Ep. 390: "Dreaded Failure Closet"
Merlin: Good morning, Captain.
Merlin: Good morning, Captain.
Merlin: Are you a fancy society?
John: Anakin, we need to follow the trade recommendations.
Merlin: Elegant, that's no way to treat a lightsaber.
Merlin: R2-D2 produces a fan.
John: Here it is.
John: You know, it's a vacation for a lot of people today.
Merlin: Oh, because of the holiday?
John: Today, it's a holiday day.
Merlin: I thought Friday was the holiday day.
John: There's a Monday holiday day.
Merlin: In addition to the Friday one.
Merlin: Oh, institutionally.
Merlin: I think.
Merlin: Yeah, we got no mail on Friday or Saturday, and my wife was home, so I assume it was a holiday.
John: I think today is a holiday.
John: I don't know.
John: I was asked...
John: by my child what the occasion was, and I couldn't answer, but her mother is home.
John: Okay.
John: So that's the same thing.
John: I was like, it's got to be a holiday.
John: Your mom is here.
John: Yeah.
John: Today, a holiday in USA, ask computer.
Merlin: Holiday in USA.
Merlin: My wife is working as hard and diligently and often and long as she's ever worked.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: It's wild.
John: Yeah.
John: I think some people are working harder and more, and some people are working less and weaker.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: This is called – so it says here on this map of list of holidays in the USA that July 3rd was Independence Day in lieu.
John: Observed.
John: And then Monday, July 6th, Independence Day in lieu.
John: Observed.
John: Are we in a thing now where Independence Day gets two in-lose?
Merlin: I – well, so I don't mean to sound contradictory, but I did do some searching about this.
Merlin: Of course, this is one of those topics where every site you go to is hot garbage.
Merlin: And it's all a bunch of like sign up for an account and just tell me if there's mail today.
Merlin: That's really all I want to know.
Merlin: Sure, sure, sure.
Merlin: But I don't – I think –
Merlin: Back to what you were saying, though, I think this kind of relates to one of my file cards, but I think it's difficult for people to achieve certain kinds of velocity right now for all kinds of reasons.
Merlin: Some of them very rational and professional and others probably really quite personal.
Merlin: I mean, this is setting aside the like taking care of a little kid while you're trying to have meetings and calls and stuff.
Merlin: But I think it's a difficult time.
Merlin: The actual thing in my file card was learning how to harness or redirect energy right now, which I think is something that's very challenging for people.
John: Harness or redirect energy?
Merlin: I think it's true.
Merlin: I mean, in my context, I think about it from a sort of, I hate to say it, but a creative standpoint.
Merlin: But I think for people working from home, velocity is difficult.
Merlin: And I'll bet you, back to our ongoing topic, I'll bet you there are some people who are like, huh, there's certain parts of this where I'm doing a way better, more professional and more useful, truly productive job.
Merlin: job with my work right now than I was before.
Merlin: I mean, I don't have to get dry cleaning.
Merlin: I don't have to commute.
Merlin: And for certain kinds of this work, it's really trivially easy.
Merlin: And other kinds of the work that's difficult, I'm going to speculate, we may as one realize how much of that was bullshit we never needed in the first place.
Merlin: Are you eating better?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: Most people, I hear everybody saying, oh, my gosh, I'm gaining all this weight.
Merlin: I eat all this stuff.
Merlin: And, like, I just, I'm so fucking tired of eating.
Merlin: I dread going from my office back to the house every day and saying, we got to have the conversation.
Merlin: Frankly, you usually end up getting delivery or making pasta.
Merlin: I'm just so tired of...
Merlin: Our house is so gross.
Merlin: And I just don't... I find myself saying the dumbest thing.
Merlin: Can we just not make any more dishes?
John: Yeah, no more.
John: Let's just stop eating now.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: And what about you?
Merlin: How's your diet?
John: Hunger strike.
John: I'm going hungry.
Merlin: Oh, R.I.P.
Merlin: Charlie Daniels.
Merlin: R.I.P.
Merlin: to a real one.
John: You know, what happened around here was that some point along the way back in the day...
John: When you and I were sponsored by Blue Apron.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Remember these days?
John: Yeah, that was a while back.
John: And Blue Apron sent us some meals.
John: Farm egg.
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Merlin: You're using Squarespace right now because that is the only place.
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Merlin: Yes, I also do my own personal sites there.
Merlin: But the one I use, where I use Squarespace, like clockwork every week, is Roderick on the Line.
Merlin: It's a very mature workflow.
Merlin: It's fun to do.
Merlin: As you'll be hearing in this episode, I think sometimes it's nice to just have something to put your hands to that you know how to do.
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Merlin: You know, they pay us to do these ads, but they can't pay me to love it.
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Merlin: I always laugh at farm egg.
Merlin: They had to put a thing on it and label it.
Merlin: Oh, that's an egg.
Merlin: Where's it from?
Merlin: Oh, shit.
Merlin: I should have read.
Merlin: It's a farm egg.
John: It's a farm egg.
John: It's not an egg.
John: Yeah.
John: Anyway, I tried to make those things, but it was like they'd send you three of them and I'd make one and then pretty soon –
John: So I started giving them to my mom, and my mom did the thing where she took the meat out and the egg, and she gave me the meat.
John: She was like, here, here's some pork and some chicken.
John: You'll eat that.
John: And I was like, yeah, I'll eat that.
John: And then she took everything else.
John: Oh, and then she took the seasonings, the non-essential seasonings, and she threw them out the window.
John: Tiny little, tiny, tiny, tiny packet of paprika.
John: Yeah.
John: And then she took the vegetables and she made a vegetable stew of some kind.
Merlin: And so the opposite of stone soup.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: We were we were dissecting these things and turning them into multiple meals for different people.
John: But then my daughter's mother was like, wait a minute, you're getting free meals.
John: Why don't you give them to me?
John: Stop giving them to your mom.
John: Mom doesn't need anything.
John: I was like, oh, all right.
Merlin: Wow.
John: So I said, all right, mom.
Merlin: Internet scene family conflict there.
Merlin: It was.
Merlin: It was.
Merlin: I said, mom, I'm not giving you those.
Merlin: Stop giving food to your elderly mother.
John: Well, the thing about my mom, I don't know if you know anybody else like this, but my mom goes to the grocery store every day.
John: And she doesn't now, but she used to every day.
John: And now she gets the grocery store.
John: She gets some like little teeny food.
John: thing somebody brings her i mean she just wants a farm egg and she goes and gets one farm egg she gets it like delivered yeah i guess so yeah yeah some crazy old school people i know that you like to get one roll of toilet paper delivered every day i do i do oh my god john i have so many responses to what you just said first of all let me uh address the last question first at some point a few years ago the toilet big toilet paper
Merlin: Started doing this thing where the paper on the roll, and I don't want to be gross, but the paper on the roll became very unpleasant.
Merlin: And they tried to fuck us a little bit.
Merlin: You know, that's how they get you.
Merlin: They made the inner core turny cardboard tube larger.
Merlin: right and it was also kind of misshapen now as a child when i was a youngster you could grab i'm not this type i'm a folder not a stuffer but you could be the kind of person who grabs it goes and it was like a perpetual motion machine it was so fucking round but then it became hot garbage because nobody cares about anything involving quality anymore well i'm here to tell you i need to find out what brand we've been getting because the pride is back baby
Merlin: Oh, nice.
Merlin: First of all, the roll is huge.
Merlin: It barely fits in our ancient holder.
Merlin: But the paper is very, very nice.
Merlin: Not too soft.
Merlin: It's a Goldilocks-type situation.
Merlin: But the core tube is fantastic.
Merlin: I'll find out and let you know.
Merlin: But it's very satisfying, even if you're a folder.
Merlin: Because accessibility helps everybody.
John: It's the core tube that really changes the game.
Yeah.
Merlin: Food anecdotes.
Merlin: First of all, food anecdote number one.
Merlin: And I'm going to say this out loud.
Merlin: I don't like to talk about my life on here.
Merlin: But I don't know what the fuck happens to me.
Merlin: It's something my daughter and I really enjoy, Popeye's fried chicken.
Merlin: And I don't get it very much for reasons that will become clear in a minute.
Merlin: But we get some chicken.
Merlin: She likes the biscuits and the red beans and rice.
Merlin: And maybe she'll nibble a little bit on one tender.
Merlin: I like all those things.
Merlin: Plus the sandwiches are good.
Merlin: Plus the pieces are good, et cetera, et cetera.
Merlin: So we got that on Saturday morning and I felt like homemade shit for the entire day.
Merlin: I ended up sleeping like 11 hours over that 24 hour period.
Merlin: And I was in an incredibly sour mood all fucking day long.
Merlin: Oh dear.
Merlin: I had too many naps in addition to my regular sleep.
John: Oh dear.
Merlin: So I need to not do that.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Can I do one more?
Merlin: Yeah, go ahead.
Merlin: One more food anecdote.
Merlin: Let's put this.
Merlin: No shade, no lemonade.
Merlin: This goes under the big heading number one that says, fine, but not really for me, as my friend Adam taught me to say.
Merlin: This is not for me.
Merlin: Well, like your pal Dave Edgar says about comments, that's not for you.
Merlin: No, it's not for you.
Merlin: There's things out there that I'm not here to criticize or, as the youth say, drag, but some things that are not for me.
Merlin: Which is not to say it's not for my very special lady friend.
Merlin: And that includes all kinds of delivered food things.
Merlin: Whether that is, like, a good eggs style.
Merlin: Like, we bring you a grocery bag full of, like, pretty good stuff.
Merlin: Or one of those garbage produce services that just keeps giving you fucking turnips or whatever.
Merlin: Winter bullshit vegetables.
Merlin: But there's, you know, the thing is you get one of these things.
Merlin: And our refrigerator is so small.
Merlin: And it's just full of all of these ingredients for food I don't really super want.
Merlin: And I feel like it reached its apotheosis with a new service she's trying that shall not be named.
Merlin: But you may have seen television commercials for a service, and here's their log line.
Merlin: Here's their pitch.
Merlin: Hey, listen, you know, it's such a pain to cook, and you don't want delivery.
Merlin: You want, like, good stuff.
Merlin: And guess what we bring you?
Merlin: We bring you everything.
Merlin: finished meals okay in a little tray with a plastic cover and then you just reheat it and it goes you've got this fresh meal that you get to eat in like three minutes fresh meal and so i said uh so they bring you leftovers
Merlin: where they bring you a thawed TV dinner.
Merlin: And she's like, no, it's really good.
Merlin: They make something called beef bowl.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And I was like... It only cost $22.
Merlin: I finally had one of them, and it just dawned... Have you ever... Okay, I don't know if you're like this.
Merlin: I know my lady is like this.
Merlin: She hates throwing food away.
Merlin: Food she has, let's be honest, no intention of ever eating.
Merlin: But...
Merlin: There's two tablespoons of it left over.
Merlin: And so she puts it into a Ziploc bag, 22 cents, and then it sits in there until I throw it out.
Merlin: So now let's put all this together.
Merlin: Here's our new offering.
Merlin: It's like the Queeby of food.
Merlin: No one asked for this.
Merlin: It's essentially five tablespoons of leftovers of a food you don't want in a plastic container.
Merlin: Except, of course, it's $22 or whatever.
Merlin: And I feel like we're – I'm not really sure.
Merlin: I think we've lost the story a little bit in what we're trying to do here.
Merlin: But you'll eat a leftover.
Merlin: This might be right up your alley.
Merlin: You like a leftover.
John: Well, leftovers are a bone of contention around here because I am 100% a leftover eater, leftover connoisseur.
John: I'll take –
John: Not one, not two, but three separate leftovers and combine them to make a full-size meal.
Merlin: Do they have to be from literally yesterday or could they be a little bit older?
John: They could be from – you know, this is where we get into the Don Schaffner problem where he starts to say past about a week –
Merlin: Yeah, but it's refrigerated mostly, right?
John: Oh, yeah.
John: But he says even then, you know, you're getting into that zone.
John: Yeah.
John: But I'll take one, Merlin, depending on what it is.
John: I'll take a leftover from 10 days ago.
John: I'll put it with a leftover from five days ago, and I'll put a leftover from two days ago.
John: You'll introduce them to each other like friends at a party.
John: You guys need to meet.
John: And one of them will be Italian, one of them will be Mexican, and one of them will be Chinese.
John: It's like a freaking Benetton.
John: It's a Benetton meal.
John: Yeah.
John: I love this.
John: I love it, too.
Merlin: It's great.
Merlin: I love a leftover.
Merlin: I love realizing that there's leftovers.
Merlin: Like one of my favorites to make is baked ziti.
Merlin: And we make a shit ton of it.
Merlin: And I'll be like, hmm, it's bedtime.
Merlin: Well, another one of my new things, which is extremely healthy, is I fall asleep on the couch watching TV.
Merlin: I wake up at 2 or 3 in the morning.
Merlin: I go, hmm, I could eat.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I'm like one of those colonial people that splits up their sleep now, but it doesn't bother me.
Merlin: So it's not a problem.
Merlin: I have a nice big meal.
Merlin: I go to bed at three.
John: I have a 2 a.m.
John: meal all the time.
John: 2 a.m.
Merlin: meal.
John: And then I'm like, well, that was a 2 a.m.
John: meal.
John: I should probably have a 2 a.m.
John: dessert.
John: You've earned it.
Merlin: You made it through.
Merlin: Part of a meal.
John: All of this year.
Merlin: And you're here, you know.
John: What happened with the food boxes is that we started – I started giving them to – I started taking them away from my mom and giving them to my daughter's mother.
John: And she got – this is exactly – this is how they get you.
John: She got so that she liked to do it.
John: Now, I didn't think – when we started getting sponsored by that company, I thought, oh, this is one of these –
John: This is one of these internet things.
John: This is like Soylent or whatever.
John: Everybody's going to talk about it for a couple of months.
John: But there's no way anybody is actually going to sustain an economy based on somebody sending you a bunch of ingredients.
Merlin: It seems like a lot of – well, they would like to think of it as added value.
Merlin: I think of it – and again, I'm not slamming this.
Merlin: Thank you for your service.
Merlin: But it is – it's a lot of – it may be added value to a lot of people.
Merlin: But to me, it's a lot of –
Merlin: it's kind of the worst of both worlds.
John: Like I got to still make it.
John: Right.
John: All I want really, if I'm going to make some food, I'll make scabetti.
John: I'll make, uh, I'll make patchouli or I'll make sticks or I'll make something, you know, like I'll just throw some ingredients in a pan and make it.
John: And it's not very good, but it's fine.
John: But this, she got into them and then,
John: I think some other podcast I'm on, who can keep track?
Merlin: All the great shows.
John: Started to get advertised upon by HelloFresh, a different kind of box.
John: And anyway, she got into the habit of getting these HelloFreshes.
John: So now every – and for a long time – This is literally how they got her.
John: That's how they got her.
John: And by extension, me.
John: Big box.
John: But back when everybody was working and it was a busy time, we would get these things and a lot of them would go uneaten or they'd get – I did the mom thing where I was like, well, I'm taking the meat out of these.
John: If you're not going to use the seasoning packets, at least I'm not going to let the –
John: like the pork cutlet go to waste but you're like somebody you're like when they do a drop in like you know escape from new york and everybody starts staring at the box yeah yeah well so this thing arrives every sunday there's a box that's on the porch it's three meals
John: For a family.
John: And one of them is vegetarian and one of them is some sort of exotic new thing, Muscovy duck or whatever.
John: And one of them is just some regular food.
John: And we make them over the course of the week.
John: When it's like, what are we going to have?
John: And the thing is, I'm never the one that says HelloFresh.
John: But somehow she has stayed the course long enough that it's become a habit for her.
John: And she's like, oh, let's get that HelloFresh going.
John: And I'm like, my shoulders slump.
John: And I'm like, oh, it means I have to chop green onions.
John: They do meals from across the world, but they all seem to have green onions in them.
John: They've only got seven ingredients back at HelloFresh headquarters.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: But we eat them, and so as a consequence, I'm eating better.
John: Oh, interesting.
John: Because I don't go to Taco Time.
Merlin: You don't have your Dim Summit?
John: I don't go to Wendy's.
John: I don't have Dim Summit.
John: I don't...
Merlin: do any of the i and and i don't even get away with making macaroni and cheese that often because there's this muscovy duck sitting there and then i've got leftovers and now you also feel guilty because you got to eat it it's no fun to throw i mean nothing feels crummier or more white and american than taking unprepared food that's potentially still good and putting in the trash it just feels terrible
John: Oh, I'm always, see, I always will find, because I like a goulash.
John: I like a, I like a mess, right?
John: I like a garbage can lid with the, with white sauce.
John: And so I will all, if there are ingredients and I know like what their sell by date is, I'll find something to do with them.
John: I'll put them in chili.
John: I'll grind them up.
John: I'll throw them in the blender.
John: I'll whatever, you know, like cook them down until they disappear and
John: Um, cause I like to have kind of a pot going and throw stuff in.
Merlin: I totally agree.
Merlin: I mean, like it's basically a sort of a, uh, a sibling of some kind of a stew or as you say, a goulash.
Merlin: It's so, it's so good and so rewarding.
Merlin: It's so hearty.
Merlin: And it's, it's a little bit like pho, which I finally got my daughter into where it's like, you could make a different meal every time with this set of ingredients.
Merlin: And when that could be any set of ingredients, the world's your oyster.
Merlin: You can put oysters in.
Merlin: The world is your oyster, including oysters.
Merlin: Yes.
Yes.
John: Well, so anyway, I was having a conversation via text message the other day with a good friend, a friend that's appeared on the show fairly regularly, Chad.
John: Chad Q, we call him.
John: Showbox.
John: And Chad is living out in the woods now.
John: He had a little beach house, and he's just living there full time.
John: He's like, I don't even know.
John: let's stop pretending that Seattle means anything to me anymore.
John: He's just living in the trees.
John: And he wrote me and he was like, hey, why don't you come out next weekend?
John: You know, like we're not, we're still in quarantine, but we've kind of realized that
John: we're all still in quarantine.
John: So it's probably fine that we hang out with each other.
Merlin: I still don't personally, I don't think personally know somebody who's even gotten sick, which is not to say people aren't getting sick.
Merlin: Boy, are people ever getting sick.
Merlin: But the more you learn about this, the crazier the patterns seem to be.
Merlin: And there just seem to be a lot of people who just aren't getting sick and we don't know why.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, and it just, it feels like, it feels like there's something is happening.
John: No, I don't think any of my,
John: Well, definitely I know that Chad does not want to re he does not want to go back to the way things were.
John: And Chad is one of us, one of us.
John: Yeah.
John: He just wants to sit and talk to the seals, but he would like to see me and I would like to see him.
John: So he was like, why don't you come out?
John: And then he said, oh, and another one of our friends is coming out.
John: And I was like, oh, is it just our friend or is it our friend and his wife?
John: And he was like, it's our friend and his wife.
John: And his wife is very she's very political.
John: And I said, you know, my tolerance or my threshold, not tolerance, but my threshold for any kind of being stuck in a room with someone who's political right now is super low.
John: I don't think that I could go spend a weekend at the cabin if –
John: If I were there with someone who was political.
Merlin: Well, just to be clear, you're a little bit trapped.
Merlin: It's a little bit of a locked door situation in some ways.
Merlin: You don't want to be a dick.
Merlin: But I think I know what you mean where it's like the worst of these worlds is somebody who's –
Merlin: maybe not quite as smart as they think they are quite I don't know this person but where everything will within a few minutes come back to whatever their thing is that they want to talk about and like without regard to which side of any aisle they're on that becomes very tiresome if what you really want is a break from all of that yeah well and I think more than anything like she's always been political and I've been trapped with her many many times and I like her very much but under normal circumstances there are lots of things to talk about
John: That aren't political.
John: There are lots of other things to talk about.
John: But nowadays, there's nothing else to talk about.
John: Like nobody's done anything.
John: There's nothing coming up.
John: And every topic is political.
John: So anything that, you know, it's like, oh, hey, this meal was really great.
John: Oh, you think this meal was great?
John: You know, there's just it's it's a lead.
John: Anything is a lead in.
John: And I don't think there's anything else.
John: I mean, Chad and I could sit at his house for a year and never speak a political word between us.
John: Yeah.
John: But anyway.
Merlin: But even in the best of cases now, there's really not that much else.
Merlin: There's two topics right now to talk about, maybe three, but really pretty much two.
Merlin: And they're all political.
Merlin: Well, yeah, it's going to end up on like, what do we do next?
Merlin: This sucks.
Merlin: What do we do?
Merlin: And it's like, well...
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: Should we talk about statues?
Merlin: I don't.
John: Nope.
John: Nope.
John: Not interested.
John: So anyway, I wrote him and I said, or I texted him back and said, Hey, I don't think I can handle that, but here's what I, here's my suggestion.
John: Why don't you put a list together of all the major projects you have around your cabin?
John: Um, like,
John: all the landscaping you've been meaning to do, the rocks that you want moved, the pits you want dug, the branches you want trimmed, the driveway you want graded.
John: Just put all that shit down, and then I'll just come out some weekend, and we'll just work our asses off.
John: Oh, God, doesn't that sound nice?
John: Just chopping wood, stacking logs, making...
John: And he rode back immediately and he was like, dude, we need to build a wood-fired sauna.
John: And I was like, wood-fired sauna.
John: That's the plan.
John: That's going on the list right now.
John: Wood-fired sauna.
John: Yep.
John: And all of a sudden I realized that something has happened to me in recent weeks where I want to do hard physical labor.
Merlin: And when I do it.
Merlin: You want to get exhausted making something.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And not seeing Twitter, can I guess?
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Well, that and also like while I'm doing it, I'm not thinking about anything.
John: Yes.
John: And then at the end, I look and I go, there used to be a pile of rocks way down there.
John: And now there's no rocks down there.
John: And there's a huge pile of rocks way up here where I moved them one by one.
John: And it's like the simplest, dumbest level of accomplishment.
John: Move rock from place to other place, but it's the greatest like Because there's because it's uncomplicated and if you moved the rock From there to there and got it wrong like moved the rock and it turns out a you shouldn't have moved it or B moved it to the wrong place Yeah, there's no at least for me
John: There's there's none of the like self chastising that happens with creative work.
John: Right.
John: If I do something, I get to the end of it and I'm like, oh, that turns out that that didn't work.
John: That's not the right lyric.
John: That's not the right song.
John: I worked all day on that and it's garbage.
John: Like I'm super defeated.
John: But if I move a rock from you know rock the size of say Garbage pail lid with the with a buffet on it covered in white sauce I move that rock all the way up the hill and it turns out it was wrong.
John: I'll move it back down I'll move it the next day.
Merlin: I'll move I'll move that rock every day that kind of work I mean up to the point where you're like putting nails into a board it has almost unlimited undo capability as you might think on a Mac like
Merlin: It's just just all I need is you to apply yourself to this thing that is understandable and you keep doing it until it's done.
John: Right.
John: Right.
Merlin: Exactly.
John: And it's also it's just, you know, it's wearing me out.
John: Like if I were to go to the gym and do this work, I would be at the gym for six hours, first of all.
John: And second of all, at the end, I would have accomplished nothing, I guess, except having done it.
John: But, you know, talk about a full body workout, just moving stuff around, you know, just like I got to lift this, then I have to carry it and then I have to push this.
John: And anyway, so I so I would at no point in my life would I have said, hey, invite me out to your cabin and give me a bunch of menial jobs to do.
John: I know Chad likes that stuff, too.
John: So, you know, if I came out there and he was like, here's a pickaxe, I've got a shovel, let's dig a hole.
John: That would be exciting.
John: But I got a call from friend of the show, Jason Finn's lady friend.
Merlin: Okay.
John: And she said, hey, Jason hasn't been doing anything since the beginning of this virus.
Okay.
John: They live on Capitol Hill.
John: They cook food for each other.
John: They have doggies.
John: They're very much in love.
Merlin: Why do I feel like he's a runner or something?
John: He's a runner.
John: He's a runner.
John: But she says he's not.
John: There's a little bit of a failure to thrive happening.
John: He's not getting.
John: Something's happened.
John: He's gone into a spiral.
John: And she was like, I need something for him to do.
John: And I said, well, you know, there's nothing in the world that Jason likes more than telling me that I'm doing something wrong.
Merlin: And you're going to serve as tribute to get him reengaged?
John: So I said, why don't you pack him in the car?
John: Don't tell him where you're going.
John: Bring him out to my house.
John: Lucky's a golden retriever.
John: Just put a bone in his mouth.
John: Bring him out to my house.
John: Because he's been wanting to see my house for six months.
John: My house is still a disaster area.
John: And then we can go... The new place.
John: The new place.
John: We can go through the house and Jason can go, what?
John: You're doing that?
John: That's not how you should have done.
John: Why is this like this?
John: What is this?
John: Why is that?
John: This is dumb.
John: This is... And then I can take him down in the ravine and he can go, what?
John: This is... You like this?
John: This is... And he can spend like all day just chastising me and I'll take it.
John: I'll take every bit of it and it'll give... And it'll give... It'll like...
John: Give him a new lease on life.
John: So while he's down there, and that's happening today, while he's down there, I'm going to see what happens if I put a shovel in his hands and say, hey, why don't you dig a hole over there and tell me what you find?
John: Maybe there's gold at the bottom.
John: So all of this is like, it feels like a mental health problem.
John: Not crisis exactly, but we're four months in now, and I do feel like a lot of us that said, this is amazing, I never want to go back.
John: We do have some mental health maintenance we need to start doing.
Merlin: That's a super good point.
Merlin: I hope that works out.
Merlin: I like that guy a lot.
Merlin: And I think even like to your point, though, about like, yeah, in some ways it's nice to as horrible as everything is and as like as God.
Merlin: It's like twice a day I just go through this dark night of the soul that I have to sort of fight a little bit.
Merlin: But I think we're all a little bit more like border collies than we'd prefer to realize.
Merlin: Like if we don't have work...
Merlin: to doing the thing that we are good at, we will not be happy and we will just herd the children in the yard.
Merlin: And if there are no children to herd in the yard, we might just run in a circle until we lose our mind.
Merlin: And, um, so for, for, I, this, this is very selfish, but like I have, um,
Merlin: undertaken some public some non-public there's a variety of things that i do where i it's not physical work although there's some of that there's some of that fixing up the yard or cleaning out the garage we're like why wouldn't i do that right now you know there's something i mentioned again to several of my co-hosts i haven't talked about this with you yet but it's like why is it taking me four months to realize we could choose to move the furniture around in life more than we do
Merlin: In the case of us, like we did change the time that we record and I think it's been a salutary change.
Merlin: In the case of another show I do, I say to my co-host Alex, like it's taken me four months to say, is there a better time for you than the time that we do this?
Merlin: Why did that never occur to me?
Merlin: Like there's all those kinds of things and that's true around the house.
Merlin: Like I want to fix that fucking drawer that's been driving me crazy forever.
Merlin: All I need to do is, you know, get some drawer fixing things.
Merlin: But, you know, OK, so for me, this is I say selfish.
Merlin: I'm just trying to cover my ass because I'm so goddamn lucky right now.
Merlin: And I don't want to get yelled at because I'm very vulnerable right now.
Merlin: But I have several projects underway right now that are such big hits for me.
Merlin: And that includes this.
Merlin: Like when I finish recording with you.
Merlin: First of all, to quote some improv actors I like a lot, when you're on stage, there's nothing else in the world.
Merlin: You hear me clicking and typing.
Merlin: That clicking and typing is me writing down a funny thing you said or a title or doing something with an image.
Merlin: I'm not...
Merlin: I'm not looking at Pornhub or Ashley Madison or anything.
Merlin: I'm paying 100% attention to you, and I love it so much because I'm not thinking about anything else, and I enjoy what I'm doing.
Merlin: When I'm done, I get to edit it.
Merlin: And with this new app that I use to edit, it makes me so happy.
Merlin: And that ends up being two or three hours.
Merlin: But like, you look nice today, which we now record and put out on Fridays.
Merlin: It's in a wonderful way.
Merlin: It takes a long time.
Merlin: It takes a lot of my day.
Merlin: And we each have a job.
Merlin: So we get set up.
Merlin: What is your look nice today job?
John: Oh, you're about to tell me.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: It's just that, you know, I'm like a border collie.
Merlin: You know, I got to stay busy.
Merlin: But, like, so we record.
Merlin: Well, first I got to set everything up because we're trying to do video and make it nice.
Merlin: But we record.
Merlin: Oh, it's a video podcast now?
Merlin: See, this is what's killing me is people don't know it's video.
Merlin: It makes so much more sense if you watch the video.
Merlin: The videos are very funny.
Merlin: But we record.
Merlin: And then when we're done, I know this is tedious, but just hear me out.
Merlin: So, like, then Adam sends us the raw podcast.
Merlin: video to look at and look over is there anything we want to edit what do we want to do and of course my job i say of course because it's a job that i always want on every show is let me find good titles let me find funny bits that i could write around into the description this tiny little bit of stuff i get to do i get to go we have a different piece of show art for every episode none of these things is difficult none of these things is hard it's but they're all little things where i get i get to just do little
Merlin: things with my hands and my heart and my head.
Merlin: And when we're done, I have participated in something that makes me extremely happy.
Merlin: And I have not looked at Twitter for hours.
Merlin: And it feels so good to come out on the other side of that with reconcilable differences.
Merlin: There's some stuff we're doing right now that required me to do some new music.
Merlin: So I'm learning about getting back into this new version of GarageBand.
Merlin: What's the best way to mic my guitar?
Merlin: I have so much to learn.
Merlin: For every single one of these things, there's something to learn.
Merlin: I'm learning more about getting back into modern graphics programs for all these things.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying, though?
Merlin: This is my version of a shovel.
Merlin: I get to make something I'm happy with, and the whole time that I'm doing it, I don't want to beat this to death, but I did realize fairly early on, I look at Twitter way too much, and it doesn't make me happy.
Merlin: Um, and, and, or whether that, that Twitter could also just be looking at Google news or Washington post or whatever, but like, I don't know.
Merlin: I would say that's, that's, if, if anybody can find the space to do that, it's so nice for some people that's long walks with a dog.
Merlin: I think, you know, it could be virtually anything, but like, there's something so therapeutic.
Um,
Merlin: about having something you're pretty sure that you can accomplish.
Merlin: You're talking about the difficulty of like, ah, these lyrics suck, but that's the kind of next level.
Merlin: But like doing all of these things, for some people that's making meals, whatever it is, having a garden, but something where you can put your hands and your heart to something and have a thing you're pretty sure you can accomplish has never felt more important and rewarding to me.
Yeah.
John: Do you grow anything?
John: You know, your backyard always seemed like it had a lot of potential to be a place where things were growing.
John: And you've talked about having done stuff in it.
Merlin: I did mostly a tech upgrade to the backyard.
Merlin: But for sure, it's rough because it's the western part of San Francisco.
Merlin: But for sure, my kids started growing all kinds of stuff in window gardens.
Merlin: She started growing garlic.
Merlin: She's super into it.
John: Oh, nice.
Merlin: And, like, we're just about to undertake a huge, like, redo of the yard for exactly the reasons that you're stating, which is I want to take out the tools, I want to hook up the hose, and then we're just going to go back there and keep fixing things until we're tired.
Merlin: Take out the tools, hook up the hose.
John: Take out the tools, hook up the hose.
John: Every day I take out the tools, I hook up the hose.
John: And then at the end of the day, I put away the tools, I unhook the hose.
John: It's really like, you know, and the thing is not even if you live in an apartment, even if you live in the in the concrete jungle, you can you can have a little garden.
John: It's like a – I don't know.
John: It sounds like really, really woo-woo.
Merlin: Now that my kid is – I think I might have mentioned my kid out of nowhere is suddenly extremely into garlic and putting way too much garlic in food.
Merlin: It's very weird.
Merlin: Hallelujah.
Merlin: I said it's like I feel like 20 pages fell out of my script one day.
Merlin: And I'm like, what the fuck are you doing with all of this garlic?
Merlin: You're a monster.
Merlin: The house reeks.
Merlin: But that turned into – she hits Google –
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: She could probably find this on TikTok because that's all she does all fucking day.
Merlin: But she goes and finds out, how do you plant and grow garlic?
Merlin: And she's got crazy-ass tall garlic now and wants to have more.
Merlin: And you're absolutely right.
Merlin: In the concrete jungle or wherever, it doesn't have to be garlic.
Merlin: But there can be something where – I hate to sound so corny, but I think people are so sad right now.
Merlin: I think I think one reason you see folks going out and taking off the mask and being a dumbass is that nihilism has started to seep through totally understandably.
Merlin: They're so fucking tired of this.
Merlin: But like there are things that you can do to make your world a little bit better.
Merlin: And maybe that could be just putting some fucking garlic in dirt.
John: What – how many times a day do you Google coronavirus?
John: I don't mean anything else.
John: Yeah, yeah.
John: Just coronavirus or COVID-19.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Well, my version of that – I mean not that often per se but –
Merlin: I could send you a screenshot of my book, bookmarks.
Merlin: So many bookmarks where I go to different sites for different kinds of things and they update at different times and they model in different ways.
Merlin: And, uh,
Merlin: A lot, a lot, a lot, especially in the afternoon.
Merlin: For some reason, the afternoon is often mine.
Merlin: Maybe it's just because that's also my low energy ADHD medicine wearing off time is I get very scared and sad in the afternoon.
Merlin: Oh, dear.
Merlin: And that, well, like yesterday, I saw a thing in Bloomberg of this photo of like the prototype, like what classrooms are going to be like.
Merlin: And it's little kids in masks and plexiglass shields with their desk, like covered with sanitizers and wipes.
Merlin: And I'm like, fuck.
Merlin: It's like that.
Merlin: When I saw that photo yesterday, it hurt my heart so much.
Merlin: Of course, I was a dick about it and said, well, I hope everybody out there has a pretty cool photo.
Merlin: I hope everybody out there enjoyed going to a bar once.
Merlin: The true implication being, this is my kid's life now.
Merlin: Imagine somebody younger than your kid, and you go and read about the precautions.
Merlin: Your child, not your child, but a kindergarten-age child, hey, great, I'm starting kindergarten, will be handed a ball that only they are allowed to use.
Merlin: And in some cases, they will stand in a circle and play with a ball.
Merlin: the every like the small number of kids who get to go to school this day that's that's their life now and i'm sorry bitch i know it's whatever but like it just makes me so fucking mad all these fucking ding-a-lings and thumb heads out there just nihilistically this death cult of people just could care fucking less what it is doing to so many people of all ages but the idea of a little kid having to live like that is just tearing me apart right now
John: Well, you know, the thing about little kids is that they don't know little kids.
John: How do you keep little kids from touching each other?
Merlin: The teacher that's making $45,000 a year is now like a child cowboy?
John: Well, that's the thing.
John: That's not going to – all of that is just like adults trying to correct their mistakes –
John: In kids or in what they what they force kids to do, which is the which is the history of humanity.
Merlin: Right.
John: We probably adults don't want to do the hard work.
John: And so what they decide is that in the schools now all the kids are going to learn Latin because that's what they wish they had done.
John: No, I feel terrible for imagine being.
Merlin: Imagine being – I mean – Say, for example, like a 12-year-old kid who's really coming into their own.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Well, that – but, you know, even 12.
John: Yeah.
John: You're right before – but imagine being 16.
Merlin: Imagine being 16.
Merlin: You go back to school and mom and dad are at work.
Merlin: Like there's just so many – this is the ultimate public health Kobayashi Maru.
Merlin: Like every single answer to this sucks.
Merlin: But you're absolutely right.
Merlin: Imagine being 15 right now.
Merlin: How restless you are and like –
John: I was explaining to my kid what it was like for me when I was 25.
John: I was a little late to being 25.
John: I wasn't 25 until I was... Actually, I was about 22 when I was 26.
John: I don't think I was 25 until I was 30.
Merlin: I know exactly what you mean.
Merlin: I'm always eight to 12 years behind.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: When I was 26 in real years, 22 in dog years.
John: John years.
John: John years.
John: You know, my, my life was, it was incredibly social.
John: And it's not to say that I, I never, I don't think I ever needed anything.
John: Needed in needed in quotes human company any more than I do now, but I had it.
John: It was what I did I woke up in the morning music you're gonna be around people That and you work at some job and you've got and then you go There's nowhere to go.
John: So you go and you have nothing to do so you go to the cafe you sit around your friends are all Also struggling artists.
John: So it's like what should we do today?
John: I don't know.
John: Let's put on a show
Merlin: It's also cool because you haven't gotten to that phase where like some people have money and some don't as much.
Merlin: Where one person is like let's go to the Hamptons and you're like my electric is overdue.
Merlin: I've got to not do that.
Merlin: Everybody is poor.
Merlin: None of us had any money.
John: None of us had any prospects.
John: It's not like any of us was any more incrementally successful than the other.
John: Not even about money but like –
John: None of us had had our name in the newspaper yet.
John: It was just like, I don't know, what should we do?
John: And to be 26 going on 22 now and to be trying to conduct all of that online, which I think is what's happening.
John: People are like, ticka, ticka, ticka, ticka, ticka, ticka.
John: I just can't imagine it.
John: And I think it's that lack.
John: It's not that they're not.
John: It's that I can't imagine it.
Merlin: When you see ads for dating services, like dating apps, and, of course, it's all adjusted to, like, let's talk on video.
Merlin: I understand what they need to do for their business, but holy shit.
Merlin: You see yourself ever doing that?
John: Well...
John: I was never, I have never been on a, well, no, that's, I went on that dating app that one time.
John: You've been on enough dates to not go on dates.
John: But, you know, I think this is the generation gap that, when we talk about a Gen X millennial generation gap, it's just about, it's a gap of, it's just like a kind of priorities gap, really.
John: Millennials aren't, they know computers better than we do, but it's really just a gap of priority.
John: or priorities but the generation gap of between us and a generation of kids that never played that only knew each other online or or more importantly not even that that's how they were when they were eight but that that's how they were when they were 24 that they were just like yeah i'm you know 20 when i turned 24 it was coronavirus year so i just basically like
John: went on TikTok, yeah, my lack of comprehension about what that would even entail, how that would feel to have all that youth and vitality and strength in the body and energy and to have it funneled that way, that's going to produce when that person is 30 and I am 65 and we meet somewhere and are talking,
John: about politics, I don't have no idea how I'm going to understand them, you know, understand their experience.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Because it's, because it's unprecedented.
John: It's not like the, it's not like the generation gap between, between the greatest generation and generation X where it's like, you kids had more televisions.
John: You know, it's it's this other thing where it's like for for two years, you never touched a person.
Merlin: Yeah, exactly.
Merlin: The exactly right.
Merlin: And I don't want to be too overly dramatic about this, but I think it's fair to say that when much of this is said and done, it's not just going to disappear.
Merlin: I think there's going to be it would be to me shockingly over or already so good at being over optimistic.
Merlin: It would be so over optimistic to think that we're going to be mostly done with this even in a year.
Merlin: I think this is going to be a very, very, very long tale if we're lucky.
Merlin: So if we could take it as read for our conversation, it's fair to say, like, we're six months into this.
Merlin: It's not at all weird for me or impossible for me to imagine that there are kids out there who will just have a big old year carved out of their life.
Merlin: And at all those different ages...
Merlin: there's different kind of developmental windows and opportunities, especially for things like language.
Merlin: I mean, think about what a kid gleans from being five years old in kindergarten, like how much you learn about dealing with other kids.
Merlin: And I don't want to over exaggerate it, but that sucks.
Merlin: It sucks that they're going to have, as we said, this giant asterisk or 30 asterisks on this one year of their life.
Merlin: It's like, where are all the photos like of you in an apartment that year?
Merlin: It's like, well, that's the only place that was safe.
John: Can you tell me what TikTok is?
Merlin: Is it Vine?
Merlin: Are they Vine stars?
Merlin: You remember, on Vine, a lot of it was like the women, the gays, and the blacks were just killing it on Vine.
Merlin: Ditto on TikTok.
Merlin: Women are just doing the craziest best stuff on TikTok right now.
Merlin: Sometimes it's about editing.
Merlin: Sometimes they're a little longer.
Merlin: Obviously, it's got a longer time than Vine.
Merlin: But yeah, that's essentially it.
Merlin: It's a bunch of very short videos that people are using very creatively, especially now.
Merlin: Does that make sense?
John: Yes, but what's the format?
John: Like, is it 10 seconds, 25 seconds, 400 seconds?
Merlin: I don't know the answer to that.
Merlin: I don't think it's hard and fast.
Merlin: When I say I know it's longer than viable, I've seen some like that woman, that Sarah Cooper woman that does the amazing Trump impersonations.
Merlin: She's great.
Merlin: Yeah, she's terrific.
Merlin: She's the Dana Carvey of that horrible man.
John: All I'm seeing is Vines that have been excerpted and sent over to Twitter.
John: Like I've never been on a Vine platform or I wouldn't know how to navigate it.
Merlin: There's some Vine compilations.
Merlin: Boy, I can't believe I'm saying these words to John Roderick.
Merlin: There's some Vine compilations that we have watched on YouTube many, many, many times because there's lots of them in there.
Merlin: You could just watch three compilations of just Griffin McElroy.
Merlin: But a lot of times it's like, okay, here's the classic ones everybody loves.
Merlin: What is Griffin McElroy doing on Vine?
Merlin: Well, not TikTok, but back on Vine.
Merlin: He did very funny Vines back in the day.
Merlin: Oh, oh, oh.
Merlin: So those compilations.
Merlin: But TikTok, I mean, I click through when it shows up on Twitter.
Merlin: For my own reasons, I've deleted the app from my phone because it's kind of a nightmare from a security standpoint.
Merlin: But I'm really on the horns of a dilemma because my kid doesn't have a lot of cool stuff right now.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: But yeah, that's the idea.
Merlin: I don't know the answer to your question.
Merlin: I will find out while you're saying whatever you say next.
Merlin: I will find out what the time limit is.
Merlin: My sense is probably 10 or 15 seconds.
John: I like anything that has that kind of like super strict limitation.
John: Some constraint, yeah.
John: My sister has been really interested lately in the idea, you know, just the kind of thought technology that like none of the quote unquote liberty or freedom that we have are we actually made to, you know, like we're incapable of actually dealing with
John: the liberty that we've granted ourselves and that for 50,000 years, human beings lived under incredible pressure and with incredibly strict, like hierarchical, um,
John: like governing rules and, you know, primarily if you're living a subsistence lifestyle, you don't, you're not making a lot of choices.
John: You don't have a lot of free time, you know, if you're like scrambling, but also if you're in a feudal society, if you're in any kind of pre-industrial society, if you're in an industrial society, you know, you're, you're living with rules that bind you, social expectations, just time and,
John: the time allotment and also the pressure of disease and violence and all the other things and just in the last 50 years all of a sudden we squirted out the end of this aperture and now a lot of people even people that are um people that think of themselves as as not only not wealthy but poor still are
John: still have time to think, you know, and let alone the people that are middle class and that have to make decisions about what they want and who they are, what they, what are their dreams?
John: You know, like, what am I going to do today?
John: These are, that's not a question that anyone ever would have asked in the entire human history up until living memory.
John: What am I going to do today?
Merlin: It's always just more like, what do I need to align myself with to stay alive today?
John: Right.
John: Or like, from the moment I wake up, I know exactly what I'm going to do today, which is toil.
Merlin: How do I keep my job?
Merlin: How do I stay in good stead in my church?
Merlin: How do I not provoke a government official or regent?
Merlin: You know what I mean?
John: I bet a lot of them—
John: This is the thing.
John: It was never phrased as a question.
John: They knew what they had to do and how to do those things.
John: They never had to ask.
John: They just got up and did the thing.
John: The question, the idea that you would even have the power to ask about a simple, like, how do I tie this knot?
John: It's just like, nope, here's the way that you tie the knots.
John: And now we're living...
John: coming out the other side of it, somebody like my sister is a 50 year old unmarried woman with no children who can do whatever she wants today.
John: And she's trying to make a living and she feels stress.
John: She feels stress about trying to put her, you know, to get her rent made and her food paid.
John: And, but none of that is really, you know, she's sort of like, do I, should I move to Alaska?
John: Should I be in, should I,
John: Should I join a union?
John: Should I be an artist?
John: Should I learn to, you know, like there's so much choice.
John: And she feels, I think over the years, like for a long time, she was proud of the fact that she was independent and freed and had never sold herself out and never had never become, you know, somebody that she despised.
John: But she's at this kind of turning point in her life where she's like, I have no rules and I feel incapable of living without them.
John: And I don't know how to impose them upon myself.
John: And I have closed the doors on every single possible external rule that anybody would ever try to hand me.
John: And so what do I do?
Merlin: That takes so much self-knowledge to realize, let alone accept that.
John: It's really nuts, and it's true for us all, I think.
Merlin: I think more than most people would be willing to admit it's kind of true.
John: I've known it creatively for years because I thrive under –
John: There's situations where I have no time left and no money and the thing has to get done now or it's not getting done.
Merlin: And I go, shit, okay.
Merlin: Now I have no choice but to do it.
John: Yeah, I have no choice.
John: Absolutely no choice but to do it.
Merlin: Whatever's here.
Merlin: The thing now is it just needs, this is such an ADD kind of thing for me.
Merlin: It's like, well, now I have no choice but to do the thing I was supposed to do.
John: That's right.
John: This is it.
John: And when I was writing that column for the Seattle Weekly, it was due on Monday morning at 8.
John: And I often didn't start writing it until Monday morning at 4 in the morning because that was the limit.
John: I knew that it was going to take me four hours to write.
John: And so even the self-preservation of like, why don't you start it at 6 p.m.
John: and then you could go to bed at 10 a.m.
John: or 10 p.m.
John: It's like, nope, it's got to start at 4 a.m.
John: And the reason I haven't finished a record in now 15 years is that I thought I was doing myself a huge favor by gradually eliminating all the people that could tell me what to do, all the financial pressure, all the stress, you know, and –
John: Put myself in a position where I didn't have to answer to anybody and how could you not create?
Merlin: Almost endless amounts of great stuff if you get if you've given yourself Claimed that much runway it would be impossible not to make a few great things.
John: Oh Yeah, right.
John: It's like every musician I know that reaches a certain stature the first thing they do is build a studio in their basement and I have pulled them and
John: Because they build a studio in their basement and now they're going to make records on their own.
John: And they had all the fun of buying all the stuff and building a studio in their basement.
John: There's one person.
Merlin: That's me.
John: That's me and notebooks.
John: You and notebooks.
Merlin: You know what I mean, though?
Merlin: You spend so much time getting exactly the right gear and clearing your calendar.
Merlin: And then you're just sitting there like some kind of Peanuts character just staring at the camera.
John: With the most beautiful notebook and pen you've ever seen.
Merlin: Oh, so good.
Merlin: It's too nice to use, really.
John: The only person of all the musicians I know, and I know a lot of people that have a fully-fledged studio that they could make records in, in their basement, and they haven't opened the door in months.
John: Because it becomes this, who wants to go into a studio by themselves and work on music?
John: That's become your dreaded failure closet.
John: The only person that does it is Ben Gibbard, who built a studio for himself.
John: But his lifestyle, or the way his mind works, he gets up at 7, he takes a run, he goes in the shower, and then he goes to work.
John: But his job, it's like Randy Newman.
John: He sits down and he starts to work on songs, and then at 2 p.m.
John: he turns off the computer and he's like,
John: Good day at work.
John: Sitting in a room, writing a stone.
John: I'm being killed.
John: He's the only one, the only one I know that does that.
John: And the rest of us are, the more freedom I had to do what I wanted, the less I did.
John: Yeah.
John: And I don't know, like...
John: I have the same problem that my sister's describing, which is anyone that could impose an external deadline on me, I have already figured out a way that they have no authority.
Merlin: You went through this with Hodgman, right?
Merlin: Where at first you had you assigned him the role of bug me about the book and then you like withdrew it at some point.
Merlin: Like, don't you're not the boss of me.
John: Yeah, stop bothering me.
John: And, you know, I have an agent.
John: I have a book agent.
John: He writes me all the time.
John: He's a wonderful guy.
John: I meet him when I'm in New York.
John: And he just got married, and he's like one of my favorite people.
John: But every time I see an email from him, I'm like, oh, God damn it.
John: Just shit yourself.
John: He's like, hey, man.
Merlin: Just checking in, man.
Merlin: No pressure.
John: Boop, boop, boop.
John: Yeah, just love to see anything you've got.
Merlin: This is that one day a month when I check in with everybody I probably shouldn't have a relationship with.
Merlin: I've gotten to really enjoy – one of the things I am aware of and I am grateful for – sorry to bust a gut – is my pals who I've gotten to be better friends with through DMs or texting or whatever.
Merlin: And one of those is absolutely Paul of Paul and Storm.
Merlin: And we go back and forth a lot because we like a lot of the same dumb shit that nobody else cares about.
Merlin: He's a lovely fellow.
Merlin: He's such a nice man and he's a good person.
Merlin: But if you hear this, Paul, hi.
Merlin: But we were going back and forth.
Merlin: I forget how we even – Screw off, Paul.
Merlin: Huh?
Merlin: Oh, fuck him.
Merlin: He always wants to drive, and you want to drive.
Merlin: You know what, Paul?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Fuck you, Paul.
Merlin: Fuck him in particular.
Merlin: What about Storm?
John: Ugh, Storm.
John: Even worse.
Merlin: Oh, look at me.
Merlin: I'm quiet.
John: I mean, Paul's bad, but Storm's.
Merlin: I'm quiet.
Merlin: Look at me.
Merlin: I must be thoughtful.
Merlin: Shut up.
Merlin: He's thinking a lot of things, and you know what?
Merlin: They are stupid.
Merlin: Fucking stupid.
Merlin: I forget how we got onto this, of course.
Merlin: Oh, no, no.
John: You were talking about Friends.
Merlin: We might have been talking about... We end up talking about Bernard Pretty Purdy a lot, because we end up talking about Steely Dan a lot.
Merlin: Whatever reason, we got into talking about the four-track era.
Merlin: And I was reminiscing about... I was making payments...
Merlin: Was it a TIAC, a Tascam?
Merlin: It was a really, really, really shitty cassette 4-track I bought when I got my first big boy job.
Merlin: And it's, you, I don't want to say you've heard music, but a lot of the music I've recorded was done in my bedroom with this incredibly shitty, noisy, no matter how much you cleaned it, you still have like, when you bounced, it sounded like shit.
Merlin: and you just keep doing it until it sucked less, and then you go, okay, I get the constraints of this now.
Merlin: These are the kinds of things that sound good, and these are the... You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: But you have to discover that yourself.
Merlin: There's no manual or big book you can read.
Merlin: You just need to make a lot of shit, and then eventually it's a little less shitty, but it's still pretty shitty, but it's yours, and it's fun.
Merlin: And I was just saying, can you even imagine how different our world, our friends, our music, our communities... If we hadn't had...
Merlin: shitty four-track recorders in the 80s and especially 90s.
Merlin: Because, and I say that because, like, obviously, I don't think we have Elliot Smith so much, probably.
Merlin: But also, like, what you're describing here, it's like if you build yourself this, like...
Merlin: stately pleasure dome of like all this recording equipment that is a lot of pressure but like if it's you in a really messy bedroom at 10 30 on like a saturday night with headphones like that's a very interesting constraint that can i feel like push creativity rather than pull shame and
Merlin: And so you're still working with a constraint.
Merlin: My God, you're a white guy with the ability to 4-track?
Merlin: You're so lucky.
Merlin: Yes, absolutely, 100%.
Merlin: But it's not the same as having a Vanderslice-style lease on a place with tube amps and shit.
Merlin: That's a lot of pressure.
Merlin: Whereas just like me with this dumb shit, spending an hour recording this same guitar line 28 times until I get the take that I want without having to quantize...
Merlin: That's still, even though I'm doing that on an iMac, it's still a constraint.
Merlin: And it still does drive me in a way that I find powerful.
Merlin: It's not just having the room.
Merlin: It's not just having the equipment.
Merlin: It's like having the right mix of what?
Merlin: Rakes and hoses that let you help Jason dig a hole.
Merlin: There's less pressure than all those opportunities that could otherwise await you.
John: You would think that the technology pressure – that the technology constraints would work –
Merlin: for me like the deadline constraints do that the fact that i don't even know how to quantize a thing i barely know how you just that there was a new garage band and i use garage band every day and i had no idea there was a new one and i mean i've been the one i used to record or to quote unquote edit this program like it's not going to work on future max so i had to learn new things including the when i say new it's not from like 2012.
Merlin: Oh, but like logic, logic, shit dog.
Merlin: There's a lot going on in logic and I find it extremely overwhelming.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Do you have it?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I have a legal bought copy.
Merlin: Because I realized if I want to keep doing Roderick on the line, I need to not have an app that's going to break pretty soon.
Merlin: So I ended up finding this other app that's incredible that's all about podcast editing, not about music making.
Merlin: But at that same time, let's go back to the tape.
Merlin: Well, in that small amount of time, I learned just enough to be dangerous in GarageBand.
Merlin: And now I kind of know my way around.
Merlin: I end up turning a lot of the buttons off because I don't know what the fuck a lot of them mean.
Merlin: But yeah, exactly.
Merlin: But that's just enough for me to go like, okay, this is, even if I just dip into 5% of what this thing can do, I'll be able to produce things that I couldn't before.
John: And that's exciting.
John: I wish that I found, I wish that I, what am I trying to say?
John: I have the constraints of technology like dialed so far back.
John: like the, the, the compressor on my technology is, is cranked so that if it has more than the more functionality than about four things, like I can pull a menu down, go to a sub menu, pull that down and go to a third.
John: But you're not trying to land a plane, you know, but I, but I am in the sense that in a way, I think that what I'm trying to do is make music that rivals when I pretend to fall.
John: And I,
John: That – in so many of the things that I do where I have – where I've compressed my expectations, it's because I've never done this – you know, I've never like –
John: whatever uh when i when i go into doing a carpentry project my my expectations for myself are high but and and if i fuck up i'm mad but that's not your primary job right there i do not have anything any carpentry that i've ever done that i look at and go well the next thing i do has to be as beautiful as that fucking pipe organ that i built but when i you know when i call a
John: Garage band and I sit there with a guitar in my lap and I look at the at the the birds going by There's a voice in my head.
John: That's like well, this is what you do like this is your profession Yeah, like it's sitting there with its arms folded just staring at you, right?
John: Right and it's like you've done this before and you've made You've made songs that even when you listen to them, you're like wow amazing like And so what are you gonna do now mr. Guy?
John: Yeah, so anyway get going.
John: What's your first thought?
Merlin: Better be good.
Merlin: Better be good first time.
John: I should clean the pots on this guitar.
John: It's just like, fuck this.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: Still, you still feel that way.
John: Oh, absolutely.
John: It's awful.
John: I got so much music in me that I want to...
John: that i want to make and i look at all of this and i'm just like oh you know what i need i need to get i need to get some handkerchiefs to put over the lamps to create more of that good mood yeah you know like the mood that they had when they made uh um like a fleetwood mac record or something yeah or like that that great talk talk record you know like they really they really got the the lava lamps going mm-hmm
John: I don't, oh, I need to make another pot of coffee.
John: Oh, you know what I should do?
John: I should buy Pro Tools.
John: Everybody uses Pro Tools.
John: Why don't I have Pro Tools?
John: Oh, but if you really want the big Pro Tools, you've got to buy the hardware.
John: Oh, you're going to need more hardware.
John: But of course, you know, I need the big one, right?
John: Because I'm a professional music artist.
John: I don't know how you would make it without it.
John: Pretty soon I'm upstairs, like, bending paperclips.
John: Ironing handkerchiefs.
John: I'm ironing handkerchiefs because, like, these are too wrinkled.
John: That's going to fuck me up.
Merlin: Prefab Sprout would never record in here.
Merlin: My love and I...