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Bonus episode · February 24, 2022 · 00:48:34

Bonus: 🔓 More of Yourself Every Day

This weekThis week's after show was really good, so we wanted to make sure you filthy animals could get it for freebies.
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🔓 Unlocked! This week's after show was really good, so we wanted to make sure you filthy animals could get it for freebies. Just be sure to listen to the main episode first.

And, if you enjoy what you hear, please consider supporting Do By Friday on Patreon.

Thanks, team.

Transcript

Tap a timestamp or any sentence to play from there · machine transcribed (mlx:mlx-community/whisper-large-v3-turbo), expect mistakes

AlexAfter show. Oh, I'm a little hot. Hello. Hello. Good. Good morning. Proximity effect. Proximity effect.

MerlinI took Spanish for like eight years

Alexand I have no, no idea none, none

Merlinoh, it's such a good language it's like the guitar of languages you can just pick it up in a weekend

Alexoh, don't email me how about that picture of my mother-in-law

Merlinat Smith in the mid-50s how cool is that?

Alexoh god, I don't want to

Merlinisn't she hot?

Alexit's going to both make me I didn't say it. I didn't say it. Oh, yeah. It's okay. God, so hot. Oh, my God.

MerlinShe looks so much like one particular sister-in-law of mine in this picture that it's kind of scary.

AlexWell, that's upsetting.

MerlinHi, everybody. Alex and I are sending each other pictures of things and designing business cards and just really making a day of it.

AlexOh, man. I watched that scene in American Psycho way too much. the business card scene. I just, I'm like, is this healthy? or rather, how unhealthy is this? The way he's acting? Yeah, how often I enjoy watching it. And I don't know how, I'm just like, ooh, the paper.

MerlinOh, it's so good. And it's got the guy from, it's got the guy from that TV show I like in it.

AlexYeah, he hasn't aged. It's very weird.

MerlinHe's so handsome. Okay, Here's a photo of all – well, this is a terrible photo, but it's a good picture of Ann. That's – so the blonde lady in the front.

AlexOh.

MerlinDo you see the resemblance at all?

AlexOh, God. It's like a doctor – it's like a Doctor Who photo where like two people –

MerlinThey're like a little lemon grab family.

AlexIt's like a little short tail. Ah!

MerlinSeven kids.

AlexYou look like the lemon grab. Oh, yeah. Beat me. Or not –

MerlinIt's not a contest, that was.

AlexSix – well. When you're, oh, God, they're not even religious, are they? What the heck? Oh, no, no, no.

MerlinThey're heathens.

AlexWow.

MerlinThey don't even know Bible anecdotes.

AlexOh, horny heathens, I guess. And also with you.

MerlinNo, they did. They liked each other very much. As Groucho Marx said, I like my cigar, too, but sometimes I take it out of my mouth. That's apocryphal. That's a Dick Cavett story.

AlexI'd like to believe it.

MerlinI do, too. I do, too. He's a funny guy. He's a funny guy. Now that, in some ways, You Bet Your Life was almost like the original podcast. Because the conceit of it was, I don't know if it was the first game show like this. It started as a radio show, then became a TV show. Forgive me if you know this. But wow, it's 25% humidity in here. That is dry. Whoa. But it started out as, so did you ever see You Bet Your Life?

AlexNo.

MerlinIt's a game show. There's Groucho Marx is the host. oh god I forget the sidekick's name he has a sidekick like an announcer and then two

AlexI can like picture him I've never seen it

Merlinhe's really beefy like back when guys had big chests guys would be all big chested it was the age of emphysema I love that book but Groucho so the announcer would bring out two civilians that stand at their podium and and there would be a secret word you know and if anybody said the secret word while during the course of the quote unquote game, this little duck that looks like Groucho Marx would come down and you win $10 or something like that.

And the whole show was just Groucho talking to these people, interviewing them, making fun of them. And that was the show.

AlexIt's kind of the

Merlinoriginal podcast.

AlexThat truly, I mean, yes, fresh air.

MerlinThe story goes, the apocryphal story goes, this has never been shown, to my knowledge, to be a true story, but it should be true. As they say on political Twitter, it's too good to fact check. This woman says, saying, oh, are you married? Yes, I'm married. I love my husband very much. We've been married for, you know, 20 years. How many kids do you have? And she has something like fucking 12 kids.

And Grotcha said, 12 kids? Like, you know, to what do you owe, you know, having so many children? and the woman purportedly says, well, my husband and I love each other very much. Big laugh from the crowd. And then Gretchen says, well, I love my cigar, but sometimes I take it out of my mouth.

AlexI don't know why it's so funny. Cigars, like voices, inherently funny to me. They're just, I mean, vaginas too.

MerlinThey had a secret. Why didn't the duck come down?

AlexYou used to be a big cigar guy, right?

MerlinI mean, I still, I curate my cigars. I still have a humidor that I maintain, but I don't think I've. My, my. Well, no, I buy nice cigars. And, yeah, no, I used to smoke, like, a lot. When I was working on the book, like, I got into this habit of, like, being outside, sometimes in the rain with my laptop, smoking a cigar, like, under some kind of cover somewhere. But, yeah, I like, yeah, I like Nicaraguans. I like Nicaraguans. I mean, I like a Cuban if I can get a real Cuban, but they're pretty hard to get.

I like Nicaraguans. I like Padrones. I like, I don't even remember the names of these anymore. There's one that used to make a tri-blend that I like a lot. And I don't think I've had a cigar in six months, but I'm due.

AlexI haven't had a cigar in about three years, four, five. I don't know. The last time I went to a New Year's Eve party. And I don't know any of them.

MerlinThey get you a little bit high, which is nice.

AlexThat's the thing. I like them real, real strong.

MerlinThis is where I am like your basic bitch is I like – I mean – let me see what I got in here right now.

AlexOh, my God. See, Merlin is a big cigar guy. I was just – hey, Parapels, all those words he said, I'm like I know the words humidor and Cuban.

MerlinTatuahe is a really good brand from Miami. This guy was named Pete Johnson. Tatuahe is a really good. I've got some of those, a handful. I've got some very fancy, I think, 45th Anniversary Padrones. The ones I really like, they're still expensive, but they're really good, are the Oliva. I think they're called like Triple Blend or something. They're really good. Yeah, no, but basically this is just, you know, I've become like one of those guys that buys guitars but can't play guitar.

Like I've had these same cigar. And, you know, they get mellow over time. They mellow out a little bit in the humidor. So, yeah, but yeah. And then I just changed my humidifier.

AlexThe answer to that was a hard yes. Oh, my God. I'm sorry. I'm just, well, I'm missing my pal. He's not like dead. He's just a big. Who died? What? No, no. I was just thinking about my pal who's a big whiskey and cigar boy. Like very, it's so funny. Is he a piece of shit? No, exactly. I was about to say. Most cigar guys are a piece of shit we eventually discover. Yeah. Yeah, and he's the exact opposite. And one New Year's Eve, it's like, Alex, come have a cigar. Have you ever had a cigar? Come have a cigar with us, with the men.

And I was like, ah, yes. Jokingly, everyone calmed down. No, the only reason I say that is because literally the opposite of somebody you would think is a cigar guy.

MerlinBecause you look at Rush Limbaugh, Jimmy Savile, the guy who was the child molester on British TV. Oh, yeah. There's so many people. Bill Cosby.

I mean, it's Bill Clinton.

AlexWell, at least he used it well. Hi-oh!

MerlinYeah, you know, the export taxes are reduced if you use it as a marital aid. That's good.

AlexBut I didn't know that, like, and so there's like, you know, like eight of us hipsters smoking cigars outside. and none of us had and we're like, oh my God, this is, is this drug? What the fuck?

MerlinWell, I mean, some people get very, very ill, just feel so sick from it. But again, this is one of those things where I'm so sensitive to so many things in this world, this veil of tears. There's so many things to which my body or my mind are very sensitive, but that's not one of them for me at least. Tobacco is not a problem for me. well that's a dumb way to put it i'm not advocating for this but um they're really good and you know and it's kind of fun because like it used to be like this with weed where you know it's like kind

of a ritual and there's a sharing experience and whenever i used to travel i would always before i travel you know you know me i i would have i made a portfolio for myself before i ever went anywhere where's the where where are restaurants that are open all night where are atms um and i try and find a cigar lounge within walking distance because you meet really interesting people at a cigar lounge.

AlexOh, God, that's so, yeah.

MerlinYou can pretty much guarantee they all voted for Trump or would vote for Trump in the future. But no, I do like them, but I don't do it as much. And, you know, they're real stinky. and when we had when the baby was a baby like we were so nervous slash careful about like avoiding you know no screens um no testosterone uh like avoid out while i was on testosterone to try and

help my adhd i had to put this cream on my shoulders and um obviously it didn't take but uh but like you know because we co-slept and like that became like a big deal of like don't want

Alexthe baby oh interesting oh interesting i just piqued my own interest huh did well i was just

Merlinabout to come up with a quack theory about why my weird kids the way they're weird um but um

Alexi was gonna say that would be illegal don't touch don't do if you were in uh yeah now in florida if you wanted to have your testosterone cream it would be like you'd have to fill out a lot of

MerlinThat letter, I just saw it. And even by, you know, Greg Abbott and modern Republican standards, it was shocking to me. Fucking. So this piece of shit is the governor of Texas. Just was in an executive order. but basically it's trying to create this stasi or gestapo for trans people you can like report

Alextrans children and you can then you have to but by the letter of the law you must

Merlinreport and then their parents might be like investigated because their kid is trans yep yep yep and yet men sit down and pee all the time racistly sorry i was trying to do a drill thing there.

AlexBoy, that's...

MerlinBoy, is that ever shitty. No, no, what was it? Bank of America still hasn't fixed my account, and yet teens continue to go to the prom racistly, or something like that. Boy, that's really... Boy, is that ever shitty. Yeah. I mean, even if it's nothing, it's probably not nothing, but even if it is nothing, like, wow, what an odd thing to want your name on.

Alexit's well and that's the thing is uh they're um the these are like conversations that because they happen like behind it's not like a secret but like usually they only happen like with queer people it's like okay the don't say gay bill is it like actually going to hurt people or is this just an election uh is this just because uh uh just what's his name uh ron the fuck. See, I'm a fake gay. Ron DeSantis.

Thank you. Yeah. Or is this just... There was a really

Merlingood TBD. There was a very good episode. I'm sorry I interrupted you. Oh, really? Yeah, it was a really good TBD, I want to say, last week that was about... The title was a little misleading, but the title of the episode was something like, you know, auditions to be Trump's next protege or something like that. But it was really just all about Ron DeSantis and how... Oh,

AlexOh, yeah. Okay.

MerlinHow he's in this really weird position where Trump is mad at him because Trump feels like he made him and he hasn't said he definitely won't run in 2024. But, yeah, it was just basically about how Ron DeSantis is especially weaponizing the word woke, where he's using it. And it's kind of like a stop trying to make fetch happen thing where he just keeps calling everything woke as his like catch all, like this is bad thing. And then he came up with legislation where he made woke into some kind of an acronym.

AlexYeah.

MerlinLike war on kids and elderly or something like that.

AlexYes, yes.

MerlinReally good episode. I continue to recommend TBD. Not TBD. Sorry, sorry. I meant to say, fuck, what next? And what next TBD is their tech edition on Mondays and Fridays. But what next on Slate is really good. If you like the daily, but you can only handle so much Barbaro. Barbaro?

AlexBarbaro. I mean, I don't want to call him a hypocrite, but he sure did cheat on. I'm sorry. It's personal lives of people. But no. Okay. Sorry. I have. I am now a Slate member. I'm glad that they had that sale. Well, because they had that sale. And it's like, why are you a subscriber now? And it was like, sale, sale, sale.

MerlinGet ready to re-log in a lot. It's no Daily Beast, but it's up there. And 1Password doesn't work on it, which drives me bananas.

AlexOh, my God. Every time I ended up just putting the fire hose feed in. So I think that's why I sometimes miss. Oh,

MerlinI think I told you about, yeah, I did. I told you about my project to unhook from the fire hose feed,

Alexbut then I feel like the other ones break, but maybe it's cause I'm just on the,

MerlinI mean, the fires is fine. I just got into this thing where I like, it took me probably a year of this one behavior before I really caught how much it annoyed me, but I was spending a little bit of time. Maybe not every day, but like a couple, three, four times a week, just deleting dozens of podcast episodes. And it's like, you know, I just didn't make me happy. But yeah, anyway. Yeah, but really, really shitty.

I don't know what's going to happen, but do we need more shittiness right now?

AlexI mean, why would you put these?

MerlinWhy do you turn these kids? They're just kids. They're how they are. It's like, and, you know, I don't know, maybe I'm biased, but.

AlexNo, I think you're hitting on something of like the just kids. The way that at least how I've come to understanding, understand it, talking with people who used to think the DeSantis way, it's like, oh, they're just kids. So the belief truly is like, oh, they'll grow out of this. Like, it's fine. They're not going to, it's not going to hurt them.

MerlinNot like it's a tattoo or something.

Alexthat's that's pretty much it and the the scary thing about their parents have have played along

Merlinwith this charade that is is not only not really a thing but if it is a thing it's a thing that as we discussed previously that you're just doing to make me mad and just screw up the tribe and you're gonna you're gonna create these monsters everybody knows by now anybody we now say i at least I say queer as sort of a, I'm not going to use letters. I'm not going to pronounce letters. That's not going to happen. But like, you know, if you're somebody who's outside of the cis straight spectrum, you

must be either you're insane, an enemy of the state, a future criminal, or maybe all of them.

AlexMm-hmm. Yep. And if you're-

MerlinLook how you made me feel. No, I'm so mad. I'm so mad that like, I'm going to go write a letter about it. and there was this kid i've where i forget where i read this i saw the headline and just glanced at the article but it was this uh i always get this wrong trans girl who was in high school and was like testifying to some kind of a like maybe a committee somewhere but just saying look i just i just want to play sports just just yeah just like does this have to be like a whole thing i just want to play sports i want to be but i want to be sports i want to play sports as the person

who I am not the person you want me to pretend to be is what I mean how I would put it

Alexit god the the wildness of that video really encapsulated like how I I think that video of the kid doing the the well because we're talking about like the little blonde kid like she's a baby like she was really and I yeah I mean there's there's a number of these videos yes and this she is i mean essentially said the same thing of like i just i want to play soccer again because she had a lot of in a lot of these places where the laws are being passed these kids are playing

on like playing on the girls team or playing on the boys team and no one fucking cares except maybe like a few psycho parents who like write a they write a letter and then the like but like i

Merlindon't know if it's exactly the right way to use it but sort of concern trolling like it's not safe for this to happen. It's not safe for this criminal child to be doing this. This guy got cut out of last week's anarchic episode, unfortunately. I said some really nice and very touching things that got cut out, but I'll repeat it here unless you guys decide to cut it out again. Monsters. You have to ask yourself... Well, I'm making my point. Remember when you went away from the microphone and then you stopped doing the episode and started doing another

project and then eventually it came back and we tried to pick it back up and it didn't work? But the thing, some of this might have made it, but the way I look at it right now, at least based on what I know and understand and feel today, it's that there's a great American project for people to be given leeway to figure out who they are. not simply who they think they are not simple but like you know are you going to be an example I used I think we talked about JFK or like Carnegie

people who come here as really disrespected minorities or pseudo minorities you know if you're from the UK and you're not English like you're a garbage person but anyway and they get to figure out who they are and that's like a merchant successful but like the thing I was trying to tease out was the like what are the stakes of you undertaking a project to figure out who you are, let alone to implement, or as Max would say, operationalize a plan for once you've realized who you are,

not just making up some like, you know, I've decided I'm an attack helicopter, but like a real thing, like this is who I am. This is me now, as Gene would say. This is me now. But, you know, it's just that the stakes for figuring that out have always been very, very high. And even beginning, I'm not telling you anything you don't know a thousand times better than me, but like why can't we respect the idea that now that the stakes of that are not quite as grave as they used to be, is it really surprising that more kids are gay or that more kids are trans or that more kids are ace or whatever it is?

I think the thing that we, the point we keep missing as old people is that because those stakes are not as grave as they used to be, it's not that it's easy to undertake that journey, but it's that, I mean, I don't know. Like people can fly now and so they want to take vacations. That was not possible a year ago. Again, sort of Overton window-ish thing. But you know what I mean? like it's just if if you and say oh my god it seems like all these kids now are trans and it's

like well are they trans um so a lot of them are and a lot of them just don't care as much as you do like you you came up with a name for whatever this person is but and they may have a very strong idea about what they are you know are you a mod or a rocker but like it's but it's it's just that like i don't think we improve the country the culture the human life by constantly wanting to increase the stakes to make it scary her or make it scary again because you feel a little bit

uncomfortable about something that's unfamiliar talk about weaponizing fuck yeah i uh well i don't

Alexknow why that was cut uh anyway that was that was beautiful i am it might not have it might not have

Merlinbut yeah i just i didn't get to the part where i busted a gut so i just wanted to bust the gut

Alexthis week no no that's true like i i'll have more to say about this just not yet not yet i'll have more to say about this but but you know it's i've told you oh sorry i mean i've i've told you like it it continues to be very dark but very true that i did not expect in any way to live until i was 30 let alone be happy and married that's fucking that was fucking it's insane in even in 2000

2010 like that is how yes and that's what that's why i said the potentially very controversial

Merlinthing that i think is true which is that subsequent generations of minorities people who are treated like shit or just aggrieved persons tends to, in America, build on the legacy of what came before. And that is very frustrating. For example, I think there are very conservative African-American people who, on the one hand, their families have been very involved in the civil rights battle, but they don't like that same—they may not like that same idea being applied to gay people.

Again, in that culture, historically, this is why we have the term the down-low, is like it's not okay to be gay if you're a black man in a lot of African-American culture, right? But like what things that were learned from the civil rights struggle got applied to women and feminism or what we call women's lib. It got up, you know, queer people, like think about ACT UP, think about, you know, all of that, like each subsequent generation that has a struggle to be recognized as fully human builds on what came before them. And, but by the same token,

Like my family, who I have described as business casual racist, they they weren't burning crosses, but they were very racist. Most of my family, I'm actively very racist, not as in like, oh, you say the N word is a joke, but as in like a much more problematic level, really did believe. I mean, my father, my grandfather is from South America. His family's from London. He's from South America. and he absolutely thought black people were lesser than they were maybe the least of them

like but but like so what do you do you say like oh you end up saying shit like oh uh you know i just don't like the kind that are uppity or i don't like the kind who don't know their place or they overstep which is really just a slightly more developed it's just a slightly less barbaric version of we're going to hang you we're going to lynch you because you we claim you looked at a white woman like if you know your place you know if you're my maid and you don't steal like that's

cool and then i think in the 80s and 90s at least in my circles that became oh you know my my best friend in high school, his aunt.

It was hilarious. She and her friend lived together, had the same haircut, her lady friend, who was a friend, just a friend. They lived together. They bought a house together. They ran a preschool together. They always had exactly the same haircut. All of the dumb, lame, old jokes about the gays. Nobody ever talked about it, except in the most hushed of tones. But that's where you get to like, oh, I hate gay people, but I love Aunt Jo's friend.

Like everybody's got their token gay that they actually, you know, there are good ones out there. Oh, there's this one fellow at work that's just so funny. But really, he's not allowed to be human. I'm glad that he entertains me in a way that many of the gay do not. But I'm not really ready to recognize that he's the same species as me.

Alexstakes there's stakes to all this stuff that uh there's that simpsons episode with the um john waters antique yeah and i i think about that so much because my my dad was homer he did like rubs off on bart and bart becomes like a colorful yeah yep yep yep and like uh he's fancy like i my um my uh we see i we true this is my like my uh run x list of words we

words we need to change or things that need a name oh this is from your this is from your uh this would be your uh words and usage i dislike well the yeah like transphobia is it's like okay Do you not understand? Do you just hate trans people?

MerlinBut like the phobia thing we bitch about, that's true for everything. Like, you know, even like anti-Semitic really doesn't really get to the full point of what we're talking about here. Like, it's one thing to say like, oh, I don't mind having a Jew as an accountant. But, you know, oh, but it's not like I would go start a pogrom. But like, you know what I mean? But yeah, phobia, we do need a better name. That's going on my list too.

AlexWell, but it's also, at least for me, I guess an attempt to humanize people who are genuinely afraid and could be queer themselves. And it is just the fear because, like you said, lots of kids just care way less or there are fewer stakes because they're in a blue state or their parents are cool. And the versus like my my parents growing up extremely homophobic because in the way I think of it of being terrified that one of us was gay.

MerlinTerrified. Not anti-gay, but homophobic.

AlexBecause yeah, because knew how hard it would be. And luckily times change and they figured out how gay I was before me.

MerlinThey really did want the best. They wanted what they thought was the best for you, which was leading a life unencumbered or uncomplicated by being a permanent outsider.

AlexAnd because they see it or saw it as also like that being that it truly being, quote, a lifestyle and some.

MerlinOr like, you know, sexual preference or you're making a choice, you know, all that kind of rhetoric.

Alexwell and also that it would define everything about you as a person because because they were like there is the fear of like um i mean the trope is always like mom and dad it's it's still me um and the idea of like i i was lying to them like i'm i am not this nerd who who loves books And like, I am just a big secret. And that is still a big fear for parents, even if they are like cool with one of their kids being a daddy.

It's hard.

MerlinIt's hard because, you know, I think I don't know. I don't want to say too much. But like also it feels like your kid's being perfidious because you're like, hey, you, you know, it's bad enough that you're not the baby that I liked. You're becoming a different person. You're becoming more of yourself every day, whether anyone likes it or not. That's what being a human is, is becoming more of yourself every day, whether you like it or not. But it's just that it feels disloyal because you feel like, oh, not only are you no longer this baby that I could manage and dress and I could put a fucking Ramones shirt on, even though you don't know what the Ramones are.

I used to be like so critical to your thriving. And like now on top of you, you know, you're first of all, I get this surprise attack that you're not the person I thought you were in terms of gender or sexual orientation. But like, you know, and when that happens as your kid is growing up anyway, I think it's kind of double difficult. but you know you're not doing it because you're hateful usually you know unless unless you're

Alexthat dad on uh dope sick the oh boy that guy um but i mean the the this is this is sort of something people disagree on calling like um like saying that you're mourning your child if they come out as trans or queer and which I don't know like I I'm not surprised not a parent but at least mine at least it's not that they mourned us growing up but but you know it is like a

you know going off to college and it's you're kind of mourning a child for them at least it was like you know you're different people and then yeah on top of I don't know it feels strange to tell parents how to like what their feelings not not what their feelings should be because uh hot take i do think you should still love your kids no matter what but like what their feelings even are like it i don't i don't know like um well i mean there's there's a lot of i think okay here's

Merlinhere's another uh by the way i think my my lunch is gonna arrive in a bit so i might have to just go to the door for in a second. But like I say, I don't think it's most of it, I hope it's not willful. I hope it's not and boy, I think about Dope Sick so often, but you know, the way, but I think about that show, you know, a lot and poor, what's her name, the actress I like?

Deaver? What's her name, Deaver? I do not know the actor's name. I know her name and I'm forgetting it, Caitlin Deaver. I love her. But it's that – I do feel like that woundedness has a factor in it. That woundedness of like you're trying to pull a fast one on me. But then, I mean, that gets salted and peppered with all this. Like, oh, are you just doing this to appear different? Are you doing this to be cool? You know, and et cetera, et cetera, all these kinds of things.

But there's a lot of things in life that not just parents, but everybody. You think, but you don't say. Or you wonder about, but you don't ask. There's just a bunch of ideas that float around in your head. So when stuff, to borrow a phrase, when you end up accidentally telling on yourself, a Kinsley error, I think it's called, you accidentally said the truth. it's because sometimes it's a it's just an inchoate sort of feeling or a you know a gander

a guess and like it's just that when that comes out and you hear it in the air hopefully you realize how shitty it sounds and it makes it might make you wish that you'd interrogated that earlier or with more humanity but i i do think that like one problem and maybe i don't want to just blame this on social media or Trump. But one problem is that we used to have our inside voice and our outside voice. There's things I would say to you or to Syracuse or a lot of my friends that I would

not say publicly. I think having slacks where you can say objectionable things is a good idea. I think it's nice. I think we shouldn't, I think we shouldn't, I think the corollary of that is I should always pretend that I've never had a thought that Big Brother wouldn't like. Well, that sucks. But it's just when it comes out, you know, right now it's so easy for your inside voice to go outside. And then you end up maybe like connecting up with other people who have outside voice problems.

And like what used to be the kind of like internal casual shittiness of Americans really has been not just weaponized, but like now there's an organizing effort behind so much of that shittiness. And that's because, you know, when you feel vulnerable, I'm trying to be empathetic here. When you feel vulnerable, you feel abandoned. You feel, you know, left behind, whether that's because you didn't get a good coal mining job or because you found your kid wearing a dress or whatever.

Like you want to find common cause with people who are aggrieved in a similar way. And that's happening at a scale and breadth right now that's kind of shocking.

Alexi wouldn't or i i think it's interesting that it is shocking to you not and not in a how dare you

Merlini do live in a bubble even in the literally empirically most conservative neighborhood in san francisco no i mean it is still about you wouldn't you don't see a lot of like people throwing shit from pickup trucks at people holding hands or whatever yeah well and and that's not to

Alexsay um i mean i i remember the first time um i oh i should find the episode uh but i did a show with my pal james t green um and it was just a god it was called refresh it was such a good name and and i wasted it um but i would say things on that show i hope he doesn't hear this wait why wasted it on him no no no i mean we were no no no like he as in like the two

no it should be the name of another show and he he came up with the name got my see god i'm canceled again but i said things on the show where he was like uh well no i i would say things and he's like oh dude no that is not a cool thing to say like i i don't want i don't even remember but i would like say things that were like uh not even like microaggressions but just like the whitest thing to say or like uh not making light of but um not really saying something that didn't fully

realize the gravity of slavery and he would just be like um and i because it was a podcast and because we only had like uh a few hundred listeners or whatever he'd be like oh dude and and vice versa with whatever he he's such a sweetheart he never said problematic i wish

Merlinyou would do that with me but privately i want you to make me better make me better in private i don't i don't want to improve in public i got enough of that shit on my plate but but please tutor me

Alexplease explain things to me let's do my emotional labor is it it feels like i because of social media it like that happened to be technically a public conversation we were having but it podcasts used to feel so so much they still feel intimate to me but they felt so much more infinite it's um like uh learning in public is is supposed to be shameful or embarrassing now now oh right

Merlinoh i you know what that's when you say that and i think oh my gosh you're right that's so obvious but it's so obvious that it needs to be said is that like and again because i think partly because of the admonishment to never be a hypocrite. And that is, talk about weaponized. That's my phrase of this week, I guess. But the way that we try to, or we've decided that our purpose in life is going to be trying to harm the credibility of strangers by amplifying whatever's not their best day.

I need to go get my delivered food. I'll be back in 10 seconds. Talk to our listeners.

AlexYeah, no. Hey, pair of pals. I get to talk to you again. It's nice to visit with you. And hey, seriously, thank you so much for supporting the show. It means a lot. Because, you know, I go on and on about, you know, the gays and the transness. But, you know, even with insurance, the hormones and gender-affirming surgery is really fucking expensive. and even if I did sell all of my iPads,

it probably wouldn't be enough. What did you, I'm back.

MerlinI left my door open because it's hot in here. What did you tell our listeners?

AlexI was just sucking up to them and thanking all of them for their money and then I realized I used a phrase, gender affirming surgery, which is a very new phrase and that I bet some people are like, wait, what? And that used to be called, confirmation gender confirmation surgery I mean when I was a kid you called it sex change right and sex change well no and I've seen so many people

Merlinsex change sounds like a swingers club come on into the sex change put your keys in the bowl Steven's waiting for you at the sex change trying to make a pun on exchange but it didn't quite work out

Alexwell I mean I just still see people not every day because I'm much better with Twitter now, but like being yelled at for like, oh, it is not a sex change. And it's like, OK, well, no, but but like, well, how would that person know that if like it's the good faith situation?

MerlinRight. But it's also the same way that I think being a kid is about rehearsing life. kids rehearse life on you because they can do it without getting their ass kicked and they're trying things on and all that kind of stuff. It's just that like when you get to that point where you feel like there's a, there's an, sort of like you know, again, like the guy who's always getting a makeover on Queer Eye who doesn't know what to call Jonathan. Well, you can just call him Jonathan. It's okay. But you know, but like the admonishment to like, sure, I don't want to be a hypocrite. I don't want to look dumb. I don't want to be hurtful.

You know, it would be so much easier if I could just surround myself with people who don't want to worry about this either, which on the face of it seems like, oh, how is that any different than a bowling team? Except that if you're really just amplifying each other's incuriosity about the world, that doesn't turn out great, at least in a learned person.

AlexNo. Yeah. And I'm not, I am not talking about just wanting a break from, the streets as you people you people

MerlinI call us breeders I self identify as a breeder my pronouns are I and me I really like that I think I'm going to go with that

Alexthat's very good

Merlinoh how about this my pronouns are me I and me that's kind of funny

Alexbecause I'm so self involved oh no hat on a hat I don't know

MerlinI like myself so much I said me twice.

AlexI like me and I. Me too.

MerlinMy pronouns are the king and I.

AlexOh, man.

MerlinOkay, let's pick a challenge. Wow, kind of a racism. I want to eat this food and... I want McDonald's so bad right now. Chicken McDonald's.

AlexOh, and I want to... Interlude... I did re-watch Interlude 1 from the first season of Righteous Gemstones.

MerlinYeah.

AlexGod, that couldn't be its own show.

MerlinUncle Baby Billy's. My kid watches that and is just like, I want all of these clothes. Uncle Baby Billy's outfits from that episode when he gives Jesse the beer. Oh, my God.

AlexOh, God. Oh, challenge. Challenge. I think we can do or are due for a media one. especially since my week is a little bit this week will be a little bit crazy so either watching Citizen Kane or watching I Think You Should Leave would be great

Merlinbecause you know I Think You Should Leave they're all pretty much except in one case there's some continuity they do one funny thing this season with a little bit of continuity

Alexoh I'll have time to watch the whole thing I'd be lying to myself. Well, okay, but is it okay if I –

MerlinI'd like to highlight two that I want to make sure you watch. But no, go for it. Well, that's not too much?

AlexNo, no. I just looked at the runtime. It's like six hours. And pretending I don't watch six hours of TV in a week is insane.

MerlinSix hours? No. Season two? What are you talking about?

AlexSee, I think you should leave.

MerlinThey're like 20 minutes long and there's like six of them.

AlexOh, yeah. So it's even less. It's like three hours. Yeah. There's, yeah, absolutely.

MerlinThey go down pretty easy.

AlexI'm going to end up watching the first season as well.

MerlinOh, no. This is a show that I, you know, Dan makes that joke or not joke about how every time I mention The Big Lebowski or The Aviator, he's like, oh, no, I got to go watch it again. But there are times where just like, because there's just so many, I think you should leave catchphrases in use at our house. and you're going to pick up a whole bunch more pretty quick. Netflix, why do you make this so hard to do?

I want information about the thing. I'm using universal control to go to an iPad instead and I'm using a keyboard.

AlexOh, are you using the, oh, we didn't get to the keyboard.

MerlinOh, shit, we got to talk about computers.

AlexOh, my God. I want to eat next time. Yeah, eat.

MerlinWe could do an emergency episode later. I just want to eat.

AlexNo, no. Go eat. I am hungry. It's 4.30. Oh, I haven't eaten today. That's bad.

MerlinWhile I'm here, let me see if I can find these. I'll know pretty quickly. You've got to see the one with Dan flashes. And I think you should leave. No, not images. Oh, I know why that happened. Because currently right now I've used keyword search to say the word I means look for images. let's just say you get some pretty good patty harrison coming pretty pretty good patty all

right i think you should leave season two um episode guide right i think you should leave with tim robinson season two uh episode guide episode i'm also just so you think i'm not dragging my feet i'm also doing this for the benefit of anybody listening if they've never seen the show i want to give them a couple to jump in on and that's the two i'm going to give

Alexyou season two don't don't pathologize me i did not think you were you were dragging your feet i'm sorry i was i'm looking at the thumbnails for too hot to handle which this season's not very or uh love is blind that is sure i can't do this you're not missing anything but i i mean i try

MerlinI mean, like we watched the first season of The Circle and I think that was kind of fun. But like I just can't watch reality shows about nominally romantic relationships. It's just it's so depressing to me. Just to me. That's just how I am. I'm not trying to like I'm not trying to big time you here.

AlexOh, I well. Oh, no. I fully expect one day there to be some like some labor movement around the Bachelor Nation because I'm like, are these people really being paid enough? This does seem like, forget all the fake-ness or whatever. I'm like, what's going on here? Which is why I enjoy them from the meta level of watching things like, what's it called? Oh, Too Hot to Handle, where they've got those PTZ cameras everywhere,

that constant, oh, they're in the circle too, the ones that follow people, and they're wearing a lav literally on a necklace. Oh, right, right, right. And it's like, oh, because they need to turn around these episodes so quickly and because they need to create a false narrative, which is all how all reality shows are. And we have all like accepted. I'm glad that like we've accepted that. And it's even like acknowledged in the show. But Too Hot to Handle does it so poorly. Like, if anybody wants a, if anybody, it's so bad.

Like, where they use a reaction shot that's clearly a shot from, like, when it was like, all right, we're about to roll. And so everyone's just got that dumb blank look on their face. And they try to use it as, like, ooh, an angry face.

MerlinYeah, but then in context, yeah. There's a name for that in psychology where, like, the thing where you show somebody a face and it means different things depending on context. Okay, I've got it. So if you can't watch the whole season, watch it straight through in order just because it's good. But if you only have time for two, you and the listeners, this is on Netflix. I think you should leave with Tim Robinson. Watch episode two. I love the titles of these episodes. Episode two. They have a cake shop there, Susan, where the cakes just look stunning is the name of the episode.

AlexThat's the name of the episode.

MerlinYeah. And you got to watch episode six. I need a wet paper towel.

Alexbut they're all

Merlinthey've all got great stuff in them

Alexoh god I'm excited is that okay? yes absolutely

MerlinI think you should leave S-D-A-T-E and today is the 23rd which makes that plus 7 the 30th nope it doesn't have 30 so that's going to make it the second 2-2 3-2

Alexas you do 2022-03-03 Oh, sorry. 03.

MerlinAll right, I'm going to eat.

AlexI'm going to go look at pictures of your late great mother-in-law because she's very hot.

MerlinYeah, she's super fuckable.

AlexYeah. There we go. Thank you.

MerlinSorry, Stephen. Didn't mean to make you jealous.

AlexNo, no, no.

Thank you.

Bonus: 🔓 More of Yourself Every Day 0:00 / 00:48:34