Ep. 586: "Let's People"
Merlin: Oh, jeez.
Merlin: Ugh.
Merlin: I was trying to fix something, and I wasn't... You're early.
Merlin: Go ahead and fix it.
Merlin: Huh?
Merlin: Go ahead and fix it.
Merlin: I fixed it.
Merlin: It's fine.
Merlin: Hang on.
Merlin: I'm not really... All right.
Merlin: You're flabbergasted.
Merlin: I guess the show... I got to turn off a fan, and I didn't make a water yet.
Merlin: Do you need time?
Merlin: Do you need to go make a water?
Merlin: No, no.
Merlin: I generally discourage this, John, but could you please address our listeners for just a few seconds while I get a water?
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, of course.
Merlin: Okay, BRB.
Merlin: Stand by.
John: Hello, everyone.
John: It's me, John.
John: Uh, I'm here a little early and, uh, Merlin wasn't ready and that's, you know, perfectly fine.
John: Perfectly fine.
John: It's, it's unusual.
John: I have to say, but it's good.
John: I mean, I don't know.
John: Good, but it is what it is.
John: And we, we go to the war with the army.
John: We have not the army we want.
John: And so, boy, you know, I show up for this show with a completely blank mind.
John: Tabula rasa.
John: So without Merlin here, I just really don't have anything prepared.
John: Oh, sounds like he's back.
John: What did I miss?
John: Oh, nothing.
John: We were just waiting, pretty much.
John: I mean, you know, I was talking, but it was waiting talking.
John: Are you minimizing that?
John: Because I feel like sometimes you have pretty good things to say.
John: Well, no, I was just explaining to our listeners that my process is that I show up for Roderick on the line with a completely empty mind.
John: So, nothing.
John: That's how you show up for everything.
John: I've got nothing planned.
John: No ideas.
John: Absolutely.
John: Oh, can you imagine if we planned?
John: What a wreck this show would be.
John: It's just like, all I see is what a White Walker sees.
John: It's just like...
John: And so when you were like, talk to the audience for a minute, you know, what you were asking, what you were asking, you were asking an empty glass of water or an empty glass to refresh, you know, like, uh, doesn't have to be water.
Merlin: Given that the glass is empty, you're open to what your glass contains.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah, well, that's the thing, because it's not that I wait for you to fill the glass.
John: It's that the glass fills because of our unique chemistry.
John: It's like the atmosphere, you know, like nature sows the seed and we grow the seed.
John: Or like the cycle of water where it evaporates and then it convinces and picks up a little dirt.
Merlin: It's a biodome.
Merlin: It's a biodome.
Merlin: In some ways.
Merlin: Yeah, that's what it is.
Merlin: And we're both Pauly Shore living in it.
John: We're Pauly Shore living in Bolly Domas.
John: And so now that you're back, you know, now I start to feel like, oh, it's starting to, things are starting to happen.
John: The world comes into focus.
John: And then you're like, what does that mean?
John: And then I say what it means.
John: I would love to talk about this.
John: You know.
John: Yeah.
John: Can we start the show?
John: Oh, yeah.
John: Anytime.
Anytime.
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
Merlin: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: Oh, we have a lot of fun here, don't we?
Merlin: Oh, boy.
Merlin: It's just always with the business and the things.
John: I have a donut in the morning now, and it's just the wrong thing for me.
John: I feel the sugar instantly.
John: I'm 100% sure I have diabetes now.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: It occurs to me that if you want to not have a donut every morning, I mean, somebody's buying them.
Merlin: No, I'm sorry.
Merlin: Was that confrontational, to be honest?
John: No, no, no, not at all.
John: The problem is that donuts, at some point, you know what happens in a culture, is that donuts, for instance, become a medium of exchange, or they become their prize, their own reward.
John: And so people who like me, who want to please me, are like, you know what he likes?
John: Donuts.
John: Okay.
John: And then I don't do the thing.
John: The other day, somebody was over here and I had a couple of donuts and I was like, donut?
John: And I watched how easy it was for them to be like, no thanks.
John: And they just, really, they didn't want a donut.
John: And, but you know, you're standing there kind of with a shocked look.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Really?
John: You don't.
John: Oh, of course you don't want a donut.
John: He never has a second cup of my donuts.
John: No, they're terrible poison.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: But, but there are people who can say no to a donut, but I've also met people and, and I mean, I'm coming at this from a slightly different angle.
Merlin: My problem is if I have one donut, I have all the donuts.
Yeah.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: Kind of like a potato chip type situation.
Merlin: So I got to be careful.
Merlin: But what amazes me is people who walk up to the donut table, neatly cut one donut exactly in half, take and eat just the half of a donut.
John: Yeah, that's sweet.
Merlin: That's nice.
Merlin: Laudatory?
John: But that's the thing.
John: We're putting a moral judgment on it.
John: I did that again.
John: Is it a moral?
Merlin: I don't know if it's a moral.
John: I don't know.
John: Did we ever smoke cigarettes together?
John: We smoked a lot of things together.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: We used to smoke cigars a lot.
John: Oh, we smoked so many great cigars.
Merlin: Every time I look at that photo of Yumi and Eric in the backyard, it always reminds me of the scene of Pinocchio, you know, where they go to the island where they get, spoiler alert, they play billiards and get turned into donkeys.
Merlin: One of a half dozen things that scarred me about that movie.
John: You just spoiler alerted Pinocchio.
Merlin: What's it called?
Merlin: Pleasure Island?
Merlin: Is that what it's called?
Merlin: Yeah, or the Island of Lost Boys.
Merlin: Or the Island of Misfit Toys Boys.
Yeah.
Right.
John: and that's us and that's us i was talking to somebody just yesterday who was like yeah you know i started smoking again and i was like really i know nope nope a lady oh and i said what does that mean exactly and she was like well you know i only i can have a couple of cigarettes a day
John: And I was like, well, you didn't start smoking.
John: You never were a smoker.
John: And she's like, yeah, I mean, I'm not like one of those smokers that like smokes.
Merlin: That used to be a big distinction that everybody kind of acknowledged.
Merlin: Are you like a real, for a long time, especially like freshman year of college type situation or move to a new city, I think the bar is generally, have you bought your first pack of cigarettes and smoked them all yourself?
Yeah.
Merlin: Like, if you bum cigarettes from other people, I think you're allowed to float for a while and act like you're not a smoker.
Merlin: And in the 80s, you would not be considered a smoker.
Merlin: You can bum cigarettes once you're a smoker.
Merlin: This is complicated.
Merlin: I think Descartes talked about a lot of this.
John: Oh, for sure.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah, I smoke therefore I am.
John: In our world, if you smoked less than a pack of cigarettes a day, it meant that you had restraint of a kind.
John: Oh, hell yes.
John: Like 20 cigarettes.
John: Really was a, was a perfect way of measuring a day because from morning to night, 20 cigarettes, it just punctuates the time just kind of perfectly.
John: And a pack a day is sort of what a grownup smokes.
John: And if you're smoking two packs a day, then you're a bomber pilot or you're somebody that's, you know, like that's hard.
Merlin: You're maybe like Samuel L. Jackson in Jurassic Park, or you're somebody working at maybe NASA.
Merlin: I always remember that song, Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Man, trying to live my life without you.
Merlin: Remember, he said, I used to smoke five packs of cigarettes a day.
Merlin: It was the hardest thing to put there.
Merlin: I used to think about that.
Merlin: Because I think I could smoke five packs of cigarettes.
Merlin: I couldn't do it every day forever for obvious reasons.
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: But I think you're right.
Merlin: The one pack a day, you can float on that for a while.
Merlin: But especially now that you're officially a smoker, guess what?
Merlin: People are going to bum cigarettes off you, especially in college.
John: That's true.
John: you're not wrong you're not wrong bumming cigarettes so but i mean if you if you buy a pack of cigarettes yeah that's right that's still there you know you got you you got a day to smoke them and and but but you know pack and a half sure that's within the pack range but two or more packs a day on on the routine
John: You're a serious smoker.
John: But less than a pack a day?
John: I find it hard to call you any kind of serious smoker.
John: Aspirational smoker.
John: Three or four cigarettes a day?
John: Come on.
John: Come on.
John: That's nothing.
John: What are you talking about?
John: You're not a smoker.
Merlin: Is it fair to say that, generally speaking, once you've purchased a carton?
Merlin: Actually, how about this?
Merlin: Once you've purchased your second carton of cigarettes.
Merlin: First carton of cigarettes, that could just be like you're not really sure if it's right for you yet.
Merlin: But once you start getting 10 packs of Winstons, like my parents did.
John: Well, and that's the problem with cartons, of course, is that you have to have all the money of 10 packs of cigarettes at once.
Merlin: You are so far ahead of me.
Merlin: Exactly right.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: Well, you know, I was watching...
Merlin: Oh, God, the scourge of B-plus television.
Merlin: I was watching a not very good show on HBO called Duster.
Merlin: You might like it.
Merlin: It's got lots of car stuff in it.
Merlin: No, I don't like it.
John: Did you watch it?
John: That was put in front of me.
Merlin: And I like Sawyer.
Merlin: I like Sawyer.
Merlin: I love the woman.
Merlin: I like a lot of those people.
John: You're going to love this show.
John: And I sat down and the cars were very good.
John: Yeah.
John: And, you know, a lot of times I get bounced out of the show.
John: You know what he never does?
Merlin: He never does a K-turn.
Merlin: No K-turns.
Merlin: He only does that like Tokyo Drifting to turn the car around.
Merlin: Yeah, the flip turn.
John: but like all the set design was done just like the first episode i was just like chef's kiss on all the stuff in the background the radio and and the ways belt buckle like it all looks incredible but by the end of it i was like these are empty calories this is donuts i don't know this makes me feel just kind of
Merlin: And like the whole thing with Bream and like, okay.
Merlin: Anyways, but there's two things that happen in that movie that this is relevant to you and me and other old people.
Merlin: But one was, and also it must be said, it's got Keith David and everything with Keith David is great.
Merlin: But there's one scene where Keith David goes to buy some cigarettes out of a machine and he pays for it all with coins.
Yeah.
Merlin: You think about that.
Merlin: Now, I know that sounds crazy now, but a pack of cigarettes I think of as being around a buck or so.
John: Yeah, a buck twenty-five.
Merlin: Yeah, but you get your free matches or whatever.
Merlin: And did you see when he got half a tank of gas, when he was talking to the shitheel sheriff guy, did you see how much it cost for him to get half a tank of gas?
Merlin: No, I didn't.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: What was it?
Merlin: Was gas 30 cents a gallon?
Merlin: I think it was probably like 30 cents a gallon.
Merlin: There was a time in the 80s when it went down again.
Merlin: It went up to 140 in the early 80s, and then it went back down into the sub $1 area.
Merlin: But that's a different time.
Merlin: I don't know what a pack of cigarettes costs now.
Merlin: It's more than $10.
Merlin: It probably depends on the locality.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: It's like places like Washington and San Francisco where they tax everything.
John: Maybe in North Carolina.
Merlin: You have to be really committed to smart.
Merlin: To start smoking now, you would have to be pretty committed.
Merlin: Well, I see people do it.
John: I see people do it.
John: A price of cigarettes in Washington is $11 to $12 for a pack of Marlboros, according to this.
John: But I think that's Washington.
John: That's not, yeah, well, whatever.
Merlin: Who cares?
Merlin: Oh, no, it's okay.
Merlin: I'm looking.
Merlin: It's searching right now.
Merlin: In San Francisco, you can expect to pay around $14 per pack for a premium brand like Marlboro as of April 25.
John: Fucking liberals.
John: When I first started driving, a Vespa was my first motor vehicle, and the gas tank held more than a gallon, a little bit more than a gallon.
John: And I would go fill the gas tank up and pay with...
Merlin: really just change pocket just yeah just loves the that was the origin to me of like the center console like full of coins or if you're a non-smoker the ashtray full of coins you know parking meters you know all that all that sort of thing i guess people vape that's still a thing right i see people vape on tv
John: when vaping first came out, there was this band called the lashes, uh, that were friends of friends of mine.
John: They were young and they had lots of belts and they were all skinny pants, skinny pants.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: One of the guys, that's it.
John: One of the guys now plays in a Portugal, a man, and he's a Eric Hawk.
John: He's a wonderful friend, but the other guys were all standing around at one point.
John: And, uh, and I walked over and they had electric cigarettes.
Yeah.
John: And I'd never seen them before, but it was obvious what they were.
John: And I was like, are those electric cigarettes?
John: And they were like, yeah, man, you know, check it out.
John: And they were all smoking these things that had, like, I think they had a AA battery in them.
John: And the end glowed when they sucked on them.
John: But right now, I don't know anybody.
John: I don't think I know anybody that vapes.
Merlin: What's the bad habit now?
Merlin: Donuts.
Merlin: Because you think about what people feel.
Merlin: Because they used to say, one of the things they used to say when I was a young person was, hey...
Merlin: Obviously, the earlier you quit smoking, the better it is for your health.
Merlin: It's turned out to be very true for my mom, who smoked for so long and then quit in 1991.
Merlin: She's still alive.
Merlin: But the other thing they'd say is, think about how much you spend on cigarettes, and then that's money you could spend on something else.
Merlin: What's the moral of it?
Merlin: I know you don't like to talk about morality.
Merlin: What's the moral equivalent of that today?
Merlin: Is it a costly coffee?
Merlin: Is it a Kim Kardashian juice drink?
Merlin: What's something that people feel a little bit shameful, feel a little bit bad about spending money on their egg?
John: Well, I feel like coffee keeps being proven by French scientists to be good for our health and making us more alert.
John: And I think that those matcha lattes and other drinks have an imprimatur of health because they are green.
John: And so although they are bougie and people might be bougie shamed a little, if you're like, I don't think very many people are scraping together change
John: to buy a matcha latte.
John: I think the people that buy them have the money to buy them.
John: And bougie shaming is something, oh, we should never do.
John: Oh, it's just so unfair.
Merlin: Yeah, one person's bougie is another person's comfort.
Merlin: Heard that.
Merlin: Heard, chef.
John: So the thing about cigarettes, thank you, chef.
John: The thing about cigarettes and booze is that they are demonstrably bad for you.
John: That's what they say.
John: And even the people who are like doing gummies and taking THC all day, they are going to quote French scientists that you and I have never even heard of.
John: They're going to say about, and they're saying it in French, so we barely understand it, but how gummies are great and being on THC is marvelous and it's what got into it.
Merlin: I heard there's lots of new evidence that's not actually good for you.
John: Oh, I think there was old evidence that it wasn't good for you either.
John: There's a lot of evidence.
John: Yeah, I think evidence is the word we're using.
John: So what is the thing?
John: Like, we used to stand at the gas station and just breathe deeply the fumes, breathe deep the gathering fumes of leaded gasoline.
John: Yeah.
John: There's nothing like that in the world now.
John: Oh, it was so, oh, God.
John: And then, oh, and think about Testor's model glue.
John: How much of that we huffed.
Oh.
Merlin: The huffing we did.
Merlin: If you act like it's accidental, it's not huffing.
John: Oh, the huffing.
John: So what is it now?
John: It's a wonderful question.
Merlin: What is the vice?
Merlin: The funny thing is, I think back to when I first got a job and I moved to Tallahassee.
Merlin: I mention that a lot because it was an important...
Merlin: time for me in numerous ways that I don't need to get super into but it includes things like it was my first real big boy job where I wore a tie I went to an office I moved to a different part of the state you know etc etc but like there was a go ahead
Merlin: What?
Merlin: Oh, I said a lot.
Merlin: It was a lot.
Merlin: A lot happened.
Merlin: Sorry.
Merlin: And there was a smoking area.
Merlin: This is 1991.
Merlin: And there was a smoking area at this office, this three-story, two-story, three-story office where I worked, John Knox Road.
Merlin: And there'd be people, we'd call them smoking pigs, because hardly anybody in our office smoked.
Merlin: And these guys, they were all like CSRs, like customer service people with the telephone headgear on and stuff like that.
Merlin: And they'd go out and they'd smoke and smoke and smoke.
Merlin: And then they'd throw their butts on the ground, you know, which was kind of unsightly.
Merlin: And one of our guys, our RN guy, he would go down there and smoke with them.
Merlin: And he had a pretty good rapport with them.
Merlin: But...
Merlin: There was always, even at that time now, over 30 years ago, there's a certain amount of rising public shame about smoking.
Merlin: I mean, you know, obviously, again, for good reasons or whatever.
Merlin: I remember that, yeah.
Merlin: But it became very shameful.
Merlin: And so, like, my wife just moved to a different office in her building.
Merlin: Just now?
Merlin: Actually, yeah, about 11.40 a.m.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: She is the vice president of the University of San Francisco now?
Merlin: She has moved.
Merlin: She has really, really moved up.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: No, but she sent me a photo of her new office space.
Merlin: I was like, oh, my God, it's so great.
Merlin: Floor-to-ceiling windows.
Merlin: And I was like, wait a minute.
Merlin: Is that like a deck?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: outside because it looked like, you know, like where you go out through a door and there's chairs and there's sunshine.
Merlin: And I was like, are you kidding me?
Merlin: You don't have to go downstairs and leave the building to like be in sunshine.
Merlin: That is admittedly my first thought because my wife is a person.
Merlin: Pretty nice.
Merlin: But you know what my second thought was?
Merlin: And I did eventually tell her this.
Merlin: You know what I'm thinking.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: That would have been a great, that would be such a great place to smoke.
Yeah.
John: Oh, so amazing.
John: I don't want a cigarette.
John: I haven't wanted a cigarette in over a decade.
John: But I spent many decades wanting a cigarette.
John: Yeah.
John: And so there's a lot of memory just in the bones about like, oh, boy, it would be nice to just go have a cigarette right now.
John: And any of our listeners who are being triggered by this conversation, don't go have a cigarette.
John: They're bad.
John: They're terrible.
John: Nothing good will come of it.
Yeah.
Merlin: Well, I guess, but it was a nice way to break up the day.
Merlin: It was another thing.
John: It was a nice way to socialize with people.
John: Did you read the thing?
John: Somebody wrote a thing saying that they believed that many of the social problems in the world today are a result of the fact that nobody smokes anymore.
Merlin: I am just, I am, my constitution is to be very suspicious of turns out style journalism, but I love shit like that.
Merlin: Well, the same thing happened with COVID.
Merlin: You remember with COVID, people were saying like smokers were probably going to get it more because you're putting your hand on your mouth.
Merlin: You're like, you know what I mean?
Merlin: There's all this stuff where you're like unintended consequences of this.
Merlin: So the thesis is the world went to hell in a handbasket because people aren't smoking anymore.
John: Right, because there's a lot of stuff that smoking did for us, right?
John: If you got to the limit, you got fed up, you were like, you know, I'm going to go have a cigarette.
John: And you got five minutes to cool it out.
John: You also had this everyday kind of...
Merlin: place where you and and the other weirdos gathered and just sat and i mean nobody talked to politics when you're having a cigarette you talked but also like generally pretty low pressure almost like kind of like uh like not exactly like a bus stop but like where you're familiar with the people you're seeing and it's it generally speaking it was like pretty easy like yeah we're all smokers we're here like we're all here for this reason right and but it was pretty like low-key way to like just socialize and get to hear what people's voices sound like
John: Yeah, I don't even remember this person's thesis exactly.
John: I'm sure somebody will find it and send it to us, but it was meant as a joke, but also absolutely not a joke.
John: Like the three or four things they cited, I was like, oh, right.
John: Smoking was a kind of...
John: social leveler.
John: It was a kind of daily meditation.
John: It, uh, it, it performed a lot of functions in our lives.
John: And the funny thing is smoking didn't exist really before the 20th century.
John: It,
John: in the way that we grew up, you know, pack-a-day smokers.
John: Like, there were pipes, there were cigars.
Merlin: The two wars both had a big impact.
Merlin: As I understand it, anyway, like, if you look at the social history of smoking, like, people used to smoke other things besides cigarettes, and then, like, I think, I mean, I know, I have heard, anyway, that Philip Morris or whomever would just give away
Merlin: Fuck tons of cigarettes to soldiers like they would just, you know, the same way that Procter and Gamble wants you to go home from the hospital with diapers for your baby, you know, imprint on that brand sort of thing.
Merlin: But, you know, and then the women are back home and now that begins smoking becomes a sign of, you know, of liberation and stuff like that.
Merlin: Can I opine?
John: I put into Google, people stopped smoking and the world went to hell.
John: And because you can't do anything now without an AI intruding into your life, the AI says, the assertion that people don't smoke and the world went to hell is highly inaccurate and lacks any basis in reality, which makes me feel like it's even more true.
John: I feel like that's so dismissive that it's got to be wrong.
John: I mean, I phrased it in a weird way, but I phrased it in a human way.
John: You did.
Merlin: In a human way.
Merlin: The machines didn't like that.
Merlin: I have a concept.
Merlin: Well, first of all, there's the concept of just at a very high level breaking up the day into pieces.
Merlin: But just real quick, there's a thing that I do that I started adopting in a more formal way, which is just what I call the soft reset.
Merlin: And what I try to do, and it's part of a presence of mind.
Merlin: I wouldn't call it mindfulness exactly, but a presence of mind practice of like, okay, I'm getting in the weeds with this thing.
Merlin: And which often is great.
Merlin: Like, you know, a lot of it is like, like it doesn't matter.
Merlin: But for example, like I've been spending a lot of time with chat CPT working on fixing some stuff around the house and I'll get super involved with that.
Merlin: And then pretty soon I've taken out the drill and I've taken out the drill bits and you know what I mean?
Merlin: And like, there's all this stuff.
Merlin: And then I try to catch myself and I think, okay, it feels like it's about time for a soft reset.
Merlin: And this is very influenced by both cigarette smoking and preschool.
Merlin: because I think there's things to learn from each and both.
Merlin: So, like, one thing that I do is, like, sometimes I will just go, okay, it's, you know, it's 10 a.m., it's about time for the morning's soft reset, and I will invoke a function on my Mac that quits all of my apps, closes all my windows, and I can always, you know, reopen everything and save and whatnot, but I kind of force myself to, I force a cajura upon myself.
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: A little existential coda.
Merlin: And I think that is wholesome and does not come naturally unless you start looking for opportunities to do little soft resets.
Merlin: Now, I'm not saying you should go and smoke, but you can learn from smoking.
Merlin: And the other thing you learn from preschool is you wash your hands after every transition.
Merlin: At every transition, right?
Merlin: You arrive, you wash your hands.
Merlin: You leave, you wash your hands.
Merlin: Lunch, you wash your hands.
Merlin: After lunch, you wash your hands.
Merlin: I still am pretty good about that.
Merlin: But it's also think about the whole like, okay, I'm letting you know, and this would be good for both of us knowing our personalities.
Merlin: I'm letting you know it's 1.45 p.m.,
Merlin: And we need to have everything cleaned up and be in our places on the porch or in set circle time.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: You give a warning.
Merlin: And like you say, okay, it's time to start.
Merlin: We're going to clean up our areas.
Merlin: It's time to put the crayons away.
Merlin: We know where the crayons go to be away.
Merlin: And I think this is a kind of practice.
Merlin: I used to work with a guy, this wonderful guy, Mike Montero.
Merlin: Every day at the end of the day, he would wander around in what looked like a fixed gaze, zombie-like state, just putting things away at the office.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: So I guess I know I'm all over the map here, but like I think left to our own devices, especially as if you like a knowledge worker or remote worker, however you look at it, you've got to find this Azure is.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: Or generate them.
John: You know, that phrase, touch grass, became an insult among the- It's a shame, because it's a good phrase.
John: The incel commercial, or the incel community.
John: Yes.
John: Touch grass.
John: And it's funny every time it gets said, because it's clear that many of those people have never even seen grass, or they haven't seen it since they went indoors in 2003.
Merlin: I imagine somebody yelling down the steps, if you like grass so much, why don't you go mow the lawn?
No.
John: Because they live with their parents.
John: That's because they live with their parents.
Merlin: That's because they live with their parents.
Merlin: Why do you like grass so much?
Merlin: Why don't you mow the lawn?
John: Mom, I'm doing my podcast.
John: Mom, I posted it again.
John: I feel like touching grass is actually.
Merlin: Who made a bowel movement and didn't flash?
John: I should touch grass five times a day.
John: Yeah.
John: And I forget to do it.
John: And if I say to myself, you know what?
John: You know, touch grass.
John: Anymore, it's harder because I tore up all the grass around here.
John: I would have to leave the compound.
Merlin: Talk about unintended consequences.
Merlin: Or, you know, I always think of this.
Merlin: I think it's in Gladiator.
Merlin: It's a scene that's been repeated many, many times.
Merlin: But I think Gladiator is most famous where the guy's walking through the field of wheat, like running his hands over the top of the wheat.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I think it's in lots of those, like, you know, a lot of movies.
Merlin: You could do that.
Merlin: You could have a bespoke area on your property where all your weed is.
John: Where I walk and my hand just grazes the top of the... Don't you think that would make you contemplative?
John: Here's the thing that a lot of people don't know about walking through a field of weed.
John: Okay.
John: It's rough.
John: It's rough and hard, sharp.
John: If you're not on a path...
John: The wheat actually like gets tangled on you.
John: It grabs you.
John: It doesn't want you to leave.
John: The wheat grabs you.
John: It's like a children of the corn situation.
John: The wheat is trying to pull you in to the ground.
John: Yes.
John: Yeah.
John: It's trying to turn you into fertilizer.
John: Just blowing through.
Merlin: It's early in the it's what John Syracuse will call What's called natural planning what's called the rhythm method, you know, the Charles Darwin thing I think that's what you're dealing with here I think you're I think you're seeing the beginnings of an adaptation and pretty soon that's gonna be a regular Venus flytrap You know what I'm saying?
John: I wonder how many people every year die by being grabbed and pummeled by wheat farmers don't report that
John: I bet that's right.
John: Farmers find shoes and jeans in their fields all the time.
Merlin: A pack of cigarettes?
Merlin: Looks like there's been a drifter.
John: A drifter went through.
John: You're touching my wheat.
John: A drifter went through, yeah.
John: And the wheat is like, burp.
John: The wheat finally fights back.
John: That's the future.
John: You're bred now.
Yeah.
John: I'm looking for people to give me hopeful signs for the future, and I think that's one.
John: I think the sentient wheat, or at least the, not quite sentient, but, you know, early signs.
Merlin: Oh, I'm so interested.
Merlin: I watch a lot of videos, John, and I watch a lot of videos.
Merlin: Yeah, I watch a lot of videos about nature, too.
Merlin: So I've been learning a lot about, I told you, I told you, I'm learning a lot about microbes, bottom-dwelling creatures, all these kinds of things.
Merlin: And, of course, the fact that everything is turning into a crab.
Merlin: I don't know if you're following this, but in what John Syracuse calls the natural planning model,
Merlin: based on Darwin's work with the beagle, you're seeing more and more of things turning into crabs.
Merlin: Darwin trained beagles?
Merlin: That's a thing I didn't know.
Merlin: Now, Madagascar's different, right?
Merlin: It is.
Merlin: But like Galapagos is where he famously went, right?
Merlin: Like in Master and Commander, right?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Galapagos.
John: He found all the little birds and bugs that had different beaks.
Merlin: I think you have a video about the... Yeah, I know I did.
Merlin: With the crazy snake in the hole and all that?
John: Oh, yeah, the snake in the hole.
Yeah.
John: That's one of my favorite breakfast treats.
John: I want to ask you though, you know, saying I've been watching a lot of videos about nature.
John: Like that feels like A, a t-shirt, but B, like also something pretty telling.
John: Like, you know, I've been watching a lot of videos about nature.
Merlin: You think I unintentionally revealed something there?
Merlin: I think so.
Merlin: I think that's like a heavy- Unpack it.
Merlin: Unpack it.
Merlin: Run with it.
Merlin: I can take it.
Merlin: I can take it.
Merlin: What do you think?
Merlin: You think I'm getting closer to fine?
Merlin: Like, what do you think is happening?
John: Maybe, you know, a doctor of philosophy with a beard down to his knee.
John: Yeah, a portrait of Rasputin.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: What I'm wondering is, you know, you're very close to nature.
Merlin: Well, I'm mentally, I'm psychically close to nature and I'm not afraid to touch grass.
Merlin: I walk on grass probably at least a couple times a month.
John: Yeah, a couple of times a month on your way across the park to get a Kentucky Fried Chicken.
John: I mean, if you don't go around the park, which I understand you've been to.
Merlin: I usually scoot to KFC.
John: Yeah.
John: Oh, you scoot there on your scooter, right?
John: That's going to keep you off the grass.
John: That's going to keep you like six inches above the grass at all times.
John: I like how it makes me taller.
John: You got that beautiful beach down there.
John: When was the last time you went and looked at the waves?
Merlin: Oh, man.
Merlin: Last week, but not enough.
Merlin: Not enough.
Merlin: No, no, no.
Merlin: We went for tacos and hung out a little bit and realized that there would be no way as ever to see fireworks.
Merlin: But no, no, no.
Merlin: They turned that all into a park now and everybody's mad about it.
Merlin: I don't want to talk about it.
Merlin: They're mad about it.
Merlin: People suck.
Merlin: They're vandalizing the hammocks.
Merlin: They're vandalizing the hammocks.
Merlin: Did they take the street away?
Merlin: They broke the piano.
Merlin: They had a piano there.
Merlin: People broke all but a few of the keys.
Merlin: Did they take the street away?
Merlin: Did I read that somewhere?
Merlin: They did a whole thing.
Merlin: Which I highly support.
Merlin: Yes, you there.
Merlin: Thank you so much.
Merlin: We've got the first-time caller.
Merlin: This is definitely a lot to cover.
Merlin: Do you find yourself – because you think –
John: Living in a shotgun shack.
Merlin: Another part of the world.
Merlin: But you think about thinking, right?
Merlin: If there's anything me and you, I think, are known for amongst our handful of friends, it's like, if anything, we think too much about things.
Merlin: Do you think about these?
Merlin: Not necessarily the smoking part, but when you think about how you do your day, which does seem like something you think about.
Mm-hmm.
Merlin: I'm not sure exactly where I'm going with this, but do you have things that you are aware of that give you a soft reset or were you able to insert a cajura somewhere?
Merlin: Does it matter to you?
John: Well, so my, you know, you and I have the same kind of ADHD, but mine is really different.
John: That's fair.
John: What I'm doing lately is
John: Is I'm setting aside times where I am not censoring my impulse to go from thing to thing with absolutely no record of where I've been or plan to get out.
Merlin: Where I just... Is it a form of sort of intentional or not following your nose sort of thing?
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: I mean, because my whole life, and I think most of the time, I'm walking down the hall and I look down and I'm carrying something and I'm like, why am I...
John: I must have picked this up for some reason.
John: Yeah.
John: I picked this up.
Merlin: I don't know why I picked this up and I don't know why I think this room's involved.
John: Yeah.
John: Where am I taking this?
John: And then what I do is I turn around and I go back and I try and put the thing back and pick up the thing that I put down.
John: You don't do it to go back and get a clue.
Merlin: I go back to retrace my steps and see if I see something that makes me think of what I was going to do.
John: Well, yeah, but the problem is, you know, halfway back, I'm like, oh, shit, I need to take these to the dry cleaners or whatever it is.
John: You know, like everywhere in my house, there's something that's there because it got left there on the way to somewhere else.
John: But there are other times now when I just let that process go with no... John, I love to hear this.
John: I love to hear this.
John: And I don't do the like, what am I doing?
John: I don't do that.
John: And yesterday, there were five times when I was like...
John: Yeah, I was headed out the door and I was like, okay, first I have to get a glass of water.
John: And then the thing I was carrying to take with me, I left by the sink and I walked out the door and I was like, wait a minute.
Oh man.
John: And I went back and I got the thing.
John: And then I was like, I should go to the bathroom before I go.
John: See, see.
John: And I went to the bathroom.
John: The system works.
John: And then I walked out the door again.
John: And the thing that I was leaving with, I left in the bathroom.
John: Oh, John.
John: And I was like, wait, stop.
John: What am I missing?
John: Oh, it's the thing.
John: And so my day is just full of that.
John: But there are those times when I'm like, I'm not, I'm just, I have two hours and let's just see, let's let the mouse out and see what the mouse wants.
Merlin: Let's see where the mouse goes.
Merlin: Could I be forgiven for daring to introduce you to a formal concept in my life that other people may be aware?
Merlin: Can I share an idea with you?
Merlin: Yes, please.
Merlin: Is it a thought technology?
Merlin: Oh, John.
Merlin: Maybe.
Merlin: Close.
Merlin: It's a thought technology and a power tool.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: So we're all aware of, like, you think about, oh, you know, what are you doing today?
Merlin: Oh, I'm puttering around the house.
Merlin: And we all have a vision of that.
Merlin: Usually probably somebody like my late grandfather with pants hiked up and shirt tucked in, going out and putting all his tools back in the right place.
Merlin: I have a concept that I believe in, a thought technology that I call power puttering.
Merlin: And power puttering, John, is pretty close to exactly what you just described.
Merlin: And the only sriracha that I'm going to put on your noodles is this.
Merlin: The idea of power puttering is, yeah, guess what?
Merlin: You're in a mode where it's not only okay to... Let's just start with putter.
Merlin: It's okay to putter around the house, but I also give you permission to...
Merlin: in the midst of your puttering to find a balance of stuff you know needs to be accomplished, which, you know, ideally, I guess that starts as kind of the goal of puttering, but also to do exactly what you just did, which is to follow your nose, or as you say, to go from thing to thing.
Merlin: And if you're walking around and you notice something,
Merlin: and it sticks in your mind, you can do something about it right now if it's really fast, or maybe you could write it down somewhere if you're that kind of person.
Merlin: But power puttering to me is where, I mean, when I get really into it and I'm in a flow state, I'm taking stuff down 30 steps.
Merlin: And while I'm down there, I'm bringing stuff up 30 steps.
Merlin: So I don't have, so I'm, my brain is in an ADHD way is kind of occupied by,
Merlin: by feeling very engaged with the kind of puttering that I'm doing, because that's my shit, man.
Merlin: I'm great at stuff like this.
Merlin: This could be stuff like putting the dishes away.
Merlin: This could be stuff like fold up that towel.
Merlin: That's the thing, is you won't know until you get into the power part of the puttering, which is you now have permission, in fact, a mandate for the next little while to just follow your nose, putter like you would, but then don't be afraid to go follow a thread.
Merlin: I'm not saying it's a way to live forever all the time, but that's one way I get a lot of stuff accomplished.
Merlin: Because also the big hidden part of this is there's a lot in the power part.
Merlin: There's a lot of stuff you probably need to do or could do or would choose to do, but you don't notice it until you're doing something different.
Merlin: And to just sit around and feel bad about all that stuff's no fun, but to walk around and find economies of scale in your puttering, I think can be very invigorating.
John: It's great.
John: And it's some of my best days in the last six months
John: have been these days where i have said i'm just gonna cut loose and no one in the world is gonna know what i'm what i'm even talking about but you know by the end of the day because and what happened was i noticed it because i i think i told you about it
John: I was over at Ariella's and she said, what'd you do today?
John: And I said, nothing.
John: Oh, I know.
Merlin: And I mentioned the terrible shame that I feel because I don't have a good and proper adult thing to say that will make you think that I'm busy and important.
John: But then I was sitting there in the quiet of like having said nothing.
John: And I said, actually, do you want to know what I did today?
John: And she looked up from her phone over the top of her glasses, not at all interested.
John: Dripping with derision.
John: But said, yeah, sure.
John: And I went back to the first thing I did.
John: And I just started saying what I did.
John: And I went from thing to thing to thing.
John: And it included things like... And then I was carrying the lawnmower carburetor upstairs because I needed to put Windex on it.
John: And then I thought...
John: What's the history of Windex?
John: And I went and I Googled it.
John: And then I followed that to, you know, I talked about also the things I researched in the course of a day.
Merlin: Here's the thing people don't know, John.
Merlin: Just because chores are on a list doesn't mean you have to leave behind the liberal arts.
John: You got to bring the liberal arts with you.
John: How many things do you research in a day?
John: Probably 40, 400 maybe.
John: And I included that in my list of things I did.
John: I would.
John: Right?
John: But then I went back to, and then I decided that all of the silverware that was upstairs needed to go downstairs where there's no reason to have silverware.
John: And then I decided that I was going to put all of my human tests.
John: They call that a moonshot project.
John: together you know but they were spread out all over the house and then I hung four paintings and then I went outside and I clipped a hedge and when I got to the end it was this exhaustive list of things I spent the entire day doing things there wasn't a moment where I wasn't doing something
John: But I would have my whole life characterized that as a day where I didn't do anything.
John: Yeah.
John: Because there wasn't anything.
John: I don't know what there was plenty to show.
Merlin: You didn't do any of that fancy grown up fucking bullshit that people think makes them seem relevant and important.
Merlin: Like talking about how busy they are and all the things they all must be nice to have enough time to walk around your house.
Merlin: It's like, well, how do you spend your life?
Merlin: Like, you know, but the, I do, I do find that difficult and I do feel like a, I have to admit like a certain kind of, you know, background, baseline, hate to say it, but shame about that.
Merlin: Not because I want to be the sort of person I despise.
Merlin: He's constantly talking about how busy they are and how important they are and how, you know, saying things like must be nice.
Merlin: But like, you know, I think there's something really valuable about,
Merlin: re-engaging with your environment and in my case like learning stuff so like i don't want to just go on about chat gpt all day except that it really has i've had a lot of really amazing victories one is that like our ice maker's been broken for over a year and i keep meaning to call somebody because i i drink a lot of seltzer like i use our whole family uses ice you know i mean
Merlin: three to six pounds of ice a day will be used.
Merlin: And I kept meaning to fix it, and I tried all these half measures, and I Googled about it.
Merlin: Long story short, eventually I did make it a project in ChatGPT.
Merlin: Long story short, I was able to figure it out, diagnose the problem, and then, and this will not be meaningful to a lot of people, but I'm going to explain why this is meaningful in a minute and how it relates.
Merlin: I was able to diagnose the problem
Merlin: or to verify what ChetGPT suggested could be the problem.
Merlin: I was able to verify what the problem with our ice maker was.
Merlin: I was able to find the exact correct replacement part.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: I was able to remove and then replace...
Merlin: Oh, wow.
Merlin: a lot of this morning working on that.
Merlin: And it looks like I can change this myself.
Merlin: So it looks like it's a thermostat that needs to be replaced.
Merlin: It's not that difficult to do.
Merlin: And yet, I called a person this morning to come out tomorrow and do that for me.
Merlin: What does that have to do?
Merlin: Well, I'll tell you what that has to do.
Merlin: Because learning is about more than facts.
Merlin: Learning is about experience.
Merlin: And what I have learned is, B...
Merlin: I can do a lot more than I realized.
Merlin: C, importantly today, not everything is something I should take care of myself.
Merlin: But A, if I found a thing that's helping me accomplish stuff, why would I set that aside?
Merlin: Owing to the huge amount of shame I feel about using AI that people are always mad about.
Merlin: But I guess what I'm trying to say is that's the liberal arts in some ways.
Merlin: To me, that's not a joke.
Merlin: It is the liberal arts in the sense of learning ways that things are, if not directly connected, at least can be related.
Merlin: And that is an invigorating process of reconnecting with your environment.
Merlin: I mean, it's not unusual for somebody to have a day off and just kind of walk around dusting and sweeping, whatever it is they need to do.
Merlin: I think that stuff is really, it's good for me.
Merlin: It's good for the household, I think.
Merlin: But it also, it's good for my brain to do things like power putter and to do things like give myself 15 minutes to go learn about the history of Windex.
Merlin: Because nobody's there to give me homework anymore for what is going to get me to this next milestone in my education.
Merlin: That's on me.
Merlin: And
Merlin: That ability to gather new information and reintegrate it ought to never end in your life.
Merlin: And a fast way you could do that today and give yourself a soft reset, you, our listeners, whomever, do a little bit of power putting.
Merlin: Let yourself, and say to yourself, what if instead of feeling weird and ashamed about this, what if I feel joyful or, you know what I mean, enthusiastic about this?
Merlin: have one or two things you know you want to accomplish.
Merlin: And then, you know, I'm not even saying go and write it down because like myself, you are sometimes, right, you're amazed to go like, oh my gosh, I did so much more than I realized.
Merlin: It's just not the kind of thing that impresses my barber.
Merlin: But like that re-engagement with the process of learning experimentation, iteration, I find that a very lively, I'm content to stand alone if that's weird because I find it extremely invigorating.
John: I mean, for me, overcoming feelings that I'm not doing good, that I haven't done well in life, that I'm not a good person.
John: I mean, all the shame.
John: Also, you're disappointing.
John: Don't forget that.
John: Disappointing.
John: I've carried with me all these years.
John: You know, it's interesting because I have never once said to another person like, oh, must be nice.
John: about anything have you ever said you've got too much time on your hands i've never said anything like that like i don't judge what a horrible thing to say in their time you know like all that stuff but we live in a culture where where we're all afraid to say like i had a good day today because there are so many people maybe not anybody that you know but a lot of people in the world that are going to say wow nice that you had a nice day
John: And that's not in me.
Merlin: Did you hear what's happening in the hill country?
Merlin: Must be nice for you.
John: Yeah, must be nice.
John: Must be nice that you whatever.
John: And you know, that's not I don't have that impulse.
John: It's never a thing that I think about.
Merlin: It's a very liberal.
Merlin: It's a very liberal, not even progressive.
Merlin: It's a liberal impulse.
Merlin: If I can envision anything even slightly worse than what I imagine your life is like, you are not entitled to have feelings and share them.
John: yeah right or this thing yeah yeah that's right and and i don't i never do that to anybody and i've never but i i have lived in a in a life where i do it to myself absolutely not not like oh you don't have the right to but but you know kind of i know and part of the part of like just being part of this is
John: I'm seeing through other people's eyes that they seem to think that I have a nice life.
John: And it always shocked me or started to shock me when I, and I always felt like, well, you clearly don't see, right?
John: Like you're, you're just seeing, they can't see the turmoil.
John: They can't see the turmoil.
John: So, so you're just looking at something, you know, you're looking at whatever that I, that I have the freedom to cut my own hair.
John: Cause it doesn't matter what I look like.
John: And you think that that means I have a nice life.
Merlin: Must be nice.
John: But, but as time has gone on, I'm like, wait a minute.
John: No, no, no.
John: Like I,
John: It's okay to accept that as a compliment, you know, or accept it as like a possibility.
John: Like, is it possible that, that it's true, right?
John: That is there a way that I could find a way to ever say that about myself or to look at it?
Merlin: That it's true and you have, you miss it and you continue to miss it because of some kind of a, what, personality flaw?
Merlin: That like, you're just, everybody else sees it.
Merlin: Why don't you see it?
John: i don't you know or and is this something you know this is the nature nurture question that we're still arguing even though we were arguing it when we were born which is was that trained into me or is that some legacy of my great great grandparents that's in my blood i don't know yeah probably ample both you know the other the other day just yesterday actually i was supposed to meet somebody at 11.
John: And I got there at 1055 because I'm trying not to be 20 minutes late to everything.
Merlin: Goddamn, John.
Merlin: That's impressive, man.
John: It's not because it's 80% of the time.
John: No, but it's not easy for everybody.
John: It's not easy for everybody.
John: But so I'm there at 11 and the person's not replying.
John: I'm here.
John: No reply.
John: And so I go over to the door and the door is locked.
John: And I'm like, okay, well, you know, I'm out front.
John: no reply and so i sit there for a while and do to do to do and this is a thing where in the past for most of my life i would already be mad like what the fuck you know this is why i'm never on time for anything and so then this is what it gets me i went around the side of the building and i i wrapped on the glass nap nap nap nap
John: No reply.
John: So I go back and I'm leaning against the wall and I'm kind of do do do do.
John: And I'm not saying aloha.
John: I'm not, I'm not trying to be mindful.
John: I'm not deep breathing to keep the mad.
John: Did you touch grass, John?
John: There was grass around.
John: Okay.
John: But what was happening was I wasn't mad.
Okay.
John: And the reason I wasn't mad is that somehow in the last five to six years, all the different times that I have a low hard my self out of being mad.
John: Like at this point I was like, it's fine.
John: I'm fine.
John: Well, you know,
John: I'm not even talking to myself.
John: I'm just like doop to do to do.
John: And when the little voice comes into my head where it's like, it's your, he's 15 minutes.
John: Now you've been standing out here.
John: Like at what point are you going to have enough and storm off?
Yeah.
John: And I was like, well, I'm not at that point yet.
John: I mean, it's cool.
John: Whatever, man.
John: And eventually like a car pulled up and I wasn't standing where I was visible.
John: And the person got out of the car and walked in the door before I could kind of like get around the corner of the retaining wall.
John: Okay.
John: And then there's a car parked there.
John: And I'm still standing out there.
John: And I was fine with that.
John: I didn't go around and follow whoever the person was.
John: I was just like, well, you know, and eventually somebody came out and was like, oh, you're here.
John: And then it turned out someone had fallen asleep and someone was 20 minutes late.
John: You never know.
John: You never know.
Merlin: And it was a perfect storm.
John: We lived our whole lives not knowing.
John: Not knowing.
John: You know?
John: It was just a perfect storm of why I stood out.
John: Your mom might be in traffic or she might be dead.
John: that's right you won't you won't know until later somebody right now is calling a pay phone to tell you and you're not standing there and so i walked in and the and the people there were like oh we're so sorry and i was like it's no it's no worries and i have never been that guy
John: And it was not a put on and I was not I had not alohad and it was and 20 minutes later I didn't drop a little thing in where I was like well, you know leaving people out front You know, I didn't it was just it didn't exist in me And there was never a change and the only reason I think is that I'm not putting so much shit on myself anymore and
John: and that shit isn't running downhill like i'm not mad about things because i'm just not because i'm not coming i wasn't i didn't show up there already having spent the day telling myself i was doing it wrong and i can't i can't draw a direct correlation
John: But, like, I couldn't understand it.
John: I'm standing there like, why am I not?
John: You're standing out in the hot sun here for 20 minutes.
John: Why are you not indignant?
Merlin: Do you feel like in previous times, this is a very leading question, just because it's how my mind works, is, like, whether you intend to or not, like, let's say everything else had been the same, but it was a different version of you, a previous version.
Merlin: Is it a...
Merlin: somewhat automatic ish thing where you're like, hey, this person's late.
Merlin: That's disrespectful.
Merlin: I'm mad.
Merlin: Like, are you aware of what it is you feel like you should be emotional about?
Merlin: Do you know what I mean?
Merlin: Is that too subtle?
John: It was always that I just, that- You're being disrespected?
Merlin: Disrespect.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: That I have too much dignity for this and- Some people say I have a surplus of dignity, you once said.
John: A surplus of dignity, right?
John: And I think I'm standing out there and I'm like, hey, I'm doing fine.
John: So I don't need,
John: to be treated like with dignity.
John: I've got my own dignity enough that everybody involved in this knows who I am and this is not on purpose, right?
John: Nobody is inside going, ha ha, let's let that loser sit outside for 20 minutes to see how he likes it, right?
John: Whatever it is, this is just an accident or oops or somebody's phone died, but it's got nothing to do with...
John: Whether I'm respected or beloved or... And I think that something's changed in the last few years.
Merlin: That is definitely... I don't want to agree with you too much because it sounds like I'm trying to criticize the idea of how you have been, which I'm not trying to do.
Merlin: But I agree with you.
Merlin: And that's why I find it so endlessly... For myself, I find it so endlessly interesting to ask myself questions like...
Merlin: And again, this is a presence of mind thing.
Merlin: Well, like, why am I flustered right now?
Merlin: Like, does that have any connection to things that happened earlier?
Merlin: And like, is it just one of those, oh my God, it's going to be one of those days where like, you know, nothing comes up Milhouse, you know, is it going to be those kinds of things?
Merlin: But like, it is...
Merlin: I also would like to congratulate you on having the presence of mind to notice that you handled that well.
Merlin: Cause you're not always great.
Merlin: If I could criticize you, you're not always great at appreciating like you handle that better than you have before.
Merlin: But I, I don't know.
Merlin: Those opportunities are always presenting themselves.
Merlin: And if we find ourselves falling constantly back on,
Merlin: on the mean dad voice in our head about, you know, either, either, hey, that person just disrespected you or like, or, or like, hey, like that person used to be more scared of you than they were.
Merlin: Like I say in the document, no one's ever really been scared of you person.
Merlin: And the people that were scared of you are probably just because they, they loved you and you didn't love them back.
Merlin: Like, what if, what if it didn't fucking matter that somebody was late for something and didn't realize it?
Merlin: Does that need to be part of your deal?
Merlin: And it's like, oh my God, that is so ridiculously optional as being part of my deal.
Merlin: And to quote the great Terry Gilliam via Robin Williams, a quote that I love, Robin Williams, they've done a take, this is during 12 Monkeys, and they've done a take that I guess it turned out weird or something, and I guess Robin Williams was saying, I'm sorry for how that went.
Merlin: And Terry Gilliam said, no, no, no, that was fantastic.
Merlin: He says, a mistake is a Buddhist gift.
Merlin: And I think about that a lot, because I know that sounds really like, you know, woo, but what if we just looked at that in a slightly different way?
Merlin: Well, this place I went to, like, I'm in a big hurry today, and it sucks to be in a hurry, and it does suck to be legitimately busy, and it sucks to be in traffic, and it sucks to be in line at the grocery store, and all that kind of stuff, but like...
Merlin: Is there a way that you could kind of catch yourself before that becomes an emotion that is optional?
Merlin: To go like, oh, well, this place isn't open yet, but maybe I'll walk over there and look at this park.
Merlin: Or then your mind can relax a little bit and go, oh, that's right, somebody has a birthday coming up.
Merlin: Maybe I could go over to that store and see if there's anything.
Merlin: Whatever it is.
Merlin: Or you could just sit on a bench like a person and read something.
Merlin: There's a certain kind, there's so many...
Merlin: dark patterns in American personality culture that like we're, we're always trying to look for who's caused our problem and like who to be mad at about it.
Merlin: And like, I don't know, in some ways a more like enduring dad like way to be is to just not be put off by that stuff, but it takes time and it takes effort and it takes in the times when you do blow up and act like your old self, you have to be forgiving and say like, well, I'll get it next time.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: These are the kinds of things that happen when you become old and irrelevant.
John: You know, the only times that I have really raged at anybody in the last several years is me raging at me, except for the guy that let his dog up on the table at the restaurant.
John: That's a, that's a, that's a bridge too far.
John: And I, and you know, the other day I was hanging up pictures in advance of my 4th of July party.
John: I was hanging up pictures because it was just exactly as I predicted, one hour before the guests were arriving.
Merlin: Didn't your mom warn you about that, John, that that wasn't the best use of your time?
Merlin: I think she warned you about that.
John: I was walking around hanging up paintings.
John: Did you want to assemble the grill, do you think?
John: My daughter assembled it.
John: I'll tell you about that.
John: I have never once in my life used a measuring tape or any other tool to center a painting.
John: I look at a wall.
John: I pick a spot with my eye where I think the nail should go.
John: And then I look at it again and I move it in my eye.
John: It goes there.
John: And then I walk over and I put the nail against the wall and I hammer it in.
John: And then I hang the painting on the wall and then I stand back and go, was that correct?
John: And 90% of the time it's like good enough.
John: Cut five times measure eventually.
John: That's right.
John: But there are those times when it's wrong.
John: And.
John: It's usually wrong by not that much, but wrong.
John: And I was doing this.
John: Did you feel like you should have got it on the first try?
John: Every time.
John: And there are times when it's wrong, and I do it a second time, and I stand back, and it's wrong a second time.
John: And now I've made two holes in the wall, and I have to make a third.
John: And I'm like, fuck!
John: You fucking goddammit!
Merlin: You just made the mistake again.
Merlin: Remember, you weren't supposed to do that.
Merlin: And then you just made him.
Merlin: You're not even supposed to be hanging a painting.
Merlin: But even then, I know exactly what you mean.
Merlin: And you're like, at that point, you've like, you failed yourself.
John: And what I'm trying to say to myself these days is, look, you've never used a tape measure.
John: So you're still judging yourself according to a premise that using a tape measure is A, what you should be doing, and B, that it was ever an option for you.
John: And it's never been.
John: So you're judging yourself according to a thing you've been carrying.
John: For 40 years, you've been telling yourself.
Merlin: Live by the eyeball, die by the eyeball.
John: You know, like, who am I?
John: What long dead person is standing there as a ghost, as a force ghost holding.
John: It's Bob Vila.
John: I'm holding a ruler.
John: And going, here it is.
John: And I'm like, I've never touched a ruler.
John: This isn't my method.
John: Why am I mad?
John: This is what I do.
John: And these are the holes that I have made.
John: And if you took all of the holes that I've made in walls and it was the wrong hole and you put
John: If you put all those holes together, it wouldn't surprise anyone.
John: You couldn't even get a volleyball in that hole if it was all the holes together.
John: It's still smaller than a volleyball.
John: Think about the people that are making holes in the world, even right now.
John: Yeah.
John: Holes you could drive a truck through.
John: I've made a collective, a cumulative volleyball-sized hole in 100 walls, and most of them I filled with toothpaste and nobody even knows that.
John: No, nobody knows.
John: Yeah.
Yeah.
John: But this for the July party, you know, I bean-deaded my daughter and was like, you assemble the grill.
John: And she did.
Merlin: Just to catch our listeners up, if I remember correctly, Jason, your friend Jason informed you that you would be having.
John: He's your friend.
John: He's your friend.
John: I got him from you.
John: I got it from you, Dad.
John: I know.
John: He's absolutely – and there's no penicillin that will get him to go away.
Merlin: I like him so much.
Merlin: But Jason had said to you, hey, you should have an Independence Day party.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And I went through my Rolodex.
Merlin: Yeah, you went through your Rolodex.
Merlin: You sent out an e-vite.
Merlin: Sent out an e-vite.
Merlin: You sent an electronic vite.
John: To kind of an unusual group.
John: Like, some of them are close friends.
John: Some of them are friends that I see on the reg.
John: Some of them are friends I haven't seen very... You know, but it's not like...
John: I just invited from one group.
John: I invited from a large pool of people that don't know each other.
John: Then Jason came over or Jason was like, we got to go to Costco.
John: And we went to Costco and we ate hot dogs and we bought meat in bags and we got buns.
John: I'm living in the wrong city.
John: And then we got here and the grill arrived and I sat my little girl down and I was like, here are the instructions.
John: Here are, here's the grill.
John: Now, my only piece of advice is in instructions like this that don't have words, every line in the drawing is significant.
John: Yeah.
John: They don't do, they don't include any lines that are decorative.
Right.
Merlin: And they also don't call out, this happens with IKEA, this happens with all this stuff.
Merlin: They also don't always, sometimes you'll see very clearly, like, start by creating this piece and put it on the floor and make sure that the one part with two holes is on the top.
Merlin: But, like, just, yeah, my general advice is to, like, just make sure that all the directional stuff is right and something you don't think you need to worry about in the drawing is actually telling you something that'll be hugely important in step five.
Merlin: That's right.
John: That's right.
John: Never just let your eye roam over a triangle because that triangle is your future.
John: And she did what I have done, what we've all done, which is every single part she assembled, she had to disassemble and reassemble later when she realized that she'd done it.
Merlin: That's important.
Merlin: That's an important thing to learn.
John: And she was getting very frustrated and it took twice as long to assemble the grill as it would have if I had just done it.
John: Yeah.
Yeah.
John: And she was just like over there.
John: At a certain point, the sun went down and she said, get me a headlamp.
John: And we got her a headlamp.
John: And she's there in the dark, like this thing is upside down again.
John: But the grill got put together.
John: The food all got bought.
John: Ari came over with some red, white, and blue streamers and hung them up.
John: And then the people started to arrive.
John: And I was hanging paintings.
John: And everybody's like, what are you doing?
John: And Jason got here early, heated up the grill.
John: Even though he's not your assistant.
John: Don't ask him to do assistant work.
John: He said, look, I'm not going to sit here and run your grill all day.
John: and i said i think you are yeah and he was like i'm not and then he did he just was the such hard for me to imagine him not being hovering near the grill and having just sat at the grill he made everybody's food oh my god it was like mr run the grill a lot of people complimented the grill but then people started coming and
John: And then there was a house full of people.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: And everybody was having a good time.
John: You could just tell.
John: Anybody remark on the paintings?
John: Only my family who knew that there had not been a painting there.
John: Yeah.
John: They were like, oh, huh.
John: Look at that.
John: um there were several bean salads that arrived vegetarian funny dishes there was like a there was like a parfait there were you know people brought stuff wow and there were conversation pits
John: And people over here talking to people over there.
John: And then they moved over here.
Merlin: You must have had some people reconnecting from the past and probably meeting some new people.
Merlin: You talked about visual artists, music people, different types of folk.
Merlin: Good opportunity to mix.
Merlin: And as we get older, as we learn, as you get older, you're more likely to mix with people.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: Fire Captain Brian Wallace was there.
Merlin: Did he bring his special burgers with the blue cheese?
John: He didn't.
John: He let it ride.
John: I think he did bring some special things, but a long time ago, I got an apron for a Christmas present that had JR on it, like a barbecue dad apron.
John: Never had a reason to wear it, but I put it on.
John: I never went near the barbecue because Jason was running it, but I had the apron on all day.
John: But they'll know it's your party.
John: It was my party.
John: And I went from one group to the next.
John: I invited some younger rock musicians because I'm feeling more and more like I have a responsibility.
John: Like the Seattle music scene really helped me.
John: and although no one ever mentored me really the scene as a whole was very supportive and in ways that only now i can appreciate like how much the town itself embraced me at a certain point when i really needed it
Merlin: And so that's a nice thing to acknowledge.
John: Yeah, and I feel now like oh wait, I'm I'm definitely not the Seattle music scene most of the young musicians that don't have never heard of me but But though in ways that I can I want to reach out to You know and by younger I mean people that are 32 And say hey, you're 32.
John: I see you.
John: I see you working.
John: I see you struggling I know it's hard
John: I feel like you've done all the right things and you're wondering why you've done all the right things.
John: You make good music.
John: You're trying hard.
John: And now you're wondering why it's so hard.
John: And so I want to invite you to my barbecue and Ben Gibbons there and he's not going to talk to you, but you're at a party with him.
John: And you're going to meet a woman who's 52 years old and has purple hair and plays drums in a band.
John: And she's not, she's not going to give you any advice, but you're going to see her and you're going to be at the party and people are going to ask you and they're going to ask me around the sensibilities of interesting people.
John: Yeah.
John: And you get to see like you are part of this, that you're not alone.
John: You're not in isolation.
Yeah.
John: Because you're not 23 anymore.
John: And so you're not part of that.
John: You're not staying up all night doing drugs.
John: What you're doing right now is you're writing two songs a week and one of them's bad, but one of them's good.
John: Yeah.
John: And you feel like you can't keep living on $750 a week, but you can.
Yeah.
John: You know, so anyway, there's that element too at the party.
John: And then Marlo's got 10 kids of varying ages.
John: And all of a sudden she's running around, like running this whole kid farm.
John: And I looked around and I was like, you know, I, there's no, it couldn't have gone better than this.
John: and it's not that anything is happening it's just a party but every person every person here is having a good time there's nobody that's there's nobody that's not having a good time nobody's there's no fights a couple of people showed up and made comments right at the front like well i don't know what we're celebrating america am i right and i was like hey
John: None of that talk.
John: None of that talk here today.
John: USA, goddammit.
John: It's America's birthday.
John: And they laughed, and I laughed.
John: But I was like, I'm serious, though.
John: None of this blah, blah, blah, blah.
John: We're partying, and we're partying USA style.
John: And they were grateful to be given the gift of being told to stop fucking vetching, right?
John: It was like, thank you, thank you.
John: I don't have to
Merlin: If I had hosted something this summer, or really at any point in the last year, the phrase I would use, well, at least I would be thinking, is could you please leave your headlines at home?
Merlin: Yeah, you know, and this phrase I end up using a lot with some of my younger friends who I feel like sometimes have trouble getting too far beyond like what's on their mind right now.
Merlin: And it's like, I would love to have a party where we're, we're not going to just find a way to tie everything back to a headline.
John: Yeah.
John: And that, and that I think everybody got the message because I was wearing American flag pants, flag pants, and every man there's flags all around.
John: And it's like, I don't, you know, we all read the news.
John: But and we're not ignoring in the news, but that's not what we're what we're we're not celebrating that right now.
John: We're not celebrating that this is that the world is a drag and everybody was
John: I was glad, and I'm nervous at a party.
John: I moved the entire time.
John: I didn't eat anything.
John: I just went from group to group and was like, da-da-da-da-da.
John: Nervous, like excitable or worried?
John: Yeah, just, no, not worried, because it was all, everything was working.
Merlin: Just like innervated or excited about what was going on.
Merlin: Well, and introverted, right?
John: Like I don't know what to do at a party.
John: Normally I stand in the corner and people come to me and I have my back against the wall and I talk to somebody and then they move on and somebody else comes over.
John: I don't know.
John: As a host, I wasn't sure what my job was.
John: Never hosted a party, really.
John: Yeah.
John: But I kept moving and nobody had a problem with that.
John: Everybody was glad to see me when I came up to their little group.
John: But then when I walked away, nobody followed me or I never had to settle any disputes.
Merlin: Did you get to do the thing where you get to introduce people who you feel like should know each other?
Merlin: I did that a lot.
Merlin: Isn't that a nice feeling?
Merlin: Yeah, and there were... You guys know each other, but you don't know you know each other.
John: Exactly.
John: Well, and also it's Seattle, so it's like, oh, you're the guy that does the, oh, yeah, I've been to your thing.
John: You know, there was a lot of that.
John: And there was a little bit of like, oh, you know, this group of four people is over here talking about the music business, and you got to expect that.
Merlin: Well, you got to take it as red, though, that some of those people are also introverts.
John: absolutely in my very very very limited experience with ben gibber he doesn't strike me as the kind of person who goes out and just like walks up to a group of strangers and starts you know saying what's up because he hasn't had to since he was 21 people come talk to him but yeah i had a weird exchange with a with a couple i know where the the wife who is the total like
John: She's just a ray of light.
John: Everybody wants she wants to talk to everybody and everybody wants to talk to her and her husband is kind of like a Person that stands on the periphery and if you go talk to him You feel weird like he's just a he's a kind of like a Boris Karloff character doesn't seem like he I mean sometimes you can tell people I
Merlin: I do – I don't mean to toot my own horn, but that's something I would always try to do at parties or comic meetups or whatever is like where I could tell that like from eye movements and body language that there's somebody who's there and is, you know –
Merlin: They're reluctant to assert themselves, by which I mean even like say hi.
Merlin: And like you can always just walk up to somebody and introduce yourself, whether or not you think it's necessary.
Merlin: Going up and introducing yourself to somebody is a nice way to welcome somebody to the clan.
Merlin: And they can decide what they want to do on their own, but, you know, you could at least reach out to them.
John: Yeah, it's easy to do.
John: And I know her husband, and so, and I did, because I see him standing over by the bean salads all by himself, and I went over and talked to him for a while, and I was like, yes, it is awkward to talk to him, and I have other things to do, so, you know, here, let me hand you off, you know, not quite of like a... Muhammad.
John: Muhammad, a jug dish, but...
John: You know, and then I'm talking to her and she says unprompted.
John: She's like, well, my husband is such an extrovert.
John: He loves these parties.
John: And I'm like, so introverted.
John: She's surrounded by people.
John: They're all lining up to talk to her.
John: That's interesting.
John: It's so interesting.
John: Our what we see in ourselves and.
Merlin: Especially in that dyad, a particular dyad that you see as being so different.
Merlin: But I mean, it must work, I guess, on some level.
Merlin: But it's funny that your perception of that is close to the opposite of what their self-assessment is.
John: I think everybody in the party was probably closer to my assessment than their internal one.
John: But my friend Eric Anderson said an interesting thing.
John: at the party he was like my my wife told me that there are there are two kinds of people in this world winners and losers down down down down right am i right yeah that's right good you went insane like you always do yeah that's exactly it
John: No, he said there are two kinds of people.
John: I was listening to Line Order over the weekend.
John: He said there are yes people and there are let's people.
John: Ooh, I love these kinds of distinctions.
John: Tell me more, Eric.
John: And he said, yes people.
John: When you go to them and say, let's do a thing, they say yes people.
John: And he said, I've always been a yes person and you're a yes person, John.
John: And I was like, I am 100% a yes person.
John: If you come and say, there's a thing, let's do it.
John: I say, absolutely.
Merlin: Somebody came up to you and said, I'm pretty sure I know where there's a dead body.
Merlin: We could poke it.
Merlin: You would be in the Jeep in no time.
Merlin: I'd be, I'd be.
John: I'll be poking that boy, pull it on my shoes.
John: But he said, let's people are the ones that say, let's go do the thing.
John: And let's people and yes, people are very different and let's people get tired of being let's people.
John: They want to be yes, people sometimes.
John: And yes, people live in a world where they think everybody, where they think they're owed let's people.
John: Where's all the let's people that are here telling me what I should do?
John: I get it.
John: And I was like, that's totally me, right?
John: I wait around for people to say, let's do a thing.
Merlin: And then I'm there and I go to a million parties because you don't generally with this party as an exception, you don't generally go out and generate the thing that we're going to let's about.
John: Well, since the pandemic, I have been right since the pandemic.
John: I'm like, let's go.
John: Let's do this.
John: We have to get out.
John: We have to get up.
John: Let's go.
John: Let's go.
John: Let's go.
John: But I'm confining it kind of to my usual group.
John: Like, let's go to this.
John: I'm talking about the 10 people that are in my immediate orbit.
John: Let's meet for lunch.
John: Let's have a dim sum.
John: But what Eric was saying was, you just gave everybody here a let's.
John: You said, let's have a party on the 4th of July.
John: And I'm inviting all of the people that were going to stay home.
John: And look at all the people that came, you know, look how many people are here.
John: You said let's, and then you gave all these people an opportunity to say yes.
John: And I was like, wow, that's a dig it man, you know, dig it.
John: And, and everybody, then the greatest part about this party was between eight 30 and eight 50.
Merlin: Everybody fucked off all at once But so you didn't you just so our listeners know I think one of your small concerns going into this is I believe what you said was you don't know how to end a party No, right and I said you went into it with a certain amount of unknown like what's gonna happen will this end can this and that's the thing I didn't even know that you could I put starts at three ends whenever and
John: Because it seemed like three question marks.
John: Why would you say a party ends?
John: Because sometimes parties don't end.
John: It's like, no, no, no.
John: You say when it ends, people can stay.
Merlin: I totally know what you're saying.
Merlin: Because it kind of sounds like you're saying, hey, you know, I'm not some sourpuss that says you got to leave my house at five.
Merlin: This could get crazy.
Merlin: But like when you put to the closing time of question mark question...
Merlin: It sounds kind of like a high school cast party.
Merlin: It does.
John: And what I was worried about at 8 o'clock was I was like, will these people leave?
John: No, it wasn't that.
Merlin: There's no more food.
Merlin: There was no more food.
Merlin: Go.
John: There are like seven or eight people that RSVP'd yes that haven't showed up yet.
John: And I know that they are all the type of people that would RSVP yes and not come.
John: But they're also the people who would RSVP yes and come at 9.
John: Yeah.
John: and what i'm terrified of because this party's over right 8 45 and each single person had their own moment where they came over and said hey man great party thanks for having us we got to get going and i was like great to see you and then a moment or two would go by and
John: Somebody would come from a different direction and be like, hey, buddy, this was awesome.
John: Thanks for having me.
John: But we're going to take off.
John: And I was like, okay, great.
John: And the party just went from completely packed to everybody going.
John: That's nice grouping.
John: 20 minutes is tight grouping.
John: Just like tight grouping.
John: It was just like we all recognized the party was over.
John: And then it was over and it was just us.
John: And I hadn't, I didn't have to say time to go to anybody.
John: I didn't have to, nobody stood there when it was clear that the party was over, but they kept talking.
John: There was none of that.
John: I didn't have to rescue anybody the whole night.
John: Everybody was self-rescuing.
John: Oh, wow.
Merlin: And at 9.10, I'm sitting by the fire pit.
Merlin: Larry David calls it what?
Merlin: Being the party cop.
Merlin: You should have a sheriff of the party, like somebody whose job it is to just walk around and rest people away from being stuck talking to one person.
John: Exactly.
John: And there was none of that because everybody I invited that came, they were all just amazing.
John: Every one of them had all the skills, all the people skills that you would need.
John: sounds like this went really well john and at 9 15 i'm sitting there with my kid and her mom around the fire and a car pulls into the driveway and it's this it's this aging rock star guy with his you know with his like beautiful rock star wife and he's like hey man you know just came by the party and i was like oh the party just wrapped up and he's like oh
John: well, you know, that's cool.
John: Can I see the place?
John: And I was like, yeah, let's go, and gave him a tour of the place, and we stood by the fire for 20 minutes and talked.
John: That's different from 10 people showing up at 9.30.
John: Big time.
John: Yes.
John: And he didn't want anything.
John: He just was like, let me see.
Merlin: Did a keg stand and got back in the car.
John: Yeah.
John: And then it was like, and so, you know, there was just no part of it that wasn't,
John: that didn't make me go, hey, I think I might have a pretty good life.
John: I think I might be doing okay.
John: I might be even doing this right.
John: I'm not sure, but if God wanted to fuck with me,
John: This was a great opportunity.
John: Yeah, and so far, it didn't look like you've been fucked with by God.
John: Not at all.
John: So far.
John: Everybody was glad to be here.
John: Nobody came for an hour and left.
John: Only one guy showed up at nine.
John: And it was great.
John: It was just exactly what everybody seemed to need.
John: How did Jason feel about it?
Merlin: I mean, given that he is the back pocket provocateur, is he happy with how the party went?
John: He was.
John: He enjoyed being at the grill, even though he's going to say that he didn't.
John: He was the first one to leave.
John: because it was sexy when he arrived he pulled he was the first one to get here he pulled his truck all the way to the front of the driveway his truck he's got a little volkswagen he parked it with its nose like on the road
John: As a very clear, like when it's time for me to go, I am not going to have to put this car in reverse.
John: I'm going to put it in drive and it's all, I'm going to be going 40 miles an hour by the time I get to the hundred yards away.
John: He's going to, he's going to duster his way out.
John: He was, and he came up and he was like, you know, it's seven 30 or whatever.
John: As you know, I'm in my pajamas by eight.
John: And so this has been great.
John: And here's where I put the spatula and I turned the grill off before I left.
Merlin: uh great party and he peaced out and i was like it's um i'm not going to press or pursue this too much i would just very gently say uh well first of all i'm glad it went well but also i think um you know you've had some little wins here and i'm grateful that you're appreciating them as wins
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: I don't know how to say it without sounding like a fucking asshole.
Merlin: But, like, we're hard on ourselves, John.
Merlin: Everybody's hard on themselves.
Merlin: And, like, we're hard on ourselves about things that, like, maybe other people aren't hard on themselves about.
Merlin: But, like, at the end of the day, like, you did kind of a nice thing and you had fun with friends and you survived it.
Merlin: You got some paintings on the wall.
Merlin: And, like, I don't know why in my head.
Merlin: I'm just imagining everything's always going to be a disaster.
Merlin: But, like, that sounds like great success to me.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: It is.
Merlin: What about your little one?
Merlin: At the end of the day, if you can say, did she like it?
John: It was a great success.
Merlin: It's a lot of attention, a lot of stuff at your own house you can't get away from.
John: The neighbor across the alley with the leaf blower, he loves that he's a character in the extended ROTL universe.
John: And he's got leaf blower content.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
John: He's got leaf blower content all the time now.
John: And they have two little boys.
John: He's got like a three-year-old or a four-year-old and a two-year-old.
John: And they're beautiful.
John: And they're charming.
John: And they're just marvelous little boys.
John: And Marlo said, okay, you're coming with us.
John: And she had one friend there.
John: And one of the guests.
John: She dragged the boys along.
John: She did.
Merlin: Neighbor boys.
John: That's right.
John: One of the guests came with a 12-year-old daughter.
John: And the 12-year-old daughter wears glasses and was standing with her mother.
John: And her father, I guess, and two other people talking.
John: And she was very conscious that there were other teenage girls at the party.
John: And she didn't know how to.
John: Absolutely.
John: She didn't know what to do.
John: Because you never know how established anybody is.
John: That's right.
John: And so Marlo's coming through the house.
John: This is pretty early on in the party.
John: She's coming through the house.
John: She's got her friend.
John: And she's got these two little boys.
John: And she's got another friend who's 12.
John: And she's got that friend's brother who's 11.
John: So she's got a little posse.
John: and she walks past me and she gives me the high sign like what's up and i'm like hey there's that outside in the on the patio there's a 12 year old girl she's standing with her mother her mother's got green hair on your way out the door i want you to walk over to that girl and say come with us
John: And Marlo looked at me and, you know, gave me this like she's because when she was really little, I trained her how to march and salute.
John: Like we would march around the yard.
John: It's so much worse.
John: I was like, left face.
John: And she just loved it.
John: You know, left face, standard attention, parade rest.
John: And she would do it.
John: And so in moments like that, when I give her a kind of like, um, like an order, but I didn't, it's not, you know, I just, I'm like whispering it in her ear.
John: She kind of stands up a little bit straighter and she gives me like a, like a nod, like a, like you would give a familial salute.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: And she marched out the door with this group of kids, walked right over to this little girl and was like, you're coming with us.
John: Come with me if you want to live.
John: The little girl, like, didn't even look at her mom, just fell right in step.
Merlin: That is such a kindness to bring somebody into the group.
Merlin: I mean, it doesn't matter what the age is, but especially at that age, it's really nice to have somebody go.
Merlin: We're already friends.
Merlin: Let's go.
John: And by the end of the day, the report from all the kids was, she's rad, smart, and cool.
John: You love to hear that, huh?
John: Her mom texted me in the middle of the night.
John: I would never want a kid that other kids hate.
John: Don't drive me crazy.
John: And I know you know this, too, but it wasn't always true when my little one was 11 and 12 that the 14-year-olds...
Merlin: came over and said, you come with us.
Merlin: Oh, shizzle.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: A lot of times when she's standing there just feeling like, hmm.
Merlin: That's the wrong set of people to rely on for good personal decision making.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: We can't put too much on people who are 11 to 15 in terms of expecting them to exceed our expectations because...
John: they got a lot going on as it is you know so good for her man well and i i think yeah as you say like credit to her that she didn't look at me and go oh god dad lame you know she was just like got it because i think she'd been that 12 year old girl and wish to god someone she knows she knows the power it's not like you're stuck with them forever it's not your college roommate you just gotta hang out with them for a little while
John: Well, maybe it turns out like this little girl that she's rad.
John: You never know.
John: Moments snap together like magnets.
John: You never know.
John: They marched over to the neighbor's house, leaf blower dad.
John: And then they were like, we're taking over your house for a while.
John: Okay.
John: And they were like, all right, well then that's, you know, and the party kind of then, because they have a cool house.
John: Was green haired mom happy to see it happening?
John: Oh, she was so, she was overjoyed.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: That's a nice feeling.
John: Yeah.
John: I think her daughter like maybe struggles to meet friends at school.
Merlin: My kid is and was by, I think almost anybody's definition introverted.
Merlin: Not to say that he can't be social, but like, and oddly, well, I'm not gonna talk about my kid anymore.
Merlin: But like my kid does have very good leadership skills and is very like engaged with other kids.
Merlin: And I mean, as we speak, my kid is doing his job as what is called an explainer at the Exploratorium where all he does all day long is interact with tourists and show them how science works.
Merlin: Talk about that white crocodile.
Merlin: Oh, that's at the other place.
Merlin: That's at the expensive place.
Merlin: But no, this is a place that's partially funded by Kanye West.
Merlin: Oh, hello.
Merlin: So he and his lady friend came in last year and apparently made quite an impression on everyone.
Merlin: Yeah, you told me this story, I think.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, she almost wore clothes.
Yeah.
Merlin: I think it was an oversight.
Merlin: But your kid, you can just see, like, generosity of spirit.
Merlin: Generosity.
Merlin: Yes, exactly.
Merlin: And I only have, I have one cute story.
Merlin: I try not to tell too many cute stories, but, like, it used to be that we would, this is just emblematic to me of what, at least I'm thinking of, which is, like, to drop off at preschool, you know, every day one of us would drop the kid off, you know, take your hand, we're going to walk you in, drop you off right where you need to be.
Merlin: And then one time, this is from Via Madeline, because it was her day dropping off,
Merlin: said to Billy, okay, well, do you want to maybe try going in on your own?
Merlin: And our three-year-old said, but who will hold my hand?
Merlin: And there's something so wonderfully, well, first of all, that's just a great child thing to say.
Merlin: In a way, like, you know, like an older person might go, oh, screw that, or I'm scared, or I don't want to be alone.
Merlin: But to plaintively ask your mother, but who will hold my hand?
Merlin: It's such a sweet way to me to, like, grok that situation.
Merlin: We want somebody to come up and smile and take our hand.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: in life and like the thing is sort of like you with with your people in the brian jones haircuts and the vaping and the young people i don't know if they even know about guitars anymore but that's kind of what you can be too you can be somebody to go and grab a hand you know what i mean yes yeah exactly that that's what a party is it's it's it's you know we're not 16 anymore it's not a place to go and like well i guess you probably could make people feel bad you could single people out for bad treatment that would be fun too maybe you and jason next time could single someone out
John: There's a million ways that people can be made to feel bad at a party.
John: But what was marvelous about this was that I just heard from a lot of people like, so when's your next party?
Merlin: Oh, wow.
John: When's my next party?
John: And I didn't say...
John: Never or next year.
John: I mean, I there are a lot of people that said okay.
John: This is a this is a new supposed to say something coquettish like well, are you coming?
John: Yeah TTT.
John: Mm-hmm, but I think a lot of people don't talk to each other at least in this is where we're spending the fourth of July from now on as long as you know until the world burns I was like I'm into that Oh, you watched fourth of July jaws.
Merlin: Yeah, I watched it last week and I watched it over the weekend
Merlin: I watched it.
Merlin: It's a really good, but we need these kinds of things, you know?
John: We watched Say Anything and I realized how not a Dobbler I've been my whole life.
John: I've never been a Lloyd Dobbler.
John: I've always been a Blaine.
Merlin: I don't know what the hell I've been.
Merlin: No, I know what you are.
Merlin: You know who you are.
Merlin: um come on deckard who no no same movie same movie maybe maybe there might have been some songs written about you you're joe joe joe lies when he cries oh no remember remember the songs all the songs about joe but joe like joe lies when he cries i just saw her in something oh
Merlin: You know what I saw.
Merlin: Was she in Duster that she was in?
Merlin: She was in something recently.
Merlin: Lily Taylor, I want to say.
Merlin: Was she in Duster?
Merlin: Crazy.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: But anyway, Keith David.
Merlin: I need to have a podcast where I can talk about Keith David someday.
Merlin: There's a lot of room for podcasts.
John: You know, our old pal is here in Seattle now.
Merlin: I know, I know.
Merlin: This is exciting.
Merlin: But all the major player characters are okay with how it went.
John: I got a bunch of thank you texts, I think, from everybody.
Merlin: I'm the one who's being sweaty here.
Merlin: You're not being sweaty.
Merlin: I'm the one being sweaty.
Merlin: I'm looking for your accolades and your attaboys.
Merlin: I'm sure it was just like a lovely, low-key day.
Merlin: And you know what?
Merlin: You probably didn't do overly formalized bullshit with having games and stuff like that.
Merlin: You just let people come and be adults and eat from your grill.
John: there was one little girl like a like an eight-year-old girl who was just mad about being there and she didn't want to play with the other kids and she was just yeah and i brought a chalkboard out
John: And I put a chalkboard out on the patio with some pieces of big chalk.
John: Whoa.
John: And with the idea that the little kids.
John: You're like Diane Fossey or something.
John: I was just like, here's some.
John: But I didn't point at it.
John: I was just like, I wheeled it out and put the chalk down and then walked away.
John: And this little eight-year-old who'd been sitting there, you know, really like in her fluffy party dress.
John: Yeah, with her arms crossed and brow furrowed.
John: When nobody was looking at her.
John: Because as soon as I wheeled the chalkboard out, she was just like staring at it.
John: And she waited until nobody... She thought nobody was looking at her, although I was looking at her.
John: And she went over and immediately just was like in the chalkboard.
John: So just drawing and doing all kinds of stuff on the chalkboard, which was very public.
John: It's right there on the patio.
John: Everybody can see what you're doing.
John: So it was a kind of... She was like now performing or she was...
John: She was part of the party, but she didn't want to put your hand to in life, you know?
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: So sometimes all you need is a chalkboard.
John: Sometimes all you need is a chalkboard.
John: Yeah.
John: Even the person that's having the worst time.
John: And she was having a fine time.
John: She was just mad at her dad.
Merlin: But this could also just be something you do in general.
Merlin: Like if somebody comes over to your house and they're being a sourpuss, you hand them a chalkboard.
Merlin: Just wheel out a chalkboard.
Merlin: You live and learn.
Merlin: This is liberal arts, John.
John: Wheel it out.
John: Anybody that's got a kid has got a chalkboard on wheels somewhere.
John: That's true.
John: It's very wise.
Merlin: Happy Independence Day.
Merlin: They're not all funny.
Merlin: Stop there.
Bup, bup, bup, bup.