Ep. 417: "Dr. Project, M.D." - Roderick on the Line

00:06:03 Merlin: They do this by giving you beautiful templates created by world-class designers, powerful e-commerce functionality that lets you sell anything online, the ability to customize the look and feel, settings, products, anything.

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00:06:48 Merlin: You just want to know you need some help, you know?

00:06:50 Merlin: And you know what?

00:06:51 Merlin: I'm about to use Squarespace.

00:06:52 Merlin: In probably about six or eight minutes, I'm going to use Squarespace.

00:06:55 Merlin: And this is a little bit confusing.

00:06:56 Merlin: It's a little bit of a hot tub time machine situation here.

00:06:59 Merlin: I'm going to use it in a few minutes to post the episode that you're listening to right now because we've put our podcast for Roderick on the line.

00:07:05 Merlin: It's been on Squarespace since day one, all the way back in 2011.

00:07:08 Merlin: Yeah, Roderick.

00:07:09 Merlin: We've been with them that long, over 10 years.

00:07:11 Merlin: You understand what I'm saying?

00:07:12 Merlin: I believe in these folks.

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00:07:36 Merlin: I'm going to say it again.

00:07:37 Merlin: You know, a lot of these sponsors, they want you to say the name over and over.

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00:07:47 Merlin: Our thanks to Squarespace for supporting Roderick on the line.

00:07:51 Merlin: And all the great shows.

00:07:52 Merlin: Believe it or not, I'll produce my own show.

00:07:55 Merlin: I hold a finger for a fake mustache.

00:08:01 Merlin: I would be out there getting people on the horn, doing that Better Call Saul thing, where I act like I'm the receptionist.

00:08:06 John: So right now the show is produced by you, but talking to Wilberforce there on the counter.

00:08:14 John: You're like, Wilberforce, what should I do?

00:08:15 John: Should I do another one of the – and Wilberforce is like, do it.

00:08:20 Snicked.

00:08:20 Merlin: Snicked.

00:08:22 Snicked.

00:08:22 Merlin: I talk to all my dolls.

00:08:26 Merlin: What do you think, Domino?

00:08:30 Merlin: What if we had an actual... What if we, like, one of the many people... You're saying we do a pivot, and we pivot to being one of those podcasts where obviously they run out of gas, and so they just start having guests on.

00:08:41 John: Having guests.

00:08:42 John: And we get one of the many, many, many young people who write us letters that say, I would love to intern for you for free.

00:08:51 Ooh.

00:08:51 John: And we say, okay, you're the producer of the show now.

00:08:53 John: Just go out and get us some guests.

00:08:55 John: We don't want to just have, you know, because this is after we've already called all our friends.

00:09:00 Merlin: We've exhausted all the Jason's Finn.

00:09:03 Merlin: Yep, that's right.

00:09:03 Merlin: And all the Marcos Arments.

00:09:05 Merlin: And the Marcos Arments.

00:09:06 Merlin: Okay.

00:09:07 Merlin: And now all the people who have been reaching out to us through our Majordomo to volunteer to work for free, we circle back.

00:09:16 Merlin: We literally circle back.

00:09:17 Merlin: It's a new segment called Circle Back.

00:09:20 Merlin: And we get with people who we don't pay.

00:09:22 Merlin: And so, but do we also, do we vet them or do we just say first come first serve?

00:09:28 Merlin: How does it work?

00:09:28 Merlin: Because obviously I'll be doing all of this unless you do all of this.

00:09:31 Merlin: Now that you're a social media manager.

00:09:33 John: I have no idea.

00:09:34 John: I have no idea how it works.

00:09:36 John: I assume that we just, yeah, we just.

00:09:38 Merlin: You do.

00:09:38 Merlin: You do assume.

00:09:39 John: Yeah.

00:09:40 Merlin: You know, that would be amazing.

00:09:43 Merlin: John, I can't even tell you how many, well, I can't even tell you how many running lists of ideas for podcasts I have, let alone the podcast on those lists.

00:09:50 Merlin: I have lists of all the people I would eventually like to have a show with.

00:09:53 Merlin: I don't act on any of this, but I capture it when it occurs to me.

00:09:57 Merlin: And I've even done three, four, five, six episode recordings of shows with people you and I know.

00:10:04 Merlin: It didn't work out.

00:10:06 Merlin: But I have lists of things like that, at least in terms of the mental block.

00:10:11 Merlin: I won't say – I don't know if this is the actual work because I'm scared of that actual work.

00:10:14 Merlin: But the big mental block for me is if you like reinventing the wheel each week on scheduling, technology, you know –

00:10:23 Merlin: It's like adding transfers or legs to a flight.

00:10:27 Merlin: Every single thing you add adds half an order of magnitude, probability that something will go wrong.

00:10:32 Merlin: Oh, I forgot to record.

00:10:34 Merlin: This didn't happen.

00:10:34 Merlin: A bulldozer came up or whatever.

00:10:38 Merlin: That's the thing that keeps me from, and probably in a good or even wholesome way, is the thing that keeps me from doing more shows is I don't want to just add difficult work to,

00:10:49 Merlin: to like an unknown thing.

00:10:51 Merlin: Now, this show, we've won the Phony Award.

00:10:54 Merlin: We've been around for something like 10 years.

00:10:56 John: Yeah, yeah.

00:10:58 Merlin: So maybe it's time to really spread our wings.

00:11:00 Merlin: Are we running out of gas?

00:11:01 Merlin: Would it be good to start bringing in somebody each week?

00:11:04 Merlin: You could have corrections with John Cercusa.

00:11:07 Merlin: Yeah, corrections.

00:11:07 Merlin: Tells us what we, well, let's be honest, mainly what I did wrong or the things that you did wrong that I should have told you you did wrong.

00:11:13 Merlin: He could have a segment each week.

00:11:15 John: John's problem is not just that I say things that are wrong, but that your job is to correct me when I say things.

00:11:23 John: Ultimately, the bigger problem is me.

00:11:26 John: Yeah.

00:11:26 John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:11:28 John: If you were a better co-host, I would be a better man.

00:11:31 John: If I were a better person...

00:11:32 John: If you were a better person, I would be a better person.

00:11:35 Merlin: I caused the problems that become John's problems.

00:11:38 Merlin: Because he has to live with it now.

00:11:41 Merlin: He's the one who heard me, you know, it's like the girl in Halt and Catch Fire saying, no, actually, Sputnik came down in 57, Ronan the Accuser.

00:11:52 Merlin: I've caught you, Ronan Farah the Accuser.

00:11:53 Merlin: I've caught you in a fib.

00:11:56 Merlin: And he's like, ha, ha, ha, check out my eyebrows.

00:11:58 Merlin: Ha, ha.

00:11:58 Merlin: So that's, he comes in and goes, well, actually, you know, the SC30 did not have four floppy drives and a cumulus pass through.

00:12:08 John: I could have told you.

00:12:08 Merlin: And then he's got to live with that.

00:12:10 Merlin: He has the boxes for every computer he's ever bought in his attic.

00:12:13 Merlin: I do, too.

00:12:14 Merlin: Oh, really?

00:12:16 John: I consider that like a character.

00:12:18 Merlin: Oh, my goodness.

00:12:19 Merlin: Okay.

00:12:20 Merlin: Our new segment, Venn Diagram, where we find out what surprising thing you have in common with somebody who's either a friend or an intern.

00:12:27 Merlin: If we're running out of gas, that could add a lot of extra work for me.

00:12:32 Merlin: We should look at that.

00:12:34 John: I have an IBM.

00:12:34 John: I was just looking at it because I just pulled it out of a storage container.

00:12:37 John: I have my 1981 IBM PC with 64...

00:12:44 John: Okay, two floppy disk drives.

00:12:47 John: Whoa.

00:12:48 John: And a cyan-colored screen.

00:12:52 Merlin: Oh, hot.

00:12:54 John: And I got it all.

00:12:54 John: You still got that?

00:12:56 John: I got the screen.

00:12:57 John: I got the computer.

00:12:59 John: I bet it fires up.

00:13:00 John: I bet it fires up, and I bet I could run...

00:13:03 John: Word star on it right now.

00:13:06 John: Hack the bios.

00:13:07 Merlin: I could hack the bios.

00:13:08 Merlin: I just discovered that show approximately 48 hours ago.

00:13:13 Merlin: I'm on episode six.

00:13:14 Merlin: I heard that it was good.

00:13:15 Merlin: I started watching it and it's something you might want to check out.

00:13:19 Merlin: hack the bios all right it's well it's on netflix and it's basically you know it's not it's not a true story but it's about uh you know the pc racket in uh the early 80s and the cast is fantastic and it's got a lot of good a lot of good nostalgia in it a lot a lot of good uh you know what ladies would wear to work in the 1980s clothes oh i love that you know i like to nitpick that stuff

00:13:42 Merlin: Oh, now that's where I go full Syracusa.

00:13:46 Merlin: Even a classic movie like Hot Tub Time Machine, I watch that and I go, there's no way that people skiing in 1986 would be listening to whatever safety dance.

00:13:55 Merlin: That wouldn't happen.

00:13:57 Merlin: No.

00:13:58 Merlin: The worst sin, as you know, the worst sin is let's say they're listening to Doolittle.

00:14:05 Merlin: In like 1986.

00:14:06 Merlin: And you'd be like, uh-uh-uh-uh.

00:14:09 Merlin: You know what it is?

00:14:10 Merlin: There is a time machine.

00:14:11 Merlin: So maybe they time machined a 1989 Pixies album.

00:14:16 John: But this is the thing.

00:14:17 John: People that listen to Doolittle don't ski.

00:14:19 John: Especially in those clothes?

00:14:21 John: Those super bright clothes?

00:14:22 Merlin: Not a chance.

00:14:23 John: Not a chance.

00:14:23 John: No, no, no.

00:14:24 John: They would have been in the super bright clothes?

00:14:26 John: In excess.

00:14:28 John: Yeah.

00:14:28 John: Okay.

00:14:29 John: Or maybe Pyromania.

00:14:31 John: No, I think you're right.

00:14:32 John: No, Pyromania at that point was three years old.

00:14:34 Merlin: I think you're right.

00:14:35 Merlin: No, it's from that weird... In excess kick.

00:14:38 Merlin: It's from kick.

00:14:42 Merlin: Soup and salad bar.

00:14:44 Merlin: That, you know, that period had a lot of the weird kind of pseudo ballad, like Richard Marks, I feel like was kind of, this is before the big Aerosmith comeback mostly.

00:14:55 John: Oh, no, no, no.

00:14:57 John: The big Aerosmith permanent vacation is 86.

00:14:59 John: It came out.

00:15:00 Merlin: They had one more shot at a permanent vacation.

00:15:02 Merlin: Is that correct?

00:15:03 John: Yeah, and then it was Pump that really put them into the – that was 89.

00:15:07 Merlin: Okay.

00:15:08 Merlin: Oh, and that's Crying When I Left You, Dying When I Met You.

00:15:12 Merlin: Yeah, that's all the ballad stuff.

00:15:13 John: Permanent Vacation was the one where they came back and they had some real riffs still.

00:15:18 John: It was like, oh, these guys can still rock.

00:15:20 John: They got wah.

00:15:21 Merlin: Okay, okay.

00:15:22 Merlin: But would you see that to me, though?

00:15:23 Merlin: Like that's also – we're coming out of – it was not a terrific time.

00:15:29 Merlin: For most musics, I feel like, I mean, really, and this is just totally like my own sort of genetic criticism, but I think of 1985 as being crazy interesting.

00:15:38 Merlin: 85, like a year or so earlier, my last year of high school.

00:15:42 Merlin: I think of that being very interesting because it was, to my mind, some of the worst mainstream music and some of the best, like if you like underground music.

00:15:50 Merlin: Underground music.

00:15:51 Merlin: But, you know, 86, 87, maybe I was just, I was still super into R.E.M.,

00:15:56 Merlin: and the smiths and bands like that the college rock but what's happening above ground you got you got what you get like a one am i right you got like a richard marsh you got a peter satara i think of a lot of that ballady stuff well yeah but that's that's also uh that's also like peak uh peter gabriel phil collins if you look at the charts and

00:16:21 John: In 1988, it switches almost entirely over to smooth R&B.

00:16:29 John: There was some kind of switcheroo that happened.

00:16:32 Merlin: We're not quite new, Jack, yet.

00:16:34 Merlin: We still have boy band.

00:16:35 Merlin: There's boy band stuff happening.

00:16:37 John: But it's all like that new sort of the Whitney Houston, but the new iteration of it, but pre-Celine Dion.

00:16:46 John: Oh, yeah.

00:16:48 Merlin: Yeah.

00:16:48 Merlin: It's just like the big, big ballad.

00:16:51 Merlin: And this is when there was some – I believe this is when you were seeing some Whitney backlash because they feel like she had strayed from her definitely gospel but also R&B roots and she was going more straight pop.

00:17:01 Merlin: Yeah, but... Also, aren't you also seeing... When's stuff like She's My Cherry Pie?

00:17:08 Merlin: Aren't you getting some hair metal around then?

00:17:12 John: Well, that's when metal went to shit, yeah, but... Not even Rat could survive that.

00:17:18 John: It got worse.

00:17:19 John: It got worse between 86 and 89.

00:17:22 John: Power balance.

00:17:23 John: No, that was very strange, but in 86, you got Peter Gabriel, so... Yep.

00:17:28 John: You've got...

00:17:30 John: Phil Collins was on top of the pops.

00:17:32 John: You got that.

00:17:33 Merlin: So 85 was Dire Straits.

00:17:36 Merlin: 85 or 86 was Brothers in Arms.

00:17:38 Merlin: Yep.

00:17:39 John: That was huge.

00:17:40 John: But then you've also got, I think it was the last year of the boomer.

00:17:45 Merlin: In the sense that you've got... And that maybe peaks... That peaks with the... What's it called?

00:17:50 Merlin: The Big Sleep.

00:17:51 Merlin: The Big Heat.

00:17:52 Merlin: The Jeff Goldberg.

00:17:53 Merlin: What's it called?

00:17:54 John: That was before, wasn't it?

00:17:55 Merlin: Jeff Goldsworthy.

00:17:55 Merlin: What's his name?

00:17:56 Merlin: Who am I thinking of?

00:17:57 Merlin: The Big Ooze.

00:17:57 Merlin: The one with the flop.

00:17:59 Merlin: The one with William Hurt's dead.

00:18:01 John: No, not William Hurt.

00:18:02 John: Kevin Costner.

00:18:03 John: Kevin Costner was the corpse.

00:18:04 John: Kevin Costner was dead.

00:18:05 John: You got the guy from Jurassic Park.

00:18:08 John: You've got the guy from Vietnam.

00:18:10 Merlin: Maybe like a Mary Steenburgen?

00:18:12 John: It was the guy from Vietnam with the scars on his face, and he had a Porsche.

00:18:17 John: Michael Cimino.

00:18:18 Merlin: Oh, but it had the one, it had the girl, it had the, it had the girl, the girl, we're also getting, we're also getting the like movies, like something with like Griffin Dunn or, you know, you start getting a little bit, the Brat Pack is growing up.

00:18:32 Merlin: Those kinds of movies are coming along and you got, St.

00:18:34 Merlin: Elmo's Fire was a couple of years earlier, I guess.

00:18:37 Merlin: What's the movie?

00:18:37 Merlin: I'm just driving me crazy.

00:18:39 Merlin: What's that fucking movie called?

00:18:41 Merlin: The one with the soundtrack, with the Motown soundtrack.

00:18:44 John: The younger girl was married to the veterinarian, and then along came the guy from Reservoir Dogs.

00:18:53 Merlin: How do you tell?

00:18:54 John: And it ended up being Kim Basinger.

00:18:59 Merlin: Oh, Nine and a Half Boomers.

00:19:02 Merlin: Boomer movie.

00:19:03 Merlin: That's what it was.

00:19:04 Merlin: Boomer movie.

00:19:05 Merlin: But that was before.

00:19:06 Merlin: Boomer movie was from 83, I thought.

00:19:08 Merlin: That's why I say the peak.

00:19:10 Merlin: That's why I say the peak.

00:19:10 Merlin: Anyway, your point being, 86, 87, 88, that rat king of bad 80s years.

00:19:16 John: In 86, if you were in the Eagles, you could still get a single on the top of the pops.

00:19:21 Merlin: 1987.

00:19:23 Merlin: It's going to make 1988 look like 1986.

00:19:28 John: So I've been doing this lately, the same exercise.

00:19:32 Merlin: Neurological incidents while people scream at everything you're saying.

00:19:38 John: I'm just hoping that one person follows the thread of that little.

00:19:43 John: That was fun.

00:19:44 Merlin: Oh, yeah.

00:19:44 Merlin: That's only for a couple of people.

00:19:45 Merlin: And I actually do not remember.

00:19:47 Merlin: John, jokes have left the room.

00:19:49 Merlin: Yeah.

00:19:50 Merlin: What is the name of the fucking movie about the boomers?

00:19:55 Merlin: with the soundtrack that was really popular.

00:19:58 Merlin: It's not the big sleep.

00:20:00 Merlin: It's the big, the big cheese cheese.

00:20:03 John: Say it a fourth time.

00:20:06 John: It's the biggest cheese, the biggest cheese.

00:20:08 John: Or as I say to my daughter, the biggest is to cheese.

00:20:13 John: But I've been doing this because I, I woke up the other day and I was like, you know what I'm going to do?

00:20:17 John: You know what I should do?

00:20:18 John: Because I look back, you know how, you know, 1996 didn't 1997 didn't exist.

00:20:25 Merlin: I mean, you can find a calendar that says 1997, but I mean, that's a little bit of a Mandela effect.

00:20:31 John: Yeah, that's exactly it.

00:20:33 John: But I've been looking back and thinking, as you do, as one does, I've been thinking, well, I know that this, I know that that happened then, but I had this long fallow period in the 2010s, and...

00:20:47 John: It's hard to remember exactly when this happened versus when that happened.

00:20:52 Merlin: I don't think you can only remember that by what came before or after, don't you feel like?

00:20:56 John: Well, but that's another thing that I get bad at because it's like, oh, that happened way before that.

00:21:02 John: And then it turns out, no, those two things happened two weeks apart.

00:21:06 John: The big chill.

00:21:07 John: Ah, the big chill.

00:21:09 Merlin: Look at Meg Tilly.

00:21:11 Merlin: Look at Meg Tilly.

00:21:12 John: That's who I was talking about.

00:21:13 John: Meg Tilly was in the one with the polka dot dress where she was married to a veterinarian.

00:21:19 John: Huh.

00:21:22 John: You were in a polka dot dress when I met you.

00:21:26 John: What I decided was I was going to go back to 2000, the year 2000.

00:21:31 John: Mm-hmm 21 years ago if you were born in the year 2000 you're 21 years old now you're and that means you're finally able to listen to Roderick on the line At and I said most states and you know and and and tribal areas like you are now officially you're officially in you're officially in you You can you could actually marry Roderick on the line at 21 years old in most places.

00:21:56 John: I did not know that that's amazing

00:21:58 John: But what I thought was, here was the exercise.

00:22:02 John: I said, I'm going to go back to the year 2000, going to set my hot tub time machine, and I'm going to try and name five good things that happened in each year from the year 2000 to the present.

00:22:15 John: This is a terrific exercise.

00:22:18 John: What are five good things that happened in the year 2004, for instance?

00:22:24 John: And some years, it was pretty easy.

00:22:27 Merlin: Is that where that photo came from?

00:22:29 Merlin: Yeah.

00:22:29 Merlin: Because we were trying to date it this morning.

00:22:32 Merlin: And I still had the Archers of Love shirt, which means we had not done our big purge.

00:22:35 Merlin: And I got my old dumb glasses from myglasses.com.

00:22:38 Merlin: Not a sponsor.

00:22:39 Merlin: Mm-hmm.

00:22:41 Merlin: Oh, John, I'm sorry.

00:22:42 Merlin: I'm getting over your skis.

00:22:44 John: No, no, no.

00:22:44 John: It's okay.

00:22:46 John: If you look in the picture, I don't have a beard.

00:22:48 John: You can often tell from your glasses what year it is.

00:22:51 John: Absolutely.

00:22:52 John: So what happened was... What had happened was... What had happened was... We were eating Thai food.

00:22:57 John: First, you were in a helicopter.

00:22:58 John: Then you were on a hovercraft.

00:23:02 John: Mm-hmm.

00:23:02 Mm-hmm.

00:23:02 John: No, and there were some other pictures from that series that I didn't send you that I will.

00:23:07 Merlin: I'll send you some of mine.

00:23:08 Merlin: I got some from the same evening.

00:23:10 Merlin: Oh, Meg Tilly.

00:23:11 Merlin: Look at Meg Tilly.

00:23:13 Merlin: Oh, Meg Tilly.

00:23:13 Merlin: Look at that.

00:23:14 Merlin: She could crack nuts with those legs.

00:23:16 Merlin: So some years it was easy, but some years it was hard.

00:23:20 Merlin: Because you didn't remember or because you didn't have anything good happen?

00:23:23 John: Well, the thing is I didn't think anything good happened.

00:23:26 John: I was like, eh, 2010, what happened?

00:23:29 John: I think I was depressed then.

00:23:30 John: I was very depressed that year.

00:23:32 John: I was very depressed from the years 2008 to 2017.

00:23:36 John: And so it just all kind of bled, all fits, you know, smears together or whatever.

00:23:44 John: And I have this sense of myself that I wasn't really doing much for a lot of that time.

00:23:51 John: Uh-huh.

00:23:52 John: And so I went to, I started using other resources.

00:23:56 John: I started going to my photos.

00:23:59 John: I started cross-referencing photos.

00:24:00 Merlin: I'm telling you, photos and Gmail are the only way I can really remember even what year something happened.

00:24:06 John: Right, Gmail.

00:24:07 John: Although, weirdly, my Gmail only goes back to a certain point and then stops.

00:24:11 John: And I know that I had Gmail before that.

00:24:13 Merlin: I mean, it took me getting to the point where I realized, like, oh, sometimes I'll do this reverse engineering thing.

00:24:18 Merlin: where I try to figure out, okay, when is it time for me to replace X thing?

00:24:22 Merlin: And I'll go in and I'll look at, oh, I ordered that thing Y number of times since this year, and I can get it up like an approximation.

00:24:29 Merlin: And like, of course, why would I choose to remember that?

00:24:31 Merlin: But it's funny how things like receipts tell a story.

00:24:35 Merlin: Like if you can't remember when one of the times you flew to this city, there's probably a receipt somewhere.

00:24:42 Merlin: Like even if you didn't have like geolocated photos.

00:24:46 Yeah.

00:24:46 John: That's why I keep all of my old computers in boxes.

00:24:51 Merlin: Or like you find out when your dad flew to Nevada to talk to the mechanic.

00:24:56 John: So what I started doing was looking back at pictures, looking back at my calendar, searching in emails, to put together this list of five good things that happened every year since the year 2000.

00:25:09 John: Now, if you were only 21...

00:25:12 John: Right now, it would be kind of hard to go back and say, like, five of the good things that happened when I was in sixth grade.

00:25:17 John: But no, I think you could.

00:25:19 John: I think you could find, I think anybody could find five good things that happened in every year.

00:25:24 John: Now, there are some years where I haven't yet gotten all five good things.

00:25:29 John: I think, what have I got here?

00:25:30 John: I've only got four good things that happened in 2003, and that's the year that Pretend to Fall was released.

00:25:37 John: I know.

00:25:37 John: You got a cool website?

00:25:39 Yeah.

00:25:40 John: Oh, that's a... Oh, thank you.

00:25:41 John: There you go.

00:25:43 John: That's one of the five good things.

00:25:44 John: You became friends with me.

00:25:46 John: Well, no.

00:25:46 John: So I said one of the five good things for 2002 was that I met Merlin Mann.

00:25:51 John: I put that right in the list for 2002.

00:25:53 Merlin: I always think it's 2003, but you're right.

00:25:54 Merlin: I think it was 2002.

00:25:54 Merlin: 2002.

00:25:55 Merlin: So it was before Pretend... Of course, it had to be before it came out.

00:26:00 John: Well, yeah, because I was on tour with... Because you were there with Ken Stringfeld.

00:26:03 Merlin: Ken Stringfeld.

00:26:03 John: You heard Pretend to Fall...

00:26:05 John: One 30-second snippet at a time.

00:26:08 Merlin: I would listen to the first 10 seconds before I go to the next one.

00:26:11 John: Before it was even released.

00:26:12 John: Months before it was released, you heard that record.

00:26:15 John: I'm going to put, had first website.

00:26:19 John: Well, it's not really a good thing.

00:26:20 Merlin: No, no, no.

00:26:21 Merlin: And just to be clear here also, I'm not trying to, you know how it is with me.

00:26:24 Merlin: I'm starting to realize that for me, a lot of games are not fun to play so much as they're fun to figure out what the rules are.

00:26:30 Merlin: Like playing this game is interesting, but the rules are especially fun.

00:26:32 Merlin: Are you looking for memorable or looking for good?

00:26:35 Merlin: Like maybe it's something you forgot about that's good, but it doesn't have to be something still memorable.

00:26:39 Merlin: That's the point.

00:26:40 John: This became kind of part of the confusion, right, because because I started off five good things.

00:26:46 John: Yeah.

00:26:46 John: And then I was putting down things and I got to 2007 and I was like, oh, well, that was the year that I bought my first house and this happened.

00:26:53 John: And then it was like.

00:26:54 John: Well, that was also the year my dad died, and it feels very weird to make a list of things that happened.

00:27:00 Merlin: He died in 2007?

00:27:01 Merlin: 2007.

00:27:01 Merlin: He died the year my kid was born.

00:27:03 Merlin: That's crazy, right?

00:27:05 Merlin: Also, happy birthday.

00:27:07 Merlin: Happy birthday.

00:27:08 Merlin: In a couple days, right?

00:27:10 Merlin: Dad's birthday was... No, somebody else.

00:27:11 John: We've got somebody else having a birthday soon.

00:27:12 John: Big birthday, right?

00:27:14 John: Big birthday.

00:27:14 John: Oh, yes.

00:27:15 John: Very soon.

00:27:16 John: Coming up.

00:27:17 John: Please pass along my happy birthday.

00:27:18 John: I will.

00:27:19 John: Thank you.

00:27:20 John: It's going to be, I'm sure there's going to be a lot of Star Wars.

00:27:25 John: Dark Vader.

00:27:26 John: But it felt weird to not have my dad dying on a list of momentous things.

00:27:30 John: So all of a sudden it switched from five good things to five momentous things.

00:27:37 John: Okay.

00:27:38 John: And then it became seven momentous things in a couple of cases.

00:27:42 John: And then pretty soon...

00:27:44 John: there were some of these years that I thought, well, nothing happened that year.

00:27:48 John: And as I dug into it, I was like, what, that happened that year?

00:27:51 Merlin: Oh my gosh.

00:27:52 Merlin: People keep insisting that's when OK Computer came out.

00:27:54 Merlin: And I say that's literally not possible.

00:27:57 Merlin: It's not possible because it doesn't exist.

00:27:58 John: It doesn't exist, yeah.

00:28:00 John: So now I've got some of these years that I thought had nothing.

00:28:03 John: And I was so amazed that all these things happened at the same time that I was like, well, I got to keep putting these things on the list.

00:28:11 John: And because I thought if you had told me, if you had asked me, what happened in 2012, I would have said, nothing.

00:28:17 John: That's tough.

00:28:18 John: Nothing.

00:28:19 Merlin: 2012.

00:28:20 Merlin: My first thought would be, like, when I was a kid, it used to be easy because elections and Olympics, when we were coming up, were always in the same year.

00:28:27 Merlin: Then they, you know, cocked that up by doing alternate.

00:28:31 Merlin: But I would say that that would be an Obama election year.

00:28:33 John: 2012, right?

00:28:35 Merlin: But a year after we started this show and I started back to work.

00:28:41 Merlin: And then, of course, I mean, to be that normie guy, I always... Obviously, then I would go like, well, what grade was my kid in?

00:28:49 Merlin: How old were they?

00:28:50 Merlin: Who was their teacher?

00:28:51 Merlin: And then sometimes that will bring it back to me because some stuff like my pickup schedule at the time will help jar things loose.

00:28:57 Merlin: And I'd be like, oh, that's when this person...

00:28:59 Merlin: owned the cafe, and I'll be able to, like, sort of triangulate associations.

00:29:05 Merlin: But you're also getting at something, which is, like, these are boxes that you have not opened.

00:29:10 Merlin: You may know what it says in marker on the outside.

00:29:13 Merlin: But once you crack the box, like, of memory, you start, you might be surprised that, A, you remember other things that happened that year, or perhaps more saliently, you remember things that didn't happen that year but was something momentous that you dropped.

00:29:28 Merlin: Do you know what I mean?

00:29:29 Merlin: Like sometimes all it takes is jarring, not jarring, like slitting open a few of these boxes before you go, oh yes, I do have lots of memories.

00:29:35 Merlin: Again, when we cleaned out the garage a couple weeks ago, I went through a lot of this.

00:29:40 Merlin: But 2012, yeah, I think that's a uniquely tough one.

00:29:42 Merlin: It's not 1997 level, but it's not easy.

00:29:45 John: Well, it's not easy, but it also, at least in my experience going through this, I would have thought 2012 was a dead zone.

00:29:54 John: Um, like a, like a reef that had been bleached because it feels between.

00:30:00 John: You know, it feels like Roderick on the Line was early days.

00:30:03 John: The Long Winters kind of weren't doing anything.

00:30:06 John: I was sort of, I don't know, puttering around the country, doing these little things.

00:30:12 Merlin: Oh, yeah, you were still probably sort of trying your hand at your Charles Nelson Reilly future.

00:30:17 Merlin: Yeah, I was known.

00:30:18 Merlin: You were doing a lot of cameos.

00:30:20 Merlin: Not the service, but the noun.

00:30:22 Merlin: You were like popping up at things.

00:30:24 John: I was popping up at things.

00:30:26 John: And it felt, I don't know, it felt to me like kind of a desert.

00:30:30 John: But in fact, I was doing stuff this whole time, like crazy stuff, stuff that if you write it down in a five-word sentence, you go, really?

00:30:37 John: That happened?

00:30:38 John: And then 10 days later, that happened?

00:30:41 John: And so it's given me...

00:30:45 John: Well, it's a fun activity because now I'm going through some of these things.

00:30:48 John: I've got 15 things that happened that year and I'm still adding stuff.

00:30:53 John: Right.

00:30:53 John: Because looking at pictures, it often doesn't add up.

00:30:57 John: It's like, that's impossible.

00:30:59 John: You're saying that.

00:31:00 John: I was there.

00:31:01 John: I got on a plane that afternoon, and I woke up the next morning there?

00:31:05 John: Because I remember those two events, but I remember them as though they happened two years apart.

00:31:13 Merlin: Totally.

00:31:13 Merlin: When we were doing You Look Nice Today stuff, as you know, there were times when we would pop into...

00:31:20 Merlin: Portland or Seattle or both I don't think we did it that many times but it's just enough times to be confusing it's like me going to South by Southwest I think I've been there twice I know I've been to Seattle what I don't know three or four times I don't know but like sometimes you go oh that's right to like out of convenience we flew from there to there so these two things that feel like they could have been three years apart were actually like a week apart and like your brain doesn't process it like that you came to Seattle and stayed stayed with my mom I broke her shower I think

00:31:48 Merlin: Oh, isn't that lovely?

00:31:49 Merlin: I at least couldn't figure out her shower.

00:31:51 Merlin: I also remember I had a video iPod.

00:31:53 Merlin: Here's exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about.

00:31:56 Merlin: I had a video iPod with the appropriate jacks, and in the very nice guest room she gave me, I was able to use the RCA jacks on her small CRT TV to watch episodes of the TV show, either Psych or Monk, that I bought off the iTunes store, and I could watch it on that TV from my video iPod.

00:32:13 Merlin: And now for somebody out there like a John Syracuse, that definitely puts that for all kinds of reasons, puts that in a place.

00:32:20 Merlin: Okay.

00:32:21 Merlin: CRT TV.

00:32:22 Merlin: So, you know what I mean?

00:32:23 Merlin: And RCA Jax and this particular TV show and that model of, you know, that's, I think that's a lot.

00:32:28 Merlin: As you get older, that may just be how memory works now.

00:32:31 Merlin: SCSI firewire.

00:32:32 Merlin: SCSI firewire.

00:32:34 Yeah.

00:32:34 Merlin: Okay, sorry.

00:32:34 Merlin: I keep interrupting.

00:32:35 Merlin: So some of yours are bigger than others.

00:32:37 John: No, I think that is exactly... I mean, I found some pictures of when You Look Nice Today was on tour, and Scott Simpson and I were sitting in a studio in Seattle, like a terrestrial radio studio.

00:32:50 John: Yeah, Luke Burbank.

00:32:51 John: Luke Burbank was doing an interview with you, and I had really long hair and was missing a tooth.

00:32:56 Merlin: Oh, yeah.

00:32:57 Merlin: That's a terrific series.

00:32:58 John: I mean, if you can find... You can just gauge how I'm doing...

00:33:03 John: By whether I have a tooth or not and how long my hair is.

00:33:07 Merlin: Do you associate that with a depression year if you had no tooth?

00:33:11 Merlin: Well, you tell me what do you associate no tooth with?

00:33:14 Merlin: Well, I don't know I'm gonna be reluctance to go to a doctor kind of and reluctance to go to a doctor is a Characteristic of a certain pre time in your life.

00:33:26 Merlin: Yes Yes, but also you finally met a shrink that you could live with

00:33:31 Merlin: Oh, I still couldn't live with that guy.

00:33:33 John: But what about the lady who helped you?

00:33:35 John: Oh, the lady.

00:33:36 John: But she's an internal medicine doctor.

00:33:39 John: She's not a shrink doctor.

00:33:39 John: See, exactly.

00:33:41 John: This is the problem.

00:33:42 John: Well, and I didn't even trust.

00:33:43 John: I don't trust them even still.

00:33:44 John: But I need all new doctors now.

00:33:46 John: Have you ever been in that situation?

00:33:47 John: You've lived in the same place for a long time.

00:33:49 John: Yep.

00:33:49 John: I moved to a new place.

00:33:50 John: There was a pandemic.

00:33:52 John: I don't know if you heard about it.

00:33:54 John: I don't really follow the trades.

00:33:56 John: All of a sudden, I'm out of all doctors.

00:33:58 John: All doctors are gone now.

00:34:00 John: I don't know what happened to all the doctors.

00:34:01 John: It seems hard to get a doctor.

00:34:03 John: It does.

00:34:03 John: It used to be everybody had a doctor.

00:34:05 John: I should have three doctors.

00:34:06 John: I should have a psychological doctor.

00:34:08 Merlin: I should have a doctor just to wrangle the other doctors.

00:34:11 Merlin: Yes, thank you.

00:34:12 Merlin: I would like a project doctor or a doctor project.

00:34:14 Merlin: I would like somebody who's taking care of this for me and my mom.

00:34:18 John: The first person to email me that's a doctor...

00:34:21 John: MD?

00:34:23 John: Yep.

00:34:24 Merlin: I'm sorry, John.

00:34:25 Merlin: There's a lot of people out there calling themselves doctor.

00:34:26 Merlin: I just want to be super clear.

00:34:28 Merlin: Oh, right, right, right.

00:34:29 Merlin: Do you want a medical doctor?

00:34:30 Merlin: Now, if it's a DDS or a chiropodist.

00:34:34 John: The first dentist to email me is my new dentist.

00:34:37 John: The first internist to email me is my new doctor.

00:34:40 Merlin: Okay, welcome to open enrollment for John Roderick.

00:34:43 John: First psychiatrist is my new psychiatrist.

00:34:45 Merlin: Okay.

00:34:45 Merlin: Intransitive open enrollment is the time of year when doctors can join John.

00:34:51 Merlin: There you go.

00:34:53 John: And I would like you to have offices in Burien, Washington, if possible.

00:34:58 Merlin: Yeah.

00:34:59 Merlin: Yeah.

00:35:00 Merlin: I mean, it's your body.

00:35:01 Merlin: You should be able to, you know, identify things like, you know, geolocation or like, is there ample parking?

00:35:06 Merlin: Do you validate?

00:35:08 Merlin: Is it near like a sandwich place that you like or something?

00:35:13 John: But I do need a top doctor.

00:35:15 John: And I don't mean like a top doctor like the kind that you see advertising in the back of New York magazines.

00:35:19 John: No, I mean a top doctor, like a doctor that organizes the other doctors.

00:35:23 John: You're absolutely right.

00:35:24 Merlin: We used to call it a general practitioner.

00:35:26 Merlin: I don't even know it has to be that.

00:35:27 Merlin: Okay, here's the thing.

00:35:28 Merlin: See, also, lady psychiatrist, you need somebody who's capable at understanding John Roderick and is able to wrangle all of the organic and inorganic parts of this process.

00:35:40 Merlin: Yes, including scheduling.

00:35:43 Merlin: Yes.

00:35:44 John: Just the people, just my own fans are capable of scheduling.

00:35:49 John: diagnosing me with 85 accuracy which is better than most doctors um because a doctor sees me uh once what once a year twice a year and a lot of them have more than one patient that's a lot to keep straight for your typical doctor okay that's another thing i want all of my doctors to have only me as a patient no that's unreasonable no it's not no it's not you want it you want somebody like a tom hagan

00:36:15 Merlin: You want a medical consulary where you say to Mr. I want a wartime consulary.

00:36:19 Merlin: Okay, fair.

00:36:20 Merlin: But I mean, like you say to Mr. Waltz, I only work for this one client.

00:36:25 John: Hey, the Corleone family doesn't have that kind of muscle anymore.

00:36:29 Merlin: That's right.

00:36:30 Merlin: And pretty soon she's going to be getting in trouble with heroin.

00:36:34 Merlin: And just to show you that I'm not a hard-hearted man, she's the best piece of ass I ever have.

00:36:39 Merlin: What's his name?

00:36:40 Merlin: Cardamom?

00:36:41 Merlin: What was his name?

00:36:42 Merlin: Cardamom.

00:36:43 John: Yeah.

00:36:43 John: I knew it was cardamom all along.

00:36:47 John: I'm smart, John.

00:36:49 John: Not like people say.

00:36:51 Merlin: Wait a minute.

00:36:51 Merlin: Is that Betty Davis?

00:36:55 Merlin: It's got to be a bumpy boat ride.

00:36:57 Merlin: Now I'm Katherine Hepburn.

00:36:58 Merlin: Catherine Hepburn, that's what I meant.

00:37:00 Merlin: That's a white wine and a cigarette pig.

00:37:03 Merlin: Okay, so anyway, the point is John needs a doctor.

00:37:08 Merlin: A doctor, but a doctor project.

00:37:10 Merlin: Somebody who comes along.

00:37:13 John: That's one of the points, but what's curious, and I've thought about this recently quite a bit, is that during all that depression...

00:37:28 John: that i had during all those years between 1984 and 2015 i did a lot of things and i'm trying to square it because you can look at pictures of me and say oh now that is a case of a guy who's in a

00:37:49 John: Who's going in and out of Catatonia.

00:37:55 Merlin: Getting his passport stamped.

00:37:57 Merlin: Welcome to Catatonia.

00:37:59 Merlin: Both ways, right?

00:38:00 Merlin: Going in, going out.

00:38:03 Merlin: Do you have anything to declare?

00:38:05 John: Just my insanity.

00:38:07 John: And yet, looking at the calendar...

00:38:11 John: It's like, well, somehow I roused myself out of a state of utter stupor, where I know for a fact— You somehow beat inertia.

00:38:21 John: Yeah, like three days.

00:38:22 John: Three days I laid on the couch and stared up at the ceiling, and I didn't talk to a soul.

00:38:27 John: But then somehow—

00:38:29 John: Somebody I knew came to town and I got up off the couch and I met them and there are photographs documenting that we spent two days living in hotels and shooting guns and throwing bathtubs off the roof.

00:38:44 John: And it looks like the most amazing.

00:38:47 John: And then somehow I was on an airplane and then I was in a hovercraft and, and I remember the time as being this desperate time and

00:38:58 John: And I don't remember how it's possible that I also did all these things.

00:39:04 John: And it's not like I wasn't depressed.

00:39:06 John: It's not like I suddenly cured, you know.

00:39:08 John: It's kind of this whole question of like, well, if you're an introvert, how do you have so many friends or whatever?

00:39:17 John: If you're super depressed, how are you doing all these things?

00:39:21 Yeah.

00:39:22 Merlin: Well, I mean, isn't there a corollary to that, which is like, you know, one thing people say, like, you know, when you're depressed or whatever that depression is, whether it's like a major or a minor or suspended fourth, like whatever kind you're having, you spend a lot of time in bed and you're tired, right?

00:39:38 Merlin: And so you say to somebody, well, how could you be tired?

00:39:39 Merlin: You're in bed all the time.

00:39:40 Merlin: And you go, well, yeah, exactly.

00:39:42 Yeah.

00:39:42 John: Exactly.

00:39:43 John: Thank you.

00:39:44 Merlin: You're thinking bed.

00:39:45 Merlin: You think bed means the same thing to you as me.

00:39:48 Merlin: And that's a good place to start with why your logic may not be lining up.

00:39:53 Merlin: What is the color orange, Merlin?

00:39:54 Merlin: Describe it.

00:39:55 Merlin: Did you ever really look at your hand?

00:39:59 John: Yeah.

00:40:02 John: So this looking back, I mean, I feel kind of dangerously...

00:40:09 John: for the last couple of days at risk of doing, uh, until the end of the world on it, where I just put on the headset and watch my dreams.

00:40:18 John: Like I've been going back and looking through my photos, not in that way that we always do where you're just like, scroll, scroll, scroll.

00:40:24 John: I know there's a picture of me in a funny hat, scroll, scroll, scroll, but actually like stopping and looking at those

00:40:29 John: random interstitial photographs that make it into your picture.

00:40:34 John: The ones you usually skip over.

00:40:35 Merlin: Yeah, the ones that you, I mean, not just the ones you skip over, but whole sets that you skip over, because you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that was the... That happens to me also sometimes when I find some cache of photos that Madeline took, and it'll be like different photos of the same event,

00:40:50 Merlin: And you get a kind of fun family Rashomon thing going on.

00:40:52 Merlin: You're like, oh, that's right.

00:40:53 Merlin: They were there.

00:40:54 Merlin: And you have more pictures of that person.

00:40:56 Merlin: I don't have pictures.

00:40:57 Merlin: And you know what I mean?

00:40:57 Merlin: And you end up getting this weird view into, you know what I'm saying?

00:41:01 Merlin: Like there's pictures I just look at over and over.

00:41:03 Merlin: There's the pictures that I've hearted in the past that pop up in my like featured photos of the day, which I love on the iPhone.

00:41:09 Merlin: Love that every day.

00:41:10 Merlin: Such a gift.

00:41:11 Merlin: But you're right.

00:41:12 Merlin: Sometimes it can be real weird.

00:41:13 Merlin: That's a box you didn't even know you had.

00:41:15 Merlin: If you'll, you know, accept the analogy.

00:41:18 Merlin: And you go, oh, there's a whole bunch of stuff in here I forgot about.

00:41:20 Merlin: I guess that happened.

00:41:22 John: I mean, a whole bunch of stuff and a whole bunch of things.

00:41:25 John: Like, if I were to say, how many times have I come to San Francisco and either stayed with you and your lovely wife?

00:41:37 John: Mm-hmm.

00:41:38 John: Or the three of us went to a third location and had dinner, drinks, watched a show, rode our skateboards down the Embarcadero.

00:41:51 John: All those things.

00:41:52 John: Had a subway.

00:41:53 John: Off the dome, I want to say 10, but I bet it's more like 6th.

00:41:57 John: I don't know.

00:41:58 John: I mean, it's, I don't, I don't know if it isn't closer to 10.

00:42:01 Merlin: It used to be a pretty casual, for a few years there, especially before a kid was born, it was a pretty casual arrangement.

00:42:06 Merlin: Short notice, you always had sort of an open, you know, you're always, you know, welcome if you're, because a lot of times it would be like, this is the ones I get screwed up about.

00:42:14 Merlin: There were times you stayed for like a little while, that one time at the end of a tour, but like there were also just times where like you were passing through, maybe even, I want to say driving through if that's possible, but like.

00:42:25 Merlin: Happened.

00:42:26 Merlin: There were times where you were just kind of around, maybe not even staying overnight on the inflatable bed that was like a taco.

00:42:32 John: I think when you say, like, I bet it was 10, maybe 6, I think...

00:42:38 John: What happens is we smash them together.

00:42:42 John: 100%.

00:42:43 John: Yeah.

00:42:43 Merlin: I don't know when I was in Portland.

00:42:45 Merlin: I don't know what I was there for.

00:42:47 Merlin: I think you've been there more than you think.

00:42:49 Merlin: The latest time was I went there to hang out with my comic book friends to do project stuff.

00:42:55 Merlin: That was, God, now probably four or five years ago.

00:42:57 John: When was the time that you were in the hotel with the two small doors?

00:43:02 Oh.

00:43:03 John: Where he met James Urbaniak.

00:43:05 John: That was Portland, not Seattle.

00:43:07 Merlin: That's when I had that weird-ass room with no TV.

00:43:09 Merlin: No TV.

00:43:10 Merlin: Oh, shit.

00:43:11 Merlin: You had such a nicer room.

00:43:12 John: You know, that's when we met hookers and popcorn.

00:43:17 Merlin: The point is... I don't know the answer.

00:43:20 Merlin: I was there for a... I think I want to say... Is Portland Bridgetown?

00:43:23 Merlin: Portland is Bridgetown.

00:43:24 Merlin: So Bridgetown Comedy Festival.

00:43:27 Merlin: Is that where I met our friend who says every Morrissey song is just him singing the third?

00:43:31 Merlin: Is that Bridgetown?

00:43:32 John: I'm not sure.

00:43:33 John: Maybe that was a conversation that you were having with Robin Goldwasser and I wasn't there.

00:43:38 Merlin: God, you know, we joke about like Elon Musk and is the world of simulation.

00:43:42 Merlin: But honestly, until somebody helps me fit these pieces together, it might as well be a simulation.

00:43:49 Merlin: You could easily fool, convince, cajole.

00:43:52 Merlin: You could easily persuade me that anything happened at any time because I can't disprove it.

00:43:57 Merlin: God, my brain's a fucking pudding.

00:43:58 Merlin: Anyway, so compress, you're right.

00:44:00 Merlin: You do smash them together, I think mentally.

00:44:03 Merlin: And then sometimes, like right here, I have pictures at that same Thai restaurant where I'm wearing the Archers of Love shirt.

00:44:08 Merlin: I have one that I thought was the same night.

00:44:10 Merlin: It is from 2004, but you're wearing something different.

00:44:14 Merlin: Uh-huh.

00:44:15 Merlin: There it is.

00:44:17 Merlin: Well, something's there.

00:44:18 John: The number of times I came to visit you just went from six to ten.

00:44:22 John: And I think it goes from 10 to 15.

00:44:24 John: It's like volume.

00:44:26 John: Half an order of magnitude.

00:44:27 John: It's another, that's right.

00:44:28 John: Every time.

00:44:29 John: Well, you know, there are some, well, I don't want to go into that.

00:44:33 John: But, you know, I think of it, I think of, there was a period where I went on tour with Amy Mann.

00:44:38 John: And I think of it as a tour I did with Amy Mann.

00:44:41 John: Now, when I look at my pictures, I realize I didn't just do a couple of tours with Amy Mann.

00:44:48 John: There was a period of two or three years where I did every tour that Amy Mann did.

00:44:55 John: Like, I was on tour with Amy Mann all the time, weirdly.

00:45:00 John: And I keep seeing these pictures.

00:45:01 Merlin: But just for, like, short stints?

00:45:02 John: Like, for a few gigs?

00:45:04 John: That kind of thing?

00:45:04 John: You know, fly out to Philadelphia, do six shows, come home.

00:45:09 John: And then...

00:45:11 John: three months later fly out to Chicago and do five shows and fly home.

00:45:16 John: And so it all feels like one tour because it kind of was, you know, it was one, it was one of her records or something like that.

00:45:25 John: But I don't remember it being a thing where what, what my calendar reveals is that I was super busy.

00:45:38 John: And a lot of the times I was flying to Chicago, not from my catatonia bed, but from, like, I was flying from some dinner you and I were having at a Thai food restaurant in San Francisco to Chicago the next day to start this tour.

00:45:56 John: There wasn't any space in between.

00:45:58 John: So confusing.

00:45:59 John: And it makes me feel like my life had more shape than I've done

00:46:07 John: Ultimately, this project is making me feel good because I'm realizing there were five good things that happened in every year.

00:46:16 John: Often there were 10 good things.

00:46:18 John: And so the way that my memory kind of shapes my own history and that tendency in my head to try to shape history,

00:46:31 John: My history to fit a narrative that i'm a loser or to fit a narrative that i'm that those years were wasted years or to fit You know, like i'm trying to retcon My own life According to this sub subconscious Directive that I need to find the version of my life.

00:46:52 John: That is the least

00:46:54 John: that tells a story of me as someone who has failed to thrive.

00:47:00 Merlin: And if anybody out there thinks that they're not like this, I imagine there could be some people who are not, but I think this is like some pretty basic psychology.

00:47:08 Merlin: I'm going to put it in my own non-scientific words, which is that one of the things that we unconsciously

00:47:14 Merlin: value most is integrity and the idea that we are one person who's always been more or less the same and always doing their best and all those kinds of things.

00:47:22 Merlin: And like I think and that's part of the impulse that leads us to enjoy storytelling or like like I heard this great I might have mentioned this to you but I heard this really great interview with somebody talking about how to get recurring thoughts out of your head.

00:47:33 Merlin: And one of this guy's advice or observation was that one reason things were unresolved, one reason we keep thinking about something that happened in 1988 is that the story's not done yet.

00:47:45 Merlin: We still feel like that's an incomplete story.

00:47:48 Merlin: And so all those impulses, to me, you know, are part of what leads us.

00:47:52 Merlin: In order to have something seem like a story in our head, we may have gotten some things, I don't want to say wrong, we may have gotten some things not totally correct or out of sequence.

00:48:02 Merlin: Or we give ourselves a different kind of motivation or result of why that happened the way.

00:48:08 Merlin: Do you know what I mean?

00:48:09 Merlin: But then when you go back and you look at the actual evidence and you go, I was wearing a blue shirt that night.

00:48:14 Merlin: That's impossible.

00:48:14 Merlin: I didn't get those glasses until two years later.

00:48:17 Merlin: Like something's not adding up.

00:48:19 Merlin: And that is, I think, I don't know if I'm using this term correctly, I think that must be a form of cognitive dissonance, is when the facts we're presented in the world are at odds with the story that we've been telling ourselves for years in what we feel like is mostly the same way with the same integrity.

00:48:35 John: I had this conversation with Hodgman a couple of days ago that was very helpful because I was seeing how

00:48:48 John: I'm super unsettled right now because I'm waiting for the third act.

00:49:00 John: I'm waiting for the, I'm waiting for the, not just the other shoe, but like things have happened, then other things happened, then further things happened.

00:49:13 John: And now I am, I'm waiting for,

00:49:18 John: I'm waiting for the lights to go out and the sound of a gun.

00:49:22 John: I'm waiting for, and then the lights come back up on the stage.

00:49:26 John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:49:27 John: I see what you're saying.

00:49:29 John: Mr. Mustard is dead by the fireplace.

00:49:32 Merlin: Interesting.

00:49:33 Merlin: Is it a Broadway show, or is it a musical, or is it a straight drama?

00:49:37 Merlin: Is there three acts or two acts?

00:49:39 Merlin: Right.

00:49:39 Merlin: All you know is that there's a gunshot and a blackout, and there's hopefully more show to come.

00:49:44 Merlin: Right, and then the lights come up.

00:49:45 Merlin: Anything, as long as there's more acts.

00:49:48 Merlin: Right.

00:49:48 Merlin: Can I have an act six?

00:49:51 John: Jane Whedland is dead on the porch.

00:49:52 John: Meg Tilly is in a polka dot dress.

00:49:55 John: Oh man.

00:49:56 John: And I'm get out of my dreams and into my car.

00:49:59 John: So I'm like, I'm in this state where I'm, I'm, I'm a little, it's not agitated.

00:50:04 John: I'm just like, there's a tightness in my chest.

00:50:08 John: Huh?

00:50:08 John: And Hodgman said, listen, listen,

00:50:11 John: You're a storyteller.

00:50:13 John: I'm a storyteller.

00:50:14 John: We're always telling stories, and we want everything to be a story.

00:50:17 John: But listen, it's not a story.

00:50:19 John: There is no third act.

00:50:20 John: Things happen.

00:50:22 Merlin: Oh, right.

00:50:22 Merlin: You did.

00:50:23 Merlin: Actually, you did mention this.

00:50:24 Merlin: Yes.

00:50:25 Merlin: Okay.

00:50:25 Merlin: Did I tell this to you?

00:50:26 Merlin: I think so.

00:50:26 Merlin: Did we talk about it on the show?

00:50:28 Merlin: I think we might have repeated this entire episode in 2004.

00:50:32 Ha, ha, ha.

00:50:33 Merlin: Oh, God.

00:50:34 Merlin: I don't like the way this is going.

00:50:37 Merlin: Okay, so guess what?

00:50:38 John: I have to look at my photos to see if I even talked about this.

00:50:41 Merlin: John, I just yoinked your metadata, if you'll forgive me.

00:50:45 Merlin: So this is a really cool feature.

00:50:47 Merlin: If you're on the Mac, you can click on a photo in Messages and say add this to Photos, my Photos app.

00:50:52 Merlin: And I guess based on the metadata, it's telling me this picture you sent me of me and you is older than I thought.

00:50:57 Merlin: It's February 8, 2004.

00:51:00 Merlin: You're kidding me.

00:51:01 Merlin: 2004.

00:51:02 Merlin: So 2004 was a big year for me and you.

00:51:06 Merlin: I think of 2003 as being a big year, but we did a lot of things.

00:51:10 Merlin: In 2004.

00:51:12 Merlin: I guess so.

00:51:13 Merlin: This is 10 p.m., 10, 12 p.m.

00:51:15 Merlin: Pacific time, February 8th, 2004.

00:51:17 Merlin: And we're at that Thai restaurant around the corner.

00:51:19 John: What did we do in 2004?

00:51:22 Merlin: See, now here's what I gotta do.

00:51:24 Merlin: I gotta get context.

00:51:26 Merlin: What else was happening?

00:51:28 John: So I recorded Ultimatum, the EP in 2004, with Tucker Martine.

00:51:32 John: I spent basically four months playing...

00:51:36 John: uh a piano over commander thinks aloud just playing it over and over three chords over and over and over melodica at one point and then michael shore was in the long winters right and we went to that there's a jack pine what was that cool club you played at where you were like in a basement that beautiful club

00:51:58 John: in san francisco or in portland or in seattle portland or seattle for like sure it might have been but michael short was not in the band for that that long right no but it was a it was a very intense burst that was the spring of 2004 we went on tour with the pernice brothers then we went to europe for a month and then we came back and went on tour with the decemberists for the first time

00:52:22 Merlin: Wow.

00:52:23 Merlin: That was all the way back in 2004?

00:52:24 Merlin: 2004.

00:52:26 John: But then after that, I was so depressed.

00:52:29 Merlin: I got so depressed because- Is that when you stayed here for a little while and had a cold sore?

00:52:33 Merlin: Yes.

00:52:33 Merlin: Okay.

00:52:34 Merlin: June 27th, 2004.

00:52:36 Merlin: I see you at Great American.

00:52:38 John: Being on tour with the Decembrists definitely put me into a funk, but then not being able to finish the Ultimatum album put me in a funk.

00:52:45 John: And by the end of that year, I had a beard that was down to my chest.

00:52:49 John: I just checked out completely.

00:52:52 John: I went completely...

00:52:54 Merlin: off the rails just just also here's you july 5th 2004 at my house but there were your eldest classes there were other things that we were doing right like you you were just saying 2004 was a big year for us so like i saw a couple days after that looks like uh july 7th is when i saw rush

00:53:13 John: Which tour?

00:53:15 Merlin: Oh, the one with the washing machines.

00:53:17 Merlin: It was out in the East Bay.

00:53:18 Merlin: It was amazing.

00:53:18 Merlin: It was out in the East Bay at an outdoor show.

00:53:22 John: That was when they weren't using amplifiers.

00:53:24 John: They were just playing into washing machines.

00:53:26 Merlin: They had three hurdy-gurdies.

00:53:28 Merlin: Oh, now here, this is a good one.

00:53:30 Merlin: August 23rd, 2004.

00:53:31 Merlin: That's... No, wait.

00:53:32 Merlin: That can't be right.

00:53:33 Merlin: No, no, no, no.

00:53:34 Merlin: These got the wrong data on them.

00:53:35 Merlin: God damn it.

00:53:35 Merlin: Don't fuck with my metadata.

00:53:37 John: That's the thing.

00:53:38 John: The metadata isn't always right, and I don't understand how it gets corrupted.

00:53:41 Merlin: Well, because this is obviously when you very first came here in 2002.

00:53:46 Merlin: It's the chick magnet hat, which I think by that point you stopped wearing, right?

00:53:49 John: Yeah.

00:53:49 John: Well, no, because I sometimes would bring the chick maggot hat out of retirement.

00:53:54 Merlin: Nope, nope, nope, nope.

00:53:55 Merlin: Oh, there's Michael Shore.

00:53:56 Merlin: Okay, here's Michael Shore, and here's you petting, oh, do you remember Linus the dog, the white dog?

00:54:01 Merlin: Okay, here's you petting Linus, and this is Michael Shore on August 25th, 2004, in what looks like San Francisco.

00:54:11 John: Right.

00:54:11 John: Now, was that the time that I sat out on the front porch of your house smoking cigarettes and talking to Robin Goldwasser on the phone about stopping smoking cigarettes?

00:54:20 John: I don't know.

00:54:20 Merlin: I don't have a photo of that.

00:54:22 John: That could have been any time in a six-year period on either side of that.

00:54:27 John: I guess.

00:54:28 John: It's one of my big memories.

00:54:32 Merlin: Was Ted Leo there?

00:54:33 Merlin: I didn't even know Ted Leo there.

00:54:34 Merlin: Oh, no, no, no.

00:54:35 Merlin: It's unrelated.

00:54:36 Merlin: Here's the bartender at Café du Nord.

00:54:38 Merlin: So that could be around the same time.

00:54:41 Merlin: Yeah, but we played there seven times.

00:54:43 Merlin: Oh, this is great.

00:54:45 Merlin: See, I think something's fucking with my metadata here.

00:54:47 Merlin: But anyway, I'm sorry.

00:54:48 Merlin: I'm getting you off your...

00:54:50 Merlin: Off your point.

00:54:51 Merlin: Well, no, I don't... So you're, you know, as Ted Leo says, you know, fit them where they belong.

00:54:58 Merlin: You're putting the pieces together.

00:54:59 Merlin: God, I love that album.

00:55:01 Merlin: You're putting pieces together here.

00:55:02 Merlin: I'm very interested in the thing that you're discovering, which should not be surprising, but I think is still very interesting and something that tells, is that there are some years...

00:55:11 Merlin: where there's not as much stuff.

00:55:12 Merlin: There's other years where you have more stuff.

00:55:14 Merlin: But there's some years where you're like, I should stop.

00:55:17 Merlin: Like, I've got enough for this year.

00:55:18 Merlin: But I bet you're not done.

00:55:20 Merlin: Because it makes the other years look really paltry.

00:55:22 Merlin: If you've got like a 2001 that doesn't have enough stuff, if you did not never forget, you know?

00:55:28 John: Well, here's what's confusing, right?

00:55:30 John: 2003, Pretend to Fall came out.

00:55:34 John: I was on the road the entire year.

00:55:37 John: And in one way,

00:55:40 John: it's one of the fullest years of my life.

00:55:45 John: But if I try to find five good things that happened in that year, I struggle.

00:55:50 John: Yeah.

00:55:51 John: I mean, what I have right now is I met John Flansburg and they might be giants at the start of that year.

00:55:57 John: Then the record came out.

00:56:00 John: Um, then it was that we went on our first European tour and I met my girlfriend, Nicole Greer, um,

00:56:08 John: sort of toward the end of that year.

00:56:11 John: I can't think of a fifth good thing, even though I was traveling all over and playing shows every night and meeting wonderful people and doing wonderful things.

00:56:22 John: But like, what's one more good thing that happened or even momentous thing?

00:56:27 John: It's all just 2003.

00:56:30 John: It's just kind of a smear.

00:56:32 John: It's like a, it's like an impressionist painting of, of being in motion.

00:56:38 Merlin: But it doesn't have that kind of – It doesn't have a – something my friend calls a flashbulb memory.

00:56:46 John: Yeah, right.

00:56:46 John: Exactly.

00:56:47 John: A tentpole memory.

00:56:49 John: Whereas 2012, that was the year we did Game Changers.

00:56:54 John: What?

00:56:55 John: Yeah.

00:56:57 John: Did you say 2012?

00:56:57 John: Yeah.

00:56:58 John: We got done with Game Changers, and I almost immediately started recording that Christmas record with Colton.

00:57:05 John: Now, I would have told you that those two things happened two years apart.

00:57:09 Merlin: I would have said 2014 or 15.

00:57:12 John: Yeah, 2012.

00:57:12 John: That long ago.

00:57:17 John: That was the same year that Flop played a house show for 85 people.

00:57:25 John: a flop reunion at some house show in North Seattle.

00:57:29 John: And I forgot it even happened.

00:57:31 John: And I'm flipping through my pictures and I'm like, what are these dark, weird pictures of a band in a living?

00:57:36 John: You know, the cameras didn't used to be as good.

00:57:38 John: No, they were terrible.

00:57:39 John: And then I was like, wait a minute, that looks like flop.

00:57:41 John: Oh, right.

00:57:42 John: Shit.

00:57:42 John: They got together again.

00:57:44 John: And that's the same year.

00:57:45 John: I would have said that that happened in 1999.

00:57:48 John: Okay.

00:57:48 John: But nope, it was 2012.

00:57:51 Merlin: I can try and help.

00:57:54 Merlin: We're probably good for today, but I can help if it would be useful.

00:57:57 Merlin: I know you're going to have a little more time.

00:57:58 Merlin: You get another week to put this all together.

00:58:01 Merlin: But I could help you fill in some of the details if I can.

00:58:04 Merlin: And maybe some of our interns.

00:58:06 Merlin: Oh, yeah.

00:58:07 Merlin: And let's be honest.

00:58:08 Merlin: I mean, do we agree that mental health is still health?

00:58:10 Merlin: Don't we agree?

00:58:11 Merlin: Right.

00:58:11 Merlin: I think mental health is health.

00:58:12 Merlin: Mental health is still health.

00:58:13 Merlin: So this is also somewhat under the aegis of your Dr. Project doctor.

00:58:18 Merlin: Dr. Project MD.

00:58:20 John: I think that what's happening is in the absence of having an actual mental health professional involved in my treatment, I came up with this five good things project because I'm trying to find I'm trying to.

00:58:35 John: I'm trying to carve some new ruts.

00:58:37 John: I'm trying to build a new— You don't want your Conestoga wagon to always have the same rut.

00:58:42 Merlin: Classic John Roderick.

00:58:42 John: That's right.

00:58:43 John: Because you know what?

00:58:44 John: That's just going to take you to Oregon, and there are enough people in Oregon.

00:58:47 John: You've died of dysentery.

00:58:49 John: That's right.

00:58:49 John: I tried to get across the river, and my wagon was swept away.

00:58:53 John: Womp, womp, womp.

00:58:55 John: Oh, no, my wagon.

00:58:59 John: Okay.

00:59:00 John: All right.

00:59:01 John: What I'm trying to do is like... We should start recording.

00:59:05 John: I'm trying to remake it.

00:59:07 John: I'm trying to go back and say, look, because my project, I guess, from this point forward is I can't keep living...

00:59:16 John: as I have been looking back at my life as, as of, as a failed project, as a, as a, Oh, I wish I could talk you out of this.

00:59:25 Merlin: I know I can't, but I wish I could.

00:59:26 Merlin: Well, I'm trying to talk you out of the need for that.

00:59:30 Merlin: Oh, the need.

00:59:31 Merlin: I know I can't.

00:59:32 Merlin: I know I can't.

00:59:33 Merlin: Do you mean the need for the five good things project or the need?

00:59:36 Merlin: Well, I mean, no, projects are good.

00:59:37 Merlin: It keeps the demon dogs at bay.

00:59:39 Merlin: But, you know, I mean, yeah, I don't know.

00:59:41 Merlin: I'm not going to say anything.

00:59:42 Merlin: I'll say it for the show.

00:59:44 Merlin: Well, no, go ahead.

00:59:45 Merlin: Well, no, like, what could, see, I know this is probably a dangerous thing to even put out there, but what could persuade you that your life has been valuable?

00:59:53 Merlin: like short of a visit from Clarence, the future angel, like what would, what would, you know, if you had to, um, you know, uh, what the hell is that movie called?

01:00:01 Merlin: It's a wonderful life.

01:00:02 Merlin: Like what, what would it take?

01:00:03 Merlin: Or maybe Christmas Carol.

01:00:04 Merlin: I don't know if it's angels or ghosts.

01:00:06 Merlin: I don't know what your background is, but like, what would it take for you to feel like you've led a good life?

01:00:12 John: Well, I always have thought that it is some kind of ghost appearing on a bridge in the fog.

01:00:19 Um,

01:00:19 John: Uh, who like taps my jacket with his billy club and says, uh, what's with the heater?

01:00:25 John: What's all this thing?

01:00:26 John: And he's because he's a Bobby.

01:00:28 John: And, um, and I, so I've been waiting, I've been waiting for, not waiting for your angel, not just passively waiting, but like actively trying to accomplish that thing by running for office or by this or by that or by this or by that, or,

01:00:43 John: to find that like lightning bolt moment where it's like, ah, here's what I'm here for.

01:00:48 John: I found my duck.

01:00:49 John: This is the reason I'm like, it don't make sense.

01:00:51 John: Yes.

01:00:52 John: Finding your duck.

01:00:54 John: And what I'm, what I'm working on right now is trying to get there by inches and say, it's not, there isn't ever going to, it's not, it's not a, there's no third act.

01:01:07 John: It's not a story.

01:01:09 John: It's just a thing happens.

01:01:10 John: And then nothing happens.

01:01:11 John: Then nothing happens.

01:01:13 John: and

01:01:14 John: So there isn't there.

01:01:16 John: The lights aren't going to go off.

01:01:17 John: There's a gunshot.

01:01:18 John: And then when the lights come back up, I have a big gold star on my jacket and everyone applauds.

01:01:24 Merlin: It's a terrible place.

01:01:27 Merlin: What happened when the lights were out?

01:01:28 Merlin: Who put the store on him?

01:01:29 John: Was that Clarence or Wes Anderson fucking film?

01:01:33 John: Oh, yeah.

01:01:34 John: It's all lots of children dressed as animals.

01:01:37 John: It's something else.

01:01:38 John: It's the little thing where I look back and go, it's always been a failure.

01:01:41 John: And then I go, actually, no.

01:01:43 John: This happened and then this happened and then this happened.

01:01:47 John: And I don't know if that's going to be successful.

01:01:51 John: I feel like...

01:01:54 John: I feel like several years ago I said, okay, I'm going to do the thing.

01:01:58 John: Everybody tells me that I'm afraid of love.

01:02:02 John: And so I'm going to do the opposite thing.

01:02:03 John: I'm going to go toward love.

01:02:05 John: I'm going to go toward love in every time there's a choice between two things.

01:02:10 Merlin: You're going to choose love.

01:02:11 John: I'm going to choose love.

01:02:12 Merlin: Wow.

01:02:12 Merlin: That's super interesting.

01:02:14 John: Well, it was.

01:02:14 John: But the problem was I chose love and it led me into a place that I didn't want to be.

01:02:21 John: And I was like, wait a minute.

01:02:22 John: This is why I don't choose love.

01:02:24 John: Because love is insane.

01:02:25 John: And love isn't, because it's not measurable, but also because it's not reasonable, choosing love every time, if you're not a hippie,

01:02:36 John: is a fucking dangerous route.

01:02:39 Merlin: You do make yourself very vulnerable.

01:02:42 John: Yeah, what you want to do is actually choose reason and logic sometimes.

01:02:48 John: You can't just do one.

01:02:50 John: You have to have both.

01:02:52 Merlin: This is the misconception about Mr. Spock, though.

01:02:55 Merlin: He has feelings.

01:02:56 Merlin: For sure.

01:02:57 Merlin: It's probably true of John Syracuse too, but Spock has feelings.

01:02:59 Merlin: It's just that he has to work extra hard to control them because it's the nature of one half of his lineage is, is, you know, extremely logical.

01:03:08 Merlin: And the other one is very human and that's difficult to do.

01:03:11 John: I will, Jim, I will fight no more forever.

01:03:15 John: My kid wants to know why Christy Alley doesn't have Vulcan eyebrows.

01:03:22 Merlin: I know, you told me.

01:03:23 Merlin: I don't know the answer to that.

01:03:25 Merlin: And it's especially interesting because, I'm not going to look it up, but I feel like that was probably, even most Christy Alley fans, if you exclude things like whatever yoga commercials, that was her first big thing.

01:03:37 Merlin: Yeah.

01:03:38 Merlin: And so... She retired right after it.

01:03:41 Merlin: She what?

01:03:42 John: She could have retired right after it.

01:03:43 Merlin: Yeah, I would have been fine with learning less about her.

01:03:46 Merlin: But when you've got a young person, you can not only not pay much, but you can usually do stuff like put weird eyebrows and ears on them.

01:03:54 John: Right.

01:03:55 John: And I don't know why they didn't, except... Would have been hot.

01:03:58 John: Well, but it was pretty good as it was.

01:04:00 John: I know.

01:04:01 John: I know.

01:04:02 John: I know she... Kobayashi Hermaru.

01:04:05 John: She could have walked off of that set and into my dreams.

01:04:08 John: Out of my heart and into my dreams.

01:04:17 Merlin: My girl wants to party all the time, party all the time, party all the time.

01:04:19 Merlin: There it is.

01:04:20 Merlin: All right, that'll do, pig.