Seattle, which is a good town for this, we're way, way, way ahead of the curve.
John: Somebody posted a picture of Green Lake, which is our local lake to jog around.
John: All these people out there, thousands of people out jogging around thinking that it's just a vacation, thinking they got a couple of days off of work.
John: I'm like, this is apparently a huge problem.
John: You can't do this.
John: You can't go.
John: It's not a day off of work.
John: You have to stay home or you have to go in your own backyard and build trail.
John: It's so frustrating.
Merlin: It's so frustrating.
Merlin: If we could do this, I mean, things I'm reading right now are saying if we could do this, like really fucking do this for two weeks, we would be very close to fine.
John: Two weeks.
Merlin: That's not that much.
Merlin: The part you're skipping over, everybody, is you've got to really do it.
Merlin: This is boring, and I'll only say it once, and I'll get back to the goofs, but the thing is, all the other countries are showing us that the big problems...
Merlin: The biggest heavy transmission, because it's so transmittable, is inside of family units.
Merlin: But it's when you cross over from this family to that family, then guess what?
Merlin: Now that's very transmittable.
Merlin: If you keep exposure limited to your one little group, even if one person gets sick, you'll mostly be fine.
Merlin: But it's so obvious.
Merlin: And it's like...
Merlin: And nobody's having fun with this, especially the doctors and nurses and techs.
Merlin: All those folks like, well, you got to do this, people.
Merlin: You got to really, really not be around.
Merlin: And it doesn't mean stay inside, but it does mean stay the fuck away from other people that aren't your family.
John: My mom, who always has some, she's always running some fucking errand.
John: My mom now shows up here, rings the doorbell, and then runs down the path like the guy in the neck brace in Raising Arizona.
Merlin: And that's official.
John: She turns around.
John: She says, you so got a big man.
Merlin: Keep your damn hands off my wife.
Merlin: And I go, I'm not a big man.
Merlin: First of all, you're fired, and that's official.
Okay.
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Merlin: Yeah, I figured.
John: Anyway, she stops, you know, 15 feet down the path.
John: I'm talking about love.
John: And then I stand behind the screen door.
John: Okay.
John: And we have, you know, a 25-minute conversation where she's like, now I was doing, you know, thinking about this and what if... Oh, that's great.
Merlin: You guys are still collaborating.
Merlin: It's just a little bitty higher volume.
John: Yeah, and she just has to stand down there.
John: And I just think she's hilarious.
John: She's out running errands.
John: It's just that she...
John: Make sure that she's 20 feet from anybody, which is what she prefers.
John: That's what she's been waiting for her whole life.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Now you're allowed to do it.
Merlin: Now you're allowed to do it.
Merlin: Now when I go by people on the sidewalk, I can be both friendly and brief.
Merlin: And brief and also 15 feet away.
Merlin: Well, you know what I mean, though?
Merlin: It isn't the, like, low level, it's going to take me four minutes to talk to the guy who likes to say hi.
Merlin: It's going to be like, hey, stay healthy.
Merlin: Meep, meep.
Meep, meep.
Merlin: And I go off my Segway like Roadrunner.
John: You know, I have that thing where if I'm coming down the block and I meet someone coming the other way that in any way might feel like they don't want to pass me.
John: Right.
John: Like at any time of the day, if you're walking particularly in, say, a rural area and you see somebody coming the other way and that somebody is basically a guy your age also wearing a baseball hat that says pretty small and probably is like either taking a dip in or putting a dip out.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: I got no problem walking right across.
Merlin: What about a woman with headphones who doesn't realize you're there?
Merlin: Oh, no.
Merlin: See, I stay.
Merlin: That's like you're going to be doing all kinds.
Merlin: Like you just wait until she's a block ahead.
Merlin: And that's when you go with your air horn.
Merlin: I'm back here.
Merlin: I'm acknowledging that I'm not acknowledging you.
John: 50 feet away.
John: And anytime it's a parent with a young kid, any of this, I always – I'll jump down into the street.
John: I'll walk out 10 feet into the road if it's not a busy road.
John: I'll step aside and kind of wait on the other side of a park bench until they walk past.
John: Will you do a Lord of the Rings and just jump behind a log?
John: Jump behind a log and the Nazgul come and they sniff the air.
John: But half the time, even that action –
John: It looks so sketchy.
John: Well, it does.
John: It looks like I've got a court order to stay away from kids.
John: You know what I mean?
John: I can't afford one more hit.
Merlin: I'm not going back.
John: I'm not going back.
John: And especially, you know, sometimes I'm in dirty jeans and I got a black watch cap pulled down over my eyes or, you know, or even just a hat that says precede smallness, little suspect.
John: Very French.
John: But now if I jump into the street or if I disappear into a bush or I hide behind a log, everybody's grateful.
John: Now you're a patriot.
John: They're like, he looks like a scary hobo, but he's actually a very considerate sis.
John: He cares about the olds.
John: He does.
John: He cares about olds and youngs and everybody in between.
John: Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.
John: Anyway, right now I cannot wait to go back over there and start moving some more logs.
John: I don't know what that is.
John: Like anytime I feel like I maybe I made a mistake buying this house.
John: It's I'm four months into owning it and I'm still not living there because I'm moving all the toilets around.
John: But then I go down and I move some logs and I'm like, this is absolute heaven.
John: I would trade this for I think I might still prefer it if it was on the ocean and had a bunch of fallen logs.
Merlin: Well, that's a Donald Rumsfeld situation, you know what I mean?
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: I could go on and on about this and won't, but so many times each day I feel so goddamn grateful for what I'm not stuck in.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: John, imagine...
Merlin: Well, imagine that you had your sensibility of civic engagement that you have today, but also you were drinking an awful lot and you didn't like your roommates and maybe sleeping in a van outside with the cord.
Merlin: Imagine all the roommate situations you've been in, and let's be honest, that you have caused.
Merlin: Imagine having to be with those folks and they, importantly, having to be with you for maybe a month.
Merlin: And also, by the way, did I mention you don't have any money?
John: There were so many times in my life where if all of a sudden a sequester had come down, the other people in the house would have very slowly turned their heads to look at me and gone you out.
Merlin: It's just wordless.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: It's not even a question.
Merlin: It's just like you kind of knew this should have happened a long time ago, but it's really important we not get into a whole thing and you just leave now.
John: This is it.
Merlin: Hit the brakes.
John: And I would have been like, oh shit.
John: But every door would have been closed.
John: And I would have been standing there with like a sleeping bag half stuffed into a stuff sack and like in pajama bottoms going, hey.
Merlin: Oh, your hair is all messed up.
Merlin: You still sleep in your eyes.
Merlin: And the thing from The Odd Couple is playing.
John: I got a half-empty half-rack of scrows or whatever.
John: And I'm like, I got eight beers.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, you'd be Felix and Oscar in that.
Merlin: No, in the sense that your wife would be throwing out because you're insufferable, but also you'd be sloppy boy.
John: Sloppy boy.
John: And the thing about drinking, I don't know if you heard this, but like liquor stores are considered essential.
Merlin: So is weed.
Merlin: Our local, the best weed dealer in town, all the weed dealers, but they're considered essential and they'll still come out to your house.
John: Oh, for sure.
Merlin: It's pretty amazing and they're very nice.
John: Liquor stores are in the top two most essential things for, I'm going to say, 60% of Americans and 70% of non-Muslim worldwides.
John: Yeah.
John: But...
John: The thing is, and this is something I need to say to everybody, if you are struggling with alcohol dependency and have stopped, if you are like trying to get sober, this is going to be extra hard.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Because no meetings and stuff, right?
John: Well, no meetings.
John: And also like when you're trying to get sober, your brain is looking for any reason why this is different, why this particular moment is different.
John: That's what your brain is doing.
John: Oh, gosh, yes.
John: Right?
John: It's always like, it's New Year's Eve or, oh, my wife just left me or, oh, I got a promotion at work.
John: Your brain is always trying to figure out why today is a day that you should try and drink.
Merlin: Imagine it's kind of like you're waiting for that opportunity when your brain says to you and you believe your brain when it says today is different and you'd be crazy not to.
John: Today is different.
John: And the problem is I'm doing it.
John: I'm sitting at home every day.
John: Like another banana split is the least I should be doing in, you know, as part of this sequester, right?
John: It can't last forever.
John: And so it's banana split time.
John: But if I was four months sober and my brain was like, you know what you should be doing is drinking.
Merlin: Is that, is that like a big remission sort of time?
John: It would be really hard.
John: And so I just want to say to all those people who are trying to stay sober and
John: Just you got to really commit to knowing that that's your brain fucking with you and sequester is not a time to go get drunk or high.
John: If you are already a drunk or a stoner, you know, of course, like by all means.
Merlin: This is what you've been training.
Merlin: It really is.
Merlin: You know.
Merlin: I've never been better.
Merlin: Keep it such a distance.
Yeah.
John: But listen, if you're trying to stay sober, that's more important.
Merlin: Hey, jokes are leaving the room here.
Merlin: What should somebody do if they're struggling right now, John?
John: Well, you know, there are a lot of people you can call on the phone.
John: There are a lot of people you can reach out to.
John: You know this already.
John: There's already people on your list of phones that you can call.
John: You should call them.
John: But also just be reminded that your brain's playing tricks on you if it tries to tell you that this today is different.
John: If your brain is trying to tell you that today is different – and this goes for a lot of things other than drugs and alcohol.
John: I should be saying this to myself about banana splits.
Merlin: I bet people – I bet there's a lot of pretty wild eating right now.
Merlin: I'm actually eating way, way, way, way, way, way less for some reason.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: I lost like five pounds, which is weird.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: That is not what I am doing.
Merlin: No.
Merlin: Yeah, I know.
Merlin: I don't know why.
Merlin: I'm like spaghetti for breakfast.
Merlin: I'm in.
Merlin: The crazy part – I'm so reluctant to talk about this because it sounds like I'm bragging or something, but like it's kind of nice –
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: My kid went out with straight A's.
Merlin: I'm really proud of her.
Merlin: We got her quote-unquote final grades from March.
Merlin: She got fours in everything, which made me really happy.
Merlin: I've got to be honest with you, man.
Merlin: I've said this before, and I know this will probably come back to bite me in the ass, but I think it's so important that everybody... If we had a way to press the big button right now, the big Danish button or whatever, I would love it if everybody just got... You know what?
Merlin: Unless you're helping...
Merlin: People who are sick are helping to find out how to make people not get sick.
Merlin: Unless you're involved in that effort, how can everybody get two weeks off?
Merlin: No questions asked.
Merlin: Like, whatever you're making, we're going to pay you for the last two weeks.
Merlin: For the next two weeks, I need to say.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: Like, my wife is working.
Merlin: I can't believe she works this hard at an office.
Merlin: If she works anywhere near this hard at an office, it's amazing how hard she's working at home.
Merlin: Because she works for a university that is actually fighting this.
Merlin: So she's got shit to do.
Merlin: And she's doing it from home.
Merlin: But she was working.
Merlin: She worked probably six or eight hours yesterday.
Merlin: uh i know because i was napping in the room while she was working but like i don't you think kids and adults shouldn't everybody just get a little bit of time off before we decide to get all little house on the prairie like before we get all like oh you know we need to get back to reading the great books and doing our our math maths like i just feel like we need a little bit of time maybe i'm wrong maybe it's important to go straight into that but like i think you know we made chocolate chip cookies last night and we didn't apologize to anybody
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: What's your feeling on that?
Merlin: Everybody's different and like some people need a certain level of that kind of stimulation.
Merlin: But with that said, my kid still does the very vague general homework.
Merlin: She does her coding projects.
Merlin: She practices ukulele.
Merlin: She does whatever just because she enjoys that.
Merlin: She does craft projects.
Merlin: She's...
Merlin: finds ways to stay busy on her own oh yes and plays animal crossing of course but you know i'm saying like she's she's keeping herself busy she's not bouncing off the walls then again she's not like let's say a three-year-old boy so that's different but what's your stand on that do you feel like we should be diving straight into like full-on bunker mode or do you i see i feel like we need to pass through a period of transition into whatever this becomes for a couple weeks what's your what's your stand on that what are you doing at home
John: Well, so... Are you doing active schooling for child now?
John: Yesterday at dinner, I looked across the table at my daughter, who had a mouthful of scabetti, and I said, tomorrow is Monday, and your mother is going to be back at work making phone calls to all of her executive teams, and daddy is going to go downstairs and talk to Merlin, and then he's going to move some logs...
John: What are you going to do?
John: And her eyes got wide.
John: And she was like, what do you mean?
John: And I said, well, last week was the first week of this sequester.
John: And so although we did some schoolwork and some activities, we were kind of spending a lot of time going down to the beach and looking at crabs.
John: But this week...
John: I feel like it might be time to get on some math.
John: And she was like, but, and I was like, get the calendar out and let's make a schedule.
Merlin: She's more, I mean, again, everybody's different.
Merlin: I respect an honor.
Merlin: Everybody's differences.
Merlin: Your kid is also at an age where like, if I, if I have her age pay correctly, she's right square in the middle of like worksheet land.
Merlin: She's right in that, like, we need to do a lot of these sums and you need to show your work and do the line.
Merlin: Probably you're doing some number line stuff, I'm guessing.
Merlin: But a lot of stuff where she's going to need direction to do the maths.
Merlin: Is that accurate?
John: Well, so we went online...
John: And thank God for the internet.
John: Am I right?
John: Am I right?
Merlin: John, I can't, John, that is a blinding possible light.
Merlin: I cannot even look at is what happens if that goes away.
Merlin: But yes, yes.
Merlin: Thank you for the internet.
Merlin: Can you even imagine?
Merlin: Can you even imagine if all you had was your local TV stations right now?
John: Or not even those, because Merlin, you have to... Somebody tweeted at me today.
Merlin: They were like, well, you know, if the economy... I literally just pasted those three words and that punctuation mark into the problem for this show.
Merlin: In this economy?
Merlin: See, you go to the internet and you're getting maths.
Merlin: You're withdrawing maths from the internet.
John: I was about to say, somebody tweeted me this morning.
John: They were trying to say that if the economy went...
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
John: That maybe the water and power would get shut off.
John: All right, pump the brakes.
John: Let's go easy.
John: Hang on.
John: All right.
John: Piling water or whatever, and I was like, wow, I don't know, man.
John: I'm not sure.
John: Somebody else texted me or DMed.
John: They slid into my DMs, and they were like, what keeps us from just taking $500 billion from the rich people and redistributing it?
John: And I was like, well.
John: I can't think of a few things.
John: Let's walk through it.
John: There's an army.
John: I'm going to walk through this in the form of a paragraph.
John: Here's what that would require.
John: I mean, you can do it.
John: Here's just what it would require.
John: And so all you have to do is follow me through four sentences like.
John: If you could get Congress to vote on it, then we would still have the American form of government.
John: If you couldn't get Congress to vote on it and did it anyway, we would no longer have an American form of government.
John: We would have a new kind of government that was not...
John: Democratic.
John: So, I mean, because if you can't get Congress to vote on it, you're not going to get a plurality of people to vote, to agree to it.
Merlin: That's so interesting.
Merlin: And it makes me think of keep moving and get out of the way because other people buy the people for the people.
Merlin: It's important that you have all three, much like keep moving and get out of the way.
Merlin: If you just buffet one of those, you got a real different kind of government.
Merlin: If it's just of the people, that was a lot of Central America in the 70s.
Merlin: Hard pass.
Merlin: No gracias.
Merlin: Yep.
John: Exactly.
John: And then if you have a new form of government that the people didn't all – or that a majority of the people didn't agree on, and that new form of government is like –
John: Just doing what it wants.
John: Well, you got a new form of government entirely.
John: And so, I don't know, point to one in the world that you look at and like that does that kind of thing.
Merlin: That's one thing if it's like four roommates in an English comedy.
Merlin: From the early 80s.
Merlin: But I don't know if I want to live in anarchy house all the time, especially if it's with 300 million people.
John: If you've got four roommates and one of them has eight cans of Strohs.
John: Oh, right.
John: And you decide you're going to take those.
John: We grow the seed.
Merlin: We just grow the seed.
Merlin: Hands up.
Merlin: Who likes me?
Merlin: I should introduce my kid to the young ones.
Merlin: This is the perfect time.
John: I downloaded some math homework this morning and she woke up on her own at nine.
John: She made a little breakfast.
John: We sat down at the table, plopped the math homework down and said, okay,
John: While I'm talking to Dr. Merlin, you work on your math.
John: Then I'll come up and we'll work on it a little bit together.
John: And then at 11.30 or 12, we'll move on to science.
John: We'll take a little lunch break.
John: You're doing this, buddy.
John: Yeah.
John: We'll go out.
John: We'll look at some crabs.
John: Now, I don't know how long I'm going to be able to keep this up, frankly, because, you know, like one of these days, I'm going to go...
Merlin: just just play can you just so somebody a famously retweeted thing from even like over a week ago was i think somebody in england and they said well i've been what is i've been teaching my kid at home for four hours and i now realize that every teacher should be paid a million pounds per year no now imagine doing that with all the other kids and not just your precious angel
John: Ugh, all the other kids, many of whom are monsters, and their parents are monsters.
Merlin: Oh, no, basically, they're in a kennel with lunch.
John: They're out there, their parents are out there jogging around Green Lake right at this moment, and you're supposed to teach them the same as my little angel?
Merlin: I don't think so.
Merlin: I don't think so.
Merlin: I've only got so many resources.
John: So now, have you, as a familia, let me ask this a certain way, does the Mann family...
John: Does the man, do the mans have a plan?
John: Do you have another family, one other family that you consider a close family?
John: Who's your close family?
John: Do you have one?
Merlin: Okay, so I will try to answer this, even though I'm not sure where you're going with this.
Merlin: The closest family for us would be our in-laws out in Gold Country, a couple, three hours from here.
Merlin: But as far as the neighborhood or the city, not per se, no.
Merlin: There's nobody where we could, like, I don't know where you're going with this, but just to speculate, it's not anything where we would say, oh, pull up stakes, the water heater blew up, now we're two families, one house.
Merlin: Is that the kind of thing you're talking about?
No.
John: Yes, right.
John: Because across the street here, right across the street, is my daughter's nominal best friend.
John: Oh, that's so cool.
John: It's great.
John: And they run across the street back and forth.
John: They ring the doorbell on each other all the time.
John: And, you know, it's the type of best frienditude where...
John: If the chips were down, it's really unclear whether her little friend across the street would totally betray her and hang her out to dry for some other girl.
John: But it's also because my sweet little angel reports on things subjectively.
John: It's not clear to me.
John: how reliable her friendship is either.
John: They are nine-year-old girls.
Merlin: It's not like they follow the principles and the codicils of a summertime friend.
John: Right.
Merlin: They might have just dropped the whole thing and walked away at a moment's notice.
John: They live right across the street from each other.
John: So all the time I look out the window at them meeting in the street and on their scooters and stuff, and I think, when they are 16 and little girl across the street has some rinky boyfriend...
John: who drives a beat up Honda Civic and she sneaks out at night and he's got a leather jacket and they drive off.
John: And my sweet little angel is sitting, looking out the window.
John: In her, you know, in her wearing her whatever her ring that indicates she's married to Jesus or whatever, except it's Cthulhu.
John: Like, what?
John: How am I going to manage this relationship?
John: Then that's going to be tricky.
John: I'm going to have what am I going to have?
John: Tiger traps all around the house?
John: Can't do that.
Merlin: You have zoned for that.
John: Anyway, right now.
John: So her family across the street, mom and dad are pretty darn introverted and keep to themselves anyway all the time.
John: Except mom is a lawyer and goes to work still in a law office.
John: Oh, my.
John: That's not wholesome.
John: And her older sister is a furry.
John: So who knows how much exposure they have?
Merlin: I'm sorry, you went by super fast on that.
Merlin: So the friend of your daughter who lives across the street with the introverted parents, one of whom is a lawyer, there is a person in that family, a female person and child, older than your daughter, who is what you have called a furry.
John: Yes.
John: In fact, I think a college, like starting college age.
Merlin: Oh, have you seen her in her persona?
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Is she like a squirrel or something?
John: She's some kind of blue cat.
John: Oh, okay.
John: But also she sometimes is wearing like Ren Faire stuff.
John: I mean, she runs the gamut.
John: Okay.
John: But I don't know.
John: She's got a rinky boyfriend that shows up every once in a while in a Honda Civic.
John: I don't think he wears a leather jacket.
John: I think he wears a leather top hat.
John: But whatever.
John: I can't monitor who's coming and going out of there.
John: But her little friend shows up over here.
John: Ding dong.
John: And I'm like, now, are we going to try and combine the two homes?
John: Because her parents don't want that and I don't want that.
John: I mean, in the sense that I don't want them over here and they don't want us over there.
John: They have one of those plug-in air fresheners.
John: You plug it into the wall.
John: What's called a sensei?
John: Yeah, it burns essential oils or something.
John: Every person that goes over there comes back smelling like whatever it is.
John: And they made us some cookies the other day, and the cookies didn't smell like the air freshener.
Merlin: They tasted like the air freshener.
Merlin: Oh, can I give you one word through syllables?
Merlin: Because it's in the air.
Merlin: Lavender.
Merlin: Lavender.
Merlin: For myself, my superpower is that any tiny amount of lavender, which is a very nice smell, but the smallest amount of lavender goes quickly from, that smells kind of nice to, I can't get this taste out of my entire head.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: And that's, I think some of those people that get, they get a, what do you call it?
Merlin: Herd immunity.
Merlin: They get a nerd and they stop noticing.
Merlin: It's like a lady wears, or a man, let's be honest, he wears too much toilet water and they don't realize it's too much toilet water.
Merlin: They're, they're living in a sensei, I think.
John: Oh, gross.
Merlin: Were they chocolate chip?
Merlin: What kind of cookies were they?
John: They were M&M chip.
John: Because they sound like the kind of people that might put raisins in cookies.
John: They didn't in this case.
John: I think he has the right attitude about cake and cookies, which is more chocolate, more the time.
John: Don't get cute.
John: This is the wrong time to get cute with your baked goods.
John: But I don't know.
John: I can't.
John: So my daughter sits in here with those big, keen, painting, crying eyes.
John: Where she's like, my best friend is right on the other side of the class.
John: And her daddy said that she can play.
John: And why are you saying that?
John: I can't play.
John: And I say, go do your math homework.
John: That's not tenable.
John: That can't last forever.
John: But that means that I'm basically inviting a furry's boyfriend into my home.
John: Did you say he has a leather hat?
John: A furry boyfriend with a leather hat who smells like lavender is basically riding piggyback on this poor little girl that she didn't choose her life.
Merlin: No offense, no shade, no lemonade, but it sounds a little bit like a PowerPoint at an elementary school assembly about what to watch for.
Merlin: In my book, there's one person who's allowed to wear a leather hat
Merlin: off the top of my dome.
Merlin: And that's Julie Andrews in the sound of music.
Merlin: She has a very handsome leather hat in that.
Merlin: Now I think a lot, when you run into most people with a leather hat, you're going to end up in a clown's basement.
Merlin: Be super careful about that.
Merlin: That's just my opinion.
John: You don't want to end up in a clown's basement.
John: That's what I'm saying.
John: Especially not a clown with COVID-19 coronavirus.
John: Right.
John: And then they read you the Bible.
John: So I don't want it because, you know, Merlin, I, I, I feel like, and I've said this before.
John: I feel like the weak part – we all have weak parts, right?
John: The weak part of me is my lungs and my eyes.
John: Those are the weak parts.
John: What about your knees?
John: Well, the thing is my knees are weak because of something I did.
John: Oh, your knees can't catch a bug.
John: I mean, it's not – yeah, it's like a – It's not a pathway, as they say.
John: No.
John: I mean, if right now we had a plague of clowns that were baseball batting people's knees –
John: Oh, like a Galooly.
Merlin: Like Galooly.
Merlin: If he was a clown.
Merlin: Like Galooly.
Merlin: If it was a Galooly.
Merlin: Galooly clowns.
John: If there were Galooly clowns everywhere.
John: It's so important to watch out for the Galooly clowns.
John: If there were Galooly clowns everywhere, I would stay inside just as if there were Lorena Bobbitts all around the... Oh, no.
Merlin: That would suck.
John: You would have to stay inside if there were Lorena Bobbitts everywhere.
Merlin: I like that part.
Merlin: I wouldn't mind keeping that a few more years.
John: It might kill you, right?
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: That's a very vascular area.
Merlin: You would lose a lot of blood if you got your hog clammed.
John: But I feel like my lungs have always been a weak point.
John: I get sick all the time.
John: I catch every little bug.
John: Every time I go on a vacation, I spend the first four days lying in bed with a fever.
John: Like, I just get it.
John: I get it.
John: Whatever it is, I'm going to catch it.
Merlin: You know, it's true.
Merlin: You do seem a little bit vulnerable to that pathway.
Merlin: You're right.
John: In the lungs, especially.
John: And I don't know why.
John: I don't know why God was like, I'm going to make all of you super big, except your lungs are going to be this vector of everything that comes along.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: And so I don't want to get this.
John: I do not think, I think everybody around me, including my mom would get it and just shrug it off.
John: Right.
John: They're, they're the ones that are going to be like, I didn't even show any symptoms.
John: I just transmitted it to 15 people.
John: Yeah.
John: But me, I'm going to get sick and I don't want it.
John: I don't want to get sick.
John: I'm scared.
John: I'm scared of, I'm scared of it.
John: Personally scared of it.
John: So I don't want, I don't want a furry's boyfriend.
Mm hmm.
John: Like licking my daughter's best friend and sending her out into the street.
John: I wonder how long it can live on a leather top hat.
John: How long it can live on a leather?
John: I bet his top hat is half coronavirus.
Merlin: I woke up this morning.
Merlin: Very late.
Merlin: As you know, I texted you from bed and I was like, because I was trying to capture some bonus sleep and trying to figure out a couple of dreams.
Merlin: And anyways, I got up and I went out in the lounge and my daughter in an unusually perky way because she's at that age now where she's, you know, she's, you know, she's a tween.
Merlin: And she's like, hey, can we watch more Ozymandias tonight?
Merlin: And I was like, Ozymandias?
Merlin: Because, you know, with the music, the guy with the wig.
Merlin: I was like, oh, yeah, Amadeus, of course.
Merlin: So we watched the first half of Amadeus last night.
John: Oh, Amadeus, Amadeus.
Merlin: Rock him.
Merlin: Yeah, I know.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: But I've been trying to get her... Gosh, she drives me fucking crazy.
Merlin: I always have to say to her, when she does this one thing, I always say to her, chocolate and Toy Story, honey, chocolate and Toy Story.
Merlin: Two things that she swore at one point that she would never try because she knew she wouldn't like them...
Merlin: Chocolate.
Merlin: Chocolate and Toy Story.
Merlin: Less Toy Story now, but honey, what you need to remember is the single largest staple of your diet is something you once regarded as something that was not for you.
Merlin: So what is that, Toy Story or chocolate?
Merlin: Ditto both.
Merlin: Ditto both.
Merlin: And so it says to her, I says, would you trust your dumb dad?
Merlin: Trust your dumb dad.
Merlin: I know, I got a pretty good feeling you're going to like Debs.
Merlin: I got a pretty good feeling, let's be honest, you're going to like Watchmen.
Merlin: In this case, honey, cut me a break.
Merlin: Will you at least give Amadeus a shot?
Merlin: Because I got a feeling you're going to like it.
Merlin: And of course, I love that movie so much.
Merlin: I'm real normie like that, but I think it's such a tremendous movie.
Merlin: You're a basic bitch.
Merlin: I'm a basic bitch, but you know what else is nice about it?
Merlin: Do you remember how popular the Neville Mariner
Merlin: music from the movie was after that because so many people heard Mozart in context for the first time and didn't need a Sherpa or a public radio station to go, this music is transcendent.
Merlin: It really is.
Merlin: I mean, his music is so special and different.
Merlin: Him and Bach are like two where they're on another level in different ways.
Merlin: But anyway...
John: Well, and also the, you know, Galtieri took the Union Jack, you know, and Thatcher with their tears took Cruiser with all hands.
Merlin: Is that from the Muppet movie?
John: What was that?
Merlin: Talking about F. Murray Abraham?
John: That was a really, really... Intentionally garbled quote from the final Pink Floyd album, The Final Cut.
John: Oh, holy shit.
John: Which was a Roger Waters solo album.
John: You're scraping the black mold out of somebody's basement.
John: Holy shit.
John: And that was a song referring to the Falklands War.
John: Okay.
John: Okay.
John: And the Falklands War, and so I was, I was, I was, Dr. Falkland.
John: Yeah, I was, I was mistransposing.
John: Okay, sorry, sorry, don't explain the joke, you're killing me.
John: Galtieri and Consigliieri.
Merlin: Oh, I get it, I see.
John: Galtieri and Caligula.
Merlin: Gab, what's the name, Gabagool or Gabalieri?
Merlin: Who's the Italian guy?
Merlin: Gabalieri.
Merlin: Who's the guy?
Merlin: Gabagari.
Merlin: Gabagari.
Merlin: Gabba Gary's van?
Merlin: Gabba ghoul.
Merlin: Point of those, it ends with me going downhill on a Segway wearing an N95 mask with Mozart's 40th Symphony playing over the speaker this morning.
John: Wait, where did you get an N95 mask from?
Merlin: We've had three left over from the big fires a couple years ago.
John: I have some here, too, because I often do work around the house.
Merlin: This is an opportunity, though.
Merlin: Yes, they should learn.
Merlin: Yes, we must fill their brains with the sciences and maths.
Merlin: But it's also a nice opportunity to get to do a little thing.
Merlin: There's all kinds of little projects that you can start for now.
Merlin: Here's what I'm saying.
Merlin: This is going to get worse.
Merlin: So have a fun project now.
Merlin: Make some cookies.
Merlin: It's going to get worse, is the thing.
Merlin: It's going to get worse.
Merlin: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha