Ep. 592: "Existential Gravy"
John:
Hello?
Merlin:
Hi, John.
John:
Hi, Merlin.
John:
How's it going?
John:
Oh, it's going pretty well.
John:
How are you going?
Merlin:
I'm going great.
Merlin:
You're early.
John:
Oh, yeah, you're right.
John:
I was 30 seconds early.
John:
Well, I mean, that's saying something.
John:
It's good for you, man.
John:
Hey, you know, just trying to get better every day.
Merlin:
No!
Merlin:
Can't you just pay somebody a compliment without it being a thing?
Merlin:
What do you mean?
Merlin:
I just think you're awesome, and I'm glad you're here.
Merlin:
Oh, thanks, man.
Merlin:
You mad at me?
Merlin:
No, not at all.
Merlin:
Probably should be.
Merlin:
Oh.
John:
Did you do something bad this morning?
Merlin:
No.
Merlin:
Are you a bad boy?
Merlin:
No, I did a lot this morning.
Merlin:
I know from my information watch that Sunday night is typically my worst night of sleep, and I've learned to embrace that.
John:
Like make it part of your pattern?
Merlin:
Well, yes.
John:
Like Sunday night, bed night, Monday morning, hard morning.
Merlin:
Well, kind of.
Merlin:
I try not to add unnecessary emotional valence to things that don't need it.
John:
Okay.
Merlin:
All right.
Merlin:
Because that doesn't historically help me.
Merlin:
But if I do wake up, you know, at 530 on Monday, I go, eh, it's Monday.
Merlin:
It happens.
Merlin:
Am I right?
Merlin:
Mondays.
John:
Yeah, Mondays.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Oh, this lasagna.
John:
I didn't go to sleep until five in the morning last night.
John:
No.
John:
And the whole time I was laying there in bed thinking, what are you doing?
John:
What are you doing?
John:
Yeah.
John:
This is unnecessary.
John:
What are you doing?
John:
Why are you, what?
John:
I mean, I wasn't even saying, why are you doing it?
John:
I was just like, what are you doing?
John:
You could have gone to bed three hours ago.
John:
It still would have been, you still would have stayed up late.
Merlin:
The question I sometimes ask myself, and honestly, I do sometimes ask the world, but especially myself, hey, what are we doing here?
Merlin:
Hey, what are we doing?
Merlin:
It's our plan.
John:
What are we doing here?
John:
And that was me last night.
John:
What's the plan?
John:
You know, you got to get up in the morning.
John:
You know that.
Merlin:
But you don't enjoy the tyranny of sleep.
Merlin:
You don't like the physical, cultural... We've talked about this a lot since the very beginning, I think.
Merlin:
I think it feels like you feel sort of constrained by the notion of sleep that is required in our culture.
John:
Things are open at weird times, you know?
John:
Yeah, I don't like that.
John:
I do sometimes think I love sleep more than as much as anybody.
John:
I'm not going to say more than anybody.
John:
Because who knows?
John:
Who knows?
John:
There's got to be people that love sleep more than me.
John:
But I love it.
John:
But I also routinely go, why do we have to sleep?
John:
Why?
John:
What is this?
John:
What's the plan here?
Merlin:
It's easier to enjoy something when you're good at it.
Merlin:
You know, like, and it's easy enough if you're somebody, one of those God-forsaken people, I mean, God bless them, the people who are like, I fall asleep the second my head hits the pillow.
Merlin:
I always have a sleeping baby.
Merlin:
I'm always like, yeah, that's, I mean, that's, you know, I envy that.
Merlin:
But, you know, I still got a function in the society somehow.
John:
It's a society.
John:
We live in a society.
Mm-hmm.
John:
Yeah.
John:
There's so many different kinds, so many different kinds of people.
John:
Yeah.
John:
You know?
John:
Yeah.
John:
Some of them don't think about food all day.
John:
There's those people.
John:
People that don't think about food all day.
Merlin:
Think about eating because they're kind of hungry or bored?
John:
Yeah.
John:
They don't think about food that way at all.
John:
They think about food the way maybe I think about sleep.
John:
Like, ugh, why do we have to do this?
John:
Do we still have to do this?
John:
Do we have to do this again?
John:
Yeah.
John:
And those people don't know they are like that.
John:
They're the ones that are like, why don't you just exercise a little bit more?
John:
Try meditation, John.
John:
Yeah.
John:
But the difference is I can't see an orb.
John:
I can't picture an orb.
John:
They don't care about food at all.
Hmm.
John:
And yet, and yet, their vote counts the same as mine.
John:
Can you even believe that?
John:
That's the price of liberty.
John:
They voted in the election.
John:
Their vote and mine, they're the same.
John:
They go into the same bucket.
John:
They don't even think about food.
John:
I think about food all the time.
John:
Yeah.
John:
They go to sleep the second their head hits the pillow.
John:
Well, you're good in the morning going, what are we doing here?
John:
You know, you're good at food.
John:
Well, thank you.
Merlin:
No, I'm just saying, you know, it's easy enough.
Merlin:
That's why I say, I mean, I hope that that didn't seem too obvious, but like people who like sleep are often people who are good at sleep.
Merlin:
People who like food are good at food.
Merlin:
Maybe not to everybody's taste, but like, you know, you are a seeker.
John:
Seeker.
John:
Yes.
John:
Do you think you seek?
John:
I'm the seeker.
John:
Here's an interesting thing that's been going on around here.
John:
Susan.
John:
You remember Susan.
John:
Of course I remember Susan.
John:
Susan.
John:
You know, Susan, like a lot of people in our generation who lived sort of prolonged childhoods, myself very much included, who said, everything's going to work out fine.
John:
I'm going to live for 900 years.
John:
I'll almost certainly live in a New York City townhouse at some point.
John:
And also, I'm probably going to be a professional skier and maybe I'm going to learn five languages.
John:
At some point, I'm probably going to crouch on top of a building in a rainy dystopia and look out across a...
Merlin:
Oh, like a sort of like a Batman-esque gargoyle type?
John:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
John:
Right.
John:
And the lights are twinkling in the rain across a kind of, yeah, like this dystopian landscape.
John:
And I'm like solving crimes maybe or I don't know, escaping.
Merlin:
Well, you start, you know, you're the bat.
Merlin:
You're the grotesque bat.
Merlin:
You're the one who's looking out over this accursed city and seeing like, does anybody need some Batmanning?
Right.
John:
I'm going to for sure live in a house where I drive down a road and it turns into a dirt road and then a narrow dirt road and then there's a sign that says road ends.
John:
But as I get closer, the road end sign flattens out and I drive over it and then it goes back up.
Merlin:
What about that Shakespeare sculpture in your den?
Merlin:
Remember that?
Merlin:
He flips back the Shakespeare head and it's got rocker switches in it.
John:
Yeah, it's a phone and it's a TI electronic calculator.
John:
huh my kid just got a new graphing calculator my kid just told me that her old graphing calculator isn't complicated enough and i said my sweet you are in algebra one algebra let's call it algebra two maybe she's trying to hack it i don't think you play snake she can play snake i don't think the texas instruments 36 is insufficient for your needs and you need a texas instrument
Merlin:
I had a TI, what did I have?
Merlin:
I think I had a TI-35 in the 80s.
John:
Such a generic one everybody had.
John:
Calculator, hot, hot calculator.
John:
Anyway, so Susan, Susan has, you know, pursued a life where her fallback position is always waiting tables.
John:
And she goes off.
John:
She goes on adventures.
Merlin:
That's sort of like a net, right?
John:
It's a net.
John:
Yeah.
John:
And a lot of us have nets.
John:
A lot of people, Gen X, who just decided, like, fuck the man.
John:
I'm not going to work.
John:
I'm not going to...
John:
Sell anything, buy anything, sell any buys or buy any sells.
John:
You know, you end up with something.
John:
You end up with the net.
John:
And hers was always waiting tables.
John:
And she got into the world where she was fine dining.
John:
She was waiting tables everywhere.
John:
in wine restaurants and things where people, you know, the guys come in and they have an open collared shirt on, but you can just tell by the way the collar rolls that it's a $900 shirt.
John:
You're like, who has the money to spend $900?
John:
I love the shirt.
John:
Don't get me wrong.
John:
And Susan's whole bit in these restaurants is they're very fine dining, but they're, you know, casual.
John:
People are paying $80 for a steak.
John:
And Susan comes over and they say, what can you tell us about this $1,600 bottle of wine?
John:
And Susan says, what can you tell me about it?
John:
Oh, boy.
John:
And they go, fine dining.
John:
She's marvelous.
John:
Look at her.
John:
Isn't she crazy?
John:
And Susan goes, I'm here to tell you a $1,600 bottle of wine or not.
John:
Also, yeah, I mean, it should be said, your sister's cute and she's charming.
John:
Charming.
John:
Yeah, that's right.
John:
And so you don't agree to cute, but you agree to charming.
John:
Oh, she's very cute.
John:
Cute and charming.
John:
Yeah.
Merlin:
She's the kind of person you'd want to hang out with, you know?
John:
There it is.
John:
And she brings a casual energy to the fine dining places where people, I think a lot of those people are like, hey, it's normal to pay $80 for a steak.
John:
That's what they want us to believe.
John:
And so someone like my sister makes it feel normal.
John:
Like, hey, we're just a bunch of people having $80 steaks over here.
John:
She's not acting like some kind of like cartoon French waiter.
John:
No.
John:
And she gets in their relationships.
John:
Like if a couple is arguing in her restaurant.
John:
And she's walking by, she'll stop and she'll say, I just want to say, I'm really interested in the way you argue with each other.
John:
Like I can see that you're arguing and I just feel like you have a really good energy.
John:
It's, you know, conflict is important.
John:
And then she waltzes off into the kitchen and they give her a $400 tip.
Merlin:
Yeah.
John:
She saw something, especially something they'd like her to see.
John:
That's right.
Merlin:
It's this weird world, right?
Merlin:
And it's... That happens to me whenever the waiter goes, excellent choice.
Merlin:
I'm like, oh...
Merlin:
Thank you.
John:
There's a $400 tip.
John:
But she's made her name in these restaurants based on the fact that, I mean, the other people in the restaurants aren't always as psyched about the fact that Susan doesn't know the wine list.
John:
Because they have staked their professional lives on the idea that they know the wine list in and out.
John:
And they can talk about notes of leather and hints of cinnamon.
John:
And Susan kind of breezes past them and goes, I don't know, it all tastes like soda pop to me.
John:
Am I right?
John:
Ha, ha, ha.
John:
And the restaurant goes crazy.
John:
And the worst part is she routinely rings like...
John:
like a dimension larger ticket at the end of the night.
John:
Like she's routinely the top performing server, the top performing bartender in every restaurant she works in.
John:
And that is also infuriating if you have learned the wine list.
John:
I see.
Merlin:
But it seems like she puts the people at ease.
Merlin:
But importantly, I don't know.
Merlin:
I hope this doesn't sound condescending.
Merlin:
You know, let them be the smart one.
John:
That's it.
Merlin:
You know, or let them tell me.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
Let them be the fancy one.
Merlin:
And you can be sort of the the supportive court jester.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Let me talk to you about your relationship.
John:
Well, and it's kind of in a way, it's very much akin to my relationship to my musician pals.
John:
who are like, we know how to play music.
John:
And then you come in and you're like, I don't know, music, am I right?
John:
It all just tastes like chocolate bars.
John:
And then you spend 20 minutes on stage talking about the French Revolution and tuning your guitar.
John:
We're all good at guitar.
John:
Why the hell are you the star?
John:
So Susan has recently been bouncing between these fine dining restaurants because what happens is there's a toxic work environment.
Merlin:
Oh no, I've heard that about a lot of restaurants.
John:
Yeah, and often it's the front of the house.
John:
Really?
John:
Yeah.
John:
There's a manager that is, you know, she's giving shifts to her friends.
John:
These servers don't like those servers.
John:
It's all who you know.
John:
The owner, even though the manager is clearly toxic, the owner supports the manager because the manager was her bridesmaid.
John:
Or there's just all this like front of house drama.
John:
And Susan is always the one that they're all super mad at.
John:
For these very reasons.
John:
Yeah
John:
And so she's kind of been bouncing.
John:
Well, so she recently got a job at a downtown Seattle restaurant that is in this kind of like, it's in this other tier where the restaurant is some kind of, it's some kind of place like where they don't need signs.
John:
You know, it's the sort of restaurant where it's just like a door.
John:
It's like a manhole.
John:
Is it a famous chef?
John:
It's a famous chef.
John:
The owner is, you know, the owner kind of like he commutes on a magic carpet, like the whole thing.
John:
And it's one of these places, every, every place in the city is like, ah, we've got Wagyu beef, but this place actually has it, the actual stuff.
John:
And you're like, what?
John:
I didn't even think that was real.
John:
And you look at it.
John:
It's like, well, that doesn't even look like.
John:
You got to ask for the serial number.
John:
Yeah.
John:
What the hell does that look like?
John:
The good places will bring you the provenance papers.
Yeah.
John:
And it's a restaurant where it's completely open.
John:
The kitchen is in the middle of the restaurant.
John:
And it only seats, I don't know, four people?
John:
I'm not even sure.
John:
I haven't been in there.
John:
High-end stunt restaurant.
John:
But also, everybody in there is 100% sincere.
John:
The owner, the cooks, the bartender, the bar people, it's a small staff, and they believe in food.
John:
They believe in wine and spirits.
John:
It's like, these are the... People explain your drink to you.
John:
Yeah, this is the stuff, right?
John:
This is what life is.
John:
This is the good stuff.
John:
And Susan goes into this place and her whole thing about like... Well, her thing, which is she's coming out of this restaurant where she rang twice the receipts of the second best waitress in the place and the rest of the staff had been working there for 15 years.
John:
She comes into this place in downtown Seattle and they are like...
John:
Susan, hello, welcome.
John:
We're so glad you're here.
John:
Oh, the earnest.
John:
And they're just like, let us welcome you into the family.
John:
Let us teach you everything.
John:
Don't be stressed.
John:
Don't worry about it.
John:
in our restaurant nothing there's you know there is never any yelling there's never any undermining it's just we're just trying to get this incredible food out to these people that are lucky enough to eat it and susan's like um well hahaha i'm not really that into food
John:
And they all looked not like mad, like hurt.
John:
Like, what?
John:
What do you mean?
John:
Like, this is the greatest octopus.
Merlin:
He'll be only trying to get a job at like a charity for sick kids and going like, well, I'm not really into disease or children.
Merlin:
Yeah, I don't really care about children.
Merlin:
I could be really good at my job, but I'm not, you know, you need to find customers that are into this, but I am a staff member whose interests ought to be okay if I can be good at my job.
John:
And so what's been insane is that the restaurant tours...
John:
have in a very short amount of time recognized this because they had somebody, they had a full restaurant and a homeless guy came in the front door and started making a scene.
John:
And the whole restaurant came to a screeching halt.
John:
Everybody freeze.
John:
What happens?
John:
They couldn't dissuade him with earnestness?
John:
Well, there was no earnestness to be had.
John:
It was just, I mean, they weren't, nobody...
John:
They're all Buddhists.
Merlin:
I mean, I keep thinking about persona or bit, like commitment to a bit or persona.
Merlin:
Like when I was a waiter, I would always try to read the table and like what kind of experience they would probably want, you know, in as much as it matters.
Merlin:
But like the people in that place are probably not highly tuned toward dealing with a homeless person in the front of house.
John:
I mean, the problem is always like if at one level you are saying an $80 steak is justified by the tingle it puts on your tongue.
John:
And it's also hard to say, and all of us are brothers, you know, in the same, but I believe you can say it.
John:
I believe people do all the time.
John:
But anyway, Susan, without even thinking, swoops out from behind the bar where she was.
John:
comes over to him says hi how are you like hey it's great to see you like you know would you can i talk to you for a second here let's go over here what can i do for you you're like what what are you looking for right now well and the guy's like well i was just thinking that i was and she's like oh well you know actually i think and you know and just sort of and she's not even like bullshitting him guiding him out the door she's just like my sister loves all orphans right yeah
John:
And the guy ends up leaving happy.
John:
I don't know what she gave him.
John:
I don't know what she gave him.
John:
He's going to go to Yelp, and he's going to give that place such a good review.
John:
And so she comes back, gets behind the bar, and starts cleaning glasses.
John:
And everybody in the restaurant, they all break into applause because they're like, what did we just see?
John:
And she did it in a nice way.
John:
And that's her.
John:
Yeah.
John:
But so this is the most bonkers thing.
John:
The owner and the staff of the restaurant are all like, oh, you don't care about food, but you're amazing.
John:
And so we're gonna work around the fact that you don't care about food We're gonna work around the fact that your ideal meal is a is a cold grilled cheese sandwich and And that's gonna be fun like the cold sandwiches are her love language She's the bartender in this she's the bartender in this restaurant.
John:
Yeah, and the bar manager came over to her at one point and said I
John:
i am so excited to make a menu with you like i'm so excited about the pumpkin infused bourbons that we are going to introduce to these people i couldn't do it with a straight face i'm so excited and susan said honestly i'm a bartender i don't drink alcohol at all i hate it it tastes terrible and a pumpkin infused bourbon sounds like sounds like barf to me and the bar manager you know taking it back and then goes
John:
oh my god you're so amazing and i'm going to put the menu together and then we will present it to the world and susan's like oh okay and what what's happening here is that every place you want there to be a problem
John:
There actually isn't one.
John:
And I think it's for anybody.
John:
The restaurateurs are absolutely, sincerely great.
John:
And Susan is used to being in conflict with her coworkers.
John:
And there isn't any conflict with her coworkers.
John:
And what's been happening is... It sounds like a cult, a little bit.
John:
Well, but even if it is, they're not trying to get her to join anything.
John:
It's a female chef, and she does come out sometimes and say, Susan, I just really want you to taste this.
John:
And I think it's one of these things where it's like, maybe if you enjoy, if you just taste this prosciutto, like it's going to blow your mind.
John:
Like it does mine.
John:
And Susan's like, okay.
John:
And just tastes a little taken.
John:
And the cook is like, oh, okay.
John:
Okay.
John:
I get it.
John:
Okay.
John:
Back to the kitchen.
John:
You know, like they do, they would love her to.
John:
be like them, but it's the crazy environment where it's such a positive work environment that they're not making it a requirement.
John:
And I have to say, Susan is absolutely turned upside down by this.
Merlin:
Because it's not for her usual skill set, right?
Merlin:
Well, I mean, either in intra-restaurant dealings or with the customers, like being successful at this or, you know, better than she expected is great, but it's also at odds with the toolbox she's built over the years.
John:
And I think that toolbox actually involves a bit of, I'm in conflict.
John:
Yeah.
John:
I'm in conflict with my coworkers.
John:
I'm in conflict with the boss.
Mm-hmm.
John:
the conflict is gone and now it's just down to can you do can you do a The job and not hide behind and I've I've been experiencing this lately, too like When all is said and done nobody cares whether you can play guitar or not, but How much of it are you hiding behind like oh, I don't know how to play the guitar and
John:
And you're trying to let yourself off the hook of like, actually, this is important and you should do this.
John:
This is important and you should be good at this.
John:
Given the amount of time you've spent at it.
John:
And given the expectations.
John:
Well, that and also like, what job did you choose to do?
John:
Right.
John:
Like, if somebody said, hey, John, do the math on how to build a, like a hydroelectric dam.
John:
You could go, I don't really know.
John:
I'll take a shot at it.
John:
But if it's like, hey, John, learn your own songs.
John:
Like, I'll take a shot at it probably isn't.
John:
There's a little bit, there's more to it there, right?
John:
Than just like, oh, I'm ADHD.
John:
There's defensiveness in it.
John:
So it's been really interesting around here watching her come home from work, like in a way kind of more tired than she's been in a long time.
Merlin:
Because she asked, what's that term they use for people on the spectrum?
Merlin:
She's like, she's got a mask in some ways, the verb mask.
Merlin:
You know what I mean?
Merlin:
That she has to like, there's an extra added persona to what she needs, feels like she needs to do, maybe pressure to like fit in.
John:
I'm just, I think it is she's used to being powered by conflict and there isn't any.
John:
And now you just have to be good.
John:
You think she'll keep pressing it till she gets conflict?
John:
I don't know.
John:
That is exactly the question.
John:
Like, because she came home for the first several weeks and was just like, and I could hear her trying to find a problem.
John:
Like I don't think I can do this and I'm like this is the job that is exactly the opposite of the last job You said that you couldn't do because of these reasons now those reasons are gone and there aren't any other reasons and She's just like but but but and and there aren't there's no there's nothing to push against except The job itself Which is yeah, every job is hard
John:
So, yeah, I don't know.
John:
I don't know.
John:
It's really intriguing.
John:
It's new around here, for sure.
John:
And watching her, it's causing me to look at myself and be like... Well, really?
John:
Tell me more about that.
John:
Well, just like, how much of your identity is based around being in opposition to what you think is the boring world or the...
John:
um the world full of restrictions and how much of it how much of what you are and what you're doing is just um oppositional rather than actually creating sort of oppositional by reflex right or by habit yeah right or and and creating opposition like oh i'm not one of these guys i'm one of these other guys it's like well nobody asked there's no requirement to be one or the other
John:
Well, I'm not one of those that makes a requirement about one or the other well, that's that's not necessary either, you know like that Going into every situation with the idea that you're gonna distinguish yourself by being not or
John:
Rather than going into situations distinguishing yourself by what you are and what you can do.
John:
I don't even know.
John:
I don't even know if I could untangle that Gordon knot.
John:
Our whole generation is kind of like that, you know?
John:
We're not like you.
John:
Yeah.
Merlin:
Do you feel like this is posing a challenge for you right now?
John:
Oh, well, just in the sense... I'm just curious.
Merlin:
I mean, there's a lot of good threads to pull on here.
Merlin:
It's... Well, first of all, I have known people, I might have been one of these people, but I have known people who, on the face of it, seem like...
Merlin:
Well, at first you go like, man, you're always unhappy and you're always yelling at people or you're always, you know, trying to like cause trouble for everybody.
Merlin:
I just, I do feel like there are some people who, well, a lot of people crave peace and placidity.
Merlin:
Is that a word?
Merlin:
Placidness?
Merlin:
They want everything to be known and
Merlin:
And they want everything to be, you know, sort of to have outlines that make sense and they fit into that and everything's good.
Merlin:
And we all are in an office, for example, like we're all polite in a similar way with each other and that kind of stuff.
Merlin:
But I've also known I've known people who it sometimes seems like I'll just say I'll just say the way I would have put this in high school, like you're not happy unless you're unhappy.
Merlin:
Uh-huh.
Merlin:
It would just be really like a simple way to put it without pathologizing it or something.
Merlin:
It just seems like there are people with like, in retrospect, I might say something as simple as it seems like they're not sure how to feel except angry or fearful or anxious or whatever it is.
Merlin:
Or, you know, it could be that they're happiest feeling different.
Merlin:
Did I lose you, Merlin?
Merlin:
I hope not.
Merlin:
Am I here?
Merlin:
Hello.
Merlin:
Hello.
Merlin:
I'm here.
Merlin:
I hear you.
Merlin:
I hear you.
Merlin:
Oh, there you are.
Merlin:
Okay.
Merlin:
Hi, everybody.
Merlin:
Sorry.
Merlin:
No, just that, I mean, I don't know.
Merlin:
I don't know.
Merlin:
There are sometimes people who seem like they are at their best.
Merlin:
I mean, if you're going to do the ADHD angle, here's another one.
Merlin:
I am at my most on-point, focused, nothing is on my mind during an emergency.
Merlin:
Or something, you know, the alarm goes off and like I'm pretty good at actually, I get like a lot of people with ADHD.
Merlin:
That actually kind of weirdly calms me down and gets me focused.
Merlin:
And I wonder if there's something just a little bit like that.
Merlin:
There's some kind of an emotional tick.
Merlin:
I don't want to pathologize it, but an emotional tick where some people...
Merlin:
don't really feel like themselves unless there's some friction.
John:
I think that's exactly right.
John:
I think that's very insightful.
John:
That's not too simple.
John:
No, I think it's true.
John:
I think it's true.
John:
You know, I went on a biplane flight this weekend and it was marvelous.
John:
I'm tempted to say, of course you did.
John:
And I took my little girl and
John:
And it was one of these things where we were at this little tiny little airport on Lopez Island and there was a guy, an old man there with a biplane.
John:
And like a sandwich board sign, not on, but like sitting on the ground, said biplane flights, 80 bucks.
John:
And I said, what are the chances that we're ever going to be at a small rural airport and there's a guy giving biplane flights for 80 bucks?
John:
It's probably her idea mostly, right?
John:
Whose idea?
John:
Your kid?
John:
No, not at all.
Merlin:
Hey, look.
Merlin:
And she said to you, when's the next time?
Merlin:
Daddy, have you not seen the sandwich board?
Merlin:
When is the next time?
John:
Daddy, can't we please?
John:
And I'm like, no.
John:
And she's like, please.
John:
No, as you may predict, the opposite.
John:
Okay.
John:
And I'm like, come on, let's go on the biplane.
John:
And she's like, no, absolutely no, absolutely no.
John:
And I said, but, but, but, but.
Merlin:
On principle or for reasons?
John:
I'm principle of like everything you want to do sucks or has she the completely normal fears of getting into a 100 year old plane to fly around all of the above I mean, I told you the story about us at Disneyland and Her and her mother both like we do not want to get on that roller coaster.
John:
Mm-hmm
John:
And me saying, let's just go stand by the roller coaster and look at it.
John:
And then we go stand by it.
John:
And then they're both like, no, no, no, no.
John:
And I'm like, well, let's just look over here.
John:
And at one point, the little one sat down on the ground and was like, I'm not moving.
John:
I'm not going any closer to this roller coaster.
John:
And I was like, OK, let's just sit here and look at the roller coaster.
John:
And little by little, I was like, let's stand in the line.
John:
And if we get up to the front and we decide we don't want to, we can get out.
John:
We can get out of the line.
John:
We go up.
John:
You're still going to have terror.
John:
But now I'm also adding a line.
John:
And so we got we got all the way up.
John:
And it was at that point.
John:
It was like, OK, let's just let's do it.
John:
You know, they had they had they had familiarized themselves.
John:
They tasted the little salt enough times that, OK, let's get it.
John:
And then as soon as we're on the roller coaster, it was the one at California Adventure.
John:
They're just, we get to the end and they're like, we want to get right back in line.
John:
We want to do the roller coaster.
John:
We only want to do the roller coaster.
John:
It's the roller coaster is all we care about.
John:
I thought that way about the Cars ride.
John:
Isn't that an amazing ride?
Merlin:
That Cars ride.
John:
That Cars ride is like next level in like three different ways.
John:
So good.
John:
And then their whole, you know, I mean, Ariella's whole life, she's been like, I hate roller coasters.
John:
Sure.
John:
Yeah.
John:
And the little one was like, I hate roller coasters.
John:
Well, now they're both, all they want to do is roller coasters.
John:
so we're standing here with the at this small rural airport with this man with a mustache who's like by plane rides 80 bucks and i'm like and he's got mirrored sunglasses on and he's about 79 years old okay and i'm talking to his i'm talking to his wife and she's like um this plane was built in 1927 or what
John:
And we have given over 20,000 rides to people over the years.
John:
We've been doing this for 40 years or something in this plane.
John:
And I'm like, this is really, we can't pass this up.
John:
And there's a whole lot of this, no, we're never going to get in the plane.
John:
No, we're never going to get in the plane.
John:
And I'm like, well, let's just look at the plane.
John:
Let's just walk over and look around.
John:
and Whatever I've I've been in the world.
John:
I know that there's there are people who absolutely would hate being in a biplane and I know that Probably my kid is not that person once she's in the biplane So we get up we could flying around and
John:
And she's just having the time of her life because it's an open cockpit.
John:
She's got her arm out waving in the wind.
John:
She's wearing a leather Snoopy hat with goggles.
John:
Oh, man.
John:
We're flying around.
John:
And this pilot, he's a soft-spoken guy.
John:
But I kind of look back at him and give him the thumbs up.
John:
And he just puts it right down.
Merlin:
Unfortunately, that means start doing barrel rolls in plain talk.
John:
He wasn't going to do that.
John:
I knew.
John:
But he starts putting it up on a wing.
John:
So we're looking straight down at the ground.
John:
And he starts swooping over here.
Merlin:
I've seen movies with these in it, like an Indiana Jones type thing.
Merlin:
There's like two little seat areas.
John:
And he's behind us.
John:
He's in the back one.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Okay.
John:
Yeah.
John:
You're in the one with the snake.
John:
We're together in the one with the snake in the front, right.
John:
Might have to be snakes.
John:
So then he's like, he puts it right down 100 feet off the beach, and we're just flying below the lighthouse.
John:
There's a beach, there's a cliff, there's people walking on the beach and we're just like right over the top of them.
John:
And he flew us like we buzzed the ferry.
John:
We're flying all over and just having a great time.
John:
And in relation to what you were saying, the entire time I'm thinking, if the motor quits, what do we do?
John:
If the motor quits, what happens next?
John:
If he passes out, can I get back there?
John:
And how much room is there back there that I wouldn't have to toss him out?
Merlin:
Talking about in midair, you get out of your seat, climb into the back seat, learn the controls.
Merlin:
Because you're a pilot.
Merlin:
You've piloted.
John:
Yeah, enough that I could land a plane.
Yeah.
John:
how am I gonna land this plane?
John:
And the whole time, I'm having a blast too.
John:
I'm looking out at the whales and looking out at the boats and flying and I'm having a lot of fun with her where she's like, look over there.
John:
We're kind of yelling over the sound of the motor like, oh my God, look at that.
John:
And he would fly us over there.
John:
Yeah, open.
John:
But the whole time in the back of my head, I'm going, how am I going to land this plane if he is incapacitated or the motor?
John:
And it's my favorite part of the flight.
John:
You know, the whole time I'm just like, okay, if I could get over there, I mean, that's, that would be pretty, but I'd have to do it.
John:
You know, just telling myself this, like, what would you, how would you pull it off if you had to do it?
John:
Land in a beat field like Howard Hughes, you know, you could bring it down on a golf course.
John:
Land in a beat field landed landed, you know land there's it's the San Juan Islands.
John:
There's a lot of places to land.
John:
Yeah And so Then we got we landed we flew although it was marvelous It was 40 minutes of flying around the world and we got back to the little strip and there Ariella was sitting there at the strip.
John:
Oh, so she knew about it and approved and
John:
Well, this is the roller coaster thing.
John:
This is the like, I know nobody wants to do anything.
John:
Let's start with the premise that nobody wants to do anything.
John:
And what we really wanted to do with our lives was to stay home and eat cold grilled cheese sandwiches and look at our phones.
John:
We'll just accept that as written.
John:
So everything beyond that, we're doing something.
John:
And you feel like you're the provocateur or the cheerleader for those kinds of things?
John:
What the hell is daddy for?
John:
What the hell is a dad even for?
John:
And so I'm like, let's just assume that you have already given me everything just by letting me go to this rural airport.
John:
Let's just assume that I've already been rewarded for all the goodness I've done in the world just by you agreeing to let me go to this rural airport and walk around and look at the planes.
John:
And now I found a man with a sandwich board who's giving $80 biplane rides?
John:
Yeah.
John:
You're so giving.
John:
That's existential gravy.
John:
To even entertain this idea.
John:
But so then we pull over.
John:
He cuts the motor.
Yeah.
John:
And the little one is like two thumbs up with her white scarf and her goggles.
John:
And then I pointed at Ari and I was like, now you.
John:
And she like overcame whatever the thousand things.
John:
Wait a minute.
Merlin:
So, so, so, so your daughter gets out.
Merlin:
You're going to, you're going to cross this guy's palm a second time, second flight.
Merlin:
And this time, this time your, your daughter's mother partner will be the two of you.
John:
And your daughter is down on the ground.
John:
Yeah.
John:
And I said to the, I said to the 14 year old, I was like, now you sit on a rock and watch us while we fly off into the sunset.
John:
Cause we're, you know, we flew like,
John:
a long way away.
John:
Like we weren't anywhere around.
John:
And so then I, and I, and the, the old man with the mustache, he's kind of leans in and he's like, I'll take us a different route this time.
John:
So you, you know, because you, we already did the one.
John:
And so we take off from the field and it's the same.
John:
My daughter's mother slash partner is just like, what is happening?
John:
And then we're in the air and she's like, wow.
Wow.
John:
and he goes left instead of right from the airport and we fly over the other half of the sand ones we flew over paul allen's old house with a richard sarah sculpture in the yard damn and all these farms and other ferry boats and i still wonder katherine hepburn fell in love with him you know it's the most you know oh when i talked to the wife later
John:
She said, I met my husband 40 years ago when he gave me and my then husband a biplane flight.
John:
Oh, so he's been in this game for a while.
John:
I was like, oh, okay.
John:
That's a little spicy.
John:
Like, he just stole you away from your husband with one biplane flight?
John:
But you can kind of see it.
John:
Yeah.
John:
It might have been a troubled relationship at that point.
John:
I think you're right.
John:
A biplane is all you need to kind of push it over the edge.
John:
It does feel like if you had a biplane, a lot of other questions would be answered.
John:
Absolutely.
John:
And you would pre-qualify
John:
Lot of potential friends and mates But then I learned in talking to them because it's nice to talk to people I agree that he's actually a dentist
John:
And his full-time job is being a dentist.
John:
And he just gives biplane flights on weekends.
John:
Oh, wow.
John:
Because he likes it.
John:
Because he likes it.
John:
And what's not to like?
John:
You're out in the open air.
John:
You're flying around.
John:
You can do what you want.
John:
And I think one of the other things about, because there's little planes in the sky all over up here, but everybody likes a biplane.
John:
So when you get it down on the, when you're flying real low over the beach, if you weren't a biplane, I think everybody would say there's something wrong with that airplane.
Merlin:
Like it's, yeah, like I personally, I, I don't, I'm not like anti drone consumer drone.
Merlin:
I'm not a huge fan of consumer drones.
Merlin:
Somebody said something once that has really stuck with me, which is like, if you want to think about how safe a drone is, ask how you'd feel about a cinder block having four helicopters on it.
Merlin:
Because when that thing falls out of the sky, it becomes a cinder block.
John:
Right.
Merlin:
It stops being a fun camera project and becomes a thing that kills people over crowds.
Merlin:
But if I saw a biplane, I think I would be a little bit buoyed.
Merlin:
No, I keep avoiding saying this because, first of all, I'm going to pronounce it wrong.
Merlin:
Second of all, it has three wings.
Merlin:
But I would love to ride in a Fokker sometime.
Merlin:
I would, too.
Merlin:
There aren't that many of them.
Merlin:
Yeah, really?
Merlin:
I don't think there are.
Merlin:
Fokker got huge for a while, and then just, like, I watched a video about him that was really good, and then kind of disappeared.
Merlin:
He's a very interesting person, Fokker.
Merlin:
I don't know if that's how you pronounce it.
Merlin:
Let's just say Fokker.
Merlin:
But even if I saw a biplane, and you're saying this is roughly how old?
John:
I bet it looks old as hell.
John:
It's just slightly less old than my dad.
John:
Okay.
John:
And I was for sure looking up at all the little screws.
John:
And, you know, you can see the Lycoming engine or whatever in the front.
John:
And you can see how it was hand...
John:
by people long dead, and that this little old man has been meticulously keeping it screwed together.
John:
I mean, I had that thought of, like, the number of things in my house right now that don't work.
Merlin:
Sorry.
Merlin:
Right, right, right.
Merlin:
Well, you don't have those checklists that you go over every time.
Merlin:
It's true.
John:
It's true.
John:
I don't have a little oil can that I go...
John:
But the number of fucking things that don't work around here.
John:
And then this guy who's like, and then we fly around for an hour and nobody has any questions about whether it's going to work or not.
John:
This guy's like, yeah, it's going to work.
John:
It's been 120 years.
John:
It's been working.
John:
But for sure, I think if you have a biplane, all the other airplanes, all the people that normally would be like, I'm going to call the FAA and report this guy.
John:
He was flying too low or he flew over this boat in a weird way.
John:
You're in a biplane.
John:
Everybody just waves.
John:
It's just instinctive.
John:
And because we were in the biplane, we could wave back.
John:
We're flying over a ferry and everybody's waving at us and we're waving at them for $80.
John:
$80.
John:
Like, $80?
John:
There's somebody at my sister's restaurant paying that for a steak.
Merlin:
I don't have a super strong position on this, but I'm going to toss it out anyway.
Merlin:
I don't know if you ever get this, but there are times where, for example, just as an easy example, there are times where I'm looking for something on Amazon, which is increasingly very difficult to use to find exactly what you want, you know, because...
Merlin:
of all the reasons, but I needed a very specific kind of adapter, electric, basically like a replacement for a cable that had to be very specific in terms of amps and volts and a certain kind of connector and all that kind of stuff.
Merlin:
And there are times where I'm like, well, most of these are $15 and this one is $3.
Merlin:
I'm going to skip the $3 one.
Merlin:
Now, I realize that is not a super sophisticated way to approach this, because it's not to say that the $18 one will definitely be better.
Merlin:
But there's a part of me that goes, $80 seems like not a lot of money to fly in a biplane.
Merlin:
Maybe it's 1920s prices.
John:
I think... Maybe it's Labor Day.
John:
Maybe it's the September to remember.
John:
If it was here at the Boeing field or any other... If it was at an air show or anything, I would think it would be $300 or $400.
John:
I mean, I guess for... I wouldn't know how to price that except to say that just seems too low.
John:
It seems low.
John:
But the thing is, looking at the biplane at the small rural airport...
John:
and the man in a folding chair with a sandwich board that said biplane rides eighty dollars i had tremendous confidence in the whole operation i was like this is this you know this is how america this is how america and you know and here it is this guy this guy has all the tools to keep this biplane flying and it's all he likes it's what he does on the weekends because during the week he's a dentist
John:
And he's going to take us up.
John:
And so anyway, he flew us.
John:
He flew Ariella and myself around around the islands the other way.
John:
And he flew instead of flying down below the lighthouse on this flight, he flew down between two haystack rocks where we're like, you know, like basically buzzing the killer whales.
John:
And I'm like, where even how did I even make this?
John:
reality possible.
John:
Right, right.
Merlin:
You didn't know when you woke up, you know?
Merlin:
Not at all.
Merlin:
You ended up in a biplane.
John:
Didn't know at all I was gonna wake up and end up in a biplane.
John:
and but the whole time for sure and then even as i lay in bed last night at four o'clock in the morning still an hour from sleep a certain part of my brain was thinking how would i have landed that plane how would i have gotten how would i have gotten that plane down it's not a bit you seriously were no no just just like
John:
There's a part of me that wants it to go wrong so badly all the time.
John:
Because as you were saying, that's when I feel most alive.
John:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John:
It certainly gives you clarity.
John:
A lot of clarity.
John:
It makes me feel purposeful when everybody else is panicking.
John:
Do you think you seek out those kinds of situations?
John:
Well, this is what I do.
John:
I don't know if I seek them out, but do we manifest them, to use a word my sister would have used five years ago?
John:
Yeah.
John:
Do we make those things happen because that's where we are?
John:
That's...
John:
That's where we're most comfortable.
Merlin:
I mean, I don't know if manifest is the word, but I mean, well, too much to get into.
Merlin:
But I do think that whatever one's personal foibles are, it's not unusual at all for, well, you know, sort of like I was saying earlier about, like, if you're good at sleep, you like sleep.
Merlin:
You know, I mean, I don't know.
Merlin:
That sounds like a silly example.
Merlin:
But there are other kinds of things like that.
Merlin:
Who was I talking to about this?
Merlin:
I forget.
Merlin:
It might have been you.
Merlin:
But I was talking about how...
Merlin:
I was talking about, yeah, it might have been you, talking about that episode of The Crown, you know, where Margaret Thatcher has to go to Balmoral and doesn't understand any of the stuff that's happening there.
Merlin:
And those are all fun things for them.
Merlin:
They like deerstalking.
Merlin:
They like playing, it might have been Syracuse.
Merlin:
They like playing Ibble Dibble.
Merlin:
They like doing all that stuff.
Merlin:
It's just, it never occurs to them.
Merlin:
It was in the context of discussing ice skating in particular.
Yeah.
Merlin:
And how I'm actually really good at roller skating and terrible at ice skating.
Merlin:
And that was just my example back in a different time, bowling maybe.
Merlin:
Like it's no fun to go do the thing that everybody in your group loves and you either don't love and or aren't good at.
Merlin:
But you're good at karaoke.
Merlin:
Well, but again, I'm more inclined to do the kinds of things that I like to do.
Merlin:
And I'm more inclined to not want to do the things I perceive I'm not good at.
Merlin:
You like to eat a steak.
John:
Oh, I'm good at steak.
John:
And it used to be anytime somebody would come to San Francisco, you would contrive a reason to go to the House of Prime Rib.
Mm-hmm.
Merlin:
Yeah, I've heard a lot of animals.
John:
Because you were a pro.
John:
You were absolute professional at that.
John:
I finish everybody else's meals, too.
John:
But I feel like you made a lot of people happy.
Merlin:
I was a regular dinner bell.
Merlin:
Mm-hmm.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
I don't know, and I'm not sure.
Merlin:
I don't know if that's deeply meaningful, but it kind of gets at something you're getting at, I believe, I think, where you're talking about the roller coaster stuff.
Merlin:
And I have regrets about...
Merlin:
I was pressing my kid a little too hard to go on a roller coaster one time, and I could tell actively didn't like it.
Merlin:
So I'm not sure I could have made that better by standing nearby or things like that.
Merlin:
But it is also...
Merlin:
Yeah, I guess it's important to challenge ourselves.
Merlin:
But it's also – I think it's important to understand, like, what brought people to the point of not liking ice skating, you know?
Merlin:
Like, maybe this person has fallen down a lot or is just tired of looking like a dangling or maybe they're on their period or, like, whatever.
Merlin:
There's all kinds of reasons people have for not wanting to do stuff.
Merlin:
And sometimes it can be difficult in a group where everybody else wants to play Ible Dibble or whatever.
Merlin:
I still understand the rules of Ible Dibble.
Merlin:
I thought it was very confusing.
John:
I don't know if I've ever even heard about it except for – Oh, man.
Merlin:
Man, you should watch The Crown on Netflix.
John:
Oh, I've watched The Crown.
Merlin:
Oh, The Crown.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
It's the one where they got all the, like, the burnt cork on their head.
Merlin:
And, like, the Windsors all think it's hilarious.
Merlin:
And poor Margaret and, I don't know if you pronounce Denis or Dennis, she and her husband are just like, what are we doing here?
Merlin:
We're overdressed.
Merlin:
Get us out of here.
Merlin:
You know, but I mean, we're here in life for the experiences.
Merlin:
And I think most of us know that.
Merlin:
But there's also just sometimes it's difficult to tease out our own reluctance or other people's reluctance about doing a given thing, especially if lots of other people want to do it.
Merlin:
Oh, oh, I got one, me and haunted houses.
Merlin:
You don't like them.
Merlin:
Oh, my God, John.
Merlin:
It's too much to get into.
Merlin:
No, no.
Merlin:
But like, I hated, especially going to like the Kiwanis, like the local haunted houses.
Merlin:
Right.
Merlin:
So we went to one with scouts.
Merlin:
I think my father might have been still alive, but I was seven or eight.
Merlin:
when we went to this haunted house at the mall, and they had to carry me out.
Merlin:
I was practically frozen.
Merlin:
I was just sobbing inconsolably.
Merlin:
And everybody else was like, come on.
Merlin:
And we're like, then, of course, we go to Disney a few years later.
Merlin:
And they're like, it's okay.
Merlin:
It's 999 funny ghosts.
Merlin:
And you're like, funny ghosts?
Merlin:
Oh, my God.
Merlin:
Your reading of how life works is so different than mine.
Merlin:
Funny ghosts.
Merlin:
Like, the operative word there for me is ghost.
Merlin:
Like, I don't want a teenager grabbing me while air blows on me or whatever.
Merlin:
But, you know, it's just that, I don't know, without getting into the whole trauma issue, I just think it's also just that we all have certain kinds of reluctances about certain kinds of things.
Merlin:
And it's hard to gate.
Merlin:
And then there's disruptive people like Susan who roll into a place and they're not used to this sweet summer child who comes in with a completely different attitude, you know, about how we deal with people's expectations.
John:
You know, it's funny.
John:
Years and years and years ago, I was at a party at Colin Malloy's house and Chris Walla of Death Cab for Kitty got very drunk and
John:
And passed out at the party.
John:
What?
John:
That's so surprising to me.
John:
It's extremely surprising.
Merlin:
It doesn't seem like how he is.
Merlin:
No, it isn't at all.
Merlin:
I bet he got drunk by accident.
Merlin:
I've gotten drunk by accident sometimes.
John:
Well, these were just complicated times.
John:
There might have been a thing with a girl.
John:
It was not the kind of thing you would ever have seen him do.
Merlin:
They don't get to pick our errors.
John:
That's right.
John:
He's there, and he's passed out, and they're surrounded by indie rock people, and this is in the early 2000s, at the very dawn of that kind of super solicitous performative caring that became American culture.
John:
And they're all like, oh, Chris, oh, Chris.
John:
And I'm like, look, I've been around a million drunk.
John:
I've seen a million drunk kids.
John:
I've frisked a million.
John:
Just a thousand punks.
John:
A punk's.
John:
Like, he's fine.
John:
He's fine.
John:
How's the Italian food here?
John:
He's not dying.
John:
He's fine.
John:
Yeah.
Merlin:
And I said... That was just his body's way of saying it's time to stop drinking for a while.
Merlin:
It's time to sit in this chair and be unconscious for a while.
John:
Yes.
Merlin:
I'll be very still.
John:
And I said, you know what I'm going to do?
John:
I'm going to draw some big comical eyebrows on him with this Sharpie.
Merlin:
Oh, John.
John:
Isn't he from Bellingham?
John:
He's from Bellingham.
John:
Are you sure?
Merlin:
Boy, that seems like that could fuck him up for a month.
John:
Well, and this is... Isn't he very sensitive?
John:
We're in Portland at the Decembrists' house.
John:
And the outrage and the amount of horror expressed.
John:
And I come, of course, from a culture where if you passed out at a party, you woke up and you were covered with dicks.
Merlin:
And if you woke up and you didn't have dicks on your face, you might think people didn't like you anymore.
John:
Yeah, you'd be like, why does everybody hate me?
John:
But there's a generation gap between me and Death Cab for Cutie of as much as seven years.
John:
And in that seven years, there's a lot of culture that changed.
John:
And I was like, I'm not drawing a dick on him.
John:
I'm not writing like... If anything, you were restrained.
John:
I was just going to put comedy eyebrows on him.
John:
And the just horror and people holding me back.
John:
And at one point.
Merlin:
And just to be clear, you're not drunk.
Merlin:
No, not at all.
Merlin:
Well, no, I mean, just it's everybody else is drunk.
Merlin:
Chris Wall is drunk.
Merlin:
You're like the sober guy who goes, hmm, I think I will this very this gentle little woodland creature, this little pixie.
Merlin:
He's taking a little nap.
Merlin:
And so I'm going to Sharpie his face.
John:
Yeah, I'm going to just do some eyebrows.
John:
It's not crazy.
John:
I'm not giving him a snidely whiplash mustache.
Merlin:
You're not going to toilet paper his house.
John:
I did that later.
Merlin:
That was later.
John:
But I did, at some point, Colin in his, like, those are my Orangino ways.
John:
Said you know, there's some friends that will drive you to the airport at 2 in the morning and there are some friends that Draw on your face when you're drunk.
John:
They're not mutually exclusive And I said that I said I'm the one that does both and you're the one that does neither Like the last time you picked up somebody at the airport at 2 o'clock in the morning was never
John:
And you seem to think that there's like good people and bad people.
John:
The reality is the people that pick you up at the airport in the morning are the ones that draw the eyebrows on you.
John:
And the ones that are like, ah, are also the ones that are like, ah.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
A lot of times people drive you to the airport because they want you to owe them a favor.
John:
Oh, I don't know about that.
John:
Oh, you got to be careful with people.
John:
Everybody's got different reasons.
John:
I can't imagine anyone who would be living such an impoverished life that they would drive you to the airport just so you owe them a favor.
John:
You have better friends.
John:
God, that's awful.
John:
Yeah.
John:
But for sure in this life,
John:
I'm never gonna make a girl on a first date going on a biplane ride I'm never gonna make somebody go to a haunted house if if they're like somebody's other kid and they're like Like it's the it the kind of person that says let's get on this biplane
John:
Is not The opposite of somebody who says I respect your Desire not to get on this airplane, right?
John:
It's in a way.
John:
I think it's the same the same degree of sensitivity to say
John:
You clearly do not want to get on this airplane and so let us not.
John:
And let us never speak of it again and let it be part of our friendship that we didn't go on the airplane.
John:
And also to look at somebody and go, I for sure know that at the end of today, the thing you're going to be happiest about is that we went on this biplane.
John:
So let me be the one that makes it fun to get there eventually.
John:
Because I think that we live in a world where somebody's like, I don't want to do it.
John:
And it's like, okay, okay, okay.
John:
And I don't think that's doing anybody any favors either like nobody wants to do anything right unless you say Don't we though?
John:
Don't we don't we really though want to go flip off the ferry boat?
John:
From 1200 feet upside down in a biplane.
John:
We didn't go upside down fuck That would be too much for me.
John:
Maybe I'd given him 20 extra dollars Or let him fix your teeth
John:
Oh, God, that didn't even occur to me that maybe he's, maybe this whole thing is just introducing me to this biplane dentist.
Merlin:
I think you, I don't, I can't say, I was about to say, I think you would, but I suspect you would be in any number of ways more tolerant of your relationship with a dentist if he'd also flown you and your family in a biplane.
John:
Marlon, you have just said the wisest thing I think I've heard in a decade.
John:
I'm so sorry.
John:
The fact that I don't trust dentists.
John:
You shouldn't trust dentists.
John:
You shouldn't trust dentists.
John:
You have to become a dentist if you're a nice person.
John:
Like a Snoopy jacket with a mustache and mirrored sunglasses and was like, sorry if I smell a little bit like biplane oil and gasoline, but let's take a look inside your mouth.
John:
I would just be like, can you also be my marriage counselor?
John:
Can you also like, what if I just handed all of my bank account numbers to you?
John:
Would you just do it all for me?
Merlin:
Right, right, right.
Merlin:
That's just something to think about, you know?
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
I don't know why I'm thinking this, but I've said this before, but this relates, I think, vaguely to two different things you said.
Merlin:
I think of this with Susan in her position at this new fancy restaurant.
Merlin:
And I think about you in relationship to other people with different expectations.
Merlin:
This is not meant to be any.
Merlin:
I'll just say it.
Merlin:
When I was basically begging to get into my college that I eventually got into, at one point I went in for an interview with the director of admissions, who was a great guy.
Merlin:
Talk about the new college in Florida.
Merlin:
Yeah, this guy, Rab Thornton, Robert Thornton, was this really cool guy, and he was just unbelievably kind to me, and I'm not exactly sure why, but for whatever reason, I knew how marginal I was.
Merlin:
Um, what I didn't know in retrospect that I probably should have is like, I'm like, I was in like the 5% of the, like, let's just take a flyer on this kid and it probably won't work out.
Merlin:
There's probably a name for that.
Merlin:
But in any case, and I, I, at one point I, I can, I confided or I just, I said, well, you know, honestly, um,
Merlin:
You know, this school seems kind of too good for me.
Merlin:
Like, my grades were really bad.
Merlin:
I'm glad you like my essay.
Merlin:
And this interview seems good.
Merlin:
But, like, I don't think I have the academics of a lot of the people here, the academic, you know, bona fides.
Merlin:
And long story short, he was just he was such a nice guy.
Merlin:
But he said something that I still think about all the time.
Merlin:
And he said, my goal as a director of admissions at New College is not to find a well-rounded student.
Merlin:
It's to create a well-rounded class.
Merlin:
Because then you grow up hearing that all the time.
Merlin:
You want to become a well-rounded person.
Merlin:
I think that's still a great term or, you know, in the sense of like well-rounded in like you have various interests, you have curiosity, all those kinds of things.
Merlin:
But I guess I like that quote even better since he did eventually let me in.
Merlin:
If he hadn't let me in, I would feel very poorly rounded.
Merlin:
But I always think that's such a smart thing to say.
Merlin:
We want to, I mean, and this is why I make jokes about stuff like think about the X-Men or think about the A-Team or think about any group.
Merlin:
Think about a football team.
Merlin:
You know, if you had 11 quarterbacks on the field, I mean, 11 people who were primarily quarterbacks, it would not be as good a team as if you mix it up a little bit.
Merlin:
You need an agent of chaos sometimes.
John:
You know, I think I'd never thought of us this way before.
John:
But just as you said that, you know, we, you and I are members of and slash also created a pod of culture.
John:
Right.
John:
That a lot of it pre-existed.
John:
A lot of it.
John:
You invited me into Marco Armand, you know, Matt Howie, like people, a lot of, a lot of people were forming a culture pod and you introduced me to it.
John:
I brought people in from my sides, you know, and then eventually like when you think about the people that listen to our show, they often listen to multiple shows that we do and it becomes a culture pod.
Right.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
Yeah.
John:
Realms that will probably never see that, you know, you never see the horizon of it.
John:
But here we are a lily pad in a pond of lily pads.
Merlin:
Or you said that for getting dropped into a bunch of people who are interesting in a way that you either hadn't anticipated or hadn't had exposure to.
John:
Yeah.
John:
And wouldn't have met on your own.
John:
Right.
John:
Right.
John:
Exactly.
John:
Here we are and what we are is basically a new college where Some force and and in a way you acting as you act and I Acting as I act have done that created not we did not find well-rounded people.
John:
What we made was a well-rounded class and
John:
And a lot of us, you know, like if John Siracusa and I were on a train, we met on the train in Boston.
John:
He gets motion sickness, just so you know.
Merlin:
Really, really bad.
Merlin:
He has really bad motion sickness.
John:
We'd start arguing about Teslas or something.
John:
Um, but we're part of the same, we're in the same pond.
John:
We're all, we're, we're not, and we're not all frogs, right?
John:
Some of you are lily pads.
John:
Some of us are lily pads.
John:
Some of us are praying mantises.
John:
Some of you are lost keys and golf balls.
John:
I don't even know why a praying mantis is in a swamp.
John:
Let alone a mantis shrimp.
John:
You don't fuck with those guys.
John:
They live somewhere else.
John:
Yeah, right.
John:
And this guy over here, this guy says no soup.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
I would like to think that's been a good fun thing for you it's nice to be all I will say in the generic at least is that I do think it's nice to find oneself surprised well always it's always nice when something you thought was going to go horrible didn't go horrible it's better when something you thought was going to go horrible went great but like it's also just really satisfying especially I guess in retrospect when something you never thought would happen or couldn't imagine like you
Merlin:
I come back to that phrase.
Merlin:
When I woke up this morning, I didn't know this was going to happen.
Merlin:
It's really thrilling to find yourself exposed to something you hadn't expected and for it to go well.
Merlin:
I think that's one thing people really crave, for example, on vacation.
Merlin:
Most people, anyway.
Merlin:
It's like they're looking for that serendipitous, wonderful experience.
Merlin:
Maybe it's so they can tell people about it, but it's also just in the moment, it's just so nice.
Merlin:
And so exciting.
Merlin:
And I'll bet for some extent for your kid Nari, like I'll bet on at least some level they're like, yeah, that was really fun.
Merlin:
But it's also, it's kind of exciting that I didn't die.
Merlin:
You think they'd do it again?
Merlin:
Oh, yeah.
John:
Would they fly by?
John:
All they think about now is roller coasters.
John:
Are they bi-curious?
John:
We actually made that joke at one point.
John:
Fucking stupid.
John:
I'm sorry.
John:
We were standing there looking at the biplane, and Marlo was like, and I said, listen, you're the one that's bi.
John:
And she was like, you suck.
John:
God, you suck.
John:
You're the lamest of all the lame.
John:
And I was like, I know, I know I am.
John:
You knew that going in.
John:
You didn't wake up this morning, you know, and you're going to get to wear a cool Snoopy helmet.
John:
You know, what's funny is in the same way that I can't conjure an orb.
John:
Yeah.
John:
And in the same way that I think about food all the time, even when it's completely unnecessary, even while I'm eating, I never think things are going to turn out badly.
John:
Huh, I never things never it's never a case where it's like oh that turned out a lot better than I expected because I always expect everything's gonna.
Merlin:
Oh man It's a it's just a distinction a fascinating difference between us it explains a lot It does and it's not to call it optimism is not precisely right I mean optimism is like whatever but like it's I think it would be easy to say oh well one's optimistic one's pessimistic I don't think it's that simple it's but it's more like that's just kind of how your wiring is
Merlin:
I mean, you could try a million different thought experiments about this, or at least three or four different thought experiments, to say something like, well, you know, I don't like going to the mall, and I went to the mall, and I found what I wanted, and also, you know...
Merlin:
I saw a celebrity or something like all that all went better than I expected because a I didn't die and be something cool and unexpected happened and it just I think some people are wired you have such an adventurous spirit to you for better or for worse that not everybody has and that's what makes you valuable to the class.
John:
and and part of yeah that's right part of the pond what's funny is the only time that i have that feeling of like this is going to go really badly right before he's on stage no well there's there's like i wish i didn't have to do this for sure but no it's when i'm sitting at the end of the bar and i look down to the other end of the bar and there's a girl looking at me and then when she sees me looking at her she looks away
John:
And I immediately go into a like I need I should go talk to her I should go say that I mean, this is trauma going back to when I was 15 or whatever sure but This is gonna go terribly you might as well like like it might as well be like a scene from a bad sitcom where she's actually like smiling at the person behind you exactly or I'm gonna get over there and the whole thing was a prank and she's like Haha, my friend said if I smiled at you that you'd come tampons at you and don't yeah, you're such a dork
John:
Or I'll get there and she's like, hi.
John:
And I'll be like, did you know that Alexander the Great had three penises?
John:
And she's going to be like, fuck, lame.
John:
It's the only place in my whole life where whatever that sense of like, there's seven ways that this could go and six of them are awful.
John:
Yeah, yeah.
John:
I think that's not weird.
John:
That's not weird.
John:
Yeah, I guess not.
John:
I just, it's weird because I don't have it at any other aspect of, you know, like the idea of walking out the door today is just like, huh, maybe a dragon comes down.
John:
I wonder if I could teach it to be my pet.
John:
You know, like there's, and it's not, I don't think it's optimism.
John:
You're right.
John:
It's like just a...
Merlin:
Just a kind of... Yeah, I mean, some days are better than others for me because I do have so much negative self-talk in my head.
Merlin:
But sometimes I'm able to, if I'm lucky, I'm able to rise above that and just see things as at least inert and not like an active threat.
Merlin:
That's a good day for me.
Merlin:
It's all inactive threats.
John:
Well, I guess we're only at DEF CON 2, so...
John:
I didn't need to shit myself after all.
Merlin:
You should keep a little DEFCON.
Merlin:
I always get it backwards.
Merlin:
Which is which?
Merlin:
Well, that's the thing I don't know either.
John:
It's so confusing.
Merlin:
And I feel like when people then tell me what it really is, it still seems backwards from what it should be.
John:
I feel like because it's confusing, then it must be opposite.
John:
And one is highest.
Merlin:
Because otherwise, it would be like, well, clearly DEFCON 5 is... Isn't that something you'd want to have really clear with people?
Merlin:
Like 1 and 5 mean the difference between lightning and a lightning bug, you know?
John:
I mean, I think it might be a shibboleth.
John:
If you have scrambled eggs on your cap, you don't have to think about it.
John:
Yeah.
John:
DEFCON 5 is normal peacetime conditions.
John:
DEFCON 1 is like they're already launched.
John:
Things are launched.
Merlin:
It's like a hurricane warning versus a hurricane watch.
John:
exactly so if you and defcon one is is red defcon two is orange defcon three is yellow defcon four is green and defcon five is blue the calmest of all times it's not green for go it's blue for for cold chillin
Merlin:
I feel pretty sure I'll forget that.
John:
I'll forget that, I feel like.
John:
But if you printed it out and put it on your fridge or by the front door or something and you can move the little magnet.
Merlin:
So one's the bad one, five's the happy one, right?
Merlin:
Five is happy, one is bad.
Merlin:
If it's five, you're still alive.
Merlin:
If it's one, there's probably a gun.
Merlin:
There it is.
Merlin:
Is that a mnemonic?
John:
Will that work for now?
John:
If there's one, well, I think if there's one, there's definitely a gun.
John:
If there's one, there's definitely a gun.
Merlin:
If it's five, you might just live.
John:
Yeah.
Bye.