Ep. 463: "Proud of His Pies"
John: Seven pumpkin pies.
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
Merlin: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: It sounds like you just fell down some stairs, maybe carrying some cakes.
Merlin: Seven strawberry pies.
Merlin: That was my favorite.
John: I used to love that one.
Merlin: He had the chef's hat and then he fell down the steps.
Merlin: He fell down the steps.
Merlin: He should get help with that.
John: He lost all those pies.
Merlin: He lost all the pies.
Merlin: You think he was a sole entrepreneur?
Merlin: I do.
Merlin: I do.
Merlin: I think he was.
Merlin: And he was so proud of his pies.
Merlin: He was announcing his pies.
Merlin: He was a pie entrepreneur, not cereal, but pie.
Merlin: He was working on his own.
Merlin: Now, do you think that was side hustle or was that his main jam?
Merlin: He would definitely be doing a TED talk today.
John: I think he was trying to start a small business.
John: I think he was proud of his pies and he just couldn't navigate those stairs in it.
John: He was proud of his pies.
Merlin: And like, okay, so this is, okay, sorry.
Merlin: Hi, I'm pushing 60.
Merlin: When I was a child, there was a TV show called Sesame Street and it was great.
Merlin: And one of the bits, they did a lot of counting.
Merlin: Ha, ha, ha.
Merlin: They did a lot of counting.
Merlin: And one of them, there was a baker man wearing a chef's toque.
Merlin: And if memory serves, he did fall down some steps.
Merlin: While he's carrying his pies and counting how many pies he was carrying.
Merlin: Although, now, talk about almost 60.
John: Can you cancel for this?
John: No, talk about almost 60.
John: I'm remembering it, maybe incorrectly, but...
John: As an electric company bit.
Merlin: Oh, it might have been electric company.
Merlin: You're totally right.
Merlin: Okay, so here's the thing I'm going to mention.
Merlin: Everybody tune out for a minute.
Merlin: This is going to be real obscure.
Merlin: Is there any chance you've ever seen on TV or clips of the Paul Lind Halloween special from the mid-70s?
Merlin: Probably 75-6.
John: Oh, no, you're right.
John: It is Sesame Street.
John: And he is wearing his chef's hat.
Merlin: I haven't looked at it yet, but it will almost definitely, you will probably hear the audio at the beginning of this recording.
Merlin: He does fall down the stairs.
Merlin: Okay, now here's the thing.
Merlin: Paul Lin, who's a little campy sometimes, did a Halloween special that I'm going to pin to 19.
Merlin: It was definitely not before 75.
Merlin: It was probably 76.
Merlin: Wow.
Merlin: It had Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch, from Wizard of Oz, and it had Witchy Poo from H.R.
Merlin: Puff and Stuff.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: And it was in a castle, a really kind of, the word we used back then was flamboyant.
Merlin: It was in a flamboyant castle, and the musical guest- Liberace's castle.
Merlin: John, how do you imagine that I know it couldn't have been before 1975?
Merlin: Because the rock band Kiss came out and played Detroit Rock City.
Merlin: Oh, wow.
Merlin: There it is.
John: Get up.
John: It couldn't have been after 78 because they would have been playing something else.
Merlin: And the cat would have been out.
Merlin: Was that the elder?
Merlin: 78 was not.
Merlin: Okay, look.
Merlin: Listen.
Merlin: Everybody tune out.
Merlin: Talk about getting canceled.
Merlin: Stop, look, and listen.
Merlin: Stop.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: I don't think 1978, in my memory at least, was a particularly high point for Kiss.
Merlin: That's, I want to say, around Dynasty.
Merlin: But do you remember when they did I Was Made For Loving You, kind of a disco song?
John: I do.
John: My peak Kiss was 77 for me.
Merlin: 75 to 77 was a hell of a run.
Merlin: And 74, once you get into it, the deeper cuts earlier are great.
John: Well, you know, but you're a year two older than me.
John: Right.
John: So 77 was, I would have been not yet 10.
John: Yep.
John: Yep.
John: It was the Star Wars year.
John: That was the Star Wars year.
John: And that was the year that Kiss army really took over.
John: And Marvel made the comic.
Merlin: Remember the Marvel Kiss comic book that had the blood of Kiss in the ink?
John: I sure do.
John: And I decided in that moment, in that time...
John: That I was, you know, because you always got to pick a side.
Merlin: Oh, a hundred percent.
Merlin: And a lot of these are fake, but they were real at the time.
Merlin: Like Beatles versus the Stones is asinine for so many reasons.
Merlin: But like, you got to be like, I mean, what are some of the other famous?
Merlin: Oh, obviously Blur and Oasis.
Merlin: Who cares?
Merlin: Blur's better.
Merlin: Who cares?
Merlin: Oasis is terrible.
Merlin: Sorry, I'm going to really get... Oh, boy.
Merlin: This is the one.
Merlin: John, this is going to be my January of 2021?
John: Here it is.
John: Merlin stands his ground and says, Oasis is terrible.
John: I don't think there are that many... I just hope they don't live forever, if you know what I'm saying.
John: ...that feel that awful about it, that you're really going to get yelled at.
Merlin: But you've got to pick a site.
Merlin: Okay, here's another one from 1977.
Merlin: Are you into Star Wars or into Star Trek?
John: Right.
John: I remember that very much.
John: I remember you needing to pick...
John: And I refused to pick in that one.
Merlin: I was like, they're so different.
Merlin: Bob and David, Star Wars versus Empire Strikes Back.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: I won't pick.
Merlin: I think 77 was the year, at least in my recollection.
Merlin: It's early, John.
Merlin: I got a lot going on.
Merlin: ADD Mondays.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: Chris Christopherson could write a really good song about me.
Merlin: ADD morning coming down.
Merlin: I feel like 77 and 78, that arc of fifth grade for me, was the year Kiss tipped from like, you know, this is like going to be like a Judas Priest level of you're not allowed to listen to this scary music to like, they really were, one doesn't like to put it in these terms, but marketing to me, pretty much.
Merlin: To childs.
Merlin: To childs.
Merlin: And being in comic books is a clue.
John: Yeah, right.
Merlin: They weren't as big as Big Hostess in terms of, you know, Ben Franklin and Kool-Aid and stuff like that.
Merlin: But Kiss was marketing to us and it worked because they still felt very dangerous to me.
John: In that moment when Kiss Army, you know, like the kids in my school were putting Kiss Army patches on their denim jackets.
John: And I've always, you know, I've always been a little bit of a contrarian even then, even at eight years old.
Merlin: No, you weren't.
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John: I decided that I was all about Queen.
John: Oh, my God.
John: Well, of course, that's news of the world.
John: That's news of the world.
John: Oh, my God.
John: I was I was all about Queen.
John: We are the champions.
John: Oh, my God.
Merlin: And bicycle.
Merlin: I guess that was a year later.
Merlin: But yeah.
Merlin: No, I totally agree.
Merlin: And they were like, we will rock.
Merlin: You will come on.
Merlin: We will rock you.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: That was that was like frozen when my kid was in kindergarten.
John: Right.
John: Every kid.
John: Every kid loved Queen.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: Yes, John.
John: Yeah.
John: So when the other kids would be like, kiss, and they'd do their kiss army, like, I'd be like, we will, we will rock you.
John: And I'd be, you know, like, I don't know.
John: I didn't even care that much.
John: But then when the kiss solo, when they all had their solo records.
John: Oh, but you did get New York Groove.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I mean, that's just a very good song, but the solo albums, and then they weren't cut out until I think, let me check, last week.
John: Anyway, then I was done with Kiss.
John: From that point on, I was just like, meh.
John: You think you jumped the shark a little bit?
John: Yeah, and I would fight anybody about it.
John: And then in the grunge years, fast forward to 1993...
John: All those grunge dudes in Seattle, they were all Kiss fans.
Merlin: But it's like Husker Du, where it takes time to go, wait a minute, this was just crunchy pop music.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
John: Not just Beth, but I mean... It's like Big Star, you know, everybody had to confront the fact that, yeah, Big Star was just... It was like Tennessee did the kinks.
John: It was just the posies...
John: But, yeah, so then I had to go through that all again, sitting in these grotty bars in 1992, getting in fights with guys about Kiss.
Merlin: And I was like, Kiss is damage.
Merlin: I mean, I gotta say, like, they did the whole, well, they had an album called Unmasked, where they were still wearing makeup.
Merlin: 1984, they put out that video with Lick It Up, and you're like, oh, that's what they look like.
Merlin: Gung, gung, gung, gung, gung, gung.
Merlin: That was a real Mike Anthony bass line.
Ooh.
Ooh.
John: Yeah, they're garbage.
John: And when they took their paint off, you realize, oh, these guys are just like New York electricians.
Merlin: Well, there's that documentary about Twisted Sister that's really good.
Merlin: And you kind of can't help but love.
Merlin: What's that?
John: They also look like electricians.
Merlin: We were watching the basketball game last night, and the guy who's the really good player for the Mavericks, Luka Jokic or something like that, every time he's on screen, he's always really injured.
Merlin: But Madeline and I are both like, man, he really looks like a guy who's about to get fired from Home Depot.
John: The greatest line I ever heard from a stage was, I saw Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden.
Merlin: One of his helicopter in MSG shows?
John: One of his helicopter MSG shows.
John: I would have loved to have seen that.
John: Where he was, the lights came up and we were standing there trying to get ourselves oriented.
John: The guy that invited me to go to the show, he had these seats that were like right in the front.
John: We were backstage for a little while.
John: It was, he was in the music industry.
John: And it was pretty incredible, but the lights come up, we stand up out of our chairs and are kind of brushing the, you know, the dander off and just like, what do we do now?
John: I guess we got to, you know, and everybody's milling around.
John: There's all the ozone in the air.
John: And he says, you know what?
John: He's already airborne.
Merlin: i read i read a really good article slash interview with him about that and i don't know it's it's considered fashionable to make fun of billy joel but for you but i do respect the guy i think the guy's pretty i think the guy's been through some shit yeah and he's pretty straight up in a way that like he's really returned to his like i'm just i'm just a catholic uh guy from um long island kind of thing
John: Well, and that's the thing.
John: I, you know, I'm a super on the record, Billy Joel scoffer.
John: That's okay.
John: Uh, and, uh, and I went to this show in the same way that I go to 60% of shows, which is somebody's like, you want to go to the show?
John: And I'm like, man, sure.
John: Sure.
John: Why am I going to turn down going to see Billy Joel and Madison Square Garden?
John: No, of course I'm not.
Merlin: I'm sorry, but you just happened to be in New York city.
John: I was in New York city as I used to do.
John: And the guy was like, Hey, what are you doing?
John: And I was like, I don't know, you know, this, that, and the other.
John: And he was like, want to go see Billy Joel?
John: And I said, yes, I do.
John: And I was talking that whole time in this voice.
John: But anyway, we go.
John: And of course.
John: Of course.
John: I know every single song.
John: Of course you do.
Merlin: That album that came out in the mid-80s, his first greatest hits collection.
Merlin: It was on a cassette out of Airbnb we went to like eight years ago.
Merlin: And it was all I wanted to listen to the whole time.
John: Wow.
John: Wow.
John: Now my kid is super into Billy Joel.
John: The first time I heard Hall & Oates' Greatest Hits was in...
John: The nineties, like the mid nineties, somebody was playing it in a, in a, in a vegan bar.
John: I remember sitting at the bar.
John: The alcohol has animal products.
John: No, no, no.
John: It was like, you know, wheatgrass juice shots and like, Oh wow.
John: Barely steamed vegetables type of thing with tahini sauce.
John: It was very popular, uh, you know, in, in Seattle for a little while, it was called the gravity bar.
John: And it was like, everybody in there was super modern, but they were also all talking about their colons.
John: And I remember sitting there and listening to Hall & Oates.
John: Greatest Hits while my wheatgrass juice shots were being prepared.
John: And it was hit after hit after hit.
John: I couldn't believe it.
Merlin: Twice a year, I just burned through.
Merlin: For me, it's YouTube and for those videos of Private Eyes, Kiss on My List, and Don't... What song is that?
Merlin: It might be hard to handle.
John: You make my dreams come true.
Merlin: Those three in particular, they had that run.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: Yeah, and you know, they're almost always pictured left to right.
Merlin: Did you know that?
John: Yeah, I did.
John: Somebody told me about- I probably said that.
John: Maybe that was you, yeah.
John: Anyway, so Billy Joel- Billy Joel.
John: He plays whatever, three-hour set or whatever.
John: It's all amazing.
John: He gets sting up there at one point.
John: John Cougar Mellencamp joins him.
John: Oh, come on.
John: And this is when John Cougar is married to America's sweetheart Meg Ryan-
John: So Meg Ryan's there.
John: Whoa.
John: And so we're standing around backstage at one point, and it's like Sting and Meg Ryan and John Cougar and me and this guy.
John: Billy Joel's nowhere around.
John: But then he does this incredible show.
John: Then he's in a helicopter.
John: Then he's on a hovercraft.
John: But at one point, he's very casual.
John: He's very cool throughout the whole show.
John: You cannot help but love him.
John: Yeah.
John: And at one point, he says,
John: Not bad for a guy who looks like a plumber from Long Island.
John: And, yeah, and the crowd goes wild.
John: Because everybody in the audience also is a plumber from Long Island.
John: Yep.
John: And I'm like... That's his core demo.
John: You know what, man?
John: Yeah.
John: And you know who else looks like a plumber from Long Island?
John: Everyone in Kiss.
John: Everyone in Twisted Sister.
John: John Siracusa.
John: John Siracusa.
John: Big Billy Joel fan.
John: Joe Pernice looks like a plumber from Boston.
Yeah.
John: He does look like a Boston.
John: He's got the jaw.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, the thing is the whole time I toured with the Pernice brothers, I was always like, if Joe Pernice looked like anybody else,
John: This, they would be the biggest band in America, but he looks like he would look more like an a vet brother.
John: Yeah.
John: He looks like he, he, he's a carpenter on this old house and he plays into it.
John: Like he leans into it.
John: Right.
John: He could have done something else.
John: He could have whatever teased his hair, worn a flashy shirt, but he was like, no, I'm a carpenter.
John: And, and I carpened songs instead of houses and
Merlin: and it was like working girls are fine yeah but his songs oh you know what you know what it was there's such his bridges he almost his songs almost always have this idea his songs that i love a lot have this bridge that's almost identical song to song in a way like early beatles songs are but he does this relative minor thing like you know this b minor kind of thing on the bridges that just always breaks my heart it's like scientifically designed to just tear me apart it's a heartbreak yes yes you
John: You know what I'm talking about, though?
John: I mean, that sounds silly to say, but do you know what I mean?
John: They should have been at least as big as Spoon.
Merlin: Oh, man.
John: But Spoon looks so sharp.
Merlin: But this happens all the time to bands, in my estimation anyway.
Merlin: I'm frequently blown away by bands that maybe I didn't even hear at the time, especially in the early 80s.
Merlin: There were these periods in power pop...
Merlin: where, like, oh, it's a one-hit wonder.
Merlin: I hate that phrase.
Merlin: But, like, oh, it's this band that did this one thing, or, like, Shoes, or, like, you know, from Illinois, or, like, you know, the, what's it called, the Ruby News?
Merlin: Like, anyway, all these bands that you might have heard on a compilation, or, like, fucking Tommy Keen.
Merlin: You'll hear these bands, and it's like, how did they never crack further into my consciousness?
Merlin: And I felt that with the Pernice Brothers.
Merlin: When I first heard the one with the bird on it,
Merlin: which isn't a Portland record, I don't think, but the one, I think it might be the one with Working Girls, 730, that record.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: The World's Too Much or something.
Merlin: It sounds like a Morrissey album.
Merlin: The World Won't End, what's it called?
Merlin: That's what I'm thinking of.
Merlin: I have no idea.
Merlin: But it's that, it's one of those things where it's like, and it's so beautifully crafted and produced.
Merlin: It is kind of maybe too smooth, maybe for some people, but like, it always blew me away.
Merlin: Were they good live?
Merlin: I don't recall.
Merlin: Were they good live?
Merlin: Oh, they were so good.
John: They were one of the very few bands that I ever spent every night standing at the side of the stage, watching them work, trying to figure out how they were doing what they were doing.
John: Magic.
John: Like, not a surf was the other one, that I just never missed a show.
John: I mean, you know, I'm playing with them night after night, but I never missed a set because there was too much to learn.
Merlin: I love Matthew's voice so much.
Merlin: After the first record and their, like, you know,
Merlin: that weird, again, one hit wonder thing.
Merlin: Then they did the hyperspace record and the, you know, as a poo thinks it's now, you know, that, that one song.
Merlin: And it's like, that song should have been fucking huge.
Merlin: And yeah,
Merlin: He could choose to use that voice to cut glass, but instead he uses it to make delicious pudding.
Merlin: I fucking love Matthew Koz's voice so goddamn much.
Merlin: And that Ira's very handsome.
Merlin: He's a very handsome guy.
John: Yeah, you know, Matthew, also very beautiful.
John: He seems kind.
John: I've told all the stories, I think, about not a surf that there are to tell, but I'm a little mad right now.
John: Oh, no.
John: I'm a little mad.
Merlin: We've DMed a little, and he seems really nice.
Merlin: Oh, he's the best.
Merlin: Is he being caustic with you?
John: No, no, no.
John: Is he a turncoat?
John: No, there's absolutely nothing caustic about him.
John: He's not a turncoat at all.
John: Matthew caustic.
John: He is a lovely man.
John: He lives in England.
John: And they're going out on tour right now.
John: And lately, I have to say, Merlin, that I've been on Twitter a lot.
Merlin: John, this is not moving in the right direction, honey.
John: I'm following the war in Ukraine, and it's bad because there are still some people that I follow that are not talking about the war in Ukraine.
John: Andy Levy, the journalist, Mike Lee and Black, Ken Jennings, you, you know, like there are a few people I follow, and I have started commenting on
John: Jon, I feel like we've talked about this.
John: Well, we have.
John: And it's bad.
John: It's bad.
Merlin: Because when you comment, you let people know.
Merlin: I think it's previously stipulated.
Merlin: People become aware.
Merlin: I think this is especially true on Facebook, where they're wanting to say, not just that you took a shit, but how it went.
Merlin: And Jon just took a shit.
Merlin: But on Twitter, now people know you're there, right?
John: Well, and so, it hasn't become... Nobody's like, come at me here.
John: There's no... But what's happening is...
John: uh because i'm only following a few people that are making jokes like i don't want to comment on ukraine stuff because it's like what do i know i'm just a looky blue but somebody makes a little joke and i'm like lol ha here's the thing you know like weird twitter yep yep but then what in a split second i'm right back to well how come they haven't faved
John: my comment yet.
Merlin: Oh no.
John: Oh, how come, how come no one has said a funny thing in response to my funny thing.
John: And now we're in a funny thing back.
John: I thought we were here to play.
John: Remember like in the old tight on the whole thing.
John: Remember laughter?
John: Cause that's what it used to be like.
John: I commented on a Jason Isbell tweet and he faved my comment right away.
John: And I was like,
John: oh yeah, you know, like sweet.
John: He posted a picture of an amp.
John: There's that poisonous dopamine I was looking for.
John: That's right.
John: He posted a picture of an amp and I said, whoa, cool amp, bro.
John: And he was like, fave.
John: And I was like, yeah.
John: But then I did another one and nobody liked it.
John: And Urbaniac didn't like my thing where I liked his thing.
John: And I was like, oh no, this is awful.
John: It happened so fast.
John: And so I had to start like mute, mute, mute, mute all the people that I used to know and like, because I can't stop.
John: Like I, I, it's like, I'm a, it's like, I'm a,
John: I'm a weird guy peeping in their window somehow.
John: Yeah, you're a little bit like the guy in the creepy meme.
John: And then something, I don't remember what it was, took me to Instagram.
John: And I was there, and the first post I saw was Dan Benjamin riding a pink pony.
Merlin: Oh, he sent that to me in a message with no context.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Yeah, he didn't do that to me.
John: Which I know would be hard for you to believe, but... It was on Instagram, and I put a comment on there, and I thought it was a funny comment.
John: I was like, yeah, you made it funny.
John: And then I went to the next thing, and it was like Duff McKagan standing with Steve Jones at some Sex Pistols thing.
Merlin: Oh, because they're doing their TV show.
John: Yeah, and I was like, oh, that's cool.
John: You know, I know those guys.
John: Right on.
John: And then the third...
John: thing I saw was somebody else I know that was doing something cool.
John: And by the time I'd gotten to 20, just 20, like the first one minute of scrolling, I was like, what am I doing with my life?
John: All my friends are doing such cool stuff.
John: They're like in the sex pistols and stuff.
John: And I'm just nobody and I'm doing nothing.
John: Oh, John, come on.
John: And it was just, it happened that fast.
John: And what's great is, what's great about it is that it was so clearly...
John: completely connected to the
John: app, right?
John: Like I felt fine.
John: And then I logged on the app and then I didn't feel fine.
John: And that's all you need to know.
John: Like, that's all I need to know.
John: How do you mean the app?
John: How do you mean?
John: Well, I mean, it's just social media.
John: Like I was fine.
John: And whatever it is that I saw is irrelevant.
Merlin: You entered into the, you entered into that world and sort of, you were sort of sucked back in before you realized it.
John: And it immediately felt awful.
John: It was like walking into a bar and you're in there for five minutes and you're like, I feel terrible.
John: And it doesn't matter why.
John: What matters is leave this bar.
John: Like, don't go into a bar, stay there for five minutes, you feel terrible, and then try and solve the problem.
John: Like, there's no reason to be in this bar.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: But it's so, oh my God, it's so hard.
John: Right now in my life, I am, I don't know.
John: I don't know, Merlin.
John: No, no, come on.
John: We're talking about Kiss.
John: No, no, no.
John: I can't even talk about Kiss.
John: What about Billy Joel?
John: No, can't talk about Billy Joel.
John: Oh, the problem was... I like that song, Zanzibor.
John: There's Matthew Koss on Instagram, and he's like, we're going on tour!
John: And...
John: So here's the thing.
John: We opened for not a serve.
John: Longwinners did, on the national tour, the first half of the national tour, to support Let Go, their big Barsouk release.
John: Which was sort of a breakout in its way.
John: It made them into an indie band instead of like a failed major label.
Merlin: Fruit Fly, but what was the big hit?
Merlin: Love, Always Love?
John: Always Love.
John: Hey, we'll get you.
John: I've been held back by something, yeah.
John: Um, and so we, we did that tour with them.
John: And then of course we toured with them and played with them a thousand times after, but we never were asked to do a European tour with not a surf.
John: Now, not a surf is very big in Europe.
Merlin: Daniel probably has people he likes over there.
Merlin: And they're going to get more smokers on the tour.
Merlin: Probably.
John: They are the rare American band that can play 20 shows in France.
John: They play every wide spot on the road in France.
John: That seems like a good place.
Merlin: I've had friends in, not playing at that level, but a guy that I went to college with, he had a blues band, but good, like a rockin', you know, like talking heads and stuff, but blues.
Merlin: And he, they got a following in France.
Merlin: Where they could go and like you've described, you've described many times, I guess through Matt or whatever, having to deal with all the different bookers in all the different places and this particular guy for this one corner of Germany.
Merlin: But they developed in the same way that the SST bands had those paths that they would go down in the early 80s.
Merlin: You had a circuit you could play and reliably bring in the amount of people that you needed to sustain your band.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Well, and we had that in the Netherlands, and we had it in Spain.
John: The problem for our European tour, and we had it in Germany, the problem was I always wanted us to go to Inglang, because you can't be a rock band unless you're big in Inglang, and Inglang couldn't have given two shits about us.
John: And so we went to the Netherlands, and we went to Germany and Spain.
Merlin: Talking about picking a side, England's very much like that, Moz and Rockers.
Merlin: I think it's still kind of like that.
Merlin: I think the kind of music you like is...
Merlin: At least in my understanding from people I know who've lived there and watching a lot of TV and movies, it is a kind of mutual exclusion.
Merlin: We're like, if this is the kind of thing that you like, then you must necessarily sort of dislike these other things.
Merlin: It's hard to get economies of scale in such a snooty country.
John: Well, and it's weird because they're all about not being posh or being not posh or posh not being, you know, like there's it's so complicated over there socially.
John: Mm hmm.
John: Just because it's like, oh, are you... It's not just like, are you a chav or are you a middle class person?
John: It's just like by your accent, by the way your eyebrows waggle, it's just like, oh no, you're the wrong kind.
John: And it's like that with Banson.
John: Everybody I talked to agreed.
John: They either choose you or they don't, and there's nothing you can do about it.
John: You cannot beg, borrow, and plead.
John: It's a small...
John: And if the enemy likes you, then it's a thing.
John: And if they don't, it's then it's over.
John: And, um, and it was always bad to hear that from bands that the English liked kind of like bands that had gone to Japan and had a successful run.
John: They're like, yeah, sorry, man.
John: I don't know.
John: It's just so they like some bands and they don't like others.
John: And it's like, great.
John: Well, that's easy for you to say, but they didn't.
John: Right.
Merlin: Like Silver Sun or, or Cheap Trick.
Merlin: It's like, you're like, oh my God, I've heard that they are just, I mean, I think Silver Sun, like their whole career is like what have been Japanese stuff.
Merlin: And like, obviously Cheap Trick and Budokan, you know what I mean?
Merlin: There's these certain bands where you're like, I don't know how they made it past the red velvet rope, but it seems like they're in the, in the tribe now.
Yeah.
John: But the thing about France is it's not like England.
John: I never got the feeling that the English are such snobs and the French are snobs in different ways.
John: But the French just apparently listening, having listened to the radio in the car in France many, many times, I can say that they have terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible taste in music in France.
John: And so they like certain American bands, but they are never the good ones, except in the case of not a surf.
John: And the reason is that those guys speak fluent French, and also they're great.
John: But so they go on these tours.
John: Well, the Long Winters played one show in France in our entire careers.
John: What?
John: Really?
John: That's it?
John: They could not have wanted us less.
John: Uh-huh.
John: Every European tour we did, we made a ton of money going around Europe.
John: And then I would go, I did insist that we go to England and spend two weeks there and lose all of our money because everything in England is three times as expensive.
John: They don't give you any perks and then nobody comes to the show.
John: So, you know, we, we, we do this month long tour in Europe.
John: We'd all be flush with cash.
John: It would be like, we'd be riding this high.
John: And then I would say, now we're going to England and it would be cold.
John: The rooms would smell like pee.
John: The, it was just, it's a moldy country.
John: But we never even got invited to go to France.
John: And the one time we played in France, opening for Keen at a huge show.
John: And after the show, we were mobbed with fans, you know, like beautiful people.
John: So excited.
John: Why haven't we heard of you?
John: Why, you know, where have you come from?
John: Why don't you play here?
John: And I was like, go to your local, your local mayors and your city councils and tell them to invite the long winters.
John: But not a surf always goes over there and plays these big, beautiful theaters.
John: They play 20 shows in France.
John: And throughout the career of the Longwinchers, I would always say, why don't you guys take us to France?
John: Yeah.
John: You know, we go to Europe all the time, but we can't get into France.
Merlin: If we went to France, we'd invite you.
John: If we went to France with you guys one time, it would be like, then I could just have a whole, you know, go on tour there.
John: I wouldn't even have to go to England.
John: And they...
John: you know they're big they're big stars you know and it was just kind of a general you know that way that a band has a vibe death cab when you ask them for favors they have a real vibe about like oh yeah we'll have to talk to our manager and then you then is that version john is that a version of billing billing hamming well there's a little bit okay and not a sort of new york's you where they're like yeah good idea yeah oh it's in like we should get coffee sometime
John: Yeah, but then what it always came down to was, well, we're trying to take somebody out on this tour that's going to move some units.
John: You know, like we're going to take somebody out.
Merlin: You can like improve your Venn diagram because hopefully it is hoped that the people who are fans of your band will come.
Merlin: But then you could also Venn diagram a little bit because you got overflow with another band.
Merlin: Kind of like the whole reason you have guests on a podcast is like you bring two worlds together, you bring two audiences.
John: That's right.
John: But in music, I tend to think that it's bullshit.
John: You know, like whoever really goes and buys a ticket to see one of the openers.
John: It hardly ever happens.
John: Super fans, maybe.
John: And I guess the logic is, oh, I have seen Not A Surf five times, but they're actually playing with this other cool band.
John: So it's worth it to go a sixth time.
John: Like there's some of that to it.
John: But, you know, the long winters are not chopped liver.
John: You know, we're a big deal.
John: And I was in German Rolling Stone.
John: You know, we're like not nothing.
Merlin: But no.
Merlin: How do they say Rolling Stone in Germany?
Merlin: Should I say rolling?
John: Should I say rolling rocking?
John: Rolling rocking.
John: Anyway, so we always got a little bit big time to buy them.
John: Like, oh, yeah, well, yeah, next tour, maybe we'll think about it.
John: They never did.
John: They never thought about it.
Merlin: Matthew Kaz, I don't know if you're listening to the show, but this is your first episode.
Merlin: I'm very sorry.
John: Yeah, I don't think he does.
John: And the thing is, they were incredibly generous to us over the years.
John: I consider them extremely close.
John: I love Matthew and all of them to the very end of the year.
John: This is just a professional thing.
Merlin: This is just a little bit of a professional gripe.
Merlin: But it does, but shades into, but you're getting at something though, that's real, which is that it's not, there's the, you know, as we got a credit, Sean, it's a show business, not show friend.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: But here's the thing.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: The friend thing does factor into it.
Merlin: Cause if you can't get along with them or you feel like, you know what I mean?
Merlin: Like, yeah, I bet you really, when you're in a van or in proximity backstage, like there must be things where like you greatly amplify annoyances, you know, to one another.
John: Well, and we get along with them amazing, right?
Merlin: It doesn't add up because you're friends and you're good and you're not chopped liver.
Merlin: I mean, even, even Roland Rockinstone agreed.
John: But a lot of times a band doesn't want to bring another band because they're like, oh, we don't want, you know, like you, sometimes that happens and you go, oh, they're afraid of us.
John: Like they're jealous of us.
John: They don't want us to steal their thunder.
John: Like I'm convinced that Heath Barzillay,
John: was always mean to me because he felt like the Long Winters were a threat.
John: And I don't think they were.
John: I think Yves Barzillet and Clem Snide are amazing.
John: Long Winters are no threat to them.
John: But live, we played some shows together and he was just a snot to me every day.
John: And I was like,
Merlin: Why are you such a star?
Merlin: If you've got an act and I'm thinking here something like low or, you know, some kind of a band that's kind of a mood band or a feel band.
Merlin: And like, but you wouldn't want the fucking champs opening up for you because they'd be walking off the stage and people would be losing their shit.
Merlin: And then it's like, oh, this band comes out and like plays it, you know, 10 decibels for three hours.
John: Right, and that's understandable.
John: But, like, the Decembrists have a total universe creation vibe, and they never had any problem with us going on before them and playing, like, the...
John: like the terrible who like we're we're the terrible who and they were like okay that was fun now there's some accordion but so i'm on instagram sorry concertina they probably have no it wasn't even a concertina it was a custom-made instrument only played by the roma she seemed nice and the chris guy they both oh they're all very nice
John: Matthew is on Instagram and he's like, I'm so excited to go on tour.
John: You know, the bus is picking me up tonight and we're going out.
John: And he lists all the tour dates and it's a long tour.
John: It goes to every wide spot on the road in France.
John: They do a couple of festivals in Belgium.
John: I think they go to Aarhus.
John: I mean, you know, they do the thing.
John: It's mostly France, but then they do a couple other big shows.
John: And he's like, we're so psyched to take our buddy John Vanderslice out with us.
John: Oh, boy.
John: Oh, boy.
John: And I'm like, John Vanderslice, you say.
John: Oh, John Vanderslice is going out with you.
John: Now, John Vanderslice has maintained a music career in a way that I have not.
John: He has consistently been putting out records.
John: He's got his studio stuff, right?
John: He's got his studio.
John: He makes records.
John: He's out there banging the tambourine.
Merlin: Not Mr. Ant.
Merlin: I'm not making fun of him.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I think he closed one of them.
Merlin: But he had a reputation for being a go-to guy.
Merlin: Well, not just for bands that we like, but for having vintage analog equipment that a lot of people like to record on.
John: Yeah, he's got all the stuff.
John: He's got every reverb.
John: He's got a very rare analog 808.
John: He does.
John: He's got three ever made.
John: He's got the toilet is analog in that place.
John: So I get it.
John: Right.
John: Yes.
John: But in terms of moving units, I don't think Vanderslice is moving any more units than me or anybody else because we're all in our fifties now.
John: And, and Vanderslice is kind of like, um, one of these ambiguously aged.
John: So he might be 90.
John: I don't know.
John: He doesn't appear.
Merlin: It's very hard to tell.
John: Um, he's, he's kind of like, um, he's kind of like that guy on 30 rock that maybe was born in the 1700s.
John: Oh yeah.
John: Kenneth.
John: Kenneth.
John: Well, he might also be an angel like Kenneth.
John: I think he might be an angel, but so this was the thing I'm, I'm going down through, uh, through Instagram and I'm like, Oh, you know, I'm not in the sex pistols.
John: Why?
John: What have I done with my life?
John: Like I should have been at least in the sex pistols.
John: And all of that stuff is crazy.
John: But then I get to this, like, we're going out on tour and we're taking John Vanderslice.
John: And I was like...
John: I know for a fact that he's gone on tour with them in Europe before.
John: And so he's getting another one.
Merlin: I feel like, is he a draw in France?
Merlin: I feel like.
Merlin: No.
John: Belgium?
John: No, he's not a draw in San Francisco.
John: Oh boy.
John: But I mean, and I say that with love.
John: I say that with ultimate love.
John: None of us are.
John: Who's a draw anymore?
John: Time travel's lonely.
John: Yeah.
John: I don't think anybody's a draw.
John: Yeah.
John: One of the things I saw was old Craigie Craig.
John: One of the things I saw in my five minutes on Instagram was Craig, Craig, the hold steady, the hold steady, Craig.
John: is making a record right now.
John: And he was posting pictures or he's got a record coming out.
John: He was posting pictures like, Oh, we were making this record.
John: I knew a bunch of people that were working on the record.
John: And I said, Oh, all those guys are all working on records.
John: And they're all like, they probably all live in a big house.
John: And you know, and it feels like you, they pulled the ladder up on the tree house a little bit, huh?
John: Yeah.
John: And I'm just like, well, and you know, honestly, I haven't put out a record since 2000.
Yeah.
John: And good records though.
John: The long winters, where have they been?
John: You know, who's, what is, what even is a long winters?
John: But I'm, but I'm, but this was the problem.
John: If I had not gone on Instagram, I wouldn't have even known about a not a surf tour, let alone who was opening for them.
John: I wouldn't have known about a Hold Steady record or a Craig record.
John: I wouldn't have known about the Sex Pistols thing.
John: I would have been fine.
John: I would have just been here with my finger paints.
John: Watching your tree cameras.
John: I'd be watching my tree cameras.
John: I built a little trail yesterday I'm very proud of.
John: hmm a little switchback i made a switch see i'm trying to so what is that for like tacking up a hill so so the ravine right oh yeah yeah so my mom is um 88 and she's still out in the ravine every day doing stuff you know like a little tractor
John: And she's always been somebody that, like my dad,
John: If she tripped on something, she could always kind of do a little roll and pop out of it.
Merlin: Didn't he fall down a hill one time?
John: Yeah, dad.
Merlin: And your dad did something involving a football game, I remember.
Merlin: But he did a roll down a hill, and he kind of nailed the land.
John: He popped back up, and off we went.
John: And my mom falls down all the time.
John: But, you know, it's a forest, and so you fall down in the forest, and you pick yourself back up.
John: You dust off the bark and the beetles.
John: But we were walking around in the forest together a couple of months ago.
John: And she went ass over tea kettle.
John: Oh, no.
Merlin: And I was like, Mom... Because it's pretty... This is the idea behind the switchback.
Merlin: It's pretty steep.
Merlin: And if you go, you're going to keep going.
John: Yeah, there's a lot of steepness.
John: There's a lot of bramble underfoot.
John: And I was like, Mom, you can't just keep going ass over tea kettle.
John: And she was like, well, it's fine.
John: But then she said...
John: I'm a little bit unsteady.
John: And you know, from her, that's quite an admission.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: And I was like, huh.
John: So I, so I reached over and I broke off a branch and I was like, why don't you start carrying a stick with you?
John: And so she, you know, the next day she were, she came in and was like, the stick is great.
John: Like, I love the stick.
John: I carry it now everywhere I go.
John: And so she's got a little, her little Gandalf stick.
John: But I realized there's a lot more,
John: There's a lot in the ravine, a lot of goat trails that I built because it's just the shortest distance between two points.
John: But now I'm rebuilding the trail systems.
John: so that the trails are wide.
Merlin: This will benefit you later, John.
Merlin: If it doesn't benefit you, this is like Syracuse, and I like to say, accessibility is for everybody.
Merlin: I think in the end, you'll be glad you did this for everybody.
Merlin: I believe so.
Merlin: It might help with irrigation.
Merlin: If you did it right, it would help avoid erosion.
John: I hope it's going to not impact erosion too badly.
John: But yeah, I do have erosion as part of my trail switchback building.
John: What's gravity, man?
John: It's a bitch.
John: It is.
John: And I use logs to stabilize trails.
John: Okay.
John: Anyway, so I built a switchback yesterday and she came in just before we started recording and she was like, the switchback, it's amazing.
John: So, you know, in that sense, I feel like I'm doing, I'm doing good work in the world.
John: I'm building switchbacks.
John: It's, it's not the same as like touring France, but it's, it's, it's own, it's its own thing.
John: Yeah.
John: If you went back to your 16 year old self, let's say you, you flew through time.
Yep.
John: Time flyer.
John: And there's Merlin Mann, 16, presumably dressed in some kind of cadet uniform.
Merlin: 29-inch waist.
Merlin: Incredible.
Merlin: It's so incredible.
Merlin: 29-32.
John: I had a 29-inch waist.
John: 140 pounds.
John: I think I was probably in fourth grade.
John: And you said to that Merlin man, hey, it's me, Merlin man, you in your 50s.
Merlin: And we take it for granted that you can never set this aside when you argue about this with people like Syracuse, but we'll take it as read.
Merlin: I figured out the secret method that it doesn't require a month of me convincing myself.
Merlin: Somehow I'm able to come in as me now.
Merlin: I time travel back to Newport, Ritchie, Florida.
Merlin: 1983.
Merlin: And I'm able to pretty instantly get 16-year-old me to accept that that is future me.
John: Yeah, right.
John: And I mean, how do you do that?
Merlin: All you have to do is say like... I mean, that's a whole separate game.
Merlin: It's a fun game.
Merlin: But for this exercise, it's really about getting back to 16-year-old me.
Merlin: Do I have a message?
Merlin: Is it a warning?
Merlin: A question?
John: Does 16-year-old you recognize contemporary you as a success?
Merlin: In a handful of ways, absolutely.
Merlin: Because, I mean, my expectations were really quite low, so it's kind of almost an unfair question.
Merlin: But the interesting part is, of course, trying to explain how I got... The stuff that would be easy to understand would be hard to understand, and the stuff that's hard to understand would be easy to understand.
Merlin: It would be very hard for 16-year-old me, honestly, probably to believe...
Merlin: that I've been married, I've been with this woman for 20 years, and we got a kid that's the best.
Merlin: I'd be like, yeah, but do you play guitar?
Merlin: It's like, yeah, a couple times a month, but all the guitar is like, hmm.
Merlin: Sounds like a pretty mixed bag.
Merlin: But the fact that I'm not, well, I mean, honestly, we kid, but we don't.
Merlin: So there wasn't a nuclear war?
Merlin: No, not yet.
Merlin: We're still good.
Merlin: Okay, well, good, right?
Merlin: Like, if you went back to, let's just say, 1983, you...
Merlin: QED, a million conversations we've had, wouldn't you be kind of relieved to know that there has not yet been, like, a nuclear war?
Merlin: I'm not sure.
John: I was thinking about this a lot last night.
John: I was prompted to think about this by an email from a friend.
John: And I realized, you know, I've never, as we've talked about many times, I never had a plan to
John: I never had a methodical plan.
John: At 16 years old, I did not have a vision of who I would be or what steps.
Merlin: You had aspirations, but they were somewhat untethered to the stuff you were actually doing, right?
John: Right.
John: And what I realized was I had a vision of being 50 that wasn't clear, but I knew that in order to be that person—
John: At 50, I would have to do some things now at 16 and 17 and 18.
John: Right.
John: That maybe I didn't want to do.
John: Just started that savings account.
John: I, you know, but, but, and in a form of it, it is, it is that because when it was clear, I wasn't going to go to college because I, because I had barely graduated.
John: Right.
John: And it was, and I hadn't applied.
John: That's the other reason I had not applied to go to college.
John: Because I had a D minus average.
Merlin: But people around both of us, they were ready for the equivalent of high school 2.0.
Merlin: I may not know.
Merlin: Of course, you always know people who are like, oh, I'm going to be this profession.
Merlin: And then they don't usually.
Merlin: But just two quick things.
Merlin: Number one, the path for what's next is very unclear.
Merlin: In the early 80s, it's very unclear.
Merlin: If your path is not to go straight to college,
Merlin: It's unclear what that path is.
Merlin: And to answer your previous question so I can close the thread, I would see 50-year-old me today, and I would not think of myself as conventionally successful based on what I, again, a thousand asterisks here.
Merlin: But 16-year-old me would look at me now and go like, probably, I mean, God, 22-year-old me would be disappointed.
Merlin: I thought I was going to be some kind of Marxist essayist.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And like, I would have felt like if the way that I felt my last year of college and the, like the year after that, before I got a jobby job was very, I would have thought that it was very disloyal that the things that I pursued in life that turned out better than worse were just, were so boring and like middle class and that I was just becoming like another capitalist burger.
John: I feel like if I went back to 38 years old,
John: First of all, 38-year-old me would have no trouble accepting that I was him, except older, right?
John: If I, like, walked up on 38-year-old me and I was like, hey, guess what?
John: It's you.
John: Me then would be like, oh, right, you sure are.
John: And I'd be like, ha-ha, lol, science fiction.
John: And they'd go, science fiction.
John: I think 38-year-old me... Don't talk to me about time travel is what they would say, because I think that movie would come out by then.
John: Yeah.
John: But they would...
John: If I told them, if I showed them where I am and what I'm doing at 53, I think 38 year old me would go, huh?
John: Okay.
John: You know?
John: Yeah.
John: Good work.
John: Or like, I get it.
John: Right.
John: Like you didn't, you didn't go from me here at 38 and like blow anybody's mind, but.
John: You continued on.
John: You steadied on.
John: Right.
John: Now you're 53, and you're the version of me that I could predict.
Merlin: Wouldn't part of you be a little—I mean, I don't mean this as a bit, but wouldn't part of you be a little bit relieved that you're still sober and mostly sound?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Wasn't that ever a worry of, like, I wonder if something will happen, and I'll end up being a person I didn't want to be anymore?
Yeah.
John: Well, this is the thing about 16 through 17, 18.
John: Like I was aware that I was going to need.
John: What I was thinking last night was I did not feel that in a head to head competition with most of the people that I considered peers, that I was going to come out on top because of various problems.
John: I wasn't ambitious.
John: I wasn't a hard worker.
John: And so if there was, it's like the Hollywood thing.
John: If there are two people up for the same role and one of them really wants it.
John: That's true for becoming a PA.
Merlin: It's true for everything.
Merlin: I mean, you've got to have that.
Merlin: I mean, I don't mean this in the positive way it sounds.
Merlin: You have to be hungry and you have to have hustle and like you have to be able to,
Merlin: Well, at least my understanding of, for example, in Hollywood and in some instances in music, you have to be willing to do stuff that other people are willing to do and more.
Merlin: You're going to have to be dependable.
Merlin: You're going to have to do it on the right.
Merlin: You're going to have to be so consistent.
Merlin: You're going to have to be, I'm trying to put this positively, collegial.
Merlin: You're going to have to kiss a lot of asses.
Merlin: You're going to have to put up with a lot of shit.
Merlin: I mean, Harvey Weinstein was not the only person of his kind in the world, and it doesn't have to be about sex and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Merlin: There are incredibly abusive users, and that's kind of what makes the system run, whether that's rock or movies or whatever.
John: And I didn't have... I did not have hustle or ambition or moxie, and also I wouldn't take any shit, and I wouldn't...
John: You know, like, I, and so.
Merlin: You said as much.
Merlin: I think in the very, our prototype pilot, backdoor pilot or backyard pilot.
Merlin: Oh, why did I never think to call it that till now?
Merlin: Backyard pilot.
Merlin: The backyard pilot for our show.
Merlin: You were talking about this and like the guys who are trying to steal your copper pipe.
Merlin: And that like how difficult it is to play that game and go, Oh, it's cool.
Merlin: It's casual.
Merlin: We'll come out and play this thing for free.
Merlin: Even though, you know, everybody else, every, everybody who's like a gaffer or a roadie or whatever is getting paid, but yeah, we sure will come out.
Merlin: Cause it's good exposure.
Merlin: You have you for your whole career.
Merlin: As I understand it, that's not come easily for you and you didn't want it to come easily for you.
John: But even at 16, when I didn't even, I didn't know I was going to be a musician.
John: I thought I was going to be a Marxist columnist just as you, um,
John: But I knew that I wasn't, and maybe I was wrong, right?
John: Like I never tried to get any of my writing published because I didn't think it was good.
John: And maybe I was wrong.
John: You know, like a lot of this is.
John: is that I had bad intel because I had untrustworthy reporters.
Merlin: And you also had, it strikes me if I could say, that you had a very much, like, I used to joke with you about this, about how I think a career not dissimilar from what you're doing now makes a lot of sense for you.
Merlin: And I think you were, maybe it's just because I was saying it, but also I think you were very...
Merlin: You were very keyed into what wasn't for you, but didn't have a lot of decisiveness and gumption about getting what you thought was for you.
Merlin: But you could say, I'm not a writer.
Merlin: Like, oh, it's funny for me to rewrite this article for this ding-a-ling at The Believer, but I'm not a writer.
Merlin: I'm not an essayist.
Merlin: I'm not an emcee.
Merlin: I'm a rock musician.
Merlin: that and that was a default right right it was like the reversion of the mean or whatever like you could go off it a little bit but you were always going to come back to like and you were very tough on yourself you're very critical because if you weren't being the rock musician i guess that you felt you should be at a point you would be really hard on yourself and you still are and that all happened a lot later at 17 when i saw that i wasn't going to graduate
John: Well, at first I was worried I wasn't going to graduate, but then I definitely wasn't going to go to college.
John: And everybody that I knew was going to college, and they all had a plan, right?
John: They were all going to go to medical school.
John: And I was like, I don't know what I'm going to do.
John: And if I just sit here in Anchorage and get a job, it's the weirdest thing.
John: And I know this is true.
John: It sounds weird to say...
John: It sounds retconny, but I know that it's true.
John: I said, I don't know what I'm going to be when I'm 50.
John: Right.
John: I have no vision of it.
John: But I know that I owe my 50-year-old self that I not stay in Anchorage and get a job.
John: Uh-huh.
Merlin: Interesting.
Merlin: But you're like Dr. Manhattan with the tachyon interference.
Merlin: You know there's something out there, but you can't tell what it is, whereas you might have some clarity about other kinds of things.
Merlin: For the same reason, like, I wrote this down a little while ago, like, almost any point in my life from the age of seven, let's say, into probably my 30s, if you said to me quick, who's a 50-year-old man?
Merlin: I would have one answer and a backup answer.
Merlin: The main answer is Carol O'Connor on All in the Family.
Merlin: who for whatever reason I imprinted on him as my idea, and I don't even know, I think he was 47 when he started that show, which is mind-boggling.
Merlin: But he's my idea of a 50-year-old man.
Merlin: And the second place, I can't decide if he's 50 or maybe 60, I'm going to say Mr. Wilson from Dennis the Menace.
John: That's my idea of what it looked like to be in your 50s or 60s.
John: I think I would have said Robert De Niro in Ronin, but I don't know how old he actually was in Ronin.
John: But I, yeah, so when I first left Anchorage...
John: and hopped freights across America that first year, there was a part of me that didn't want to be doing it.
John: There was a part of me that just wanted to be sitting around because I'm lazy and I'm hungry a lot.
John: And I like sweet things.
John: You mean for food you get hungry?
John: I get hungry for food.
John: I see.
John: But I was doing it because I felt like I owed money
John: It was a kind of time traveling where I didn't know what I was going to be at 50, but I felt that 50-year-old person
Merlin: watching me and saying, seriously?
Merlin: Oh, no, that honestly, like not a bit.
Merlin: That does sound like something I could very much see you doing.
Merlin: It's like, how will, how will, how will, when we say, how will history look at this?
Merlin: Like, how will the history, like by me, how would I look back at this?
Merlin: Would I be?
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: Did I make a good decision?
Merlin: Am I proud of how it turned out in the quote unquote end, which of course is a ridiculous idea.
Merlin: There is no end until there's an end and then it's too late.
Merlin: Nobody cares.
Merlin: Time is a flat circle.
Merlin: Yeah, but I mean, like, seriously, like, there is this whole idea of, like, a thing that I've truly chafed against is that idea of arriving, where, like, there's so many points in my life, whether that was, like, getting to meet Steve Garvey, or getting accepted to college, or, like, like, last night, I'm so fucking old that I got invited by my pal in the Meat Puppets to see them in Soundgarden last night.
Merlin: Oh!
Merlin: And I'm so old that I couldn't go.
Merlin: But like, that's arriving.
Merlin: Arriving is, oh my God, Derek asked me if I were to come and he's the nicest guy in the world.
Merlin: And like, those are all arrivals, but are they arrivals?
Merlin: Like, none of those are arrivals.
Merlin: A lot of those are just transferring planes in Chicago a lot of the time.
Merlin: But you know what I mean, though?
Merlin: But it's that mythology that we both bought into, in my opinion, of arrival that can be so caustic, Matthew caustic, is this idea that like, oh, you know, I haven't arrived, I've never arrived, I never will arrive.
Merlin: But with being 16, whether you're 16 or 30 or 38, you could look at a snapshot.
Merlin: Let's say you got 15 seconds to look at yourself at X years old.
Merlin: Like, I mean, you can't really communicate to people that life...
Merlin: You know, what happens when you're making other plans or whatever?
Merlin: Like that's, I'm living life.
Merlin: This is this.
Merlin: I'm doing this.
Merlin: I'm not Robert De Niro.
Merlin: I'm not Carol O'Connor because you were a fucking child who had no idea what it's like to actually be an adult.
Merlin: And that's okay.
Merlin: That was your job at the time.
Merlin: But, you know, if you look back in the same way that you would look back and go, Ooh, I wish I handled that differently.
Merlin: Or I wish I had start bought a CD, not the music, but the financial instrument.
Merlin: Or whatever, right?
Merlin: I mean, it's looking either way is hopelessly clouded, so distorted, and so fraught with all of our own emotional sort of baggage.
Merlin: And I don't know if it's even that wholesome to do.
John: The time travel aspect was that I was conscious at 17 of...
John: my future self looking back at me and being disappointed.
John: Wow.
John: But I was not, but I had no idea who that person was.
John: Right.
John: I had no idea where I was going to end up.
John: And I don't mean disappointed by like your life choices.
John: I mean, I would be sitting in a cafe in the middle of Indiana and there would be two teenage girls sitting in the booth next to me giggling.
John: And I was 17 and wearing a denim jacket and, and had arrived there on a freight train and
John: And they were having fries and I was conscious of my 50 year old self saying, why don't you strike up a conversation with them?
John: Like you live in such isolation from others and you're walking through... I'm a little bit adrift here.
Merlin: So wait, give me the time.
Merlin: Who's seeing what?
Merlin: Like younger you seeing 50-year-old you talking to the French fry girls?
John: No, younger me seeing 50-year-old me talking to him saying, why don't you go talk to those girls?
John: Oh, I see.
John: Like I was already... You're your own manic pixie dream, John.
John: I was me telling me from the perspective of old me what...
John: old me was hoping I would be as a 17 year old in order that that create the 50 year old that I imagined I wanted to be one day.
John: So that the 50 year old that I couldn't see was going to be the person that resulted in whether or not I did talk to these girls, right?
John: Not talking to them produced one 50 year old talking to them would produce a different one.
John: And that 50 year old was advocating from the future that
Merlin: to me like make me a different man by being different now oh you're sort of like the john of christmas future john of christmas future yeah now now see it only if you turn something into a fiction it makes more sense to me because it was sounding a lot like some combination of predestination and uh the the blunderbuss movie but now i think i i think i get what you're saying
Merlin: But there could be a bootstrap paradox, but there's something in there where, like, it's not just, oh, hello, hey, I'm me from the future.
Merlin: Come with me if you want to live.
Merlin: It's also a certain amount of inspiration or encouragement from a past you in some ways.
John: Encouragement from a future me.
John: But that was also a little judgy.
John: Okay.
John: Or not judgy, but like super hopeful, like almost desperate.
John: Like, it's the opposite of Michael J. Fox being erased from the photograph.
John: It's being 16.
John: He's appearing in photographs.
John: Yeah, it's 16 and holding a blank piece of paper.
John: And every decision you make at 16, the image of the person on the piece of paper becomes clearer.
John: Right.
John: And you're making choices that are determining whether that future you is rich or poor, you know, or happy or sad.
John: Yeah, content or restless, like any of those kinds of things where you... But the restlessness of your vision of that person is actually influencing your decision whether or not, you know, like I always knew I would be...
John: Restless, it's an untrustworthy voice, too.
John: The one that's casting back through the mists of time.
Merlin: And possibly, just impossibly distorted.
Merlin: Like, anytime you try to look through time, there's going to be a lot of crack crystal going on.
John: What's nuts right now, though, at 53, is I do not, I don't think, have a 70-year-old me looking over my shoulder now.
John: I don't think at any point in my life did I think, what am I going to be like when I'm 70?
John: Because who cares?
John: You know, like, you're 70, you're 70.
Merlin: Well, there's much less distinction amongst, I mean, at least in my stupid stereotypical view of anybody in the future.
Merlin: It's like, again, how could I reduce, you know, 49% of 50-year-old men in America, or like, you know, 50-year-olds in America to Carol O'Connor?
Merlin: That's insane.
Merlin: That's a TV show.
Merlin: That's an actor.
Merlin: But you know what I mean?
Merlin: Like, it's sometimes difficult.
Merlin: The subtlety will be lost on younger you and probably also on older you.
Merlin: Because you never give yourself credit for the context of a ton.
Merlin: We look at the results of things, and then I guess excuses tend to be something that we make because of context.
Merlin: But we don't give ourselves a lot of breaks because of context.
Merlin: Context is how you felt means so much.
Merlin: It wasn't just poor judgment.
Merlin: I mean, that's like blaming a dog for not inventing calculus.
Merlin: It's just out of scope.
John: I wonder if I walked around here and showed my switchback trails to my 17-year-old self and said, you know, this is what you're doing at 53.
John: This is what you like best.
John: And you're able to do this and be fine.
John: And it doesn't result in any, you're not famous for it.
John: And you're not living in some kind of Johnny Depp, south of France, like, drug-fueled... You were an encyclopedia fan.
Merlin: And we all know the inverted pyramid style of journalism and writing, which is you start at the most general, you get specific.
Merlin: And this is one of those things they'll always talk about at, like, you know, in the sort of, like, you know, in the world of journalists and news, it's like, well, the first paragraph of his obituary has just been written.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Like, oh, we just found out that, you know, Mark felt his deep throat.
Merlin: Well, that changes a lot about the Encyclopedia Britannica entry or world book for Mark felt.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And for John Roderick.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Isn't that kind of part of it is it's like, well, you if you'd said a 16 year old you, how would you feel about a first paragraph that includes making a trail so your mom won't fall down?
John: But there wouldn't be.
John: That's the thing.
John: There wouldn't be that in your obituary.
John: Cause it isn't, cause it doesn't qualify.
John: Like I loved throughout my whole life.
John: Right.
John: I've, I've been a follower of the myth of Hemingway.
John: And when I was in high school and the, and my first year of college, I believed in the, the rock and roll myth of it.
John: And then as happens with middle brow kids in college, I realized, oh, the myth of Hemingway is a myth.
John: And then I was into demystifying.
John: Incredibly brittle, man.
John: And then after I demystified Hemingway for a few years, then I was like, actually, you know, like,
John: This story, that story, and that story are all great stories, and who cares about them?
Merlin: You can still write in a very terse and muscular way without having that many animal skins in your house.
John: And then, you know, I went to Key West, and I was like, I actually do want to see the place.
John: You know, I do want to walk around the grounds.
John: I was going to see his desk.
John: And then I was in Pamplona, and I saw The Running of the Bulls, and of course I'm thinking about it.
John: But you put this story of Hemingway together in your mind as a young person, and then, you know, it's one of the many, many stories, like the story of Eddie Van Halen, that just follows you along, right?
John: You've got the story of Eddie Van Halen, I'm sure, in some desk drawer somewhere.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: There's that wonderful guitar player interview with him on the first tour.
Merlin: We talked about that, right?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Like in the very early days, but yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You've got, you do, you have an idea of this and like, that's how people become iconic is we keep shaving off the complexities and full truths to come up with something that can, you can make into a statue that doesn't move.
Merlin: That's what we do.
John: The other day, I mean, just a month or two ago, I watched that Ken Burns Hemingway documentary.
John: Yeah.
John: which is multiple nights i didn't know that existed i don't think i've seen that well and what's nuts and i'm no spoilers yeah but the the one spoiler i will offer how it ends is yeah how it is is that you know watching the first episode i was like wow this is really on like is ken burn slipping this is really uncharacteristically hagiographic and
Merlin: Oh, and this is like, is this like Ambulance Driver or World War I stuff?
John: Yeah, he's just loving him.
John: He's so handsome.
John: He's so everything.
John: You know, it starts off and after the first episode, I was like, man, I don't, I've spent so much time with Hemingway.
John: I don't need to just sit and chug a giant sugar pop version of this story.
John: But by the last episode, Ken Burns kind of masterfully starts off with like Hemingway in his Most Beautiful movie.
John: And by the end, it was the first time I'd ever in the whole period, in my whole life of understanding this writer, it's the first time I ever said, wow, he killed himself and it makes sense to me now.
Merlin: Like it no longer feels after, and I'm, this is, I don't apologize.
Merlin: This is triggering or unkind or tough for anybody.
Merlin: I'm sorry about that.
Merlin: But you know, it's, it also just what I said earlier and I'm not trying, I'm trying not saying this to slag the guy.
Merlin: There's a part of us that for, for people like us who are lifetime pussies,
Merlin: There is something slightly gratifying to realizing that somebody who was obviously like a bully who acted tough was somebody who was maybe even more, but that all so much of their aggression and their constant need to prove themselves and get trophies.
Merlin: You can hang on a wall and all that, all the white ribbons, as you say.
Merlin: I don't say it's gratifying.
Merlin: It's sad.
Merlin: Because, like, you want to say to that person when they're 12, hey, knock it off, man.
Merlin: Like, stop being a bully.
Merlin: Stop trying to prove yourself to everybody.
Merlin: You know?
Merlin: But, like, I think he did that his whole life.
Merlin: And there was something from which maybe that he felt like he couldn't escape.
Merlin: And that might have been himself.
John: Well, but the, but there was, there's a lot more going on too.
John: I mean, he, he sustained a lot of closed head injuries and, and he was in a lot of pain that wasn't just related to him being a dick, you know?
John: And, and, um, and it was just, it was, it was clarifying for me because it felt, I don't, it was the first thing that I'd ever in, in a lifetime of trying to humanize Hemingway.
John: It was the first thing that really humanized him in a way that was heartbreaking.
John: And it felt like that I needed to have seen it.
John: It was kind of important for me in the way that a great documentary or a great piece of art is where you go, oh, I don't need more clarification.
John: Like watching Get Back and The Beatles.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: What I walked out of there feeling like was, why did they not keep those cameras rolling for the next 20 years?
John: I would watch footage of John Lennon just walking around his house.
John: Oh, absolutely.
Merlin: You'll never have enough of the photos and videos of people that you love and strangers you admire when they discover these caches of stuff.
Merlin: You know, in a minute, I'm going to recommend a documentary to you and our listeners.
Merlin: But when you get access to something you didn't have public access to before.
Merlin: But I agree with you.
Merlin: Just put a CCTV in what it's called, the Dakota Hotel or whatever.
Merlin: Just run it all the time and making bread.
Merlin: Fine.
John: I just wanted to see Sean, how to color.
John: I mean, you know, like what movie?
John: Like just just a year before, two years before that same level of snapshots of Paul with the black glasses.
John: But it was so gratifying to watch that.
Merlin: Oh, absolutely.
Merlin: 100%.
Merlin: Because it solved problems for us.
Merlin: But it also gave you insight and gave you context, right?
Merlin: It did.
Merlin: It's like, oh, you know, all the things we've learned over the years as quote-unquote Beatles fans certainly had a lot of asterisks on those.
Merlin: Maybe Yoko's not the person who, quote, broke up the Beatles, maybe.
Merlin: Like, maybe, you know, maybe Paul's not the asshole that he got made out to be in the original movie.
Merlin: Like he was just trying to keep all these idiots happy.
Merlin: John's like a constant distraction.
Merlin: And Paul's just trying to be a professional and make music that the most popular band in the world would feel proud of.
John: It was great.
John: I was grateful because I got to put not all.
John: I was able after watching that Ken Burns thing to kind of put everything together.
John: that I had collected all the little seashells about Hemingway that I'd collected that were in desk drawers all over, I was able to put them all into a shoebox and put it on a top shelf and go and put a little sticker on it that says Hemingway and go, that's, you know what?
John: It may not be complete, but that's what I needed.
Merlin: Yeah, no, no.
Merlin: You've completed your collection, which doesn't mean you got everything that ever existed, but you got everything you need to feel like your collection is complete.
Yeah.
John: Yeah, there's no mystery that I need explained.
Merlin: Oh, right.
Merlin: There's no, and yeah, there's no like, oh, if I could only just understand what is his rosebud kind of thing.
John: This was a thing that was plaguing my Uncle Jack until the day he died.
John: And, you know, he was writing that book for the last decade of his life.
John: And after he died, six months after he died, my cousin Libby sent me the book.
John: And I started to read it, and I've read it, and I knew, and it's better than I expected.
John: But I knew that the central problem of Uncle Jack's life was trying to understand his father, my grandfather, someone that no one knew and no one understood, and that my own father, back in the 1940s,
John: said, fuck that guy, and never made another attempt to understand his father.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: If this goes great, well, what does that mean that it went great?
Merlin: Do I have insight into why this person is the way they are?
Merlin: Well, he sure wasn't the first person who felt the need to feel whole.
Merlin: I've got to figure this out.
John: And he spent the last, I think, 15, maybe 20 years of his life trying to unravel the mystery of his father, who...
John: was clearly traumatized during World War I, who was an alcoholic, who died at the Gates Hotel in Los Angeles in 1953 and was buried by the city of Los Angeles in a pauper's grave.
John: And Uncle Jack, through the mists of time, through these onion-skinned poems that my grandfather wrote, that he collected, and all this research, trying to figure out
John: His father.
John: And the thing I never had the heart to say directly to Uncle Jack, but the thing that I firmly believe is true, is that my grandfather was a pathological liar.
John: And Uncle Jack never.
Merlin: So he's trying to square history and facts and different things that he thought he knew.
Merlin: And some of those things were probably just not true.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: That's going to be a hard history to track down unless you're open to the idea that a bunch of this shit either didn't happen or happened in a way very different than you thought.
John: Careful what you ask for.
John: My grandfather was in the trenches in World War I, and my uncle says that at one point when he was a boy, he was standing out in front of the family home, and he heard his father say to another man that he had bayoneted a German in the gut, and that he couldn't get the
John: idea out of his head or something.
John: It was 1930, so he obviously didn't say, I can't get the idea out of my head.
John: But he mentioned it in a way that suggested to my uncle that this was a profound moment.
John: And so for the last 15 or 20 years, my uncle was trying to contextualize his father's life in terms of this bayonetting
Merlin: So he'd accepted on first principles, accepted that as the basis for a lot of this understanding.
Merlin: And if you like, the hook that this whole thing hangs on in some ways.
John: Exactly.
John: The bayonetting and a few other key stories like that.
John: This, that, and the other.
John: This happened, that happened, this happened.
John: All kind of received wisdom.
Merlin: It comes like family lore or something.
John: Like family lore, overheard conversations.
John: And he's trying to square that with the record story.
John: And with what, with the man.
Merlin: And you can't help but have a certain confirmation bias for wanting, like, and I'm not trying to make a straw man here, but I know I'm guilty of this much more often than I'm not, which is like, I start with this, this, the hook, the peg, the, whatever you want to call it.
Merlin: And then I start a kind of confirmation bias, start looking for things that prove that was true.
Merlin: And if, but if that, and again, not a straw man, this is just me, but like my MO will then be that I tend to reject a lot of stuff that didn't fit that narrative.
Merlin: And I don't think I'm the first person who's ever suffered from that.
Merlin: No, I mean, that's the whole thing about science.
Merlin: I mean, it's like in journalism, like, I'm not just here to interview you, I'm here to interview you, and then find the veracity of what you said and didn't say, and then what that means, which is a lot more than being a stenographer.
John: And what I tried to say to my uncle for the last 10 years was, what if he just actually didn't bayonet a German?
John: Like he was there, but he was a lieutenant and he was training people how to throw grenades and bayonet.
Merlin: but i don't i don't maybe something happened but that story probably unintentionally i don't say embellished exactly but that story probably grew somewhat in specificity and maybe even scope right over time from like from it could be i mean there could be some basis for that it could be something happened to a friend of his a similar thing but like and it could also be like
Merlin: You know, you watch too many war movies, you start to think that every shot is a kill shot.
Merlin: You think that every bayonetting is a death bayonetting, and it's not.
Merlin: He might have gotten in a fight with this guy and nicked him.
John: Well, I think if you're in trench warfare, beats me.
Merlin: So you didn't follow that.
Merlin: You're saying that the only plausible explanation is it either happened, mostly like he said, or he made it up.
John: No, I mean, who knows?
John: The point was that if I had based my understanding of my father on the fact that he had
John: I love that story so much.
Merlin: There's so much about that.
Merlin: I want to see a full-on modern visualization of how that potentially could have worked.
Merlin: Shooting from a moving plane to another moving plane, you pull out a pistol, which I understand, even if that was a rifle, which would have been real tough.
Merlin: The story of shooting a zero out of the sky with a .45 is just amazing to me.
John: Too good to check.
John: On the very surface of it, if you're a right-handed person and you are the pilot of an aircraft in the left-handed seat and your gun is in the shoulder holster,
John: under your left arm.
John: Oh, absolutely.
Merlin: John, I ride an e-bike and I'm scared to signal a right turn because I need to keep my hands on the handlebars.
John: He would have to have taken the gun out and transferred it to his left hand and stuck his left hand out the window.
John: But opened the cockpit.
John: No, it's a sliding window on the side.
John: Oh, like he's going to Frisch's.
John: Okay.
John: Yeah.
John: But so anyway, you could not write my father's autobiography
John: trying to use that as one of the tent poles.
John: Okay.
John: That's probably fair.
John: Yes.
John: But of course, you know, my dad didn't experience PTSD and didn't die in a, in a, in an SRO hotel either.
John: Yeah.
John: And so he's trying to make sense of it.
John: And I, and I feel like, I feel like he, uncle Jack died without ever being able to tie up the loose ends and,
John: And my suspicion is that it was impossible to do because some of the strings were complete fabrications or were at least like... Some of the strings were pencil drawings.
John: It's like the Bayonet story, it stuck in his young mind for a reason.
John: And maybe that's because it was told with enough passion that maybe it is real.
John: Okay.
John: But I didn't see anything in...
John: You know, like, I don't see any method at all.
Merlin: Yeah, if you eat those prawns, you'll never have to prove anything to me.
Merlin: What I wanted to recommend, and I feel like I need to give a short opening statement here, because it's...
Merlin: So there's this new documentary, two-part documentary about George Carlin.
Merlin: And I would like to stipulate that the, especially the early George Carlin, I think is one of the great things.
Merlin: I'm not recommending this because I like George Carlin.
Merlin: I mean, the fact that I like George Carlin got me to watch it.
Merlin: I'm not a huge fan of his, you know, ranting about politics period later in life.
Merlin: But...
Merlin: Just to get that all out of the way, I can really recommend this documentary.
John: Oh.
Merlin: Because there's so much stuff I didn't know, so much stuff I haven't seen.
Merlin: I think his family participated in this.
Merlin: And just the story about him and his hot wife and their relationship, and they talk to his daughter a lot.
Merlin: But, you know, it goes all the way back.
Merlin: And again, with the hagiography, going back through, like, the basic story I learned was George Carlin, who's like the crazy countercultural icon, used to be this really straight comedian who blah, blah, blah.
Merlin: Well, that's...
Merlin: It's kind of true and it's kind of not.
Merlin: And there was an inflection point where he had to make a decision.
Merlin: But he used to be, I don't know if you remember from Laugh-In, do you remember Burns and Schreiber?
John: Sure.
Merlin: The guy from the Fritos commercial and the straight man.
Merlin: The guy with the big bushy mustache.
Merlin: He used to be in a double act with Jack Burns.
Merlin: before Jack Burns did a double act with Avery Schreiber.
Merlin: And they did some funny, slightly countercultural bits in, like, Scanny Ties, 1960s, 61.
Merlin: Long story short, I guess, yeah.
Merlin: So, yeah, he does eventually turn to, like, growing a beard, but that's happening at a point when I think, like, you know, his wife is pregnant, there's no money, things are so bad, he's got to tour all the time...
Merlin: But I really recommend it because, I don't know, I think it does what a good biography can do, which is really, it gives you some insight into, well, what I said, John, the context.
Merlin: Because, you know, it's one thing to tell a story, a story you've told a thousand times.
Merlin: I mean, but what you just described, what I'm going to describe, how many times, like in my case, I was trying to remember...
Merlin: a story that I remember so clearly that happened less than 10 years ago.
Merlin: And it's when You Look Nice Today went to South by Southwest to do some stuff, and I was there to do a talk.
Merlin: And long story short, all I remember is that Danny McBride
Merlin: knocked on our door one night and came in, the actor, and came to a party in our room.
Merlin: We thought we were going to be in trouble for being too loud.
Merlin: And I finally put that out there to my friends.
Merlin: Does anybody else remember how this went?
Merlin: I think it was Scott and Adam in my hotel room.
Merlin: It turns out...
Merlin: There were elements that were totally correct and so many parts that weren't.
Merlin: It wasn't our hotel room.
Merlin: It was somebody else's hotel room.
Merlin: It wasn't Jody Hill.
Merlin: It was this other person that was with him.
Merlin: He was there and who was there and who wasn't.
Merlin: But like my friend John Gruber, who's an alcoholic and a degenerate gambler, he remembered every single part of this and his wife backed it up.
Merlin: So the thing happened, but me telling that story over and over, and I wasn't deliberately trying to embellish it.
Merlin: I just misremembered.
Merlin: It wasn't out.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying though?
Merlin: Like that's something.
John: So you didn't ban it a German is what you're saying.
Merlin: I don't, I don't remember.
John: I might've done that later when we went back to art.
John: It was with a butter knife.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Well, first we came out and I showed him a picture of my wife and then we played soccer.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And, uh, you know, and then all the one bomb goes off and, and, uh, you know, he was the guy with the mustache.
Merlin: He ran back to the other side.
John: You ban it in a German, except it was in Portugal.
John: I did.
John: And it was in 1998.
John: Right.
Merlin: And they said, there's no such language as Brazilian.
Merlin: And I said, would you please play the pipes of peace?
Merlin: And they said, sir, how did you get this number?
Oh.