7. Splash Mountain
2016Show notes
Transcript
Tap a timestamp or any sentence to play from there · machine transcribed (mlx:mlx-community/whisper-large-v3-turbo), expect mistakesMaxThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox, and you next time to. This week's challenge, teach our cat how to sit, and with them, the wiki brush.
Wait, we're in rare form this week. Like, Alex is sick. Like, I'm thinking about Overwatch. Watch. I don't know what's going on with Merlin. What's going on with Merlin? Why are we recording on Friday? What's happening? Is everything okay? Is everything okay? Yeah.
MerlinNo, I'm fine. Gosh, I don't have my keys nearby. Do you want to play peek-a-boo a little bit? Yeah.
AlexIsn't that great?
MerlinThere she is.
AlexIt's so good.
MerlinWhere'd it go? Where'd it go? Yes, you do. Yes, you do. Who's a big girl?
AlexI'm on coding, so that way. Oh, this is fun.
MerlinHave you ever really looked at your hand?
Well, you guys seem a little bit low energy today.
AlexEh.
MerlinSad. Sad. Failing Vanity Fair had very nice things to say at a time.
MaxDid you read the review of the Trump Steakhouse is the worst restaurant in America?
MerlinI believe it's called Trump Grill or Trump Grilly, depending on the sign.
MaxThat's so funny.
MerlinOh, so funny. The vodka martini takes the cake. Yeah. The vodka martini is served in like a Chablis glass. With chipped ice cubes floating. it looks like somebody it's like somebody accidentally made part of a margarita and dropped an olive in and said put this in the wine glass well okay so i've been thinking about this a
Maxlot did you did either of you guys watch the oj documentaries yes uh or not that there was the tv
Alexshow uh and then the made in america documentary i so i did not watch the uh american crime story okay the fictional one but i watched the documentary series so so i saw i saw i watched
MerlinI watched and really enjoyed both.
MaxYeah, I did too. So I watched both of those. And the American Crime Story one was interesting because I actually didn't know a lot of the information about OJ. Like I was just slightly too young to have. I knew the broad strokes of the story, but like there's so many weird. I mean, just every detail about that. That story is weirder than the next. Like it's all that it was like the whole idea that the prosecutor changed her haircut and it was in the newspapers. I thought that I was watching that on TV and I was like, come on. I was like, that's not they invented that for the TV show for dramatic, you know, sort of character storytelling purposes.
And I went on Wikipedia and like, no, that really happened.
MerlinOh, I mean, and just the I guess this came through more in the documentary, but the documentary was so good at pulling up his. They both featured this, but the the weird his weird history with the police in general. Yes. Like how cozy that relationship was and how, I guess, the sort of breaks that he got. Yes. So that to me became one of the most interesting and thought-provoking parts. I mean, apart from –
MaxSo I loved the dramatized version because I just learned the facts of what happened, which I didn't know. I never knew any of that stuff. And then I watched the documentary after – second, because the TV show kind of got me fascinated. in OJ as just like almost like a lens of like looking at America at that time and like yeah holy shit the documentary it going into a couple of different things like the racial aspect which was very well analyzed and very interesting but also the angle of celebrity which was which is
I think the probably the more contemporary and sort of relevant like thing to take away from the OJ case which is America American like institutions and American society has like a hole in its brain where when it comes to celebrity where they like lose the capacity for critical and intelligent thought and the standards do not seem to apply to celebrities as they apply to anyone else and that's whether you like them or you hate them it's like people just can't think critically they can't think rationally and the oj trial the way that it the degree to which it became a sensation the fact that it was televised the performance of both sides of the prosecution
and the defense and the judge and the judge the every fucking twist and turn of that trial was warped and corrupted and made stupid and and engaging and grotesque and vulgar by the celebrity of oj simpson which you know obviously the documentary went to great lengths to sort of explain his level of celebrity which is a hard thing to explain how famous someone is but i truly did not understand how famous OJ was before the trial. I mean, he was a big fucking deal.
Really? I just didn't know. I mean, my only context of knowing OJ Simpson is that the trial. So I didn't know he was famous for doing TV commercials where he ran through the airport. I didn't know anything about his sports career. I didn't know what he meant to black people. I didn't know what he meant to sort of upper society white people. I didn't know any of this stuff. I didn't understand the sort of complicated emotional layers that he takes up in the American psyche prior to this trial. And then, you know, I watched that drama and I was like, how did this happen? Like, why was it
televised? Like, why did they put the glove on him? Like, why was everyone so dumb about like, what happened? Like, how and why? How did this become this like spectacle? And it's his celebrity. And I think to bring this back to the Trump thing that you're talking about three hours ago, I think that's at the core of the Trump phenomenon is that nobody could have gotten to where Trump is and done what he's done absent his weird celebrity. And it's not a celebrity like John Travolta or like a fucking Tom –
Tom Cruise or Kirstie Alley. Yeah, a beloved American film icon Tom Hanks, the most popular actor in America.
MerlinWell, yes, I just read something the other day that just yesterday or maybe this morning that was saying, you know, that's the thing about Trump is that he's such a I mean, he is a he's a very, very interesting character. It's just that he happens to be a very malignant and corrosive character that's going to probably bury the nation. But he's a very interesting character. And one of the things I'm just I'm just paraphrasing this article. I can't remember. But this is one of the most interesting things about Trump is he's a he's a character who like like seems to understand TV. In some ways, he's made by TV, whether it's the TV that he participates in or the TV that reports on him.
But his whole phenomenon in the last 30-some years, a lot of it has to do with first newspapers and then TV. But the crazy part is he's terrible on TV. Like he's not really empathetic. He's kind of transparently awful. And it isn't like somebody like what, like a Berlusconi or a Mussolini or a Tom Hanks, like who actually has a way to understand the impact of what they're doing. You know what I mean? That's what also makes it so strange. It's so weird to keep watching the coverage of this guy who's very compelling to watch.
MaxBut, yeah, if he was merely likable, he'd be like Tom Hanks and Tom Hanks could not become sort of a fascist dictator and seize a major political party with sort of like no ideology in common and lead them, you know, and like put himself in this position. Like only Trump could have done that. And it's only Trump's particular kind of grotesque celebrity. And so part of that is that Trump is this clown and he doesn't mind being seen as this clown. That's part of he's sort of in on the joke. And there's that whole thing in the Vanity Fair restaurant review of like, well, he's a rich guy, but he's like how poor people imagine themselves to be if they were rich.
where like yes they too would like a steak so overcooked that it rocks on the plate and they too would like you know basically like like ruby tuesdays like fast food but with like an expensive ingredient sprinkled on top of it you know like this is how yeah it's like a gold-plated uh cheesecake factory yeah i mean that's that's a that's a that's the level of quality of this restaurant and it's like it's such a tacky like bourgeois like notion of of what a fancy restaurant is, but he's like selling that idea. And I, you know, from the description of this Vanity Fair piece, like the restaurant is
bustling, like they're doing really well and they're selling all this stuff and it's way overpriced and they're probably making money on it.
MerlinThis falls into this same trap that we've been falling into since at least George W. Bush. And I'm not going to beat the don't think of an elephant thing to death here. But OK, like, for example, last night I had a couple of drinks and decided that I was going to finally write up this little quick thing that I've been thinking about for a while. And this is only tangentially about Hamilton, so relax. But I had this way that I had started listening to Hamilton that felt like kind of an organic way to get through this very dense thing. And so I wrote this little thing up that says, hey, start slow, listen to these few songs, then listen to a few more songs, et cetera, et cetera.
And so I put this up, and a lot of people just liked it because it was about Hamilton. And some people encouraged some people to want to listen to it. But then a funny thing happened, which is you get the well actuallys. Understandable. You get the well actuallys from people who say, well, no, I think what you should do is go in and listen to one more time, five times in a row. Or I think you should go do this or you should listen to it in, you know, backwards or something. However, the thing is, though, I wasn't trying to write something that would impress people who already like Hamilton.
I was very pointedly trying to write something that would have an easy ramp in for somebody who is potentially interested in Hamilton but doesn't already like it, which takes a different frame of mind. Why am I saying this here? That review is funny, but it's more of the kind of like ha-ha Donald Trump liberal porn that got us where we are now. I'm not against it. It's fun. It's amusing. But nobody who likes Donald Trump is going to read that and feel any worse about Donald Trump. It's just going to feel like another instance of beating up on the president-elect, the rightfully elected president-elect.
So, I mean, that's the thread that keeps getting lost is if people want to tell stories about what's problematic about Donald Trump, they can't beat up on the part of him that people actually like. People go to Indian casinos and eat $4 prime rib and think it's great, and we can beat up on that. But that just makes them feel defensive about what they like. And we're not you're not getting to the core of what's fucked up about that guy when you when you take those easy targets. So as a piece of like persuasive political haha, I just didn't think it you know, it's amusing, but I don't think that's effective at getting at what actually needs to be said.
MaxWell, so I – okay, so I very much agree with this, with the idea of like the – Trump's buffoonery, the grotesquerie, the celebrity, his falseness. That is his appeal, and it's an easy thing to make fun of and say, oh, like what a piece of shit. He's like this like lazy idiot with like bad taste who like inherited all this money and like sort of like stumbled – like made a bunch of horrible business decisions. But because when you're rich, you like make more money and that's just what happens by like a law of nature. Like now he lives in like a like a golden golf course.
Like that stuff is all easy to make fun of. But and it's also his appeal, because when people feel that the system itself is false and corrupt, Trump comes in with it as the clown that's on your side. And he's this like wrecking ball. And he's like, well, nothing's faker than me. Like I'll expose the falseness of this system.
MerlinRight. Believe me. Believe me. I know fake. Nobody knows fake better than me. follow up oh i put follow up in alex we have we have some uh we have some follow up this week
Maxbefore we get started with our uh with our main course has someone tried uh unplugging 2016 and
Speaker Aplugging it back in again come on 2016 stop being a series of events that happened over an arbitrary
Merlinperiod of time jeez 2016 fuck cancer okay will do don't normalize this don't normalize it Alex are you normalizing it
AlexI wasn't on Twitter for like 48 hours and it was so great and I came back and I'm like alright sure is a thing
Maxguys it's time for some game theory
Speaker Ahere's me at the beginning of 2016 and me at the end of 2016 I'm so sad I took two images and put them next to each other come on 2016 when are you going to stop putting cancer on my images oh prince oh christ
Merlinfollow up we got some I feel like we got some really nice feedback a lot of it I was getting kind of offline from fellow nerds but for our challenge where we had to vlog we got some I feel like we got some nice responses from people
Alexpeople a couple people offline and one person online are genuinely concerned I have pika I really don't
Merlinoh come on this is why you shouldn't put things on the internet
Alexyeah no
MerlinNo You like that You choose to do that
AlexMm-hmm
MerlinMm-hmm
AlexCorn is great How about you, Max?
MaxWhat about pica? I don't think I have it
MerlinDo you like to eat, Max? I do
MaxI love to eat I love to eat I would be in such good shape If I didn't like to eat as much And I loved exercise
Speaker ADo you ever think about that?
MaxYeah We did a company trip to Disney World this year, and I have not been to Disney World. I mean, I was very, very young when I went to Disney World, so I don't really have almost any memories of it. And let's see, what did I learn? I learned that I hate rides, but before I learned that, and I was still trying to go on a lot of rides, I went on the ride Splash Mountain.
Are you guys familiar with the ride Splash Mountain?
AlexOf course.
MaxYeah, big fan. Do you guys know what movie that ride is from? Yeah.
MerlinThe mystery of Splash Mountain.
MaxNo, wait, I do know. I do know. It's Song of the South. It is. And it's so weird. It's like when you come off the ride, they're selling all this apparel with the characters, but it just says Splash Mountain on it.
Right.
AlexI found a... Where's Uncle Remus?
MerlinI don't understand. It's like going to a ride about roots and getting a stuffed Kunta Kinte or something. yeah but but it's just like a log flume right right it's like they're like we need something
Maxanimatronic in this thing what are we what are we not using what what a weird fucking corporate like like like like maneuver that they've done that they have a song of the south ride
Merlinin the movie they have gone out of their way to do everything but expunge from the canon of disney i don't think you can get a copy they don't like to talk about you can't even find it on like
Maxyoutube like it's just but so much disney culture comes from song of the south because disney is so racist in its bones i mean that's american folklore in general is just is just sort of racist stories that justified slavery and and jim crow and that's all what disney is about and like you're going through this ride and there's these like caricatures of these like these like foxes like stealing a pie off a window and like wearing their like rags and singing zippity doodah but
you're like yeah it's just a story about a fox and a bear and their friends my oh my what a wonderful day it's so it's so surreal it's so weird the challenge is sweet okay we're not gonna talk
Alexabout the osmo mobile oh uh i like the osmo mobile you don't have to you know what let's let's let's
Maxskip it uh i think i need to keep buying more models of this i don't think i found the one to thrive for me.
AlexAll right, challenge.
MerlinDig it, dig it, dig it. I don't know. Is Max, I don't want Alex to hear this. Is she tripping balls right now? Oh, absolutely.
MaxAlex is, she's feeling the walls. Is she chasing the dragon? Pupils are all dilated. Alex, do you like a painkiller?
AlexNo, my palms are literally like sweating. And I mean, at peak painkiller, like, yes. Like after I've had.
MaxSo it's like, so maybe the problem is I haven't had enough.
AlexYeah.
MaxYou're saying maybe the issue is that I haven't sort of hit the right amount, which is a lot.
AlexYeah. They put a limit on the morphine drip. You just got to, there's a code you have to override. So just go to the top.
MerlinDo you have one of those IVs on wheels? No.
AlexI did have one at one point and didn't really understand the, I thought that you had. remember you're talking about clever and smart Merlin yeah which one are you here yeah and I just thought like oh to keep it going it was like an inflatable mattress to keep it going you had to just keep pushing up uh they should really explain those things better
Merlinokay you know let me ask you a question now now how what's the difference between like a painkiller? Some people, this is an honest question. You get the things like Vicodin and you get Vicodin or you get Tylenol-3. Now those are like opioids, right? Is that like an OxyCondone kind of thing?
AlexYeah, I don't know what Tylenol-3 is.
MerlinI think that's just Tylenol with codeine. But how is that different from a Klonopin or in the old days like a Valium? One is just a relaxer?
AlexYeah, so those are all benzodiazepines and they're used usually for more chronic stuff and they're also used to prevent seizures and stop your throat from closing up from anxiety.
MaxI feel like if I took one of those, I'd get like panicky.
AlexNo, that's...
MaxYou have no idea how the force of will that I have though. I could overcome one of those to feel bad while I'm on it.
AlexI think that would be a thing. We just have to keep on. You would need the IV drip. And I feel like it would be like weed for you. You would just get too panicky.
MaxHere's a story about how much I don't like taking drugs for things. So a couple of years ago, I had to get my wisdom teeth out. And they all had to go.
MerlinOh, is this back to the anesthesia kind of?
MaxYes, very much so.
MerlinNot to trigger you, but this is kind of, you have a general, like, John Roderick does not want to be buried alive.
Maxmax does not want to go under i do not i don't know and i i there's not any rational reason for the fear like i i don't it's not a rational fear it's a it's an irrational fear like i'm scared of it not really for any good reason i just can't find myself extremely scared of it i don't know why it's just it's just how it is and uh i wish it wasn't that way but uh so i had a couple years ago i did get my wisdom teeth out i had all four wisdom teeth were impacted it was bad situation and they all had to go. It was a fairly substantial procedure.
They get in there, and they cut you all up, and they pull these things out. So basically, I have the pre-consultation with the oral surgeon, and the guy says, well, he says you can do the laughing gas, which some people opt to do, and that will sort of sedate you while we're doing this procedure, or you can have the IV drip, and that will, the uh what twilight is what they call it and that will sort of put you out and this is what most people choose to do in this day and age and then you know you sort of come to in the room and it's
all done and you have no memory of it and i was like i will contemplate those options and in my head i was going not these neither of these are acceptable like i'm not that this is i'm not it's like would you rather cut off your left arm or your right arm it's like i this these are not two choices that are acceptable to me. So I go home and I start Googling all the ways you can die from both of these, both of these like anesthetics and, and, and people's, you know,
phobias and all the different things. And like, I convinced myself, I somehow like made it even worse by like acquiring too much information about it. And I couldn't decide I was paralyzed. And they, you know, I was supposed to pick basically before I got there so they could get it ready. And I couldn't pick, I couldn't pick, I couldn't pick. And so we're driving there. My dad drove me because you can't drive yourself when you're, when you're getting the thing. My dad's driving me there and he's like, well, which one are you going to do? And I'm like, I don't know. I'll decide when I'm there. And I get up to the front counter and I'm talking to the, the nurse or whatever. And she's like, well, you got to pick, we got to set one of them up.
And I was like, I cannot decide between the two of these. Neither of them are acceptable. And she goes, well, she goes, you could always have a nose sedative sort of laughing. And I was like, is that and i was like that that's a let's do that is that an option let's do that and she's like well it's an option she's like uh a few times like we have seen people do this but it's usually for like economic purposes because it's expensive to get the sedative and you know if you're not insured or whatever it's a way to save some money so i was like uh let's do it i'm doing it let's go and that was what i did so basically they gave me the shot of novocaine and the guy when he you know
the mouth went open with the with the all the hardware and he went in there and cut it up and And I was like, and he was like, I was like, explain what we're doing as we go. He's like, okay, now I'm going to grab the drill. And we're going to drill in here and cut this flap open and pull the stuff out. And I was perfectly lucid. I was there the whole time. I was like, it was great. Because if something went wrong, I would be like, all right, let's make a plan. Like, I would have jumped in. No, what would you have done? And then, so it was, I don't know. I would have fixed it.
I don't know. So I was perfectly there. I was like nodding my head. I was very interested in the procedure. And then when it was done, it was way preferable to the laughing gas or the twilight, in my opinion. And when I was done, I went right home. I didn't have any sedatives, so I was fine to go. And they gave me a prescription for painkillers, which I did not fill. I took like two ibuprofen and an ice pack, and I was back on my feet the next day. Wow.
AlexWhat's going to happen if you... I'm trying to think of like let's say you have like what's a gross surgery that you need to be definitely under four but minor
Merlinhernia or something. A hysterectomy. Did I say that right?
AlexLike are you just going to be like oh no I want to be awake just numb me and put me in a bath so that I can relax enough.
MaxDid you ever see the story about the surgeon in Antarctica who had to have his appendix removed so he operated on himself with a mirror isn't that a house episode and lost a lot of places did a martian yeah i'm just saying i like to uh you know i like to help out if something goes wrong i have a new
Alextheory that you're like the kind of masochist that like gets the endorph like you were having you had so many endorphins while this was happening that it just kind of like uh uh like you were sort of so blinded by pain that it was like oh cool or or adrenaline even because you were so ready to help out if something went wrong you know what it was like it was like
Maxi went on i went on cnn this year and it before i went i was like i was pretty nervous about that because like that's a big audience and like you know it's like you really don't want to fuck up on CNN like I don't know it's like it's a felt like I've done some media and stuff before but this it felt really different and and that's that's like two orders of magnitude I mean that's it really it feels different somehow it feels real and you know I went on CNN and I and I don't know I just pulled it together I was so nervous I was like you know my mouth was all dry like I was like
like fussing with my suit and like I just like and then you know what the camera turned on the The hosts came on the little earpiece and like I got it. I got my shit together and it was like two – I did like whatever it was, my 10-minute segment and like it felt like two seconds went by. It was like – it was like pow.
MerlinI totally believe this and this – just to kind of piggyback on what I was talking about. When we were talking about things like anxiety and dopamine and stuff like that, I mean this is a hallmark of anxiety-related things is that anxiety is this – unease. So you got anxiety, you got worry, you got fear. And, you know, anxiety could be this very physical thing about uncertainty. Worry becomes the ruminative thinking about it.
Fear, usually we think of as something that's a clear and present danger. But the truth is, in a lot of situations, you could have years of anxiety about something that's going to take one second to get done. And once it's time for that one second, you can feel like really oddly centered. It can be the kind of a relief go, hey, you know what, I'm awake for my hysterectomy. Let's do this thing. And like, I don't know if it's endorphins or what it is, but I think that's one of the weird afflictions of people with anxiety is that you do, you will eventually get a lot of focus because it's a break. The catastrophe happening is a break from the anxiety
that led up to it. Well, nothing could be worse than torturing yourself beforehand. I have another recommendation for you. Um, there's a, um, I haven't read the whole book. I read some of the book, but there's this book called, uh, my age of anxiety by this guy named scott stossel and um i would just say go listen i put it in the show notes if you listen to this episode of fresh air uh that he was on in 2014 can i tell you about this real quick yes
Maxhe oh is this the guy who won't throw up right oh i i don't tell me the whole story i don't know
Merlinthis so here's the thing this guy basically every waking minute of his life he's overrun He's wracked with 100% total constant anxiety about everything related to the fact that he might throw up. I think it's called a metophobia. He knows it's not rational, but he has an extreme, extreme fear of vomiting. And that's every waking minute of his life. He's tried all these different treatments. And the punchline, I think he hasn't thrown up since something like the early 80s.
Wow. And all that time, he's never thrown up. But that fear is with him every minute of the day. And he knows it's irrational, but it's like it's still there. And it's such a fascinating story. And to hear his journey with that.
MaxSpoiler alert, there's a scene in here that I don't remember this super well, but there's one scene that sticks in my memory where he is in therapy trying to get rid of this really crippling anxiety that affects every aspect of his life of he's scared of throwing up.
MerlinAnd they do like aversion therapy, right?
MaxExactly. And the therapist is like, you know, he makes all this progress over years of therapy. And the therapist is like, you know what? I think you're ready to try throwing up in a controlled environment and experience it. And thus sort of through like exposure therapy, decrease your anxiety. So he takes a like Ipecac, an Ipecac. Right. And they're in this bathroom of the I think of the psychiatrist's office or a doctor's office or something. Right. And he is Ipecac is this thing that you take. It's like if a kid eats like a like a like an inkwell, if they drink like a whole inkwell,
you can give them the Ipecac and they'll throw it up. and it basically forces you to throw up.
MerlinIt's not, it's not, it isn't, it doesn't, it isn't like a little bit of finger on your throat. This will, this will force your body to vomit. That's what Ipcac does. This equals, equals, this equals, equals throw up. If you take this, you will throw up. That is what this is for and it always works.
MaxSo he takes this drug and he's on his knees in front of the toilet and he won't throw up and he's, he's heaving and writhing and he will not let himself throw up. And so there, I think at one point, aren't they like, maybe you need to take some more and he takes some more and that's and this is like a medical professional is like i have literally never observed this in my medic it's like it would
Merlinbe like giving you a fistful of sleeping pills and like you refuse to fall asleep you'd be like that's impossible when you go i know but i'm not gonna fall asleep so i that is literally the scene
Maxthat was i was thinking about my head when alex was saying you take these uh enough uh clonopin or whatever and you like can't have an anxiety attack like oh i'll find a way like like i'll get it done i'll get in there
Alexso
Merlinwell uh so do you guys like the cats all right alex alex we're back and this week uh you were the who's going to bring us our challenge what was our challenge for this week well the challenge
Alexthis week was uh started twofold you initially i said that you had to teach your cat to sit and provide proof uh which no one did and also use the licky brush which the really nice people at Portland Pet Design sent us.
MerlinSo nice.
AlexAnd they were so, so nice. And without hesitation, we're like, oh, yeah, we'll send some over. So we got these brushes that look like cat tongues that you put in your mouth,
your human mouth, and then you brush your cat as if you were licking them.
MaxCan I read from the Licky Brush packaging The product description materials It says cats groom each other as a form of social bonding There's also evidence to suggest That cats think their human captors are Large cats yet as a human you're left Out of their intimate licking ritual At best you have a one sided licking Relationship with your cat With Licky Brush you don't have to be left out anymore By using Licky with your cat on a regular Basis you'll develop a more Intimate and bonded relationship much like A mama cat bonds with her young instructions for use gently grasp
lickies bite portion with your teeth slowly approach your cat when she is sleeping or in an otherwise pleasant mood and ease into the soothing and mutually beneficial licking behavior of cats don't be surprised if your cat licks you back
Speaker Adid you guys have a special
Merlinfor a week now I've been staring at this animated gif that you put in here Alex of this of this Malcolm war looking motherfucker licking the shit out of his cat with a licky brush and he's he doesn't look like this is not the first time that he has done this this this looks like i mean it's like watching two bears make out this guy is really into licking
Alexhis cat with the licky brush i'm gonna look at him go look at him oh i'm about to send the the both of you a gif which i guess i'm gonna put on the internet uh i i use the licky brush um
Maxand it's it sure is something it does say in the warnings here i'm just reading the fine print and it does say do not use licky brush on feral or undomesticated animals oh that's smart that's
Alexsmart it's good advice good to know oh oh there should i should i watch this video merlin no
Merlinyou want to know how it went oh alex oh look at you look at you looking at your cat oh god i'm so sorry oh my goodness this looks like like kind of a thing but you're also playing are we are we talking about the licky brush now are we gonna talk about the training what are we doing here we're talking about the licky brush let's just get
Alexthe licky brush went over with.
MerlinBut you're what you're so Alex has sent me an animated gif of her licking her cat with the licky brush. That's pretty funny. It's really upsetting. Yeah. One thing you got to point out is like in order to lick your cat with the licky brush you got to really move your whole head. So it isn't something where you can make kind of slight you have to make gross gestures with your entire head. like imagine me going like you got but it also points out i mean with all respect to the licky
brush family it's also that to use this thing you have to hold your cat in a weird way or you're
Alexbrushing against the grain yep yep i kept running into this i my my mel is sitting on the couch filming me with our trust with my trusty dj asmo and it's just like am i filming porn in all fairness uh once you take the brush out it's it's a very good brush uh my cat enjoyed that
that part uh he's just like but you know i mean it's kind of like but if if there was
Merlinif there was very specific porn somebody wanted of a young girl who has the composure of someone while they're taking the sat while acting like they're cleaning a violin with their mouth
Alexyou look really smart i i don't know it looks a little clever to have you listened to the new reconcilable differences, Max? No. Okay.
MerlinMax, it's only three hours.
MaxIs it about Robot Ladies? Is this the Robot Ladies episode? I'll listen to that one.
MerlinI don't want to reveal identity here. Which cat is this?
AlexThis is Francis.
MerlinFrancis. And the other one's named after
Alexa video game, right? Yes, she is named after the Nintendo Entertainment System. Hi. So So did you actually do it, Merlin? Did you use? Hell yeah.
How'd that go? Because your cat is a little, like both of my cats, one acts like a normal cat. The other acts like an idiot puppy, which is the one I subjected to the licky brush.
But your cat is very dainty. How would she like it?
MaxMerlin, your cat looks like a snack. Is she alive? She looks almost like a food product. She weighs six pounds soaking wet. It's a perfectly spherical sort of animal.
MerlinWell, right now she looks like maybe Appa from Avatar, The Last Airbender. She's very broad. On Sunday, the cat groomy lady is going to come out and shave the shit out of her. So I'll do a before and after for you.
I'll get into this a little bit more when we get to the primary challenge for this week. But my cat doesn't like things. she doesn't like us uh and and while she does enjoy being petted she's very cat-like in the sense that she really she's very vigilant like hyper vigilant she was bullied like that's why we got her is because she was basically traumatized by being bullied by other cats so she's very vigilant she's always going from room to room making sure everything's okay and she really wants any affection to be on her own terms and so sometimes she's really into it but she has to lead
it and uh but yeah sure i put this in my mouth and use it on my cat uh i found i mean again with all respect to the licky brush family i found it a little challenging to use because the cat wants to be petted in a certain way and it became a little bit acrobatic and i think she felt maybe a little bit like something weird was going on because the way she had to be placed held and manipulated in order for me to act like i was licking her and uh it was challenging for both of us and she was game for a little while but then like you i took it out and used like a regular
Alexbrush and she was a little more into it max did you did you even open yours i did i i uh i tried
Maxto lick my cat she ranged from being sort of scared of you know she my cat is not um novelty seeking like she's kind of a very uh she has a little bit of the vigilance thing which i think also comes from being uh uh bullied by the other uh cats at the at the rescue uh when i got her So I think that's part of it. But she's sort of like not a very curious animal. Like she's not – she does not like new things. She doesn't like change. She likes like routine. She likes being relaxed. So it was like she does not like a new toy. Like it took a while for me to just like acclimate her to this new toy.
And then the only time I could really get in there and do some licking was when she was like very sleepy and relaxed. And then she just sort of didn't care. She was just like, I guess this is a thing that's happening to me right now. Like I'm not going to move because I'm warm. But I, you know, in any other circumstance, like I'd be out of here.
MerlinWell, let me ask a general question because, you know, it seems like all cats are pretty weird and they're weird in their own ways. It's a lot like Anna Karenina. But like what delights, does your cat like, for example, like treats? Like is there like a special thing for your cat? Like if your cat was in the house and you wanted to find it or if you had to go outside, can you like make a can opener sound and it runs? Are there things you can offer your cat that will attract it?
AlexOh, yeah. My one cat, Ness, really enjoys carbs. So she can sense when french fries are in the house. And it'll come very quickly if we call her then. um my other cat who is basically still kitten um whenever we say his name and say come he just runs over and assumes that something good is going to happen uh because he's an idiot but wow yeah
um but but also she she knows when something bad is going to happen like we've we've done um all this stuff like uh we've left the carrier out for a week before she has to go to the vet so she doesn't freak out before then um and also they also both have uh separation anxiety from me uh so i'll leave my suitcase out before i'm going on a trip so they can sleep in it and be like okay maybe we get to go this time um so yeah they're very smart in this weird like i don't know primal
Merlinway but they can but there's like they understand and respond to cues yeah yeah i don't know what
Alexwhere the whole like uh you can't train your cat thing came from i mean it's it's like well if they don't shit if they shit in an appropriate in if they shit in an appropriate area why do we need to train them uh i think that's kind of and how it happened.
MerlinWhat about you, Max? Does your cat have joy in life?
MaxMy cat is, she will follow me from room to room. So she's very sort of clingy when I'm home and she likes to sit on my lap when I'm playing Overwatch. So that's probably the main thing that motivates her is just sort of like getting attention, getting to be with me. She is thoroughly unmotivated by food. We have found, I found after many sort of frantic months of research where she was like losing weight and not eating i found one kind of food that she will eat which is the wellness brand chicken mush that comes in a can and um she will not eat and she i
have never seen her eat or enjoy another food she won't eat a dry food she won't eat a treat uh i can't hand feed her a treat i can't get her to eat a treat from her food dish i there's i've tried all manner of different treats and foods and she is just very very completely unmotivated by food and that makes it very difficult for me to like train her or get her to do anything other than she just generally wants me to be happy with her so like if she goes on a piece of furniture
that she's not supposed to be on I'll just sort of swat her off and say no and then that is sometimes the last time she'll ever go on that piece of furniture and you know if there's a place I do want her to hang out and I'm just willing to spend some time there and like pet her a lot, she'll learn that that's a good place to go. So that's how I've sort of accomplished any sort of like training with her. But she's a weirdo. I mean, she, she's, she like, she also, I learned like, um, fairly recently this year that like she had like, you know, she came, she was like a rescue. She was like living on the streets and stuff. And she had very bad teeth. And
I took her in, you know, I went, I brought her into her, the vet for something else like a year ago. And the vet said to me, uh, you got to get her teeth cleaned. And I was like thinking to myself, I was like, when I asked the vet, I was like, oh, how do you do that? And they're like, oh, it's a whole procedure. You have to book it. And they put the cat under and they get in there and they clean the teeth. And I was like, oh, I was like, I'll get back to you on that. And I was thinking to myself, that's a scam. Like nobody cleans their cat's teeth. I thought, I thought,
Merlinyeah, I think you might have been the one that told me, but when I first heard what it costs to
Maxget a cat's teeth cleaned, I was a god. Yeah. I was like, this can't, I was like, I'm going to go online and do some research. Cause this seems, this doesn't seem, it seems like I'm getting, you know i don't want to get bernie made off to my cat you know i'm not i don't want to get fucked so i i'm not gonna get fucked so i took the uh i i looked it up it is actually a thing you do need to get your cat's teeth cleaned uh you could do it yourself but you know well let me say one could do it themselves i'm not gonna do it so i uh brought i brought her into the vet and she had you know the vet calls me and you know a couple hours after i dropped her off and they're like
listen like she's sedated we're like in there and these teeth are a disaster they've all got to go and and she they're like she can keep like four teeth maybe oh yeah and i was like and i was like uh i was like should i like get a second opinion or like would someone else like counsel me differently or like you know whatever and he was like it's very obvious anyone looking at these teeth would say that they've got to go they're they're in really bad condition so she had most of her teeth removed she had a very bumpy recovery like at almost at one point seemed like maybe she and make it but she's all back to normal and uh i think uh one thing that the vet said was she was
probably in before she had the teeth pulled she was probably in a lot of pain in her mouth and that might explain why she was such a picky eater and would only eat this one kind of wet food but uh now it's even harder to get now she does now it's like it's like i we literally have to somehow sometimes we open up the can of food we put it there and sometimes we have to pick her up and bring her to the food and sort of put her head in the food and stand there sit there with her while she eats or else she like will just she'd rather sort of be with us than eat yeah we had the same
Merlinthing i think i mentioned this we had the same thing with the teeth where like they they said her teeth were really grody and it looked like they might be pretty bad so she had to get too cold because they were like rotting like down this is we didn't know this i mean we just they gave us the cat so yep so we had to do all of that but she's still not super into but yeah but my cat has never she eats a lot she finally now that she's healthy and happy in the house, she eats a lot of food. But that's when things are going well. Like when we first got her, almost two weeks before she ate.
The incident where she got trapped in the closet after that, she barely ate for a long time. But it takes her a while. I think she is hypervigilant. I'm so many of the same things y'all are talking about. But like, yeah, I think she just mainly wants to be left alone. But yeah, I don't know. It's weird because I'm a dog person, I think. My wife's a dog person. we're used to having ding-a-ling dogs and dogs are dum-dums they're really easy to get along with and you can make them eat peanut butter and it's hilarious there's all kinds of stuff you can do
Alexwith a dog and a cat's just not going to have it i maybe it's the personality thing where my cat cats are just freaks because i am well i mean my one cat came with my wife so uh i mean she's weird because my wife's weird but uh god my my I I thought I was a dog person uh until I had the wife with the cat um and I because there was this one cat that I uh was in my family for literally 21 years it was older than me and and it was just a horrible ridiculous monster
um and and now i'm just like the freaking i'm a such a fucking weirdo and i love god i don't know you guys have normal boring cats i shouldn't say that oh now now i feel bad
Maxmy cat is a precious angel she's very special max's cat is like actually perfect like you would
Alexnot expect that this was a shelter cat that was like uh living the hard knock life on the street like she likes a belly rub yeah yeah that's that's the other thing my my cats love the belly rubs which is what right it's it's really weird that's a weird thing my cat will come up to you
Maxand um look at you tentatively and then sort of flop over on her belly with her little paws up in the air and then sort of look at you until you rub her belly and then she'll just close her eyes and
Merlinstart purring she loves a belly rub that's a i'm gonna admit something strange about myself uh There's a show. It's gone now, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, but there was this show that was on public radio. I was listening to this probably 20 years ago called Calling All Pets. And people would call in with their pet questions for this pet behavior person. And every episode was so interesting because there would always be something that was like, I don't understand. My cat keeps peeing on the couch. And I yell at it.
And it keeps peeing on the couch. And the woman who's on the show was fantastic. She would explain, well, cats do that when they feel threatened. Like has anything changed in their environment? But I love the fact that you could walk through the psychology of an animal. And the psychology of every animal is not the same. A mule is not a dog, is not a cat. And I think that's such an interesting idea. And actually, Alex, something you sent here, this is an episode of Fresh Air, and again with the Fresh Air, an episode I did hear when it was on with this woman who's co-written a book on training cats.
You started reading it. But there's one thing she says, lots of really interesting stuff. This will be in show notes. This is one super interesting thing that she said that helps me understand cats so much better. A primary attachment for a dog is generally its owner. And so by an attachment bond, think of it like a mother and child. A child to be around its mother creates a feeling of safety and security, et cetera, et cetera. For the cat, that security does not necessarily come from a person or an animal. It comes from a physical place. Cats are very, very territorial animals. and they create safety by getting to know a physical place very well
and by marking that place with their scent. I guess it's obvious in some ways, but that explains so much.
MaxI've read a lot of popular cat psychology things, including this sort of popular theory right now that cats think people are just big cats. And I'm always a little skeptical of the scholarship. I see some math on that one. Yeah. These are all things that it's like some psychologist published a paper, but I'm always a little bit curious, like, what's the scholarship of this? Because, like, what did you figure it out? Did you survey a bunch of cats?
MerlinYeah, I'm imagining, you know.
MaxHow would you falsify that? Like, I just don't understand some of this research.
MerlinI've had extensive interviews with many of the felines, and we were able to ask them very clear questions. When you see this person in the house, do you think it is a VCR? Do you think it is a spatula? Do you think it is another large cat? and really in many of the cases they seem to agree it was a large cat if i was uh if i knew i was
Alexlike the smartest person in the world about cats uh i would totally make something like this up you're right you can't like no one no cat is gonna be like oh no i understand that this is a
Merlinyou should start you know what this is popular you can make money on facebook you should hire a kid in macedonia to make you a website of fake cat news she we could have all kinds of turns out fake turns out information about cats people would love that so this year my my parents got
Maxuh veronica and i a bird feeder uh this is like this is like a big uh a big thing in their life is the bird feeder and you know my dad likes to yell at the squirrels they come to the bird feeder my mom likes to look up the birds and so they got us the bird feeder so we could share in the joy but also like i was pretty excited because i figured you know our cat our cat loves bird shit like she loves videos of birds and bird toys like she's definitely a bird she has some sort of cat DNA that's that that comes from cats that hunted birds and uh so we got this put this bird feeder in and for like the first day the birds were there she sort of didn't notice and then once
she figured out that they were there she went insane like she she became obsessed she would sit she would hide behind the counter and like look out sit in front of this window like all day just transfixed like breathing slowly with her pupils dilated not moving a muscle and then just sort of lightly drooling as she like stared out the window like locked on and there could be like scared like really genuinely frightening things happening in the house like the dishwasher turning on and she wouldn't even flinch so we we kind of let the bird seed relapse like it ran out of bird
seed and we didn't refill it because we were like i think maybe the cat needs some time off from from the bird feeder but it was like the fucking it was like the samas dot from uh infinite jest It was a little scary. And one of the things we were thinking a lot about is we were watching her just go bonkers in front of this window was, what is she thinking? Is she thinking she's going to get one of those birds and she's sort of locked into a hunting cycle? Or is it a threat? Because there were a lot of birds. So maybe she's vaguely threatened and it's a protective thing.
I don't know.
MerlinI bet it's a little like watching pro wrestling. I mean, like there's not an immediate danger to her, but it gets her her cat adrenaline up.
MaxMaybe it's like how I watch Top Chef where it's just like, well, I got to pass the time some way.
MerlinBut, you know, there is like. So the other question I was going to ask is like toys and stuff, because we bought her all these. We bought her a cat condo, not interested, like all this dumb stuff. And my daughter will see something. Oh, look, it's a Chewbacca cat toy. Of course, we got to get that. And like she's just not interested. What she is interested in is the laser pointer sometimes. and then sometimes she just amuses herself by running around and chasing things and running from things that aren't there but she doesn't play with toys she doesn't like toys every time we take out the uh the ipad cat games alex told me about my daughter ends up playing with them
Alexi my my cats fucking love toys i think uh the the older cat wasn't as into them until uh her little brother was like ah squishy things and i think it was like oh well if he gets to play with them um right i get them too she also wasn't a box cat until he became a box cat and it's like oh i i get it now um but yeah they very much enjoy their ipad games um they're very big too into watching video games uh especially alto's adventure that's that's a new favorite yeah
they're weirdos um oh also big on the catnip uh max is max is very good at picking out artisanal catnip uh toys that they they just love um there's what have they what have they got what have i given them a couple of those like a little fortune cookie yeah those are so good yeah um and we stopped on the way uh we were driving remember when we stopped in madison like on on the way home from a convention and there was this very there's this artisanal cat store and i bought like all of
this uh natural supposedly natural catnip and catnip spray which uh i was really like i know it's like with humans like you like cats can't overdose on catnip the way like humans can't overdose on weed but for a while they were just kind of like that i've heard that's a myth the
Maxdea says that's a myth it's very dangerous you're gonna be very careful not to overdose on weed i
Alexsprayed it on everything and they were just kind of in a coma for two days but yeah i i imagine uh max's cat janeway just just having the most sophisticated toys and uh did she ever get like embarrassed if she does something like i don't know uh that that like lacks what would be considered cat grace like what what my one of my cats gets embarrassed if she like stumbles or
Maxsomething yeah my cat is very close so she has first of all zero interest in catnip doesn't notice it's there it doesn't respond to it doesn't play with it not interested at all uh she likes uh sort of a string and like bird toys are sort of her big uh things and she will go crazy so especially during the crazy during the crazy yes yeah yeah during the crazy hour she'll sometimes go nuts playing with toys and she has so furry she's her paws are all just like covered in fur and she gets no traction on the wooden floors and she goes skidding around the house like a moron
just crashing into things and chasing these the mouse and then if you walk into the room she'll like freeze and like look it up up at you like uh i'm we're cool like everything's cool like
Alexso she gets a little bit of that embarrassment yeah i we have a we we've got you know one of those neighbors with uh the the dog that never shuts up and now uh with my 15 pound cat who runs around at 5 a.m every morning i'm like and it's it's like it's really bad it's i and i know that we could train him to be like okay shut up uh but he he does his like morning laps um and it's the same thing he we don't have like any sort of rugs or carpeting in my apartment and uh we are
not getting our security deposit back on our wood floor um but yeah he's just a big idiot i realize now i'm just super high and i i took my cough medicine when i got to work and i am not driving
Speaker Ahome anyway merlin you seem you seem fine i'm so tired i bet you can drive you'll be fine go drive
Alexoh no there's there's snow happening in chicago uh i heard it was oh that's right it's super cold it's chicagolopolis apocalypse everyone's like oh chicago's so cold and it's the same thing every year and the same amount of snow every year and it's uh what people talk about because that's what they know about chicago remember 1972 when i don't know when this was ever really listened
Maxto the lamb lies down on broadway i don't know that really really listen to it what now here's
Merlina here's a cat fact that i learned from calling all pets a long time ago and i know this is obvious but i thought this was interesting you're talking about being able to pet your cat's belly yes and like i mean i've heard that that is a very interesting like how about this have you this That used to happen with my cat number one that I had a long time ago where like the cat gets super, super relaxed and you're petting it in exactly the way that it likes and everything is copacetic and suddenly out of nowhere it bites you or it scratches you.
AlexYeah, I mean that was my experience with the cat that I knew as a kid. But no, I've never had that.
MerlinI've heard that's because you've like on the one hand you're making it happy because it likes it does. If a cat likes being petted, you know, likes being petted. But then it goes into this mode of maybe too much relaxation and suddenly instinct kicks in. And especially if you're rubbing its belly, it realizes that's a very vulnerable place, right? Usually if the cat's belly is exposed, it's being attacked normally. And something, I don't know, something evolution, the cat just snaps out of it. And that's why it kind of unconsciously or it doesn't even know what it's doing.
It's just reacting on pure instinct when it takes a slash at you. I thought that was really interesting. Yeah, anyway, cat facts.
AlexDoes your cat have a favorite?
MerlinA place to be petted upon? No. Oh, Radiohead album. Yes. Oh, you know, probably either nursery crime or maybe foxtrot. She likes the second half of foxtrot.
AlexSo is the cat like your daughter's or is it a familial cat?
MerlinOur cat? It's a familial cat, but she likes each one of us approximately half as much as the other. She likes my wife far and away the best. And she likes me half as much as my wife. And it breaks my daughter's heart that she's just not super into my daughter. I think probably because she thinks she's a nearer sized cat to her is the science.
AlexWhat about you, Max?
MaxOh, my cat likes me.
AlexYeah. Should you dress as a cat when you lick it?
MaxDo you think that helps? Oh, you guys weren't?
AlexSo how do we deal with the training, everybody? Yeah. My cats already know how to sit. Do they really?
MaxNo, they don't.
AlexYeah, I sent you a video. Oh, where is this? I can pull it up.
MaxI don't believe this.
AlexI threw a paper towel. he enjoys like most cats destroying paper products and threw a paper towel down and then instead
Maxmy optical cable boy well come on that's just coincidence that you just walked up to you and he just happened to sit and then you're like good boy
Alexno no Francis sit good boy
Maxno he doesn't know what's going on
AlexI have more evidence of this. Hold on, hold on.
MaxNo, that's not a controlled test.
AlexOkay.
MaxNo. I could do that. I could walk behind my cat and say sit until she sat down and then say kitty. It's a cheap magic trick.
AlexOh, man. Well, did you have any success in this room?
MaxYou know what I like is when people are trying to get their dog to do tricks and they have a bunch of treats. And the dog gets so excited to get the treats that it starts. It sort of short circuits and it sort of cycles through every trick it knows. It tries everything.
MerlinJust like, please give me the treat. I'll do anything. You haven't lived until you've watched a really dumb dog try to sit, stay, and roll over at the same time. You can just see its wiring going all wrong.
If you want, Alex, you can watch my video from this morning that I sent you. you probably have to crank the volume up a little bit cranky sit good boy
Alexsee I'm way behind him he doesn't he's not even
Maxlooking at me I don't know but he's sitting in front of Mel but Mel's there with the camera and he's he's mulling around and then eventually sits down the fifth time that you said sit but that's
Alexbecause he okay no it was one time and the the paper towel was like the because he if you put a paper towel on the floor it will be instantly shredded uh unless we were like sit um but and and also he we need to get him to sit otherwise he will eat our phones uh he likes the the he likes phone cases
Maxi'm a i'm a i'm a sit skeptic jury's jury's still out a lot of scientists say that there is it's more complicated and we don't know what causes cats sitting yeah and then you got you have p hacking there's evidence on both sides
Alexthere's uh i i didn't know this but uh i've heard there's global cooling i mean it could go
Maxit could be anything do you know how cool it is today where we are 31 degrees are getting warmer
Merlinalex alex are you able to open mine up and uh crank up the volume let me let me try to do that
Alexhere. All right. Savvy?
Speaker ASavvy? Savvy?
Sit. Let me try. Savvy? Savvy? Sit. Sit, Savvy.
Speaker ASavvy? Look at me. Savvy? Savvy?
Hmm? Savvy? Come here.
Maxyou guys are trying so hard and the cat's just standing there looking around weird
Alexokay well did you did you try the the methods of of like you know you you put the treat above her head and then she's looking at the treat and eventually her butt sits down and then
Merlinyou give her the treat did i mention my cat doesn't like things like i yeah god this is so easy for you you know you're like you're like you're you're like one of those people that has like a perfect kid and you go you go out to eat and you look like oh gosh oh that child really i wish they parents it's like you know we know you just got lucky you're lucky you're a lucky cat owner and you're looking down your cat nose at us don't take don't go out to eat if you have kids
Alexthat's a good that's a good idea don't go on planes don't i don't understand that if you
Maxhave children just don't do anything for like i don't know what 14 15 years you become like a leper i i just don't understand that like i it's not i didn't make you have a kid
Merlinwhy are you ruining my flight why are you ruining my flight from 25 you don't seem to mind the cry uh so we did not have a lot of success no but we got uh in all seriousness the
Alexlicky brush as a regular brush is really great because you can clean it and uh like i i normally don't brush my cats because I'm allergic to cats.
MerlinYou know, we should probably explain this. People will be able to go out and look for this for themselves. But the thing is, when you say the word brush, you're imagining like a hairbrush or a cat brush. What should be mentioned about this that's very clever is it looks like it's like, I want to say like silicone.
AlexYeah.
MerlinIt's like that rubbery or silicone. How do you say it? It's that rubbery stuff. And it doesn't have little tiny bristles. It's got big kind of pyramidical nubbins. And yeah, and the kind of stickiness of it, like we get all kinds of hair off the cat when we use it. And she doesn't seem to mind it. But it's a well-made device.
MaxAre you guys hip to the Furminator? I think you made us buy one. The Furminator?
MerlinYeah, yeah, yeah.
MaxThe Furminator is an incredible piece of technology. It takes out a lot of hair. I mean, you could really get a whole second cat with the Furminator.
AlexOh, yeah. Mel does this to our other cat. You've got to Furminate.
MaxYou've got to get in there and Furminate.
AlexOh. Oh, I'm just looking at pictures of dogs that look like they've been mauled. There's so much hair. Oh, wow. This is very impressive.
All right. So I'm going to say that you guys were pretty, you know, I'm impressed at how much you tried to do this challenge.
MaxYou know, I was just hanging out with my cat. That wasn't that much of a challenge, really.
AlexWell, you, but you also have like this, your cat is almost like decoration for your house in the best way. Like whenever.
MaxNo, sure. I got her because she won't go to my furniture.
AlexYeah.
MaxOh, that's good. That's smart.
AlexWhenever Max has a party and the cat comes in and sits by me for a belly rub, I always feel like I've won. And then I'm like, yep, now I don't have to talk to anybody because the cat needs to be pet. It's great.
MerlinI'm like that with waitresses.
AlexAll right.
Thank you.