Ep. 563: "Enormity Pools"
Merlin: Yeah, it's early.
John: Yeah, it's a little early.
John: I rolled over and tried to get a little more cat nap.
John: Didn't work.
John: It didn't work.
John: I had to get up.
John: But yeah, I'm here.
John: I'm here now.
John: And so are you.
John: I'm here.
John: I haven't been up all that long.
John: Yeah, you know, there's a sign at my gym that says, you're here, and that's great, or something.
John: I don't remember.
Merlin: There's a sign at your gym that says, you're here, and that's great.
John: Yeah, or like, you're here, and that's half the battle, or something.
John: It's supposed to motivate you.
John: Oh, I see.
John: Yeah, like, hey, you did it.
Merlin: You got here, at least.
Merlin: I think the way gym, don't gyms make their money, though, in the end, by like, same way as a lot of things, they oversell.
Merlin: Like, if everybody came to the gym on the same day, you would need five gyms.
John: Yeah, I think that's true.
John: I think the old model of Jim, honestly, in the 90s, it felt like their whole goal was to get you to just pay them for nothing.
John: Like, they all made you sign up for a year, then 80% of the people never went again.
Merlin: Yeah, I signed up for Jim's twice, I think, probably.
Merlin: I know for sure.
Merlin: I can definitely put my mind to one.
Merlin: But no, it was very true.
Merlin: And I think, don't they get a big beginning of the year influx or something like that?
John: Yeah, it's always January.
Merlin: Yeah, but it's very enticing.
Merlin: I wish more places had like a steam room.
Merlin: I wish there was more places that was more like a functional spa than a gym.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
John: I do know what you mean.
John: You know what we don't have here in Seattle that I don't understand?
Hmm.
John: Back in the olden times, the olden times, there were multiple public swimming pools in Seattle that were not connected to high school swim teams that weren't, you know, like part of some 1970s public works build out, but were fancy.
John: There was one right downtown.
Merlin: You're not talking about like a municipal pool, but you're talking like a private pool, but like a nice pool that you could just give them $3 and go swimming or something.
John: well both kinds there was one on on first avenue that was like a crystal palace walls of glass two stories tall you know and this is like 1895 and then out on the out on in west seattle there was a whole amusement park called luna park that had a dance hall and a big salt water swimming pool and
John: And all those things are gone now, and all the swimming pools in Seattle are.
John: They're all great, but they were all built at the same time the BART was built.
John: You know that kind of 1972 municipal improvement program?
John: Yeah, they're all brutalists.
John: And what I don't understand is all these billionaires up here, they all want a basketball team.
John: They all want their own professional sports team.
John: They all want to make a big impact on the city.
John: You got them down there.
John: The billionaires that want to make a big impact.
John: But nobody builds a giant swimming pool spa complex with a lazy river and a waterfall and slides and lap swimming.
John: I mean, you could build a complex that had everything for everybody.
Merlin: It seems really – the billionaire part, I think, is the tricky part because they like to be on hospitals and ski lifts and stuff like that.
Merlin: Sure, sure, sure.
Merlin: I just sent you – I know personally I'm not talking down to you.
Merlin: I'm just telling the listeners.
Merlin: I sent you a link to the history of Sutro Baths, which I know the ruins of which I'm positive, I believe, that I've been to with you at least a couple times.
Merlin: And that's up in the kind of the northeast – well, it's practically in my neighborhood, but out by the beach –
Merlin: And we had the same thing.
Merlin: We had suture baths.
Merlin: And go look at what this, just Google suture baths.
Merlin: You'll probably see the ruins, which were also featured in Harold and Maude.
Merlin: But what it used to be like before it was knocked down.
Merlin: Oh, look at that.
Merlin: Pool after pool after pool, Merlin.
Merlin: Pool after pool after pool.
Merlin: They had slides.
Merlin: They had chairs.
Merlin: And look at, I mean, just look at the enormity of it.
Merlin: It's kind of breathtaking.
John: Oh, the enormity.
Merlin: I mean, that's one of the number one things about it.
Merlin: Okay, so I'm going to kind of write that one down.
Merlin: So one thing we're looking for, whatever we work on next, we're looking for enormity.
Merlin: And I also just want to say in Passening, Passening.
Merlin: Passening.
Merlin: It's early.
Merlin: I want to say in Passening that right-ish across the street, pretty, not across the street, it's probably a little bit away, we had Playland, which used to be like, if you've ever seen the Camera Obscura,
Merlin: that is at suture baths now it used to have the uh there was the museum of mechanical toys and stuff that used to be there yeah i like that place yeah that all that all was playland playland was like you know fun fair as the english would say and that was very near there that you don't have municipal fun times anymore that aren't associated with uh with ip or or privacy
Merlin: IP as in, you know, as in like Disney type things, you know?
Merlin: Yeah, I see.
Merlin: I like to see more unbranded, just nice things.
John: This says that Sutro Baz had seven different temperature swimming pools to choose from.
John: That's insane.
John: Okay, that might be a bit much.
John: You get in and you're like, I want the medium hot ones.
John: That's more choices than stars at a Thai restaurant.
Merlin: Please get Mr. Adolf Sutro on the telegraph, because I have some concerns about the supposed 72-degree pool.
Merlin: But you know what?
John: I bet you they had steam rooms.
John: I bet you they had saunas.
John: I bet, you know, they probably didn't have hot tubs, but the enormity pools that we're talking about would have a whole floor of hot tubs, like on the roof, where you had a view of the city, and you could rent a five-person tub or a 10-person tub.
Merlin: God.
Merlin: Here's something I'm reminded of that actually my kid told me about.
Merlin: I haven't looked into it, but it's apparently a very funny story.
Merlin: The two South Park guys bought a Mexican restaurant.
Merlin: Did you ever hear about this?
Merlin: No, but it sounds right.
Merlin: Just go Google Parker and whatever their names are.
Merlin: Go look at a South Park Mexican restaurant.
Merlin: They bought this, I guess, famous wackadoo restaurant that was going out of business.
Merlin: I don't know all the details, but they totally blew it out, redid it,
Merlin: I guess what I'm saying is, and I'm not trying to criticize the wealthy at all.
Merlin: I mean, for a variety of reasons.
Merlin: It's a bad time to criticize the wealth.
Merlin: But if you had, if I had, I don't even know what money is anymore.
Merlin: But if I had a whole lot of money.
Merlin: Let's say for instance.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: If you had a whole lot of money.
Merlin: If I had a whole lot of money.
Merlin: And you take your whole lot of money, my whole lot of money.
Merlin: I would love to make something majestic for people, like enormity pools.
Merlin: Enormity pools.
John: And here's a question for you, Merlin.
John: Yes, you there.
John: If you were like, I got a whole lot of money, and I'm going to build enormity pools, would you insist on them being called the Merlin Man enormity pools?
John: Or would you call them the San Francisco enormity pools or the sunset enormity pools?
John: Right, right.
John: Or would you want to have it on there somewhere, the Man Memorial Enormity Pools?
Merlin: I love that you're asking me this, and I also love the fact that you absolutely know what my answer to this is.
Merlin: It reveals why I don't have a lot of money, which is I have no desire to have anything named after me.
Merlin: I don't want to be remembered.
Merlin: But if I could make the equivalent of an over-the-top taco restaurant where people could just go and have a nice place to hang out.
Merlin: We've got a bowling alley now.
Merlin: Our mall we've got this thing called not believe it or not.
Merlin: It's this chain I want to say it's an Asian chain called round one And it's a combination bowling alley Just go Google round one and look what these places look like.
Merlin: It's crazy like claw games um
Merlin: They've got billiards.
Merlin: They've got bowling.
Merlin: Now, the problem is I hear billiards.
Merlin: I hear bowling.
Merlin: I hear all those things.
Merlin: And I think of going bowling as a kid where you just go bowling like a person.
Merlin: This is like being in some kind of like Ludovico technique leisure area.
Merlin: There's just so much happening and flashing and there's news and sports because you've got to have, you know, like I don't want to watch TV while I'm bowling.
John: Oh, I went to one of these.
John: We have one of these.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, it probably does rock and roll bowling, you know?
John: No, it's called Round One Bowling, and it's in South Center, and Marlo had a birthday party to go to, and I took her in there, and it was such an incredible sensory overload.
Merlin: It's a little, I mean, it's like, you know how in Vegas, to get to your room in a hotel, you usually have to walk, like at least when we stayed at the Bellagio, you had to fully walk through a lot of casino to get there.
Merlin: It is a little bit like being in a child casino.
John: I had to lay down in the parking lot and stare up at the sky.
John: Of course you did.
John: You're in my car.
Merlin: No, absolutely.
Merlin: It's very overwhelming.
Merlin: But you know, it's cool.
Merlin: Do you know this?
Merlin: I heard this is true.
Merlin: I've never gone to prove it, but I've heard that all of the machines in a casino, you know, all them one arm bandits.
Merlin: Yeah, but like this one, the arpeggios, right?
Merlin: They're like, I heard they're all in the key of C.
Merlin: And that way the machines never make discord.
John: Oh, they all are in weird monoharmony.
Merlin: Yeah, or like pseudo-harmony.
Merlin: I mean, unless you get, you know, modal, unless you go Phrygian.
Merlin: If you've got a Snake Charmer game, you could use the Phrygian mode.
Merlin: I wonder if you could, if one day there's going to be a disruptor.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, somebody who's a C-sharp.
Merlin: Yeah, or they come in.
Merlin: Oh, no, C-sharp minor.
Merlin: They're doing Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.
Merlin: C-sharp minor was very special to Beethoven.
Merlin: He only used it a couple times.
John: They put it in they put it in some key.
John: That's like a the it's like a seventh or so You know what they do you get a King Giz machine that hits microtonal?
Merlin: Oh, it's a microtonal Giz machine, but what I'm saying is like, you know Like think about when we were coming up and at least at the very beginning of the arcade Revolution like I wasn't kind of I wasn't allowed to go because it was where like bad kids went and
Merlin: Is that right?
Merlin: Well, it was true, though.
Merlin: For a while, in the early 80s, it became a little bit more family-friendly, but it used to be where kids went to smoke cigarettes or whatever.
Merlin: And at least in Cincinnati, a lot of people in Cincinnati, when I was a kid, considered video games a form of gambling.
John: Oh, of course they did.
Merlin: I guess what I'm trying to say is, I don't know.
Merlin: Why do I sound so much like Jiminy Glick lately?
Merlin: You sound a little bit like Mark Simpson.
Merlin: Oh Actually, my parents didn't know Glenn Cool My dad was in the gambling video games.
John: Oh boy, gambling's popular now, ain't it?
John: Well, it sure is.
John: People like to gamble because their chances of winning are so good.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: We want to get the hot slots, you know, get the, you know, you can get some tips on what bingo wins and stuff like that.
John: But in Anchorage, I don't remember when the video games first landed.
John: They were in bars.
John: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: The first time I played Pac-Man was probably the cocktail version.
John: Yeah, the cocktail version, right.
John: But the first time that they were in an arcade that I ever saw, it was already full on, just like teenage boys with their hats on backwards.
John: And giant goody combs in their back pockets.
John: Oh, I have one of those.
John: I know you do.
John: You've got to keep it feathered.
Merlin: You do.
John: I couldn't keep my hair feathered.
Merlin: I looked like my head had been cleft in twain by Rorschach.
Merlin: You know?
Merlin: I did not look like Leif Garrett.
Merlin: I looked like the criminal that Rorschach would kill.
John: My hair went straight down.
John: It went straight down.
John: I had a Dorothy Hamill haircut until the day that I learned to cut it myself.
Merlin: Well, that's good because you are very elegant.
Merlin: I had a babysitter in 1976 who had Dorothy Hamill hair.
Merlin: Her name was Sally.
Merlin: How cute is that?
Merlin: Oh, of course it was Sally.
Merlin: But I don't know what I'm going for here.
Merlin: But no, I don't want to be remembered.
Merlin: You get somebody like the Facebook guy.
Merlin: I think he built a statue of his wife.
Merlin: What?
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: And he recently did a song for his wife, which you definitely should not look up because it's very upsetting.
Merlin: Anyway, that guy, he's got his name.
Merlin: He and his wife, they got their names on a hospital here.
Merlin: They do.
Merlin: They used to just call it SF General.
Merlin: And now I think it's named after him.
Merlin: Oh, wait.
John: So it was a pre-existing high school or a hospital that everybody knew.
John: It could be a high school.
Merlin: I'm going to write that down.
John: It could be a pool.
Merlin: It's a high school.
Merlin: This is getting very you look nice today.
Merlin: But it's just called public space.
Merlin: Our new thing is just called John and Merlin's public space.
John: It's not a mall.
John: Don't call it a mall.
John: But he named it after himself.
John: Oh my goodness.
John: This statue of his wife is seven feet tall.
John: It's like a blue girl and she's wrapped in like mylar.
John: Oh, and there's a picture of her standing next... She looks like a goddess in the sculpture, but there's a picture of her in like a fleece jacket drinking coffee out of a blue mug standing next to it, and it's very... I'm so disconnected, though, with this, what it feels like.
Merlin: I think I'm pretty disconnected with what it feels like to... Well, the one that's going to be salient for the audience, I think most of us can agree, is like, I don't know what it feels like to have...
Merlin: 1,000 times or 10,000 times more available money than I currently do.
Merlin: But that's not even the part.
Merlin: The part that I feel very disconnected from is how people get when they've got 10,000 times.
Merlin: And I don't want to turn into a bit or whatever, but a lot of these people are absolutely monsters, and they're so weird.
Merlin: But if we, for whatever reason, let's say advertising makes a big comeback, or maybe we get, oh, no, you know what it is?
Merlin: It's like the Medici's.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, you think we're going to get a sponsor?
Merlin: Somebody?
Merlin: Oh, maybe we get a Medici.
Merlin: Or we get some kind of a Patron.
Merlin: We could get somebody.
Merlin: But I don't know, man.
Merlin: Just a place where you could go and just do stuff.
Merlin: The YMCA is kind of like that.
Merlin: It doesn't cost that much to join the YMCA.
John: And that's why we got that over by the mall, too, just for what it's worth.
John: It's in the same mall.
John: Here's the thing about the YMCA, as I'm going to break it down for you now.
John: Please.
Merlin: This is the thing.
Merlin: I don't have the money, let alone the vision for this kind of thing.
Merlin: I went to the Y and would sit in the sauna and the Russian men would talk very loud and spit.
Merlin: And that was the why.
Merlin: So that's not what they call a luxe experience for a lot of people.
John: Well, what the why is trying to do, at least up here,
John: The Y is to a certain extent interested in churn for some reason.
John: I don't understand what the YMCA's mentality is, but their swimming pool has sessions that are 45 minutes long.
John: And so you go in with your kid, your four-year-old kid who wants to be in the swimming pool.
John: He just wants to get wet and flap around.
John: That's right.
John: By the time they're through the shower and into the pool, you got a half hour in the pool before they start yelling at you.
John: Yeah, adult swim, adult swim.
John: And every kid wants to be in the pool until they absolutely can no longer keep their heads up.
John: And this is why enormity pools is so important, because sessions...
John: You know, like running kids in and out on these 45 minute cycles is just like, I'm not sure if they're doing that to the basketball players, too.
Merlin: Are they like 45 minutes and then you're out?
Merlin: When we were kids, at least in my school, like there was this pecking order for use of the gym.
Merlin: or the fields or whatever, right?
Merlin: So like PE's canceled today because the football team has to roll around in the grass or whatever.
Merlin: You're saying there's like a pecking order.
Merlin: You get a kid, you got two kids, let's say you bring them, God forbid, and you get there maybe a little bit 10 minutes late.
Merlin: And by the time you get them in the pool, they got five minutes in the pool before Gramps wants to do his laps.
Merlin: Exactly.
John: But then even Gramps can only do his laps for 45 minutes.
John: Here's what's crazy.
John: How about having seven pools with different temperatures?
John: Would that work?
John: Seven pools.
John: That's what we need.
John: Seven pools, seven different temperatures.
John: I'm not saying we're going to just lift the hole.
Merlin: Seven brides, seven brothers, seven meats, three cheeses, whatever it takes.
Merlin: But just look at that photo, John.
Merlin: That sepia tone one, the second photo on the page, the interior image of Sutra Bath circa 1900.
Merlin: The thing is that... But imagine if you could also play Galaga.
John: It says there are seven different temperatures.
John: It doesn't say there are seven pools.
John: There might be 14 pools.
John: You know what?
Merlin: That's a good... I bet you did really well at the SAT.
John: You know, that's why I'm here today.
John: Didn't help that much.
John: If I hadn't done well in the SAT, I would be working on a car underbody.
Merlin: I didn't take the SAT because I heard it was hard.
Merlin: I took the ACT and got a very undistinguished 27.
John: I never took the ACT, so I don't know what that score means.
Merlin: It doesn't, I mean, it's like, I don't know.
Merlin: I don't know a lot about sports.
Merlin: But, you know, the number one thing got to be litigation.
Merlin: Because I bet, even if you've got a lot of money and you've already made a statue of your wife and you have a hospital with your name on it where they take all the stabbing victims, it's the general, right?
Merlin: So that, like, when they pick you up in a doorway in the Castro, they take you to the general.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: But it's also the trauma center.
Merlin: It's also like where they take people to be, what do they call it, level one trauma center.
Merlin: It's now called the Zuckerberg Center?
Merlin: I think it's called the Zuckerberg Hospital, I think.
John: Wow.
John: I would ask to be taken to a different hospital.
John: I don't know why.
Merlin: Just take me to the regular UCSF hospital.
Merlin: It's a perfect—I was there.
Merlin: Well, you know, the one that I went to for three days was pretty nice.
Merlin: I would highly recommend—I think it was called St.
Merlin: Mary's.
Merlin: That was a good-ass hospital, considering.
Merlin: But, see, I think litigiousness—you think about it today.
Merlin: When I went to bowl, I bowled alone, just like that book.
Merlin: I went bowling alone a week or two ago because I was like, fam, literally I said that to my family.
Merlin: I said, I think I might get into bowling again because I was into bowling when I was a kid.
Merlin: I was in bowling club in junior high, and I really enjoy bowling.
Merlin: And I thought, hey, you know, my schedule is pretty flexible.
Merlin: They open at 10 a.m.
Merlin: If I get there before noon, only kids who are skipping school –
Merlin: you know are going to be there but point is i got there and like everything today i there was a like a thing i had to sign like a very long disclaimer thing and then there was also like another thing with all the warnings and all the busters on it about don't do this and don't do that now imagine that was something like having a pool with a slide and diving platforms think how many cracked noggins you're going to get in a place like that
John: Well, there is one down in Oregon, as we say up here in Washington.
John: Yeah, I still dream of Oregon.
John: You know, you remember Howard Hughes' big airplane?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: He called it the Hercules.
Merlin: The Hercules.
Merlin: He didn't like it when people called it the Spruce Goose.
John: Yeah, Spruce Goose was not his favorite thing.
John: But, you know, some guy with more money than cents.
John: Do you know how big that plane was, John?
John: Well, I do because I've been in it.
John: You've been in it.
John: Because this guy, this ding-a-ling in Oregon, spent his money to buy the spruce goose, bring it up to... Oh, ain't that ironical?
John: Bring it up to the middle of nowhere.
John: I mean, literally the middle of nowhere, between Portland and nowhere.
John: And he built a museum for it.
John: Portland being the first nowhere.
John: He built a museum for it.
John: It's in there, the whole thing.
John: And it's a great museum.
John: It's like this Paul Allen kind of tendency where you get a guy who's got... See, I'll allow that.
Merlin: I'll allow that.
Merlin: My thing would be, though, the Paul Allen thing, like, don't make it all about me and also make it free.
John: Well, and so this isn't free, but it's a killer air museum.
John: I'm sorry.
Merlin: I'm still thinking about enormity pools.
Merlin: I have it kind of on the brain at this point how we could help the civics of America.
John: I'm about there.
John: Circle back.
John: Next to the Spruce Goose Flight Museum, this guy.
John: Now, I can't stress how much this is in the middle of nowhere.
John: There's not a town around it.
John: You're driving up over a kind of like mountain pass.
Merlin: It sounds like one of those Noah's Ark museums.
Merlin: It sounds like something where they would build it just where the land is cheap and then people would just drive there.
John: That's it.
John: That's 100% what this is.
John: Okay.
John: And next to it, there is a building that is just exactly as big as the Spruce Goose Museum.
John: And on the top of the building, it's a big building, three stories tall, four stories tall.
John: On the top of the building is a full-size 747.
John: Full-size 747.
John: It's an actual 747.
John: That is a classic aircraft, John.
John: Classic aircraft.
John: It's sitting on top of the building.
John: You can't miss it.
John: As you're driving by, you're like, wow, that building's got a 747 on the top of it.
John: And then you realize that the building is an enormity pool and that the water slides of which there are at least four, including one that has a, that has like a kitchen sink spiral thing in it.
John: The water slides all start in the 747.
Merlin: My god, so so you board you make sure your trays in the full upright position And then they want you to keep your head down because you're going down the the bowing tube.
John: That's right There's a there's a kid up there and one of the tubes has a has a Has like a light on it that goes like green and then the kid goes you and then you go down And there's the ones that you go down with the tube and the ones that you go down without a lot like D-Day
John: You know, when it turns green, go, go, go.
John: That's right.
John: You're out.
John: Get your whistle.
John: And it is a wonderful, it's wonderful place.
John: Oh, homie.
Merlin: Homie, why don't you take me to the 747 slide?
Merlin: It's so nice.
Merlin: 747.
John: But it is really fun.
John: There are two problems.
John: It's in Oregon is problem number one.
Merlin: The only thing worse than Oregon is nowhere in Oregon, which is most of Oregon.
John: And that's the other thing.
John: It's not supposed to be where it is, but the place is called Wings and Waves.
John: And it's got a wave pool.
John: It's got an adventure zone.
John: And I understand land is expensive in the middle of nowhere.
John: I'm not making any more of it, John.
John: But if you were Zuckerberg and you were like, okay, I already made a seven-foot stall tattoo of my wife.
John: I already bought a perfectly good hospital and named it after myself.
John: What else is there to do?
John: It steals all your personal information.
John: If you could build an enormity pool right in the middle of a town where everybody... The thing is,
Merlin: You're getting right at it John you're getting right at it.
Merlin: This is the Robert Moses problem He didn't want to build pools where black people could get to it He didn't want to buy parks where you could bring a stroller up steps.
Merlin: You're saying this is a different thing You're saying let's bring the mountain to Muhammad in Muhammad in this case is a lot of you know Probably stressed out moms that want to put their kids in water for a while Think about that think about if you had an enormity pool somewhere there in the Presidio Yeah, or somewhere right in the town.
John: I feel you what?
John: What about one of those areas in San Francisco that used to just be a huge parking lot and is now just also a huge parking lot?
John: Think about all those areas.
Merlin: They turn all the parking lots into parking lots here.
John: Yeah.
John: So turn one of those into one of these.
John: Can you think of a time of year that it wouldn't be packed to the gills with
John: Super happy children.
Merlin: No, no, you're absolutely right.
Merlin: But I'm also realizing it's like one thing, but I want to say it's like that thing, but not that thing.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: So, like, I mean, I like a lot.
Merlin: Personally, I loved water parks as a kid.
Merlin: I wouldn't mind.
Merlin: I'd like having it.
Merlin: For a minute, let's set aside the litigiousness.
Merlin: We'll pull in legal when we need to.
Merlin: But the big ones that make big waves.
Merlin: Yeah, the waves, yeah.
Merlin: You know, those can be scary, but those can be fun too.
Merlin: But we have, for the sake of this project, we have relatively unlimited resources for this.
Merlin: We can do whatever we want.
Merlin: But you're saying, don't make that, you know, this is how they do the Michelin stars.
Merlin: Like one Michelin star means go there if you're nearby.
Merlin: Two is it's worth a little trip.
Merlin: And three is it's that rare kind of restaurant where it's worth its own trip.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: We're going to give you a three star, uh, what's it called?
Merlin: Enormity pool plus in an area that's convenient, but we're also going to take out the stuff that you don't like from other things.
Merlin: So like, I'd like a lot of things that are on a cruise ship, but I do not want to be on the ship.
Merlin: I don't want to be at sea, for example.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: I like some stuff about a casino.
Merlin: It's fun to be able to play Jack black Jack and whatnot, but you know, but like, well, we're going to make, and I'm not even saying family friendly, it could be anything.
Merlin: I mean, with the resources we've got for this, uh,
Merlin: Again, it's kind of similar to a mall, but it's not going to be about going to Zara.
John: You know what I mean?
John: So as we're talking about this, then I'm realizing around the world, there are multiple indoor ski mountains.
John: I've seen this.
John: Including, I think there's one, I mean, there's a bunch of them in like Norway and stuff, but they have them in China now.
John: I think there might even be one.
Merlin: They're trying to build an outdoor one in Saudi Arabia.
Merlin: Because Saudi Arabia is really.
Merlin: Yeah, it was called EOM or whatever.
Merlin: The whole project with the line.
Merlin: They are really swinging for the fences with that one.
Merlin: And apparently it's not going great.
Merlin: But the skiing, you can get like.
John: There's one in the mall of the Emirates in Dubai.
Merlin: Ski Dubai.
Merlin: I think there's one at the.
John: Ski Dubai.
John: Ski Dubai.
Merlin: That sounds like a line from like a George Lucas line.
Merlin: You must get the Kyber crystals from Ski Dubai.
John: Ski Dubai.
John: But if you were building a Zuckerberg and Normandy center, why wouldn't you also have Ski Dubai in it?
John: There's not a reason not to.
John: That's right.
John: And if once you've got a ski to buy and seven different temperature pools and hot tubs on the roof, like you've become a Michelin three-star place to go.
John: And I know for a fact that down in Oskaloosa, Tenawalla or whatever, down in the United States here.
John: I've got family from the United States here.
John: Yeah, exactly.
John: You know, Lake of the Ozarks is just 100 waters.
John: It's a crooked local government, but you can keep your door unlocked.
John: That's exactly it.
John: Right.
John: And there are water parks.
John: Do you remember?
John: Do you remember?
John: Yes.
John: During the early pandemic.
John: Yes.
John: Yes.
John: During the pandemic, that picture that went around from some Lake of the Ozarks party that was in...
John: Some bar and water park complex.
Merlin: It was right at the like this.
Merlin: Boy, your timing on this was really bad.
Merlin: I do remember that was like a super spreader event.
Merlin: Right.
John: Yeah.
John: Where we were all the rest of us were here in the West Coast in our liberal ivory towers.
John: We were all cowering behind our masks.
John: We wouldn't even kiss our grandmothers.
John: And then there was this picture of these.
John: You had to clean your recycling.
John: Remember that?
John: Yeah, yeah, you couldn't.
John: My kid said the other day, do you remember when we couldn't touch doorknobs?
John: And I was like, yeah, yeah.
John: I mean, mistakes were made.
John: But listen, this picture in Lake of the Ozarks, it showed what appeared to me to be, if you had showed me that picture when it wasn't the pandemic, I would have said, what the hell kind of place is that?
John: It was a bar.
John: It was a series of bars connected to,
John: And everybody in the bar was standing in what looked like three feet of warm water, and they were all in their bikinis and all standing really close to each other because there were so many people.
John: And I was like, oh, they're living their best lives down there in Lake of the Ozarks because they're in warm water all the time.
John: Yeah.
John: And they're just standing around drinking, and everybody goes to the University of Missouri in Columbia or whatever, and they're all girls gone wild.
John: And it's a whole different college experience than you and I had, where we were expected to study and do stuff, and we were learning about third-wave feminism and stuff.
John: They're not learning about that stuff.
Merlin: No, they're knee-deep in waters with a chalada limbo or whatever.
John: Yeah, they're all getting marketing degrees.
John: Like, they don't give a shit about fucking Joan Didion.
Merlin: and they have adult water parks as far as the eye can see oh god why'd you have to add the word adult i know and that's what you don't want i know i know none of that none of that monkey business i remember i do remember so much from that time where like you know whatever it's not fun to talk about that time it's people are like sick of it and it's just horrible memories but like my gosh we were so conservative about everything three years ago
Merlin: That was three years ago.
Merlin: I know, I know.
Merlin: But even the most like anodyne, just basic public events seemed to me to be a place where I did not want to be.
Merlin: And if you saw like a photo, John, I swear to Christ, I remember seeing, I don't know, nothing specific, but in 2020 and 2021, I do very much remember like, oh man, like two years ago.
Merlin: Well, think about just going on a cruise.
Merlin: You almost...
Merlin: Like, so you went on the, like you were grabbing the last pontoon out, right?
Merlin: Do I remember right that you went on the cruise and it was right on the bubble about whether that cruise would go out and then it did.
Merlin: And then the Saturday after that Friday was like the beginning of lockdown, right?
Yeah.
Merlin: I mean, sort of the first days of like, no, seriously, the last place you want to be right now is on a cruise ship.
John: The 2020 Joko cruise left in, you know, whenever that was, mid-February.
John: February?
John: Oh, was that long?
John: Yeah.
John: I mean, it was like, well, it was the, no, maybe it was the first week of March.
John: I don't remember what it was.
Merlin: But it was that one weekend.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: When everything went, like, turned a corner.
John: And then as soon as we left the port, they shut down operations.
John: No further cruise ships left.
Jesus.
John: Have fun.
John: Enjoy your soft surf.
John: As we, as we tootled off, you know, like I think the Dominican Republic said like, uh, we're not actually going to let you guys off the boat.
John: And so at least one of our, you're always welcome in Haiti.
John: You know that beach with the machine guns?
John: I do.
John: We went around in circles, and the whole time we were all looking at each other like, are we all going to die?
John: I was so worried about you.
John: I told you this after, but I was ridiculously worried about you.
John: None of us had it.
John: And then when we got back to Fort Lauderdale or whatever, we got off the boat.
John: They drove us to the airport, Fort Lauderdale Airport, which we've all been to a thousand times.
John: Everybody listening to this show has been to the Fort Lauderdale Airport a thousand times.
John: And we got there and it was like a, it was like a refugee camp because they canceled all the flights and all these people had been, had come down to go on a cruise.
John: The cruise had been canceled and then they couldn't get back home.
John: They packed for a cruise.
John: Yeah.
John: Right.
John: And now they're sleeping in the hallway.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: But like, exactly.
Merlin: You've packed.
Merlin: This sounds silly, but like, this is how my brain works in looking back at this.
Merlin: Cause yeah, I've been through that too.
Merlin: I remember, I do recall that when we came back from the cruise, the time you and I were on it and my family was on it, that there was a delay of some kind in Fort Lauderdale.
Merlin: And we just ended up sitting at the terminal in this airport for, I mean, it was just, it felt like hours and hours and hours.
Merlin: It's always the worst part of the trip, right?
Merlin: The going home part of that last mile, but before you even get on the plane for us, they've got to like find you a plane.
Yeah.
John: I learned a really good hack from the nerds on the cruise, which is that they all gradually have learned to travel with power strips.
John: Because when you get to the airport.
John: You might not need it every time, but when you need it, you really need it.
John: When you get to the airport and you're in a community of a thousand nerds and they all have nine things to plug in.
John: Everybody's camped out, protecting the outlet they're at, like Smeagol.
John: Yeah.
John: But if you roll up and you have a seven-plug power strip... You're the Zuckerberg of the airport now.
John: You are.
John: You're the hero.
John: And then pretty soon, one after another person adopted this thought technology.
John: And in those late days of, like, 2020, you walk through the airport and it's just...
Merlin: just power strips daisy chained you know each one with like for over a year i would look at photos of very like normal things or videos of very normal things and it didn't it surprised me how quickly i would look at things like that and get very nervous and think because i we spend all day trying to avoid people and you know anyway i don't want to but but like
Merlin: You're not ready for those kinds of things when you're stuck at an airport.
Merlin: You're not ready for any of that stuff.
Merlin: And you've packed for a cruise.
Merlin: And again, what if you've got a little kid?
John: Insane.
John: And I saw it all around, little kids everywhere.
John: And for some reason, and I don't know why this is, it might be, honestly, Merlin, it might be privilege.
John: Although it was the weirdest distribution of it.
John: But I walked off of that bus from the boat, walked through this airport where I had to wend my way, like tip, you know, stepping over people's lives who had been clearly living in this airport for 10 days.
John: The whole time walking through this airport going, are all these people vectors of contagion?
John: Is everyone in here going to die?
Merlin: Constantly just thinking about one person.
Merlin: All we need really is one person in here.
John: That's right.
John: And I was holding hands with Amy Mann, basically tiptoeing up to the gate.
John: And we walked right onto our flights and flew immediately out.
John: I was not in the airport more than a half an hour.
John: And I don't know why.
John: You're like a Vanderbilt.
John: What the hell?
John: Who am I?
John: I'm just a regular guy.
John: You're the kind of person.
Merlin: Sure, but what I'm saying is if you'd been at enormity pools in the early 1900s, like you probably, there was probably special, the snorks don't get to use the super special pools.
Merlin: You're holding out with Amy Mann.
Merlin: Maybe you get like your own bungalow.
John: I don't know.
John: That's the thing.
Merlin: Well, you know, yeah, your bungalow in Haiti, right?
John: Where they come and they're like, well, the rest of the country is starving, but here's your pineapple.
Merlin: I felt very comfortable in Haiti, you know, because the guys with the machine gun were up by the fence.
Merlin: So that was good.
Merlin: But also it was nice because the beach was really a lot like a parking lot.
Merlin: And it was really like it was basically like put your towel down in the parking lot.
Merlin: Hi, we're a cruise company.
Merlin: We bought an island in Haiti and we have guys with machine guns to keep people out of it.
John: When people talk about Haiti, you know, it's one of those countries where if you're talking about a country in a group of people, there's always a moment where you're like, oh, have you been to Japan?
John: Has anybody here been to Japan?
John: Right, Tuscany.
John: Yeah, but when people talk about Haiti, they almost never say, has anybody here been to Haiti?
John: Because no one's been to Haiti.
John: But I, in fact, have been to Haiti.
John: It's just that I was on one side of a barbed wire fence that was being guarded by people with machine guns.
John: And actual Haiti was on the other side.
Merlin: That was also the stop where I think, wasn't that the stop where somebody wandered off and didn't get back to the ship on time?
John: It was the stop where the person who had wandered off in Puerto Rico or whatever got back home.
John: on the ship because they flew to Port-au-Prince and got some kind of taxi that took them to this barbed wire wall and then they talked their way through the concentration camp wall.
John: This is why everyone should learn French.
John: They were like, listen, I belong on the cruise ship.
John: And the guys are like, step back from the wall.
John: Sacre blue.
John: Unbelievable.
John: Sacre blue.
Merlin: There's a lot of opportunities.
Merlin: Sorry, go ahead.
Merlin: Well, no, no, no.
John: You go ahead.
Merlin: I was going to say was like, you know, if this becomes expansive enough and I think it becomes so important to keep saying, well, this is what we want, but this is what we don't want.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Like, I don't want the feeling of a casino where you feel trapped or like, you know, where your baby has to breathe smoke or something like that.
Merlin: But I'm thinking also play with your toys.
Merlin: But it could also be something like maybe there's an area there where like you could also get like professional work done.
Merlin: Sure, you can get a manicure, whatever.
Merlin: Maybe like that's also a place where like you could meet with a career counselor or an attorney or a military recruiter or something.
Merlin: Maybe there's different kinds of professional services that you could do while your family's at the water slide.
John: So there are people listening to this who are like rolling their eyes at this pie in the sky, Merlin and John and Normandy pool project.
John: But I have been going to concerts lately, Marlon.
John: Yeah.
John: I went to a concert two nights ago.
John: My goodness.
John: Which was a reunited.
John: First of all, here's the concert.
John: Doug Marsh from Built to Spill opened playing acoustic guitar.
John: Just him sitting on a stool singing his song.
John: Second band, Sebado.
John: Wow.
Wow.
John: Third band, Duff McKagan and his country and western orchestra.
John: Fourth band, a reunited Soundgarden with a gal I know named Shana Shepard singing lead vocals.
John: Really?
John: I had a girl singer for Soundgarden?
John: Girl singer.
John: That's cool.
John: A black girl singer.
John: I love that.
John: It was it was it was not what anybody was expecting.
John: It was like it was a full on rock show.
John: And let me tell you, there were 50 different people who came up and hugged me and then talked really close to me.
John: Like, like, yeah, where I could.
John: I was really like.
John: Were they good?
John: Well, they're amazing.
John: Yeah.
John: They're amazing.
John: Is that a Pretty Hate song I like?
John: No, no, no.
John: They only played like five songs.
John: Oh, okay.
John: And Shane is... They're getting older.
John: Yeah.
John: Shane is amazing, but there was one thing that stood out, which was that she didn't all the way learn... Pretty Noose.
John: Pretty Noose.
John: That's the name of the song.
John: I misspoke.
John: Yeah, they didn't do Pretty Noose.
John: And it's a Seattle crowd, so of course they had to play something from Ultra Mega OK, which is, you know, anywhere else in the world, people would be like, what is this?
John: But here in Seattle, everybody's like, yeah, Ultra Mega OK.
John: That's a heck of a lineup.
John: Yeah, it was a hell of a show, but I was getting breathed on a lot.
John: And then, you know, the last two weeks, I saw Sabrina Carpenter, I saw Billie Eilish, and then I went to a Seattle Kraken hockey game.
John: And in all three of those events, I'm in the hockey stadium, the Climate Pledge Arena, which used to be the key arena, which before that was the Seattle Center.
Merlin: The Climate Pledge Arena?
John: Climate Pledge Arena.
John: Okay.
John: I don't know what that company does.
John: None of us do.
John: It's a climate pledge, Merlin.
John: You pledge to the climate.
John: You pledge.
John: It's a pledge you're making to the climate.
John: Like a promise ring.
John: It's a promise ring.
John: Inside the enormous stadium, they have one of those walls that's like a living wall covered with little moss and little ferns and stuff.
John: And as you walk by it, you feel very virtuous being in this enormous dome.
John: But looking at it, you know, the footprint of one of those enormous stadiums, we all know what the footprint is.
John: It's a big footprint.
John: It's bounded on four sides, but it is the climate pledge arena is right smack dab in the middle of the city.
John: It's not out in the suburbs.
John: It's not surrounded by parking lots, which is why it's impossible to park there.
John: But it's like, it is big, but it's also not that big.
John: It's a manageable, sized, enormous place.
Merlin: Do they do like pipe and drake tricks or something?
Merlin: Or is it just, as large arenas go, it feels kind of intimate?
John: What they did was they built it for the World's Fair, and then the Sonics, and the Beatles played there, and then the Sonics in the 90s were like, we don't have enough luxury boxes, so we can't compete with all the other basketball teams in making money for the billionaires that own our team, and that is unfair.
John: And so the city said, okay, fine.
John: And they rebuilt the whole thing.
John: They busted it out and rebuilt it so that the Sonics at the time could have luxury boxes they could sell to their luxury box buyers.
John: I'm rubbing my temples so hard right now.
John: And then within five years, they were like, the luxury boxes aren't big enough.
Merlin: It's always the way.
Merlin: If you give a mouse a cookie, they're going to want more luxury boxes.
Merlin: It's always the way.
Merlin: These chodes, and they get all this money out of the people, and they build these things, and they're like, nah, I don't know, man.
Merlin: It could be a little fancier.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: And this is the same thing that happened in the Gilded Age, where you want to build your opera in a way where you can attract more people and have nicer boxes and that kind of thing.
Merlin: It's, what do you call it, affluenza inflation.
Merlin: It's affluenza inflation.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: That's why we all have.
John: That's why every city has five trains.
John: People are breathing in your face.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: But so then the Sonics owners, the poor Sonics owners, including the owner of Starbucks and the Nordstrom's and all the riches, they were like, oh, we're so we can't even afford.
John: We can't even survive.
John: And so they sold the Sonics.
John: Like the Monopoly man with their pockets turned out.
John: Yeah, their pockets turned out.
John: They sold the Sonics to these guys from Oklahoma City who said, we promised to keep the Sonics in Seattle.
John: and then after they bought it they were like oh but the luxury boxes are so small we just can't afford to do it and so within a year they were like haha we're taking it to oklahoma city it's like and we're putting the sonics into a stadium we're building ourselves that is so full of luxury boxes even though oklahoma city has a population of 150 000 people we're gonna have our own i know that's not true to our oklahoma city listeners
Merlin: Yeah, but it's a good bit.
Merlin: And also, those shows will be flying in for a lot of stuff.
John: That's the thing.
Merlin: They get their jets, and they come in for these fancy things.
Merlin: They get their jets.
John: Yep.
John: Everybody up here is so full of rage.
John: People cry themselves to sleep, even now, because the Seattle Supersonics are gone.
John: What a great name for it.
John: Such a good name.
John: It was a great team.
John: So then, all the billionaires up here got back together, and they were like, we need to get the Sonics back.
John: And the Oklahoma City people were like, ha ha.
John: You can't have them.
John: And so then they said, well, here's what we're going to do.
John: We're going to gut the stadium that we already gutted once.
John: But this time we're going to double, triple gut it.
John: And we're going to get digged down.
John: We're going to keep the outside of it the same.
John: Okay.
John: We're going to dig down.
John: Oh, like an underground shopping complex or something?
John: Well, no.
John: We're going to make it now so that it is an enormous dome because we're just going to keep going down until...
John: Until we put the floor of it.
John: Yeah, we put the floor of it down there.
John: And now we can finally put 18,000 people in here.
John: Oh, and ergo, you get more seats.
John: You get more seats.
John: You get more luxury boxes.
John: Yeah, luxury boxes.
Merlin: Okay, I get it.
Merlin: I get it.
Merlin: I get it.
Merlin: And the number of luxury boxes.
Merlin: Like an IMAX theater or one of those are similar.
Merlin: Or Soarin' at Disneyland.
Merlin: You've got that very sheer seating, if you think of it that way.
Merlin: You're building some kind of a wormhole for sport.
John: You're building a sport hole.
John: Sport hole.
John: Wormhole.
John: Sport hole.
John: And it's got not only luxury boxes, but it also has whole sections that are luxury sections where you go in.
Merlin: Again, like the classes on a ship.
Merlin: You know, I watch these ocean liner videos all the time.
Merlin: And there'll be whole areas for first class.
Merlin: Oh, God, yes.
Merlin: Whole areas for first class, whole areas for second class, like guarded doors.
Merlin: It isn't just the Leo DiCaprio down in steerage.
Merlin: It's like there were a whole and there was this, you know, in the 30s.
Merlin: 20s and 30s, there was this constant one-upping of the biggest one was how fast.
Merlin: Could you win the Blue Ribbon?
Merlin: Could you get from Southampton to New York?
Merlin: And I think it eventually got to five days.
Merlin: Yeah, it was the SS United States that still holds the record.
Merlin: The SS United States is such an amazing ship.
Merlin: You know, they had twice the number of... Such an amazing reef.
Merlin: Oh, man.
Merlin: Don't get me started on the Britannic.
Merlin: I'm still sad about the Britannic.
Merlin: I'm sad about the Lusitania.
Merlin: I'm very frustrated with the Germans right now.
John: Yeah.
John: I mean, join the club.
John: They just lost their government this morning.
John: Actu Lieber.
John: okay so anyway they're digging down they're making they're making a sporty hole so now they got this huge sports hole and i'm in there getting breeds on all the time but i look around this place and i'm like you know what the idea of there being an enormity pool in seattle all the people are gonna go oh we can't it's too much space it's like you're being unreasonable john and merlin oh
Merlin: Like that should be for housing.
Merlin: And you're like, that's a really good point, but that's not, you complain about everything that's not housing, but that doesn't solve the housing problem, nor, you know what I'm saying?
Merlin: It's one of those, I hate to use this phrase, it's a kind of virtue signaling, which is like the civic version of wow must be nice.
Merlin: Yeah, wow must be nice.
John: Yeah.
John: But here's the thing about enormity pools, they're open to all.
John: It'll be a reasonable price point to get in, turn your kids loose all day.
John: And the thing about these stadiums is there's just one event.
John: If you're lucky, there's three events a week.
Merlin: You're not going to see hockey on the same night as Built to Spill.
John: You're not.
John: But Normandy Pools would be open from 8 a.m.
John: to 11 p.m.
John: every day.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: You could have stages like Lollapalooza, only good.
John: Yeah.
John: There'd be pizza restaurants for birthday parties.
John: There'd be a bar on the roof where the hot tubs were.
John: It would be churning out.
John: And it wouldn't even have to make money.
John: It could just break even.
John: And it would give... That's what we don't have enough of in the world today.
John: We don't have enough cool things that just break even.
Yeah.
Merlin: They don't have to make money.
Merlin: They could just break even.
Merlin: The whole like, oh, he's finally going to.
Merlin: This is not purely Trump.
Merlin: This is something people have said for years at every level of American society.
Merlin: Finally, somebody who's going to run the government like a business.
Merlin: And you're like, that's a really silly thing.
Merlin: That's like saying like running.
Merlin: Can I run a bus like a dry cleaner?
Merlin: It doesn't even make sense because it's not a business.
Merlin: You're not losing money by giving people health care.
John: That's part of what you're doing.
John: Anybody who's ever been to Seattle or San Francisco knows that running a business like a business isn't a guarantee.
John: Jiminy Christmas.
John: You do not want to get started with that.
John: No, they hate everybody.
John: They're shutting down all around.
John: Businesses suck.
John: It's terrible.
John: I would never want to run a business.
John: You know who would be terrible at running a business?
John: You and me.
John: You and I would suck so badly.
Merlin: Should we rope Jason in on this?
Merlin: Should we get somebody on this?
Merlin: I mean, think about the people in your world who could put up with being part of a project with us.
Merlin: If we were going to do a really, really expansive mind-bending enormity project in some city, it doesn't have to be mine, doesn't have to be yours, but someplace needs it.
Merlin: They might need it in Tulsa or wherever.
Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, but we don't want to live there.
John: I'm not going to live there.
John: The thing about Jason is Jason is very good at keeping like spreadsheets and he's got a lot of plans and projects and stuff.
John: But I, but I know for a fact he's invested in five different restaurants that have all never made him a single dollar.
John: So in that sense, like I think of the three of us, he would be the one that said that he had the best business acumen, but I don't think that pencils out.
John: Of all the people I know.
Merlin: Don't you feel like we need to bring somebody?
Merlin: I mean, when we say like a business person.
John: What about Thiracusa?
John: Thiracusa is a, he's very businessy.
Merlin: He would be really good at telling us all the things that are bad about it.
Merlin: Well, we don't need that.
John: No, we can do that on our own in our night voices.
John: It's so funny.
John: The people I know that actually make money in business are so quiet about it.
John: They're not, they don't swoon in.
John: They just kind of like, they're sitting over there counting their money and they look up sometimes and go, huh, what?
John: Oh yeah, everything's great.
John: You're doing great.
Merlin: And it wasn't that they watched a couple of YouTube videos, you know?
Merlin: There's not an easy path to that, I don't think.
John: That's how they keep the suckers on the line.
John: I think you're absolutely right.
John: I don't think the Germans should be running Germany like a business.
John: Although, wait, you know what?
John: I do think the new rulers of Syria should try and run Syria like a business.
John: That's fun.
John: I was thinking about this.
John: I was laying in bed thinking about what if I...
John: were given some kind of mandate over rebuilding Syria.
Merlin: I'm already thinking about it.
Merlin: I'm already thinking about this because as we all know, the best revolutionaries, there's no guarantee they're going to be the best people to govern.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: They finally got the Assads out.
Merlin: They found all the pictures of the Assads in their underwear, which is apparently very strange.
Merlin: But these folks are coming in and like, you know, they still, that guy claims, the main guy, he claims he's not so ISIS anymore.
Merlin: I think the United States still recognizes his group as being considered a sort of banned terrorist group.
John: Do you know how many American diplomats are talking to that guy right now?
Merlin: Shit, dog?
John: Yeah, but you know what?
John: They need an anchorman.
John: Their freaking briefcases are like springing open in airports.
John: Papers are flying everywhere.
John: You know what's crazy?
John: Carpet packers, yeah.
John: The incredible Syrian diaspora of the last 10 years, like there are Syrians now everywhere, right?
John: They all went to Europe.
John: They came to America.
John: Syrians everywhere.
John: And they're an incredible brain trust of people, right?
John: They've gone out.
John: They have...
Merlin: you know they have survived and now when they came up in that period in iran and in persia or excuse me in um in syria i think those are both countries where a lot of people got a pretty good education in the western world oh yeah and they were secular nations you look at pictures of like iran in the early like 70s and there's girls in miniskirts walking around i mean it was a terrible you know the shah was bad let's be honest
John: But I think if if the if the Syrian diaspora returns to Syria with all of its intellectual and and financial capital now and the new dude is not he's like, I'm not ISIS.
John: Everybody's happy.
John: You know, they reached out to the Christians in Syria and they were like, you guys are cool.
John: Don't worry.
John: Everybody's fine.
John: Like, anyway, I'm laying in bed and I'm just like, oh, I just wish they would invite me to just consult.
Merlin: Do you feel like there are things that you would try to do?
Merlin: Do you start, is it an educational thing?
Merlin: Is it a communications issue?
John: You know what you do, Merlin?
John: What do you do?
John: The first thing you do.
John: Build a pool?
John: No, you get the garbage trucks back on the streets.
John: Yes.
John: You start collecting garbage.
John: Day one, you're like, we're back in charge and put your trash out on the corner because here come the garbage trucks.
John: And then, you know, and then right away, you're just going down the line.
John: You're building credibility.
John: You build credibility and then you start reaching out and you say, listen, we're we've we've had our time with the Russians and the Iranians and we don't like them anymore.
John: And now we want here's the opportunity.
John: The opportunity is to say we're going to be the jewel of
Merlin: of the arab nations we are going to rebuild syria in partnership with lebanon and we are going to we're not going to blow all our i mean like as the supposedly supposedly according to the youtube videos i think what is the thing called is it called what's the project called mbs's project that includes the line and all that stuff it's called eom or something like that enom but like their whole thing is like hey you know what we got a lot of a lot of
Merlin: You know, oil.
Merlin: We've got a lot of reserves.
Merlin: We've got all these things.
Merlin: But you know what?
Merlin: That's not a growth industry.
Merlin: They're like, we need to diversify heavily within the next five to ten years.
Merlin: And that's why they're throwing all these crazy projects.
Merlin: Do you know about the line?
John: 160 kilometers long?
John: It's going to be incredible, but the thing is that all it takes is one day that the power goes out.
John: No, it's insane.
John: Let's go to Damascus.
Merlin: Yeah, Damascus is the oldest continuously, I believe, the oldest continuously populated city in the world to this day.
John: And Damascus is the key here.
John: Damascus is the key.
John: Damascus should be, Damascus should be rebuilt and, and re and become like, not just a UNESCO world heritage city, but it should become like, well, because when I was in Beirut,
John: When you're walking around in Beirut, you realize Beirut was called the Paris of the East for a reason.
John: It's a fucking incredible city.
John: It's an incredible city.
John: The people there are incredible.
John: The beaches are incredible.
John: The architecture is incredible.
John: Everything about Beirut suggests that it should be the nicest city in the Middle East by far.
John: It's a place that you would love to go, that we should all love to go.
John: It's just that there's no economy in Lebanon.
John: But Damascus, whatever it is, the Damascus, Beirut.
John: Talk about getting in on the ground floor of an opportunity.
Merlin: One of the oldest places in the world.
Merlin: Great location.
Merlin: You know what they say?
Merlin: There's three things in real estate.
John: Syria, Syria, Syria.
John: That's right.
John: You got your Lebanon here.
John: You got your Tel Aviv down there.
John: You got all of Turkey up there.
John: Everybody likes a pool.
John: Everybody likes a warm beach.
John: They got warm beaches.
John: So I'm just very excited about it.
John: I just feel like, look, if Germany, if the German government is collapsing, if the United States is becoming like wackadoodle.
John: Don't sleep on France.
John: That's not going great either.
John: Yeah, see, that's the thing.
John: So Europe, and I think what's going to happen, all the Syrians in Europe are like, you know what?
John: New York's not so great anymore.
John: Let's go back to Syria.
Merlin: Let's build Syria.
Merlin: I was watching something, a funny thing.
Merlin: The other might've been Stuart Lee, but something that was like pre Brexit.
Merlin: And I just, I'm still like, my head is still ringing with how dumb,
Merlin: I just want you, me, and Stuart Lee to have coffee together one time and listen to him tell us about Brexit.
Merlin: These days, these days you get arrested and thrown in jail just for saying your English.
Merlin: These days.
Merlin: These days you do.
Merlin: These days, what I'm saying.
Merlin: In this economy.
Merlin: Are you absolutely sure?
Merlin: You say these days you get arrested and thrown in jail just for saying your English.
Merlin: But opportunity, John.
Merlin: You know, the thing is, like, think about what we're talking about here.
Merlin: Now, the reason I was talking, I don't mean to disparage Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates.
Merlin: They're doing great work over there.
John: I think it's fair, though.
John: I'm 100% on board with you and your mild disparagement of the line.
John: It's very mild.
John: Yeah.
John: But I do feel like it's pointed.
John: I do feel like you have read the prospectus of the line and you have some questions, some valid questions.
John: I have questions just about how the terrain will work.
Merlin: Because you're supposed to be able to get from... It's a very interesting idea.
Merlin: We're talking about... So imagine building...
Merlin: Two buildings.
Merlin: First of all, imagine building a building that is like as tall as, I think, One World Trade Center.
Merlin: It's a very tall building.
Merlin: Imagine building a building.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Now, imagine that building being the width of a building, but 160 kilometers in length.
Merlin: I don't know if you're really... Also underground.
Merlin: Well, it's in an utterly unpopulated, nothing happening, northwest corner of Saudi Arabia.
Merlin: But here's the good part.
Merlin: You know that building you built that's like the height of a skyscraper and it's 160 kilometers long?
Merlin: Now imagine making an identical one of those.
Merlin: with a little bit of space in between, and then that being a straight line of two long buildings that's 160 kilometers long, and hundreds of thousands of people will live there.
Merlin: Did I mention this is in the middle of a desert?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: So, and they have a train, and the idea with the train is you can get from one end of the line to the other in 20 minutes, but also, it's supposed, supposedly, you can go visit your friends in different parts of the line.
Merlin: Like, why would you design it in a circle?
Merlin: That's so Walt Disney.
Merlin: Weird.
John: Like, I want to love it.
John: You know, the mathematicians,
John: will tell you that a circle is a better design than a line.
John: The mathematicians will say, if you're going to build a city, build it as a circle.
Merlin: You get your hubs, you get your spokes.
Merlin: And this is why I say in the original vision of Epcot, you know, I wouldn't mind a hexagonal city.
Merlin: I think there'd be a lot of benefit from that.
Merlin: And it's aesthetically very pleasing to me.
Merlin: But what I'm saying is- The trains would have to slow down at each one of those corners.
John: Well, they run on time.
Merlin: They run on time, but the schedule is so dumb that it's not hard to run on time.
Merlin: But I'm comparing that.
Merlin: Over here, you've got this pie in the sky stuff.
Merlin: With all due respect, I don't want to get bone sawed, but they got more money than cents for shizzle.
Merlin: Whereas I'm saying you get the right people in place in Damascus.
Merlin: Our man from Seattle comes in to Damascus, and suddenly you're not just attracting income and wealth and politics and all that stuff.
Merlin: You're also building some really big fucking pools.
Merlin: You can make a lot of people very happy in Damascus.
John: The number one sign that I thought that as soon as I heard it, I knew that these guys were legit was they said, we're keeping all of the bureaucrats, all of the Assad era bureaucrats.
John: That is fascinating.
John: Because what happened in Iraq when we got in there and we de-bathified it?
John: Oh, the de-bathification went great.
John: Yeah, it sure did.
John: And these guys are paying attention.
John: They're smart.
John: Hey, let's give a few hundred thousand more people a reason to fucking hate us.
John: But these guys who are standing around in these uniforms that have been collecting like $5 bribes to get your car registered or whatever, we're going to let them stay.
John: Keep doing it.
Merlin: Yeah, but I mean, you know, better than a sharp stick in the eye.
Merlin: At least you got somebody collecting a bribe.
Merlin: We don't want to have to start from scratch.
Merlin: You want to go through that hiring process?
Merlin: We don't even have a water park that we can interview people in.
John: yeah well and the workers gonna with all these kids on the back of the these toyota trucks with 50 caliber machine guns yes and given we've been employing to take over aleppo or whatever we're not gonna make them bureaucrats that's not what they're good a lot of the guys posing for pictures were a little soft there are a lot of guys like they didn't even seem like they were quite sure how to hold the gun and shoot it into the air the rifle you know the thing is that you know that the rebels basically have been losing this war for
Merlin: 13 years and now all of a sudden they want it so they're like huh i don't know much about this i i heard part of that was i forget where i heard this but that they that the soldiers the actual syrian soldiers are desperately like under resourced underfed and like had not been paid in months
Merlin: And suddenly you see these boys, what are they called?
Merlin: Not TTS.
Merlin: What are they called?
Merlin: I forget the name, the three letter.
John: Yeah, the home slices, the local.
Merlin: The new guys.
Merlin: The new guys are moving in.
John: And they're like, yeah, yeah, I'm going to go.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: I want to go home tonight and hug my kids.
Merlin: Like, I'm not going to go super crazy to defend the country if they can't give me a square meal and pay me what they owe me from six months ago.
Merlin: That's what I heard anyway.
John: Well, it's the you know, the Russians have been funding it and the Iranians have been funding it.
John: Yep.
John: And both the Russians and Iranians were like, we got we can't do this anymore.
John: The Russians are busy trying to trying to get out of the quagmire they started.
John: Yep.
John: And the Iranians have gotten their asses handed them all year.
John: It's been a rough year for Iran.
John: It has, and Hezbollah, and nobody's got any friends anymore.
John: And so everybody was like, we're just going to actually, we just got to take care of some stuff at home.
John: We'll be back in a little while, maybe.
Merlin: I just need to pick up a couple things.
Merlin: I need to get this jet.
Merlin: And all of a sudden.
Merlin: I need to get this aircraft carrier.
Merlin: There's a couple things that Vlad needs to pick up.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, just get these out.
Merlin: I don't want these.
Merlin: You know what?
Merlin: It's all practically a safety hazard.
Merlin: We have so much stuff here in your way, Syria.
Merlin: We're just going to get all this.
Merlin: We're going to take that all back and maybe we'll drop some of it off on the way.
Merlin: On the way, we'll drop it in Ukraine.
John: Right?
John: For sure.
John: I think there was just a moment where somebody looked around and they were like, hey, wait a minute.
John: Is anybody in charge around here?
Merlin: I don't think it's a song.
Merlin: How bad things were going in the Soviet Union for a long time.
Merlin: We still thought they were about to invade the United States.
Merlin: They were everywhere.
Merlin: They had satellites that were spying on us, and they were in our water and all this stuff.
Merlin: And then you're like, no, no.
Merlin: We can't afford to fix doorknobs here.
John: They're writing on the back of other forms.
John: They're just turning the form over and making a new form on the back because they can't afford the paper to make.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: And meanwhile, here in the United States, we're making movies about how they have airplanes that can read your mind.
John: Yeah, and then attack your high school.
John: No, that's not actually really happening.
John: What about the drones?
John: Do you think they're responsible for the drones?
John: Are you worried about the drones, John?
John: Yesterday, my sister was like, what about this UFO invasion?
John: And I was like, what about it?
Merlin: There's something about this that is not quite adding up, and I just want to be very clear, America.
Merlin: I'm not a weirdo.
Merlin: How is that a manned aircraft?
Merlin: Tell me how that's a manned aircraft that's totally fine.
Merlin: How do you know what it is, and how do you know that it's fine?
Merlin: It's fucking weird as hell.
John: What is it even?
John: I mean, that's the thing.
John: Unidentified.
John: Unidentified.
John: Wow, that was really good.
John: Object.
Merlin: It's called unidentified.
Merlin: Unidentified like object.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: They got a new name for it now, right?
John: Yeah.
John: UAPs.
John: You know, the thing about it is I've learned this recently.
John: Anytime you go online in any capacity and say that the thing that everybody's freaking out and panicking about is maybe not.
John: We don't know enough about it to freak out yet.
Merlin: Or if you just simply, if you're kind of revolutionary and just aren't bananas enough about it.
John: It's like, yeah, you're just going to get screamed at by people who have got statistics to prove that the Big Mac used to be a lot cheaper.
John: And now the Big Mac is more expensive.
John: And that's.
John: you know, proof.
John: They call it the big Mac index.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: And the orcas are drowning and there are UFOs in the sky and you don't even, you know, and what are you?
John: You're just sitting there.
John: Where's my Lusitania?
John: And I'm like, you know, it's just not worth, it's just not worth giving people.
Merlin: Oh, I totally agree.
Merlin: I have disappeared into so much stuff.
Merlin: That's not the internet.
Merlin: And I'm really a lot better off.
John: Really nice.
John: And if there were an enormity pool here in Seattle, I would be there right now.
John: I would be broadcasting.
John: Would you be like holding court there?
John: You think?
John: I would get one of those private rooms, and I would be living in an eternity of pizza party.
John: It would just be pizza party 24-7.
John: We'd all have little hats on.
John: They'd say, like, how can it be your birthday again?
John: And I'm like, just keep the pizzas coming.
John: I'm going to go from one temperature.
Merlin: I don't want to give you notes, but I think what you could say is, friend, it's always somebody's birthday.
Merlin: It's always somebody's birthday.
Merlin: Especially at Enormity Pools.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, enormity pools.
Merlin: It also implies that there's a pooling of enormity.
Merlin: It's also a sentence.
Merlin: Enormity pools.
Merlin: Oh, enormity does pool.
Merlin: It does.
Merlin: I've seen it.
John: And we could get key and pool.
John: Key and pool are so funny.
Merlin: It's funny because I learned about UAPs from a Jordan Poole movie.
Merlin: Did you really?
Merlin: Did you ever see that movie?
Merlin: Oh, man.
John: The Great Jordan Poo.
Merlin: When you were, were you named after a swimming pool?
Merlin: Sutro Baths.
Merlin: They had to change it at Ellis Island.
Merlin: It was originally Sutro Bathsowitz.
Merlin: We should probably do more.
Merlin: That wasn't good enough, was it?
Merlin: No, I think it was good.
Merlin: No, it's not.
Merlin: We're right at the... I just feel like... Why can't we have fun anymore?
Merlin: Does anybody remember laughter?
John: I said that the other day to somebody.
John: Does anybody remember laughter?
Merlin: Anybody remember laughter?
John: I feel like it's maybe the most famous quote of the 20th century now.
John: Because everybody knows what that quote means, even if they've never heard it before.
Merlin: I think I... I can't promise this, but I think I first heard Robert Plant say that in... I want to say the song remains the same.
John: Yeah, I think that's where I first heard it, yeah.
Merlin: Which is not... Does anybody remember laughter?
Merlin: Does anybody remember laughter?
Merlin: It goes like this.
Merlin: It goes...
Merlin: Does anybody remember laughter?
John: I want to know.
Merlin: No, I'm Paul Stanley.
John: Now, wait a minute.
John: Now you sound like Paul Stanley.
Merlin: All right.
John: Wow.
Merlin: I want to know how many of you people like to pull some enormity.
Merlin: All right.
John: All right.
John: You know what?
John: I have not been following the UAPs, the UFOs, the unidentified drones.
John: People have been talking to me, and this may be the first time in my life where people were coming to me, you know, like I was hearing it in the scuttlebutt.
John: Yeah.
John: Hey, there's a bunch of shit going on.
John: Crazy shit.
John: I did not go look it up.
John: I was just like doesn't I feel like gross it does you always good?
Merlin: That's like like I still have not seen the hawk to a girl video and I'm very proud of that It's like I know I know I know I know I always could I always could I could you but like you you know where to look things up You can go find out about the drones.
Merlin: It's just you know what it is John It's that the story doesn't add up in the government's being a little stum about the whole thing
John: I call it the government.
Merlin: The government.
Merlin: I hate when people say the government.
Merlin: That's like referring to a grocery store as the elements.
Merlin: Like it doesn't even make sense.
Merlin: Yeah, these are our refrigerated and frozen elements.