Ep. 594: "Composite Sketch of Pain"
John:
Hello.
Merlin:
Hello, John.
Merlin:
How are you?
Merlin:
Hello.
Merlin:
Cha-cha-cha.
Merlin:
Hello.
Merlin:
Hello.
Merlin:
Hello.
Merlin:
Hello.
Merlin:
How?
Merlin:
Hello.
Merlin:
Oh, boy.
Merlin:
Geez, we have fun.
Merlin:
Be honest.
Merlin:
Don't we have a lot of fun?
Merlin:
Can you imagine how fun this must be for people?
Merlin:
Oh, my God.
Merlin:
I can imagine.
Merlin:
I would have loved something like this when I was in my 50s.
Merlin:
Oh, geez, me too.
Merlin:
Hi, hi.
Merlin:
You know, I always wanted to work with words.
Merlin:
You always wanted to work with words.
Merlin:
I always did.
Merlin:
Huh.
Merlin:
So racially, you're cool like that.
Merlin:
You don't mind words and how they are.
Merlin:
No, no, no.
Merlin:
Some of my best friends are words.
Merlin:
You know, I've known there's good words and bad words.
Merlin:
I'm going to say that.
Merlin:
Okay.
Merlin:
All right.
Merlin:
Yeah, you like to teach the controversy.
Merlin:
You know what?
Merlin:
I used to work with a word.
Merlin:
I did.
Merlin:
Is that right?
Merlin:
Yep, yep, yep.
Merlin:
Live with their longtime companion, which was also a word.
John:
Yeah?
Merlin:
Was that word, did that word work hard, or were they a lazy word?
Merlin:
Grease was the word.
Merlin:
Oh, that's the word I heard.
Merlin:
Let me explain.
Merlin:
It's got grooves, it's got feeling.
Merlin:
Isn't it kind of funny, even at the time I thought this was a little funny, that the title song from a 50s, at that point already, I think almost a 10-year-old musical about the 50s,
Merlin:
Oh, yeah.
Merlin:
Had its theme song was like a mid tempo disco song, which I obviously I'm not stupid.
Merlin:
I understand it was 1978 or nine.
Merlin:
But still, isn't it kind of funny that it's like it's it's it's sort of a disco song.
John:
Oh, yeah.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Well, you know, I never thought of it as being funny until just right now.
Merlin:
What else do we know from that?
Merlin:
We know You're the One That I Want.
Merlin:
It's crazy.
Merlin:
You're the one that I want.
Merlin:
The baseline-dominated song.
Merlin:
You are the one I want.
Merlin:
Hopelessly Devoted to You.
Merlin:
That's a beautiful song.
John:
You know, there were so many 50s things in the 70s.
Merlin:
So many 50s cultural things in the 70s.
Merlin:
We've played around with this.
Merlin:
We've fucked around.
Merlin:
We've prodded this with our little meat fingers.
Merlin:
But we've never really, I don't think, deeply gotten into the waves of 50s nostalgia.
Merlin:
Although it's come up a lot.
John:
Yeah, but I think, you know, I was so, well, you and I both, we were only children, and the cultural stuff was washing over us, and I don't know if I could have told you what was the 50s thing and what was the 70s thing.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Because of the boomer nostalgia that we soaked in, like Palmolive.
John:
Our whole lives.
John:
Our whole lives.
Merlin:
And for folks who weren't there, and it doesn't particularly matter, but if you're a child, a latchkey child of the 70s like I was, yeah, sure.
Merlin:
What's funny is like Grease, the Broadway musical, I think was kind of around the time of like Hare and Godspell.
Merlin:
And it was very much like a throwback, like 50s nostalgia, if you like, which it already kind of...
Merlin:
It's sort of like what they say with disco, you know, where disco never really ended, ironically enough.
Merlin:
It just became like New Order or whatever.
Merlin:
But like you look at.
Merlin:
Where they took all the swing out of it.
Merlin:
Oh, because of the drum machines?
Merlin:
Oh, sorry.
Merlin:
No, that wasn't a Yosemite Sam noise.
Merlin:
That was a pondering noise.
Merlin:
Oh!
Merlin:
You think I did a full bus hop?
Merlin:
Oh!
Merlin:
You rascally rabbit.
Merlin:
Anyway, it's not interesting.
Merlin:
But the thing is, you would see even... I mean, it kind of never went away.
Merlin:
God, there was a wonderful character.
Merlin:
Oh, you know what it was?
Merlin:
I'm thinking of the father in...
Merlin:
The father in that wonderful Irish James Brown movie about the band.
Merlin:
The old Irish James Brown.
Merlin:
Well, the Irish band that got together.
Merlin:
Oh, the regulars, the acceptables, the irreplaceables.
Merlin:
Yeah, the acceptables, the indispensables.
Merlin:
The indispensables.
Merlin:
And it features that guy who later did Falling Slowly, except he was very, very skinny and looked like he was in a teenage fan club or maybe Miracle Legion.
Merlin:
Anyways, now his dad, Jimmy Rabbit.
Merlin:
Jimmy Rabbit was the character's name, I remember.
Merlin:
The guy who was like the manager guy.
Merlin:
And his dad, remember his dad would sing Elvis songs at the table?
Merlin:
And that's in the 90s.
Merlin:
And his dad was still a greaser.
Merlin:
Oh, sure.
Merlin:
As opposed to like a mom.
Merlin:
He's a rocker.
Merlin:
A rocker, I guess you'd say.
John:
A rocker.
John:
The 70s looked like the 20s.
Merlin:
I'm not going to take it.
Merlin:
But then you also get stuff like, well, we can't talk about Gary Glitter, but even like, certainly there's Gary Glitter, but then there's also like Roxy Music.
Merlin:
where, like, Brian Ferry was having a lot of fun with, like, a pompadour and stuff like that.
Merlin:
But then I think the big one, all I'm trying to say is, yes, there was stuff like Happy Days.
Merlin:
Yes, there was stuff like, oh, I think American Graffiti would be a huge one.
Merlin:
But then there was also, do you just, I don't know if you had this, I guess, in Alaska, the constant ads for two-record compilations, generic two-record compilations.
Merlin:
Could be Teresa Brewer.
John:
Yeah, that started our time, right?
John:
We are the two-record compilation generation.
John:
I don't know why they don't call us that.
Merlin:
Because that's how you learned.
Merlin:
But I didn't even own it.
Merlin:
I would just learn it from TV.
Merlin:
I've got to write that down.
Merlin:
I'm sorry, I have to take a second.
John:
Yeah, you'd listen to the first seven seconds of the chorus or whatever.
Merlin:
Okay, all right.
Merlin:
And then it would bump you to the next seven seconds of the chorus.
Merlin:
A little bit passive, a little bit aggressive.
Merlin:
Yes, that's true.
Merlin:
But the TV ads, and there'd be that scroll.
Merlin:
And where do I even begin?
Merlin:
Teresa Brewer, some of the more obscure ones.
Merlin:
Teresa Brewer, Boxcar Willie, Slim Whitman.
Merlin:
Oh, the guy who played the flute, the master of the Pam flute.
Merlin:
Who was that?
Merlin:
Zortar.
Merlin:
Zortar.
Merlin:
There was Zoltar, Lord of the Pam flute.
Merlin:
But then, of course, you had CCR.
Merlin:
And that's how I learned the titular line from almost every CCR song was those ads where the songs would scroll by.
Merlin:
You know what I'm talking about?
John:
You know what band it was for me?
John:
The Guess Who.
John:
Baby, you just ain't seen nothing yet.
John:
I had never put a name to all those songs.
Merlin:
I know.
Merlin:
And it was one of those two record sets.
Merlin:
Like Three Dog Night, Guess Who, and what's the other one?
Merlin:
What's Chuck Negron?
Merlin:
What was he in?
Merlin:
Three Dog Night?
Merlin:
There was this rat king of dirty-looking mustache bands that Todd Rundgren produced, I think.
John:
Yeah, but what was incredible was you did know all those songs, and you were now, for the first time as a child, being told, this is all the same band.
Merlin:
That's a band you've never heard of.
Merlin:
It's not the Beatles.
Merlin:
We didn't see nothing yet.
Merlin:
It would come on the radio.
Merlin:
It has a very, like when that song, it was like a, you know, it was really catchy.
Merlin:
But those would scroll by.
Merlin:
And so like the thing is, or I remember one that was about like if you like your old classical music, but you're tired of those scratchy 78s.
Merlin:
And that's where I learned the names of a bunch.
Merlin:
Anyway, what I'm saying is talk about an incomplete like education is all that stuff just scrolling by.
Merlin:
And a lot of those were 50s compilations.
Merlin:
And then by the 80s, not talking about Freedom Rock, I'm talking about others where you could see like, oh, you could buy like a six album set of like the best of the 50s and early 60s or something.
Merlin:
And that would have lots of your Del Shannons.
John:
I got them all in a box downstairs because for some reason, my dad, who hated all that music, inherited it from somebody in an old folks' home.
John:
Really?
John:
Yeah, when we were moving him out of his old folks' home, I was like, Dad, what are all these 50s and 60s?
John:
I thought that Jamaican Nurse already sold all his albums.
John:
Well, no, I have all the 78s.
John:
I have 78s that my grandmother made.
John:
Of her singing opera to her own piano.
John:
They cut acetates.
John:
I don't even know how.
John:
But yeah, I have all these like doo-wop records.
John:
And my dad thought that was greaser kid music.
John:
Like he wasn't interested in it.
Merlin:
He picked it up out of a free pile.
Merlin:
A totally, understandably unacknowledged.
Merlin:
Something we've said for years about our moms, I think in particular, is that they did not want to be teenagers.
Merlin:
They were a little older than what we think of as 50s teenagers.
Merlin:
And they wanted to be grown women with like, you know.
Merlin:
Jazz tastes.
Merlin:
Well, yeah, but like good hair and a skirt set and, you know, and like have a whole situation of being an adult, not about being like, not like chasing Frank Sinatra around or for God, for God's sake, you know, the Beatles.
Merlin:
But also, you know, there was a slight race component, especially with doo-wop, I think.
John:
Doo-wop.
John:
Oh, yeah.
John:
I think of it as always like greasers on the streets of Brooklyn.
John:
Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, maybe?
John:
You know, the confusing thing for me was always that the 1920s also had a 70s revival.
John:
If you think about the ice cream parlors with the arm gators and the straw boaters...
Merlin:
And some kind of inchoate.
Merlin:
Yes, I told first of all, I totally agree.
Merlin:
I just don't know if it's exactly the 20s because it could be any time from like depending on how made up it was like Farrell's ice cream, right?
Merlin:
Farrell's.
Merlin:
Where everyone was.
Merlin:
Did you have Farrell's in Ohio?
Merlin:
Yeah, I made a pic of myself at Farrell's.
Merlin:
I have three ribbons to show it.
John:
Me too.
John:
I ate the whole pig's trough.
Merlin:
I ate the whole pig's trough.
Merlin:
I got the ribbon.
John:
I didn't know Farrell's was an international chain.
John:
I can't speak to that.
Merlin:
I went to it for my 10th birthday, which I remember very distinctly.
Merlin:
And yeah, yeah, yeah.
John:
You know, Farrell's plays a large role in my origin story.
John:
That's the whole story about me spending all of my third grade year working really hard, getting straight A's, earning all that money that I never spent on.
John:
The teacher was having an auction at the end of every month where he sold a bunch of toys.
Merlin:
Third grade was the year that you accumulated.
John:
I accumulated all of the money in my bank book and I never bought a single toy.
John:
He would have these auctions and all the kids are bidding on these model tanks and all these checkerboards.
Merlin:
Third grade for me, just for context, third grade for me was selling, at school they would sell these tiny little cute plastic dogs for March of Dimes.
Merlin:
And it was, you know, the same way people get into Pokemon or whatever, everybody wanted the dogs.
Merlin:
Hmm.
Merlin:
And they weren't very costly, but that was like an acquisitive thing.
Merlin:
For me, that would be like if I hadn't spent money on poodles.
Merlin:
Like if I'd been acquisitive and kept it around and avoided the auction and said, eh, eh, eh, like you did.
Merlin:
Right, you'd be a millionaire now.
Merlin:
You kidding me?
Merlin:
You know what those beanie babies are worth?
Merlin:
Oh, my God.
Merlin:
I told my kid about you and Beanie Babies on Saturday.
Merlin:
So it was a Beanie Babies reference in something.
Merlin:
And blah, blah, blah.
Merlin:
And Billy said, yeah, I like Beanie Babies.
Merlin:
And I said, but yeah, do you know how those for a little while were kind of collectible?
Merlin:
And I said, there's a famous photo that John and I like a lot.
Merlin:
It's a very low resolution photo.
Merlin:
But there's a famous photo of a courtroom shot from kind of above and two people sitting on the floor of a courtroom.
Merlin:
And Billy goes, I've seen it.
Merlin:
Two grown-ups.
Merlin:
Two grown-ups deciding who gets which beanie babies because they're so valuable.
Merlin:
I mean, not as valuable as marriage for obvious reasons, but you're going to want that.
Merlin:
You don't want them to get the Gleep Glorp one you've been collecting or your Bleep Blop or whatever.
John:
How many times in our lives do you think two people sat on a floor and split up a record collection in a hostile way?
John:
Where it was like, that's my copy of Rage Against the Machine.
Merlin:
That's a line in a movie.
Merlin:
I think it's probably in When Harry Met Sally, but always write your name in all your books because eventually you're going to break up.
Merlin:
You know this as a person who used to buy old records.
Merlin:
Especially in the 60s and 70s, people would write their name on the record a lot.
Merlin:
Oh, for sure.
Merlin:
Sure.
John:
I've got records that have people's names on them.
John:
And records that clearly came from collections that have different colored stars on them.
John:
Because it was somebody's tricky organization system?
Merlin:
I think it could also, some of those, this is going to sound really obscure, but I think also sometimes if like a record station, college record, some kind of like, sorry, a radio station rather.
Merlin:
I think sometimes those can be collections too, where like that's where you're going to see a lot of...
Merlin:
you know, sort of shop-worn covers with like labels on it because that's how, you know, that used to be back in the day before computers, that used to be how they would identify what kind of rotation they went into.
John:
Oh, well, at KEXP here, they have all their stacks going back to KCMU.
John:
And all the records have little notes that the DJs wrote on them when the records came out.
Merlin:
How many seconds for the lead in?
Merlin:
There's a curse.
Merlin:
You can't play this one song because it's got to cuss.
John:
Except at KEXP, they also, because they're a college radio station, they also wrote reviews.
John:
So there are all these reviews of these ancient DJs of like, oh, this foreigner record is like, you know, just people like shit talking records.
John:
But then there would be other reviews, other reviews, like some of the records are just covered with notes over history.
John:
And all the grunge records when they first came out, they all got reviewed by, you know, these local DJs.
John:
It's really, it's a cool thing.
Merlin:
It should be in a museum.
Merlin:
Yeah.
John:
Wait, it is in a museum.
Merlin:
Hmm.
Merlin:
But yeah, so the 70s stuff, it came in waves for a long time.
Merlin:
It kind of never went away because, I don't know, this is officially becoming not that interesting now.
Merlin:
I think it also, just because the 50s, for all kinds of reasons, many of them kind of silly in retrospect, represent a sort of, I think that there are people who, if you ask, shake them awake in the middle of the night, they will think of the 50s, Eisenhower years as the apotheosis.
Merlin:
Symbiosis?
Merlin:
Apotheosis, like the high mark, the zenith of American... Oh, the apotheosis.
Merlin:
Sorry.
Merlin:
The high point of American modern culture.
Merlin:
Hey, it's post-war.
Merlin:
Somebody like me, like, oh, Marshall Plan.
Merlin:
That's how we built a lot of soft power in the world.
Merlin:
Other people maybe aren't thinking so much about how black people weren't allowed to ride on things, you know.
Merlin:
But I think that... I think that, you know, that Eddie Cochran era, Eddie Cochran, I think that era, you know, people still get excited about it.
Merlin:
It's exciting music.
Merlin:
I mean, you know, ZZ Top, as much as they were into the boogie stuff, like there's so many bands that are so heavily affected by that, like that classic 1956 sound.
Merlin:
Sure.
Merlin:
Do you like that 1956 sound?
Merlin:
Is it kind of samey to you?
Merlin:
You find it samey?
John:
No, no, no.
John:
I think it's just more... Music expresses feelings.
John:
And I think there's a lot of music that expresses feelings I'm not having or have never had that I still can listen to and appreciate.
Merlin:
Hell yeah.
John:
And then the music that I love...
John:
of course, is music that expresses or I interpret it to express feelings that I have had or am having.
John:
It's not that I love it, I need it.
John:
That's where music becomes like a necessity.
John:
But then there's music, a lot, a lot of music.
John:
that expresses ideas and feelings that i don't really feel very connected to and in some cases just feel like actively bored by or not interested in at all yeah and uh so there's a lot of music and i'm not saying that
John:
that mid-50s rock and roll, I'm opposed to it all.
John:
I've listened to a lot of it, but I listen to it and hear its influence in the world more than I listen to it and think like, yeah, man, tell me all about it.
John:
So I think over the years, right, you just kind of, once you've listened to everything that
John:
Over the time, you kind of just go, yeah, this is the... But aren't there some kind... That doesn't matter.
Merlin:
What were you going to say?
Merlin:
Well, it's really boring when it takes us down a rabbit hole, but don't you find that there are some kinds of music that you don't like, you don't like, you don't like, yeah, you like a little bit, you don't like, you don't like, you don't like, and then one day it kind of goes, oh, I get that.
Merlin:
Like I've been like that with some kinds of folk music or like even like Zydeco or like or, you know, it's reggae to a certain extent where like you'll find a way to love like one certain kind of like part of that.
Merlin:
And I mentioned Eddie Cochran.
Merlin:
I mean, he's one.
Merlin:
But like there's a couple that are like, you know, not as famous as Buddy Holly or Chuck Berry that were doing such interesting stuff.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
Or for that matter, the song from Happy Days, you know, Rock Around the Clock, which I think is a cover, is like, you know, there's something so exhilarating about that music, and sometimes you need to just be away from it for a while.
Merlin:
Banjos.
Merlin:
Oh, yeah.
Merlin:
You've got to have time away from banjos.
John:
Sure.
John:
Well, yeah.
John:
You can't be in banjos all the time, but yeah, I...
John:
I love banjos.
John:
I always loved reggae.
Merlin:
Me too.
Merlin:
Some more than others, and not all of it.
Merlin:
Last yesterday, I did something I don't do too much, as you may know about me.
Merlin:
First, you know that I only listen to the first few seconds of any song.
Merlin:
But you also know about me that, like, I maybe don't know.
Merlin:
But there's certain songs I keep in a bell jar.
Merlin:
or albums for that matter, I keep in a little bit of a bell jar.
Merlin:
I don't want them to ever... You don't overplay them?
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
I mean, honestly, that includes... The Meadowlands would be one... It's not like it's that special to me.
Merlin:
It's just that every time I listen to Meadowlands, I get a thrill.
Merlin:
And I don't want to ever get to a point where I don't get a thrill.
Merlin:
But one I listened to last night was a song from Adventure Time that moves me more than almost anything in this world, especially if you're watching the cartoon with it.
Merlin:
And I was so happy to take it out.
Merlin:
The song, you know, remember, well, I remember you, you know, the song where Ice King wants to play along with Marceline, Marceline.
Merlin:
And she's, she has to show Simon the lyrics that he wrote about the future when he wouldn't be able to remember her anymore because of the crown.
Merlin:
Do you remember that?
John:
I do.
Merlin:
You saw that as a dad.
Merlin:
You saw that as, you saw that as a young dad too, right?
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
It's just hitting on so many levels.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Say more.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Yeah, Marceline's music plays a big role in our family.
John:
She's a major character.
Merlin:
And the video ends.
Merlin:
So it starts out, just the video that's on YouTube, which you've probably seen.
Merlin:
I'm posting about it yesterday.
Merlin:
But, you know, it starts out and Simon, you know, Simon really wants to play the drums.
Merlin:
And Marceline has like an, I guess it sounds like an omni-chord, but, you know.
Merlin:
And she finds those lyrics and he starts singing them.
Merlin:
But it's so beautiful on so many levels because he can't remember...
Merlin:
marceline as a baby and so and he certainly cannot remember writing a song oh god he can't remember writing a song to marceline talk about memory john i know this is something we all think about you get to the point where he realizes the like my favorite line from the song this magic keeps me alive but it's making me crazy because every time he uses the crown he becomes less of simon and more of the ice king
Merlin:
I can't believe how much this moves me.
Merlin:
And he wrote a song when he was still Simon about Marceline and taking care of her and how just, you know, one day I won't be able to remember you.
Merlin:
But like, I remember you now.
Merlin:
So I wrote you this song.
Merlin:
So on the one hand, you go, oh, it's so funny.
Merlin:
That guy, that stinky guy with the penguins in his underpants.
Merlin:
He's so clueless and likes to play drums and he's got ups.
Merlin:
Give me the ball.
Merlin:
but like it's so deeply moving and then the fact that Marceline has to be the one to like coax him into trying to remember and then it just slays because it pulls it all together by cutting to I'm so sorry if you've never seen this program it cuts to you know when he's protecting her he's like discovered her after the mushroom bomb and like and finds Hambo and gives it to her and she hugs it
Merlin:
And then like there's like just this little like Polaroid of her.
Merlin:
I'm like, oh, you don't have to have a child in your life to get that because you've been a child in your life and you know what that's like.
Merlin:
But when you have, you know, a young person who's been in your life, guess what?
Merlin:
Now I'm older.
Merlin:
And I remember now it's like Toy Story where there's this whole other level now of I watch that and there's like a new level of emotional complexity each time I watch it.
Merlin:
I'm done talking now.
Merlin:
Yeah, I've been meaning to do a rewatch.
Merlin:
Daddy, why'd you steal my fries?
Merlin:
It's not really a song about her fries.
Merlin:
You have a favorite character on Adventure Time?
John:
Uh, well...
John:
I mean, you got to love them all.
Merlin:
Yeah, it's true.
Merlin:
Except for, except for, um, um, what's his name?
Merlin:
Method Man.
Merlin:
I don't like that guy.
Merlin:
Who's the guy?
Merlin:
There's the guy that rhymes.
Merlin:
I don't like Magic Man.
Merlin:
I don't like him.
Merlin:
No, he's like Q. I never liked Q. Did you like Q?
Merlin:
Uh, you like an agent of chaos like Q?
John:
The agent of chaos part I do, the problem is they often cast actors in those roles that feel like a personal insult to me.
Merlin:
Because that kind of character, especially on old Star Trek and in the 60s, you'd cast somebody who was like, not Frank Gorshin, he's in a different role, but somebody who'd be a real character actor, like swinging at the fences to be as fucking annoying as possible.
John:
Yeah, and I think that what I mean when I say personal insult is like, you know, there are guys like Penn, Gillette, and Blaine from 16 Candles.
John:
Or no, Blaine from Pretty in Pink.
Merlin:
Penn War?
Merlin:
What's his name?
John:
Who?
Yeah.
Merlin:
So, sorry, Penn Jillette from the Magic Group?
Merlin:
From the Magic Group.
Merlin:
And Blaine, what's the actor's name?
Merlin:
James Spader.
Merlin:
James Spader.
Merlin:
You're not going to know whether to shit or go sailing is what he said.
John:
And the actor that played Q. He's a fun actor, but yeah.
John:
And so forth and so on.
John:
There's always a character that's kind of like meaty-faced.
John:
And there's something about his personality that is turned up.
John:
And we all understand that he's meant to be like just really...
John:
not just annoying, but like he's smug.
John:
He's, um, he's all these, he's all these qualities.
Merlin:
You can kind of see a through line between these characters, like a Loki or a puck, like, but somebody who's there on purpose to be like, to fuck things up, but also just to do it in the most annoying way.
John:
But I mean it in a broader sense of the actors that get those jobs.
John:
I always, correctly or not, saw, even from the time I was in early high school, I saw a resemblance between myself and those characters.
John:
Whoa, that is pretty sophisticated.
Yeah.
John:
in a way that made me uncomfortable and made it feel like like there was something in the world that was that was organized around the idea that people like me were annoying not just annoying but pompous it's pomposity i think or smugness or and so there's certain kinds of people who are considered insufferable and that might be me
John:
yeah and so you look at pen and teller and you go well which one of these am i clearly i'm pen i'm not teller and also know which john from they might be giants yeah yeah but like you look at the cast of star trek and you go which one am i well clearly i'm number one
John:
Oh, yeah.
John:
Who is who's playing a character on the show that is pompous and kind of like, you know, annoying.
John:
And then and then Q comes in and it's like, oh, well, I'm number one on the cast of Star Trek, except I'm way more Q even than I am number one.
John:
And you look at the hero journey of someone in a book or someone in a movie or television show.
John:
The hero is always built a certain way and composed a certain way.
John:
And he's either got an exasperating friend or his antagonist.
Merlin:
It's such a type.
Merlin:
Because it's not the classic other guy, buddy.
Merlin:
I'm thinking of Ziggy in season two of The Wire, which is a little obscure.
Merlin:
But you know the type.
Merlin:
There's the type who's like, oh, this is our friend.
Merlin:
Or maybe almost a little bit like Good Will Hunting, a little bit.
Merlin:
But the one who has this assertive, like you say, hero's journey, whether they know it or not, trajectory.
Merlin:
And the other one who's probably going to die over something really stupid.
Yeah.
John:
Yeah, the pal who maybe stays, who doesn't leave the town.
Merlin:
So you're the Affleck in this.
John:
Yeah, the Affleck.
John:
But the thing is, I was never the Affleck.
John:
Like, I'd look at an Affleck and go like, God, I wish I could be, I wish I could just be the supportive friend.
John:
No, I'm always the...
John:
Always the antagonist, never the hero.
John:
Always the John Lithgow or the... And I mean, John Lithgow managed to be a hero sometimes.
John:
But hardly ever, right?
John:
Even when he's the star of the show.
Merlin:
Because he was such a character actor earlier in his career.
Merlin:
The first time I remember seeing him in was Hotel... Was it Hotel New Hampshire?
Merlin:
No, World According to Garp.
John:
Yeah, Garp.
Merlin:
Where he played a transgendered person.
Merlin:
And then he was in... What was it?
Merlin:
Buckaroo Banzai?
Merlin:
But he often played like a crazy bad guy for a while.
John:
Yeah, and I mean, even Lenny and Squiggy, like, everybody loves Squiggy.
John:
I'm always going to be Lenny.
Merlin:
And so I just figured... It's funny, because in the diet of Carl and Lenny from The Simpsons, I also am Lenny.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
I'm Lenny.
Merlin:
This is Carl.
Merlin:
I'm Lenny.
John:
So I think there was something in me as a kid, and I think a lot of us have this experience, where you realize that the way you're made means you're not the hero.
John:
Like just the way you talk and walk and are built and think.
John:
and interact all of those things you're not you're just not the hero and if you absorb enough culture you know with enough kind of like eye on it when you're young and you you realize like okay so i'm not the hero so what is my arc like i'm never gonna get the girl i'm never gonna be the one that saved the planet
John:
And everything I'm watching is kind of subtly telling me that I'm the problem.
John:
And so I think when I was in my late teens and early 20s, when I looked at my own life and thought, well, here's what I'm going to do.
John:
I'm going to be wasted.
John:
I'm going to just be wasted.
John:
And whatever.
John:
And my role models are all going to be hobos.
Okay.
John:
the idea that you know that i could be a writer and that they wouldn't have to see me right i wouldn't i'm never going to be the writer is somehow separate from the rest of life and because the writer never gets on the periphery a little bit well or maybe or you know what i mean like you're the chronicler kind of thing
John:
Yeah.
John:
You're like that at parties.
Merlin:
We were both like that at parties, I think.
John:
Yeah.
John:
You stand on the side, you watch, you learn, you listen.
John:
You judge.
John:
You ask a lot of questions.
John:
You're always putting it together.
John:
You walk late at night alone and look in people's windows, not as a peeper, but just as a like, what are those?
John:
What's going on in there?
John:
Seeker.
John:
And yeah, I think that was...
John:
That was my response to that.
John:
Because, you know, when you're 16 years old and you look around and you're like, who's the hero here?
John:
And you go, oh, shit, it's not me.
John:
Again, it's not me.
John:
You have to pivot to something else, you know?
John:
I always... Sean Nelson always acted this... You know, he was a very complicated guy.
John:
And I realized at one point on tour that when Sean pictured himself...
John:
in his mind, he saw Johnny Depp.
John:
He saw himself as Johnny Depp.
John:
And so whenever he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror or saw a photograph of himself, and he was not only not Johnny Depp, but he looked like two Johnny Depps in a trench coat, he was newly devastated each time.
John:
Because at some point in his childhood, he fantasized his way into being small and dark and beautiful.
John:
And that's one of the ways he consumed culture.
John:
He would sit and be so into movies and music and stuff that in a way he was trying to blot himself out and replace himself with all the cool
John:
that he could gobble up, like just eat all the cool until you become the cool.
John:
And part of his antagonism with the world was just that he had eaten all the cool.
John:
He'd done it all.
John:
Every cool thing he had eaten a thousand times, and yet it had never produced, it had never transmogrified him into being elfin and swarthy.
Merlin:
That kind of sounds like the basis for a villain.
John:
It's wow.
John:
It's kind of the basis.
Merlin:
I'm not in any way.
Merlin:
I really like Sean.
Merlin:
And I'm not saying that at all, but I'm saying that if you were, but you know, I just need to say, but like, no, but that might be my own villain journey.
Merlin:
I don't know about that.
Merlin:
But like, I think about something like a really good kids movie, like Megamind.
Merlin:
You know, or like, I don't know if you've ever seen Mega Mind with Will Ferrell, but like, but that journey, well, okay, but the journey of somebody who starts out wanting to be the cool guy, the cool little dark guy, but you can't, and all you do is you keep unintentionally zapping people who are like wicked, like similar kind of story.
Merlin:
I mean, like, where do you even begin with how many stories there are like this where somebody wants to be the hero, tries to see, does see themselves as the hero, or at least the, you know, hero's a big word, but the good guy.
Merlin:
It is.
Merlin:
The good guy.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
A good guy, even.
Merlin:
Not even the good guy, just a good guy.
Merlin:
Right, right, right.
Merlin:
That's complicated.
Merlin:
For sure.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
So tell me more about that.
Merlin:
What points did you feel your journey being guided by something, a hand like that?
Merlin:
Maybe a way that you are that you hadn't realized?
Merlin:
Were there points in the journey where that meant a lot to you?
John:
Oh, I mean, you're just responding to the world, you know?
John:
And we all are just responding to the world.
John:
The world responds to us.
John:
Like, I probably didn't go with the flow as much as I should have, because I didn't... The flow just...
John:
didn't seem to be on my side.
Merlin:
The flow benefit, I always felt like, often, I'll say, I often felt like the flow benefited other people a lot more than me.
Merlin:
That the flow, and there are certainly so many people for whom that's a thousand times more true, but for myself, I did often feel like, I eventually got to a point where I'd feel like no matter how much effort and really consistency I put into this particular kind of work, like I'm never gonna get there in the same way as the hero guy will.
Merlin:
Like this is always, I'm always going to be scrapping and now I look sweaty about it.
Merlin:
I look needy.
John:
Yeah, and I wonder, I mean, we're living in a world for sure where, we've talked about it before, where every single person feels like a minority now, right?
John:
Nobody will confess, or very few people will confess to just being fine.
John:
And just sort of, I mean, we've eliminated the word normal from our lexicon, so it's not even that, but...
John:
We noticed it 20 years ago or 30 years ago when white Christian people started positing themselves as a minority.
Merlin:
I just watched the Mr. Show episode where everybody's declaring themselves independent of the United States with their shacks.
John:
What show did you watch?
Merlin:
On Mr. Show.
Merlin:
There's that episode, remember, where David, he's the Freelandia, and he discovers the Americans were so nice to him, he decides to emigrate and become an American.
John:
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
John:
But yeah, so I don't, you know, I think now I'm...
John:
I'm also reluctant to think of my journey through life as one of an outsider looking in because clearly in so many ways I'm an insider and was all along.
John:
But I think, you know, you always, if you're in a group of 10 people, you find your place in that 10 and you're completely unaware of the 6 billion other people that,
John:
And if you're in a group of 10 people and you see yourself as the outsider or the non-hero, it's very hard.
John:
I think that's one of the things that we... One of the ways we're crosswise with each other now is that there's always somebody that's going to say, well, what about the other 6 billion?
John:
Or what about the 40 you're not thinking of over here?
John:
And most of us grew up with...
John:
A hundred people and we found our identity in relation to that hundred people.
John:
And that identity is really strong.
John:
You're like, look, there's a hundred people over here that are doing this and I'm the only one that isn't.
John:
So therefore I am a rare and not just rare and unusual, but also like I'm at a tremendous disadvantage from these other people who all are in agreement.
Yeah.
John:
And then you get out into the world and part of that original go to college energy, it's so exciting because you find 20 other people at your school that were like you in their school.
John:
And you're like, oh, wow, I wasn't the only one.
John:
Like, here we are in a school of 20,000 people and I've got like 100 friends or 20 friends at least.
John:
Better like me.
John:
And you're like, wow, look at me.
Merlin:
Your role changes.
Merlin:
One of the things that's, I think, a theme, at least sounds like through what you're saying, is that however you are, however one is, will always still exist in the context of who other people are.
Merlin:
So you're how you are at this one point and then you go to a new, then you go to a new middle school and then you go to high school and then you go to college and then you get a job or whatever.
Merlin:
But like whoever you're, you're, what's the word I'm looking for?
Merlin:
Inertia, not inertia, but like velocity.
Merlin:
Like you're on a path and you may not even really like know that you're on a path, but there's something that keeps accumulating about how you are.
Merlin:
And it feels so weird to show up somewhere that,
Merlin:
That's fresh and like within for me and I'm not trying to ask for pity or something but with within like a few minutes.
Merlin:
I'm like, oh, yeah Yeah, I'm still the weird guy here like I'm never gonna be top boy at this place and that's okay But like even when I try my hardest to like do all the things that code me as like being invisible I still come out as the person who's odd For some reason that I can't feel like I can't control for sure
John:
I don't know.
John:
Is that close?
John:
Well, what I was saying is that the difficult thing is then you get into the larger world and the way that we started talking to each other as a culture about 20 years ago, maybe longer.
John:
God, it's all hard to say 20 years ago isn't that long ago.
John:
Brutal.
John:
But where you say, oh, well, you know, I'm a vegetarian and somebody at the party goes, well, are those leather shoes?
John:
Yeah.
John:
And you're like, oh, shit, I didn't even think about that.
John:
And pretty soon, you know, any time you say like, well, I'm kind of the outsider, there's somebody standing there that's going to go, you're not the outsider.
Right.
John:
You haven't even considered all the other, you're in the majority.
Merlin:
In other words, you're not doing anything special vis-a-vis you're not special.
Merlin:
Don't act like you're special because you're not special.
John:
Well, not just that, but there's always someone, we're in a hierarchical culture now where there's always someone who had it harder than you.
John:
And so, or there's always, you know, there's always a situation that's worse than yours.
John:
That someone can at least imagine.
Merlin:
Yes, exactly.
Merlin:
All you have to do is be able to, no, honestly, I've said this to Alex, but like, what do we call it?
Merlin:
We call it something like the disempowerment Olympics or something like that, where if the problem is, we call this the chicken voice, that voice in your head where you can hear someone yelling at you about something.
Merlin:
Because it sometimes feels like if anybody else can imagine a single person in the entire world...
Merlin:
who's having a worse time at something than you are, then you're ineligible regarding that as a problem, and certainly you're ineligible from discussing it publicly.
John:
Yeah, I mean, it's a knock-on effect of allyship because there are people that really want to be allies and they can't, in their actual life, they are pretty limited in who they know and what they can do.
John:
But they can sure imagine somebody that they can be an ally of that is maybe completely made up or maybe, but most of the time what it is is a...
John:
It's a pastiche of people they've heard about and seen, and now they're that person's strongest advocate in the world.
Merlin:
For this person, I can imagine.
Merlin:
A composite sketch of pain.
John:
It's the way, you know, it's the way that everybody gets to be a hero now, but for somebody like you or me who spent the first half of our lives, and I think probably everybody listening to the show has some version of this where you spend all of your formative years kind of seeing yourself as somebody separate who is sort of on the outside looking in and
John:
And then you arrive in the largest, you know, in the larger culture and our culture is too large now.
John:
I think that's part of the problem.
John:
None of us were meant to be in a global culture of people that are, you know, people coming in from, from, uh, Montenegro in my feed and telling me that my idea is wrong.
John:
It's like, I don't, I'm not going to argue with somebody from Montenegro.
John:
How could I possibly do?
John:
Like that, that part of it, the culture just being too big.
John:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
John:
But to have it, you know, to arrive at a place and to be told by people you don't know that actually you're mainstream, actually you're just a normal.
John:
And so as a normal, you need to shut up and you need to, you know, you no longer get to feel like...
John:
an outsider and it's hard when when your first 30 years ironically enough it's very lonely that's lonely yeah it's lonely to to be told you're yeah to be told you have friends what a weird world yeah the world is too big there's too much stuff there's too much stuff it's too big we weren't meant to be in a big world
Merlin:
We're all meant to be in little worlds.
Merlin:
The world's too big on a lot of levels.
Merlin:
I find it very upsetting.
Merlin:
There's not much I can do about it.
Merlin:
But then something will happen that really twists my melon.
Merlin:
I don't know if you ever have experiences like this.
Merlin:
But yesterday, I'm sitting on the couch.
Merlin:
And I try not to talk to my kid too much, because he's mostly grown up and wants to be left alone.
Merlin:
But he's walking around.
Merlin:
He has his headphones on, which usually means he's listening to a podcast.
Merlin:
But I turned around and I said, have you watched this?
Merlin:
Have you ever watched that K-pop Demon Hunter show on Netflix?
Merlin:
Oh, yeah.
John:
My kid.
Merlin:
Okay.
Merlin:
So have you heard about this?
Merlin:
Oh, I've watched it.
John:
I've seen it.
John:
Okay.
John:
Perfect.
John:
Thank you.
John:
Thank you for allowing this.
John:
Yes, I've seen K-pop Demon Hunters, and I have been, and also I have been lectured about it, and it is now part of the world.
Merlin:
Well, we've never... I said, hey, this K-pop Demon Hunters keeps coming up a lot.
Merlin:
And this is so fucking bizarre.
Merlin:
But here's how it came up was I'm on my telephone, telephone, and I'm looking at 3D models on the site that I look at for downloading and printing 3D models.
Merlin:
And, you know...
John:
Let me just ask you, though, is that one site, or do you go to multiple sites where you download models?
John:
Because I have a picture of you downloading models from across the spectrum.
Merlin:
I used to... That's a very good question.
Merlin:
Primarily, I go to a site that is controlled, and a very good site, controlled by the people who make...
Merlin:
my entire tech stack, by which I mean they make my printer, they make the little robot that feeds the filament to it, they make the filament itself, they make all the parts to it.
Merlin:
It's a vertically integrated Apple-like company, and they also have a website that makes it.
Merlin:
So it's cool because you can download and it says, oh, this is optimized for this kind of thing, and it fits this kind of bed.
Merlin:
So if you have constraints to what you're doing, you can limit it.
Merlin:
If you don't want these kinds, anyway, it's pretty cool.
John:
Is this one of these things where if you get it wrong,
Merlin:
that the uh our enemies can take over your printer and print like a like a golem or something oh john is this really i know the thing is i think about it i think about it because you know the way you could turn the pcs into zombies you know like cordyceps type situation
Merlin:
I mainly go to that one site because it's just the fastest way to find something.
Merlin:
If I'm looking for something, and it usually works pretty well, and it's just easier.
Merlin:
But no, there are times where I will look across the entire broad spectrum of the mini sites out there.
Merlin:
I mainly use a site, if anybody's curious, called Maker World, which people will be familiar with if they're bamboo printer people.
Merlin:
Heard of it even.
Merlin:
And it's just easiest that way.
Merlin:
It integrates fully with the printer, so I can send stuff right to the printer from my phone and stuff like that.
Merlin:
And I'm just flipping around.
Merlin:
And it's a lot of dudes.
Merlin:
You see it's a lot of dudes.
Merlin:
You see it around holidays.
Merlin:
And I'm not immune.
Merlin:
For Valentine's Day, I did print out somebody's model of, quote, two tickets to Pound Town.
Merlin:
Happy Valentine's Day, honey.
Merlin:
That's the kind of thinking you get on the site a lot.
Merlin:
Sure, sure, sure.
Merlin:
Oh, dude, I'll send you a screenshot.
John:
Oh, so wait, is it fan or like user submissions?
Merlin:
Yes, absolutely.
Merlin:
Oh, absolutely.
Merlin:
I could upload.
Merlin:
I have things I'm thinking about uploading once I trick them out a little bit more.
John:
Really?
Merlin:
Yeah, but it can be anything.
Merlin:
And like a lot of these things, whether that's running magazines, bicycle magazines, computer magazines, I think it caters or rather not caters.
Merlin:
It appeals most heavily to people who are new to the process and are like, oh, I want a thing where I can print a doll or whatever.
Merlin:
Once you're at an advanced level, you have to go behind someone.
Merlin:
Once you're at an advanced level, I put it this way.
Merlin:
and this is going to go in this big document I make someday about how to do a 3D printer.
Merlin:
One is that there are certain kinds of things where you're getting your feet under you, and maybe in our example, perhaps, maybe you learn Louie Louie or similar, some three-chord song on guitar.
Merlin:
It doesn't mean that's your favorite song that you're going to try to get best at for the rest of your life.
Merlin:
It got your legs under you where now you can learn what a minor seventh chord is and things like that, right?
Merlin:
Exactly.
Merlin:
It doesn't, so, but, like, you, my gentle advice to people is print whatever you need to, to, like, get good at 3D printing.
Merlin:
And you do get better or worse at it.
Merlin:
But, like, don't get over your skis about trying to make these giant multicolor projects that take a day.
Merlin:
And, like, you'll end up just screwing yourself up because you don't know enough about the process.
Merlin:
And so, you know, avoid making things that you could buy at the container store is a good rule of thumb.
John:
Well, what was really interesting, not very long ago, I bought a piece of furniture down in Portland.
John:
And a friend of the show, architect Ben King, went to pick it up for me because I bought it online.
Merlin:
Oh, right.
Merlin:
I remember this.
Merlin:
Yes.
John:
Was this the mirror of the bed?
John:
It was a bed.
John:
Yeah.
John:
And so it had these drawers that were a component of it.
John:
And the wheels of the drawers were made out of some sort of Bakelite...
John:
that was really... Seen better days.
John:
Really fragile.
John:
And as they were taking the bed apart, like three or four of these wheels broke, like shattered.
John:
And without the wheels, then the bed is jank-o-rama.
Pfft.
John:
Well, Ben and his older son are 3D printing MakerBots.
John:
That's so awesome.
Merlin:
I love that.
John:
Can I ask how old is this kid, roughly?
John:
Oh, he's like graduating from high school.
John:
Oh, that's so cool.
John:
Okay.
John:
And he's an Eagle Scout and he's going to... Sounds like he's handy.
John:
Yeah, and he's going to be a computer engineer.
John:
He's going to college for computering.
Merlin:
Wow, that's awesome.
John:
So in the space of the 14-hour turnaround, they MakerBot wheels for this bed.
John:
And when I got them up here, you know, and they don't, they don't look the same, but they're like made out of a better material, like made out of something that will actually make the drawers work better.
John:
And I got them here and I was, and I tried to put them on and I was like, oh no, they're in the maker process.
John:
Like he, he got it so that it, he like, they won't click on and it's the wrong shape and oh no.
John:
And then I just pushed them a little harder and they went and like flawless.
John:
Whoa.
John:
And I couldn't figure out what he had done.
John:
How did he scan it with his... Oh, it's absolutely... John, this is the problem.
Merlin:
Before I acquired one of these three models ago, I absolutely did not understand any of the process.
Merlin:
Because it seemed almost like, again, just to mention Star Trek, and forgive me if I'm conflating this with Hitchhiker's Guide, but...
Merlin:
It almost seemed like a food production thing where you'd go up to it and go, please make me a trash can with strawberry shortcake on it.
Merlin:
And some mist would go into it.
Merlin:
But even once you understand it, it's hard to understand.
Merlin:
Because it's building a layer at a time in a way that is really counterintuitive.
Merlin:
How you print it, temperature, temperature of the bed, temperature of... I don't want to overcomplicate it for amusement reasons, but there's a lot more to it than you first think.
Merlin:
And so, yeah, it's miraculous.
Merlin:
When sight unseen, somebody makes you a fucking wheel replacement and it works.
Merlin:
It worked.
Merlin:
Yeah, that has become one of my favorite things is being able to have little fixes with stuff like that.
Merlin:
There's tons of stuff I've been able to...
Merlin:
I mean, innumerable things around the house that I've been able to make or fake.
John:
Like that seems like the killer app of that stuff, because like making two tickets to pound town is not a thing I would need a machine.
John:
I didn't think so.
John:
But fixing a broken fucking wheel on a thing that you would, you know, like you'd never find that wheel.
Merlin:
Well, and you're righteous to mention, I think it's true for everything.
Merlin:
There's a lot of stuff where it really is so much easier for me to print a little thing than it is to go find a thing, if it's something that's super obvious.
Merlin:
But there's a lot of other things, and this is, you know, herein lies the wisdom, the wisdom to know the difference.
Merlin:
It's like a 3D printing serenity prayer, is learning like, no, you probably don't need to print a box that's already widely made cheaply.
Merlin:
You don't need to make a trash can.
Merlin:
Right.
Merlin:
And if you do make a doll, are you aware that you're looking at that doll in the perfect version of that printed doll with eight different colors of filament in it?
Merlin:
Because I don't have the facilities currently to do that, and I have a good setup.
Merlin:
And so anyway, you just learn all that stuff over time.
Merlin:
Yeah, the hard way.
Yeah.
Merlin:
Yeah, but like, oh gosh, I'll send you one, which is just like, there's one where I always bookmark stuff in a private collection of just like, what the fuck is this stuff, you know, kind of stuff.
Merlin:
But wait, no, what was the reason I was talking about 3D printing?
John:
Oh, you were using it as a, oh, the Chinese were going to take over your printer and they were going to start making murder bots.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
Yeah, it's been good for me.
Merlin:
I forgot what my point was.
Merlin:
It might come to me later.
Merlin:
But it's been really good for me.
Merlin:
I've learned a lot about the kinds of processes that have eluded me in other kinds of things.
Merlin:
Now I feel like an idiot because I forgot what I was going to say.
John:
But it's like you're saying 3D printing is a metaphor for other things in life?
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
I keep lists, John.
Merlin:
I have a list of things I learned from my robot vacuum.
John:
How many lists am I on?
Merlin:
Uh, I can, it's difficult.
Merlin:
Am I on the robot vacuum one?
Merlin:
I don't, I don't.
Merlin:
I don't think so.
Merlin:
But no, I don't think you have anything to worry about.
Merlin:
Like if the Chinese did get into my printer, I don't think they'd have access to my notes immediately.
Merlin:
I have seven proxies currently between things I learned.
Merlin:
Oh my God, I have such a good new VPN.
John:
When you had your robot vacuum and were talking about it and to it all the time, I really felt like I knew the little guy.
Merlin:
Yeah, going from my Roomba, let's see.
Merlin:
First of all, I learned that it takes time to learn.
Merlin:
No matter how much you want to learn or you want something else to learn or somebody else.
Merlin:
No matter what, it just takes time to learn.
Merlin:
And that's experience.
Merlin:
Your thing just has to roll around and figure out what your house is.
Merlin:
But here's the thing.
Merlin:
It takes time to learn.
Merlin:
Thing number two, you also have to update.
Merlin:
So you've got to learn to go with it.
Merlin:
Now, the 3D one is going to be a much bigger one than all of these because it's been an interesting...
Merlin:
I don't know, it's been an interesting way into a whole bunch of other things involving tools and all this other stuff I had to learn.
Merlin:
Like when you learn about, this is boring, I'll be quick.
Merlin:
When you learn about 3D printing, whether you like it or not, you're also going to have to learn about humidity.
Merlin:
Which sounds insane.
Merlin:
Humidity.
Merlin:
Yes, because your filament has to be pretty much as dry as possible to print correctly.
Merlin:
So when you store it, that sounds crazy.
Merlin:
But then you say, okay, well, great.
Merlin:
You learned about humidity.
Merlin:
Good job, Einstein.
Merlin:
You're like, yeah, but like, okay, so how do I keep...
Merlin:
the humidity inside of each of these, uh, like, you know, in my case, cereal boxes that I, uh, like those plastic cereal boxes, you get like one, one liter cereal box or whatever they are.
Merlin:
Anyway, um, you learn and you're like, Oh yeah, well it helps.
Merlin:
And like, eventually guess what?
Merlin:
Now I bring in my love of spreadsheets and I'm able to go in and look at all the different ways I printed out desiccate,
Merlin:
you know, silica bead containing devices.
Merlin:
And I'm able to see in my spreadsheet, which one has the most cubic inches or grams of storage based on how long it took to print.
Merlin:
I couldn't have done.
Merlin:
Is that a way of measuring humidity after the fact?
Merlin:
So like, you know, like the pack, the do not eat pack you get.
Merlin:
And you can buy, I buy those in gallon things and then you can like, you know, rejuvenate them.
Merlin:
But like there's, you think about all, think about if you were to like, whether it's something like shoe, shoe trees, or you think about something that holds your cutlery in your house, like cutlery boy.
Merlin:
everybody's cutlery situation is different.
Merlin:
You could just go buy a cutlery thing and put it in there.
Merlin:
But like, if you were going to make it your own, what would you do differently about that?
Merlin:
And in this case, I discovered that I could take one of these, like not generic, but like from maker world, like model number one, model number two, model number three, number one, four.
Merlin:
And they're done by completely different people, completely different ways, completely different filaments with completely different levels of efficiency.
Merlin:
So like in some cases that might take six hours to print and,
Merlin:
and take all of this amount of filament and in the end only contain X grams of desiccate.
Merlin:
So I'm just trying to use the example of like, I love it when this is a basically liberal arts compulsion of mine, which is I love it when two seemingly unrelated pieces of partial information come together to make something a little bit bigger from both of them, a kind of synergism.
Merlin:
So I love that stuff.
Merlin:
And I've had to learn a lot of those...
Merlin:
different sorts of things, which makes it a good hobby for an aging man, if you think about it.
John:
Well, I'm right that you and I share the fact that we were raised in an environment where we didn't necessarily learn to use all the tools.
John:
I think that's fair.
Merlin:
I can speak for myself.
Merlin:
I did not learn to use all the tools.
Merlin:
I was kindly...
Merlin:
kindly, but strictly admonished by everybody in my life to please not use the tools.
John:
Don't use the tools, right?
John:
You can use a pencil and if you need something, if you need to touch something with a screwdriver, like call an adult.
John:
Yeah, but don't do that where grandpa is right now.
John:
That's his area.
John:
But somebody like Ben King, for instance, like his dad for his height, for when he turned 15, his dad bought him an S10 pickup that didn't run and said, let's rebuild it from the ground up or whatever.
John:
You know, that was like what sons and dads did.
John:
Wait, a pickup for guitar?
John:
No, no, no.
John:
Like a Chevy pickup.
Merlin:
Oh, sorry.
Merlin:
I thought, happy birthday, son.
Merlin:
Here's your first Seymour Duncan.
Merlin:
We got to rewind it.
Merlin:
I mean, there are some dads.
Merlin:
That shows you how stupid I am.
Merlin:
Oh, that's so cool.
Merlin:
That's your dream.
Merlin:
John, didn't you always want to do that and then take it to Tierra del Fuego?
John:
It's like so many things.
John:
You wish you had done it, right?
John:
Like, I wish that I had done so many things.
John:
But, like...
Merlin:
That's true.
John:
I wish so many things had transpired.
John:
Yeah.
John:
I wish that my dad had taught me how to rebuild a truck, but it was so far outside.
John:
If the frog had wings, he wouldn't bump his ass on hopping.
John:
And the thing is, when you talk to Ben King, he's like, yeah, it was great.
John:
But also there's a lot of things that, you know, there's a lot of things I think about my relationship with my dad that Ben King's like, huh, that would have been interesting.
John:
My dad and I both were under a truck and not talking.
John:
But so when Ben King looks at a 3D printer, he looks at it with his entire life built around knowing how to use tools, understanding tools, tools, tools, tools, tools, tools.
John:
And making things, breaking things, remaking them, fixing them.
John:
And so for you, how much of your onboarding into this is just like basic, talk about a Roomba, basic learning about tools.
Merlin:
Oh, John, do you really want...
Merlin:
want to talk about that because i would love i would love to talk what could i want to talk about more it's so excruciating no no no it's been it's been incredibly helpful to me in ways like so many of the things the good stuff you learn in life like i'm overstating this to you when what i mean to be doing is overstating this to everyone
Merlin:
There are things in life that in a million years you could never anticipate would benefit you or change your life in the ways that it did.
Merlin:
And that could be something as simple as, well, actually, I never really wanted to play sax, but then I played sax and I liked being in band so much.
Merlin:
But then I met people through band and I got married and there's those kinds of things.
Merlin:
But yeah, this is a little bit more like bonehead guy stuff.
Merlin:
But like one of the things I picked up, like everybody else, I would go like, oh, I want to make this Darth Vader helmet.
Merlin:
Right.
Merlin:
Not really.
Merlin:
Not really.
Merlin:
But imagine something that would fill your entire 256 by 256 printer bed.
Merlin:
Think of it.
Merlin:
So take 256 millimeters, right?
Merlin:
By 256 millimeters.
Merlin:
How many inches are those?
Merlin:
I think that's, I'd have to look it up, but I think it's around like eight inches, something like that.
Merlin:
Oh, okay.
Merlin:
Got it.
Merlin:
But that's the inside.
Merlin:
That's the printer bed.
Merlin:
And it's 256 cubed.
Merlin:
So you could print, if you choose to, it would be kind of weird, you could make a cube with six sides of 256 millimeters.
Merlin:
You can print anything to fit inside of that.
Merlin:
And believe me, you really don't want to be printing something that big most of the time if you don't know what you're doing.
Merlin:
So here's one quick example.
Merlin:
So you're talking about you could make a solid cube, not a hollow cube.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
Go to that makerworld.com.
Merlin:
Oh my goodness.
Merlin:
Well, it weighs like most of mine, like, uh, I don't know.
Merlin:
I don't know.
Merlin:
It's really solid.
Merlin:
There's one, let's see, I didn't get the print done this morning, but we have a Keurig machine and the best, and again, this is, I'm skipping a lot of stuff to get to this, including three years or four years of printing stuff.
Merlin:
But I got to where I found the best model for this that worked for in the context of our kitchen and I can store the
Merlin:
We buy these Keurig cups in packs of 24.
Merlin:
And I made a 3D model that holds exactly 24 of those.
Merlin:
And it worked.
Merlin:
So then what?
Merlin:
Well, then I printed two more.
Merlin:
And now when we get a new supply of Keurig holders, and I'm avoiding the whole, like, is Keurig a good idea?
Merlin:
Because that's beyond the scope.
Merlin:
I've got mine sitting in my lap right now.
Yeah.
Merlin:
So it'll stay safe.
Merlin:
So the hackers won't get into it.
Merlin:
It's unplugged, so the hackers can't get into it.
Merlin:
It's called an air gap.
Merlin:
Yeah, I've heard of that.
Merlin:
Yeah, I just pet it.
Merlin:
Yeah, you put hot glue into the USB port so nobody could get their Bitcoin in there.
Merlin:
But it's interesting the way that it touches different parts of your thinking about these things.
Merlin:
Really, the quick version is I learned pretty early on that there's so much more to this than it seems, and it isn't as simple as picking which doll you want from the store.
Merlin:
Again, there's so many things that involve temperature and involve type of filament.
Merlin:
Is it appropriate for a certain context?
Merlin:
Think about your wheel.
Merlin:
where ultimately you won't know, wouldn't know whether that wheel would work.
Merlin:
You wouldn't know whether that wheel would fit until you... Would a wheel work if it would work?
Merlin:
If it could chuck wheels.
Merlin:
It could chuck work.
Merlin:
Until you inserted it, and it's awesome that it worked.
Merlin:
That's an indication that, like, you know, they had prototyped that well and understood.
Merlin:
I guess you... I'm guessing you'd probably given them, well, it needs to fit...
Merlin:
Oh, no, he just had the old broken wheel there.
Merlin:
Oh, that helps a lot.
Merlin:
So you can get your calipers out and measure that and stuff like that.
Merlin:
I do a lot of that kind of stuff.
Merlin:
But what I learned is, okay, there's a reason for so long, people who were compelled to watch me do this on the internet...
Merlin:
It's like why I would print so many what I called little guys, like just these little figures of different sizes.
Merlin:
Well, because it used less filament.
Merlin:
It took less time.
Merlin:
I would print them at lower quality.
Merlin:
And then I would get to look at them after 20 minutes and go like, is that what I thought it was going to be?
Merlin:
Well, no, that has terrible bridging at this area.
Merlin:
What's bridging?
Merlin:
Oh, my God, bridging.
Merlin:
You don't want to get into bridging.
Merlin:
I get what bridging is.
Merlin:
But you know how this is with all kinds of different things.
Merlin:
Think about this with your signal chain.
Merlin:
on your guitar where it seems as easy as just, that's a silly example, probably.
Merlin:
Maybe the studio is an example.
Merlin:
Like it might seem like, oh, we want compression on the vocals when we record them.
Merlin:
And the guy's like, oh, no, no, no, no, no.
Merlin:
Let's not worry about compression right now.
Merlin:
Let's get the cleanest, best gain, non-distorted, like, you know what I mean?
Merlin:
The most important thing is to get the signal.
Merlin:
And then once we've gotten the signal, we have options for that, but that's not how we do this.
John:
Can you learn the same amount from making a small, like, low-res thing?
Merlin:
You learn so much more.
Merlin:
You learn so much more.
Merlin:
You learn more.
Merlin:
You learn more.
Merlin:
You learn more.
Merlin:
Why?
Merlin:
Because the thing is, it takes filament.
Merlin:
It takes time.
Merlin:
Oh, you get to do multiples in the same space of time.
Merlin:
You get to do more of them and iterate it more quickly.
Merlin:
Okay, so you asked.
Merlin:
Sorry, this is boring.
Merlin:
Okay, so say, for example, there's some little guys, little funny little things I like to print, and there's one where it's this little globby guy, and he's got a little smooth head, but he's melting a little bit.
Merlin:
And the top of his head, here's the thing, the top of the print on something rounded is famously one of the most difficult parts to get right.
Merlin:
Mm.
Merlin:
Because at this point, like I'm one of them using a point six millimeter head and the other one using a point four millimeter.
Merlin:
I mean, it's laying down a line of like less than half of a milliliter millimeter.
Merlin:
But that's still visible.
Merlin:
Now, if you got the top wrong, it could just look like, you know, imagine like a like a deliberately funny comb over in a movie.
Merlin:
Right.
Merlin:
Where there's like eight discrete lines of hair.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
Okay.
Merlin:
That's what it would look like.
Merlin:
Instead of looking like the top of a ball.
Merlin:
Got it.
Merlin:
Well, how do you get that?
Merlin:
Well, here's the thing.
Merlin:
If that had taken, if you printed that out beyond full size, just because you thought it looked cool, you're not going to find out that it's not satisfying until the last three minutes of the print that took 12 hours.
Merlin:
Right.
Merlin:
But that was really useful to me because it got me less silly about this stuff and more practical.
Merlin:
I was printing stuff I liked, and then that got me into painting them or finishing them.
Merlin:
I would print in wood, and I could sand it and stain it and stuff like that.
Merlin:
It's like Ronin.
Merlin:
You're painting Ronin.
John:
You mean like a samurai?
John:
Yeah, like in the movie Ronin.
John:
Is that Keanu Reeves?
John:
No, it's like the great Robert De Niro movie.
John:
One of the movies called Ronin, but it's after kind of a tertiary character who is like an older guy who is like a...
John:
Like part of the spy world.
John:
And he's kind of retired from being a spy doctor.
Merlin:
The same way that a samurai, a Ronin's an ex-samurai.
John:
Yeah.
John:
And so he sits and he's painting little Ronin characters for his big Ronin model.
Merlin:
Is that a good movie?
Merlin:
Should I watch it?
John:
It's one of the, if you like, if you like car chases and, and intrigue,
Merlin:
It's so good.
Merlin:
I'm realizing how spotty my De Niro is.
Merlin:
I've never watched Heat all the way through in one sitting.
Merlin:
That one's hard.
Merlin:
Yeah, but it's a classic.
Merlin:
But then the one with Charles Grodin, I had never seen that.
Merlin:
Midnight Run.
Merlin:
I'd never seen that until last year.
Merlin:
Isn't that insane?
Merlin:
Really?
John:
Oh, my God, that movie.
John:
Midnight Run feels like the kind of movie that would be the center of your world.
John:
When's the last time you got a lung x-ray?
Yeah.
Merlin:
Charles Broden is so good, and De Niro so good in that movie.
Merlin:
The point I'm trying to make without sounding like a complete nut, hopefully, that it's, you know how it is with experience, where you could write about kissing all you wanted, but until you've gotten a kiss...
Merlin:
It's speculation.
Merlin:
And until you've kissed a fair amount and have some good ones and bad ones and learned a little bit, you oughtn't be opining on how to be good at kissing.
Merlin:
And with this, making those little guys... Boy, that's a... You should hang that on a sign on the front door.
Merlin:
Everybody who thinks they're good at parking and cunnilingus and time management should start asking around.
Merlin:
Are you sure you're good at that?
Merlin:
Anyway, but then, and I still love making like fanciful things, but my education continues and to, but to your point and to Ben is capable, Ben's on a different level probably, but like I've gotten to where I now know when it's a good fit.
Merlin:
So like we have a door that goes to the alley where our trash cans are.
Merlin:
And I prototyped, I used, reused, prototyped several different ways of keeping that door open.
Merlin:
But it took two months of using those different models in place to see which one of them actually worked.
John:
Like a better doorstop.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
Like we've got a doorstop.
Merlin:
I made one for our front door where you walk in, but it's great because I was able to print it.
Merlin:
I'm so sorry.
Merlin:
This is so excruciating.
Merlin:
I was able to come up with this design that I adapted from somebody else's design where it was, yes, it stops the door from slamming, but it also grabs the door when the door opens.
Merlin:
And those are two different things.
Merlin:
So I started out in PLA, which is pretty straight plastic, and then I went to TPU, which is kind of like rubbery thing.
Merlin:
But then once I got to TPU, I was like, well, how squishy should it be?
Merlin:
Well, in different San Francisco temperatures and humidity, it needs to be a shape that will always grab this, no matter how the weather feels.
Merlin:
That took a lot of time.
John:
Because sometimes in the winter and in the summer, this material is going to respond.
John:
If it's too stiff, it won't grab.
John:
I see.
John:
Because it can't grab.
John:
Wait, is it the same thing that both grabs the door and also keeps it from slamming?
Merlin:
No.
Merlin:
Think of it would be two puzzle pieces.
Merlin:
There's a boy and a girl thing.
Merlin:
And so the girl thing is attached to the wall.
Merlin:
Um, initially again, now again, do I screw that straight into the wall in the first try?
Merlin:
I do not.
Merlin:
I have a Milwaukee drill that I'm really good at, but I start out with low grabbiness tape, move up to gorilla tape, prototype that in place for a while.
Merlin:
I don't screw it in until I'm ready to do the final thing.
Merlin:
How did I learn that?
Merlin:
Gestures broadly.
Merlin:
Don't get over your skis about how done this is until you've lived with it for a while.
Merlin:
So stuff like I made like a really easy thing that's just two pieces of plastic for like cutting an old janky towel into rags.
Merlin:
It's super fast and easy.
Merlin:
I've got, like I say, I've got those two different kinds of things.
Merlin:
I've got stuff that keeps cabinets from slamming.
Merlin:
I've done a lot of things like that wheel where, you know, if you've got time and inclination, you can make the part you want.
Merlin:
All the way down to...
Merlin:
There's a slight, the bathroom I have at the office has a slight grade to the floor because there's a, you know, a drain.
John:
It's a murder bathroom.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
It's, I mean, you know, if I were going to do it over, I wouldn't have that much grout because grout retains blood.
Merlin:
But, you know, it's got a drain in the floor like a shower.
Merlin:
So there's a slight grade.
Merlin:
So stuff like I was able to go in and like eventually figure out and calculate how to make the size of little rubbery lift that I need so that when...
Merlin:
you know, and test it where I could put my level on top and see that now I've made this thing be level without having to change the floor, which is a good thing in life.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
But what I've learned though is like, there's, yeah, you learn a lot about 3D printing, but the part that's impossible to teach and difficult to learn is how much you learn about other stuff.
Merlin:
Like, don't be afraid to bring in the spreadsheets.
Merlin:
Don't be afraid to like, oh my God, John, I've learned about, I've learned about this special kind of screw that you can put in
Merlin:
You can do it with a drill, but you can especially do it with a, you know, one of those, what are those called?
Merlin:
The, you know, those heavy duty drills.
Merlin:
Impact hammer?
Merlin:
Yeah, like an impact drill.
Merlin:
But basically, I have screws now that I can, without even doing like a pilot hole, I just walk.
Merlin:
I've demonstrated this for my entire family because it's so fucking impressive.
Merlin:
These like two and a half inch screws that have like a little knifey end.
Merlin:
And I just go, check this out.
Merlin:
I walk up.
Merlin:
That's it.
Merlin:
We're done.
Merlin:
We're done.
Merlin:
There's now a screw all the way in the wall perfectly.
Merlin:
I would never have learned how to do this if it weren't for 3D printing.
Merlin:
And it's difficult to talk about why, but it's the same reason it's so ineffable to talk about, when I say liberal arts education, what I really mean is any kind of an education where you learn about more than one thing and aren't constantly being driven to just learn the one thing.
Merlin:
Exactly.
Merlin:
Money making thing.
Merlin:
Like there's a built in sense of curiosity and an undeniable sense of discovery.
Merlin:
We're like, dude, once you've, you know, there's a lot of ways I've tried to summarize my new college experience that sound a little silly.
Merlin:
But, you know, one of them was like you learn how to use a library.
Merlin:
Like, it sounds silly.
Merlin:
But, like, being able to know that, oh, now I've learned how to use the library.
Merlin:
Now I know to look stuff up.
Merlin:
The same way that, you know, some people use LLMs to look things up.
Merlin:
Some people use, you know, Google.
Merlin:
You might use an encyclopedia.
Merlin:
But whatever it is, it isn't that you never knew that existed.
Merlin:
It's that you learned how deeply integrated that can be into everything you do.
Merlin:
So, yes –
Merlin:
It's absolutely not about 3D printing, but holy shit, is it ever about 3D printing?
Merlin:
Because I would not have gotten to understanding the beauty of the Milwaukee drill before.
Merlin:
Milwaukee drill used to be a way of just making a bunch of dumb fucking holes in the wall that didn't do the thing I wanted.
Merlin:
Then I learned about anchor screws, and I learned about, like, all of those things came out of this seemingly dumb and random dad project that I don't talk about too much now because I think it's annoying to people, but...
Merlin:
I guess my general pitch is there's always stuff out there where you can, and you get this, I'm sure, through music and the technology behind music, but there's always more stuff to learn that then leads you to more stuff to learn.
Merlin:
And then once you have new stuff that you've learned, you can't know what else there is to learn.
Merlin:
You don't know what you don't know until you know what you don't know.
Merlin:
Two questions.
John:
Yeah, see you there.
John:
How much of this material has been worked with and is materially understood by the world to know how long it lasts before it degrades and the way it degrades when it does degrade?
John:
Like, does it degrade in the sun?
Merlin:
Does it degrade... Like, is it environmentally friendly?
John:
Well, not that, just like the things that you're building.
John:
This is the part of the second question.
John:
When someone moves into your apartment in 50 years and there are all these little doorstops and little handles and things that were major improvements in their time, how many of those are still going to be...
Merlin:
useful workable how many of them are going to be like crumbling or I think most of them will not survive but I bet like you've been to our house and you know what it's like to have an old house our house was built in 1928 and our house especially certain areas of our house bear the madness of decades of being owned mostly by the same family so like for example there are fucking random nails in the wall I tried to count it once
Merlin:
In a different time.
Merlin:
How many random nails there are in parts of our garage for reasons I don't understand.
Merlin:
They would just put nails everywhere.
Merlin:
And it starts to look... They needed to hang something.
Merlin:
They probably needed to hang like a couple of dead rats or whatever it was.
Merlin:
That would be my inference.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
Maybe they had like, you know, Tywin Lannister maybe.
Merlin:
Maybe they had an elk, a stag that they needed to hang up.
Merlin:
No.
Merlin:
Or like, you know, like little things like the little lick in our bedroom to keep the door from slamming.
Merlin:
There's these little black rubbery things somebody put on a million years ago.
Merlin:
And like, we never did that, but somebody did that and it's still there.
Merlin:
I don't know how long they would last.
Merlin:
I mean, in some cases I can tell you they don't last very long at all, depending on the thing.
Merlin:
But then there are other kinds of things.
Merlin:
Like, I replaced our, you ever have one of those, you know, the cool can openers you screw into the wall that families used to have for a million years?
Merlin:
Sure.
Merlin:
Sure.
Merlin:
you know talking about like where it's swinging the swing swings out and it's got the locking thing and like we had one of those in our um called the side hatch our little alley upstairs forever and i replaced it one time and it was it's such a joy to use it's the most fun can opener apart from like a novelty can opener that i've ever used that was just there forever and i was kind of inspired by their old one to get a new one which is like a totally vintage sort of look but it's
Merlin:
great for opening cans it's like you don't know that much about the these mysteries of of the past in your house i think a lot of this stuff would probably not travel that well some of the pla stuff is pretty sturdy especially when i've made it so do you know the name of the family and how long they lived there who lived in your apartment the longest kind of
John:
And have they ever reappeared?
Merlin:
Do you know where they... I think the people to whom we have paid rent for 25 years have owned it since at least the 70s.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
And they lived in it before they rented it to you?
Merlin:
They've had family members who lived there for a pretty long time.
Merlin:
That's how people knew them.
Merlin:
But yeah, I've been there since November 15th, 1999.
Merlin:
Yeah.
John:
And are you considering having a 100-year birthday party in a couple of years?
John:
I hadn't until now.
Merlin:
You're saying we throw a birthday party for the house?
John:
I think so.
John:
In 2028, it's going to be 100 years.
John:
A centennial.
John:
A century.
John:
A century of wood.
John:
I bet you could find the architect drawings at the city or some reference in the city for the day that it was done.
John:
Yeah.
Merlin:
Yeah, I don't do a lot of that because it creeps me out, but it's not a bad idea.
Merlin:
And the thing is, like, it's going to be one of those.
Merlin:
Boy, this sounds unkind.
Merlin:
But, you know, like when you're like, it's the oldest person in Vermont.
Merlin:
It's, you know, it's, you know.
Merlin:
lily beet tree 114 years young and she's all beef tree little beef did i say beef tree i don't know that's what i heard i'm gonna write that but it sounds very vermont like oh i mean she's a vegan now but like and it'll be like they'll sit there they're in their little wheel device with a tray and a cake in front of them making some some rictus expression and you're like that would be our house though i would get a cake for our house
John:
Yeah, and your house is still young and in the prime of its life.
John:
A hundred years young.
John:
I think a hundred years ago when they built stuff, my sense is that they never expected it to last more than 30 years.
John:
They were like, we're building this for the future, 1950.
Merlin:
Here's the thing, as you know, ours is, as it goes, pretty early for this part of town.
Merlin:
It was really...
Merlin:
Famously, but the Doldger houses out a little bit further west of here, a lot of that was like, well, we need places to put people coming home from the war.
John:
Right.
Merlin:
So there was a big boom.
John:
The first war.
Merlin:
No.
Merlin:
No, it was sand.
Merlin:
It was sand out here then coming World War II.
Merlin:
Oh, that's when all that got built up.
Merlin:
Outer Sunset.
Merlin:
And it was really like, there's those main thoroughfares.
Merlin:
You get like, you might get some Noriega, some Judah, some Terraval.
Merlin:
But mostly it's, yeah, it was a lot of sand.
John:
You know, back when I first got introduced to the sunset, when I was a visitor there,
John:
I used the early internet to learn all about the sunset because that's kind of my nature, right?
Merlin:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John:
Sitting in your kitchen looking out over the sand and having you tell me, like, this was once upon a time.
Merlin:
This used to be the sandwich place everybody went to.
Merlin:
This place that's now a charter school used to be the Parkside Theater over there at Terreville near 19th.
John:
Yeah, I spent quite a bit of time looking at... There's history here, believe it or not.
Merlin:
You wouldn't believe it, but there's history here.
John:
There's history.
John:
Aren't they closing the big road?
John:
Isn't the road getting closed and it's going to be just skateboarders and stuff?
John:
I mean, yeah, one of the big roads.
John:
People are very upset about that.
John:
Has it happened yet?
Merlin:
Yeah.
John:
Oh, it has.
John:
And are people still upset about it?
Merlin:
Yeah, they're trying to recall the local representative who is associated with it.
John:
Oh, is it actually an improvement to close it?
John:
I can't get involved.
John:
You're not going to wait in.
Merlin:
I am not going.
Merlin:
Did I ever show you the thing that was hanging in our basement, the plumbing sign?
Merlin:
I don't know if I did, because if I haven't, it's something you super need to see.
Merlin:
I don't know when I discovered this.
Merlin:
It was pretty early in our time living here.
John:
You've been there since 1999.
Merlin:
Wow.
Merlin:
Isn't that crazy?
John:
Well, except I visited you there first in 2022, I think.
John:
2002.
Merlin:
2002, it was around, it was before, okay, so, yeah.
Merlin:
So whenever it was after, it was before pretend to fall and after, where she can do his harm.
Merlin:
This, so there's, you know, these beams down there.
Merlin:
This will all be dead after the pancaking.
Merlin:
Sorry, 1926, so I guess next year.
Merlin:
What I have just sent you is a sign that was, is, you can see here, is tacked to a wooden beam.
Merlin:
The phone number is Randolph2662.
Merlin:
You're going to blow up their opsec.
Merlin:
Look at all these different typefaces.
Merlin:
Every one of them.
Merlin:
Each one is incredible.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
This number is to be used when we're trying to this building.
Merlin:
Here's the job.
Merlin:
So it's building.
Merlin:
Hey, don't, don't, don't.
John:
Hey, don't blow up my opsec.
Merlin:
There's some weirdo out there who's going to find all of this out.
Merlin:
And I'm just, I'm just going to wake up one morning with them.
Merlin:
Weirdos.
Merlin:
Stop it.
Merlin:
Stop trying to find my plumber.
Merlin:
Stop being weird.
Merlin:
Randolph 2662.
Merlin:
I don't know that.
Merlin:
I went into a whole thing just on phone exchanges one time.
Merlin:
You ever go into phone exchanges in your old neighborhood?
John:
It's too much.
John:
Here in Seattle, my mom still used the exchanges like, oh, that's Denny 4 or 7221.
John:
Really?
John:
Because that's how it was in the 60s.
Merlin:
And you know why they always say Klondike 5, blah, blah, blah, in cartoons?
Merlin:
Why?
Merlin:
Because KL is 5-5.
John:
Oh, oh, 5-5.
Merlin:
Klondike 5 is 555.
Merlin:
It's 555.
Merlin:
It's the generic number.
Merlin:
That's why they always say Klondike 5.
John:
And I wonder why it lasted so long here.
John:
I guess there just weren't that many people.
John:
It's so much more memorable.
Merlin:
And also, it's associated with a neighborhood.
Merlin:
It makes sense that you're calling a phone that's in this part of town.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Somebody lives up in the Northwest, and so you know their prefix.
Merlin:
People must have hated that when they made them into numbers.
Merlin:
They must have hated that.
John:
I mean, I still, my mom's number, her phone number that's now ported over to her cell phone is a phone number with the prefix that still is located right in the center of Capitol Hill.
John:
And when she got that phone number, however many thousands of years ago, it was, you know, it had a, that represents a prefix.
John:
And I think it's, what is it?
John:
Madison 7 or whatever.
John:
Pennsylvania 65,000.
John:
Yeah, and so she, when I look at her phone number, it still kind of is in there, like, oh, right, this is a phone number from the olden times.
Merlin:
It's on a surprising amount of stuff, like matchbooks and signs and stuff, into the 70s, for sure.
John:
Yeah, yeah.
John:
Yeah, I think that's marvelous.
John:
But so...
John:
So your house turns 100 next year.
John:
That's like no small potatoes.
Merlin:
I'm suddenly feeling a lot of pressure about this.
John:
Should I try and track these people down?
John:
When I lived at the farm, my house turned 100 under my stewardship.
John:
And for sure, that house... Your tenure at the farm.
John:
That house was built by farmers for farmers with no idea that it would ever live to be 100 years old.
John:
Oh, sorry, yes.
Merlin:
Yes, yes, yes.
Merlin:
Oh, no, sorry.
Merlin:
We got away from that point.
Merlin:
I totally agree with you, whether it's my house, other houses.
Merlin:
There's just so much stuff.
Merlin:
Like, I watched a video recently.
Merlin:
I love videos about World's Fairs.
Merlin:
And I was watching the one about Chicago, the White City one.
Merlin:
And like or for that matter, the one on Treasure Island, like any of them, you know, those gorgeous buildings were never meant to last longer than like, especially in Chicago.
Merlin:
Those beautiful white city buildings were never meant to last any long.
Merlin:
They were basically made out of like the 20s or version of styrofoam.
John:
Well, the Alaska Yukon Pacific exhibition here in whatever that was, 1807 or no, it was it was in the 1890s.
Uh huh.
John:
Complete, built a whole city.
John:
And what's crazy is, yeah, it wasn't meant to last, but it was built out of old growth timber.
John:
Like if they had just left it.
Merlin:
Oh, that sucks.
John:
You know, it would have been better than every other thing in the city.
John:
But they probably used that because it was inexpensive and available, right?
John:
Inexpensive and available.
John:
And when it was done, they were like, let's tear down all these incredible halls.
John:
It's like people who spent 20 bitcoins on a pizza.
John:
Ugh, no, it was 200,000 bitcoins on the freaking pizza.
John:
Is that right?
John:
Yeah.
John:
Pizza, Bitcoin pizza.
Merlin:
And each one of those worth over a hundred grand now.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Yeah.
John:
That person would have been richer than a Saudi prince.
John:
Richest crisis.
John:
And, uh, you know, I did an omnibus on him and he's like, no regrets, no regerts.
John:
Oh, fuck me.
John:
Really?
John:
On the pizza spender from the early days?
John:
He says no regerts because he played a role.
John:
Because that was the day that somebody first bought a thing.
John:
That's what Pete Best said, too.
John:
He said, I played a role in people acknowledging that Bitcoin was a viable unit of exchange.
Merlin:
It cannot be overstated.
Merlin:
Using it to buy something...
Merlin:
At all.
Merlin:
It was kind of a big deal.
Merlin:
It was a big deal.
Merlin:
I remember reading about it in Wired.
Merlin:
And talking about, like, what were we just, fuck, it was related to something we were just talking about.
Merlin:
About, like, Whoopi Goldberg with beans and flus and all that, the fake money stuff, you know, and how before PayPal, like, it was really difficult to buy things on the internet.
Merlin:
And that seemed like a really interesting idea.
Merlin:
And the big selling point initially with cryptocurrency, I feel like, I haven't followed it,
Merlin:
was that you're going to be able to use this to like buy stuff on the internet securely.
Merlin:
Right.
John:
Right.
John:
Yeah.
John:
This guy, that whole thing, the offer, the guy who, the guy said, I will pay 200,000 Bitcoin or whatever to the first person that brings me two pepperoni pizzas.
John:
And that offer sat out there for a while.
Merlin:
I mean, not like a month.
John:
More than the evening?
John:
But yeah, it sat out there for a week or two weeks or something.
John:
Oh, that is so funny.
John:
Before somebody was like, you know what?
John:
Did they identify who got them?
John:
Who?
John:
Oh, no, no, I don't think so.
John:
Just a mysterious pizza drop.
John:
Just somebody who was like, yeah, I'll bring you two pizzas.
John:
And the guy was like, great.
John:
And he showed up with the two pizzas.
John:
And the guy was like, bleep, bleep, bleep.
John:
Here's whatever, 200,000 Bitcoin.
John:
Think of all the old growth timber they had to burn to mine those.
John:
The thing is, that guy probably put it on a thumb drive.
John:
It went into a drawer.
John:
He moved and it got swept into a waste paper basket, you know, like it's just tears in rain.
John:
It's just tears in rain.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Oh, my God.
John:
And what's crazy is we were reading about it at the time and like, why?
Merlin:
I wouldn't pay a dollar, you know, because it's make believe money.
Merlin:
It's like it's like basically like saying I have two five hundred dollar bills from Monopoly that I will give to somebody who brings me two pizzas.
John:
Yeah.
John:
And you go, maybe I should do it just so I can say I was the guy that bought two pizzas for two Monopoly dollars.
John:
Yeah, well, what's crazy about owning a home that turns 100 or living in a home as you have now for 30 years, 35 years.
John:
25.
John:
25 years.
John:
Oh, yeah, that's right.
John:
Sorry, 25 years.
John:
Dropped a decade.
John:
Dropped a decade.
John:
You know, next year is my 40-year high school reunion.
John:
Ooh.
John:
And all the kids from my class who are obviously now 57 years old, they're all sending me Facebook messages like, we're having our class reunion next summer.
John:
Are you going to come?
John:
Can you bring paper plates?
John:
Yeah.
John:
That's what the bully gets towards.
John:
I'm like, wow, 40 years.
John:
Like all of the teen movies that we watched as teens that were like, you know, high school reunion.
John:
It was always the 20 year.
Merlin:
So if we're doing a chron analogy, that means that... It would have been World War II.
Merlin:
Yeah, it would be like an Audie Murphy movie or something.
John:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
John:
Like in the 80s, you would have gotten in a time machine, but you would have gone back to the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
John:
And so it's kind of interesting because, of course, we all still, you know, we're still like hard charged.
John:
And I saw a thing the other day that said, listen, you can never be young again.
John:
But what you can be is you can still be hot.
John:
but you're hot and weird.
John:
You can be hot.
John:
Hot as in like attractive hot?
John:
Yeah, you can be hot, but you're weird and hot.
Merlin:
Hot and weird.
John:
You're never going to be.
John:
And it was like, and what they were saying was, yeah, you're old now, so start wearing flowers in your hat.
John:
Start painting Ronan.
John:
Start walking around with a really big belt.
Merlin:
I just watched the episode where Bob Odenkirk does indeed have a stick with bells on it.
Merlin:
Yeah, the jingle stick.
Merlin:
I had not put that.
Merlin:
Is that your reference?
Merlin:
That's my jingle stick.
Merlin:
Look out with the mustache.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
Holy shit.
Merlin:
And he keeps jingling at the camera.
Merlin:
That's my jingle stick.
Merlin:
Well, now put flowers in your jingle stick, John.
Merlin:
I mean, you're not Audie Murphy.
John:
The thing is, you know, if I lived in a city instead of in the suburbs, I would already be way more flamboyant than I am.
John:
I would for sure.
John:
Like if you still live in Capitol Hill or like if I lived on Capitol Hill, because the thing is like on Capitol Hill, when I go up there now, it's not my town anymore.
John:
Nobody up there cares that that was my town once.
John:
Nobody up there cares that I and my cadre have walked down the street.
John:
Is there a song for that?
John:
No, I just think he's kind of something like John Mellencamp right now.
Merlin:
It's a little bit Mellencamp-y.
John:
Nobody remembers me.
John:
You know, except that back then, this was a queer center.
John:
Yes, that was your Castro, right?
John:
Yeah, but nobody cares anymore.
John:
And why should they?
John:
Everybody else is young and weird.
John:
It's true.
John:
I admire you for admitting that.
Merlin:
Nobody cares.
John:
Nobody fucking cares.
Merlin:
We walk around.
Merlin:
You know, I used to play baseball here.
Merlin:
Thanks.
Merlin:
Bye.
John:
You know who used to live there?
John:
That was Courtney Love's hairstylist.
John:
And they're just like, get out of the way, please.
John:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John:
But if I were living up there, the only direction I could go is just to like, well, I'm the guy that wears my hat.
John:
The only way it goes is up, John.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Like I got bells on now because I can't just fade into nothing.
John:
You can be a no pants guy.
John:
You know, we've got no pants guys here.
John:
I know, but I'm always going to wear pants.
Merlin:
It's one more thing to decorate the body.
Merlin:
Oh my gosh.
Merlin:
You're so far in front of this.
Merlin:
You're absolutely right.
Merlin:
Like I'm not against pants.
Merlin:
Like pants are part of my system.
Merlin:
Like you've got fun pants.
Merlin:
You can be a fun pants guy with a jingle stick.
John:
The problem with summer is that all of a sudden you can't wear as many cool things.
John:
That's the only problem with summer is you have to take off that extra layer of fun.
Merlin:
I took you away from your hundred years of solitude.
John:
I took you away from that.
John:
Oh, no, no, no.
John:
I just feel like that kind of stuff, like just a little commemoration, a little... I mean, you don't have to put a cake on a wheelchair, but you can be...
Merlin:
No, no, I don't think so.
Merlin:
I mean, like, but no, maybe not the natives, but maybe like somebody who was there, you know, before us, maybe it was like a veteran or something I could do.
Merlin:
I could, I could apologize to them before we have our meeting.
John:
Well, you know, I don't know.
John:
Cause your, your, uh, your sensitivity to creepiness and mine are very different.
John:
And I would for sure dive in and try and find every person that had ever lived there and try and contact their grandkids.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
Yeah.
John:
Like that whole thing.
Merlin:
Irish, you know, well,
John:
When I was living at the farm, a car drove by real slow, and everybody in it was looking out, and then it went up to the end of the block, turned around, and drove by really slow with everybody looking out at the house.
John:
And so I was standing on the porch.
Merlin:
And you weren't currently getting jumped into a gang at that time.
John:
No, because they were like old Irish people, basically.
Yeah.
John:
and i ran out and i was like hey hey hey you know and they stopped and they rolled the window down and i said did you used to live here what just the way they were driving by like yes like what the hell are they doing and they were like yes we did you know and and grandma was in the car and she was like i raised eight kids here and i was like park the car get out come in you know and so the family all piled in and
John:
And walked around and like, well, this is different.
John:
That's so nice.
John:
It's different.
John:
And we used to have a horse.
John:
Wait, this is at the farm?
John:
This is at the farm.
John:
So they can answer questions about the barn and whatnot.
John:
All of it.
John:
All of it.
John:
And they said, well, the reason that the floor is like tilted here is that we had a horse in the barn.
John:
She lived there for 35 years.
Merlin:
We had a horse in the barn.
John:
We're the ones.
John:
You had Vespas.
John:
I had Vespas, but I didn't put them back in the horse piss corner.
John:
All of a sudden I was like, oh, the horse piss.
Merlin:
You're not an idiot, John.
John:
You can tell the floor has got a horse dance in it.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Well, it's just like, yeah.
John:
And there was a little window that I never understood what it was.
John:
Well, it was the window.
John:
Did you find out if anybody died there you didn't know about?
John:
Well, what I did learn was that the last owners, not the last owners before me, because that was a group of stewards and stewardesses that bought it just to like have it be a party house.
John:
Oh, wow.
John:
Oh, really?
John:
It was, you know, it was close to the airport.
John:
And so, yeah, it was a place to sleep.
John:
There's probably been so much hand stuff in that house.
John:
Yeah, they'd have orgies or whatever.
John:
But the people that bought it before that, or I'm sorry, the people that owned it before that lived there for 50 years.
John:
And I think granddad died in the house when he was 94.
John:
And I was fine with that because I had already gone around and sat in the corners and been like, are there any ghosts here?
John:
Not telling you anything you didn't know.
John:
I bet you could feel it.
John:
Well, that's the thing.
John:
I'm like, I don't believe in ghosts at all.
John:
Don't worry about that.
John:
But if there are any ghosts here, just like, you know, knock over a dish or something so I know where we stand.
John:
And I did that when my mom bought her house in the 90s.
John:
I went in there and laid in all the corners and was like, I don't believe in ghosts, but if there were ghosts...
John:
Let me know.
John:
What if ghosts believe in you, John?
John:
I think that... See, that's the thing.
Merlin:
I don't believe in it.
Merlin:
It's hard to know.
Merlin:
But why would you be an idiot about it?
Merlin:
It's like yelling at a crow.
Merlin:
Don't do it.
Merlin:
It's not that I don't believe in ghosts.
Merlin:
I don't know.
Merlin:
You know what I mean.
Merlin:
I do.
Merlin:
I absolutely... I mean, this is the problem.
Merlin:
Well, this is one of the problems.
Merlin:
Life's a toolbox, John.
Merlin:
That's what we all need to learn.
Merlin:
We need to learn that life is a box of tools, and it's up to you to decide whether you want to put more tools into it.
Merlin:
And sometimes those tools can be credulousness about the possibility of ghosts that you don't believe in.
Merlin:
I believe that.
John:
I don't believe in UFOs at all, but I also believe there's a big cover-up about them.
John:
And it's like, well, now, wait a minute.
Merlin:
That's not mutually exclusive.
Merlin:
I see.
John:
Yeah, what are you talking about a cover-up?
John:
And I'm like, well, I'm telling you, they're probably not real.
John:
But on the other hand, I think the Air Force doth protest too much.
Merlin:
Well, there's no problem.
Merlin:
Why is the president so weirded out about releasing a bunch of files about stuff?
John:
Yeah.
John:
If there's no problem, why is there a whole side of the military that's just about investigating?
John:
Why are there so many Scooby-Doo episodes about it alone?
John:
That's right.
John:
What the fuck?
John:
What happened to all the airplanes in the Bermuda Triangle?
John:
Why don't we talk about that anymore?
John:
Survivorship bias.
John:
We only count the ones who came back.
Merlin:
There you go.
John:
Like a lot of the veterans.
John:
I feel that way about my screwdrivers.
Merlin:
I only count the ones that came back.
Merlin:
Thank you.
Merlin:
Thank you.
Merlin:
I'm going to hit the bell now.
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
Life's a toolbox, John.
Merlin:
That's what I'm saying.
Merlin:
Anything else?
Merlin:
Hey, do you have anything, like with what you know and preparing for my centennial, do you have anything else you could share with the young people out there that might help them get through these tumultuous times?
John:
Oh, about the 100-year anniversary of your house?
John:
Yeah, or any of it, or the ghosts, or, you know, 50s.
John:
I feel like the young people don't, that's the thing.
John:
They're like the people on Capitol Hill.
John:
They don't care what I have to, my experience.
John:
They're making their way in the world today, and it takes everything they've got.
Merlin:
Until there's a guy with a big fucking mustache in your face jingling a stick.
Merlin:
That'll set you straight.
Merlin:
That's me.
Merlin:
Yep.
Merlin:
Ding, ding.
Merlin:
Ding, ding.
Ding.
Merlin:
That was no good.
Merlin:
For an ending?
Merlin:
Yeah.
Merlin:
I've got to do another one.
Merlin:
Okay.
Merlin:
Okay.
Merlin:
Thanks for doing the show, John.
Merlin:
I appreciate it.
Merlin:
Yeah, of course.
Merlin:
Okay, take care.
Merlin:
I'm going to hit the bell now.
Merlin:
Okay.
Merlin:
Hey, everybody.
Merlin:
Thanks for listening.
Merlin:
Woo!