Ep. 422: "Alfie Doesn't Rake"
John: hello hi john oh hello marlon how's it going well i can't really account for this low-key voice oh i'm using because i i don't feel especially low-key for a while see how it goes yeah i mean it's i guess it's one thing you could feel jazzed and be
John: Super, super chill.
Merlin: It's got a little bit of Oregon public radio to it.
John: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: Did you ever think, did you ever think, did you ever think about being one of those people that,
Merlin: is like really soft-spoken slow in your in your speaking manner and how that would change your life for real yeah absolutely i've even tried it on like a suit jacket i've tried it sometimes yeah i've had different versions of that there's the one hang on let me get back in character yeah i've had one version of that where i just say stop talking so much and maybe stop talking to yourself or to others
Merlin: Well, I've written it down.
Merlin: Like, for example, when I record a different show where I have a habit of, well, my mind races even faster than here, probably.
Merlin: Come on.
Merlin: For the You Look Nice Today program.
Merlin: Oh, sure, sure, sure.
Merlin: Yeah, well, I finally wrote a note to myself.
Merlin: It says, follow Scott's lead and stop talking all the time.
Merlin: Don't you know, I mean I get you know what it is.
Merlin: I get a little bit Robin Williams You get going you do get going like when you watch Robin Williams I think we've discussed here when you watch on Carson you watch Robin Williams with Jonathan Winters.
Merlin: He's so thirsty Yeah, that's me.
Merlin: I'm so thirsty.
John: I really want to impress the Jonathan Winters in my life There's a there's a I don't know I I think over the years I've recognized that I
John: Soft-spoken people, cowboys maybe.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: You know, cowboys, they hardly say anything.
John: Yeah, real taciturn.
John: They're out there on the range.
John: They got the little doggies.
John: What do they say to the little doggies?
Merlin: The doggies that they make get along?
John: Yeah, they just say get along.
John: That's all they have to say to them.
John: Or they might just say git.
Merlin: Git.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: It's very effective.
Merlin: And they say if you want somebody to listen to you, you should speak quietly.
John: Well, I know, but that can be psycho.
John: I know.
John: You know people like that.
John: Like a low talker.
John: What?
John: I'm going to murder you right now.
John: But I really do feel so many times in my life that if I just...
John: Had talked less And maybe it all would have turned out differently Why I hate to admit it, but I think you're right I think you're I mean, I think you're definitely right in the sense of I have wondered but further to that Yeah, I don't need to say everything all the time No, there were so many times when it was just if I could go back and just say like and seen and
John: Stop talking now.
John: Oh, blackout.
John: All right.
John: Stop talking now.
John: All right.
John: No, no, no, no, no.
John: No, you're one, you're two sentences past the line, but you could still save it.
John: Stop talking now.
Merlin: You know, it's a good syllable for that.
Merlin: If you just want to try it and not you, but the listener or me is, is, is the syllable.
Merlin: Hmm.
John: I do that so much now.
Merlin: Oh, I do it.
Merlin: So I, obviously it's, I don't know if it's a bit, but it's, it's very effective because I feel like that's, um, that's, that's a pregnant syllable.
Merlin: That's true.
Merlin: That wasn't funny.
Merlin: It's good though.
Merlin: We should be serious.
Merlin: We should be more serious.
Merlin: We're grown men.
Merlin: We're grown men.
Merlin: We should be serious.
Merlin: We shouldn't talk as much.
Merlin: The two of us should be.
Merlin: But like I'm always, I always feel like, I feel like the dad, I feel like, you know, I see a dad in a flashback, you know, like we've been watching the TV show BoJack Horseman.
Merlin: Flashback to his dad.
Merlin: And the dad is always where you look at a dad in like a Goodfellas.
Merlin: Or you look at a dad.
Merlin: It's always, I mean, setting aside the hitting the child with the belt.
Merlin: There is always this taciturn cowboy dad.
Merlin: I, that is, that is not me.
Merlin: I'm not stern.
Merlin: I'm not taciturn.
Merlin: I deliver sick burns.
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: I am a steward of rhyming and stealing.
Merlin: You have some of the sickest burns, in fact.
Merlin: I guess so.
Merlin: But you're, you know what?
Merlin: Maybe this should be something I try again.
Merlin: It's not too late, is it?
Merlin: Is it too late?
John: Yeah.
John: My feeling about it, you know, my dad wasn't very taciturn, but my feeling is always that I should turn the taciturnity.
John: Out at the world.
John: You know, like here between you and me and our little bubble, we can be chatty.
John: We can be, you know, kind of light and light on our feet, light in our loafers even.
John: I would do that.
John: But to be out in the world, you should be, you know, flinty and, you know, have a chair root.
Merlin: And you get a real, real crisp delivery.
Merlin: And you say stuff like, thank you, ma'am.
John: Yeah, right.
John: Just leave them guessing, you know, leave them wanting more.
John: People turn and they look at you and they go, what's Merlin thinking?
John: And no one can discern it.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: And you just live with this ethos that I'm going to call let them wonder.
Merlin: Let them wonder.
John: Let them wonder.
John: They don't have to know everything.
Merlin: Yeah, because when you speak, somebody said it might have been Lyndon Johnson.
Merlin: No, probably not.
Merlin: It might have been Webster.
Merlin: But someone says, you know, better to be silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt or similar.
Merlin: Yes.
John: I remember the first time I read that quote, it really struck me because I don't think at that point I had ever been silent or it had occurred to me to be silent.
John: And I was like, huh?
John: If you look around the room and don't see the fool, is it you?
Merlin: Is it me?
Yeah.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I feel like there's limitations to that, but it is definitely a thought technology worth considering.
Merlin: I don't think this is as true for us, and I'll give some examples and counterexamples.
Merlin: I think one thing, and I think this leads into my larger Felton Chong about men and their fear of being unappreciated and alone, I think people are scared of dead air.
Merlin: as we used to call it in radio.
Merlin: People are uncomfortable with silences.
Merlin: Well, yes.
Merlin: I'm not saying it's us, but don't you think that part of the, and I'm doing it right now, you get to be what they call a nervous talker, and think about it in a negotiation.
Merlin: Maybe you're talking to a plumber or your contractor's contractor, in your instance, and there are times where it would really be beneficial to just go, hmm.
Merlin: Do you do that?
Merlin: I've seen you do that.
Merlin: I saw you do that in a transaction once that still makes me shit myself at night.
Merlin: Before you really opened both barrels.
Merlin: And Sean Nelson and I were hiding behind a tire, if memory serves, because we were so scared.
John: You know, you and I are different in that regard.
John: You definitely don't like dead air in a way that I'm comfortable with a certain amount of dead air.
John: Because I like to...
John: I like to let other people hoist themselves by their own petard if possible.
John: You'd even lend them a petard.
John: I'd say, do you need a petard?
John: I have one right here.
John: Um, and you know, but you like, you have the, the, you look nice today thing.
John: You guys definitely go.
John: And then all of a sudden you're just a comet arcing across the sky and there's,
John: You know, there's no dead air.
John: Nobody could get in there.
Merlin: Well, you know, I, yeah, but poor Adam, you know, Adam, who is the cowboy, Adam brings the motherfucking ruckus because he will come in the side door with a package that nobody ordered and you go, everything just changed.
John: Yeah.
John: He's the George Harrison of the group.
John: He just, Oh, Oh, that makes me the Paul.
John: Well, I don't know.
John: Isn't Scott the Paul?
John: Probably the best guitar player in the band.
John: Don't you think you might be the John?
Merlin: I might be the John.
Merlin: I could be the Ringo if you don't know who the Ringo is.
Merlin: I think the Ringo is BMO.
Merlin: You're killing me with this.
Merlin: Peeing.
Merlin: Peeing.
Merlin: Leave it.
Merlin: Oh, oh, Bimo.
Merlin: How'd you get so pregnant?
Merlin: Who's the mother?
Merlin: Oh, who's the father?
Merlin: See, now I'm filling air with the Bimo song where Bimo has an egg taped to their front.
Merlin: I know.
John: Yeah.
John: You do?
John: Yeah.
John: When I said leave it, when I said zip.
John: Yeah.
John: You didn't.
Merlin: You didn't leave it.
Merlin: Because I'm a nervous talker.
Merlin: And I love it so much.
Merlin: And that's a song I sing to myself a lot.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: I'm going to do this.
Merlin: I think this would make, I don't know if this would make for good podcasting.
Merlin: Now, for example, I don't like to talk about the show on the show.
Merlin: But given that this is the show, it's what's in it.
Merlin: Like, for example, the episode, you probably don't remember this, the episode we recorded last week is one of those occasional, I like to think, two or three times a year episodes that I treasure that
Merlin: That is what I like to call Roderick on the line in hard mode, as we say in video games.
John: I have no recollection of it.
Merlin: It's fine.
Merlin: Oh, we had a lot of fun.
Merlin: Can we talk about The Beetle?
Merlin: Not as much as I would like.
Merlin: Um, let me go look.
Merlin: So, um, let's see here.
Merlin: Would it be helpful if I told you some, um, alternate, uh, uh, alternative titles for last week?
John: Oh yeah.
John: Hit me.
John: Let's see if it.
John: Okay.
Merlin: It ended up being, it's episode 421, uh, my mom's Ohio.
Yeah.
Merlin: Alternative titles that I captured include The Chekhov Teen Years, Wyatt Earping It, Tutting, and O Passei with a ligature, and Aftermarket Alligators.
Merlin: And we covered a lot of territory and I think obviously helped a lot of people.
Merlin: Is that the kind of episode you want to start?
Merlin: Now, I'm not saying this one's any better because it sounds like Oregon Public Radio.
Merlin: Yeah, but I like those.
John: We're exploring our friendship, our masculinity.
John: We're exploring our voices.
John: Yes, voices.
John: You and I have voices that are capable of many different registers, many different tonalities.
Merlin: I've heard you sing hi.
Merlin: I've heard you sing hi at that beginning of our part, so I always think it's Sean, but it's you.
John: Well, you know, the funny thing about the singing is that –
John: If you listen to some of the great singers, they're not putting it all out there.
John: They've got so much in the fridge.
John: They've got like one of those chest freezers in the garage.
Merlin: Just because they give you a shot glass of Sunny D, don't assume that's the entirety of their stock.
Merlin: There's things in the refrigerator you may not see for 20 years because they're not a nervous singer.
Merlin: They'll give you what you need.
Merlin: They'll take out just enough to beat you.
John: Exactly.
John: But meanwhile, I'm over here and I'm stacking pallets of tab in your trunk.
John: You know, I'm like, 24 more tab, 24 more tab.
John: Taking it off, boss.
Merlin: I got enough.
John: Putting it in, boss.
I got enough tab.
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John: And that's, you know, why don't I have a chest, a chest freezer that's full of, full of like hard frozen Sunny D. Sunny D is disgusting.
John: It's such a bad idea.
John: But why, why, you know, where's all my hamburger?
John: Where's the, where, where the king salmon that I'm going to.
John: You're talking about keeping your powder dry?
John: Well, a little bit.
John: Like.
John: Yeah.
John: Like if I just, if I approach the microphone.
Yeah.
John: like this every day.
John: Yeah.
John: And I, you know, I didn't have to bring all this in.
John: I could just be like this.
John: It's just, it's emphatic.
John: It's like gentle.
John: It's nice.
Merlin: It's, it is.
Merlin: And like, you have to listen because it's on like public radio, but you know, I don't know.
Merlin: It seems to me, you're probably not a huge listener of podcasts.
Merlin: You surprised me with the, you know,
Merlin: Sean and Jake thing a little bit, but here's the thing.
Merlin: A lot of things that people consider, and this is not interesting, but a lot of people, what they consider a podcast now is basically just people reading something with music.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: And they read it.
Merlin: And the thing is, if you're reading something with music, or you're doing super tight format stuff, you could say, and your second article in The New Yorker, Shots and Murmurs, was a depiction of the
Merlin: use of negative space in the modern theater you know you can say stuff like that now if you and i did a whole podcast like this all the time i think we would somehow and probably have even fewer listeners because this is not good i mean it is good because we're taking a little break we're taking a little vacation from the usual you know i gotta work on my whistling sure sure can you do it do it do it
Merlin: Okay, that's another one.
Merlin: Okay, that's another one I feel like, you're good.
Merlin: God, I wish I could whistle well.
Merlin: I've lost a lot of my plasticity, I think, but like this, a lot of references in life that go back to the movie M.A.S.H., and for me.
Merlin: And when I make these references, people don't recognize them.
Merlin: Two of my most common references that people don't get is, I got a really good, hang on, I'm going to have a sip of water.
Merlin: Go ahead, go ahead.
Merlin: Get in character.
Merlin: Do you remember the way Captain Pierce, remember the way Hawkeye whistles?
Merlin: Lay it on me.
Merlin: He goes something like this.
Merlin: Wait, that might be Mr. Fox.
Merlin: But he does this whistle that's like, oh, buddy.
Merlin: Kind of like.
Merlin: I think that might be Mr. Fox.
Merlin: But the other one is I say a lot that has no provenance, I think apart from the movie mesh, possibly the novel mesh, is the prose from Dover.
Merlin: I say that a lot, and people don't recognize what I'm talking about.
Merlin: It's one of the rare things where if you go and Google that, you'll probably be confused.
John: I thought you were going to say it was one of the rare things that you say that people don't understand the provenance.
Merlin: Don't understand the provenance?
Merlin: You can Google anything.
Merlin: It's true.
Merlin: Or DuckDuckGo.
Merlin: You just won't find anything.
Merlin: I don't know.
John: What I want to know is if we talk like, is this...
John: Is this some sort of like male equivalent of vocal fry?
Merlin: If I get down here, is it like, am I... So are you trying to do low or just we're trying to do like, sort of like a Michael Barbaro, you wouldn't know him.
Merlin: The guy does it daily.
Merlin: He does a thing that is, it gets funnier and sillier all the time where he gets more and more dramatic.
Merlin: The question becomes, let's say if we're going to walk backwards into this particular alcove, if we...
Merlin: did speak like this kind of all the time, what kind of show would be good for this kind of speaking in your opinion?
Merlin: Especially as an outsider who's not a big listener of podcasts.
Merlin: You hear two guys talking like this.
Merlin: What do you think it's going to be about?
Merlin: Oh, maybe it's going to be about men's health issues.
John: Well, see, I think you're bringing a lot to it because you listen to other media.
John: Yeah.
John: Because you hear these voices and you associate them with things, whereas I am coming at it just from a place of trying to identify the physicality in myself.
Merlin: Oh, you're locating it is what you're doing.
John: Yeah, I'm not trying to tell you about any kind of interesting story in America's heartland.
Merlin: I've got a prostate like a Brazil nut.
John: Yeah, I'm just trying to like keep a little bit of powder dry.
John: Keep the powder dry.
John: And the thing is that when you do that, it turns out, see, when I try to sing more quietly, because I'm not whispering right now.
John: I'm doing the thing.
John: So my sister and I, she and I grew up.
John: Where there were certain conversations that she and I had to have in this tone of voice.
Merlin: Oh, because of divorce.
John: And just because of the people around us, you know, she and I are siblings.
John: Siblings develop like, you know, little codes and keys or whatever it is that they do.
John: But Susan and I, and we've only noticed this recently.
John: Because people call us out on it.
John: If the two of us are standing together in a room full of people, she and I will just go down into this mode and we'll just start talking to each other like this.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: That's one of your codes and keys is you slip into the OPB style.
Merlin: We're just way down.
John: But we're standing, we're just at the party.
John: We're the same people.
John: We look like we're people at the party.
John: But if you...
John: are anywhere around us, you can't quite make out what we're saying.
John: And we do it, it's not that we're telling secrets, it's that we just go into private mode.
John: I'm not even there, and it makes you seem so much more interesting.
John: Well, but what's infuriating to other people that we know is they're like, what are you talking about?
John: Because it sounds like we've gone into a mode where we're like, this guy over here standing by the door, he owes me 40 bucks.
John: And when he walks over here, just watch what I'm going to say.
John: We're talking that way.
John: Uh-huh.
Merlin: But we're just – Kind of like maybe like the way Littlefinger would talk.
Merlin: Like some way of like where you got some kind of like behind-the-scenes thing you're working on.
Merlin: It makes people – if they know you, it makes them a little suspicious.
Merlin: Like, huh, John doesn't usually talk like Oregon Public Radio.
Merlin: So there must be something up.
Merlin: And that Susan, you know, she's a loose cannon.
Merlin: Right.
John: It's a little bit of a Littlefinger where I'm like –
John: Where I'm handing her a poison knife wrapped in a burlap sack, and I'm like, here's what I need you to do.
Merlin: Leave it, leave it.
Merlin: See, I was going to say John and Danny, but I really don't like that season.
Merlin: Okay, okay.
Merlin: Take the golden Anne and give it to Stan.
Okay.
Merlin: Put it in the van, take it to the van.
Merlin: I see.
Merlin: Make things right with the Onion Knight.
Merlin: Calling the Bannermen.
Merlin: I wish I had Bannermen, just for what it's worth.
John: But on a show, well, you do.
John: You just don't.
John: The thing is, you have Bannermen.
Merlin: I don't have the Bannermen that some people have.
John: No, you just don't want to accept them.
Merlin: The Bannermen keeps showing up, and you're like, no, thank you.
Merlin: But they've declared me King of the North, and they've supported my house for thousands of years.
Merlin: I mean, I call upon them.
Merlin: It's not about these petty squabbles anymore.
John: You call upon them, but then when they arrive, you bar the door.
Merlin: Oh, I see what you're saying.
Merlin: Because my sigil has Holden Caulfield smoking a cigarette on it.
John: You yell down from the tower, not today.
John: Come again.
John: Bitches lavage.
John: What's intriguing about this is that these microphones that we have, and this is the thing I learned about singing, right?
John: Microphones do all the heavy lifting.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: I do.
Merlin: You go back and you watch that making of for company, and it's amazing.
Merlin: Well, anything, really, anything.
Merlin: And you're like, how are you not closer to the microphone?
Merlin: Like right now, my mouth is pretty close to the microphone.
Merlin: Proximity effect?
Merlin: Is that what I'm talking about?
Merlin: What am I talking about?
John: Well, there's proximity effect, but even just leaving out any of the effects, it's just that the microphone doesn't, in this instance at least, when most people are listening to us either on headphones or
John: I mean, there are a few people who listen to the show while they're doing the dishes.
John: And right now they're kind of not into this.
John: Right.
John: Because they're like, speak up.
John: That's the way it should be.
John: They should be mad right now.
John: They should appreciate what they had.
John: The people that are listening to this as they go to sleep at night.
Merlin: Fact checking and quiet speaking are killing podcasts.
Merlin: It's got to stop.
Merlin: Oh, wait a minute.
Merlin: Tell me more about fact checking.
Merlin: Well, you know, it's the kind of thing where people would say, if you have the sort of discursive program that you and I have had for over 10 years, where you usually don't speak like this and you say a lot of shit, and sometimes you say something wrong and people are like, so actually, you know, I don't have a bit here.
Merlin: But, like, you did the thing wrong.
Merlin: And I'm like, okay, fine.
Merlin: I'll unpublish the episode and I'll fix it.
Merlin: You know?
Merlin: It's crazy.
Merlin: I mean, it's like, you know what it is?
Merlin: It's like sports.
Merlin: It's like the Monday morning quarterbacks sitting there in their Barker lounger.
Merlin: Oh, the Barker loungers.
Merlin: Yelling orders.
Merlin: And, boy, that umpire should get kicked through the goalposts of life or whatever.
Merlin: And it's like, well, you know what?
Merlin: You weren't on the field that day, buddy.
John: Hey.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
John: I do feel like somewhere along the line, a long time before podcasting,
John: I understood that, as my friend Jesse likes to say, she's often... What does she say?
John: She's often not right, but she's never wrong.
John: Well, that's a good distinction.
John: And I think I established with...
John: with my circle of friends that it was possible that I was not right, but I was not wrong.
Merlin: Oh, boy.
Merlin: That's a really interesting thought technology, and I wish more people would think on that.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: You can be not right without being wrong.
John: Yes.
John: And so a long time ago, even before I started doing this show with you,
John: See, and listen, you hear my voice just started to fill up with potty.
Merlin: Now the weird part is I'm not doing dishes, but I'm very drawn in to whatever comes next.
John: Yeah, what the heck was I, why did I all of a sudden get all so animated?
Merlin: I don't know, should I drop in some music here?
John: No, no, we're cool, we're cool.
John: But I think among my friends it was understood that I didn't have to be right.
John: In order not to be wrong.
John: And that was very liberating.
John: For me.
John: And I think for my friends.
John: Because no one ever.
John: People stopped feeling like they needed.
John: It lets everybody off the hook.
John: Yeah.
John: They didn't need to correct me.
John: No.
John: Because it was clear that I wasn't right.
John: But they also could enjoy the fact that I wasn't wrong.
John: And that then on this show.
John: I mean, I just sort of have always been somewhat in a Roderick on the line bubble in the sense that our listeners recognize that we're often not right.
John: But we're very seldom wrong.
John: That's true.
John: And now I actually do a show where the whole premise is that we're both right and not wrong.
John: And yet I'm often not right.
John: And there's just like it just I'm just I'm covered in I'm covered in a Teflon of never being wrong.
John: Even when I'm totally not right.
John: And it's been great.
John: It's great.
Merlin: I wish more people would acknowledge that.
Merlin: And I wish more people would appreciate and potentially embrace that.
Merlin: Because I don't like talking about the internet.
Merlin: But this is a problem with the internet.
Merlin: And the lack of context is that any of those Barker Lounger commentators...
Merlin: can come dive bombing in and find something on Wikia, on fandom.wikia.biz, where they can come in and they can set you straight because so important to them is the idea of being right.
Merlin: Excuse me.
Merlin: So important to them is the idea of being right, that they potentially get kind of close to being a little bit wrong.
John: Oh, oh, they can be right and be completely wrong.
Merlin: That's important.
Merlin: That's number two.
John: The incredible thing about the internet, people are writing me all the time and saying like, you're, you know, here and they're right, but they're wrong.
Merlin: Well, there's also like, I guess I'm thinking about this because I think about this for lots of reasons, but including things you and I have talked about, but there are various ways that there are words that one can use or word like things to, how do you put this?
Merlin: I think I would stipulate that the following words do not mean precisely the same thing.
Merlin: This is an array separated by commas.
Merlin: Ready?
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Correct.
Merlin: Affirmative.
Merlin: Roger.
Merlin: Roger.
Merlin: I think so.
Merlin: So like when a lot of times you ask a nerd a thing, you ask them a question and a nerd might say, correct.
Correct.
Merlin: Or like, it doesn't mean I agree with you.
John: Oh, well, I was just doing it.
John: The number one way I do that is go, right.
John: That's good, right.
John: Right.
John: And that just affirms.
John: None of those are hell yes.
John: No, that affirms that you understand what the person means.
John: When they're saying what they're saying.
Merlin: And your ellipsis tells them, you have my attention.
Merlin: What's next in this little chain in your anecdote or the case that you're making?
John: I have not signed off on anything they're saying.
John: They could be sitting there like that the coronavirus was invented by the CIA.
John: And I could go, right, right.
John: And I'm just, yeah, that ellipses is just those, those periods stretch on to infinity.
John: And yet there's no, it's, you know, it's depending on who the bystander is that's listening in on the conversation, that right could mean a lot of things.
Right.
Merlin: Well, I've been watching this.
Merlin: Actually, it's in the background right now.
Merlin: But I've been watching a court case that's been happening in Minnesota with interest.
Merlin: And I do notice that as somebody who's had a little bit of background with prepping people to make appearances in court.
Merlin: It used to be my job a million years ago.
Merlin: I know the part of the training that you do with people.
Merlin: The most basic training is like, you know, show up clean, like look good, wear a clean shirt, you know, don't be goofy, get up there, speak clearly.
Merlin: And when people ask you a question, you have to answer audibly with a word.
Merlin: You can't say nuh-uh or shake your head.
Merlin: You're supposed to say, is your name John Morgan Roderick?
Merlin: And you say, yes.
Merlin: Affirmative.
Merlin: Or affirmative or ahoy-ahoy.
Merlin: Roger.
Merlin: Yeah, you got to say words.
Merlin: And then sometimes the lawyers are going, that's pretty crazy in here.
Merlin: Everybody's wearing masks and there's all this plexiglass up.
Merlin: But could you please answer in a way that we could all hear you with a word?
Merlin: So the reason I say that here is there's a lot of that going on with these witnesses, especially the expert witnesses.
Merlin: And they're extra smart because they know, for example, let's say I'm this guy with the glasses who's doing his closing argument right now.
Merlin: And I say to you something like, on the events of May 2020, blah, blah, blah, fact stipulated, have you formed an opinion about that?
Merlin: And the person says, they don't jump into the opinion.
Merlin: What do they do?
Merlin: They say, yes.
Yes.
John: Yes.
Merlin: And then they pause a little and they say, yes, which is very different from.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: It's not an expert witness thing to say.
Merlin: You wait and you pause and then the lawyer says to you, because you got to like connect every dot.
Merlin: And then the lawyer says to you, could you tell us, you know, the, the opinion.
Merlin: And maybe they say yes because they're really going to drag this out.
Merlin: Yeah, they squint their eyes and they chew on their cherute.
Merlin: So if I say to you the report that was filled out by thus and such officer states that XYZ event happened at 8.02 p.m.
Merlin: And you say correct.
Merlin: Now, that doesn't mean that's what the report says.
Merlin: It doesn't mean you agree with what happened.
Merlin: It doesn't mean you even like the person who filed the report.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: Because I agree with that is not the same as you just said a thing that's true.
John: Right.
Merlin: Am I putting too fine a point on this?
Merlin: No, but it is, I think.
Merlin: Some truths are bigger than others, like Morrissey says.
John: Well, we all have different roles to play.
John: And for instance, my I have never felt my role in a in a situation with other people was to call them out when they are wrong.
John: Me neither.
Merlin: What do I get stick about it?
John: But you know what I mean?
John: Like I will sit and I'll sit and listen.
Merlin: A certain mutual friend will text me while he's listening to the program to let me know all the things that I know you said and I know you said that were either not right or were not right enough.
Merlin: First of all, because this person who shall remain nameless is extremely broken inside and loves to play a game of whack the piñata where you just keep telling somebody what they did wrong.
Merlin: And then you say, how about this?
Merlin: How about this?
Merlin: And you never get it right because there was no piñata the whole time.
Merlin: No piñata, the John Syracuse story.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: You said you weren't going to name him.
John: I didn't.
John: Go ahead.
John: I will sit and listen to somebody say very terrible things in a public context, not just me and the person in an elevator, but I'll sit in.
Merlin: This goes beyond an Uber and a Lyft.
Merlin: You could be somewhere where you're exposed to somebody who's just saying a bunch of shit.
John: Yeah.
John: And I'll and I go, hmm.
John: Uh-huh.
John: Uh-huh.
John: The other day I had.
John: So my cousin Alfie.
John: is a cement contractor in Kitsap County.
John: Okay.
John: And Alfie, Alfie came over not very long ago.
John: Alfie is the cousin that is the closest to me in age.
John: And Alfie's mother, Mary Ellen, was actually my dad's cousin.
John: So Alfie is my second cousin.
John: Can you do that in your head?
John: I always need the diagram to do that.
John: No, and I'm not even sure I got it right.
John: But whatever, we never know.
John: But
John: But as far as cousins go, he's the one that I would point to and go like – he qualifies in my family as like a cousin.
John: Like I've got – I've got – Oh, the way you could have like an uncle.
Merlin: Well, I've got real cousins.
Merlin: No, but you know what I mean?
Merlin: Like that's Uncle Jack.
Merlin: Well, in your case, you have a titular Uncle Jack, but you have like sort of what they say, a Dutch uncle.
John: This is a Dutch cousin.
John: Well, his mother was my –
John: was my aunt mary ellen and her brother was my uncle junius but they weren't really they were my second cousin okay got it but alfie was the one that was he was like six months younger than me there are all these pictures of us in 1970 where the two of us are in a kiddie pool but his mother um was in if you can believe it the ultimate black sheep of our family like if you think most people agree
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: Including – So if you did a newlywed game and everybody flipped their cards at the same time.
John: It would all be Mary Ellen.
John: And Mary Ellen took Alfie and she – she was living in Idlewild, California.
John: But at a certain point, it was – she had to escape to Laredo, Mexico or she lived in Baja.
John: She had a rule that kids under 10 shouldn't wear clothes.
John: Like Mary Ellen was –
John: Mary Ellen was very troubling and troublesome and difficult lady.
John: But in the sixties and early seventies, at least Alfie and I had a lot of time where we were little kids together.
John: Alfie now is a cement contractor and Alfie came over and he, he visited my house, my, my, uh, my perpetually under construction house.
John: And he said, you know what you need?
John: You need a patio and I'm a cement contractor.
John: Okay.
John: And I was like, well, that sounds amazing.
John: And he was like, yeah, I'll just come over one day and I'll pour a patio.
John: All I have to do is dig out the ground.
John: And, you know, it's very hard for me to pick tile, but it's very easy for me to dig and rake and then re-rake and compulsively rake for weeks at a time a 30 by 15 foot piece of dirt.
John: I pick the dirt every time.
Merlin: I feel like picking tiles is just in that class of professional gaslighting.
John: I sat out there with my rake doing this.
John: I would go all the way down 31 feet this direction.
John: I'd turn around and go all the way back just making perfect rake lines.
John: And I was thinking to myself, because Dan Benjamin says that there's some aspect of me that's like 15% of me is always meditating.
John: And that's what makes it impossible for me to do the other 85% of meditating because I'm always just slightly meditating.
John: I don't know what he's talking about.
Merlin: Oh, it's like somebody who's perpetually falling asleep but never gets a good night's sleep.
Merlin: There you go.
John: There you go.
John: So I'm going back and forth with my rake and I'm just like, wow, this is – I would do the – if I could –
John: do any project, if I could make a record album, if I could finish my house, if I could write a book of poetry, if what it took was just that at dawn I got up and walked back and forth with a rake and did it in rain or shine, you know, for 12 hours and then woke up the next day and did it again, then I would be an incredibly successful person.
John: But what I, because this is what I'm really good at.
John: Okay, but so I did this and I was having that just the time of my life like please let me rake this ground some more Alfie came one day and
John: not very long ago.
John: He brought his, um, he brought his, his boards.
John: He's a, he's the rare cement contractor that works alone.
John: He's a loner.
Merlin: Oh boy.
Merlin: That seems like the kind of job where for any variety of reasons, it would be nice to have some friends, not just for the, as you say, heavy lifting, but there must be occasions.
Merlin: I think about me trying to set up my TV around Christmas and I, boy, I really could have used two other guys and that's just the TV.
Merlin: Also, he brings boards, he brings boards in.
Merlin: He's, he's a lone wolf.
John: He, Alfie, one, one day,
John: One day we'll hear from Alfie.
John: I'll tell the story or I'll have Alfie on my podcast that I have over at my Patreon.
John: Okay.
John: And I'm going to have Alfie explain his story.
John: You have a podcast on your Patreon?
John: Yeah.
John: I've started doing like a – well, I do that one with my sister, Road Rage, but I've started doing a monthly interview.
Merlin: I muted every notification where the subject line includes patron only.
Merlin: So I don't see that stuff anymore.
Merlin: I got to listen to that.
Merlin: John has a podcast.
John: I did one with Mike Squires.
John: I got one coming up with Jesse Uyeda.
John: I'm going to have my mom on there.
John: I'm going to interview you, although I know you don't want that.
John: No, I'd love that.
John: Just don't interview my wife, please.
John: Oh, wow.
John: What a great idea.
Merlin: No, she doesn't have internet.
Merlin: It's such a shame.
John: But Alfie, you know, when Alfie was 14 years old, he was living alone in Puerto Vallarta working as a bartender.
John: At a certain point, one of his brothers came along and was like, hey, I'm going back to the United States.
John: Do you want to come?
John: And I'm going to like open a whatever, I don't know, a windsurfing shop in Olympia, Washington, some dumb idea.
John: And Alfie was like, sure, I'll go to.
John: And so then he was up here in Washington.
John: He was like, wow, where are all the bars?
John: He didn't realize that there was a different kind of bar.
John: But Alfie...
John: Alfie started cement contracting when he was like – some guy came into a restaurant where he was bussing tables and was like, I've been watching you, kid, and I've got a job for you.
John: Really?
John: Got him into the cement game.
Merlin: So his heart is open.
John: Yeah.
John: He's ready for the universe to give him some kind of message.
John: But then at some point along the way, he was like, you know what?
John: Other people just make this harder.
John: And he went out on his own.
John: I totally get that.
John: I totally get that.
John: He's like the most jamming, kick-ass ninja cement contractor guy.
Merlin: This is why I don't want to manage.
Merlin: I'd rather just do it myself.
Merlin: Just do it, right?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Or do less that I can do.
Merlin: I mean, I'm not saying as a cementman or black sheep, but like, I, I totally get that.
Merlin: Like I would rather just, I mean, and, and just real quick, John, like when I used to have to not have to, my kid went to preschool, it's called co-op.
Merlin: Everybody helps out.
Merlin: And they wanted to put me on like making a website, which you can do very easily with say Squarespace.
Um,
Merlin: But I was like, nope, nope, nope.
Merlin: I'm happy to just go out and do some kind of San Francisco version of hard labor.
Merlin: Just have me go out and clean filthy toys or have me rake the sandbox.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: Anything where I could just put on headphones and not have to talk to somebody.
Merlin: That's my rake.
John: Yes.
Yes.
Merlin: Because I would do a really good job of this and I will stay late and help clean up after all the normies leave.
Merlin: Because I learned that at church.
Merlin: You always stay extra long and then help the people who are helping.
Merlin: And that makes you a helper, which is a good way to.
Merlin: It just makes you a better person.
Merlin: But I do not want to try to find the password for the FTP site you haven't opened in several years.
Merlin: That's computer stuff.
Merlin: And I don't really want to have a conversation because if I talk to anybody in San Francisco, even if they're nice and go to a co-op preschool, if they're a co-op preschool parent, they're still going to be asking me lots of questions that basically come down to status and money.
Merlin: And I would rather listen to a podcast and rake.
Merlin: Absolutely.
John: Absolutely.
John: I love Alfie and have always – I admire Alfie.
John: I've never met him and I admire him.
John: Well, because Alfie's lived a thousand lives before he was 25 years old.
John: You know, Mary Ellen and her husband, Bill Dubé, they were married by Timothy Leary.
John: And their wedding was in Life magazine.
Merlin: Oh, but they were into it.
Merlin: It wasn't like a Mooney situation.
Merlin: Oh, it was like... Did they seek him out?
Merlin: They said, Dr. Leary, we would love for you to... No, they were all friends.
John: Bill Dubé, I think, married Timothy Leary and his wife.
John: Oh, my goodness.
John: They were all like in the sleeping bag together.
John: Okay.
John: So this is, you know, Alfie's universe is like...
John: Just when you think it's safe to go back in the water, right?
John: All of a sudden, Alfie's got some other story where you're like, you what now?
John: But so I'm there with Alfie.
Merlin: See, just for what it's worth, I would rake with Alfie.
Merlin: Because first of all, I don't think we'd have over much extraneous conversation about what middle school you're trying to get them into.
Merlin: But it seems to me I would learn from him.
Merlin: I would learn from his raking and his open heart.
Merlin: And I would not be against that.
John: He said this to me when he first said, like, you should have a patio.
John: He said, I'll do the cement, but I don't prep.
John: And I was like, you don't prep.
John: And he said, no, I work alone.
Merlin: He manages expectations.
John: I don't prep.
John: You prep and I'll come pour the concrete.
John: Okay.
John: So that's why I was raking.
John: Alfie doesn't rake.
John: Alfie doesn't rake.
John: Okay.
John: Alfie, I mean, Alfie like does a very nice broom finish if you ask him for it.
John: But what had happened was Alfie and I were standing there.
John: We did all this work ourselves.
John: I cleared the site.
John: I did the raking.
John: I leveled the ground.
John: He came and he said, it's not quite level, but it's fine.
John: And then he set up his forms and we're sitting there and I said, so what happens now?
John: And he said, well, a guy from the concrete company is going to come in a concrete truck.
John: And I was like, right.
John: I've been seeing those since I was a kid.
John: Oh, the big turning barrel kind?
John: Yeah, I always wanted to have an interaction with a concrete truck.
John: It's one of the first things you see when you're a little kid.
Merlin: I mean, even before, when it comes down to shoot, obviously, that's exciting.
Merlin: That's the money shot of a concrete truck.
Merlin: But just watching it turn lazily while you're waiting at a red light, that'll make a kid happy.
John: Right, it made me so happy.
John: I was always like, what am I looking at right now?
John: Why is this truck so cool?
John: So my whole life, I've wanted to have some reason to have a concrete truck.
John: uh come to my house and now i have one yep and i was like cool all right so but he said the other person that's coming is the concrete pumper oh and i said the concrete truck isn't and then even as i said it i realized how dumb i sounded of course the concrete truck doesn't pump it and so then i was like well what
John: who is this mysterious person?
John: And he was like, the concrete pumper is, is the key to the whole operation.
John: And he said, you know, I'm over here in Seattle.
John: This isn't where I normally do business.
John: I, uh, I called, I called a concrete company.
John: They're all pretty much, I mean, they're all different.
John: And if you're in the game, if you're in the game, you're going to prefer one to the other, but I'm over here in Seattle.
John: I just, you know, I picked a reputable company.
John: But the pumper, I'm not just going to use some local pumper from here.
John: I'm having my guy come over from Kitsap County.
John: He's got a guy.
John: He's got a pumper.
John: He's got his pumper.
John: So we sit there and up rolls this rattle trap truck and this guy jumps out and he, this guy's got a lot of charisma.
John: He's a
John: He's a guy, he's got long hair on the top and back, but shaved on the sides.
John: Held up in a kind of haphazard.
John: Kind of an early 90s industrial kind of look?
John: That's exactly right.
John: With a little bit of a man bun type of thing, but it's kind of coming loose.
John: That's a colorful pumper.
John: And he's got this old truck that's got this crazy diesel motor on it that looks like it was taken from a submarine.
John: And he's...
John: he starts it up and he's put, he's got hoses all over and while he's working, he's talking and he's talking about what comes to mind because he is not someone who ever thought, I mean, the thing is, I don't know if he ever thought to himself, what if I just talked less and was just like a, like a cowboy, you know, what if I was just a guy that just, that just had a chair root in his mouth and,
John: And he starts talking and he starts going.
John: And at a certain point, we get over into the territory of is coronavirus real or is it a thing that got made –
John: By the CIA and the Chinese and the Martians.
Merlin: And you're going to have to go through a thing where it's like it's not even one – there's not even like a simple monad of argument to disagree about.
Merlin: There's a whole constellation of like unpacking what was your journey to get to whatever your wackadoo is.
John: Well, and so –
John: As I say, my response to things like that, when a guy with a concrete pumping truck and a 90s industrial man bun is uncoiling.
John: Your Terminator head's up this way.
John: It's just running through all the options.
John: Like there's 200 feet of articulated hose or whatever.
John: And he's talking about how coronavirus may or may not be real.
John: He's not willing to say.
John: Uh-huh.
John: I go.
John: He's just asking the question, really.
John: Well, that's right.
John: And I go, right, right, right.
John: You brought a big bastic of ellipses.
John: Well, because I'm loving it, right?
Merlin: Sure.
John: Tell me more.
John: I got zero dog in the race.
Merlin: This is not the first time that this particular individual has thought about this.
John: No, and I don't, I gain nothing by taking any side in this, right?
John: Totally.
John: He's going to pump this concrete.
Merlin: I'm going to argue with the pumper.
John: We're going to shake hands.
John: But Alfie, who is, you know, he's our age.
John: Alfie, who works with this guy quite a bit, does the thing where he, in very measured tones, explains to this guy,
John: Why coronavirus is real and why he, why his attitude is dangerous and not in a way that is off putting.
John: The guy really clearly really respects Alfie.
John: Alfie tells an anecdote about a fireman he met who thought coronavirus was fake and how Alfie felt like that was a very dangerous position for a fireman to take.
John: And he just, he did the thing that I never do.
John: which is address the concrete pumper's bonkers soliloquy and straighten him out.
John: And at the end, the concrete pumper has got nothing.
John: All he can do is like back out of the room and go like, well, I'm not saying, but anyway.
John: I'm not saying, I'm just saying.
John: Yeah.
John: Have you, you know, did you see the big game last night?
Mm-hmm.
John: And in that same situation, if Alfie had not been there, I would have, it's like in the old days when a Hare Krishna would come up to me in the airport, I would always stop.
John: And I would let them talk until they expired.
John: And they never expire.
John: They always find more air.
John: And so I would spend an hour and a half standing in the airport listening to somebody talk to me about Hari Rama.
John: You probably missed some flights, I imagine.
John: Rama Rama.
John: Well, I had nowhere to be, you know.
John: I landed at the airport.
John: You play rock music.
John: You know, there was nobody coming to pick me up.
John: At a certain point, I was going to have to go find a bus.
John: So why not stand and talk to you?
John: I got all day.
John: But...
John: But the idea, the experience, because you have it all the time, because there are so many people I know who in that situation would have started arguing with the guy.
Merlin: Right, right.
Merlin: And like no matter how good you are at arguing, it's like the flat earth thing where it's like, you know what?
Merlin: You know more about your fake thing you think is true than I do about the real thing that's true.
Merlin: And it's very hard to like isolate the argument to just this one thing because there's always another thing.
Merlin: And you start with, well, you know, actually, you know, this is really true and a lot of people get sick and tired.
Merlin: Yeah, but the media.
Merlin: But wait a minute.
Merlin: And you know what I mean?
Merlin: And you start chasing the same kind of, like, disordered thinking that leads to that sort of standpoint, don't you think?
Merlin: Now you're arguing.
Merlin: Now you're arguing with someone.
John: That's what's amazing about... It was amazing to watch Alfie do the thing that I've never been able to do.
John: That's a gift, man.
John: Which is to just...
John: In a very friendly way and not pedantically because Alfie doesn't put on airs.
John: And I think that might be part of it.
John: He sounds plain spoken.
John: He does not put on airs, right?
John: Alfie didn't go to college.
John: Alfie was working in the bars of Puerto Vallarta when he was 14.
Merlin: So Alfie doesn't put on any... He went to the school of inland, you know, wave riding.
Merlin: Every kind of knock, not just hard ones.
Merlin: Alfie went to the school of all the knocks.
Merlin: A lot of people get a couple hard knocks and they think they've graduated.
Merlin: They've matriculated, but they have not graduated.
John: No, and Alfie's got knocks for days.
John: So he doesn't... Alfie's not trying to tell you that he's got more of an education than you do.
John: And he's got no skin in the game, right?
Yeah.
John: Well, I mean he's – But I mean he doesn't like – not like his dignity.
John: He does feel like he has skin in the game in the sense that he thinks that there is a world of truth and then there are things that aren't true.
John: And it's not connected to an opinion about himself.
Merlin: I guess that's kind of what I meant.
Merlin: It's not like his dignity is bound up in a certain narrative that he's decided explains life.
John: He doesn't have to be right.
John: Right.
John: Correct.
John: And you don't have to be wrong.
John: Oh, boy.
John: There's true or there's not.
Mm-hmm.
John: And this guy that Alfie was talking to, I think he came out of that conversation feeling like maybe he wasn't wrong, but that he, I mean, I honestly feel like maybe he, that the next job site probably said some of the things that Alfie said, you know, he went to the next job site and was like, you know, there's this fireman that doesn't believe in Corona virus.
John: And I think that's pretty dangerous.
John: You know, it's Alfie has the kind of, he's, he was convincing because he was, um,
John: Cause he was just, uh, he, he was a vessel for, for what he believed and not a, um, he wasn't an agent of it.
Merlin: He wasn't a warrior in that particular exchange.
John: Right.
John: He was not, he was not an agent of an idea.
John: He was just a vessel and, and that was intentional.
John: You could see him do it.
John: He was doing it, um,
John: Because he works in the trades, right?
John: And he works in the trades in the county and in the fucking Kitsap County, which is like Kitsap County is where Ben Shepard is from.
John: Like Ben Shepard's the most advanced life form that ever came out of Kitsap County.
John: Who's Ben Shepard?
John: He's the bass player of Soundgarden.
John: Not the most advanced life form to ever come out of the world, but to come out of Kitsap County.
John: And so you're working in the trade.
John: So he must every day show up at a job site where there's somebody who's going to, who's trying to tell him that the, that the earth is hollow and he's just, he's just methodical about, um, I don't think he even ever said no.
John: He just, and the whole time I'm sitting there going, right, right.
John: Right.
John: Right.
John: Right.
John: So the coronavirus was created.
John: Oh, you're not saying it was.
John: You're just saying some things point to.
Merlin: Well, in some ways, I don't want to discredit your thing that's become so important to me, the idea of a thought technology or an idea one tries on like a sports coat.
Merlin: But there are certain kinds of people whose, let's say, whose ability to be persuaded has more fecundity.
Merlin: Maybe they have an open mind in two sets of air quotes where like they feel pretty swayed by the person they're talking to right now.
Merlin: We have friends like that.
Merlin: Yes, we do.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: They're persuaded by the last person they talked to.
John: Yes.
Merlin: And, but like maybe he, he has what he considers.
Merlin: And this is, again, there's a, there's a very, very popular, uh, podcaster that I think does this a lot, which is, uh, and his name rhymes with Shmoe Shmogan and, and somebody who just, who seems like a seeker, right?
Merlin: Somebody who seems like a sneaker and they're just asking the question and like, they're just out there, like just open to all the ideas in the world, unconstrained by all of the ideology and, um,
Merlin: sort of doctrine of all you quote unquote scientists.
Merlin: So he probably considers himself a pretty open-minded person.
Merlin: The, the, the pumper.
John: Yes.
John: Well, that's the thing.
John: I think if you, well, it's the classic adage, right?
John: The less, you know, the less you don't know, you don't know.
John: Oh yeah.
John: Um, and yeah, I think that, I think the pumper has a really good time because the, the pumper, uh,
John: from the moment he got out of his car, I said, you know, this guy's got something like I've, I've, uh, I haven't had all of the knocks that, that some of my cousins have had.
John: Um, but I've been around enough to know that when I meet a guy who's the assistant managers of Popeye's chicken and you, and he is clearly like the center of his world, um,
John: um that that guy is like he's the big wheel right like if if you're the assistant manager and there are 10 people working for you and after work you take them all out and get them high and then you know and you've got one of those apartments where people can come by any time and you there's always you know like the uh the nintendo is always on and there's always there's always pizza you're like the
John: You're like, and you, and your girlfriend is going and she works over here at the Fuddruckers and she, her friends are like, you're the center and it may be a small world, but it's, it's a real world.
John: You're the center of it.
John: And this guy really had that vibe.
John: Like I just, I instantly liked him.
Merlin: I thought he was charismatic.
John: A lot of charisma and a lot of just like, he's just got kind of a big guy energy and you could, you could absolutely see him, um, after work.
John: sitting around, uh, on some beanbag chairs with the, with the other, with the other, uh, Popeye's chicken people.
John: And he's holding court, the crew, right?
John: He's holding court and he's talking about, uh, the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
John: And he's talking about how no one has ever seen the,
John: Uh, Johnny Cash and Jonathan Winters in the same room at the same time.
Merlin: Right.
John: People are like, wow, this guy's blowing my mind.
Merlin: But if you, this is a lot like an Elon Musk type situation in, in, in, uh, in microcosm, which is like, if you're somebody who's not surrounded by people that feel empowered and able to
Merlin: Well, let's just say sometimes you shouldn't argue with the boss.
Merlin: If you want to keep enjoying that Nintendo and, you know, and cooking up those three piece spicy white meats, you know, you'll be better off to not, you know, he's he's maybe he's not exactly like a Joffrey, but like, don't you don't he's not there to hear your opinions.
Merlin: Uh, to contravene his questions.
John: Maybe.
John: Some of, you know, some of that, I mean, that's like over into the like bullying boss category.
John: Yeah, probably.
John: There are just, there are worlds, of course, where the most educated person in the room doesn't have to be that educated.
John: I love that.
John: And so you, you can be the smartest guy or the guy that's read the most books.
John: Mm hmm.
John: And still not be tapped into like what the CDC, what the CDC's latest story.
Merlin: Sometimes being smart doesn't make you all that smart.
John: Well, and that's the other problem.
John: Like I often find myself in worlds where everybody in the room is so quote unquote.
John: Oh, just the devastating air quotes I'm making right now.
John: Educated.
John: Oh, education.
John: You can't fake that.
John: Well, but no one in the room has any sense of what reality is.
John: They're educated.
Merlin: So they're kind of arguing about different things they read in different books or heard other people mention that were in books.
John: That's what happened.
John: They assimilated things they read to the point that they have become, I mean, their attitudes, their worldviews.
Merlin: And they're not riddled with self-doubt.
Merlin: It's always handy to be an adult who's riddled with self-doubt.
Merlin: And if you feel like you are the final word,
Merlin: You know, not the final word necessarily.
Merlin: Or the vessel of the final word.
Merlin: Vessel of the final word where you got a fucking answer for everything.
Merlin: And you begin your sentences with sounds like this.
Merlin: You know?
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: You know what I'm talking about?
Merlin: And it's like, well, you know, well, actually, you know, calculus, you know, was, you know, discovered in several different places or whatever.
Merlin: Except they say it with a lot of decisiveness.
Merlin: Like it's something they read in, I don't know, the Paris Review.
John: Right.
John: It's the decisiveness that's kind of the... I hate decisiveness.
Merlin: Oh, God.
Merlin: It's such a turnoff, John.
Merlin: I really don't like it.
Merlin: I mean, I get it when you're young.
Merlin: Like, if you're... And I'm not just saying this.
Merlin: No shade, no lemonade on teens.
Merlin: But, like, if you've reached 35 and you still think you know what the fuck is going on in the world, I don't want to be in your boat.
John: You know what I'm saying?
John: Well, I do, and I don't know what to do about it because I... About which part?
Yeah.
Merlin: Well, you don't feel the need to reform these folks, right?
Merlin: I mean, you don't feel the need.
Merlin: And actually, there's a book I've been reading that gets into this.
Merlin: This is called High Conflict.
Merlin: And it's the idea that like in a high conflict situation, you eventually just develop contempt and scorn for people.
Merlin: And the only thing you live to do is embarrass them.
Merlin: And maybe that's not a great way to run anything, including a country.
Merlin: It's like if all we have for other people is contempt, like how do we get out of that?
Merlin: We hope we will humiliate people into agreeing we're right.
Right.
John: But you don't do that, right?
John: One of the best parts about my college education was when I learned that the governing principle – I'd been in the comparative history of ideas for a long time and I'd never been –
John: You know, I'd been soaking in it, right?
John: But I was not one of those, like, four years straight through college people, as you know.
John: I came and I went.
John: People were in charge.
John: Other people were in charge.
John: There were fashions.
John: Academic fashions came and went.
John: There's Gonzaga.
John: Well, no, this was at University of Washington.
Merlin: No, I'm just saying, though, you've moved around.
Merlin: I mean, you're not exactly an inland windsurfer, but, like, you've seen a little bit of world.
Merlin: But compared to history ideas, the whole idea is— Yeah, go ahead.
John: To be an undergraduate in 1990 or 87 and to be an undergraduate in 2004, those are completely different universes.
John: Really?
John: Of college.
John: Yeah, absolutely.
John: What was academically fashionable in 1990 and academically fashionable in 2010, so much has changed.
John: I mean, you have a whole generation of people that were students that became teachers in that time.
John: And it's a game of academic telephone, but it's also just different waves of thought.
John: And what seemed really novel in 1990 seemed really corny in 2000, but really novel again in 2010.
John: Always coming in under a new wrapper, always a new set of authorities in
John: but a lot of the work is based on the work that came before that also was not really, I don't ever really feel fully vetted.
John: The, the, what was interesting to me was learning as I started to kind of take a more, uh, more of a leadership role in the department still as an undergraduate, but just as an old man, you know, I'm 35 years old.
John: I'm standing around.
John: I'm still a,
John: I'm still a senior.
John: And so, you know, so they were like, you know, since you're a senior emeritus.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, you, you know, here, here we grade these papers or whatever, since you're standing around, but realizing that the goal of college, as they saw it, as the leaders of comparative history of ideas at the time, so Jim, Jim Klaus and, and John Taves,
John: The idea was that a student came into Chid and left with more questions than they had when they came.
John: Oh, that's good.
John: Left with less understanding, less certitude, less of a sense that they had the full picture.
John: And every quarter at the end of the big class, you would see students kind of line up.
John: and say like, wait, that's it?
Merlin: That's, there's no... There's still a bunch of pieces missing from the puzzle box.
John: Yeah, you didn't like, for the last month I've been waiting for you to tie it up.
John: Yeah.
John: And you never did, and you just laid out more and more loose threads right up until the last day, and then you close the book and say, have a nice summer?
Yeah.
John: And, you know, and you could see, you could see, uh, kids that were really disturbed.
John: And I remember that feeling of being like, wait, wait, wait, wait, you can't do that.
John: You can't just, you can't just leave me here.
John: And, and then understanding that that was the point.
John: That was what they were trying to do.
John: Like, see you next quarter.
John: We're going to give you even more to think about and less certitude.
John: Like that was, um,
John: I think more than anything else I learned in college, that was the thing that had the biggest impact was understanding that I was not here to come out the other side with an understanding.
Yeah.
John: That wasn't what this was about at all.
Merlin: Well, and especially an understanding that has been tacitly or formally presented as a truth for all times.
John: And that, I feel like, is a crime.
John: If you go to college and you're given that...
John: And they say, like, here it is.
John: Here's what you've been looking for.
John: Yeah.
John: That that is that that's a criminal enterprise is what that is.
Merlin: There's also a nice I may be playing both sides of the fence because it's the sort of thing a liberal arts graduate does.
Merlin: But I also feel like, boy, I'm in trouble for this.
Merlin: You know, there's a couple concepts that I think are widely acknowledged as being the most wilting comeback.
Merlin: or an accusation that just ends the conversation, like because you've just got owned.
Merlin: Is this a sick burn?
Merlin: Yeah, kind of.
Merlin: One is hypocrisy.
Merlin: Once you accuse someone of hypocrisy, it's game over.
Merlin: Like you found something that, and like I learned in eighth grade, a paradox is a statement that contradicts itself or appears to contradict itself.
Merlin: So thank you, Mr. Self, in eighth grade.
Merlin: I still think about that a lot.
Merlin: A paradox is a paradox.
Merlin: And in this case, the one is hypocrisy.
Merlin: Oh, yeah, but then you did X, Y, Z. And it's like, oh, no, I am pwned.
Merlin: I'm a corncob.
Merlin: But that's not great rhetorically.
Merlin: And the other one, though, is hypocrisy.
Merlin: And then the other one's science, where it's like, one can, and this might be a straw man, but I feel like I run into this.
Merlin: And maybe contra the fighting with the flat earther thing.
Merlin: But you go like, oh, yeah, but the thing is, there's science.
Merlin: Science!
Merlin: And then you spray your science sauce all over whatever the topic is.
Merlin: Like, that's just going to end the conversation.
Merlin: And there's so many levels to that that are not as effective, as with hypocrisy, the accusation of hypocrisy.
Merlin: There are so many levels to that approach that are not nearly as effective as they seem.
Merlin: Because you're basically flashing your badge...
Merlin: And it may not even be a real badge, but you're flashing a badge to say, I speak for science.
Merlin: And if you really interrogate that a little bit, well, you know what one of the most basic tenets of science is?
Merlin: Is that we come up with the best thing we can at the time, but the most important part of what we do is being open to the idea.
Merlin: that we don't even have our ladder against the right wall, that we don't even understand the scope of the problem we're trying to solve, but in theory, a constant curiosity to improve what we do, to learn more, and then update that, but to never arrive at this point where we go, now it's science, and therefore it's true forever.
Merlin: I would think that that's people who are doing good science, but then...
Merlin: That doesn't mean that you get to go around and like mention something, a headline that you saw in Harper's about something and then declare that science.
Merlin: And it's like, well, is it peer reviewed?
Merlin: Is it like, you know, there's just all these different things.
Merlin: And I'm as guilty as anybody of this where like I would just like to –
Merlin: I would like to flash my badge and go, well, the reason I'm not going to argue with you about COVID is because science.
Merlin: And I think that's a fairly valid thing to say, but I don't think it's as effective as some people think it is.
Merlin: And like so many of the great liberal tropes,
Merlin: it's actually, it works against you much more often than you realize.
Merlin: If you don't take into account the whole, if you're, if it's not what your goal is, is your goal to just flash your badge and be a dick and then walk away?
Merlin: Or is your badge to like have some kind of like, is your, is your goal to have some kind of a, I don't know, reasonable discussion where you learn a little bit.
Merlin: I'm not, I'm not married to this, but I do think that that's a real pointy headed dick move to constantly be pulling out your science badge.
Merlin: And in this instance, my God,
Merlin: The poetry in motion.
Merlin: But when you do that, like, OK, first of all, are you a scientist or are you are you somebody who heard a piece on NPR that's based on something that was a press release from a university about unreplicated?
Merlin: I mean, whatever.
Merlin: I'm not going to get into that here because I'm not the science badger.
Merlin: So it depends on what you're trying to accomplish.
Merlin: You know, I mean, do you want to be right or do you want to be less wrong?
John: Right.
John: Well... Right.
John: You know, I... Right.
John: Right.
John: I, um...
John: As a liberal artist, I am now increasingly and now maybe completely convinced that the liberal arts are not sciences.
John: Really?
John: Is it more like computer maths?
John: I would even – I'd give the hat tip to computer maths in that case.
Merlin: I love – man, you're practically like an Alfie.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: You're just out there gathering.
Merlin: Can I give you one more response?
Merlin: And I do have to quote a TV show.
Merlin: Here's a response.
Merlin: Here's a response I say a lot.
Merlin: It's just something I think about.
Merlin: There's an episode.
Merlin: A response?
Merlin: Is it a response?
Merlin: I'm a response in my Bastic and Panatos, which is that this is a quote from, there's an episode of Mystery Science Theater, Christmas-related episode, very good episode.
Merlin: And Joel is asking the robots, like, what they want for Christmas.
Merlin: And everybody talks about what they want for this catalog.
Merlin: And then Crow says, I want to decide who lives and who dies.
Merlin: And Joel goes, oh, I don't know.
Merlin: But, like, isn't that kind of the response sometimes where it's like, oh, I don't know.
John: Yeah.
John: You know?
John: I don't know.
John: Sure.
John: But, yeah, probably not.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Affirmative.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Do you – should we keep talking like this when we come back next time?
Merlin: Or was this enough for – oh, wait, now.
Merlin: See, now my energy is back up.
Merlin: I got to bring it back down.
John: That's the thing.
John: I feel like somewhere along the line I lost –
John: My low energy because I started talking about something with you that I felt like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
John: I've got to say a thing.
John: Yeah.
John: And then it was all gone.
John: I didn't need to put one-tenth the amount of physical energy into this show that I did.
John: Whoa.
John: I could have just been – I could have done this whole show like this.
Whoa.
John: Wouldn't have taken anything.
John: I would have been the Amy man of this show, just standing there in a three-piece suit, not sweating a bit, just letting the microphone do the work.
Merlin: Wait, she's in a three-piece suit or you're her in a three-piece suit?
John: She's in a three-piece suit and I'm her in a three-piece suit.
John: Okay.
John: In her in a three-piece suit.
Merlin: Oh, I don't know.