Ep. 469: "Culmination"
John: Hello.
John: Hi, John.
John: Oh, hi there, Merlin.
John: Good morning.
John: Oh, it is a good morning.
John: Just a splendid morning.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Wish the air would move more.
Merlin: Your air isn't moving?
Merlin: Yeah, I don't like to talk about the weather, but, you know.
Merlin: I know you don't.
Merlin: I don't.
Merlin: Um, but you know what it's like here usually.
Merlin: And I don't know.
Merlin: It's just, it's, it's, it's muggy.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: But you know, and again, you can't complain.
Merlin: This is, this is, it's hot everywhere, but I'm just saying it's, it matters because it's me.
John: Yeah.
John: You, you wish it would move a little more and that's, that's perfectly understandable.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I run fans cause I'm a big believer in a ventilation.
Merlin: Uh-huh.
Merlin: But you can't do that when you're making audio for the internet.
John: Oh, right.
John: Although what's in the show is in the show.
Merlin: That's true.
Merlin: And I think I've embraced that pretty well.
Merlin: I mean, obviously, I've embraced that sort of existentially.
Merlin: But also, you know, in a very realistic hands-on sense with the various roadwork things.
Merlin: There's new roadwork things that I think are fixing to start now.
Merlin: So we'll get to embrace that soon.
Merlin: Okay.
John: Oh, you're not talking about the famous road work podcast with Dan Benjamin.
John: You're talking about actual work on the road.
John: I don't know.
John: Do you have a preference?
Merlin: You know, what you said before applies to both things.
Merlin: Oh, PG&E is coming out for you guys too.
Merlin: I had a nice visit with the PG&E guy this morning.
Merlin: A guy you know already?
Merlin: No, no.
Merlin: No, no.
Merlin: John, as you know, you and I are both, well, for better or for worse, we're guys who talk to people, talk to workers.
John: Yes, yes.
Merlin: Yeah, and I heard this, ka-chunk, ka-chunk.
Merlin: And he was out there with his staple gun, stapling up new signs.
Merlin: And just, we had a little visit about that, you know, and I commiserated a little bit about the difficulty of project management.
Merlin: And he's like, yeah.
Merlin: And I quoted Marco Armit with one of the greatest quotes I've heard in the last five years.
Merlin: I said, I said, you know, I picked up something from a friend of mine that's, that's
Merlin: been really important to me.
Merlin: My friend says, uh, it's not my fault, but it is my problem.
Merlin: I said, that's really what parenthood and project management is all about.
Merlin: So anyway, I said, I said, I said, you know, good hunting, good stapling.
Merlin: And, uh, I hope you don't get, uh, I hope you don't get your dates pushed out, you know?
John: Oh yeah.
John: You don't want to, you don't want your dates pushed out.
John: Although if you work for PG and E, you're going to get paid either way.
Merlin: But, you know, when I think about my short pseudo career as a project manager, I mean, I know I got giddy with what I learned, but I don't think I ever got great at it.
Merlin: I never had the people skills to be great at it.
Merlin: But there are immutable things about project management that I think a lot of the population either kind of overlook or aren't fully aware of.
John: You're saying that you want to, once a project gets going, you want to get it going and then get it done.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: But like the, I mean, this is boring, but like it's not, it's, it's, well, it's boring because life is boring in some ways.
Merlin: Do you know what I'm saying, John?
Merlin: It's life.
Merlin: Hashtag cause life.
Merlin: But like, I mean, you could take even the most, even the simplest example would be something, let's say involving cooking where you can't serve the food.
Merlin: Let's say you can't have spaghetti dinner.
Merlin: Let's say you're gonna have a campfire spaghetti party in your kitchen.
Merlin: And you can't serve the food until it's all been plated.
Merlin: It can't be plated until the food is cooked.
Merlin: You can't put the sauce on the pasta until the pasta is done.
Merlin: Can't cook it until you get it.
Merlin: Am I right?
Merlin: You are way ahead of me.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You're a project manager.
Merlin: You understand this.
Merlin: When we talk about a date pushing out, what you're saying is, well...
Merlin: All of those things, to quote the mythical man month, it takes nine months to make a baby no matter how many women you put on the job.
Merlin: And just if you forgot to buy Paschetti, like that's going to push your date out vis-a-vis dinner.
John: Right.
Merlin: These are immutable laws.
John: Yes.
Right.
Merlin: I mean, this is before we even get into the whole project management triangle and the idea that, you know, when you shorten one of the sides of the triangle, the other ones have to lengthen because that's how triangle do.
Merlin: That is how triangle do.
Merlin: If you cut the budget, you're going to have to reduce the features of the quality.
Merlin: You get the immutable laws, but then you get into mutable laws.
Merlin: A mutable law.
Merlin: Oh, that's just a law that can be muted.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Mutable laws.
Merlin: Mutable laws.
Merlin: Is that a kind of like, would you call that, I'm a little over my skis here.
Merlin: Would that be a cultural moray?
Merlin: What's a mutable law?
Merlin: Is that one of those military intelligence jumbo shrimp type situations?
Merlin: If it's mutable, is it still a law?
Merlin: I guess if you're rich, am I right?
John: Laws are mutable if, well, a lot of things.
John: You know, I noticed, uh, I spent, I spent quite a bit of, um, uh, you know, mutable just means, um, liable to change.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Right.
John: And, uh, when, when I, uh, when I was, uh, I spent some time with some military people recently and they used the word culmination.
John: All the time.
John: Oh God.
John: Tell me what that means.
John: Culmination.
John: Anything that they, it wasn't just the ending of things.
John: They want things to culminate, to come to an ending, to, to, to be caused to have an ending.
John: Well, but to have all of the components realized that
John: In a culmination, it's not just an end.
John: It's not a hard date or it's not the accomplishment of a single goal.
John: It's a culmination of all the factors that all kind of arrive at the same place at the same time.
Merlin: Which is very much the situation with this.
Merlin: When I say road work, I mean, just in brief, like this encompasses so many things.
Merlin: that involve replacing streetcar tracks.
Merlin: It involves... Yeah, yeah, it involves... So basically, you know how it is if you get... My friend Chris Cauldron.
Merlin: Hi, Chris.
Merlin: My friend Chris, when he was my Sherpa for getting a VW bus,
Merlin: And when we needed to change the gaskets on the engine to get up scissor jacks, pull out the engine and change the gaskets, he's like, as long as you're pulling the engine, here's two or three other things we ought to do.
Merlin: Because you don't want to have to go pull out the engine again for something that you should have caught before.
Merlin: If you're going to dig up a bunch of a pretty major thoroughfare, there's so much coordination with the order you do that in.
Merlin: And thinking about how it pushes stuff out.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: And culmination, I really like culmination.
Merlin: And the thing where I misunderstood it, but I think it's still a smart point is if you're a project manager, you know that, um, I don't mean this to sound like, like aggressive or ego assertive, but like things must be pushed as in like things don't just happen, John, things must be caused to happen.
Merlin: Um,
Merlin: And if things involve back to, you know, it's not my fault, but it's my problem.
Merlin: Like if you have to culminate, if you have to be there for the culmination of something, think about this.
Merlin: I mean, people aren't sitting there.
Merlin: Everybody who's wanting your time or attention is not collaborating on how busy you are this week.
Merlin: You have to be the one who steps up.
Merlin: Think about the medical stuff and being your project manager for that stuff.
Merlin: You're the person who has to coordinate all of that.
Merlin: Whether or not you have the skills for a given culmination, you have to be the one that manages all of that because it's very unlikely that happenstance will cause that to turn out the way you want.
Merlin: in the time you want at the budget you want in the way that you want.
Merlin: And I love that sort of proactive idea of culmination.
Merlin: Culmination.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: It's, uh, I think about it a lot.
John: You know, when, when, uh, when the, when the baby was small, um,
John: The whole business of swaddling it.
John: The five S's.
John: The pediatrician always described it as collecting.
John: You want to get the baby collected.
John: You want to collect the baby.
John: You want to get the baby packed, if you like.
John: Yeah, but you also want to collect yourself.
John: You want to collect the situation.
Right.
John: And so the baby does want to be collected, right?
John: It wants its arms pulled in.
John: It wants its feet.
John: You know, a baby will sit and kick and thrash.
Merlin: People think you're being mean when you swaddle.
Merlin: But the fact is a dumb baby will smack itself or flap around.
Merlin: It has no control over its dumb limbs and it'll flop around and it wants to be culminated.
John: It does.
John: It wants it.
John: It craves culmination.
John: But as I would collect the baby, I would also feel like now we're all getting collected.
John: It's
John: The collection is happening all around because when the baby gets collected, it also, you know, it reverberates out.
John: And so I think you need to get collected before you culminate.
Merlin: Collection often precedes culmination.
John: Yeah, yeah, I think so.
Merlin: Collection could be, I hope you can forgive me.
Merlin: We've had a long relationship.
Merlin: I hope you can forgive me.
Merlin: I sometimes feel like I'm the last person that cares a lot about what words mean.
John: But are you being ego-aggressive now?
Merlin: I'm being a little ego-assertive.
Merlin: Okay, that's a little ego-assertive.
Merlin: I'm being something for sure, usually, but you know, it's, I think these subtleties and these distinctions are valuable for a lot of reasons.
Merlin: One is that sometimes a very specific word does mean a very specific thing.
John: Yes.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: To the exclusion of other things.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: But I also like the idea of making people slow their roll and think about that word you just used.
Merlin: And this is so true with corporate jargon, where we get so used to saying things like, oh, is this project going to be needle moving?
Merlin: Or is this, oh God, I saw one the other day because people on the internet know I dislike these kinds of bad, silly terms.
Merlin: Uh-huh.
Merlin: I think, what was the word candidate?
Merlin: I think somebody said, I'm candidating this for prioritization.
Merlin: And really, really full points just for prioritization because there's really only one priority.
Merlin: That's fine.
Merlin: But the, but the candidating is, but the thing is when you get, you know what I'm saying though?
Merlin: When you get into, especially some in-group that you're part of,
Merlin: And you start saying all these words and they all flow off the tongue and you say stuff like, you know, and that is a phrase, an adjective that I learned once is, will this project be needle moving?
Merlin: They didn't say, will this project move the needle?
Merlin: They said, will it be needle moving?
Merlin: So it's like, it's like an analogy and a metaphor sort of.
Merlin: And it's like, I feel like you say to people, hey, look guys, slow your roll.
Merlin: Let's talk about culmination.
Merlin: And like, well, I'm not trying to generate jargon here.
Merlin: And what I am trying to say is that when we, these nouns get so flabby unless they are,
Merlin: sort of um imbued inspired with the right amount of verb inside of that noun and so like i think there's a difference between a project you could say that a project is done when that project has been a completed right correctly you could say that when it's been completed poorly you could say it when it's been abandoned you could say it when it's been forgotten about those are all complete in a certain kind of way they're complete
Merlin: in an organizational sense and that no one's doing anything about it.
Merlin: But I think when we take that first person transitive out of what we're doing and just kind of like, you know, slalom ski over jargon, like that's when shit goes bad.
Merlin: You got to figure out who, you know, who did what to whom, you know?
Merlin: With the wrench in the den or whatever.
Merlin: I think words are good, John.
Merlin: They can be good.
Merlin: Words are also, as the TomTom Club said, you know, I think they may be the ones that said words are stupid things.
John: Oh, right.
John: But we need them.
John: Lies, lies, lies.
John: Yeah, that was also a thing.
Merlin: Those are words.
Merlin: My girlfriend passed out at a Thompson Twins concert.
John: And did you revive her or was she carried out on a stretcher?
Merlin: No, she culminated on her own.
Merlin: Somebody was piercing somebody.
Merlin: It was like, you know, in those years of like, oh, we're still not sure.
Merlin: We're the punk rock kids in Tampa and we go to shows and somebody decided to pierce somebody else's ear.
John: Oh, they're going to get infected.
John: That's going to get infected.
John: Yeah.
John: Oh, oh, yeah.
John: I don't know, man.
John: I hear a lot of stories because my daughter was told when she was very young that she was going to get her ears pierced.
John: Not before...
John: Her 12th birthday.
Merlin: Oh, this is known.
Merlin: This is ape law?
John: Yeah, this was her mother.
Merlin: Let me take her past this.
Merlin: It had been determined that people in our household do not get their ears pierced before the age of 12.
Merlin: Something along those lines.
John: Yeah, that was the key.
John: And it happened, you know, because a lot of her friends had their ears pierced when they were born.
John: You know, her friends of the Catholic faith.
Merlin: And like, and like, like I noticed kids, I want to say like, I don't know, Philippines, especially, but like there's kids from certain countries where it's like, you always get a baby girl's ears pierced.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: So you don't have to put a bow on her head and explain that it's a girl.
John: Her, her little Mexican, uh, best friend.
John: had her ears pierced from the day she was born.
John: They include that now.
John: It's part of the package.
John: It's just like kapow.
John: Yeah.
John: And so she's always been curious about it.
John: Cut the cord, pierce the ears.
John: And she's very fancy.
John: You know, she wants to, and clip on earrings, let's be honest, they're uncomfortable.
John: And so, oh boy, it was probably when she was seven or eight, she started to be like, that ear piercing day is coming up.
John: And it's like, nope, still five years away.
John: But now she's six months out.
Merlin: Oh, boy.
Merlin: And that's, in some ways, the toughest time.
Merlin: Do you let it slip or do you stick to your earring guns?
John: Oh, there's no slipping because, you know, you make a law.
John: It's a law.
John: It's immutable.
John: But we talk about it a lot now because it's on the horizon.
John: It's like, when I get my ears pierced, I'm going to X. When I get my ears pierced, I'm going to Y. But she has a lot of friends who have recently gotten their ears pierced because I guess some families...
John: You know, you can't, I don't know how they do it in your family, but some families, you know.
John: Inside the 12th year maybe.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: It's like 11 and a half.
John: You can get it at 11.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: And so what we have, what we've concluded is that if you get it done at the mall, you're almost certainly going to get an infection.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Is that based on factors?
John: Well, that's everybody we know that's gone to the, everybody, no, wait a minute.
John: Everybody we know that's got an infection got it done at the mall.
John: That's not to say that everybody that got it at the mall got an infection.
John: Yeah, can't prove a negative.
John: But what we do up here in the Northwest is you take your daughter to the piercing and tattoo place.
Merlin: Oh, interesting.
Merlin: So that's a whole experience.
John: Oh, yeah, because they got their shit together there.
John: They got the autoclaves, and that's all they do.
John: The piercers just do the piercing.
John: It's not like somebody at the cash register who comes around and is like, oh, yeah, here's the staple guy.
John: Right, it's somebody who's also halftime at Sunglass Hut.
John: Right.
John: It's not that it's like somebody that's like, oh, you want a piercing?
John: Like how many and how big?
John: And so we've started talking about that.
John: Like, well, we're going to go to, you know, the kick-ass
Merlin: tattoo parlor piercing spot and so now she's that's a great name she's really thinking about that a lot like okay is she looking forward to like that that i don't know for some reason what am i thinking i'm thinking of that dnd not dandy but that rpg thieves world like i'm imagining is it like one of those like is it diagon alley kind of situation is going to feel a little bit not seedy because they wear gloves and stuff but it's more exciting than going to the mall huh
John: Well, yeah, and she's got a furrowed brow and she's stroking your chin about it like, okay, right.
John: At the mall, you're surrounded by pink plastic, you know, lala, because those mall stores are just full of garbage.
John: Pink plastic lala, right?
John: It's worse than ever right now.
John: But if you go to the piercing place, you walk in and it's just like, okay, all senses on and everything happens.
Merlin: It's more like a bar than going to the limited.
John: Right.
John: It feels adult.
John: Right.
John: And in fact, I will, I will call ahead and say, Hey, I'm bringing my 11 year old in.
John: And they're going to go, great, no problem.
John: Give me your scuzziest piercenator.
John: But, you know, I would alert them in case like, okay, so probably no genital piercings on the next table while she's getting her ears done.
John: You get a private booth like when you get a toupee.
John: Yeah, hopefully.
John: I mean, I've never had a tattoo.
John: I never had a toupee.
John: Well, I've never had either.
John: A tattoo or a toupee or a tattoo pay.
Merlin: You know what, John?
Merlin: I don't have a tattoo or a toupee.
Merlin: And I don't at this juncture, because things can always change.
Merlin: Life is mutable.
Merlin: But I don't at this point see myself wanting to get either one of those.
John: No, I remember early on in my life, 16, 17, I had a friend that got a tattoo of a skull in a top hat smoking a joint on the front of his arm.
Merlin: Is that a rolling paper logo or Grateful Dead?
Merlin: What is that?
Merlin: It sounds familiar.
John: Yeah, it is.
John: It's like a, I think it's a top tobacco except turned into a skull.
John: And he was not a hippie.
John: He was a punker.
John: And so it was some kind of, he meant it or something.
John: We can include that in the footnote that explains his tattoo.
John: But we were talking and I was like, a tattoo, you say?
John: Like, you know, how did you even get that?
John: You're too young.
John: And he was like, oh, you know where I come from.
John: And, uh, and I was like, so what's the deal with it?
John: And he said, well, you know, part of it is just like, you know, I own my body.
John: Like it belongs to me.
John: I can do what I want.
John: Like it's part of like asserting my ownership over myself because he was a, you know, a lot of the,
John: kids that you know at 16 years old who are punk rock, they're the smartest kids in the school, but then they all go.
Merlin: Right, well, and that's exactly the kind of... I mean, I'm not about to criticize tattoos and people with tattoos.
Merlin: Save your email.
Merlin: But what that person is saying that sounds like silly teenage shit is the kind of thing every teenager thinks, but doesn't necessarily...
Merlin: say, well, eventually they stop saying it, at least.
Merlin: But no, I understand that.
Merlin: And especially if you've been through traumas, you've survived something you think you've survived.
Merlin: The idea, though, of going into a tattoo, what we used to call a tattoo parlor, a tattoo shop, the idea of going in there and treating it like Denny's and say, I'll have moons over my hammy, that's... I would like to think, because I'm old-fashioned, that a modern person would have a very specific idea in mind about something that's special to them.
John: right yeah you wouldn't just go in and say like give me number give me 7a this this friend james who is still alive against all odds and a lot of for james yeah and a lot of the people that we knew at that time are not still alive but he is and he works as far as i know now he works in dirt like he is a custom dirt person like he's a dirt man if you want a certain kind of dirt like sure yeah
Merlin: I can't feel like I learned about sand a few years ago.
Merlin: You know, sand's a big deal, John.
Merlin: Oh, I know.
Merlin: Sand's a big deal.
Merlin: I mean, it's one of those things like agriculture where you learn like, wow, society really turns on sand.
John: They mine sand, and then there are places that don't have any sand anymore.
John: And then you run out of sand.
John: And now with dirt, are we talking about?
John: Oh, different kinds of dirt.
John: Oh, all the great dirts.
John: Yeah, you go to a place, you get all these different dirts.
Merlin: You get a bespoke dirt for what you need for your Beaufort scale and stuff like that.
Merlin: That's exactly right.
Merlin: I got it.
John: But when I was talking to James and he was telling me about ownership of his body, I realized something about myself, which is that I kind of feel like I'm leasing my body.
John: You're leasing your body.
John: Yeah.
John: And I'm not ready to put any permanent markings on it because there might be a surcharge later.
Merlin: Maybe like a couch or a high five from a rent to own place.
John: I mean, a little bit.
John: Like if you put a big scratch on the thing, you got to take it back at some point and be like, I'm sorry.
John: Yeah.
John: And so I didn't, I never wanted to like do any, any customization or big mods.
John: Cause I wasn't sure who was going to come later and be like, Hey, you know, that was just a loner.
John: So, and I still feel that way.
John: It's like, Oh, what would I, I mean, I could get tattoos now, but what would I, what would I say?
John: And, and also what would I say when I turn it back in?
John: And I'm like, ah, sorry, I put some rolling dice on there.
Merlin: And for the third time, we return to it's not your fault, but it is your problem.
Merlin: You know, when your leased automobile, automobile, when your leased automobile gets dings and dongs,
Merlin: And like, they don't care whether on the one hand you go like, oh yeah, you obviously are the one who put that KQED sticker on there.
Merlin: You know, you have, you have narrow bones, but like, if you've got a ding in your car, they don't care who hit your car, how it happened, whether it's your fault, you're still going to be on the hook for that.
John: You're on the hook, right?
Merlin: So even your accidental dings and scratches.
Merlin: And I don't know, it'd be interesting to do a full rundown one day marathon episode here where we go through all the things that are wrong with your body and whether it was your fault.
Merlin: But like if you got a big tattoo that says, you know, hello, my name is John on it.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: You're definitely going to lose your deposit.
John: The problem is I've thrashed it just accidentally.
John: Like I've gone through so many bushes.
John: The paint is all scratched up on the sides.
John: I hit my rear view mirror a couple of times.
Merlin: I bet you scraped up the hubcaps, parallel parking, just really just day to day.
Merlin: This is what happens when you have a car kind of stuff.
John: Yeah.
John: The rims aren't original and I couldn't find the old ones.
John: I looked.
John: Those are costly.
John: Cost more than you think.
John: So when I turn it back, I'm in trouble anyway.
John: You know, I might as well get knuckle tattoos that say, like, peace and love or whatever, or fuck and you, or Jake and Elwood.
Merlin: Could I please see a list of four-letter words?
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Merlin: You could have a child that's almost done with elementary school at this point.
Merlin: Mine's older than that.
Merlin: So, you know, it's horrible, you know, having a kid.
Merlin: But Squarespace can't help with that.
Merlin: It's not their problem.
Merlin: They want to build it beautiful is what they say.
Merlin: So right now, do me a favor.
Merlin: Go ahead and head over to squarespace.com slash super train.
Merlin: And you can get a free trial.
Merlin: Okay?
Merlin: Free trial.
Merlin: No credit card required.
Merlin: You go in there.
Merlin: When you're ready to launch, right?
Merlin: You're ready to take it and put it live.
Merlin: Push the big red button.
Merlin: I don't know if there's a big red button.
Merlin: Terms and conditions apply.
Merlin: Use the offer code supertrain.
Merlin: And that's going to save you 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain.
Merlin: Once again, please, squarespace.com slash supertrain.
Merlin: Offer code supertrain.
Merlin: They've been great to us.
Merlin: They're going to be great to you.
Merlin: And our thanks to Squarespace for supporting Roderick on the line.
Merlin: And all the great shows.
John: Well, all you have to do is drive around town and look for tags, right?
John: All the taggers, they all have four-letter words.
John: And you just find the right tag.
John: You just find the right tag.
John: Get a tag.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Find the right tag.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I, um, I, uh, really passed me by John, the whole tattoo thing, but you know, um, okay.
Merlin: So, so here's another thing.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: So, um, um, cool question here.
Merlin: So, and now I'm going to do that thing, that thing that makes people roll their eyes a little bit.
John: That thing that you do.
Merlin: Yes, yes, yes.
Merlin: Uh, you know, that was written by, uh, by the guy from Fountains of Wayne.
Merlin: Oh, nice.
Merlin: Did you know that?
Merlin: I didn't know that.
Merlin: Adam Schlesinger wrote That Thing You Do.
Merlin: He also wrote some of the very good songs for Josie and the Pussycats.
Merlin: He wrote the songs for that very good Rachel Bloom show, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
Merlin: Yeah, I watched a really good YouTube video about it.
Merlin: He had a whole like, it's one of the things that broke up the band was that he was getting all this work writing quote unquote fake hit songs.
John: Is he the one that died from COVID?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, that sucks.
Merlin: It was my first COVID death.
Merlin: yeah it was a lot of us right and then i started because i was you i don't remember this john uh i'll speak for myself i was very emotionally vulnerable in the spring of 2020 and i think it was early april he died of covid like it happened fast like he used to back in the day and like i don't know i mean they're not my favorite band but like i adore welcome interstate managers and i like the red dragon tattoo one too but anyhow i
Merlin: For some reason, you know how it is, John?
Merlin: Sometimes something just really hits you.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And that really hit me.
Merlin: And it's not just because, you know, we're roughly the same age.
Merlin: It's just more like fucking bullshit, man.
Merlin: And so I started doing a thing where on my way to work every Monday, I would listen to Mexican wine, which is my favorite Fountains of Wayne song.
Merlin: And sometimes I cry a little bit when I listen to it.
Merlin: Aww.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: He was killed by a cellular phone explosion.
John: You know, I'm pretty fountains of Wayne adjacent.
John: Oh, because of the drummer.
John: Brian Young played on the first Long Winter's record, but also Chris Collingwood and I did the first, he was on the first Joko Cruz and we became very good friends on that Cruz.
John: I liked him a lot.
John: We liked each other.
John: We collaborated.
Merlin: He's just like after he's cleaned up and he's kind of like a grown up playing country music at that point.
Merlin: And he's a sweet guy.
Merlin: I really love to hear that because he always seems a little bit like he could be a little bit taciturn.
Merlin: You know, whenever you're like looking at a dyad, a Lennon and McCartney kind of set up or, you know, you know, what do they call Keith and Mick?
Merlin: The Glimmer Twins.
Merlin: There's always that you look at them in opposition to each other and compare them to each other.
Merlin: But I'm really glad to hear that.
Merlin: I will send you this video.
Merlin: You're under no obligation to watch it.
Merlin: It was basically about how Stacey's mom became like a problem for the band because Chris was like, I guess this is what we're doing now.
Merlin: I guess we're going to have hit songs now.
John: Yeah, well, that's always the way.
Merlin: That's so nice to hear.
Merlin: And was he there for music things or just because he enjoyed cruises?
John: He was not there because he enjoyed cruises.
John: I'm not sure that he did enjoy the cruise, but he did enjoy making the musics.
John: And, you know, it was early on in trying to figure out what that cruise was going to be.
John: So I was like, are we nerds?
John: Are we only going to have people that sing about robots?
John: Or are we going to have cool rock people?
Merlin: Handsome piece.
John: Handsome piece.
John: And pirates.
John: So it was like, you know, everybody like founds a way.
John: Yeah.
Yeah.
Merlin: But what was the point of that?
Merlin: Oh, here's my question.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: So one of those distinctions.
Merlin: If you can say your child has wanted to get her ears pierced for a long time, is it that she wants...
Merlin: To have had her ears pierced so that she can wear earrings, I mean, is she really looking forward to, like, how... Like, I was really... I was 19 when I got my ears pierced, and I thought it was scary.
Merlin: I got my one ear.
Merlin: I got the straight ear pierced.
Merlin: Sure, sure.
Merlin: But, like, is it... Do you think it's made...
Merlin: Is it mainly a milestone thing?
Merlin: Like, I want to be old enough to drive kind of thing.
Merlin: I want to be old enough to, like, you know, I'm not a Judaism.
Merlin: But, like, you know, do something at Seder.
Merlin: Like, be able to, like, read from the book.
Merlin: Is it a milestone thing?
Merlin: Or is it just, like, an aesthetic thing of, like, I want to be able to wear earrings?
John: I think I know the answer.
John: So many of the little people in her life that have their ears pierced had them pierced when they were kids.
John: So you said, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: So it doesn't feel like a...
John: Yeah, it doesn't feel like a milestone, but she's very, she said to me the other day, very proudly, because we were driving and she said, would you like to know my assessment of all of my friends' style?
John: And I said, oh, wow, I would like to hear it.
John: And she started at the top.
John: You know, she was like, well, Talia is very sophisticated.
John: And she wears the following colors and her, but I feel like, you know, the, uh, there's some aspect of it.
John: That's kind of, uh, mainstream, uh, mainstream, like fashion, mainstream, beautiful.
John: And then she moved on to the next person and she was like, now their style is kind of sporty, but this is already a very good presentation.
Merlin: In the sense of, like, she knew what she, I'm just saying, like, a lot of times people will say something like, like I do right now.
Merlin: I'll go like, oh, there's this idea that's kind of been bouncing around in my head.
Merlin: Do you mind if I kind of just dribble words about it for 10 minutes?
Merlin: It sounds like she came in just short of a PowerPoint.
Merlin: Like, she's ready.
John: Well, and it just came out of nowhere.
John: I mean, as we drive, as she and I drive in the car,
John: There are, you know, there are times when we're in conversation, but there are other times when someone takes the floor.
John: Like this morning we were driving to the school of rock and we passed a shipping yard and the gate was open.
John: And on the inside of the gate, there was a big sign directed at the truck drivers that were coming out of, you know, uh, coming out of this yard and the truck, the big sign said, uh,
John: It may be that at some point you, and this huge letters, the sign is five by five.
John: It may be that at some point you will be trying to egress and then paren leave and paren this yard in your truck and be greeted by a picket line.
John: Or, you know, it said it didn't say picket line.
John: It said some other, you know, some other phrase labor action or something like that.
John: And then the sign said the those activists are entitled to block you for two minutes, but no more.
John: But you are not entitled to gun your motor or aggressively lurch at them.
Merlin: Wow, it's a lot for a sign.
Merlin: And was it clear who had put up the sign?
Merlin: Was it the people who run the yard?
John: Yeah, it was the people who run the yard.
John: Was it official signage?
John: It was a big, it was like a, it was a, it was, it had been made by a professional sign company.
John: Okay.
John: And it was a very large sign that was just giving the drivers the breakdown.
John: Here's what you can do.
John: Here's what you can't.
John: So, so after two minutes, they're not allowed to impede your progress, but you have to sit there politely for two minutes and take their, you know, take them yelling at you about being a scab.
John: And so we drive past this sign, but it, but it takes us long enough to go by it that she reads it.
John: And then she said, you know, usually she'll say, what does that word mean?
John: Or what does that mean?
John: But she said, what did all of that mean?
John: Cause I have no idea what any of those sentences meant.
John: Because it was all using, you know, labor and management sort of euphemistic language.
Merlin: And what you're describing, it sounds like it feels long for a sign.
Merlin: It was very long.
Merlin: It's the kind of thing where, like, if you read the fine print on your parking ticket about how this does not create a bailment and blah, blah, blah, like kind of almost like fine text.
Merlin: It sounds like if could that have been put differently to not be as long and she picked that up.
John: Yeah.
John: And it was three sentences long and it, and you know, like why they used egress and then paren leave instead of just using leave, you know, somebody was, somebody crafted the wordage of that sign and nobody edited them.
Merlin: Yeah, somebody picked up, you know, a well-thumbed copy of Roger's Thesaurus, but then either they or someone else didn't have the confidence.
Merlin: Like, why don't you just avoid egress and say exit?
John: Well, I think what it was was they probably had a legal document in front of them.
John: It might have come down from higher management and they're the local manager.
John: And they were just like, OK, well, I got to use this legalese, but I also am trying to make a sign, you know.
John: Anyway, so she, so she turns to me and she's like, I was working at cost purposes.
John: And she said, you know, what does all of that mean?
John: And of course, my phrase might be like, well, so what should I do differently now?
John: Well, and she knew it wasn't directed at her.
John: And so it was, it was pointed into, uh, cause we had already been talking on this drive about trucking and she, I talk about trucking enough that she understands that trucks are a very important part of
John: how the world works and we, and trucks, and we're grateful for trucks, but also trucks are a pain in the ass.
John: And this is one of the things about life.
John: Thank you truck for bringing cat food or televisions or whatever.
Merlin: The background of this country is the independent truck.
John: That's what Steve Albini says.
John: But also get the fuck out of the way, truck.
John: You are being driven by a moron and I have places to be.
John: Yeah, they're like if cops had wheels.
John: Yeah, we explore that dichotomy all the time.
John: Well, so we're already going past a trucking yard.
John: We're already talking about trucking.
John: And she sees this sign.
John: So I say, let me explain the labor movement to you.
John: You took the floor.
John: I did.
John: And I, and I started all the way back in the 19th century.
John: Eventually, you know, I went, I kind of went then further back after I'd been.
John: Triangle shirtwaist factory fire, maybe.
John: Yeah.
John: And back to Marx and, and, you know, and just the power of the worker and so forth.
John: And then forward through the labor movement of the mid 20th century.
John: And I said, here's what a picket line is.
John: Here is what a scab is.
John: Here is why we traditionally support organized labor.
John: Here is what happened to organized labor in the 80s and 90s.
Merlin: Remember when Reagan fired all the air traffic controllers?
John: Yeah, I sure do.
Merlin: That was like the 9-11 of labor.
John: Well, and there was all that Reagan era stuff.
John: Like you wonder why your cake car is badly made.
John: Well, it's because of the damn unions.
John: And you know, my family, my dad was a union organizer.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Right.
John: But then as time went on, it was like, oh, now all this corrupt and so forth.
John: So I don't go into everything, but you know, I take the floor.
John: Yes.
John: So she's used to that.
John: Well, so she takes the floor and she goes down and describes the
John: Nine of her friends in pretty well thought out detail as far as like, here's where they're, here's their style.
John: Here's where I think it comes from.
John: And here are what I consider to be their blind spots in terms of their relationship to their own style.
John: And she described there were.
John: God, I would be tempted to just pull over.
John: Well, you know, because I'm, you know, I'm listening.
John: I'm looking at her in the rearview mirror.
John: Why don't you look at me?
John: I would immediately be like, damn kid.
John: Yeah, you go.
John: Well, and she had, she said, there are not one, but two girls who wear visors.
Merlin: As part of their personal style.
Merlin: You got to be careful.
Merlin: You don't, you don't, you don't, you don't have somebody else's look.
John: Well, and that, and she's, you know, and their visors where the, where the shade is colored clear plastic.
John: So like one girl has a green one and one girl has an orange one.
John: But she, she did not accuse either girl of, of ripping off the other girl's style.
John: She just said, this is kind of a thing, the visor.
John: And so both of these girls have incorporated it into their style in a different way.
John: But so her interest in getting her ears pierced is entirely to have another place of expression because she said very proudly that
John: I think all my friends would agree that I have the most style.
John: And I said, well, I'll accept that.
John: I'll accept that on recognizance, right?
Merlin: See, it'd be one thing if she said, it would already be a little stretch to say, like, the person who I regard as the most stylish, I'm pretty sure thinks I'm the most stylish.
Merlin: It's the all of my friends that makes that a...
Merlin: Bit of a swing.
John: Yeah.
John: And she does, you know, she does do that.
John: She does say like, well, in this case, everybody had an idea, but my idea was the best idea.
John: And I go, I'm sure it was darling.
John: But you know, I would like to hear more about how you, uh, how you didn't say that out loud.
John: And then she's like, well, I mean, it really needed saying, and I'm like, right.
John: But tell me more about how you included everyone else's idea in your, in your deliberation.
John: But all of this was happening because on Saturday, so I discovered here in Washington, this got to be true in California too, up in the mountains, there are gem fields where... Wow, that sounds like something from Adventure Time.
John: Where the gems...
John: are there in the ground to be gathered.
John: Still?
John: Yeah, I know this is true in the central states, in the desert southwest.
John: There are places where you can go and pay $5 and go in and just pick gems up off the ground.
Merlin: Why aren't you talking about bauxite and geodes, though?
Merlin: We're talking about big semi-precious stones, maybe?
Merlin: Or something useful for industry?
John: Well, a lot of crystals, but also some amethysts.
John: Wow, sure.
John: But this is not a pay $5 situation.
John: This is just drive up to the pass, go up a logging road, two miles under the old railroad trestle that has, that's now like falling down up past the four guys that are standing on the side of the road, chewing tobacco, pull over, go past the boulders, hike up a trail, uh, a kilometer, and then just turn and go straight up the slope, which is a forested slope.
John: And you'll start to see holes that have been dug in the ground by other crazy people and just start digging a hole and start pulling out gems.
Merlin: Is it, wow, it's so fast.
Merlin: I mean, like, all I know is what I've learned from TV shows.
Merlin: But, like, you know, like, Daniel Plainview wants to go out and, like, see if there's any oil here.
Merlin: Or, like, the fancy lad with Mrs. What's-Her-Head in Deadwood has to go out and reconnoiter his claim.
Merlin: Are these, like, known areas?
Merlin: Do you just show up?
Merlin: And then at what level of engagement or contract do you say, this is my gem area?
Yeah.
John: Well, there are, so I pull up, uh, I'm driving up there.
John: There are some trucks on the side of the road.
John: There's a guy that's a very dirty guy.
John: He's a, you know, he's probably, he's probably 55, but he looks 65 and I, and he's got a bunch of pickaxes in the back of his truck.
John: So I pull up, I rolled a roll down the window and I'm like, Hey guy, what can you tell me?
John: And the guy goes, what do you mean?
John: What do I look like?
John: And I was like, well, you look like a guy who's been mining some gems, if you know what I mean.
John: And he goes, what makes you think I know anything about that?
Merlin: Maybe you should have started by saying, hey, old timer.
John: Hey, old timer.
John: But he was not that much older than me.
John: Still, I'm in the vernacular.
John: Yeah.
John: Right.
John: Hey old timer.
John: And so eventually I get him talking and he's like, well, if you go up this trail, then you come down on it.
John: But if you go down that trail, you go up on it.
John: I've been coming up here for a long time.
John: I actually am from Maple Valley and I got wherever.
John: And then you can't shut him up.
John: And he's telling me all about the, the gem field.
John: And he's like, now there is a claim.
John: There's a, there's a feller that's got a claim and he'll chase you off his claim.
John: There's a feller.
John: What's got a claim.
John: There's a feller.
John: What's got a claim.
John: He'll chase you off his claim.
John: So you got to stay away from that.
John: But if you go down this way, you know, and then climb up, you'll get, you won't be near his claim and you just, you just dig it.
John: So, so we pull over, we get our stuff out, we head up the trail and we're walking.
John: I got a shovel over my shoulder.
John: She's got some garden tools.
John: We got, you know, some buckets.
John: We're walking along.
John: Well, every 10 minutes here comes someone else, some small group of people, two to four people.
John: carrying some, you know, sifters and, and pans and, and every one of them, of course, I stopped and said, how'd you do?
John: How's the pickings?
John: But you're being right neighborly.
John: That's right.
John: And the thing is, you know, I worked on a gold mine when I was young and spent a lot of time up in Alaska, you know, dealing with miners, right?
John: Because there's a lot of people up, up there that are making a living with,
John: pulling gold out of the streams and pulling, you know, whatever they find all kinds of stuff out there.
John: And so I know a little bit about the way miners talk.
John: And of course they all say,
John: Ah, well, not so great.
John: You know, it was really, their pockets could be full bulging with gold.
Merlin: There's probably any number of reasons where you would not want to highlight how much stuff you found.
John: Oh yeah.
John: My dad and I were flying one time and there was a little runway carved out of the, uh, carved out of the trees.
John: We were up in the Yukon territory and
John: And, and I don't remember what it was.
John: I, maybe we had to pee something like that.
John: He was like, I'm going to put her down.
John: And so.
John: Oh, you're in, you're in, you're in an airplane.
John: We're in a, we're in his little plane.
John: Okay.
John: We've, we turn around, we, you know, we circle back over this little dirt strip.
John: No one around.
John: And we, we bring it in and dad, you know, dad loved to land on a sandbar or whatever.
John: And he puts the plane down and we, you know, we kind of are taxing toward the end of the runway to the forest.
John: And a guy steps out of the forest, cradling a shotgun.
John: And dad goes, well, we're not going to stick around here.
John: And he flips the tail around and off we go.
John: And that was clearly like somebody mining a claim up there that didn't want us coming around peeing.
John: Maybe he thought you were some of them pesky revenuers.
John: We probably were.
John: That's exactly right.
John: He was like, if you don't have, if your plane doesn't say, uh, state trooper on it, then you better get.
John: Keep, keep flying.
John: But so at a certain point, my daughter is like, you got to talk to everybody.
John: You got to talk to everybody.
Merlin: Oh, boy.
John: Oh, John.
John: They should start a support group.
John: And I'm like, yeah, I got to talk to everybody.
John: We're going to get some tips and tricks here.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: And, you know, this is a public gem searching area.
John: It's not like anybody's protecting their claim.
John: Right?
Merlin: It's not private property or something.
John: No, they're not like, I'm not going to tell you.
John: But they're gem hunters.
John: So just naturally, they're like, well, didn't get much.
John: You know, pretty thin, slim pickings.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: But we get there, we climb up the hill, we start digging a hole, we start sifting through stuff.
John: We found a little patch in the trees where the sun was shining.
John: So if you sift the dirt and you find something, it'll shimmer.
John: Yeah, it'll glisten.
John: And we got a little, you know, we got a little can full of gems.
John: And she.
Merlin: I mean, you're clearly like, forgive my saying, tourist gem hunters.
John: Oh, yeah, yeah.
John: We're just a couple of, you were just a couple of city folk.
John: You're cradling nothing.
John: We're chichacos, you know.
John: Oh.
John: But we did get one amethyst in the group of.
John: And you know, and it's not some high grade amethyst that's going to make us any money.
John: That's why while we were doing it, it's just that she's a fancy lass and she has a little collection of precious rocks.
John: I mean, she, which extends of course to seashells and, and stuff she picks up on the beach, beach glass and whatnot.
John: She's basically like a crow collector.
John: Yeah, exactly.
John: Exactly.
John: But she's also that way, I think, with jewelry and jemmy jewelry.
John: Like, Marlon, what month were you born?
John: November.
John: November.
John: So your birthstone.
John: I want to say topaz.
John: It is topaz.
John: Okay.
John: It is topaz.
Merlin: Is that for all month, John?
Merlin: It's not like the signs of the astronomy?
Merlin: Okay.
John: So for the whole month, it's topaz.
John: Okay.
John: Yeah.
John: It's just the month.
John: And apparently also pearls.
John: Hmm.
Merlin: There are a lot of, there are a lot of birthstone, like my birthstone.
Merlin: Do you know how that's established, John?
Merlin: Is there like a, uh, is there like an, you know, uh, engineering commission or some kind of a international community that decides the months that get certain gems?
John: It goes back a long time, back to the 15th century.
John: Ooh.
John: And there are some, it seems like I'm born in September, it's sapphire and it's always been sapphire as far as anybody knows.
Hmm.
Merlin: oh, these are going to be like wedding things where you're like, oh, first anniversary is paper and stuff like that.
John: Yeah, that type of thing.
John: But there are others where it's like, I think April was always Diamond, but now they've flipped it around and it's got
John: sapphire and may as emeralds, but it's got agates and all this stuff.
John: They keep changing everything because, you know, they just can't leave it alone.
Merlin: No, and if it's anything like the De Beers people, you know, they have an unseen hand in a lot of things.
Merlin: So it's like Hallmark and Mother's Day, De Beers and Diamonds.
Merlin: There's these certain kinds of like rackets
Merlin: where there's this thing that they've managed to socialize, not in the usual sense of socialize, but where they've gotten culture to sort of adopt this idea that it's always been this certain way, but sometimes they want to change it up a little bit.
Merlin: Maybe they got a little extra amethyst, so they give it a week or something.
John: Yeah, it's amethyst week.
Merlin: Yeah, amethyst week.
Merlin: You should spend, you know, whatever, half your salary on that.
John: You don't wear any kind of adornment.
John: Is that right?
Merlin: No, I don't.
Merlin: Right now, I've got an Apple Watch and my father's wedding ring, which is now my wedding ring.
Merlin: Oh, that's nice.
Merlin: So you do have a ring.
Merlin: I do have a ring.
Merlin: I don't think I'm an adornment guy.
Merlin: After I got baptized, I got a cross of our risen Lord.
Merlin: I had that.
Merlin: See, I never even had puka shells.
Merlin: I had the earring when I was 19, my ill-advised earring.
Merlin: But no, I'm not an adornment guy.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: I'm definitely not.
Merlin: If I could say it, again, I don't want to offend anybody.
Merlin: I'll tell you what, I'm not a thumb ring guy.
John: No, that's tough.
John: A thumb ring's pretty tough, yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, I mean, that's like showing up in Adidas shower shoes.
Merlin: I mean, get some mace and run the other way.
John: I tried many times, right?
John: In the 1970s.
Merlin: You try things on.
John: Yeah, I tried it.
John: In the 70s, I wore a puka shell necklace, and then
John: In the 80s, I wore friendship bracelets for a while.
Merlin: Family serves.
Merlin: You are wearing puka shells in that Western State Hurricanes local access show.
John: Correct.
John: Correct.
John: Because my sister in the 90s got me some puka shells when she was living in Hawaii, and I wore them
Merlin: Both out of respect for her and ironically.
Merlin: That is the ultimate 90s reason for doing something.
John: Yeah.
John: But then also on top of ironically, I wore them because that gave me pleasure.
John: And I got so much shit for it.
John: People were like a really puka shell necklace.
John: And I was like, shaka bra.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Aloha.
John: Yeah.
John: It was a constant, but it was like a lot.
John: It was like all the glasses frames I wore in the 2000s.
John: I look back at it now and I'm like, well, that was just dumb looking.
John: You were trying to do something.
John: You were trying to make some kind of statement.
Merlin: Some people, I think you did a nice job with that.
Merlin: I think about somebody like Jeff Goldblum.
Merlin: Whoever, I don't know if he does his own adornment, but he's fun.
Merlin: He's having fun with clothes.
Merlin: He's having fun with jewelry.
Merlin: He seems like he's just having fun.
Merlin: I could be getting it wrong.
Merlin: No.
Merlin: See, I'm the kind of guy where I couldn't even get one of my Bette Noire
Merlin: at a certain point in the late 70s, early 80s, was I really wanted, if I had to bring it down to one person, not Leif Garrett, probably Andy Gibb, but I really wanted parted in the middle, feathered hair, and I did not have the culture, the technology, or the tools to even begin to know how to do it.
Merlin: But I wanted that so much.
John: You needed a goodie comb.
Merlin: Well, I just didn't know.
Merlin: First of all, I didn't even know what cut to get where it would feather.
Merlin: So, like, I'm dealing with a home haircut here.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I'm basically, I'm like, you know, not Mo Green, the guy from the Stooges.
Merlin: I got, like, a soup bowl haircut.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And I'm trying to, you know, rock a gib.
Merlin: And you're over here like, no soup, no soup.
Merlin: No soup, and then not me.
Merlin: But every time I've tried an adornment, I feel like it looks like I'm a guy trying an adornment.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You do well with it.
John: I tried rings.
John: I was on a train one time in Italia, and there was somebody in my train car that I got talking to, because you got to talk to everybody.
John: Hey, what's your story?
John: Hey, fella.
John: And this fella was from Firenze.
John: Firenze.
John: And I said, oh, I like your ring, because he had three rings that were intertwined.
John: And he said, oh, this is a rolling ring.
John: You know, he had some Italian word for it.
John: And it's three rings.
John: And when you put it on and take it off, they kind of roll over each other like
John: Like it's a little device.
John: Oh, like it's got ball bearings or something?
John: Yeah, but it's just three rings.
John: It's just that they're almost like a... That sounds like dark magics.
John: It was.
John: It's a little dark magic.
John: And I watched him roll the ring on and off, and I was like, I got to get one of those.
John: Oh, he's stimming.
Merlin: Yeah, it's like a little fiddle toy.
John: Yeah.
John: So when I was in fit-ins... Fit-ins!
John: I went, uh, to the, uh, to the bridge over the Arno where they, where they do the jewelry.
John: And I was like, I got to get one of these.
John: And they were like, well, in gold it costs.
John: And then some number that was insane.
John: And I was like, oh, right.
John: Things are expensive and gold costs money.
John: And I don't have any money.
John: But then later.
John: I bet they saw you coming.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, they saw me and they were like, Americans have money.
John: And I was like, ah, not this one.
John: But later I was at one of those street fairs where, where people from Greece put blankets out in the middle of the, uh, the town square and they sell you all, all kinds of little leather pouches and whatnot.
John: Oh, sure.
John: And one of them was a silver Smith and there was a, a silver rolling ring.
Merlin: Oh, I think I'd like that better.
John: Yeah.
John: And I put it on and it fit me and it was like $15.
John: You're the Kwisatz Haderach.
John: And I was like, $15.
John: I don't have $15.
John: And they were like $10.
John: And I said, it's, and it's silver, it is silver, you know?
John: And I was like, I'll take it.
John: And I wore that silver ring for a long time.
John: And it, cause it was, it was a fidget.
John: But then, you know, it kind of, I don't know, it slipped off into a box one day and
John: Right now I got nothing.
John: I know I'm wearing nothing at all.
John: I'm in my, I'm in my birthday suit.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I feel like this is something that makes more sense for you because you are so much more willfully, happily, gregariously engaged in that aspect of culture, which is things like what kinds of clothes, what was the uniform of the day?
Merlin: What clothes will I wear?
Merlin: And I'm saying that saying this neither to like, you know, polish your cherry nor to diminish mine.
Merlin: But, like, I just, like, right now, actually, I'm that guy right now.
Merlin: I'm wearing my own podcast T-shirt right now.
Merlin: But, like, that's what I wear.
Merlin: I wear a podcast T-shirt.
Merlin: It's a new shirt.
Merlin: It's a good shirt.
Merlin: But I wear, like, it's just not a big part of my presentation.
Merlin: Um, and, and which is not to say that it doesn't have a meaning because that's how culture works is that like, even the things that were even, or especially the things that we don't think about doing have significance, but like the way that, uh, a phrase that I think has passed possibly from this program into other parts of the podcast universe is trying on an idea, like a jacket, something you said a couple of times, but like you, that seems like a big part of your whole deal is trying things on.
Merlin: not even so like where I would try something on to say like, Oh gosh, I really hope I look like this person in tiger beat magazine.
Merlin: You seem much more likely to try something on just to try something on.
Merlin: I feel like, and it's not, and it doesn't, it isn't necessarily a failure if it didn't work because that's part of the process for you.
Merlin: Whereas I'm more like, there's other things I will do.
Merlin: Like I'm like with maybe historically with music or today with TV and movies, that part of culture.
Merlin: But like,
Merlin: I just don't, I don't think I adorn myself very much.
Merlin: And I kind of admire that you do.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Even if you don't have anything on right now, that's fine.
Merlin: You can always take it off.
Merlin: You can.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Like a knuckle tattoo.
John: That's key.
John: And you know, when I do, I, when I, when I find rings or something, or if I find a ace of spades on the ground, I'll carry it in my wallet for a couple of weeks or whatever.
Merlin: But, but I just saw a tarot card not too long ago.
Merlin: Are you carrying it in your wallet?
Merlin: No, it was a little bit wet.
Merlin: But I've got it over here.
Merlin: What's like the three of mashed potatoes or something?
Merlin: I really don't know anything about it.
John: You know what they say.
John: If a three of mashed potatoes is wet, that's a whole other thing in the tarot.
Merlin: Three of mashed potatoes is wet.
Merlin: Sailors regret.
Merlin: That's exactly it.
Merlin: Potatoes be dry.
Merlin: Touch on my thigh.
Merlin: I don't remember.
John: One of the things that I've always been curious about in men's jewelry is
John: jewelry yeah i always i always struggle with that it feels anti-semitic and incorrect to say it properly jewelry oh oh i wouldn't have gotten that they're jewelers thank you for walking me through but men use it to uh to display wealth you know to to say here is you know it's a rolex david
John: You know, you put something on and you go, uh, uh, uh, that it's a Rolex.
Merlin: You get a big fat wife with long fingernails so you can show like how successful you are.
Merlin: Exactly.
Merlin: My wife eats a lot and doesn't need to work.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: And then you get, you get you some, uh, get you some, uh, some rotating thumb rings.
John: Yeah, exactly.
John: Exactly.
John: It's, it's a Sopranos thing, but also, you know, Brad Pitt's always got some expensive thing on.
John: Zeno, subtle, subtle.
John: Um, but, but that thing, you know, the hip hop thing where you've got something that is, that's made of a precious metal and there's so much of it that the thing itself is heavy and the weight of it, even if you're not, even if it's not like
Merlin: bedecked with jewels it's there's enough gold in the thing i know what you're talking about i when i showered this morning um i have a special affection for the first four tracks on raising hell to this day which um boy rick rubin did a really nice job with that i hope he gets the credit for he does making it
Merlin: Well, because, you know, like, I think he made, didn't he also do the previous one, the one with Rockbox?
Merlin: But, like, there's something to the way they, their rapping left to its own devices could be kind of thin, but they end up doing this almost like a harmony when they rap.
Merlin: Uh-huh.
Merlin: And stuff like, you know, like, it's tricky to rock a rhyme, that's right on time, it's tricky.
Merlin: It's tricky.
Merlin: How is it?
Merlin: It's tricky, tricky, tricky.
Merlin: But then one kind of, it's tricky to rock a rhyme, to rock a rhyme, and they do that, it's almost like a harmony.
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: But I was thinking about, from that time, I believe they wore heavy gold things.
Merlin: I know, as you say, faux shizzle that Eric B. and Rakim did.
Merlin: Rakim would say... They were very into that.
Merlin: Flavor Flav had a timepiece.
Merlin: He did.
Merlin: He had a big clock.
Merlin: That's what you're talking about here.
Merlin: This is heavy.
Merlin: We're talking about a big old piece of signification.
Merlin: I think the weight of it is significant because you feel it.
Merlin: If I had a Tony Award or an Emmy, I would wear it.
Merlin: You'd just wear it around your neck?
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Yeah, and I think that, you know, like, I don't have that, but, you know, you look at Keith Richards and you're like, oh, you look like a, I mean, you know, like, you look like a real mess, but the mess is something.
John: He looks like he's his own department in a goodwill.
John: Yeah, exactly.
John: He looks like he's, if you look through, if you look, he looks like a department at a goodwill called odds and ends.
John: You go up to the counter and it's all under glass, but it's like the craziest kind of assortment of glory.
Merlin: John, do you remember the, uh, circa early eighties, late seventies, actually probably late seventies.
Merlin: Remember the Italian horn?
Merlin: The Italian horn.
Merlin: Do you remember this?
Merlin: I bet John Syracuse used to have one of these.
Merlin: It was this necklace the Italian guys would get.
Merlin: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah!
Merlin: What is that?
Merlin: I think it's a sax thing.
Merlin: The horn!
Merlin: I think it's a 15 years later version of Austin Powers' male symbol, probably.
Merlin: I'll find out about the Italian horn.
Merlin: Yeah, figure out what the Italian horn is.
Merlin: But that kind of thing.
Merlin: But Keith Richards, but yeah, and obviously the joke being, which is not a joke, is that I think his look was inspiration for Johnny Depp's Pirate Man.
John: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
John: Absolutely.
John: And I think there was a time when I had enough- Very dangly.
John: I had enough friendship bracelets that had been made by friends because it was a thing in the 80s, right?
Merlin: I did wear those.
Merlin: I made and wore those in college.
John: I made you a friendship bracelet.
Merlin: I love those.
John: Oh, of course I'll wear it.
John: And then, oh, and then I had a girlfriend who gave me a black crystal on a pendant.
John: A black crystal.
John: A black crystal.
John: And I wore that for a while, a black crystal.
John: Talk about blood magics.
John: And then I had, I got some leather friendship bracelets in Spain and one of them,
John: stayed on for years.
John: And when it rots off, that means the friendship's over, right?
John: Well, or something.
John: I mean, when it rotted off, I was like, oh yeah, who even gave me that?
John: I don't remember.
John: It had been on me for so long.
John: But I don't know.
John: What's my next jewelry?
John: Daniel Lorca gave it to you.
John: Daniel, it was before Daniel, but yeah, that's the type of thing Daniel would have given me in 1989 if I'd known him.
Merlin: Could you roll down a window?
Merlin: It's really smoky.
Merlin: Hmm.
Hmm.