Ep. 500: "Dr. Labyrinth, I Presume?"
John: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
Merlin: Hi, Marilyn.
Merlin: That was very thorough.
Merlin: Got to get it all.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: I wish I could get it all.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: You know, every morning it's a new trial.
John: I never knew about Pokemons.
John: And for some reason, a lot of the kids in my kid's life are getting rid of their Pokemons now.
John: And she's gobbling them up.
John: She's getting them all.
John: That's what Warren Buffett says.
John: Right.
John: Get Pokemons when they're not desirable.
John: So her Pokemon binder has gone from having like 40
John: in it to having like 400 in it.
John: in the space of just a couple of weeks.
Merlin: At the risk of just making my family just be covered with shame for years.
Merlin: When you say a Pokemon is a card, and then so there's different kinds, like you get the developments, you get the Jigglypuffs, you get the different kinds, and they turn into different ones, but then the binder is full of cards.
Merlin: It's a card binder.
John: That's cool.
John: It's like baseball cards, except with little dragons on them.
Merlin: Yeah, right, right, right.
John: Little monsters.
John: And you're absolutely right that they do transform.
John: Not physically in the card, but in your emotional game.
John: That would be cool.
John: That would be very cool.
John: Wouldn't that be rad?
Merlin: Yeah, but, I mean, it's a lot.
Merlin: It would probably, you know... I watch a lot of these restoration videos, you know, of some very, very dangerous products.
Merlin: And I got to say, the technology that would be needed from, I'm guessing, probably the late 90s to... Because, you know, they wouldn't update that.
Merlin: They probably have the original chips in there, and it probably gets very hot.
John: The vitamin must get hot.
John: I see what you're saying.
John: I thought you were...
Merlin: going on a fantasy uh like i was where the card actually turned into a little monster oh see using magic you know what it's that it's that what is it called the the hard racism of soft expectations or something like that that thing that thing george uh hw bush told us not to do i think i just did that i didn't realize the card might could actually transform
Merlin: into a living being.
Merlin: And although I don't think the battery would overheat in that case, it could also be just as dangerous.
Merlin: I'm not an engineer.
Merlin: Also, having that many animals in the same binder.
Merlin: They're animals, right?
Merlin: I don't know.
John: We've exhausted my knowledge of them.
John: They look like little... Me too.
Merlin: That worked out great.
John: That's just right there.
John: Okay.
John: Next issue.
John: Did you ever have a thing...
John: One of these modern things where the battery bubbled up and got hot and exploded, caught on fire?
Merlin: Oh, oh, oh.
Merlin: No, it is somewhat of a cause of concern.
Merlin: Because you do have battery-powered things.
Merlin: Well, we all do.
Merlin: I don't know enough to get super into it.
Merlin: I mean, my gut is that the lithium or whatever, however you want to look at it, the battery problem generally has to do with...
Merlin: careless manufacturer rather than conceptual danger.
Merlin: I mean, not conceptual danger, but actual danger.
Merlin: I could be wrong, but my sense is that a lot of the reason those hoverboards were blown up a few years ago is because they weren't very well made.
Merlin: But I don't know.
Merlin: I don't know what goes into making a Pokemon.
Merlin: I think there's a fella named Ash, and he throws a ball.
Merlin: And then the ball has to come back to him.
Merlin: And he puts that in his binder.
Merlin: Or something, you know, and then he says, pika, pika.
Merlin: Pika, pika, pika, pika, pika, pika.
Merlin: That would drive me crazy to be a little bit of a bird.
Merlin: I've never had a desire to own a bird.
Merlin: All my hot takes are coming out, John.
Merlin: I'm just going to open the floodgate and they're all coming out.
Merlin: I've talked about Avatar.
Merlin: I'm telling you, I've never wanted a bird.
Merlin: Speaking of which, I may have a new strong opinion about the Band of Birds as of this morning, but I'm thinking about that still.
Merlin: All right, well, I'll let you turn on it.
Merlin: I want to hear more about this binder, though.
John: What other magical creatures?
John: Well, I'm telling you an anecdote about the time that I actually had one of those things catch on fire, a battery-powered thing.
John: Tell me which.
John: Well, no, it was very lucky.
John: It was a lucky day for us because there were a bunch of us standing around in the living room, and I had purchased, the Christmas prior, some remote-control cars because I thought...
John: All my attempts to get my daughter to play with trucks.
John: All my attempts to get her to wear blue jeans and dungarees.
John: All those attempts had fallen by.
John: You made a very strong and concerted good faith effort.
John: I said, hey, we're living in a modern world.
John: How about if we play airplane pilot?
John: And she was like, may I take your order, sir?
John: I was like, no.
John: That's not what the pilot says.
Merlin: I think you should have given her bangs.
Merlin: So she either looked like, you know, Gregory Peck's daughter in To Kill Like Scout, you know, or maybe go for kind of Addie Prey from, you know, the Bible Salesman movie.
John: The thing is, I hear a lot about bangs around here because I'm one of those people that says bangs are easy.
John: And I am living, as you know, in a world of women who all...
John: look at me very sternly and go, bangs are hard.
Merlin: You have binders full of women.
John: And I do have binders.
John: I have one large binder of women.
John: And I go, bangs are easy.
John: Transform at night and repair your shoes.
John: They say bangs are hard.
John: I say, bangs are easy.
John: How could bangs be hard?
John: You just cut them across, and then they're not in your eyes anymore.
John: And they go, no.
Merlin: You just get a straight edge or ruler, and you cut across, right?
John: No, they don't understand that kind of bangs.
John: They're telling me that bangs are 10 times as hard as not bangs.
John: And so, you know, I've told you the saga at the time I cut my daughter's hair against everyone, including my daughter's desires.
John: And I was like, you see, it's a little, it's like a little, it's a little pixie cut.
John: And it'll be like, now you're, you know, now you can just put on your boiler suit.
John: You never have to comb it.
John: You never have to brush it.
John: You never have to think about it.
John: And she did this that she, she, for a year.
John: she would glare at me and then part right down the center and spackle her little bangs on the other side like alfalfa.
Merlin: I'm sorry if I stole your bit, but I instantly saw Alfalf.
Merlin: Also, probably because I'm still ruminating on, what's Gregory Peck's character's name?
Merlin: Atticus Finch.
Merlin: Atticus Finch.
Merlin: Scout Finch, right?
Merlin: And I'm still thinking about those kinds of bangs, you know, and so forth.
Merlin: So I'm kind of, I'm in an overalls, you know, boiler suit.
John: Sure, you're there already.
John: You're halfway there.
John: A little Rosie the Riveter, you know?
John: But she had it in her mind.
John: That what a girl did was part her hair in the middle and wear it down, you know, like my sister Laura did in 1970.
Merlin: Oh, I mean, you're talking about the canonical 70s center cut.
Merlin: You look at for the guys and the gals.
Merlin: That could be Sean Cassidy.
Merlin: That could be Dorothy Hamill.
John: Oh, except for no wave.
John: You know, Sean Cassidy, those guys have a wave.
John: You take a Leif Garrett.
John: Yeah, she's talking about no wave straight down the middle.
John: And so she would do it, and I'm like, sweetheart.
John: The kind Jam Brady wanted.
John: Yeah, exactly.
John: If you just don't do anything to it, it's maintenance-free.
John: It's cute.
John: And she would just glare and just part it and spackle it down.
John: And now her hair is back long again, and I'm like, Daddy will never make another comment about your hair.
John: Daddy will never talk about hair at all.
Merlin: You never know what to get super motivated about.
Merlin: But I do like the idea of your persuasion phase of this coming after the haircut.
Merlin: It's a long con persuasion.
John: It always seemed to me that a...
John: But the benefits of a short haircut, the benefits of a pixie cut were self-evident.
John: Anybody would wake up in the morning, especially when there were so many loud-voiced yelling conversations from the bathroom about tangles and, ow, it hurts as one person's combing another person's hair.
John: Ow, ow, ow.
John: You know, I have to do it.
John: Look, you've got all this gum in your hair.
John: No, I have to do it.
Merlin: I'm having the most traumatic possible flashbacks right now.
John: I was like, I can solve it.
Merlin: Every single morning.
Merlin: And even as – you can't tell anecdotes about this.
Merlin: I know what happens to people when you tell anecdotes about family life.
Merlin: But the truth is you're never going to meet somebody who's more like patient and kind.
Merlin: I was the person who did –
Merlin: Not quite half of the brushing, but I got to where I did it pretty well, and then one person would be favored and chosen.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: Me too.
Merlin: But then the recriminations are still going to come out.
Merlin: You're still going to be like, well, if you would brush it before you went to bed, we wouldn't have this problem.
Merlin: You're making a dreadlock.
John: Well, see, what I was good at was, here's how conditioner works.
John: And there was this...
John: growling happening between the other two.
John: Growl, growl, growl.
John: And I was like, check this out.
John: And then I would run conditioner through.
John: Look at that.
Merlin: You comb right through it even when it's wet.
Merlin: Look at that.
John: Just comb right through it when it's wet.
John: Look at that.
John: And then you just comb it and comb it.
John: And listen, now it's just like soft as a sow's ear.
John: And then I was the only one that came.
John: I'm sorry.
Merlin: I'm imagining you compelling your five-year-old daughter in the shower to experience conditioner and then really close the deal with telling her she's smooth as a sow's ear.
John: Listen in.
John: the hair is just listening oh look at that it's so silky oh my goodness then she was like yeah only daddy knows how it's the secret that only daddy knows and of course her mom is trying to get her ready at 7 45 in the morning trying to pull these burrs out of there yeah anyway as part of part of this larger project right i bought these these remote control cars they were really fun like all remote controlled things unless you become an enthusiast they end up on a shelf
John: because no one's going to get up every day and play with their car.
Merlin: They'll be fun for a little while, kind of, on Christmas Day.
Merlin: But I like the way you put it, though.
Merlin: I'm not saying that you're being wasteful or whatever, but I was an enthusiast of everything I was ever given.
Merlin: It's just some of it didn't really work.
Merlin: And including, quote unquote, remote control cars, which usually had a cable attached to them when I was a kid.
Merlin: But also, the stuff like, remember the slot, the cars where there'd be the little contact things on the bottom?
Merlin: And you get those black tracks with the wires in them.
Merlin: For sure.
Merlin: They were really, really cool, but they didn't...
Merlin: I mean, I'm not trying to sound like some rube from a 90s VH1 show.
Merlin: Like, ain't that 1978?
Merlin: There was this guy named Arthur Fonzarelli.
Merlin: What?
Merlin: Or to quote Patton Oswalt, whackity-shmackity-doo.
John: Well, that's how Michael Ian Black got his start on those shows.
Merlin: Yeah, right, right, right.
Merlin: Yeah, but yeah, he goes way back.
Merlin: He goes back.
Merlin: Sure, sure, sure.
Merlin: But the point being, those tracks, you couldn't get it to work.
Merlin: And I'm just saying, the stuff wouldn't work the way it looked in the commercial.
John: It's 100% true.
John: There's a church over here around by my house where they claim to.
John: have a very large slot track course.
John: And they claim to, by having it painted on a sign under their, like, worship service, 7 to 9, Sunday mornings, no one's ever at the church.
John: And then underneath it says, you know, come check out our slot car racing.
John: And I've never gone in.
John: I've been all around the church, but I'm just never there on Mondays between 2 and 4 when this –
John: 35-year-old painted sign claims that slot car stuff is happening.
John: I'm going to do it, though.
Merlin: Without committing, you might want to even rent a car or get a zip car and drive by real slow in disguise and see what's happening then.
Merlin: Because if you pull up and there's two people there, one guy who's obviously on oxygen and about to die, somebody else, and you, you are not going to be driving away from that, my friend.
Merlin: You now are a church slot car man.
John: You don't think I could go in my Buddy Hackett boiler suit with
John: You heard me the love bug outfit?
John: My oil can and my helmet.
John: Hi, little fella.
John: So I'm sitting in the living room one day.
John: This is in the summer.
Merlin: No, wait.
Merlin: I'm sorry, John.
Merlin: Does it overlap with the program?
Merlin: Am I wheezing your juice here by doing the program?
Merlin: When is slot car day?
Merlin: Is that Mondays, did you say?
John: Well, I haven't looked at the sign in a while.
John: They also have a labyrinth.
John: And I've been through the labyrinth.
Merlin: A David Bowie labyrinth or a contemplative prayer labyrinth?
Merlin: A contemplative prayer labyrinth.
Merlin: Because the movie, having a David Bowie mise-en-scene would be kind of cool.
Merlin: No, this is more of a, like, wander our grounds.
Merlin: I've done that.
Merlin: They want a Grace Cathedral.
Merlin: They have a couple there.
Merlin: It's really kind of lovely.
John: Yeah, and I found it by accident because I was cutting through the brush coming the other direction from the woods.
John: He's the guy with the beard in all the 80s videos.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You know that one guy?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: That's you.
Merlin: That's you now.
Merlin: That's me.
Merlin: John comes through the brush.
John: I was like, what's this labyrinth doing out here?
John: What the devil?
John: There's a labyrinth in this forest.
John: Dr. Labyrinth, I presume.
John: Oh, I found a church is what I found.
John: Yeah.
John: So no, I haven't, and I'm going to go do it.
John: But no, the remote control cars, they've actually got that technology pretty solid enough that these cars...
John: I played with them and she played with them
John: Other times other than Christmas morning, we continued to get them out.
John: Not all the time, not enough to actually say, like, that was a good value.
Merlin: Not like an ongoing project, like riding bikes kind of thing.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: You've got the things that are like, oh, this is the regular, well, that's the basketball.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: You've got the, this is the Frisbee, this is the thing that we're doing right now.
Merlin: It maybe doesn't get to that level, but like you stick with it.
John: It didn't turn into like a father-daughter thing that we did necessarily.
John: Right, where you force your kid to do something with you.
John: But so we're standing at summer day.
John: We're standing in the kitchen.
John: There's a group of people there.
John: People stand around with their hands in their pockets.
John: And somebody says, what's burning?
John: And right there in the kitchen, I had the car plugged in to charge.
John: And admittedly, and I read later...
John: I think the way those batteries are supposed to work is once they're charged, you unplug them.
John: They're not like your phone where you just plug it in and leave it sitting there plugged in forever.
Merlin: I know this sounds silly to say, but I know, for example, my Segway can very easily be overcharged, even with just...
Merlin: charging it.
Merlin: And I think it's only in, I don't know this to be a fact, but were you saying like in phones and stuff, it knows to turn it off or cycle it?
Merlin: I think you're right.
John: I think so.
Merlin: I think that's probably one of the ways I suspect that people economize is like, do not leave this 2012 hoverboard, $40 hoverboard plugged in under the tree all year.
John: Yeah.
John: And why, so it seemed to me, I'm not an electrical engineer, as you know, but
John: I don't even work in the electronics industry.
John: Wow.
John: But it seems like if you can put a governor, governor, in a phone that knows when it's charged enough to not...
John: burn itself to the ground it seems like you should be able to do that with a segue too there's room in a segue for instance is what i'm saying for whatever part it is that's necessary to tell it to stop charging right don't you think isn't it a dip switch or something stop charging yeah i mean that would be i mean yeah i mean because like what if that was your car charge stop charging charge stop charging
Merlin: Is that the governor?
Merlin: What's all this, then?
Merlin: Stop all that charging, innit?
Merlin: Is that Mumford and Son?
Merlin: Why are you charging?
John: Hey, hello, hello.
Merlin: You're all charged.
Merlin: Oi.
Merlin: Hey, let's be more charged.
Merlin: Quit hoarding all the power.
Merlin: Notice I don't pronounce the letter H. How can you have any charge of a day of pudding?
Hey.
John: Uh-huh, when the lions broke free.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, so this thing all of a sudden just explodes.
John: Like, not an explosion, but like... Like a poof?
John: No, like flame.
John: Actual fire shooting out of it.
John: That's no good.
John: That's a bad car.
John: Yeah, fortunately, it's not on a bookcase that's covered with sacred documents.
John: Yeah.
John: It's not sitting on a pile of oily rags.
John: It's just on a shelf in the kitchen...
John: And I was able to grab it with one hand while flinging open the sliding glass door with the other and ran out into the backyard.
John: Like a potato masher grenade?
John: Yeah, it was just like, you know, or whatever.
John: Fire in the hole!
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: No, I... Boy, you're a hero there.
Merlin: I was.
Merlin: Once again.
Merlin: But, you know, there's a lot of... Actually, I prefer not to think about it.
Merlin: I don't want to think about it.
Merlin: Okay, all right.
John: No, no, no, it's fine.
Merlin: I'll think about it a little bit.
Merlin: Okay, okay, okay, okay.
Merlin: But also, it's just that, like, I don't know that much about it, and it's better that I don't know, because, you know...
Merlin: You know, a little learning is a dangerous thing, they say.
John: Oh, wait, you're saying it's better that you don't know because you're thinking that there are ticking time bombs all around your house that you don't want to know about.
John: That's right.
Merlin: I'm basically, as they would say, I'm trying to put my head in the sand.
Merlin: I see.
John: But it could be one of those things.
John: Speaking of head in the sand, do you remember there used to be buckets of sand?
John: around, and I don't just mean like where you put your cigarette out, but like buckets of sand as part of like a civil defense.
John: Oh.
John: Am I, as like a fire prevention thing?
Merlin: The thing is, I feel like I have seen that, but in my head, that feels like something you'd see at like Williamsburg or Cade's Cove or something.
Merlin: Like at like, you know, a costumed reenactor kind of place.
John: But you never, like, at your grade school had buckets of sand to put out, like, nuclear explosions?
Merlin: So there was the stuff the custodian put on barf.
Merlin: I don't think we had anything like that.
John: I don't know why I'm remembering buckets of sand all of a sudden.
Merlin: You know, I could see that, especially in a situation like in a school, maybe.
Merlin: Sand seems like the kind of thing that you would, you know, throw in, like, a chemistry class.
John: Well, okay, maybe that's it.
John: Sand and chemistry.
Merlin: Chemical eye bath, whole situation.
Merlin: You got all that stuff, you know?
John: We did put sand down on the icy sidewalks, but I think those were different buckets of sand.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Different fairies or elves that deliver those, keep them topped off.
Merlin: We're not gnomes.
John: I'm curious that you feel like there are maybe more exploding batteries in your life than you want to know about.
Merlin: I feel like we just talked about this a minute ago.
John: Rather than feeling that maybe there's only one of the 50 battery-powered things sitting in drawers in your house.
John: There's only one that's actually dangerous.
Merlin: Well, okay, but I mean, this is like...
Merlin: On several different occasions, I've heard from people who say, like, hey, you want to be less of a dummy about statistics?
Merlin: Like, here's the easiest possible way to stop being a dummy about statistics is, like, understand stuff about, like, how many people were we talking about here?
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: You know?
Merlin: So my thinking on this is, you know what I mean?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: As opposed to, like, yeah, if there's two people in a room, like, the chances of that thing being – whatever.
Merlin: Anyway –
John: Well, my friend Ben King was here last weekend, and he said, you know what my grandfather always said?
John: Or no, my dad.
John: My dad always says, 50% of the people are below average.
John: Ooh.
John: And I was like, 50% of the people are below average.
John: And Ben's nodding.
Merlin: From Anchorman, it works 50%, 100% of the time, something like that.
Merlin: Now, here's the thing.
Merlin: Now, here's my analogy.
Merlin: And I'm sorry we don't have anybody who can adjudicate this.
Merlin: Perhaps you can adjudicate this.
Merlin: You hear that phrase?
Merlin: We know John Syracuse listens to the show.
Merlin: Maybe he can text you.
Merlin: You got a bullet with your name on it, they say.
Merlin: I don't want to make anybody sad here talking about bullets and stuff.
Merlin: And maybe it's a slug.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I assume it stands for, you know, Assault Car Rifle 47.
Merlin: Assault Car Rifle 47.
Merlin: If you can't know the name of this stuff, how can you be in the discourse?
Merlin: No, but the problem is, though, it's one thing to have one bullet in your house and think, oh, maybe that's the bullet that's got my name on it.
Merlin: But the thing is, every bullet you've got in your house is a bullet with your name on it.
John: Why are you searching for your glasses over here?
John: Oh, it's light over here.
John: The light's better.
John: The bullets are better.
John: Why do you have one bullet?
John: Oh, that's the one with my name on it.
John: That's the one with my name on it.
Merlin: Make sure they never get to it.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: My first communion, the priest gave me a bullet with my name on it.
John: No, he didn't.
Merlin: And said, you keep this to yourself, too.
John: Like all the little babies in Serbia that get a knife put in their crib with them so that they're ready.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: I worry.
Merlin: I worry.
Merlin: But what are you going to do?
John: You've got to have your phone, you know?
John: Well, that's right.
John: You don't still have a Palm Pilot charged in in some charging desk.
John: Why would you ask me something like that?
Merlin: That's like asking me if I have an overdue library book somewhere.
Merlin: It's like the law of large numbers indicates I probably, I owe somebody something right now, and I'd prefer, once again, see also, you know, telephones with my name on it.
Merlin: I don't want that bullet.
Merlin: Get them out of my house.
Merlin: Library book thoughts?
Merlin: I don't want any of these thoughts, John.
Merlin: I don't need them.
Merlin: These are invasive, invasive, intrusive.
Merlin: Inclusive thoughts.
John: Yes, intrusive, inclusive.
John: They're intrusive, inclusive.
John: That's right.
John: It's like going to sandals, but sad.
John: Well, speaking as someone who has spent a couple of years carrying around a lot of intrusive thoughts that kept intruding, kicking down doors.
John: Knocking down tables.
John: I am knocking down tables.
John: I am 100% with you.
John: You can do the whole show as a Pet Shop Boys.
Yeah.
John: In a restaurant in West End Town.
Merlin: No, sometimes you're talking to a friend.
Merlin: This would have to be the end.
Merlin: Oh, breaking my heart.
John: Love and Rockets played last night.
John: And so I sent an email to my guy, local hero, local promoter, fabulous local fellow.
John: a friend and said, Hey, I, I see that Love and Rock is playing.
John: I'd like to go to the show, but it was a Sunday and I had,
John: I hadn't done anything until the morning.
John: About what?
John: About writing him and saying, hey, I'd like to go to Southern Robinson.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: And so I was like, all day long, I didn't hear back.
John: And I was like, ah.
John: That's the zone where you mostly get a sucking sound like this.
John: If you got me earlier.
John: What was interesting was I was emailing with his wife on a separate channel with him CC'd on those emails.
John: And she and I were having a lively banter back and forth on a separate topic entirely.
John: But he wasn't replying to that thread either.
John: And then I only was talking to him about the Love and Rockets tickets on a separate thread, so his wife couldn't have... I just got an email about how my phone bill's gonna be due soon.
Merlin: I looked at it for a second.
Merlin: I turned back, and the story had changed.
Merlin: You've got different text channels.
Merlin: It's Sunday morning.
Merlin: I'm so sorry, John.
Merlin: I never look at my email.
Merlin: It's Sunday morning.
Merlin: You're fixing to want to go to see you some... They still just look like Bumblebees, didn't they used to do that?
Merlin: So you got two of the guys from Bauhaus, and you got the other guy, and you got the handsome guy with the hair, so alive.
John: He is so alive.
Merlin: You're working a channel on a Sunday goddamn morning.
Merlin: You're working a channel with your pal.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And you're working a channel with the wife separately.
Merlin: Are there a total of three channels happening here?
John: Separate conversation with the wife.
John: She's trying to put together some kind of event.
Merlin: I'm actually... I should imagine Rock Hudson and Doris Day on the two sides of a set talking on the phone.
Merlin: Ah!
John: Split screen.
John: And halfway through the day, it occurs to me.
Merlin: She's turning the bathtub with her toe.
John: I don't want to text the wife and say, hey, would you nudge your husband next to you to tell him to look at his email to tell him to get me tickets to Love and Rocket Show?
John: Because I'm at a farmer's market.
Merlin: Yeah, because I definitely would have been hitting you up on the Sunday morning anyway.
John: How you been?
John: How's your dad?
John: Oh, I'm so sorry to hear you.
John: By the way, so I'm with my kid.
John: We're walking around a farmer's market.
John: Oh, boy.
John: And I'm thinking, I'm going to surprise her with this Love and Rockets show.
John: Oh.
John: Is she a fan?
John: Well, who knows?
John: You never know until you go.
John: I bet they'll play.
John: They got great pop songs, and I bet they'll play at a polite volume.
John: And that's right.
John: This is the late days.
John: They're all in their 60s.
John: It's got to be a 7 o'clock show, you know?
John: All day long, all day long, it doesn't happen, doesn't happen, doesn't happen.
John: And then we get back in the car and I say, well, I was going to take you to this show.
John: And she goes, I don't want to go to a show.
John: I'm tired.
John: I want to go home.
John: And I'm like, you don't know if you want to go to a show until you're at the show.
John: Sometimes you don't want to go to a show and then you go to the show and you're so glad you went to the show.
John: Ah, you always blow.
John: I don't want to.
John: And I said, well, here's the band.
John: And I put Love and Rockets on for her.
John: And we're driving along listening to Love and Rockets.
John: And, you know, my favorite record by them was Express.
John: And it's one of those records where every one that was that yeah They were well, you don't say but yeah, that was the good that was the good one It was the crossover one where it went from like kind of just obscure college rock thing to like bigger without being that ridiculous That's right But then they got then it got bigger and bigger and they became a big pop band later or something I don't I don't I'm not sure what all of the what all of their career arc was after that but but what what I remember about that record at the time was that every song that
John: You know how every In Excess record had two to three great songs and then two to three fine songs and then like...
John: some songs that you just would never listen to.
Merlin: I know generally about in excess, but I know it very much specifically about trying to like make this monstrosity of singles and albums thing work when new wave was getting big.
Merlin: And there was a lot of, there's a pretty clunky shit on albums that I liked.
John: And this, uh, what, what, uh, what love and rockets always seemed to me to do was that they did that within every one of their songs.
John: Every Love and Rockets song had two to three great songs in it.
John: And then that song also had two to three pretty bad songs in it.
John: Like those songs would change.
Merlin: You're talking about recursive nano intra songs?
Merlin: Intra songs.
John: Songs inside of songs where it's like, and now it's going to go to the part that doesn't groove and is whack, but it's only going to be there for like 20 seconds.
Merlin: It's like Furs was like that sometimes.
John: Yes, exactly the same.
Merlin: It's like Furs would have like these greatest pop hooks ever and then a section that just went on just a little bit too long without that much happening.
John: And so I'm driving along and I'm like, listen, I know a car stereo isn't exactly the time to be introduced to a band that's a little bit difficult to understand.
John: But this next part of this song is kind of lame.
John: But it's still the same song.
John: And it's going to go back to the good part in a second.
Merlin: Do you want me to rewind to the part where they say no new tale to tell?
John: That is regarded as a good part.
John: No new tale to tell.
John: What's incredible about that song is the verses are so good.
John: God, the verses of that song are good.
John: And if the chorus, instead of the chorus being no new tell to tell, if the chorus had just been, when you're down, it's a long way up.
John: When you're up, it's a long way down.
John: That's a great chorus.
John: That's a world-class chorus.
John: That song, we'd still be singing that song every day if that had been the chorus.
John: How did it go over on the car stereo?
John: Was there interest?
John: After about four songs, without even looking at her, I realized I'd made a horrible mistake because this was not...
John: There was no jam here.
John: I had not played the hit right out of the box.
Merlin: You had everything.
Merlin: I mean, I'm not coaching you on this.
Merlin: I'm saying, like, let me share some of my increasingly large number of failures on things like that.
Merlin: Tell me.
Merlin: It's got everything going against it.
Merlin: Because, like, first of all, unless your kid is really small and really not that bright, it's hard to get your kid to try anything or like anything.
Merlin: You can't sell it with some kind of, like,
Merlin: You know, it's like when you were, I remember being a little kid and people saying stuff like, well, eat the tomatoes.
Merlin: And I go, I don't like tomatoes.
Merlin: And they go, eat the tomatoes.
Merlin: I don't like them.
Merlin: But you like ketchup.
Merlin: Well, is that the way that we're going to decide everything from now on is whether or not I like ketchup?
Merlin: Is that really a rubric for what I put in my body for the rest of my life?
Merlin: Plus also, hey, have some guilt.
Merlin: I'm going to get a Philip Larkin on your ass.
Merlin: But Jesus Christ, gang.
Merlin: Hey, Merlin.
Merlin: He likes it.
Merlin: Hey, look at him.
Merlin: But you like ketchup.
Merlin: But anyway, there's that part.
Merlin: Then there's the whole like, oh, no, captive audience, which might not play so much for you.
Merlin: But the kid might be like, oh, my God, I'm stuck here.
Merlin: Like, what am I going to do?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: I've got to say I like the scrambled eggs or whatever.
John: Oh, you know, she never feels obligated.
John: Okay, good for her.
John: Never feels obligated.
John: So I turned it off before I even ruined the rest of the day because she was just back there, eyes rolling in her head.
Merlin: Let's move on to the Fleetwood Mac album, Mystery to Me.
Merlin: Now, first I'm going to have an opening remark about this.
Merlin: Now, don't get upset by the cover.
Merlin: The cover is very upsetting, but this is some of, it's probably, it's some of Bob Welch's best work.
Merlin: And honestly, Merlin Mann thinks it's some of Christine McPhee's best songs.
Merlin: Sit down and don't talk for 40 minutes.
John: I love Christine McPhee.
John: Oh, she's so good on there.
John: So I'm thinking, well, maybe I've blown it because she was already telling me she didn't want to go to this.
Merlin: Sorry, one quick question.
Merlin: So you said like three or four songs.
Merlin: Was it that the first song wasn't selling?
Merlin: Of course, you let it play through because you're not like me.
Merlin: Did you just keep saying, okay, one more, one more?
Merlin: How did you end up getting to three or four songs?
John: No, I Merlin manned it where when the song got...
Merlin: Because the song's in the songs, right?
John: When the song went into a place that was bad, I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
John: Not this one.
John: So you have to understand.
John: Here, I'll go to the next song.
Merlin: This is me fast-forwarding through the 1968 Planet of the Apes movie.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: It's like 35 minutes before we see an ape.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: This movie's so long.
Merlin: It's really good, honey.
Merlin: It's really good.
Merlin: We just need to get past this first 35 minutes.
John: It's really good.
John: Yeah, I was like, no, no, no, Kundalini Express.
John: It's got a choo-choo.
John: It's like really, you have to understand what a Kundalini is.
John: Wait, I think I remembered that.
Merlin: This is probably like, what, 86, 87, 87?
Merlin: Yeah, something like that.
Merlin: Yeah, that's the black one, and it's got the very iconic red, white, and black cover.
John: It's got an arrow on the heart and stuff.
John: So I pulled out of it.
John: I pulled out of the dive.
John: You grabbed the yoke.
John: Yeah, we're in the car, and I was like, you know what we should listen to?
John: Oh, boy.
John: But anyway, I bounced into a different thing, and I'll cover that in a second.
John: Okay.
John: But we got home.
John: I was like, all right, well, let's just take a nap.
John: She's like, I don't nap.
John: You know I can't nap, and immediately went into the other room and fell asleep.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: And I'm laying on the couch and I'm playing my video game and I'm thinking deep thoughts.
John: On your phone?
John: On my phone, yeah.
John: And then I check my email.
John: Some gamer chair with a big rig and something on your head.
John: Yeah, I've got my headset on.
John: And I'm talking to my bros all around the world.
Merlin: What's up, bro?
Merlin: Screaming homophobic epithets at 12-year-old boys.
John: Just playing Halo and sending white supremacist video content.
John: I told you to duck, gold leader.
John: I check my email, and it's my friend.
John: Uh-oh.
John: And my friend had sent this to me right when I was trying to introduce Love and Rockets to my little girl in the car.
John: So if I had continued to check my email every three minutes like I'd been doing the whole day at the farmer's market, I would have gotten it.
John: But it was just like 20 minutes too late.
John: And he said, what's funny about this is that you contacted me back in March when this show first went on sale and said...
John: In your email at the time, you said, unlike normally, I'm not going to wait until the day of the show to ask you for these tickets.
John: Can you get me some Love and Rockets tickets for this so that we don't play out?
John: Did you remember asking that?
John: And he says in his email, what's funny to me is that you didn't remember having done this and I didn't remember you having done this either.
John: Oh my God, John.
John: So anyway, you've had tickets for this since, you know, the day that, since before they went on sale.
John: So have a great time at the show.
John: Doors are at six.
John: Tours are at 6, no opener show at 7.
Merlin: No, that's perfect.
Merlin: You have an early dinner at 3.
John: I got that email from him at 4.45.
John: By the time I got done playing my video game, I looked at my phone, it was already 7.20.
John: Oh, my God.
Merlin: And so I... Was there an opener?
John: No, no.
John: No opener.
John: It's just one, like you were saying, very genteel show.
John: Very genteel.
John: They come out, you know...
John: You can hear everyone's jewelry tinkling.
John: So this is a show that I knew back in March I wanted to see.
John: But when it finally arrived, the day of the show arrived, A, I had no recollection of it.
John: B, no idea.
John: I actually had tickets because I should never do that, apparently, or I should write it down somewhere.
John: But if I wrote it down, which coaster with that information on it, where would it be in my house?
John: It'd be under 70 layers of cupcake wrappers.
John: How would I know?
John: I would have to put it in my calendar app, which I bet you do, don't you?
John: Do you put it in your calendar app?
John: Do you put, I have tickets to this show.
Merlin: Do I write down stuff I have to do in the future and what time I have to do it and where?
Merlin: Do you do that?
Merlin: I do.
Merlin: I write that down on my calendar.
Merlin: See, I don't.
Merlin: Anyway, so the whole thing.
Merlin: This is like me untuning your entire guitar, way out of tune, putting it in your hands and saying, just walk out on stage.
Merlin: You'll be fine.
John: Ah, that was, that was, so now I'm feeling a little bit of like, well, they're half of me is like, you missed your one.
John: You never saw love and rockets in the past.
John: They haven't toured in 15 years.
John: This was your one chance.
Merlin: Well, and truly too late.
Merlin: Those went to other people probably.
John: Uh, those seats.
John: Yeah.
John: Oh, well, no, the seats just didn't get used cause.
John: Oh man.
John: Um,
John: And I didn't and I didn't use them.
John: I didn't see them.
John: The tickets are burned.
John: They're probably sitting in the box office right now.
John: And whatever kid it was that got a phone call at five o'clock from the boss saying like, hey, where are those Roderick tickets?
John: That kid's got he's he's flapping that envelope on his hand right now going like, yeah, the Roderick tickets.
John: I got it right here.
John: I want my two dollars.
John: I got the Roderick tickets right here.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Just about had a heart attack.
John: I got your Roderick tickets.
Merlin: Because your entire life is going to turn into a little rascal short.
John: But not only that, but I had kind of the, and I'm sure you've had this many times, the somewhat defeating experience of revisiting a band that you really love, trying to show it to your child that's never going to like it, and kind of...
John: being forced to acknowledge, well, that part's not very good, but this next part's really good.
John: It's true for music.
Merlin: It's also very true for stuff like TV and movies.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: You know?
Merlin: But no, but it's true for music as well.
Merlin: Music is one where, I don't know, it's just, that's one where it's been, I learned a long time ago that there's really not much benefit to me, kind of,
Merlin: Not pushing, but, you know, encouraging any kind of music.
Merlin: I'm around, you know, if you need anything.
Merlin: But, you know, kids need to be able to have a very strong opinion about something that's different from their parents.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You know?
Merlin: I mean, whether I like it or not, that's, like, what that is.
Merlin: But, like, it's so hard sometimes with movies.
Yeah.
Merlin: But then you're right.
Merlin: Then I'll put it on.
Merlin: And I'll just, again, like Planet of the Apes.
Merlin: Totally amazing.
Merlin: And, of course, the entire time I keep saying, you would not believe how this looked in 1968.
Merlin: This is the most amazing thing we've ever seen.
Merlin: You know, but, like, you're absolutely right.
Merlin: There's a lot of stuff where when you go back, you get that one hit of, like, I bet, okay, here's someone off the dome.
Merlin: Red Dawn.
Merlin: Probably not as great as I remember, right?
John: No, it's the greatest movie that was ever made.
John: Is it still?
No.
John: Yeah, it's pretty great.
Merlin: Don't you also like the Breakfast Club?
Merlin: You like that, don't you?
Merlin: Well, I mean, Breakfast Club.
John: Say it that way.
John: I mean, the Breakfast Club.
John: What are you talking about?
John: I was a junior in high school when the Breakfast Club came out.
John: What am I supposed to do?
Merlin: Once again, this is that Mr. Show, Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back thing.
Merlin: Because I'm just a different enough age from you to be like.
John: Yeah, because you were a college freshman, right?
Merlin: breakfast club well it was from my it was for kids from my bi year oh you're in between it was my it was from my year of personal neglect because that's how i felt about saint elmo's fire oh that was way too late rob low give me a break rob low got backdoored into that group because of what was it rumble fish one of those yeah something like that you know but like anyways yeah like for me you didn't like breakfast club
Merlin: Well, I mean, no, I shouldn't say.
Merlin: See, I got too many hot opinions.
Merlin: Neo Maxi Zoom Dweeby.
John: What are you talking about here?
Merlin: The thing is, I like different ones.
Merlin: I really like different ones.
John: You're talking about you like alternative girls?
No.
Merlin: Just eating her dandruff.
Merlin: Hi, honey.
Merlin: I'm not going to say anything.
Merlin: No, no, no.
John: You like different ones.
John: What are you talking about?
Merlin: I think that golden age ended with Ferris Bueller.
Merlin: Ferris Bueller is when that ended.
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: And I liked Pretty in Pink, but I really liked, I'm going backwards in time now.
Merlin: I know we don't talk about it.
Huh?
Merlin: A racer head.
Merlin: I like an eraser head.
Merlin: I did.
Merlin: No, what?
John: 120 days.
Merlin: You're going to say you liked.
Merlin: Oh, that, you know, I liked 16 Candles.
John: I know you did.
John: I know it's fun.
John: There's a lot of, it's a romp.
John: It's a romp.
John: It is.
Merlin: He just wants to know, where is Grandpa's automobile?
John: It's a romp.
Merlin: All he's doing is asking where Grandpa's automobile is.
John: Yeah, he's just, you know, he's just selling glimpses of a pair of panties in the boys' room for a dollar.
Merlin: Well, see, but then also, then Don responds.
Merlin: And he says, in a very normal way, he says, automobile.
Merlin: And then he says to him, he says to him, it's a separate conversation.
Merlin: It's just a normal conversation.
Merlin: He says, Dong.
Merlin: He's clapping.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And then the grandma, you know, Mrs. Geary, says, Dong, where's Grandpa's automobile?
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: Sure.
John: We're just ordinary men.
John: Excuse me?
Merlin: Wait, did you just do the puppet?
Merlin: Wait, did you just do the puppet?
Merlin: I love the puppet.
Merlin: I love when the puppet says that.
Merlin: Oh my gosh, that's funny.
Merlin: I don't know why it's always funny.
Merlin: I think that's enough show.
Merlin: Let's stop.