Ep. 549: "Smashing Kippers"
John: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
Merlin: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: How's it going?
John: Well, you might be wondering why we're starting our show a half hour late today.
Merlin: Can I be honest with you?
Merlin: I never wonder.
Merlin: Is that right?
Merlin: You never wonder.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: I don't really wonder either.
Merlin: Well, it's complicated because that implies that I don't care.
Merlin: I guess.
Merlin: But it's not that I don't care.
Merlin: It's just that I don't want to know.
Merlin: I just don't want to know about other people's personal lives unless it's something they'd really like to share with me in an assertive way.
Merlin: But I am.
Merlin: I mean, sure.
Merlin: I mean, I'm a grown man.
Merlin: I get curious.
Merlin: Yeah, right, of course.
Merlin: I just figure, you know, it's stuff.
Merlin: It's first day of school there.
Merlin: I figure it might be first day of school there.
Merlin: I don't know what's going on.
John: Well, in my case, 8 o'clock in the morning, this morning,
John: I woke up to the sound of chainsaws.
Merlin: Oh, no.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: I'm sorry.
Merlin: I'm sorry I laughed.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: I just remember recently you mentioned having a little bit of a, how does one say, a tête-à-tête with your neighbor about morning noise.
Merlin: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
Merlin: And this might not be neighbors.
Merlin: I mean, this could be a municipal thing, but it's 8 a.m.,
John: And then What Christopher Nolan movie started no a wood chipper an industrial-sized wood chipper Well guys, I feel like we've done injury, but we also had insult
John: And so I'm laying there at eight o'clock in the morning and it's right outside my way.
John: Okay.
John: And I'm like, this either is the city at eight o'clock in the morning doing their city thing.
John: What cities do, what cities do, or this is my neighbor.
Merlin: Okay, let me pause you right there.
Merlin: Is it fair to say, I'm sorry to really press the obvious here, but you were, by your account, mostly asleep, and you were awakened by these sounds, yes?
Merlin: It wasn't that you woke up and they were happening, it was that these noises are what awakened you from something like sleep, is that correct?
John: Yes, I was in the midst of a dream that was kind of an interesting dream.
John: I was in the midst of a, I was thinking about, what was I dreaming about?
John: It was a municipal rebellion I was involved in.
Merlin: What?
John: An uprising?
John: Yeah, and it was dark, but the street was lit by fires.
John: And it was like, you know, and I was, it's not, I'm not going to say that I was at the head of a column of tanks riding into Paris or anything, but it was a very, you know, dramatic dream, let's just say.
Merlin: They're having a lot of unrest over there, I think.
John: A lot of unrest in Paris.
John: But I, but so the very first sounds of the chainsaw were in that beautiful way integrated into my dream.
John: Yes.
John: As some kind of like, oh, the machines, the machines are.
Merlin: Your brain is being pulled away from its overnight vacation and it's struggling to like integrate what's happening with the night vacation.
John: yes yes and it was it was pleasant because the thing about it is chainsaws that are close by are are bad but chainsaws that are far away are quite comforting for me you know as a northwesterner chainsaw is sort of in the distance like that's the sound of a thriving economy yeah the call of the eagle and the chainsaws when they first started up were in what i later learned to be the backyard of my neighbor
John: And it was gradually over the course of from eight to nine, nine to 9.30, 9.30 to 10, the chainsaws started moving toward the front of the house and the wood chipper just going the whole time.
John: And I'm laying in bed and I'm thinking,
John: Am I the baddie?
Merlin: That's why I'd ask you to pause because I was curious about, I mean, I'll put it in me terms, which is like there are times that given your recent past with things like this, I could see myself tearing away my covers like Ebenezer Scrooge and like running outside in my hat with the pom-pom on the end and just screaming at the first person I saw.
Merlin: I'd like to think that I've gotten beyond that and I want to develop some situational awareness.
Merlin: But did you, so unpause, so what'd you start thinking when you woke up?
John: Well, you know, last week we talked about it on the show.
John: I did not talk to him in any way.
John: I sent no text, no message, no afternoon knock on the door.
John: about the carpet cleaning that happened last Monday at the same time.
Merlin: Which follows the please don't use your e-rake two weeks ago.
John: Right.
John: And so I'm laying there in bed and I'm like, you know, what now, brown cow?
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: And I lay there and I sort of, I try to use the sound of the chainsaws.
Merlin: My first thought would be like, this sucks.
Merlin: And my second thought would be, oh God, this is going to be a whole thing now.
John: And I know that's the thing.
John: And I'm still... Oh, and after the show last week, I mean, I know you hate it when I break the fourth wall, but I got a lot of feedback.
Merlin: No, no, I think that's true.
Merlin: I think that's germane here.
Merlin: I'll allow it.
Merlin: You also hate getting feedback, but there's a lot of... I can't receive feedback.
John: That's right.
Merlin: There's not a way for people to contact me.
Merlin: And even if they tried to contact me...
Merlin: I mean, like, there's no indication that it was sent, that it was received, that it was unreceived.
Merlin: It goes to a big box on null, which is an unbox in some ways.
John: Do you know how I know that?
Merlin: Because people try to contact you through me.
Merlin: Okay, okay, okay.
Merlin: Okay, so...
Merlin: I love recording audio programs for our friends.
Merlin: I know you do.
Merlin: I really, really, it's an honor of my life to get to do this.
Merlin: I really, really like that anybody listens, even if they're angry when they listen or whatever.
Merlin: But yeah, so anyway.
John: Every time I get an email that says, will you tell Merlin, I print it out, I crumple it up, and I throw it in a garbage can.
Merlin: I'm grateful, but yeah.
John: okay so so when people contacted you what did they say they had a lot of different advice it's what were some of the lawyers or did some of them say i anal did some of them say i know that's the thing nobody nobody anymore will identify themselves as a lawyer up up front but a lot of them i think they're admonished not to give legal advice which i think that's right even even saying they can't give legal advice technically is a kind of legal advice
John: There were a lot of junior G-men.
John: Okay.
John: Some people, you know, enclosed their badge.
John: Government Bureau you haven't heard of yet.
John: You know, there were a lot, there were not a wide variation in advice because everybody kind of agreed that it was a good thing that I hadn't
John: contacted him i got a late a late arriving message that said you know you're allowed to make a certain amount of you know like just sort of recapitulating what i what i had established was the was the problem which is that he's perfectly it's legal to do what he's doing i'm not arguing that um and so laying there i'm just like i just don't i just died i know it's not malicious i know he's not doing it maliciously
John: There's no way.
John: Like Quentin Compson, you just keep repeating that to yourself.
John: I know this is not malicious.
Merlin: I don't hate it.
John: What kind of diabolical mind could, in response to our pleasant little exchange about the e-rake,
John: But what kind?
John: I mean, if he was doing it intentionally, I want to hire him to handle my affairs.
John: Because how incredible to be like, now, every Monday, I'm going to hire a team that has the loudest tool.
John: You'd have to be committed to duplicity.
John: He's so brilliant.
John: Why has it never occurred to me to do something like that?
John: It's a very high-level form of gaslighting.
John: And it's very Tony Soprano.
John: It's like you park the Stugats outside the guy's vacation home and you just play Hold Me Closer, Tony Danza.
John: Anyway.
John: At 10.45.
John: Do they still make Stugats?
John: I'm not even sure.
John: I never knew what it was.
John: Okay.
John: At 1045, I'm like, oh, boy.
John: And so I texted you, and I was like, we got to push it for a half an hour.
John: Let's just see how this plays out.
John: I mean, I'm a chainsaw guy, and it gets tiring after a while.
Merlin: I would hate for you to be tarred with the brush of being somebody who doesn't like chainsaws.
Merlin: I mean, look at where you grew up.
Merlin: I got two chainsaws of my own.
Merlin: That would be, whoa.
Merlin: That would be dishonest for you to make like you got a problem with chainsaws.
John: I'm not some guy that's like, oh, I hate swimming pools except for my swimming pool.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: No, it's like farts and girlfriends.
Merlin: Like it's always, yours are fine.
Merlin: Like, but like, yeah, no, exactly.
Merlin: But like, it's like, you're not against the law.
Merlin: I think it's important to stipulate.
Merlin: I'm not a lawyer.
Merlin: You stipulate you're not against chainsaws.
Merlin: You're not against the law.
John: No, you ought to have your carpet clean sometimes.
John: I agree.
Merlin: Yes, yes.
John: I'm overdue, frankly.
Merlin: I'm overdue.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: Stanley Steamer does sound like a euphemism for taking a shit on someone.
John: It does, it does.
John: Or going on a glass top coffee table.
John: Yeah, a Chicago sunroof they call it.
John: And at 1150, I got a text from him saying, let's see.
John: Let's see.
John: It's right here.
John: You know, I've never identified him by name.
Merlin: No, no, no, please don't.
Merlin: Unless you want to make up a name that's nothing like his.
John: He says, hoping, well, he said, it's a little typo.
John: He says, hoping out tree cutters.
John: He meant hour.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: You know, not throwing him under the bus here.
John: Hoping out tree cutters are done in an hour.
John: Apologize ahead of time if they cross over into podcast time.
John: Actually, he sent that at 9.59, so not at 10.45.
John: He sent it one hour before the podcast that he has now recollected.
Merlin: Unless he's a monster, I love that.
Merlin: If he's a monster, that's horrible.
Merlin: If he's not a monster, he's trying.
Merlin: And he's showing you that he remembers you've... He's not gaslighting you.
Merlin: He's electric powering you by saying, like, look, I remember we had this conversation.
Merlin: We're working on this together.
Merlin: Don't let this break... Like, we're trying to do this.
Merlin: This happens in other places in the world right now, too, where you have things that are going on, where you've got negotiations, but you don't want something happening where some rogue party screws up the negotiations.
Merlin: And he's saying...
Merlin: You know, he's like the anti-Netanyahu.
John: He's saying we're all in this together, right?
John: Well, and this is a very interesting thing because I'm often, you know, my daughter's mother slash partner is an executive professional.
John: And she does, since the pandemic, she does meetings all day at home, stand-up desk.
John: She sits in there and she's doing meetings, Zoom meetings all day.
John: And she is a, you know, she's a, as I say, an executive.
John: So she's in, she's in meetings where she is the team leader or she is the person that's talking to a group of people from a standpoint of, of power.
John: And then very infrequently, because if you look at the ladder of people in the power structure, very infrequently is she then in a conversation with people that are, you know, that's basically the CEO.
Merlin: But another part of that, just off the top, because the same thing happens with my partner.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: Um, and the thing is, if it's one thing to be called into a meeting where you can mostly space out and check your email and be on mute, but if she's leading the meeting, I think she's less likely to be muted most of the time.
Merlin: Yeah, not muted.
Merlin: It's a small fact, but I mean, I think our small observation, but I think that leads into it.
Merlin: Like she can't just constantly, like in my case, I can hear rug.
John: and that mutes cool but like she's not going to be doing that all the time no no but but uh but i over the course of the pandemic and since am often in uh in her living room sitting on the couch reading uh some old copy of life magazine and uh listening in on her work calls and
John: Because of our relationship, I, uh, over the course of, you know, hours or weeks of listening to her calls.
John: will tender some feedback.
Merlin: I fight this.
Merlin: I fight this.
Merlin: I fight this with my kid.
Merlin: I fight this with my wife.
Merlin: I fight it all the time.
Merlin: You know, that genie seems like kind of a piece of shit.
John: Yeah, it's interesting.
John: I heard you say that same word a couple of times, like maybe four or five times.
Merlin: Yeah, you know, actually, you know, solve is not a noun, and you should tell that person.
John: But what I'm always kind of providing, I think, is just sort of, you know, she's in a context where she's professionally at a point where there's very few of her peers that can offer her professional guidance anymore.
John: You know, like nobody wants to hear.
John: You're stepping up.
John: And so I'm like, yeah, I just, I, in that conversation, you know, like here are the deliverables.
John: It sounds like you're trying to accomplish.
John: Here's what you're getting from this person.
John: And here's what I heard you say.
John: And I'm just thinking, here's my observation.
John: And I noticed small things.
John: Like I notice when you're talking to the CEO, you often will laugh at the end of something that you're obviously uncomfortable saying to him.
John: You'll try to take away the sting of it.
John: by laughing and in conversations with your, with your, with people that work for you, you never laugh like that.
John: And so I just, I hear it.
Merlin: And you're presenting that as a, this is the thing I noticed.
Merlin: You're not trying to say stop doing that or anything.
Merlin: You're saying, how'd you notice this?
John: Yes.
John: And I think this is a thing that I'm at that calling to your attention.
John: This would be interesting to you to know that you have a nervous tick.
John: with your boss that you don't have with anybody else.
John: My wife loves these kind of observations.
John: But she and I have a relationship where she welcomes this.
John: For now.
John: Because I don't offer it all the time.
John: Yes, yes, yes.
John: But one of the big conversations we've been having as a culture for decades is women in business and how they talk and how they lead meetings and how they are...
John: and how it contrasts with the way men are in meetings and in business and how that often is that they are more passive or they are more are looking for more agreement they got to seem less assertive they got to seem definitely not not threatening
John: And so I'm always kind of commenting on that because she's very, she'll be walking around the house like, I don't know what I want to have for breakfast.
John: And then she gets on a call and she's like, you do this and you do that.
John: Like she's, you know, she's good.
John: But there are those little things, you know, little things.
John: Yeah.
John: Where I'll later on say, like, if a man was in that position, he would not have used the mitigating words, maybe, sort of,
John: you know this kind of thing little mitigating words that take away from the from the authority or the way you say something that's not a question but it ends like this ends like that and she doesn't do that because we that was i do that i do that that's my stock in trade yeah i know anytime you're in a situation where it's like um so i'm hoping you you used to do that to me
John: Does that make sense?
Merlin: You used to say to me.
Merlin: Oh, that's just because I'm needy.
Merlin: But it's a very English way to do things.
Merlin: An observation I've made, and not everybody agrees with this, but it seems to me that in England, like when you hear people talking to each other, I hear this on panel shows and stuff like that, whether it's comedy or straight or whatever.
Merlin: But people, they tend to not... I said assertive, which is a word that I love.
Merlin: But they tend to... In England, it seems like regardless of class, you tend to not...
Merlin: gosh this is getting me in trouble but it seems like part of being polite in england anyway excuse me is to not make assertions because that's kind of like you're getting over your skis a little bit right you've got to you've got to ask things you know this leads us to the wonderful line the title of charles groden's biography um it would be so nice if you weren't here
Merlin: Like learning to put things in this, you know what I mean?
Merlin: We're like, and they're so good at giving you such a burn that's like so civil.
Merlin: But don't you think also, I mean, on the one hand, there's the like, yeah, we all really need to work on this.
Merlin: But don't you think it can also kind of be used as a tool that you deploy?
Merlin: Well, that's, I mean, I remember very distinctly.
John: I just asked that as a question, like a pussy.
John: I know you did.
Merlin: Oh, let me try it the English way.
Merlin: I'll only try more of that in it.
John: I remember distinctly being in an English drawing room in the south of England.
John: Of course you did.
John: And there was a husband and wife who were a little bit younger than I was, but they're a little posh.
John: And they were talking about dinner.
John: And I was their guest.
John: And we're sitting in the living room.
John: And she said, well, what did she think of the kippers, the kipper stew or whatever?
John: And he said, oh, I quite liked it.
John: And she said, all right, then, you know, we'll try something else.
John: And I said, what did I just miss?
John: Right?
John: They said, I did.
John: I was like, what just happened?
John: Because I was friends with them enough to say, you just asked about the Kipper stew.
John: He said he quite liked it.
John: And you immediately pivoted to something else.
John: And they both looked at me confusedly and she said, well, I mean, when he said it would be so nice if you weren't here.
John: When he said that he quite likes it, it means that he didn't like it.
John: And I said in American, if you use the word quite, if you put quite onto something, it means extra liked it.
John: I quite liked it.
John: It would be.
John: And they said, well, he didn't say I quite liked it.
John: He said, I quite liked it.
John: Which means he didn't at all like it.
Merlin: Do you have a sense of what he could have said?
Merlin: You can't do this because you're not a native speaker, but do you have a sense of what you think he might have said that would have risen to the level of her thinking he did like it?
Merlin: Would he have said, now this might be more London, do you think he might have said it was smashing?
John: maybe yes quite i think it was smashing i love that band i but you know but they also were posh so there was a posh element too of like poured out starboard home yeah who knows what the heck but so so this morning looking at at the text from my friend across the street here what i notice is something that is very much a man in business
John: Because he did not start the text by saying, I'm so sorry about the chainsaws at eight o'clock in the morning.
John: Because he's not.
John: Sorry about that.
John: Eight o'clock in the morning, as my correspondent earlier reminded me, it's perfectly legal.
Merlin: Yes.
John: He did not start out apologizing.
Merlin: What he did is he asserted something.
Merlin: He asserted his stake in the ground about something is, if I remember correctly, it was something along the lines of, like, you know, what was the exact line?
John: Hoping out tree cutters are done in an hour ellipses.
Yeah.
John: oh yeah that guy's definitely in business and so there's no apology there's no acknowledgement that it's now 10 o'clock in the morning and for two hours starting at what to me is dawn they were a lot of content can i tell you what mine would have been here's what i think mine would have been and i would have spelled this out like a charlie brown
Merlin: Balloon, it would have said, ah, chainsaws.
Merlin: And that would have been exclamation points.
Merlin: It would have been, ah, chainsaws.
Merlin: And then I would have said a thing I've been saying since college, at least.
Merlin: I said, I am so sorry.
Merlin: I suck so hard.
Merlin: Oh, wow.
Merlin: I thought they'd be done by now or something.
John: Right, right, right.
John: I cannot get on my back and show my belly fast enough.
John: Even if you knew they had no intention of being done by then, you would have, like, added that.
Merlin: Well, I'm going to quote Marco Arman, and y'all need to fucking remember this.
Merlin: You know, Marco Arman says, you know what?
Merlin: It's not my fault, but it is my problem.
Merlin: And my wife will not get on board with this.
Merlin: She's like, yeah, but if it's not your fault, then why is it your problem?
Merlin: I was like, you never run into something where it's not your fault, but it is your problem?
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: Like, in Marco's case, that could be an example of that.
Merlin: It might be he has an app that relies on services for things like cloud services and stuff.
Merlin: And so, like, if that service goes out and his app doesn't work, he has mad customers.
Merlin: Is it his fault?
Merlin: It is not his fault.
Merlin: No.
Merlin: Do you know what I mean?
Merlin: Yeah, sure.
John: But I know it sounds obvious.
John: The buck stops here is what it is.
John: Well, if I can convince my goddamn wife whom I love.
John: You know, it's just like I have to deal with it because I'm the boss.
John: You're like Al Swearingen.
John: He says, I have to deal with this.
John: That's right.
John: That's right.
John: So my neighbor did a master class here in not starting out because I would have done not the belly showing thing, but I would have started out with, hey, sorry about the noise.
John: Um, but I'm really going to make, you know, I'm going to try and make sure that they're done by something similar to him, but I would have started with the apology.
John: Trying to acknowledge that it's already been, even if you are done by the time of the podcast.
Merlin: He's already down in the count in terms of who's being a good boy about this.
John: And for me, like, and also no acknowledgement of the carpet cleaning, right?
John: That just, we're never going to talk about that again.
John: Interesting.
John: That just kind of happened, huh?
John: But the amazing thing is he is saying the first three hours of your day,
John: These chainsaws, that's not on the table.
Merlin: It's almost a little bit, you know, a cynical person, which I'm not, a cynical person could say, that's a little bit of a fuck you.
Merlin: It's a little bit, a cynical person, which is not me, not I, I'm not a cynical person, but I could see a person saying, you know, what he's really saying is, I don't know how to say this in business terms, suck on this.
Merlin: In a way, because he's kind of saying, hey, you know those chainsaws?
Merlin: Yeah, that's going on.
Merlin: You're dealing with that.
John: Here's what I hope about that.
John: This is not my fault, nor is it my problem.
John: This is what needs to happen.
John: This is happening.
John: And am I sorry?
John: No.
Merlin: I mean, this is also a trope that I think I'm starting to really pick up on because I've been on one side of this and I'm starting to see the other.
Merlin: I don't want to start a whole thing.
Merlin: But I think there's probably a term or a phrase for this, but like, I'm not really that interested in what your intention was.
Merlin: I'm interested in what happened.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And I think if you think, you know, sit with that for a while.
Merlin: I think I could learn a lot from that phrase.
Merlin: And I'm trying to learn from that, which is like, oh, I'm so like, I'm sorry.
Merlin: I didn't intend to bother you.
Merlin: You're so easily bothered.
Merlin: I didn't do it.
Merlin: It wasn't I didn't do it on purpose.
Merlin: It's like, no, but like, that's the thing is like.
Merlin: don't infantilize me and now i'm getting angry but like don't infantilize me in that way or don't like condescend in that way like let's be grown-ups about this and like the thing is and again now me i'm on my back you know trying not to bother anybody and then i'm and then like per last week right be careful how much reason you give to people because then that just becomes another thing for people to like hate you about but like
Merlin: It wasn't a really straight dude-to-dude conversation exactly.
Merlin: It had that patina in that kind of puffed-up way, but I don't love it.
Merlin: He's in business.
John: He's in business.
John: He's in charge.
John: The business of America is business.
John: And this is a thing that my daughter's mother slash partner would never start a business meeting without saying, hey, I'm sorry about the X. And he is exhibiting this kind of characteristic that we really prize in business.
John: which is his thing was just laser focused on deliverables.
John: What's going to happen.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And, and I said, the deer hunter, this is this like, we're just going to talk about, we're going to talk about the, this, he does apologize, but it isn't an apology.
John: What he says is apologize ahead of time.
John: If they cross over into podcast time,
Merlin: Because you need that kind of assurance, Nancy.
John: But, like, that's no, he's not saying I'm going to ensure that they're done by then.
John: He's just saying this is basically my blanket absolution of me and everybody over here when they do go over.
Merlin: I'm the Catholic Church.
Merlin: I'm the Pope.
Merlin: I've given myself an indulgence.
John: Yeah.
John: And so I wrote you and said, we need to bump the show a half an hour.
John: And sure enough, at 1125, they threw their chainsaws in the back of their truck and drove off.
John: And when he said, apologize in advance, I said, that means they're going a half an hour over and there's no pushback.
John: There's nothing I can say like, well, fuck you.
John: And there's no, and I'm not going to, and here's the thing I recognize.
John: I recognize business talk enough to know that I'm not going to say thanks.
John: Because he's not, there's no thanks.
John: He's doing what he's doing.
Merlin: This gets us also into that radio language we like to talk about, you know, about the signal language, where it's like there's a difference between I understand what you said and I'm going to do it.
John: That's right.
John: It's Wilco.
Merlin: You want to give him an ack?
John: I didn't say Wilco.
Merlin: You want to give him an ack?
Merlin: You want to give, like, I received your message, ack?
John: This happened and I do not want to get letters from anybody about this because everybody's navigating this stuff on their own and I'm navigating it on my own and you guys do.
John: Am I going to be glad you talked about this?
John: You guys raise your families the way you want to raise them.
John: I'm trying to do my best.
John: You're doing your best, John.
John: I'm doing my best.
John: So I show up at a restaurant the other day and my family is there and I'm meeting them there.
John: And my daughter comes toward me.
John: I walk toward them, you know, the daughter's mother slash partner, my mother and my sister and my daughter are all there waiting.
John: I pull in, my daughter walks toward me and I get out of the truck and she's wearing a sweatshirt and it's a, it's a warm day.
John: And I say, huh, what's with the sweatshirt?
John: Because, you know, fashion is something that she and I talk about quite a bit.
John: And so she always wants her outfits noticed and she wants to talk about them.
John: And so I noticed the sweatshirt and it's not a sweatshirt I'd seen before.
John: So I said, what's with the sweatshirt?
John: And the first thing I say to her, she walks over and she gets a little bit of a sly look.
John: And she says, well,
John: Mom said that my top was too revealing.
John: And I said, uh-huh.
John: Oh boy.
John: And she said, so she made me put on a top.
John: Okay.
John: Like a cover.
John: Yeah.
John: And this is new.
John: This is all new.
John: And I said, huh.
John: And she said, and this, she has never done this.
John: She said some version of, what kind of dad are you going to be?
John: Are you going to be... We're standing 20 feet from the little cadre over there.
John: She said, what kind of dad are you going to be?
John: Are you going to be like a cover-up dad?
John: Or are you going to be like a...
John: Like a cool dad who just accepts like what I decide to wear.
John: If this is even 40% true, this is a hell of a minefield.
John: It's a moment because she has never divided and conquered.
John: It's never occurred to her.
John: Really?
Merlin: Because she and I, her mother and I. Because the kid who knows, and I was a kid who knows, the kid who knows how to divide and conquer is...
Merlin: If you're good at it, you know how to do it in a way where the other person mostly won't detect it, because you know that there's things where their emotions precede their rationality.
Merlin: Well, that's a really blunt way to put it, but you know what I mean, right?
Merlin: Where you're likely to have a reaction to that, where you get your dander up, and you go white knight for your daughter's flimsy top.
John: Well, she and I, her mother and I, from the very beginning,
John: we said we're never going to contradict the other person in front of her well we're never going to go against the okay all right if somebody says something and they're going to stick to it then that's the law and part of how we've raised our kids successfully as a couple that aren't married
John: is that no matter how far the distance, no matter how long the time, if one of us has said something, it's the rule.
John: Even if her mother says something and it goes against my core belief, doesn't matter.
John: Once it's said, it's said.
Merlin: And so over the course of her life, real quick, though, does that assume I mean, it's like when your kids are when your kids little, I feel like that's more implicit in everything, which is like we're not going to contravene each other because that's the point where consistency is like to me anyway.
Merlin: So so important for like actually vital things, not just matters of opinion.
Merlin: But like, is it do you feel like it's has it always mostly been stuff where like, you know, like you would know if she came up and tried to play you most of the time.
John: yeah right and and the thing is i trust her mother like i trust her values i don't think she's crazy i don't think she says things nutty and so i know that if she says something there's a reason behind it and in our family like we are largely in agreement about things you know her mom was the one that said no cell phone no ipad
John: And I said, every other kid has got a cell phone and an iPad.
John: And she said, I work in tech security, no cell phone, no iPad.
John: And I said, oh, okay, fine.
John: No cell phone, no iPad.
John: But what if she, you know, what the Jonathan Colton explanation, how is she going to compete in the world if she hasn't played a farm game?
John: friends or whatever the fuck it is.
John: You know, how, what about her?
John: And it's just, she has always no phone, no iPad.
Merlin: I've not only heard that a lot about people who work in tech, but I have some very good friends where that was at.
Merlin: They sent their kid to Waldorf schools.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Seriously.
Merlin: If their kid wanted a phone, it was going to have to also be a block.
John: Until she was in sixth grade, if her toys weren't made of wood, her mom was like, you know, we can make Barbies out of wood.
John: And I was like, I don't think you can make Barbies out of wood.
John: I mean, they're not as shapely yet, but you could also learn to whittle.
John: But that was the thing where I was just like, I'm never going to argue with this.
John: I am not the one that has.
John: There are worse.
Merlin: John Roderick, I know this is not the kind of thing we're supposed to talk about.
Merlin: There are worse standing policies in relationships than that.
Merlin: For sure.
Merlin: That's not a... What I'm trying to say is I don't think that is a bad standing policy at all.
Merlin: If there needs to be exceptions, and you can always go straight around your daughter to your daughter's mother and say, hey, is this accurate, what I just heard?
Merlin: But, like, what you don't want to do is find yourself... Because then you're like divorced dad at that point, where you're like your kid becomes this cipher for playing out weird relationship stuff with all due respect.
Merlin: Well, and also...
John: Our kid never really, she doesn't really lie.
John: If you ask her a straight up question, she will answer truthfully because there's never been any lies around her.
John: Nobody's ever lied.
John: Susan and your mom are kind of like that too, aren't they?
John: Yeah, there's no lies.
John: They'll just say the fucking stupidest dumb ass truth right in your face.
John: And you're like, dress it up a little.
John: Her mother and I don't keep, we never go to her and say like, don't tell your mother.
John: There's never any of that.
John: Like, don't here, don't tell your mother, but we're going to do this.
Merlin: It's always like, you know, I think it's fine to do that as long as you assume that they will tell them because you know what I mean?
Merlin: Like, don't tell mom.
Merlin: I'm going to have a kinder egg or whatever.
Merlin: And it's like, you know, they're going to do it.
Merlin: You know, it won't be a problem.
Merlin: But don't say like, you know, don't say stuff like don't tell mom what daddy keeps in his glove box.
John: Exactly right.
John: That's not fruitful.
John: Don't tell mom that we keep picking up this same kind of person out on Aurora Boulevard and taking them.
John: And then you help me hide the body.
John: And then daddy is gone for 45 minutes.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Well, daddy's busy with his work.
John: And so, and that's just, that's really easy with a kid because it's like, what am I, what do you even comprehend that I have to lie about?
John: You know, like I'm just, if you're going to get a kinder egg, you get a kinder egg and then I'm going to bear the consequences, right?
John: When we get home, your mom's going to say kinder egg.
John: John, that's very assertive.
John: Can I just say that's very assertive?
John: That's a very assertive masculine way to handle that.
John: Thank you very much.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: But one key difference has always been from a very young age, she...
John: just natively loves pattern clashing and i love that right yeah i do remember this yeah and so polka dot pants and a plaid shirt and a yeah and a tie with little little jewels on it or whatever like i'm i think that's fun and if you have an eye pattern matching or padding pattern clatching clashing yeah works it works great you look fantastic if you have an eye
Merlin: Well, and you don't want, but the part of that is like in the long game of life, like a lot of people would look at say like Tim Gunn on Project Runway and say, well, that's, that's really wild that he's got those patterns together, but he's Tim Gunn.
Merlin: He didn't used to be Tim Gunn.
Merlin: He had to go too far in his life to figure out what the right mix of patterns was.
Merlin: And boy, could there be a lower stakes thing to try out the world than having patterns?
Yeah.
John: yeah right well who's that really gonna harm you know i started pattern clashing when i was in high school as a fuck you and then gradually moved into well it's just a necessity because i'm i'm poor and i only have seven things and you wanted to look preppy right yeah and then as time went on i realized a lot of patterns
John: they do yeah but i just grew into understanding like oh the rules say you can't put this with this but that's stupid because look at the the line of color that's running through this perfectly matches the line of color that's here in this and so they match the patterns are a third order
Merlin: I think a bigger problem, and I'm not going to go to the mattresses on this one, but I think a bigger one that I think affects a lot of people, including people with variations on trouble seeing colors, is that sometimes it's just those two colors are too close to each other or those five colors are too close to each other and it makes you look like you're in a cult.
John: And this is the thing about developing taste, right?
John: Because if you see that, if you see that, that you would never, it would never occur to you to put a thing together that like was, was four grains off, unless that four grains off is playing a role in a larger tableau.
John: But from the time she was in kindergarten, her mother has read all the books.
John: Her mother is a professional dresser.
John: And she would wake up in the morning at my house and she would come out of her room in an outfit that she had created.
John: And I would say, you look smashing.
John: And she would go.
John: Smashing kippers, you'd say.
John: And I would say, let's get in the car and go to school.
John: Yep.
John: oh god no so she discovers your daughter as she's been dressed like that all day yeah oh no when she wakes up at her house yeah and she toddles out of her room in her little outfit her mother goes you can't wear those together and my kid from a young age stood her ground and said you can and i will
John: And they would have these hilarious, to me, hilarious, 7.30 in the morning screaming fights over some top.
Merlin: Not least because your partner, daughter, mother partner, she's talking about a preference and a convention.
Merlin: And not that people shouldn't have preferences or conventions.
Merlin: They shouldn't do.
Merlin: But it's not like you can't bring a gun to school.
Merlin: To make a silly example, right?
Merlin: It's not like, oh, it's harmful for you to do this.
Merlin: Is it more like I'm trying to keep you from people thinking you're a weirdo?
Merlin: Or I'm trying to keep you from people thinking that I don't have any taste myself?
John: On our own time, I would say to her all the time,
John: What does it matter?
John: She's a first grader.
John: If she wore clown shoes and a Pagliacci hat, what do you care?
John: And I think what it was, in the same way that my father wanted me when I was in first grade to grow up to be a U.S.
John: senator, her mother, and the same way that you wanted your child to love Sloan from a very young age, her mother wants her to be
John: of fashion and wants her to look put together yeah and a lot of moms want to dress their little girls like a little doll for a while and she would buy her these little outfits and you know she wants to just this is part of the fun of having a little girl you dress her like a and i was like listen my i've got 45 bow ties like i'm not the one
John: Who's going to step in between this child and her expressing herself?
John: I'm the person who decides what this goes with.
Merlin: I'm the person.
Merlin: You know, like, go for it, kid.
Merlin: You've never heard of a cruise wear plaid bow tie?
John: So...
John: The one thing, and I never would contradict her mother.
John: I would never say, like, let her wear it.
John: You know, I never do that.
Merlin: Well, QED.
Merlin: Like, this is such a big topic.
Merlin: But another part is, like, you've got to let each other have your domains.
Merlin: And, like, I've said this before.
Merlin: I think this is in the wisdom document.
Merlin: And I don't know.
Merlin: People disagree.
Merlin: That's okay.
Merlin: I think a lot of success in a relationship, especially a long-term, if you like, romantic relationship, but boy-girl relationship or whatever your combination is, comes down to how many things only one person is allowed to ever be right about.
Merlin: Because you can settle some of that stuff.
Merlin: Like, if the other person always does the dishes and you never do the dishes, you need to not have a strong opinion about how the dishes are done.
Merlin: Until you started – that's kind of maybe a silly example.
Merlin: But, like, it's a little bit – it's not the same as, like, well, you're not allowed to bring a yo-yo to school.
Merlin: Let's make it less scary.
Merlin: But, like, they're just going to take that yo-yo away from you.
Merlin: You can't have it at school.
Merlin: Don't do that.
Merlin: But this is more like you can't wear clown shoes because it makes me look bad.
Merlin: It makes me look bad as a mom.
Merlin: That's what I'd say to my kid.
Merlin: You've got it.
Merlin: You always, it's San Francisco.
Merlin: You always bring a jacket.
Merlin: Always, always, always.
Merlin: Always, always.
Merlin: Not least because, and like sometimes it's a joke, but not a joke.
Merlin: It's like, I can't have the world see you not wearing a, being 12 years old, for example, and not wearing a jacket in San Francisco.
Merlin: Shivering and with your hair wet.
John: I don't want that in the police report.
John: Well, and so, yeah, there were times when she would pick her up at school and go, she looks like you put 14 things in a smoothie blender and then hit the button once.
John: Like, what the, what the, you know, like she's got.
John: Did you acquire some kind of random clothes?
John: And she's just like, how the hell could you let her go to school like this?
John: And I'm like, it's what she put on.
John: How the hell could you not, madam?
John: What do you mean?
John: What am I going to, I got enough to think about.
John: Yeah.
John: Sing it, sister.
John: Here we are.
John: She's 13.
John: Now, another thing that, you know, and I, again, send your letters to P.O.
John: Box, go fuck yourself.
John: Yep, yep, yep.
John: Anytime in the USA.
John: But my mother, my sister, and my daughter's mother slash partner all have.
John: Otherwise known as the small council.
John: The small council.
John: All have remarkably similar builds.
John: They all are busty gals.
John: And that is not my normal.
John: I am not like a boob guy.
John: I'm not chasing anything.
Merlin: You don't need to say that.
Merlin: It's a fact.
John: There they are.
John: They have narrow waists.
Merlin: Some people got a prominent dumpster.
Merlin: Other people got cankles.
Merlin: And then some people wear wigs.
Merlin: It's America, man.
John: It happens the way it happens, right?
John: Yes.
John: And they're all very, as already stipulated, extremely frank in their conversation and have been their whole lives.
John: So I grew up in a house where people were talking about their bosoms all the time, talking about their bosoms and how this bosom, that bosom, bosom, bosom, bosom.
John: And so that's just the language that they use.
John: And my mom is 90 years old.
John: So she grew up in a time.
John: Which means she's had bosoms for a pretty long time.
John: She has, but she also grew up in a time where if you weren't wearing a girdle, a girdle that cut off circulation to your legs, you were some kind of.
Merlin: It's like wearing gloves.
Merlin: You weren't dressed.
Merlin: You need something that's, you need a foundation wear that's going to give you the au courant shape.
John: Yeah, this girl, which is made in World War II to help airplanes land on an aircraft carrier.
John: But there's also all those other connotations.
John: You're a loose woman if you're walking around with your body ungirdled, you know, all this kind of stuff.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: And so they talk about... You're going to get breath intoxication from all that extra air.
John: That's right.
Merlin: You breathe too easily, madam.
John: So, and again, there are lots and lots of people right now that have many, many theories about women's bodies and how they're supposed to talk.
John: Everybody's different.
Merlin: Can we put it on the money?
Merlin: Can we just put it on the money?
Merlin: No one uses money.
Merlin: Everybody's different, John.
John: Yeah.
John: And if my 90-year-old mother wants to talk to my 13-year-old daughter about bosoms, I the sure as shit am not, A, judging, B, even really, like, I got no, you want to talk about body positivity, write a book about it.
John: It's a classic y'all and Paul situation.
John: Yeah, exactly.
John: You're Paul and this between y'all, both, you're all Pauls here.
Yeah.
John: And you know what?
John: Your theory, put it in a book, sell it in an airport, that's fine.
John: You're going to change the world over there.
John: I'm dealing with what I got here.
John: I was dealt a hand.
John: And so here she comes, 13 years old, and her mother...
John: for the first time, says, you can't wear that top.
John: It's too revealing.
Merlin: That is such a complicated conversation.
Merlin: Now I understand.
Merlin: Now I, okay.
John: Now I understand.
Merlin: And like, oh no, that is such a complicated conversation.
Merlin: My mother.
John: Oh, that is, all this makes me want to cry.
John: As I walk up to the conversation with my kid, my mother's also got a fucking opinion about it.
John: You bet she does.
John: You bet she does.
John: Got an opinion about it.
John: She had boobs in northwestern Ohio.
John: And my mom developed early.
John: She had boobs when she was 10 years old.
John: And it really affected her life.
John: Oh, hell yeah.
Merlin: Oh, I've known so many women.
Merlin: I've had a couple friends that got reduction surgery.
John: a lot of us for just like straight up health reasons but it was also just like i just cannot have this be who i am singularly anymore is like the girl with the boobs like think about her in my mom in 1945 in small town ohio exactly you know in like a pro in a dress from her grandmother you can put your dick in any of these holes but not my daughter
John: So I'm standing at this fucking cafe.
John: I just woke up 20 minutes ago.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: And I walk into this.
John: And of course, my sister, who at 54 years old or 53 years old, is very proud of her figure and dresses in a way that accentuates it in the modern style.
John: And my daughter's mother, who's also proud of her figure, who also dresses in a very different way.
John: Yeah.
John: Everybody's different.
John: And now they're all, now they have a new cause.
John: I know this is not the point.
Merlin: Never mind.
Merlin: Well, I mean, obviously I don't, there's elements of this that are kind of weird to talk about, but like, did you have a reckon about whether what she was wearing was inappropriate?
John: Oh, so this is all happening in the moment, right?
Merlin: Because they're over on the other side and they can probably, if you talk loud enough, they can hear what you're saying probably.
John: When my daughter was born,
John: This, uh, this freaking hen clatch all sat around some room with me and they were like, you know, she's going to have a bosom.
John: And I was like, huh?
John: What?
Merlin: It's almost like they're like sharing a diagnosis of future sickle cell anemia.
John: Well, and they're like, what do you want to do about it?
John: How are you going to feel about it?
John: And I was like, you know what?
Merlin: I'm going to cross that bridge when I come to it.
Merlin: Like, I don't, I not only do, I don't have an opinion about that.
Merlin: If I did have an opinion about that, I would want to share it in very circumspect ways.
Merlin: Is this a thing we really need to be addressing while the baby's in that little plastic rolly cart?
John: But here I am at the bridge.
John: Because my daughter knows that I support her fashion.
John: My daughter knows that I support her.
John: And she's very much now wondering, she's looking forward in her life, and she's wondering, who are my allies?
John: And she has identified in the whole family that of all the people, the one person she can say stuff to with and not get any kind of judgment on her is me.
John: Right?
John: She can come to me and say, I had this thing with this kid at school, or this happened, or this happened, and I go, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
John: And so now, and she has got us.
Merlin: Which is, if I could say in passing, if what you're saying is true and accurate, well, that's one reason she keeps telling you things.
Merlin: Because let me just say, here's the thing in life.
Merlin: I was talking to somebody the other day about, like, sometimes your kid tells you something you hadn't been expecting.
Merlin: And you must consider that a gift.
Merlin: You must consider that...
Merlin: You should feel very honored.
Merlin: You should feel very grateful that that kid is willing to tell you what their deal is or how they are.
Merlin: Don't treat it lightly.
Merlin: And certainly, my God, more than ever, that is not an opportunity for you to give notes or advice when your kid comes and tells you something they're vulnerable about.
Merlin: You feel like she was kind of expecting you to go sort of like...
John: stand up for her well we're living in a world too where there's a lot of energy poured into the world it's a fucking it's a quart of cottage cheese every second poured into the world from from opinionators all around about how fathers talk to their daughters
John: About their bodies, about sex, about all these things.
Merlin: All the stuff a teen girl loves talking to her dad about.
Merlin: Well, except.
Merlin: How about your menses?
John: Have you had your menses?
John: There's no reason a teen daughter wouldn't want to talk to her father about it.
John: And the idea that that is weird.
John: Oh, yeah, I know.
John: Is a thing that is culturally enforced by a mentality.
Merlin: A mentality that we have covered QED so many times on here, which is like the way when we were growing up, dude.
Merlin: Like, that was like, oh, that's a lady thing to go talk about.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: Oh, no, no, no.
John: Dads can't talk about that.
John: Oh, you got your period?
John: Oh, well, that's none of your dad.
John: Your dad's never going to speak about it.
Merlin: You should just hold up your hand and go, eh, eh, eh, and then admonish her for having brought it up at all.
John: Oh, go talk to your mother about that.
John: I'm reading the Wall Street Journal over here.
John: The way you just are is shameful.
John: I don't know.
John: Women, whoa.
John: Back to the paper.
John: And so there's absolutely no reason for that.
John: If the child isn't ashamed, why would I introduce that?
John: Why would I introduce shame into the conversation?
John: i don't have any shame i mean i have tons of shame but it's i know i'm so glad you said that it's such a big deal and people don't realize what a big deal that is but here but she is looking at me slyly uh-huh and my mother she's figuring out how to cross the bridge my mother's looking at me like a dragon and her mother
John: is looking at me like a dragon.
John: And my sister only has that one look.
John: You know, a lot of them are just dragons.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: Born in the fire.
John: And I say, well, I support your mother.
John: Oh, okay.
John: I support your mother.
John: If she says that she wants you to put a cover on...
John: then she has, you know, has authority here.
John: And she and my kid looks at me, and here we are at the bridge, but she knows that I...
John: She knows that I mealy-mouthed it.
Merlin: But, I mean, okay, but, like, am I getting from your implication here that you sensed that she, if you, like, knew what she was doing?
Merlin: That's for sure.
Merlin: No, I mean, like, in the sense that, like, yeah, okay, right.
Merlin: So I think that's important to tease out here is, like, right, is that, like, it's not like you're, like, suddenly changing course on this.
Merlin: It's more like you're going, aha, well, this is a new thing where we have to now adjust things because of where this is right now.
John: right and so consequently did she kind of catch that you were being politic well here's what she's asking what she's asking is if i leave mom's house wearing a shawl or a sweater and get into your car to go to school
John: Am I going to be able to take that sweater off and reveal the outfit that I really want to wear?
John: The outfit that I chose.
John: Without you, A, ratting me out, or B, saying, oh my God, you can't wear that to school, or whatever.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: She's testing.
John: And the thing is, she's, you know, there are little girls at her school that are wearing outfits that I that if somebody had worn when I was 25, I would have been like, whoa, what kind of trad wife that's going around?
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: I don't know if my kid invented this, but has popularized in our house that there are kids who are trad teens.
Merlin: Trad teens.
Merlin: Billy does not consider himself a trad teen.
Merlin: It's like, oh, no, no, that's the kind of thing the trad teens do.
Merlin: Yeah, that's trad teens.
John: I mean, you know, it's just normies.
John: It's a new way of saying normies.
Merlin: Yeah, right, right, right.
Merlin: They're like the like, you know, everything typical, like cheerleader type.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Promise ring types.
John: Right.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: And so, and my, but you know, my kid right now has no sense.
John: Like boys aren't interesting to her.
John: I remember the, remember when I went to the Miley Cyrus concert and my first impression walking in was there's a bunch of 15 year old girls in here wearing lingerie, literally garter belts.
John: And I am not sure what to do.
John: Like, I don't have, I'm like, I'm wearing a trench coat and carrying a jingle stick.
John: Like what the fuck am I doing in this space?
Yeah.
John: Sir and sir sir the jingle stick is fine But you're gonna have to get something besides a trench coat a wet trench coat because it was raining And it took me a half an hour more walking around the venue to realize there were no men in the place There were no boys.
John: There were no adult men.
John: There were no teenage boys.
John: There were no boys there were 14,000 teenage girls
John: dressed like sex workers and there were 2000 gay men and this was not about sex right these outfits were about something else and they were talking to each other with their clothes yeah
Merlin: We bring with us all these assumptions.
Merlin: How many times have I told you how ruined I was, obviously, first by Catwoman, but later on by ZZ Top videos, by the hegemonic ideology of what hit me at the time that I was specially stimulated, and then you imprint on these things.
Merlin: But just to say, that's us bringing our own shit sometimes.
Merlin: It might be a bridge too far, but we're bringing our worst case scenarios from our own youth to this.
Merlin: And can I just say, hearing the voice of other mothers and fathers in our head, it would be like, you're not leaving my house dressed like that.
John: Well, I mean, that's all true, except that they're literally wearing garter belts.
John: I mean, what they don't understand is that these clothes are signifiers.
Merlin: Yeah, it's coded in a way that is like you've got a bigger gun than you've realized.
John: And the thing is, I mean, this isn't just like, oh, well, in the old days, a garter belt signified this.
John: But nowadays, it's an important thing to wear to school.
John: And for a time, I think it counted as foundation wear.
John: Yeah.
John: you know because we didn't have elastic so this is how you held up your stockings but this is sex these are sex clothes and there's never been and still i don't think is a way to interpret these clothes other than that they are sex clothes they're not this is not you're never going to wear this like on arrested development lindsey wears a shirt that just says in sparkly letters just says the word slut
Merlin: And you're like, well, see, now that's the kind of example.
Merlin: That's fun.
Merlin: That's fun.
Merlin: She's having, Portia de Rossi's having fun with that.
Merlin: But like, if you said to like, oh, that's a word I've heard.
Merlin: I want a shirt that says slut.
Merlin: And you have to be like, well, give some context for like why that's probably not what you want to do.
John: I think when she's wearing it, she's like, well, I'm going to undermine the patriarchy and undermine the dominant paradigm.
John: And it's like, well, yeah, but also it literally says, that's not what all the guys think you're doing.
John: Yeah.
John: And this is the problem, right?
John: You're going, you're, you're coming up against a world of boys who are with their eyes.
Merlin: And you've kind of already preemptively lost that signification more, you know, unless, I mean, if you're Lady Gaga and you have security, you can do that.
John: But, you know, cosplay is not consent.
John: That's right.
John: But like, and it is not sufficient to say the patriarchy, blah, blah, blah, because men are there.
John: They really are.
John: There's only one reason for men.
John: God didn't even need them.
John: They don't do anything except they bring gazelles back.
John: And they make babies, right?
John: And so they're just look, they're dumb.
John: Men are dumb.
John: They have no plan.
John: There's no culture.
John: They're just looking around for somebody that looks back at them and goes, me?
John: And they go, me?
John: And there it is.
John: You know, it's not, calling it culture is like you're thinking to.
John: But if you wear a sign that says, I am down to fuck, or whatever, like, that's just, you know, that's like... Now, what age do you think a gal could start wearing a shirt like that?
John: I'm down to fuck?
John: 7, 8, 9?
John: When does it start?
John: I mean, you know, at a punk rock show 16, but you got to be ready to fight patriarchy.
John: Yep.
John: Yep.
John: So I, so I'm sitting here and I know she doesn't want to wear that top because she is excited about boys.
John: She's not trying to, she's not even aware of the attention that she's going to get at a cafe from a bunch of guys that drive trucks for a living, wearing that top.
John: None of the, and, but the thing is my mom is thinking about 1945.
John: Yeah.
John: And my mom is like, if you went out of the house like that, you know, they'd never find you.
Merlin: Well, and like, there's the downside of, or the evil side of that, or the wicked side of that, is the whole like, well, I was raised in a certain culture, so I have all of these priors.
Merlin: But another one is that each person...
Merlin: Yeah.
John: and and for me with your mom or whomever isn't that kind of part of it is like oh for sure it's not ill will it's like no they're trying to help her yeah they're trying to help yeah and i in high school was attracted to girls that wore sweaters with a one single string of pearls and and and wool skirts so i'm a bad i'm i i've got uh my own sort of culture where i'm like i don't i i would you like girls who could afford dry cleaning
John: I would be appalled, frankly, but that's, like, I'm not going to say wear wool because she... And it's different because you're an assigned male birth person.
John: Like, it's different.
John: It really is different.
John: What I've said to her is, you cannot wear pajama pants in public.
John: Every other thing is fair game.
Merlin: Now this John has an opinion about it.
John: yeah there's one thing she put her feet bare feet on the bulkhead john no and i and i surrendered to crocs i was like wear fucking crocs i don't you know like i'm not i'm not for it but i ain't again it yeah wear them with socks i know it's a thing you do you gotta pick your fights in life but the day you the day you stand in front of me in pajama pants
John: and say, I'm going outside.
John: I'm just, that's the, I have one.
Merlin: And this is also the problem with Ugg boots, if I could say, as long as we're making enemies.
Merlin: It's not that I have a problem with the Ugg boots.
Merlin: It's I have a problem with, like, the Ugg boots and pajamas and the this and the that.
Merlin: And, like, the real problem is not that any one person wanted to do that.
Merlin: I don't care one way or another.
Merlin: It's that, like, it's kind of it's society where you're like, or, you know, for that matter, the guys in denim shorts showing up for jury duty, and you're like...
John: No, that's not acceptable, right?
John: You cannot take your shoes off on an airplane.
John: I don't care how.
John: I don't care where we, if we're all wearing, if we're all wearing garter belts, that's fine.
John: But keep your shoes on an airplane.
John: And I bought them all Ugg boots.
John: I was like, I'm going to get ahead of this.
John: I'm getting way out in front of this.
John: I've bought more Ugg boots than you've had hot meals.
John: I'm buying you all Ugg boots and I'm going to pick them.
John: Yeah.
John: And that, and these are the Uggs that we're wearing.
Merlin: Australians make a strong shoe.
John: Blundstones are also nice.
Merlin: It's a nice shoe.
John: I like a Blundstone.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: But so we're so here we are.
John: Here we are.
John: And this and this divide.
Merlin: Are we still in the restaurant with you two?
Merlin: Like having the.
John: We're not even in the restaurant.
John: We're still standing out front.
John: Oh, sorry.
John: And she's she is surrounded by by elder hens.
John: And she's looking and she's looking at me and they're looking at me.
Merlin: And I'm like, you know, we're not at the running danger field thing.
Merlin: You put your index finger under your collar and go.
John: And what I said was, we're not actually at this bridge.
John: I am.
John: I know you think we're at this bridge.
John: And I, for a second thought I was standing at the edge of this bridge, but we are not at this bridge because you are not sitting in my car.
John: taking your sweater off and saying, this is what I'm actually wearing to school.
John: Right.
John: That is not happening.
John: We're just at a restaurant on a Sunday.
John: Yeah, a Sunday.
John: You're just talking.
John: Yeah, you guys are arguing about something at a level that's
John: We don't even know if it's ever going to happen.
John: You know, she might discover Mormonism.
Merlin: Oh, it's not even that you're... So it could be that you're not at the bridge, but it also could be there's really not a bridge yet.
Merlin: Not a bridge, because school has not started.
Merlin: The bridge is not in evidence.
John: No, I get it.
John: I get it.
Merlin: And how does she respond?
Merlin: How does she respond to your reticence to jump to her defense?
John: Well, this is not...
John: The deal breaker, right?
John: This is she recognized that I was in a hot seat and she knew that this was not the place to fight this battle.
John: Oh, she tested the waters, but she knew when to withdraw.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: She said, I tried a thing.
John: To see if I could get them to contradict each other or to say something in the world.
Merlin: This is quite a con, John.
Merlin: I didn't realize this.
John: Long con.
Merlin: Wait a minute.
Merlin: So there's a con and there's a second con, but they're all both part of the same con.
John: She's testing limits.
John: She doesn't actually care about this top now.
John: Right.
John: She's laying the groundwork for a future top.
John: Oh, she's building a bridge.
John: And she's hoping that I'm going to show one little crack and be like, well, let's cross that bridge.
John: Just because she doesn't succeed doesn't mean you didn't fail.
John: But I also didn't do the like, oh, well, that's between you women.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: Because I've never, I've never been on board with that.
John: Like, I, I'm in this conversation.
John: There's no way you guys can have me in this conversation 80%, but then reserve.
Merlin: That was her error in some ways was trying to make to perhaps her error was in trying to frame it as aha.
Merlin: I can take this old saw about what men will talk about.
Merlin: Knowing the dynamics of your family, that might have been her error that's not realizing that, aha, you can still get me and you can still provoke me, but you're not going to do it with this one.
John: Well, and I think she's still innocent enough that I think it was still to her a matter of fashion.
John: And she is still... And a matter of will.
John: Right?
John: And a matter of will.
John: Yeah.
John: And all this conversation that's happening with the other ladies about the male gaze and about...
John: All of the, you know, and the trouble you're going to have walking to school in 1945 on a public road.
Merlin: Imagine if she had to go, like, walk to a dentist.
Merlin: Walk, like, 80 miles.
Merlin: Wasn't it what your mom did?
Merlin: In the snow, both ways, with a broken foot.
Merlin: But didn't she, like, didn't she refuse?
Merlin: She didn't go to the dentist, and then when she did, she, like, walked there in the snow or something?
John: Yeah, every version of that.
John: Every version of that, I have heard, recounted.
John: You're going to want a code.
John: You've got to cover that up.
John: And my sister with her own thing.
John: My sister who was wearing low-rise, super-large jeans in 1992 and a t-shirt, a half-shirt with Ice Cube's face on it.
John: And I'm like, I don't know.
John: I got no comments on that.
Merlin: Has anybody seen my little slut shirt?
Merlin: Where's my little slut shirt?
Merlin: Holy shit, that's funny.