Ep. 410: "Trunk Full of Tab"
John: Hello?
John: Hi, John.
John: Hi, Merlin.
John: The bitch is back.
John: Something's wrong with the thing here.
John: Well, wrong.
John: Hang on.
John: I tried to restart, but...
John: Let me get it right.
John: Let me get it right.
John: It sounds like it might be an AV problem.
John: It's, you know, I need to call the AV girl.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: You're going to have the gal come up, bring up the cart.
Merlin: Listen, I'm doing so much with technology now.
Merlin: I have so many projects involving technology.
Merlin: I just move from one to the next, like I'm spinning plates on Ed Sullivan, except it's wires a lot of the time.
John: I really wish that I had, let's see, what if I got a built-in output?
John: That's not right.
Merlin: No, no.
John: I really wish I had your enthusiasm about technology, Merlin.
John: I really wish I did.
Merlin: Well, no, no.
Merlin: I'm sort of like Brad Pitt in Glorious Bastards.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: On some level, I love my work, but my work is not pretty.
Merlin: But somebody's got to do it.
Merlin: Also, I'm from Tennessee.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: What's his name?
Merlin: Old Hickory?
Merlin: Jim Memphis?
Merlin: What's his name?
Merlin: Philo Farnsworth.
Merlin: What's his name?
John: His name is a good name.
John: It's a case where you have a whole squad of Jewish guys, but you couldn't find an officer.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: I'm walking away from that one.
John: You couldn't find a Jewish officer.
Merlin: You had to get a guy.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: In the after show, which I will start probably today, I will give you some of my punchlines for that nominal joke.
John: Yeah.
John: Merlin, I'm looking at the Skype...
John: Audio video settings.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Okay.
John: And they don't have any... They have more space here dedicated to choosing a background video effect than they do to change your audio video settings.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: It says automatically adjust microphone settings.
John: Turn that off.
John: Build-in microphone.
John: You really want to turn that off.
John: I'm switching between them.
John: I'm just not getting...
Merlin: The dropdown for microphone.
Merlin: What are your options?
Merlin: I'm getting it here.
John: I can hear my own voice in the headphone.
Merlin: That's good.
Merlin: That means you're healthy.
Merlin: That means you're wholesome.
Merlin: You have good, you know, sensory integrity.
Merlin: But I don't have you.
Merlin: Aw.
Aw.
Merlin: The dropdown by microphone.
Merlin: What are your options?
John: What are your options?
John: Drop down up here.
Merlin: So where it says audio, the little gray audio and the little black microphone, you probably might see a purple thing jumping up and down for microphone volume.
John: No, I don't.
John: I don't see that.
Merlin: Are you in Skype?
John: I am in Skype.
John: Under audio, I see microphone.
Merlin: Yep.
John: There's a levels.
Merlin: Yep, yep, yep.
Merlin: So across from where it says microphone, do you see a little dropy-downy arrow, like on the same level as microphone horizontally?
John: Yeah, it has two settings, built-in microphone and default device.
Merlin: Okay, I think the microphone needs to be unplugged and replugged, your external microphone.
John: Oh, okay.
John: Well, my USB or my microphone?
John: Oh, well, here.
John: I'm going to unplug the USB.
Merlin: Do it all.
Merlin: Do it all.
Merlin: It doesn't cost anything.
Merlin: By the way, I'm not going to invoice you for this.
Merlin: I'm going to do this on the strength.
John: So you're saying I should hot plug this?
Merlin: I would say do a hot swap and then do a cold shoe and then maybe have a little aperitif.
Merlin: It doesn't have to be alcoholic.
Merlin: Also, I recently learned how to make Childhood Party Punch.
Merlin: I want to put that on the list.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: Party Punch.
Merlin: Oh, hey, there you are.
Merlin: How did that work?
Merlin: I don't know, man.
Merlin: You blew the dust out.
John: I guess I did, although it's a little bit.
Merlin: Do you remember that every party you go to as a kid, it always had that same red punch?
Merlin: Are you kidding me?
Merlin: Well, it's Kool-Aid.
Merlin: Oh, no, no, no.
Merlin: It's Hawaiian punch.
Merlin: It's Hawaiian punch.
Merlin: Well, it's Hawaiian punch, but then you got to add the activators.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Here's what you probably don't remember.
Merlin: What you remember is that sickeningly sweet, wonderful taste of childhood punch.
Merlin: Yes, I do.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: So step one, most of that, let's be honest, it's Hawaiian punch, but you know what else?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And I'll give you the rest.
Merlin: I'll give you the recipe because I made it.
Merlin: We made it on Joe Biden night and then we had a toast.
Merlin: You do Hawaiian punch.
Merlin: canned pineapple juice, and you top it off with Sprite.
Merlin: Where did you hear this?
Merlin: They're secret recipes, John.
Merlin: Only I know where they are.
Merlin: Did you read this in Sunset Magazine?
Merlin: You could learn how to make Popeye's fried chicken, and they're almost all terrible and wrong.
Merlin: And then the other suggestion for the Hawaiian Punch, I'll share it with you.
Merlin: The other thing they suggested, you can add some sherbet to that.
John: Oh, now I'm having serious flashbacks.
Merlin: Well, here's the thing.
Merlin: You remember the punch, but do you remember the fizz?
John: Yes, I do remember the fizz.
John: That's Sprite.
John: It's Sprite.
Merlin: Yeah, I'll send you that.
John: Are you sure it's not Fresca?
John: Do they even have a Sprite then?
Merlin: I would know if it's Fresca.
Merlin: It's like when they give you that allergy test and they punch all the stuff in your arm and you're like, man, we'll try one more.
Merlin: And it's grass.
Merlin: And like, nah, now my arm's coming off.
Merlin: Like I would know.
Merlin: I would know if it's Fresca.
Merlin: No, was your mom a Fresca person, if memory serves?
John: Wait a minute.
John: Are you telling me that you're allergic to Fresca?
Merlin: Yeah, it's a shame.
Merlin: Yeah, really any diet beverage.
Merlin: I can't have Diet Coke.
Merlin: No Diet Pop.
Merlin: They've tried it.
Merlin: They've tried it.
John: Wait, wait, wait.
John: Now are you telling me that Fresca is a Diet Pop?
Merlin: Fresca is a Diet Pop.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: Because I think it don't got no sugar.
Merlin: I think back in the day it had the saccharin.
John: Oh.
Merlin: I can look it up.
John: I didn't know that.
John: No, we never had fresca in the house, and I guess that's probably why.
Merlin: It was so gross, but you know what?
Merlin: Here's my feeling.
Merlin: Here's what I've arrived at after 54 years on God's great planet is that there's no accounting for taste, and that's good.
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: People just like things, okay?
Merlin: And the thing is, there are certain pops that have a very strong taste to them, to some people.
Merlin: I think Fresca is one.
Merlin: I think Dr. Pepper or his laggard brother, Mr. Pibb, I think there's something to that.
Merlin: People think that tastes like prunes.
Merlin: And then there's on the other end of the spectrum is where I don't go to the other end of the spectrum.
Merlin: I don't even hardly acknowledge it, but like water with a little something in it is the bane of my existence.
Merlin: Don't give me a fruit taste in a flat water.
John: We've talked about this before.
John: British people hate root beer.
John: British people hate root beer.
John: They don't understand it.
John: Remind me why.
John: It tastes like medicine to them, and then when you have root beer in the UK, you realize why they think that, because their root beer tastes bad.
John: It's an American drink, root beer.
Merlin: Yeah, like you start with a sarsaparilla, that good sarsaparilla.
Merlin: Yeah, that good old sarsaparilla.
Merlin: And what is the thing in that that makes it taste like medicine?
Merlin: Roots.
Merlin: It's got roots, like horseradish.
Merlin: Bark.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Okay, roots or highway.
Merlin: Okay.
John: Uh-huh.
John: But also talk we've we've talked a lot about everything John.
John: It's not gonna stop us Bitches back, you know, I was it we were a tab family because my dad drank tab.
John: My mom didn't my step my dad have drank tab and you know I I'm remembering just as I say this that he had some he had some deal and
John: Where some tab fell off the back of a truck, if you know what I'm saying.
John: Like, at a time when this was not commonplace, Dad would come home with like a...
John: What would you call it?
John: We're talking pre-Costco here.
John: Yes.
John: And he had some kind of a wholesale pop hookup.
John: He did.
John: He had a trunk full of tab that he would – and it was a thing where I think – he worked at the railroad and I think the railroad was buying wholesale quantities of tab and then he worked out a deal with the procurement people that he was going to skim a little – a couple of –
John: a trunk full of tab off the top.
John: And I, the thing is, tab became a thing in our family like bananas.
John: It was just like, you know, we drank tab, but I hated tab.
Merlin: The milkman, the milk, they bring you milk in a little box.
Merlin: And, but like, it's just, it was considered what we call a staple, right?
Merlin: We're just, there's always going to be tab.
Merlin: There's never a time we don't have tab.
John: There was always tab in my dad's fridge.
John: There was no pop at all.
John: Your dad had his own fridge?
John: No, no, I'm sorry.
John: In the fridge at my dad's house.
John: Oh, right.
John: Okay.
John: Right, right, right.
John: That's your dad's fridge.
John: Sorry, I misunderstood.
John: So dad's fridge had tab in it and it had a .45 on top of it from the war.
Merlin: You mean a seven-inch record or a pistol?
John: No, a pistol.
Merlin: Is that the one he used to shoot the zero out of the sky, John?
John: That's the same one, same one.
Merlin: He had a sidearm and that's how he shot the Japanese man's plane out of the sky.
John: Yes, and he kept it on top of the fridge.
John: And there was also a jar up there that had the keys to his plane and
John: And, you know, like rooting around in dad's house, you found all kinds of interesting things.
John: Rooting around in mom's house, you were less likely to find interesting things because she was a purger, right?
John: She would throw things away.
John: Dad never threw anything away.
John: So you'd open a drawer and there'd be a bunch of stock certificates in there from an oil company.
John: Those are my German bearer bonds.
John: He owned like 400,000 shares of some oil company from 1955.
John: And I was like, are these worth anything?
John: And he's like, I don't know, maybe.
John: Mom's fridge had no pop in it.
John: In fact, mom kept a thing of grape juice because grape juice was a prize that motivated my sister.
Merlin: I was all in the bag for Welch's, I want to say Concord grape juice, which is basically, again, it's sugar water, but it was intense.
Merlin: I also love Welch's grape pop.
Merlin: Grape is my favorite flavor.
Merlin: It was my favorite Pop-Tart.
Merlin: And it's my favorite juice, but you can't have a lot.
Merlin: There's a reason when you go to communion, they give you that tiny little cup of Welch's because that's Jesus and you can't have too much of that or you get fat.
John: Susan was not motivated by much, but she was motivated by grape juice.
John: But it is testament to how infrequently we had communion at our house that
John: The Welch's grape juice would routinely turn to wine in the refrigerator before we made our way through.
John: Oh, my God.
Merlin: Really, if you think about it, it's kind of its own version of transubstantiation, isn't it?
Merlin: It's kind of crazy, right?
Merlin: Somewhere between bootlegging and transubstantiation.
Merlin: The government's going to come, them revenuers.
Merlin: I can't even imagine what my mom doled it out to her to reward her.
Merlin: Did she get the big one or a little one?
Merlin: Because the usual were pretty big.
Merlin: Here's the other thing, John.
Merlin: Another thing I know about drinks is that people who like it like it a lot.
Merlin: So, for example, many of the people in my life, especially of a certain gender, love Diet Coke.
Merlin: All genders, but especially in the 80s, 90s, ladies would just drink a 12-pack of Diet Coke.
Merlin: People would drink a lot of Fresca.
Merlin: If you're into it, you could drink, let's say, hypothetically, a whole lot of chocolate milk.
Merlin: It would make me sick, but certain other people don't get sick.
John: I would drink some chocolate milk right now if I had some.
John: But I feel so guilty about it.
John: Do you have pop guilt?
John: You don't have pop guilt.
John: Oh, today?
John: No, I just have so much pop guilt because my mom was so against sugar drinks.
John: Right, right, right.
John: And then chocolate milk.
John: I mean, all those things, when they were handed to you, they always had a little floating asterisk over them.
John: Like, this is terrible for you and you're terrible for wanting it.
Merlin: It really was with the same sort of valence as TV, where it's like, there's amounts of TV, there's kinds of TV.
Merlin: And with all these drinks kids love, young people love, it's also like, how much will it be?
Merlin: And like, when is it okay?
Merlin: So as far as the grape juice, though, that would, so give me a scenario where a young Susan needs motivation and her mother is going to incentivize her, as they say, with a juice.
Ah.
John: See, that's what I'm trying to remember.
John: Like I was completely motivated by ice cream.
John: You could get me to do anything you want to jump through a flaming hoop.
John: If you, if you were going to give me a bowl with a single scoop of ice cream in it, um,
John: But, you know, Susan is headstrong, and I'm not sure.
John: She wasn't a picky eater.
John: I'm not sure what it was that warranted the special occasion of trotting out the grape juice.
John: I didn't really care about it.
John: I mean, grape juice is great and everything, but it's not like I waited around for it.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: But for you, and just for completion, somebody's going to motivate John.
Merlin: We're not up to the point of stomping on the toys in the closet.
Merlin: We're going to try.
Merlin: We can do hard or easy, right?
Merlin: Carrot or stick.
Merlin: When we want to motivate John with a single scoop of ice cream in a bowl, what is that flavor?
John: Oh, any flavor will do.
John: But of course, you know, chocolate being the peak.
John: What if it had nuts?
John: Are you cool with nuts?
John: You do Rocky Road?
John: Nope, nope, nope, nope.
John: Don't want it.
Merlin: I hate nuts.
Merlin: Nuts and raisins.
Merlin: Why are you putting them in things?
Merlin: Stop putting nuts and raisins in things.
John: If you put marshmallows in ice cream, which was very common in our day, Rocky Road, right, has little tiny marshmallows in it.
John: Yeah, I think you're right.
John: And what you've got now, because honestly, I'm betraying myself here by saying that I do eat nuts in ice cream now.
John: But it was the nuts and marshmallows.
John: And, you know, you don't know what gear to put your jaw into.
Merlin: And also, there's certain kinds of foods that are, even like a food you can buy in a store, they're obviously a stoner food.
Merlin: I don't know that it's a stoner food in purchasing, but it really, Rocky Road seems like the kind of thing somebody came up with when they've been a little bit high.
Merlin: Nuts and marshmallows.
Merlin: And what else?
Merlin: You got chocolate chunks, or am I thinking Chunky Monkey?
Merlin: Is that banana?
John: That came later.
John: That came later.
John: How did you feel about me and Paul?
Merlin: I've never been happy about the addition of nuts to food.
Merlin: Now, I am the kind of person, last night I ate an entire jar of anchovies, because that's just how I roll.
Merlin: I love anchovies.
John: Wow.
Merlin: Well, it's another strong, here, it's like cilantro.
Merlin: It's like Fresca John.
Merlin: It's another very strong flavor that people have strong opinions about.
John: We were driving in the car yesterday, and my daughter's mother is going through another one of her intermittent cleanse slash fast class.
Merlin: Is she doing the thing where the weird fasting in the app tells you when to eat?
John: Probably.
John: That's the thing.
Merlin: It's called intermittent fasting, right?
John: Yeah.
John: I'm not against it.
John: I'm for it.
John: But it's just a way of shaping her day or whatever.
John: But we're driving along.
John: Uh, on a, on a, uh, on a mission, we went on a mission and all of a sudden the car fills up with a noxious smell.
John: And I look over and she has opened a Tupperware and is eating hard boiled eggs, deviled eggs in the car.
Merlin: Without a word.
Merlin: She just cracks open Tupperware and down go the ova.
Merlin: Here, here we go.
John: Deviled eggs.
John: And I, uh, you know, I'm kind of a super smeller.
John: And I get very, you know, smells can really, really put me off.
John: And they also they also are very compelling to me.
John: But but I can smell.
Merlin: It's got that sulfur.
Merlin: It's like a super intense food fart.
John: When we were on on one of our very first tours is the long winters.
John: We were all very poor at the time.
John: And Chris Cornelia, if you recall, original member of the Long Winters, was very poor.
John: And he really wanted to remind the rest of us who were also very poor that he was even poorer.
Merlin: He's king poor.
Merlin: He was king poor.
Merlin: You best not come at the king.
John: So we're driving across the country and we're in North Dakota or something.
John: And we pull over...
John: It's like, well, it's time for dinner.
John: You know, we pull over to Denny's and there's, oh, no, no, no.
John: It was in Montana.
John: And there was a friend of mine that lived there and he, and he was like, meet me at the Denny's out by the highway.
John: And we were like, okay, we're meeting our friend out by the Denny's.
John: And he was going to come out from it.
John: We weren't playing in that town.
John: He was just going to drive out and meet us.
John: So we pull into the parking lot and Chris says, well, I can't go into the Denny's.
John: And we were like, why?
John: And he's like, well, I don't have any money.
John: I can't afford to eat.
John: Oh, it wasn't a lifetime ban.
John: Okay.
John: No, no, no.
John: And we were like, come on, man.
John: We're just going to go into the Denny's.
John: There's always something to get, you know, and this was before I had enough money to, to the band wasn't making any money.
John: I didn't have enough money to, to buy everybody food all the time.
John: So I was like, we'll just, we'll figure something out and get you a plain hamburger or something.
John: He's like, nope, nope.
John: I, you know, I can't afford it.
John: I'm just going to sit in the van.
John: And he wouldn't get off of it.
Merlin: So it's probably a money thing, but it's also almost like a moral position.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: He was taking a moral position.
John: He was the poorest one in the band.
John: And so we go in.
John: We sit in the Denny's.
John: Chris is sitting in the backseat of the van staring straight ahead out in the parking lot.
John: And the van's parked right there.
John: So we can look out the window and he's just in there just in the dark.
John: Yeah.
John: Like Peter Brady at the party.
John: And so we hang out with my friend.
John: We have some burgers.
John: And it's night.
John: We're headed into the dark.
John: And we get back on the road and we're driving along.
John: And all of a sudden, the van fills up with the noxious gas.
John: And I look over and he's opened a can of tuna and is eating raw tuna out of the can with his fingers.
John: And I said, Chris, and I wasn't the best.
John: I wasn't the best manager.
John: I think we've established that.
John: I was like, you can't eat just a can of raw tuna in the van.
John: Like, it stinks now.
John: It smells like cannery row in here.
John: And, you know, it's winter.
John: We can't roll the windows down.
John: And he's like, I'm poor.
John: And this is, you know, I need food to survive.
John: And, you know, I didn't say, like, why didn't you eat the tuna while we were inside eating hamburgers?
John: I think I did say, why didn't you come in and have a hamburger?
John: But it was a, you know, eventually, like, eventually I said, it's just, you can't do, it's just...
John: You cannot do it.
John: You're punishing us with this tuna smell.
John: And, you know, the other guys, I don't know, maybe the tuna doesn't bother them, but he eventually threw his can of tuna out the window of the speeding car.
John: And it probably hit some kid, and that kid is president of the United States right now.
John: Oh, he did.
John: But, yeah, the eggs.
John: And yesterday, I have to, now I'm having all these flashbacks.
John: Yesterday, I'm also laying on the couch reading a book, and the house fills with noxious smell.
John: And my daughter's mother has decided that
John: She is going to put canned salmon in a pan and cook it for lunch.
Merlin: Canned salmon?
John: In a pan.
John: In the state of Washington?
John: Yep.
John: Well, we have good canned salmon.
John: Oh, sure.
John: Okay, you know what that makes sense.
John: Only the finest.
John: But yeah, I'm sensitive to this stuff and I'm...
John: You know and it's it I could almost see her putting marshmallows in it frankly like I just don't Can I ask some background questions here?
Merlin: Yeah, go ahead.
Merlin: Um, so you know that your daughter's mother is doing something like intermittent fasting have a Two-part question have you seen evidence of ad hoc?
Merlin: off-site food before and Second in this instance if you can say Did you know that there were eggs in the car?
Merlin: I guess she has like a caddy or an oversized purse.
John: Yeah, I did not know.
John: There was also another thing full of apples and almonds in her bag.
John: And, you know, like dry almonds with no salt.
John: I support...
John: I support her when she decides that this is the thing because I know how much harder it is to do a thing like that if the people don't support it.
Merlin: It's brave and important to support an idea.
Merlin: It's difficult to support day-to-day implementation in my experience.
John: Right.
John: And in particular, it's hard for her to do it when my daughter and I are eating macaroni and cheese.
John: Sure.
John: And she's sitting over there eating canned salmon and marshmallows.
Right.
John: Like I can't, you know, I can't, I can't be, I can't add.
John: Why don't you just come in and have a hamburger?
John: I can't, I can't add to her suffering.
Merlin: You should see if you can hook them up.
Merlin: That'd be so cute.
John: Chris and Chris.
John: No, I think Chris is in a life, life relationship.
Hmm.
John: But, and, and, you know, and for that matter, I, you know, I haven't talked to him in a long time.
John: He texted me, uh, in the last couple of weeks to, to say hello.
John: And, and, uh, and that was rare for him to, to reach out or really reading the trades.
John: He's been reading the trades.
John: It was rare for him to, to show compassion or love for another creature.
John: So it was nice to hear from him, uh,
John: And, um, but I've been hearing from a lot of people and I haven't had, I haven't, you know, given my full attention to replying to every single person with as much heartfelt gratitude as I, as I have.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: But it was, it was interesting to hear from you.
Merlin: When you're ready, I got a lot of messages from others to give to you too.
Merlin: Okay, good.
Merlin: Got some gifts.
Merlin: People keep giving me things to give you.
Merlin: I just want to be clear.
Merlin: I'm not a UPS store and I'm not John's mom.
Merlin: It's not my day to watch him.
Merlin: He seems fine.
John: I have a lot of emails that I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to get to all of them.
John: It's not okay to blanket thank a whole generation of people on this show and just say thank you, everyone.
John: But I do have to say thank you, everyone.
John: And Chris, of all the people to come out of the woodwork, I didn't even know he was still on the internet.
John: I have to imagine that he is still hilarious.
John: But he was – I've never told you this story.
John: I knew him for –
John: I knew him for a decade.
Merlin: Can we just give a little bit of quick context here?
Merlin: Just real quick for those who don't know the backstory.
Merlin: I'm going to tell this from my point of view.
Merlin: You stop me anytime.
Merlin: The night I met you and your band, you were opening for Ken Stringfellow.
Merlin: I also got to meet Scott Miller from Game Theory, and I almost passed out.
Merlin: You were also Ken Stringfellow's band.
Merlin: You were also Ken Stringfellow's band for that wonderful solo album of his, live performances.
Merlin: And you guys ended up coming to our house, I think, and tried to have sex with my wife, but I'm not sure.
Merlin: He tried it on the Bay Bridge, you know, westbound.
Merlin: So, but that's fine.
Merlin: And then we set up his coffin, got some fresh dirt from the Confederate graveyard across the street.
Merlin: And here's all I want to say, so it was you...
Merlin: Michael from the Western State Hurricanes, who was your drummer, you've got Chris Cornelia, who was at the time kind of trying his hand at stand-up.
Merlin: Was that what he was doing?
Merlin: Or he worked at a bookstore or something?
John: He hadn't yet figured out that he was going to try his hand at stand-up.
John: He was still just coming out of – we were all coming out of our 20s, which we had –
John: collectively squandered sitting around all the cumulative years the five of you squandered it's amazing to think about it's astonishing i got i got an email today from the ceo of patreon who's this guy that used to be in a band called pomplamoose that i remember that lady that always looks to the side for some reason yeah always looks to the side and you know she's doing she's trying to do a suzanna hoffs because i'm not sure it's working it's a thing yeah jack he's a jack right he's something like that he's a jack and he uh
John: He spent his 20s doing something where he had a lot of energy and he did a thing.
John: We sat around smoking cigarettes and talking about the plays that we were going to write.
John: Right.
Merlin: He's the Desi Arnaz, man.
Merlin: He figured out five different industries before you even knew what an industry was.
Merlin: Right.
John: He was playing trumpet.
Merlin: And he played keyboard.
John: Well, no, neither thing.
John: Or was true.
John: Chris did not play the keyboard.
John: Let's be quite clear about that.
John: Remind me what he did.
John: He played keyboard in my band, but that does not mean he played the keyboard.
Merlin: Oh, he plays keyboard like you play keyboard.
Merlin: He plays keyboard like Sean plays keyboard.
John: I played keyboard in Harvey Danger.
John: That does not mean I played keyboard.
John: Uh-huh.
Merlin: So you say you're a bad manager, but you're a really good songwriter.
Merlin: In this instance, you're all terrible keyboard players, but pretty nice guys mostly.
John: There was never a person in the band that could play the keyboard.
John: What about what's his name?
John: What about cool, cool, cool guy?
John: Oh, Jonathan?
John: Yeah.
John: Of all the keyboard players in the band, Jonathan was the best at playing the keyboard.
Merlin: But he also, he was a little bit like Geddy Lee with ADHD, where he had to be playing five instruments at once in order to concentrate.
John: Yeah, and I'm not sure that, I'm not sure that at that point his keyboard playing could...
John: could save us.
John: I mean, I, I don't remember the, the, his keyboard playing was a thing.
Merlin: His role on Commander Thinks the Loud was great.
Merlin: So I just want to finish this and now I'm going to throw it to you.
Merlin: So, so we've got Michael, Michael playing drums.
Merlin: We've got Chris doing something and being funny.
Merlin: Um, we get, we've got, uh, wait, one, two.
Merlin: Oh, you, you know, if I leave him out, he's going to be set.
Merlin: Sean Nelson.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: He was there.
Merlin: Eric Corson was there.
Merlin: Eric Corson playing the bass and we got you.
Merlin: And like, could there be a bigger charm bomb to fall into my life than this group of people?
Merlin: I didn't know who to love more.
Merlin: Um, and it was all so delightful and so funny.
Merlin: And then Chris, Chris shaved Michael's head in my kitchen and it still freaks me out.
Merlin: That's where that 2002, three, something like that.
Merlin: That's how you arrived in my life.
Merlin: You guys were a young band.
John: You'd had your first record out.
John: Just barely.
John: Just barely.
John: First record just barely out.
John: Right.
John: And, yeah, we were brand new.
John: And, you know, we've talked about it a lot that I used to put my bands together out of people that I liked already, friends, without really considering if they were good at their instrument or not.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Eric Corson was the one guy I didn't know before, and he was the one guy that was great at his instrument.
John: Michael Schilling, of course, was a phenomenal drum player, but that isn't necessarily to say that he was a practiced one.
Merlin: Does he write as loud as he plays?
John: He does.
John: His books are just as loud as his drumming.
John: Could you just bring it down a little bit?
John: But both Sean and Chris, you know, were people I'd known for a long time and both like brought way more to the band in the form of personality than they did in the form of music.
John: Although Sean's voice, of course.
John: Sean's voice.
Merlin: Tremendous.
Merlin: I'm saying, just go listen to Car Parts.
Merlin: You're going to listen to the first 10 seconds of Car Parts and you'll still never understand what's happening.
Ah!
Merlin: Yeah, but here's what you think.
Merlin: You think it's Sean Nelson's the high voice.
Merlin: You know who's the high voice?
Merlin: John Morgan Roderick.
John: Yeah, that's right.
Merlin: And then there's a song.
Merlin: It's kind of, maybe it's an organ or maybe it's a voice and you won't know for a few seconds.
Merlin: It's a koan that you can never solve.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Wee.
John: There's a lot of wee, wee.
John: Gives C, memory serves.
John: But Chris was a guy I met back when I was drinking.
John: I knew Chris when I was drinking.
John: And Chris was a guy who was, at least as a young man, ruggedly handsome, jet black hair, very attractive young man.
John: And attractive in a way that he wasn't ever really grunge, but he could kind of move in and out of grunge.
John: circles and he looked just he just looked cool so cool people can go everywhere he's also pretty self-possessed like a lot like you in some ways he seems like he belongs wherever he walked in yeah although you know like all of us that seem self-possessed like racked with insecurity and just you know quivering pile of jello but chris had had a lot of personality but what was not clear was that he was funny
John: He was – Chris was one of those guys who was trying out a lot of things.
John: He was putting on a lot of hats.
John: Sometimes he would try this.
John: Sometimes he would try that.
John: He was the bass player in a band called El Dopa.
John: And they had a brief moment where – I feel like I know that name.
John: The guy –
John: In Atlanta, who produced the early TLC records.
John: Let me see if I can figure out his name.
John: His name was something like...
John: Like Jackson Jackson or something.
John: He had some... Okay, all right.
John: He had a name that was like two... I heard a woman referred to yesterday, a woman called Faith Faith.
John: Faith Faith.
John: No, his name was Dallas Austin.
John: Have you ever heard of Dallas Austin?
Merlin: No, that's... Jackson Jackson is a more real name than Dallas Austin.
Merlin: That's a fake name.
Merlin: His name was Dallas Austin.
Merlin: You know my friend, Denton Fort Worth?
John: Denton Fort Worth.
John: Dallas Austin is like... It's kind of a big deal...
John: He's different from Babyface.
John: Is that right, John?
John: He's old school.
John: So he, let me see.
John: I'm just looking at his thing.
John: He worked with boys to men.
John: He's a little bit younger than me.
John: Oh, he was married to Chili from TLC.
John: So he was – She's kind of the – wait, what was the band with Left Eye?
John: Well, that's TLC.
John: Chili was the one that was a little posh.
John: She had the long hair.
John: Okay, okay.
John: Anyway, so Dallas Austin – this is 1992 or 3, something like that.
John: Dallas Austin down there in Atlanta has had some big success with some of his – like these R&B signings.
John: And he starts a record label called Rowdy.
Rowdy.
John: And and he says, you know, he starts signing people.
John: And this, of course, you remember this was this was the time when you were you had a record label and you started signing people.
John: You know, he had he had fishbone.
John: He was like signing, signing across the spectrum.
John: Love fishbone.
John: And he, I don't know what it was.
John: He came up to Seattle, complete fish out of water thing where he's just like, I'm from Atlanta, but I'm in the music business and Seattle's where it's happening.
John: There's grunge happening and I'm going to go check it out.
John: He comes up to Seattle and he happens to see El Dopa at a show.
John: And El Dopa was a band very much like
John: Western state hurricanes or any of the other bands at the time.
John: Like there was a, they had a compelling singer front man.
John: They had, uh, a bunch of dudes in the band, including a couple of people that had played with me.
John: You know, they were part of my family group of bands and they just happened to be playing the night that Dallas Austin walked into the club and he was like, I'm going to sign these guys because they are like cool alternative grunge, whatever.
John: And whatever they were, I mean, El Dopa was, again, like all those bands, a complete hot mess.
John: Just nuts.
John: And I think they covered Fight for Your Right to Party.
Merlin: But most of their music was like... That was a whole thing, though, was in the big spate.
Merlin: of post, you know, like, let's say from 92 on, I'm just, I can't remember all of them, but like, Murder City Devils, Kid, Engine Kid, like, there were all these bands, like, seemingly out of nowhere, or, you know, maybe not Dandy Warhol's, but there were all these bands where you were like, hmm...
Merlin: I wonder how they're going to do when they have to go into an office and deal with people.
Merlin: In some cases, some of those bands, you take a Pearl Jam, they've got the skills to pay the bills, and I bet they're pretty easy to deal with.
Merlin: But a lot of these folks, you wonder, hmm, you had a well-reviewed... Your last record was well-reviewed in CMJ, and I saw you once in a bar, and that's all of the due diligence I've done here.
John: Yeah.
John: And there were so many...
John: So many things happening at that time.
John: I remember standing on the side of the stage at a grunt truck show.
Yeah.
John: And as Grunt Truck, as Grunt Truck was leaving the stage at the end, and Grunt Truck were great.
John: As they were leaving the stage, they're actually like carrying their guitars, walking down the stairs, crowd going crazy.
John: You know, the lights still swirling.
John: The fog hasn't even dissipated.
John: They're walking down the stairs and there are guys halfway up the stairs to the stage, waving record contracts at them.
Merlin: Jesus Christ.
John: And it's just like something you would see in singles and not believe it was true.
John: But I, I looked at it with my own eyes.
John: anyway el dopa dallas austin flew them down to atlanta and put them up in his his like super studio and they said you know it was surreal like tlc was recording over here boys to men was over there and then these guys these like
John: uh, moss covered, super angsty, super.
John: And it's just exactly like you're saying, you know, within the Seattle scene, L Dopa fit in perfectly, but walking through this thing, it was like, they didn't, they didn't have the chops to be there.
John: You know, every other bass player in the building was incredible.
John: And then there's Chris Canelia who's like, uh, I think this is a G note.
John: And then I think it goes to an E and in Seattle, that was cool, you know, but,
John: so they made a record with Dallas Austin and it's amazing.
John: And it didn't, the record did not, uh, when, when, when it, when Dallas Austin sat behind his big desk and listened to it over the good speakers, I don't think he, I think his firsthand experience was probably like, huh, maybe grunge isn't where I, uh,
John: Maybe that's not my strong suit for rowdy records.
John: Lesson learned.
John: And it was a terrible thing for El Dopa.
John: They came back to Seattle and they'd made their major label debut, but the record never came out and they didn't own it.
John: So they never got it.
John: And all they had was a cassette tape of the rough mixes that the producer threw up
John: like in the last 20 minutes before they flew home.
John: Right.
Merlin: So they never heard it.
Merlin: Like a rough mix, probably too loud or too quiet on the cassette, just like you're going out the door, here's your copy to check out.
John: Exactly.
John: Here's your copy, you know, and we'll be seeing you.
John: You know, we'll call you soon.
Merlin: Really.
Merlin: A little motion with your pinky and your thumb out and jiggle it by your ear.
John: We'll be in touch.
John: And it was a tragedy, right?
John: Because if they had just, if Dallas Austin had just said like, hey, thanks for your time, like here are the masters.
John: They probably would have sold 600 cassette tapes at their shows and that would have made them the most popular band in my circle at the time.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: But that, you know, that's not how it worked out.
John: But so, so Chris was a guy when I got sober, I moved in with Chris.
John: I moved into the, to, uh, the alcove at the top of his stairs, right?
John: That was at Chris's house.
John: And Chris was having an affair with this girl named Joya, and she couldn't break up with her boyfriend, but still she was, you know, they were always sneaking off together.
John: It was, we were all... That sounds a little bit fraught, a little bit dramatic.
John: We were all in bed with each other, but not at the same time.
John: You know, that wasn't grunge.
John: We were too dark to have any fun.
John: But what was crazy about Chris was that he, first of all, he did seem like he was
John: Capable of having fun.
John: But that sense of humor that came out later, I think the only time it actually came out was when he was alone with a girl because women loved him.
John: And it was other than his looks, it wasn't entirely clear what his magic was.
John: And I think what it was, and I know this because he and I ended up being roommates together many years later, but before he was in the hurricanes and he would bring girls home to the apartment and they would go into his loft and I would hear them giggle and they would giggle for hours.
John: And like, not just like tee hee hee, no, don't touch me there.
John: But like the girl was cracking up and trying to stifle her laughter and
John: And at that point, I'd known him for eight years.
John: And I was like, what is she laughing at?
John: Is he showing her his tattoos?
John: I have no idea what would make a girl.
Merlin: I'm going to guess probably Bon Motts.
John: It was Bon Motts.
John: Yeah.
John: Because we learned it later.
John: When we were in the van and he felt comfortable enough, he felt that intimate space that
John: Um, you know, in the van, in the dark with the lights off, driving through the night.
Merlin: Interesting.
Merlin: Similar, similar setup to going into his room.
John: Yeah.
John: He stepped forward and became the funniest person any of us had ever.
Merlin: This is all despite, despite his, um, epic, uh, poverty.
John: He was super poor.
John: Poor can really pull it out when he needs to, right?
John: But it was the craziest thing I'd ever seen.
John: I knew this guy forever.
John: And all of a sudden, it wasn't just that he was hilarious.
John: He was electric.
John: You know, he was smart and so fast.
John: And...
John: You know, Sean is an extremely funny guy.
John: I imagine that I'm pretty quick-witted.
John: But we were just – our hair was just blown straight back.
John: All we could do was just drive through the night and laugh and let him go.
John: And I'd never seen a thing like that.
John: And I think part of the – I think maybe part of the like – because we've all got our 20s tragedies.
John: But then when you –
John: When you step into your 30s and you feel like, I made it.
John: I made it through my 20s tragedies and now here I am.
John: You have no idea that you're just embarking on your 30s tragedies.
John: And that the tragedies of your 30s are going to be so much more mature.
John: They're going to smell like canned tuna and deviled eggs.
John: Yeah.
John: Where your, your twenties tragedies, you know, smelled like beer and cigarettes.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: And the, and I think the thirties tragedy for Chris was he, we all realized like, Oh, who knew?
John: Like you're a genius and you've been trying to be the bass player in an indie rock band, which is a dead end for you.
John: But my God, you're a comedy, like a shooting star.
John: Mm hmm.
John: And then, of course, we're all doing that thing that our parents did to us, which is like, wow, you know, all you need to do is turn this talent into being the president.
Merlin: There's the kinds of things where I look at someone else, and this might sound subtle, but like, as I say, this is totally just out of my own laziness and lack of industry, but I've always wanted to be able to know how to draw.
Merlin: Learn to draw.
Merlin: No, I don't want to learn to draw.
Merlin: I want to be good at drawing.
John: Did you ever draw the turtle in the back of the comic book?
Merlin: Skippy, did you ever draw Skippy?
Merlin: I was offered a scholarship at the school.
John: What?
Merlin: No!
Merlin: No, I was not.
Merlin: I couldn't draw anybody.
Merlin: I couldn't draw Bunky.
Merlin: I couldn't draw Lucky.
Merlin: The other one is I wish, I don't want to learn to play piano.
Merlin: I want to be good at piano, right?
Merlin: And that says everything you need to know about me.
Merlin: But here's the thing.
Merlin: When you look at somebody who's not like you and has a skill that you don't have and kind of don't understand, they feel like a magic person.
Merlin: So for example, people like, I don't know, some people probably look at me and go like, how can you be on time for things?
Merlin: And it's like, well, I try really hard.
Merlin: Or you look at some people and you're like, how can you just be so funny and willing to be funny?
Merlin: And so there's that kind where you're like, boy, I'm so not like that.
Merlin: And I don't really understand it.
Merlin: There's another one that I think might be even more special.
Merlin: And this is the classic, like, first week at college thing, right?
Merlin: Where you're like, oh, man, I'm the funny guy.
Merlin: I'm the smart guy.
Merlin: I'm the, you know, Immanuel Kant reference guy.
Merlin: And then you're suddenly surrounded with all of these people.
Merlin: To paraphrase Milton Berle, I'll just take out enough to beat you.
Merlin: Like, you see somebody, something you perceive yourself to be good at, historically you think you're good at, like being funny.
Merlin: And then you're like, oh, God.
Merlin: You, you crack wise about 10% of the time that I do, but each time you do, it's about a thousand times better.
Merlin: And that makes me, I admire that.
Merlin: And it makes me angry.
John: You know what I mean?
Merlin: What, what, what, you know, what you don't have, but like, you know, you have a little bit that makes you in some ways appreciate it even more than seeing the person as magic.
Merlin: I mean, this is a different kind of magic.
John: A different kind of magic.
John: Different kind of magic.
John: I think it's a Queen record, but I'm not sure.
John: It was.
John: It was.
John: It was crazy about Chris because his comedy happened in this incubator, but it was never clear how to take it out of the little box.
John: Because as soon as we got on stage...
John: as a band, right.
John: He froze up deer in the headlights.
John: Uh, if he, if he stepped forward to a microphone and said anything, it was like a, it was like crickets, you know, and it, and it, and it felt uncomfortable.
John: He seemed uncomfortable.
John: And of course, Sean and I, uh, we, we did not have the wit that he did in the dark van and
John: Or anything close to it.
John: But on stage, you know, we're relaxed or jokes.
Merlin: It was one of the best parts of the show.
Merlin: You guys going back and forth, each giving as good as you get.
John: Yeah, it was part of our bit.
John: And we wanted to welcome Chris into that, you know, knowing how funny he was.
John: But being on stage, it was like he was the, hello, my dog.
John: Oh, he's Michigan J. Frog.
John: He's the little frog.
Merlin: Yes.
John: I just watched that last week.
John: After he left the band, he went through, he spent 10 years.
John: He went 10 years where he joined UCB.
John: He, uh, he was an instructor at UCB.
John: He did improv.
John: He, he worked and worked and worked to get into comedy.
John: And it was during that decade when comedy became the new rock and roll and everybody was doing comedy and he, and, you know, and I kept just really rooting for him.
John: Like, yes, you know, like just find a way to put that plug into the socket and, and, uh, but there was never the right, uh,
John: It just never was the right combo.
John: And I don't think I went to see him do improv with his improv crew a couple of times.
John: And it was just like, you know, it was passable UCB improv.
John: It didn't.
Merlin: That's a tough racket.
Merlin: Even if you're really funny, that's a tough racket.
John: Really tough racket.
Merlin: You have to be so.
Merlin: I mean, like it's got all the difficulties of being funny plus a lot of showbiz.
Merlin: Also, UCB is a cult.
Merlin: Not that that's bad, but it is a cult.
Merlin: My niece is a big shot in UCB, and it's definitely a cult.
Merlin: Is it a cult?
Merlin: Oh, it's a cult.
Merlin: Oh, it's like a Ponzi scheme, right?
Merlin: Well, it's like a Ponzi scheme.
Merlin: You come in, you hold the soup cans, and then you got this guy over here.
John: Give me a kind of wild cat.
John: Okay, here we are in Spain.
John: I went to see ass cats one time.
John: Oh, shit, dog.
Merlin: Was Amy Fuller there?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: She's the most generous improviser ever.
Merlin: She's so fucking amazing.
John: It was fantastic.
John: Oh, it's so good.
Merlin: I've never felt more alive.
Merlin: The first time I saw really good live improv was Rob Corddry's group, him and other people called Naked Babies.
Merlin: And I've never felt so creatively stimulated in my entire life than watching them do their little kind of mini Herald thing.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: It's absolutely stimulating.
Merlin: It's absolutely it's incredible when you see people who are good at it and you're like, I don't even know how you're good at this or what.
Merlin: I don't understand what you're doing.
Merlin: How do you do this?
John: Yeah, I think Janet.
John: I think.
John: But but it was even them at their highest, you know, just like just killing it peaking.
John: It's still improv.
Merlin: And there were still four moments in the show where I was like... Almost no one in the show business... If you know improv, you probably know whose line it is in anyway, which can be a very funny show.
Merlin: But the point is, it's pretty obscure.
Merlin: It's almost like being a poet.
Merlin: Especially in the sense that not only does hardly anybody fucking care about what you are nominally good at, but everybody who works with you also hates you.
Merlin: Comedy is full of unhappy people who hate you, and I think the same is true in poetry.
John: You know, I did improv in college.
John: And, um, and it was at the very sort of start of improv in college, right?
John: It was called theater sports.
John: There was a, there was a guy that came to our school and he was like the Johnny Appleseed of theater sports.
John: He seeded theater sports in different colleges.
John: And the year that he was there coaching us and teaching us, uh, it was one of the greatest things I ever did.
John: Uh, my freshman year in college, I was in theater sports with this, with this small group of people that all kind of hated each other, but also loved each other.
John: And, and this guy, our coach was like, he was like a father figure to us, even though he was probably 28.
John: And then after we were done, he, after, at the end of the year, we were talking about the next year and what was going to happen.
John: And we were a hit on campus.
John: And he was like, well,
John: Looks like you guys got it.
John: I'm going to move on to the next school and start theater sports over at the University of Montana.
John: And we were like, no, no, no, don't leave.
John: And as soon as he left, it turned into, I mean, the following year, you know, first day of sophomore year, it was just clear like, oh, this is not fun anymore.
John: And I mean, it's still, it remained very popular.
John: because people hadn't seen it improv before.
John: It's like me.
Merlin: The less I tweet, the more followers I get.
Merlin: It's so amazing.
Merlin: You guys are legendary because you never do anything.
John: You never do anything.
John: But, you know, I was never that person that discovered a talent that
John: at some point in life that I didn't know was there.
Merlin: And I always, you kind of hoping, we're hoping that would happen.
Merlin: Like those dreams where you find a secret room in your house, were you hoping there was something that would pop up that you suddenly everyone says, you know, John, you're really good at this one thing that people find valuable.
Merlin: You should do that.
John: Yeah, the idea that, like, you would, like, pick up some watercolors and just start working, and then all of a sudden everybody's crowding around, like, how did you do it?
Merlin: You see it in school.
Merlin: Like, when you're a kid, I'm sure you see this in school, where, like, back when we go to school and do things, and you look at all the drawings on the wall, and there'll be one or two drawings where you're like, who did this?
Merlin: Jesus Christ.
Merlin: You're six, and you understand, like, perspective and, like, how to color in the lines and do all the things, and everybody else is just out there taking a shit on the paper.
Right.
John: There was a girl in my daughter's preschool class who was between the ages of three and four.
John: She made several artworks where I, I just saw that she had the vision and she was a little bit of a spooky magic child anyway.
John: Yeah.
John: But at four years old, she was making art.
Yeah.
John: That was not what other kids were doing.
John: You know, she was seeing through the veil.
John: And, um, and I think about her sometimes, I mean, I haven't seen her in six years, but I think sometimes like sky, I wonder what she's working on right now.
Merlin: There's totally people like this there.
Merlin: I mean, like, I remember like there's a pal of mine.
Merlin: Well, anyway, long story short, but we, we, this guy and like, so you'd seen people play a Chapman stick.
Merlin: You'd seen like Tony Levin or whoever do that.
Merlin: You're like, what the fuck do you do with this thing?
John: And like the guy who's, did you see John Vander slice when he was on tour with the Chapman stick player?
John: Oh, did you ever see that?
Merlin: I don't think I did.
John: The first John Vanderslice band.
John: No, he had a Chapman stick player.
John: And this was during the indie rock era when Vanderslice thought that what he was doing was sitting in a chair and to the side.
John: So his original tour is... So he's really, in at least a couple ways there, he is trending toward Fripp.
John: He really was like, I sit, first of all, during our shows.
Merlin: Was he also like, did he want to be like a Zappa, like he's going to conduct kind of thing?
John: No, he wasn't.
John: He...
John: It was the – Def Cab used to do this too, like singer to the side, drummer to the front kind of –
John: And we're up ending the conventional paradigm of rock bands.
Merlin: Inspired by Night Ranger.
John: You know, just because I'm the singer doesn't mean I should be in the front.
John: Okay, all right, whatever you say.
Merlin: All right, Bellingham.
John: But not only was he not to the front, but he was in a chair.
John: And it was like, John, you're not playing anything that necessitates you being in a chair.
John: You're not playing a lap steel.
John: You're not even that good on the guitar.
John: Just stand up and sing.
John: But front and center at his show was a guy playing the Chapman stick, making all the Chapman stick faces.
John: It's worse than guitar face.
John: And, you know, just playing like, my old friend, my wife.
John: It was so weird.
John: My old flame.
John: He was very weird, John Vanderslice.
Merlin: Anyway, this is a guy who could, like, in his first exposure to a Chapman stick, he puts it in his hand.
Merlin: In, like, 30 seconds, he can play, like, a pentatonic blues thing that made sense on the instrument.
Merlin: Like, I could probably pick out how to fake some Bernard Herrmann on a cello with some drinks in me.
Merlin: Jesse Char, sorry about that.
Merlin: But I don't fundamentally understand how to play the fucking instrument.
Merlin: But there are people, in the way that that little kid knew how to make art that was more than a drawing for an assignment...
Merlin: And then a lot of them were like, yeah, whatever.
Merlin: It's a thing I do.
Merlin: You know, they're just some people.
Merlin: And believe me, I am not here with the new, like, great man theory of naturally gifted people.
Merlin: You've got to go work your ass off where there's no point.
Merlin: But it's amazing, amazing to behold.
Merlin: People who are people who can do their thing.
Merlin: I'm sorry you never got that, John.
Merlin: You deserve that.
Merlin: You deserve a hidden skill.
John: Thank you.
John: Thank you, Merlin.
John: You remember when we went to the gun range?
John: Oh, absolutely.
John: And do you remember?
John: Yep.
John: I remember there was one of us.
John: There was one of us.
Merlin: Who could do it.
Merlin: Who had never touched a gun before.
Merlin: There's a person who is less likely than me to be good at shooting a pistol.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Who was improbably an order of magnitude better than everybody there, including several people who had shot pistols before.
Merlin: And that was Jonathan.
John: That was Jonathan, the kid.
John: It was Jonathan.
John: That's right.
John: He'd never held a gun before.
John: And he was like, huh.
John: He should have 45.
John: A 45 is so loud.
John: And just sending it right down the middle.
John: And he didn't even know.
Merlin: You had to pull it up and show him on the target that he had done well.
Merlin: And if memory serves, he said, cool, cool, cool.
John: He did.
John: He said, cool, cool, cool.
John: And it was like, no, you don't understand how hard this is at what you're doing.
John: First of all, stop saying that.
John: And second, oh, yeah, cool, cool, cool.
John: Everybody was amazed.
John: And we kept putting different calibers of gun in his hand.
John: Try this one.
John: He was like, pow, pow, pow.
John: He gave him the biggest gun, and he's still good at it.
John: He was just like, I don't know.
John: He's teaching grade school in New York right now.
John: He should be in the Special Forces.
Merlin: He should be in Mossad.
Merlin: He should be the new Gal Gadot.
John: I do not understand how that happened.
John: But it's the kind of gifted that not only did he not know that he was, but he didn't care that he was.
John: So frustrating.
John: We walked out of there and he was like, oh, well, what else you got?
John: It was like, oh, I don't even care.
John: If I was a great shot, I don't know if I would care or do anything about it, but...
John: I think I would care.
John: I mean, I think it would be something that I would bring up on my podcasts.
Merlin: I'm naturally okay good at darts, but I have not put in the effort to be very, very good at darts.
Merlin: And so that's not something that I obsess about.
Merlin: But that's kind of like good at pool, right?
Merlin: Like sometimes you're good at pool, sometimes you're not good at pool type of –
Merlin: Oh, no, no.
Merlin: Also, there is such a thing as beginner's luck.
Merlin: There is that weird thing.
Merlin: And you know where you see this is in fucking bowling.
Merlin: You could be bowling and you could be like, let's say, like an okay, good, like 139 average, 150 average player.
Merlin: And then there's somebody who comes up there and, you know, they're throwing it like Tom Haverford, like between their legs or whatever, and they just keep getting strikes and spares.
Merlin: And you're like, what the fuck are you doing?
Merlin: Like, I don't know.
Merlin: The ball's kind of heavy.
Merlin: It hurts my thumb.
Merlin: Shut up.
Merlin: Stop being good at bowling.
Merlin: I worked really hard at this.
Merlin: And then the next time when they try to be good, maybe they're not as good.
Merlin: That is definitely a thing.
John: At bowling, I am the classic American who does not understand bowling, does not throw the ball correctly.
John: But I've been bowling a lot of times.
John: Um, because it was a thing that we used to do in America before the fall.
John: Everyone agrees.
John: And I can huck and pray and generally do pretty good at bowling.
Merlin: I bet you throw too hard and you don't get enough pin action.
Merlin: Do you know about the little arrows on the floor?
Merlin: You're supposed to throw over to one side a little bit.
Merlin: Remember the head pin is a cop.
Merlin: It's very difficult to do, but that second arrow becomes very important.
Merlin: It's also a very important concept in Buddhism.
Merlin: The second arrow.
Merlin: Chris, the second.
Merlin: Oh, here's the thing.
Merlin: You get shot with an arrow and it hurts.
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: But then the second arrow is the, is the pain that we inflict on ourselves.
John: So how does bowling work?
John: I've never been able to do it.
John: I do throw over.
John: I know to throw over to one side and let it hook around.
John: I do throw it too hard.
Merlin: The most the most kind of the most kind of rookie starting thing, obviously, I think is to try.
Merlin: I'm not a pro here.
Merlin: I was in bowling club, not bowling team.
Merlin: I was on a bowling club in eighth grade with the graphics teacher.
Merlin: My drafting teacher.
Merlin: Yeah, as you do.
Merlin: And all I know is this.
Merlin: Don't throw it too, too hard.
Merlin: Try to obviously keep it out of the gutters.
Merlin: And it's all about the pin action.
Merlin: So what you want is you want to be hitting it hard enough in the right spot in like the Cincinnati pocket.
Merlin: Like you want to get into the side of the Brooklyn pocket.
Merlin: It's like different kinds of clam chowder.
Merlin: Between the one and the two.
Merlin: One and two, one and three, like whatever, you know, whatever it takes.
Merlin: Whatever it takes.
Merlin: And then the pin action is all about like, if you throw it too hard and you learn this in Wii bowling, you throw it too hard and you make a little river through the pins.
Merlin: You got no pin action.
John: When I bowl, I throw it so hard that the pins just explode in every direction.
John: But you're right.
John: There's always a pin over here and a pin over there that didn't get caught in the melee.
John: And I'm like, how much harder could I throw it?
Merlin: You're using a ranged weapon, but you're treating it like you're having a fight with a bugbear.
Merlin: You know, la la la.
Merlin: So what were we talking about?
Merlin: Were we talking about crisps?
Merlin: What else were we talking about?
John: Oh, we're talking about so many things.
John: We're talking about marshmallows and salmon.
Merlin: I'm going to give you the recipe for that.
Merlin: While you've been talking, I've been listening extremely closely, and I've also been tagging faces in old photos.
Merlin: So I'm looking at lots of old photos of you guys.
Merlin: I got a great picture of you and Sean driving in a convertible on Van Ness Avenue that I might use for show art.
Merlin: Is that okay?
Merlin: Sean's toward the front of the photo.
Merlin: Is that all right?
John: That's a wonderful picture.
John: I remember you taking that picture.
John: I remember those days.
John: What I don't remember is why...
John: Sean and I had a convertible in San Francisco.
Merlin: I think you had the option.
Merlin: It was when you guys were in town.
Merlin: I think we're on the way to sound check at Great American, probably, when you guys did one of your Simon and Garfunkel shows, which were amazing.
John: Oh, wait a minute.
John: We might have been opening for They Might Be Giants.
John: Did you guys open for the Wrens ever?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: I'm just looking at my clusters of photos with John Roderick.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Opening for... Really?
Merlin: That was probably it.
Merlin: It was definitely Great American.
John: Yep.
John: Yep.
John: That might've been the first.
John: So we, we had met the giants.
John: Two days before, I think.
John: And that was the night you met Robin Goldberg.
Merlin: For context, the date I've got here is, it was at least uploaded, March 19th, 2004.
Merlin: So around about early March.
John: Oh, I think it had to have been before that.
John: I think it had to have been in 2000.
Merlin: You arrived, and I think you did one of the little fly-ins.
Merlin: You did a Colton-style, President-style pop-in, U2.
Merlin: And I think you maybe got the option, and so you popped for an American convertible.
Merlin: Oh, yes, we did.
Merlin: It looks very, it looks very dodgy Chrysler.
John: Yeah, it was.
John: I think it was a Chrysler Sebring back when you, but you know, the Chrysler Sebring, of course, my mom believed was one of the most beautiful American cars of the era.
John: There's a reason Michael Scott chose it.
John: She really was convinced that the Sebring was going to be a classic car.
John: Really?
John: More than a K car, huh?
John: Yeah.
John: She thought that having lived many lives up until that point, she felt like she had a pretty good bead.
John: She knew that the 64 Mustang was going to be a classic the day it rolled off the assembly line.
John: Yes.
John: Hexagon grill.
John: And she, when she saw the 2000 or the 1997 Chrysler Sebring LX convertible, she said, this thing is an American car classic.
John: This is an icon of Detroit at its finest.
John: And you, mark my words, most of them won't survive, but the ones that do will fetch a pretty penny at Mecham's.
Merlin: It's like Brian Eno said, you know?
Merlin: Only 1,000 people ever bought that car, but they all became a mechanic.
John: That's right.
John: Only 800 people bought the Subaru WRX.
John: WRX.
Merlin: Yeah, that sounds like a hell of a trim package.
John: Now they all wish they had.
John: But she still believes, I mean, you'll still see a Sebring.
John: You know through the rye go through the rye.
John: Uh-huh.
John: Uh-huh once once a month Maybe you'll catch a glimpse of a sebring out of the corner of your eye.
Merlin: I might have sebring blindness John You think I mean I so here's the thing I bet I see them, but I don't know if I grok sebring They're from the the lozenge era of American car makers you mean like this fucking 85 to 86 Thunderbirds
Merlin: They are very much derived.
Merlin: That was some fucking bullshit.
Merlin: And like when the Toyota wagon started looking like ATMs, not a fan.
John: The Thunderbird, when the Thunderbird first came out.
Merlin: They were long and tall and mean and fast.
John: The kid down the street from me, two doors down from me, Chris Gills.
John: Chris Gills was...
John: A constant thorn in my side because he was a much better skier than I was.
John: He was kind of a Lothario for a 15-year-old.
John: And he was really sarcastic, snide, like put-down artist.
John: And he wanted to be friends with Kevin Horning, my best friend.
John: And Kevin was very torn because if he was friends with Chris, he was cool and introduced to all the cool things.
John: Like drinking and going to second base and stuff.
John: And if he was friends with me, he was going to be consigned to the dustbin of nerd history where – and I don't remember what I was talking about at the time, but it was probably like the –
John: How Russian bear bombers were trying to intercept our, you know, strategic.
Merlin: We know we know how the story ends.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: You got you got to bet on the right pony.
John: I think Chris Gills lives with his parents still.
John: But Chris came to me one day.
John: And the thing is, Chris never tried to be my friend except a few times in life.
John: And once I was standing out in the snow, in the cold, outside of the Tasty Freeze.
John: Sucking on a chili dog?
John: Yep, almost.
John: And Chris pulled up in his car and was like, want a ride?
John: And he drove me home, which he never did.
John: And we sat in the car, and I remember very distinctly talking about Night Ranger.
John: And I think you might have even mentioned Night Ranger in this episode already.
Merlin: Kelly Keige had an unusual drum position.
Merlin: I think he played sideways so he could look at the audience when he's singing Sister Christian.
Merlin: I never know which is stage right and left.
Merlin: But from our right in the audience, Kelly Keige would be off on the side.
Merlin: And then you got Brad Gillis and Jeff Watson in the middle bringing the motherfucking Rockets.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: I was in a barring.
Merlin: Big fan.
Merlin: I continue to believe that Don't Tell Me You Love Me is a very good hard rock song.
John: I was in a bar in East Bay.
John: Don't tell me I don't want to know.
John: Somewhere on the East Bay, like, what are the towns over there?
John: You got Oakland?
John: Nope.
John: Keep going.
John: Over the mountains.
John: Berkeley?
John: Nope.
John: Keep going.
John: Over the mountains.
Merlin: Through the tunnel.
Merlin: Oh, Shifflejo?
John: Nope.
John: Nope.
John: Fuck.
John: Small bedroom community.
John: Oh, the nice place.
John: Yeah, the nice place.
Merlin: The nice place by Berkeley.
Merlin: I know where you mean.
Merlin: Yeah, there's a really nice, it's called Cockbrook or something.
John: No, yeah, you're close.
John: Woodman.
John: I know what you mean.
John: I know what you mean.
Merlin: It's really nice and expensive.
Merlin: Heights.
Merlin: No, fuck me.
Merlin: It's the Shire.
Merlin: Fancy neighborhood East Bay.
John: Fancy neighborhood.
John: East Bay.
John: Oh, God.
John: My wife is going to kill me.
John: Yep.
John: It's right over there.
John: Rock Ridge.
John: Nope.
John: Nope.
John: It's not Rock Ridge.
John: It's over by Concord.
John: It's... Oh, way out there.
John: Oh, you're talking about... Walnut Creek.
Merlin: Walnut Creek.
Merlin: That's where my brother and sister-in-law used to live.
Merlin: That's where the glasses you gave me got thrown away, now that I'm angry.
John: All those bastards.
Merlin: They were such good glasses, John.
John: I was in a bar in Walnut Creek.
John: At some point...
John: And I am trying desperately right now to piece it together how I got there.
John: But Brad Gillis was there.
John: Fuck you.
John: Playing pool and being like super cool Brad Gillis.
John: Holy shit.
Merlin: He played with Ozzy too, dude.
John: Yeah.
John: And it was just like a small bar in Walnut Creek in the middle of the afternoon.
Merlin: What is Brad Willis doing there?
Merlin: Was he a homeowner, do you think?
John: I think he lived in Walnut Creek.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: I don't usually do this because it's really creepy.
Merlin: Where does Brad Gillis live?
Merlin: I know, where does Brad Gillis live?
Merlin: I hope he's okay.
Merlin: I hope he's happy.
John: I think he certainly was happy that day.
John: He seemed very well balanced.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, it's always interesting.
Merlin: You remember that thing for a while where you had the twin guitar attack?
Merlin: And this is not always true, but there was a point when you had to have, when you did a twin guitar attack, first of all, you couldn't be playing the same brand of guitar.
Merlin: Usually you'd have one guy on a tricked out, like a Strat, with Seymour Duncans, and then the other guy is usually playing a Les Paul.
John: A Kramer and a C. Right.
Merlin: It was like a Mutton Jeff situation.
Merlin: When you do that, you usually have one guy who's big and one guy who's little, whether that's height or slenderness or what have you.
John: The Def Leppard, yeah.
Merlin: The Def Leppard.
Merlin: But it goes for all the things.
Merlin: Now, what about K.K.
Merlin: Downey would be the little guy.
John: He's the little guy.
Merlin: He's the Vivian Campbell.
John: And he's playing the V. He's playing the V. And then the whatever, the Strat thing.
John: is over there with... The other guy.
John: How is his name not the first thing that comes to my mind?
Merlin: It's... Glenn Tipton.
Merlin: Glenn Tipton.
Merlin: That's the one.
Merlin: Now, does this go all the way back to the Eagles, John?
Merlin: Because I feel like if you had to break it down between Joe Walsh and Don Felder, is it clear who's the Campbell, who's the Brad?
Merlin: Do you have a sense of that?
Merlin: Yeah, well, I mean... I feel like Joe Walsh might be the big guy and Don Felder might be the little guy.
Merlin: The problem is that Joe Walsh is the new guy.
Merlin: Joe, he was absolutely the new guy.
Merlin: He's that, he's that fellow with the mustache and cocaine from James gang.
Merlin: And now shit dog, what he lays down on that track.
John: He comes, he comes in and, and you know, like Bernie was, um, was like, uh, John, be honest.
John: Derp, derp, derp, derp.
John: He was Bernie Ledden, the guitar player of the Eagles, the original.
John: What?
Merlin: Wait, so you're saying Don Felder was an original.
Merlin: You got Glenn Frey mostly playing acoustic.
Merlin: You got Don Henley on The Traps.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You've got, before Timothy, you had the guy who wrote the songs, Messner, Randy Messner.
John: I mean, my Eagles knowledge is somewhat truncated by the fact that, as we've discussed before, in the early 90s, I was...
John: I was informed quite clearly that liking the Eagles was no longer socially acceptable.
Merlin: Oh, that was a thing for a while.
Merlin: Hopefully we've unlearned.
Merlin: The same way we've all learned to love Billy Joel, you know what I'm saying?
John: But you know what?
Merlin: You know, we'll come back to this.
Merlin: Oh, Brad Gillis dot com.
Merlin: Maybe we should keep going.
Merlin: Our state of the arts.
Merlin: Oh, wait a minute.
Merlin: Brad Gillis dot com.
Merlin: Call the cops.
John: Tell me more.
Merlin: OK.
Merlin: OK.
Merlin: Oh, he looks good.
Merlin: He looks good.
Merlin: Oh, I was worried.
Merlin: I figure, you know, a big fella gets bigger is what I'm thinking.
Merlin: Yeah, sure.
Merlin: Where is he now?
Merlin: Where are they now?
Merlin: Brad Gillis, born in 1950.
Merlin: Look at that guy.
Merlin: Holy shit.
Merlin: Who's your friend who used to do drugs and guns and roses?
Merlin: Oh, Duff.
Merlin: He's Duff-like.
Merlin: Go check out fucking Brad Gillis.
John: Brad.
Merlin: That guy looks healthy as shit.
John: I really do think he's a Bay Area guy.
John: Is he still there still?
Merlin: I read quickly in the description on the Google, Bernie Torme.
Merlin: Who is that?
John: Oh, he still looks very good.
John: Look at him.
John: He looks terrific.
John: Sure he does.
John: I'll always support him.
Merlin: I'll always support Brad Gillis.
Merlin: Good for you, man.
Merlin: He brought us a lot.
Merlin: You can still rock in America.
Merlin: It was Jeff Watson that did the multi-finger tapping.
Merlin: Brad just did your basic ripping.
John: He ripped, yeah.
John: He was the ripper.
John: The Ripper?
John: The Ripper?
John: Grindr?
John: You did the sleeveless striped tank top thing that I could never quite pull off.
Merlin: No, no, no, no, no.
Merlin: You know who gets to wear that striper?
Merlin: And bumblebees.
Merlin: That is all So I'm gonna contact the studio of Brad Gillis See if you can book some time It's got a four or it's gonna form with mandatory fields.
John: Just tell me where you are It's I thought I saw something about the Bay Area, you know, I'm gonna learn more I'm gonna learn if you look at the if you look at the music video for sister Christian and I know this because I Covered the song last year at sketch fest there in San Francisco Yeah, if you if you watch the music video you realize that
John: that it's kind of one of the tragedies of the video era because the song is, as you've said already, sung by Kelly Keegy, the drummer.
John: But Kelly Keegy is between the third and fifth best-looking member of Night Ranger.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: And the music video people, the label, did not want to feature him.
Merlin: He's got a kind of Mickey Dolenz thing going on, which is not bad, not just because he drums, such as it is, but don't you think he's a little, he's not the Davey, he's the Mickey.
John: And so the music video tells the story of these high school girls that are, you know, popular, and then the one girl that hides behind the amps, and then the amps fall over, and she's revealed.
Merlin: I do not remember this at all.
Merlin: I remember, Don't Tell Me You Love Me, I remember there being train tracks.
John: There was a – they had like a 50s Cadillac convertible at one point.
John: But the music – every time the video cuts to the band, it always cuts to –
John: to, like, Jack Blades and Brad Gillis going... Oh, Jack Blades.
John: That guy's half a snack.
John: Woof.
John: Yeah, right?
Merlin: He was great, man.
Merlin: Hey, but, you know, he played with a thumb pick, which kind of took him down a couple notches for me.
Merlin: But they didn't have... But God was handsome.
John: Yeah, but they didn't... Like, he didn't have the voice of Kelly Keege.
John: Nope.
John: But they always cut to him and Brad Gillis singing on the same mic going, Motoren!
John: Like, singing the chorus.
John: But then all the, like, passionate...
John: Sort of verses that you want to see the lead singer.
Merlin: When you get to the motoring.
Merlin: When you get to that, like, boy, he's feeling some things.
John: Right at the end, they do show Kelly Keighy.
John: He turns around on his drum stool and he really emotes.
John: He does the, like, two fists brought down to his waistline, like, motoring.
John: You know, like, he gets his moment.
John: Yeah.
John: But the whole music video, when you watch it, you realize, like, they are trying super hard not to feature this guy.
John: They probably got notes.
Merlin: The label gave the videographer notes.
Merlin: Now, here's another thing, and this could be an Oprah memory, but, you know, there was a time when you always had somebody, a keyboard player in the band, dressed as a surgeon.
Merlin: Wasn't there a guy in that ranger who dressed as a surgeon and who wasn't in the revolution?
John: No.
Merlin: No, no, no.
John: Really?
Merlin: I think there was a surgeon.
Merlin: Wasn't there a surgeon?
Merlin: You know, I could be remembering this wrong.
Merlin: Go look for like, I want to say like Midnight Madness.
Merlin: You know my story, right?
Merlin: You know my Night Ranger story where I could go and I didn't have a lot of money when I was 18 and I could go to see, I know you know this story.
Merlin: Captain Marm's just rolling her eyes right now.
Merlin: I had the choice of going to see one band or another band.
Merlin: The band that I ended up going to see was Night Ranger and Starship.
Merlin: The band that I did not go to see was a little band called REM with the DBs opening for them at the USF soccer field.
Merlin: And my fly broke that night.
Merlin: My fly broke.
Merlin: It was my 18th birthday.
Merlin: And my fly broke.
Merlin: And I knew it was a divine retribution, probably from Mitch Easter or something.
John: I am looking at the cover of that record, and they have a keyboard player dressed as a surgeon.
Merlin: I remember that right.
Merlin: Oh, that does that.
Merlin: How?
Merlin: Why is it?
Merlin: That's not making me.
Merlin: Oh, good.
Merlin: Kelly Keige.
Merlin: But I don't think you should do surgery with sunglasses on, John, unless he has some kind of a medical sensitivity.
John: I always look back at the 80s and go, why didn't more guys have beards?
John: And I think during the 80s themselves, a lot of dads had beards.
John: It's just that no rock stars had beards.
Merlin: Maybe a Bob Seger, but I also feel like, to your point, and I'm not cracking wise here, this is some fucking historical shit, is that there was a thing that happened, and it depends on the band, okay?
Merlin: For some bands between 78 and 83, some bands suddenly went disco for just a little while, and that's fine.
Merlin: But then there were other bands that in 1981, 2, especially 3 or 4...
Merlin: decided to update their look.
Merlin: And there's a lot of bands that had famous guys with long hair who cut off their long hair.
Merlin: There were guys who had famous beards, not including ZZ Top, not Frank Beard, but they would cut off those.
Merlin: Do you remember this?
Merlin: You would come back and if you were a yes, yes comes back on the scene and suddenly it's a lot less Rick Wakeman and a lot more like bowl cut.
Merlin: Am I remembering this right, but part of the new wave transformation, the new wave transformation required you to cut off some hair and have a new look.
Merlin: Yeah, have a new look.
John: What this is reminding me of is, I don't know if you're familiar with the band Boney M.
Merlin: I know they had one hit that's killing me.
Merlin: I know they had a hit that I can't remember.
John: They're an English band, right?
John: They were from Germany, but they were all the members of the band.
John: I've seen them on Top of the Pops.
John: Yeah, they were from the Caribbean, but they were a manufactured band.
John: I did an omnibus on this.
John: Okay.
John: The same guy that put Milli Vanilli together 10 years later.
John: Okay.
John: Put Boney M together in the 70s.
John: But there's a famous video of them playing at the Sopot Festival in 1979 in Poland.
John: Hmm.
John: is full-on dressed like a sheik.
John: He's got the whole... Oh, he's got the head thing in the ring and whatnot?
John: He's from the UAE, and he's just back there smiling and playing.
John: Is he having fun with it?
John: Is he doing his Apple?
John: He's having fun with it.
John: He's having a lot of fun.
John: He's having a lot of fun being the sheik.
John: And I realized, like, oh, that was...
John: If you were going to have a keyboard player that was wearing a costume, I mean, Sheik would be – you couldn't do it these days, but you probably couldn't dress him like a surgeon these days.
Merlin: Well, there's a lot of people in the village, people, God bless them, where you wouldn't want to do that today.
Merlin: I think Philippe would probably need to get a much more updated look.
John: Yeah, I don't know if you could do any of that today.
Merlin: Well, let's see, because cops, you've got Blue Lives Matter.
Merlin: There's that.
Merlin: Construction, I think, you know, thank you for your service.
Merlin: We're still grateful for that.
Merlin: What about a sea captain?
Merlin: Army guy.
Merlin: We've got an army guy and a sea captain and a Native American.
John: Like a one-legged guy, kind of like a peg-legged guy with a parrot on his shoulder type of sea captain, you mean?
John: Oh, wow.
Merlin: Boy, you're going to get canceled, John.
John: Hey, man.
Merlin: welcome back it's so good to talk to you it's nice to talk to you