Ep. 509: "A Dirty Rectangle on the Wall"
John: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
Merlin: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: How's it going?
Merlin: It's early.
John: It's very early.
John: You know, I don't
John: I've forgotten that Twitter exists.
John: Oh, wow.
John: I don't go there at all.
John: Altogether, huh?
John: There's no reason for me there.
Merlin: Did it leave any like a blank spot?
Merlin: Is it like when you take a painting off the wall and there's dirt around it?
Merlin: Can you see where Twitter used to be?
Merlin: No, no, no.
Merlin: There's fresh dirt now.
John: Yeah, it used to do that, but I've continued to smoke a pipe in this room, and the walls are uniformly covered with tobacco.
John: But every once in a while, and this big storm down in L.A.
John: caused me to turn to it again.
John: Like, is this still a news source?
John: Uh-huh.
Merlin: How'd it go?
Merlin: No, you broke the seal, and you went in.
John: I did, and what's funny is, you know, my account is suspended.
John: And so I'm still allowed to go there, but there's suspended a sentence.
John: And there's a big banner.
John: Suspended a sentence.
John: It says suspended.
John: Your account is suspended.
John: So I can't really do anything.
John: Right.
John: Your accounts are suspended.
John: Well, yeah, they canceled me for, um, uh, I had, uh, I didn't tell you this.
Merlin: I don't think so.
John: I was on there.
John: I never should have gone back, but I was on there.
John: I was trying to banter, having fun, having fun like we did in 2011.
John: And you know the comedian Morgan Murphy?
John: She's a friend.
John: She's somebody from around.
John: And she said something.
John: She was really into sports, so she said something about sports, about some kind of umpire.
John: in sports and i said oh yeah that umpire you know they should really they should really uh take him out and shoot him or something you didn't mean to actually take the life of the umpire no no i didn't even understand what she was talking about but it was some kind of women's basketball thing and it was like oh that corollary to that uh is on bridge bridge over troubled water say the life of the child
John: Save the life of child, take the life of the umpire.
John: That's right.
Merlin: Throw me the head, no time to argue.
John: The joke, she was doing a thing in her bit, which was like, oh, I wish for exaggerated consequences for this minor infraction on the part of the umpire.
John: I would like to suggest exaggerated consequences.
John: So I was in that riffing, right?
John: Just ha-ha-ha, just like, oh, they should totally shoot the umpire.
John: I think it was a better joke than that.
John: I don't know if she was – I don't know exactly what it was.
Merlin: Yeah, but you were playing along with an exaggeration bit.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: And I haven't seen you threaten that many people's lives who honestly – a lot of people had it coming.
Yeah.
John: Well, so this was one of those instances where 10 days went by or something like that.
John: And then I came on and there was a, oh, your account's been suspended because of this threat of violence you made 10 days ago that somehow got flagged.
John: And then it took 10 days for there to be some kid going through a stack and
Merlin: reviewing it i guess hard to believe that there's even a kid doing that how if i could ask i mean without getting into all the histrionics about what's happening over there um unless you want to um which i'm happy to i don't even know about it well you're lucky um was this is how how recently was this oh well it's fairly recent i mean
John: It's during the time that the birthday boy's been running things.
John: Certainly well into that.
John: Okay.
Merlin: And very definitely felt... I can't believe anybody's... I mean, you know, you can say stuff about, see, now I don't want to get us banned.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: But, you know, I think it was actually, if I could quote Joseph Goebbels, I think he's the one who...
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Merlin: This is going to be the second one in a row where a Squarespace ad comes up right after a Nazi reference.
Merlin: Build it beautiful.
Merlin: Now, see, you can just go as crazy as you want talking about Shoah.
Merlin: That's no problem.
Merlin: No.
Merlin: Oh, you can talk about how that was a fake and it was shot by Stanley Kubrick and whatever.
Merlin: Sure, sure.
Merlin: But John has a little fun about the death of one umpire.
John: Yeah.
John: Now it's all this.
John: It feels like it happened.
John: I mean, I'm misremembering because it was a couple of months ago, but it feels like it happened right after...
John: the news dropped that Twitter was no longer going to – it was no longer against policy to make sexual assault jokes or something.
John: It was just like – it was during that era where I was like, it seems like there –
John: It's not that there are no rules.
John: It's just that there are only bad rules here.
John: Do you know what the current motto for that company is?
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: You can see this if you look around for it.
Merlin: And you can tell this is straight from the birthday boy.
Merlin: Blaze your glory.
Merlin: Oh, blaze your glory.
Merlin: No way.
Merlin: Blaze your glory.
Merlin: And I think, you know, because he's a very, very strict adherent to free speech ideas.
John: Well, and he's a weed smoker, right?
John: It's got to be a weed reference.
Merlin: I can't believe this is relevant.
Merlin: But I learned last week that it has been said, allegedly, it has been alleged that the birthday boy sometimes does a little bit of ketamine, helps him get through the day.
John: Ketamine, sure.
John: And it's a hat tip to the hilarious comedy film Blades of Glory.
John: Oh, I thought it was the hilarious Bon Jovi song.
John: Oh, is there a Jovan Jovi song called Blades of Glory?
Merlin: Oh, you're talking about the ice skating film.
Merlin: Yeah, the ice skating film.
John: Is that with Will Ferrell?
Merlin: Yeah, I think so.
Merlin: He's very funny.
Merlin: Adam Sandler, maybe?
Merlin: Oh, sure.
Merlin: Might as well put them all in it.
Merlin: Well, so what's funny is...
Merlin: But the idea was that there was a lot of... I don't follow this stuff as closely as some folks, but I was aware that there had been... I forget what it was.
Merlin: There's been so many of these little cuts.
Merlin: And one of them was that they, of course, had cut me so much of the staff that would deal with abuse.
Merlin: But also that actual abuse.
Merlin: But yeah, they were just... It was like a... I don't know.
Merlin: It was like a snow day for Nazis or something.
Merlin: That they got to just run around and make Nazi snow angels all day.
John: Well, yeah, and I was very surprised.
John: And it said on my suspension, if you want to appeal...
John: Here's what you do.
John: Whatever.
John: Tweet us.
John: And so I was like, I really – Pack one bag.
John: Write your name in chalk on the side.
John: Report to the platform.
John: I'm really grateful that you're kicking me off.
John: I didn't say this.
Merlin: No, no.
John: But it seemed like an easy process, right?
Merlin: The vibe really is, please.
Merlin: I will be here –
Merlin: There are two contradictory – this is Keats' whole idea of negative capability.
Merlin: There are two very seemingly contradictory thoughts that I have to hold in my mind.
Merlin: One is I will be there until – I'm going to be – no spoilers, but there's a couple characters that die in the last episode of Game of Thrones because the whole place falls down on them.
Merlin: That's going to be me.
Merlin: I'm going to be out there on the terrazzo with Cersei.
John: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: But you don't want to be there also.
Merlin: Oh, but be, yeah, importantly, be, please let it be yesterday.
Merlin: I can't wait to wake up and find a dirty rectangle on the wall where Twitter used to be.
John: I felt exactly the same way.
John: I was just like, I'm just here to watch it all burn.
John: I really love hearing the lamentations of all of you people that are sad it's going away.
What is good?
John: But appealing it was just as simple as sending a tweet.
John: It wasn't like, oh, you have to send an email.
John: It was like, oh, if you want to appeal it.
John: So I appealed it.
John: Like, yeah, that was clearly a joke.
John: Clearly not even a funny joke.
John: It was a reference to a reference to a reference.
John: Yes.
John: And I figured that it would be weeks before it got processed.
John: and uh the reply came like within an hour we have that is that is hardcore we've reviewed your appeal and we reject it you're out you're out blue check legacy blue check yeah and so anyway so but that's just that's kind of undignified to do that you know what it it's so funny that that's
John: the end of my Twitter career.
John: It wasn't, you know, it wasn't the three days I was the main character of Twitter.
John: That was hilarious.
John: No, it's this.
John: It's the joke.
Merlin: Well, I have to imagine that that created a lot of engagement, Sean.
John: It really, it moved the number.
John: It moved the needle.
John: Oh, did they find that to be needle moving?
John: It was needle moving.
John: But what's great is that Twitter lets me, it says your account is suspended, but it lets me on, but it won't show me any of my
John: people it just gives me what it's so odd i don't know what it thinks i don't know what it's doing but what it does is it gives me a lot of ads it gives me baseball clips uh all of elon's tweets
John: Jesus.
John: What a bespoke hell that is.
John: And then just a random bunch of, like, pop culture garbage sites.
Merlin: Well, I still, as far as I know, have an account in good standing, and I still get... It seems to think that I have some constant running 32-hour attention influenza, where it's like, I think Merlin's going to be very, very into adoptable cats.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And I often am.
Merlin: It's not actionable for me, but I still enjoy it.
Merlin: And then sometimes it'll just be like, oh, man, here's people who are really mad about the strike.
Merlin: It just seems like suddenly there will be this surfeit of stuff that it's somehow intuited that I'm interested in.
Merlin: I like a lot of the art stuff.
Merlin: I like the comic stuff.
John: I've got one here.
John: This does not appear to be an ad.
John: From somebody named Sean VP, Sean Puri.
John: He's a vice president of something.
John: What's the color of his parachute?
John: Does he have a blue or a gold?
John: It's a blue.
John: Okay.
John: And it says, I've helped founders raise over $100 million from investors using this one pitch deck formula.
John: Now I'm giving it away for free for any founder who needs it.
John: Weird flex.
John: He's not giving it away for free to any founder who needs it.
John: He's giving it away for free for any founder who needs it.
John: The devil's in the details, isn't he?
John: Yeah.
John: And then, so there's a pitch deck template, and then up in the corner, tiny, tiny letters, it says, no small boy stuff.
John: No small boy stuff?
Merlin: Oh, is it like jokey, the jokey little font?
John: Well, it's, no, it's the same little font, but no small boy stuff appears to be his motto.
John: uh meaning i think that this is big boy stuff are you allowed to put your credo up now i think on this well so well let's see let me look in here i'm sorry this will just take a second no fat chicks okay no fat uh so here it is since i'm here since i'm here all right after careful review we determined your account broke the x rules now the x rules didn't exist then
John: Because it wasn't X. Yeah.
John: But it broke some rules.
John: It's kind of like violating the code of conduct on the Joko Cruz that had it.
Merlin: Oh, absolutely.
Merlin: Do not make Goebbels jokes at the panel.
John: No, no, no, no.
John: Not funny.
John: Your account is permanently in, okay, this is what it is, read-only mode, which means you can't post, repost, or like content.
John: You won't be able to create any new accounts.
John: If you think we got this wrong.
John: You're in the forbidden zone, my friend.
Merlin: You know that big spinning mirror in the sky with General Zod in it?
Merlin: I think he might be in that.
John: It says here that I can appeal again.
John: It's like parole?
John: What should I say?
John: Are you squeaky from?
John: What is happening?
John: That's so weird.
John: I have an opportunity right here to describe the problem.
John: What should I say?
John: You feed me the words.
John: Why don't you believe you violated the Twitter rules?
Merlin: Wow, I mean, we'd have to talk about tone and approach, but I would say, you know, I'm a property owner.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: I mean, I'm a property owner.
Merlin: Yeah, because that, I think what that does is, I forget what it's called, prima noctis.
John: I already love it.
Merlin: It calls in the Constitution?
Merlin: Sure, sure, sure, sure.
Merlin: It's a maritime law.
Merlin: It is.
Merlin: It is maritime law.
Merlin: Oh, show me your flag, sir.
Merlin: Yeah, that's right.
Merlin: You can't pull me over.
Merlin: That's pretty fringe you have on your flag.
Merlin: Huh.
Merlin: What else?
Merlin: Oh, sorry, sorry.
Merlin: I'm two-fifths more of a man than most of you.
John: Oh, wow.
John: Okay.
John: You're getting kind of... Well, here's the thing.
Merlin: Okay, do you want to take a different approach?
Merlin: Because I didn't, in all of your discussion of this, I have so far not heard you said you apologized.
Merlin: Well, I'm not saying you should apologize, but I want to make sure your tone is consistent.
Merlin: And they may go, well, this guy's a property owner.
Merlin: We ought to fuck with him.
Merlin: I'm renting a place in Bernal.
Merlin: I'm renting a place in Bernal that's killing me.
Merlin: And John owns property.
John: You know, do you say you have no right to pull me over?
Merlin: My father was a World War II veteran.
Merlin: Refer to me by his rank.
Merlin: Okay, my father.
John: Oh, sorry, okay.
Merlin: New line, new line.
Merlin: I'm a property owner.
Merlin: I'm a property owner.
Merlin: New line.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I'm worth two-fifths more than most of you.
Merlin: And you could say probably, but I would avoid adverbs just for clarity.
John: I'm worth two-fifths more than any other.
John: Of you.
John: Okay.
Merlin: Also, a Little League umpire touched my tutor in 1981.
Merlin: Also, a Little League... Umpire.
John: Umpire.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Touched... Sorry, insert appropriate ear, if you know what I mean.
John: Little League umpire, insert appropriate ear.
John: Insert appropriate ear.
Merlin: And then an M-dash, an M-dash, pretty sure he was a Catholic.
Okay.
John: Okay.
John: I'm putting insert appropriate year and parens here.
Merlin: Will you come back to that or do you think you'll leave it like that?
Merlin: They might assume you have an assistant.
John: Also a little league on part, insert appropriate year.
John: Should I go?
Merlin: It could also all begin really as a preference.
Merlin: If you really want to do the big flex, you could say, my name is, and then slightly offensive ethnic name, and then say, I'm Mr. Roderick's overseas assistant, and I'll be dealing with this on his behalf.
John: Uh-huh.
John: Uh-huh.
John: Sorry, I know it's late there.
John: So you're saying I should be Jug Depp?
Merlin: Muhammad.
Merlin: Because he did.
Merlin: You broke... We're putting a movie on a movie joke here, but you broke double secret probation.
John: I did.
John: Well, yeah, but that's the same movie, right?
Merlin: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: That's what I'm saying.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: I just don't know if I achieved any metaphysical distance with that.
Merlin: But here's the question, though.
Merlin: Let's go big picture.
Merlin: Pulling way back.
Merlin: Do you want it back?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: Well, no.
Merlin: But at the same time.
Merlin: You could also just go re-register and you could be like finger bang 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or whatever.
John: No, it said right there that it won't allow that.
Merlin: It says you won't be able to create any new accounts.
Merlin: You know what you should get?
Merlin: You should get seven proxies.
John: Well, so I am behind seven proxies.
John: See, I had a feeling.
Merlin: I've never actually heard your voice, have I?
Merlin: They see all the way through.
John: Jason Finn said, why don't you just use one of your burner accounts?
John: And I said, I don't have any burner accounts.
John: And he laughed.
John: And he said, everybody's got burner accounts.
John: And I said, it never occurred to me to get a burner account.
John: And he said, he said, how do you look at porn?
John: And I said, on Twitter.
John: I don't think you're supposed to say that here.
John: I said, on Twitter?
John: Why would I look at – there's porn on Twitter?
John: And he laughed and rolled on the floor.
John: There's porn on Twitter, he says.
John: Yes, there's porn on Twitter.
John: It had never occurred to me there was porn on Twitter.
Merlin: I think one of the things Twitter is known for, I do not seek it out.
Merlin: And in fact, immediately after I post anything, I mute the thread.
Merlin: And so I rarely look back.
Merlin: That's smart.
Merlin: Yeah, that's how they got Lot's wife.
John: Well, because that's the thing.
John: You don't like talking to people.
Merlin: No, no, no, no.
Merlin: I find it very disruptive to my performance.
Merlin: I know you do.
Merlin: It's like those people throwing water at Lil Cootie or whatever his name is.
Merlin: Is that his name?
Merlin: Everybody's a little somebody now.
Merlin: Little Jeezy's cousin.
Merlin: Little Jeezy.
Merlin: Uh-huh.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: I don't know, man.
Merlin: Well, we could keep going.
Merlin: I mean, the thing is, I think you really want to land it, though.
Merlin: So you've established your bona fides, I think, at this point.
John: Let me read it back.
John: Okay.
John: Okay, here's what I have so far.
John: I'm a property owner.
John: I'm worth two-fifths more than any of you.
John: Also, a little league umpire, insert appropriate year, I think he was a Catholic, touched my tutor.
John: This is your letter.
John: Pretty sure he was a Catholic.
John: Oh, pretty sure he was a Catholic.
John: Yeah, okay.
Merlin: I think it's worse when you take it from being an adjective, you know what I mean, to being a noun.
John: Oh, that amplifies it, you think?
Merlin: Well, you know, I'm not going to say anything more about World War II for a variety of reasons.
Merlin: How much of this is going to be read?
John: Do you think that this is going to be read by an artificial intelligence, or do you think...
John: This will actually appear in front of a living human.
Merlin: With all respect, John, I think that's a trick question, because I think anything that currently, quote-unquote, works at Twitter, if it has any intelligence at all, it is certainly artificial.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: So, I mean, I don't want to be too cute about it.
Merlin: But how are you going to land this plane, though?
Merlin: Now you want to be ready to bring it home?
Merlin: Well, yeah, because we've made an appeal to the fact that I'm a victim.
Merlin: I think you got their attention, for sure.
Merlin: Well, a victim, yes.
Merlin: You are the...
Merlin: You're the hunted one.
Merlin: I'm the hunted one.
Merlin: I should have known.
Merlin: It was Elon Musk all along.
Merlin: Final question here, because I feel like we've got to start wrapping it up just because... I've frisked a thousand young punks.
Merlin: That's the Italian food here.
Merlin: What a great line.
Merlin: Now, the question is about tone or in terms of the outcome that you want.
Merlin: And this is where I need input from you.
Merlin: And I'd be happy to work on this workshop five or six versions of this.
Merlin: But I think you're pretty close.
Merlin: And now at this point, really, you got their attention.
Merlin: They know you're a property owner.
Merlin: So they know they're on thin ice already.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: And so now is it – now do you want to ingratiate yourself?
Merlin: Do you want to pivot to being charming?
Merlin: Or do you want to become maybe – oh, maybe you're morose because something has happened that caused you to accidentally threaten a Catholic umpire.
Merlin: Or you know what I'm saying?
Merlin: Like what's your feeling for the tone for the last graph?
Merlin: How are we going to land this plane?
John: Well, so the two-fifths reference, I realized that somebody there might need that more explained.
John: So I added –
John: So now it says, I'm a property owner.
John: According to maritime law, I'm worth two-fifths more than any of you.
Merlin: That's not – They have no way to look that up unless they're currently at sea.
John: That's right.
John: We're all at sea to some extent.
John: I just wanted to make sure that they understood that that wasn't just me kvetching.
John: That's like actual – that's, you know –
Merlin: Well, I mean, if you were fighting, say, like a parking ticket, you would say there's no sign there or something, right?
Merlin: You would establish a fact in the world that is not – that it seems like – how do you put this?
Merlin: When you're making a case like this to somebody, I think one approach is to state a fact in the world that it seems that they are not aware of or they're not taking into account.
Merlin: And when you let them know that you are a property owner and you respond only to maritime law –
Merlin: Where you are, you are literally, I'm not gonna do the math on it, you're not 40% more, what would that be?
Merlin: You're more human than human, like the Tyrell Corporation.
John: Well, no, you are saying 40%, I'm worth 40% more.
Merlin: See, I always get that wrong, though.
Merlin: It's like, is it half again?
Merlin: Is it...
Merlin: If you start as three-fifths and then you build up to a full-size John, I don't think that's – anyway, but they're not going to do the math on that.
Merlin: And it's maritime, John.
Merlin: I think the important thing is it could just be rubble-rabble, you know, ginger, bad ginger kind of stuff.
Merlin: And you're just letting them know where they stand.
Merlin: Now, how do you close it?
Merlin: You know, didn't we go to the party?
Merlin: Hang on.
Merlin: Hang on.
Merlin: Hang on.
Merlin: Do you remember that night that you and me and Hodgman went to a party and I got so drunk that I left without saying goodbye because I accidentally got drunk?
Merlin: Elon was at that party.
Merlin: Who was hosting that party?
Merlin: Ev Williams.
Merlin: That means nothing to you.
Merlin: Do you know how significant your closing is if you say to them?
Merlin: Also, I have a friend with over 300,000 fake followers who left a party at Ev's house early.
Merlin: I was there.
Merlin: Did you see Elon Musk at the party?
Merlin: Well, so this was the thing.
Merlin: Even at the party.
Merlin: This is a huge way.
John: You've got two different Twitter people in the same room and you were there.
John: Yeah.
John: Even at the party, people were saying Elon's here.
John: He's in an Iron Man movie.
John: I was looking around like, where, where?
John: And they were like, oh, he's in the other room.
John: He's laying in a bed of lobsters in the other room.
John: And I went in there.
John: I pushed past all the naked fire dancers.
John: And I was like, I don't see him.
John: All I see in here is like.
Merlin: Elon has established an area of the house that he's calling his main suite.
Merlin: Yeah, right.
Merlin: You can go over there.
Merlin: You can lay on a bed of lobsters.
Merlin: You can be showered in emeralds.
Merlin: This daddy sent emeralds.
Merlin: I love my boy.
John: You know, that's where I met Millennium Girlfriend that party.
John: Met her right after you left.
Merlin: Boy, she was charming.
John: You were like, ah, you know, blarg.
Blarg.
Merlin: No, I'm clear.
Merlin: I've been drunk a lot in my life, but I'm very rarely the kind of drunk where I'm like, you know, it's like if you've ever been, if you're sick or something and you're like, oh my gosh, I feel like I'm going to pass out, I should probably get nearer to the ground.
Merlin: You've probably never had that feeling because you don't do that.
Merlin: You remember everything.
Merlin: Whereas I know sometimes there's been a handful of times when I've said, you know, I really need to get closer to the ground or there's going to be a problem here.
Merlin: And in that instance, I was like, I really, I don't want to be in a lobster bed and have John Hodgman see it.
Merlin: No, well.
Merlin: She was there.
Merlin: Maybe that would help for you to mention.
Merlin: And also, at your dumb Twitter party, I met a woman who stole all my German underwear.
John: That's right.
Merlin: And my Filson bag.
Merlin: Let's see.
Merlin: Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry.
Merlin: I want to let you catch up.
Merlin: Well, let me ask you this, though.
Merlin: This is your project, but do you feel like that's the tone that you're going for here?
Merlin: Well, it's a little conciliatory.
Merlin: You know what's a good one?
Merlin: There's a phrase people use sometimes as kind of a jokey, meme-y thing.
Merlin: I did this recently with a picture of the great actor Robert Shaw laying on his back in a boat next to a large foam shark.
Merlin: And the caption I gave it was, you know, we're really not so different, you and I.
Merlin: And do you feel like is that now that you have brought them, you know, you've humbled them with maritime law and your fifthsness?
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I mean, do you want to do that?
Merlin: Well, here's what I've got.
Merlin: I'm a property owner.
John: According to maritime law, I'm worth two fifths more than any of you.
John: Also a little league umpire.
John: Insert appropriate year.
John: Pretty sure he was a Catholic.
John: Touch my tutor.
John: Also, I was at Ed Williams' Halloween party, and Elon was there, and I met Millennium Girlfriend, who stole all my German underwear.
Merlin: I don't... Looking forward to resolving this soon.
John: Okay.
Merlin: And then when you close it for your salutation, please say literally anything but cheers.
John: Resolving.
John: If you say cheers, you're going to blow the whole thing.
John: This soon.
John: Well, so what do they say in South Africa?
John: Let's do that.
John: Let's make a...
Merlin: Jumbo?
Merlin: Well, that's what they say in Mean Girls.
Merlin: Okay, Jumbo.
Merlin: Or is it, like, let me double check.
Merlin: Let me make sure it's not offensive.
Merlin: I wouldn't say Aloha, because they're going through a lot right now.
Merlin: Yeah, no, no, no, that's right.
Merlin: That's horrible.
Merlin: What'd you hear about all the people?
Merlin: Yeah, I did.
Merlin: That's fucked.
Merlin: Did you hear there's like 850 people still missing?
Merlin: Isn't that crazy?
John: Well, I mean.
John: Okay, sorry.
John: No, no, no, that, you know, we go to Lahaina every time we're there.
John: Really?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: it's a uh oh gosh i hate that it was a beautiful little place so i'm gonna say so that's why so jambo is how you say hello in swahili swahili goodbye which sounds like something from urban dictionary uh he's gonna get there that sounds like something from the godfather he couldn't give him the swahili goodbye oh oh oh wait how about how about this how about cheech apart
Merlin: He's had too much to drink, old man.
Merlin: Oh, wait.
Merlin: Now, this might be the thing that got you in trouble in the first place.
Merlin: But what is it that the fact Clemenza says?
Merlin: It's an Italian message or an Italian threat or an Italian warning?
John: What is it?
John: It's an Italian message.
John: But yeah, we don't want to make another threat here.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: That's smart.
Merlin: That's really smart.
Merlin: So don't threaten them in the closing.
Merlin: Okay.
John: I'm a property owner.
John: According to Maritime Loan, we're two-fifths more than any of you.
John: Also a little league umpire, insert appropriate year, pretty sure he was Catholic, touched my tutor.
John: Also, I was at Ev Williams's Halloween party and Elon was there and I met millennium girlfriend who stole all my German underwear Looking forward to resolving this soon.
John: Chicha, aporta, John P.S.
Merlin: I was in a band.
John: Oh, right, right, right.
John: I should use that.
John: Okay.
All right.
John: Yeah P.S.
John: I was in a band.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Now, that's probably plenty.
Merlin: At this point, I don't know if they can receive attachments, but it might be helpful for you to send some photos, maybe photos of yourself as a child.
Merlin: It doesn't offer that option.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Can you do links to Dropbox or something?
Merlin: Yeah, that's probably fine.
Merlin: She's done pictures of her.
Merlin: She has great eyebrows.
Yeah.
Merlin: Millennium girlfriend?
John: Yeah, she does.
Merlin: Good eyebrows.
Merlin: I think you've got it.
Merlin: And the only other thing, I wouldn't do it, but you could also ask them for a time and date certain.
Merlin: You could say, right now, it's 11.32 a.m.
Merlin: I want this fixed by 3.
Merlin: Is that too much?
Merlin: Should you bring back the maritime thing?
Merlin: Because that's going to really confuse them.
John: Because if you say that, according to maritime law, and they don't fix it by 3, then you win.
Merlin: Or you incur a life debt.
Merlin: Oh, a life debt.
Merlin: Well, I mean, it might be one of those things where, like, if you have your dueling glove and you slap the guy, now you've got to walk out onto Main Street with your six shooters.
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: Otherwise, you both lose honor.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: I think this is going to settle it.
Merlin: I can't imagine that it won't.
Merlin: You could also try and do a card trick.
John: Well, if I could submit video, I would have done that a long time ago.
Merlin: Oh, like you were trying out for the real world or something.
John: Yeah, right.
John: Like, hey, as Todd Berry says, well, he'd be perfect for this role, except he has a beard.
Uh-huh.
Merlin: I have to imagine this is going to go extremely well.
Merlin: Then the question becomes, they'll probably have this all, as I say, buttoned up in the next couple of hours.
Merlin: They're responding very quickly.
Merlin: There is a part of me, John, I have to admit, that really kind of super does want you to send this.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Just to see if it fixes it.
John: Yeah.
John: Oh, no, I'm about to push submit right now.
Merlin: Oh, this is exciting.
Merlin: Okay, so there's a chance that you're going to get a response while we're still recording the program.
Merlin: Well, here we go.
Merlin: We should probably kill a little time, because how long did it take last time?
Merlin: I think it was very fast.
Merlin: Yeah, well, past performance is no indication of future value.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Or whatever.
Merlin: But, you know, I actually did have a relevant question.
Merlin: Have you sent it yet?
Merlin: Well, no.
Merlin: Do you want me to do it?
John: It's a little fanfare.
Merlin: It's your note, but why would you not send it?
John: Well, here we go.
John: Ready?
John: I'm pressing submit.
John: Here we go.
John: Boom.
John: It's processing.
John: It says thank you.
John: We've received your request.
John: Review and take further action if appropriate.
John: In some cases, we may send an email with more information to the address you've provided.
John: Right.
John: Check your trash or spam folders.
Merlin: Now, you and I are different people, QED.
Merlin: But, like, so I always worry about, like, am I going to be in trouble for this?
Merlin: Are you worried that you're going to be in trouble for this?
Merlin: I don't see how I could be in more trouble.
Merlin: I know you don't.
Merlin: Oh, I see.
Merlin: Oh, you could get, like, a super band hammer.
Merlin: They could knock out the whole IP range for King County.
Merlin: Nobody comes in.
Merlin: Well, yeah.
John: Well, I mean, that feels a little bit like... Remember early in the pandemic where all of us that...
John: that had a fear of missing out but didn't realize we had it suddenly didn't have it anymore and a great weight was lifted yes oh i didn't realize how many shows i went to just because i didn't want to not have been there yeah and now it's like please don't give me an omnibus reason to say no to literally everything boo but if everyone in king county was completely off of social media i would just oh it would be such a relief
John: We'd be meeting up for coffee.
Merlin: Speaking of emeralds, that would be Oz.
John: Oh.
John: No, I don't think you can be – I don't think I can get hurt anymore.
John: Like all Twitter has is the power to either publicly shame me, which they can't do because I'm not there, or ban me, which they've already done.
Merlin: Like it's a... You're saying they're the ones... If I understand what you're saying here, they're the ones who are out of options, not you.
John: That's right.
John: That's right.
John: I think right now, if you went on Twitter and started some big kerfuffle that was about me, that everybody was mad at, first of all, I would never hear about it because all of the people I know on Twitter that would care are already not talking to me.
John: What's the word?
John: Inshallah?
John: Inshallah.
John: Inshallah.
John: Yeah.
John: So it could be completely over there.
John: It would be like a festering pustule that I wouldn't even know was there.
Merlin: It would be like the entire history of everything up through the printing press into the 2000s, which would be there's all kinds of shit that goes on all the time that I don't need to be concerned about.
John: That's 100% true, right?
John: Yeah.
John: There are people right now super mad at Ellen DeGeneres about something.
John: You and I don't know.
John: We don't know about it.
Merlin: But is it like painting the Golden Gate Bridge where someone's always mad at Ellen DeGeneres about something?
Merlin: Benjamin Franklin says, hit your kid every day.
Merlin: If you don't know what it's for, they will.
Merlin: I remember that.
John: I remember that.
John: I remember when he said it.
John: It was hilarious.
John: I think when I do become aware of big kerfuffles now, it always takes a few days.
John: It's like my dad when he was like, oh, was there an earthquake in Chile?
John: Why is everybody doing the hustle?
John: I feel like I don't know, and I'm fine.
John: I'm so fine.
John: I wouldn't have even known about the flood in California if I didn't religiously follow the weather block.
Merlin: This is going to make this –
Merlin: triply ironic first of all i'll propose several things that you said i do i do still look at twitter way more than i should or would like to but i do it's what it is um one thing i do is i take screenshots of excellent ads that um that they brought to me the one i did i forgive me this is from this morning but i think is this for your tumblr or what do you do with these oh gosh i heard tumblr's gotten way better and i haven't looked at it in years no no apparently you could look at porn there
Merlin: I didn't know that.
Merlin: No, that time was.
Merlin: Yeah, they had all kind of porn.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Used to be, I can name every.
Merlin: This is something I read this morning because it was in the For You.
Merlin: And by that, I mean the For Me section.
Merlin: I'm just going to read this.
Merlin: It says here, Noah Cyrus and Brazen Cyrus spending day together at Walmart in LA during Tish's wedding.
Merlin: Hope Miley Tish Brandi Trace will ignore her wedding too.
Merlin: She also wearing a Billy Ray t-shirt to make fun of Tish Cyrus's wedding today.
Merlin: So what I did was I handed my phone to Madeline, and she'd just come back from a little morning walk.
Merlin: And I said, honey, I'm going to hand this to you.
Merlin: I don't want you to think about this.
Merlin: I just want you to see the letters on screen.
Merlin: I want you to read something that I just read, please, aloud to me.
Merlin: Read it out loud.
Merlin: And so here's what she said to me.
Merlin: She said, Noah Cyrus and Brazen Cyrus spending day together at Walmart in L.A.
Merlin: during Tish's wedding.
Merlin: Hope Miley Tish Brandy Trace will ignore her wedding, too.
Merlin: Oh, then there's a lipstick kiss mark.
Merlin: She also wearing a Billy Ray t-shirt to make fun of Tish Cyrus's wedding today.
Merlin: And I said, does it feel like a little bit like we just had some kind of a shared neurological event?
Merlin: Because that's what a lot of my day feels like when I see that there's two, I mean, it's, you know, I'm an old guy, whatever.
Merlin: I'm not, I embraced it.
Merlin: Like I, it's okay.
Merlin: If there's anything I need to know, I can ask my kid.
John: Yeah, right, right, right.
Merlin: Like, what did I have to ask about yesterday?
Merlin: Oh, I had to ask – I kept seeing something with this weird, like, Chuck E. Cheese guy in it.
Merlin: And I said – this will come up in a minute, but we were going to visit a baby a couple counties away.
Merlin: And I turned my head around, looked in the back seat while we're driving along, and I said, honey, what is FNAF?
Merlin: And I asked kind of quietly because – FNAF?
Merlin: Yeah, because I didn't know if it was going to – if it meant, like, you know, butt stuff or something.
John: Sure.
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: And he instantly goes, Five Nights at Freddy's.
Merlin: It's coming out in blah, blah, blah, and this is going to blah, blah, blah.
Merlin: Oh, Five Nights at Freddy's.
Merlin: It's a movie?
Merlin: I said, that's a video game thing, right?
Merlin: And I think it is a video game.
Merlin: Because I kept thinking of, forgive my saying, the Tom Green film, Freddy Got Fingered.
John: Yes.
Merlin: Which it's not.
John: right right i do i do think that things like you know remember when we we first started saying lol and then ruffle ruffle so many funny jokes are ruined by somebody ending it with lmao or lol lol you can't you're not now i'm not gonna laugh at it now that's not it's not funny once you went low and no don't lol at me haha oh i i have somebody that emails me all the time
John: and ends with ha-ha, lowercase h. What does that mean?
John: Well, I can't tell.
John: Ha-ha.
John: Ha-ha, it seems.
John: Is this someone you knew in the before times, before the internet times?
John: Yeah, I mean, they're younger and I can't.
John: Is that a business person?
John: No.
John: I'm trying to picture who it is now, frankly.
John: Someone in marketing.
John: Ha ha.
John: Well, for a long time, I was like, are you mocking me?
John: Or is this a real laugh?
John: Or what is ha ha?
John: It felt a little bit like ack.
John: Like ack.
John: You mean our act, the old act.
Merlin: Act, the act.
Merlin: We are act.
Merlin: You mean more like... Our act.
Merlin: Like Kathy... Yes, like Kathy or Bill.
John: Yeah, yeah, right, right.
John: And then it turned out it was acknowledged.
John: I don't know what ha-ha...
John: I think haha is just lol, but they realize you can't say lol because it's dumb, so they changed it to haha.
John: That's a great way to just shave like 80 points off your IQ immediately.
John: But I do feel like FNAF is something that I would really like to be able to say and have it mean something.
John: Yeah, it reminds me of that subgenius term, thnord.
John: It's ignored.
John: It's exactly right.
John: You and I both heard it.
John: That was my Slack, too.
John: That's the Slack that I knew.
John: There are a lot of people listening right now that are like, what are they talking about?
Merlin: I don't even hear anything.
Merlin: Have a little fire, Scarecrow.
Merlin: Now you know what it feels like to be me, Noah Cyrus and Brazen.
Merlin: Why would you name someone Brazen?
Merlin: It's spelled B-R-A-I-S-O-N.
Merlin: That is such amazing.
Merlin: That sounds like a Maga Chud who cleans pools in Wakulla County.
John: The thing is, all I know is that you said Miley, Billy Ray, and Cyrus.
John: Context clues.
John: Yes.
John: I have a picture of those two people, Miley, and I went to one of her concerts one time and I was very impressed.
Merlin: She's fucking... Have you seen her backyard concert thing?
John: No.
Merlin: Well, I think it might be a series she does, but there's one in particular.
Merlin: Oh, God, what's the name of that band?
Merlin: They used to be a punk rock band, and they're really fucking good.
Merlin: That's a much smaller group.
John: Oh, no, I went there.
John: I know.
Merlin: I was like, well, that's a lot of bands.
Merlin: Oh, now that's almost nobody.
Merlin: Laura Jane Grace is the singer for a band.
Merlin: Everybody out there, I am so sorry.
Merlin: Against Me.
Merlin: And they're doing an Against Me song called, I think it's called True Transoul Rebel.
Merlin: But it's in Miley Cyrus' backyard.
Merlin: Miley Cyrus fucking has pipes.
John: Oh, she does.
Merlin: And there's one also where Joan Jett is singing with them.
Merlin: Oh, fun.
Merlin: And it's really, really, I heard she might be at the Super Bowl this year.
Merlin: Oh, I don't know what that is either.
Merlin: Oh, the Super Bowl, the halftime.
John: Oh, I see.
John: Oh, that's good.
John: Good, good.
John: I took you off your maritime law.
John: She has some ill-advised tattoos, but I- Oh my goodness, yes.
John: I learned a long time ago that that ship has sailed.
John: There's no, you can't, there's nothing.
John: Got it.
John: I hate that phrase, but it's so true.
John: The shipping sale.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Well, there's a bunch of things where I've told Syracuse the things that I will not abide with the English language.
Merlin: And he keeps telling me.
Merlin: Does he say this ship has sailed?
Merlin: This is his Squidward.
Merlin: And he goes, that ship has sailed.
John: Oh, he ship has sailed you.
Merlin: I like, and I showed him, I showed him a list that I have on the internet called usage.
Merlin: I dislike.
Merlin: And it's a lot of words that I think it's very important.
Merlin: We stop using the way.
Merlin: I think we need to stop using experience as a transitive verb.
John: Give me an example of experience as a transitive verb.
John: I'm experiencing a lot of anger right now.
John: Oh.
Merlin: Versus.
Merlin: Well, you could just say, I'm angry.
Merlin: I'm angry.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Don't say presently if you mean now.
Merlin: That's not what it means.
Merlin: Anyways.
Merlin: Oh, sure.
Merlin: Anyway, so five nights at Freddy's, and there's so many jokes I don't understand, which is fine.
Merlin: I don't feel left out.
Merlin: I don't have what I've heard is called FOMO.
John: Oh, you don't have FOMO?
John: No.
John: We should just call it being lonely.
John: You don't want to go out.
John: The thing is... I'm a Toys R Us kid.
John: I don't want to go out.
Merlin: Yeah, I know you are.
Merlin: I don't want to go out.
John: I'm a toy... Why am I Ethel Merman?
John: What was that?
John: You know, we didn't have Toys R Us in Alaska.
John: Children's Palace?
John: Well, no, we didn't have that either.
John: We just had like a little old lady that had a store that sold dolls.
John: That's a witch, John.
John: But...
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: He's like tapping on the window.
Merlin: Would you like to see my dolls?
John: One time in the 90s when I was still drinking in on drugs, I was at some kind of pool hall type venue.
John: And I was playing a game of billiards, and I was with another fellow, and we were playing against two grunge ladies who were in baby doll dresses and combat boots.
John: That's different than three imaginary girls.
John: That is.
John: This is only two girls, and they weren't imaginary.
John: And they were so cool and pretty and like rad.
John: And this was at a time when I just looked like a pile of sleeping bags you were going to give away.
John: Which one smells?
John: They all do.
John: Get them out of here.
John: Somebody will use them.
John: Beep, beep, beep.
John: Give them to the homeless.
John: They don't want them.
John: So I was playing and it was one of those nights.
John: You know those nights when you're suddenly good at pool.
Merlin: And it's like, all of a sudden, I'm really good at pool.
Merlin: I get that with video games sometimes.
Merlin: I'm good for one night.
Merlin: Or I'm good for one surprisingly critical game.
Merlin: And I'm like, I don't know why I'm doing well.
Merlin: Pool, it was only ever just luck that I did anything that wasn't just basic.
John: There have been four times in my life, in my entire life, when I was good at pool when I needed to be good at pool.
John: No kidding.
John: Yeah.
John: That's a mitzvah.
John: There have been a few times when I was good at pool when nobody cared.
John: And there have been a few times when I was not good at pool when it really would have helped if I had been good at pool.
John: But in this instance, this is one of them I remember very clearly.
John: I was really good at pool all of a sudden, and it was really helping.
John: And one of the...
John: And one of the girls was clearly the one that was interested in me, and I don't know whether it was because she was a sleeping bag recycler or what it was, but it was like... And I had a soul patch at this point.
John: Maybe she wanted to get you to a shelter.
John: Yeah, we both were probably really on drugs at the time.
John: I think everyone else in the pool hall that was a legit pool player, they were all really upset when we were there.
John: Are these people who brought their own cues?
John: Oh, yeah.
John: Yeah, yeah.
John: And this is a pool hall that was not dark and friendly.
John: It was...
Merlin: super bright lights and 400 pool tables and like half the people were that was kind of a thing i feel like in the early 90s that's the thing that people i worked with when i moved to tallahassee would go to this place up in killarn that was like uh exactly like that and like um and you know i really really remember whenever i think of rem's album out of time out of time right 91 i always think of playing it on the jukebox there
Merlin: Oh, at the pool hall.
Merlin: I bet that made it mad, too.
John: At the pool hall up and going up to Killar.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, so at this point, you know, I hit some shot.
John: I hit some, like, miracle shot.
John: And everybody was like, there it is again.
John: Real quick.
John: The shot that you took...
Merlin: Forgive my asking.
Merlin: This is not a dignified question.
John: Is that the shot I meant?
John: Is that the shot you meant?
John: Yes, in this instance it was.
John: Oh, now that's unbelievable.
John: This was one of those pool games where you had to call your shots.
Merlin: I would do a lot of that Pee Wee Herman, I meant to do that type stuff.
John: No, no, no.
John: You can't get away with that in this kind of environment.
John: Not with two grunge girls.
John: And I don't know why the song was in my head because I didn't grow up with this.
John: It was not a thing.
John: Um, but this was the same night.
John: Oh, that, that, uh, that, uh, Stone Temple pilot song Vaseline came on over the stereo.
John: It was new.
John: And I, uh, sang along with it kind of not, not loud, but like under my breath, kind of wry.
John: I wasn't looking at anybody.
John: I was just studying the pool table.
John: And I made up some lyrics that basically went like, this song is called Vaseline because I really wanted – or no, I picked another word and I was like, this word rhymes with Vaseline because I really wanted this song to be called Vaseline.
John: And the girls laughed at it.
John: It was a funny joke in the moment.
Merlin: Oh, you used your special gift.
Merlin: I did.
Merlin: This also will be relevant to our conversation in a minute.
Merlin: You have a special gift.
Merlin: And you pulled it out right there in the pool hall.
John: I did.
John: And I did it a little bit.
John: I did a weird owl on him, except it was like...
John: It was like cool grunge, like Smackdown Weird Al, where it was like, haha, I just made Stone Temple Pilots look really dumb.
John: Too bad they're not here.
John: You filled your mouth with marbles.
John: So then, so I make a shot.
John: I don't look up.
John: I'm doing that thing where you make a shot and you're already walking to the next shot.
John: You're already on your way.
Merlin: It's a no-look pocketball.
John: No-look pocketball.
John: I'm already on my way.
John: I do the shot.
John: I'm already on my way to the next shot.
John: Already disassembling your cue, which is weird because it's not disassemblable.
Merlin: You break the cue over your leg and you say, you two fight it out.
John: And I say again in that cool voice, I go, I don't want to grow up.
John: I'm a Toys R Us kid.
John: And the girl, the cute girl,
John: Almost like Roger Rabbit.
John: She goes.
John: Did she swoon?
John: She finished the line.
John: Oh, my God.
John: That's a great story.
John: Which is like, I just want the Abadad of the toys of my men or whatever the hell it says.
Merlin: I think they got trucks and planes.
Merlin: They got video games.
Merlin: It's the biggest toy store there is.
Merlin: It doesn't matter, though.
John: It doesn't matter.
Merlin: You're way ahead of me here.
Merlin: But, like, no, no, no, no.
Merlin: But the point being, like, she got the bit, and then she jumped in.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: She finished the line.
John: Oh, that is so cute.
John: But here's the problem, right?
John: That is the most – up until that point, I had all my cool.
John: I was killing it at pool –
John: You were five-fifths of a man.
John: At that point in time, it was plausible to anyone in that place that maybe looking like a pile of thrift store sleeping bags was actually a look.
John: Maybe that was actually a year ahead of where everybody was.
John: You could never tell back then.
Merlin: Isn't that guy John Roderick?
Merlin: He's so bad.
Yeah.
John: Did that guy just pull himself out of a cesspool, or is he the coolest guy in the bar?
John: Is he eating a fish he had in his pocket?
John: But as soon as she did that, and I looked up at her, and she was looking at me with a look of like, we have a whole thing.
John: We have a whole set of songs we can sing together.
Merlin: Well, it says so much about both of you.
Merlin: Not just that you both know the song, but you both would jump into that.
Merlin: That's the fun part.
John: Well, it was fun, except at that point in my life, I completely lost all my cool in that moment.
Merlin: You slipped into high school MC mode and started doing a little Fozzie Bear routine.
John: I don't even remember what I did, but whatever it was, it was like, oh, do you like me?
John: Oh, jeez.
John: I like you.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, so you didn't play it cool enough.
John: I don't know how to.
John: I didn't know how to then.
John: I don't know how to now.
Merlin: Never known how to.
Merlin: It always seems so bewildering to me as the kind of person who would see people dating and be mad at them for the morality or whatever.
Merlin: I could never imagine myself fully fitting into that situation where you just walk around, like where you put your hand in each other's back pocket of the jeans.
Merlin: That was not going to happen for me at 15.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: No, you borrow their goodie comb?
John: No, it's not going to happen.
Merlin: I'm carrying this duffel bag.
Merlin: It's got all my Ralph Bartha figures and all my books.
John: It's entirely possible that what I did... Expedition to the Borderlands.
John: What I did was try to be even more cool by ignoring her or not...
John: Not, you know, just being like, oh, yeah, whatever.
John: I don't know.
John: It could have been that or it could have been the one where I was like, so, like, where should we look for an apartment?
Merlin: But the thing is, it's so good.
Merlin: If it's even 80% the way you described it, that is so good that at that point you're both probably a little bit like, oh, like, ooh, like that was something.
Merlin: And then if you go waka waka.
John: There is a version of the world where I put my cue down on the table.
John: Walked over to her and said, let's get out of here.
John: You know, and I don't know.
John: Was that, would I be, where would I be now?
John: Maybe I'd be living on a boat.
Merlin: I don't know if you ever saw the movie Deadpool, but like the relationship that, you know, the Ryan Reynolds character has with his girlfriend, the lady from 24 is really sweet in some ways.
Merlin: It's of course, you know, quite bizarre, but in some ways, but you know, they have a funny relationship, you know, like he proposes to her with a ring pop and stuff like that.
Merlin: But it's Deadpool.
Merlin: He kills people.
Merlin: He's the merc with the mouth.
Merlin: So the thing is that that is a lot of pressure.
Merlin: And you've both at that point.
Merlin: There's another part of you that might be like, or the part of her.
Merlin: This is not her first day.
John: Right.
Merlin: Nope.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: When you meet a charming sleeping bag.
John: You're not walking around in a pool hall wearing a slip and Doc Martens if you haven't lived a little bit.
John: Oh, boy.
John: Oh, boy.
John: I mean, that was the time.
Merlin: I'm glad I don't have a little libido anymore.
John: It's really refreshing.
John: I know, I know, I know.
Merlin: It rings a bell.
John: The problem with me, of course, is that playing even a single more ball, one additional ball, I was experiencing...
John: badness.
John: I was experiencing scaredness at that moment, I think.
John: Yes, you were experiencing that, yeah.
John: I was experiencing scaredness, and any further pool balls that I shot were superfluous.
Merlin: I had arrived... You've peaked, and now there's a lot of pressure.
John: All I can do now is lose.
John: Even if I'm good at pool from now on, it's still... No, no, no, it's got nothing... John, if I could say, I mean, as an outside observer... I'm sure I started scratching...
John: You know what I mean?
John: Behind the ones and twos.
John: I started not only scratching the pool balls, but I had a finger in my ear.
Merlin: Hey, baby, let's get out of here.
Merlin: This place is wick, wick, whack.
Merlin: Yeah, let's get out of here.
Merlin: But you would have to keep the thing is you're going to have to keep that up forever.
Merlin: Imagine how you would be at age 70 with her.
Merlin: It would be so exhausting for you to keep that because you would have to do like probably destination weddings.
Merlin: You would have to be putting on plays.
Merlin: Imagine like your children would be insufferable.
Yeah.
Yeah.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: I dated a girl one time who refused to date me for a long time, and she would say things.
John: This was the same era.
John: She also always walking around in a slip and combat boots.
John: And she said at one point, you know, when I lived in San Francisco…
John: My boyfriend, she had told me already that he like wore leather pants.
John: She said, and he was a junkie or whatever.
John: Why'd you move?
John: And well, yeah.
John: And she said one time he rode a motorcycle right up the stairs of my apartment building.
John: She was dating D-Day.
John: And I was like, wow, you know, I don't own a motor vehicle because I can't figure out all the things.
Merlin: My leather pants are at the cleaners.
John: Like, first, you'd have to have money, right, to get a motor vehicle.
John: That's true.
John: Second, you would have to understand.
John: You'd have to pass a test.
John: There are lots of papers involved that you have to send to people, I guess.
Merlin: Don't just find the phone number for me.
Merlin: That doesn't help.
John: You'd also have to have additional money to put gasoline in it.
John: And you're supposed to insure it, I think.
John: Well, that's a whole other thing.
John: But here's the key.
John: You would have to not get it towed.
John: You would have to know where it was and continue to know where it was pretty much all the time, right?
John: You couldn't forget where it was.
Merlin: Yeah, what's the – see, I'm confusing this with the name of a Dali painting.
Merlin: Object permanence, right?
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Persistence of vision, something like that.
Merlin: No, you need – did you struggle with object permanence for a little while?
Oh.
John: I bet you had late stage object permanence problems.
John: The thing was that I was often like – it's a barter economy.
John: So somebody would say like, can I borrow your motorcycle?
John: And I would say, yeah, as long as I can stay in your apartment.
John: And they would say, okay.
John: And then I would – Oh, right.
John: Then I'd leave the apartment.
John: I'd go to somebody else's apartment.
John: And then I'd be like, did I loan the motorcycle –
John: Did I ever get that motorcycle back?
John: I asked my mom today, have you seen, I was supposed to get a check in the mail.
John: Have you seen, did you look at my mail?
John: She was like, no, no, I don't think so.
John: And I'm, so I've spent today going, did I, did I already see that check?
John: Is it, is it in a drawer somewhere?
John: And this is not old people stuff.
John: I was like this at 21, but anyway, so I was always in that relationship, which it was a two year long relationship.
John: I was always wondering, you know, her last boyfriend was a junkie that rode motorcycles up the stairs.
John: Am I doing like, am I doing anything equivalent to that?
John: And is she going to talk about this relationship and say like, Oh, you know, my boyfriend used to, uh, used to read me the Sears catalog and
John: Like, am I ever going to... Putting on your reading glasses.
John: What do you think, Audrey?
John: Should we try housewares tonight?
John: My boyfriend once, one time, was good at pool.
John: My boyfriend used to really like to hear me talk about my other boyfriends.
John: He told me a lot about The Godfather, too.
John: so anyway this one time this one time k anytime i hear the toys r us uh theme yeah i'm i am i'm transported back to this pool hall this girl had not quite robert smith teased up hair because it was killing me with this john she wasn't she wasn't a goth
John: Her hair was just really messy, and I think it had a couple of barrettes in it.
John: Yeah.
John: I love libertines.
John: Barrettes.
John: Maybe one of the barrettes was shaped like a turtle.
John: And I'm just transported back to that moment, and I don't even remember.
Merlin: You don't have any choice in the matter.
Merlin: I started singing it.
Merlin: I started singing it.
Merlin: This morning.
Merlin: I forget how it came up here on the show, but I did find myself singing it this morning, and I performed it for my wife to demonstrate that I could still remember most of the words.
Merlin: And then my only remark after that was, that is a very, very good song.
Merlin: I still think the Oscar Mayer Wiener song might be one of the greatest jingles for kids of all time.
Merlin: For sure it was.
Merlin: But it's got that same kind of quality to it of like, it's almost got...
Merlin: I don't know what you call it.
Merlin: It's not a bridge, but it's got a little part in it that mixes up.
Merlin: It's got a little McCartney part.
John: I love that.
John: Yeah, all those Brill Building guys were writing hot dog songs.
Merlin: Well, number one, I think you did fine.
Merlin: Number two, have you heard back from Twitter?
John: Let me see here.
John: Well, I don't know where it would come.
John: Maybe it's in my spam folder.
John: They suggested it.
John: It might be.
John: Okay, let's see.
John: Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait.
John: Okay.
John: Hello.
John: Thank you for your patience as we reviewed your appeal request for account John Roderick.
John: Our support team has determined that a violation did take place and therefore we will not overturn our decision.
John: Your account has been suspended and will not be restored due to violations of the Twitter rules, specifically our rules around colon.
John: Wait a minute.
John: This is really great.
John: Your account has been suspended and will not be restored due to violations of the Twitter rules, comma, and Twitter rules are hyperlink.
John: And it does say Twitter, not X, correct?
John: Twitter, Twitter rules.
John: And it has, oh, it has a bird at the top, too.
Merlin: Oh, I think your attorney is going to be very interested in that.
John: Then it says specifically our rules around, colon, and then the black dot indicating a bullet point.
Yeah.
John: Capital V violating our rules against violent speech.
John: Also a hyperlink.
John: So specifically our rules around colon bullet point dot.
John: That's a really careless way to phrase that.
John: Highlighting our rules against violent speech.
Merlin: Oh, God.
Merlin: Just if I could say, if you can find somebody who's willing to dress, maybe somebody could wear your King Neptune outfit.
Merlin: You find somebody that you present to this company as a maritime law lawyer.
Mm-hmm.
Merlin: And they're going to be real sorry that they got careless with the name of the company and a dead bird.
Merlin: Do you think Dave Roderick would put up with a bullet like that?
John: Well, so now I'm reading in the help center, violation of this policy.
John: You may not, according to the – oh, but the help center, when you go to it, it says X, help center.
John: The bird is gone now.
John: It says X is a place.
John: where people can express themselves, learn about what's happening, and debate global issues.
John: However, healthy conversations can't thrive when violent speech is used to deliver a message, et cetera, et cetera.
John: That's right.
John: But down here, under violation of this policy, the second paragraph is wishes of harm.
John: I saw that movement for Let's Active.
John: Yeah, that's great.
John: They're a great post-hardcore band.
John: Wishes of harm.
John: You may not...
John: You may not wish, hope, or express desire for harm.
John: So this is not just saying you can't tweet desire for harm.
John: You may not wish it or hope it.
John: No, this is prior restraint.
John: Yeah.
John: You may not wish, hope, or express desire for harm.
John: Don't wish it.
John: This includes but is not limited to hoping for others to die, suffer illness, tragic incidents, and
John: Okay, so I think tragic incidence is modified by suffer or hope.
John: Can you parse this?
John: Hoping for others to die, suffer illness, tragic incidence.
John: Hoping for others to die, comma.
John: Okay, so you're hoping for others to die, comma, suffer illnesses.
John: So you're hoping for them to suffer illness.
Merlin: See, no lawyer would ever accept that because it sounds like it's talking about you now.
Merlin: That is a very ambiguous statement.
Merlin: It sounds like you're not allowed to have harm.
John: I would be hoping tragic incidents.
John: Tragic suffer harm.
John: Hoping for others to die, hoping for suffer illnesses.
John: Do you think you did that with the umpire?
Merlin: Did you even know the umpire's name?
John: I don't.
John: I don't even remember if it was.
John: I don't.
John: I don't know what sport it was.
John: And then it says, or experience.
John: There are a lot of tenses here.
John: Hoping for others to die, suffer illnesses, tragic incidents, or experience other physically harmful consequences.
John: It's translated directly from the Swahili.
John: I think it is.
John: Jumbo.
Merlin: Well, you know what?
Merlin: Fuck it.
Merlin: You got a minute?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Can we keep going?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: I don't want to go too long.
Merlin: It's really humid in here.
Merlin: Is it dorky for me to ask you to tell the story?
Yeah.
Merlin: Which one?
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: So the way that eventually John and I became friends.
Merlin: What you need to know about before we became friends.
Merlin: Long time ago.
Merlin: Yeah, I was a really, really, really big fan of The Long Winters.
Merlin: So I met you just a little bit before Pretend to Fall came out, but I really loved The Worst You Can Do Is Harm.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You know, and we became friends at the website and stuff.
Merlin: And then, you know, that's one of my, well, it's one of my favorite records.
Merlin: And I think it's, I don't want to shine your skirt here, but I really do love it.
Merlin: And it's gotten so special that it's almost like a Sloan or a Renz record where like, I got to keep it kind of special, but I've been binging a little bit lately.
Merlin: And of course, if I put it on, I listened to it all the way through.
Merlin: I was listening to... I did this thing.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: Maybe I'm the Jason in your life, apart from the other Jason.
Merlin: But sometimes I'll just text you and I'll go like, holy shit, whoever got Michael to play that way on Cinnamon, it really brought out the best of him.
Merlin: And that's a fucking amazing drum part.
Merlin: And that song, you know, weeks pass.
Merlin: And then I sent you one, I think last week.
Merlin: I want you to tell me this long response, but if you allow it, I would like to tell you what I sent to you on Saturday, August 12th at 11.32 a.m.
Merlin: Is that okay?
John: Oh, yes.
Merlin: I said, the shoegazy coda on Blanket Hog is so fucking good.
Merlin: So that's the end of side one.
Merlin: And it's winding down.
Merlin: I think it's the end of side one.
Merlin: In my head, it is.
Merlin: And I don't own it on vinyl, but that feels like an album.
Merlin: It's winding down.
Merlin: But then at the end, it goes, bam!
Merlin: And it goes into this amazing part that only now kind of makes me go, oh, that is...
Merlin: When I say shoegazy, I don't mean dream poppy.
Merlin: I mean a little bit more like MBV, but it's very chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, and a wall of sound, and I think it's got horns on it, and it's just overwhelming.
Merlin: So what I said was, I said the shoegazy coda on Blanket Hog is so fucking good.
Merlin: Would you tell our listeners what you wrote back to me?
John: Well, so...
John: You know, recording that, we had a string quartet in the studio that was... At the very, very end, you hear just the string quartet.
Merlin: It's so good.
John: Yeah.
John: They were there, and they had been putting strings on some other songs on the record.
John: And we had Blanket Hog.
John: And what's crazy about Blanket Hog is it's just, you know, it's like a finger-picked part.
John: And so the beginning, if you go back and listen to the beginning of the song, it starts...
John: With some piano chords.
Merlin: It reminds me a little bit of what Commander Thinks Aloud in terms of the structure.
Merlin: It's just kind of like, you know, steady.
John: But the piano chords morph into the tune.
Mm-hmm.
John: In a way, and here's how that happened.
John: We were sitting there and I was like, so we should have something.
John: We should have an intro to this that's really cool.
John: And at that point, we were recording with Ken Stringfellow.
John: And when you and I met, it was because you had gone primarily to see the Ken Stringfellow because he was in the Posies and you loved the Posies, if I recall the story.
Merlin: Absolutely.
Merlin: And you guys opened for him and then were his backing band.
Merlin: We were his backing band.
Merlin: This is that amazing record with uniforms.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Came out probably 2002 or so.
John: The Ken Stringfellow solo record.
John: Such a good album.
John: He was in the studio.
John: Such a good album.
John: A lot of good songs on that.
John: And he said, I know, I know, I know, I know.
John: Like, you know, we used to have fun in the recording studio.
John: And if somebody goes like, oh, I know, I know, I know.
John: And they raise their hand like they're in school.
John: You go, you, you, what's your idea?
John: And Ken sat down at the piano and he said, just...
John: Just send me the click track.
John: Don't let me hear anything else in the song.
John: Oh, my God.
John: That's like some Captain Beefheart shit.
John: And so he starts to play that piano.
John: Blong, blong, blong, blong.
John: And this was a long time before I'd written Commander Thinks Aloud.
John: This was just him just plotting some piano chords completely.
John: And the thing was not related to the song at all.
John: And then he did it for— The song you had starts with the whole, like, do you believe?
John: Is that like— Yeah.
John: Okay.
John: That was my song.
John: But if you listen to the intro, he did that, and then we ran into the studio, and he was just like, now crossfade.
John: Just fade the piano down as you fade the song up.
John: And we did it.
John: And that is what was produced.
John: For a brief moment, the two things are in there together.
John: They're not related to one another at all.
Merlin: That's so – I would never – now I've got to listen as soon as we're done.
Merlin: I had no idea.
John: Okay, so then we're at the end of the song.
Merlin: It's a song that picks up, you know, and gets –
Merlin: It's very beautiful, it's very heartfelt, but it's kind of picking up a little, and then it brings in that, another guitar line, if memory serves, a really beautiful.
Merlin: And it's got a kind of tweedily, almost, really, I hope you take this as the compliment, I mean, almost chamber pop feel to it.
John: Well, so this was an era, if you look at the music of Harvey Danger, there are a couple of songs.
John: where sean is really trying to write a song for ariella to give her the gift because you know in our indie rock culture um we were trying to be good good we're trying to be good and you know sean was married and i was dating megan and there was just this kind of feeling certainly on sean's part that
John: he, with all these songs about how sad he was, he should actually have a song where he prayed.
John: Happiness Writes White.
John: Happiness Writes White was exactly the song that he came up with.
Merlin: God, I adore that song.
John: He came up with that song in order to hand it to Ariel and say, look, I wrote a song about you.
John: This is about our happiness together.
John: It's just very hard to write about happiness.
John: And
John: In my case, Megan had never expressed any interest in my band or music at all or any of my big ideas.
John: Bless her heart.
John: What she wanted, I think, in our relationship was someone to help her walk dogs.
John: I want someone to walk dogs with.
John: Yeah.
John: And her, her idea of her future was that she would have a dog walking business where all the dogs only had three legs.
John: And so I was going to be like, I would write her song in waltz time.
Merlin: A good boy.
Merlin: Yes, you are a good boy.
Merlin: Yes, you are.
John: So I sat down to try and write Megan a song.
John: I think unlike Sean, not trying to appease his beautiful wife, but in my case, just trying to get my girlfriend to have an interest in what I do.
John: Like, oh, I'm going to write a song about you.
John: And I had such a terrible sense of what people think is charming or cute.
John: You know, all my songs are not meant for people.
John: They're just meant to be played for the trees.
Yeah.
John: And I'm trying to write a song for her, and I'm like, oh, you know how you steal the blankets?
John: And then remember when we were broken up for a year, how much we missed each other?
John: And now we're back together, and I'm writing a song because I don't know how to write about happiness.
John: I'm writing a sad song about when we were broken up, how much I missed you, which is already hard for me to say.
John: Yes.
John: So I write this song.
John: Fast forward to slightly just not very long after this, Sean and Ariello were getting married.
John: They got married in a big ceremony that Chris Cornelia was the minister.
John: This is an indication of how the marriage was going to go.
John: They had a big wedding in an art gallery somewhere.
John: And the wedding was designed as a trial of marriage.
John: Marriage.
John: Marriage.
John: Where a select group of people were brought as witnesses for the prosecution or the defense.
John: Oh, this is a very high concept.
John: And there was, instead of guests at the wedding, there was an audience.
John: The jury.
John: That's right.
John: And then there actually was a jury.
John: And they called me.
Merlin: They called me as a witness.
Merlin: This is what happens when you have a meet cute.
Merlin: You got to just keep accelerating.
Merlin: This is like you in the pool all over again.
Merlin: So cute.
John: They have to just keep being cute.
John: They're artists.
John: They called me, I think, as a witness for the prosecution.
Yeah.
John: And I played Blanket Hog at their wedding.
John: What?
John: And I played it through a series of delay pedals...
John: So that as the song progressed, I just kept putting on more and more delay pedals.
Merlin: Is that the one?
Merlin: Now I'm really spacing.
Merlin: Is that the one that starts out with the crazy, like, magical mystery tour?
Merlin: With the weird wackadoo parts at the beginning?
Merlin: Which one is that?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Which song are we talking about?
Merlin: But, like, on the recording, does Blankenhawk the one where, like, at the very, very beginning, before the piano kicks in, it has the, like, backwards tape sounds and stuff?
John: Yes, that's also, yeah, some backwards piano I think we put on.
John: That sounds so fucking cool, yeah.
John: So, so by the time it gets to the big explosive part that we're trying, that I'm trying to tell a story about, sorry, by that point in time I was doing it, but only with my one guitar I had played.
John: Oh, and I had a looper.
John: So I, I had, it became this big, huge, uh, wall of sound at the end.
John: And then I took the guitar and I sprayed it with lighter fluid and I set it on fire and
John: At their wedding.
John: Muscle tough.
John: And the guy who ran the art gallery came running out because apparently I had the bottle of lighter fluid was too close to the burning guitar and he thought I was going to burn his art gallery down.
John: And so he comes out and he kicks the flaming –
John: uh thing of lighter fluid across the room he could have he could have been the reason it burned down but but it didn't it didn't stay lit i heard i learned later that ariella had asked for me to play blanket hog at her wedding spoiler alerts so we get to the end of as we're recording the song we get to the end and we're like how do we end this song does it just peter out do we go back to ken on the piano
John: And then the next day, the string quartet was there.
John: And I said, well, why don't we have a string quartet play us out?
John: And so we set them up with the – we said, what if it went like – I love what they're playing.
John: And so they start to go on this.
John: And I'm there making the international sign up.
John: Just keep going.
John: Just keep going.
John: Just keep going.
John: So they play and play and play.
John: They play for –
John: three minutes or something and we're like okay that was great you're amazing thanks you know it's 100 bucks each so that's what we agreed on right oh my gosh out they go and so then we're there with this you know with this really great string part and i said what if we just put one guitar on there
John: and pretty soon there are like 11 d7 guitars on it and i'm like but also also with the glissando the boom at the beginning i love it's not it's not quite a pick slide but it's definitely a descending glissando that's like get ready so all of that we all of that we built later right like i was like okay now it's got to go in so what what if we do the and at that point during mixing
John: Somebody had the idea.
John: Well, wait a minute.
John: What if we made the whole first half of the song, all the lyrics, all of the chorus, everything.
John: What if we just mono'd it?
John: We just summed everything to mono, which means there's no, you know, it's not like one thing happens over here and one thing happens over here.
John: The whole song could come out of the speaker on a cigarette lighter and it would be, it would be all there like the early Beatles.
John: But then when, when I do that, I,
John: What if the song went into stereo at that point?
John: We just push the button on the desk and boom, everything's now pan.
John: That's the sound the button on the desk makes too.
John: And then pow, it's just like, so that glissando, if you listen to it on headphones, it starts in one ear and goes over to the other ear.
John: which is a thing that you kind of aren't supposed to do.
John: If you listen to early days of stereo, a lot of bands are like, hey, what if we played around with the stereo field?
John: And it always is corny.
John: There are a couple, like there's a Queen song where something kind of moves across stereo.
Merlin: Yeah, he would do that thing with micing three different amps with a delay and then have them be left, right, and center.
Merlin: But no, you're right.
Merlin: It's very much like a gimmick of the stereo and quad period.
John: Yeah, and my heart does it once, but it's not a thing.
Merlin: Oh, Barracuda.
John: But so we put it all together.
John: And it goes, so it explodes into stereo at that point.
John: And then there's every, there's the whole kitchen sink is in the song.
John: And I never wanted it to stop.
John: If it had gone to 14 minutes, I would have been happy.
Merlin: It reminds me of, honestly, again, I mean, this is a compliment of, obviously, Straight to Mind is Day in the Life, where it's like, wait a minute, they're still adding, but the strings are still playing this beautiful, delicate...
Merlin: It wouldn't be Baroque.
Merlin: I mean, Baroque, maybe a little bit romantic.
Merlin: It's a little Baroque.
Merlin: A little Baroque, but kind of romantic.
Merlin: But anyway, and you're like, wait a minute, how many more?
Merlin: This is still going.
Merlin: And you said it's like, is it over?
Merlin: It feels like 12 minutes, but you said it's like two.
Merlin: I have no idea.
Merlin: Yeah, but it's at least a couple minutes, right?
John: Yeah.
John: So then we've got the record.
John: And as we've discussed, I think, many times before, at least for me, when a record was finished, I had no idea what song people were going to like the most.
John: I did not think that Car Parts was going to be the song off of the first record that people really liked.
John: Everybody thought that it was going to be Blue Diamonds from this record we're discussing, but I was convinced it was—
John: I was going to say Sound of Coming Down was the best song on the record.
Merlin: No one ever mentions that song.
Merlin: That could be a radio hit.
Merlin: Like, if you think about the not-a-surfiness of Barsouk, right, kind of, or the Death Cab kind of stuff, yeah, that's a fucking great song.
John: The problem with Sound of Coming Down, I think, is the recording is a little muddled.
John: It wasn't clear enough, especially in the bridge.
Merlin: I love the way you sing a little bit, like Sinatra, you sing a little bit behind the beat.
John: Yeah, buddy.
Merlin: That's a good little bit.
John: I've never heard.
Merlin: I've never heard it.
John: Not interested, whatever.
John: But I like to dance around.
John: But so so we give an advance copy of the record to Sean Wolf, who's going to be doing the art for the record, the art which should have won a Grammy Award.
Merlin: The art for that album is.
Merlin: And you guys, I still have that signed tour poster of the of the art for that from you guys.
Merlin: Rainbow fucking love that.
John: Everything that guy does.
John: It should have been Grammy Award winning, and the only reason it wasn't is that Barsouk probably didn't even think to send it to the Grammys, but it should have absolutely won best packaging.
John: And so Sean has got the record because he's listening to it to be inspired.
John: And so this is now a story inside of a story inside of a story.
John: I still have another layer for you.
John: Sean writes me or calls me.
John: I'm over at his studio because we're working on the art together.
John: And he tells this story.
John: He's on an airplane.
John: And he's listening to this record.
John: And the airplane is coming in for a landing.
John: And it's a rough day.
John: And the pilot says, fasten your seatbelts.
John: It's going to be a little bit bouncy.
John: Plane starts bouncing along.
John: Blanket hog comes on.
John: He's got his headphones turned up.
John: plane starts really bouncing back and forth you know it's like a shuttering kind of thing and blanket hog you know plinkety plinkety plinkety plinkety sad song oh i you know please like my music girlfriend blink blink blink
John: And then the plane drops, you know, just like plunges 3,000 feet straight down.
John: And everybody in the plane is like, yeah.
John: And the luggage compartments open.
John: That's the detail.
Merlin: That's the detail that got me.
Merlin: And the compartments open and like luggage starts falling out of the compartment.
John: And the plane is shaking and the pilots just, you know, and they're shaking side to side, which is so goddamn scary to me.
John: And according to Sean, it goes at that moment.
John: And the music goes bananas.
John: And he said he rode out this chaotic lightning storm landing in this airplane with that going on in his headphones.
John: And he said he was so thrilled, like just.
John: flabbergasted that he had this soundtrack to this event that he felt like everything was fine this was exactly what it was meant to be and he was just gripping the seat like if we go if this is how i go in like this is how i go in right it feels like a gift yeah and so he's you know he was telling me this story breathless like you know you you're that that
John: music you made it so that it would be in my ears that one time like that while he was working on the project on the art for the for that song and if you look well i mean it find the booklet and look and see uh see the art i mean you'll you'll
John: You can see how he's like you.
John: He got so into the record as he was working on it that you could see the art brilliance from the record.
John: Like I say, it should have won awards.
John: Maybe I could go back.
John: If I could go back in time, the one thing I would do is get Sean Wolf a best packaging Grammy award.
Merlin: I mean, it sounds like you're going to have time on your hands since this Twitter thing didn't work out.
Merlin: Uh-huh.
John: Definitely.
Merlin: Maybe it's time.
Merlin: It's sort of like, you know, David Lynch for Inland Empire.
Merlin: Like, you know, you go and just sit in a chair somewhere and like hold up signs about Sean Wolf.
Merlin: I loved that you told me that Saturday before last.
Merlin: And so I picked the music, which every, well, my kid especially hates, but I picked the music for, went to see a baby yesterday and had to go to the East Bay.
Merlin: What's this baby?
Merlin: Oh, shit dog.
Merlin: Where did you see a baby?
Merlin: Oh, it's a very high-quality baby.
Merlin: I want to see a baby.
Merlin: Oh, really?
Okay.
Merlin: Yeah, I like a baby.
Merlin: I'll find a baby while I'm telling you.
Merlin: The point of the story is that, just very quickly, is that I was relating, we were listening to the album, which must be listened to all the way through, and I didn't skip around, and we were listening, and we got to Blanket Hog, and I was like, oh, shit, I forgot to tell, Madeline, I forgot to tell you this amazing story, and so I read that text to Madeline.
Merlin: Right as we were pulling into the Caldecott Tunnel, which is my least favorite East Bay Tunnel,
Merlin: It's just, it was kind of funny, though.
Merlin: It's like how I used to listen to Godspeed, You Black Emperor in the Muni Tunnel.
Merlin: That was my Sean Wolf music.
Merlin: It was like, this is how it's going to go down.
Merlin: This is going to be in.
Merlin: I open my wallet, and it's full of blood.
Merlin: Good night, everybody.
John: When people ask me if I like Godspeed, You Black Emperor, which weirdly has happened more than once in the course of my life, how do you feel about Godspeed, You Black Emperor?
John: I'm like, well, yeah, it's the music that I would listen to if I were going into a really bad tunnel.
Yeah.
Merlin: You believe it's the...