Ep. 559: "Box of Fog"
John: Hello?
John: Hi, John.
John: Hi, Merlin.
John: How's it going?
John: I'm sorry I'm late.
John: I'm three minutes late.
Merlin: Oh, that's okay.
John: No, no, no.
John: Now I'm four minutes late.
John: No, but I got here in time.
John: I got here under the wire.
Merlin: But you're here.
John: Well, I'm here.
John: I'm here.
Merlin: You're queer, and I'm used to it.
John: I know you are.
John: I'm still not, though.
John: Wait, ain't that a pickle?
John: That's the tough part of our generation, you know?
John: Is that what it was?
John: That's the part, huh?
John: Yeah, you know, our parents were putting their cigarettes out on us.
John: You know how it was.
John: I know.
John: We talk about it all the time.
Merlin: Yeah, I know.
Merlin: The parents put out the cigarettes and we just try to figure out what the patterns mean.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: What do the patterns mean?
John: That was our whole thing.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: It's like Philip Larkin said, you know, don't put out children.
Merlin: Don't put out cigarettes on your children.
Merlin: Yeah, no, it's definitely complicated.
Merlin: There's always change.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: All these things that we're dealing with.
Merlin: Why are you running late?
Merlin: Are you having a late... Not that I'm frustrated or angry, but I'm just curious.
Merlin: Did something come up?
John: Ch-ch-ch-changes.
John: Oh, I see.
John: It's been one of those weeks where I've been... You know me.
John: I go all the way out until I'm... I'm not going to sleep until 4.30 in the morning.
John: And then I say, boy, this isn't a tenable way to live.
What?
John: Because of other people.
John: It would be fine if it was just me.
John: But there's other people that want things, want you to be places.
Merlin: I think the other people are how you find out that it's, if you like, weird.
Merlin: But I don't know if it's wholesome to always do that.
Merlin: But everybody finds their own level.
Merlin: We're a lot like water in that way, John.
John: we are we are yeah that's one of the things about our generation but our parents didn't tell us that we were water they said that we're ashtrays yeah they said they said how did you get in here but uh but in my he's standing right behind me isn't he in my in my world you know i uh i would have a 28 hour day every day would be 28 hours and then i could stay up till four in the morning and still get eight hours of sleep and wake up at a reasonable hour have you thought about trying it
John: Living on a 28-hour clock?
Merlin: Well, it's your idea.
Merlin: What I'm saying is you do have people in your life.
Merlin: Maybe you could come up with some kind of a time-delimited pilot program that would let you test out your 28-day.
John: Hmm.
Hmm.
John: i feel like my whole life has been kind of a test of it and it doesn't it doesn't line up there's no point it's like it's like when you're paying playing three over five or something it just it's like yeah the drums never really is there a five can you do that
Merlin: Over five, four times?
Merlin: That's five notes to the measure.
Merlin: Oh, that sounds kind of like tech now.
Merlin: But, you know, I don't disagree at all with this being a very weird thing that I just said.
Merlin: But what I would say, additionally, is that...
Merlin: Sometimes it's difficult to know what's the problem, what's the cause, what's the solution.
Merlin: You know, I'll speak for myself.
Merlin: I know I have a pretty checkered past of thinking I'm fixing the thing.
Merlin: A good example would be anxiety.
Merlin: You get what they call an X, Y problem.
Merlin: You think you're trying to ask the world for X, but what you really are looking for is Y. You know what I mean?
John: Yes.
Merlin: And, you know, you get five Ys and pretty soon you've created a ladder.
John: Yeah, five whys have some of the best hamburgers in town.
Merlin: Have you ever done that exercise?
Merlin: Have you ever done the five whys?
Merlin: What are the five whys?
Merlin: He asked.
Merlin: He did.
Merlin: He did, and I appreciate that.
Merlin: Well, all I was going to say about your family is in that instance, I'm not saying that you oughtn't have a 28-hour day, you and literally you.
Merlin: That's going to cause problems.
Merlin: You're going to need some special clocks, and you're going to need a certain number.
Merlin: You and your family, you're going to have some reciprocal accommodations to work out during that pilot period.
Merlin: Let's arbitrarily, what do you want to say, a week or two?
Merlin: Well, I don't think that would be enough.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: That's exactly my point, John.
Merlin: This is my problem.
Merlin: When we say, when we, when we, when one says something like, okay, I'm trying to fix this thing and never took, you know, that kinds of things.
Merlin: Like the one that comes up a lot for me, I only have like three good metaphors.
Merlin: And one of them is food and like food and health.
Merlin: Where, you know, there's so many things about human will and aspirations that get screwed up by our relationship with food.
Merlin: Oh, sure.
Merlin: And so but you say like, oh, I'm never going to do that again.
Merlin: What I'm saying is in your case, yes, it probably two weeks might not be enough.
Merlin: But also, is there what you do with the five whys?
Merlin: This is kind of a douchebag business thing, except I think it's actually a really good idea, which is you keep pushing yourself beyond the first why.
Merlin: You mean Y like W-H-Y.
Merlin: Sorry, yeah, which is different from the XY problem, unless you're making a pun, which I kind of was.
Merlin: Well, so that's, yeah, right, but I was slow, slow to catch up.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: But now I'm there.
Merlin: There's not as many puns for X. Solve for X, pun, back, solve.
Merlin: That sounds dirty.
Merlin: They say, okay, what's a good example?
Merlin: Ah, you could start, if you start honestly, you go like, ah, gosh, I always feel like in my case, okay, let's put it in Merlin words.
Merlin: I'm always feeling behind and I'm always feeling not always for even a good reason, a little bit not put upon exactly, but I feel perpetually behind in everything that I'm doing.
Merlin: And like there's certain times of day where owing to my personal chemistry brand.
Merlin: There are times where I'm really kind of like up against it with like, oh, I'm feeling like, let me just concentrate on one thing and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Merlin: But you say like, okay, why do you feel that way?
Merlin: Well, I feel that way because there's not enough hours in the day.
Merlin: Well, why do you feel like there's not enough hours in the day?
Merlin: I feel like there's not enough hours and this is going to be different for everybody.
Merlin: And this started as a joke, but it's actually a pretty good idea.
Merlin: Why do I feel like there's not enough hours in the day?
Merlin: Because I'm not accomplishing as much as I want, and I feel a lot of pressure from people around me about not fitting in.
Merlin: Well, why do you feel that?
Merlin: And the idea, it's not to arrive at the answer 42 and call it a day.
Merlin: It's a way of encouraging yourself to push beyond your one's own sort of default response to why things are the way they are.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: It's kind of, I feel like it's adjacent to stuff like stoicism, cognitive behavioral therapy, that kind of thing, where you, like, really try to push beyond your feeling about a thing to get through to, like, you know, would you ever want to look at the five whys?
Merlin: And you probably want to do that at a different time than when you're sleeping for 28 hours a day.
John: Right.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: It's not really a question.
John: In my case, you know, like, you know that whole thing we talked about two years ago where whether or not you could see an apple?
Yeah.
John: And then that got, that was part of the whole.
Merlin: It's one of those things like birds aren't real, John.
John: Yeah.
John: One of that was part of the whole larger project of like, oh, maybe I'm this way because of that.
John: And it really, really started to become clear to me that.
Merlin: Will you remind me what the can't see an apple thing is?
John: Oh, oh, well, so you remember the inner voice, no inner voice question.
Merlin: Oh, like do you have, like we discovered, like there'll be like a Wired magazine article that says, here's, I've met a person who can't like imagine things.
Merlin: Like don't have, can't create like a mental, isn't that kind of the thing, right?
Merlin: Like you discover, like you have, for example, you've already mentioned this in passing, but you have a bespoke idea of the shape of time or the shapes of times.
John: Yes.
Merlin: I think we actually have a drawing we've seen of what the year looks like for you.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Which is not... It looks a little bit like a very boring F1 track, but it certainly ain't a loop.
Merlin: Right, and it is... It bulges.
Merlin: Doesn't it bulge in February and March a little?
John: It has some bulges, yeah.
John: It goes over here, and then there are some turns.
John: It's definitely... You'd go around the world to the right, for sure.
John: But, you know, it's more of a feeling...
John: The thing what I realized earlier this year was that when people say picture an apple, the reason they say that is because they actually can generate a picture in their mind.
John: Which I cannot do.
John: When I close my eyes, I just see the static of it if you turn the television off in 1972.
Merlin: I feel like I see a red apple with a little bit of a shadow on a flash card.
Merlin: I see a platonic apple.
John: No, I don't see that at all.
John: And when I close my eyes to try to picture anything, I think about what a bad person you are.
John: I can't only do.
John: Well, what I do is I think about the thing I can describe an apple in words.
John: So I think about the idea of an apple rather than being able to picture an apple or anything.
John: Can't picture anything.
John: Eyes closed.
Merlin: It's just... If I ever knew this, I've forgotten it.
Merlin: I don't think I knew this about you.
John: Well, because this is all this type of thing that's just coming up now.
Merlin: It's also its perception.
Merlin: It's self-reporting on one's own perception, which is fraught at best.
Merlin: You're right.
John: You're not wrong.
John: You're not wrong about that.
John: But the fact of not being able really to picture anything in the sense of being able to see it with my mind's eye rather than describe it, because I could describe, I can describe anything.
John: I describe Alcatraz to you right now, but am I picturing it?
John: Well, I can't, no.
John: In terms of being able to self-describe.
John: How about this?
Merlin: If you said to me, you can pick whatever word you want, but like imagine or picture or whatever.
Merlin: So you said to me like picture Tokyo.
Merlin: Like I've never been to Tokyo, but I've seen a lot of images and especially like movies and stuff of Tokyo.
Merlin: So I don't know what this says about me.
Merlin: Temples and stuff.
Merlin: Maybe.
Merlin: Or the island where you can visit foxes or cats.
Merlin: They have lots of good animal islands there.
Merlin: But for me, I'm basic.
Merlin: Straight off the dome, if you say Tokyo to me, I think of Lost in Translation.
Merlin: I know that's weird.
John: But those are concepts, right?
John: You're not seeing it so much as you're... Well, exactly.
Merlin: I feel like at this point I'm getting a little bit into Enlightenment-era pseudo-philosophy.
Merlin: But John Locke talked about this.
John: Welcome to Roderick on the Line.
Merlin: Thank you.
Merlin: How often do you think about the Roman Empire?
John: I'd rather be alone with a bear than you.
Merlin: Wait a minute.
Merlin: How many kindergartners could bring down Hadrian's Wall?
Merlin: But there's so many ways to think about that.
Merlin: I mean, just to be a little basic about it, like which Japan?
Merlin: Like Japan is in the shape of it on a map that I'm familiar with or in terms of like the TV show Shogun or in terms of, you know, all those different kinds of ways of thinking about it that reflect my rather blinkered education about anything that's not right in front of my face.
Merlin: Dotson 3000?
Merlin: dots in 3000 hi when you do it though you don't see so you're like calling up a data file or you're calling up characteristics of something not even i'm guessing it's not as simple as round ish red might have stem half worm haha better than full worm apple haha now i'm just telling jokes like john syracuse this is the thing about a self-reporting as you say i don't have you know uh you know what's your level what's your baseline
John: Maybe we're all an atom in the pinkie of a giant being.
John: Maybe your red isn't my red, Merlin.
John: You're saying I see green and it's not the same green you see possibly maybe.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I pee freely.
Merlin: I pee freely.
Merlin: Yes.
John: What's in my thumbnail today?
John: I don't have any sense of the future.
John: And it took me all until just now, just in the last six months to realize, six months I think, to say like,
John: everybody's always talking about the future and I just don't have I can't picture it at all I hate thinking about the future I hate it so much well and that's the thing I don't even I don't hate it it's fine it's because I don't you're saying it's like not even like yeah yeah yeah I mean does it just feel like kind of what does it feel like an amorphous fog of possibility or like absolutely absolutely anything beyond the next two hours is just a fog and
John: And trying to discern... I totally get that.
John: ...that I would have any kind of plan about it or trying to discern, like, I understand that other people expect me to be places.
John: And so I have a... There are shadows in the fog that are like, you know, you have to be here.
Merlin: When you have those mental models, the same mental model, I mean, you're not simple.
Merlin: You can imagine an apple.
Merlin: And in that similar way...
Merlin: Again, I bring in like the great Daniel Kahneman, thinking fast and slow.
Merlin: Anybody can go, yeah, of course.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: Why would I write that down?
Merlin: We're going to do a thing.
Merlin: They'll do a thing.
Merlin: But in defiance of God's will, which tells people like me and you, how are you going to put a box around future fog?
Merlin: What are you doing?
Merlin: Like you're daring God when you make plans.
John: Oh, absolutely.
John: But I think one of the reasons I stay up late at night is that I don't have any guarantee...
John: that if I go to sleep that I'll wake back up.
John: Every time I go to sleep, I'm kind of dying.
John: It's the end.
John: It's the end of the world.
John: I close my eyes and it's the end of the world.
Merlin: I don't have a... It's like Liz says in the Beths, you die, you die a little death.
Merlin: You die a little death.
Merlin: You're a petite mort.
John: But it isn't a petite mort.
John: It isn't a petite mort.
Merlin: The mort mort mort.
John: No wonder we can't make plans for the future.
John: But it's also why I don't want to wake up in the morning because I also am in my other world.
John: I don't want to leave that world.
John: I don't want to go to this.
John: The real world just seems like, what?
John: That's just full of...
John: other things i have to figure out i have so many questions i have so many i'm writing down questions i have so many questions about this every one of these transitions from like one firmament to the to the next just feels like it's it's it's always new every time i'm like huh oh yeah and so so going to sleep just seems really counterintuitive because i'm awake why would i change that
John: And so it's always 4.30 in the morning, and then I'm like, oh, my God, I have to, you know, I do know that tomorrow I have to.
Merlin: And every minute you're still up, you might be preserving something you prefer.
Merlin: And I have some remarks about this as well I've been writing.
Merlin: But you also, I bet, if you're like me, you're also keenly aware, tick-tock, tick-tock.
Merlin: Like you're getting closer and closer, and like how soon will I be able to see the sun coming up?
Merlin: You know what I mean?
John: Yeah, or my kid is going to wake up in the morning and need kid things in the morning.
John: And I know for sure if she didn't have to.
John: I'm sitting here still sanding a fidget spinner from last night.
John: Yeah, exactly.
John: It's like, oh, Mr. Sun, you're back already.
John: Oh, look at you, Mr. Sun.
John: Welcome.
John: You just keep coming at me, don't you?
John: Ugh.
John: So I...
John: I don't know.
John: I'm very interested in having kind of starting to like move these things around in my head and go like, wow, what if I, what if this, what if I'd known this the whole time?
John: And I don't have, I have no, I'm not doing it out of any kind of regret.
Merlin: But isn't it partly out of just this trying on a jacket style curiosity?
John: Yeah, exactly.
Merlin: And I mean, I, I don't know.
Merlin: I, I sometimes get,
Merlin: Probably not necessarily touchy about this, but there are so many things in my life with the way that I tend to think about things.
Merlin: Just put that in the broadest way.
Merlin: The way that I think about almost everything sometimes feels a little unconventional.
Merlin: And I have trouble sometimes putting a box around fog.
Merlin: And that's why things like what we have come to call thought technologies –
Merlin: which include things like mental models.
Merlin: It's not perfect.
Merlin: It's admittedly a heuristic that one takes on in the same way that one puts on a tacky blazer.
Merlin: And you go like, this might not be forever, but I'm going to see if this model gives me...
Merlin: I'm speaking for myself.
Merlin: But like, is it possible that this model could be a wholesome way to think about things that feel kind of random and inchoate to me?
Merlin: It's just that if the entire world seems to have no problem with that, you start to feel like a real weirdo that you can't put fog in a box.
Merlin: Do you know what I mean?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Aren't we talking about the same thing here?
John: I think we are.
John: I'm constantly trying to, I mean, one of the things I'm trying to figure out is why does everything seem like a surprise to me and no one else seems surprised?
John: Like, it happens 16 times a day where I'm like, whoa, it's Wednesday?
Merlin: So that can be in the same way that one can have feigned surprise.
Merlin: Don't you sometimes wonder if there's real or feigned non-surprise to others?
Merlin: You're like, how are you not surprised by this?
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I think a lot of times people are faking it to seem cool.
Merlin: I really honestly do.
Merlin: I really do.
Merlin: If you didn't know that, you haven't been paying attention.
Merlin: Right.
John: Well, but it's the thing where people are like, well, that's been in your calendar for a month.
John: Oh, right.
John: And I'm like, oh, what?
John: It has?
John: Or I guess.
John: Yeah, I'll keep it here with my other boxes of fog.
John: Yeah, like, what is that supposed to mean?
John: Yeah.
John: And that feeling of like, you know, I'm always saying, like, if UFOs picked us up and dropped us in the streets of Jerusalem right now with no money and no clothes on,
John: I am your guy.
John: You want me in that situation because drop us in Jerusalem with no money and no clothes.
Merlin: It's so nice that you now know you have ADHD because that aligns really well with people who have ADHD.
Merlin: I would be so psyched.
Merlin: I spent my entire life hoping I don't have an emergency, and then that's when I briefly thrive.
John: Yeah.
Yeah.
Merlin: No, it's the sickest shit in the world.
Merlin: It's not anything one can count on.
Merlin: But once things are actually happening, to put it another way, I don't know.
Merlin: I mean, what do you say to a baby?
Merlin: But stuff I would say to my wife and to my child, it's like, we'll do everything we can not to spill the milk.
Merlin: But once the milk is spilled, we can deal with that.
Merlin: It's like, you know what I mean?
Merlin: But you know what you don't want to do is build your entire life into some kind of weird acrimony about who spills the milk.
Merlin: You know, you can't like, you can't brace for the emergency that invigorates you.
Merlin: It comes along and it's part of it is the, if you like, surprise of the emergency that makes a certain kind of mind sort of spring into action with focus and alacrity.
John: Focus and alacrity.
Merlin: Well, don't you feel...
Merlin: Where you're like, if I've got it, we've got it.
Merlin: Okay, so it could be something as anodyne is like, fuck, I do not want to go.
Merlin: I don't want to go to this guy's house and pick up this trailer from him that I've got to get.
Merlin: And then it's like you get into it and you're like, oh, well, now there's a thing where we've got to figure out how to get the time that we get.
Merlin: There has to be at this certain time where we don't know if it's going to work and what piece do we get.
Merlin: And isn't that kind of where the mother of invention is?
Merlin: You're like, oh, okay, I can do this and I can do this.
Merlin: And
Merlin: All the things that were a liability to you in trying to box your fog can come into really strict relief, where a lot of people get panicky and go, eh, this isn't what I expected.
Merlin: I tend to be like, are you kidding me, man?
Merlin: Rules are off.
Merlin: This is an existential snow day.
Merlin: We're going to fucking kill it at this.
Merlin: Bring me more problems.
Merlin: It's when the problems stop that I become sad and like myself again.
John: The other day, well, so several months ago,
John: I am now acquainted with the vice president of communications and marketing for the University of Washington.
John: And he's a podcast listener.
John: And came into the orbit, as often happens, and was like, hey, I have this job at the University of Washington, a place that you went to college.
John: And so I'd like to give you some tickets to the Husky football game.
John: And I said, well, gee, Jiminy Christmas.
John: What a nice way to reach out to somebody.
Yeah.
John: And going to the Husky game was something I used to do with my dad.
John: He and Jack Tanner used to love to go to the game.
John: And I would go throughout my whole life.
John: I went to the football game.
John: And I never really understood football, and I never really understood what was happening, really, even.
John: But it was one of those events that you did with your dad.
John: You went, and it was a fall day, and you went to the big game.
Merlin: It could be one of those things that doesn't feel like a big deal at the time, any of the occasions that it's happening.
Merlin: But later on, you realize that there could be kind of like a hole you want to fill in your life.
Merlin: You're like, oh, that thing.
Merlin: That's crazy.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: Like for me, like going to the library.
Merlin: I love going to the library as a kid.
Merlin: I like going to the library as an adult.
Merlin: It was a no-brainer that I would want to take my kid to the library.
Merlin: And fortunately, I guess my kid likes going to the library now.
Merlin: See, that's nice.
Merlin: And with you, it's the Huskies.
Merlin: Would it be the three of you?
Merlin: Would you sometimes go with him and Uncle Jack and get the whole experience?
John: Yeah, absolutely.
John: And as they got older, you know, in their 80s,
John: And they'd have these tickets in the 300 level.
John: And, you know, we're like walking up these giant concrete spirals and then up these concrete steps and then up these other concrete steps.
John: Riverfront Stadium, we call those the red seats.
John: Yeah, hanging up in the rafters.
Merlin: And I'm like, hey, you guys are 80 and you're well-to-do.
Merlin: There's no way that anybody who could help you would be able to get here in time if anything happened to you.
John: Yeah, buy a $40 ticket, you fuckers, instead of a $20 ticket.
John: And they're like, you don't know what the hell you're talking about.
John: And so we're sitting our way up there, you know, and then they're like, I gotta go to the bathroom.
John: Like, fuck.
Fuck.
John: But as a kid, you know, that was a whole other universe.
John: And anyway, so he gives me these tickets.
John: And I said, well, listen, I hate to be this guy, but this is wonderful.
John: This is very generous, these two tickets.
John: But I need a third ticket because my daughter's mother slash partner also went to the University of Washington and is going to want to come to this
John: event.
John: And so he went to great lengths to get me this third ticket.
John: And then this thing got on my calendar.
John: In November, you're going to a Husky game.
John: Was it like over the summer or October?
John: Well, he's an administrator at a university.
John: This all happened on September 1st.
John: And so this thing, you know, this thing out in the distance, a husky.
John: And I knew it was there.
John: I knew it was happening.
John: It was like a gig.
John: It was like having a show six months out.
John: But then as it got closer, he wrote me and said, there's a reception.
John: Because you're going to have passes to watch the game from the president's box.
Merlin: Shut your mouth.
Merlin: The president's.
Merlin: I bet you feel bad about asking for three tickets now.
John: Well, you thought you were going to be in an area 300.
John: Yeah.
John: I'm like, oh, the president's sweet.
John: And then he says, and before the game, the game starts at six, but starting at four.
John: There's a reception at the boathouse, the crew house, where, because it's... Oh, where your family used to row.
John: Yeah, where my daughter played with her toys.
John: In my home.
John: And so...
John: And at the event, there's going to be a two-star general, and there are going to be all these high mucky mucks.
John: Whoa.
John: And you're going to be our special guest.
John: And by special guest, he means I'm going to be one of like 60 people there who... 60 special, John.
John: There's a lot of people on the planet.
John: That's true.
John: You're not wrong.
John: And these are all the... There's like 70 vice presidents of the university, and 40 of them are about...
John: finding the alumni wherever they are and soaking them for money, right?
John: That's like half of how universities, I guess, how you run universities.
John: If you're at a football game, there are zero academic vice presidents, but there are 100% all marketing vice presidents.
John: Which is great, but there's generals at this thing.
John: You know how I love a general.
John: It's business.
John: It's business.
John: You know how I love a general, and I'm like, I've got this.
John: So now I've got this thing.
John: You have all kinds of officers.
John: I do.
John: I'll take any one of them.
John: And I like them especially when there's a bunch of them together.
John: But so this thing's on my calendar.
John: Well, normally I don't put things on my calendar.
John: I like it when somebody calls me and says, would you like to see Adele?
John: The show starts in an hour.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Now that's a good difference between me and you.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Do you want to see a band that's just started?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: I mean, yeah, I guess so.
Merlin: Is it on TV?
John: I've got two tickets to a space launch.
John: Would you like to go to the moon?
Merlin: How would I even get there?
Merlin: What?
Merlin: That's how my mind works.
Merlin: It's like, oh, yeah, so, like, you know, like, as you know, where my kid goes to schools near Fillmore, that's where a lot, that's where King Giz and the Liz Whiz played.
Merlin: Like, there's that area.
Merlin: It used to be, like, you know, so many clubs, you know, back in the day.
Merlin: And it's like, oh, man, that's, like, over 30 miles away.
Merlin: And it doesn't start until after 7.
Merlin: And it's crossed town, too.
Merlin: There's no director out.
John: Anyway.
John: Sorry, sorry, sorry.
Merlin: It was an important part.
Merlin: We mustn't gloss over this.
Merlin: You don't like to put stuff on your calendar.
Merlin: And are you able to briefly, I don't want to interrupt you, but can you briefly explore what's the thing where you think about it for a second?
Merlin: I'm guessing you think, oh, this is a calendar event like I've heard people talk about.
Merlin: This is a commitment.
Merlin: As I would say, it's a contract with myself that I make for the future.
Merlin: And somebody like me, and you notice I didn't change the time that we started today, even though we started late.
Merlin: I did notice.
Merlin: Because you told me that frustrates you, so I'm not going to do that anymore.
Merlin: Even though it kind of screws up my system.
Merlin: No, it's a little.
Merlin: There's no end of my accommodations.
Merlin: I'll do anything.
John: As soon as you explained that what it partly was, was then it became a record.
John: A log.
John: A historic record.
John: when we did actually start, then I understood it completely.
John: Now I want it.
John: And when you didn't do it, I was like, where's the update?
John: Well, I'm glad we talked about it in that case.
Merlin: Go back to doing what you were doing.
John: I'm sorry I interrupted.
Merlin: Oh, I'm sorry.
Merlin: I'm so sorry.
Merlin: It's your show.
Merlin: But I think this is going to get at it.
Merlin: We'll get to my questions later.
Merlin: But this is one.
Merlin: So what's the process?
Merlin: Hey, I'm senior deputy vice president in charge of money at Husky, and I want you to come to this special show where only 60 people are allowed to come.
Merlin: There's going to be a whole bunch of generals, all kinds of ham salad, and you're going to come and sit in the box of the president.
Merlin: And so is your first impulse like, should I write this down?
Merlin: What's your emotional response as you start thinking about what to do with that?
John: Well, so when he says it, I'm like, that's amazing.
John: I totally am excited about this.
John: I totally want to do this.
John: Yes.
John: And then I don't put it in my calendar.
Merlin: Do you have a sense of why?
Merlin: Because you know that's what calendars can be real good for.
Merlin: Well, because it's so far away.
Merlin: It's so far away.
Merlin: And also... Oh, and you don't want to dare God or similar.
John: It just seems like... Well, what it feels like is we'll deal with that when it's closer.
John: Like, whenever anybody says, hey, let's make a- You worry that you're reducing other opportunities?
John: Are you jinxing yourself?
John: No, no, no, no, no.
John: No, no, no.
John: I mean, I fully intend to do it, but there's no point in talking about it now.
John: What is the point of talking about it now?
John: It's three months from now.
John: Talking about it now is just to, it's just pouring milk out on the ground.
Merlin: But then they told you not to do that.
John: By the time that happens, the milk we have in the fridge now will be either gone or spoiled.
John: Whoa, it would have to be different milk if you want to drink it.
John: Exactly.
John: So if we're putting milk in a glass about this show three months from now, it's the wrong milk.
John: It's the wrong glass.
Merlin: For somebody who can't think, that's pretty good, John.
Merlin: You're going to want the fresh milk.
Merlin: You're going to want the milk of the day.
Wow.
John: And so then the day of the event, you block it out.
John: Is that how it works?
John: Well, so, but the problem is that's not how the world works.
John: So as we get closer, he's sending me emails.
John: Did you get the ticket link?
John: Are you, is it on the, is, do you need a parking pass?
John: And every one of those things is like, well, those are all things that I would worry about.
John: Like the morning of the thing.
John: Like a parking pass, that just seems like something to deal with six weeks in advance.
John: I guess it is.
John: I mean, I know you guys are sorting out parking passes.
John: So that's why it feels important to you.
John: But from a user standpoint.
Merlin: One is play acting as somebody who one is not.
Merlin: You're like, okay, well, what does a normal person do here?
Merlin: Well, they get all flustered and put it on their calendar and they blah, blah, blah.
Merlin: And they CC everybody, right?
Merlin: You have to like, do you find yourself ever like thinking you have to inhabit a certain kind of character for that?
John: Well, because I don't have... You're thinking about the milk.
John: I mean, this happens in shows a lot where they're trying to advance the show.
John: And so I'll get an email from somebody who's like, hi, I'm advancing the show.
John: Can you send over your stage plot?
John: Which is just a picture of where you want all the instruments and the microphones and stuff.
John: And I'm like, in my mind, I think, here's how a show goes.
John: You walk in, you bring all your amps up onto the stage.
John: The sound guy's maybe there or maybe not yet.
John: And then you put your amps up on the stage where you want them.
John: And then the sound guy comes and he's like, mm-hmm, and he puts mics in front of them.
John: And you maybe talk to him or don't.
John: But every band in the world has a drum kit, two guitar amps, maybe a keyboard and a bass.
Merlin: And if you have anything special, if you've got a zither or if you've got a theremin or if you've got some kind of Renaissance instrument that might be difficult to mic, that's good for them to know.
Merlin: But they should be able to handle an amplifier with two speakers that has a guitar plugged into it.
Merlin: That's not a new problem for them.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: But every place wants this stage plot six to eight weeks out.
Merlin: I used to get this with talks in a double frustrating way for me because I always like to think of others with disagree, but I like to think of my show, my talks as I've revealed it as being a show.
Merlin: And like, I mean, it's one thing to say, like, I bet, I bet for you in passing, that's part of the same way that they might ask for a set list just to know how long it is.
Merlin: What are the lighting cues?
Merlin: Or, you know, in that case, if there's going to be three, five, six a day of bands, they need to know what kind of things they're going to have to change between acts.
Merlin: I'm guessing that's probably, probably, you know, kind of part of it.
Merlin: But I used to hate it because they'd say, can you send us your slides?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And I'm like, for what?
Merlin: For like approval?
Merlin: And sometimes it was just like, well, they just need to.
Merlin: I think the secret was they wanted to know that you actually had a talk planned.
Merlin: But sometimes it would be like because we want to print it out and give everybody a copy.
Merlin: It's like I cannot say strongly enough how much I think it's not a good idea to, quote, print out my slides and give everybody a copy.
Merlin: I mean, it would be like printing out the storyboards for Hot Fuzz instead of watching the movie.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: That's exactly what I was thinking.
John: The storyboards of Hot Fuzz.
Merlin: Well, it could be another movie that's very... How about Mad Max?
Merlin: Is that better?
Merlin: That is so much better.
Merlin: Now I can picture it.
John: I mean, I can't picture it.
Merlin: Joe Doroski did the same thing with Dune.
Merlin: You know, him and Moebius, they did all of that, and...
Merlin: You know, you draw the movie first.
John: I mean, definitely the first Dune movie, I would have rather have read the storyboards.
John: Okay.
John: Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa.
John: But what I'm saying is... You were the Kwisatz Hara.
John: When I get this email...
John: In the past.
Merlin: Generic email.
Merlin: Sorry.
Merlin: Generic email from somebody you've never heard of.
Merlin: Blah-dee-blah-blah form.
Merlin: Email.
Merlin: Send me your whatever's called.
Merlin: Your hot topic.
Merlin: What's it called?
John: Send me your stage setup.
John: It's not even a form because it's always somebody's job to do.
John: And it's on their list of things to do.
John: And I used to write back and say, it's a four-piece rock band.
John: And they would say, well, do you have a stage plot?
John: You know, they'd come back.
John: I need a stage plot.
John: And I'm like, here, imagine a stage plot.
John: I don't know if you can picture an apple in your mind, but imagine a stage plot.
John: Drums, two guitars, bass.
Merlin: Yeah, this is part of me.
Merlin: I would never do this.
Merlin: merlin 2024 would never do this merlin 2008 pretty definitely might have done this um hey do you like music yeah hey have you ever seen the beatles playing somewhere yeah it's pretty memorable right you got drums in the back and then you got you got you got a bass guy who's oddly enough in this wonderfully like visual way is playing bass left-handed he's on the left side of the stage as we look at the stage and then there's three there's three microphones uh two guitars
Merlin: a bass, and then that's my stage plot.
Merlin: Because if you've ever seen the Beatles, we do the same thing except we're the long winners.
Merlin: Add a keyboard and we're basically the Beatles.
John: But the crazy thing is that I know from past experience that whatever you put on the stage plot,
John: It doesn't affect what happens the night of the show at all.
John: If the sound guy has been given a stage plot, if somebody at the club has printed it out and given it to him in a binder, here's tonight's show, he's going to look at it, and there's going to be zero information that he couldn't... Thanks for all this documentation.
Merlin: So basically, I need a bunch of S-57s and monitors?
Merlin: Got it.
Merlin: Yeah, you could...
John: You could paint the new information on the head of a pin that this has for this person.
John: And also half the time I get up there and I'm like, actually, you know, tonight I'm going to do a spoken word thing.
John: So I need another microphone over here.
Merlin: Steve Reich or Philip Glass or something.
John: Right.
John: And I have never asked a sound man for a change in the moment.
John: where the, and I should say sound person, I've never asked the sound person for a change in the moment where that person didn't immediately affect that change with no complaint, right?
John: And there's no, so anyway, for me, every one of those is just a problem to sort out as simply as possible in the moment.
John: And I can't tell you the number of times someone asking me for a stage plot
John: caused there to be a chain of emails where someone was expressing increasing frustration over a period of weeks that they did not have the documentation that they needed so that they could check this off of the list of things.
John: And everybody in my world is always like, how hard is it to just keep a stage plot on your desktop and send it?
John: And I'm like, you would be surprised at how hard it is.
John: It's extremely hard.
John: But this, so this, this situation with the parking pass and the, and the football game and the, and the guest and what complicated it was, was my friend was like there, you have tickets to the game, but you also have passes to the president's box.
John: You can't get into the game without the tickets, but then the passes are what are going to get you into where we are eating, uh, like little petty fours and there's as, as much coffee as you can drink.
Mm-hmm.
John: And we're going to run out of cookies early.
John: Like that's the, that's where you're going to be, but you also need this other stuff and all of it.
John: And I'm like, okay.
John: And it's all on a calendar somewhere and all these different things, parking passes and ticket master links and stuff.
John: They're all stacking up, but I can't see them.
John: They're in the fog.
John: They're so far away.
John: But over time, because of all this, I started to get, um, uh,
John: Well, not anxious, but there started to be an edifice built.
John: Like I'm going to meet generals.
John: I'm going to meet the president.
John: I'm going to bring my daughter and my daughter's mother slash partner.
John: And that means I need a scarf that is in the Huskies colors.
John: And I don't have one of those.
John: So I need to go on eBay in the middle of the night.
John: And look, I found a Tama shanter from the 1970s that says go Huskies.
John: That's a smart look.
John: Yeah, it has a puff ball on the top, so I got to order that.
John: You know, I bet your dad would like that hat.
John: He would love it, you know, and that's the type of thing.
Merlin: I can see your dad wearing a pom-pom hat.
John: Rah, rah, sis, boom, bah.
John: And then at some point, it occurs to me when I'm sitting around, and I'm like, hey, do you guys all have, like, top-to-bottom football hats?
John: And, uh, and lo and behold, because, uh, because of the miracle of the ladies in my life, they both come out of their rooms wearing head to toe football stuff.
John: And I'm like, how do you even have all that?
John: I don't, I still don't know to this day, but anyway, the day arrives.
John: And and and I realized that I have now.
John: Constructed a plan.
Merlin: Did you know?
Merlin: Sorry, just real quick.
Merlin: When the day arrived, were you sorry, forgive me for talking down.
Merlin: Were you aware that that was the day that you were going to go meet the generals with your family?
John: Well, I couldn't help it because in the four days prior, I'd gotten all these emails from people I didn't know.
John: Here's your reminder.
John: Here's how you get your parking pass.
John: You have to go to this.
John: You have to download that.
John: And then there's a map and you have to go to there.
John: And I'm like, okay, okay, okay, okay.
John: And then you have to get the badge, but you only can get the badge at the reception.
Merlin: And is your thought as those come in?
Merlin: I mean, I know it's getting close.
Merlin: There's a quickening here.
Merlin: But at least I have all this in email.
Merlin: I'll be able to just do all this at a pass.
Merlin: Absolutely.
John: Absolutely.
John: But I don't organize my email very well.
John: But I have started using – oh, you're going to love this.
John: I have started using Apple Wallet.
John: because tickets, people are sending me tickets all the time from 15 different places.
John: And I could never keep it straight.
John: And then I realized you can always put it in your Apple wallet.
John: And then your Apple wallet is only one thing you have to find on your phone.
John: and then you open it, and presumably they're there.
John: You don't have to try and log on to Ticketmaster while you're standing out in front of a stadium.
John: So the day arrives.
John: What a company.
John: And I'm like, okay, I got it.
John: I got all the ladies.
John: I got them in their Huskies gear.
John: I've got tickets, parking passes.
John: John, did you remember the Tamashantra?
John: Got the Tamashanter.
Merlin: Okay.
John: I've got a little, there's a little bit of hat redundancy because when I was on eBay, I was like, that's also a cute hat.
John: So there's like enough Husky hats.
Merlin: And who knows, this could be the beginning of the whole thing.
Merlin: Maybe the general starts specifically asking for you and you don't want to always be wearing the same Tamashanter like some kind of tramp.
John: Well, and what happened was the hat with the beanie, the Tamashanter, my daughter's mother slash partner was like, that's a cute hat.
John: Oh, I could see that.
John: Oh.
John: And then it went away.
John: That was so cute on her.
John: Then it belonged to someone else.
John: Okay.
Okay.
John: And so here we are, and I'm like, okay, I'm going to pick the little one up from school, and we're going to go right to the game because we're going to get there in time to, before the cookies have run out, we're going to meet the generals.
John: And so now I'm the one with a plan.
John: And normally I'm not the one.
John: Normally I'm the one where someone with a plan says, oh, we got to do this and that and this and that.
John: And I'm like, got it.
John: You know, wind me up and turn me loose.
John: I will get all of us there.
John: I will get us there.
John: I will get us into our seats.
John: I will have, everybody will get a cookie like I'm the man.
John: But that's because I'm executing their plan.
John: but now i'm the one with a plan and then my daughter's mother slash partner says oh did i forget to mention that i have a hair appointment today and i said oh you did you did forget to mention and she said well it'll probably be done before
John: whenever that is that you had in mind.
John: But, you know, what you should do is get the little one at school.
Merlin: Does your mind if she's going to be wearing a hat?
Merlin: Because it seems like maybe she could put that off a day, at least in your system.
Merlin: Your box of fog can't accommodate a hair appointment.
Merlin: Hey, you took my cool tamashanter.
Merlin: Won't that be okay for this?
John: Well, we've talked about this before, which is that this is her birthday month.
John: Oh, she's having a jubilee.
John: And so her birthday month necessitates a new hairstyle.
John: You said this, right?
John: This is part of the jubilee.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: And then I heard words come out of my mouth, which I have never said these words.
John: I said, this has been on the calendar for like three months.
John: And I have never spoken those words.
John: I've had those words spoken to me, at me.
Merlin: It's like when you first say stuff you remember your parents saying.
John: Yeah.
John: Those words have been weaponized against me a thousand times.
John: This has been on your calendar for three months.
John: But now I'm the one saying it.
John: And I'm like, but what do you mean a hair?
John: How are we going to?
John: Now, in any other situation, I'm like, great.
John: Okay, so you've got a hair appointment.
John: The thing starts at this time.
John: Yeah, but now we're in the quickening zone and things have changed.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I mean, there's an urgency.
Merlin: We're quickening.
Merlin: There's an urgency to what we're doing here, and this is a glitch that is not part of even a general plan.
John: Not at all.
John: And I...
John: This is maybe the one plan I've made in the last six months.
John: And so anyway, not to belabor it, but I don't know if this is a surprise to you, but the hair appointment went long because things are going on.
Merlin: Well, I mean, you can try to box the fog, but sometimes things take as long as they take.
John: They take as long as they take.
John: And then, you know, this is another surprise.
John: 60,000 people going to a football game.
John: Traffic's pretty bad.
John: There's traffic.
John: They were in your way.
John: Yeah.
John: And then the parking pass is good for the Padelford.
John: Did you remember to pick it up early in the right place?
John: Well, I had it in my Apple wallet.
John: You had it in your Apple wallet.
John: Okay.
Okay.
John: The parking pass was for... So far, this anecdote's making you look pretty good, considering.
John: Well, you know.
John: It's your anecdote, yeah.
John: But I know where Padelford is, and I went there, and they were like, oh, yeah, but the entrance to the Padelford parking at this time is all the way down there by the Forestry Building.
John: You have to go all the way down there.
John: All the way down by the Weyerhaeuser Building.
John: Yeah.
John: They call it the Weyerhaeuser Warehouse.
John: Yeah.
John: You cut up the back.
John: You cut up the back.
John: And I'm like, there's no, you can't even get all the way through.
John: And they're like, you can't.
Merlin: You got all the traffic.
John: Wow.
John: And so, and it's in traffic the whole time.
John: And we get there.
John: And then, you know, and then I'm like, okay, now I'm the one that's trying to like, I've got, I want to go see the generals.
John: And we're already really late.
John: And that's never, that's never my, I'm not that person in this equation.
John: The one that's like, we're late.
John: And eventually we get to the boathouse, the, the boys in the boat boathouse,
John: where my dad used to take me to meet the boys in the boat, and it's all boarded up with plywood because there's a new boathouse.
John: Oh, come on.
John: And I have seen the new boathouse from the water,
John: But when I looked at the boathouse on the invite, instead of saying the Hilgendorfer boathouse, it said the Bosenfaffer boathouse.
John: Right, right, right, right.
John: And I was like, well, I've never even heard of the Bosenfaffer boathouse.
John: I thought it was the Hilgendorfer boathouse, which is the only boathouse there is.
John: Not my boathouse.
John: They're like, no, there's a nice new boathouse.
John: And so by the time we got all the way through it,
John: We missed the reception.
John: No.
John: Didn't meet the generals.
Merlin: Oh, man.
John: So did you get to go to the president's box at all?
John: So here's the thing.
John: So I'm standing out in front of the stadium, and I'm just defeated.
John: Oh.
John: And there's the voice in my head.
John: That's like, there's no, there are no stakes here.
John: There's nothing at stake.
John: You could get in the car and go home because you don't, it's not like you have any money on the game.
John: You didn't, why are you defeated?
John: And, and then the other little voice was, well, I had a plan and
John: And I was like, oh, this is why I don't make plans.
John: That was what you drew from it.
Merlin: Because this feels terrible.
Merlin: I had a plan.
Merlin: That's a novel thing to take away from that experience.
Merlin: I had a plan, and when you have plans, they fail.
John: This is a terrible feeling.
John: And you know, and my, my kid is so good at these situations and she puts her hand on my arm.
John: She's got this whole thing where she puts her, puts a light hand on my arm and she says, daddy, it's okay.
John: And I'm like, I know, I know it's okay.
John: And she's like, you just, you know, like take your moment or whatever.
John: I'm like, okay, I'm having a really hard time recovering.
John: Not because there was nobody that I even knew by name that I was going to see.
John: But I had constructed this idea that I was going to walk into the boathouse with my family all dressed in purple and gold.
John: And there were cookies and unlimited coffee.
John: And there would be people that would say, oh, it's you.
John: And now I'm standing out in front and I don't have my passes or my tickets and it's, and the, and then I can hear the kickoff.
John: Not only have we missed the whole reception, but we missed the kickoff, which again, doesn't matter to me at all, but it mattered to my dad.
John: And my mom actually said to my kid, she was like, your dad's got passes to sit in the president's box.
John: That is his father's.
John: That is everything he's ever done in his life.
John: That is the thing that makes his father up in heaven go, my boy, my boy has arrived.
John: More than any other thing he's done.
Merlin: Until you start flying to Western Nevada to meet with a pilot on the rig.
John: Well, yeah.
John: Or, you know, I mean, the only thing that would elevate me higher in my dad's eyes is that I, you know, that I was part of a campaign to recapture New Guinea.
Merlin: Oh, gosh.
Merlin: He's looking down.
Merlin: He's looking down right now.
John: He had a plan for New Guinea.
Yeah.
John: My little girl recognizes.
John: I wish you wrote it down.
John: Like, oh, like this would matter to grand granddad, somebody I never even met.
John: But this is, you know, granddad cares whether dad has it has a pass to the box.
John: And so, oh, I'm just like, I'm slumped over like none of it and none of it worked.
John: And I kind of drag my feet over to the gate, and I have the tickets on my Apple wallet, not the passes.
John: I've surrendered.
John: The passes, whatever.
John: And I bleep us in, and we go in and we find our seats, not in the president's box, but the seats are marvelous.
John: And we sit down in the seats and I'm like, and we're, you know, like the game is going and it's one of these, you know, just a beautiful evening classic football in the fall.
John: We're playing UCLA who we love to, we love to beat.
John: And I'm sitting there and I'm just like, you've got to collect yourself.
John: What is happening?
John: You're so disappointed.
Merlin: At this point, you're feeling, so to speak, off your game a little bit.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: You're not recovering well and quickly from this.
John: Yes, exactly.
John: I am struggling to get back on my feet where I am like, yay, go Huskies, or hello, we arrived, or this is already amazing.
John: And that other voice is very embarrassed, like saying to myself, like, come on, guy, like, this is not, what is, something else is happening in you.
John: that is not related to any reality because none of this actually matters to you at all or at all.
Merlin: But were you aware at the time that one source of your frustration, I mean, if it were me, I would be feeling physiological things, right?
Merlin: Like I would feel a little keyed up and stuff like that.
Merlin: But at this point, like just to clarify, you're not saying, oh, you know, it's vitally important to me to see this particular Huskies UCLA game.
Merlin: But it's, you're, but you are processing all
Merlin: why you're feeling how you're feeling and what you're feeling.
Merlin: I mean, do you feel partly like you blew a chance at something kind of special and the plan didn't happen?
Merlin: As you're interrogating that, what's your feeling about how you got to there?
John: Yeah, it's exactly that, right?
John: I had in mind that this was going to be a kind of Christmas, and now it's not.
John: And I don't know why...
John: I don't, I don't know.
John: It still is.
John: We're still at a Huskies game, like on the, on the 40 yard line.
John: And this is still incredible.
John: And I'm actually now the source of robbing the fun out of it.
John: Like my kid would just be like, oh, okay.
John: We didn't meet any generals.
John: I never cared about that.
John: Let's watch, explain to me how, how football works.
John: And I can't snap out of this like, but there's just, you know, there might be.
Merlin: Now it's got, for whatever reason, whether you created it, whether you were just there at the wrong time, there's a pall over it that there wasn't before.
Merlin: It isn't carefree fun because no matter how much fun we have, it wasn't the plan.
Right.
Merlin: Kind of, right?
Merlin: I mean, that's how I... Maybe I'm projecting, but that's how I... No, that's exactly right.
Merlin: I could give fuck all about a lot of things in life.
Merlin: Sometimes it'll be like, hey, look, I never wanted to go on a hike in a picnic.
Merlin: I don't like either of those things, particularly.
Merlin: But if we do it, can we like, you know, make some plans and da-da-da-da-da?
Merlin: And did you call to see if the place was actually open?
Merlin: And I'm the... Not the opposite of you, but I certainly share a lot of your frailties, but they evince themselves in very different ways.
Merlin: And for me, that's more like, well...
Merlin: If you are going to run this, you've got to check all that stuff out.
Merlin: You've got to find out what time we get the parking things, and then how do we get from here to there?
Merlin: And again, as a retired project manager, I'm always, at that point, before the milk has spilled, critically, I'm trying to make sure that we have the nicest milk we can when we get there.
Merlin: There's a lot of milk in this episode, and that surprises me.
Merlin: You never know.
Merlin: But I'm like that, where I'm having a second-order disappointment with myself that now casts a pall over the event.
John: Casa Paul.
John: And the thing about the amount of... In our family unit, there's very little... Well, let's just say that I did not feel that there was very much...
John: interest in my plan and partly it is because i'm not usually the one that's like here's the plan and so i thought that just the fact that i had a plan was cause for interest interesting and okay and it felt like even at that moment if i had said let's get in the car and go home never mind uh everybody would have been like oh okay well so we don't yeah fine or you know there wasn't like no one was invested
John: And that was a feeling that I was not accustomed to.
John: Like, why isn't anybody invested in my plan?
John: And I feel like I get that a lot from other people.
John: Like, well, I had a plan and I'm like, oh, I didn't even know about it.
John: And so here I am, it's the other side of the coin on all of this stuff.
John: And so sitting there on the stands and I'm just like, what am I, you know, how am I going to get back?
John: And then I look over and here is vice president of marketing, uh, Jack Martin from the university of Washington standing in the aisle and he's waving three shimmering
John: golden tickets in his hand and he's like hey i didn't see at the reception so i thought i'd come down and give you your oh my god jack is so nice he's you know he's marvelous what a lovely man and he's like here's the passes to the president's box and he writes stuff down he does for sure and he points up at the president's box which is which is hovering above us
John: And, you know, fishing line comes down.
Merlin: I got a golden ticket.
John: Well, there's 60 people standing around us in Husky's Tamashanters who are all looking at me and then looking up at the president's box and then looking back at me.
Merlin: And I'm like, I don't know.
John: Maybe there's cookies up there.
John: Do not my friends become addicted to presidential box passes.
John: So Jack's like, come on.
John: And so then we do.
John: We make it up there to the president's box.
John: And it's fine.
John: You know, it's nice.
John: The view is great.
John: And there's all the coffee you can drink.
Merlin: Is it climate controlled?
Merlin: Well, so it's open in the front.
Merlin: If I was the president and I had a box, forgive my saying, I would want it to be climate controlled.
Merlin: I'd want a wet bar.
Merlin: I'd want a clean bathroom with a lock.
John: There's one of those.
John: It's warm inside, and then if you want to feel the brisk air, you can go sit out on the floor.
Merlin: on the balcony that's nice there that's or you can be in there the whole time and never we had that at the uh cincinnati stingers uh coliseum when they when they they had a coliseum and that became for the singers and we had some rich friends we went to their box one time and it was like that it had i think it had like a sliding door where you go outside onto like a balcony that was like the actual gladiatorial events were happening we saw a russian circus there one time and they hit a bear and upset me for years
John: Oh, no, they hit a bear.
Merlin: Because we could see from where we were up in the box, we could see that when the bears got off stage, I don't want to trigger anybody.
Merlin: I'm not even going to say it.
Merlin: I'm going to say, as I saw, I saw a large man strike a bear repeatedly, and it stuck with me for years.
John: Yeah, the Slavs, you know.
John: Believe me, you're not the first one to bring that up.
John: But so in the end, it was all... Did you end up going up to the box then?
John: We went up to the box.
John: It was great.
John: I met the president and sat and talked to her for a while.
John: My friend Dow Constantine, the King County executive, was there because he's also a vice president of marketing, except he's like a president of marketing.
Merlin: You get a regular Illuminati type situation here.
John: Yeah.
John: And then he introduced me to a Washington state senator that I had never met before.
John: And he and I sat and talked about politics for like 20 minutes.
John: And he was very smart and very, I had a wonderful conversation with him.
John: I'm so glad you went.
John: Worth it.
John: yeah and uh where's the ladies at this point the ladies are there and then a a small portion of the huskies marching band files in and does like four songs what there's there's like 40 of them like a drum line yeah they crowd in and do like a drum line with the trombones boner boner they actually played they played tequila
John: They did all this stuff.
John: And it's just like, oh, wow, you know, this is how the other half lives.
John: Because who goes to the president's box?
John: A bunch of people that they're trying to soak for $100 million donation.
John: That's who's normally there.
John: And so everybody I was introduced to, Jack Martin, is like, and this is John Roderick, local celeb.
John: And they're all like, mm-hmm.
John: Because they can look at me up and down and go like, he doesn't have $100 million.
John: This guy doesn't have $150.
Merlin: If I knew you, I'd already know you.
John: And but then, you know, then they see me talking to Dow and the senator and they're like, well, now, wait a minute.
John: Maybe we underestimated this guy.
John: He is missing a tooth.
John: And he did bring some people wearing a tam-o-shanter into the box.
John: The older one who's kind of pretty could really use a haircut.
John: But in my case, my takeaway coming out of that was like, what happened to me there that I got so sideways on it?
Merlin: Especially because from one point of view, you really like getting dropped into the middle of nowhere and just seeing how it's going to go with lots of things.
Merlin: And now there's lots of things that are different about that.
Merlin: Like you just taking a cheap flight and ending up in Europe is different than going with preparation.
Merlin: You're a different person.
Merlin: You've got a different life.
Merlin: You've got a different...
Merlin: set of people that you care about that'll be there with you but like it is interesting because it's whether or not you had gotten your box of fog set up correctly it's somewhat do you see though that at least to me anyway that it's interesting because it contrasts with your how much you relish not taking the same route twice how much you really maybe that's just like a different kind of freedom just you're not maybe you don't thrive under the dearth of freedom that leads to president boxes mm-hmm
Merlin: But do you see what I mean, though?
Merlin: Again, maybe it's because you're by yourself.
Merlin: But you seem like somebody that would like being dropped into a South Korean game show where you just have to figure it out.
Merlin: You like things like that in some ways.
John: Love it.
John: Love solving puzzles.
John: And honestly, I think that if my life was built in such a way that I had to do that every day, get to places on time.
Merlin: It's like a SEAL Team 6 type situation.
Yeah.
John: Well, except in that situation where it's like, oh, well, you've had your parking pass in your calendar for six months or whatever, you know, like I would be, it's kind of like being on tour, which I found incredibly stressful.
John: I wouldn't have admitted it at the time.
John: Right.
John: Because I loved the.
John: I loved the pre-phone years where it's like, all right, we're 40 minutes outside of Cleveland.
John: Get in the car.
Merlin: Take a piss and get in the car.
Merlin: We're going to listen to Jerky Boys for three hours.
Merlin: Nobody talks.
John: That's right.
John: And here we go.
John: We're going in, and we're going to find this venue.
Merlin: But do you see the difference, though, that you've got something tantalizingly close and familiar, even if it's the name of a different city, a different venue, different from the one you were at last time, whatever, right?
Merlin: But it's on the radar screen that an ADHD-affected person can process.
Merlin: We're like, I'm not going to think of this as 20 stops over 30 days or whatever.
Merlin: I'm thinking of it as like, I've got to get us to the next place, get into the hotel, get the rooms, that kind of stuff, right?
Merlin: You're keyed up in a more manageable way rather than having a box of fog every three months.
John: Yeah, like the next 45 minutes are going to make or break us.
John: And that's how I feel about every next 45 minutes.
John: Oh, that's so good.
Merlin: Yes, John.
John: That's good.
John: This one has a lot more stuff in it than... And the further we get beyond 45 minutes, the more it becomes fog.
John: Fog.
John: Absolute fog.
John: I have no idea what the show tonight is going to be.
John: I have no idea what the, you know...
John: This is one great thing about King Gizzard and the Wizard Wizard.
John: They make a new set list every night.
John: There we go.
John: Now we got three in a row.
John: Now it's officially a trend.
John: They make a new set list every night.
John: It's always the singer, the one singer, the main one.
John: Stu.
John: Stu.
John: Stu, like two hours before the show, goes upstairs and somehow out of his mind... With paper, right?
John: Didn't you say it's not Excel?
John: It's not with paper.
John: With paper, pulls out a three and a half hour set list out of his brain that's different from the one they played last night or the one they played in that town the last time they played in that town.
John: And the band knows their music so well that he can just...
John: They seem to have a very competent team.
John: He puts a brand new set list in front of them and they're like, mm-hmm.
John: And then he hands the set list to the tour manager who immediately... Two words, boys.
John: Jazz Odyssey.
John: Jazz Odyssey for the whole show.
John: I am so into that.
John: Like that is so right up my alley.
John: Like, okay, here's the, except I would say every night, no set list, you know, call an audible after every song, call an audible.
John: We did that for, we did that for years.
John: We would play on that 2008 tour until Nabeel was like, listen, just let me make sets.
John: I'd stand on the stage and just be like, call an audible.
John: Anybody in the crowd, who's got a song they want to hear?
John: You've seen me do that.
Merlin: Oh, I have.
John: And it's great.
John: It's so fun.
Merlin: Everybody else thought it was going to be cinnamon, but now it's give me all your loving or whatever.
John: Exactly.
John: You know, maybe the show has an unusual flow.
John: Maybe there's an unscheduled dance piece.
John: Maybe the six most popular songs were the first six we played, and then there's going to be 12 more songs that are like...
John: yeah let's play uh like give me a moment but you know really take it out really take it out yeah yeah yeah really unspool it yeah unspool it so anyway here here we go into the fall and you know i have that calendar i was telling you about where i where i circled the days and i and i uh and i then i put a highlighter on because it's so not helping you
Merlin: The circle didn't really... I've never seen the calendar and I hate that calendar so much because it's just enough to temporarily, forgive me for doing my job, John, but it's just enough for you to get the unearned relief of having written it down without actually having a redundant system that'll make sure you don't actually forget it.
Merlin: It's the worst.
Merlin: It's like writing down the last four digits of a phone number and no name.
John: It's hanging on the refrigerator by a magnet, and I completely forget it exists.
John: Except sometimes I go look at, you know, I go to the refrigerator to get something and I see it and I go, oh, right.
John: I have a calendar, right.
John: There are things to do on it.
John: And I look at it and I go, oh, at least they're not tomorrow.
John: Yeah, right.
Merlin: That's a nice thing the calendar due to let you know all the things that you haven't done yet, but you haven't ruined yet.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: It's really more like a museum for time.
John: As long as it's not tomorrow or today, then I don't have to think about it.
Merlin: This is causing me so much stress.
Merlin: I just can't even – I just can't even fathom that because I just – I know what I used to be like.
Merlin: And it isn't like I flipped a switch one day and became a different person, but without –
Merlin: Going into too much.
Merlin: Like, I was always a late person, incomplete projects.
Merlin: I just didn't fucking care.
Merlin: I failed two classes when I was a senior in high school.
Merlin: I just didn't fucking care.
Merlin: I just didn't turn stuff in.
Merlin: I didn't do things.
Merlin: I would show up.
Merlin: I would have intercourse too long.
Merlin: And then my date and I would forget to go to the dinner party.
Merlin: And we found out it was actually four people.
Merlin: And now nobody's eating dinner because we were having intercourse.
Merlin: Right around this time, around this time, maybe one month shy of 25 years ago, let's say I had met a new person in my life and that happened.
Merlin: I didn't know that.
Merlin: I'll tell you there's a single exaggeration to that.
Merlin: which is it was a dinner party for six people, which is kind of almost worse than, well, it's not worse than four people, but we were one third of a dinner party and we didn't even show up.
Merlin: We thought it was like a casual thing.
Merlin: But like, that's how I have been in my life.
Merlin: And maybe it's not rational.
Merlin: I think I've come a long way both that, so you were saying earlier, God, you said something at the very top of the show where I was thinking about how you are and how things you do are like a pendulum.
Merlin: And it's so difficult sometimes for one to know
Merlin: Whether the pendulum is done swinging this one way or whether it's already begun swinging back the other way, you know, I don't mean to make this, you know, to like Boethius's wheel.
Merlin: But like, I think that I think that's something that we all feel sometimes, especially if, for example, we're chemically a little more excited sometimes than other times.
Merlin: But that's why it stresses me out.
Merlin: Can I ask you my one question?
Merlin: I had other questions.
Merlin: Here's the other things I was going to ask you.
Merlin: We're out of time.
Merlin: I wonder if one reason you like night better is because people bother you less was one of the questions.
Merlin: I wanted to mention the fact something you learn when you have a baby, that the most difficult time is transition time.
Merlin: And then you realize that A, transition time is almost all the time.
Merlin: And B, that affects everybody, not just babies.
Merlin: including grown ass men transitions as you were alluding to was hard oh i think you have uh you fight dueling certainties in your life i think we both fight people with all the different certainties in life but here's my question to you the very first question what's your relationship with freehand drawing
John: Oh, I love freehand drawing.
John: In fact, when somebody asked me if I could see an apple.
John: This is, you see why I'm asking this.
John: Yeah.
John: I said to them, if you asked me to draw an apple,
John: I would put my pencil to paper, and I would start making a line, and I would keep making that line until it looked like an apple.
John: I would not be looking at an apple in my head and trying to recreate it.
Merlin: It's almost like another version of keep cutting away the marble until all that's left is Michelangelo's David, right?
John: That's it.
John: And I sit and I draw, I doodle and draw all the time and I love to draw things and I can draw things from life.
John: Like I could look at somebody at a table and sit and draw them.
John: Does it look like the thing, do you think?
John: Yeah.
John: Oh, for sure.
John: For sure.
John: Like I've always tried to, and I've learned just enough techniques of drawing to be like, I can.
Merlin: If you're able to using it with however you are, that's cool.
Merlin: God, I'm envious of that, and I'll tell you why in a second.
Merlin: But that's interesting to me because while you seem self-aware in the sense of saying, like, I don't imagine – I don't see an Apple –
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: No, my brain, which is apparently extremely left-brained, I will go so far into drawing what I think an apple looks like, and it looks nothing like an apple.
Merlin: But even though I can, quote, see an apple, I can't make an apple.
Merlin: And I haven't learned those tricks like shading.
Merlin: I haven't learned stuff like negative space.
Merlin: And like, if I had any sense, just like learning piano, I just sit down and fucking do it.
Merlin: But do you know what I mean?
Merlin: Does that, does that, do you understand why I asked you that question?
Merlin: Because I'm thinking about, because there, I wonder how all those things fit together because they're like, sometimes I like to doodle partly because I don't know what it is that I'm doodling.
Merlin: It's probably just the geometric shape.
Merlin: But I sometimes find that the less I, quote, think about what I'm drawing, the better it looks.
Merlin: And again, I know enough to know all the drawing on the right side of the brain stuff, right?
Merlin: Like, try anybody out here.
Merlin: Go tear a page out of a magazine if you still have those.
Merlin: A picture you've never seen before.
Merlin: Look at a magazine upside down.
Merlin: Tear out a big picture.
Merlin: Put it in front of you.
Merlin: And then draw it without ever seeing what that photograph looked like.
Merlin: in the correct orientation.
Merlin: And almost everybody, but especially people like me, will make a better drawing if they draw from a photo that is not in, you know what I'm saying, like an upside-down photo?
Merlin: It would blow your mind how much better for somebody like me that looks.
Merlin: Not only can I picture an apple, not only can I picture Christy Brinkley, if I try and draw her face and I do it upside-down, it'll be way better, even though I can picture a Christy Brinkley or an apple.
Merlin: Do you see the neighborhood I'm trying to get out?
John: Yeah, you're interrupting some thing in your brain where you're jumping in and screwing it up somehow.
Merlin: I mean, I can take a dictionary definition out of the dictionary, like something I've never seen or heard of before.
Merlin: And based on a dictionary definition, I could try to make what that thing looks like.
Merlin: But that is so far detached from the way my brain actually thinks about the world.
Merlin: It's a very clunky definition.
Merlin: but probably instructive exercise to me.
Merlin: And that's why I ask, because I wonder sometimes, I know now this officially gets way too abstract and obscure, but I do often wonder about things like as somebody who don't, doesn't, or can't draw, I'm so envious of people.
Merlin: Speaking of Moebius, I don't know if you ever saw that, that documentary, um,
Merlin: Jodorowsky's Dune, but just seeing how people like him, or for that matter, people like Edgar Wright, people who can just draw little stick figures that you can tell, or you can tell what it is, you can tell what it does, you can tell relationship of sizes with this minimum of lines, right?
Merlin: Because you're seeing a shape, whereas I'm seeing a bunch of words that turns into an image, and they're so far not compatible.
Merlin: Do you see any role in
Merlin: in how the imagination joins with thoughts about the future and the past to complicate one's ability to turn that into things in the world.
Merlin: Sometimes it's a real benefit.
John: When I think about drawing, and I'm not drawing from a picture in my mind, but I'm also sort of not drawing from a concept of it either.
John: When I put the pencil on the page, I'm thinking, here's a blank page.
John: I have to fill it with marks.
John: And somehow out of those marks will emerge an apple.
John: And so it's more that I know what isn't an apple.
John: It really is the Michelangelo.
John: Like, I'm just going to— Here's a summary.
Merlin: Not apple, not apple, not apple, little apple, little apple, not apple, not apple, not apple.
Hey, apple!
Merlin: But that's too this to be an apple.
Merlin: That's too apple.
Merlin: But when I'm drawing an apple, which I don't very often, but if I were to sit down right now and put my mind to it, I can tell you one thing that just occurred to me is that, and I think this becomes important, especially with visual arts, I'm not drawing a specific apple.
Merlin: I'm drawing the idea of an apple.
Merlin: Like, not to be too cute about it, but do you know what I mean?
Merlin: Like, whereas somebody like Moebius, and if you've never looked up his work, the guy's just M-O-E-B-I-U-S.
Merlin: I think his name is Jean Giraud is his real name.
John: Didn't he, he's from the strip.
John: He invented the strip.
Merlin: He invented the Moebius strip, that's true.
Merlin: The recursive strip.
Merlin: He and Escher, M.C.
Merlin: Escher, which actually M.C.
Merlin: Escher, if you don't notice, is a palindrome.
Merlin: It's spelled the same way forward and backwards as long as you don't check.
John: Come on.
Merlin: As long as you don't check.
Merlin: I see.
Merlin: But no, I've seen this with lots of people.
Merlin: Have you ever seen that little icon of me, that little black and white image of me with glasses?
John: It's on my phone.
Merlin: That's based on, well, not based on, long story short, I have a friend who doodles professionally.
Merlin: And he actually makes – he's done a lot of stuff making graphics for businesses and da-da-da-da.
Merlin: But one of the things he does somewhat delightfully, compulsively, is he just draws.
Merlin: Whenever people are talking, he just draws the whole time.
Merlin: That's where that came from.
Merlin: And as much as somebody like John Syracuse says that doesn't look like me now, it looks more like me than I look like me if you know me in some ways.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: But he's drawing a specific person.
Merlin: It isn't like he's got some kind of chatty G prompt that says, draw some large-jawed man who used to be more interesting.
Merlin: He's making a specific person in three dimensions.
Merlin: And I don't know.
Merlin: When I think about perception and I think about ability and I think about plasticity and the ability to change and integrate new information, I can't help but wonder sometimes about...
Merlin: the way we process information and think about things.
Merlin: And I feel like when you look at how people draw or feel about drawing, I don't know, it feels like a clue about how we see the world differently.
John: I think one of the things about learning little tricks is that, especially drawing caricatures,
John: Little things that I learned over the years, like, oh.
John: A head is one sixth of a body.
John: There's that stuff?
John: Yeah.
John: But also, there are only five types of head shape.
John: Do they have a square head?
John: Do they have a heart-shaped head?
John: And once you say, oh, okay, I see how that works.
John: then you can caricature somebody because you're like, oh, they have a heart-shaped face.
Merlin: And the eyes are generally a third of the way down the head.
Merlin: They're not as high up as we tend to draw them in cartoons.
Merlin: But once you've got, you're basically doing what you described.
Merlin: You're chipping away all the parts that aren't the person you're drawing.
John: Yeah, exactly.
John: And then there are little things like Faye Dunaway, her eyes are upside down.
John: And so is Mulder from the... Donald Trump has two mouths for eyes.
Merlin: He has two mouths with four eyes.
Merlin: Close.
Merlin: Donald Trump has two mouths, four eyes.
Merlin: Oh, he has two mouths for eyes.
John: Because of your tooth, you thought I'd added a comma, and I was calling him four eyes.
John: One of the funny things about me missing my tooth is that I hear other people.
Merlin: I call this the transverse accent.
Merlin: Yeah, you have a new kind of accent.
Merlin: Owing to the fact that your tooth is missing, don't be ableist.
Merlin: John hears things differently now.
John: Yeah, I hear lisps everywhere I go.
Merlin: John doesn't even see apples.
John: Everybody sounds like Mike Tyson.
Merlin: I'm sorry.
Merlin: Did you watch the fight?
Merlin: Did you watch the girl fight before?
Merlin: I did not.
Merlin: The girl fight was fucking... Sorry, this is still the show.
Merlin: Holy shit.
Merlin: The girl fight right before was fucking amazing.
Merlin: I hate boxing.
Merlin: And these two ladies, oh my God, it was so good.
Merlin: Which, because of course then, like everybody else, I'm sorry, don't listen to this everybody.
Merlin: Of course, like everybody, I don't know.
Merlin: I don't want to say like everybody.
Merlin: I'm not a big fan of Mike Tyson's opponent in that fight.
Merlin: I don't...
Merlin: I don't like him.
Merlin: I don't like what he indicates about the world.
Merlin: And like everybody else, problematic a guy as Mike Tyson is, I thought maybe on this little Friday night, the family will get together and I'll watch somebody beat the shit out of Logan Paul.
John: Yeah, right.
Merlin: Didn't happen though.
Merlin: He had million dollar pants.
Merlin: They're covered with diamonds.
Yeah.
Merlin: Is that right?
Merlin: Oh, so he says.
Merlin: He's very unlikable, John.
Merlin: He's extremely unlikable.
Merlin: You know, to lose a likability fight to Mike Tyson?
Merlin: Yeah.
John: I did not have any interest in it at all.
John: And I have been vaguely interested in hearing people talk about it.
Merlin: People are tough on it.
Merlin: I mean, like, the fight was boring, but whatever.
Merlin: The production was fantastic.
Merlin: For what it is, it was very well done.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I'm sorry I missed the girl fight, though.
Merlin: Oh, the girl fight was amazing.
Merlin: But I'm not going to spoil it for you.
Merlin: But if you end up watching it, I'd be curious to see what you think about the results and whether you agree with the refs is all I'm going to say about that.
John: You know, one of the first dates that Millennium Girlfriend and I ever did when she was living in San Francisco and I came down there to visit her, you know, like maybe our first weekend together or something like that.
John: And she was like, we're going to Oakland to go to a girls' boxing match.
John: Whoa.
John: And I was like, I am 100% on board.
Merlin: You call that a positive leading economic indicator.
Merlin: This is going to be a good girlfriend, you can tell.
John: I was like, what next?
John: And we drove over to Oakland, and it was in some warehouse.
Merlin: I would love to go to an Oakland girl fight.
Merlin: As long as I knew about it ahead of time.
Merlin: I wouldn't want to know about it on the day it was happening.
John: And it was something, there were seven different undercards.
John: And it was just one after.
John: And it was like a boxing ring set up with folding chairs around it.
John: And there were some big high rollers there, like people in fur coats and stuff.
John: Some whales.
John: Yeah.
John: And ladies just absolutely just beating the shit out of each other.
John: And it was a phenomenal night.
John: I mean, really.
Merlin: You know what they did for this one?
Merlin: All the rounds were two minutes long.
Merlin: It made it so much more.
Merlin: Oh, it made it so much more.
Merlin: Because, you know, you think about when I was a kid and watching like even Ali Frazier or Lance Binks and like any of those Muhammad Ali fights, they would just be so long, especially as he got older and more defensive rope-a-dope stuff.
Merlin: Be like 15 rounds of three minutes.
John: Yeah.
John: And a lot of just those guys are just hugging each other and dancing slowly.
John: That's strategy.
Merlin: Hugging is a strategy in boxing.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: No, I like the two round thing.
John: That makes sense to me.
John: I agree.
John: I actually like boxing.
John: That's the funny thing.
John: They call it the sweet science, John.
John: I was so not interested in that encounter.
John: Yeah.
John: But I do like watching boxing.
Merlin: Did you have an opportunity to send in your stage plot yet?
John: You just sent me an email about a W2.
John: You did it on purpose.
John: You dug up your W2 email.
Merlin: You know, I can only field requests that only you can do for so long.
Merlin: I'm happy to field them, but eventually I do have to forward the email to you.
John: Oh, you just picked the perfect time.
John: And every time I get one of those, I'm like, what's a W-2?
John: What's a W-9?
John: I never know which is which either.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: So, yeah.
Merlin: You know what, though?
Merlin: I'm proud of you.
Merlin: I think you are the belt handler for this episode.
Merlin: I think that's a term for fighting.
Yeah.
Merlin: You're the belt handler.
Merlin: You're the uncontested belt handler, you know, because you're learning about fog and boxes and you're thinking about stuff.
Merlin: And I don't see you improving anytime soon, but at least you feel bad about it.
Merlin: Shouldn't that mean something to somebody?
Merlin: Did you do that?
Merlin: Did I do that?
Merlin: Maybe I feel bad about it.
John: Isn't that middle age?
John: Isn't that middle age?
John: Isn't that middle age?
Merlin: Oh, boy.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: I'm guilty and unappreciated, you know?
Merlin: You know?
John: Yeah, you know what I'm saying.
John: Listen, you know what?
John: If you guys aren't going to respect my plan, then I'm just not going to make any plans.
John: Oh!
Merlin: That was not what they expected to hear, and I think you just taught them a valuable lesson.
Merlin: Just respect Daddy's plan.
John: Yeah, well, what they said was, you don't make any plans normally, so what are you saying?
John: How can I miss you if you don't leave?