Ep. 517: "Sundown Acres" - Roderick on the Line

00:05:10 John: And there's so much of the world that just turns on like, oh, God, how many more minutes do I have to do this before I can start getting drunk?

00:05:19 John: Yeah, yeah.

00:05:20 John: And I relate, man.

00:05:21 John: I mean, high fives.

00:05:23 Merlin: I think gambling's like that, too.

00:05:24 John: If you're 56, 57.

00:05:26 John: Yeah.

00:05:26 John: And you're like, I put in my time.

00:05:29 John: Yeah, I got to handle a JB at home.

00:05:31 John: Yeah, well, and I'm going to, you know what?

00:05:33 John: I'm retired, and I'm going to get up in the morning.

00:05:35 John: The first thing I'm going to do is have a big, healthy breakfast, and then I'm going to start thinking about getting drunk.

00:05:40 John: It's sunny out.

00:05:42 John: Nobody needs me to do anything or be anything other than like slightly loaded all afternoon.

00:05:48 Merlin: The expectations have changed.

00:05:51 Merlin: I mean, first of all, like for men, men of my age, which I know you're not yet.

00:05:55 Merlin: I mean, age wise, you're much more a man than I'll ever be.

00:05:57 John: But thank you for for noting the one and a half year difference in your slippers.

00:06:05 Merlin: My cameras are capturing all of this.

00:06:07 John: Speaking of which, why is my camera light on?

00:06:10 Merlin: Oh, up in the menu bar?

00:06:14 John: Well, no, on the top of the screen, there's like a green light that's on that's never normally on.

00:06:19 John: Are they watching me masturbate?

00:06:21 John: What are they doing?

00:06:22 Merlin: Well, it depends.

00:06:23 Merlin: They are watching you, but the masturbating is up to you.

00:06:27 Merlin: But it's, oh, it must be Skype is doing it.

00:06:29 Merlin: It's called chair masturbation, and it's a class that we do on Tuesdays.

00:06:33 Merlin: It's like you sit in the water.

00:06:35 Merlin: Bring a towel.

00:06:35 Merlin: Actually, bring two towels.

00:06:36 Merlin: Everybody knows you can't have sex in water, and yet it's in every movie.

00:06:39 Merlin: Oh, my God.

00:06:40 Merlin: You know what?

00:06:42 Merlin: cancel everything else in this show jesus christ john we grew up watching movies like usa up all night or mtv music videos and people were always boning down in a hot tub my girlfriend and i tried it in high school and it was horrible for everyone can't do it well i mean you can kind i mean back then you know woof

00:07:03 Merlin: Sure, you can try to do it, but it's not how you want to do it.

00:07:07 Merlin: No, it's like it takes the best performance characteristics of the genitals and kind of scotches the whole deal.

00:07:13 Merlin: Do you really want chlorine in there?

00:07:15 John: Well, and that's the thing.

00:07:16 John: If you could have sex in water, it's what we'd all be doing all the time.

00:07:20 John: You wouldn't want to be getting drunk in the afternoon.

00:07:22 Merlin: It's the snipe hunting of adult intercourse.

00:07:24 Yeah.

00:07:25 Merlin: Okay.

00:07:25 Merlin: All right.

00:07:28 Merlin: But you, on the other hand, probably are not thinking about how soon you can start getting drunk.

00:07:32 Merlin: And I'm not criticizing anybody.

00:07:34 Merlin: I mean, I 3D print.

00:07:37 Merlin: Oh, you do?

00:07:37 Merlin: Yeah.

00:07:37 Merlin: When did you start doing that?

00:07:39 Merlin: Oh, it's a big part of my life now.

00:07:40 John: Are you making Wilberforces and stuff?

00:07:42 John: Yeah.

00:07:43 John: Little like naked blue men and Wilbur forces to decorate your office.

00:07:48 Merlin: There is a funny thing because my only interest, this has been covered so extensively on literally every other thing I've ever done in the last six months.

00:07:56 Merlin: But I'll say one thing that is funny.

00:07:58 Merlin: I'm not at all personally interested at this point in making my own, if you like, models or prints of things I design.

00:08:04 Merlin: I just like getting other people's stuff and doing it.

00:08:06 Merlin: You know, but which because there's still a lot to the actual how it gets printed out.

00:08:12 Merlin: It's obviously too much to go into here.

00:08:13 Merlin: But like what's funny is you go to these websites and oh, this is really cool.

00:08:17 Merlin: This guy made this really cool like a term from the thing is a printing place, which means there's no parts.

00:08:23 Merlin: It just prints the full thing and then you use it for a thing.

00:08:25 Merlin: And it's really neat.

00:08:27 Merlin: Like that could be like an articulated dragon or that could be like a drinking cup or something that turns into a stool.

00:08:33 Merlin: And you don't have any parts to put together.

00:08:35 Merlin: It's really great.

00:08:36 Merlin: And I'll see this guy who's like, oh, I just came up with this amazing thing that does this thing.

00:08:40 Merlin: And then you go and click through and all of his other models are like Velma with giant boobs.

00:08:46 Merlin: Oh, yeah.

00:08:46 John: Velma with giant boobs.

00:08:48 John: Yes.

00:08:49 John: How much of the Internet is just Velma?

00:08:51 John: That's a really good question.

00:08:54 Merlin: Well, it's sold by volume, not weight, so some settling may occur.

00:08:58 Merlin: If you know what I mean.

00:08:59 Merlin: Oh, he went there.

00:09:01 Merlin: Did I?

00:09:01 Merlin: Oh, boy.

00:09:03 Merlin: Where is there?

00:09:05 Merlin: Yeah, that's what Michael Stipe says.

00:09:06 Merlin: My friend Dr. Don, the food guy, who I think you're aware of.

00:09:10 Merlin: Don.

00:09:10 John: Don Schaffner, who's always yelling at me about the fact that the pizza under my bed probably isn't good enough to eat right now.

00:09:17 Merlin: You know, that sounds exactly like someone who teaches at Rutgers would say.

00:09:21 Merlin: Yeah, he's not yelling.

00:09:24 Merlin: He's not yelling.

00:09:25 Merlin: He didn't need to yell.

00:09:26 John: Look at me.

00:09:26 John: I'm a doctor.

00:09:28 John: Shut the fuck up.

00:09:30 John: One time I did.

00:09:31 John: I did an omnibus on.

00:09:33 John: I don't remember what.

00:09:34 John: And he he came swinging into the comments.

00:09:37 John: You know, this is we've known each other for years.

00:09:39 Merlin: There's a lot of just to be clear.

00:09:40 Merlin: There are so many turns outs.

00:09:42 Merlin: In food safety that would blow your mind.

00:09:44 Merlin: One of my famous ones is Dr. Don's advice.

00:09:46 Merlin: Nay, commandment to never rinse a chicken.

00:09:50 Merlin: Oh, don't rinse a chicken.

00:09:51 Merlin: It's actually really bad.

00:09:53 Merlin: Oh, yeah.

00:09:53 Merlin: But stuff like that.

00:09:54 Merlin: There's all kinds of stuff like that.

00:09:55 Merlin: And you learn this when you get into stuff like sous vide cooking.

00:09:58 Merlin: We cook in bags in warm water.

00:09:59 Merlin: And it's like I had to completely change everything I think about how food is prepared.

00:10:05 Merlin: But I think I did a talk there one time.

00:10:07 Merlin: At Rutgers.

00:10:08 Merlin: Yeah, it was a really interesting talk.

00:10:09 Merlin: The slide machine didn't work because, you know, people love you to do your PowerPoint.

00:10:14 Merlin: So I just, and of course, at that time, I was very heavily medicated for ADHD.

00:10:19 Merlin: And I just fucking went off.

00:10:20 Merlin: I just did a thing.

00:10:22 John: I know that, Merlin.

00:10:24 Merlin: Oh, it was something.

00:10:25 Merlin: And it was not well-received, which is some of my favorite talks.

00:10:27 John: Oh, no, no, no.

00:10:29 John: What does not well-received look like at Rutgers?

00:10:33 John: Did they all wiggle their mustaches at you?

00:10:35 Merlin: Me?

00:10:35 Merlin: I mean, like, the basic thing about any Merlin talk is what I hope comes across as, you know, hey, I'm not here to just, like, beat you up because I think I'm better than you.

00:10:44 Merlin: I'm here to beat you up because you think you're better than you.

00:10:47 Merlin: Like, are you sure you are operationalizing all the things in life that you think are good ideas?

00:10:51 Merlin: Because you might be full of shit.

00:10:53 Merlin: And doctors don't like to hear that.

00:10:55 Merlin: Oh, yeah.

00:10:56 Merlin: Surprising.

00:10:56 Merlin: But anyway, he introduced me to a term that I now use extensively.

00:11:00 Merlin: And he was not talking about any particular person.

00:11:02 Merlin: But when I'm going to visit with people, I'd want to talk about, like, what's the culture like on this team or in this group?

00:11:07 Merlin: Or is there a general vibe?

00:11:09 Merlin: What are the things, if I interrogated you a little bit, would you be able to tell me

00:11:14 Merlin: Things that nobody even realizes is a rule that everybody follows because that's the company or the organization.

00:11:20 Merlin: He introduced me to a phrase that my wife has also used with great respect.

00:11:24 Merlin: Retired in place.

00:11:26 John: Retired in place.

00:11:28 Merlin: Have you ever heard that phrase?

00:11:29 John: Oh, yeah, because that's what happens when they're doing.

00:11:32 John: They have some big tool that they're using and they're like, you know, we're just going to bury this here now.

00:11:37 Merlin: It can mean so many things.

00:11:39 Merlin: I apply it to myself pretty liberally.

00:11:42 Merlin: But the way Don used it, with much respect, was, like, think about somebody in, like, the classic cliche sort of government job.

00:11:49 Merlin: You know, Danny Glover's only got one more week of this shit before he goes out on his boat called police regrets or whatever.

00:11:57 John: Right.

00:11:57 John: And so retired in place means that you're still going to work every day.

00:12:01 John: Yes.

00:12:02 John: But you're not doing anything anymore.

00:12:03 Merlin: Right.

00:12:04 Merlin: Well, like, I mean, for example, you know, like in Seven, you know, I think.

00:12:11 Merlin: The movie Seven?

00:12:12 Merlin: Yeah, I was going to say, that's an instance where that Morgan Freeman, he's heading out.

00:12:18 Merlin: He's going to get out the game.

00:12:19 Merlin: He's not retired in place.

00:12:20 Merlin: That guy is still hustling.

00:12:22 Merlin: What I'm talking about is, first of all, the phrase is a thought technology, I think.

00:12:26 John: Sure.

00:12:26 Merlin: And you can apply it lots of ways.

00:12:28 Merlin: But one way is like sort of what you just said, or you've become in some organizations I've heard called you've become furniture.

00:12:36 John: You've become furniture.

00:12:38 Merlin: Yes.

00:12:38 Merlin: Let's think about the couches in like a dorm lounge.

00:12:42 Merlin: Yep.

00:12:44 Merlin: Yep.

00:12:44 Merlin: So you're not looking forward to hearing any of them.

00:12:46 Merlin: Oh, dear.

00:12:47 Merlin: I've done so many things on so many of them.

00:12:49 Merlin: I, oh, my, I can't believe I put my butt on those things, let alone my other parts.

00:12:54 Merlin: But then I just was thinking, what's your deal at your new home?

00:12:58 Merlin: What is their name for the place where you're being stored?

00:13:01 John: Yeah, it's called something like, let me see here, because it's in the Y. It's all in the brochure.

00:13:09 John: Withering poems.

00:13:11 John: It's called Sunrise Estates or something like that.

00:13:15 John: Sunrise.

00:13:16 John: It's not Sunset Estates.

00:13:17 John: Yeah, that would be a better name in a lot of ways.

00:13:20 John: Yeah, but sunrise estates makes me feel like there's more to live for, that there's a future for me.

00:13:26 Merlin: That sounds expensive.

00:13:27 Merlin: I bet just sunset acres, I bet that would be a lot cheaper.

00:13:32 Merlin: You're right.

00:13:32 Merlin: That's the thing.

00:13:33 Merlin: This is expensive.

00:13:34 Merlin: It's expensive.

00:13:35 Merlin: The problem is then also with dementia, you also get into what they call sundowning.

00:13:39 Merlin: Do you know what sundowning is?

00:13:40 Merlin: Yeah, right.

00:13:41 John: Sundowning.

00:13:41 John: That sucks.

00:13:42 John: I've seen it.

00:13:42 Merlin: I've seen it.

00:13:43 Merlin: I've seen a lot of people in the afternoon.

00:13:44 Merlin: They get a little weird.

00:13:46 Merlin: Well.

00:13:47 Merlin: So Sundown Acres.

00:13:49 Merlin: Is it a private room?

00:13:50 Merlin: Do you share it?

00:13:51 Merlin: Is there a solarium?

00:13:53 John: No, I have a private room.

00:13:55 John: It's decorated.

00:13:56 John: Let's see.

00:13:56 John: The end table lamps look like little atoms.

00:14:01 John: Little like, you know, like 1955 atoms.

00:14:03 John: Oh, that's nice.

00:14:04 John: But they're lamps.

00:14:05 John: Reminds you of the good old days.

00:14:07 John: Yeah, there's a big modern art oil painting of a spray, like a rattle can of

00:14:14 John: A graffiti artist can.

00:14:17 Merlin: Hotel room art kind of thing.

00:14:20 Merlin: You can glue seashells to that and charge double.

00:14:23 John: Are there any seashells in here?

00:14:25 John: No, I don't think so.

00:14:26 John: But there is a huge painting of what is sort of basically like the yellow submarine.

00:14:33 Merlin: You know, I'd love to have, remember in the movie The Shining when they go to Scott McGrathers when he's in Miami and he's watching TV?

00:14:40 Merlin: And remember he calls to find out if everybody's okay at the Overlook?

00:14:43 Merlin: And there are two different amazing huge oil paintings of topless gorgeous black women.

00:14:51 Merlin: Do you remember that?

00:14:52 Merlin: Yes, I do.

00:14:53 Merlin: I mean, I didn't think it was sexy, but I thought it was.

00:14:56 Merlin: I mean, it was sexy in a cultural way.

00:14:58 Merlin: It didn't give me a rager.

00:15:00 Merlin: But I was just like, man, fucking Scatman Crothers, Hong Kong Phooey, he's retired in a good place.

00:15:06 John: He's a number one super guy.

00:15:07 Merlin: He's number one super guy, quicker than the human eye, and he's retired in a place called Miami with boobies.

00:15:12 Merlin: I'm sending you a picture of where that noise is coming from also.

00:15:17 John: Oh, John, that does not look real.

00:15:20 John: Well, and that's the thing.

00:15:21 John: It's twice natural size.

00:15:23 John: It's twice normal size.

00:15:24 Merlin: John sent me like, I don't know, like if somebody had to make a phone from the future for Buck Rogers in 1979.

00:15:31 Merlin: How would you describe this?

00:15:33 Merlin: It's a retro future past future.

00:15:35 Merlin: It's a retro future past future.

00:15:36 Merlin: It's got a giant antenna on it, like on your transistor radio as a kid.

00:15:40 John: It feels like the kind of telephone that, it was like a sat phone, right?

00:15:47 John: I was going to say Omar Bradley.

00:15:48 Merlin: It's got kind of a little bit of an Omar Bradley vibe.

00:15:51 Merlin: Like in Patton, something he'd talk into while somebody holds a box.

00:15:54 John: It does look like that, except it's, yeah, right, okay, so it's somewhere between a walkie-talkie and something that, like, a douchey early 90s guy would be using to sell stocks.

00:16:06 John: Yeah, Michael Douglas walking on the beach in a robe.

00:16:08 John: Except it's cast in silver, and it's, like,

00:16:11 Merlin: very large not gray this is not your apple kind of coloration here where everything's actually black no this is shiny it's like you know what it is dude imagine you took 20 pots of testers silver paint that you would use that's it sure it looks the color of testers silver paint it's that classy yeah yeah yeah no this is a this is an objet it is a decorative objet it's a functional john have you tried to use it well i haven't tried but imagine how many people have had that in their mouth in their mouth

00:16:38 John: See, that's the thought.

00:16:40 John: I never go that direction.

00:16:42 John: I'm never like... Are you aware of man's assumption, John?

00:16:44 John: You could put this in your butt.

00:16:46 John: You could put that in your butt.

00:16:47 Merlin: I never think that way.

00:16:49 Merlin: And man's assumption, as featured on Urban Dictionary, is that it's safest to assume that every item in a hotel room has been in a German man's butt.

00:16:57 John: Yeah, well, and for years after I was first introduced to Man's Assumption, all the guys in my band would put everything in a hotel room in a plastic bag.

00:17:07 John: They carried plastic bags everywhere.

00:17:08 Merlin: I've stopped making coffee in an iron at this point.

00:17:11 Merlin: I just don't even do it.

00:17:12 Merlin: Oh, is that right?

00:17:13 Merlin: Yeah, it's just abundance of caution.

00:17:18 Merlin: Okay, and then there's Palm.

00:17:20 Merlin: I am so goddamn confused.

00:17:22 Merlin: See, if I didn't know what I thought I knew, and I guess maybe I don't, I would guess you're in Hawaii.

00:17:27 Merlin: Right, but no.

00:17:28 Merlin: That looks like a sandy beach.

00:17:30 Merlin: I'm not going to click on it, but I guess that's the gravel, right?

00:17:33 Merlin: That's the gravel.

00:17:34 Merlin: It's not a beach.

00:17:35 John: It's gravel.

00:17:36 John: Sundown Acres.

00:17:37 Merlin: It's the perfect place to be retired in place.

00:17:39 John: In the Northwest, we have gravel beaches, but everywhere else, that's considered not a plus.

00:17:44 Merlin: Oh, look at me.

00:17:44 Merlin: I'm England.

00:17:45 Merlin: We go to the beach on rocks.

00:17:47 John: So, no, I'm sitting here.

00:17:49 John: I'm in a place.

00:17:51 John: They put me in a room.

00:17:52 John: I'm talking to you now.

00:17:54 John: You wait, you wait, you wait, you wait.

00:17:59 John: I don't know if I have a key to the door.

00:18:00 John: You don't need it.

00:18:01 Merlin: Yeah.

00:18:02 Merlin: You're not going to need it.

00:18:03 Merlin: There's so many things you don't need anymore.

00:18:04 Merlin: Did they bring you any pictures from home, photos they could put up?

00:18:07 John: So far, nobody's fed me, but I bet there's food somewhere.

00:18:10 John: I bet there's rice pudding in the hallway.

00:18:12 Merlin: Watch out for that Jamaican nurse, though.

00:18:14 Merlin: She's probably going to steal all your Jazz 78s to buy reefer.

00:18:17 Merlin: Jamaican major making me crazy.

00:18:20 Merlin: Where are my LPs?

00:18:21 Merlin: Where are my LPs?

00:18:22 Merlin: Who keeps moving my pants?

00:18:25 John: She sold my pants last night.

00:18:26 John: She sold those a long time ago.

00:18:27 John: Oh, God.

00:18:28 John: You haven't had any LPs in many years.

00:18:30 John: No, that's not true.

00:18:32 John: Where's my name, Rubeck?

00:18:33 John: What was the name of that fella?

00:18:35 John: That fella with the gal, you know, and he had the guitar and he broke his arm?

00:18:38 John: Les Paul.

00:18:39 John: My mom and I were playing that game yesterday because, you know, she's almost 90.

00:18:42 John: Yeah.

00:18:43 John: And she was like, what's the name of the girl, the actress?

00:18:47 John: She's beautiful.

00:18:48 John: And she was in that movie.

00:18:49 John: And I was like, Mom, I'm not going to tell you the name of the actress.

00:18:52 John: I want you to find it in your mind.

00:18:56 Merlin: That's your opportunity to be a gentle facilitator.

00:18:58 John: A little facilitator.

00:18:59 John: I said, let's play a game.

00:19:00 John: You remember that.

00:19:02 John: And so she was like, well, she was in that movie with the two sons.

00:19:06 Merlin: The talking it out really does help.

00:19:08 John: Yeah.

00:19:08 John: She was like, it was a famous actor like, uh, like, you know, Kirk Douglas or something.

00:19:12 John: And he had two sons and they were in a movie with her and she sat on the piano and I was like, yep, yep.

00:19:19 John: You're almost there.

00:19:20 John: You're almost there.

00:19:20 John: Big Lebowski.

00:19:21 John: Yep.

00:19:21 John: She was very beautiful.

00:19:23 John: And she's like, okay.

00:19:24 John: And then she was in Russia house, uh, with, uh, with Barley Blair.

00:19:29 John: And I was like, that's the name of the character, not the actor.

00:19:31 John: And she was like, right, right, right.

00:19:32 John: And then

00:19:32 John: So anyway, she's doing this.

00:19:34 Merlin: And her name, or she's in Scarface.

00:19:36 Merlin: Her name was so much a part of the 80s and 90s.

00:19:40 Merlin: Oh, yeah.

00:19:41 John: Oh, yeah.

00:19:41 John: And I said, you know, she's a big star.

00:19:45 John: And my sister's like, why don't you just tell her?

00:19:47 John: And I was like, no, no, no.

00:19:49 John: This is what I do myself.

00:19:50 John: I mean, what if your mom did that with Susan?

00:19:53 Merlin: What if Susan never had to learn to cut her own bologna or urinate?

00:19:56 Merlin: There you go.

00:19:57 John: But I said to Susan, I do this four hours a day now.

00:20:00 John: What the hell was I just thinking about?

00:20:01 John: Right.

00:20:02 Merlin: Oh, no, no.

00:20:02 Merlin: I have manatee brain.

00:20:04 Merlin: That New York Times article is all anybody I know is talking about.

00:20:07 Merlin: We are all absolutely stupider than we were three years ago.

00:20:10 Merlin: Call it whatever you want.

00:20:12 Merlin: Everybody's fucking stupid now.

00:20:14 John: Susan and I had this weird conversation where she was like, what do you mean, what was I just thinking about?

00:20:18 John: And I'm like, fully half of my day now is, what was I just thinking about?

00:20:23 John: And then trying to retrace my steps back to... It's like having tip of the tongue phenomenon almost all the time.

00:20:28 Merlin: All the time.

00:20:29 Merlin: Except it's about something you know you were... And this is not even the classic, which I've had for 15 years of like, why did I walk in this room?

00:20:36 Merlin: There's the doorknob effect.

00:20:37 Merlin: There's the doorway effect.

00:20:38 Merlin: There's all these different psychological phenomena that anybody of any age could suffer from.

00:20:42 Merlin: But like, honest to God, all I know is, all I see is the whole.

00:20:47 Merlin: We're a very...

00:20:48 Merlin: somewhat urgent idea was perhaps 20 seconds ago.

00:20:52 Merlin: 20 seconds ago.

00:20:53 Merlin: But I see the hole.

00:20:54 Merlin: I know there's something that's supposed to be there.

00:20:56 John: I mean, I'm standing in this room.

00:20:57 John: I had to have come from a different room.

00:20:59 Merlin: Do you have any arm gestures?

00:21:00 Merlin: I have a variety of different gestures that I do that my family knows.

00:21:03 Merlin: Oh, he's looking for something.

00:21:04 Merlin: If I walk with my arms straight out at 90 degrees with them going up and down, like Robbie the robot, that means I'm looking for something.

00:21:10 John: Oh, what was I doing?

00:21:12 John: Well, and then Susan says, you know, I never have that.

00:21:15 John: I never have that because I'm only ever thinking about four or five things.

00:21:18 John: And I was like, God, that would be so much easier.

00:21:21 John: Cornholing.

00:21:22 John: Than like, I could have been thinking, honestly.

00:21:24 John: I could have been thinking of fucking anything.

00:21:26 John: I could have been thinking about Sardinia.

00:21:27 John: I could have been thinking about Sardines.

00:21:29 John: I could have been thinking about Sardis.

00:21:31 John: I could have been thinking about, I mean, anything.

00:21:33 John: Honestly.

00:21:33 John: Oh, I know.

00:21:34 John: I totally know.

00:21:35 John: But then, so we're all staying in a, this is a big clue.

00:21:37 John: We're all in this house together.

00:21:40 John: Okay.

00:21:40 John: And in the middle of the night.

00:21:41 John: Oh, it's an intervention.

00:21:42 John: I'm sitting on the couch in the middle of the night.

00:21:44 John: my mom's door opens and out of the darkness she goes John

00:21:51 John: And I said, yeah, mom.

00:21:53 John: She's been asleep for hours.

00:21:55 John: And she goes, Michelle Pfeiffer.

00:21:57 Merlin: Oh, my God, John, you made my day.

00:22:00 Merlin: That happens in our house three times a week.

00:22:05 Merlin: Oh, my God.

00:22:06 Merlin: She must have been so relieved and yet chastened, right?

00:22:09 John: No, I gave her a huge round of applause.

00:22:11 John: Of course.

00:22:11 John: And then the door just quietly shut.

00:22:13 John: She never came out of the room.

00:22:15 John: I mean, I don't even know if she remembers it now.

00:22:17 Merlin: Can I tell you one?

00:22:19 Merlin: My wife, I don't think she'll kill me.

00:22:21 Merlin: I think she thinks it's funny, too.

00:22:24 Merlin: Yeah, go ahead.

00:22:25 Merlin: Was that a person?

00:22:26 John: That was Mike Squires calling to tell me how the practices that he's holding.

00:22:29 Merlin: Well, you know, I have two things on my list today.

00:22:31 Merlin: One of them is a text that I got from Matt Howey a couple weeks ago that said, holy crap, it's happening.

00:22:39 Merlin: And then there was a link.

00:22:40 Oh.

00:22:40 Merlin: Oh, what was the link to?

00:22:42 Merlin: Okay.

00:22:42 Merlin: It's a rock show in Seattle that's going to happen.

00:22:46 Merlin: There's that.

00:22:46 Merlin: I also want to talk to you.

00:22:48 Merlin: Let me get the actual model here.

00:22:50 Merlin: I also want to talk to you about the 262D by Caterpillar.

00:22:55 Merlin: Oh, the 262D.

00:22:56 Merlin: I'll send you a link.

00:22:57 Merlin: You look in your text.

00:22:57 Merlin: You'll see a photo.

00:22:59 Merlin: And here's a link to where I think you should buy one of these.

00:23:02 Merlin: What you're hearing outside is the Bang Bang machine.

00:23:05 Merlin: Oh, it's like a skid steer.

00:23:07 Merlin: Oh, my God.

00:23:08 Merlin: It's the 262D skid steer loader.

00:23:11 Merlin: Yeah, you nailed it.

00:23:12 Merlin: But, you know, you can change the tires.

00:23:13 Merlin: Look how they change the tires.

00:23:14 Merlin: You can change the kit on the front.

00:23:16 Merlin: You can see in the one I sent you, you see the bang bang machine?

00:23:18 John: Yeah, well, that's the thing.

00:23:19 John: The little skid steer can go up to its own tool.

00:23:22 Merlin: But the listener, I want the listener to understand, like, I mean, I know this is probably bigger than it looks, but as construction equipment go, this is almost like a mini Cooper.

00:23:32 John: Yeah, you can put it through a door.

00:23:34 John: You can just take it right into the mall in this thing.

00:23:38 John: I think about that a lot.

00:23:39 John: All around my property, I'm like, could I get a skid steer down in there?

00:23:43 John: You could probably mow your lawn with this.

00:23:45 John: I feel like what I would do is almost immediately roll the skid steer, and then I'd be in an upside down skid steer.

00:23:51 Merlin: You have a very low center of gravity.

00:23:52 Merlin: You'll be fine.

00:23:53 Merlin: Okay.

00:23:53 Merlin: So Junior goes, I'm trying to remember this correctly.

00:23:56 Merlin: I remember exactly what happened.

00:23:57 Merlin: I'm going to say what I'm pretty sure caused this, which was the kid was taking a shower.

00:24:03 Merlin: And so then mom and I are like, well, what do you want to watch?

00:24:05 Merlin: And I think we were watching maybe probably Righteous Gemstones, which is a wonderful show on HBO.

00:24:10 Merlin: And we're watching it, and what were we talking about?

00:24:13 Merlin: Oh, we were talking about the woman from Third Rock from the Sun, and saying, like, you know, who was, like, the woman on there, Kristen something, and, like, how she was kind of, like, a 90s hottie, and they've really done her up, like, to be this, you know, person from the South who's very religious, and it's really cool, and I was like, oh, she was so great.

00:24:31 Merlin: No, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt was on there, and I was like, oh, but... And then there was...

00:24:37 Merlin: You know, Hotel New Hampshire.

00:24:41 Merlin: Oh, yeah.

00:24:41 Merlin: And Madeline's like, yeah.

00:24:44 Merlin: Hotel New Hampshire.

00:24:45 Merlin: That actor.

00:24:45 Merlin: And I go, yeah, the, you know, the guy who was the lead actor on Third Rock from the Sunshine Coast.

00:24:54 Merlin: Yeah, yeah, I know who that is.

00:24:55 Merlin: And we're both doing everything we can to avoid the elephant in the room.

00:24:59 John: Yeah, the Ellen James Society.

00:25:00 Merlin: Which neither of us can remember the name of fucking John Lithgow.

00:25:06 John: Wow.

00:25:07 John: But neither one is going, um, um, um, because you don't want to give it away.

00:25:12 John: You're like, oh yeah, Mr. Guy.

00:25:13 Merlin: A night or two later, after we'd gone to sleep, you wake, bolt up right, and you go, ah, John Lithgow!

00:25:22 Merlin: And of course, the other person is supposed to play it off with shit.

00:25:24 Merlin: Like, oh yeah, I realized that.

00:25:25 Merlin: Yeah, no, no, I knew that a long time.

00:25:29 Merlin: That's certainly very much like at least 80% accountable to my age and infirmity.

00:25:33 Merlin: But like, whatever the dumb brain thing is, it's here, man.

00:25:37 John: Oh, yeah.

00:25:37 John: Well, and I think that it's really, and this is what I was saying to my mom, you have to do that work because if you don't do it, then that wormhole, that tube just closes and you're never going to go back.

00:25:51 John: You'll never remember that again.

00:25:52 Merlin: I think there's a lot to be said, you know, with regard to my sort of former profession, the stuff that I got famous for at first, including especially maybe the hipster PDA.

00:26:02 Merlin: Talking into your wallet.

00:26:03 Merlin: Talking into my wallet.

00:26:04 Merlin: I used to be Merlin Mann.

00:26:05 Merlin: But the idea of when you're in your 30s, having the presence of mind to start writing things down, I know you don't believe it now, guys, but that's going to be such a good practice.

00:26:15 Merlin: Like think about the person in your family who had like a, God forbid, like a horrible coronary and now has to get in shape after a life of not being in shape.

00:26:23 Merlin: Wouldn't it have been better to like do that?

00:26:25 Merlin: And I'm not, you know, I'm not saying go on exercise, whatever.

00:26:27 Merlin: But I am saying like your brain's like that too.

00:26:29 Merlin: There's not going to be a good day for you to suddenly decide that it would have been a good idea to put practices in place that contra your opinion that you never forget anything.

00:26:39 Yeah.

00:26:39 Merlin: You know what I'm saying?

00:26:41 Merlin: But it is a practice and you have to, it's like rehearsing with a band.

00:26:45 Merlin: You're going to get rusty and you've got to like start developing a toolkit for being able to get beyond a total blackout or to at the very least not be bothered by it.

00:26:55 Merlin: Which is very difficult when you're not fully old.

00:26:59 John: No, I mean, you can't.

00:27:01 John: Boy, talk about, like, I cannot, I have to be bothered by it.

00:27:04 John: Because it's too easy to look stuff up.

00:27:07 Merlin: Don't you experience that phenomenon, though?

00:27:08 Merlin: At least I do.

00:27:09 Merlin: It's more of a comment than a question.

00:27:11 Merlin: But I think there is a phenomenon where I say to myself, well, I've totally forgotten this right now.

00:27:15 Merlin: But I know that I know it.

00:27:16 Merlin: And I'm not going to think about it.

00:27:17 Merlin: And then, like, a minute later, it comes to me.

00:27:19 John: Well, there's that and and for sure you can count on that But there are I think there are plenty of things that don't actually matter that are in your head And then they go by and you're like least interesting part of the story is what always hangs up old people And that was his name was it Cyrus?

00:27:36 Merlin: No, just keep telling me about the sex party.

00:27:38 John: I don't need to know the names of the people don't worry, but I need to you know because I feel like I feel like at our age and

00:27:45 John: It's like one of those gas flares in the Gulf of Mexico where it's just like that gas flare is constantly burning those tiny little memories of that one time trick-or-treating when somebody gave you an apple or that one time in a lunchroom.

00:28:05 Merlin: This is one of my most voodoo beliefs.

00:28:07 Merlin: In the same way that I don't want to listen to Reckoning too often.

00:28:10 Merlin: I also, like, I worry that if I experience a memory too much, I'm overwriting the actual memory with, you know what I mean?

00:28:17 John: Yeah.

00:28:18 John: But I feel those little tiny ones, those just snapshots that slip by where it's like, was that a dream of a thing or did I actually experience that?

00:28:28 John: And if so, where?

00:28:30 John: And I don't want to just...

00:28:33 Merlin: Go off gas.

00:28:34 Merlin: Yeah ready.

00:28:35 John: Just give that up and let the fire burn Well, because burn off your baby memories as I'm burnt as it burns off as I go by there the my brain is ditching it for a reason and

00:28:46 John: And it is a little glimpse of a thing I'll never see again.

00:28:52 John: And if you don't remember it, you can't remember it.

00:28:55 Merlin: You can't remember it.

00:28:56 Merlin: Right?

00:28:56 Merlin: I mean, if you don't remember it, you can't remember it.

00:28:58 Merlin: It's a very Yogi Berra thing, but you won't know what you forgot because you don't remember.

00:29:01 John: Right.

00:29:02 John: That may be the only thing from that point.

00:29:06 John: six month period of my life that I would even reference, right?

00:29:12 John: And so in those moments, I grab it and I yank it back and I'm like, no, what was that?

00:29:17 John: I know there was somebody speaking French or at least I have a, why is French

00:29:21 Merlin: You start doing those little branches, almost like a mind map, little branches and associations.

00:29:24 Merlin: Sort of like what your mom did, right?

00:29:25 Merlin: Where you go like, oh, for me sometimes it's, I remember it was around the time of this.

00:29:30 Merlin: You know what I mean?

00:29:30 Merlin: Or like, I think I remember that person being an English person in another movie.

00:29:35 Merlin: And like you can do these seemingly tiny little like twigs that can kind of turn into branches.

00:29:40 Merlin: But you can't just allow it to, you can't just let it be.

00:29:43 John: Like the first thing I have to do is go, was this a dream I had last night that I'm remembering?

00:29:49 John: Or is this a memory from when I was seven years old?

00:29:52 John: Or is this a memory of a movie I watched when I was 14 of a seven-year-old?

00:29:57 John: Right.

00:29:58 John: All the angles.

00:29:59 John: I was looking at it from different axes.

00:30:02 John: But I muscle those.

00:30:03 John: I don't let them go.

00:30:05 John: I sit and fight.

00:30:07 John: And it's been kind of really fun.

00:30:09 John: The number of them I've been able to get all the way back to like, oh, my God, that was at that one babysitter's house.

00:30:17 John: And that was like we were watching a movie.

00:30:20 Merlin: And sometimes, as somebody who has not, I find any way that, I was telling my kid, for example, our neighbor was smoking weed yesterday when my kid and I were walking out to do something.

00:30:30 Merlin: And we're both like, woo, because I mean, it was real pungent.

00:30:32 Merlin: And I was talking about the first time my friend Sam and I ever went to a concert, which was 1982.

00:30:37 Merlin: We went to see the Go-Go's with a flock of seagulls opening.

00:30:41 Merlin: And we're there, and Sam goes, what is that?

00:30:44 Merlin: Are people smoking cigarettes?

00:30:45 Merlin: And I was like, I said, I think that's marijuana.

00:30:48 Merlin: It's a jazz cigarette.

00:30:49 Merlin: Jazz cigarette.

00:30:50 Merlin: And Sam goes, I smelled that my entire childhood, and now I know what it was.

00:30:56 John: Whoa!

00:30:57 John: Ha ha!

00:30:59 Merlin: He also figured out that he was born.

00:31:02 Merlin: He finally, one day when we were in high school, by the way, he was in Boy State, you know, straight ass.

00:31:07 Merlin: And he AP everything.

00:31:09 Merlin: And one day he goes, I just realized that I was born seven months after my parents got married.

00:31:16 Merlin: It's like, oh, you know, I'm not sure I ever did the math on that until I was in college.

00:31:22 Merlin: Right.

00:31:22 Merlin: But isn't it kind of like, there's those kinds of things where like, you have to like, you try to remember the thing, but then if you're revisiting a very old memory or association or dream or whatever, you do end up having to leaven it with some reality where you go like, well, wait a minute, that couldn't have happened if it was at Christmas because that would have been closed and

00:31:43 Merlin: Do you ever do those kinds of things where like you have to, I mean, I'm not just ranting, right?

00:31:47 Merlin: Like it's part of the exercise is like, it's not just that I'm trying to remember the in situ, like under glass memory or dream or whatever.

00:31:54 Merlin: It's like, wait a minute.

00:31:55 Merlin: Like in, in me trying to build these little branches, I'm going to have to probably overwrite a little bit of lore to get it right.

00:32:04 John: Well, I had one just, just, please tell me, please tell me.

00:32:07 John: Well, it was a thing where I said, um, I was, I was, I was,

00:32:11 John: We were driving, and I was describing to my kid the first time that I drove in England, but with a left-hand drive car.

00:32:20 John: So much harder than it seems.

00:32:22 John: I did it in New Zealand, and I found it baffling.

00:32:26 John: But no, I was not in a right-hand drive car in a right-hand drive country.

00:32:31 John: I had come over the channel in a truck I'd rented in Germany.

00:32:36 John: Hello, governor.

00:32:36 John: And was now driving around in England.

00:32:39 John: in a car that was opposite yeah and because you know the story of like oh the first time i drove in england in a in a uk car is one story but this is the first time i drove in a german and i was like so i was driving along and i was like and i was hitting people's rearview mirrors knocking over mailboxes yeah and she was like all this then she said well how would you how would you be doing that and i pointed over to the rearview mirror and i was like well so that one was tapping on the

00:33:09 John: And this is a very distinct memory I had.

00:33:11 John: And she said, but if you were on that side of the world, then it would have been your other rearview mirror.

00:33:17 John: Oh, my God.

00:33:17 Merlin: And I was like, oh, my fucking God.

00:33:20 Merlin: Wait a minute.

00:33:22 Merlin: John, that is deeply disrespectful.

00:33:24 John: I was like, well, no way.

00:33:26 John: So what was that a memory of?

00:33:27 John: What was that?

00:33:29 John: What was I remembering then?

00:33:31 John: Did I dream it?

00:33:32 John: Was I remembering a different time than I was hitting people's rearview mirrors?

00:33:35 John: I must have been.

00:33:36 John: And what, so what, how did I conflate those?

00:33:39 John: And she's just looking at me as I'm like, I'm looking, I'm counting on my fingers.

00:33:44 John: got an abacus whiteboard so we have a whiteboard so who did i you know and it was just like well anyway let's bounce off of that story and daddy will get his story straight later because we go into telling those stories with such brio like you go into that story like ha

00:33:59 Merlin: You and I, I think it's probably fair to say, have on more than one occasion say, well, did I ever tell you about the time that I X?

00:34:08 Merlin: Yes.

00:34:08 Merlin: And it immediately turns into a tissue of misunderstandings and impossibilities.

00:34:15 Merlin: Yeah.

00:34:15 Merlin: Well, if that's true, you wouldn't have been tall enough to go on that.

00:34:18 John: You would have only been 11 years old at that point.

00:34:20 John: How could you have been driving a car?

00:34:23 John: Did I tell you about the mirror?

00:34:24 John: A guy taught me how to drive a car when I was 11.

00:34:26 John: I assume.

00:34:27 John: I've been doing it.

00:34:29 John: So I just spent three days on the road.

00:34:33 John: A three-day road trip.

00:34:36 John: And the car was me in the driver's compartment.

00:34:43 John: Yep.

00:34:43 John: My daughter sitting next to me.

00:34:45 John: And my mother in the backseat.

00:34:49 John: And we drove down the Oregon coast.

00:34:53 John: Oh, boy.

00:34:54 John: Through the Redwoods.

00:34:57 John: to Monterey, California.

00:35:00 Merlin: Oh, that's such a nice place to go.

00:35:02 John: We spent a whole day at the aquarium.

00:35:06 Merlin: You went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium?

00:35:07 John: We went to the aquarium.

00:35:08 Merlin: Isn't that the best?

00:35:10 Merlin: Yeah.

00:35:10 Merlin: That is my, like in terms of like, you know, like sometimes when you're a little kid and you got to go to the museum, it's like, well, there's a dinosaur, but then it's just a lot of rocks or whatever.

00:35:19 Merlin: Like if you don't, you don't need to give one flying fuck about sea life to have so much fun there.

00:35:24 Merlin: It's really well done.

00:35:26 John: And we have that.

00:35:27 John: I can look at those seahorses for hours.

00:35:29 John: They're wonderful.

00:35:29 John: We got there just in time for every single one of the feeding.

00:35:34 John: So we saw the sea otter feeding.

00:35:36 John: Then we went over and we watched the deep ocean feeding.

00:35:39 John: And then we went over and we watched the kelp bed feeding.

00:35:42 John: And they all had these wonderful presentations.

00:35:45 John: I love that place.

00:35:46 John: I'm so glad you went.

00:35:47 John: Did you like it?

00:35:49 John: Well, she did.

00:35:50 John: She did.

00:35:50 John: She loves the ocean and the science and all the things.

00:35:54 John: And then the next day, Daddy did his thing where he was like, well, listen, I've been putting up with all of your guys' needs.

00:36:03 John: It's time to go to the second largest sandbag museum in the Pacific Northwest.

00:36:08 John: It was basically that.

00:36:09 John: I said, from Carmel, because my mom's like, I want to go to Carmel.

00:36:14 John: And I'm like, look, I don't think you do, but OK, I'll go to Carmel.

00:36:17 John: And we went and we walked around and it's like, yeah, go to old missions and stuff.

00:36:21 John: Pretty expensive here.

00:36:22 John: Oh, yeah.

00:36:23 John: Well, because the golf, that's also where the golf is.

00:36:25 John: I made them go to the church in Monterey that was, you know, it's like some church that was built in 1790.

00:36:35 John: It's the oldest brick building in California.

00:36:37 John: You got some old ass missions down there.

00:36:39 John: Well, and so we went in.

00:36:41 John: Sturdy colonialism.

00:36:42 John: They were having a mass in Spanish.

00:36:44 John: Shut up.

00:36:45 John: And we walk in, and there's a padre there who's like, are you here to take communion?

00:36:53 John: He's ready to give me communion.

00:36:54 John: Solamente en Español?

00:36:55 John: Yeah, and I said, Father, we won't be taking communion today, but is it all right if we sit in on your mass?

00:37:04 John: And he was like, oh, absolutely, no problem.

00:37:06 John: Packed church.

00:37:08 John: And so I step in, and I turn around to talk to my ladies to start to explain, as one does, a Latin mass or a Spanish mass in this case.

00:37:22 John: And I notice that they are both standing 15 feet outside the door, and they're both going, no, no, no, no, no.

00:37:34 John: like shaking their heads.

00:37:35 John: And I'm like, I'm like, come on.

00:37:37 John: And they're like, no, it's intrusive.

00:37:40 John: And I was like, listen, the last... They thought it was like disrespectful to be talking.

00:37:45 John: Yeah, something like that.

00:37:46 John: And I was like, anywhere you go in the world, people desperately want you to come into their church.

00:37:51 Merlin: No one wants you to leave their church.

00:37:52 John: They were so excited that you want to come into their church.

00:37:55 John: Now more than ever.

00:37:57 John: Now more than ever.

00:37:57 John: And I'm like,

00:37:58 John: Listen, they don't think you're going to become a Catholic today, but this is their happy place.

00:38:03 John: They love it here, and they want you to— Also, it is a job.

00:38:07 John: Some of the people don't.

00:38:08 John: Some of them are in there because their mom is making them be there.

00:38:11 John: But I'm telling you, nobody is upset that you came into their mass.

00:38:16 John: And they both just felt that timidity of like, this is two other—

00:38:21 John: And I was like, you know, I'm not going to make you go into a church, but I'm going into this church, and I'm not going to sit through this entire Mass, but I want to see what the vibe is here, you know?

00:38:37 John: And so, you know, oh my God, they were, they both were like, we'll wait in the car.

00:38:42 John: I'm like, boy, we're going to have a long talk as we drive about, you know, but as we're leaving Carmel, I said, I have, listen, I've given everybody what they want.

00:38:51 John: I've driven through a freaking Redwood.

00:38:54 John: I have, we've spent a day looking at kelp.

00:38:58 Merlin: And now I did it.

00:39:00 Merlin: We did it.

00:39:01 Merlin: All right.

00:39:02 John: Daddy's going to pick a road on this map.

00:39:05 John: Yeah.

00:39:05 John: That appears to be,

00:39:08 John: a gravel road or a road that no one else would choose to bridge these two points.

00:39:14 John: You bring this part of yourself to every project.

00:39:17 John: You never order the same thing twice.

00:39:19 John: And they said, oh, no, please, not one of these daddy roads.

00:39:24 John: And I was like, listen...

00:39:25 John: I don't ask for much.

00:39:27 John: Oh, no.

00:39:28 John: Not one of these daddy roads.

00:39:31 John: Because the daddy roads so often end up where it's like, oh, well, we're 60 miles up in the back country.

00:39:36 John: It turns out this road dead ends.

00:39:38 Merlin: And you're like, is this exciting?

00:39:41 Merlin: This must have been roughly similar to the vibe to when the GM CRV failed, right?

00:39:46 John: Oh, and that's part of my daughter's anxiety.

00:39:48 John: It's like...

00:39:48 John: We've run out of gas six times up these roads.

00:39:51 John: Also, three times your truck caught on fire.

00:39:53 John: And I never am happy.

00:39:56 John: And I'm like, wow, come on.

00:39:58 John: It wasn't fully on fire.

00:40:00 John: But so we head up this road called the Carmel Valley Road.

00:40:05 John: And you're going up in it and it's vineyards on both sides, wineries.

00:40:10 John: There's like rich people haciendas.

00:40:14 John: And then there's

00:40:15 John: A little town where, I swear to you, I got out of the car and there was a guy on the patio of a restaurant playing Friend of the Devil.

00:40:25 John: And, you know, a lot of women in turquoise, a lot of guys in straw hats.

00:40:30 Merlin: Yeah, right, right, right.

00:40:31 Merlin: Like old people who've probably been, not old people, but, you know, people who've been there for old timers.

00:40:36 Merlin: Yeah, well, but also like wine people, right?

00:40:40 Merlin: Yes.

00:40:41 Merlin: People who have been to a Boz Skaggs concert at a winery.

00:40:46 Merlin: There you are in a nutshell.

00:40:48 Merlin: Yeah.

00:40:48 John: Have you been to a Boss Skaggs concert?

00:40:50 Merlin: No, but I do.

00:40:52 Merlin: Back when we used to still have the SF Bay Guardian, I used to love reading the ads because it was, I mean, as a hipster, you know, late 30s guy, I just thought it was so funny where you'd be like, it's, you know, at J-Lore, you can come up and see Hall & Oates or like two of the people from the Zombies.

00:41:06 Merlin: As long as Colin Blundstone's there, that's all I care about.

00:41:10 Merlin: You can tell the same about wineries.

00:41:11 Merlin: Wineries are a big... I've gone to, not a death station wedding, but I have gone to, like, with my food and wine-loving in-laws, we have gone to, like, full-day things at wineries.

00:41:21 Merlin: And it's almost like the wedding industry.

00:41:23 Merlin: It's a whole thing.

00:41:24 John: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:41:25 John: And the other day, oh, God, it wasn't that long ago, we were sitting, my sister and my daughter's mother slash partner and I were sitting...

00:41:35 John: And like, what do we want to watch on TV?

00:41:39 John: And I'm flipping through the menus.

00:41:40 John: That's my daddy road.

00:41:42 Merlin: Yeah.

00:41:42 Merlin: I'm flipping through the menus.

00:41:43 Merlin: Oh, God, please don't let dad have the remote.

00:41:45 Merlin: We're going to end up watching Showa again.

00:41:49 John: But I said, hey, I think you and I might have talked about this.

00:41:51 John: I said, hey, we never watched that movie about the two white dudes that go to a winery tour.

00:41:58 John: And one of them's like, never Shiraz or something.

00:42:00 John: He's all mad about it.

00:42:01 John: He hates Merlot.

00:42:02 John: And the ladies were like, OK, sure, whatever.

00:42:07 John: And we turn on this movie and they just were so mad at this movie.

00:42:13 Merlin: I remember America just falling in love with that lovable Paul Giamatti and the guy from Wings.

00:42:17 Merlin: This thing won multiple Oscars.

00:42:19 Merlin: Oh, I know.

00:42:21 Merlin: But there's a certain kind of movie.

00:42:25 Merlin: Like, in The Wrong Household, you put on even, like, Mamma Mia, and people are going to be mad.

00:42:28 Merlin: Because, you know what I mean?

00:42:29 Merlin: Like, it's just... This is too, like... This is too much of, like, a 90s movie kind of feeling.

00:42:33 John: Yeah, they were really mad at this movie.

00:42:36 John: And it's not like I was...

00:42:37 John: I'm not standing this movie like this is no, no hell I'm dying on.

00:42:41 Merlin: But John, I'm sorry to interrupt you yet again, but you have an important lesson to teach people.

00:42:45 Merlin: It's not a lesson I teach nor learn, but one of the lessons that you teach people is you have to sit with things.

00:42:51 Merlin: You commit, let's commit to this in the same way that I would commit to holding this idea in my mind for a day.

00:42:56 Merlin: Let's commit to the idea of, what's his name, Thomas Janeway and Paul Giamatti in this wine movie.

00:43:02 Merlin: And we're not going to flip away because that's the point.

00:43:04 Merlin: That's the exercise.

00:43:05 John: Yes, this is a movie that won multiple Oscars that we did not see at the time because we had the good sense not to see it at the time.

00:43:13 John: But now we don't have the sense not to see it now.

00:43:16 John: And that's important.

00:43:17 John: That's very well put.

00:43:18 John: And yet here we are.

00:43:19 John: And here we are.

00:43:20 John: Yes.

00:43:21 John: We're watching this movie that none of us are enjoying.

00:43:23 John: Sit down.

00:43:24 John: You guys are actually really disenjoying.

00:43:27 John: You're unenjoying.

00:43:28 John: I'm sorry.

00:43:29 John: Is this movie interfering with you looking at your phone?

00:43:31 John: No.

00:43:33 John: So anyway, we're driving through this Paul Giamatti universe up here in this part of- Paul Giamatti cinematic universe, yes.

00:43:41 John: Cinematic universe.

00:43:43 John: But where we are is not Napa.

00:43:45 John: It's not Sonoma.

00:43:47 John: It's part of this new California wine industry, which as far as I can tell from driving across California-

00:43:53 John: has now replaced 60% of the agriculture in California that used to be almonds or tomatoes or horses or just dirt.

00:44:04 Merlin: What is the difference in the industry or the practice?

00:44:07 Merlin: Well, I don't know.

00:44:08 Merlin: There's just to meet meat demand.

00:44:11 John: The last time I drove across California was not that long ago, and I have driven across California 80,000 times, and there are more freaking grapes being grown in California now than at any other time in history, and I would say by a factor of 50.

00:44:25 Merlin: I think it's merely the terroir of the soil.

00:44:30 Merlin: Wow.

00:44:30 Merlin: i don't know you see them though i mean they're very you really i mean like you you can you get pretty good at picking out well that's that's a wine place often because it has a giant sign that says ernest and julio gallo or whatever but you're right they're they're the there's not a lot of uh diversity to i mean like you're right it used to be like nuts like silicon valley used to be all like fruits and nuts nuts there were nuts and now no nuts now it's all one and i'm like now it's all ding-a-ling right

00:44:57 John: But we're driving through and it's just like, okay, rich people won.

00:45:01 John: But no, like, this is a different... This is Carmel.

00:45:06 John: Carmel's got its own vibe that was never like, oh, like, we're all... I mean, sure, why?

00:45:11 Merlin: That's where Clint Eastwood was mayor, if memory serves.

00:45:13 John: Yeah, this is Clint Eastwood country.

00:45:16 Merlin: But no, it also is, though, what you're describing, though, which is it's very difficult because, of course, people go, oh, California.

00:45:22 Merlin: Oh, California.

00:45:23 Merlin: It's this big state, like, ninth largest economy in the world, bigger economy than Italy.

00:45:28 Merlin: And, of course, it's all...

00:45:30 Merlin: fruitcake hippie weirdos but it's really super not as you know like if you go east of here the entire length of california it sure ain't that uc davis like you go there it's like a very good like uh agriculture veterinary um kind of school it's like there's so much going on there are a lot of extremes but there also is a certain kind of a type whether it's in fairfax

00:45:55 Merlin: where Annie Lamont lives or like whether it's people living on a houseboat like Alan Watts or people like your, your beheaded winesman.

00:46:03 Merlin: Like there is a certain kind of old prickly California type.

00:46:10 John: Yeah, and I'm sure that they've been growing wine up in this valley.

00:46:14 John: Don't get me wrong that they're just inventing this.

00:46:19 John: Try doing that with AI, am I right?

00:46:21 John: But it made me realize, well, two things happened.

00:46:23 John: So one, I was reflecting on kind of this golf cart, like retired in place business, where I was like, oh, this is just one more.

00:46:32 John: I'm just seeing 10,000 new versions of what I could be

00:46:37 Merlin: 20 years That I'm at no risk of ever being I just didn't know they were here and this was an option like It's like oh I was telling you how my kid likes to go on Sundays He and his pal like to go to open houses and just go visit people's houses It's just it's the weirdest thing in the world But it's like such an old lady thing to do but the two of them do it and they get dressed up, you know But like you're kind of doing something similar.

00:47:01 Merlin: It's a little bit of a like

00:47:02 Merlin: Maybe I'll go or somewhere between that and colonial Williamsburg.

00:47:05 Merlin: Look, you're going to go and just see how life could be different.

00:47:08 Merlin: What's this up here?

00:47:11 Merlin: Oh, this has a good access road.

00:47:12 John: Oh, look at this sandwich.

00:47:13 John: This guy's playing a friend of the devil on the acoustic guitar.

00:47:17 John: That's still a thing.

00:47:18 John: How much longer will that be a thing?

00:47:20 John: Maybe forever.

00:47:21 John: Maybe this is the last time it ever gets played.

00:47:24 John: But then we went through a portal and all of a sudden.

00:47:29 Merlin: I'm sorry.

00:47:30 Merlin: This is going to drive me fucking crazy.

00:47:32 Merlin: Friend of the devil is a friend of mine.

00:47:34 Merlin: It's not the band.

00:47:35 Merlin: Who did that?

00:47:36 Merlin: Oh, no, no.

00:47:38 Merlin: Should I work the process?

00:47:40 Merlin: Should I work the process?

00:47:41 Merlin: Okay.

00:47:42 Merlin: Okay.

00:47:44 Merlin: Friend of the devil is a friend of mine.

00:47:46 Merlin: It feels like Dylan or the band.

00:47:48 Merlin: Nope, but close.

00:47:51 Merlin: It's not the Stones.

00:47:53 John: They all would have toured together.

00:47:55 Merlin: Oh, fucking Grateful Dead.

00:47:57 John: There you go.

00:47:58 John: It didn't take long.

00:48:00 Merlin: You know, I like that one record.

00:48:01 Merlin: Is it the Sugar Magnolia record?

00:48:03 Merlin: Is that American Beauty?

00:48:04 Merlin: Yeah, Blossom's Blooming.

00:48:05 Merlin: I think that's the one I like.

00:48:08 John: Continue.

00:48:09 John: Well, and you would find Friend of the Devil on that record, my friend.

00:48:12 John: American Beauty.

00:48:13 John: And it's got a skeleton on the cover.

00:48:15 John: Yep, that's right.

00:48:15 John: A Jack Skellington.

00:48:17 John: You just might get some sleep tonight.

00:48:20 Merlin: Yes, riding that train high on cocaine.

00:48:22 Merlin: You are also that.

00:48:24 Merlin: Casey Jones, you better watch your speed.

00:48:27 John: Okay, but that's a different song, but yes.

00:48:29 John: Okay.

00:48:30 John: Anyway, so we're driving up this hill, this road, and I'm like, is this going to be this the whole time?

00:48:37 John: Is it all going to be women in turquoise?

00:48:39 John: This is still a bona fide daddy road at this point.

00:48:42 John: Yeah, like slightly cowboy wineries.

00:48:45 John: And then we go through – I swear to you, we're driving up – there's a little stream.

00:48:49 John: We're driving up the road.

00:48:50 John: The road's getting twistier and twistier.

00:48:52 John: And then all of a sudden, we go through like a single copse of trees, and we are in –

00:48:59 John: Southern California, or that section of California, big rolling hills, no houses anywhere around.

00:49:08 John: The sky looks so big.

00:49:10 John: Oh, my God.

00:49:11 John: Oh, my God, John.

00:49:12 John: Your skid steer is really digging a hole.

00:49:14 Merlin: Oh, my God.

00:49:21 Merlin: This episode of Roderick on the Line is brought to you in part by Caterpillar.com.

00:49:27 Merlin: Caterpillar, now a subsidiary of Peterson, makers of the 262D skid steer loader.

00:49:33 Merlin: It's an industry-leading sealed comfort cab with pressurized cab option.

00:49:37 Merlin: It provides a cleaner and quieter operating environment with excellent work tool visibility.

00:49:42 Merlin: Available, high-back heated air ride seat with seat-mounted adjustable joystick controls.

00:49:48 Merlin: Our thanks.

00:49:54 Merlin: Our thanks to Peterson, Kat, for supporting Roderick Online and all the great shows.

00:50:05 Merlin: Okay!