Do By Friday
Episode 6 artwork
Episode 6 · December 9, 2016 · 01:12:00

6. GorillaPod Fetish

This week's challengeMake a vlog.
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Tap a timestamp or any sentence to play from there · machine transcribed (mlx:mlx-community/whisper-large-v3-turbo), expect mistakes

AlexThis is Do By Friday, the weekly challenge podcast from Merlin Mann, Alex Cox and Max Temkin.

This week's challenge, make a vlog.

MaxWhat a good season of Top Chef. I know we're getting we've gotten many comments on Twitter. People are mad that we're not doing top scallops, and sorry to lose them as a customer. You know, always hard to turn away a paying customer, but that's life. But just to briefly touch on it, it's a great fucking season. Did you guys watch the pilot?

AlexNo, not yet.

MaxI don't feel like I'm spoiling anything, but so basically they bring on eight shafts, and they introduce them all, and you're going in your head, you're like, wait a minute, that's only eight people, that's not enough. and they have them do like a challenge where one of them, you know, like a quick fire where like chef test where one of them's on the bottom and then they bring out the other eight chefs and it's eight returning people and they picked eight awesome people to come back. It's like eight people. They're not eight crazy ding-a-lings. They're like eight solid people from other seasons who I genuinely am excited to see more of.

AlexIs Richard there?

MaxNo, there's no, so far there has not been a sighting of Richard Blaze, but I feel that he has a semi-permanent spot as a guest judge. So hopefully he'll be back judging.

MerlinThey had that one guy that I like, the Jim Halpern-looking guy from the Marcel season. I like him. What's his name? Tom Dudah? What's his name? I forget his name.

MaxIf there's one thing we learned from doing a whole Top Chef podcast, it's that we shouldn't try to remember the contestants' names.

MerlinWell, I have a very bold, very brave statement, which is that we're very excited because, hey, new season of Top Chef. And this is amazing. We get Top Chef and Top Dress at the same time. Very exciting. and uh i uh i didn't finish watching it because the shamans died copy that i had died 39 minutes in so and my daughter was so upset that the uh that the african-american guy was in trouble she

Speaker Adidn't she made us turn it off anyway but i the it was so contrived the whole like hey the eight

Merlinuh previous contestants are backstage i i hate the watching somebody else on the tv screen on tv thing. And then there's all the, all the shade throwing and the trash talk and all that kind of stuff. But what is it? You're excited. Do you like the gimmick? Oh, I love the gimmick. Yeah.

MaxI mean, so I, I like top. I mean, really, I mean, I think top chef is the, we've, we've talked about

Merlinthis ad nauseum, but like, I think a good season of top chef is one of the great things in reality TV. There are, there are probably more, I'm just pulling this out of my ass. There are more above average seasons of Top Chef than there are of Project Runway. Even a bad season,

Maxlike last season that we did the podcast about was a notably bad season of Top Chef. And even a bad season of Top Chef, I was watching this one and I was just like, Veronica and I were just so fucking happy. I was so happy watching this show. I was like, why is all television not Top Chef? There's no excuse for everything to not be this good. It's so good. I'm just so happy that it's back. So I love, I think the game design on Top Chef is just like brilliant. I love how they structure this. I love – I think meeting the new people, that's kind of part of the thrill of the season.

You're trying to pick out the ding-a-lings of which they're really – I did not find a ding-a-ling this season. Do you think there's one? I need to go back and watch it again. The southern guy who smiles all the time?

MerlinI'm going to reveal something about my family and don't put this in the show unless you put it in the show. But I am genuinely excited when certain episodes of certain TV shows come on. and there are certain programs that we save to watch as a family because it's a tradition. And two of those are Top Dress and Top Chef. And here's a sad thing about me is I sit there and I like pay attention to the show. It's really weird and I don't really need to. They'll explain everything to me. But my daughter starts running around. She's playing on the yoga ball.

She wants to cut something out with paper. And I'm like, can we please focus on the Top Chef? So I'm frequently very distracted when I'm watching it. but uh yeah i'll i'll i'll go with it again i agree with you though that the would you say gameplay yeah the way they structure stuff is really good the game design so i'm trying to make three things stop trying to make three things don't do that oh well they set them up to that was

Maxpart of the thing was like how you know it's like our how aware of your limitations are you as a chef but should one of them be pasta from scratch but she won yeah she had the best dish so yeah i need to watch it again yeah anyway but i think she won anyway but uh but anyway i just i love i I just love it. I love that you get the nervousness and the excitement of the new people, plus familiar faces that you care about. And you're rooting for them. And it's fun to hear them comment on the new people, like they're trying to pick out the ding-lings just like you are as the viewer.

I just love the whole thing. Between I've got the top dress, the top chef, plus Robot Ladies.

MerlinRobot Ladies is outstanding. We talked about that. We just recorded Reconcilable Differences last night. is three hours long and an hour and a half

Maxis talking about what's going on. Was John complaining about the command line interface that they have for the robots? Yes.

Speaker AI don't know if I'm in a code like that.

MerlinCapital letters.

AlexI still haven't seen the season finale And it's driving me a little bit crazy And I've had no food this morning Just on my second energy drink I just want to know who the man in black is

MaxWait, why don't we I want to watch it again Let's watch it together

AlexWe should, we should

MaxWait, do we have to work today?

AlexWe do. You have meetings today. You have got this company.

MaxYou should watch it during meetings. Can I ask you a question? If I get the little Siri balls that go in your ear, and I have a Siri ball in, could I be watching a Westworld and no one would know?

AlexWait, what?

MaxDo you know what I mean? The little apple. I think Hillary Clinton would wear in the debates. Oh, that's pervin.

MerlinI mean, that's rock solid. She had a transceiver. Well, she's getting live faxes from the pizza sex dungeon the whole time. Right, right.

MaxBecause, yeah, they're like, listen, I'm working really hard in this debate, and I'm going to need six fresh pizzas afterwards, if you catch my meaning.

Speaker AHot, fresh pizzas.

MaxAnd a little bit of childhood strange.

MerlinYeah. And then that's where she gets a lot. You know, a lot of her money comes from corporate speeches, Goldman Sachs,

Speaker Aand sex trafficking in a tunnel under a pizza restaurant.

MerlinThe evidence is there. You just got to go in and prove it. This is Alex. Well, who's the other Alex? Alex Jones, he says, hey, they got to get in there.

Speaker AYou just got to get in there and go investigate this for yourself.

MaxIf there's one thing that this election exposed and that I think we can say with confidence, it's that whatever the DNC puts its mind to, they execute it with the utmost competence and secrecy and no one would ever find out about it. It's the perfect criminal empire. I mean, they're masterminds.

MerlinI heard this is in John Podesta's emails. I heard there are numerous exchanges about Sexy Kid Pizza. I heard there's all kinds of evidence that's just right there. It's in plain sight.

MaxRight. Well, yeah, because you got the tunnels. You go into the tunnels.

MerlinWe don't want to let John Podesta know about that. You just, heads up, John, just a quick update on the child trafficking ring underneath the pizza restaurant. Just want to let you know, everything is five by five. We're doing great with that. We're moving a lot of product. And we made a tunnel. That's the kind of thing you put in an email to the head of your Democratic National Committee.

MaxI learned a great Pizzagate fact. I've just been reading about it this week. and uh here's here so this is like one of the like instigating factors of pizzagate was like so this guy there's like one of these like right-wing like nut jobs goes in there with his camera and he starts doing like a periscope from this is weeks ago right from the the the pizza place and he's like looking around on his periscope being incredibly creepy and conspicuous everyone in there knows what he's doing and he apparently there's like a back room with ping pong with the titular ping pong and he takes not to be ping pong but he takes his camera into the

back room where there's like a child's birthday party going on and you can imagine a creepy man um from the internet uh periscoping from his phone just walking right into a kid's birthday party the logical thing would be that you would politely ask him to leave and not film it live on the

Merlininternet could you please not not live broadcast my child's birthday also sir why are you dressed

Maxas a clown you understand everyone on all of these people online they were like oh my god it's like it's we've proven it like why else would they have asked us to leave are they saying it's like a

Merlingingerbread house like you're the witch and you have the kids come into the oven is that the idea

Maxyeah why lure them in with parties yeah but if you have nothing to hide why wouldn't you want your daughter's birthday party at the ping pong pizza place being live streamed on periscope by a bunch of gentlemen, anime enthusiasts from 4chan.

MerlinDo they have something to hide, Max? Why wouldn't they want that to be transparent? No, I mean, listen.

MaxThey must have something to hide. It's not even a special birthday party for your young daughter if 4chan is not watching it live. Right, right, right.

MerlinIf a child ages in a pizza parlor, does anybody hear it? Yeah, I hadn't thought of it from that. It's my understanding from all my numerous listenings to Alex Jones that I feel like this started with satanic symbols. As so many things in the last 30 years, didn't it start with what appeared to be satanic symbols?

MaxYes. So my understanding there is, this is kind of what blew the whole case open, is the Ping Pong Pizza Place, part of their nefarious plan is that they give a lot of money to St. Jude's Research Hospital for which they received some sort of plaque or banner with a heart symbol on it. And that's obviously, as everyone knows, international symbol of child sex trafficking. And the heart is just a classic case of an occult symbol that means that you're selling children into sex slavery. Oh.

MerlinI mean, the kids at St. Jude's, they don't pay for anything. Not travel. Not anything. That doesn't add up. Plus, they get to make a wish. Yeah. I want to meet Michael Jordan.

Speaker AYou know?

MerlinIt's a sad state of affairs. It's just like Westworld, Max. It's all just hiding in plain sight. There's nothing hidden. You just walk in there with a camera and you can uncover a tunnel.

MaxAlex, what do you think on the outside of our building we have kind of like an awning, like a movie awning with like a sign that we can change to say whatever? And I'm just thinking that maybe – I don't want anyone to think that anything sort of untoward is going on here. Do you think we should change it to say not a child sex ring?

MerlinJust to be – because I think that would –

MaxYou don't have anything to hide. I think that would clear it up for people.

MerlinWell, you know, I think it makes a lot of sense. As you know, it is very difficult to start a small business. And the most difficult small business is a restaurant. Most, they say, turns out, most fail in under six months. So I think if you want the extra edge, you're going to do two things. Number one, you're going to have to have just very lightly disguised satanic symbols. As a small business owner, I think they're going to tell you day one, you need to get some symbology on the walls. And then second, you need to dip your toe into a little bit of child trafficking.

AlexYou know, I just wanted to come here and talk about Lin-Manuel Miranda. And now I'm taking notes on the time code like, all right, what can I keep in?

Speaker ANow, who's that?

MerlinIs this the show? Is this the show right now that we're doing?

AlexI don't know. Merlin, this week, you gave us an interesting challenge.

MerlinOh, okay.

AlexI thought it was pretty clear.

MerlinIt's baseball class today. They got a lot of funny names.

MaxSet that up one more time, Alex. You're going to be happy I made you do it again in editing.

AlexMerlin, what was the challenge for this week?

MerlinThanks, Alex. That's super that you're asking me. This week, it was my challenge. And my challenge was that the short challenge is make a vlog. and with some specificity. And I think we've all realized at this point, the point of the show is not to do the challenge or do it well. It's just to have a chance to be here. See also Groucho Marx. The full challenge is you've got to make a vlog with a name. You have to shoot and post three episodes. And then, if possible, your last episode should be about why you're retiring from vlogging. But that was the basic challenge. And we all did the most important part,

which is we made a vlog. And I didn't get to watch yours, you peoples, until this morning. and I loved it. I loved it. So should I start, lead the discussion here?

MaxWell, I think at the end of last week's episode, I was very surprised to learn that you had a vlog, although like a lot of things you've done, you were doing this before there was like professional teens who were like professional vloggers. You were pretty, as I understand it, you were pretty early into the vlogging trend. But what appeals to you about the format? Like what made you want to do it back then? It felt to me like you sort of slipped back into it the easiest of the three of us. Oh, well, I was going to interview you guys, but okay. Here's the thing. It's your challenge.

MerlinIt's your show. I was going to try and be a gracious host. Now I'm feeling all Slytherin. So I have done two main video things, both of which felt ambitious in my head at the time. The first one was the thing I did called The Merlin Show with my friend Ben Durbin.

And we're now parents at the same school. It's really cool. Our kids go to school together. But Ben, who lives near me, don't be creepy, he was the producer for this show that I did called The Merlin Show that was shot mostly – he was working with Alex at – the other Alex, the third Alex at – what's it called? Piscicor? Yeah. He was like the guy at Piscicor.

AlexHe did the whole – sorry. Alex Lindsay.

MerlinAlex Lindsay. Yeah, right. And so I had a little space there. We worked together. And so I'm getting somewhere with this because this is the big story of this is what's easy and what's hard to me. And I'm always surprised by what's easy, what's difficult, what's easy and what's difficult about doing this. So back then, I mean, I bought a camera. I bought lav mics. This is 2006 or 2007. I think maybe 2007. And we bought all this equipment. And then he was editing it. And we put out two versions. I bought two Libsyn accounts.

I had one for 720 and one for, I don't think we did 1080. We might have done 720 as our high one. But you would not believe what was involved with this. Shooting onto little video cassettes, having to capture that into, I'm pretty sure he was using Final Cut. Editing that, it was so much work to do that. And we eventually just had to kind of abandon it because, but I mean, I like what we did. Like I interviewed some really cool people for it. My interview with John Roderick on that show, three-part I think, or four-part interview, was basically essentially the pilot for what became Roderick on the line years later, four

or five years later. I got to meet Jonathan Colton through doing that. There's all this great stuff that happened. But I was like, Ben and I were just like, this is just too much work. Even setting aside that it was a cost center rather than a profit center. But then at one point I thought, you know, I need a little project. And so I thought I would do this daily thing called, and I call it most days. And basically I would just talk to the camera and it had a certain kind of format to it. but it was really, it ended up being really fun to do. And the parts that I expected to be difficult were often very easy. And the parts that I thought would be easy were often very

difficult. And that still continues to this day. So that's, that ran for, I don't know, probably fewer than 20 episodes. And like most of the stuff I do, it had a, the audience that it had was modest, but the people seem to enjoy it a lot. And so that's what I chose to do was resuscitate

Alexthat for four episodes for this. I was a huge fan of the Merlin show and it was fantastic. I'm wondering though, with most days, that was kind of pre Twitter and you put it on, not pre Twitter, but like the beginnings of people actually being on Twitter. And you didn't, you, you put your stuff on Vimeo, which is the, you know, I don't know what uh it's the la croix of video services whereas youtube is your safe way sparkling water

um did did you and you say you had it had a you say it had a modest audience did you like interact with your fans at all or what what did you like about that not too much i mean one way in which

Merlini suspect i think about these things a little bit like the way y'all think about it with your games is whether it's something like, and forgive me, I'm talking about myself, but whether it's something like You Look Nice Today or something like Roderick on the Line or something like these videos, I think it's very important to establish the rules for your world. And I don't always share my conception of what the rules for that world are with the other people involved, but I get to be the king of that world when I'm doing it on my own. So I think there should be a clear understanding

about how much, a mostly clear understanding about how much the outside world has an impact on what you do and how much you do choose to interact and then have that be in the actual product. I'm not saying this very well, but for example, with You Look Nice Today, which is a podcast I used to do with two of my friends, I always saw that in my head as looking like the animation style of Dr. Katz, Squiggle Vision, and it was three of us sitting around a table at a meeting where nobody else came to the meeting and we were the three least important people

who didn't really need to be at the meeting and we were killing time until the important people showed up. I always had this vision of us at a too small, awkwardly sized table, like talking about these business projects that made no sense. And so with the most days, no, I didn't want to, I'm not really into the whole like comments and talking and promotion part of that. I just wanted it to be a place where I could just spew out a bunch of stuff and hone this one little kind of personality that I ended up really enjoying. I like the little personality of most days a lot. And it's actually not that far from how I actually am. I'm not really going anywhere with this

but it was really fun to do and I actually enjoyed this a lot more than I expected

AlexDo you consider like your one off videos like the video about the butcher that everyone really loves just like a thing that doesn't exist in the universe and it's just you being you know when you used to be Merlin Mann?

MerlinKind of. I like the idea of that I think I get very how do I say this in a civil way. I'm pretty fatigued on here's, I want to do a podcast about a thing I wrote on my blog. And then my blog, we're going to talk about what we did on the podcast. And then we're going to like promote this other thing. I get why people do that. If you're doing that as a business, it's very important. But I find that I find that tiresome and it takes me out of the world. Like, you know, I, but like, so with this, like, I just, I like the idea of like, here's this little

diarrhea of personality that you can take however you want. You certainly aren't compelled. And, And the point about Vimeo was Vimeo has better taste than YouTube. It was always a joy to use that app. It was like the same way that I felt using Flickr, whatever, 10 years ago. It was so fun to use and beautiful to use and tasteful. And it didn't have a garish business model that got in the way. And the people who made video, people like Dallas and them, they're total hippies about storytelling. They didn't even want certain kinds of videos on there.

And so that made more sense to me. but did I answer your question? Not really.

AlexNo. Yeah, you did. I know there are some people from Columbia college who listened to this. I am the reason that you give your homework on Vimeo and not YouTube. You are welcome. All right. That's it. I just need, people need to know that.

MaxAll I'll say about the, the Vimeo YouTube thing is like, I ultimately opted to go with YouTube, but I left my videos private cause I didn't want anyone to find them. But like unfindable. Yeah. Like unlisted. and then I just linked on my Twitter and I'll probably delete those tweets shortly. Just because I don't – I don't know. I just don't need anyone to look at me.

MerlinIt's also like if I'm going to really try at something, I want to really try at it. And if I'm not going to really try at it, I don't want to half-ass it. I don't want to fill up my Twitter stream with a bunch of links to stuff that I expect 150 people to look at. You know what I mean? Like if I really like, you know, I think when you decide to promote something, you've got to really put some wood behind the arrow and decide this is a thing you think is worth doing and has longevity. And it's like, well, this is a fun project, but nothing like that.

MaxI mean, I think about this all the time of like there is an economy of like how many times can you ask people to look at something that you've done? Like you only get so many of those before it sort of loses all meaning, right? So the more times you link to things and ask people to look at them, the less each link is worth. So I do always think about there's sort of a conservation aspect of that. But the thing with the YouTube versus Vimeo for me, I struggle with this in almost every aspect of my life or my online life, I guess, which is there's always going to be a disparity between what the best service is and the highest quality community and the place that you fit in and you want to be, which is Vimeo, and the place where your work will get noticed and where the people are.

The people are never in the best place. And if they are, it doesn't last for long. There was like a very brief moment where the people were on Twitter and Twitter was the best place. But that did not last for long. And now Twitter is becoming the worst place. And I feel like I have to be there because that's like where the people are.

MerlinYeah.

MaxI left YouTube or Facebook a long time ago because Facebook was never a good place. You don't want to fuck you. I didn't want to get fucked. I don't want to get fucked.

MerlinI would love to. I really want to get off me and talk about you guys. but the only pin I want to put here is I would love to come back to the difficult and easy part because I think that has so much to do. The amount of effort you're willing to budget for a project like this, I think it's really important to know how much you want to put into this. And given the ambitions of what you want to do, this is not like just having a blog where you can just type something and put it up. I mean, there's a little bit of work involved and time involved with this. And I'd like to circle back to that because it's, I don't know, I just think it's an interesting topic.

What about you guys? What about, who should we start with? Should we start with Alex, who I think is the clear winner in this?

MaxI agree that Alex's videos came out the best.

AlexI just followed all the rules, which is why I put these on YouTube just because I'm curious. I had like 10 subscribers. I'm like, who are these humans? I've never used, I've never put anything on YouTube before. And I got like three comments in the middle of the night. They were nice, but I don't know how people find stuff. I haven't put it on Twitter yet.

MerlinWell, then I'm going to I'm going to voir dire you here, Alex, because you're not going to talk about yourself unless you're provoked, I think.

AlexYeah.

MerlinSo, Alex, you did a series. You did three videos. Your series is called Two Headed Girl. And how would you without if people haven't seen it, how would you describe the vlog that you made and kind of what you were going for and what you put out?

Alexuh i gave it a name because you told me to and that's what my tumblr has been called since i was like 16 uh and i wanted to get a video done quickly after work and that's what i did yet i don't know uh uh i i did not go into this with like a thesis or uh i i thought the fun part was and i and i kind of joke about this but um the fun part for me is like uh what are what are

the cool new toys that the kids are using for uh vlogging and stuff because we gotta talk about

Merlinequipment um but like i i have my budget so far unless i find a way to amortize this my budget so far is approximately 100 in equipment per episode

Alexyeah yeah um i better get a second gorilla pod

Maxwell here's the thing merlin it's an investment because you buy it for this project but then you have it for all the future video projects that you put on youtube unless it just becomes a thing

Merlinwhere i just buy a gorilla pod before i can do anything it becomes like a fetish

Alexcan use it with your douche um but but but seriously like i we we have all this like amazing uh video equipment that we use um when we when cards goes to events and stuff like that and i did think like what if i just shot something in 4k um but i i kind of forgot how fun small like a gorilla documentary making is which is like what i went to school for and it's like my my first love, I guess. And not that this is reflected in any of the videos I put up, but I've just been

having so much fun playing with my little gimbal that I got. And the apps that you can use to record videos are stunning. And you can tell again by-

MerlinAnd let's be clear here, on your phone, I spent a whole day, I blew most of the day sitting on Slack, I think mostly the relay Slack, just like, what should I do? Like, tell me, Mike, how should I shoot this? Because I'm used to doing it with my computer. And far and away, the best results I was going to get were going to come from doing something with my phone. And I had resistance to that.

Speaker AWhy?

MerlinI mean, I could have gotten my Canon out, but like, I don't really want to deal with that. It doesn't need to be that high resolution. Plus, how am I going to do a mic? And it was an all-in-one solution. You put this on the gimbal and you just roll. And it's like, that was very surprising to me.

AlexI want to thank the Studio Neat guys for sending me a Glyph prototype, which has saved my life. It's so good. But yeah, I mean, I don't want to be the best camera is the one you have with you guy. But God, the first iPhone, I remember jailbreaking it to make it have video. And I still have some of those. And they're, oh God, they're just very upsetting. And this, like, just playing with the 4K slow motion, and it's just so gorgeous.

And you can tell when we take out, you know, a $10,000 camera and shoot in 4K. But this is incredibly boring. But I just...

MerlinI don't think it is. But on the other hand, I also really enjoy the quality of Max's, which I'm sure we'll get to. But the quality in every way of Max's was, of course, outstanding. But I feel like this gets to this easy and difficult problem, which is like if you're – in my case, I was feeling like, ugh, like why did I do this challenge? I don't have anything to say. I don't think I'm as clever, funny, or useful as I was probably at one time. But like I don't really want to do this and I got to think about it and I got to be clever. And like that became resistance about gear.

That became resistance about the material. and honestly it wasn't until I finally, I mean I already had, I'd gotten the Osmo mobile, but I finally got the GorillaPod with the little grabby, I bought the one with the little grabby on it so you can put it on your phone and I just started testing, I just started saying, look, let go and let God, just start talking and see what happens. And like it took me so much, again it's like I'm trying to break down a door that's already unlocked and I was like, you know what, this is fun, I'm just going to sit down and do this and having a de minimis amount of setup required. So basically, and then eventually what I got to, we've got to talk about this Osmo.

I eventually got to where I stuck the Osmo into a roll of paper towels. I pointed it at myself. I would shoot until I fucked up, and then I'd shoot until I fucked up, and usually in the third or fourth try, I could do three to five minutes that I was okay with. And I said, stop there. Do not perfect this. Stop there. It's like Christina Aguilera and her vocals. I've got to stop with this take. I hit the dingus. I save it to the roll. I hit the other dingus I hand off to my Mac and that's it.

With, you know, this amazing 720p video, I'm using the selfie cam because I'm an animal. But like that was astonishing. It's like once I actually – it's such a classic story. Once I sat down and did it, it wasn't that difficult and it was fun. And if I'd let myself fret any more than I did about the equipment, I would not have anything to show you right now.

Alexmike hurley told me like in almost to the point of anger just use the front just just use the facetime camera just do it and it was kind of it was fine um i mean it's not you know it's not max's 50 millimeter nikon lens but but i was still like just pleasantly surprised because i've never recorded anything with that camera oh this is so boring but it fits but it fits no it fits the

Merlinmedium i mean if you want to buy if you if you like reading you know richie rich comic books you don't need it printed on Johnny Ive paper. Like that's that pulpy, that pulpiness like suits the medium in some ways. I mean, it's not gonna be a collector's item, but I think for these kinds of personal videos and these, these silly, like we're all obviously a little bit like self-effacing. We're like almost embarrassed to be doing this. And I think it suits the medium that we're not

Alextrying to like, you know, overshoot. I think talking about like the medium is really interesting because I haven't really watched YouTube in years. Um, and I know I bring up my childhood almost every single episode because this is just like my weekly therapy now and uh like like i i grew up watching the vlog brothers and just uh like i justine and people reviewing apple products and now like returning to that and watching uh um what is he gollum who's who solves his stuff don't get me in trouble don't get me in trouble i was like he's i literally had never heard of

this guy but it's uh i don't know the the way youtube he's so famous he is i like i know that

Maxwho the fuck are you talking about what i'm casey neistat oh yeah yeah okay i could talk about casey

Alexneistat yeah he he is super super interesting how did you find find out about this guy well i've

Maxknown casey i've known his work for a long time because he made these uh very viral popular kind of dumb videos over the years of the like chinese people waiting in line for an iphone in new york that was like a false conspiracy theory that uh like gruber and other people posted about um there was like him like skiing in on the streets of new york like behind a car uh he's done oh being in the bike lanes and like driving into the cop cars parked in the bike lanes after he got a ticket uh just a bunch of he he seems to really get the medium oh he so so i have i just have a

fascination with the guy. I mean, I, I, so I think he is actually one of the best like living filmmakers. Like I think he's invented this aesthetic that I just are very directly copied in doing my blog. And I, I mean, that was honestly like one of the main motivating factors of me even doing the blog was like, I just have watched a bunch of this guy's Casey United States videos. And I was like, I could probably do that. And it's, as I discovered, it's like, you know, like it would be the same as, as watching any filmmaker and being like, I could do that, which is, no, you can't.

But there were some good moments. I feel like I had some good, clever little moments. But, you know, what's interesting about Casey is he creates this effortless, you're just hanging out with this guy, and he's got the camera always on him. And it seems so easy, and there's a sloppiness and an earnestness to it. And it's so fucking deliberate. Like, go and look at those shots and think of how much work each one of those shots must be. He spends all day shooting himself like skateboarding to the store to get yogurt.

It's like, you know, it's like this incredible amount of work and precision goes into it, which is why which does bring me to, you know, probably the main complaint I have about Casey's videos. And, of course, about the things that I made, which is there's very little content because what could you possibly have to say every day in a video that's that well produced? You can't have ideas in your head to talk about and a take on society or a thing you need to tell people and make a five to ten minute short film with that level of polish.

It cannot be done. Maybe a team of people could do it, like The Daily Show or something like that, but not a YouTuber. And that was my main – that was sort of what I came away with. It was like I also – I mean, listen, this is like a nerd thing. And it's where we all went, which was like, I immediately started obsessing over the gear and I was ordering a microphone fuzz windscreen on Amazon and like blowing out the like dust on my lenses that I haven't used in over a year because I don't make anything anymore

as part of my job. But it was fun. Like I love, like I love, I here's, here's what I remembered is that I love the serendipity of having the camera on when an exciting thing happens. You know, in my, in my video number two, I was just like walking around and I saw Hickory and I pointed at the camera at him and he like barked at me. And that was just like, I was like, that's awesome. Like you can't plan that. It's just the serendipity of filming a documentary and someone says something interesting. And you just, for me as just spending so much of my life, like making little videos and stuff, like you just get a, a chill goes down your spine. You're

like, that was amazing. And the camera was on and that's, so that's number one. I forgot just that simple pleasure and number two i i love editing video oh my god i'm i i i really think that my i may never be happier than when i'm editing video and there's all this work you have to do you have to get your footage and log it and cut it up and think sit down quietly and think to yourself what story you want to tell you you have all this stuff that you need to do it's work work work work work and then for me i get to a point where i sort of know what i'm doing and i have all the clips in

the bin and now it's time to fucking build the lego spaceship you know just like just like brick brick that didn't work like new brick like go back flip the pages back but it's like oh my god like i i think that's the i think that's the most uh i think that's the most pleasure i felt in months i was i i just need i that's the thing like that was a very valuable takeaway for for me from this is like i need to get back in editing video holy shit i love editing video and it's amazing editing video now. Oh my God. It's so it's instant. You don't even have to wait for anything to happen.

AlexIt just goes. You get to look at it right away. I, I, uh, okay. So this new, all right, real, real quick. This new, my, my MacBook pro, I, I, the old one, it was about four years old and, uh, I, I'm, I'm like a relatively fast editor, but it was just lagging and, and, and killing me. But I, this was the first time I edited, uh, I edited a couple of projects on this new laptop and it's so fast and the rendering is so good and I just was like melting over how it felt like a toy again

Maxyou never have to wait there is no rendering it's instant you're just cut it's like I don't even it's like editing text it's just like pow pow pow like it's fast like I've always had this fantasy going back to when I was in editing in high school on the aqua mac you know the shittiest iMac and iMovie and painstakingly you'd paste a clip and you'd make a cut and you'd go get water and you'd come back and the cut had almost rendered your crossfade just like it would take days just to edit a little thing and it's just this is a fan it's a child it's a hoverboard it's a it's a laser sword it's

like it's it's crazy you're just so fast well we i think at some point we've got to talk about the

Merlincontent, but, uh, oh my goodness. But, um, yeah, I, I, I find these kinds of little projects. I mean, this is not something I would ordinarily talk about at length because who cares, but for the purposes of this show, I think it's, I ended up learning a little bit about myself and like where my head is because, um, I mean, I kept making that, I don't, I don't, I doubt you watched all of mine, but I think I kept bringing up, well, I think I kept bringing up, which is true is that I feel like this stuff has really changed.

You talked about, Max, how you think about, and again, my whole basic knowledge of this is probably way outdated, but I feel like because I've been watching more YouTube lately and seeing more things, but I don't watch things that are purely about somebody's personality. Unlike something like a podcast, where with most podcasts, I'm there for the personality. I'm there for Elliot, Kaelin. I'm there for Elliot, Stuart, and Dan. I'm there for their personalities. I could give a fig about the movie they're talking about.

But with these things, they are much more like I will watch a you know, like in every frame a painting or something like that. Something that's like about something. Or then there's all the kinds of things like, for example trying to learn this new dingus, which I guess we all bought, which is called the Osmo Mobile. I didn't want, the manual was very difficult to read and I have bad eyes. So I did something I don't normally do, which is I went to YouTube and looked at some videos and some reviews. And some of them were amazing. like they were really really well done well i mean there's that kind of video right there's the

unboxings there's the tutorials there's the reviews i feel like there's this whole constellation of things about like how to do cosplay how to do makeup i mean aren't there tons of like makeup tutorials isn't that a thing oh yeah i mean that's like isn't that like a pretty big thing but like there's not that much stuff where i would just go and like hey guys what i'm trying to say is that like it takes to make anything takes a fairly monumental amount of like dumb, like just jumping off a cliff. And I, while I don't consider myself to be like an improv person,

exactly, I do enjoy taking whatever just happened and going in a direction with it. And even when I'm doing that with by myself, like I find that really, really fun. And, but that doesn't feel like it's going to be fun. It feels like it's going to be scary. And so I feel like, what, should I write something out? What am I going to do, write a script? So I usually just have a few bullets and wing it. And again, I made myself stop doing multiple takes of this because I wanted it to be quick. But do you know what I'm saying? Like, were there things that you discovered about yourself when you were making this that were different than what you expected?

MaxYeah, I was watching. So I went, I, you know, I sort of edited the first one and I was thinking about what can I, you know, I struggled for days just thinking about like, what can I say in a vlog? What can I even say? Like I already feel like an asshole, like doing a podcast where I just, you know, where it's like Pat, right? Where we just like talk about what movies we watched or whatever bullshit is going on. You know, that's already so self-indulgent. So I was like, what more can I like say or do? And even in these three videos and I settled on like doing, showing how I do some work because that had the added advantage of actually the work got done, which is critical.

because, you know, we'll get into some time management questions that I have for you guys about the vlogging stuff. But, you know, so I did the first one, which was about me editing the zine, which I have not posted publicly yet, but it'll be in the show notes of this episode. And, you know, I edited it and I thought it came out pretty good and I finished it at, you know, one in the morning and then I went home and I watched it again like over the weekend because I was like, I wonder if this holds up if I watch it again. And I was so, I'm so miserable. Like, I'm so unhappy to be at work. I'm so visibly stressed out and unhappy and resentful of having

to, to be there and be working. And that's like, not, that wasn't a bad day. Like I was a fine day. Like I had high energy and I was like getting my shit, my work done. And I actually got a lot of work done on the zine and I shot and edited the video. So it was like a good, productive, high energy day. And like looking at it with a couple of days of distance and with the, the objectivity of seeing it on camera i was like i'm not happy like this is not a video of a happy person who's happy to be at work and i i really made an effort to like smile and have a little

more excitement in the second video and i think i i haven't re-watched it but i i think it came across i think it it was a little less like miss like like like i was just like visibly just extremely upset to be working to be making a ton of money to work on things that i love uh but uh it's the worst uh but what can i say it's like i mean uh i don't know it's like that was a weird uh that was a moment of reflection of i was like yeah wow this was a good day and i'm watching it on video and i look absolutely miserable i'm just so stressed out and feeling the weight of all this

and having to juggle all these things and i was not happy and that's uh that was a difficult thing

Alexto see i i don't i i haven't even re-watched mine they are very silly and dumb and here we go man you were so goddamn funny Alex I'm not funny I'm literally the least funny person at this

Merlincompany I laughed out loud anytime you eat something that's not food it is so funny to me I mean the fact that knowing knowing just a little bit I do about you I mean we haven't spent a ton of time together we've done this show but like like there must have been some part of your brain that goes like it would be kind of funny if I tried to eat an iPhone case and you go like no do not try to eat the iPhone case. And I was like, she did it. And the thing is, you were committed. You kept trying to eat the corn case and it was so goddamn funny. And then when you got to the stickers,

oh my God, and you kept eating them and it was so funny. You don't think that's funny?

AlexPeople are gonna think, I mean, there are many things wrong with me. Pica is not one of them.

MaxI don't know what sort of like your school experience was like when you think back to like basically to being in like middle school and high school. But for me, I can characterize almost my entire teenage years. So sixth grade through the end of high school, completely characterized by it being 1030 p.m. on Sunday night and me having known for nearly a week that there would be some huge amount of work due on Monday.

an essay for English class or a test coming up in math class. And having been extremely anxious the preceding week where I was nauseous and constantly worrying about it, but having done nothing about it. And now it's 1030 on Sunday. And I'm like, well, now I can't do anything about it. And so now I also on top of everything else can't sleep. So I was paralyzed by anxiety and not able to do the work or just not willing to do it.

MerlinAnd yet still not doing it.

MaxRight. And it wasn't like I wasn't doing the work and instead I was like racing go-karts around and smoking pot and having fun. I was miserable. I was miserable because I wasn't doing work the whole time. Right. So I was miserable that I wasn't doing the work, also not doing the work, and then miserable that I hadn't done it. And then, of course, there was like the moment of reckoning where I had to come in and explain to the teacher why it wasn't done. and they'd call my parents and my parents would yell at me and I'd be like, oh no, no, now I've really learned my lesson and this time I'll like become a good student and take it seriously and

then just rinse and repeat. That's my entire childhood. Boy, did this challenge really capture those emotions in a very acute way for me where I was lying in bed. You know, I was, it was like two in the morning and I was like lying in bed and I was like, I had nothing to vlog about today and I carried the camera with me all day and I didn't turn it on and I should have been working on it and I really want to get this done and it's so fucking hard and I don't know what to do and then I haven't done it so the anxiety compounds. And now I powered through and I did one bad episode and one okay episode.

But I'm curious how you guys, I don't know, if that, reactions, thoughts, go, begin. Conversation begin.

AlexAll right. So I was always the kid that needed to get it done, get like school assignments or chores or whatever done right away because of that anxiety. But I found that despite it being done and despite me like fiddling with it like the entire time rewriting stuff, like the whole time I would have, I'd still have that anxiety. So really, I wonder if I'd be happier if I was a procrastinator. Like I did this one talk and worked on it for like a month and then rewrote it the night

before. and it was probably much better than it would have been. So I'm wondering if I should fuel my anxiety in a more productive way and maybe I should sit around and smoke pot and play Pokemon and try to be less anxious instead of finishing the work and then just being terrorized by my own mind until the film needs to be shown or the live show is put on or whatever.

MerlinYeah, there's a certain amount to be gained from what? Like butterflies in your stomach. Like if you're about to go on stage to do a thing, once you do that a bunch of times or a few times even, you start to realize that's a normal part of it and that can be a really good thing and that can be really stimulating. The problem is when your anxiety takes over, which happens for me a lot. Like I am a very anxious person. But for me, I feel like there's also probably a chemical component to it. And I think one part of ADHD, and forgive me, because I'm just,

I don't know. But I think one thing that happens is it becomes, you lack executive function in a way that is very frustrating. It can make you angry at yourself. It can create a huge amount of anxiety. And it's something people who don't, let's just call it procrastinate. People who don't procrastinate don't understand this because it's just so weird. It's like you have this stinky bag of garbage in your house, like, why wouldn't you take it out? That's just an analogy. But like, if there's something that needs to be done, and you can do it, why don't you just do it? And you're like, yeah, I know, right? And so I think sometimes for people with AD, some, I don't distinguish

between ADD and ADHD. If you've got an attention problem that involves dopamine, I think there's a thing that happens, which is that you have to get up to a certain level of dopamine that can be a very, very tight window for any kind of efficacy. And you need to be in that window for something to happen. Do you know what I'm saying? It's like, if you can imagine it's got like a certain floor and a certain ceiling, nothing's going to happen until you get up to this one level. But if you get up to this level, Oh boy, now you're going to have problems. It's sort of like coffee in some ways. And so I think a thing happens sometimes with people and certainly with me, which is like,

I've, I realized in retrospect that I, I don't like that procrastinating. I don't like that putting off, but something has to get near panic before I do something sometimes. And I don't like it and I don't know exactly why it is, but I think it's a thing. I think for some people, and then, and then, so on top of that, now imagine like, like Max or me, presumably, if that's your MO for five, 10, 30 years, is it surprising that that's become like how you behave without having to think about it? And even though you don't like it, it's the devil,

you know, and you know that like once the panic really hits you, then you get something accomplished and suddenly you get three to five things done. Because I, my theory is you've hit this certain

Maxwindow of dopamine that came from that panic. Merlin, you have a blog post that I love that I try to remember to repost it almost every year around this time. So it's getting to be about time. But hopefully we can find it and put it in the show notes. But it's about why New Year's resolutions are bullshit. And the reason is, this is your reasoning, but you're like, you know, the calendar year changing in a sequential fashion is not actually like an inherently like great

reason or motivation to make a major life change sort of suddenly and arbitrarily and go from zero to a hundred. So actually by setting these huge grandiose new year's resolutions every year, and then trying really hard and hating yourself for not inevitably not accomplishing them, the muscle that you're exercising every year is just sucking harder and harder until you have I believe, as you put it, a big old scrotum of anger and shame. And, uh, that is, you know, I think about that all the time. It's a, you know, it's a reason I've gotten out of the habit of

setting new year's resolutions, uh, because I agree it's mostly just building a muscle for sucking in, in more and more intense ways. But you know, mine, I never learned how to manage my time. I never learned how to, maybe it's almost a Buddhist thing of to say, Oh, I am having anxiety right now, but I'm nonetheless, I'm going to sit down and refocus my mind and dedicate myself to the work at hand. I never learned that skill and I never sort of attempted to seek out any sort of

like a medicinal remedy or anything. So I just have this muscle I've built of waiting until a last minute panic and then either pulling the project out of the fire or not. And I guess, you know, to take this sort of like macro view of what you could call my career, I pulled it out of the fire in a last minute panic with enough quality enough that, well, here we are and there's a company that I've helped make, but also I have not pulled it out of the fire enough that I've, there's a long trail of disappointed people in my wake.

AlexI don't, I don't want to like romanticize mental illness. That's, that's one thing. And I try not to define myself by the whole bipolar thing, but like, I can't deny that a lot of my best work has been a result of, not mania, because that's no fun, but just hypomanic episodes where the focus, it's like, let's say I have tried Ritalin. It basically feels like that. And there's nothing in the world more important than the work, and everything is the work,

and you're just like, your mind is laser focused.

MerlinAnd you feel like you can't not do it.

AlexYeah, yeah. And there's like a and the thing is like there's this anxiety with it that is like the opposite of procrastination. Like you said, you have to do it, but then you just feel fucking great doing it. And I feel like the only time I procrastinate is when like that depression hits. And then that's that's when I'm pulling things out of the fire. Like that's when the pile of cat toys don't don't get put away.

MaxI'm familiar with that sort of manic feeling of just being consumed by this project in a in a euphoric Energy and then you finish it and you're sort of done and you don't and I always have this moment of like I don't know what to do with my life And then i'll just sort of stare into the distance and i'll be like I should start a newspaper

AlexYeah, and and if you don't do something right away you hate yourself. Why don't I live on a sailboat?

MaxI could totally do this

AlexYeah, I could start a vlog. Yeah, right

MaxRight. Yeah. Fucking Casey Neistat. Oh, what's that guy got to say? I could do that. Why don't I do that? Those should be my faves. He's got my faves.

MerlinYeah. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. It's it's you got to find a sweet spot sometimes for different sorts of things. I get what you're saying, Alex. It's it's I've always been. And, well, as I got older, I'll say, I became very put off by the romanticization, especially by proxy of different kinds of mental things. Like, you know, like when you're younger and you're into rock and roll and you go like, oh, man, those guys are the worst drunks. They're the coolest.

Or, man, Vincent Van Gogh, he blew his brains out. And it's like, whoa. That's not really something you want to like – I don't know. Did he have to have that particular condition in order to make what he made? Well, who knows? But like, I don't know. I always feel like that's a little bit – as I get older, I become a little more squicked out by that kind of stuff. But at the same time, I can't deny what you guys are talking about, which is like when you're in a flow state, that comes out of some kind of feeling of like the world melting away. Things that used to be sort of invasive thoughts are gone and you're just doing the thing.

You're not even thinking about doing the thing. and that's such an amazing feeling and I think that of all the sorts of highs where I end up chasing the dragon, that's a big one. It's like how do I get to do a thing where I disappear into what I'm doing and then the days that you have it, the mornings you have it, you feel invincible.

Pharmaceutically or otherwise. I mean just if you really, if you're like with Max in your video editing, there's nothing else I could be doing now that would make me happier than to sit here and just be completely disappearing into what I'm doing.

MaxWell, you see the matrix for that for an hour. And you're just like, and nothing can stop you. You can just, the problems arise and you just like go into the source code and all the bullets like come falling to the floor and you're just like, I'm unstoppable. Like I'm in a state of flow and I'm the master of this project. And then inevitably you crash and there's like two movies of watching Keanu's ass and a weird trippy robot battles.

AlexThe cartoon was good. I enjoyed that one.

MerlinOh my God, I'm so lost. What do you think about that Osmo Mobile though? Isn't that a piece of work?

AlexI'm wondering if this is just like an elitist thing, but as the internet is sort of shrinking, and I feel like the three of us sort of are fighting the whole just trying to keep podcasts as independent as possible, but it feels like there's really no place on the internet that feels like home anymore.

MerlinYeah, I've been thinking about that a lot, actually.

AlexYeah. And for a lot of people for a very long time and still like folks who've been on YouTube forever, like like that's their home and that's where their community is. And that's Reddit for some people. That's Tumblr for some people. But more and more, I don't know, like it was like Twitter was my home for for like almost a decade now. And I don't know. There's like no fun place on the Internet where I can hang out with my friends, it feels like.

MerlinYeah, I mean some slacks sometimes. Depends on who's there. Depends on who's posting a lot. I think a lot of times a slack is going to be governed by who the person is that always feels the need to leave the last comment all the time. But that can be great. I mean I think that medium is still really good. But I know I feel very much the same way. I have not – I'm a privileged person for many reasons. But one way is that like Twitter has not been the total dumpster fire for me that it is for a lot of people.

So I want to just bracket that. But with that said, I mean not to talk about the election. But like I was saying to my wife last night, I realized one reason I'm kind of a sad tomato sometimes these days is that like a lot of the stuff that used to make me happy either as a source of information or purely as a diversion. or as useful for what I do, like almost all of that, I feel like I've lost it. Like listening to NPR is not fun to me anymore. Looking at Google News makes me very, very sad right now. So you see where I'm going with this. Looking at Twitter is rough.

I mean, but then I tried to kind of trace that, where that was coming from. And first of all, it is like you're saying, Alex, I mean, we all change. These things need to make money. All of that changes. But I've also had this terrible feeling I've been fighting for some time now, which is that like I am so overwhelmed by and sick of people talking about Donald Trump. I'm just this is let me stipulate like I'm just really fucking tired of it. I'm tired of him being in my life. And yet he's more in my life every day. And I hate that.

Just as a person, I hate that. But looking at anything else feels frivolous. And it makes me sad. There's nothing. There's not that many things that I lose myself in where there isn't some kind of little fucking pumpkin whack-a-mole game where this guy's going to just fucking pop up somewhere in my world. And it's the new Godwin's Law. It's like once we start talking about this, nobody's happy anymore. But to not talk about it feels inconsequential.

MaxFirst of all, that hits the nail exactly on the head of how I'm feeling since the election. I think when I think a lot about the community of people that I really like on the internet, it's people who are independent, creative, people who make stuff. And when they do podcasts or when they're posting on Twitter, people are kind of thinking about this question of what's a good life? How do you balance using technology and the things you talk about, Merlin, like time and attention to have a good life for yourself?

And, you know, I think we were in the last couple decades, we've been living in this time where, you know, that seemed like an important question, like having a good, you know, figuring out how to lead a good life, how to have like in philosophy, you'd call that like having a good household, right? Like your household affairs or, you know, just like your personal sort of like, you know, like ethical and consumer choices and things like that. They seem really important. You know, like it's like what you and Gruber were talking about that episode of the talk show of like, you know, can you believe that just yesterday people were arguing about the travel distance of the keys on the new MacBook Pro?

Like that seemed to be a consuming, important topic in the discourse. And nobody asked for a democratic, like a constitutional crisis that's going to require actions of compromise and ethics and courage and possibly life or death decisions. Like nobody asked for that in society. No one asked for no one asked to be living in the 1930s where, you know, the government might come after your neighbors and you're going to have to make some tough ethical decisions of like, what do you and your family do about that? No one wants that. No one was like that. That's what I that's how I'll prepare to lead my life. It sounds it sounds crazy. But not even Trump thought he was going to win.

I mean honestly right because he's scrambling to he didn't hire anyone he's scrambling to fill his transition out but it's a grim time and it's a time of of darkness and dumbness in the culture and everyone's gonna have to recalibrate a little bit and some of the dumb frivolous things that we thought were important and we thought were going to be these big questions in our lifetime like what's the future of Apple's product line may be understood in a new context. And that's just,

that's just human, most of human existence on this planet to this date has followed this pattern. So in retrospect, you know, of like people get pretty comfortable and then things get shaken up and, you know, you start to prioritize in your life. That's sort of a pattern in human history. And, you know, especially in, in, you know, the Jewish history that I learned growing up, it's like oh my god like people are constantly telling you like hey don't get too comfortable because like you're you know someone's gonna come after you and you're gonna have to get pack up and move and you'd be like yeah okay grandpa but uh you know here we are and and i'm like and i'm like

oh i don't know i've heard like uh ecuador is a nice place to live

Alexireland's pretty great it's nice there's very few people there just new zealand's nice too maybe this is why i'm putting off uh watching the season finale of the westworld because i won't have anything to obsess over and distract myself with until like 2018.

MerlinWell, there's a pretty good chance that once you do watch it, your first impulse is going to be to start over again.

MaxYeah.

MerlinIn a way that is not annoying, but you're going to go, oh brother. So stop

Speaker Alistening to us and go watch the guy, get yourself a

MerlinComet Ping Pong Pizza and sit down and watch this program.

AlexI just want it to be like the end of the prestige God I love that movie so much

MerlinThat's a good movie

AlexMax made us all sad

MaxI'll tell you another frustrating thing I have a similar feeling of not having a home online There have been various communities where I even knew at the time Even when I was a kid and I found a little home for myself online A forum or somewhere where I really belonged and I knew what was what and who is who. I even knew at the time I would stop and think to myself, oh my God, this rules. This is so cool. Everyone's here talking and it's this amazing, like I can't believe I'm a part of this. And it's like, I'm right here in the town square

talking about the ideas of the day with the people, you know, the people I like, my people. And I felt that about Twitter three years ago, maybe four years ago. I thought to myself, oh my God, like this is, can you believe that I'm just on this website and I can just talk to all these people and it's like, it's all here. And I think one of the depressing things is like the, the way that the culture is tearing itself apart and the left is tearing itself apart right now. Like I truly feel that I don't have a home because I certainly, I don't fit in with the Trump people. I mean, I don't even, that's not even an option on the

table of like going to like, I don't know, 4chan or whatever, wherever the fucking anime Nazis hang out. I'm not going on their forums, but, uh, but you know, I don't even feel that I fit in on the places where my friends talk about politics. I'm repulsed by the way that they talk about politics and I, it scares me and I find it like I find the people that I respect. I think they're like, um, I just, I have such contempt for the dialogue that they have around politics. You know, I woke up this morning and I went on Twitter as you, as I do now just to find out what a horror show is

playing itself out in real time on my phone. Everyone was fucking furious, just shitting all over Time magazine for making Donald Trump a person of the year.

MerlinBut that's what the title means. It doesn't mean nice guy of the year. It means the person had the biggest impact on the news. So that's part of it

Maxis like half the people were like, how dare they? We should write a petition. And the other half were like, and the other half were like, actually, Hitler was the man of the year. So actually, you're wrong. yeah so it's like it's both sides but just to take a step back like what does it fucking matter like it's a symbolic like what do you hope to accomplish like he's the man of the year or he's not the man of the year take your pick you can have it however you want that's your battle like we're gonna die on this hill max don't normalize this but it's but you know what i'm saying it's

like are you normalizing this stop normalizing this uh like can't can can we not can it does every victory that we seek have to be symbolic?

MerlinAnd just, you know, cut all of this out. But like, what is the deal with taking everything that clearly did not win the election and doubling down on everything? It's like, why don't can we just take a minute to learn what didn't work, have a moment of self-examination about what we might have gotten wrong? What if we all just agree there's at least one thing we all got wrong? And why don't we try to figure that out before we go straight back to getting petitions out?

MaxIt's like I'll tell you what we what's the problem is Merlin is during the election. We did not make it clear enough to America that if you support Donald Trump, you are a racist, a sexist, a homophobe and a bad person. You think if they got that message more often, they would have voted different? I think that we were not. I don't think that aggressively that we told people what bad people they were for for thinking the things that they think of, believing the things they believe. And if we could just reach them and tell them and and just have a dialogue wherein we tell them that they are racist and they have so much to learn from us that I really think we could break through.

And I feel that we really need to rededicate ourself to this message because it's it's just wasn't enough.

MerlinI thought it's been very effective for me when when people when people tell me that I'm something that I think I'm not over and over again, usually from strangers. You better believe I'm going to change, buddy. I'm sorry. You know, I owe you an amends. I didn't realize that I was a bad person. I will change my opinion.

AlexThere was really no universal avatar filter for this election.

MaxOh, that's a really good point.

AlexYeah.

MaxI mean, the key thing is that also, if anyone is willing to compromise with us or come over to our side or meet us in the middle, we first, we have to excoriate them because I don't feel that they fully understand how bad they've been in the past.

MerlinOh, we sound like Popeye's father in the movie. You owe me an apology. you owe me an apology like that's that's me that is that's the entire fucking internet he's olive oil's dad with his pointy hair and his glasses going you owe me an apology

Maxi just i just have one statement more to make which is i've bought progressively more expensive osmos trying to get the right feature set and none of them are better than the entry level one that uses the iphone that's what i suggested this like why fuck like this one still doesn't do all the

Merlinshit that i want to what should buy the camera one the one that has the camera built in yes

Maxhe has purchased two of those i bought one that's like six hundred dollars i bought one okay but i bought one and it wasn't it didn't have all the features so then i realized i had to buy more expensive ones than how i have two but you gotta make a vlog you need the right equipment yeah yeah i mean i have still one more episode to make maybe i and and so i i actually ordered

Alexthe osmo plus for max and you can have it hand delivered for free uh but but they're like please

Maxeverything that's delivered hand delivered i mean you park on the driveway you drive on the Yeah. Airplanes are so small. Small seats, small food, small drinks. What's up with that? You ever notice how weird malls are?

Speaker AWhat's the deal with cars? Who's using these things?

AlexDid you know that men in uniform, oh, God, stolen Valor videos. Max, God.

MaxMax, did you find out if you're stealing Valor? I am. Well, so here's what I learned from Twitter, which is just putting my grandpa's patch on my jacket is not stealing valor. However, I do intend to use it to get free movie tickets, and that is stealing valor. So, but, you know, free movie tickets.

MerlinChallenge. This week, it's Alex. Alex, what are you going to bring us this week?

AlexYou need to train your cat to sit. oh my god merlin i'm not actually sure that your cat's alive i've been afraid to ask

Merlinshe's got a lot of problems we stopped shaving her and she is such a monstrosity now she's

Speaker Agotten very broad and and her whatever is wrong whatever is wrong with her like immune system sneezing has gotten a lot worse and also she's kind of filthy right now this is her this is her trying to clean herself she's got some bats but you know

Alexshe's she's a long-haired cat do you brush her yeah kind of we mostly shave her and then that

Merlincounts as brushing but she's yeah she's got knots like crazy we gotta have the crazy cat lady come and do her up again. Oh, boy, that lady's got opinions about what we do. She's got her in a van. She comes out in a van.

Speaker AShe's like, well, okay if I use your hose to refill the truck? Sure, fine. There's a couple things here. You're going to need this guy. I need a number seven brush, and you're going to – you really need to get in there.

AlexAll right, so let's make this a sort of dual challenge. Cut all that out. You need to keep your cat alive. She's fine.

Merlinshe's old she's like 10 years old she sleeps all day she's fine and then she comes and she for like two hours she's a very happy cat does she does she do play time like like monkey time

Alexwhere you shacks all crazy uh yeah yeah like monkey times monkey time is the time of day

Merlinwhen a child acts completely insane and you can't stop them um she has two monkey times there's a monkey time in the morning when she jumps up and gets scared by things that aren't there and goes down the hall for no reason and then goes she used to be four then it was six and now we're up to 12 sometimes that she does that and then uh and then sometimes uh then she

Maxsleeps all day can i make a suggestion alex did you see the kickstarter for the cap brush that attaches to your tongue yeah i almost can we get three of those in time for the challenge

AlexLet me see if the cat...

MaxBecause I feel that that would really help us all commune with our animals. Yeah.

AlexDid it fail? I don't... I don't... Order now. Oh, hell yeah. Wait, wait. Let's see. Oh, boy. Remember this must, Alex. You know, it's just...

MaxGoing in the mouth. How much does it going to be cost for all of us to lick our cats clean?

AlexI don't know if you can... Okay, order now. Let's see if this is actually...

MaxCall him. Get him up. Get him on the blower. Get him on the blower.

Speaker Ahello hello can I space with the cat licking people please

Merlinhello this is Max Devin calling you from Chicago I'm gonna need three of these

Alexstop quick buddy guys guys guys the licky brush if we order this by December 9th we are guaranteed oh it's guaranteed to ship by December 12th damn it get it anyway for $3 you can also get a lick your cat sticker.

Which...

MaxIs it animal?

AlexI can't... I... No.

MaxOkay. All right. What would happen if Mel... What would happen if Mel came home and you were licking the cat with that brush in your mouth? Meow, meow, meow.

Speaker AThe cat looking just a little bit tanning.

MerlinMeow, meow, meow.

Speaker AOh, God, she's taking it out of the cat. Meow, meow. I feel so close to you I feel like we're really bonding You can tell she really loves it

What have I done What have I done to bring you to this face you want me to put on some music

MerlinMusic?

Speaker A. . . .

6. GorillaPod Fetish 0:00 / 01:12:00