Ep. 521: "Keep the Nickel"
John: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
Merlin: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: How's it going?
Merlin: Sounds like you're eating.
Merlin: Oh, I see.
Merlin: You were trying to sound really serious and grave just because you were eating.
John: Peanut butter?
Merlin: Peanut butter.
Merlin: Stew.
Merlin: Take your time.
John: I ate a bite of food and then you called and I had that thing of like, I have a bite of food, but he called.
John: No, I had a bite of Japanese pear apple.
John: Do you get those?
John: They're very expensive.
John: That's completely made up.
John: What?
John: Japanese pear apple?
Merlin: Well, I mean, is it a pear or is it an apple?
Merlin: It's a Japanese pear apple.
Merlin: Well, that's like watermelon radish.
Merlin: It doesn't even make sense.
John: It kind of is like a radish.
Merlin: Is that what we're doing now?
Merlin: We're just taking names of two foods and jamming them together?
John: No, this has been a thing for a long time.
John: The Japanese pear apple.
John: It's a popcorn chicken.
John: It actually looks like and kind of has the consistency of a thinly sliced radish.
John: The story's completely falling apart.
John: But it kind of tastes like a pear if a pear was an apple.
John: All right.
John: Fine.
John: They're like $5 each, but every time I go to the grocery store.
Merlin: God, if only there were some fruit that were out there.
Merlin: We need new fruits, new fruits.
Merlin: It's a new year, new fruits.
Merlin: So this might be a East Coast, West Coast thing.
Merlin: With the same kind of deadly consequences.
Yeah.
John: Listen, we're going to go to the mattresses over this.
John: Hello, when you call me Pear Apple.
John: When I was a kid, they introduced these into the, I don't know, somewhere.
John: They showed up.
John: Yeah.
John: Each one is wrapped individually in its own foam.
John: That's very Japanese.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: Each piece of fruit comes in its own little bastic.
John: Is it one of those kind of spongy little cages?
John: It's a spongy cage.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: It's a pear apple radish in a spongy cage.
John: Huh.
John: That sounds good.
John: And they're $5 each, and they're really good.
Merlin: But you know what I admire is, like, there's a memory thought to yourself.
Merlin: I did just tell Merlin I'm ready to record.
Merlin: And then I started calling it rang and rang and rang.
Merlin: And I'm guessing that's during the period where you had a bite and then thought, I'll finish this bite.
Merlin: And you can fill me in on whether I'm even close.
Merlin: But you thought, can I finish this bite?
Merlin: And then somehow you thought, maybe I should have another bite.
Merlin: And that's when you picked up.
John: You know, they're big bites is the thing.
John: Because they're bigger.
John: They're bigger than an apple.
John: They're bigger than a pear.
John: Do you eat it as a hand fruit or do you cut it up?
John: I don't eat anything as hand fruits anymore.
Merlin: I'm a cutter-upper.
Merlin: I've come back to apples recently, and I like to cut them off.
Merlin: Hi, everybody.
Merlin: Welcome to Aging Men Discuss.
Merlin: Do you carry crackers?
John: Do you carry crackers?
Merlin: I always like to have...
Merlin: Have a snack with me.
Merlin: Some raisins.
Merlin: Yeah, but like, you know, it's exciting to find new fruit.
Merlin: I'm a fan of the Honeycrisp apple.
Merlin: And sometimes I'll think, one out of six, I think, okay, I'm going to test my mettle.
Merlin: I'm going to see if I can eat this the way I would eat an apple as a child.
Merlin: No, Honeycrisp is a pretty big apple.
John: It's a big apple now.
Merlin: And the flat truth of it is, this is like so many of those realizations that have come to me late in life.
Merlin: It's like, hey, I'm just happier if I cut it up.
Merlin: I enjoy it more.
John: Absolutely.
John: I mean, did you ever see Denzel Washington eat a tomato like an apple?
John: What kind of tomato?
John: Well, like a big old tomato, like not a cherry tomato.
Merlin: He's not like a... He's talking about like a beef... Denzel Washington grabs himself a beefsteak tomato and just bites into it.
Merlin: Just bites into it like an apple.
Merlin: That's a power move.
Merlin: It's a... I don't mean... It's like when Chairman Kaga bites into that bell pepper on Iron Chef.
John: Hmm.
Merlin: And he goes... You know?
Merlin: It feels like a power... You don't know who I'm talking about.
John: This will keel.
John: Ha ha ha.
John: This pepper will keel.
John: Is that a Howard Keel joke?
Merlin: No, there was a show, some crazy show.
Merlin: God, I'm sorry, I'm ruining all your bits this week.
Merlin: You just came in wanting to enjoy a nice fruit snack, and I'm here, you know, giving you a kind of Spanish Inquisition.
Merlin: No, that's fine, that's fine.
John: That's what, you know, what's in the show is in the show, but I don't know.
John: It's a form of interrogation.
John: It is.
John: Yeah.
John: Somebody, somebody...
John: made me watch a show where it's a bunch of bearded guys and they get challenges to make knives and swords.
John: Forged in fire.
John: There you go.
John: That's it.
John: Yes.
John: And one of the guys in Forged in Fire.
John: Never heard of it.
John: One of the guys in Forged in Fire.
John: I've also never heard of the glass blowing show.
John: The coach or the judge.
John: Oh, the judge takes your sword and he cuts into a side of beef and then he chops up a beefsteak tomato and he kills a watermelon with it
John: And then if it works, from what I understand, season one, he would say, this sword will kill.
John: And that was his way of saying, like, this is a gnarly sword and congratulations.
John: Or if it doesn't cut the side of beef, he's like, this sword will not kill.
John: Oh, my goodness.
John: So much pressure.
John: People wrote in and they were like, I watched this show with my five-year-old and you talking about killing a watermelon is bad for children.
Merlin: That show's for dad.
Merlin: It's a dad.
Merlin: It's not a five-year-old.
Merlin: I mean, I guess if you want the five-year-old to be part of your journey.
John: People do stuff with five-year-olds that I wouldn't do.
John: And look at me.
John: I'm the world's worst dad.
John: That's true.
John: Yeah, see?
John: So if you're doing stuff that I – I'm not going to let my five-year-old watch a guy cut a side of beef with a sword.
John: You're a figure.
Merlin: Is that how you're going to monetize that?
Merlin: Because maybe, you know, because maybe, I'm just saying, I don't want to dwell on it.
Merlin: But, you know, a lot of times you get a turns out, you get a redemption story.
Merlin: Scott Fitzgerald said there's no second acts in American life, which I don't think has ever made that much sense to me.
Merlin: But you could certainly have some kind of a comeback as a turns out guy.
Merlin: You know, rich dad, poor dad has a billion dollars in debt.
Merlin: I'm just saying there's turns outs that are accessible to you if you decided to pivot and monetize.
John: Oh, I know.
John: Well, you know, it's the third year anniversary a couple of days ago.
John: I know, I know.
John: And yeah, what I'm thinking is I'm going to write a book called Punk Rock is Bullshit.
John: Okay.
John: And then underneath it's going to say colon, a bean dad tale.
John: And we'll see.
John: We'll see.
John: Monetize.
John: You know, money comes in a lot of different streams.
Merlin: You don't know where it's going to come from.
Merlin: There's a thing I say to my family, which, you know, they don't listen to because why would they?
Merlin: And I say this a lot, especially to, for example, my wife, which is...
John: The one person you talk to that isn't me and John Syracuse.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, this morning I showed her that mouse in Wales that keeps tidying up the guy's shed.
Merlin: I didn't even go to work because I was like, hang on, I got to show Madeline the Welsh tidy mouse.
Merlin: Honey, honey.
Merlin: Oh, no, I waited.
Merlin: I saw and find my that she'd gotten home.
Merlin: And whenever she sits in the car before she comes in, of course, there's a part of me that thinks she's avoiding me.
Merlin: What I really know is she's probably checking her email for work, which happens.
Merlin: But I also sometimes wonder if she's making conservative videos in the front seat of her car, whether Oakley's on the back of her head, you know?
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: Anyhow, I showed her that she is the only person I talk to.
Merlin: But I'll say to her, I'll say, you know, honey, you know, I can't find the thing.
Merlin: And she keeps looking where the thing is supposed to be.
Merlin: And I say to her, look, I don't want to sound counter-revolutionary, sweetheart, but perhaps you should be looking for it someplace other than where it's supposed to be because it strikes me, and I keep this to myself mostly because I know better.
Merlin: Of course, of course, of course.
Merlin: But I think to myself, I think, you know, if it was, it's like they say, you know, if you lived here, you'd already be home.
Merlin: Well, if it was where it's supposed to be, you never would have mislaid it.
John: Yeah, you're looking for your car keys under a streetlight.
John: That's what that is.
John: The light's better there.
John: Yeah, I see.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: I don't know.
John: The thing about the guy that said Kiel, the Kiel sword guy, is that he didn't want to change his catchphrase.
John: I'm just guessing.
John: Oh, I completely... He didn't want to change his catchphrase.
Merlin: They changed the catchphrase on Survivor, and I'm still not used to it.
John: What he did is he came up with an acronym, K-E-E-L.
John: Oh, jeez.
John: Keeps everything elastic and loose or something.
John: I don't know what it stands for.
John: Yeah.
John: And now he goes, now he really draws it out.
John: It will kill.
John: But he says it all like he's saying kill.
Merlin: Do you think that was a difficult meeting?
Merlin: Where they kind of finally... You know, it's one of those things, like explaining to Elon Musk how making this very heavy, sharp vehicle that's very costly is maybe not the best idea.
Merlin: But just somewhat you have to sit down with Mr. Forge and say to him, you know...
Merlin: There's concerns about the killing.
Merlin: And we love your catchphrase.
Merlin: America's just crazy for killing.
Merlin: But, like, do you think that was an awkward conversation?
Merlin: Because people get very attached to their, you know, to their catchphrases.
John: It will kill.
Merlin: Well, you know what you and I have never done?
John: Had a catchphrase?
John: You and I. Well...
Merlin: Can you see me hooking my index finger under the collar of my shirt and going, get no respect.
John: No, you know what we've never done?
John: You and I have never, not only have we never pitched, but we have never even talked about you and me pitching a television show of any kind.
John: Now, I have other relationships with fellows of our generation, and we have had multiple times I have talked about pitching a television show and a couple of times have actually pitched television shows with my friends.
John: To your friends or to somebody in a position to make a television show?
John: Somebody in a position.
John: You know, Hodgman and I filmed seven episodes of a television show.
What?
John: Did you never hear this story?
John: Surely you have.
John: Well, hey, let's come back to that.
John: Okay.
John: Because what's really important is should we be doing that, right?
John: Well, so with Friendly Fire, it was tailor-made to be a kind of podcast television show on the movie channel or A&E or something where three guys –
John: Wings over Tokyo.
John: And then at every commercial break or three or four times, we would come in with our little five minutes of like, how can these guys even be serious about this?
John: Well, I believe that, you know, this type of idea.
Merlin: But that all started the whole idea.
Merlin: Sort of like USA Up All Night, but with like the longest day.
John: Exactly.
John: Okay.
John: But the whole reason that I ever introduced Ben to Adam was that Ben used to work
John: on that television show filmed in New York, which was like tech something.
John: And I was a frequent guest.
John: It's a terrible name.
John: It was whatever.
John: Tech ellipses.
John: It doesn't matter what it is.
John: I don't remember what it was.
Merlin: He started it with tech.
John: But he was just a cameraman.
John: It's like starting a phrase with dad.
John: It wasn't tech.
John: It was something.
John: You would remember.
John: Okay.
John: He was a cameraman on the show.
John: Uh, and not an on air personality, but he would come chat me up, uh, in the intermissions and so forth.
John: And I, you know, and I found him very engaging.
John: And then he and the host of the show started pitching me on a show where we would drive across America and a film stories about like Poughkeepsie, New York and little towns that had kind of, that once been grand and fallen on hard times.
John: And at one point, I was going to buy Tiffany Arment's dad's Corvette.
John: And I was going to drive the Corvette.
John: Whoa.
John: And then they were going to follow behind me in a GMC RV.
John: And we were going to visit American towns.
John: Wow.
John: And then I was going to get out and there's going to be animation.
John: So kind of an element of like Charles Kuralt.
John: Exactly.
John: Yeah.
John: But much more like Poughkeepsie used to be a really cool town as is evidenced by these Victorian mansions.
John: But now, you know, the only people living in these Victorian mansions are like young lawyers who haven't figured out.
Merlin: Oh, you know, it'd be good.
Merlin: You while you're up there is Rochester.
Merlin: See, Rochester should be perfect because you got you got Kodak.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: You've got the like, you know, that's where Kodak was.
Merlin: That was like one of the great companies in America.
Merlin: And I think I bet you that would be an interesting story.
Merlin: You could go to like a museum.
Merlin: You could go to the Kodak Theater.
Merlin: You could see Peter Hughes from the Mountain Goats.
John: I think he still lives there.
John: So the whole pitch was that we were going to go and say like that whole business I love to do, which is that starts with like, why is there a town here?
John: Well, there's a bend in the river and this is where people would take their goats over the river.
John: Okay, so then what was this town famous for?
John: Well, they used to make tie bars back in a time when you had detachable collars and that's why it's a famous town.
John: And then what happened?
John: Well, fentanyl or whatever.
John: Right, right, right.
John: And then we'd go talk to some kids in a warehouse who were like, ah, we're making crazy skateboard ramps now.
John: And it's like, is this the future of Poughkeepsie?
Merlin: But you could also talk to, I don't know, I think like the guy in the video for the best song, Expert in a Dying Field.
Merlin: You could talk to people, you could talk to horologists.
John: Horologists.
Merlin: You could talk to somebody who does something that's not useful anymore.
John: Yeah, the one last horologist in Poughkeepsie.
John: The last VCR repair person.
John: So we talked about this television show a lot.
John: We sent a lot of emails back and forth.
John: The problem is...
John: uh what a thing like that needs is a project manager and of course everybody oh here we go always mistakes me for somebody that has any ability to do that so i kept do they know you when they do that i kept writing back going like sounds great let's put it together like show me the deck or whatever and they were like great well so what do we do next sir and i'm like ah
John: And that's how I introduced Ben to Adam.
John: Ben was out in Seattle, and I was like, you're going to love my friend Adam.
John: He also has a video camera.
John: You guys could go make videos.
John: Like, get out of my hair, you kids.
John: That's so interesting.
John: And look at him now, a media empire.
John: But what you and I have never done is think, wow.
John: I'm listening.
John: What if we turned this into a television show?
John: You know, who, what do people want to look at more?
John: We already have such success starting on time for an audio show.
John: Yeah, well, there it is.
John: There's nothing that says you can't start a TV show.
Merlin: There's nothing in the rule book.
Merlin: This is classic Air Bud.
Merlin: There's nothing in the rule book that says you can't start your TV show 15 minutes late.
John: Right, with one guy having a Japanese pair apple in his mouth when they say action.
John: Hi.
John: And then I could hold it up and go, look, it's half Japanese, half pear.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: But also you could do a little bit of, I don't want to wheeze his juice, but like a little bit of James Burke, where now you're coming in and you're showing some, as we said, James Burke calls it connections with other things.
Merlin: And you could talk about how that fruit would not have even been possible if there hadn't been people on the West Coast who have tired of other hand fruit.
John: There it is.
John: Well, the problem was- We're fighting them in a war not that long ago.
John: You know, Christine Connor, Jonathan Colton's wife-
John: Big shot.
Merlin: Is she still a big shot in reality shows?
John: Oh, yeah.
John: She makes television shows of true crime, all that stuff.
John: And so we had a meeting with her where she – and then – but, you know, I was always staying at their house.
John: So then after meeting, sitting around in the living room, she said, listen, John, here's the problem.
John: I think I've probably said this to you before.
John: She said, I get a million pitches from people –
John: who want to make a TV show and they are people who don't watch TV.
Yeah.
John: And the problem is that a lot of people... As we've shown, you don't have to listen to podcasts to do a podcast for 10 years.
John: I said, so?
John: And she was like... Your point being... Yeah, what?
John: She said, the problem is that people who don't watch TV keep coming up with ideas for television shows.
John: God, that's such a good insight.
John: But they don't know what people who do watch TV want to watch.
John: Because if this is a great show for people who don't watch TV...
John: But they're not the ones who watch TV.
John: Do you get what I'm saying?
Merlin: I get what you're saying.
Merlin: And also, it's long before, I mean, the thorn in my side, not to break the bit, but, like, I don't know how to make a TV show.
Merlin: And in that instance, like, you want to say, like, oh, it doesn't matter.
Merlin: But, like, do you really want the kind of TV show that's basically like a white label product where you just, like, you say, like, you know the way that, like, you just slap somebody's name onto something?
Merlin: And you say...
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: Like I'm trying to avoid jokes from TV shows that I like, but the George Foreman grill, I don't think he invented that ability to have grease run all over your counter.
Merlin: I don't think, God, that thing was so badly made.
John: But you know what I mean?
Merlin: The Tracy Jordan meat machine, meat machine.
Merlin: You know, meat is the new bread.
Merlin: Thank you.
John: Dr. Spaceman.
John: But our show would not be like that.
John: Our show would be bespoke.
John: That's the word we would use.
Merlin: Ours would be whatever the opposite of on the nose is.
Merlin: Our show would be elusive.
Merlin: Yes, for the people who made the...
Merlin: People who watch it on, it will probably be on a streaming service, right?
Merlin: That's what we would end up on.
Merlin: We would end up on like Memo or Chibop or something.
Merlin: Like one of those stations that just goes away.
Merlin: Well, so that's the thing.
John: She was saying this a decade ago.
John: Get acquired by Crackle, maybe.
John: I mean, these days there's a show for everybody.
John: Yes.
John: But she was saying, like, I love the visual of you in Tiffany Arment's dad's old Corvette.
John: Is this like a 70s, 80s Corvette?
John: Yeah, it was like a 70s Corvette.
John: It was a great Corvette.
John: She and I were talking, you know, pretty seriously.
John: Not seriously, but I was like, listen, I'm going to buy your Corvette.
John: And she was like, it's for you.
John: It's here for you.
John: all you have to do is buy it.
John: And I was like, I am going to do it as soon as I get the funding.
John: Oh, and then we had the whole idea.
John: There was going to be
John: like a science lady who had glasses and wore hair up in a bun, who was always correcting me when I didn't know what things were.
John: And then there was going to be like a computer guy who had a little hat.
John: Oh, the guy in the chair.
John: Yeah.
John: He had a radar dish on his hat.
John: He was always running behind.
John: Oh, dear.
John: Who was like looking stuff up.
John: This has got a broad appeal.
John: As I said, like, this valley used to be full of tie bars.
John: You could have an alien sidekick.
John: Yeah, exactly.
John: And then there was going to be Ben who was going to be running around with the camera, but he was going to also be an on-air personality.
John: Of course.
John: Because there was going to be a camera person who was filming the camera person.
John: Oh, and then there was going to be animation.
John: It was going to be incredible.
John: And Christine was like, this is great.
John: This is hilarious.
John: Absolutely.
John: We would watch it, but we don't watch TV.
John: I was like, damn it.
John: Damn it.
John: What do people who watch TV want to see?
John: And she was like, not that.
Merlin: They want to see 50-year-old women in high heels throw wine on each other.
John: Yeah, and I think at the time she was like, people want to see reenactments of domestic violence.
John: That seems to be very popular.
John: Is that a thing you've thought about?
John: That's not my thing.
John: I'm not saying you have to be on-air talent.
Merlin: You could be, as you say, behind the camera.
John: That's the thing I'm not very good at.
John: I'm not.
John: I am.
John: Please continue.
Merlin: The list of things I'm not very good at.
Merlin: I can imagine your mind scanning the array of things you're comfortable saying.
John: Here's what it sounds like.
John: My list.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: Oh, that sounds like a lot of ideas.
John: That's just the first couple of chapters of the list of things I'm not very good at.
John: But no, I'm not going to be good at making reality television because I don't watch it.
John: I can't stand it.
Merlin: It doesn't have to be reality.
Merlin: Reality, I think people like reality.
Merlin: What we call reality television, just to state the obvious, I think one reason that people end up making those things is that they're less costly than...
Merlin: than a classic scripted TV show.
John: This is why you see so many naked pictorials taken outside.
John: You get a lot of naked pictures of people taken outside.
John: For like Instagram and stuff?
John: No, no, no.
John: Like, you know, like nudie magazines and so forth.
John: Oh, like a centerfold.
John: Yeah, and my suspicion is... They do a lot of barns also.
John: Playboy did it inside because they could afford lights.
John: But I think on the cheap, it's a lot easier to put a naked person like splayed out on a log than it is to get like a plastic log...
John: In a studio.
John: I don't want to be naked on a log.
John: No, but nobody does.
Merlin: But you have to do it.
Merlin: That's the job.
John: That's the job.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: I would say 40% of naked pictures are taken in situations where you would never, A, never be naked, and B, never want to see a naked person.
John: Like, I don't want to see a naked person on a log.
John: No, it's like anchovies.
John: I'd like to know that it's coming, if you know what I mean.
Merlin: Well, sure.
Merlin: I don't want to just roll up somewhere and there's somebody naked that I wasn't expecting.
John: Well, and also, if you have a sexy friend and you're out by a log and you're like, hey, here we are, the chances that that log is going to be in a situation where you're like, why don't you take your clothes off?
John: Pretty, not if you live in a city.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: You're not going to want to do that.
John: There might be a draft.
John: You and your sexy friend are going to want to go back to one or the others of your places.
John: Okay.
John: And then it's just a normal bed in a normal room.
Merlin: Were you imagining a woman being naked on a log the whole time?
Merlin: I don't have a strong opinion about this, but is there a way of thinking about that where it was always another dude that you were photographing on a log?
John: Oh, well, that would be a very different...
Merlin: magazine i well and i think you need to keep your right you don't we neither of us has any ability or real ideas or skills to like make any of this so i think it helps to start with the broadest possible idea of what somebody might be able to do on our behalf that we could make some kind of money off of well but this is the thing i think in gay culture until very recently having sex outdoors in a park on a log was absolutely a part of the thing
John: Yeah.
John: Way more than, so you're right.
John: I was not thinking.
John: That's how they got Brian Epstein, you know?
John: Exactly.
John: Or that, you know, and that's how they got Howie Epstein.
John: Got him out on a log.
John: Right?
John: So my feeling is, you're right.
John: That's an example of me.
John: That's how they got Bob Einstein.
John: I'm not.
John: Bob Einstein, what kind of name is that?
John: That's a...
John: my uh i was not i was i was normativizing sex on a log when in fact that's like a treat involving raisins and celery sticks yeah don't normativize it it's like sex on the beach which was the first time i well when i lost my virginity it was a party where everyone was drinking sex on the beach can you believe that but it was in alaska there was no beach
John: Oh, wow.
John: Okay.
John: It's a real, real, real Voorhees type situation.
John: The poster for the party said sex on the beach across the top.
John: And then it was like, you know, park cool.
John: Here's the address, you know.
John: Didn't say sex on a log.
John: No.
John: And I had just gotten out of jail.
John: And my friend was like, I found this plot and I found this flyer.
Merlin: Someone tie a yellow ribbon around the old oak tree for you.
Merlin: I was like, let's go.
Merlin: And there is a yellow ribbon literally around a tree.
Merlin: It's just that there's a dude there and he's totally naked.
Merlin: It's like follow the yellow.
Merlin: I'm coming home.
Merlin: I've done my time.
John: Every time you see a yellow ribbon, it's like part of a part of a like a little game like a follow the follow this.
John: Now, do you see the next one?
Merlin: Do you see the value of keeping your mind open about these things?
Merlin: Do you see now how many things somebody's going to write all this down?
Merlin: And they're going to reverse pitch it to us.
Merlin: They might.
Merlin: I could probably catch a reverse pitch.
Merlin: Somebody's going to probably put this into a mood board or an idea wall.
Merlin: Maybe a virtual space where we could explore some of the ideas.
Merlin: I'll take a little bit of log and a little bit of hand fruit.
Merlin: And John in an RV.
Merlin: You know, they say, you know, dress for the job that you want.
Merlin: It seems to me that, like, what you're ultimately saying here is buy the car for the TV show you probably won't end up making.
John: Because then at least you get a car.
John: That was one thing that I pulled my punch because I was like, first I should get the Corvette.
John: And then I said, is this the order of operations?
John: Corvette first?
John: You're growing.
John: You're really growing to realize something like that.
John: At a certain point, Tiffany was like, hey, I got to deal with this Corvette.
John: Do you want it or do you not?
John: Because it had been months that I was like, hold that Corvette.
John: She was like, I'm not going to just keep it here.
Merlin: Did she have it in New York?
Merlin: Her parents are from Long Island, right?
John: Yeah, it was her dad.
Merlin: It was in a garage.
John: Oh, wow.
John: But it was like, get this car out of here type of thing.
John: Her parents had arrived at a certain point in life where it was like, Corvette's got to go.
Merlin: An extremely dangerous sports car with a stick shift is not a thing they were going to be.
John: And the thing about it is it was not like cherry red.
John: It made a fiberglass, right?
John: I bet it was that reddish orange that was soaked.
John: Well, no, it had, I don't remember, I don't want to disparage it, but I feel like it had a primer color.
John: I mean, it was definitely something that it was slightly gray.
John: There are no people who watch TV who would look at that and think this is good TV, although I thought it would be amazing TV.
John: and uh and you know on a budget right but i mean maybe the hat with the little radar dish on it wouldn't actually be functional but it would be battery powered it would move but then also you could sell that as merch that's merch you could have the hat that norman wears it was a license to print money yes that's for sure but what i'm thinking is the roderick on the line television show
John: There's just no... See, I'm not the guy.
John: I'm not the visionary who can see it.
Merlin: No, I disagree.
Merlin: I think you should probably just stay the visionary.
Merlin: No, no, no.
Merlin: Understand what I'm saying here.
Merlin: I don't want you to run this any more than you do.
Merlin: Thank you.
Merlin: And I'm not capable of that.
Merlin: I have, you know, I have ideations about being organized that are aspirational, but like, I don't know.
Merlin: I feel like there's a whole bunch of ways it can go.
Merlin: I've had a lot of ideas for things.
Merlin: Yes, I know that.
Merlin: It's just that I also have developed out of my perhaps lassitude or lack of imagination.
Merlin: Sometimes all I see is the tremendous amount of work
Merlin: for like a small payoff.
Merlin: And I've told you this before.
Merlin: Your aforementioned pal, Jonathan Colton, one of the things I've said a lot about Jonathan Colton, I don't know if he would put it this way, but like one of the things that first attracted me to his stuff, to him as a person, apart from the wonderful songs that he makes, is that the way I used to phrase it was, this is a guy who will not let a stranger screw up his career for a nickel.
Merlin: He seemed to always have a good sense of not just like, well, is there a way that... And again, from Jonathan, we learned that idea you and I talked about.
Merlin: There's very little money anyone can ever afford to leave on the table.
Merlin: And if you think that you can, you know... Boy, good for you, hakuna matata.
Merlin: But for most of us, it is a little bit of... I don't know what the youths call it, a hustle or a grind.
Merlin: But I always liked that about Jonathan.
Merlin: And it's something I've tried to adopt...
Merlin: And philosophically, I don't want a stranger screwing up my thing for a nickel.
Merlin: But also, I don't like working in the conventional sense at all.
John: I mean, you're a great idea to have a shoe phone that was also a wallet.
John: Yeah, right.
John: That was genius.
John: It's like your shoe.
John: It's your wallet.
John: It's your phone.
Merlin: It was only funny on a tertiary level, if at all.
John: But it was a great idea for somebody that doesn't wear shoes or have a wallet.
John: Right.
John: That's the thing about it.
John: The thing about Jonathan Colton is like every great cult leader.
John: He somehow had it in his personality.
John: He figured out how to get them to do it for him.
John: That's right.
John: He got people to work for him for free.
John: And there's no way.
John: Do we start there?
John: Do we start with DeviantArt?
John: Well, what happens is Jade Gordon writes a comic book treatment of our show.
Merlin: My friend Moxie could make us something out of like felt.
Merlin: We know a lot of people who can do DIY things.
John: Probably people with like Etsy stores and stuff.
John: I think Captain Marm will probably do the storyboarding on an Etch-A-Sketch, right?
John: Which is perfect for people who have never made a TV show.
John: Or maintain the index of spreadsheets.
John: Right.
John: And then pretty soon people, somebody is going to be listening to this and they're like, Hey, wait a minute.
John: I, I, you know, I am somebody that's really good at cable maintenance.
John: Like I, I take a, every, every, my whole office, like the cable.
John: I would love to have that person in my life.
John: Yeah.
John: What if I do the cabling for the show and that'd be a job we'd have to figure out.
John: We'd have to invent like, yeah, we do.
John: It would be nice to have our cables all, all squared away.
John: Then there's somebody else.
John: I'll be like, well, hey, I'm a web developer.
John: It's kind of like that book Stone Soup in some ways.
John: Stone Soup.
John: Exactly.
John: I bring an onion.
Merlin: You bring a stone.
Merlin: The problem is everyone we know really only has stones.
Merlin: Whew.
Merlin: You know, and they're kind of hoping for somebody else to bring the hot water.
Merlin: The other question then becomes in some ways, and just at a very, very sort of high level conceptually, are we looking to do...
Merlin: a visual presentation of what our, I don't love this word, what our podcast has been for over a decade?
Merlin: Are we basically trying to do that as a team?
Merlin: You hesitate over the word podcast?
Merlin: I really don't like using it.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: No, people use it.
Merlin: They've always used it too much.
Merlin: And now I'm going to say the version that they say that's shorter, because that's just not acceptable.
Merlin: Cast.
Huh?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: No.
Merlin: What?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: No, I'm not going to do it.
Merlin: Not going to do it.
Merlin: But I'm just saying, like, I don't I don't need an answer for this.
Merlin: I'm just throwing it out there.
Merlin: I would be fine with just turning this into like the equivalent of like a Comic Con panel where we just sit there and people, you know, look at us.
John: for however long it takes yeah but you i bet you would find when a camera was pointed at you that it you know it changes who you are changes what you do i believe that yeah you're performing for a camera just as you know when we do our live shows they're they're different you know things can go i try to adapt
John: Yeah, yeah, no, it's, but we don't do it enough.
John: That's the thing.
John: We don't do it every week.
John: We don't do anything enough, do we?
John: But I mean, a camera pointed at me.
Merlin: What's the future look like, John?
Merlin: What if, what if, like, like, like if we, as we used to say, you know, if you want to write the headline, let's write the headline for this in the future.
Merlin: And what's the headline?
Merlin: Well, most headlines are terrible.
Merlin: So I'm going to withdraw that.
Merlin: Instead, I'm going to say, what do we want people saying?
Merlin: The people we like.
Merlin: And in two years from now, what we want them saying is, to me, I never could have imagined.
Merlin: There it is.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: That's it.
Merlin: John and Merlin.
Merlin: Yep.
Merlin: There it is.
John: Me knowing how they are.
John: Two guys in their mid-50s.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: The dominant paradigm.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: And what thought technology did they discover that let them sort of unleash that of which they are capable?
John: Well, so I don't know what that is, but I'm open.
John: I'm very open.
John: We know it's probably not a YouTube video where we talk about jazz chords.
John: On the on electric guitar.
John: We know it's probably not a tick tock because that's not long enough form for us.
John: And any tick tock we would make would be all of those things.
Merlin: I mean, I don't want to sound dismissive, but all of those are ancillary things that our group could be working on.
Merlin: You know, your rhetoric group could be working on on our behalf.
Merlin: This is why I think we need to get a look at the DeviantArt community because those folks are super horny.
John: Oh, for sure.
Merlin: If we just cut them loose on doing the horniest personal version of us talking about Hitler.
John: Do you think there's a horny version of Roderick on the line?
John: Are there people listening to this show because they're horndogging on it?
John: Oh my.
Merlin: I bet you.
Merlin: I bet you.
Merlin: Boy, there's whole areas of life I just don't acknowledge.
John: There are a lot of people who listen to this show to go to bed where they're like, I'm sleepy and I want to hear their voices.
John: And I bet you they have erotic dreams.
Merlin: Should that change the way we do the program, especially for the TV part?
Yeah.
John: Maybe a little bit more ASMR on your microphone.
John: You could just slow down.
Merlin: You could eat the whole time.
John: Put a little bit of spit in your voice.
Merlin: Why does ASMR have to be relaxing?
Merlin: Can ASMR be upsetting?
Merlin: Welcome to Roderick on the line.
Merlin: Well, I'm going to have some iced tea as long as we're at.
Merlin: A little Japanese bear apple there for you.
Merlin: I love that small ice.
Merlin: I really like it.
John: Oh, you do like a small ice.
John: I know that about you.
John: But now wait, wait, wait, wait.
John: You, I know this, have all the television.
John: Yeah.
John: You have every television.
John: And I watch a lot of television.
John: And so of the people on this group.
John: Yes.
John: Are you eating again, John?
John: No, I just took a bite of Japanese pear apple for the sexy people.
John: Oh, okay.
John: That's, I see.
John: Who are like, oh, rub the pear apple.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: You could get a little brush.
Yeah.
John: So no things with the brush isn't that what they do you wish I know you whisper and then you rub your fruit with a brush I think I think they're they're like they're opening packages of Disney merch real slowly real slow sexy box look at this unboxing But instead imagine unboxing Merlin and John
John: Here they are.
John: They're wrapped in tissue.
John: Guys, today I'm going to open this bottle of my beta blockers.
John: But no.
John: So by Christine's adage, one of us does watch television.
John: So as a television watcher, what do you want if you were to turn on the TV and like, hey, it's the Merlin and John show.
John: All right.
John: Maybe it'd be like Eric Ocri.
John: What's that guy?
John: Andre?
John: Oh, Eric Andre, who's always breaking his own set.
John: You just made me think of a water fountain, so I know the system works.
John: Could we do an Eric Andre style show?
John: That's like an interview show, right?
John: Sort of.
John: I mean, it's sort of like between two ferns.
John: But it's like a jokey.
John: It's kind of like, yeah, it's like a Tim and Eric kind of thing.
John: Yeah, except it's a little bit more violent and incomprehensible.
John: Right, right, right.
John: But that's us, violent and incomprehensible.
Merlin: Well, I mean, another thing is, like, does it just have to be the two of us?
Merlin: It's probably better money-wise that way for whatever we net from this.
Merlin: But, like, I also like the idea of... We could port over the idea of the science girl.
John: like have a have like a lady in a pencil skirt who's like um actually i love a pencil skirt we've been watching house and cuddy's always rocking up her hair up in a kind of messy bun right on top of it and glasses who's like actually fact check that's not hot nope hitler was never in the beatles he's gonna be like god technically he was in the quarry men
Merlin: That's where he wrote horse vessel lead.
Merlin: Anyways, I also do like the idea, though.
Merlin: They say there's no bad ideas in brainstorming, which is not true.
Merlin: But one thing is we could just throw out, in terms of the writing the headlines, I don't know why I was about to say this, and I realized this sounds...
Merlin: Like, I'm trying to be base.
Merlin: But, like, another way to put this is, like, I've seen a lot of pornography, and therefore I should probably make pornography.
Merlin: And you're like, well, being... And that also goes for hand fruit, if you'll forgive my saying, which is, like, if you're used to being on the consumption side of something...
Merlin: This might be a little bit of the Dunning-Kruger effect, but you tend to think you were like, I could win a fight.
Merlin: I've seen lots of fights.
Merlin: There's all those things where you're like, just because I've consumed a lot of content, I've seen a lot of Jackie Chan movies, means that I could hang off a fire escape and be fine.
John: Well, what about Sky King?
John: He played a lot of video games and then he stole an airplane.
John: Or the kid that played a lot of video games and then became a race car driver.
John: Or the kid that played a lot of airplanes and then he became a drone pilot for the Air Force.
John: There are success stories.
John: We don't play a lot of video games is our problem.
Merlin: Well, I mean, if it was for my work, I don't want to do that.
Merlin: But maybe, I don't know, I could toss out things like qualities I would like to see in a program that could be the sort of thing we look into without committing us.
Merlin: See, I'm talking somewhat more conceptual.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Okay, go, go girl.
Merlin: Well, I mean, there should be segments that make me uncomfortable in ways I can't really articulate.
Merlin: Like our show.
Merlin: Like our show.
Merlin: See, that's the thing though.
John: She doesn't repeat, but it rhymes.
John: What if we went back and did our greatest hits?
John: So like one time we would have a show where I would French kiss a parrot.
John: And then we'd have a show where we had a closet full of dead lady dolls.
Merlin: Oh, we would use some of our greatest hits or like the, you thought it was an opossum, but it was really somebody stealing your ingot and your passport.
John: Yeah, but we'd do it, it would actually be like lit up.
John: We'd actually put a opossum in a wall.
John: Oh, animation.
Merlin: You know, people are good at it.
John: People make animations.
John: Think about animating Super Train.
John: That'd be a whole episode.
John: The girl in Dutch that you saw in the window.
John: The girl in Dutch that I saw in the window.
Merlin: And I think Jade made a comic of that, if memory serves.
John: Yep.
John: And we could fly to Dutchland and actually put it all, we could act it all out.
John: And then, oh, and then we'd bring the props back to our studio.
John: So there'd be, like Mr. Rogers, there'd actually be a super train, but on a track running behind us.
John: I see.
John: So we could be like, hey, super train.
John: Toot, toot.
John: And then Super Train would come in and we'd be like, how do we recycle this packaging?
John: Uh-huh.
John: Super Train would put a little crane out and grab it and be like, I'm turning it into oil.
John: Beep, beep.
John: And then off it would go.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: You know, but every episode, reoccurring themes.
Merlin: How does it meow do the recycling meow?
Merlin: Meow, meow, toot, toot.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I'm King Friday.
Yeah.
Merlin: And my hands don't have fingers.
Merlin: Lady Elaine.
Merlin: Oh, man.
Merlin: Yeah, I don't know.
Merlin: I worry about work.
Merlin: Oh, you don't want more work.
Merlin: Well, and I, again, see also Jonathan Colton.
Merlin: It worries me that, or I think it's a mitigating factor to think about how much work will be involved for us.
Merlin: To be honest with you, the white label project is starting to look better and better.
Merlin: If we just capitalize on the fact that we are literally at this point elder statesmen of this medium.
John: Which you don't want to name.
Merlin: If we just created like a public email address, we'd probably start getting a lot of inquiries almost immediately.
Merlin: Probably from Christine amongst others where she's like, I heard the latest episode and it sounds like you guys are really ready for me to do all the work on your TV program.
John: So we, so what we do is we Coltonize it.
John: We get a bunch of people to work for free and then wait for it.
John: We cast ourselves except younger and handsomer.
John: And then we basically are just selling the intellectual property.
John: Other people play us, but younger and handsomer?
John: Yeah, they play us except back in 2011 when we started the show.
John: I see.
John: So they're 40-year-old versions of us.
John: Yeah, the 40-year-old version.
John: Yeah, they're funny-ish.
John: Yeah.
John: And then we just, it's just the IP.
John: We just collect the royalties from the IP.
Yeah.
Merlin: That actually, that is more appealing to me than doing work.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: I know.
John: I know how much you hate work.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: Well, you know what it is?
Merlin: It's not that I do a lot of work.
Merlin: It's just work in quotes.
Merlin: Well, you know, I do things.
Merlin: I mean, you would not believe how hard I work to produce the crap that I produce.
Merlin: Like it's no, no, I'm not, I don't mean that as like, you know, ooh boo hoo, but, but just more like, like anything you do takes effort and you can't sleep while you're doing it mostly.
Merlin: There it is.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: But what is, I mean, if we set the right expectations with our team, I think I don't, I see us not needing to do really very much of anything.
Merlin: We might as well have a franchise of these things.
Merlin: You can talk to all different people you used to know.
John: This is it.
John: Right.
John: I mean, you could French kiss all manner of parents.
John: But the thing about us is that we have really, we've been asking the question for a long time.
John: What's the difference between, what really is the difference between doing work and doing things?
John: We both do things.
John: Yeah.
John: And it does overlap with doing work.
John: But doing things is not quite different.
Merlin: You might be on to something there.
Merlin: If we were to do something like a Forged in Fire, well, I personally don't know very much about that.
Merlin: I didn't enjoy the show that much.
Merlin: The thing is, what everybody knows who does stuff like we do is what they know is they're paying their dues.
Merlin: And what they know is that just because the world...
Merlin: doesn't like it or doesn't know about it or doesn't think it's work doesn't mean it's not work like okay you know i mean and that you think about and you can push one can push this button way too hard but this really goes for the process of writing anything
Merlin: Where there's so much writing I do that nobody will ever see because it's not writing in whatever form or fashion.
Merlin: It's writing that was never made to be published.
Merlin: It might have gotten used in one thing or another, but I try to turn things that I write into something that can go somewhere.
Merlin: But a lot of writing, I said this to Syracuse recently, I think a lot of the writing process is realizing, starting to write something and realizing it doesn't need to be written.
Merlin: That's still part of the process.
Merlin: So what if we, this could actually catch on with a lot of dads, what if we start exploring all the people who don't like doing things?
Merlin: and and like try to find like look at their stories you know highlight them this is charles corralt you're gonna talk to some old lady who invented a butter churn like you're you're talking to some guy out there maybe it's an art deviant sure maybe it's somebody that's making swords like a night templar yeah exactly thing is but we're interested in the in them only a little like not very very little yeah like oh this is a person that sorts sorghum into different colors and piles like that's cool and that
Merlin: Or this is somebody, you know, oh gosh, I almost said something mean.
Merlin: How can I abstract this?
Merlin: But like, let's say you are somebody who's like, say a writer, or as you like to say, a content creator.
Merlin: Yeah, I do like to say that.
Merlin: You love to create content.
Merlin: So you're out there and you're creating content, but maybe in your heart, you know, it's not very good, but you know, it's something you can pull off and the checks seem to cash for now.
John: I mean, my daughter's mother slash partner has now taken to referring to my writing, which I do nine pages a day and none of it will ever be published unless after my death, it's like I'm like Candide and they publish like a nine volume set of the writing that never got published and I'm reviled in history.
Merlin: She needs to consider how she feels about having one of her buttocks sliced off.
Merlin: She's your cunagon.
Merlin: I've never said that out loud.
Merlin: I don't know if I'm saying it right.
John: She says that it's my journal or whatever.
John: It's part of my process.
John: Oh, you're journaling, John.
John: Are you journaling?
John: I'm crafting.
John: What happens when you make a book, like a fancy book of your year?
John: Scrapbooking, yeah.
John: Except I'm scrapbooking.
John: Scrapbooking is American for hoarding.
John: it's american for hoarding yeah yeah what i'm scrapbooking is i'm scrapbooking about the news i'm scrapbooking i'm i'm i'm writing i'm writing a scrapbook about these things in congress i'm like you know what you know what hebron let me tell you hebron hebroff am i right oh boy that's good and nobody wants it right or or maybe people do want it but they'll never see it examining the male gaza
John: Yeah.
John: Right.
Merlin: But like, it's not, it's not there.
Merlin: You're not doing it to be published.
Merlin: You're not saying it as John Wayne says, you're not saying it for clapping.
John: No, I'm not.
John: It's part of your process.
John: Yeah.
John: It's part of my process.
John: Every once in a while, somebody will write me and in what should be a two paragraph reply, I write nine pages where somewhere along the line, the train really jumps the track and
John: And I'm talking about, well, because I'm a guy of a certain age, I'm talking about the Roman Empire.
John: And then pretty soon, I'm talking about the river that runs through Poughkeepsie.
John: And then I read it back and I'm like, what the hell is this?
John: I can't send this to this poor person.
Merlin: So you see how it's all related.
Merlin: Well, that's my thing.
Merlin: That's my shtick.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: I feel I would like to think that I'm the same.
Merlin: Well, no, I don't want to think that I'm the same way.
Merlin: I must accept that I am the same way.
Merlin: You know, Nora Ephron says everything is copy.
Merlin: Everything is copy.
Merlin: Everything is copy.
Merlin: Everything in your life can be used for what you write about.
Merlin: And I think there's ways you can... Obviously, one can be very cynical about that, but I take a special kind of joy...
Merlin: Well, if there's anything—oh, boy, I don't want to talk about real stuff.
Merlin: But one thing I've benefited from in life is realizing that I like writing.
Merlin: I don't necessarily like writing to deadline.
Merlin: I don't necessarily like writing long things.
Merlin: I'll let the listener infer what kinds of things that keeps me out of the business of.
Merlin: But I really do—
Merlin: It's not just that I enjoy writing.
Merlin: It's that I have kind of got to write.
Merlin: You got to do it.
John: I know.
Merlin: There's a character in the Suicide Squad movie, the better one, the James Gunn one.
Merlin: And he's this guy who I think is called Dot Man.
Merlin: But anyway, he's got all these little energy dots that keep building and making bulbous parts of his body.
Merlin: This is a terrible analogy.
Merlin: But if he doesn't find a way to expel all of his energy balls on a regular basis, he gets very ill.
Merlin: Oh, ugh.
Merlin: Like a teenage boy.
Merlin: Expel your energy balls.
Merlin: It really—and there's a reason that I participate so much on Mastodon right now, which is, like, that's where a lot of stuff can go.
Merlin: It doesn't mean I don't try, but, like, I'm going to write—
Merlin: stuff every day, not nine pages, but I'm going to write stuff every day no matter what.
Merlin: And if I can find a way to turn that into something I think is appropriate for the right place, whether that's show notes for an episode.
Merlin: I know the thing is, I'm hearing that voice in my head.
Merlin: Is coming up with the title for this show?
Merlin: Is coming up with the problem for this show?
Merlin: Like all the things, is that writing?
Merlin: It actually is.
Merlin: Yeah, it is.
Merlin: And like if you are a person who is...
Merlin: I would much rather talk about writing as a verb than a noun, but I do really think and live like a writer.
Merlin: It doesn't mean I travel and try to bone down, but I do think a lot.
Merlin: I was listening to an interview with Temple Grandin.
Merlin: She has a new book called Visual Thinking.
Merlin: Are you familiar with Temple Grandin?
Merlin: She talks to horses.
Merlin: Yeah, she's a horse talker.
Merlin: She's such a fascinating person, and...
Merlin: There's a really good movie about her young life starring Claire Danes that's very good.
Merlin: But you might know of Temple Grandin.
Merlin: She's a person who has achieved a lot.
John: My mom absolutely thinks Temple Grandin is the greatest thing.
John: She's constantly telling me about Temple Grandin.
Merlin: To cut a long story short, she is a person with autism.
Merlin: And amongst other things, like a lot of folks I know on the spectrum, she didn't, in this case, didn't start talking till she was four, etc.
Merlin: Anyway, she talks in this book, it's a little bit of science spray, but she does talk a lot about this idea of like being a visual thinker versus a structural thinker versus being a sort of language thinker.
Merlin: And like, I...
Merlin: And I don't have all the same linear qualities as a classic language thinker, but that's very much how I think.
Merlin: I think in sentences and paragraphs, even when I don't realize that I am.
Merlin: Do you know what I mean?
Merlin: Oh, I do.
John: I'm not a visual thinker.
Merlin: i don't know i'm i'm just doing the bit now but like i like what's i had an example of this like pretty recently that came up like it happens actually kind of a lot where i'll like i'll write down something that amused me and like i have this app that i use for writing down lots of stuff and uh it is very amenable to the idea of this just being a one word or one sentence or whatever and i can figure it out do whatever with it later sometimes it's a quote it becomes like a common book you know uh
Merlin: That kind of thing.
Merlin: But there are times where I'm like, okay, here's a funny observation about watching this Showtime show called The Curse.
Merlin: And here's an observation about that.
Merlin: And then that leads me to somewhere else.
Merlin: And then that leads me to somewhere else.
Merlin: And you know what the linchpin for so many of them is?
Merlin: Even though I don't need to be doing this.
Merlin: I don't need to be thinking this.
Merlin: And I certainly don't need to be, quote, writing about this.
Merlin: That writing about it, even if it's just...
Merlin: A very short few sentences is something that I find instructive and useful, and you can tell I'm bashful about saying this because it sounds self-involved to a layperson.
John: No, it does not.
Merlin: Well, but I'm self-conscious about it, but I do that all day long, I'm typing.
Merlin: All day.
Merlin: Like so much of every day.
Merlin: And it's not stuff where I'm like, oh, like any of the classic stuff you go like, oh, it's your dumb complaint about a thing or you're getting yelled.
Merlin: You're ready to yell at somebody.
Merlin: No, it's none of that.
Merlin: It's just I could open up this phone and just so much stuff that I don't know why it's there.
Merlin: I don't I don't know what it's for someday.
Merlin: But here's the point is that once I gave myself.
Merlin: formal, ongoing, and well-rehearsed permission to write just because it's something I do and because it's something I like to do, that opens so many doors, at least in my own head.
Merlin: And feeling free to write about something without regard to why you're writing it, another reason I hate this whole language,
Merlin: They've got to teach kids to write, and they've got to do cursive, and we have to make writing and reading something people hate.
Merlin: But that's part of who I am, and y'all don't need to know that, and you don't need to look at the title for something and go, did Merlin, or the show notes for Reconcilable Difference, how could Merlin possibly spend three hours or more writing the show notes that amount to a few paragraphs?
John: You used to do that for Roderick on the Line.
Merlin: Those were always so wonderful, though.
Merlin: Yeah, but like that became it.
Merlin: Here's the other part though then that does become a case of well, maybe this belongs more over here than there and like Maybe that's not making a better thing to do it that way and I've even realized with Reconcilable Differences.
Merlin: I don't know if it makes it a better thing I know some people like that and some people get the house style of each thing that I do that's part of the challenge and
Merlin: Anyway, I just, I just want to say there's nothing to that apart from my guests.
Merlin: Is it advice?
Merlin: Is it bragging?
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: But like, once you've allowed yourself to become okay with the thing that you want to be doing a lot, you find a lot more ways for the thing you love doing to find a place in your life, even if it's not the one other people agree is where it should be.
John: Did you ever listen to the friendly fire podcast?
John: I listened to probably three or four episodes.
John: Yeah, there was somewhere along the line.
John: They asked me to do the intros to write a little intro where I was like, hey, here's the movie that we're going to watch tonight.
John: And it tapped me in such a way that I started to write these little essays.
John: That were humorous.
John: Was it originally supposed to be like a, like a paragraph?
John: Yeah.
John: It was supposed to be like, and today on friendly fire.
John: Yeah.
John: And instead they became little five minute, uh, compressed monologue.
John: Like an essay almost.
John: Yeah.
John: And I would write it and then I would read it.
John: And the thing is with, uh, I don't know if you know this, but with audio editing, you can actually take out pauses and things that are, um,
John: You know, like when you say, um, and stuff, you can do that.
John: I read something about this.
John: But the problem was, I don't like that.
John: Like, uh, like when I do a record in the studio and they're like, okay, take that again.
John: I'm like, here's what I'm going to do.
John: I'm going to sing the song all the way through from beginning to end.
John: And then if you liked it, then that's the version.
John: And if you didn't like it, I'll sing it again, but I'm not going to start with Ken's punching method.
Merlin: The first take.
John: Now I'm not, I'm not going to do every word and I'm not going to do, I'm not going to hit that little part again.
John: I'm just going to sing the whole thing again.
John: And that drives people crazy in the studio.
John: They're like, that's not how we do it.
John: And I'm like, it's how I do it.
John: I can't do it another way.
John: But so with these friendly fire intros,
John: I would do it, and if I made one tiny mistake, if I said, uh, in the wrong place, I would just erase it and start over.
John: Oh, you were recording these at home?
John: I would do it into the machine at night before the show.
Merlin: Oh, that is an interesting wrinkle I would not have guessed.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And so you're also recording yourself and then deciding if you like how it sounds, which is different than just writing it.
John: And a lot of times I would do a take that was absolutely superior to the take that I ended up using, but I made a little error and I didn't like it.
John: And so I'm going to do it again.
John: And because it's my own writing, I had all this phraseology.
John: I knew which words I wanted to hit.
John: I didn't have to put things in italics and quotes because I could do it with my voice.
Merlin: And I loved it.
Merlin: And the first few times you try writing something to be read, as we say in poetry class, in the air, I know I'm telling you something you know.
Merlin: It is really so quite different.
Merlin: Then you realize especially if you haven't sort of found your voice either as a speaker or as a writer I mean no she didn't eliminate but like if you know your voice you you this is why sometimes I really stumble over ad copy That was not written for me because if I read this in the way that it was written for me It really does sound like a hostage statement Well, that's and that's the thing
John: But what I discovered was this little thing, writing about war movies and putting them in cultural context was a thing I could do and record at three o'clock in the morning only.
John: And it could only be about war movies because I have never written another one of those or recorded another one of them since the day that show ended.
John: And they took a lot out of me.
John: They were hard.
John: But I was really proud of them.
John: How long did they end up being, did you say about five minutes?
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah, I mean, three to five minutes.
Merlin: I'm asking for like an important reason.
Merlin: But like you had found, I mean, if I may put it in my words, like it helps me to discover the sort of molecular, God, this all depends, depends, depends, depends.
Merlin: It depends so much on your perceived audience, on the amount of time and energy that you have.
Merlin: It depends on so many different things, but like you learn the atomic unit, the molecular unit that you're comfortable, at which you're comfortable working.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: And if you can, I bet it was the same way a lot of people have to write a monologue every week with a team or by themselves or whatever.
Merlin: You're like, well, I know how to do this.
Merlin: I know what this sounds like when it's good.
Merlin: I know how long it is.
Merlin: I even maybe eventually learn approximately how long it takes to do.
Merlin: That's part of the professionalization of writing is knowing that like, it's very unlikely this is going to take less than 20 minutes.
Merlin: And I really, really hope it doesn't take more than four days.
Merlin: But there is something in between that I can shoot for.
Merlin: And in a way that you almost don't want to even talk about it, it becomes really gratifying.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
John: Don't you find?
John: Because the thing was, like, knowing that I wasn't going to be misquoted, that because I was reading it in my own style, that there was no way to misread it.
John: You could mishear it, but that's on you.
John: And misreading it is much more like, is this, did I write that right?
John: But if I was going to read it, because I would edit it as I went, I'd be like, that's not how I would say it.
John: You know, I would change this or change that.
John: I was so proud of these little snippets because, and I think what was motivating me was I was partly flaming people.
John: my co-hosts and the audience with just the sheer info drops.
John: I could put an entire episode of the podcast into three minutes, but all the stuff that I didn't get to say in the show about like, well, actually in context, this movie was made in 82.
Merlin: Just so I know, would you record this after you had recorded the main episode?
John: Yes.
Merlin: Oh, interesting.
Merlin: So you knew what, oh, that's crazy.
John: It was a
John: Preface of a show that I already had recorded.
John: Yeah.
John: And so I knew what had been left out and I knew what not to spoiler alert.
John: And so it was all this weird context and jokes.
John: It was funny.
John: It was supposed to be funny.
John: And, oh, yeah, but I've never done another one.
John: And I think a lot of people that signed up for that Patreon that you put together for me, that first one, the Bean Dad Patreon, a lot of people came from Friendly Fire thinking like, oh, he's just going to be making – every week he's going to be making another five-minute long joke fest.
John: And I just couldn't like there was nothing in the world that inspired me.
Merlin: And if it I mean, I'll speak for myself.
Merlin: If I don't have a lot of people say, like talk about the importance of, you know, deadlines and how deadlines actually are so many people in their process.
Merlin: Deadlines are really important for a variety of reasons.
Merlin: I don't know if I wouldn't use the word deadline, but having a constraint.
Merlin: of some kind helps.
Merlin: Like, time available helps.
Merlin: And also, honestly, then, also a little bit of self-knowledge about, like, I know I can't spend forever on this in terms of expectations, and I also can't spend forever on this in terms of available time.
Merlin: But then the other part is knowing what your hook or your bit is, I think helps so much.
Merlin: And you recognize it
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: It reminds me of a lot of things that have come to me only late in life where I go, oh, I recognize that.
Merlin: Oh, I know you.
Merlin: You're an idea that would be funny in the second to the last paragraph.
Merlin: Exactly.
Merlin: You don't go here.
Merlin: You go here.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: It is a little bit like fitting a puzzle together, which is, again, part of really the fun of writing is what order does this go in?
Merlin: But you know what I mean?
Merlin: That recognition of like, oh, I know that part, and I know it doesn't go here, and it feels good that I noticed that.
Right.
John: Yesterday, you know, Ed Kaplan, the Colonel, Colonel Ed Kaplan retired, who's the dean of the Army War College.
John: He and I periodically exchange stuff.
John: And he wrote me a couple of days ago with a couple of simple questions to two paragraph email.
John: Hey, John, what do you think about this?
John: What do you think about that?
John: And I started to write him, and I wrote nine pages, where for sure, by the end, I did not set out to write nine pages, but absolutely by the end, I was like, as you know, in the Roman Empire, and I get to nine pages.
Merlin: The unwritten first sentence, buckle the fuck in.
John: Well, and also, he's the dean of the War College and a history professor for the army, so he does know about the Roman Empire, and it's an opportunity for me, because it's not an audience
John: I'm speaking to an informed audience so I can say all the things and assume that my audience understands, right?
John: I don't have to go, well, for those of you who don't know.
John: Right, right, right.
Merlin: That's a big deal.
John: It was.
John: And this was one of the wonderful things about the War Movie Podcast was you're already here and I know you are interested because you're listening to this.
John: It's weird.
John: It's a small enough world.
John: So I'm not going to have to explain.
John: what the breakfast club was.
John: And if I do have to explain what the breakfast club was, that's your... This was never for you.
Merlin: This was never for you.
John: Right.
John: But with Ed Kaplan, I get to the end of this nine pages.
John: I mean, seriously, nine pages typewritten.
Merlin: on my phone if i were to put them down into word processing you've definitely got adhd that's such an adhd thing it would just be like just so you know that other people's don't other people think oh how'd you stay so focused for nine minutes it's like oh sweetheart you have no idea how easily i can stay focused for nine pages of something for sure every time don't ask me what i'm not doing all the time that i'm doing those nine pages because it's probably the thing i should be doing
John: Well, and yeah, and I'm driving to an appointment and I'm running the essay in my head and then I pull over at a stoplight and I put two more pages down into my phone.
John: There's times I don't want to go to sleep.
Merlin: Still, there's times I don't want to go to sleep because I'm like, I got a head of steam on and I know there's enough of those, hey, I recognize you moments so far that I kind of don't want to, or like a lot of times when I'm falling asleep, I actually do have like something that's an important idea to me.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Sometimes about sleep, sometimes about life.
Merlin: And like I do sometimes just grab my phone because I'm like, it drives me nuts because I know there's something here.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: And you need a lot of pages.
John: A lot of.
John: Well, but but so then.
John: Oh, but here's the here's where ADHD is the problem.
John: Then I say.
John: wait a minute, I can't send this to him.
John: This is going to take him all day and he is going to go, why the fuck?
John: And he also, this is insane.
Merlin: Oh, it's going to be so, because you know how it is.
Merlin: I mean, like something I said a long time ago in the days when I wrote about email is, hey, here's a few easy ones, like a subject line that lets somebody know
Merlin: kind of let somebody know what this thing is about and like how vital it is to be dealing with right now however you do that but also like if you really want a response from somebody a couple things always ask a question that could be answered with yes but also make sure there's space under like when they pull up your email there should be white space under your email oh okay
Merlin: But, you know, what if the answer is actually no?
Merlin: It's like you're missing the point.
Merlin: The point is, if you're a project manager, again, now we're talking about things you learn from other places in life.
Merlin: You know what makes you a better writer is knowing that busy people love being asked a question that can be answered with the single word yes.
John: Yes.
Merlin: And if that plus white space under, I'm taking you off your thing, but, like, that's just another domain thing where I'm guessing you don't want this guy who's busy to...
Merlin: And he wears a uniform, probably looks pretty sharp, opening this up, hitting the scroll thing and seeing so much scrolling to be done to read this thing that seemed like a pretty straightforward thing he wrote you.
John: And what I was going to do is write him and say, look, you're a history professor.
John: And I know you're probably if you were a history professor in a lay college, you would be used to.
John: Call it a party school now.
John: You'd be used to experiencing seven unfocused pages about this topic.
John: Webster's defines war as.
John: Written by somebody that did no research.
John: But you work at a war college where officers are replying to your stuff.
John: And they presumably have to stay focused and follow a pattern.
John: And so this might be hard to read for you.
John: But then what I do is.
John: is I don't send it to him.
John: And from where he sits in his office, he thinks, well, John didn't reply to my email.
Merlin: And has no idea that I, that I. Do you ever go back and just try to like whether, I mean, the obvious one is like, pick out the one best paragraph.
Merlin: Another one is like, well, no.
Merlin: And I actually disagree with that.
Merlin: Usually another way to look at it is go, Hey, you know what?
Merlin: Free gift to me is I just learned a lot of what I think about something and I can write the greatest two sentence email of all time now.
Merlin: And they'll never, they'll never even know I made it look easy.
John: Yeah, but this is the problem with whatever my affliction is, is that the time it would take for me to do that and the focus, I start writing another eight-page email to someone else.
Merlin: And is it fair to say, at this point, you might be, at that point, rather, you might be starting to overthink it.
John: Well, I've got 700 pages on any topic.
John: If you were like, what's the difference between 70s Corvettes and 60s Corvettes?
John: I got 700 pages on that somewhere.
John: I wrote it all to Tiffany Arment.
John: 10 years ago, and she was like, don't care.
John: Don't know, don't care.
John: Just trying to get this out of the garage.
John: And so, yeah, I mean, and the thing is, I know for a fact there are people listening who are like, I want to read these.
John: I want to read that, Merlin.
John: I want to read what you write in the middle of the night.
John: You know, why don't you publish it?
Merlin: They're definitely out there, but there are not many of them.
Merlin: No, and the thing is, they don't.
Merlin: What they don't know is they don't want to read it, right?
Merlin: No, a lot of people like the idea of me, and I just appreciate that.
Merlin: I like the idea of you.
Merlin: Yeah, that stops there for a while.
Merlin: I even like you.
Merlin: No, I like the actual you, too.
Merlin: Oh, now you're giving me a full Fred Rogers, and I love that.
Merlin: It's true.
Merlin: Ding, ding.
Merlin: Toot, toot.
Merlin: Hey, Super Train, what do you think of Merlin Mann's?
Merlin: Toot, toot, ding, ding.
Merlin: Meow.
Meow.
Merlin: This actually gives me a chance to say a thing and say another thing real quick.
Merlin: So if jokes leave the room for a minute, the thing about anything like a TV show or whatever, what do you do?
Merlin: You end up working your ass off, and then if you get the magic ticket, which is even just the opportunity to have a meeting with somebody, which it sounds like you've had, but what you end up doing is just...
Merlin: Most of us are so sweaty for somebody to say they like us and think we're good.
Merlin: And, yeah, we'd like money.
Merlin: But, like, boy, there's – and this does relate to Jonathan Colton and me, which is, like, I'm very – That's a great children's book, by the way.
Merlin: That's such a good book, Jonathan Colton and me.
Merlin: Yeah, make room for Colton.
Merlin: Here comes.
Merlin: Here comes Super Train.
Merlin: No, I just – just that, like, now you're committed, right?
Merlin: And you're – the thing is –
Merlin: As you know, I'm terrible at negotiations.
Merlin: And one reason I think I'm terrible at negotiations is I know a truth about negotiations that doesn't make me any better at it, which is that whenever a person... Well, first of all, again, this is another thing from the wisdom document.
Merlin: Whoever wants the meeting more probably has less power.
Merlin: So when you go and meet with them at HGTV or whatever...
Merlin: Like they don't need you unless you're Michelle Obama.
Merlin: They don't like need you unless you're Meghan Markle or whatever.
Merlin: Like they don't need you.
Merlin: You're the one who's sweaty.
Merlin: You're the one going, please make my TV show.
Merlin: And then all you're waiting for, you're hoping for yes.
Merlin: You're waiting for yes.
Merlin: You're waiting for even like a maybe plus.
Merlin: But you know what I mean?
Merlin: Like you go in there and like you're just, you're so sweaty.
Merlin: You might as well be, I might as well be anyway, nine years old going, please say that I'm okay.
Merlin: And you like my science fair project.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And then once you do it, they'll keep you on the line as long as necessary to get you to agree to do all the difficult stuff.
Merlin: But whether this is a book or a TV show or really anything where it feels like you finally got that brass ring that you really deserve, now you're stuck with it.
Merlin: You agreed to do this.
Merlin: And implicit in almost all of those things, especially if it's an extrinsic thing you're doing for someone else.
Merlin: I don't think Oprah goes through this in quite the same way most of us do.
John: She did, though.
Merlin: She did one time.
Merlin: But you're stuck now.
Merlin: You're stuck with whatever that person wants from you.
Merlin: And just to bring this around to the point I want to make, I don't like that with writing.
Merlin: No.
Merlin: I couldn't do it.
Merlin: I've had so much shit in my life where I hoped it could be.
Merlin: I try to find some way to make what I do and who I am interesting to other people.
Merlin: I do.
Merlin: I try to do that.
Merlin: And a lot of times it is through some form of writing, even if it's not visible published writing.
Merlin: But I'll tell you what's a real buzzkill for me is like, let's say that all went terribly wrong.
Merlin: And we did get our TV show.
Merlin: And Christine's too busy to do it for us.
Merlin: And like now we're on the hook to like learn about this thing.
Merlin: And there's a deadline.
Merlin: And there's somebody who doesn't know how to make TV and they're calling you all the time.
Merlin: And then the deadline for this went by and you still owe me five pages from Thursday.
Merlin: And like, I might be catastrophizing that.
Merlin: But let's just say that does not put me in the state.
Merlin: You know, that puts me in the state of mind to go work on literally anything else that does still give me that feeling.
Merlin: of writing in a way that makes me happy.
Merlin: So I wanted to give you an example.
Merlin: I'll send this to you.
Merlin: You don't need to read this.
Merlin: So I get an email.
Merlin: I think this is an apt example.
Merlin: I got an email February 17th of last year from a guy who's an editor at a well-known magazine you can buy on a newsstand.
Merlin: And through a mutual acquaintance, he said, hey, look, this mutual friend, this guy that works for me, gave me your email because I know you went to new college.
Merlin: And he made a real good pitch.
Merlin: Oh, and New College was in the news.
Merlin: Yeah, right, because of the DeSantis stuff.
Merlin: Anyway, he wrote this really nice email, and he's a good editor.
Merlin: He gave me his, like, hey, here's where I come from on this, going forward a little.
Merlin: My hypothesis is that perhaps, blah, blah, blah, perhaps woke in the sense that he would find objectionable, da, da, da, da.
Merlin: And he says, would you like to write about this?
John: Yeah.
John: Oh, I love the way you do this, where every sentence or two is a new paragraph.
John: They're so easy to read when you do that.
Merlin: It's such a good format.
Merlin: I learned that from writing for things online.
Merlin: It is that people are more likely to stick with you if they get a little thrill of a new paragraph that's even a short.
Merlin: It's just varying your writing.
Merlin: But anyway, thank you.
Merlin: But here's the thing.
Merlin: So this nice guy wrote to me in February, February 17th,
Merlin: And I didn't write him back immediately.
Merlin: And then he says, and then I get a follow-up a week later.
Merlin: He says, just bumping this in case you saw this story in The New Yorker.
Merlin: So now we've ruled it down.
Merlin: It's just, it's a magazine.
Merlin: It's not The New Yorker.
Merlin: But anyway, and he links me to that.
Merlin: And then I...
Merlin: I wrote him back and I said, hey, thanks.
Merlin: I said, unfortunately, I'm out of the loop about anything that's been happening since I graduated.
Merlin: And I don't think I'd have anything particularly prohibitive to share, et cetera, et cetera.
Merlin: That was on February 23rd.
John: Did you publish this in your, is this private that you sent me or did you publish this on your page?
Merlin: Oh, okay.
Merlin: But here's the thing.
Merlin: Now, what will not be obvious to anybody, because I've never mentioned this before.
Merlin: Because it doesn't matter.
Merlin: But here's the thing.
Merlin: That guy wrote to me and said, do you want to write a thing about New College?
Merlin: Which I immediately knew I did not want to write a thing about New College, especially whether it's for a website or a publication or whatever.
Merlin: Because, I mean, this is an entirely different show we need to do.
Merlin: But like...
Merlin: A TV show?
Merlin: Never talk to reporters.
Merlin: Like, show me the last thing you read in the New York Times about anybody where they came off looking like somebody you would like and want to know.
Merlin: There's always going to be an angle where you look like a ding-a-ling.
Merlin: Like, even today, the delightful thing about the mouse in Wales.
John: A mouse looks like a ding-a-ling?
Merlin: No, but the person who described this in the Washington Post describes the person as shoveling toast into their mouth.
Merlin: And I'm like, was that really a necessary detail about a man who had a sweet mouse?
Merlin: Because he's got to seem colorful and fun.
Merlin: And I've just been through this ringer so many times, all the way down to a piece where I found out a thing I was writing for this Mac magazine.
Merlin: They wanted us all to come and be photographed in a group photo dressed like Steve Jobs.
Hmm.
Merlin: That's not you.
Merlin: It's not really my tempo.
Merlin: No, Merlin doesn't belong in that photo.
Merlin: I'm almost done.
Merlin: I swear to God.
Merlin: So the point is, February 17th, this very nice person says, do you want to write something about New College?
Merlin: I kind of ghosted on him for a week.
Merlin: When he did write back, I said, no, but thank you very much for the offer and good luck.
Merlin: I think I even said, I said, here's hoping cooler heads will prevail.
Merlin: It's a really special place.
Merlin: What he didn't know...
Merlin: I never intended to write this piece for him.
Merlin: And so can you tell what I did from that piece you were looking at is I did write back to him, but you wrote the piece about the piece.
Merlin: You wrote the piece about not writing the piece.
Merlin: I wrote an email response to him that I never sent him.
Merlin: And instead, I shared it on my own website where probably five people read it.
Merlin: Because it's my website.
Merlin: There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Merlin: And I don't know if this goes to the point we've both been talking about, but I sure feel like it does, which is you don't know where it's going to come from.
Merlin: So to this fellow, I'm like, I'm sorry I didn't write your thing.
Merlin: I'm sorry I spaced on writing you back.
Merlin: And numerous times he wrote me back because he just really, I guess, wanted these like thousand words or whatever.
Merlin: But
Merlin: Whatever.
Merlin: Nice guy.
Merlin: And his friend is my friend that works for him is very cool.
Merlin: But what I'm trying to get at is that how do you explain this to somebody that a completely random, hey, do you want to write about your college that you went to 30 years ago?
Merlin: And of course, what I read between the lines is and then get pilloried on all sides from a bunch of people who willfully misunderstand everything in life.
Merlin: Or in my case, I go, you know, I actually do have something to say about this.
Merlin: And the best way for me to say it in the way that I want to say it, dude, you just gave me the perfect format, which is, and admittedly, this is a little bit sort of like, I don't know, Jonathan Swift or something in the sense of like, hello, person who asked me to write for you.
Merlin: I'm not going to write for you.
Merlin: And here's why.
Merlin: And of course, then I proceeded to write.
Merlin: And the
Merlin: whatever this is, Thousand Words or 800 Words, it's called On Not Writing About New College.
Merlin: Because I realized I do have something to say, but I don't have something to say for someone else's website or someone else's magazine.
Merlin: And it's not really, honestly, just to be clear here, it's not just because I don't like people yelling at me, although I certainly don't, but why would I do that for the 50 bucks I'd get from that?
Merlin: Or for like, why would I work that hard at that?
Merlin: And to my point from earlier about the TV show,
Merlin: Why would I work that hard at something where I'm going to have to take a note from this person who like, oh, with their kindness and noblesse oblige have agreed to publish me on the web somewhere.
Merlin: It's like, I have the web already.
Merlin: Why would I give that to anybody else?
Merlin: And again, also that does lead us back to the Jonathan Colton thing.
Merlin: Like, oh, that's okay.
Merlin: Keep the nickel.
John: Yeah.
John: Title.
John: Well, you know, this was the dirty secret about these intros I wrote for Friendly Fire.
John: I only did the ones I wanted.
John: And they would, anytime they wrote me and said, hey, do you have your intro for the episode?
John: It's going up tomorrow.
John: Right.
John: You'd be like, oh, you're doing that thing.
John: You're doing that thing where you ask me to do things.
John: Well, yeah.
John: And that's what happened.
John: Not only did I, if I didn't want to do it, not do it, but I didn't even, this is why they canceled me.
John: This is why they're not my friends anymore.
John: I didn't even say anything.
John: I was just like, huh, I mean, if I am inspired to do it, maybe.
Merlin: Sometimes null is a, well, I think I might be paraphrasing Cool Hand Luke, but, you know, sometimes null is a pretty decisive answer.
John: Well, and so what ended up happening.
Merlin: Sometimes null says more than no.
Merlin: I did get your email.
John: What ended up happening is that Adam or Ben, at the last minute,
John: would switch the duties of writing an intro and recording it where I had not only not done it, but not even replied to them.
John: And then eventually they started doing it, trying to do it in my style.
Merlin: Just to be clear here, one of those two guys would write it and do it, perform it.
Merlin: Would write and do it.
John: Record it.
John: Because people got accustomed to those.
John: So now if you listen back to the archive,
John: Only about I don't even know if 50% of them are this thing that I love to do that I was so proud of.
John: Yes, but if I didn't want to do it
John: I just didn't do it.
John: And sometimes I would write back and go, no, I don't, there's nothing here for me.
Merlin: Well, I mean, like, and to just the honest response in some ways, I mean, obviously there's a, there's a big honest response.
Merlin: A lot of people want to make is which I just don't have the cycles for that right now.
Merlin: But another one is, you know, I don't, I don't have a whole lot to say about that.
Merlin: And when I say that, just so y'all know, like, I don't, or like the, the,
Merlin: The time last year, my kid first said to me, I don't have a strong opinion about that.
Merlin: And I was like, I knew you were a cool kid, and now I can prove it.
Merlin: People getting in a position where they're comfortable saying, I don't have a strong opinion about that.
Merlin: My wife says it to me all the time.
Merlin: We're all like, kind of as a joke, I'll just throw out something that's a ridiculously strong opinion about something.
Merlin: And she'll go, I don't have a strong opinion about how we prepare the eggs.
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: or whatever, right?
Merlin: But the thing is, that also allows you to retain it as your special thing.
Merlin: And yeah, it makes you obdurate.
Merlin: Yeah, it makes you not part of the workflow, but also you're not allowed to productize my shit.
Merlin: The thing that I write for this when I have something to say
Merlin: Like, you're not allowed... And I sound like I'm mad.
Merlin: And don't print it.
Merlin: Don't put it in the paper that I'm mad because I'm not.
Merlin: But, like, when somebody didn't... Like, I've agreed to write this thing for a magazine or a newspaper or whatever.
Merlin: Probably for the website.
Merlin: I never get asked to write for print anymore.
Merlin: But, like, I say no to everything because it's not that I... In that case, it's not that I have absolutely nothing to say about anything, let alone, you know, like this.
Merlin: It's... I have something to say about this, but I'm not ready to say it yet.
Merlin: Or I'm not in the...
Merlin: place right now where I'm ready to be the shark swimming around that particular prey.
Merlin: There's other things right now.
Merlin: Maybe that could be that I'm in the hospital for three days.
Merlin: But it could also just be that I do have something to say about this.
Merlin: I'm going to say it over on this website where five people will read it and four of them will write me a nice note about what it meant to them.
Merlin: That means so much more to me than your nickel.
John: My problem is I want to write it.
John: I don't want to argue about it.
John: That could be with an editor, too, though, right?
John: Well, with an editor or my own audience.
John: Like, the last thing I like to do is put something up there for my five people and have four of them want to argue with me about it.
John: And I'm like, I don't want to.
Merlin: And there are times that really do bring people out of the woodwork.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: It happened to me last night where I was talking about the TV show, The Curse.
Merlin: And I only mentioned it tangentially in a follow-up post, which no one ever reads.
Merlin: But what I said was a thing I've believed for a long time.
Merlin: And I'm going to read it to you now.
Merlin: It's very short.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Do you know what a land acknowledgment is?
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: I said, most land acknowledgments end up just sounding like bragging.
Merlin: We stole your land.
Merlin: New paragraph.
Merlin: A rote but respectful victory lap.
Merlin: And that is honestly, every land acknowledgement I've ever heard honestly does sound like, you know the only part you left off of that and you still can't have it back.
Merlin: So we're acknowledging this holy land, this unseated land.
Merlin: But you know what?
Merlin: It's also unseated by us.
Merlin: So see you for the next one of these, which wouldn't have occurred to me if I hadn't been watching this TV show that I like and then felt like just typing that little thing.
Merlin: Sorry, go ahead.
John: Well, no, you're 100% right.
John: And I often feel like...
John: Well, I know you've gotten these.
John: Letters from people where they're like, I've been a fan of yours since the very beginning.
Merlin: That's funny.
Merlin: I've never heard of you.
Merlin: And you're being terrible to me the first time you've ever contacted me.
John: I can't believe you would say this thing that is outrageous to me.
John: If you knew anything about the medical device industry.
John: Completely consistent with everything that you've ever said for the last 10 years.
John: But somehow I missed...
John: All of that.
John: And now I'm really mad about the thing you said about the one thing I know about or think I know about.
John: And I'm like, I don't want to, I didn't put this up here to argue with you.
John: I don't, it's fine that you have feelings.
John: Put it up on your own website is my advice to you.
John: I don't want, I don't care about them.
John: It's not that I don't care about you.
Merlin: I love you Exactly two things about the situation in the Middle East and they both one of I think was on here and it was very like quickly in passing I think I used a phrase something along the lines of not that the IDF cares about that that that's like the extent of what I've said and believe me I have some hair curling opinions about that that none of you are ever gonna hear and I God I shouldn't even say that somebody wrote you about that one little bounce that you had
Merlin: I don't want to put this person on blast, but I think the subject line was something like, I feel very unseen by you right now.
Merlin: And it was a whole long thing about what it's like to be this person's background and to be so pursued by the world all the time.
Merlin: And like, well, do you want to clarify your position about blah?
Merlin: And I was like, I think what I wrote back was...
Merlin: initially was because i didn't want to respond i did want i did want to respond to that person because they felt they were real hot about it and they had their reasons and i didn't want to be unkind i didn't want to be cute about it but i think what i said was i think i just literally said yeah i'm not going to get into that comma but thank you for the note
Merlin: And then boy, did I ever get both barrels after that because that was such a cop out and blah, blah.
Merlin: And that just went on and on.
Merlin: And finally, what I ended up saying to the person was something that is true and it's factual.
Merlin: And I do believe I said, this must be a terrible time for you right now.
Merlin: And I can't even imagine what it's like to have to deal with what's happening.
Merlin: And I'm not trying to be cute.
Merlin: Like, I really do believe that.
Merlin: But like, show me a better issue in the world where I don't want to get into a thing with a stranger about it.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Do you want to get into an Israel and Palestine?
Merlin: The canonical don't-go-there argument of the last, like, 60 years?
Merlin: Like, how?
Merlin: And you're mad enough.
Merlin: He says I've met him before.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: But the point being, he thought enough of that that he was real mad, and I was in his line of fire, if you like.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: So now it's on me to, like, explain what?
Merlin: why i feel how i feel that i've only expressed and boy that just tells me everything i need to know boy even mentioning it twice just barely was too much like as if we haven't gotten enough evidence that you shouldn't have any opinion about this jesus fucking christ i got a letter from somebody who had already written me six letters on this topic
John: And they wrote some comment where they're like, you're still not listening to me.
John: And I was like, I'm not.
John: I'm honestly not.
John: That's accurate.
John: I am.
John: You're 100% right.
John: I am zero listening to you.
Merlin: Well, and just to say the same thing I said to my wife, I'll say to you and our listeners is like, if I were the sort of person where it meant a lot to me to quote talk people into my point of view...
Merlin: Which I think that's not really one of the things I'm best known for, but whatever.
Merlin: Let's say I was one of those people.
Merlin: And, like, you're mad at me and I'm mad at you.
Merlin: And now we're going to throw hands.
Merlin: And I'm going to, like, what am I going to do?
Merlin: I am going to, and I hope I'm being general enough about this, but whatever.
Merlin: I'm going to, like, quote, talk you into my point of view when you've told me you spend every day worried about genocide.
Merlin: I'm going to talk you into my...
Merlin: Maybe we should all just be a little better to people in general.
Merlin: Like, I'm going to talk you into that via email.
Merlin: How does that turn out well for anybody?
Merlin: But I also wanted to be a dad.
Merlin: And I wanted to be the kind of dad where you can hit me and it'll bounce.
Merlin: Like, I'm not going to be wounded and I'm definitely not going to hit you back.
Merlin: But I did.
Merlin: I feel bad for everybody.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: but I feel bad for everybody.
Merlin: It's all a shit show.
Merlin: And even by talking about it right now, I'm probably gonna hear about this.
Merlin: And it's like, why would you believe for just one second that I have this sort of, that I have my own reasons for feeling the way that I feel about the world.
Merlin: And like, I mean, how many people has he contacted in that way to like say, well, you don't agree with me on this?
John: I don't know, maybe only you because you are a person to people.
Merlin: Which is a mitzvah.
Merlin: It's nice that I'm a person to people, but a person is still a person.
Merlin: A decision is always a decision.
Merlin: People are people.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: But I guess the thing, if we're going to do a show, I'm not sure how we get that somewhere where we actually make money from it without having to make commitments.
John: That's the thing.
Merlin: What's our go-forward strategy right now?
John: I feel like what we need to do is make 15-minute episodes and do them whenever we want.
John: And so what we have to do is do an entire season...
John: And it might take us five to 15 years to do, but we make the season first, so we're not on any deadlines.
Merlin: Oh, you're saying there, as they say in the industry, as Christine would say, who I imagine will be our executive producer, you want them in the can.
Merlin: That's exactly right.
John: Once they're in the can, people might think we're making them every week.
John: But in fact, there was like a 10-week gap between episode two and episode three.
John: But the problem is what they do is they say you have your whole life to make your first album, but then you only have one year to make your second album.
John: Sky Saxon from The Seeds said that.
John: Yeah.
John: So anyway, we would be – our first season we could do – oh, it would be a limited series.
John: It would be like the British Office where we just do two seasons and then we're out.
Merlin: This is something that Brits understand.
Merlin: We don't need 37.
Merlin: We don't need 22.
Merlin: Six is plenty.
Merlin: Six episodes over the next 10 years.
John: Yeah.
John: And the problem is Flight of the Concord season two wasn't as good as season one.
John: Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
In a city pressure.