Ep. 595: "Everyone Was Named Randy"
Hello.
Hi, John.
Hi, Merlin.
Send it to Zoom.
Sometimes it seems like you're thinking about it.
Like you're deciding, you know, in the moment.
You don't prepare for this show, right?
You don't have like an outline.
You come in cold every time, right?
You gotta come in cold.
I mean, I gotta come in cold.
You don't come in cold, but I gotta come in cold.
What the fuck are you talking about?
Do you come in cold?
I come.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
I come correct.
No, I come, you know, you know, I come five minutes after I wake up.
Yes.
I was taking my little pills and then I spilled some other pills and then there were pills all over.
Oh, no, my pills.
My pills.
Oh, geez.
Oh, that sucks.
Can't find the right coffee cup.
I'm looking around.
Now I'm using a coffee cup here from Senatus Populus Romanus.
That sounds like Latin talk.
It is.
A little bit of SPQR.
It's a little gift from my daughter.
One of the only coffee cups that I could find.
Wow.
A house full of coffee cups.
I don't know where they are.
Jeez.
You're preparing.
Well, you're not preparing right up until the show starts.
That's right.
I do the same thing.
I've been not preparing the whole time.
We start so early.
That's part of the problem.
Yeah, I'm sorry about that.
It's just like Paul.
You know, everything can seem early, you know?
Yeah, that's right.
Well, it's five o'clock somewhere.
Hey, up here.
Um, we, uh, you didn't ask, um, but thank you.
I first would like to establish that you're sleeping is, um, like we sleep differently.
You and I. Yeah.
And I mean, as much as one might wish one slept one, one more or less, I, um, I, I need a certain amount of sleep.
Now here's the thing.
We live here in this, uh, the San Francisco Bay area.
We had an earthquake in Oakland this morning.
oh you did oh i didn't i haven't looked at the news no that's okay no no it's not everything's fine but i mean like it shook it shook shook the house awake at 2 56 a.m and two of us got back to sleep and the other one being me i said you know what
I have a great attitude about this stuff.
You know, every day costs the same.
Let me just get started on this.
And I did, and I plowed into it.
Now, I'm already on my second page in notes.
That's why I was distracted when you first connected.
Uh-huh, uh-huh.
2.56 a.m.
So, let me look at my dingus.
But I think that's just about three hours of sleep.
Which is, I mean, that's a nap for me.
I don't mean to brag, but I do nap.
I nap like fuck, man.
I nap hard.
Three hours, 34 minutes.
Oh, boy.
Oh, because your sleep app tells you exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Three hours and six minutes of quality sleep.
Two hours and 17 minutes of deep sleep.
Oh.
64 BPM, which is good for me.
Yeah, you wish you had five additional hours.
Every day costs the same, John.
You got to go out of the gate.
i guess yeah yeah that's right you know what it's like donald rumsfeld says you know yeah well that's an interesting way of looking at it like when you wake up you're going through a gate the gate opens on the new day and you're like i'm a little greyhound chasing a metal bunny yeah yeah or like if you're a little slower at first or at least i am like slow and steady wins the race that's what i heard
You know when they drop like a wolverine off in some natural area and they lift open the door of the cage and first the wolverine's like, hmm?
Oh, yeah.
And then eventually it takes off for the woods?
That's me.
Huh.
Now that's interesting.
That's a gate.
And the thing about that is there must be at least a minute where the wolverine's like, holy shit, this is awesome.
They're letting me go.
Yeah.
Yeah, but it's probably not right at first.
Like, right at first, it's like, what's the catch?
Like, what's waiting for me?
Yeah, I mean, one Wolverine's escape is another Wolverine's most dangerous game.
Sure, and you think about that every morning, right?
I do.
You wake up, your eyes open up, and you're like, is this a trap?
Is this a trap?
Yeah, I don't, you know, I don't think people lay that many traps for me and yet somehow I do walk into traps.
And that could be really one of them.
You know, gates, you know, and you got to be ready because when it's your turn, it's your turn.
You know what I'm saying?
Every day costs the same.
Well, up here, every day, there are traps for you in the form of spider webs everywhere at this time of year.
Oh, John, no.
And the thing is, it's always, you're walking with somebody, you're talking.
It's not like you're blazing trail through a forest.
You're just walking along.
And then one or two of you- Probably from time to time, you're walking through an area where it wouldn't occur to you, there could be a cobweb in your, or a spiderweb in your face.
Where the hell are they even coming from?
Where are they coming from?
Oh, it's the sky spiders.
You know, those new kind that drop from the sky, I bet.
I got one the other day.
I was in my bed, I was reading,
And I have started seeing things out of the corner of my eye.
Me too.
Have you?
Oh, John, at about 3.30 yesterday afternoon, I completely hallucinated a person out of the corner of my eye.
Oh my God, a person?
Well, no.
I'm not trying to make this more plausible.
I'm being straight up because we've been pals for a while.
I saw what appeared to be the shadow of a person out of the corner of my left eye.
The left corner of my left eye.
Like Left Eye Lopez.
What have you been up to over there?
Well, so, you know, I'm up a lot in the middle of the night.
Yeah.
And I keep seeing mice.
Really?
In the corners of the room.
And I'm like, what the?
And I look over.
Oh, there's no mouse.
And then I'm like, you know, mice move really fast.
So it's possible.
But sometimes they're very still.
They're also very still.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, I think they're both important.
Like, a mouse will haul ass.
Like, we had a rat outside the other day, and, like, all I saw was the tail, because by the time, you know what I'm saying?
Yeah, sure.
And yet, and yet, you know, I think they know, like, T-Rex style, if they're very still,
you know maybe you won't see them because you're a sleepy man sure that's how they get you well i'll be i'm sitting on the couch right so i'm sitting here and i'm like was that a mouse and then i'm then i'm staring at the spot and the thing is there's nowhere the mouse could have from the time that i saw it to where i'm looking at it now there's it couldn't have covered that space and be anywhere else so i'm like is it in the shadows
Because as you say, mice can be very still, and sometimes you look and it's like one of those UFO movies where you're looking at a thing, and then all of a sudden you realize it is the UFO, it is the predator.
You think you're looking at the hallway of the spaceship, but that's actually the alien.
It's the alien itself, right?
Yeah, right, right, right.
But then I realize it's not a mouse, and then I go back to what I'm doing, but two days later I'm like, what was that?
A mouse.
And I'm seeing mice.
That's no coincidence.
Two is no coincidence.
Two is no coincidence.
That's right.
And it had a face like an owl.
I should drink more water.
So I'm laying in bed the other day, and I see this thing in my periphery in the air.
And I'm like, okay, there's not a mouse in the air.
And I look, and it's a spider that's come down from the ceiling and has decided that it's going to make its play.
It's guns of Navarone.
is that it's going to repel right onto me while I'm sleeping.
Like Tom Cruise.
Yeah, and I'm not asleep, you little fucker.
Like, ha-ha, you thought I was sleeping.
Oh, you chose poorly.
You did.
You fucked up.
Normally, I'm Mr. Like, get this spider, walk it outside, put it in the bush.
You are totally Mr. Get this spider, walk it outside.
I've seen this.
I have a question I wrote down.
I don't mean to interrupt you.
I haven't had a lot of sleep.
I don't know.
But I want to come back to this whole whether you even have an accord with the spiders.
Because it seems like with so many of the creatures of the deep that you have a regular relationship with, but do you think they're getting too comfortable?
Could that be a sky spider that's becoming too domesticated and it thinks it can just land on you?
Oh, I have a bite on me.
You must have thought about it.
No!
Yeah, and it's one of those bites where I was like, ah, that's...
So I looked into this because everybody up here, every time they get a little bite, they're like, spider bite.
You could get that tick.
There's also the ticks that make you allergic to meat.
Have you heard about the ticks that make you allergic to meat?
I have not heard of that.
That's real?
I'm writing that down.
Go ahead.
Pick that makes you allergic to meat.
See, I was worried because you hear those rumors about bubble yum and stuff.
And I remember hearing as a kid, you know what?
Actually, this is later.
This is a 90s rumor or 2000s rumors about the woman who thought she was popping a zit.
You ever hear this one?
Oh, and it turned out to be full of bugs or something?
Dozens of spiders came out of her face.
Baby spiders.
She was a spider cubator.
I do remember she was a spider cubator.
So this guy's thinking, no way is this guy going to swat me.
I did a lot of research.
I don't know what it was 20 years ago where I was like, all right, let's get to the bottom of this spider bite story.
And everything I read at the time was like 90% of the things you think are spider bites are not.
There aren't that many spiders that bite and suck your blood or whatever you think they're doing.
It's generally this or it's that or it's this.
And at one point I was reading the thing that was like, you know, a lot of the time it's a staff infection infection.
No.
And I was like, huh?
They're like staffs everywhere.
It's all over everywhere.
Fuck me.
And if you get a little, you know, on you or whatever, I don't know how it works, but they're like, yeah, you get the people get these little staff infections and they think it's a spider bite.
So I had this spider land on me.
God.
And this guy was like, you know what?
This is a bridge too far.
Like, I'm serious.
I'm not going to get out of bed, find you in my bed sheets and walk you outside because you have fucked with the wrong guy at the wrong hour.
And so I just...
Oh, John the Spider broke the rule.
It did.
It did.
It broke the covenant.
You've covered this now on this show for 14 years.
The ability that you have to work out a deal with the critters and the varmints and to say, I see you, Crow, or to say across this line, you do not.
But my understanding is all the animals that you interact with on the reg, you have some sort of not always a detente, but maybe at least a thawing Cold War.
Sure, I feel like they're doing their business, and most of the time their business and my business are compatible.
Like in the first Godfather movie.
Exactly.
With Salazzo.
There's never a situation where I'm digging a hole, and the animal's business is to fill the hole in as I'm digging it.
That's never the case.
The animal is trying to dig a hole over here, and I'm trying to dig a different hole over here.
We're not in competition.
Except if it's a spider that's like, ha ha, in your bed.
And oh, no, the one animal I don't accommodate, I think we've talked about that, is the marmorated stink bug.
I'm in a constant war with the marmorated stink bug.
The marmorated stink bug.
Yeah, I give them no quarter.
No quarter to the marmorated stink bug.
But they know that, right?
They're so dumb.
It's like the sort of signs you put outside of a southern town in the 40s.
you say marmoset marmoset marmoset bug man don't let the sun set on your wings no irish no dogs no marmorated stink bugs marmorated stink bugs need not a plug especially when the marmorated stink bugs put a little like a shillelagh hat on and they're like oh no we're just the normal irish you think you're better than me
But so then I got this bite and it was the next day.
And I'm like, that spider did not bite me.
I know that.
And it's not like there are 40 spiders in my bed.
These suck, John.
These look like ticks.
These suck.
And the spider bite thing got bigger and bigger.
And then it was like really hurting.
And then it looked like a tick thing.
What's your mom think?
A big circle around it.
I haven't been able to consult with her.
She hasn't been around.
What do the other members of the small council think?
and they they would go your neighbor the dot-com guy they would go to the emergency room oh fuck me gently the other two ladies in this house my you know my mom would splint her own broken calf but uh but ariella and marlo would go to the emergency room for a runny nose and i'm like how am i caught between these two realities
They're like, oh, you should go see a doctor.
No, I should for a spider bite, even if it is a stab.
Shouldn't these two opinions be theoretically closer to each other?
No, they don't see eye to eye on this.
It's crazy.
Anyway, so now I have this owie, and I think it's healing.
I doctored it myself.
Oh, my God.
Did you lance it?
A little, yeah.
Yeah.
Did you use the isopropyl?
91% isopropyl.
Oh, yeah.
You got to use the isopropyl.
I'm sure you've got 40 bottles of it here.
Oh, absolutely.
I mean, you got me started on the hydrogen peroxide, and I never went back.
Oh, it's good stuff.
It's good stuff.
Oh, I use it for everything.
I use it to make fake rust.
I use it in the mouthwash.
Yes, sir.
It's a marvelous mouthwash.
You put it in your bathwater?
Sorry, I interrupted you.
You were going to say it.
Oh, I was... Well, while you're thinking of that, where is the bite on you that you lanced?
You lanced the bite.
Where is it?
Oh, so it's on the inside of my arm.
No, what I was going to say is I had a scissor accident a couple of days ago where I was... I bought this just fantastic pair of scissors.
They're thinning scissors.
Yeah.
And I should have done this one years ago.
Those are surprisingly sharp.
And they're surprisingly sharp in places you didn't expect, right?
That's exactly what it is, right?
You don't expect it to be sharp where it is.
I mean, it's sharp all over, but it's sharp places you wouldn't expect.
And the thinning scissors have... Because I always had thinning scissors, but they were dull, they were old, they were rusty, and I didn't understand how good ones, how good good ones were.
And so I use them now all the time, but I cut a little slice out of my hand that are on my finger.
That was like pretty serious for the, for what it is.
I'm using some basically what should be blunted scissors.
And I've got like a cut in my finger where I'm like, does this need a, should I go get a needle and thread?
Anyway, so it's fine.
I put a bandaid on and I'm walking around and about after two days or three days, it was fine.
I took the bandaid off and I'm walking with my kid.
And I was monkeying with it.
I worked walking and talking.
I'm monkeying with it.
And then I put my hand in my pocket and we're walking along.
And I was like, what's wet in my pocket?
And I looked down.
Was it on the webbing or was it on the finger part?
It was on the finger part.
Okay.
Oh, God, no.
Please don't be blood.
It was just blood everywhere.
Oh, no.
But it had filled up my pocket.
Oh, Jesus.
You're like a Godspeed you Black Emperor song.
It wasn't on the outside of my pants at all.
Nobody could see it.
And I pull my hand out, and it's not just covered with blood, but dripping blood.
And, of course, my daughter, who's used to me being as I am, as God made me.
Yes.
she looks over we're in the middle of nowhere you know just walking along and all of a sudden like i've got the red hand and she's like what the hell you know like of course a little bit astonished or a little bit like what just how how did you just cut your and i'm like oh it's a long story yeah and uh it was just another father-daughter bonding moment
Were you able to staunch the flow?
What'd you do?
Did you just keep walking around bloody?
Yeah, so at first, I just held my hand out, gesticulating, like, as if I were giving a speech.
And then, as I was saying, and every time I gestured with my hand, like, blood would flick off, fly off.
That's the dad thing to do.
Just to annoy her and, like, make it fun.
Yeah, biohazard.
And, oh, the fun she was having.
I'll bet.
Yeah.
It's bad enough when you talk to people.
Could you please not talk to people while you're bleeding and gesticulating?
Yeah, just like, just flicking blood.
I did this with hair cutting scissors.
Then I found a receipt in my other pocket, and then I wrapped the wound in a receipt.
Oh, good.
A field dressing, they call it.
A field dressing, and then that was sufficient to get us down the road.
Good, good, good.
You know, receipts these days are so long.
They're so much longer than they need to be.
You're good at CVS.
Oh, the CVS receipt.
Well, you know how long those receipts are?
It's 40 feet long.
But if you need one, turns out, you know, it's great in an emergency.
Sky spiders, mouse.
So then you've got these ticks.
And this is a big concern.
There's ticks now, and they're out there.
Go ahead.
The thing is, and I don't exactly understand this, and I'm not going to look it up, but I keep seeing things about it, and it's concerning to me because I eat more meat than I would like, and I think I'd miss it.
Good man.
I'd have to start eating like my family, and I'm not into that.
You taught me how to eat many meats.
Oh, you're so sweet to say that.
I didn't know how to eat those meats properly before I met you.
Well, I mean, that's a really nice way.
And you taught me noodles.
So, you know, we're like a little afternoon delight, me and you.
You got those.
Okay, so you got these.
And these are a kind of tick.
And I get bites and stings and stuff confused.
But I think they bite you, right?
Probably the mama.
Probably.
And when they bite you, they get your blood, and you get an allergy to meat for the rest of your life.
All meat?
All meat?
This is what I have heard.
This is what I have heard, and it's a big concern.
And here's the funny part.
We don't have time to get into this, and I haven't had enough sleep.
But I am fascinated, as you know, you just used the phrase, the funny phrase, right?
Turns out.
As much as, like, I have had 20 years too much of turns-out journalism, of course, that all started with being very interested in, like, surprising stories that were true, that, like, explained something in a way you hadn't... I'm not a good... Here's the thing, though.
Between shit like Ozempic...
And tick bites?
I think they're changing the way America eats.
Ha ha ha ha!
Because you get on the Ozempic.
I've seen all these upsetting ads on cable news for this GLP ones.
And I think you shoot yourself in your tummy or your thigh.
And then pretty soon you're out doing oil paintings and joining parades and pushing wheelbarrows.
Sleep with your wife again.
Oh, dancing in sandals.
Everything's coming up Milhouse.
And...
But I heard that on those, and it doesn't matter to me if it's true.
I'm just reporting.
But like, supposedly, you get on one of those, you lose the weight, you're bringing down your diabetes.
But also, have you heard it changes the kind of food you want to eat?
Have you heard this?
I have heard this.
I heard it makes you not want as much junk food.
And like refined foods.
And again, I'm not going to look it up.
You guys can do that if you care.
I just think it's an interesting anecdote.
But you combine that?
You combine that with meat allergy ticks?
I got some questions.
Well, what are you going to do?
What are you going to do?
Well, things change.
Now, you remember, of course, you never follow Robert Atkins because, you know, he was on the Atkins diet and he smashed his head in and died.
Yeah.
But you remember how I used to eat that way.
I do.
People go through these things and America changes.
You had seven bacons.
That's right.
Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.
Seven bacon army.
You had all seven bacons.
Ha ha.
But like, you know, like, wait, I'm already losing my train of thought.
Well, but this is a thought puzzle, Merlin.
Yes, yes, yes.
What if you... Like a gustatory escape room?
Well, I'm saying, what if you started taking a GLP-1 and you didn't want the meat and then got bitten by a tick that made you not able to eat the meat?
If I understand correctly, you're saying that there might be a role for something I'm going to call a prescription tick.
Give you give you the tick and then is there is there any I'm not a doctor You tell me is there anything to say that it has to be me could it be other things?
Could it be online gambling or scratchy lottery tickets, right?
Could it be marijuana?
Sure Sure if we can gene manipulate the tick so that it makes you allergic to things What would you most want to be allergic to?
Self-reflection
Wow.
Can you imagine?
No, no, just, you know, my thinking, my thinking.
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
Right.
I'd like to be able to turn that off.
And if that takes a tick bite, I don't think anybody'd mind.
I'm not helping anybody.
So what you want is a mind tick, a mind tick.
Or as we would say on the TOS, on the classic series, a tick of the mind.
A tick of the mind.
But that's like a Tourette's thing.
Fuck you.
Anyway, I think things like that are interesting.
And then, like, supposedly, then, they've got this second order of what they call a knock-on effect, which is, you know, already, you know, people are always changing their reading habits and Chipotle's in or Chipotle's out.
But supposedly now, like, it's having an impact on, like...
How much junk food the world is selling?
How much junk food, especially in like the first world or whatever, like people are eating a lot.
Because I don't live in the suburbs, John.
And like if I ate shit, pure shit, the way that I used to when I had a car and lived in Florida and lived in line at drive-thrus, it's easy for me to forget in a really kind of, you know, high-handed way.
Like the rest of America like lives in line at a drive-thru.
You've seen those lines.
I've been there.
I've been to checkers.
I've been to chess.
I've been to Sonic.
I drove in for a change.
I've had it all.
When was the last time?
You're going to have to think way back, I bet.
Or maybe not.
I doubt it.
Whatever it is.
When was the last time you had 64 ounces of Mountain Dew?
Oh, chimney Christmas.
Okay, that's a great question.
So, typical Big Gulp.
I know this from my summer delivering flowers and listening to Husker do.
I know that a typical Big Gulp, which that summer, 1986, is 50 cents.
50 cents.
I really sound old now.
My friend Bob's dad always used to say, whenever you tell Bob's dad that you got a bargain on something, well, I found this really, I found this great thing.
If I bring this cup in, I can refill it and it's only a dollar.
And he goes, you know what that costs them?
A nickel.
Huh.
We thought everything cost a nickel.
And so we'd laugh.
But 32 ounces and a big gulp.
That's right.
Super America, which was a service station, 24-hour service station we had in Sarasota.
They had something called the 46er.
And I say it like that, John, as a diphthong.
I say it as a diphthong because they had included the letter U in 40.
46er.
Yeah.
And you could bring your cup back in with your 46er and refill it.
64 ounces.
64 ounces of dew?
Yeah.
It's... I probably... Well, I've owned Dungeon Dice for a pretty long time, but I was probably using Dungeon Dice a lot more than... No, like, joking aside, like, I drank shit like that until...
I don't think I've had a six, I don't think I've deliberately had a 64 ounce deliberately fountain soft drink in 15 years.
Yeah.
Not because I hate it.
I mean, it's just, you know, you get older and I like to mix my own.
I mix my own drinks.
Sure you do.
Sure.
You make a little graveyard.
Yeah, you call it a self-harm.
I think it was right in about 89.
What about you?
Do you have an answer to that?
Do you remember?
89, I think they invented the 64-ounce Big Gulp.
Because 32-ounce Big Gulps, you remember.
I do.
They're perfectly big-sized.
It was an unimaginable amount of pop at the time.
Unbelievable.
Right?
Yes.
Wow, look at that.
36 ounces?
What was it?
It was three cans of pop or whatever.
Are you talking about Big Gulp?
Big Gulp was 30, I believe it was 30 times.
32 times.
Which I believe is still a quart.
It was an amazing amount of pop.
And then they did this 46 or whatever.
46 or?
And it was like, how much more pop could they make?
And then they made a family bucket.
It's like a double bubble bucket.
They just fill a drink.
The super Big Gulp, I think, was 64 ounces.
And before I drank coffee, I had always been a Dr. Pepper man, as you know, because of my grandfather, my great-grandfather, Dr. Pepper.
Dr. Pepper's my father.
But Dr. I am Johnny Pepper.
And then I discovered Mountain Dew.
Motherfucking earthquake.
2.56 a.m.
I want to know more.
4.5 in Oakland.
Was this true in your high school?
My high school had a pop machine in the hall.
Did you have a pop machine in the hall of your high school?
A thought, an idea, a technology that would have been inconceivable at any point in my life right up until, I think, junior year.
And then they installed a pop machine in the common area of the high school.
Yeah, yeah.
Before that, you could get concentrated orange juice in a can in gym class.
But no, they didn't start selling pop until senior year.
I think it was probably a profit center, to be honest.
Me too.
I mean, can you imagine if you went to your kid's school and there was a pop machine in the hall?
My kid, I mean, one of the things, well, there's a lot I liked about having a kid.
Well, one of the things I honestly, to be honest, Madeline dealt with this.
I would say more than I did.
But do you get did you ever get the thing where like everything you send to school, like you can't have like disposable stuff anymore?
Oh, we had a school like that.
We I mean, every school my kids been to, it would be anathema to go to school with.
Well, obviously, basically the pile of pre garbage that I would bring when I packed a lunch.
Right.
And then you try and see if you can smash it all into your milk carton.
I don't know if you ever did that.
So there was no place to put the plastic wrapper that went around the little crackers and cheese snackable?
No, I don't think they even have garbage cans there.
But so you're...
Wait, so where were we?
Oh, so like 20% passing, they're cheap.
That's one thing, is it's very, like pound for pound, liter for liter.
I think those fountain drinks from like, and I guess we're talking here, brand name anyway, 7-Eleven, right?
But you go to one of those places, I think they got pretty good deals on that stuff.
It's very attractive.
Oh, we cost them a nickel.
Cost them a nickel!
But I got addicted to Mountain Dew, and I started drinking that stuff.
I drank so much Mountain Dew during that point.
At one point, I was smoking pot at a party, and I started to have, I started to get paranoid.
I started to get paranoid.
And it was a small party.
It was just a bunch of rock dudes.
There weren't any girls there.
So it was just like a bunch of smoke pot, listen to rock music.
but I started to like freak out and I was like, Oh shit, I'm freaking out.
And you know, this was back when you were like, Oh no, there's something in the pot or whatever.
I had to go out onto the porch and I'm sitting out on the porch and chair.
I hate that.
I'm like, I'm just like, stay away from those sativas, man.
They'll fuck you up.
My heart's really banging.
And, uh, and like a friend is there with me and they're like, are you okay?
And I'm like,
I think I need to call an ambulance.
I think I'm having a heart attack.
I need to go to the doctor.
Like one of the few times in my life that I've had... QED.
That's right.
You're not... I mean, I think it sounds like you've been taken to an emergency room more times than you've gone to an emergency room.
No, no, no.
I never go to an emergency room.
I definitely have ended up... You get dropped off and there's a sound of squealing tires.
Exactly.
Okay.
um but so uh so they uh my friend goes back into the party and they're uh they're like hey you know john uh john needs to uh call an ambulance he's uh like having a heart attack and this older guy named gordon
Gordon Raphael, who was at the time the, uh, keyboard player in sky cries, Mary, but he went on to be the guy.
He moved to New York and he became the guy that, uh, recorded and produced the first strokes record.
Wow.
That record that when it came out, we were like, what is this sound?
This amazing sound.
Yeah, that's right.
He produced that record.
But at this point, he was just hanging out in this party.
By the way, that's the Strokes song that I know.
That's right.
That's right.
Automobile.
Money machine.
And so Gordon comes out, and Gordon's like, he's a real chill dude.
He's wearing, I'm sure he's wearing a velvet jacket and some kind of Prince frilly shirt.
And he came out and he was like, what's going on, man?
I was like, I'm having a heart attack.
Freaking out, man.
I'm freaking out.
You need to call an ambulance.
It's a bug hunt.
Game over.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
I hate that.
I hate, hate, hate that feeling.
Oh, it's terrible.
That particular kind of, I mean, it's no fun to be too high, but that particular kind of too high is no fun.
It's bad.
And then I think what happened is... You can't get any existential distance from it.
You're like, it is who you are.
Because I think it cycled into then it was a panic attack, you know, and I'm just like freaking.
And Gordon said, hey, man, you're not having a heart attack.
You don't need to go to the emergency room.
i was like what what what and he said look down in your hand man and i looked down i had a super giant big gulp of mountain dew oh and he's like dude you've been drinking mountain dew oh my god you've got 64 ounces you had a cool morbidity and i was like huh huh huh and he was like you're tripping out on mountain did it help at all to know
Oh, instantly it was better.
Because sometimes, because that's the thing.
It's like, that's the thing that people were like, oh, it must suck to have a bad trip, but I would just realize that I'm having a trip.
And you're like, oh, my sweet summer child.
If only, oh, what did it were so simple?
It's hard to just talk yourself into like what's happening to you on like a chemical level right now.
But sometimes, you know, honestly, and like not to break the bit, but like it is really valuable.
Something people like the touch grass people are always saying that's actually true is like before you freak out,
today, ask yourself, in my case, have you had enough sleep?
Have you had enough water?
Have you had food?
Have you had rest?
Have you had a hug?
Have you had all of these five, six, seven things that people need on the rag?
And it's like, oh, that's right.
I'm super high, and apparently I drank 40 ounces of Mountain Dew after sunset.
Yeah.
He said you've been at this party and I've seen it.
That straw's never been out of your mouth, guy.
You're walking around just... You're like one of those rave people with a pacifier.
How many Mountain Dews did you have before you got to this party?
This isn't even peak Mountain Dew hours.
is this an intervention and i was like wow dude wow and he was like yeah and you know put a like slurp he was he was older than we were you know and he he put his hand on my shoulder he was just like put down the dew you know put just put down put down the dew i didn't want to i as soon as he told me i wanted to sip a mountain dew i didn't want to put it down well of course you did you're an oppositional person i am too he was like put down the dew guy and just like be here be here now
i was like wow gordon rafael saved me again gordon rafael yeah he was there he was there for me at a time before either of us were knew what our futures held when i was working at mcdonald's i was at mcdonald's as in like clocked in on on many important days including the introduction of the mcdlt where it keeps hot stays hot and the cool stays fresh i was there i got training for that i did all that but i was also there
You've seen the commercial for the McDLT starring Jason Alexander.
Well, he was in, like, a Stephen Sondheim musical.
Like, he's a musical guy.
He was great.
Isn't that wild?
But, like, I was there for several apocalyptic events.
And one was when they... I was about to say they changed the drink sizes.
But I was there when they... One of the times that they changed the names of the drink sizes.
Well, so, like, you've got... Okay, so, just real quick.
1985.
1985.
You've got something called a courtesy cup.
And a courtesy cup is basically a branded Dixie cup that you give so that a child can have a sip of water or an old person can take a pill.
You have a small soft drink.
A small soft drink, it's pretty small.
Like, I bet, you know, with ice, that's probably not too much more than 8 to 12 ounces, probably.
Right, small.
Yeah, you've got a medium...
which is bigger and larger, which is large.
Long story short, I was there on the day that large became medium.
And that was in 1985.
Well, no, what happened was, so you can imagine like, imagine like everybody at, my World War I is bad, but like everybody here, everybody in this squad or everybody in this squad or whatever gets a field promotion at the same time.
So let's say everybody moves up one step, same thing, except every size of soda,
got bigger at whatever they were calling its size.
So what used to be large became meat.
This is not a new insight, but that was in 1985.
And at that point, the large at McDonald's, which I think was like a buck, something like that was, it was probably 32 ounces.
But one of the things you learn from day zero at McDonald's, because it affects you, is like, hey, you know what?
You bring a cup.
It's a franchise, so nobody fucking cared.
But about, like, you know, propriety or whatever.
If it was corporate McDonald's, you couldn't get away with this.
But especially if you were on the grill, it was expected that you would drink soda.
Like, you know, it's hot.
Oh, sure.
If you brought your own cup, you could have as much as you wanted.
Sure, it cost them a nickel.
A nickel!
But...
You know what?
Because you know why?
You know why?
And I'm not being Bob Waller's dad unless I am technically grandfather.
But because the cup cost, well, A, the cup cost so much more than the product.
But also B, that's how they counted the Coke money.
So, like, if you used a... Do you follow what I'm saying?
Like, if you brought your own cup, whatever.
You know, I like Big Jug's Body Inspector Cup, and you're, you know... I was a bad employee.
But you're drinking all the Coke you want, it's no problem.
But if, like, you would... Oh, my God.
It was, again, anathema.
You would never just grab...
like a large coke cup no because that that's a dollar off the revenue that's like that's like uh michael throwing the or uh like maybe throwing away the bananas and arrested development like you're moving in the wrong direction sure sure and then that's an inventory problem and it's a whole it's absolutely inventory and then now the swing manager's gonna have to deal with that did you ever walk in a place like that you didn't did you i worked at paliaci pizza
But doctor, I am Pagliacci pizza.
That's what it was.
We all had to wear... No, we didn't.
Now, speaking of Seinfeld, it reminds me of the one with Crazy Joe DiVola.
I like this upper crowd.
It makes me feel tough.
But I worked at the pizza parlor, and we were – anytime a pizza went south, anytime it had the wrong toppings or the crust got a little burned or whatever, there was kind of a shelf behind –
where they would throw the pizza and they'd remake the pizza.
And so it was one of those, like I'm sure you had at McDonald's, where we ate so much Pagliacci pizza that you never wanted to see it again.
And then the next day you'd come in and the best thing you ever thought was
There was was a slice of Pagliacci pizza like you would.
I felt the same way about because I wasn't going to tell you this, John, but right at the moment when I said I wasn't a very good employee, I was thinking, well, first of all, I did spit on a cop's food several times, but also one time.
No, no, no, no.
I'm just kidding.
He was a bad cop.
A cop you knew.
I got caught giving free nuggets to my friends and I got in trouble.
But the thing I used to do is because you can get away with anything.
It was the 80s.
As I would make myself, I would do, they're called six to ones are the names of the patties.
So the patties in like a regular burger are called six to ones because they are, is that right?
Six to ones?
Because it's like a sixth of a pound of beef.
Anyways, I do two of those.
with a bunch of those shitty dehydrated onions I loved and a bunch of salt, I would make those into a burger handle that I would push into my face and eat in three bites.
Hopefully uncaught because it's not sanitary.
No, it doesn't look great.
It doesn't look great.
And yet, John, when you said that about Dr. Pagliacci, I know exactly what you mean.
Like, especially because I was a closer.
Coffee's for me.
So I closed and did truck on Friday nights.
And so I was there until usually 2 or 3.
You had a lot of responsibility at this McDonald's.
I had the least responsibility you could have.
It was me and a guy that was on parole when I unloaded the truck.
I think his name was Scott or Randy because it was 1985.
Everyone was named Randy.
No, but the funny part...
Like, obviously to this day, I still love McDonald's food.
But like back then, you're right.
I would go home at the end of the day.
I smelled so bad.
Not as bad as my girlfriend who worked at Arby's because you know what the meat is there.
But by the time you have the meat, by the time I got home, I was like, I never want to go anywhere near the way that place smells ever again.
And then the next day I was making burger handles again.
Yeah, just scarfing them down as fast as you can.
Did you have preferences?
Were they using the wasted?
What was the term we used to use?
Waste them, burn them?
There was a term we used to use for a fitted bin.
Do you remember the numbers in the slots at McDonald's?
The number's in the slot.
So, like, you go to McDonald's, corporate or franchise, in the 80s, and there'd be those little lanes on a hill of, like, burgers coming down a little ramp.
Oh, yeah.
Like, here's the Big Mac, here's your quarter pound with cheese, here's your filet of fish.
Yeah, sure, sure, sure.
Yeah, yeah.
And then you see a number behind that.
And it's not terribly difficult to figure out.
But basically, when you put the burgers in, you're constantly re-leveling the amount of stuff you want to have ready because it needs to be fast, but it needs to be fresh and, you know, quality, service and value.
And the number you see, like if you put a six behind the burgers you just put in there, that means it's currently 20 minutes after the hour.
Wow.
Oh, so you can keep it timed.
Yeah, when the long, the big hand hits the six, you got to waste those or burn them.
I forget what the term we used was.
But were you guys doing slices or big pies?
Both, both.
You could come in and get a pie, but it was also like you walk in, there's a long counter, there's four pies underneath the glass.
There's two kinds of salad.
Classic.
We have the special pizza that day.
Italian salad and the other kind?
Yeah, the other kind.
What are the two kinds of salad?
Well, no, there was like Pagliacci salad, which had like garbanzo beans.
And then the salad's rotated.
So sometimes there was the one with grapes and walnuts.
I mean, you know, it was a thing where people in the neighborhood knew, oh, it's Wednesday.
That's the day they have gorgonzola cheese.
Oh, I hate waiting on those people.
After a German, that's the person I at least want to wait on.
Yeah.
And they really, you know, but you could come in and order any pizza you wanted.
Got it.
And then, and there was always, of course, pepperoni and whatnot.
And we actually, because it was Seattle, it served wine and beer.
um and yeah what else was there there were no sandwiches were they using were they using x like the dead so you could eat the dead pizza they weren't using that as the same okay so sorry um so um leading versus trailing indicators we use cups unused cups tell us how many cokes we sold right so if there's we know how many cups we started with
today for example and at the end of the day there's this many cups left we do some basic subtraction that's how many that's how many cokes we should have money for right right but in your case is the dead pizza being used as a trailing indicator of what money you lost no see what happened you just get to scarf it down yum we could just scarf as much pizza as you want because you know it costs them a nickel they would make pizzas just like pow pow pow that's making me angrier and angrier
But no, what happened was I was working the cash register because they put me forward because I'm chatty.
I like to talk with people as they come through.
You know, just a little interaction.
Hey, how's your day?
Like, what's going on?
Hey, I like your hat or whatever.
You are good at that.
But what I realized was... You're legitimately good at that.
Yeah, those are my fun times.
Hey, what's that?
Yo, look at you.
One time, I'm sure I told you this story, but one time I'm in the line and somebody made some crack, you know, and it was summertime, big crowd.
And I was like, well, you know, my home is Seattle, but I live in Britannia.
Is that a reference?
Yeah, it was a TV commercial for Britannia jeans.
Oh, live, live, live in Britannia.
Exactly.
And so, you know, it was like Gloria Vanderbilt jeans era.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
$40 a pair.
You know what it costs to manufacture those jeans?
Do you know?
I have a bag.
A nickel.
Ah.
Nickel jeans, nickel pants.
But yeah, I'm sure Jason Alexander was in one of those commercials where people would kind of turn around and they'd be like, my home is Paris, but I live in Britannia.
So I had this, this was, this was already a retro reference in 1993 or whenever this was a reference to a commercial 10 years before.
But I hear, I hear a big laugh and I look over and it's, it's the actress Sandra Bernhardt.
who is in seattle she's in seattle to make a movie or something oh man and she's like she's she hears the joke and she just gives me the and she's got an entourage or whatever and she's just like oh that was hilarious and i was like yeah me that's right and i was it was one of those days where you know those days she was in the king of comedy
She was, but I was feeling on, you know, and, and, and I was like, boom, Sandra Bernhardt, what do you got?
And she was like, you live in Britannia.
And I was like, she's going to, I'm thinking to myself, like, she's going to pull me out of this dead end job.
She's going to make me a star.
Oh, and then you'll both have a funny story out of it.
Yeah.
She's going to say, come be my writer, my number one writer.
And she came up and she was, and I was like, $7.
And she was like, here's, you know, keep the change.
And I was like, we split chips.
So put it in the jar or whatever.
But no, what I realized was regular Billy Joel song right there.
The guy at the cash register is the one that sells the pop and the wine.
And we had, again, you could get a large pop and just drink it all day.
Fill it up, fill it up, fill it up.
And I said, wait a minute.
There's nothing keeping me from doing that but with wine.
And so I started filling up my 32-ounce cup with wine and sitting at work just drinking wine all day through a straw.
And it looked like Dr. Pepper in the straw.
And so I thought I had like figured out life.
I was like, are you fucking kidding me?
I'm drinking two bottles of wine a day at work.
What else do you, after that, what else do you, what other new things do you need to learn?
Yeah.
And then all the free pizza.
It's like free Pac-Man or something.
And my only job is to, I mean, how, how drunk do you have to be to not be able to work a cash register?
I can work a cash register.
And even if you do get too drunk, I bet they'd forgive it.
Sure.
It's America.
Yeah.
But eventually my boss, who it should be noted was a methamphetamine addict, he had a meeting of the staff because there were a lot of people that worked there.
Somebody knocked you out.
No, he said, we're selling an awful lot of wine that isn't making it
Into the cash register.
Just imagine the camera slowly panning to you with a Kool-Aid mustache.
And I'm just like, herp-a-derp-a-derp.
Boy, that seems weird.
Can you explain that?
That's pretty crazy, man.
Can you explain that in greater detail?
That must be forgotten to write it down.
He's like, yeah, I mean, we're going through a pallet of wine, and yet it's not being rung into the cash register.
So that means someone's drinking the wine.
The wine is going, well, the wine is going somewhere.
This we know.
The problem was he was a smart guy in spite of being a meth head.
And he's like, the thing is, I find the wine bottles in the recycling.
So I know you're not stealing bottles of wine.
you're someone that would be that would be de classe as long as you're consuming it on premises while you're taking people's money look this is just and he's like so he said i don't know if this wasn't clear but wine isn't included in the all the pop you can drink this guy's very sane for a meth addict
Yeah.
Do you think he knew it was you?
Oh, everybody knew it was me, but everybody looked at each other and was like, okay, wine isn't included.
That's good to know, good to know, good to know.
I don't know how you handled it.
Were you drunk at the time?
I don't know how I would handle the pressure of that.
I would crack.
I would crack so hard.
I lost that job shortly thereafter because it was one of those jobs where either you get promoted or
or you're out oh oh my god that's that's especially in corporate food service in a lot of places but especially in food service that's true i mentioned that role i mentioned that role before swing manager like you've got new employees employees who've been there for a while managers are you've got swing managers assistant managers and one full manager the full manager made like 80 grand a year
There was two assistant managers that, I don't know, made 40 or 50 a year.
And they had three or four of just the fucking scrappiest people you've ever met in your life who were like 19.
And they did all the work.
And they're called swing managers.
One of them was a guy who'd been in the Marines, Robert.
He was really cool.
He's the guy who clocked me on giving away nugs and said not to do it again.
No giving away nugs.
There was a guy named Gerard who was very, very serious about it.
Do you know what I'm talking about, though?
Like, you get somebody who's, like, 1920, and they're, like, you know, they're one of those people who's got, like, a keychain with lots of keys on it.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And drives a little car.
They might be completely, like you're saying, they might be completely gnarly.
Like, just, you can look at them and just, like, oh, life has just...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But they run the whole show.
Yeah, they made like they were still hourly.
So I was making three thirty five.
I don't know what they were making, but it wasn't seven bucks an hour.
Yeah, probably.
I mean, but but like, you know, it was one of those like, you know, shit flows downhill kind of things were like anything that happened like they were dealing with before before Roland Roland was not going to be in.
Well, and in my case, at Pagliacci, like the people making the pizzas were the top line people.
And they were hand thrown.
You know, we had an open kitchen.
They're tossing pizzas in front of everybody.
It was one of the first places I ever saw with an open kitchen.
You walk in the door and you're just watching it all get done.
And there was an assistant manager and then the manager.
But if you were a lead, you were throwing pizzas.
And that was a thing.
That was a thing.
Like, don't touch the pizza dough if you haven't, if you haven't earned the right to come over to wear the, to wear the.
It would be like, it would be like a full metal jacket, blousing your trousers.
If you're not officially, or sorry, a band of brothers, you know, you're not allowed to blouse your trousers over your boots until you're officially in the airborne.
Yeah, that's right.
Stealing Valorando.
A little bit.
They've got the place where they throw the flour to dust the surface.
It's like, don't touch my dusted surface.
Don't be over here.
You're over there.
You're drinking wine at the cash register, buddy.
You're not over here.
And the thing is, the pizza cooks wear a hat to compliment somewhere.
They were also 20, right?
I was 22.
Some of them, you know, 20.
But they were the pizza people.
And the way the woman that owned Pagliacci ran it was, well, you get a job at $4 an hour.
You get a raise to $4.50.
Then you get a mandatory raise to $5.
But I'm not paying you $5.50 an hour, buddy.
And then they jump you in.
That's right.
Because I can hire another guy to stand at the cash register.
You are.
Yes, you are.
I mean, not to be unkind about it, but people in that position, it's almost like...
like PAs in Hollywood or something where you're like, there's somebody, there's always another person who's more hungry than you that will, that I will not have to compensate the same amount to.
And I learned that.
I learned that later from my mom, that that's the number one thing that's true of technology jobs is that if you think that there's longevity and seniority in technology, um,
There's always somebody younger than you that understands the new technology better.
Like at a certain point, you can't learn it.
It's less difficult to deal with.
That's right.
And they'll get paid half.
But I'm sorry, by which I mean like they don't stand up for themselves.
Exactly true, right?
They don't even know to stand up for themselves, right?
They don't even know how badly they're being treated.
But yeah, I lost the Pagliacci job because it was one of those where they were like, come into the office.
i'm like well this can't be good yeah then they said well you know it's nice to have you around but you're never getting another raise so so this is the situation you're so so you're saying like okay so like you're not worthy of more position and money so therefore we might as well just get somebody else in here
Yeah.
And what would you call that level was like just below, like where you get keys or something like that?
Long below where I got keys.
I, I didn't have my first set of keys to a job until I was almost 30.
And that was at the, at the same week you got a toothbrush.
I got a toothbrush.
Living in a van?
I had two keys then.
I had the key to the van and I had the key to the store.
Key to my toothbrush.
No, that was a big moment for me because the manager said, look, you're fucking up at Steve's.
And I was like, well, you know, I'm not.
I'm doing it mostly.
And he was like, here's the thing about your job.
Doing it mostly isn't the job.
The job is doing it all.
Don't speed past this.
Doing it mostly isn't the job.
Yeah.
The job isn't doing it mostly.
The job is doing it.
It's doing it all.
It's doing all of it.
That's like some Yoda level shit, honestly.
It's true.
And if you're a fucking dumbass or have no experience, you won't, forgive me, folks out there, you wouldn't be able to grok why that's so insightful, but it really is true.
The most valuable people in any group are the ones who just keep showing up and doing it and don't need their dick held.
Yeah.
And I pushed back.
I was like, well, I mean, I got to just do it all.
Who's going to compliment the hats?
And he said, yeah, and I'm sure I had that a little bit of that.
Like, don't you see how valuable I am in ways that your metric doesn't?
And he was like, listen, the job is the is doing all of the job.
so do it yes or you're fired but if you move up your job so like your job at that level is to do the job but your job at the next level is to do all the jobs like if somebody's sick do you follow though like somebody doesn't come in somebody's fucked up something went wrong somebody has to go to the hospital for that matter or maybe roland is stuck in traffic like if there's a water leak like that's the job this is your job you this is your job
In retrospect, if you have time to think about it, how do you feel about it?
Now, is that the meth head?
No, this is a different place.
No, no, no.
This was the newsstand.
These guys were smart.
Oh, that's where you could read Mike magazine, and the guy came in looking for dirty diapers, right?
That's it.
That's it.
And I actually went home, because he was like, go home and think about it.
And I went home and I was like, wait a minute.
You know, at that point I'd been sober a year.
I was like, wait a minute.
The job, the whole job is the job.
The job is doing the job.
Doing most of the job isn't the job.
And I like, you could, you could smell smoke.
That's an article of faith for so many people is just, and I'm not criticizing, I hope not, but like for a lot of people, it's practically an article of faith, especially in like low wage, underappreciated job to like just north of a work stoppage.
Like if I'm showing up mostly and doing stuff, like you don't even deserve that.
Yeah, right.
Exactly.
And, and, you know, for me, it was the ADHD stuff too, where he, and I think as he was saying it, he pointed over to a stack of things that I hadn't sorted.
And he was like, for instance,
And I was like, oh, well, I was getting to those.
Sounds like me talking to my family every night.
Yeah, but I'm charming.
But he said, we're in the newspaper business.
The newspapers, the whole premise of them is now.
Like, if you come to the newsstand in the morning and the newspapers aren't out, you don't come back later.
You go find the next newspaper.
Right, right, right.
These aren't, it's not like stocking cans.
Every minute that these are sitting here in general, but especially any minute that these are sitting here not saleable, like these are losing value geometrically quickly.
Yeah.
And I was, and that was part of the smoke you could smell.
I was like, right.
The newspaper is time sensitive.
Right.
So I came back in having like, uh, been born again hard.
Yes.
I was like, I was like fucking more powerful than a Marine and his rifle.
I said, you know, this is my rifle and this is my gun.
I said, yes.
And I instantly became like the best employee.
So much so that six months later they were like, hey, do you want to do all the books?
So the going home and thinking about it worked for both of you in that he suggested that and then you went home and then like a person you actually did think about it.
I came back and I was like... That's fucking cool, man.
This isn't... And the thing was, it wasn't even hard to do the job.
It wasn't nearly as hard as not doing the job, really.
John, that's a thought technology.
Somebody saying that the job is doing the whole job.
Can I tell you a quick two-part anecdote?
100%.
In Tallahassee, I played in a band and the other main... Not to say main guy, but it was the two of us that had started the band.
Mike Coleman, one of my dearest friends of all time and
So he was the manager of Vinyl Fever, which started out.
Oh, cool job.
Well, there was Vinyl Fever that I went to in high school that was in Tampa at Fletcher and 15th across the street from Wood and Nickel.
And then when I moved to Tallahassee in 1991, there was Vinyl Fever there because Lee had started another Vinyl Fever.
I did their first website.
In two places.
They did in two places.
here uh here there are two boys um and mike was the manager i became the manager of vinyl fever and like you can imagine the turnover in a college town being the cool you know record store and they like you know they they sold records and they they bought used records and so you know whole nine it's a record store this used to be a thing and mike mike was the manager and like
i don't know he told me the story and mike you know mike and i we drank a lot and we had a lot of fun um but like he's really he's just he's still alive he's a really smart guy um but but do you want to just i'm sorry to interrupt but do you want to know what's at 15th and fletcher now uh is it in the building something related to usf in in the building there are two businesses the tampa weed dispensary and cookies on fletcher what
Well, they closed up a few years ago and it broke my heart.
Oh, the record store?
Yeah, Vinyl Fever, yeah.
I'm sorry.
No, that's okay.
Wow, that's weird.
Across the street was Wood and Nickel, like catacorned.
It's now the M. Scott Money Superstore.
It's the Amscot Money Superstore.
The Money Superstore.
And they sell money there.
I'm not sure.
Fletcher Supermarket, Amscot Money Superstore.
See, I feel like I've had like a TIA or something.
I feel like you are just saying words right now.
Man, my dog tasted the banana patch.
There's Revere Landing Apartments.
There's the Sunscape Apartment Homes.
Oh, yeah.
And there's Beijing House, the Chinese restaurant.
Hi.
Okay, so Mike's a smart guy, and the thing was, despite both of our high-functioning alcoholisms, he did a real good job with it, and there's a reason that he was there for so long.
Anyways, we would talk, and the bass player in the band also worked at Vinyl Fever, and we all bought all our records at Vinyl Fever.
It was a tentpole in town.
Cool, cool.
but mike yeah yeah very cool and mike um but he would tell me these stories like story two that's quick is one time he was telling me about how like actually i think jason told me this our bass player was like you know coleman he'd been working there for just a little while and coleman goes um closing time right and he goes um hey you know go go go go he's like go go grab like you know five records you want
And Jason goes, huh?
And he goes, yeah, yeah, it's okay.
You're giving away the nugs.
He's giving the nugs.
He's free nugs.
He wants his nugs.
And Jason's like, uh, okay, why?
He's like, he goes, you never steal anything.
And Coleman goes.
He knew.
And Jason's like, well, no, I don't.
But like, how would you know?
He goes, everybody who works here steals records, except for the ones that don't.
And I know the ones who don't, and you don't.
So why don't you go grab a handful of records?
I appreciate you not stealing.
I thought that was, that's the kind of cool guy Mike was.
But there's another one.
And I'm going to tell this in my style because I can't do it in Mike's style.
But Mike's like, he's just like, it's always driving him fucking crazy.
Every Tuesday, you get in these boxes and boxes and boxes.
Like you got all the things that you got to have the new releases come out.
You know, like everything's got to get out on stands and like people are going to be coming in like you.
I mean, again, same as the newspapers, right?
Like if it's the first day for, you know, the Stereolab album and there's somebody who wants to buy it, like that's 20 bucks we don't make if it's not.
And like, but like it also it goes for everything.
It goes for the T-shirts.
It goes for the stuff that's been priced.
That's already been accepted.
paid money for the used stuff that's been priced and ready to put out and i don't know this i don't know why i'm saying this i'm sleepy but mike mike says something he's like he's like i have he's like i have well i'll just give a little bit of my i had to call i had to call a fucking meeting he calls a meeting and everybody at this point i will shift into my style mike calls at sunday night everybody has to go to vinyl fever
for a meeting and mike is like i want to just explain a little to you about what we do here because sometimes and i hope you'll see the value in this and you know meet john here i hope you'll see the value in this in the same way that i do i think about this to me this is very much along the lines of the job is doing the whole job he goes um this is a record store we sell music we sell different different kinds of things here now here's the thing what the way that we make money
It's that people come into the store and first they find the album that they want.
And after they've found the CD or whatever that they want, or it could be more than one, they bring it up to the stand where we take their money at the cash register.
And then they buy those and they can take them home and we get to keep the money when they leave.
Yeah.
Everybody's there going.
Let me just explain two parts about this that I want to make sure everybody has completely processed.
If the records are not out where people can buy them...
They won't buy them.
But also, if the records are in the wrong area, because you haven't gone and done that tedious fucking thing where you have to go through every single row to make sure that... He's like, and so let me just wrap this up.
I know you all want to get back to your families.
We make money by selling CDs to college students and their ilk.
If they can't find the CDs, they can't buy the CDs.
Yeah.
Okay.
And if they're in the wrong place or aren't out, we can't buy them.
Now, here's where it gets complicated.
And I have to be really honest with you.
That's the way that we make money as a store.
So the way that we're able to pay you to work at the store is that people come in and buy CDs that they can find.
Right.
So just to review.
To get paid to work at the store, it requires that you work at the store.
Oh, okay.
But I mean, like, as long as I like take the money, it's fine, right?
Okay.
But if Archers of Loaf is under Thelonious Monk, that could be a great piece of serendipity for somebody.
Sure.
But, you know, you're the web in front of my favorite lie.
What is the hard part about working at a record store?
Because from outside looking in, it seems like a dream job.
You just run around acting like an asshole.
But like, how is it?
How do things get fucked up?
How does a record store get?
It's because people put Thelonious Monk down.
I could speculate.
I will speculate about this.
And all I will speculate about is a place I didn't work at in the 90s that I just happened to go to twice a week because I really like music.
But there's nothing like finding your own CD used.
You ever do that?
You ever see your own CD used?
Seven inches are what broke my heart.
The seven inches sold.
That would always bum me out.
What bums me out is when someone takes a picture of a Long Winter's record at a thrift store and is like, hey, look what I found.
$1.99 or OBO.
Yeah, 99 cents.
And it's just like, fuck you.
Why did you, you know, it's in Omaha or something.
I'm like, well, I didn't, it's not funny to me.
No, no, no, it's not.
That's actually kind of hurtful.
But then they're like, oh, dude, they ripped it into their computer.
And I'm like, I know, but then they should put it on the wall.
Then they should put it in their Hall of Fame.
Oh, I completely agree.
I think that's most of the anecdotes.
Oh, no, just you were in this business.
You went in there twice a week, and you could tell how a record store would be hard.
I mean, it's a retail job.
And anytime you have to hire people, retail fucking sucks.
It's so difficult.
I don't know.
In doing the stuff I used to do with companies, I came to really understand what seemed like an important distinction in me between managers and practitioners.
And everybody wanted to be a fucking manager and get a parking space.
And it's like, yeah, but you don't have any fucking leadership skills and no initiative.
So why would anybody make you a leader?
You wouldn't actually lead if we put you in charge of anything.
And practitioners, though, could be really good at their job.
But to do retail, like my mom did.
My mom loved working in retail, whereas I would lose my mind.
So I think you get a fair amount of turnover.
Plus, you just get, because of the way it works and people are working in different areas, I think you could probably get away with...
Stealing the occasional thing and without cameras or whatever.
You know how it is.
It's like expertise.
Like you've been around it long enough to like pick up on like, you know, sort of like what somebody's vibe was.
But I don't know.
I still think about that a lot.
It's the whole job.
This is the problem my sister is confronting all the time.
Is she still at the fancy restaurant?
She's at the fancy restaurant and she's back in that position that she is in every restaurant she works at where she's behind the bar and people come in and every night one of them will go over to the manager of the restaurant and say, I think your bartender just saved our marriage.
And then they'll walk out.
And then there will be somebody out in the street having an emergency.
And everybody's like, call the cops, call the cops.
And Susan walks out and gets down on one knee and is like, hey, man, can I help you out right now?
Yeah, you talked about the guy she gently helped out.
She does this all the time.
And so, of course, she feels like the most valuable employee.
And her customers all think she's the most valuable employee.
But the owner, or the, I'm sorry, not even the owner.
The owner thinks she's the most valuable employee.
But the manager is like, Susan, you need to know the specials.
Right, because- You need to memorize the specials.
All the other waitrons, it sounds like what you said before, last time you talked about this, was that the other waitrons there are all that kind of waiter.
Like which one of these is, like they might say, which one of these bourbons is more smoky?
And they could like make a chart.
Whereas they ask Susan, which one's more smoky?
And you say, well, why don't you tell me, Einstein?
Yeah.
Or she's just like, here, why don't I give you two of them and you can tell me which is the more smoky?
You know what?
That's a game changer.
That's a problem solver.
But what Susan's answer is, well, I mean, I don't need to memorize the specials.
They're right here on this piece of paper.
I can read them.
And the manager's like, no, but we memorize the specials.
It's what we do.
Like people on TV that you despise.
Act like that.
And so Susan has never 100% accepted that the job is the job because she's doing this thing where she's over the top on all these other metrics.
Like when was the last time you went into- She's also doing what we do, John, where she's established her own rubric for what success in this is.
My family is like, well, what's this big pile of shit over here?
Like, don't worry about fixing that.
Get rid of all this stuff, right?
And with Susan, it's like, well, you're supposed to come in here and please your manager.
By acting like a fancy duchess.
And if you're not doing that, that's not part of my vision for how we dispense costly food.
Exactly.
And I think the perfect job for her would be some owner who was like, I really care about the food.
But what I don't understand is how to run a bar.
Susan, would you just run the bar?
And I'll never come over.
I'll never talk to you.
I'll never ask anything.
I think she'd be a great host.
She'd be incredible.
She'd just sit back there and she'd be like, okay, step right up.
And people would be like, she'd be famous like for her caftans and her glass of wine.
Yeah.
She, and people would be like, can you just make me a bloody Mary?
And Susan's like, I can do that.
And then by the time you go by Susie in the restaurant biz, I think Susie, Susie might wreck up some points.
Well, you know, we have a sister Susie.
Sister Susie.
Yeah, Sister Susie.
Brother John, Father Michael, Phil and Don.
What we call her is Susie.
When my daughter was born, we went around to all the grown-ups and we were like, what do you want to be called?
Oh, that's respectful.
Yeah, and I gave my mom first choice and she said, Nana.
We were like, okay, you're Nana.
And then we went to Ari's mom and she was like, I'll be Grammy.
I was like, okay, Nana and Grammy.
Oh, that's so sweet.
And we went around and we got to Susan and she said Suki.
Oh, that is cute as hell.
None of us had ever said the word Suki in our lives.
I think my mom might have had a Russian wolfhound named Suki in the 1960s.
Okay.
But so it was like Suki.
I like that.
Well, we started calling her Suki.
Well, now it's her name.
Did it stick?
No.
Suki is her name in my phone.
Oh, that's so cute.
I love that.
She's Suki to everybody.
So yeah, that's her.
I think it should be her bartender name is Suki.
Do people ever ask you what you'd like to be called?
Never have in a single time.
They're always trying to nickname me and it never works.
Steve and John.
I'm one of those people.
I'm one of those people.
You think you're resistant to nicknames?
I think, well, I just like, what are you going to call me?
Big John.
My Big John, okay, that's not bad.
My relatives called me John John, as we've discussed.
Jackie.
But I feel like it should have been Jack, except my Uncle Jack sat on Jack for 85 years.
Oh, I'm sure.
I'm sure he was squatting on that Jack.
Yeah.
And I was like, come on, I should be Jack now.
And he's like, ah.
But no, I think I'm a person that people refer to with both names.
John Roderick.
I think you are too.
John Syracuse is like that.
I, because of the number of Johns that I have, because the number of Johns I have in my immediate proximity almost all the time, I do tend to refer to the Johns by last name.
But there are people, I used to know a woman in college.
Her name was Patty Fruit.
Frew.
P-A-T-T-Y-F-R-E-W.
Her name was Patty Frew.
And nobody ever called her anything but Patty Frew.
Patty Frew.
I mean, they knew her name was Patty.
They knew her surname was Frew.
But everybody just called her Patty Frew.
Because why would you not call somebody named Patty Frew Patty Frew?
What a great name.
Patty Frew.
Patty Frew.
It's the best name.
John Roderick has a little cajura in it.
John Roderick.
Yeah.
Do people call me Roderick when I'm not around?
Sure.
Yeah.
What?
I'm just kidding.
No, I, what do people, um, I call you that just to distinguish from, you know, cause you, you, which we're always pronouncing wrong.
He, uh, uh, but yeah, no, I, I do that, but no, I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't really talk to people.
So it's, I'm the wrong person.
I'm the wrong person to ask.
That's true.
I mean, back when Joe Co was Joe Co and then Joe Ho, John Hodgman was Joe Ho.
Oh, I see.
They tried to call me Joe Ro.
that doesn't work sounds like scooby-doo yeah yeah and i'm so i was like no joe rose not from now on your nickname is going to be a rari raggy