Ep. 380: "The Impossible Me"
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Is that how we're going to do it?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: Oh, God.
Merlin: How do I turn it off?
Merlin: John has turned on his camera.
Merlin: He's wearing a very colorful shirt.
Merlin: Let me see if I can get mine on.
Merlin: I don't know if this will work.
Merlin: Oh, shit.
John: Wow, it's Merlin.
Merlin: How's it going?
John: Good.
John: How are you?
John: Well, I was not really prepared for this.
John: No one knows this, but we have never done this.
Merlin: You tried accidentally once before.
Merlin: in our first episode because you didn't know.
Merlin: Yeah, I think you didn't know how to Skype.
Merlin: I don't know if I want to do this.
Merlin: This is really upsetting.
John: No, it's pretty terrible.
John: Let me expand the screen so I can really get a full... Wow, there you are.
Merlin: Yeah, you can see over here I got an X-Men poster.
Merlin: Over here I got another X-Men poster.
Merlin: Hang on, I got another one here.
Hang on.
Merlin: I got this.
Merlin: Another X-Men poster.
John: I see that.
John: Yeah, that's very nice.
John: That's the nicest one.
Merlin: This is really cool.
Merlin: This is a listener sent me this poster of Elektra signed by Bill Sienkiewicz, who's one of the greats.
Merlin: Wow.
Merlin: Zing zang.
Merlin: And here's something from Sex Criminals done by Howard Chaykin.
John: Phenomenal.
John: I have a poster tube here.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: Boy, that's not what I imagined that room looking like.
Merlin: Oh, this is bad, John.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: We'll take a look around here.
Merlin: Oh, see, now that's not so bad.
John: Oh, I see.
John: There's some stuff.
John: Yeah, it's a little bit of a... This is a guest room, playroom.
John: You know, this isn't my space.
John: Wow, that's big.
John: Is that an inflatable R2-D2?
John: There's a life-size inflatable R2-D2, yeah.
John: Damn.
John: That there is a little rolling keyboard.
John: I've got some guitars.
John: Why didn't he just tell Luke what he knew?
John: Well, you know, I have 4,000 replies that I can go through.
Merlin: Actually.
Merlin: Okay, John, I'm going to turn off the camera now, and I encourage you to do the same.
John: So what happened was I think I accidentally – how do I turn the camera off?
Merlin: There's a little icon at the bottom between – don't hit the wrong thing.
Merlin: Hit the one that's a camera, and then it'll have a buster on it.
Merlin: Uh-huh.
John: Oh, okay, good.
Merlin: Okay, sticker goes back up.
John: I accidentally hit the space bar, and that's what Skype does when you hit the space bar.
Merlin: Skype loves to capture focus from whatever you're doing.
Merlin: It happens a lot, where you'll be doing something, one could be typing, and then the thing rings, and when you're typing, then now you're on video.
Merlin: Well, that was fun.
Merlin: Let's start the show.
Merlin: Hey, how's it going, John?
John: Oh, hi, Merlin.
John: You mentioned my... Your popular tweet.
John: My viral tweet, yeah.
John: After how many years have we been on Twitter?
John: Has it been nine years?
Merlin: According to the internet, I joined Twitter in February of 2007.
John: Whoa, okay.
John: Well, you... That was my second account.
Merlin: I had an original account before it was public.
Merlin: But this is when Hot Dogs Ladies happened.
John: So I've been, oh, wow, I've been there since 2008.
John: So that means 12 straight years.
John: Holy cats.
Merlin: Yes, I know.
Merlin: I know.
John: Well, anyway, in all that time, you know, I've been, you know, I've been churning out.
Merlin: You produce a lot of content.
Merlin: At one point, you had a book of your toots that you would sell at your rock shows.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: One time at Bimbo's, I remember there's a table and you could buy a book of John's toots at Bimbo's.
John: You know, I have an award here from Seattle Weekly, best tweet of 2009 or something like that.
John: Wait a minute.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: You got an award from Seattle Weekly for a best tweet, huh?
Merlin: Do you remember what the tweet was, John?
John: Every year, Seattle Weekly does the – or used to do like the best of Seattle, the best teriyaki place.
John: Oh, of course.
John: And then you get to hang a sign in your window that says, we got the best fun in Seattle.
John: Right.
John: I get it.
John: Right.
John: And 2009, everybody was trying to figure out what Twitter was and what the future might hold.
John: And so Seattle Weekly debuted their best tweet category.
John: I think it only...
John: Lasted one year.
John: I think 2009 was the only year they offered a best tweet award.
John: And it went to me.
John: I've got a plaque.
John: That's great.
John: So all by way of saying, you know, Twitter, I've been there.
John: I've invested in it.
Merlin: You got a lot of miles on those tires, and you're not even the sort of person that likes getting awards.
Merlin: Well, you do like awards.
Merlin: No, wait a minute.
Merlin: I'm trying to contrast this with the diploma that may or may not exist.
Merlin: Schrodinger's diploma.
Merlin: Were you happy to receive that?
Merlin: Were you surprised?
John: To get the best tweet award?
John: No.
John: Obviously, I didn't have the best tweet of 2009.
John: But those were maybe in Seattle.
John: What was funny is that in 2009, there was a countable number of people in Seattle, like celebs.
John: that were on Twitter.
John: And the fact that I was on Twitter was novel.
John: Yeah.
John: Right.
John: Like the other rock musicians are like, what is he doing over there?
John: You know?
John: So it's possible that among, among that class of people, yes, I had the best tweet.
John: Almost certainly I did.
John: Cause I was really good at Twitter.
John: Right.
John: You're saying there's a smaller denominator back then.
John: Back then.
John: Yeah.
John: We're talking about, you know, best out of 15 or something.
John: Right.
John: Airplane food.
John: Am I right?
Yeah.
John: It was during that period where I thought that all tweets had to be 140 characters.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: That was a little game for me.
Merlin: I spent hours every day making them exactly 140 characters.
Merlin: Hours, John.
Merlin: Hours.
John: Well, and I would get yelled at because back then in order to retweet somebody, you had to put RT in front of it.
John: And people were like, you don't leave any room to RT you.
Merlin: I remember often being criticized, often, often in the early days, being criticized for having more people who followed me than I followed.
John: Oh, you had the wrong ratio.
John: I got that too.
Merlin: Now ratio means something different.
Merlin: But yeah, those are the salad days.
Merlin: I think that was the year Twitter broke.
John: Yeah.
John: The problem was you were there.
John: A lot of my friends were there.
John: I always had a lot fewer followers.
John: But I was fine with it, of course, because I'm used to it.
John: I'm always going to hit that artificial ceiling.
John: It's not artificial.
John: I'm always going to hit that very...
John: real ceiling of where people don't like me anymore than just the small group that does.
Merlin: I don't know if they had muting back then because I just assume that everyone has muted me.
Merlin: which is fine because I mute everyone.
Merlin: I don't really want to see any content on the internet.
Merlin: I wish I could mute everything.
Merlin: But how do we get on this?
Merlin: We got the video.
Merlin: We got the plaque.
Merlin: Oh, R2-D2.
John: Yes, it's yes.
John: Yes.
John: So what happened is the other day, you know, and the thing is I see this all the time as we all do.
John: Somebody says a tweet.
John: You look at it.
John: You're like, oh, that's a good tweet.
John: And then you look down and you're like, wow, it went crazy.
John: It's got 50,000 views.
John: likes or whatever and you go to the person's account and there's somebody that's got 2000 followers and you're like wow what did they do like how did they what what nerve did they strike and i can't tell you marlon over the years this is just something unconsciously that's happening not unconsciously it because it rises to the level of consciousness but i will write a tweet and i will push send and i'll think this one this is this one rubbing your hands together
John: This one's going to get out there.
John: This is such a good tweet.
John: This one is going to hit the ground running, and it's going to blow up.
John: It's relevant.
Merlin: It's funny.
Merlin: It's revealing.
Merlin: And maybe it has a little twist.
Merlin: This is the one.
Merlin: I'm going to get the phony for this one.
John: It's so good.
John: This tweet is tailor-made to go atmospheric.
John: And then three hours later, I'll go back.
John: I'll be like, let's see how that tweet is doing.
John: 80 faves.
John: I'll go.
John: And then, you know, and Ken Jennings, of course, has a lot more followers than I do.
John: And he'll fart in a glass and it'll get 5,000 likes.
John: So I'm always, so I'm always, I'm always raging at him, you know, like comedy raging.
John: And he's, and he loves that.
John: You know, he likes to be like, oh yeah, I'm sorry.
John: Yeah.
John: Just put on my laundry list and yet, you know, 8,000 followers, 8,000 new followers.
John: Yeah.
John: But I do.
John: I send these tweets out.
John: And every once, you know, like all the time, I'll give it a little kiss.
John: You know, it's like a white dove.
John: And I'll go, go, you know, fly, be free.
John: And I've never, ever, ever had one.
John: I've had a few that, you know, that did some traffic a little bit.
John: But the other day, my daughter comes in and says one of her things that she says as she's walking through the room.
John: And I thought, oh, that's cute.
John: And I put it into a Kids Say the Darnedest Things style tweet about R2-D2.
John: And now, as of this morning, let's see how...
John: Let's see how it's doing right now.
Merlin: I think it was 206,000 last time I looked.
John: 206,000 likes, 4,000 replies.
John: Oh, no.
John: Oh, no.
John: You hate to see it.
John: No.
John: 23,700 retweets.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, no, that's rare air.
Merlin: Now you're way into no matter what you said.
Merlin: You are now a ding-a-ling sink.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
John: They're just going to find you and release their heat.
John: The thing is, and you would have known this.
John: You must have known this.
John: And I didn't.
John: I honestly didn't.
John: And I think all of my friends knew this more than I knew it.
Merlin: Now you're going to attract – you're going to get some hop-ons?
John: No, not that.
John: That there are so many theories about R2-D2.
Oh.
Merlin: I thought it was a good tweet.
Merlin: It's something a lot of us have thought.
Merlin: There's two facts and evidence.
Merlin: I don't want to give the spoiler here, but there's a spoiler in Empire Strikes Back.
Merlin: We also know that Luke is one of the relatively rare people who appears to speak with R2-D2.
Merlin: They understand each other.
Merlin: R2-D2 seems to understand everybody, but only some people understand R2-D2.
Merlin: Is that accurate?
John: Wow, must be a nice privilege, huh?
John: Partly because Marlo comes sauntering in every once in a while and is like, hey, how's my tweet doing?
John: You want to pull up some of those replies and let's see?
John: Because a lot of them are like, she's a brilliant little girl.
John: She's eating it up.
John: But she also loves all the memes because people reply with memes.
John: And so she's eating up all these R2-D2 memes.
John: Well, anyway, people want to say that because R2 is an astromech,
John: That he doesn't that he's that he's just going according to his programming and that he's not you know, he's not programmed to
John: reveal or imagine or think for itself.
John: Why does he start?
John: Why does he come to life when Luke comes back?
John: They have a special relationship.
John: Exactly.
John: They go to Tatooine.
John: They go to the Digabaw system.
John: I mean, they go on adventures together, you know, and Luke sits and talks to him like they have a special, exactly a special relationship.
John: They've been through this.
John: It's like the UK and America used to be.
John: You can't tell me that an astromech can have disappointment.
John: But I'll tell you who has disappointment.
John: R2-D2.
John: Every time he gets left behind.
John: He makes a little noise.
John: He's disappointed.
John: He's upset.
John: Are you kidding me?
Merlin: He's very emotional and very expressive.
Merlin: And shame on you for trying to say that he's just a result of programming.
Merlin: You don't know that.
John: This will happen a long time ago.
John: Exactly.
John: Second of all, so many turns out neckbeards out there want to tell me that the droids had their memories wiped by Bail Organa at the end of episode three.
John: Well, let me tell you, I've watched the footage now 11,000 times and Bail Organa has the protocol droids memory wiped.
John: Specifically, does not mention the astromech.
John: So you can take that theory and stick it right in your ear.
John: But the theories, the theories that are interesting are the ones where R2 is actually the puppet master of the whole thing.
John: Tell me more about that.
John: R2 is, is there from the beginning, knows everything and is playing a super long game along with his partner in crime, Chewbacca.
John: And the two of them, the two of them are rebel leaders and
John: And they recognize that Luke is a hot-headed, whiny ding-dong.
John: They realize that Han is like a callow rogue.
John: But that these two will get them, Chewbacca and R2, into all the spots that they need to do to lay the groundwork.
John: for their big plan.
Merlin: It's a kind of conspiracy theory.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: I'm just trying to be clear here.
Merlin: So they're not saying this is canonical.
Merlin: They're saying this is, as we say in the community headcanon.
Merlin: Like, this is my idea of how this works?
Merlin: Or are they saying that all will eventually be revealed, much like QAnon?
John: So I'm not 100% sure.
John: A lot of this I feel like is just a lot of people have watched the movies too many times.
John: But here's the latest reply that I got 30 seconds ago.
John: Okay.
John: He's a more simplistic droid than 3CPO.
John: Maybe he can only respond and not engage in critical thinking like 3CPO seems to.
Okay.
John: I.e.
John: Luke would have to ask R2 about his dad.
John: Since Obi-Wan told him his dad is dead, he has no reason to even assume R2 knew his dad.
John: So in your experience, isn't the thing that makes C-3PO and R2's relationship funny is that C-3PO...
John: believes that he is smarter than R2, but that we know that not to be true.
John: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: It's a classic Keith Johnstone impro thing status.
Merlin: It's a difference in status.
Merlin: It's Jeeves and Worcester, essentially.
Merlin: Or what about Hong Kong Phooey and his dog?
Merlin: Same situation.
Merlin: Hong Kong Phooey and his dog.
John: Thank you very much.
Merlin: Number one super guy.
Merlin: He's quicker than the human eye, but it turns out the dog is running around behind him cleaning up everything, and Hong Kong fully gets to take all the credit.
Merlin: I agree with you.
Merlin: I think it's funny.
Merlin: Sometimes it's funny when you don't know what somebody is saying.
Merlin: Sort of like Bob Newhart, you only hear one side of the phone call, that kind of thing, about Godzilla or Abraham Lincoln or whatever.
Merlin: So in this case, yes, I agree it's about status.
Merlin: I agree it's about limited amounts of information.
Merlin: I never have gotten the sense that he's just a sophisticated echo device that you talk to.
Merlin: I don't think it's a Dracula situation where he's not allowed to mention it unless you bring it up.
Merlin: I don't think that's how that would work.
John: No, and that seems like one of these – people are trying to use some Asimovian –
John: Like, oh, there are rules about robot programming.
John: Oh, sure.
John: You got the rules.
John: I'm like, oh, really?
John: In a galaxy far, far away a long time ago?
Merlin: He's smart enough and independent enough to – one thing that I think is not a conspiracy theory, but I really hope John Syracuse doesn't hear this, is that we got to go get – we got to get to Tatooine.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And he's got ways that he's going to wangle that.
John: Yes, he's wangling it.
Merlin: Because 3CPO thinks he's so much smarter, which is part of his, I assume, his programming to think he's smarter.
Merlin: I mean, is he supposed to be that neurotic or is that something he developed?
Merlin: I don't know.
John: He was built and programmed by Anakin.
John: It's like a second language to him.
John: And also, this is something I learned in these 4,000 places.
John: The reason that Obi-Wan went to Tatooine with the young Skywalker is that Dark Vader hated it so much there, having grown up there, that it was the last place he would look for anything.
Merlin: That's why they didn't even bother to change his name from Skywalker.
Merlin: See, now I'm one of those simps that's always said, huh, if I was going to take these, there's a Star Wars spoilers here, sorry.
Merlin: If I was going to take these twins and put them somewhere, I'm not sure that's the place where I would put them.
Merlin: I would not put them on the same place where Jabba the Hutt lives and give one of them to a senator.
Merlin: The senator is going to make a lot of public appearances and it'll seem strange that he has an adoptive daughter now who is that I don't know.
John: Right.
John: But why would you take the kid back to his home planet?
John: I know.
John: Dark Vader's home planet.
John: Now you know.
John: Now you know.
John: I know.
John: Dark Vader doesn't want to go there.
John: Okay, so one way I tried to wade through my tweets was that I only...
John: started reading the verifieds.
John: Now, this is frustrating to me because the verifieds are the people that I always felt like were going to take one of my solid gold tweets and they were going to take it out there and send it out into the world.
John: I believe that's what happened here.
Merlin: The tweet gets big.
Merlin: This is not complicated.
Merlin: A tweet gets big not when it's liked a lot.
Merlin: A tweet gets big when it's retweeted by somebody that lots of people like.
John: Right.
John: I mean, is that correct?
John: It is.
John: It is.
John: I believe that's true.
John: Although, who knows?
John: Once this tweet got to Mark Hamill and he commented on it.
John: Hang on.
John: Mark Hamill saw it?
John: Mark Hamill not only saw it, but tweeted that he...
John: after having seen it he had to think about it all afternoon and he arrived at the conclusion that he also could not answer this question he seems nice and shrugged his shoulders and walked away okay and so then but having tweeted that then of course that attracted the people but then you know it started to get it started to get all kinds of people here but anyway trying to just put some constraints on
John: Oh, look here.
John: Jordan Curland, your good friend from San Francisco with the Japanese soaking tub and from MC Hammer's 40th birthday party.
John: He just faved it.
John: Yeah, Jordan.
John: He's still kicking around, huh?
John: Oh, sure.
John: He's running the show.
John: Okay, so Nathan Schneider, these are just verified users.
John: Nathan Schneider, who is the universal healthcare advocate, public education proponent, organizer, campaign manager, and political consultant and former House candidate.
John: He says, I think R2D2 felt a sense of power and superiority by withholding information.
Merlin: He's being passive-aggressive?
John: I guess so.
John: Tork Mason – these are all blue checks here.
John: USA Today Wisconsin photojournalist Tork Mason says the actual answer is retconned.
John: Oh, I see.
John: The actual answer is it was retconned.
John: But technically –
John: Obi-Wan never owned the droids.
John: Obi-Wan.
Merlin: He only knew them.
Merlin: I'm sorry.
Merlin: Every time I hear that, I got to do it in the voice.
Merlin: Obi-Wan.
Merlin: Obi-Wan.
John: Okay.
John: Let's see.
John: Claudia Aponte, who covers Brooklyn for the city of New York.
John: Oh, hi, Claudia.
John: And she's from Puerto Rico.
John: She says...
John: She quotes the tweet and says, this is fucked up.
John: Let's see.
John: Oh, wait.
John: John Siracusa chimes in here.
John: Oh, but wait.
John: Oh, what Siracusa says is that he's also sad.
John: Because I followed up this tweet saying, my daughter got way more likes than I've ever gotten in my life.
John: Sir Cusa says he wants me to see a tweet that he put out there that he thought should have gone viral and didn't.
John: And his tweet said, look at this gem.
John: Barely a blip.
John: I toil and toil.
John: And he links to a tweet that he sent out.
John: That has 1.4 thousand likes.
John: That's 1,400 likes.
John: And he's mad that it didn't do more traffic.
John: Can you imagine?
John: That's a weird flex, John.
John: I know.
John: He's got 78,000 followers, which is roughly twice the number of followers I have.
John: So I guess for him, 1,400 likes is like, aw.
Merlin: Each one a flying monkey out to do his bidding.
John: He calls him in sometimes.
Merlin: He says, go, my pretties.
Merlin: Kill, kill.
Merlin: Go.
Merlin: Go and defend.
Merlin: Go and defend Syracuse against all of the interlopers.
Merlin: Go.
Merlin: And they go, well, actually, I think John's the smart man.
Merlin: Oh, why don't you let John talk more?
John: If...
John: If I got 1,400 tweets before today, I would have considered it a viral tweet.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: And he's like, oh, yeah, this sucks.
John: Let's go down a little bit longer.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: You get no sympathy.
Merlin: You get no help.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: It's nice to have the drive-by.
Merlin: This is a funny tweet, people.
Merlin: That's nice.
John: Yeah, that's nice.
John: Dan McLaughlin, who's a senior writer for NRO.
John: He says, oh, here's his bio.
John: You're going to like this.
John: He's at Baseball Crank.
John: Oh, no.
Merlin: No, no, no, not Baseball Crank.
Merlin: No.
John: His bio is Reaganite.
John: Oh, I know.
John: No, no, no.
John: I know baseball crank.
John: No.
Merlin: Stay far away from baseball crank.
John: Oh, I'm not going to reply to him.
John: Okay.
John: But he's got 62,000 followers, and he says, he's given quite a long reply, go back and watch how Obi-Wan looks, eyes darting in the direction of R2, who had just beeped madly when he pulled out the old lightsaber while 3PO insisted on being shut down during the conversation.
John: when luke asks who killed his father now i have not gone back and watched it but is there really that much action going on in that scene you're talking about when they're in the little uh a little teepee and he's in his oil bath no no i think this is happening he's saying this is happening when obi-wan didn't this all happen in the
John: Didn't it happen in the... First one?
John: In the hut?
John: In the first one, or did it happen later on?
Merlin: In the hut, and he's in his oil... He takes his oil bath, and then he says, if you don't mind, I'm going to shut down.
Merlin: And I thought that was because whoever wrote that scene didn't want to have to do C-3PO things.
Merlin: And we're going to let C-3PO dip.
Merlin: He's out now, and we can focus on these more important, let's be honest, the more important players, the three characters.
John: sure sure sure i don't know no i agree i agree but you know there's a lot so anyway i've learned a lot um i've learned that in in 12 years of being on twitter that my legacy is going to be a kids say the darndest things about r2 uh uh tweet uh i've learned that my daughter uh
John: is pretty unimpressed with 207,000 likes because she has no context.
John: She doesn't know how daddy slaves away for 30 likes at a time.
John: And also –
John: Also, it just – it adds to her sense that the whole world – that everywhere she goes, the doors just open.
John: This was the problem with me when I was a kid.
John: I would chill along behind my dad and I would notice that everything – that the doors all opened and there was always shrimp cocktail there.
John: And I was like, I guess this is life.
John: And it's going to be worse for her because in her world, she gets 207 likes and then she's on stage with Blondie.
Yeah.
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Merlin: But level two, once you purchase $200 worth of products from Mack Weldon, which I have totally done, not only will you continue to receive free shipping, you will also start saving $20.
Merlin: 20% on every order you make for the next year.
Merlin: That's a feather in their cap.
Merlin: At level two, it also grants you access to new products before they are released to anyone else, as well as free gifts added to future orders.
Merlin: That's a pretty good gig.
Merlin: So, you know, as we speak, I'm wearing Mack Weldon.
Merlin: I'm wearing Mack Weldon all the time.
Merlin: You know, I love their shirts.
Merlin: I love their socks.
Merlin: I love all the things.
Merlin: And I think you will, too.
Merlin: Honestly, legit, real talk.
Merlin: This gets my official Colonel Potter's official okie-dokie.
Merlin: You should get this.
Merlin: So you go to MackWeldon.com slash R-O-T-L.
Merlin: And you're going to get 20% off your order using the promo code ROTL.
Merlin: Just like it sounds.
Merlin: R-O-T-L.
Merlin: Mack Weldon dot com slash R-O-T-L.
Merlin: Our thanks to Mack Weldon for supporting Roderick on the line and all the great shows.
Merlin: I would love to be on stage with Blondie.
Merlin: How the fuck is she going to have a normal life?
Merlin: Imagine meeting Clem Burke.
Merlin: Can you imagine that?
Merlin: Is he still living?
Merlin: Is he living?
John: I believe Clem Burke is living.
Merlin: Yeah, it's weird.
Merlin: My daughter texted me yesterday to say I was just looking because she loves podcasts, of course, the McElroys mostly.
Merlin: And she says, oh, yeah, I was just looking at a new podcast and it recommended three of your podcasts.
Merlin: And I said, close that tab and don't look at me.
Merlin: Don't look at Daddy.
Merlin: Daddy does not want to be noticed anymore.
Merlin: I want to not be noticed.
Merlin: I want to reach a micro audience of my peers, and I want everyone else to not notice me, please, and thank you.
Merlin: There it is.
Merlin: Because then you get noticed.
Micro.
John: Yeah, well, and it turns out – this is a lot better than it could have been, right?
John: Because I could have said something one time, one of my, like, angry – And now if you get one of those – you either get – okay, now I'm going to cut this out.
Merlin: There's two kinds of Trump-type –
Merlin: people who respond.
Merlin: One is the people who loved your leader and always say the stupidest shit.
Merlin: And the one, the 10 times worse is the liberals who call him whatever, like orange Cheeto dad or whatever.
Merlin: And you're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Merlin: Once you, once those come in, that's how you get ants, buddy.
Merlin: Woof.
John: That's how you get in.
Merlin: Yeah, but, you know, the Irma Bombeck material can really fly.
Merlin: I've had great success with homespun child anecdotes.
John: Yeah, it's nice.
Merlin: I'm riding on her coattails, her diaper tails.
John: Yeah.
John: I feel like it inhibited.
John: There still were a lot of people that wanted me to know that, A, it's just a movie and not real.
Yeah.
John: B, movies have plot holes.
John: I don't know if you knew this.
John: There were some people that wanted me to know that Indiana Jones didn't make a difference in the life of the Ark.
John: Some other stupid shit like that.
John: Oh, a lot of people wanted my daughter to know that the first three
John: Star tracks are stupid and she shouldn't have watched them.
Merlin: Was anyone concerned that you'd let her watch these movies at all?
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: There were any chance at all that somebody said dad.
Merlin: Wow.
Merlin: Wow.
Merlin: You know, wow.
Merlin: I guess I guess kids are just allowed to watch anything now.
Merlin: Read a book.
John: I think most of them were people that were saying, wow, I hadn't thought of that.
John: Yeah, which is nice.
John: Yeah, that was nice.
John: So on the main, I did not get a single tweet that I was like, oh, asshole.
John: I just got somewhere I was like, oh, you're just a person that thinks they know how to talk on the Internet and doesn't.
John: But anyway, that's my life in the last couple of days, just watching my whole Twitter story.
John: my whole 12-year Twitter investment finally pay off in the form of a tweet that, you know, it didn't really get me any new followers.
John: It wasn't meant to.
John: It's the type of thing that ended up on a lot of, like, content aggregators for that hour of that day.
Merlin: And now I just fade back into my world where- John, all this AI, all this machine learning, all the, as you say, algorithms that are out there.
Merlin: Here's the thing.
Merlin: I don't need to know in general that somebody followed me.
Merlin: I don't need to know that somebody with a blue check followed me.
Merlin: I just want to know if somebody cool followed me.
Merlin: And I don't know-
Merlin: I don't know who makes the algorithm that enables that, but I don't care how many followers they have.
Merlin: I just want to know if they're cool.
Merlin: Give me a different kind of check.
John: How do you... Let's just talk about this because this is what it's all about.
John: How do you design...
John: an algorithm that discerns coolness.
John: If you could do it, it would be the most valuable commodity in the world.
Merlin: It would require something like what Google did with search.
Merlin: I'll make this very fast because it's not very interesting.
Merlin: As most people, nerds anyway, know, the thing that differentiated Google was –
Merlin: Well, first of all, that their results were very relevant.
Merlin: So like the wonderful Alta Vista, if you just search on Google on this very simple site, it seemed to be really good at finding the thing that you were looking for.
Merlin: But what if what you're looking for is actual prescription boner pills or plane tickets to Germany?
Merlin: Now you run into a problem because there's a lot out there that is nominally relevant.
Merlin: But is it good?
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: let alone canonical.
Merlin: And so what Google, the special sauce, forgive me, I don't mean to sound like I'm talking down.
John: What Google did, the special is- No, I love this.
John: You're telling me something I didn't know.
Merlin: They created something that came to be called PageRank, which was a way of saying, okay, regardless of the relevancy of this for a given search term, show me things that lots of, there are good pages that link to other good pages.
Merlin: So it's good pages all the way down.
Merlin: And what you discover is not only something that's relevant, but something that other people seem to trust.
Merlin: So I'm looking for that for coolness.
Merlin: If there are people who are cool, regardless of follower count, if there are people who are cool, and I don't know how we do the original cool, but I just want to know.
Merlin: I'm tossing it out there.
Merlin: And this is not my job.
Merlin: I'm just here on Digabob running around with a puppet on my back.
Merlin: Cool your follower is, yes.
Merlin: So I don't know how to do that, but that's what I want.
Merlin: I want that.
Merlin: And give me three a day.
Merlin: Give me three a day.
Merlin: Give me three cool people that I should know about.
Merlin: Who is er cool?
Merlin: Well, I can tell you that there are kinds of accounts that I think are just a delight.
Merlin: I am the sort of person that really likes the account called at Darth.
Merlin: And Darth is a red panda who engages with everybody and is just delightful.
Merlin: And he's a red panda with a dark Vader hat who likes potatoes.
Merlin: And, uh, Darth, I mean, you can't go wrong with Darth.
Merlin: Then Darth hibernates for a while and comes back.
Merlin: That's one.
Merlin: That's, that's a kind of like, but then you've got, you got like normal people.
Merlin: Let me go through here.
Merlin: Who are some normal people that I like a lot?
Merlin: Uh, I'm scrolling.
Merlin: I'm scrolling.
Merlin: Oh, Scott Simpson.
Merlin: He's pretty good, but you know, I, I, I, but I'll discover in here.
Merlin: So here's my algorithm such as it is, which is that I discover in replies.
Merlin: I discovered that in replies to things I've written, people don't,
Merlin: Build on the bit, the yes and the bit, in a way that I find delightful.
Merlin: I don't mind people bringing a joke, but the joke should be good.
Merlin: And based on a similar premise or taken in a different direction, this is what governs the way that I respond to other people's things.
Merlin: I want to engage with them personally, build on the bit, right?
Merlin: So on the one hand, vast majority, be the bit.
Merlin: I can't be the bit when you're talking.
Merlin: ball, Danny.
Merlin: Anyways, so there's a ton of like, you know, that's the sound of the internet.
Merlin: But then people will come along.
Merlin: Maybe you get something like a Fireland, like somebody who will come in and play with you in the space a little bit.
Merlin: And that's how I discover, regardless of follower count, that's how I discover good people.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Click through.
Merlin: And if it's all about sports, I'm not going to follow that.
Merlin: I don't want to know about regional sports.
Merlin: I want you to play with me.
John: The thing is, when Fireland stopped tweeting, I feel like I feel like a quarter of the Internet went away from me.
John: What happened to Fireland?
John: He's still out there.
Merlin: He was out there tweeting and stuff.
Merlin: Yeah, but you got him.
Merlin: You got like a Tim Seidel.
Merlin: You got all the classics.
Merlin: Is that his name?
Merlin: Yeah, what happened to Tim Seidel?
John: I think they get gobbled up.
John: He made my day every day.
Merlin: They get gobbled up for making other content in other places, I think.
Merlin: I think they become writers of TV and movies.
Merlin: I believe that Fireland in particular is a writer of movies.
Merlin: Last time I talked to him, IRL, that was the thing that he did.
Merlin: He was one of those LA types that sells scripts and some of them get made in the movies, but the scripts still sell.
Merlin: And the check is still cash.
Merlin: So I don't know.
John: I don't know.
Merlin: I don't know why I still look at this hell site.
Merlin: Why do I do this?
Merlin: Why do I do this to myself?
John: I know.
John: I know.
John: But you know you have to because otherwise what?
John: What are you going to do?
John: What are you going to do?
Merlin: You going to go live on a farm?
Merlin: What are you going to do?
Milk goats?
Merlin: Oh, in these uncertain times, John, I want you to know that I'm here for you.
Merlin: In this economy?
Merlin: In these uncertain times amidst the virus, I want you to know that I am here for you.
Merlin: Thank you, Merlin.
Merlin: Like many American companies, I am somehow here for you.
John: Hmm.
John: I have not yet found anyone to really truly be there for me.
John: That was a company.
John: All my friends have been totally there for me.
Merlin: Has anybody tested it?
Merlin: I get many, many emails.
Merlin: This is setting aside all the television commercials, which in the last week and a half have become insufferable in their volume and their similarity and their disingenuousness.
Merlin: But I also get a lot of emails.
Merlin: I got an email twice from the same company.
Merlin: It's a company with which I have an affiliate account, which means that when I link to them and people buy the product, I make money off it.
Merlin: I have not done anything of substance with this particular company in almost 10 years.
Merlin: And today, I got two emails from them.
Merlin: And the subject line, I believe, was, is there anything we can do for you?
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And I mean, of course, there's so many things you can do for me.
Merlin: I mean, so many things can be done for me.
Merlin: I don't mean to parse your language, affiliate man.
John: But should you think of anything?
John: Could you think of anything?
Merlin: No, but I got to be honest with you.
Merlin: As I as I sit here right now, I kind of want to test this out.
Merlin: I kind of want to like see.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: Can I get a Coke at least something like how much do you have my back?
John: Right.
John: I've tested it.
John: I have noticed that there have been at least a couple of these affiliate organizations, a couple of these companies that I do business with.
John: They have been there for me in the sense that they have continued to do business uninterrupted without making a big stink about it.
Merlin: And that has proved – Somehow.
Merlin: Somehow.
Merlin: I mean it's – when I see the places like even like on the blocks near my house that are still like taking these extraordinary efforts because you have to have a plan.
Merlin: At least in San Francisco, you have to have a whole plan and put up signage and you have to show how you're doing social distancing.
Merlin: All this pain in the ass stuff so that they can have a fraction of the business that they used to have.
Merlin: It's unbelievable that they're pulling it off.
John: Yeah, and those companies, I want to give them all the smiles.
Merlin: We're ordering so much Italian food delivery from these three imperiled restaurants.
Merlin: We're so fat with Italian food, but it's like I really – I don't know if my part, my carbonara is going to keep them in business, but I just – I want to – that and books.
Merlin: I'm buying so many books from independent bookstores.
Merlin: Anyway, sorry, you were saying –
Merlin: They're somehow keeping this going.
John: I bought a kayak.
Merlin: No kidding.
John: And then I bought a second kayak.
Merlin: Well, if you have one kayak, you should really get two.
Merlin: They're like birds.
Merlin: They mate for life.
Merlin: Nobody paddles alone.
Merlin: It's not safe.
John: You don't want to paddle alone.
John: That's right.
John: Don't paddle alone.
John: And I'm trying hard not to paddle alone in life.
John: And...
John: And I'm trying to I'm trying to kayak because why not?
John: Right.
John: Why not?
Merlin: It's more fun than it seems, especially even or especially for kids.
Merlin: Once they're in the boat, it's fun and they want to keep doing it.
Merlin: You got to get them in the boat.
Merlin: That's the hard part.
John: And the thing about the Northwest and San Francisco, too, to experience those cities from the water is so different from
John: And it's so incredible where we live, right?
John: If you were to come to San Francisco before there was a San Francisco there and it was just – you were just there on this isthmus, you would say – oh, I'm sorry.
John: It's not an isthmus.
John: It's a peninsula.
Merlin: But it's got the – for years, the story goes that for many years or even centuries, people didn't realize there was a hole on the side of California.
Merlin: And then at some point in northern California, at some point someone realized, hey, there's a hole over here.
Merlin: Where we can get in.
Merlin: And boy, that's interesting.
Merlin: So now you're coming through the Golden Gate.
Merlin: Can you imagine the first ship coming in through the Golden Gate and going like, holy shit.
Merlin: This is so nice.
John: This would be a good place to have a Salesforce building.
John: When you think about Europeans arriving through that hole in California, coming in through the... Through the ride?
Yeah.
John: So these Europeans here in this boat have been on this boat for a long time.
John: The boat is their home.
John: And they pull up on the shore.
John: They come ashore.
John: They wander around.
John: Maybe there are some people there.
John: They greet them.
John: Maybe there's a little bit of like a...
John: like a weird hello, who are you sort of encounter.
Merlin: Maybe they pick up some crabs or have, you know, like a bowl of soup in a sourdough or something.
John: Uh-huh.
John: They maybe get a little chocolate, a little artisanal chocolate.
John: Ding, ding.
John: And they're like, wow, this whole area really smells like fucking seal shit.
John: Sea lion pee.
John: Yes.
John: But but how far do you think on that first day when they when it was their first day?
John: How far do you think they went from the shore before they were like, OK, let's get back on our boat and go back out to our boat?
Merlin: If I'm being honest, and I don't mean to problematize this, if I'm being honest, my first thought is a captain of a European ship who found the hole in California.
Merlin: My first thought is I forget the phrase for this.
Merlin: I should know this because I was in Naval ROTC.
Merlin: But when you're when you're getting ready to moor your ship or to land, how do you get?
Merlin: Is this a safe place to take a giant ship through?
Merlin: Is this deep enough?
Merlin: Will I what's the phrase for that?
Merlin: Sounding.
Merlin: You're sounding the depth.
Merlin: Sounding or where you've got to find like, you know, anywhere you go.
Merlin: I'm sorry.
Merlin: This is really boring.
Merlin: My first thought would be where can I land this shit?
Merlin: Go down, see if I can get a beer or whatever and know that my European ship will be safe.
Merlin: You're doing a little reconnoitering.
Merlin: Reconnoitering.
Merlin: But I'm thinking you come in, and I'm just doing this in my head at this point, but you see the headlands.
Merlin: You see Angel Island and Alcatraz.
Merlin: You see wherever Coit Tower eventually was.
Merlin: That must have just been.
Merlin: And so verdant.
Merlin: I bet it was just beautiful.
John: Oh, verdant is exactly right.
John: The verd.
John: So much verd.
John: But I'm saying, like, for a long time, if you were in San Francisco...
John: And this is true.
John: This is true for Seattle too.
John: You were primarily oriented toward the sea.
John: That would have been your main way of traveling from place to place.
John: It would have been how commerce got done.
John: There weren't any roads.
John: There weren't any little trucks.
Merlin: It stands to reason that if you were looking at, and this is something you've talked about for so long that has just had such an impact on my thinking, is you've talked about, you know, you look at the geography of any city and you can learn so much.
Merlin: I mean, there's a reason that, you know, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, well, these are river towns.
Merlin: It makes sense that somebody...
Merlin: wanted to do river things very near the easiest place to go from river to Cincinnati.
Merlin: Ditto here.
Merlin: You're not going to go to the basin.
Merlin: You're not going to, like, go to Sacramento, probably.
Merlin: You're going to hang out near the hole in California and figure out who's going to buy your beads or whatnot.
John: Right.
John: And the reason you would get to Sacramento is you'd go up the river until you got up the air.
John: Yeah, that's the end of the river, all right.
John: That's where they are, right?
John: Yep.
John: So anyway, in Seattle.
Merlin: Colonel Kurt's running a civilization.
John: I saw the bug.
John: I don't see any method at all.
John: I can't act anymore today.
John: Why is he Popeye?
Okay.
John: He ruined that movie.
John: I'm just going to come out and say it.
John: Um, he looked really cool, but he did kind of ruin the movie.
Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: It's a five and a half star movie and it's down to four and a half stars because of Marlon Brando.
John: They say good in the edit.
John: They say good in the edit for sure.
John: Don't at me.
John: Don't at me.
John: Oh God.
John: But, but when I get on the water in Seattle and it, and it happens way less than I want it to, um, all of a sudden it's, you're transformed, right?
John: You're, you went from, uh,
John: from the hustle bustle of a major metropolitan area to you to like the land of goals and they're like little fishies and and it's quiet even in a noisy town it's quiet out there somehow and you just kind of like oh all your cares go away and these kayaks that i bought cost eighty dollars what that's it so so this isn't one of these i would tell you kayaks start at three hundred and seventy five dollars is what i would guess
John: So I don't want to promote a website that's fairly well known as an e-commerce site.
John: Okay.
John: That's E for electronic.
John: E. Electronic commerce site that creates a lot of problems in the world.
John: I fought them for a long time, this e-commerce site.
John: But then eventually, you just get subsumed into the Borg.
John: Right.
John: And they had one of what they call their daily deals.
John: Oh, that e-commerce site.
John: So you bought local technically.
John: I did.
John: I bought local because I support local companies.
John: And this is one of those daily specials that's a special every day.
John: It's not just like here for a day and then it goes away.
John: It's always a special.
John: It's not particularly special.
John: It is this $80 two-person kayak that can hold 300 pounds worth of people or more.
John: And it comes with two kayaking paddles and a pump.
John: It's inflatable.
John: So it goes in the trunk of your car.
John: And I read all the reviews, the 10,000 reviews, and people were like, this thing's amazing.
John: It's like stupidly amazing.
John: And it's just a basically it's just a blow up rubber rubber raft in the shape of a turtle, except in this case, it's in the shape of a kayak.
John: And I was like, I can if this thing is as big as they say.
John: I can pump it up with this little foot pump, and then I could be out on the water.
John: I'm not going to go out in a storm.
John: I'm not going to take this out in a gale.
John: When it's a sunny day and the waves are lapping on the shore, I'm going to take this.
John: So I bought life preservers or life jackets or whatever.
John: Personal flotation devices.
John: Personal flotation devices.
John: I realize that there are three classes of personal flotation device.
John: I realize that because I read the instructions.
John: Okay.
John: And I wouldn't have known that before.
John: That's just, that's the same as, as not knowing.
John: I didn't know that at all.
John: Yeah.
John: That Obi-Wan, uh, whatchamacallit.
John: But, uh, but, uh, now, so I haven't yet taken these, I haven't taken them out of the box yet cause they just arrived.
John: But I'm really feeling like maybe the kayak is going to be the thing that makes a big difference in my life this week.
Merlin: The kayak also brings a certain structure, if I could say.
Merlin: The kayak also means like before you kayak, you have to plan to kayak.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: I mean, not too much, not in an annoying way.
Merlin: It's not like you're trying to, you know, like your dad taking up a plane.
Merlin: I mean, that's a lot of overhead.
Merlin: With this, you could keep those, you could probably smash those down into a couple of Ikea bags, throw them in the back of the car and just take off and you're good to go.
Merlin: Now you're going to paddle.
John: Take off, then you're going to paddle.
John: I had an interesting conversation with a good friend of ours who runs a local cruise.
John: And by local, I mean local to the internet nerds.
John: And he said we were talking about how our coronavirus or our COVID-19 quarantines were going.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: And he said – because I was talking about how relieved I was at not having to do things anymore and how a lot of that was down to the fact –
John: A lot of that relief came as a result of the fact that no one else could do anything either.
John: Yeah.
John: Right.
John: And it wasn't just that I didn't want to do things.
John: I didn't want things to happen.
Merlin: Well, it also doesn't hurt that we're actually helping by not doing anything.
Merlin: There's a literally unique set of circumstances here.
Merlin: For the first time – and we got a lot of nice response for last week's episode, which made me feel good.
Merlin: But for the first time in your life, you're not even just simply allowed to say no to things and not do things, but you're actually doing the right thing.
Merlin: And it's rare that that's true for everybody at once, and it won't be true forever.
Merlin: It's going to get complicated.
John: And that's wonderful.
John: And he added another little bleep to that, which was he said –
John: One thing he's noted – because he's having a more complicated reaction to it than I am, for instance, because he's saying – It's tough to have a three-story house to be in.
Merlin: That's rough.
John: Oh, it's four stories.
Merlin: Oh, Jesus.
Merlin: Did they add another one?
John: They added one just for ukuleles and accordions?
John: It was always there.
John: The sister-in-law lived in the full apartment that was on the top floor, and she just got her own house.
John: So now the top floor is reintegrated.
John: Poor guy.
John: Anyway, anyway.
John: What he was saying is, look, I run a cruise, and who knows if that's going to happen next year.
John: Oh, that's true.
John: Oh, right.
John: It's like owning a concert venue.
Merlin: That's a lot of work, but I also imagine it's a fair amount of income.
Merlin: For it to be worth the effort, I'm guessing a lot of folks are working really hard on that.
John: Well, and I think it's like a lot of big business.
John: He now feels responsible for the 30 other people that he employs that make this possible.
John: But what he said was interesting –
John: He said, another thing it has done is quieted the judging voices in my head that are always yelling at me that I'm not doing enough and that other people, you know, what, what am I doing just sitting around?
John: I should be out, uh, you know, pitching a sitcom or, or writing a Broadway hit or whatever.
John: And as soon as he said it, I was like, that is a true for me too.
John: And, uh,
John: Part of why I feel better right now is that the simplicity of my day is because of this that you're talking about, the fact that it's actually virtuous to do, to not do things.
John: All of a sudden, my day is simple and I'm not.
John: killing myself about it i'm not i could always do this wake up make breakfast do a little math at the kitchen table with my kid do a show go work in the garden
Merlin: There were so many rewards.
Merlin: It was carrots and sticks for all the reasons why you're not allowed to kind of pop out of the day-to-day stress, rat race.
Merlin: I don't know what you want to call it, but I love this point.
Merlin: You know the thing credited to Mark Twain, I don't know if it's him, comparison is the death of joy.
Merlin: I really love, whether or not that's true, I think that's a really true phrase.
Merlin: And you do that to yourself.
Merlin: One does that to oneself day to day is the constant need to compare to others, partly out of maybe trying to inspire yourself, but a ton of time to punish yourself because you need to reprove to yourself every day what a piece of shit you are with all the things that you're not doing.
John: And that is probably the greatest curse of my life.
John: Those are the voices.
John: It's not a voice.
John: Those are the voices that cause me the greatest.
John: It's kind of emotion zero for you, right?
Merlin: I mean, doesn't everything sort of starts from that point of reference?
John: And it's not comparison to other people.
John: It's comparison to the impossible.
John: To the you you should have been.
John: That's right.
John: The impossible me.
John: Yes.
John: Oh, God, no.
John: That's so good.
John: And that's kind of
John: Tamped down and it's weird that it would be right because you would assume in those first few days of the quarantine when there was a lot of that Talk about like oh now the artists are all gonna make their greatest work.
Merlin: All right Shakespeare wrote during the plague.
John: Oh good Yeah And there was a lot of pushback from artists that were like fuck you like no don't that's not how this works I'm not gonna make my kovat 19
John: Like, shut up.
John: And I think that expectation went away pretty fast.
John: And most of the people I know that are musicians are kind of like, yeah, I tried to do some Instagram shows and I'm just doing the best I can over here.
John: And I actually did a thing yesterday.
John: My sister and my little girl and I went and made a video at the request of Adam Savage and
John: for a thing that's coming up, sponsored by the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.
John: Cool.
John: That's a good museum.
John: That's a very good museum.
John: It's one of the best museums.
Merlin: They've got a Saturn rocket there.
Merlin: Woof.
John: You can kind of guess what it is, but that, I think, is airing this Thursday.
John: It's some kind of live YouTube concert.
John: Are you going to play that song he likes?
John: That's what he asked me to do.
John: Oh, that's so nice.
John: And so each artist in this YouTube concert is doing their own performance, and then they're all sending them into the Air and Space Museum, and then they're hosting a live show on YouTube, which I guess is the thing now.
John: But I'm trying to keep it easy.
John: But for whatever reason, and I don't know why, I would expect that the voices in my head would be screaming at me
John: You need to be writing.
John: You need to be doing this.
John: You could have been doing this this whole time.
John: Yeah.
John: And for whatever reason, they're not.
John: Every day I wake up, I do a little math problem.
John: We talk about memorizing our times tables.
John: I come down, I do a show.
John: Then we go out in the garden.
John: Then we ride bikes for a while.
John: And no one is yelling at me from inside my own head.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Those expectations, I give our friend John Siracusa a stick about this because he likes to remind me of all the things that I haven't done that I said I'd do in a fun way.
Merlin: That is fun.
Merlin: I also feel like expectations are a kind of debt that we accept from other people, that we now owe them something.
Merlin: Owe them something in the sense of, I mean, a debt in the sense of, you know, where are we with that Marv?
Merlin: They keep coming back to you like, okay, but sometimes it's you.
Merlin: Sometimes it's you that lent yourself an expectation that you will never be able to accomplish.
Merlin: And the thing is, if you keep coming back to that expectation,
Merlin: How can I – I'm not putting this super well.
Merlin: But if you are indebted to your own expectations, there is literally only one person that can get you out of that, and it's the person least likely to get you out of that, which is you.
Merlin: And if you think the idea of being inside for an unknown amount of time means that you should go write something you've never tried to write before –
Merlin: That's a lot to expect out of yourself.
Merlin: This is why I keep saying, look for little projects.
Merlin: I'm doing a little project with one of our cruise friends in the next couple of weeks, doing some creative things.
Merlin: And I'm doing lots of just little dumb things.
Merlin: But the last thing in the world that I would want right now is, on top of all of this uncertainty, to pile on a huge amount of expectations about something I have no business expecting of myself.
John: Right.
John: It's difficult not to.
Merlin: It's difficult not to because you make things.
Merlin: You're a maker.
Merlin: You're a content creator.
Merlin: You're a midnight toker.
Merlin: Why are you not finishing your book, John?
Merlin: That was a really long time ago you started that.
Merlin: Why are you not doing that?
John: I know.
John: Why keep hitting yourself?
John: Why indeed?
John: Why indeed?
John: I've got a new take on my Europe book, but I haven't quite – it's not quite solidified yet.
John: There are a lot of things that I could be beating myself up for right now.
John: And the idea – I feel a little bit in this quarantine like I felt when I first started taking Lamictal.
John: where there was a kind of... The room cleared a little bit.
John: I mean, when I first started taking Labictal, it wasn't the room cleared a little bit.
John: It was like I got hit with a sack of flour.
Merlin: Well, at first it does nothing at all, and then it does all the things.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And you're like, ooh, ooh, ooh.
Merlin: What just went away?
Merlin: It's sort of like that idea of losing 20 pounds overnight kind of feeling.
Merlin: We're like, wait a minute.
Merlin: Where'd all my unnecessary burdens go?
Yeah.
Merlin: Why is that personality not fucked?
John: And that – it's taken a little bit here in the quarantine.
John: But to just reflect on the fact that I have fewer cares and how much of my cares were the feeling that the world was moving fast and I wasn't catching up.
John: And to have that sense be gone and that the world is also struggling, kind of commensurate with how much I'm struggling.
John: And so we're all on a level playing field.
John: How do I keep that?
John: How do I have that be my new baseline when everyone else is back in the discotheques?
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, because it takes – in the same way that – this is not super clear.
Merlin: But in the same way that we have to unlearn some habits of physicality and thinking to adapt to this new situation, it's going to take an even more extraordinary amount of exercise and practice.
Merlin: to not fall back into your old carrot and stick ways, mostly stick probably.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: I mean, you're going to have to be prepared.
Merlin: If you want to maintain this feeling, you got to start now in some ways, no pressure, but you all, you know what I mean?
Merlin: You, you need to start rehearsing success.
Merlin: Uh, uh, and, and also continue to not, uh,
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I used to have this phrase.
Merlin: I think I told you this phrase that it means a lot to me.
Merlin: One of my phrases, stupid can't stick to me, which is like it's entirely up to me to decide what's stupid in the universe I'm going to allow to Velcro to my ass for the rest of my life.
Merlin: All that is required in some conceptual way is for me to simply open my hand or butt in that case and just drop the thing.
Merlin: The thing does not have to stick to me.
Merlin: When stupid sticks to me, it's because I agreed to let it stick to me forever.
Merlin: And that requires a kind of something that's difficult for me, which is that the wherewithal, the consciousness, if you like, but then also to say like, well, just because it's here doesn't mean it's mine.
Merlin: I could just leave that right here and walk away.
Merlin: But that's going to be hard to do when you're back in the rat race.
Merlin: And especially when you're moving through that
Merlin: liminal space where you're moving from everybody has to be good and stay inside to some people are going out more, setting aside the first responders and the, thank you for your service.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying though?
Merlin: It's going to take, it's going to take some work.
Merlin: And what, what do you think you could do to start preparing for the aftertimes?
Merlin: Keep this fresh feeling alive.
John: I, I really hope that, I really hope that we are able to make a, a, a,
John: societal change even a small-scale one as we transition back and when I read them when I read the news media and when I see what what we're talking about when we talk about returning there's very little talk about almost no conversation around the idea that we should not go back to normal that ever that we should
John: that we should learn from this and that we should take from this a lot of new information.
John: There's none of that.
John: All the talk at the level of governors and, and internet talk about returning to normal.
John: It's all assuming that there is a normal and that that's what we want.
John: And how do we get back there as soon as we can?
Merlin: It's so, it's so, it's so comically unrealistic in, in most ways to, to think that there is a normal that we can get back to for anything.
Yeah.
John: But crazy to me that no – where are the – I mean, and I think that probably – I'm not reading a Neil Dash on this topic right now.
John: I mean, I'm not going out and seeking out the usual internet punditry.
John: But where are the big pundits, the social theorists?
John: Please don't encourage.
John: The people saying – I know.
John: The people saying, hey, wait a minute.
John: Hold everything.
John: Because we're not going to reach the CEO of Shell –
John: British Petroleum with this kind of talk and say, look, you don't want to go back to what it was.
John: You want to figure out this is your opportunity to pivot to solar, right?
John: The guy at Shell BP is not going to pivot to solar right now.
John: But the people that can pivot –
John: why there isn't more conversation about the pivot and why we're all in this stoop, this place that we're always stupidly in, which is like, well, I don't know what the big shots are going to say we should do, but I'm going to make a weird little stand about some weird little aspect of it.
John: And it's like the big shots, this is what you learn when you go into government.
John: The big shots are just the ding-a-ling that,
John: That decided that this was what they were going to do.
John: You know, like the governor of Washington, who's doing a wonderful job, Jay Inslee, is just some guy that instead of going out and smoking weed, decided he was going to join the Young Democrats in college.
John: Like he was a noob.
John: until he got elected to state office for the first time and it's the same thing with military officers they're guys that just were like oh wow you know that's what you're doing and that was what they did until one day everybody was saluting them and then we're like wow this guy must know a lot of stuff and it's like no nobody knows anything none of these big shots know anything you know like the ceo of your company is only the ceo because he's the most sociopathic person
John: That happened to be standing around that day.
John: You know, like the number of.
John: If you're a narcissist who shows up, you're going to do fine.
John: You're going to do fine.
John: But why are we listening to them?
John: We never should have.
John: Why do we we?
John: The only reason they have authority is that we give it to them.
John: But but what I'm hoping is that in some little way.
John: Even just you and me talking to whoever the influencers are that make up the Roderick on the Line universe.
John: And they are a lot of influencers.
John: Very influential, yeah.
John: Extremely influential people.
John: That we can just like just promulgate this conversation like there is no A, normal.
John: B, we all agreed normal sucked.
John: C, we don't want to go back.
John: And it's not just a question of not wanting to go back to work because a lot of people have replied to me and said, I do want to go back to work and I support them.
John: Go back to work.
John: Just go back to work differently.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: I so 100 percent agree.
Merlin: There's just a million ways.
Merlin: I am uncomfortable having this conversation a lot in public because it's just I just can't take the responses.
Merlin: But this is the same feeling I've had about politics for the last three and a half years, which is like there's so many impulses, especially in my own political party.
Merlin: There's so many impulses to say, wow, we just need to get rid of the weird guy.
Merlin: and get back to normal.
Merlin: And we'll have bipartisan cooperation, and it'll be just like the good old days.
Merlin: And I'm like, were you there in the 90s?
Merlin: Did you just clap out of the 90s?
Merlin: There's no normal to go back to.
Merlin: And there's never been a normal to go back to.
Merlin: You can scratch and scrape to put together some kind of simulacrum of the old thing, but it's so dangerous to think that
Merlin: How can I put this?
Merlin: There are times when you have to do some crazy shit.
Merlin: There are times when crazy shit is the only answer.
Merlin: If your answer is you get a comfortable doddering grandpa to be your president, God bless him, that that's going to get us back to normal.
Merlin: It's like, no, you're still going to have the Mitch McConnells and you're still going to have the like...
John: The Jeff Sessions is and all those are going to be even worse than now.
Merlin: A hundred percent.
Merlin: So I don't know.
Merlin: I don't know the answer to that, but I do know the answer to that is not.
Merlin: Let's try and do like a fifth grade play about policy and like act like that's normal now.
Merlin: And the same is going to be true for jobs.
Merlin: Like there's not how damaging is it?
Merlin: Let's go to the other end of the spectrum.
Merlin: How do I just tweeted about this a little bit ago?
Merlin: The governor of Iowa.
Merlin: It's like, shit, dog.
Merlin: Let's open everything up.
Merlin: Open everything up.
Merlin: It's good.
Merlin: Open the malls.
Merlin: Open the restaurants.
Merlin: Let's do it.
Merlin: They have still not reached the peak in Iowa, right?
Merlin: So, I mean, I feel like I really do understand that impulse, but there's not going to be –
Merlin: There's not going to be an economy to go back to.
Merlin: If this comes back super hard, let alone this fall, if this comes back super hard over the summer because you wanted to be able to go get an Auntie Annie's pretzel, it's like, holy shit, man.
Merlin: That's not normal.
Merlin: That's mental.
Merlin: Mental.
Merlin: I'm sorry.
Merlin: But I really, really agree with you, and I think about it a lot, and I don't have anything articulate to say about it except to say...
Merlin: guys, we really need to let go of the idea there's going to be a normal to go back to.
Merlin: And if we accept that as a possibility, not a certainty, but if we accept that as a possibility, how would that change the way we think about what we're going back to or what we're walking towards?
John: Well, and this is what we were talking about last week, and I think we need to talk about it again, which is that we think so often about American politics or American life as a thing that's happening in this major scale.
John: And when we say things on the Internet or we say things –
John: About politics.
John: We read things about politics.
John: We're always imagining some, you know, well-meaning person in in Iowa who's sitting, you know, kind of like.
John: looking out her kitchen window and going like, who am I going to vote for this time?
John: You know, whatever.
John: And we think about the CEO of British Petroleum and et cetera, et cetera.
John: But the fact is that in our, you're in my very small world, right?
John: We are talking not to any of those people.
John: We are talking directly to a group of people that have never really thought of themselves as constituting a political class
John: Of themselves, right?
John: But they do.
John: Like we are talking now to a group of people between the ages of 20 and 60, but who constitute a group with not entirely in agreement on any one topic.
John: But that there is an identity and let's call it the Merlinverse, right?
John: The people that are fans of Merlin are, for instance, they constitute a group.
John: Now, whether or not that group has like any unifying characteristics, I think it does.
John: I think it does.
John: Within that group there are there's a lot of power not just Collectively, but individually there are people that are fans of Merlin man that have that are in positions of responsibility But collectively if that group starts to think of itself as a group I'm a fan of you know, I'm a fan of the McElroy's that group does think of itself as a group fans of the McElroy's right now what the McElroy Group
John: does as a collective political unit, um, I have a sense of what it does.
John: I think fans of Merlin Mann would do a different thing, but, but, but, but expanding it from fans of Merlin Mann to just the general kind of world that we live in, you and me, if just this world, our world said, we are, uh, we're going to start doing it differently.
John: Like, we don't care what BP does.
John: We don't care what the Secretary of Education does.
Merlin: Sort of like the West Coast governors forming their own Wu-Tang Clan to say, well, regardless of whatever happens with y'all, we're going to be doing it this way.
Merlin: And it's very important that these three coastal states work together in lockstep to produce something that's sustainable for our particular region.
John: Exactly.
John: So just like the West Coast governors,
John: The fans of you, me and Patton Oswalt and whatever, Hodgman, like if just that group of people in their own respective silos said, well, you guys go back to work, go back to your hairstylist, whatever.
John: We're just not going to the same way.
John: We're going to do it.
John: We're going to do it differently.
John: And we and we can because it's been shown that we can.
John: So the way that our business interacts with your business is going to change.
John: Like all you people with the Mylar balloons, go back to doing what you're doing.
John: But you're going to hear from us differently.
John: Like you're going to receive contributions from us differently.
John: It's going to come through a different channel.
John: I'm not going to show up for the meeting.
John: I'm sorry.
John: It's not in the way I do business anymore.
John: I'm going to zoom in to that or whatever.
John: And supply chains are going to change and things are going to change.
John: And it happens locally.
John: It happens one little opportunity at a time.
John: What I don't want is our people to Eeyore back into the world.
John: Like, oh, I guess I've got to go back to the.
John: Oh, thanks for the Mylar balloons.
John: Like, don't do it if you can.
John: Right.
John: Fight.
John: And of course, of course, I got a few emails, too, from people that were like, well, I have to work for a living.
John: It's like, go work.
John: Like, I'm not saying don't.
John: But if you can, if your imagination allows for it and your circumstances allow for it, don't go back the same way.
Merlin: Yeah, and just to be clear here, I'm not advocating for – I'm trying not to be unkind to anyone in particular.
Merlin: I am not trying to advocate for either losing track of what's happening in society in such a way that you are a privileged dick.
Merlin: I'm also not advocating for something that could appear to be some sort of Ponzi scheme, get rich quick, just quit your job and work from home.
Merlin: I'm not advocating for any of that.
Merlin: I'm advocating for, I hope, the same thing I've always been advocating for, which is to read the room.
Merlin: Look at what is happening in your life right now and look for agency where you didn't realize you had it.
John: There it is.
Merlin: That's it.
Merlin: It's not about a power thing where like, oh, yeah, I got a mortgage to pay.
Merlin: Well, you chose to do that.
Merlin: That's fine.
Merlin: And that's the choice that you made, which is fine.
Merlin: But you're not allowed to make everybody, including me in my world, feel like shit because you've got a mortgage you don't like.
Merlin: That's okay.
Merlin: I understand.
Merlin: Everybody's got it rough.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: But it's the looking for opportunities that you didn't know you had.
Merlin: And it's finding, discovering or reclaiming agency you didn't know was sitting there waiting for you.
Merlin: Just little bits of agency, tiny little teacups of agency.
John: I feel like when everybody started to work from home on this, it was because...
John: It was because we were forced to, right?
John: Because somebody superseded our boss's authority.
John: And that was the governor, right?
John: In Washington state, there was the boss.
Merlin: And even before that, I think the mayor here, that's one reason we've had...
Merlin: I mean, there's a million reasons.
Merlin: First of all, people here have money and they can afford to stay home.
Merlin: They have knowledge worker jobs that allow them.
Merlin: There's a million reasons.
Merlin: Don't email me.
Merlin: But at the same time, it worked.
Merlin: It worked to say, everybody, let's pretend this shit is real.
Merlin: Let's pretend that we're all super sick and let's pretend we don't want Meemaw to die.
Merlin: How would we conduct ourselves differently?
Merlin: Now, go and do likewise.
John: and the authority though came from somewhere right there was an authority and it was the authority of our belief in science or it was the authority of i mean the government like our king county executive dow constantine didn't want to shut the town down sure but science demanded it and so that
John: And the authority of the disease superseded your boss's ability to say, well, I'm going to need you to come in this weekend and are you having trouble with your TPS reports, right?
John: Like your boss was no longer the boss and the governor was no longer the boss, right?
John: There was a boss and the boss was the virus.
Merlin: It's like that Tom Hanks movie, you know?
Merlin: I'm the boss now.
John: It's like the Tom Hanks movie.
John: Yeah.
John: Inslee's the captain now.
John: Going back to reality, whatever, going back to the way things were, every one of these bosses is right now really chomping at the bit to reestablish their authority.
John: Absolutely.
John: Your boss is like, how soon before I can tell people what to do again?
John: Because the more days that go by without me being able to tell them what to do, it erodes my ability to ever tell them what to do again.
Merlin: They're like the Welsh troll, but for your job.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: They're always sitting there, always on your shoulder.
Merlin: If you're not fretting about work, you're doing it wrong.
John: You're doing it wrong.
John: And the thing is that they're right, and that's what I'm saying.
John: Their authority is eroded by this in that we've seen how little we need all of the trappings, all of the theater of work, of going to work, of downtowns, of meeting rooms, of
John: of your desk and your cubicle and your open plan office and your, and your endless Cheerios or whatever.
John: All of that is theater.
John: It's, and a lot of it is authority theater.
John: That's so good.
John: And it's, and it's been, it, and it's been busted.
John: Right.
John: So why?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Everything, stuff is still happening.
Merlin: And the, the people you see being heroic or being, um, being courageous, um,
Merlin: The idea of being fearful but doing it anyway, that is people like Ginsley and Newsom and London Breed and Whitmer and all those people who are like, you think they feel good about this?
Merlin: You think they feel good about fucking up their economy?
Merlin: They do not.
Merlin: They do not.
Merlin: But they know that there's something more important.
Merlin: And guess what?
Merlin: Those wheels keep turning.
Merlin: And the part that sucks is not that we miss being told that we were late coming back from lunch.
Yeah.
Merlin: That like you become like a child, the way you control a child, you learn, you learn what they love and you learn what they fear.
Merlin: And that sticks with us for the rest of our life.
Merlin: And you just, you, despite all your rage, you're still just a rat in a cage.
Merlin: You keep coming to work and pumping for the man and you continually, you reify that relationship.
Merlin: And now that we're in this space where that has gone away and society has not crumbled, society crumbled because a lot of other shit, but it didn't crumble because of your TPS, the cover sheet for your TPS reports.
John: No.
John: And you're going to get that email.
John: Everyone listening to this is going to get that email that says, hey, everybody.
John: Time to straighten up and fly right.
John: Yeah.
John: Awesome news.
John: We're opening up the office again on Monday.
John: Can't wait to see you there.
John: Can't wait to see you there.
John: Congratulations.
John: We have so many birthday parties that we have to have because of all the birthday parties that we missed.
Merlin: You've got to come out for drinks.
Merlin: It's our first night back.
Merlin: You've got to come.
Merlin: Our first night back.
John: And when you get that email, reply all.
John: I won't be coming back to work.
Merlin: You can email these nuts.
Merlin: Stay safe, everybody.